Blaming the U.S. (NY Times joins Alger)

[B-Man]

John Podhoretz:

May 14, 2004 -- A MAN has his head cut off by al Qaeda in Iraq, and The New York Times aggressively markets the idea - on its front page yesterday - that his death is somehow the fault of the United States.
"The family of Nicholas E. Berg challenged American military officials on Wednesday," according to lead paragraph in the Times' story, "insisting that the man beheaded by Islamic terrorists in Iraq had earlier been in the custody of federal officials who should have done more to protect him."

Whatever the circumstances of Nick Berg's detention in Iraq and his family's torment at his unspeakable murder, the Times' decision to offer this angle as its main story in the matter of his beheading is a very telling fact about that newspaper, the mainstream media and the politics of 2004.

No matter what happens in the war with Iraq, no matter what the evildoers do, the Times wants to bring it back to high-level American misconduct - misconduct so severe that it supposedly calls the entire mission in Iraq into question. To blame the United States for Berg's beheading might be acceptable for Berg's own grief-deranged kin. But it is not acceptable for The New York Times or anyone else.

The Times is leading the mainstream media in turning the United States into the bad guys in Iraq. But it is far from alone.

Take a look at Time magazine's cover this week. It features an artist's rendering of one of the photographs from Abu Ghraib with the line: "Iraq: How Did It Come to This?"

"It" didn't come to "this." "It" is a war to liberate 25 million people and rout Islamic extremists, terrorists and those who thirst for the mass murder of Americans. "This" was an aberrancy that was stopped almost five months ago, when the revelations at Abu Ghraib led to investigations, arrests and the wholesale reinvention of the Iraq prison system.



Time's cover line is a vile and grotesque slander against every American in uniform in Iraq. It remains the case, more than two weeks after the public exposure of the Abu Ghraib photographs, that not a single digital photo showing mistreatment has emerged from another cellblock at that self-same prison, or from any of the other 24 prisons in Iraq.

Indeed, every photograph shown to U.S. senators yesterday is part of the same set of pictures featuring the same eight dirtbags.

The scandal isn't widening. If anything, it's contracting. The focus continues to zoom in on the actual people in the pictures and their disgusting conduct in them. And yet Teddy Kennedy, a man who once let a woman die, feels free to speak the following unspeakable words: "We now learn that Saddam's torture chambers reopened under new management, U.S. management."

The United States is, according to the man in whose car Mary Jo Kopechne drowned, no better than the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Teddy Kennedy isn't just some outlier. Teddy Kennedy is the chief surrogate of the Democratic candidate for president of the United States and a lionized figure - so lionized that a worshipful profile of him published in Boston magazine won a major journalism award last year.

So let's be clear what's going on here. As we speak, 138,000 Americans are serving under dangerous conditions in Iraq. And our forces in Karbala are fighting against the goons and thugs of Muqtada al-Sadr with some success. They're risking their lives for freedom and honor and duty and love of country.

And conventional liberal opinion wants them to lose.

Conventional liberal opinion believes that the Abu Ghraib photos are the true meaning of the war, and that Nick Berg is just another victim of callous U.S. policy.

Conventional liberal opinion is actively seeking the humiliation and defeat of the United States in Iraq.

[paland]

[ QUOTE ]
"It" didn't come to "this." "It" is a war to liberate 25 million people and rout Islamic extremists, terrorists and those who thirst for the mass murder of Americans.

[/ QUOTE ]

The problem with your arguement is that you repeat propaganda lines. We are not there to "liberate" anymore than we are interested in helping the homeless. And "we" started this war, not them. The administration abandoned the war against Terrorists so that they could fight Saddam. The terrorists are now getting stronger and we can thank Bush, Rove, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc.. for this. They have made our lives miserable. Thanks guys.

[Michael Davis]

They have undoubtedly made the world a worse place, but "they have made our lives miserable" is a gross hyperbole.

-Michael

[trippin bily]

paland, we didnt start the war..you know better. when they flew those planes into the towers they stared the war. People like you just refuse to acknowledge that the war in Iraq is part of the war on terrorism. Why it can honestly be said that there has not been a proven connection betwwen saddam and 911... it is clear that saddam had ties with terrorist throughout the world. including the animal that beheaded mr. berg. in iraq by the way. He had been there many times before the war. Once to seek medical treatment from saddams personnal doctor. the other trips i'm sure were for vacation only.
since we have gone to iraq libya has ceased to be a terrorist regime. they dismantled nuclear weapons and plants and put them on u. s . ships. didn't get much press coverage. didn't make america look bad or the current administation. libya will no longer sell weapons to iran, north korea, syria. didn't get much press coverage..didnt make america look bad or the current administration.
as for the terrorist getting stronger ha!
we have had them come from all over the world to fight our highly trained volunteer soldiers. who are killing them daily.
seems brilliant to me..we got the animals to come out of their holes and fight soldiers instead of killing innocent woman and children with planes.thast angle doesn't get much press coverage.. you know why. the terrorist are however blowing up many innocent iraqis. not sure why. i guess they must have had cameras.

[andyfox]

The people who flew the planes into the buildings in New York and Washington D.C. were from Saudi Arabia. The administration determined that they were Al-Qaeda, based in Afghanistan, given aid and comfort by the Taliban. It therefore attacked Afghanistan to go after Al-Qaeda and get rid of the Taliban.

The war in Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.

The detente with Libya had nothing to do with the war in Iraq. It had been in the works for years, with only the details needed to be worked out. The claim that Kaddafi came to his sense because of the war in Iraq is false. As is your claim that it didn't get much press coverage.

[elwoodblues]

[ QUOTE ]
The war in Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11

[/ QUOTE ]
I disagree. The war in Iraq has a lot to do with 9/11 (insofar as 9/11 was the catylyst with which Americans could have been talked into bombing the Vatican because of its ties to terrorists). Unfortunately, Iraq itself had nothing to do with 9/11.

[andyfox]

Bad language skills, I agree. 9/11 had nothing to do with Iraq. Indeed, it was crucial to the justification for war in Iraq.

[paland]

[ QUOTE ]
paland, we didnt start the war..you know better. when they flew those planes into the towers they stared the war.

[/ QUOTE ]
Gotta love the "they" in this statement. The great house of THEY. When the Muir Building in Oklahoma City was bombed in the name of McFeigh's version of Christianity, did you blame it on ALL Christians?

But as someone mentioned above, it was Saudi's. You know, the country that is VERY friendly with the Bush family.

[MMMMMM]

[ QUOTE ]
Gotta love the "they" in this statement. The great house of THEY. When the Muir Building in Oklahoma City was bombed in the name of McFeigh's version of Christianity, did you blame it on ALL Christians?

[/ QUOTE ]

McVeigh wasn't part of a large cult intent on terrorism, though, whereas the architects and executors of 9/11 were (the cult of radical militant Islam, courtesy of Wahabbi Saudi Arabia). Besides, trippinBilly isn't blaming it on ALL Muslims. The parallel you drew is absurd.

[sam h]

Clearly you haven't even bothered to investigate even the most basic claims you are making, such that Libya stopped being a trafficker of nuclear materials to other countries. You can't stop selling weapons if you never sold them in the first place.