HALF TRUTHS FROM FOX

On Wednesday, March 19th, FOX (Fools, Oddballs, and Xenophobes) News ran a highly deceptive story in which it claimed that life was all sunshine and pretty colors in Iraq. Part of this thankfully brief story stated that the military wasn’t broken, that it had enough manpower, and that morale in Iraq was up. Now to a certain degree the story contained some accurate information so I shall address that first.

At the present time we have 158,000 troops in Iraq, 11 percent of which say that morale is high. In a similar vein personal morale is up to approximately 20 percent. More over there has been a decrease in violence in Iraq, but as usual, FOX News has only told half the story. Other factors which might explain the increase in morale are “Battlemind training” which teaches soldiers, troops and families what to expect during the deployment and which trains them how to readjust when they come back home. At the sane time there has been an effort to reduce the fear and embarrassment associated with asking for help. In 2006, 34 percent said they were fearful or embarrassed to ask for help. In 2007 that figure had dropped slightly to 29 percent. Some of that might account for the increase in morale.

In a recent Army Mental Health Report compiled by Mental Health professionals, the results revealed that soldiers who had been deployed “only” once or twice had fewer mental health problems than those who had served in three or four deployments. But among the latter group it was discovered that incidents of anxiety, depression, and PTSD were about the same as they were in the previous year’s survey: 30 percent of the troops on repeated tours reported that they had a problem.

Here’s the rub. This is what FOX did NOT mention.

While FOX claimed that we now had an adequate number of troops because of increased recruitments and re-enlistments, FOX failed to mention that we also raised the age of combat to 40 and certainly made no reference to the back door draft, to stop loss, the involuntary extension of a soldier’s enlistment. Indeed, if re-enlistments are up and if recruitments are up, the obvious question is this: Why do we need stop loss? Jeez, could it be that the situation isn’t as rosy as the Administration claims it is? Didn’t Bush himself say that our situation was fragile? Moreover, the mission of the troops has been changed. For all intents and purposes American troops are playing the part of a national police, patrolling streets to keep the peace, essentially doing what the Iraqis should be doing themselves. And if you ask me, the Administration isn’t too eager to let the Iraqis take control of the situation either.

And then there’s the part that FOX didn’t mention at all. If the situation improved in Iraq it deteriorated in Afghanistan. Morale is down. Incidents of mental health problems are higher than they were in 2006 with 10 percent requiring treatment. The number of depressed soldiers has gone up while 83 percent reported exposure to mortar fire. (Not to worry, only 73 percent report exposure to mortar fire in Iraq.) But why am I surprised? Haven’t we said all along that Bush dropped the ball on the War On Terror in Afghanistan? Haven’t we said all along that Bush drained valuable materials, funding, and manpower against our battle with the Taliban to go off on some damed crusade in Iraq? Today the President of Afghanistan is little more than the Mayor of Kabul; the poppy fields are back, and the Taliban is staging a return. If that isn’t screwing things up in Afghanistan will you please tell me what is?

And let’s not forget that we have nearly 4,000 dead and 29,000 wounded. That in and of itself is a tragedy, but to hear the FOX News report one would think that Iraq is a cake walk, when in fact we still have civilian deaths, suicide bombers, and Iraqi leaders who can’t come to a rational decision about the political situation in Iraq.

Someone should tell the propaganda masters at FOX News that the sin of omssion is the same as lying. So much for Fair and balanced.