In "The Daily Show" We Trust

I don’t watch the news constantly. Matter of fact, I hate network news. Still, using the Internet and the occasional newspaper, I like to keep myself in tune with what’s going on in the world. But now, it’s finally happened. The Daily Show has become my most reliable news program on television.

Last night’s episode (05/02/06) showed the story of the first Sunni soldiers graduating from boot camp. This is a huge victory for the reconstruction, as recruiting Sunnis has been a key goal of U.S. policies to rebuild the Iraqi armed forces.

But (there’s always a ‘but’), at the end of graduation ceremonies, an announcement was made that the new soldiers would have to serve outside their hometown and in Shiite areas. Then, at their own graduation, the graduates started ripping their clothes off and denouncing their loyalty to the army they’ve just joined.

The army does not want them serving in their own village because most are residents of the Anbar province -- widely considered the heartland of Iraq's Sunni Arab insurgency. Army commanders worry that if the men serve in their own hometowns, they could be co-opted by insurgents.

I was stunned by this story and that I hadn’t seen it on any of the mass-media channels, or on Google’s main news page. After 10 minutes of looking on-line (an eternity in my eyes), I found an article that said the incident was exaggerated. "It was actually a very small number of graduates," said a spokesman for the Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq. "It was a momentary but very brief display of displeasure.”

Maybe I just appreciate the stories The Daily Show highlights. Maybe I don’t look at enough of the mainstream mass media. But something seems wrong when Comedy Central has my trust above all other new shows.

P.S. There is a basic and critical inability to create a cohesive armed force in the region. Without an effective police force that understands the region, we’ll never have peace there. Don’t forget, the US decided to disband the army that was already set up, which put thousands out of work and fueled the insurgency.