Trashing our history: troops in Iraq
Thomas Sowell (archive)
August 10, 2005
Back in June, this column pointed out that it is impossible to fight a
war without heroism -- but that you would never know that from the
mainstream media. Nothing heroic done by American troops in Iraq is
likely to make headlines in the New York Times or be featured on the
big three broadcast network news programs.
That fact has now been belatedly recognized in a New York Times opinion
piece, but with a strange twist.
After briefly mentioning a few acts of bravery in Iraq -- including a
Marine who smothered an enemy grenade with his own body, saving the
lives of his fellow Marines at the cost of his own -- the Times' writer
said, "the military, the White House and the culture at large have not
publicized their actions with the zeal that was lavished on the heroes
of World War I and World War II."
Think about that spin: The reason we don't hear about such things is
because of the Pentagon, Bush and "the culture at large."
Neither the Pentagon, the White House or "the culture at large" can
stop the newspapers or the televisions networks from publicizing
whatever they want to publicize. They all have reporters on the scene
but what they choose to feature in their reports are all the negative
things they can find.
The very issue of the New York Times in which this essay appeared --
August 7th -- featured a front-page picture of a funeral for a Marine
killed in Iraq. If you judged by the front page of this and many other
newspapers, our troops in Iraq don't do anything except get killed.
The plain fact is that the mainstream media have been too busy
depicting our troops as victims to have much time left to tell about
the heroic things they have done, the far greater casualties which they
have inflicted on their enemies, or their attempts to restore some basic
services and basic decencies to this country that has been torn apart
for years by internal and external wars -- even before the first
American troops arrived on the scene.
The unrelenting quest for stories depicting American troops as victims
-- including even front-page stories about the financial problems of
some National Guardsmen called to active duty -- has created a virtual
reality in the media that has no place for heroes.
Senator
John Kerry has called the activation of reservists and National
Guardsmen "a backdoor draft," as if joining the reserves or the National
Guard is supposed to mean an exemption from ever having to fight. The
theme of troops as victims has been a steady drumbeat in the media,
because of the way the media have chosen to filter the news, filtering
out heroes, among other things.
This virtual reality can become more important than any facts. Even a
young lady interviewer on Fox News Channel -- of all places -- recently
asked a guest how long the American people will be able to continue
supporting the war in Iraq with all the casualties.
All the American deaths in Iraq since the war began are not even half
of the deaths of U.S. Marines taking the one island of Iwo Jima in a
couple of months of fighting. And Iwo Jima was just one battle in a war
that was raging on other fronts around the world simultaneously and
continuing for nearly four long years.
It is not the casualties which are unprecedented but the media
filtering and the gullibility of those who accept the virtual reality
created by the media.
This is a re-creation of the media's role in the Vietnam war, where
American victories on the battlefield were turned into defeat on the
home front by the filtering and spin of the media.
Even the current Communist rulers of Vietnam have admitted that they
lost militarily in Vietnam but hung on because they expected to win
politically in the United States -- as they did, with the help of the
Jane Fondas, the Walter Cronkhites and a cast of thousands in the
streets and on campuses across the country.
The very people who have been anti-military for years, who filter out
American heroes in battle, are now proclaiming that they are "honoring"
our troops by publicizing every death by name, day in and day out.
Has the dumbed-down education in our schools left us so ill-equipped
that we cannot see through even the most blatant hypocrisy?
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