You're justifying the means by pointing out the ends.

And even that isn't as rosy as you want to think it is. Case in point:

Quote:

Posted on Tue, May. 03, 2005

Iraqi journalists intimidated by police

Despite initial flourishing of press freedom after the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iraqi journalists have found themselves increasingly harassed and intimidated by authorities.

BY MOHAMMED AL DULAIMY

Knight Ridder News Service


BAGHDAD - A photographer for a Baghdad newspaper says Iraqi police beat and detained him for snapping pictures of long lines at gas stations. A reporter for another local paper received an invitation from Iraqi police to cover their graduation ceremony and ended up receiving death threats from the recruits. A local TV reporter says she's lost count of how many times Iraqi authorities have confiscated her cameras and smashed her tapes.

All these cases are under investigation by the Iraqi Association to Defend Journalists, a union that formed amid a chilling new trend of alleged arrests, beatings and intimidation of Iraqi reporters at the hands of Iraqi security forces.

Reporters Without Borders, an international watchdog group for press freedom, tracked the arrests of five Iraqi journalists within a two-week period and issued a statement on April 26 asking authorities ``to be more discerning and restrained and not carry out hasty and arbitrary arrests.''

KEEPING LOW PROFILE

While Iraq's newly elected government says it will look into complaints of press intimidation, local reporters said they've seen little progress. Some have quit their jobs after receiving threats -- not from insurgents, but from police. As the United Nations celebrates World Press Freedom Day today, most Iraqi reporters are reluctant to even identify themselves as press when stopped at police checkpoints. Others say they won't report on events that involve Iraqi security forces, which creates a big gap in their coverage.


The fall of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship resulted in unprecedented freedom for Iraqi journalists, who'd suffered torture and prison terms for criticizing the former regime. More than 150 new newspapers and several local TV and radio stations sprang up immediately after the war began -- one of the biggest success stories of the U.S.-led invasion. But in recent months Iraqi police have begun cracking down on local journalists, creating a wave of fear reminiscent of Saddam's era.

''If things carry on like this, we will have to carry weapons along with our cameras and recorders,'' said Israa Shakir, editor of Iraq Today, an independent Baghdad newspaper. ``Under such circumstances, we should be worried about the future of democracy.''





Now i'm not saying that it's all bad out there but neither is it all good as G-Man constantly tries to make it out to be. The truth as always is somewhere in the middle. This story at the least should be worrisome. Just calling something a "democracy" doesn't neccesarily make it so.

Everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else. --Will Rogers "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." - George W. Bush I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would .. try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile. - Condoleeza Rice Barbara Bush: It's Good Enough for the Poor To comfort the powerless and make the powerful uncomfortable.