Day: September 6, 2002

Observe the latest news this morning (focus on the headline):

Iraq says airstrike hit civilians
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sept. 6, 2002 | BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — Iraq on Friday accused U.S. and British planes of striking civilian targets during an air raid southwest of Baghdad, and it claimed its anti-aircraft batteries chased off the attacking jets.
The U.S. military said Thursday that American and British planes attacked an air defense command and control facility at a military airfield 240 miles southwest of Baghdad.
The U.S. Central Command said the strike was a response to an Iraqi attack on allied aircraft patrolling the southern no-fly zone.
On Friday, Iraqi state newspapers quoted an unidentified Iraqi military spokesman as saying enemy warplanes had attacked “civil and service installations” in the al-Rutbah area on Thursday. They gave no further details about the sites.
Iraq almost invariably accuses allied planes of attacking civilian targets.

Help me out here, folks; I’m just a poor blogger. I don’t know about all that high-falootin’ professional journalism and stuff. But if Iraq “almost invariably accuses allied planes of attacking civilian targets”, why the hell is that the bloody headline?
As far as I know, this is the only story the AP is running on this incident in its main feed — at the least, it’s the only one Salon is posting from their AP feed. So again, help me understand: is the fact that Iraq complained about it really the most significant aspect of this story? Do I really need to Stephen over there to explain a few things to the Associated Press?
Here’s the link — I’m exposing the filename because it, too, demonstrates the point: http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2002/09/06/civilians/index.html

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From continuation of the Sullivan-Andersen blogging conversation:
Andersen: “By the way, a screenwriter friend of mine following these dispatches in L.A., e-mailed me today and said about andrewsullivan.com: ‘I confess