WaPo editorial: Better Numbers (media complicity in action)

[ProSense]

Better Numbers

The evidence of a drop in violence in Iraq is becoming hard to dispute.

Sunday, October 14, 2007; Page B06

<....>

This doesn't necessarily mean the war is being won. U.S. military commanders have said that no reduction in violence will be sustainable unless Iraqis reach political solutions -- and there has been little progress on that front. Nevertheless, it's looking more and more as though those in and outside of Congress who last month were assailing Gen. Petraeus's credibility and insisting that there was no letup in Iraq's bloodshed were -- to put it simply -- wrong.

Wow! A one-month drop is violence is enough for them to declare that members of Congress who criticized Petraeus were "wrong."

Is the media implying that Iraq's civil war is over: only four people killed in Baghdad Saturday

Iraq bombs and shootings kill at least 32

52 minutes ago

BAGHDAD (AFP) - A wave of violence across Iraq, including the bombing of a minibus filled with Shiite worshippers and a suicide truck bomb attack on a police station, has killed 32 people, officials said Sunday.

Dozens of people were wounded in the attacks, which came as Muslims were celebrating the Eid al-Fitr festival that ends the holy fasting month of Ramadan, the officials said.

Ten people, including three women and two children, were killed on Sunday when a car bomb exploded next to their minibus as they were heading towards a Shiite shrine in northern Baghdad, Iraqi military officials told AFP.

Women and children were also among 18 wounded by the blast in Aden square, which was then sealed off to vehicles by the security forces.

more

Washington Post Correspondent Dies in Iraq

By Joshua Partlow and Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, October 14, 2007; 2:54 PM

BAGHDAD, Oct. 14 -- A veteran Washington Post special correspondent was shot to death Sunday in southwest Baghdad while on assignment, the first reporter for the newspaper to be killed during the Iraq war.

Salih Saif Aldin, 32, was reporting on the violence that has plagued Baghdad's Sadiyah neighborhood Sunday afternoon when he was shot in the forehead. According to residents of the neighborhood and the Iraqi military officers at the scene, he was taking photographs on a street where several houses had been burned when he was killed. His wounds appeared to indicate he was shot at close range.

more

[aquart]

1. A little premature ejaculation from WaPo?

[gateley]

2. Et tu, Wa Po? nt

[bluestateguy]

3. Oh, well that changes everything

Never mind me. I was wrong. The Iraq War was absolutely justifiable and virtuous.

Boy they sure straightened me out.

[ProSense]

4. Kick! n/t

[wellst0nev0ter]

5. Bump

for the dead