Sadr's Najaf Protest a Big Bust

Faux cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr, who, may Allah forgive me, possesses clerical credentials somewhat along the line of the Minor Orders in the Roman Catholic Church, promised a big protest in Najaf over the weekend vs. the American "occupiers." Judging from countless MSM reports, it was a massive success, reportedly drawing "tens of thousands" of demonstrators against the hated infidel.

But surprise! The MSM must've been drawing (as usual) from the Islamofascist propaganda mills for their bogus numbers. According to Gateway Pundit, the turnout was about as pitiful as the recent anti-war farce held in Washington, DC:

Of all of the 1,800 plus articles published yesterday on the Al Sadr Anti-US-occupation protest in Najaf, Iraq, not one mentioned that the turnout was way below what was expected and hoped for by the media and the pro-Iranian Regime Mahdi Army leader.

Both the Associated Press and New York Times reported that "tens of thousands" attended the protest.

From the pictures that were released by the MSM of the protest it was impossible to tell exactly how many showed up to stomp on and burn the US flag.

So far, nothing really surprising for these Islamofascist water-carriers who would turn us into a nation of dhimmis to spite President Bush. Your own hometown newspaper, no doubt, helped out using the age-old trick of splashing a tight shot of the protests in color on the front page. Tight shots, of course, exaggerate the effects of a sparse crowd by not showing you the nearness of the crowd's margins. While we harp on the manipulation of words in leftist propaganda here at HazZzMat, faked or dishonest pictures are another clever means of spreading disinformation. In this case, they've been used to perpetuate the MSM's neverending meme: We're losing!! We're losing!! Support the troops and declare our unilateral defeat!!

As to the truth of the matter, Gateway Pundit cites newly aggressive and assuredly more truthful military media specialists and provides us with numbers that are, well, a little less than the millions or tens of thousands so fervently hoped-for by MSM defeatists:

The demonstration in Najaf has been muted. While Middle East Online claimed "hundreds of thousands of Shiites burned and trampled on US flags," the reality is the protest was far smaller than Sadr would have liked. Reuters puts the protest size in the thousands, and during a press round table briefing today, Rear Admiral Mark Fox noted that the Coalition is closely monitoring the protest, and put the number of demonstrators between 5,000 and 7,000. The protest is monitored both on the ground and via air, which allows for a relatively accurate count of the number of protesters. Sadr's weak showing during the April 9 protests highlights the setbacks he has suffered both politically and militarily since the inception of the Baghdad Security plan and his flight to Iran.

We also have an overhead shot of the demo in case you doubt the military's head count:



We've lived in DC since those fabled Vietnam protest days. Trust us. This ain't "tens of thousands" and it sure ain't "millions." It's a shame that you have to mistrust nearly everything the MSM puts out these days, but here's another case in point. We're being told that the surge is "failing." But this picture of a weakened Al Sadr, who can't even field a convincing protest on his home turf, speaks volumes. Or at least it would have if anyone in the MSM had allowed it to be printed. But that would spoil the "story," wouldn't it?