The underwhelming optimism of the MSM... What? No civil war in Iraq?

IRAQ: NO QUESTION OF CIVIL WAR
by Amir Taheri
Arab News
March 4, 2006

...But the new course Iraq has taken away from despotic rule and toward democracy cannot be reversed. Those who look of civil war had better look elsewhere as the overwhelming majority of the Iraqis remain determined not to walk into the trap laid by the terrorists.

As always the real battle for Iraq is taking place outside that country, especially in the United States and Britain. As long as there are steady hands there this ship will not be blown off course by any storm that the terrorists or others could conjure.

Civil War, Civil War, Civil War, Civil War, Civil War, Civil War, Civil War, Civil War, Civil War, Civil War, Civil War, Civil War, Civil War, Civil War!!!!!!

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Ralph Peters doesn't think so...

"I'm looking for the civil war that The New York Times declared. And I just can't find it," Peters declared in his New York Post column on Sunday.

Instead, he reports, "I saw children and teenagers in a Shia slum jumping up and down and cheering our troops as they drove by."

Click here for the rest from Mr. Peters. Of course, why listen to a reporter IN Iraq when we have plenty at home who can read polls.

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No bias here from MSNBC: "...Civil War not likely"

WASHINGTON - The top U.S. commander in Iraq said on Friday that the crisis of sectarian violence triggered by last week’s bombing of a Shiite shrine has passed but refused to rule out the possibility of a civil war.

Refused to rule out? (Fingers crossed!)

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The U.S. Department of Defense just responded to the "exaggerated reporting"

..."Exaggerated reporting is giving the American people a false picture of what is happening in Iraq", the secretary said. "Interestingly, all of the exaggerations seem to be on one side," he said. "It isn't as though there simply have been a series of random errors on both sides of issues. On the contrary, the steady stream of errors, all seem to be of a nature to inflame the situation and to give heart to the terrorists and to discourage those who hope for success in Iraq."

..."The truth in the country is those who want civil war in Iraq are disappointed", the secretary said.

General Pace concurs here, courtesy of Bloomberg.

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Of course, ABC News and John Murtha don't believe General Pace...here.

"No matter where you look at their military, their police, their society things are much better this year than they were last," Pace said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Murtha, responding to Pace in an appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation," said that Iraq has 60 percent unemployment, oil production below prewar levels, and water service to only 30 percent of the population.

American troops are doing everything they can militarily but "are caught in a civil war," said Murtha, a former Marine who has called on the administration to bring U.S. troops home.

"There's two participants fighting for survival and fighting for supremacy inside that country," he said of ethnic divisions. "And that's my definition of a civil war."

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ABC’s Selective Reporting of Latest “BAD NEWS FOR BUSH” Poll from the MRC here.

The negative, Bush-hating, agenda-driven, doom and gloom crowd have every right to speak their minds, but it's increasingly difficult not to see them as wanting to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

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Extra! Extra! Read what you’re not reading about Iraq from NRO:

Coverage of the Iraq war continues to be overwhelmingly negative. If anything, the pessimism of the mainstream media has increased since the attack on the Golden Mosque in Samarra. This isn't because of any dearth of good news, though. For whatever reason, the abundant good work and progress accomplished each day in Iraq are either not reported or underplayed here at home.

Read the rest here.

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Don Rumsfeld: "War in the Information Age"
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