Australian blogger Arthur Chrenkoff has attracted a lot of attention for his “Good news from Iraq” posts. Not only has he had a piece in the New York Times, but he’s been at the centre of a lengthy debate between Media Watch and the Australian (covered here by Tim Dunlop)

One problem with good news, though, is that it tends to be announced, reannounced and then re-reannounced for good measure. During the Boer War, Lloyd George caused a stir in Parliament when he did the sums and found that, according to the body counts announced by the British Government, they had killed more Boers than the entire Boer nation contained. According to Orwell, Arthur Balfour rose to his feet and shouted “Cad!”

Tim Lambert applies the same metric to electricity, finding that, despite nearly continuous good news, electricity generation is lower now than in the immediate aftermath of the invasion, and far below the level prevailing in 1991.

That’s the time-series approach. I thought I’d take a different tack, and look at the bits of bad news that can’t be concealed, even when, like Chrenkoff, you are looking exclusively for good news. That is, I’m doing what Chrenkoff does, but in reverse, using his news stories as the source.

Here’s a selection from Chrenkoff’s April 25 edition. Remember this is all supposed to be “good news”:

“The State Department has ordered a major reevaluation of the troubled $18.4 billion Iraqi reconstruction effort, blaming problems on early decisions to hire US companies for major infrastructure projects.”

“In a report to Congress last week, the State Department said reconstruction officials will cancel several planned water and electricity plants”

“The three-story hospital in downtown Fallujah sits empty and abandoned”

“Most of Iraq’s schools are still run down and out of date. According to the Ministry of Education, 5,000 additional schools are needed, and repairs are required at 80 percent of existing ones.”

” The Baghdad Police College says it has no shortage of recruits. In a country with unemployment well over 50 percent, a police paycheck — about $200 a month — is simply too tempting.”

“The stock exchange may be one of post-war Iraq’s few success stories”

” Production from the southern oil fields has recently reached 1.1 million barrels … The rate is close to what the company produced before the war …”

Why bother hammering the bad news? The obvious reason is that, until the failure of existing policies is recognised, there’s no chance of any better policies being adopted. The whole history of the occupation has seen the US persisting with policies long after they were obviously doomed, from radical economic reform, to the “regional caucuses” plan, from Chalabhi to Allawi, from Najaf to Fallujah and beyond.

According to the People’s Daily

China firmly supports Uzbekistan’s moves to crack down on the “three evil forces” of terrorism, separatism and extremism, and maintain domestic and regional stability for peaceful development, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said in Beijing Tuesday

To the extent that the Chinese regime has any coherent foreign policy, its primary principle is opposition to any intervention in the internal affairs of dictatorships. The more brutal the dictatorship, the happier China is to lend its support, and of course, the better the Chinese regime looks by comparison. Sometimes, this principle brings China into conflict with the Bush Administration, as in the case of Iraq. In other cases, as in that of Uzbekistan, the two see eye to eye.

I look forward to a possible future when only democratically-elected governments are regarded as legitimate. That doesn’t mean support for the Bush doctrine that any external enemy who wants to overthrow such a government by force should be free to do so. But it would mean suspension from the UN and all similar bodies, in the same way as currently happens in the event of a military coup in a Commonwealth country, as well as embargos on any form of military contracts or arms sales. The critical requirement for such a future is a democratic China. As I’ve written before, I don’t think this is as impossible as it seems. The apparent solidity of the Chinese regime conceals the erosion of its foundations in Communist ideology, and in the historical legitimacy of past generations of leaders. It’s a statue with a golden head and feet of clay.

The NYT has survivors’ accounts of the massacre in Uzbekistan. Meanwhile, on last night’s ABC News, I saw the commander of the US base in Uzbekistan interviewed. He said something like “The host country military are doing a wonderful job protecting the base and we have had no trouble from the disturbances”. That’s the same host country military that was murdering hundreds of its own people a few days earlier. I can’t find a link to this on Google news, so I’d be grateful to anyone who can point me to a transcript.

Bush’s friendly relations with the Uzbek dictator Karimov have been unshaken by this, and any stated opposition to Karimov’s use of torture and murder is meaningless: it’s an open secret that a good deal of it is being done on behalf of the Administration, as part of the policy of extraordinary rendition.

The blogospheric right has mostly been either silent or supportive, along with much of the pro-war left. But some cracks are emerging. Here’s a piece by Stephen Schwartz and William Kristol from the Weekly Standard. And on the pro-war left, there are some good pieces from Eric the Unread and Harry’s Place.

Update JF Beck offers a defence of the Karimov dictatorship, ending rather lamely with the weasel words “Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not supporting the Karimov government or its actions. I’m simply pointing out that the “wanton murder” scenario being pitched by the left is open to question”. For Beck, and the rest of the RWDB crew, the important thing is to support Bush and attack the left on every possible occasion, even if it means giving someone like Karimov the benefit of the doubt.