Somebody’s finally said it:
“The Marine incident, and its aftermath, at Haditha tells us much more about the media than it does about the Marines. And what it tells us ought to outrage us to the core,” writes Tony Blankley.
Blankley goes on:
“The ‘Drive By Media’ (Rush Limbaugh’s scientifically accurate description) has already started to report this story in a manner that is likely to do vast damage that may last for several years to the morale (and possibly recruitment) of our military. It will create a propaganda catastrophe of strategic proportions in our mortal struggle with radical Islam and its terrorist spear point.
“And all this is being done by journalists who are seemingly oblivious to the consequences of their acts….
“President Bush noted the extraordinary damage that reported events at Abu Ghraib caused and continue to cause. One can only imagine what the radical Islamist propagandists and recruiters will do with the Haditha incident — especially since they will merely have to accurately quote from major United States and European newspapers and television news broadcasts. Is this any way to fight a war?
“It is commonplace to observe that since the dawn of man — and currently — in the crucible of battle, warriors sometimes cannot contain their emotions and their violent actions. It is amazing our troops act as civilized as they do in combat.”
An editorial in the Weekly Standard takes its starting point from the New Republic’s Peter Beinart, who represents the patriotic left (boy, talk about shrinking groups!) and who had this to say about Haditha:
“Americans can be as barbaric as anyone. What makes us an exceptional nation with the capacity to lead and inspire the world is our very recognition of that fact. We are capable of Hadithas and My Lais, so is everyone. But few societies are capable of acknowledging what happened, bringing the killers to justice, and instituting changes that make it less likely to happen again. That’s how we show we are different from the jihadists. We don’t just assert it. We prove it. That’s the liberal version of American exceptionalism, and it’s what we need right now in response to this horror.”
The response:
“No, it isn’t. The last thing we need in response to Haditha is hand-wringing liberalism. The war against the jihadists, a war Beinart supports, is not a metaphorical one. Liberals may want to win a war on terror without fighting, and are shocked that in a war, crimes and abuses occur. But here’s the hard, Trumanesque truth: In war, terrible things happen, including crimes and abuses and cover-ups.”
Punish anybody found guilty and continue to fight-but that, of course, is not what the media wants.