Good News?

The New York Times seems to have a major case of split personality lately... while the editorials by Krugman, Dowd and Herbert are full of accusations of how the Bush administration has mishandled the war, the economy and pretty much every other facet of statemanship, they also posted this "Op-Chart" today... an amazing peace of propaganda that could have sprung straight from the pages of the Soviet-era Pravda.

This chart lists "Good News You Missed" about the Iraq war. You are now probably wondering what good news could have possibly come out of this US-made hellhole... to save you the trouble of signing up with the NYT, here's a few things they made up - I mean... got told by Karl Rove - no... "investigated".

2 April Ministry of Planning and Development Cooperation announces it is now supervising 121 major reconstruction projects that will cost $1.8 billion.

Wow... now that's good news. So the Planning Ministry is actually planning 121 projects a full two years after the war has ended. So how much will 15 million for the average project buy you if you have to buy services from US contractors?

To get some idea, here is a quote from US general Thomas Bostick:In 2003, World Bank officials estimated it would take $60 billion to rehabilitate the Iraqi infrastructure to the point it was before 1990

So even if insurgents would not blow up a good chunk of these projects once they get started, we are only talking about 3% of the amount necessary to get Iraq back to a standard of living it had under Sadam Hussein fifteen years ago.

OK... let's try another one...

24 April Opening ceremony held at a primary school in Falluja, one of the five in the city renovated by the United States Army

In a city of once 300,000 people, now completely depopulated by US troops, where there is still fighting every day, the US Army is taking the time to open primary schools... apart from the fact that this sounds highly unlikely (Hello? New York Times? Where are the pictures of happy children having lessons in those schools?), here are a few facts about Falluja:

- About 65 primary and secondary schools were destroyed in the fighting

- US and Iraqi government forces are using some of the schools as bases

- more than 30,000 houses and 8500 businesses were destroyed

- The International Red Cross can not freely enter the city and expects outbreaks of disease this summer due to the lack of drinking water and destroyed drainage systems.

Opening primary schools? I don't think so.

One more...

30 April Nine residential neighborhoods in Diyala receive new electricity supply through an energy-cooperation project with Iran.

Uhm... so the only electricity getting to Iraqis in this area is coming from Iran? It is definitely good news for the residents of Diyala, but how is this good news for the US?

I could have done the same for any of the other good-news snippets the New York Times has been cooking up, but you get the idea... They should be ashamed of themselves.

Not only are they lying, they are not even able to make up believable stories anymore. That's how bad the situation in Iraq has become.