Posted on 06/26/2005 9:52:05 PM PDT by CHARLITE
Baby Killer! Nazi! Gulag! Genghis Khan! Khmer Rouge! Torturer! And more!
These are the charges and shouts heard by Americans against the U.S. military during the Vietnam War and now. Sadly, they're spoken and yelled by Americans, who should know better.
During Vietnam, some radical college students used this offensive and hurtful language. Now, these defamers have graduated into positions of power and influence throughout America's institutions. They're at it again.
They haven't learned anything from the mass murders, atrocities and death camps perpetrated by their Indochinese communist heroes. They haven't learned anything from the slaughter of almost 3,000 on 9/11, a toll larger than Pearl Harbor's, a ruthless declaration of war against everything America and the West is. They haven't learned anything from the mass murders, atrocities and death camps of the Afghan and Iraqi despots we removed, or the bombings, beheadings and tortures of innocents by those we and the new Afghani and Iraqi forces are rooting out.
Maybe even worse, and more telling, they haven't even learned elemental decency in language.
Recently, I washed my 5-year-old son's mouth out with soap. His potty language quickly stopped, and has not been repeated.
I suggest the same be administered to those leaders who are now using such potty language to slander the American military and Americans. They deserve public shame and strong criticism. If other Americans do not, especially others in positions of responsibility, then they are complicit in the degradation of America. This destroys our future as a civil society. It also does give aid and comfort to our sworn enemies abroad.
The portents are not good. Leaders of some of the highest institutions in America are keeping still, or mealy mouthing and only when pressed, or blatantly defending their turf though poisoned by such potty mouth malefactors.
On the right
Note that this disgraceful language is not solely on the political left. Radicals on the right have long been chastised for their offensive slurs, and have largely been correctly relegated to the dustbin of civilized political discourse.
The only recent example of a mainstream Republican office holder falling into this rhetorical pit is Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa. In May, during the heated arguments over the minority Democrats blocking an up-or-down vote by the Senate over judicial nominations, Santorum said: "The audacity of some members to stand up and say, 'How dare you break this rule' - it's the equivalent of Adolf Hitler in 1942 saying, 'I'm in Paris, how dare you invade me.' "
Santorum was immediately criticized for this language, analogizing some Democrats' tactics to Hitler, not only by Democrats but also by Republican leaders. Santorum immediately apologized.
On the left
By contrast let's look at a few of the more blatant recent examples of conduct on the left.
Last February, CNN president Eason Jordan was criticized in the conservative blogosphere for publicly accusing the U.S. military of purposely targeting journalists in Iraq for murder, without any evidence. CNN defended Jordan. For weeks, in solidarity, the leading media ignored the building controversy. Then, they tried to call it overblown. It was documented that Jordan had previously, also, spoken such public slanders. Under public exposure, if only in the conservative blogosphere, Jordan resigned. The leading newspapers never did report the details of why.
This unacceptable speech was not an exception. Linda Foley is the president of the Newspaper Guild, the union for 35,000 editors, reporters and others at newspapers across the country. On May 13, ironically at a conclave on media reform, she said: "Journalists ... are being targeted for real ... in places like Iraq ... what outrages me as a representative of journalists is that there's not more outrage about the number, and the brutality, and the cavalier nature of the U.S. military toward the killing of journalists in Iraq."
Foley refused to speak to the very few reporters who followed up on her charges. Her spokesperson admitted, however, that Foley had "no evidence" to support her charges. Then Foley finally responded to continued pressure, saying she "doesn't believe that our service men and women would knowingly fire on journalists." She added: "I was careful of not saying troops, I said U.S. military."
Make sense of that: It is the military, made up of U.S. servicepeople, but not them personally, who murder journalists. Richard Roth, a friend of Foley, senior associate dean of Northwestern University's school of journalism, where Foley is on the advisory board, said her statement is "a real puzzler ... (her charge) doesn't square with the rest of what I read." (Quoted by Thomas Lipscomb in The Chicago Sun-Times, May 24.)
Only a very few other journalists have spoken out. For example, see Guild member Jack Kelley at the Toledo Blade. And Guild member Mr. Hiawatha Bray at choose honor blogspot.com.
As Bray says: "For me, the most worrisome aspect of this entire affair is the realization that few of my colleagues are troubled by this in the least. They seem to believe there's nothing at all to fret about when a prominent voice in American journalism feels free to slander American soldiers."
John Leo, a seasoned journalist, wrote in U.S. News & World Report (June 13): "A Nexis database search last week failed to turn up a straight news report on Foley's remark anywhere in America. ... Remember, she is president of the union representing 35,000 reporters, editors and other journalism workers."
The editor of the Newspaper Guild's official newspaper, on June 17, added fuel to the fire by accusing all critics of Foley as being "right-wing extremists." In a long, rambling piece, Andy Zipser even defends the now-infamous Ward Churchill for calling the victims of 9/11 in the World Trade Center "money changers," a term used by the increasingly anti-Semitic far left. Zipser then has the effrontery to call Churchill a "poster child for such tactics" of unfair attack by right-wing extremists.
Excuse me! It's left-wing extremists who defame America, U.S. servicepeople, the innocent victims of 9/11.
The leading media continue to avoid covering this disgraceful speech by, coincidentally, the lady who controls the union that can cause them much trouble.
There's a new campaign to increase the pressure on the Newspaper Guild union to repudiate Foley.
Foley's latest statement only says: "I used strong words and said it rather clumsily," and then goes on at length to attack anyone criticizing her as part of "the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy" and to restate her unsubstantiated charge that journalists are being targeted.
Hey, Linda Foley, Americans who serve in or support our military are not all right-wingers, the menace you paint anyone critical of your slander.
And in truth, there is no united, lock-step, organized "conservative blogosphere," but people of varying views and emphases. Most, like most Americans, don't have military experience or service, and feel at root safe and distant from the bloody frontline faced by our troops who are being slandered. And the insularity of unions, particularly one largely composed of liberal media members, is one of the most insensitive to public opinion in the U.S. So most will take Foley's hollow words as a backdown and go on to other matters.
But speaking of our frontline troops, as Gen. Abizaid, head of the U.S. Central Command, told hostile Senator Ted ("Everything the U.S. Does is a Quagmire") Kennedy on June 23: "When my soldiers say to me and ask me the question of whether or not they've got the support of the American people, that worries me. And they're starting to do that."
Gen. Abizaid continued that Afghan and Iraqi military officers raise the same concern: "They worry we don't have the staying power to see the mission through" (New York Times, June 24). The BBC reports that the tide of Arab opinion and reporting is turning against the indiscriminate slaughter tactics of Iraqi thugs America's mostly liberal media need to catch up to reality.
Americans, seemingly and feeling removed from war, need to focus on what's at stake here: "Islamofascists have already started World War IV." As Mike Rosen, of The Rocky Mountain News, continues in his column of June 24: "Our erstwhile allies and many of our own citizens are still in denial. ... This is a new kind of war for us. ... Surrender isn't an alternative." Rosen wonders if many are suffering the panicked misperceptions of mini-Tet '68 due to frontpaging every U.S. casualty, although average daily military deaths in Iraq are 2.1, in Vietnam were 18.8, Korea 33.7, WW II 222, or domestic homicides 52 and bicycle accidents 2.5.
I had the honor on June 25 to sit on a bench at the playground with an infantry Marine corporal who had tours in Afghanistan and Iraq while our kids played. He teared up at one point, and told me his and other Marines' personal hurt at things said about him and his comrades.
Which takes us to Democratic Party chair Howard Dean speaking like a gutter rabble-rouse. For example, there was Dean on Jan. 29: "I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for."
His hate was evident on a May 22 interview on NBC's "Meet the Press":
Howard Dean: "I think Tom DeLay ought to go back to Houston, where he can serve his jail sentence."
Tim Russert: "You said in December of 2003 that we shouldn't prejudge Osama bin Laden. How can you sit here and have a different standard for Tom DeLay and prejudge him?"
The behavior Dean spoke of, accepting lobbyists' funds for foreign trips, has since been revealed for most members of Congress, Democrat and Republican, and coincidentally faded from Dean's and leading media's focus.
Dean on June 6, said of Republicans: "They all behave the same and they all look the same. It's pretty much a white Christian party."
Imagine the liberal uproar if the words "black, secular" were substituted for "white, Christian" and the speaker referring to Democrats. Oh, 70-plus percent of America is white and Christian.
Some Democratic leaders have mildly disassociated themselves from Dean's outrageous language. For example, Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, a possible contender for president in 2008, said: "Dean was using not the kind of tone I would use, not the kind of tone a lot of the Democratic governors in mostly Republican states are using to get elected or to govern."
How's that for avoiding the elephant in the room, grossly unacceptable language, and only focusing on how to misguide voters in elections?
Most recently, we have the almost incredibly bad taste of Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the number-two Democrat in the Senate. On June 14, on the Senate floor, he read a portion of an unsubstantiated letter purportedly from an FBI agent (now called fabricated by an anonymous "knowledgeable official") saying that a captured enemy combatant at Guantanamo was chained to the floor, subjected to loud rap music and the air conditioner's temperature fiddled with.
(Contrast this with Saddam's slaughter of tens of thousands of innocents, estimated at well over 100,000 a year, the beheadings and atrocities by the anti-democratic thugs since. Or contrast it to fraternity hazing or boot camp.)
The inference that Sen. Durbin drew from this, as he continued: "You would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime - Pol Pot or others - that had no concern for human beings."
Criticized by conservative bloggers and a few conservative newspapers, Durbin refused to apologize. The New York Times' and Washington Post's editorial pages were silent on this insane slander. Al Jazeera wasn't silent, as it broadcast this headline all over the Arab world: "US senator stands by Nazi remark." It was the second most e-mailed story on Al Jazeera, spreading further around the Arab world. Gee, do you think our enemies are encouraged by this, and Arabs turned against the U.S.?
Durbin, then, weaseled when he said that he had "learned from my statement that historical parallels can be misused and misunderstood" and that he "sincerely regrets if what I said caused anyone to misunderstand my true feelings."
The Anti-Defamation League said of this: "Senator Santorum apologized. Senator Durbin's explanation is not an apology, and I think an apology is in order."
The furor spread, although not among his silent fellow Democrat senators. The Senate's number-one Democrat, Harry Reid, D-Nev., called a demand for Durbin to apologize "pathetic." The furor mounted. Then, Chicago's powerful Democrat mayor, Richard Daley, who controls the fate of his state's senator, called Durbin's charge a "disgrace." Daley's son is serving in Iraq.
So finally, on June 21, Durbin said he was apologizing. "Some may believe that my remarks crossed the line. To them, I extend my heartfelt apologies. ... I offer my apologies to those offended by my words." His fellow Senators accepted that, so they could move on with other business, or was it to go-along, get-along?
Note that Durbin did not say he was wrong, or wouldn't do it again, the makings of a real apology. He just said he's sorry to offend. To make that more evident, on June 22, Durbin told The St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "It's not that my remarks were wrong or that there's any need to apologize."
To mend fences at home, Durbin on June 23 accepted a formerly not-accepted invitation to address the Illinois Veterans of Foreign Wars convention on June 25. There, he again said "I'm sorry" and went on to promise support for veterans programs and armor for our troops. That was applauded. The VFW is an aging institution of aging vets usually prioritizing their benefits over the comradeship with current troops, as was also experienced by my generation of Vietnam veterans.
Letting him skate, the Senate not censuring him, the local VFW delegates not protesting, is a further insult to anyone with a shred of intelligence or decency.
The stakes
The American people are not yet falling for all the left's attacks on America and America's sons and daughters in the military. In their usual collective good sense, the Rasmussen Survey released June 22 found that 20 percent of Americans believe prisoners at Guantanamo have been treated unfairly. Seven-out-of-ten believe the prisoners are being treated "better than they deserve" (36 percent) or "about right" (34 percent).
The left's Vietnam-era outrageous verbiage is now being repeated, vilifying America, treating it as the enemy. Its infiltration into the highest corridors of America's institutions is insidious, and more dangerous than before. Then, millions on the other side of the world suffered and were massacred. This time the collapse of America's will could mean millions in the West will suffer terribly at the hands of the jihadists.
Alarmist? You betcha. Ring the alarm. Wake up and smell the coffee. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee polled 85 top nonproliferation and national-security experts. According to them, we face a 50 percent chance of a nuclear, biological, chemical or radiological attack within the next five years, and 70 percent over the next 10-years (Associated Press, June 23).
The extreme left, as in Vietnam, is seeking nothing less than the destruction of the American will and the denigration of our defenses. This does not mean there should not be civil and constructive disagreements and responsible debate over our tactics and strategy. I must add that the validity of armchair ignorance and political demagoguery - when that is so - is usually trumped by frontline knowledge and command responsibility. But the extreme left is not interested in responsible dialogue in a democracy, building a better America. It is a preparatory WMD in our midst.
(Contributor's note: Thanks to Steve Schippert for his quick research help.)
Bruce Kesler is a regular contributor to The Augusta Free Press.
I left out many reference links which can be found by clicking on the link.
Char :)
This is the new battle cry of the Marxist left. I heard Perky Katie Kouric say much the same thing this week. That statement is not of course meant as a compliment, it is said with great venom as if being a white Christian was worse than being like Saddam and Hitler combined. Frightening to put it mildly.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.