The following originally appeared in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune on December 31, 2006.
Al Franken: Little miracles, big mess
Many of our troops are frustrated that the positive work they are doing goes unreported. And yet ...
Al Franken
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN
When Laura Bush complained the other day that the media don't cover the "good news" stories in Iraq, I found it literally incredible that anyone in this administration could continue to blame the media for Americans souring on this fiasco. After all, as you might recall, there was "no doubt" about the stockpiles of WMD. The Mission was Accomplished in just six weeks. There was no insurgency, just a few "dead-enders." Then the insurgency was in its "last throes." A week before the recent elections, the president said we were "winning" the war.
Yet many Bush administration supporters (talk about "dead-enders") still bash the media for not reporting about the many Army and Marine units that bring school supplies to children around Iraq. They may not realize that, as has been widely reported, Iraqi principals beg journalists not to cover these stories for fear of their schools being targeted by insurgents. Perhaps, as I suspect, their ignorance is one of partisan convenience.
I'm writing this on a C-17 cargo plane as I leave Iraqi airspace on the way to Afghanistan. This is my fourth USO tour in the region, and I always try to learn as much as possible while focusing on my primary mission -- telling a few jokes to, and spending some time with, the men and women in uniform who are away from their families and face incredible danger every day.
One thing I've learned on this trip is that many, if not most, of the troops share in that frustration and anger toward the media and what they see as its focus on the negative aspects of the war. Their feelings are understandable. Every day, our troops get up and work with tremendous dedication and courage to roll the boulder a little further up the mountain. There are literally hundreds of thousands of positive stories to tell. These are the micro-stories of this war. Just a few I've encountered myself: A medic treats a 12-year-old Iraqi boy in Baghdad. Progress is made on a sewage system in Ramadi. A JAG officer works with Iraqi judges to build a provincial judicial system in Tikrit.
But the journalists in Iraq have a responsibility to the American people to report the macro-story. The 12-year-old boy had been caught in the crossfire as troops struggled to maintain order during another spasm of sectarian violence. The (depressed) infantryman who told me about the sewage system had lost friends while working out of a small combat operating base in town. The JAG officer confided that he believes we made a mistake invading Iraq in the first place, but that if we left now, the violence in the already chaotic country would explode.
The truth of the matter is that the Bush administration has made enormous and tragic mistakes at every stage of this debacle. It overplayed the threat from Iraq and undersold the price, in lives and resources, of a war. It failed to plan for a post-invasion Iraq, ignored the threat of an insurgency and allowed a shoddy reconstruction rife with fraud, abuse and sheer amateurism to sabotage our efforts to put the pieces back together. Worst of all, it has failed to admit to its mistakes or adjust to emerging realities along the way, leaving us in what now seems to be a no-win situation.
On Dec. 16 I attended a memorial service in Mosul for a 29-year-old gunner who left behind a wife and three young daughters. It was wrenching. More than anything, I wanted his sacrifice to have meaning. More than anything, I didn't want there to be even one more widow made to raise three girls who'd lost their dad.
Americans are desperate for a way out of Iraq that minimizes the danger to our troops, the harm to our strategic position in the world and the damage to the people of Iraq. And while we should celebrate the daily minor miracles performed by our troops, the media's job is to report on what's relevant to finding that way out.
Our troops can and do perform incredible feats of compassion and courage. They can heal the wounds of a 12-year-old boy, rebuild a sewer system and help Iraqi judges implement principles of democracy. But these acts alone cannot get us out of Iraq now, after almost four years of the hubris, misjudgments and just plain incompetence that have become the trademark of this administration.
Indeed, our troops have performed these types of humanitarian acts since we've been in Iraq, and yet, all the while, the country has deteriorated further into a cycle of chaos and violence that has put not only their good work, but their very lives, in continuing jeopardy. To save both Iraq itself, as well as the other fathers and mothers currently serving there, will require strong leadership and decisions rooted in sober judgment, not in the belief that, if we clap hard enough, Tinkerbell will return to life.
Unfortunately, those decisions will be made by a leader whose judgment most Americans no longer trust. And if he wants to regain that trust, if he wants to honor the incredible successes and sacrifices of our troops, if he really wants to "win" in Iraq, he should start by being honest about the mistakes we've made and the options left to us, not by continuing to shift blame for this mess onto everyone but himself.
Al Franken, the author, comedian and radio talk-show host, lives in Minneapolis.
