Katie Couric, currently reporting from Iraq, got an earful from U.S. Soldiers who are sick and tired of how the war is being portrayed in the media.
From the CBS Evening News:
Couric asked: “What would you like people to know that you don’t think they’re hearing back home?”
SGT Jamie Wall: “The good things that happen out here, the good things that soldiers do for the Iraqis and how the Iraqis react to us.”
SGT Brady Marcus: “If we pulled out now, the gangs would take over, the streets would be in mayhem, and this place would be a disaster area.”
Couric tried the usual leftist approach: “Sounds like, in your opinion, there’s no easy answer,” to which SGT. Marcus replied: “There’s not an easy answer. We’re at war, Katie, and it’s not an easy thing to get through.”
Couric: “Do you feel like the surge is working?”
PFC John Marshall: “I think the surge is working. It’s going to take a lot of time to actually do its job and complete the mission.”
CPT Amy Cronin: “We’re working from the bottom up from my level, and something really needs to be coming from the top down, from the Iraqi government, you know, putting systems in place so that we’re not just putting band-aids on everything.”
You got that, Katie? I bet that put a crimp in CBS’s agenda. Actually being confronted by U.S. Soldiers–face to face–that the media is doing a piss-poor job telling the whole story. Looks like the MSM had no wiggle room for the usual ‘America,bad/U.S. is losing’ spin in this interview. The incessent smear campaign got cold-cocked big time.
Furthermore, Couric has been forced to acknowledge what’s really happening:
Katie Couric Reports Improvements in Iraq
Wednesday, September 5, 2007 10:32 PM
CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric says she has seen dramatic improvements in Iraq, according to a CBS report.
“We hear so much about things going bad, but real progress has been made there in terms of security and stability,” Couric said. “I mean, obviously, infrastructure problems abound, but Sunnis and U.S. forces are working together. They banded together because they had a common enemy: al Qaeda.”
Couric traveled to the city of Fallujah in Anbar province – at one time a violence epicenter. Now Fallujah is “considered a real role model of something working right in Iraq,” Couric said.
Many more Iraqis have joined the Iraqi Security Forces in the overwhelmingly Sunni Anbar province. “The spike in police has really been significant,” Couric said. “The incidents in Iraq have gone down dramatically.”
But while security and stability have improved in Iraq, basic services remain in disrepair, Couric noted. “I think everyone I talk to agrees that restoring basic services is really an imperative step in bringing stability and some kind of sense of society to Iraq.”
Link: http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/Couric_Iraq/2007/09/05/30185.html
Here’s the link to Couric’s dispatches and the video with the Soldiers’ interviews, ‘America in Iraq: The Road Ahead’:
http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/america_in_iraq/main502243.shtml
I am so proud of my Army. The fine women and men are doing a hell of a job.
Anti-war politicians who travel to the war zone, and journalists who get off their liberal asses, leave the airconditioned hotels in the Green Zone, and disregard Al Jazeera for a change, are amazed at the morale and professionalism of the troops. They get a first hand look at the steadfast progress, anihilation of the al Qadea and the Taliban, as well as the gratitude on the part of the local populace.
Most of them however, prefer to practice their self-loathing, anti-U.S. malignancy where there’s no facts to get in the way of a good America bashing.
Iraq and Afghanistan are just part of the larger picture of the GWOT. Establishing security and freedom in just those two countries alone, puts a huge dent in the Islamofascist scheme of things.
It sends a clear message to the 21st Century Ottoman wannabes that not only will we kill them, but we will ensure that their Caliphate is stopped dead in its tracks.