August 2, 2006

The Propaganda War

Three groups are waging a spectacularly unified propaganda war against the Israeli military, the U.S. military and the Bush administration. They are the liberal media outlets, liberals in the U.S. Congress and the United Nations. In a world with a 24/7 microscopic news cycle, one statement that is twisted, misunderstood or misrepresented can sway public opinion and political reaction more than 1,000 tanks and 10,000 bombs.  

The liberal media outlets basically refuse to call the members of Hezbollah, Hamas or our enemies in Iraq what they really are – Islamic terrorists. They most often refer to the Islamic terrorists as militiamen, militia fighters, insurgents and guerrillas. The liberal media see a moral equivalence between our soldiers and those of the enemy. Our soldiers and allies do not intentionally target innocent civilians. Islamic terrorists do.

For example, an article in the July 28 Washington Post said, “Undeterred after 16 days of attacks, Hezbollah militiamen again fired volleys of rockets into northern Israel…”

First, these so-called Hezbollah militiamen attacked Israel on its soil, which triggered the current conflict. Israel is retaliating against the Islamic terrorist organization for killing and kidnapping its soldiers and continuing to launch rockets into its homeland.

Second, Hezbollah is not a fledgling organization comprised of militiamen. Hezbollah is a well-funded and well-trained Islamic terrorist organization. It is backed by Syria and Iran and has stretched its tentacles into Lebanon’s political system.

We can also see the liberal media’s propaganda machine by watching White House spokesman Tony Snow’s press briefings. Snow has painstakingly labored to explain to White House correspondents that a cease-fire for a cease-fire’s sake will solve nothing. Numerous cease-fires have been declared in the past, and the Islamic terrorists break the agreements every time.

And yet the following question, asked at the July 24 briefing, suggests that at least this member of the press has no understanding whatsoever of this history: “When so many other world leaders and entities are saying we need a more immediate cease-fire, and the U.S. persists in this view that it must be sustainable, is it not then for people to infer that the U.S. views that crushing Hezbollah is more important than the short-term loss of civilian lives and civilian structures?”

The question is more like an accusation – accusing the administration of favoring the destruction of Hezbollah, as if this were an inherently objectionable position. Perhaps the liberal reporters do not want to get it.

Liberal members of our own U.S. Congress also contribute to the propaganda war by politicizing the war at every turn.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Maliki spoke recently to a joint session of Congress. Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL) said of Maliki’s speech, “I thought the speech was wholly lacking, disingenuous and disrespectful of other nations in the region.”

Which other nations is Maliki supposed to respect? Iraq’s neighbors who harbor and fund the terrorists attempting to topple a democratic Iraq?

Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) boycotted Maliki’s speech, stating, “When will he be able to take over the security of his own country so that American soldiers may leave?” My guess is this process would be completed sooner, rather than later, if Congressional liberals would recognize the progress being made to achieve their goal.

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan is aflutter because four unarmed U.N. military observers – or peacekeepers, or whatever term the media wants to call them – were killed in an Israeli airstrike. Annan was “shocked” by the “apparently deliberate targeting by Israeli Defense Forces of a U.N. observer post in southern Lebanon.” Annan accused Israel of deliberately targeting the U.N. site before any investigation was conducted. Neither Annan nor the most of the media mentioned that Hezbollah deliberately hides among Lebanese civilians and launches rockets near U.N. bases, daring the Israelis to return fire into civilian and U.N-occupied areas.

The liberals’ propaganda machine has become the press operation of the Islamic terrorists who plot to destroy America, her military and western civilization. This is not President Bush’s war, or Israel’s war, or a small problem the Middle East will just have to work out for itself. This is a global war we must wage against those who want to destroy our way of life.

American liberals are fighting the war against our great nation with words instead of bullets. Left unchallenged, their words can be just as lethal.