Michael Yon is once again at his best HERE. He has some good pieces on media bias (and ignorance) in Britian.
Money quote:
From The Telegraph came this startling headline:
Britain ‘fleeing’ Iraq, says Zawahiri
Ready or not, UK hands Basra back to Iraqis
Leader: Basra is first step to leaving Iraq altogether.
Locals saw troops as conquerors, not saviours.
I had to shake my head a few times. Not only is it not accurate (British soldiers were not “fleeing” anything, they were drawing down wisely, why didn’t their own newspapers report that?), but it is absurd to cite anyone from al Qaeda as relevant to a discussion of Basra. Might as well quote Baghdad Bob. Al Qaeda is not one of the factions vying for control of Basra; it has never had any presence or proxy foothold there, and Saddam Hussein himself would find a warmer welcome. In fact, I challenge Zawahiri to make his asinine claims publicly from Basra, where I venture the locals would give him a chance to demonstrate how one flees from that city. He couldn’t get headlines like that from Iraqi press; for that kind of star treatment, he’s got to work the Western media.
