Iraq Too Dangerous For VOA To Operate
The Voice of America, the official international radio broadcasting arm of the U.S. government, has not had a functioning bureau in Baghdad for the past six months as security has deteriorated in the Iraqi capital.
The Voice of America's bureau in Baghdad has been closed for the past six months, ever since the government-funded agency withdrew its only reporter in Iraq after she was fired upon in an ambush and her security guard was later killed.
All Western news organizations have struggled with the dangerous conditions in Iraq, which have led to such high-profile incidents as the kidnapping of Christian Science Monitor reporter Jill Carroll and the wounding of ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff. But for a federally funded information service to pull out of Baghdad for such a prolonged period raises questions about the Bush administration's insistence that conditions there are gradually improving.
VOA reporter Alisha Ryu said yesterday that she told her bosses in December that "it would really be impossible for me to do any kind of work" in Iraq. "I couldn't live with the idea that someone else could have died who was working with me. . . . For all journalists, it's really become impossible to move around."
Asked why VOA has not sent another reporter to Iraq, Ryu said, "They didn't have any volunteers to replace me."...
Administration officials have complained on numerous occasions that journalists in Iraq are focusing too heavily on the daily violence and attacks, and are neglecting signs of progress there. Many editors and reporters have responded that the security situation makes it difficult for correspondents to move around the country unless they are embedded with military units.
Maybe some of the gung ho wing-nuts will be willing to volunteer for the vacant positions with the VOA in Iraq. They constantly carry on about how much better things are getting over there. And they would be in a perfect position to report all the "good news" that is currently being overlooked by the press corps.
The Voice of America's bureau in Baghdad has been closed for the past six months, ever since the government-funded agency withdrew its only reporter in Iraq after she was fired upon in an ambush and her security guard was later killed.
All Western news organizations have struggled with the dangerous conditions in Iraq, which have led to such high-profile incidents as the kidnapping of Christian Science Monitor reporter Jill Carroll and the wounding of ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff. But for a federally funded information service to pull out of Baghdad for such a prolonged period raises questions about the Bush administration's insistence that conditions there are gradually improving.
VOA reporter Alisha Ryu said yesterday that she told her bosses in December that "it would really be impossible for me to do any kind of work" in Iraq. "I couldn't live with the idea that someone else could have died who was working with me. . . . For all journalists, it's really become impossible to move around."
Asked why VOA has not sent another reporter to Iraq, Ryu said, "They didn't have any volunteers to replace me."...
Administration officials have complained on numerous occasions that journalists in Iraq are focusing too heavily on the daily violence and attacks, and are neglecting signs of progress there. Many editors and reporters have responded that the security situation makes it difficult for correspondents to move around the country unless they are embedded with military units.
Maybe some of the gung ho wing-nuts will be willing to volunteer for the vacant positions with the VOA in Iraq. They constantly carry on about how much better things are getting over there. And they would be in a perfect position to report all the "good news" that is currently being overlooked by the press corps.
posted by Effwit at 8:29 AM
6 Comments:
How 'bout Ann Coulter?
She doesn't look like she requires much in the way of food rations... plus the only way to kill her would be to drive a stake through her heart (and the Iraqis likely don't know about that method - yet)... She could research another book while she's over there -- and while she's "there" she can't be "here"...it would be a win-win proposition...
Dena
Dena:
LMAO.
Outstanding idea. We could use her to lure other wing-nut bloggers to Iraq, they all seem to think she is the perfect specimen of womanhood. They would follow her anywhere.
To their detriment.
What a quirky factoid this VOA story is.
You know, I spend a lot of time in Sweden where capitalism is rampant and having its day despite what any retard at Newsweek might chronically say, and you know what?
You won't find a single meatball here, save those dandruffy few that don't brush their teeth and keep their cigarettes stashed in a silver etui, that doesn't accept per common sense that Bush et al are off their rockers.
How the Swedes choose to approach that problem is another matter. Swedes made good friends with the Nazi's when the goose steppin' Huns were winning and they made even better friends with the US when they and the Ruskies finally won. But who they make friends with says zilch about what they hold to be self evident defects harbored by their allies of convenience.
I just wanted to say that there do exist countries with the highest per capita golf club memberships, cell phone usage, and Porsche ownerships where there exists no debate whatsoever about who is the insane one despite ample opportunity per way of a free press and a population with woes too few not to have time to reflect and discuss matters of confusion and doubt. Apparently the Swedes find the issue is a nonstarter and will silently brand you as a knight errant should you try kicking down doors where none ever existed. Bush et al are bad men run by worse men. Learn to live with it while not becoming it.
Israel has its problems from time to time with Sweden's resistance to expensive mindtwisting bullshit but so the f*ck what. Apartheid regime's can't last forever, can they?
And as long as the US is the biggest junkyard dog in town, Sweden will continue to be one of the most important partners per tradition and as expressed in their competent cooperation with the US's Catch All program.
Ye should all take a vacation to old Skankanavia someday. It ain't that bad as Newsweek or Little Green Footballs would have you believe.
Just ask Jeb Bush. In their own backyards, guys like him love to destroy for others what they secretly adore and want to keep for themselves in hidden gardens. Hell, in Sweden he doesn't even try to defend his brother in private conversation. He knows it can't be done and even if it were ridiculously demanded of him, I think he would be too embarassed and bothered to even try. Afterall, he is a bright fella.
M1:
A person ignorant of realpolitic would think that a democratic country in which most citizens can see that the U.S. Emperor has no clothes would force their leaders not to ritually service the madman.
The Leaders (and the leadership class) of nearly every country has more in common with the U.S. leadership than with the common folks in their own country.
Washington relies on this to get our dirty work done.
On the other hand, a better advertisement for the Swedish Tourist Board could not have been composed.
The new tourist slogan: Ye should all take a vacation to old Skankanavia someday. It ain't that bad as Newsweek or Little Green Footballs would have you believe.
I can see the people calling their travel agents en masse.
Just a caveat to my previous post with meantion of Apartheid regimes not lasting forever. I'm talking about regimes and systems and not states or the people ruled by such dystopic regimes. In this day and age of ranting mindtwisters, apologists, and revisionists one has to qualify the seemingly obvious - and it is best to do so before some yellow or agendized lunatic starts screaming Mommy Mommy, Fire.
M1:
The occasional bedwetter who stumbles through our happy forum is precisely who would benefit from your clarification.
Unfortunately, these people are so clueless that they still wouldn't be able to understand the difference between a nation and it's government.
These same dumbfucks equate criticism of Israel with hatred of Jews.
And think that people who have legitimate grievences with the Bush administration are unpatriotic and hate the USA.
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