Fighting the real enemy
The war on terror hangs in the balance.
And yet, in a time when moral clarity is so desperately needed from reporters on the front lines of that war, Americans are fed editorials attacking the liberators and language glamorizing terrorist thugs.
But more on language and labels in a minute.
First, it's time we face up to the ugly truth about the mainstream media outlets covering this war.
The fact is that newsrooms across America and Europe are filled with reporters and editors who loathe George Bush that they would rather see him lose in Iraq than see America win.
This animosity runs so deep news outlets affix the label of “occupier” to US liberators while using the term “insurgent” to describe Islamic fascists who would rather kill every man, woman, and child in Iraq than see them free.
The Michael Moore faction in the Democratic Party claims US troops are not liberators, but rather empire builders. Then again, Moore also compared the terrorists who carved off American hostages' heads to our founding fathers.
While most Democrats and leftist reporters would never make such a public admission, many do believe that spreading freedom to Iraq and Afghanistan is an imperialist scheme to spread American hegemony across the globe.
Since when did promoting Jeffersonian democracy equate to the spread of American hegemony?
Since George Bush launched this war instead of, say, Bill Clinton.
Isn't it remarkable that we never heard terms like “American imperialism” or “US hegemony” or “unilateral war” when former President Bill Clinton launched military strikes against Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Sudan, or Iraq?
Can you remember 'The New York Times' or CBS News or any other mainstream media outlet taking President Clinton to task for his wars in the Balkans?
Of course not.
In fact, most wrote editorials praising America's entrance into a 500 year civil war and printed screaming headlines exaggerating incidents of mass graves and ethnic cleansing.
Never mind the fact that the Serbs' conduct in Kosovo never came close to reaching the level of barbarism and butchery that Islamic fascists have exhibited in Iraq and across the world.
In Kosovo, an act of aggression by the Serbs was always seized upon by press to justify America's involvement there.
In Iraq, the more horrendous the terror attack, the sharper the rebuke against Bush for launching his liberation efforts.
What makes the media's moral blindness so damning is the fact that the leader of the terror network responsible for most of the Iraqi killings wrote out his war plans months ago for all the world to see.
This is not morally ambiguous stuff.
Jordanian terror king al-Zarqawi warned his followers in a memo produced earlier this year that the Americans were not going to be driven out of Iraq by terror tactics.
Therefore, the only way to stop free elections and a democratically elected government was to kill as many Shiites as possible.
After slaughtering enough innocent Shia, civil war would break out and cause the streets of Iraq to flood with the blood of the unbelievers. Then, and only then, Iraq would be a safe haven for Islamic terrorists.
Zarqawi concluded by warning his terror network that if America had its way, a representative government would be elected and then their cause would be lost.
So yesterday, scores of innocent Shia were incinerated in two of Iraq's holyist cities for simply worshipping their God as they chose.
Imagine the outrage if Christian Serb leaders had written a memo defining their chief political goal as the killing of Muslims.
'The Times' would have gone apolectic. Dan Rather would have grimly spoken of a Balkan holocaust. And Hollywood types would have been standing in line at the White House asking Bill Clinton how they could support his efforts overseas.
But with the stakes so much higher in this war, the mainstream media is churning out the bad news daily, always implying that these murderous rampages in Iraq are really the fault of their one true enemy, George W. Bush.
And what about the Shia?
The cocktail party circuit in Manhattan and Hollywood have concluded they are too stupid to live under a democratic system anyway.
But for a group of idiots, Iraq's Shiite leaders sure seem smart to me.
This summer they turned the screws on one of their own-al Sadr-and told him his attacks against the US forces would not be tolerated.
Last month, the Shia's most powerful leader delivered a religious edict ordering his people to vote in next month's elections.
And most impressively, the general population is not biting at Zarqawi's bait. They know that their family members are being slaughtered in the streets of Iraq not because of US imperialism, but because Zarqawi desperately needs to draw them into a civil war.
But unlike America's mainstream press, the Shia are smart enough to read the enemy's war memos and plan accordingly.
Imagine for a moment that we lived in a world without George Bush, John Kerry, Michael Moore, Fox News, James Carville, Vietnam, the New York Times, and the all the forces that have created faultlines throughout contemporary American political life.
In such a world, does anyone seriously doubt that all of America would be united behind this war?
Imagine a world where editorial page writers were less concerned about proving George Bush wrong than bringing freedom and hope to the epicenter of Islamic terrorism.
Imagine a country where political leaders were less concerned about what party took credit for winning a war than both parties working together toward the common goal of actually winning that war.
Imagine a world where CBS News and the New York Times editorial page dared to call those slaughtering innocents in Iraq “terrorists” instead of labeling them insurgents, as if they were throwing off the yoke of a colonial power set on ruling their land for hundreds of years.
Imagine a world where journalism schools produced reporters and editors who were not afraid to call evil by its name.
Now imagine living in a world where we are fighting for the very future of our civilization-and most of the world's press remains neutral (or worse) because they don't like the man leading that epic battle.
This war on terror has seen its epicenter move from New York to Kabul to Baghdad in the past few years. It is as clearly a war of good against evil as any America has fought since World War II.
But American and European reporters are so blinded by their cynicism— and their hatred of George W. Bush— that like Hitler's Albert Speer, they do not recognize evil when its hand is on their shoulder.
Or on the front page of their newspapers.
They refuse to tie together the 9/11 murders with the Bali bombing, or the Madrid murders, or the school house slaughter in Russia, or the assassination of election workers in Iraq.
They refuse to connect the dots because George W. Bush and Tony Blair drew a line between them first, while the rest of the world was sleeping.
Maybe that's why I am staring at a picture of a man being gunned down like a dog on the front page of the New York Times. The terrorists executing the man and his two fellow election workers conducted the murders in broad daylight for all the world to see.
And what did the New York Times call these beasts?
Insurgents.
Insurgents?
Insurgents against what?!?
These “insurgents” were not gunning down US soldiers. They were not murdering police officers who were trying to put down an oppressed people.
These “insurgents” had one goal in mind yesterday: destroying those who would dare to believe that Iraq could live in freedom and peace.
Should you and I be shocked that the media is expressing little to no outrage at this unspeakable act?
Should we contemplate why so many media outlets, who would have spoken out against this atrocity had it happened in Kosovo, Israel, or scores of other countries, are sitting quietly by while Islamic terrorists continue killing election workers, doctors, and all others who are trying to bring aid to a desperate people?
Of course not.
The media hates this war because it hates this president. It doesn't matter how noble the goal. It doesn't matter how high the stakes.
In this perverse new media reality, George Bush is evil, U.S. troops are occupiers, and terrorists who gun down defenders of democracy are “insurgents.”
Any questions?
