The Germans are starting to notice that their leaders and media got everything wrong about the Iraq war. Even more amazing, it's being reported by the San Francisco Chronicle.

They don't yet seem to have developed a taste for crow, though.

Reporters have largely failed to obtain mea culpas from the rejectionists, though the Green Party's Beer said meekly in a brief statement, "Our assessment was based on information we received from aid organizations."

Yes, and we all know how infallible and true-blue aid organizations are, right?

Television's role in molding public opinion was underscored by a recent survey of youngsters at a Meunster high school who had taken part in anti-American peace marches.

None knew where Iraq is located geographically. Nor did any of them know anything about Hussein's brutal regime. All said they got their information about "the American barbarity" from German media reports -- chiefly those of ARD and ZDF.

One of Germany's great literary figures, author- playwright Hans Magnus Enzensberger, 73, told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, "The great compassion shown by the media for the relatively few victims of the Iraq war stands in bizarre contrast to its lack of interest for the victims of 30 other and often far crueler wars currently being fought all over the world."

Enzensberger also had bitter words for the hundreds of thousands of protesters who marched against the war chanting "No blood for oil." It came, he said, "from the mouths of people who greatly value their automobiles, their heating systems and their vacation trips, and whose indignation would quickly find another target if the gas stations would be empty, the thermostat below freezing and all flights to...Mallorca were canceled."

As they say, read the whole thing.

Generaly there are some news sources that are regarded as less reliable, like the Onion, or the Enquirer, however lately who knows what you can believe, or who. As is said, "the only people I believe around here are me and you, and sometimes I'm not so sure about you." As for eating crow, the Germans? Come now.

If believing half truths makes you relaxed, do it.

90% of the people in Spain are against war, despite our government position and despite the media. Most of us do know where Irak is and a couple of things about Sadam and USA way of doing things. You do not need to hate cars to think that blood for oil is not fair.

You americans prefer to believe that your "help" is welcome, that the world loves you and wants USA to be the police of the world. Well, it isn't exactly like that.You are mostly hated, even here, in the EU. Your government use of power is a shame and american people are guilty of supporting it for so many years.

War has been made on Irak for many reasons and none of them is helping Iraki people. You have to see that, Don't you?

Iñigo de Gracia

War has been made on Irak for many reasons and none of them is helping Iraki people. You have to see that, Don't you?

No, I don't "have to see that," just as I don't "have to see" any of your other nonsensical and unfounded assertions.

Are you really saying that the "Iraki people" were better off under Saddam? They don't seem to agree with you. You seem to want to continue to live in a dreamworld.

advertising German dissent:

http://www.wadinet.de/
http://www.antisemitismusstreit.tk/
http://www.redaktion-bahamas.org/

Yo Rand!

Some bloggie linkie love and commentary headed your way:

http://windsofchange.net/archives/003419.html

This Article @ sfgate is so full of mistakes that it's a joke to use this article to critize disinformation in germany. check your sources, man ;)
The article contains a number of false/erroneous statements:
1. The show's name is "Fronal21", formely "Frontal", and never was "Frontel"
2. The German Development Minister's name is Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, not Wielczorek-Zeul.
3. The Green Party's co chair is called Angelika Beer, not Angelike.
4. Wolfgang Schäuble is not the leader of the Christian Democrats. That would be Angela Merkel (http://www.cdu.de)
more at http://brmic.blogspot.com/2003_04_27_brmic_archive.html#93661539

With the exception of mistaking Schauble for Merkle as the Christian Democrat leader, the rest of your "mistakes" are simple spelling errors (a problem no uncommon in reporting foreign affairs in a different language). Sorry, but that's not much basis for discrediting the entire article.

I might add that the piece quotes "top Christian Democratic Party leader" Schauble, omitting either the definite or the indefinite article. The error is one of style rather than one of fact (Schauble is "a" top CDU leader, not "the" top CDU leader. And mis-spellings of German names as a gauge of accuracy? Get real.

excuse me, I'm late to this, but as moe was kind enough to quote me I'll respond to Rand Simberg (I won't argue with anyone who thinks the Nazi reference is funny):
For one, the mispellings are an issue, since they indicate the poor research behind the article. Furthermore, we are discussing names in a fellow language, as opposed to say finish or hungarian names. To expect a reporter to get no more than one name wrong per article, is reasonalbe IMHO, otherwise he or she probably just shouldn't do foreign affairs if he/she can not cope with the names.
If you checked the URL moe gave, you'd also have found (though I have not spelled it out explicity) that the article is extremely biased (which might seem acceptable) and misquotes Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul in such a way, that it accidentally allows for more Germany-bashing. If you're gonna excuse this again as a mistake, I wonder what level of incompetence will be enough to discredit the article. If the answer is none, you sadly have moved beyond the reach of arguments in this case.
Come to think of it, re-consider the excerpt here: a survey from one school, not even the age of the kids is given. contrast it with surveys that show a significant number (I don't remember exactly but IIRC it was well above 30%) of Americans believed Saddam was behind 9-11. And then, we get Enzensberger quoted authoritativly first making a valid point and then misrepresenting/deliberately misunderstanding (he's clever enough to have understood the argument behind "no blood for oil" (which of course in itself is a stupid slogan, much as "war on terror" is)) the argument of the anti-war side.
What sort of journalism is this? And at what point will you realize the author is not interested in getting you the facts, but produced a shabby write-up of a show he's seen (which btw. is not reporting the facts in a neutral way either, and is best compared to an editorial/opinion piece) and throw in as much daming evidence has he possibly can. Of course, without marking the whole thing as an opinion piece.

...the mispellings are an issue, since they indicate the poor research behind the article. Furthermore, we are discussing names in a fellow language, as opposed to say finish or hungarian names. To expect a reporter to get no more than one name wrong per article, is reasonalbe IMHO, otherwise he or she probably just shouldn't do foreign affairs if he/she can not cope with the names...

Sorry, but here, as on Usenet, picking on spelling mistakes is simply a form of ad hominem, and pointless (and in its own ad hominem way, rightly or wrongly) is an indication of desparation.

If you checked the URL moe gave, you'd also have found (though I have not spelled it out explicity) that the article is extremely biased (which might seem acceptable) and misquotes Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul in such a way, that it accidentally allows for more Germany-bashing. If you're gonna excuse this again as a mistake, I wonder what level of incompetence will be enough to discredit the article.

I'd have found that the article is "extremely biased"? Sorry, but absent a supporting argument, this is utterly uncompelling.

Sorry, but here, as on Usenet, picking on spelling mistakes is simply a form of ad hominem,
since when is the SF Chronicle part of Usenet? AFAIK it's an official newspaper, writers get paid and such. I expect them to get the spelling right and if they don't I am justified in questioning the quality of the article. An ad hominem would be if I had said the writer is a moron anyway, so why listen. However, I said the the article doesn't get the facts right and is apparently not providing a blanced account, so why listen. Redefine ad hominems as you like, but please respond to the charge that spelling indicates poor quality in an official publication with more than crying "ad hominem". Say why it doesn't matter if names are correct. Or instead, tell me how much credit you'd give a piece on Deutsche Welle which got the names of Ruhmsfeld, Dellay and Sanatorium wrong?
I'd have found that the article is "extremely biased"? Sorry, but absent a supporting argument, this is utterly uncompelling.
as I said, "if you checked the URL". Let me quote from my letter to the editor at that URL:
" why you failed to mention, that "Bild" belongs to the yellow press, why you failed to mention that the Christian Democrats had no clear position on the legitimacy of the war until it was over, why you choose to cite a veteran Social Democrat (I've never heard of Hasenstein, and I live near Munich) and an Austrian cartoonist both of which have next to zero impact on public opinion.
Finally, I'd also like to know, why you chose to change Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul's wording of "There are estimates that there will be up to 3 million refugees who will either try to escape to neighbouring countries of or will be in flight within the country" (http://www.zdf.de/ZDFde/inhalt/30/0,1872,2042686,00.html) to her "emotionally predicting that"3 million Iraqi refugees will be flooding neighboring countries." ", thus making her the source of the predicition, which she clearly wasn't, changing the numbers from "up to 3 million" to "3 million", and omitting those in flight within the country.
To put it bluntly, why is there such an amount of factual errors and biased reporting in your paper, when the justified criticism of too negative predictions would have done just nicely."

if that argument is somehow unclear to you, feel free to ask. You can read, can't you? Saying "absent a supporting argument" made me wonder, you know.