Posted on 11/13/2003 2:01:23 PM PST by swilhelm73
FIFTH COLUMN WATCH: How can one express adequate horror at Ted Rall's latest rationalization for murdering U.S. and allied troops. Check out this column, written as a memo to Baathists and terrorists now killing Americans - and published on Veterans' Day:
It is no easy thing to shoot or blow up young men and women because they wear American uniforms. Indeed, the soldiers are themselves oppressed members of America's vast underclass. Many don't want to be here; joining America's mercenary army is the only way they can afford to attend university. Others, because they are poor and uneducated, do not understand that they are being used as pawns in Dick Cheney (news - web sites)'s cynical oil war. Unfortunately, we can't help these innocent U.S. soldiers. They are victims, like ourselves, of the bandits in Washington. Nor can we disabuse them of the propaganda that an occupier isn't always an oppressor. We regret their deaths, but we must continue to kill them until the last one has gone home to America... In this vein we must also take action against our own Iraqi citizens who choose to collaborate with the enemy. Bush wants to put an "Iraqi face" on the occupation. If we allow the Americans to corrupt our friends and neighbors by turning them into puppet policemen and sellouts, our independence will be lost forever. If someone you know is considering taking a job with the Americans, tell him that he is engaging in treason and encourage him to seek honest work instead. If he refuses, you must kill him as a warning to other weak-minded individuals... To victory!After 9/11, I was roundly criticized for daring to suggest that there were some people in America who wanted the terrorists to win. But if you read Ted Rall and others, there can be no mistake. There is a virulent strain of anti-Americanism in this country. Some, like Rall, are now urging the murder of American troops in defense of Islamist terrorists and the acolytes of one of the most brutal dictators in history. Ann Coulter couldn't invent something this depraved. That's where parts of the left have now come to reside. It's as sad as it is sickening.
In the first case, the writer tries to discuss the motivations of the enemy, but also points out that the enemy is wrong.
In the second case, the writer tries to discuss their motivations, and also leaves the impression that the enemy is right.
Rall does the second -- he presents the enemy's arguments as being correct (but he takes on the persona of an Iraqi in order to avoid responsibility for what he writes). His advocacy of killing Americans is sick, and his tactics are devious.
Furthermore, it seems to me that you share Rall's outlook, but you're not willing to say so directly.
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