The Discerning Texan

All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.
-- Edmund Burke
Sunday, June 05, 2005

US Media - reporting old scandals, ignoring the good we are doing

I fear this will be a continuation of yesterday's rant, because it is really difficult for me to tone down the outrage I continue to feel about the US news media and leftist lawyers--who enjoy the fruits and benefits of living in the greatest country in the world-- but who seem to have no problem in working overtime to destroy everything it stands for, and worse, to provide aid and comfort to our enemies: to murderous terrorists and butchers. It was treason last week, it was treason yesterday, and it is still treason today.
So when I came across this story this morning (with a hat tip to Glenn Reynolds), it pretty much set me off again:

What is being done in our name

In a comment on a previous post, Bojack pointed out an upcoming event that's practically guaranteed to set off the next wave of anti-U.S. outrage and media attacks: the court-ordered release of the Abu Ghraib videotapes.

The Washington Post reports:

A judge has ordered the government to release four videos from Abu Ghraib prison and dozens of photographs from the same collection as photos that touched off the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal a year ago.

The federal judge issued the order late Wednesday requiring the Army to release the material to the American Civil Liberties Union to comply with the Freedom of Information Act. The ACLU said the material would show that the abuse was "more than the actions of a few rogue soldiers."Judge Alvin Hellerstein said the 144 pictures and videos can be turned over in redacted form to protect the victims' identities. He gave the Army one month to release them....So far, 36,000 pages of documents and the reports of 130 investigations, mostly from the FBI and Army, have been turned over to the ACLU. The group is seeking documents from the CIA and the Department of Defense as well...."

These images may be ugly and shocking ... (but) the American public deserves to know what is being done in our name," said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the ACLU.

We know what went on at Abu Ghraib. We've seen the photos. We've heard the stories. We've punished the offenders. Yet somehow, after all that, after "36,000 pages of documents and the reports of 130 investigations", the ACLU thinks four tapes and some extra photos are going to really clear things up.

Videos of prisoner abuse are unlikely to tell us anything we don't already know about Abu Ghraib. They are, however, virtually certain to further inflame anti-American sentiment around the world.

Nevertheless, Mr. Romero of the ACLU has a valid and undeniable point: Americans deserve to know what the men and women of our armed forces are doing in our name overseas. Everything they're doing.

Our troops' misdeeds at Abu Ghraib have been given ample coverage in the media, and are about to receive even more, thanks to the ACLU. Our troops' hardships and setbacks have been the subject of award-winning photojournalism, courtesy of the Associated Press and the Pulitzer Prize Board.

Yet our troops' triumphs are not just in combat, but in the ordinary good deeds they do every single day are scarcely mentioned in the media. Perhaps they're not considered "newsworthy.Neverthelessss, as the ACLU points out, Americans deserve to know about them.

Fortunately, I found a media source with photos of our troops that haven't been widely published elsewhere: the U.S. Army. All of the following twenty photos come from among the hundreds in the vast image gallery on its website. (Links open in a smaller window)

Be sure and check out the photos that Gaijin Biker links to in his post.

I know I sound like a broken record here, but there is only one conclusion that can be reached: our media elites, the leftist ACLU, and yes even many Democrats WANT AMERICA TO LOSE. And the media's unconscionable one-sided anti-American coverage of this war is helping people who subjugate, rape, and kill women as a matter of everyday life to succeed; every story that fans the anti-US flames helps our enemies to kill more Americans; to drum up more support for their cause worldwide; to recruit more volunteers to slaughter innocents.

Our press is getting bent out of shape about dog leashes and kicking a book around a jail cell, while simultaneously their blatantly anti-American and anti-military editorial bias is are helping people who chop off the heads off of innocent civilians who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And they are helping our enemies sign up more pathological killers to blow up cafes filled with women anchildrenen... Why do we still not get it: our news media is helpingng the Islamofascist murderers, just as certainly as I am sitting here... Why? And how can we who care about this country stand by idly and allow this treason to continue?

Who among those who saw those towers fall could have possibly believed that less than four years later our own news media would be in effect providing aid and propaganda to help the very groups who worked to bring them crashing down?

Or far worse: for in this war, we may be fighting for nothing less than the survival of Western Civilization, not just the lives of our own citizens -- and meanwhile our own news media is the best asset our enemies have. I'm not talking about Al Jazeera here, I am talking about CBS, ABC, CNN, NBC, and the New York Times. It makes me want to puke, only that is putting it too delicately.

These...hypocrites; these holier than thou elitist yahoos that are trying to tear our country down do not deserve the freedoms that our brave men and women have fought for for 200+ years, and are still fighting and dying for to protect. They are blood-sucking vampires. And either America will win or they will win. So what's it gonna be folks?

In Hugh Hewitt's great book Blog, he quotes Mickey Kaus, and I think it appropriate to include that quote here:

Mickey Kaus, an early uber-blogger [...] observed that The New York Times and a blog are actually not at all alike: "One obsessively reflects the personal biases, enthusiasms, and grudges of a single individual. The other is just an online diary."

But this situation is a lot worse than just a difference of editorial opinion; Americans and innocent Iraqis, Afghanis, and Pakistanis are dying in this war every day, partially because of decisions made in the newsrooms of our elite media. They decide what you will or will not see, and what will or will not be beamed around the world to provide the latest excuse for the bloodthirsty zealots. I do not think it is even arguable that this war, which will take a lot of time and national will to win, will be won or lost right here at home. Just like Vietnam was (lost) here by men like Walter Cronkite, telling America its sons were being lost for..."nothing". Had Cronkite not so swayed public opinion, and had Nixon not disengaged, 2 million Cambodians would not have been massacred under Pol Pot. Public opinion WAS swayed. Genocide was the result. In World War II we had 100% support from our media and our public. It was long, bloody and hard. But our nation fought as one, and together we cannot fail.

Today is another story: the elites could care less about the risks of appeasing the Islamists today; all they care about is reliving the good old days of Watergate and trying to bring down another Republican President. Even though doing so may cost them their country and/or millions of dead American innocents. And when New York or Washington or Houston or Honolulu vanishes under a mushroom cloud, it will be too late then... the time to win this war is here and now. And the war will be won or lost right here at home, in the battle for public opinion, in the battle for the soul of America. The mainstream news media today could cost this country everything. And that simply is not an acceptable outcome.

So what can we do about it? Well we can start by fighting our war with our viewing, reading, and spending decisions. We can talk to your other concerned patriotic friends, and urge them to get involved with saving our country. We can step up and write letters to the editors that tell the truth, and angrier ones to the editors who don't.

We can stop buying their papers altogether. We can stop watching networks that don't report the truth--and we can tell advertisers on those networks that they either pull their ads, or that we will stop purchasing their products, all of them, period. And then you can change the channel to Fox News and at least get a balanced view of what is happening in this world.

I will never buy another Newsweek magazine again, and I hope you won't either--they deserve to be bankrupted. If you take the Times, you will cancel your Times subscription and you will tell them why (yes, that goes for the LA Times and the Boston Globe and the Washington Post too...), and find something better to read with your Sunday coffee. In short, we can begin to take command of this war right here and now, because we can show them that we care more about our country than we care about them. We can demonstrate to them that if they don't follow suit, not to expect any of our business.

This is how we will win this war. And we must, for to do nothing is to stand by as we are slowly but surely sabotaged every day, with every anti-American editorial decision that buries the truth in favor of our foes, day after day, until we eventually are defeated from within.

For if the elites are successful in convincing America to back down from this war now--at possibly the most important moment in US history--it may indeed result in our own death, or the death of a loved one, in a holocaust beyond our imagination of horror. A Plague; a Nuke...name the poison. Don't kid yourself that it won't happen if we would only "make love not war".

There is only one language the Arab world understands: strength. We must win this long term war and if that means we have to hump it through another conflict with Iran or Syria, so be it. Whatever it takes.

I realize that sounds melodramatic, but I do not see this as mere hyperbole. I have said it before and I will keep saying it: the stakes are that high and the msm is the enemy, just as surely as OBL is. We must hit this enemy where it hurts them the most: in their pocketbooks. We must demand as a society fair reporting, and we must do everything in our power to bring down the enemies of the United States. Stop reading and watching their lies. Stop supporting their sponsors. We can change this thing, one consumer choice at a time. What are we waiting for--for a city to go up in smoke before we get serious about this? Not this Texan. So how about you?
(Whew, I feel much better now...)

UPDATE: Austin Bay has more on the unravelling msm story about Gitmo. Isn't it interesting how they rush to publish when the news paints the US in a negative light, yet glaciers are faster than the msm in admitting their mistakes and errors of ommision.

And (stop the presses...) Michelle Malkin has actually found a POSITIVE story about our military in The Dallas Morning News. Good for them.
DiscerningTexan, 6/05/2005 05:00:00 PM |