The Associated Press paints flattering picture of US Army operation in Iraq

I can't believe I just wrote that. At first, I thought I had stumbled onto one of Ace's parodies. But no, this is the real thing...I think...still can't get over it.

From the AP via the Army Times

In Baqubah, troops find al Qaeda dug deep.

At a time when the Democrats (and a few Republicans) are trying to paint al Qaeda out of the picture in Iraq to portray the violence as nothing but a civil war, the AP ledes a story with al Qaeda in Iraq? I am...well stunned. It gets better....

They manned checkpoints and buried an elaborate network of bombs in the streets. They issued austere edicts ordering women not to work. They filmed themselves attacking Americans and slaughtered those who did not believe in their cause.

What??? Bad guys in Iraq are acting like bad guys? And the AP is telling us? Not only that, but the AP is almost openly admitting that this is the exact reason we are fighting Islamic extremists in Iraq. Because they slaughter people who are not Islamic extremists. Holy SHIZNIT!

For months, al-Qaida turned a part of one Baqubah neighborhood into an insurgent fiefdom that American and Iraqi forces were too undermanned to tackle...

Did the AP just allow one of its reporters to openly acknowledge there is a reason for the surge strategy of President Bush? WOW....

But to the south, residents recounted watching helplessly as masked fighters came and went freely in past months, piling weapons into the back of vehicles and taking over the homes of Shiites who had either fled or been killed.

“We were terrorized,” said one man. “We wondered, Where is the government? Why have they forgotten us? Why does nobody come here to help?”

What? Did the AP just admit that somebody in Iraq actually wants us there? Did they just admit that many of the people in Iraq are only responding to al Qaeda out of fear and not because they hate us? That's CRAZY TALK! It gets better...

Then, for eight days in early April, al-Qaida battled fellow insurgents from the nationalist 1920 Revolution Brigades, who residents said were trying to resist the terror group’s bid for control. The nationalist fighters ran out of ammunition and fled.

Thats right, the AP just noticed that the insurgency is starting to eat itself....

And then there is this warmongering passage:

The next day, Parsons moved three of his platoons into central Tahrir on foot. All three came under fire. The day ended with a 30-minute firefight at dusk in which rounds ripped through palm groves. Apache helicopters shot Hellfire missiles at a house insurgents had fled to, lighting the sky in thunderous blasts.

My God, the descriptive narrative of US soldiers kickinga$$makes me feel (as Steve Martin put it) "emotionally erect".

And then, to top it all off:

Fighting eased afterward. Soon, previously empty streets were teeming with crowds of people who shook soldiers’ hands as they passed.

Grateful Iraqis greeting American soldiers as liberators! Obviously Karl Rove is now an Associated Press editor. Todd Pitman, who wrote this piece for the AP should get a Pulitzer Prize for this reporting. At a time when his fellow AP writers are good little sheep following the Democrat directives, Pitman has given us an outstanding view of how our soldiers are winning in Iraq.

Comments

[holdfast]

Kinda makes one wonder if AP might have written other stories like this, but they were never picked up for publication? Not giving AP a pass here, but it's possible that the bias is more on the editorial side.

[ray robison]

I wonder if the recent change in Baghdad editors caused this. Cant remember the name of the new editor, but I read her stuff and it was "US are bad guys" all day, every day. And now this? Dont get it....