Fake news a serious issue in Iraq

Is this what democracy is supposed to look like?

The Independent has published examples of some of the fake "newspaper articles" that the Lincoln Grouppaid to place in Iraqi newspapers. Andrew Buncombe shows how thearticles were full of claims that contrasted sharply with reality onthe ground at the time they were published. "Furthermore," he writes,"it has been alleged that quotations contained within these reports andothers - attributed to anonymous Iraqi officials or citizens - wereroutinely made up by US troops who never went beyond the perimeter ofthe Green Zone. What seems clear is that, taken by themselves, thesereports would provide an unbalanced picture of the situation insideIraq where ongoing violence wreaks daily chaos and horror."

So, since when all of a sudden was the ideal of media manipulation something to instill in a culture so early on in the democratic process?  Even though I am not a father, I at least know that the most important stages of growth for a child happen earlier rather than later.  I believe that the same is true for government, especially in the case of democracy.  Instead of teaching the Iraqi government how to find loopholes in order to manipulate the democratic process -- pertaining to the issue of independent media -- we ought to be setting the right example and tell the truth to the Iraqi people.