What News?

My wife and I have a recurring scenario, which happened again this morning. It always starts with her question "Have you seen the story about.....". Fill in the blank with whatever "news" story she's seeing on the network news. My answer is always the same. "Yes, I saw it several days ago in my news sources."

Today's story happened to be about our military in Iraq using "silly string" to detect booby traps in buildings in Iraq. Saw it several days ago on the internet.

Folks, if you're counting on the mainstream news media (networks, CNN, newspapers) for your "news", then you're really only getting the "olds" and the "incompletes". It's becoming more and more obvious, and is the chief factor for the decline in ratings for networks and subscriptions for newspapers.

I'm more worried about the "incompletes". Here are some recent examples:

1. The most underreported story at the moment, in my opinion, is the story of the investigation of the death of former KGB agent Litivenko from radiation poisoning. The media in general is following only the most simplistic possibility, which is an option, that he was killed by Vladimir Putin for being a dissident.

The story you are not hearing, which I've followed on the internet, is that Litivenko - who converted to Islam right before his death - may have been in the process of procuring weapons grade nuclear material for Islamic terrorists for a dirty bomb. Plausible, with Al Qeada having put out a buy order for this material. Why aren't you hearing this story in the MSM?

2. The unasked question in the MSM: "What about winning."

Case in point: the nomination hearings for Mr. Gates to become Secretary of Defense. The media was in lockstep glee because of Gate's "realism" and "candor" for admitting that we are not winning the war in Iraq. They reported with glee his statement that "all options are on the table."

The natural, but unasked, follow-up question to a nominee to head the Defense Department for a nation with troops in the field in a declared war:

" Are you prepared to win?"

The answer to that question would have been news, had it been asked.

3. Lemmings off the cliff:

If you want a glaring example of how the mainstream media marches in lockstep to the beat of non-news, all you had to do was open any newspaper on a single day last month, when the headline of every media outlet in the country was some version of:

"War in Iraq now exceeds the length of time of World War II!"

Every outlet breathlessly reported this "news" as if it was accurate. Why? Because it lined up with the "hate-Bush" agenda of the media. Another way for the media to say "see we told you it was a mistake!"

The only problem is, it's patent nonsense.

What we all know very clearly now is that there are different phases in these wars. Combat first - which took, what, 3 months in Iraq? Then stabilizing the defeated country while you rebuild it, including defending it from be overtaken by neighbors. That phase has been going on for approximately 3 months now.

Let's go back and compare that to World War II.

We can calculate the combat phase from the beginning of the attack on Pearl Harbor to V-E day and V-J day. That phase probably lasted as long as both phases of the Iraq War have taken to date.

But, how long were we in Germany rebuilding that government into the ally that they are today? Answer, we were there a long time, and we still have troops there today. When I went into the military in 1983 I was stationed in Alaska with a unit that had as our mission defending Germany from invasion by Russia.

How long did we dominated Japan's government, as a occupier, rebuilding them into the ally they are today? Answer, a very long time and there are still troops there today.

Clearly, the rebuilding / defense of Europe phase lasted a lot longer than the official end of World War II. And clearly, the media was comparing only the combat phase of World War II with the total war in Iraq - an invalid and useless comparison. But hey, did anyone as the followup to question their "news"?