American Media Basically On Al Queda's Side Now

MSNBC, NYT, USA Today, etc | 5/12/04

[Williams]

MSNBC said this morning that Nick Berg "paid with his life" for the prisoner abuse. Indeed, the story was about whether Rumsfeld should resign, and the killing was just more evidence he should. USA Today headline: Brutality Intensifies In Iraq. Beheading is portrayed as a consequence of, part of the prisoner abuse story, and a supposed break down in order in Iraq which is the U.S.'s fault.

On radio they are playing up the angle that Berg died because Iraq is so "unstable" and Nick's father has given a statement that he's not surprised by his son's murder because the U.S. government has failed to establish a sufficient level of "civilization" in Iraq.

Most media is leading with the prisoner story, not the Berg killing. When Berg is talked about, they don't read the parts about his being a supporter of George Bush or of the American effort in Iraq.

General Taguba said the prisoner abuse responsibility does not go above the brigade level. So they are using two techniques. One is to ignore what he said and use his quote about "failure of leadership" out of context. The other (I believe this is the NYT approach) is to claim that their erstwhile hero Taguba is now part of a cover up.

This level of identifying with the enemy, accepting Al Queda's version of its motivations for beheading an innocent person, misreporting the facts - has to be called out for what it is. The media is adopting Al Queda's viewpoint and misinformation at a time of war. They are, morally and politically, on Al Queda's side of the equation.

If I have to pick, I'm most outraged by the LACK of outrage. If lots of media folks tried this with troops in the field during WWII, I think the stations would have been closed by violence. Whether that's good or bad, it didn't happen then because the media didn't dream of helping to destroy this country.

It's sad to see a great country die. But you can't tell me that a great people would be tolerantly reading, hearing and seeing this type of propoganda about an innocent, idealistic young citizen having his head cut off by terrorists who in the process promised to behead many more of us.

Mort Kondracke on Fox last night said "this country isn't Spain." According to the polls, we're very close. Any country that would tolerate hearing a reporter justify the murder of an innocent citizen as having "paid with his life" for some supposed U.S. government wrongdoing is on the verge of something far from greatness. We are on the precipice of a very tragic decline.

[30-06 Springfield]

You forgot the "Barf" warning in the subject line!

[Benrand]

I think in their frenzy over the Abu Ghraib crap, they lapsed into masturbatory fantasies of being the next Walter Crankcase...now that Nick was slayed, they have to try to figure out very quickly how they balance assaulting the US military while not blaming the US military and assaulting Pres Bush while making it appear as if they are sympathetic to what happened to Nick.

I mean, CNN played those prison images ALL DAY last weekend, and combined that saturation with references to My Lai. That tells me they saw momentum there.

[cvq3842]

What did Ann Coulter say? That if the Democrats aren't on al-Qaeda's payroll they're being cheated? Same for much of the "mainstream media."

In many cases, "stop the war" is synonymous with "lose the war." My God, what more do some people need to see to realize what we're up against?

[swilhelm73]

It is hard to argue against the point that the media, and most of the rest of the left are doing all they can to help the Islamists win.

Trust me, I think most FReepers, and hopefully most Americans are just as disgusted.

The Islamists are trying for a replay of Somalia, the media, for their part, is trying to turn this into another Vietnam.

[sheik yerbouty]

Well, at least it might get Helen Thomas and that Clift woman to wear burkas..

[backhoe]

Crosslinked:

-The Berg Beheading- some links--

[DTA]

Old habits die hard. For more than 10 years American media supports Al Qaeda network in Bosnia and Kosovo. And BJ Clinton's misrule provided military and logistic support.

Picture taken when U.S. was an Al Qaeda ally.

[1Old Pro]

Face it, the media is anti-American, they hate Bush, they will do anything including lying and distorting the news to get rid of Bush.

AND, it will only get worse.

[narby]

This level of identifying with the enemy, accepting Al Queda's version of its motivations for beheading an innocent person, misreporting the facts - has to be called out for what it is.

I accept Al Qaeda's version of it's motivation. They killed because of the prison scandal.

But they didn't kill in January, when I'm certian that they must have heard about this stuff from the homies getting out of jail. They killed after CBS generated this huge media firestorm out of a very minor problem.

The Media is the problem. But not because they've misidentified Al Qaeda's motives. It's because they've inflamed Al Qaeda, and gave them a justification for their barbarisim.

Even Fox News has gone all-prison-scandal-all-the-time. The net is the only place I can be free of this artificialy generated "outrage".

[rocky88]

Sometimes I just wish President Bush would call a press conference and stop this madness with a no-holds-barred statement about how the media and rats are endangering our troops and our success in the war on terror. He needs to say that in fighting a politically correct war, we have put many in danger, so at this moment we will just say SCREW 'EM! Turn the freakin middle east into a shiny glass parking lot already, PLEASE!!!! I can't take this anymore.

[Republican Red]

Phone calls made:
Call MSNBC: Jeremy Gaines VP, Media Relations

MSNBC: Nick Berg "Paid With His Life" For Prisoner Abuse (the photos caused his death)

201-583-5362

Call CBS Newsroom (more fun from last night):

Airing more Iraqi abuse stories tonight and refuses to play Berg video

212-975-3691

[genefromjersey]

You're quite right !

The wire services are even worse (and many newspapers just take the feed off the wire and publish it without even reading it.) Associated Press,Reuters,and Agence France Presse LINK topics like crazy; eg: "Firefight in Karbala as Arab Anger Over Prison Abuses Increases !"

Associated Press is particularly bad that way.

[Frank_Discussion]

Here's a close paraphrase of something that I said earlier today, on another thread:

The Dems and their Old Media bedmates are happily flirting with some serious, ah, "public discord". The population can only take so much division and pressure, not to mention the external threats encouraged by their words and deeds.

They are playing with fire.

[oceanview]

Fox News is crap now too, their coverage has been terrible, not much better then any of the rest.

Rush was very good today. Said this is a turning point, the media is behind the curve now still trying to focus the "outrage" on our military, Rumsfeld, and Bush.

[GODFEARINGWOMAN]

I am incredibly disgusted. I pray for the Bern family because it seems as though they may believe the media when it comes to blaming Bush for this. America needs to realize that Al-Queda crashed planes into buildings on 911 and they are the ones killing these innocent people. Not George W. Bush. And if they are looking for someone in authority to blame call Bill Clinton, I'm sure Monica can give them his number.

[weegee]

Michael Moore certainly sides with Al Qaida. I used to call him Lumpy Riefenstahl after Leni Riefenstahl.

I think now I need to call him Lord Guffaw Guffaw after Lord Haw Haw. At least the British had the good sense to hang Lord Haw Haw after WWII.

Wednesday, April 14th, 2004 - Heads Up... from Michael Moore

The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not "insurgents" or "terrorists" or "The Enemy." They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow -- and they will win. Get it, Mr. Bush?

[snip]

I oppose the U.N. or anyone else risking the lives of their citizens to extract us from our debacle. I'm sorry, but the majority of Americans supported this war once it began and, sadly, that majority must now sacrifice their children until enough blood has been let that maybe -- just maybe -- God and the Iraqi people will forgive us in the end.

[syriacus]

I mean, CNN played those prison images ALL DAY last weekend, and combined that saturation with references to My Lai.

The prison images don't even come up to the level of Kerry's atrocities. Much less do they come up to the level of the My Lai atrocities.

Kerry, 1971

: There are all kinds of atrocities, and I would have to say that, yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free fire zones.

[cwb]

The very media that admits to "canning" the 9/11 attacks...and other Islamic atrocities, because they don't want to stir up anti-Muslim hysteria, is blatantly guilty of perpetuating anti-American hysteria by doing what they've been doing since this war started. It's nice to see what side our liberal media is on.

[syriacus]

Moore is just one more Naive Liberal.

Too bad he can't be voted out of office like the other Naive Liberals.