Here’s another good story out of Iraq that will be buried on the back pages — if it even makes it to the back pages at all. In the American media, good news is not fit to print.

When you read the snippet of this story, note three things:

1. When al-Qaeda moved in, they didn’t liberate the people, but tortured them, kept them from making a living, and killed many of them.
2. When the Americans and Iraqis began the surge, we bombed the smithereens out of al-Qaeda. We didn’t negotiate with them, we didn’t try to understand their belief system, we didn’t try to get Israel to give up more land for a peace that never comes, we killed them.
3. The Iraqis are happy about what the Americans did and one man is quoted as saying, “I hope the Americans stay here for a long, long time.”

You never hear these things from the Democrats or the mainstream media. All we hear is that the surge is failing, that we cannot win the war, and that the Iraqi people want us out.

Note also that the AFP asserts that progress was slow and casualty rates were high. One American soldier dying is one too many, but slightly over 4,000 American deaths are tiny for an operation of this scope and length. For example, during WWII, 749 troops were killed in a single training operation for D-Day. And I hardly call al-Qaeda fleeing within days of the air assault slow.

Color me picky, but even when reporting good news the American media still feels compelled to throw in some bad new, however tenuous.

From AFP:

Three months after US forces dropped tonnes of bombs on Arab Jubur and put Al-Qaeda to flight, farmers are everywhere out in their fields tending their tomatoes.
 
Homes in the Sunni Arab rural patch about 25 kilometres (15 miles) south of Baghdad, meanwhile, are being rebuilt, schools reopened, roads repaired and irrigation pumps renewed, even as shopkeepers happily dust off their shelves.

“It’s the first time in three years I am able to work in my lands,” said Ammar Wadi, a 30-year-old vegetable farmer who also runs a small dairy herd.

His lands, on the banks of the Tigris, are thriving. Besides tomatoes, he also grows ochre and wheat, while some of his 30 acres is devoted to pastures.

“When Al-Qaeda was here it was impossible to farm,” said the jolly-faced farmer from under an orange cap while taking time out from his labours to visit his cousin’s newly-reopened grocery store on a dusty rural road.

“They cut the power so we couldn’t pump water,” said Wadi. “We couldn’t buy fuel. They would shoot at anyone they saw in the fields. They kidnapped and murdered many people. They destroyed life here.”

The last crops he planted — in 2005 — withered and died because he couldn’t irrigate them after Al-Qaeda arrived in force.

…

Progress was slow and casualty rates high — about 15 soldiers killed and as many wounded.

Eventually, according to Captain Neil Hollenback, commander of Alpha Company which was leading the charge, they decided to call in air support.

“We brought in the JDAMs,” he said referring to precision guided bombs packing 500 pounds of explosives.

US warplanes dropped 118,000 pounds (about 53,600 kilos) of bombs in two weeks of operations mostly aimed at roadside bombs and booby trapped buildings.

“Within days of our air assault Al-Qaeda had fled,” said Hollenback.

By February 11, the main roads had been cleared, US forces had hired hundreds of locals as members of their Sons of Iraq anti-Qaeda fronts they are setting up across Iraq, and residents started returning in droves.