Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Press Puppets: Ammo To Use On The Press (Good Read)
E-Freedom News ^ | 27 Apr 03 | Jonathan Rhodes

Posted on 5/1/2003, 4:29:43 AM by 11B3

Press Puppets
Jonathan Rhodes
efreedomnews.com
27 April 2003

Here in America, they deify "reporters" who ask the tough questions - get in the face of government officials and  fundamentalist (Christian) religious leaders, insist on representation and the rights of minorities, debate the status quo. Yet they are conspicuously unable to bring these talents to bear on the rest of the world. Pandering to the leftist elitist movement, this smacks of racism. If they will not hold Arab peoples to the same standard of humanitarianism then the press is either a propaganda tool or racist, unable to hold the Arab world to the same standards they so solemnly demand of western leaders.

Once these elitist torchbearers go abroad, they lose all context and become puppets of foreign propaganda machines.

Where are these incisive questions asked?

Does every Frenchman support Chirac in his anti-American crusade? Is there no political opposition in France? The same goes for Herr Schroeder in Germany and Putin in Russia.

We constantly hear about the Palestinians and Mr. Arafat - but where are the questions about Arafat's decades of rule without democratic process? Are there no Palestinians who seek his office? Of course there are! But their voices are repressed. Where are the tough questions from American reporters who only ask the Israelis and the Americans about their policy towards Arafat and never question the legitimacy of the PLO reign? Every day in America pundits criticize the government and a constant stream of officials and opposition politicos sell their platforms in print, on radio and television.

Where is the Al Jazeera show where the Palestinians, Saudis, Egyptians, debate their own future

The mullahs demands for theocracy are never held to the obvious. Where is the CNN microphone demanding to know how they justify the fundamentalist's repression of women and Shiites, Kurds, Christians and Copts. Where are the pictures of piles of shed Burkas and clean shaven faces in Afghanistan? In America, the Dixie Chicks boast their nudity on the cover of Entertainment Weekly as a response to criticism of their politics. They are held up as victims of a repressive public politic that will not tolerate anti-Americanism and is punishing them by cutting CD sales 40%. Meanwhile, women under Islamic fundamentalist rule are stoned, tortured, beheaded and raped for showing themselves in public without the total cover of the Burka, yet there is no outcry from NOW, no incisive report from Christine Amanpour.

Where are the Al-Jazeera debates between secularists and the Imams? Are we to believe there is no voice for freedom of religion in the Arab world? Or is that voice equally repressed by the mullahs and the world press?

While 51% of the Iranian population is under 21, and two recent polls show the Iranian people have no support for their minority theocrat leaders, (only six percent of 16,000 people polled in Tehran said they were satisfied with the regime; the other 94 percent said they were unhappy with it. Moreover, nearly half of those polled — 45 percent — said it was impossible to reform the system and must be totally changed) there is essentially no ongoing mass media reporting on the plight of this entire nation of educated young people repressed by a dictatorial, vicious regime.

When Tariq Aziz visited the Vatican and had a private audience with the pope, this  former Iraqi Foreign Minister who championed hanging Jews in Baghdad while he ran an Iraqi newspaper refused to take questions from an Israeli reporter. The reporter respectfully asked Aziz about Iraq's ability to reach Israel with missiles and even thanked the minister for listening to the question. Aziz said he would answer no questions from members of "the Israeli media." There were boos from the assembled members of the press - but that was it! The press conference went on and the matter dropped. Unbelievable. Does not one member of the Headline Hunters have a basic knowledge of world history? During World War II, Pope, Pius XII used the Vatican Bank to fund escape routes for Nazi war criminals and reestablish former Nazis in South America. This is documented in a San Francisco federal court lawsuit filed by Holocaust survivors and their heirs against the Vatican Bank and Franciscan Order. Declassified CIA documents in the hands of the plaintiffs and their expert witness, John Loftus (Unholy Trinity: The Vatican, The Nazis, and The Swiss Banks, St Martin's Press 1997), verify that top Croatian Nazis were billeted in Vatican safe houses after the war including major war criminals.

Finally - faced with the outright murder of 3,000 civilians on September 11, 2001, the United States responded with the greatest military achievement since the Battle of Cunaxa, or Alexander the Great's  destruction of the Achaemenid Empire. Totally surprised and unprepared, the US took on an enemy 6,000 miles away in Afghanistan, having no reliable local allies, no ports or usable airspace, no support among the Islamic world. Our only allies on the ground held less than 10% of the country after years of fighting. The Taliban ruled the remainder of the country with a naked iron hand, having no need for the velvet glove of modern civilization. The terrain was markedly inhospitable. The Russians and British told us only of their years of struggle resulting in ultimate defeat in their military excursions in Afghanistan. We were told fighting during the holy month of Ramadan would result in a firestorm of American hatred across the Arab world bringing more terrorism to our shores if not starting a mass war across the middle east. Yet, in less than 2 months the US destroyed the Taliban, freed the joyous Afghans from their fundamentalist persecutors, and then installed the beginnings of a civil society and government. No middle eastern war resulted. Demonstrations in Arab nations petered out. Critics of the expedition crept into the shadows lest their shrill, disproved commentary be remembered.

Then on to Iraq - again the same rhetoric of defeat reigned from the talking heads at network news desks. The New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times took editorial positions against a military solution to the Hussein regime and published only negatively skewed "news" reports until the obvious victory was too much to ignore.

Actors and minstrels decided to use their access to the media to espouse their anti-war positions, then cried foul when their public turned on them. They forgot, if they ever knew, that freedom of expression includes the responsibility to take the heat for your opinions. But I digress - What will history record? Will a picture of Susan Sarandon grace the introduction to the greatest military achievement in modern history? Hans von Sponeck, the former U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, was quoted that the U.S. " will lose the war. This will be World War Three."  Immanuel Wallerstein of Yale predicted that the "most likely" scenario is "a long exhausting war." and that "losing, incredible as it seems (but then it seemed so in Vietnam too) is a plausible outcome, one chance in three." What have they said since? Where are they now?

History will record the US victory in Iraq as unprecedented in military history. Never has an army moved so far, so fast, maintained supply lines rather than plunder the countryside by living off the field, suffered so few casualties, so minimized civilian casualties, and then so professionally claimed their victory without plundering the riches of the vanquished, instead moving immediately to establish self-governance for the Iraqi people. This campaign will become a pinnacle of military achievement, studied in war colleges across the globe through the ages.

Yet what do we get for "news?"

THE DIXIE CHICKS ARE NUDE!
 



TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Miscellaneous; Philosophy
KEYWORDS:
A small dish of crow to eat for the chicken littles. Of course they're still out there spreading their 'doom and gloom' BS, but the world is starting to see them as they really are. Finally.

This is also a fitting article for the likes of Justin Raimondo et al. You know who you are out there.

1 posted on 5/1/2003, 4:29:43 AM by 11B3
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

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.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson