Seriously?!
Straight from the "proof that the press will find something negative to say about ANY development in Iraq" department is this, courtesy of the ever-professional McClatchy bureau in Baghdad (yes, they're "in Baghdad"; no, all journalism which technically takes place in a combat zone is not created equal):
As violence falls in Iraq, cemetery workers feel the pinchOf course, this is satire, no? A joke? The result of somebody needing to make a deadline and having absolutely nothing to say?
No, my friends - sadly, this is serious, like the Reuters "reporters" who in 2005, faced with having to report how comparatively low the U.S. death toll was, lamented that modern medical care and technology, better body armor, and better-trained battlefield medics made it possible to save thousands of wounded soldiers whose lives would have been lost in previous wars because they would have to live with the results of their wounds (including prosthetics and, in some cases, partial paralysis) rather than being "mercifully" allowed to die in the middle of the godforsaken Iraqi desert.
In this case, the McClatchy writers lament the lowered death toll in Iraq, saying:
A drop in violence around Iraq has cut burials in the huge Wadi al Salam cemetery here by at least one-third in the past six months, and that's cut the pay of thousands of workers who make their living digging graves, washing corpses or selling burial shrouds.And, from the closely-related "we liberal journos think that all foreigners - especially Arabs - are animals" category, here's the article's closing quote:
"Certainly, when the number of dead increases I feel happy, like all workers in the graveyard," said Basim Hameed , 30, a body washer. "This happiness comes from the increase in the amount of money we have." ..."My job demands death, and this is our fate, all of us."What's next? "An increase in security and citizen vigilance has caused terrorists to fall on hard times"?
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