I guess "60 Minutes II" has its first kill.
A guy named Nick Berg.
It was his misfortune to be an enemy captive during sweeps. A lot
of people have died to protect the First Amendment, but this is
the first time the First Amendment itself has killed one of them
outright.
The media and the politicians started an orgy and Nick Berg had
to pay the tab. You pump those pictures of abused Iraqi prisoners
long enough and pretty soon there's going to be hell to pay. But
then, that's OK. It gives them another story, another thing to criticize
the president for, another tool to demoralize the country with,
another way to tear down our troops. And we're left to ponder the
question: When do politics and journalism become treason? And when
will all those squawking whores realize they have blood on their
hands?
About a half a dozen inbred low-ranking Reservists roughed up and
humiliated some Iraqi prisoners. It was wrong, it was an embarrassment,
it was a violation of our values. But at least we have values. Unlike
these savages with their "God is great" shouts while they saw the
head off a hogtied cell phone salesman. They rant and rave about
"Muslim dignity and honor" and then act like the sub-humans they
are. What a filthy, hateful, degenerate society they speak for.
And we played right into their hands.
Billion-dollar media companies showing pictures over and over and
over again of some naked guys with hoods on their heads. The abuse
of those prisoners was inexcusable, but so, too, is the completely
disproportional and sensational manner in which it has been reported.
These isolated and essentially insignificant abuses have been repeated
incessantly day after day while every other issue of the war has
been ignored and buried. The pictures depict real events, but the
emphasis upon them without context or proportionality creates an
impression that is deceptive and false. And evidence of a disturbing
double standard.
The same networks that grind the mill of these pictures, have long
since decided not to show pictures of the collapsing twin towers.
They never showed video of the scores and scores of people who leapt
to their deaths from the World Trade Center. Americans in Iraq just
weeks ago were murdered and mutilated and their bodies were strung
up from a bridge - but we don't see those pictures. Each week soldiers
and Marines are blown up and shot, and we don't see pictures of
them struggling against their wounds on the field of battle.
Why is it that photographs of the bad things the other side does
to us are never broadcast while pictures of bad things we do to
them are trumpeted around the world? Why is it that the American
press is decidedly anti-American in this conflict? And can anyone
deny that, in light of Nick Berg's murder, that the American news
media functions as an aide and facilitation of terrorist hate? Didn't
the American media give Nick Berg's murderers both an excuse and
an outlet for their terroristic butchery? And wouldn't it be better
if the next time they broadcast pictures of naked Iraqis in a pyramid
they also show pictures of those "God is great" boys waving Nick
Berg's head around, and then ask their viewers: Whose prisoner would
you rather be, the Americans' or the terrorists'?
At the end of the day, we humiliated their prisoners and they murdered
ours. Neither is right, but one is a whole lot worse than the other.
And it should not be forgotten, either, that while the prisoners
we hold are suspected terrorists and mass murderers - all of them
enemy combatants - the prisoner they killed was some out-of-work
civilian hoping to find a job. He went to Iraq to peacefully help
Iraqis, and their Muslim brothers butchered him. So who's got the
stink finger now?
It's easy to see the enemy for the lice they are. But it's important
to recognize the useful idiots in the media and politics who seem
to help them. Democrat politician after Democrat politician cried
about the prison abuse, their presidential candidate even used the
issue to raise money - all while they knew Americans were being
held by terrorists and insurgents, and while any thinking person
would know that continued attention to the prisoner abuse could
only bring difficulty or death to captive Americans.
Well, now they have a notch on their gun.You' d hope they'd learn
a lesson. But they won't. They'll just keep it up, and to hell with
anybody who gets hurt along the way. It looks like the Fourth Estate
has become the Fifth Column.
- by Bob Lonsberry
