Democrats are making political hay with that leaked National Intelligence Estimate that the war in Iraq is breeding more terrorists. But the news reports hyping that point strangely fail to cite other material in that same document, which give those discouraging words their context . Consider these paragraphs:
We assess that the Iraq jihad is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives; perceived jihadist success there would inspire more fighters to continue the struggle elsewhere.· The Iraq conflict has become the "cause celebre" for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement. Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight.
My point here is to note how the mainstream media treated this document. The information in the first half of the sentence quoted above is hyped hysterically. The rest of the sentence, though, draws a completely different conclusion from how the MSM spun the story: If those jihadist SUCCEED, for example, by driving out the Americans, we will have even more of them.
Conversely, in the second paragraph here, the analysts give a sentence that Democrats are seizing on. But the next sentence concludes that if those jihadists FAIL in Iraq, we will have fewer of them.
The intelligence finding is a balanced account of the facts in all of their complexity. I don't know if I have ever seen a more blatant example of journalistic bias and dishonest reporting than this selective quotation.
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