A 9/11 each week

To the Editor: Lately, President Bush has been vigorously touting the benefits and successes of the Iraq war. However, Americans aren’t buying it. And for good reason. The war ,which has gone from unwise adventure to dangerous quagmire, is rapidly progressing to tragic disaster. The President ‘s chief claim is that the media is focusing on the bad news and ignoring the good. Vice President Cheney is particularly avid at selling the same idea. Maybe they’re right. But what choice does the media have when it considers events on the ground in Iraq? In fact, the media would be grossly negligent if it did not report the ongoing slaughter. Fifty people a day die from the violence our military cannot stop. That’s 350 people a week. Iraq has about one tenth the population of the U.S. An equivalent level of violence in the United States would be 3,500 innocent people per week. In other words the population of Iraq suffers the equivalent of one 9/11 attack every week of the year. What news do we in this country remember from the second week in September 2001 besides the slaughter of 3500 innocent citizens? As the President and Vice President make their rounds drumming up support for their failed mideast foreign policies, perhaps someone should point out to them what makes a news story and what doesn’t. One 9/11-size catastrophe per week is a lead news story in anyone’s book. Michael G. Busche Sussex