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Even the MSM Can’t Ignore The Story Any Longer
I about spilled my coffee when I opened up the newspaper this morning and read this headline from an Associated Press story: “Residents of Baghdad Sense Violence Easing.”
BAGHDAD - Shop owners long afraid of Baghdad’s bombings and shootings are keeping their stores open later these days on the main street of Jadidah district, saying they feel safer after weeks of a beefed-up U.S. security crackdown.
It is one sign that many Iraqis sense violence is easing somewhat in Baghdad as U.S. forces fight to put down militants in the capital and areas on the city’s doorstep to the north and south.
. . . But Baghdadis’ sense of lessening violence may come from a decrease of such major vehicle bombs, which wreak scenes of devastation in public areas like markets — even though shootings and smaller roadside bomb attacks continue.
Some Iraqis credit it to the U.S. security increase, which began in February and culminated with major new offensives launched in mid-June after the full contingent of additional American troops deployed.
The death toll among civilians does not appear to have immediately fallen since the offensives began. From June 20 to Thursday, 472 civilians died in attacks in Baghdad, a dip of 2 percent from the previous 16-day period, according to a tally collected by the Associated Press from daily reports by Iraqi security and hospital officials.
But civilian deaths from car bombings fell 17 percent to 96 between the two periods — and all but nine of those deaths were in a single blast at a Shiite mosque on June 20 — suggesting the number of such major attacks has dropped. The number of bodies found dumped in the streets — victims of sectarian militias — decreased 11 percent to 279.
. . . “The improvement is obvious,” said Hani Mowafaq, 40, who owns a shop in eastern Baghdad’s mainly Shiite Jadidah district. The streets there used to shut down at 3 p.m. as storeowners rushed to get home before dark. “Now I can stay open until nine and feel secure,” he said, crediting increased U.S. and Iraqi patrols.
Hassan Nassar, an art gallery owner, said he was stunned to see how many people were out recently on the central shopping strip of Palestine Street. “If it weren’t for the barbed wire and blast walls, it would have looked just like the natural old days,” he said.
You know the tide is turning when the MSM can’t ignore the story or spin the truth out of it.
Roll tide, roll.