Iraqis Take Back Karbala, MSM Is Nowhere In Sight.

On Monday in Iraq, the province of Karbala was handed over to Iraqi security forces. This is the eighth of the eighteen Iraqi provinces. If you haven't heard about it, that isn't any surprise. For the four big media outlets (ABC, CNN, FOX, and CBS) this news is attached to a story about a suicide bomber who rode a bicycle into some ISF recruits, killing about 28 of them. This happened in Ba'qubah. Now, on to why this is ridiculous.

According to Google Earth, Ba'qubah is about 30 miles north of Baghdad, in Diyala province. The northern edge of Karbala province is, at an absolute minimum, 40 miles south of Baghdad. The provinces of Karbala and Diyala do not touch at any point; by the shortest straight line, they are separated by Babil and Baghdad.

What is that? That is over 70 miles of spin. That has to be some kind of record.

At CBS, the news about the Karbala handover is attached to the bottom of the Bicycle Bomber story in an "other developments" section. It receives a token quote from al-Maliki, and then this sentence:

"In southern Iraq, meanwhile, the U.S. military turned over security responsibilities to Iraqi authorities in the mainly Shiite province of Karbala, the eighth of the nation's 18 provinces to revert to Iraqi control."

At ABC, the handover story is given the exact same sentence on the second of three pages of Bicycle Bomber story, that has been mixed with the Captured Sheikhs story. It also features the exact same quote from al-Maliki.

At CNN, the coverage is still attached to the Islamic Lance Armstrong story, but relative to the previous two sources, the coverage is fantastic, even if it comes after a slew of minor stories about low-intensity violence. The story actually gets several sentences.

How about our right-wing-hate-machine friends at FOX? The story actually has its own headline, even if it's a head on a stick; three sentences about the handover before diving into pedal-powered jihad. That's what makes them right wing, those bastards. How dare they put the good news first. Even if they got their story from the AP, just like literally everyone else listed so far.

What about the BBC? They've mixed the story in so completely with the al-Qaeda Courier story that it's actually a chore to separate the two. My favorite, unbiased excerpt from this story? Right here:

"Violence levels falling

Police said the bomber had arrived at the scene of the Baquba attack on a bicycle dressed in civilian clothes concealing a suicide belt."

Falling violence subtitle, then right into our Iraqi X-Games contestant again. So where do they mention the falling violence? At the end of the damn article:

"But our correspondent says levels of violence have generally been falling since a US troop surge began in February."

So where does one go to get actual information? To paraphrase the creepy yet appropriate sentiment of Jim Jones, "come to me my babies, let me quell your pain."

According to icasualties.org, there have been 37 coalition deaths in Karbala province over the entire duration of the war. As far as violence goes, its in the top 3 of the most violent of the least violent (not a typo, read that twice). If there are three general tiers of violence in Iraq, Karbala is toward the top of the bottom rung.

According to globalsecurity.org, the population density is about average for an Iraqi province with a major city in it, so we also can't chalk up the lack of fatalities to a lack of people. According to 2002 numbers, the city of Karbala proper contains about 550,000 residents alone. Handing over half a million Iraqis into Iraqi care isn't a small deal, even if Karbala is a small province.

Karbala is being handed to the ISF from the 3rd Infantry Division under the command of Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch. More information on their presence in Iraq and Karbala province is, predictably, available at globalsecurity.org.

In an interview at defenselink.mil in July, Maj. Gen. Lynch had this to say about the ISF units that he would be handing Karbala to:

"We also need the best effort of the Iraqi security forces. By the way, I sense that they're getting better every day. In my battlespace, I deal with two Iraqi army divisions: the 6th Iraqi Army Division and the 8th Iraqi Army Division. And those division commanders are competent, capable military professionals who are Iraqis. They're not Shi'a; they're not Sunni. They're Iraqis, and their enemy is anybody that's against Iraq. And they've got competent subordinate commanders as well."

According to this older story from USA Today, a key quote from Lynch implies that he's also been embracing the idea of the awakening councils and the concerned citizens groups, which has been a major part of the security progress in Anbar and elsewhere:

"If you've got folks who say, 'Hey, this is my hometown, and I'm tired of the violence and if you simply train and equip me, I'll protect my hometown.' We ought to jump on that like a duck on a June bug."

Ultimately, I'd give the mainstream media a giant red "FAIL" on this one. Some idiot at AP got paid to print essentially no information at all, and tack it onto the end of a blood story. AP sold it to the big four American news outlets, who swallowed it without any evaluation whatsoever. Somebody is drinking Kool-Aid, and if it isn't obvious to you, I want you to wear a tinfoil hat so I know who you are.