CNN's Jane Arraf puts Iraq's security situation "in perspective"

[Career Prole]

JANE ARRAF, CNN SR. BAGHDAD CORRESPONDENT: That's true, it does seem like that sometimes. But you know, behind me right now I'm hearing sirens, and I have come to realize that that doesn't actually mean there's an attack. It could just mean that the police don't want to stop for the lights. I guess what it boils down to is even though the attacks are going on, and every time -- when you wake up in the morning, by the end of the day there's a list of attacks here and across the country, that doesn't actually mean that things aren't progressing. And what I have seen as I have traveled south and to the north and been lucky enough to get out of here is that it's not quite as black and white as all that.

COHEN: Well, Jane, you say it's not quite as black and white as all that. Tell us some of the shades of gray that you're seeing.

ARRAF: An awful lot of them. I guess here in Baghdad, one of the things that is really quite remarkable is you can have a terrible, horrific suicide bomb in one part of this city -- and the city is huge. We're talking more than five million people. But at the same time, we were in an art gallery yesterday, covering a story of an election of artists. And beautiful morning, one of the very few days of spring, what passes for spring in Baghdad. There were people who had come out, thought not too much about it, and braved whatever dangers there might be to have an election in the garden of a gallery.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0504/17/tt.01.html

Good golly, Jane, that IS remarkable. It's indeed good news that if the "terrible, horrific suicide bomb" goes off in a big enough city that you can't hear it at the art gallery then that's by God close enough to it not happening that you're willing to call it a draw.

All those silly grieving relatives of the dead who are swelling the ranks of the insurgency should be hanging out at the art gallery with you, where people aren't being blown to bits. Then they'd have nothing to be upset about and the insurgency would die a rapid death.

What's the population of other major cities and how many suicide bombings can they handle comfortably on a daily basis due to their size? Can you give us a sense of that? Jane?

Well, we seem to have lost the uplink but we certainly have heard enough to know that all is spiffy on this fine spring day in Baghdad.
:sarcasm:

[JAbuchan08]

1. You know "prespective" and propoganda are pretty damn close

to the same thing these days aren't they.