"Good evening again. I'm Aaron Brown. So here's a nice day at the office. The administration says the half-century-old doctrine of containment in matters military is outdated and the United States in the future will exercise, if it so chooses, a first strike option against terrorists in those countries that harbor them. We've always said we are not a country that starts wars -- and mostly that's been true, though perhaps the thugs who ran the island of Grenada might argue the point. It is another sign the world is changing, that the whole notion of war as we used to know it is changing as well. And it's not the only thing that's changing.
Brown has erased and rewritten "containment" in a way that is unrecognizable. "Containment" was a principle developed in a famous essay by "X" (who turned out to be George Kennan) ca. 1947. It was a doctrine for limiting the expansion of communism, while avoiding a shooting war with the Soviet Union, IOW, the groundwork for the "cold" war. The term is entirely irrelevant to the current war, because ... it's a war! 1. WE HAVE ALREADY BEEN ATTACKED! and 2. Our enemy, Islam, already controls all the nations it's going to control. We're in a shooting war (read: a real war), not a "cold" (read: metaphorical) war.
As for Brown's concerns re Jose Padilla. I have no problem with holding Padilla incommunicado as an enemy combatant. However, this was a nation conceived in liberty, not in chains. When we make newsmen (or even, talking heads) afraid to raise civil liberty questions, we will be just a dictatorship with pretenses. And since Brown talked about the criticisms he received, I think he did his job very well. One of the main problems with media bias, is that media outlets publish or broadcast a one-sided view, and refuse to acknowledge the disagreement by large portions (sometimes the vast majority) of the public. It is the misrepresentation of a political slant as an unchallenged, received truth, that turns bias into propaganda.
We are in very real danger of losing the last vestiges of civil liberties we had left pre-911. Have you read Lee Shelton's satire on the security for liberty swap? Believe me, it didn't make me laugh. Satire is serious business.
I am also not at all disturbed by Brown's use of the first-person pronoun; in fact, I wish all his colleagues would follow suit. It's much more honest than putting one's opinions in the mouths of anonymous "sources," "experts," and "the public."
Say what you will about Brown, at least he has the stones to admit when he is discussing his own opinions. Not only that, he makes no attempts to hide when he is -- as opposed to Rather, Jennings, Brokaw, Williams, Couric, Sawyer, and the myriad others behind the microphone.
I don't agree with him much of the time, but I have to respect him for at least having the courage of his convictions, and the courage to stand behind his own opinions.
Consider what another poster said about Ruby Ridge, or one closer to my home, Waco. While the media handling of the events at Waco are not as clear as they once were, I can tell you this: The Propaganda Ministry's concerns for the civil liberties of the Branch Davidians was nil. At best, they were a bunch of wacko, gun running, dope manufacturing Jesus freaks! THEY were a danger to society, and had to be dealt with.....harshly! Kids and all. How many in the media bemoaned the trashing of THEIR civil liberties?
The problem again, is the selective application of the Propaganda Ministry's cry of FOUL on civil liberties. The only pretense here is that of Aaron Brown as a news man. Surely you can see that?
FGS