First Newspaper to Hit Baghdad's Streets Is (Commie) Red

Reuters ^ | Sun April 20, 2003 08:26 AM ET | Rosalind Russell

[The Raven]

>>It's amazing how fast The New York Times managed to get a paper out in Baghdad so fast.

Maybe Peter Arnet & Baghdad Bob helped out

[Frank_2001]

LOL

[WOSG]

dammit, we shouldnt wait, we should be running pro-American papers out of Baghdad and fund 'radio Free Arabia from the TV centers now. If not now, when?

horrible for the people to jump from baathist propaganda to commie propaganda in one jump.

[WOSG]

It was not clear where the paper was printed but it was full of praise for Kurdish leaders in north Iraq, which was free of Saddam's control for a decade and where small Communist Party cells operated.

hmmm, PKK sponsored paper?

[MississippiMan]

It would probably be money well spent for us to distribute a regular newspaper in Iraq for a while. We of course wouldn't want to recruit a single reporter, writer, or editor from our own mainstream press, but we could find plenty of people to put together a truthful account of not only what's going on right now in Iraq, but also the truth of what's going on elsewhere in the world. These people have been lied to and exposed to propaganda in one form or another for a very long time.

MM

[WhaChuLookinAt]

Amazing how things work out. Communism being a step up from what the Iraqis had before, huh?

Hmmm...Hussein: 1 million killed; Communism: 100 million killed. Did you forget to include the "sarcasm off" tag?

[MeekOneGOP]

In the last month? I don't think so. I was talking in context of the media difference. For clarification, I'll post an excerpt from the article (which I should have done in my first post there):

In Firdos Square in the center, Iraqis stopped in their tracks to read the paper, amazed to see criticism of their former leader in writing.

"It is telling us about Saddam, how he did harm to our country," said 27-year-old Khudair. "Of course we knew it, but we have never seen it written in a newspaper before."

It was not clear where the paper was printed but it was full of praise for Kurdish leaders in north Iraq, which was free of Saddam's control for a decade and where small Communist Party cells operated.

Iraq is free of the Tyrant Saddam, in any case.

Welcome to FreeRepublic.com, btw . . .

[weegee]

When we get the power fully restored to Baghdad, Iraqis will be flooded with information from television, radio, and newspapers.

This is great. The sad thing is that the whole newsstand will get equal acceptance at first. The Guardian, The New York Times, LA Times, and Weekly World News would all be accepted at face value.

The lesson of Baghdad Bob may be lost on them.

[SolidSupplySide]

They have People's Path and we have the New York Times and the Washington Post.

There is a difference. The People's Path is opposed to the previous dictatorship in Iraq. The New York Times wasn't.

[Illbay]

Saddam did that, anyway, drove the commies out.

Big deal, so did Adolf Hitler.

"National Socialism" vs. "International Socialism." Not a dime's worth of difference.

Totalitarianism.

[McGavin999]

Boy, we're missing a bet here. There should be an Iraqi TV station ready to go as soon as the power is back on and we should have some of the despora printing up a newspaper that is professional looking and fair. If we don't get this taken care of soon, we'll be in real trouble.

[isom35]

"It would not be Washington's first choice" but it might be the washington post's first choice...

hmmm...peoples path...do they have a decent sports page?

[Ronin]

Hmmm... since the American left is 99.99 percent communist, how are they going to spin the Iraqi Communist Party's intense joy at his departure?

[areafiftyone]

Iraq nees Fox Camel News!

[areafiftyone]

nees=needs

[js1138]

Saddam did that, anyway, drove the commies out.

Probably made the trains run on time also. Different brands of toltalitarians hate each other not because they are different but because they are the same. It's about who's in charge, not about differences in policy.

[Conservative til I die]

NYT doesn't print a huge hammer and sickle on page 1. Interesting that some of the Islamics in England and elsewhere are commies.

Isn't that sort of a relic from the old Cold War days, when the Soviets would try to infiltrate and instigate in these countries? Wasn't the Ayatollah Khomeni a banished Commie himself? But it is weird to me thinking of any of these people having political leanings. You'd think it's all just tribal politics and might makes right fascism.

Wonder if there are any classical liberals in Iraq?

[Conservative til I die]

I don't think he was making a value judgement in his post. Just a factual statement.

[Conservative til I die]

You would think that the sarcasm was pretty self-evident, not requiring a tag for the brain-impaired. And anyway, it's an ironic statement, not a sarcastic one.

[Illbay]

Yeah, but the implications are that Saddam is somehow "better."

Sorry, no.