Calling homicide bombers martyrs is a language offense; words are every bit as powerful as bombs, often more so. Calling murderers “martyrs” is like calling a man "customer" because he stood in line before gunning down a store clerk. There's no need to whisper. I hear the bombs every single day. Not some days, but every day. We're talking about criminals who actually volunteer and plan to deliberately murder and maim innocent people. What reservoir of feelings or sensibilities do we fear to assault by simply calling it so? When murderers describe themselves as "martyrs" it should sound to sensible ears like a rapist saying, “she was asking for it.” In other words, like the empty rationalizations of a depraved criminal.
If you haven't checked out Yon's site yet, you should. He has recently been reporting on the Battle of Mosul and his writting is gripping and accurate. His reporting from the front lines of Iraq will give you an excellent perspective about what is going on there and how things are going from the soldier's perspective. You
can even subscribe for online updates.
You won't get this sort of information from the MSM, who are more interested in the opinions of those who oppose the war; instead of those who are fighting it. Austin Bay has a good discussion of the Associated Press's reporting in Iraq. Quoting from a NY Times article:
Rosemary Goudreau, the editorial page editor of The Tampa Tribune, has received the same e-mail message a dozen times over the last year.
“Did you know that 47 countries have re-established their embassies in Iraq?” the anonymous polemic asks, in part. “Did you know that 3,100 schools have been renovated?”
“Of course we didn’t know!” the message concludes. “Our media doesn’t tell us!”
Ms. Goudreau’s newspaper, like most dailies in America, relies largely on The Associated Press for its coverage of the Iraq war. So she finally forwarded the e-mail message to Mike Silverman, managing editor of The A.P., asking if there was a way to check these assertions and to put them into context. Like many other journalists, Mr. Silverman had also received a copy of the message.
Ms. Goudreau’s query prompted an unusual discussion last month in New York at a regular meeting of editors whose newspapers are members of The Associated Press. Some editors expressed concern that a kind of bunker mentality was preventing reporters in Iraq from getting out and explaining the bigger picture beyond the daily death tolls.
“The bottom-line question was, people wanted to know if we’re making progress in Iraq,” Ms. Goudreau said, and the A.P. articles were not helping to answer that question…
But you see, if people don't know that we are making significant progress in Iraq, then they are more likely to
(a) blame Bush's policies, and give him a poor job approval
(b) believe the Iraq War accomplished nothing except to cause American soldiers to die
(c) believe we should get out of Iraq now because it is a quagmire like Vietnam
(d) all of the above
Of course those are precisely the outcomes that the terror enablers and bush haters would like to see.
No comments:
Post a Comment