the news in arabic

Security has improved. Security has improved. Security has improved.

The surge was successful. The surge was successful. The surge was successful.

Five years in Iraq and the network triumvirate — ABC, NBC, CBS — has produced special segments to commemorate the day.

ABC News brings us “Iraq 5 Years Later: Where Things Stand” which presents a pretty optimistic portrait of the current security situation in Iraq. The anchor announces that “security is a bright spot” in Iraq and attributes this success to the troop surge.

Interestingly, they have an interview with a female from Fallujah who says that the security situation is a “million times” better than a year ago. Of course the security situation is better in FALLUJAH from a year ago since that city saw some of the worst fighting in Iraq and now that the violence has lessened — even a little bit — the security situation has improved. Ask someone in Baghdad about the security situation and I do not believe the answer would be as optimistic.

NBC Nightly News produced the segment “Iraq: 5 Years Later” which is more like an interview with their super good-looking bureau chief who says his five years reporting from Iraq has been “quite a ride.” Insightful. The whole segment essentially rotates around the question: “So, what’s it like being in Iraq, like, were you scared when the U.S. shocked and awed Baghdad?”

The report is equally optimistic by reporting the “dramatic reduction in violence” in Iraq and attributes this to the surge. Oh, and guess what? If you don’t support the war on Iraq, the troops hate you.

CBS News (sans Katie Couric) has reached many of the same conclusions as NBC and ABC with their segment “Iraq: 5 Years Later,” namely that there has been a reduction in violence and this reduction in violence is due to the troop surge. I do not believe these conclusions are accurate, but the CBS report is of a vastly higher quality and seems more realistic than the two other broadcasts since it acknowledges that Iraqis are suffering from unemployment, lack of water and electricity, and they do not want to live under a foreign military occupation. It is also noteworthy that both the anchor and correspondent are females — in contrast with the other male-dominated broadcasts.

Muslim leaders from 57 countries convened in Dakar for the 11th annual Organization of the Islamic Conference this weekend and the above cartoon from al-Hayat depicts a very common sentiment in the Muslim world regarding the various “summits” and “conferences” that their leaders hold.

The writing on the copy machine reads: Summit of Islamic Countries in Dakar. The word for “summit” in Arabic, al-qima, has dual meanings like in English — it can either mean a conference or the apex of a mountain. In this sense, the “summit” is producing the same decisions year after year, and it just so happens that these decisions are really just Islamic states masturbating to images of themselves, hence the photo-copy of the actual “summit.” That’s just my interpretation.

Shi’i marja Mohammad Husayn Fadlallah shares similar sentiments, though he didn’t quite say it was political masturbation. He said that he regrets that the summit was merely an attempt to fill a political vacuum, but on an Islamic level. He said that the conference, which was launched from the “womb” of the threat of the Palestinian issue has come to accept the Israeli occupation as a settled issue.