The Discerning Texan
All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.
-- Edmund Burke
-- Edmund Burke
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
How the AP Manipulates the News towards an Anti-American Agenda
Ben Johnson, writing in David Horowitz' Front Page Magazine, paints a scathing picture on how the AP operates on a day-to-day basis...with a goal of Defeating America. It is a very disturbing glimpse of an active and ongoing conspiracy to skew news coverage in what has become an in-the-open propaganda war against the United States:
Associated Propaganda Press
Who is the bigger murderer, George W. Bush or Osama bin Laden? For the Associated Press, the scales are tipping in favor of our commander-in-chief.
The world’s most widely syndicated news service made the oblique, unflattering comparison yesterday in a story headlined “U.S. Deaths in Iraq Exceed 9/11 Count.” The AP reported with bated breath:
Enter yesterday’s story.
The AP’s choice of comparisons is vitally misleading. The reporter collated servicemen killed in Iraq to civilians murdered on 9/11 – rather than, say, with the number of homicides in a comparable number of American cities (where there are neither Fedayeen nor organized death squads, except those canonized in leftist victimology as “troubled inner city youths”). By its nature, this comparison beckons the reader to embrace the Left’s conclusions. The implication is clear: Operation Enduring Freedom has been worse for America than the 9/11 hijackings.
There are more sinister deductions implicit in this juxtaposition. To wit, al-Qaeda deliberately targeted civilians. Since – as the media never tire of reminding us – Iraq was a “war of choice,” by extension President Bush is worse than Osama bin Laden.
From this, the Left’s talking points begin to flow. The hijackings were bin Laden’s jihad against America’s “little Eichmanns”; Iraq is President Bush’s war against those dusky-skinned disenfranchised who were poor and illiterate enough to get “stuck in Iraq.” Whether by intent or default, this comparison makes him equally guilty of murder as the world’s foremost terrorist.
It seems almost beside the point to note that the comparison is invalid, like concluding pickles cause cancer. It’s dishonest to compare civilian non-combatants killed at their jobsite with U.S. GIs, however tragically slain, who volunteered to be in harm’s way. A less blatant news shaper might have mentioned the time differential, as well. The data merely state that Islamic terrorists managed to kill nearly 3,000 civilians in one day on American soil and have taken four years to kill as many U.S. soldiers patrolling the streets of Iraq – where the jihadists are aided by remnants of the Ba’athist regime, radical Shi’ites, Iran, and other foreign elements.
The AP’s comparison also ignores the casualties inflicted upon the enemy during that time, up significantly from 19 terrorists on 9/11. It overlooks the fact that 2,974 American deaths occurred during a nearly four-year-long conflict in which our soldiers killed or detained thousands of jihadists, disrupted al-Qaeda’s chain of command, ousted a murderous dictator from power, prevented a scion from assuming his throne, and may have prevented a second 9/11 from ever occurring. (And a third. And a fourth….)
This is not incidental, nor is it “news” – that is, the reporting of facts. This is manipulation of the news’s context in an attempt to shape U.S. policy.
And it wasn’t the only example in newspapers yesterday.
There is much more; read the rest here.
Associated Propaganda Press
Who is the bigger murderer, George W. Bush or Osama bin Laden? For the Associated Press, the scales are tipping in favor of our commander-in-chief.
The world’s most widely syndicated news service made the oblique, unflattering comparison yesterday in a story headlined “U.S. Deaths in Iraq Exceed 9/11 Count.” The AP reported with bated breath:
Trumpeting American deaths at every opportunity – a staple of enemy psychological warfare – is old hat for the leftist-dominated press. There were similar media orgies for the 2,000th casualty, the 1,000th casualty, even the 721st casualty. The media bemoaned a ban on portraying military caskets – which they quickly broke – and have taken to classifying each month as, e.g., “the fourth deadliest month of fighting.” None of these convinced the American people Operation Enduring Freedom was more harmful than 9/11.The U.S. military death toll in Iraq has reached 2,974, one more than the number of deaths in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, according to an Associated Press count on Tuesday. The U.S. military announced the deaths of two soldiers in a bomb explosion southwest of Baghdad on Monday.
The deaths raised the number of troops killed to 2,974 since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003. The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks claimed 2,973 victims in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania.
Enter yesterday’s story.
The AP’s choice of comparisons is vitally misleading. The reporter collated servicemen killed in Iraq to civilians murdered on 9/11 – rather than, say, with the number of homicides in a comparable number of American cities (where there are neither Fedayeen nor organized death squads, except those canonized in leftist victimology as “troubled inner city youths”). By its nature, this comparison beckons the reader to embrace the Left’s conclusions. The implication is clear: Operation Enduring Freedom has been worse for America than the 9/11 hijackings.
There are more sinister deductions implicit in this juxtaposition. To wit, al-Qaeda deliberately targeted civilians. Since – as the media never tire of reminding us – Iraq was a “war of choice,” by extension President Bush is worse than Osama bin Laden.
From this, the Left’s talking points begin to flow. The hijackings were bin Laden’s jihad against America’s “little Eichmanns”; Iraq is President Bush’s war against those dusky-skinned disenfranchised who were poor and illiterate enough to get “stuck in Iraq.” Whether by intent or default, this comparison makes him equally guilty of murder as the world’s foremost terrorist.
It seems almost beside the point to note that the comparison is invalid, like concluding pickles cause cancer. It’s dishonest to compare civilian non-combatants killed at their jobsite with U.S. GIs, however tragically slain, who volunteered to be in harm’s way. A less blatant news shaper might have mentioned the time differential, as well. The data merely state that Islamic terrorists managed to kill nearly 3,000 civilians in one day on American soil and have taken four years to kill as many U.S. soldiers patrolling the streets of Iraq – where the jihadists are aided by remnants of the Ba’athist regime, radical Shi’ites, Iran, and other foreign elements.
The AP’s comparison also ignores the casualties inflicted upon the enemy during that time, up significantly from 19 terrorists on 9/11. It overlooks the fact that 2,974 American deaths occurred during a nearly four-year-long conflict in which our soldiers killed or detained thousands of jihadists, disrupted al-Qaeda’s chain of command, ousted a murderous dictator from power, prevented a scion from assuming his throne, and may have prevented a second 9/11 from ever occurring. (And a third. And a fourth….)
This is not incidental, nor is it “news” – that is, the reporting of facts. This is manipulation of the news’s context in an attempt to shape U.S. policy.
And it wasn’t the only example in newspapers yesterday.
There is much more; read the rest here.
