Down page there is a post, a byline from Maureen Dowd and the New York Times, the reporting of an incident, in which a soldier in the New Iraqi Army threw down his weapon and curled up in a ball in fear during combat. Did the incident actually occur or was it created out of “whole cloth” by those bent on discrediting any and everything associated with our winning the Iraq War?
My first inclination is to believe the story to be a lie, coming from CNN and the NYT as it does. But further thought on it makes me think that the story is probably true. Did an Iraqi soldier panic and lose himself to overcoming terror in the face of impending doom? Has any of the insurgents ever been struck immobile and given themselves to apoplexy when the Marines come through the door or the moment before an American missile comes through the roof? Has a United States Marine ever cried out in fear when he realized he had walked into an ambush? In other words, does anyone ever experience fear in war? The answer, I think, is obvious.
What is at play in the story of the Iraqi soldier is a much greater and deeper phenomenon. What is interesting, and what would be almost comical were it not so despicable, is that a Liberal news organization seems to be driven by a “need” only to help America lose a war. Neither the New York Times nor CNN think it newsworthy that thousands of new schools have been built in Iraq since the U.S. invasion. Neither made any mention of the hundreds of new hospitals that also have been constructed. Likewise the history lesson playing out in Iraq at this very moment, that of a new government being formed and the populace participating in elections and self-determination, apparently is of no news value in their estimation.
Now, should the Press be prevented from carrying negative stories? Certainly not, and had the story come in the midst of other stories about the schools and the hospitals, I would find no nefarious intent in their motive or their agenda. However, both of the aforementioned news organizations have demonstrated a history of producing “only” the negative, the failures, the shortcomings, the gloom and the despair.
In headlines, reminiscent of Berlin Betty & Tokyo Rose they blast away, ferreting out a story about a poor soul who was afraid of dying, and they use that single incident in an attempt to betray the entire effort of what we are trying to accomplish in Iraq. They use a moment in time for a scared Iraqi soldier to suggest that the entire Iraqi Army is made of cowards. They call them cowards, men who are drawn from a people who flock to the polls in great numbers, in the face of almost certain death, to vote in their own futures, even dipping their fingers in indelible ink to show their defiance of terrorists who murder innocent women and children. They call them cowards, men who leave home every morning to serve their country, not knowing whether or not their families will be killed during the day because of their service to their country.
With one single incident the Liberal Media have disparaged an entire population of brave human beings, and they have done it apparently for no other reason than to inflict some negative press on the President and the war effort.
The American Liberal news organizations could well afford to be even half as “cowardly” as are the Iraqi people.
Jack Dallas
Circa 2005
My first inclination is to believe the story to be a lie, coming from CNN and the NYT as it does. But further thought on it makes me think that the story is probably true. Did an Iraqi soldier panic and lose himself to overcoming terror in the face of impending doom? Has any of the insurgents ever been struck immobile and given themselves to apoplexy when the Marines come through the door or the moment before an American missile comes through the roof? Has a United States Marine ever cried out in fear when he realized he had walked into an ambush? In other words, does anyone ever experience fear in war? The answer, I think, is obvious.
What is at play in the story of the Iraqi soldier is a much greater and deeper phenomenon. What is interesting, and what would be almost comical were it not so despicable, is that a Liberal news organization seems to be driven by a “need” only to help America lose a war. Neither the New York Times nor CNN think it newsworthy that thousands of new schools have been built in Iraq since the U.S. invasion. Neither made any mention of the hundreds of new hospitals that also have been constructed. Likewise the history lesson playing out in Iraq at this very moment, that of a new government being formed and the populace participating in elections and self-determination, apparently is of no news value in their estimation.
Now, should the Press be prevented from carrying negative stories? Certainly not, and had the story come in the midst of other stories about the schools and the hospitals, I would find no nefarious intent in their motive or their agenda. However, both of the aforementioned news organizations have demonstrated a history of producing “only” the negative, the failures, the shortcomings, the gloom and the despair.
In headlines, reminiscent of Berlin Betty & Tokyo Rose they blast away, ferreting out a story about a poor soul who was afraid of dying, and they use that single incident in an attempt to betray the entire effort of what we are trying to accomplish in Iraq. They use a moment in time for a scared Iraqi soldier to suggest that the entire Iraqi Army is made of cowards. They call them cowards, men who are drawn from a people who flock to the polls in great numbers, in the face of almost certain death, to vote in their own futures, even dipping their fingers in indelible ink to show their defiance of terrorists who murder innocent women and children. They call them cowards, men who leave home every morning to serve their country, not knowing whether or not their families will be killed during the day because of their service to their country.
With one single incident the Liberal Media have disparaged an entire population of brave human beings, and they have done it apparently for no other reason than to inflict some negative press on the President and the war effort.
The American Liberal news organizations could well afford to be even half as “cowardly” as are the Iraqi people.
Jack Dallas
Circa 2005