Wednesday, May 09, 2007
One for our side
Rush is discussing the Dix Six, and as usual his team loyalty is missing a couple of points.
1. It's not just the Democrats who take the side of terrorists and ridicule citizens who attempt to report terrorists. Back in '02, I think, a lady overheard three Arab terrorists discussing a plot in a Florida restaurant. It was the Feds who ridiculed her, released her name to the public, and carefully apologized to the terrorists, using a transparently stupid cover story. (i.e., when she heard them talking about bombs, shooting, and other definitely violent actions, they were just using figures of speech or some such shit.) And in the more recent case of the Flying Imams, the Feds are ALLOWING their lawsuit against the passengers to proceed. The usual old "let the courts decide" attitude. Sorry, Feds, this isn't enough in wartime. You need to make the facts perfectly clear, and you need to firmly and publicly forbid such lawsuits.
2. The media's stupidity about home-grown or non-affiliated terrorists is indeed unforgivable. Various experts and embedded generals have been trying to get the message across, with plenty of good teaching and explanation, for at least three years now. Yet the same idiotic conversation is repeated every time: "So you're trying to tell me that these alleged extremists are not part of al-Qaeda???" "Yes, that's right, they are not under Osama's direct command." Even granting that Paris Hilton is vastly more important to these "newscasters" than national survival, you'd think a point repeated 10,000 times would eventually penetrate and become internal knowledge.
But the media can't be solely responsible for getting an accurate message across. Maybe we don't need to go as far as FDR did, with an Office of War Information that sets obligatory themes for each week's entertainment, but it is necessary to put out accurate info and propaganda for our side, and to insure that it reaches the people without distortion. It's definitely not enough to have a terminally ill press secretary who pals around with David Gregory and Helen Thomas. Gregory and Thomas should be in jail for sedition, not joshing with Tony the Cancer Spokesman. ¶ 10:29 AM
1. It's not just the Democrats who take the side of terrorists and ridicule citizens who attempt to report terrorists. Back in '02, I think, a lady overheard three Arab terrorists discussing a plot in a Florida restaurant. It was the Feds who ridiculed her, released her name to the public, and carefully apologized to the terrorists, using a transparently stupid cover story. (i.e., when she heard them talking about bombs, shooting, and other definitely violent actions, they were just using figures of speech or some such shit.) And in the more recent case of the Flying Imams, the Feds are ALLOWING their lawsuit against the passengers to proceed. The usual old "let the courts decide" attitude. Sorry, Feds, this isn't enough in wartime. You need to make the facts perfectly clear, and you need to firmly and publicly forbid such lawsuits.
2. The media's stupidity about home-grown or non-affiliated terrorists is indeed unforgivable. Various experts and embedded generals have been trying to get the message across, with plenty of good teaching and explanation, for at least three years now. Yet the same idiotic conversation is repeated every time: "So you're trying to tell me that these alleged extremists are not part of al-Qaeda???" "Yes, that's right, they are not under Osama's direct command." Even granting that Paris Hilton is vastly more important to these "newscasters" than national survival, you'd think a point repeated 10,000 times would eventually penetrate and become internal knowledge.
But the media can't be solely responsible for getting an accurate message across. Maybe we don't need to go as far as FDR did, with an Office of War Information that sets obligatory themes for each week's entertainment, but it is necessary to put out accurate info and propaganda for our side, and to insure that it reaches the people without distortion. It's definitely not enough to have a terminally ill press secretary who pals around with David Gregory and Helen Thomas. Gregory and Thomas should be in jail for sedition, not joshing with Tony the Cancer Spokesman. ¶ 10:29 AM
