"Terrorists React"

That's the screen caption on MSNBC this morning. All the cable news networks are using this particular frame as a way to link Veterans' Day commemorations with Tuesday's election results. Amy Robach just questioned VA Sec. Jim Nicholson with a seeminly endless series of variations on "Have these election results emboldened the terrorists?" and "Is Al Qaeda celebrating?" and "What does this do to the morale of the troops?"

This is outrageous. Have Bush's speechwriters found new jobs as cable journalists/propagandists? Someone should tell our news anchors that virtually EVERYONE in Iraq is happy about Bush's downward political fortunes and, more importantly, Rumsfeld's firing. Check out Juan Cole's translation of the editorial on the subject in Baghdad's newspaper. Nobody there has forgotten Rumsfeld's responsibility for Abu Ghraib and for the failure to secure the country after the invasion. A failure that has destroyed Iraqi society, led to civil war and the outmigration of Iraq's professional class, and unleashed the anti-modern theocrats in both Sunni and Shiite communities.

I realize that the news media deeply desire to portray our heroic troops as "fighting terrorists" in Iraq, but unfortunately, that's not what they're doing. First of all, it's worth remembering that there were no terrorists in Iraq until the US invaded. But the US troops are primarily fighting insurgents who oppose the US occupation of their country. They're also attempting to stop the death squads and torture chambers set up by the government the US installed in Iraq. And they're trying (unsuccessfully) to keep sectarian violence from exploding. "The terrorists" really are the least of America's problems in Iraq.