How can it be, they insist, that Americans feel so smug about being on the side of Good versus terrorism? Surely we should instead ask "Who are we to judge?" and ruminate on past failures that must have brought this act upon us.
Nowhere is this more profoundly apparent than among the Leftist media elitists. First up is Stephen Jukes, head of news for Reuters news service, one of the largest in the world. He says that "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. We abstain from judgment and believe that the word terrorist is a loaded term."
Jukes tells media critic Howard Kurtz in The Washington Post: "We're trying to treat everyone on a level playing field."
Those who kill innocent civilians do not deserve a level playing field. They deserve to be treated as things to be discarded quickly and without ceremony, like eye-boogers. Yes, terrorists (strange, I have no problem using that term) are eye-boogers.
Can someone tell me what "freedom" Osama bin Laden is fighting for? Freedom from speech? Freedom from other religions? Above all else, freedom from Americans? And doesn't this theory mean that Reuters should also be interviewing those who would agree with the terrorist attacks?
Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar said last week in a message to the American people that we "must know that the sad events that took place recently were the result of your government's wrong policies.
"Your government is perpetrating all sorts of atrocities in Muslim countries. Instead of supporting your government's policies you should urge your government to reconsider their wrong and cruel policies," he said.
"The recent sad event in America was the result of these cruel policies and was meant to avenge this cruelty," he finished, without claiming to know who was responsible.
You know the sad thing? There are a lot of Americans who shake their heads in agreement while reading this pap.
Meantime, American journalists en masse are taking off their flags. ABC barred its on-air reporters from wearing American flag lapel pins, and Barbara Walters had already said she wouldn't wear one (and from the looks of things, she's purposefully staying away from red, white or blue in any outfit as well).
Who are we to judge? I think Jonah Goldberg over at National Review put it well:
"We are the United States of America, a free society and a free nation which has been, and continues to be, along with a few other comrades-in-arms like Great Britain, the greatest force for good in the history of the world - even after you deduct our considerable mistakes and shortcomings. Through our ideas, enterprise, and generosity we have done more, in the words of Francis Bacon...to relieve man's estate than any other nation or people in human history. To refute this is not a sign of sophistication; it is a sign of ignorance.
"...Sure, our policies may have contributed to this attack, but that doesn't make our policies wrong. To the extent our support for Israel contributed to the hatred behind this assault, that's a tragic consequence of the fact that America supports her allies and free nations - and Israel is both. As the scholar Michael Ledeen has written, 'Our support for Israel is not a tactical maneuver, subject to regular reconsideration. We support free democracies, and since Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, our support is automatic and obligatory.'"
It's not all bad, though. Despite not wearing flag lapels anymore, USA Today quoted a memo from an NBC News VP in which he urged his staff to be careful to not give away any secret military information. In his September 19 "Inside TV" column, Peter Johnson revealed:
"Loose lips sink ships. That famous World War II admonition has been invoked by NBC News, which warned its correspondents and producers Tuesday to take care in their reporting because 'that old saying has new meaning.'
"NBC News executive Bill Wheatley told staffers via memo that 'it's now time to be extremely cautious about what we report. Please take great care to make sure that our broadcasts don't inadvertently pass along information that could prove helpful to those who would do harm to our citizens, our officials and our military. Let's be careful about reporting specifics of presidential travel, of security arrangements, of secret military plans, troop movements and the like.'"
Some hopeful signs that some media leaders see themselves as Americans first and journalists second. (MRC.org)
But as we've seen the last few days at so-called "peace" rallies around the nation, there are plenty of young skulls full of mush who believe the U.S. is responsible for all ills of the world. These misled youngsters will gladly subvert the will of the government to the detriment of our troops and infest the media with visions of global governments dancing in their empty heads. It just shows that this new war isn't just a challenge of changing hearts in the Middle East, but in our own backyard as well.
It looks like week 2 was the allotted time for the Blame America First contingent to crawl out of their hiding places during what they must deem this disgusting bit of flag-waving patriotism.