You cannot fight a war without many brave men taking risks with their lives in order to try to accomplish their mission. Yet can you name a single American hero in either of the two wars going on today in Afghanistan and Iraq?
Chances are you can't--not if you rely on the mainstream media. You may be able to name someone form the littel band of people involved in the prison scandal in iraq or perhaps Jessica Lynch who was resued, but not those who rescued her.
There are apparently no heroes among the more than 100,000 men and women fighting for us overseas--only victims. At least, that is how the news gets filtered and spun in most of the media.
Any reservist whose life is disrupted by being called to active duty has a good chance of making the front page of the New York Times with his laments. But 99 fellow reservists who are focused on their duty are far less likely to be featured.
Enemy casualties, no matter how large seldom get as much publicity as even a handful of American casualities. A whole ghoul school of journalism was preparing for the thousandth death among American troops in Iraq, so that they could run big features on it.
The New York Times covered page after page with the names of those thousand dead. The television wing of the ghoul school did similar things in their broadcasts. The rationale for this is they are "honoring" the dead troops and perhaps showing that the media, too, are patriotically "supporting our troops."
The fraudulence of this can be seen in the fact that Ted Koppel, who sneered at those journalists who wore little American flag lapel pins after 9/11 as people who were "flag waving" has made the display of American dead a feature of "Nightline."
While our troops werre willing to put their lives on the line to carry out their missions, they did not go overseas for the purposes of dying. Nor have they died without taking a lot more of the enemy with them. Every terrorist killed in Iraq is that will never come ove rhere to commit another 9/11.
Anyone who was serious about honoring the fallen troops would honor what they accomplished, not just the price they paid. More than 5,000 Marines died taking one little island of Iwo Jima but they were honored for taking Iwo Jima--a wretched little island in itself, but a crucial foward base for supporting the air attacks on Japan that ended World War II.
Those who are busy "honoring" the deaths of American troops in Iraq seldom have much to say about what those troops accomplished. The restoration of electricity, the re-opening of hospitals and schools, and all the other things being done to try and restore a war -devastated country get little attention, and everything that has gone wrong makes the front pages and TV news for weeks on end.
More than 50,000 Americans died in Vietnam trying to save that country from Communists attacks. Their achievements
included victories on the battlefield that were neglected politically by the way the American press reported the war.
In recent years, Vietnam's Communist leaders themselves have admitted that they lost that war on the ground but hung on because the American anti-war movement gave them hope the they could win it politically. It was well founded hope that the American media helped make come true wqhen we withdrew both our troops and our financial and political backing for the Vietnamese under attack.
At that time, the media had not yet come up with the gimmick of "honoring" American war dead but they were nevertheless able to throw away the victory for which those men sacrificed their lives.
Will they repeat that heady achivement a second time in Iraq? They certainly seem to be trying and it is no honor.
www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/printts20041202.shtml
Chances are you can't--not if you rely on the mainstream media. You may be able to name someone form the littel band of people involved in the prison scandal in iraq or perhaps Jessica Lynch who was resued, but not those who rescued her.
There are apparently no heroes among the more than 100,000 men and women fighting for us overseas--only victims. At least, that is how the news gets filtered and spun in most of the media.
Any reservist whose life is disrupted by being called to active duty has a good chance of making the front page of the New York Times with his laments. But 99 fellow reservists who are focused on their duty are far less likely to be featured.
Enemy casualties, no matter how large seldom get as much publicity as even a handful of American casualities. A whole ghoul school of journalism was preparing for the thousandth death among American troops in Iraq, so that they could run big features on it.
The New York Times covered page after page with the names of those thousand dead. The television wing of the ghoul school did similar things in their broadcasts. The rationale for this is they are "honoring" the dead troops and perhaps showing that the media, too, are patriotically "supporting our troops."
The fraudulence of this can be seen in the fact that Ted Koppel, who sneered at those journalists who wore little American flag lapel pins after 9/11 as people who were "flag waving" has made the display of American dead a feature of "Nightline."
While our troops werre willing to put their lives on the line to carry out their missions, they did not go overseas for the purposes of dying. Nor have they died without taking a lot more of the enemy with them. Every terrorist killed in Iraq is that will never come ove rhere to commit another 9/11.
Anyone who was serious about honoring the fallen troops would honor what they accomplished, not just the price they paid. More than 5,000 Marines died taking one little island of Iwo Jima but they were honored for taking Iwo Jima--a wretched little island in itself, but a crucial foward base for supporting the air attacks on Japan that ended World War II.
Those who are busy "honoring" the deaths of American troops in Iraq seldom have much to say about what those troops accomplished. The restoration of electricity, the re-opening of hospitals and schools, and all the other things being done to try and restore a war -devastated country get little attention, and everything that has gone wrong makes the front pages and TV news for weeks on end.
More than 50,000 Americans died in Vietnam trying to save that country from Communists attacks. Their achievements
included victories on the battlefield that were neglected politically by the way the American press reported the war.
In recent years, Vietnam's Communist leaders themselves have admitted that they lost that war on the ground but hung on because the American anti-war movement gave them hope the they could win it politically. It was well founded hope that the American media helped make come true wqhen we withdrew both our troops and our financial and political backing for the Vietnamese under attack.
At that time, the media had not yet come up with the gimmick of "honoring" American war dead but they were nevertheless able to throw away the victory for which those men sacrificed their lives.
Will they repeat that heady achivement a second time in Iraq? They certainly seem to be trying and it is no honor.
www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/printts20041202.shtml
