What’s Wrong In The Muslim World

Big Pharaoh has probably pinned it down pretty well. The Egyptian blogger posts a poll that ran in local media. 48.9% of the respondents believe Israel is behind the resort bombings in Dahab. Only about 1/4 believe it was internal terrorists or al Qaeda.

The poll above was posted on Egypt's number one web portal Masrawy.com. The question asks people whom they think was behind the bombings in Dahab yesterday. 48.9% of the respondents so far think that the Israeli Mossad was behind the terrorist attack. 4.2% believe it was Al-Qaeda and 21% think it was the work of internal terrorist groups.

He's convinced that there are too many people afraid to look into the mirror and see all that is wrong in their society.

I have said countless times before that the root cause of the darkness we're living in is our unwillingness to look in the mirror and start criticizing ourselves and the cult of death we allowed to infect our society. We don't want to admit that many of our children are willing to kill themselves in order to massacre others. We don't want to admit that religion needs renewal and reform to suit the year 2006 and not 1006. We don't want to admit anything of that. Do you know why ladies and gentlemen we don't want to do that? We're just busy and in a constant state of denial. We're busy hating America. We're busy blaming Israel.

I think he's got it right, too. The Muslim world desperately needs more people like Big Pharaoh speaking out. We in the west need to stop trying to excuse the behavior and point out why they need to change.

UPDATE: And now two suicide bombers detonated themselves in an attempt on the Multinational Peacekeeper headquarters in Egypt.

Why The MSM Is So Bad At Covering The War

Is it because they're politically motivated? Or maybe it's the "If it bleeds, it leads" mentality? OR raw fear leading the reporters to hunker in a bunker in the green zone? Or maybe it's because deep down, they are really anti-military? All of those things may play a role, in fact probably do to varying degrees. Editor and Publisher point to what may very well be the leading cause.

They're cheap.

E&P has a lengthy discussion with Joe Galloway, military editor for Knight-Ridder who has many years experience in the field.

I turned to Joe Galloway’s 41 years of experience in military reporting to see what can improve military-press relations. Some 692 journalists embedded during the invasion of Iraq. Interviews by the Institute for Defense Analysis reported, “The participants’ overall assessment …was that it was successful and that it benefited the military, the media, the public, and the military families.” Yet, the program has withered to several dozen embeds today.

Why? Galloway says there’s “growing resistance from the military to [those] embeds” it considers negative. Meanwhile, the $30,000 or more per month (above wages) cost of supporting reporters in Iraq is more than most media organizations want to spend, even though this is a major war and more important than many other beats.

So the MSM increasingly relies on local Iraqi stringers to actually go out and gather news. These stringers really have no checks on them and report whatever they feel like. In some cases, news "events" are staged for them. We have here the ironic situation of the media, which has routinely criticized the number of troops on the ground in Iraq, failing to deploy adequate reporters. Because of money.

Training reduces danger and increases understanding military operations. In the fall and winter of 2002, over 100 journalists went through a one-week course with the military, preparing for possible action in Iraq. But after that, many media organizations grew nonchalant about that. Galloway told me about the highest levels of the military offering courses to journalists, but being rejected.

With many Americans suspicious of journalists, and journalists having their own fears to deal with, what can one expect from efforts by Galloway and others at the Military Reporters and Editors group to improve embedding? Galloway said more standards are needed to govern negotiations and relations with the military during embedding. That may be so, and fruitful. But the more fundamental problems of a reliable press, and more constructive cooperation between media and military, may rest in the media committing more “troops” to Iraq, with better training–and better insurance premiums.

Which is why the Stars and Stripes generally has better coverage. It's also why CentCom is a good source.

Equal Rights For All!

Chimpanzees, that is. The Spanish Socialist Party will begin pushing a bill that grants equal human rights for chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans. (We point out that they willfully and quite wrongly left out mandrills, and we are not amused). They argue that since apes share a high percentage of the same genes as humans, therefore should be treated as equals.

The party will announce its Great Ape Project at a press conference tomorrow. An organization with the same name is seeking a UN declaration on simian rights which would defend ape interests "the same as those of minors and the mentally handicapped of our species."