From: "Mark" 

Yes, I've been reading that kind of stuff for a long time. I understand
that "good news" doesn't sell and I understood that it was
advantageous to make things look bad to hurt Bush, but, as I've said
before, I had really been hopeful that the news from the MSM would even out
now that our election is past and there's no ulterior motive to keep it
bad. I was wrong.

"Glenn Meadows"  wrote in message
news:41a25f08$1{at}w3.nls.net...
> Interesting.
>
> There was an interesting caller on Talk Radio last week, an Nashville
> resident who is an Iraqi immigrant, now a US citizen.  He had just come
> back
> from visiting relative in Iraq, and called to discuss the distorted view
> he
> sees on the network/TV/Print news here in the US (and probably the world
> as
> well).  The one key point he made, is that the visible news footage we see
> here, showing blown out buildings and such is SO selective.  He said that
> he
> visited several sites he recognized from News footage, to see how bad it
> was, and said that on either side of the building that was shown, there is
> massive NEW construction going on, new homes going up, schools being
> rebuilt, and such.
>
> His point is that from the media news, you would think that every place is
> in total disarray, while the reality was that during his 3 weeks there,
> the
> destruction was very limited in the vast majority of the areas.  Where
> heavy
> fighting is/was going on, more destroyed, but the vast vast majority,
> major
> improvements were underway.
>
> As a US citizen, he was very disgusted with the selective vision that the
> US
> (and probably the world) is getting of what else is going on.  Everyone
> from
> the area he is from were far better off, and very grateful for the US
> "intervention" (his words).
>
> --
> Glenn M.
>
>
> "jeff"  wrote in message
> news:41a25713$1{at}w3.nls.net...
>> ... with the other guys cash (Go read it all):
>>
>> http://2slick.blogspot.com/2004/11/whats-next-for-fallujah.html
>>
>>
>> "Here's how it worked. About one week after we (the 101st) arrived in
>> Mosul (approx. May 8th), every major subordinate command in the 101st
>> (including mine, of course) received an order to report to Finance
>> Headquarters, draw $10,000 US cash (seized assets recovered from the old
>> regime) and go out and spend it. There were rules and guidelines- no
>> single purchase over the amount of $2,000. Any expenditure must benefit
>> the Iraqi people only, and may not result in any kind benefit to
>> Coalition Forces whatsoever. No spending on entertainment for the
>> Iraqis. Other than that, it was pretty much go out there and spend. I
>> was selected to be my brigade's project manager because of my experience
>> handling budgets and my history of successfuly dealing with Iraqis.
>>
>> I first went to a Civil Affairs guy who lived in the tent next to mine,
>> and asked him if he had any good tips. He told me that the University
>> had been severely looted, and that they could use some help with ADP
>> products (monitors, disk drives, etc.). We went to the University,
>> worked out the arrangements, made some connections, and delivered the
>> products the next day. The purchase was simple- we went to a computer
>> store across the street from the university, worked out a deal, and had
>> them deliver the goods at the agreed time and place, at which time we
>> paid them. We repeated this often. After our first purchase for the
>> university we still had $8,000, so we stopped at a primary school and
>> asked them how we could be of assistance. They were very happy to see
>> us, and we communicated through our interpreter. We worked out a deal to
>> get them school supplies, new school desks, chalkboards, etc.
>>
>> When our $10,000 ran out, we drew more and repeated the process. Every
>> other major subordinate command in the 101st did the same thing we did.
>> This continued for about 3 weeks.
>>
>> Once it became obvious that this operation was working, Division
>> Headquarters decided to step things up. We were soon authorized to draw
>> $250,000 at a time (usually about one draw every two weeks- and the
>> maximum withdrawal amount continued to grow), and spend up to $10,000 on
>> a single purchase (more if we obtained the CG's approval).
>>
>> 
>>
>>
>> When it was all over, I had spent over $2.7 million, mostly on the
>> University. I'm told that other Division's throughout Iraq followed our
>> model, since we had so much success with it. As far as I know, CERP is
>> still ongoing."
>
>

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5