A corporal in the United States Marine Corps Reserve and a student at Columbia University where he's working on a degree in American Studies, Sanchez says his mission in Iraq is "to report on the stories that matter the most, first-person accounts by the men and women on the ground."   His blog:  Matt-Sanchez.com, chronicles his work.

When I first got to Iraq six months ago, I had my fingers crossed. I literally had no idea what I would find. My biggest fear was that I'd see a group of very discouraged men and women trying to implement a failing policy. I thought I'd see Iraqis poorly coping with an oppressive American military. 

What made me more anxious is that I swore I'd tell the full story, the good, bad and ugly. That's what the press is supposed to do. They're supposed to tell the stories of the events that happen. The job of the press is to explain what's going on in places where most readers will never be able to go. 

The fact that I am a student of history gave me an additional responsibility. Primary sources, or eyewitness to events, are highly valued resources for historians to interpret history. 

Years from now, when the world looks back on Iraq, historians and academics will rely heavily on the first-person accounts of events on the ground.

It's hard to explain the shock I got when I finally got into Iraq. Unlike what I had read in the newspapers, I didn't find demoralized troops complaining about a dangerous quagmire in Iraq, and believe me, I asked.

I found men and women who complained because they weren't allowed to leave the safety of big bases and meet Iraqis. I met Iraqis who trusted American troops more than they trusted their countrymen. I met Iraqi policemen who were risking their lives to fight religious fanatics.

Sure, there were problems, but I was shocked by how the reality of Iraq was so different from what I had read back home. 

Even more surprising was how poor the reporting back home has been. Time magazine writer Tim McGirk reported on a Haditha massacre while leaving out huge important facts that were pertinent to the credibility of his sources. 

As a result of the research or omissions, Marines have been arrested and charged, and although most have been exonerated, the consequences of the report have ruined careers and lives. 

What has been the consequence for McGirk or Time magazine? McGirk himself refused to support his own words under oath. 

I learned just how different points of view were while hanging out in the Green Zone and listening to reporters complain about the waits at check points, which exist only to prevent suicide bombers and bad guys from carrying out a destructive mission.
 

Sergeant first class working with members of the Iraqi army: "Most of Iraqis really are like us; they just want their personal security."

Meanwhile, I had been living 24 hours a day with soldiers who did not complain and were risking their lives to secure those check points so that the reporters, among others, could complete their mission. 

So often, the business of reporting seemed to deal less with what was happening in Iraq and more with what was happening outside of Iraq.

Every time I met an Iraqi, I always asked about Abu Ghraib, the prison abuse scandal that sent a shockwave throughout the "international community." To my surprise, most Iraqis knew little or nothing about the prison scandal and cared even less. The most important topic was security.

A sheik from Ramadi put it best: "We have our own bad people and they are much worse than yours." I was surprised to learn many Iraqis were angry the prison had been closed down, because it showed American weakness.

The big con job the media has inflicted on the American people, by systematically distorting so many details about the conflict in Iraq, does more than skew politics back home; it makes Americans distrust the sources of their information and is an assault on democracy.

Don't get me wrong. We need a critical press. Government, policy and soldiers should be scrutinized. The question I ask the reader is: Who will hold the press responsible?

The New Republic tried to play the "soldier as victim" card when it printed the Scott Beauchamp stories under the Baghdad Diarist. Beauchamp was supposed to have committed near war crimes, but it turned out he made up most of the story. Nevertheless, the New Republic printed the stories and insisted they were true.

Recently, telephone transcripts revealed New Republic editor Franklin Foer was caught in a flagrant lie when he claimed the military was censoring his writer, Beauchamp.

Call me naïve. I always thought if you lied in the public forum, a red light flashed somewhere and some really important official came by to give you a ticket while the public shunned you. Franklin Foer continues to publish the New Republic and is simply ignoring the evidence of his deceit. 

Today, the news from Iraq is increasingly positive – deaths among troops are down by over 70 percent, and Iraqis have largely rejected al-Qaida. But while sectarian violence has plummeted, too many media have stopped reporting on what is, by far, the most defining event of this century. 

A free people need a free press, but through omission, exaggeration, bias and just flat-out deceit, the American public has been taken for a ride – and we will all be paying a price.

A corporal in the United States Marine Corps Reserve and a student at Columbia University where he's working on a degree in American Studies, Sanchez says his mission in Iraq is "to report on the stories that matter the most, first-person accounts by the men and women on the ground." 
His blog:  Matt-Sanchez.com, chronicles his work.    [ Sid Note:Find more blog links here ]