The time has come to offer our heartfelt apologies to the people of Iraq. Oh, don't get me wrong. Only the far-Left fringe would even consider apologising for removing a brutal tyrant like Saddam Hussein from power. One would have to be mad to apologise for freeing 25 million people from over three decades of injustice, preventing Saddam from filling more mass graves and ending forever his predilection for genocide. Who regrets giving Iraqis the opportunity to hold free and fair elections for the first time ever -- making the oldest civilisation the youngest democracy? How could any American want to apologise for exposing and halting the massive corruption in the United Nation's Oil-for-Food program, which funneled billions of dollars into Saddam's pockets while doing nothing for his people? Or for the way France, Russia and China sold Saddam their influence with the UN Security Council in exchange for oil exploration rights, to be exercised as soon as the sanctions -- which only hurt the Iraqi people, while keeping Saddam in power -- were removed? No, there's only one thing that America needs to apologise to Iraq for: inflicting our Liberal agenda-driven media on them.

During the actual Iraq war itself, the "mainstream" media was quite fair in its coverage. It could hardly be otherwise, with reporters taking the field alongside the soldiers themselves. The talking heads on the home front started using the "Q-word" and making Vietnam comparisons before even a week had passed, but their dour outlook was negated by reports from their own embedded colleagues. Of course, they projected the same negativity during the Afghanistan campaign, too. All battles are quagmires, and all wars Vietnam, when a Republican is in the White House.

After the short war to topple Saddam was over, the embedded reporters returned home, or retreated to the relative safety of Green Zone hotels, from which they now rarely emerge. "The journalists among us agreed that our work increasingly relied on phone calls to Iraqis on the scene, rather than real reportage of what we could see and touch," lamented journalist Dan Murphy in April 2004. Two years after the liberation of Iraq, most of the "news" they report from Iraq consists of reciting death counts or bewailing the costs of Iraqi freedom. They get most of their information and slant from old contacts, formerly Saddam's "minders," or by taking phone calls from... who knows who?

In order to tell us how badly everything is going in Iraq, the mainstream media must consistently ignore good news unless there's a down side upon which they can dwell. For instance, Americans have to check with the BBC to find information on the reflooding of the Iraqi marshlands. Saddam drained them to punish the inhabitants by destroying their land and culture, in what UN Environment Program Executive Director Klaus Toepfer called "a major ecological and human disaster." Don't waste your time trying to find an environmentalist giving Bush credit for their restoration. Civic and economic restoration are also largely ignored, except by independent reporters like Michael Yon, one of the few remaining embeds. The American media was quick to discuss Fallujah while Americans were taking casualties there, but have been as silent as the proverbial grave since the main fighting stopped and the city has undergone what can only be termed a renaissance.

Even when reporting positive developments they can't ignore, like the Iraq election in January 2005, the writing of a constitution or actions against terrorists and insurgents, they feel it necessary to mention unrelated American and civilian deaths or Abu Ghraib. Few, if any, reporters mention the rebuilding of hospitals, schools, roads and other infrastructure. Even overwhelming victories against the insurgents or the foreign terrorists -- of which there have been quite a few -- are treated as defeats in the press. The media seems determined to follow some sort of "equal time" law for both sides of our fight to protect and stabilise Iraq.

Hat tip to Publius Pundit for pointing out the NY Times' reaction to the Afghanistan Constitution.
And another tip of the hat to Skye for the link to Michael Yon's blog.