December 16, 2003

Spoilers

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This cartoon was intended to run yesterday but was displaced by news of Saddam's capture.

Pro-democracy/anti-terrorism demonstrations occurred in Baghdad last week, but you might not know that if you only watched network news. Except for the FoxNews channel, the major media did not give the demonstrations significant coverage. The blogosphere, however, did a great job of taking up the slack. In particular, InstaPundit provided a number of good links (here, here, here and here). Highlights include:

Report from Iraqi blooger Healing Iraq with photos, photos, and more photos.
Report from Iraqi blooger Iraq the Model with a follow-up comment on his disappointment with the media, western and Arab.
Donald Sensing posted screen captures of FoxNews television coverage.

As we noted yesterday FoxNews reported that Iraqis were celebrating Saddam's capture. Michael J. Totten has more pictures of the celebration (via InstaPundit).

Capitalism Magazine has an An Open Letter to the People of Iraq by C. Bradley Thompson with important advice about writing their new constitution.

The particular difficulties that you face in establishing a new constitution are awesome. If you are to have any chance at creating a prosperous, just and free Iraqi future, you must confront and overcome your own history. This means two things. First, you must face directly the uncomfortable fact that you have no useable tradition of self- government. Yours is a nation long governed by traditions of fascist-like political rulers, medieval forms of tribal and ethnic justice, and warring religions that are hostile to freedom. Second, you must reject the political anarchy of your ethnic chieftains and the religious tyranny of your Islamic mullahs. In a free Iraqi society, neither tribe nor mosque must be able to gain governmental power.

UPDATE Dec. 17: Bill Hobbs had some good comments on the lack of coverage of the Baghdad demonstrations, inspired by a Weekly Standard article penned by Healing Iraq blogger Zeyad: Pro-democracy rallies in Iraq, and more.. Zeyad writes:

"The last thing we expected was to be the first to publish anything about the protests. It felt both good and awful at the same time. Good for scooping Reuters, AFP, AP, and other wire services and media stations. And awful for the people that depended on these services for their news. I'm telling you there were reporters from every station in the world at the demos that day and yet only a few mentioned them at all.

Posted by Forkum at December 16, 2003 07:36 AM
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