The Left hates the U.S. military.
I'm not that old, but I know this fact goes back well past when I was born, and is nothing new. However, that does not mean it should be excused. Perhaps most disturbing is the fact that many of the left who hold this position also hold positions of power, whether real power in government or pseudo-power through being a gatekeeper of news to the American public. The bias of the Left is a major problem in America today.
Let's look at the gatekeepers first. If the traditional mainstream media (MSM) actually did their jobs and reported the news rather than reporting their spin on the news, there would be no need for alternative sources of information. The spawning of the so-called 'new media' over the past few years is proof that they don't.
For example, Alan Fraser poses the legitimate question of whose side the MSM is really on in the War in Iraq. They jumped all over the supposed Haditha 'massacre', in which U.S. Marines executed almost two dozen Iraqis 'in cold blood'. Since that bad press, however, the investigations have born out the fact that this was completely false. Have you seen any retractions?
Next, he looks at the surge, which has been phenomenally successful since mid-2007:
Because of this, the war has largely disappeared from the front pages of the nation's newspapers. In place of disaster stories from Iraq, we find stories about profound problems within the military or we read about our hapless soldiers/veterans caricatured as victims, a favorite theme of the MSM. These stories have covered such topics as the spike-up in suicide rates among our soldiers, to the Army being forced to lower recruitment standards in order to meet manpower goals; from the (by now notorious and utterly discredited) multipart New York Times series on our murderous Iraq War veterans to the Army's inability to retain its captains.
Each of these stories is at best highly misleading. At worst they're utter fabrications.
Fraser lays it out:
The Suicide Epidemic
MSM: "[l]ast year, 121 soldiers took their own lives, nearly 20 percent more than in 2006."
Truth: Gateway Pundit makes the obvious point that you can't look at a one-year time frame of any phenomenon for the purposes of discerning a trend; you must look at many years and then compile a rate. During the Clinton years the average number of suicides in the military was 190/year; during the Bush presidency the average number has been 160/year. That's a 16% decrease in the number of suicides. Gateway Pundit notes the military suicide rate is measurably lower than that of the general public, (17/100,000 versus 20/100,000), 15% lower than the general population.
Army Forced to Lower Standards... Soldiers More Stupid Than Before
MSM: A recent ostensible exposé on the military's manpower crisis appeared in a January 22, 2008 Associated Press article "Army Gets Fewer High School Grads in '07" A similar story appearing in the Washington Post drew the notice of James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal.
Truth: Both the AP and Washington Post articles rely on data cooked-up by the National Priorities Project (NPP). In a 2005 article covering the same topic, the Washington Post was forced to acknowledge that the NPP had an anti-war bias and that its study was incomplete and misleading. They confessed because the Heritage Foundation in "Who Are the Recruits?" demolished the NPP's study.
"As support for the war in Iraq has declined, criticism of the war has translated into criticism of our nation's troops, at least by way of criticizing the quality of wartime recruits. The current findings show that the demographic characteristics of volunteers have continued to show signs of higher, not lower, quality. The Heritage piece points out that the high school graduation rate found in the four branches of the military is actually significantly higher than that of the general public.
Captains Leaving Army in Droves
MSM: On Saturday, January 26, the Wall Street Journal carried two disturbing military articles. On page 7 there was "Army Effort to Retain Captains Falls Short of Goal" It explained that:
1) captains form the backbone of the officer corps and the pool from which senior officers are eventually pulled;
2) the Army is finding it increasingly difficult to retain its captains; and
3) the reason for this is the multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Truth: Of course, there is nothing new about this phenomenon. If you take a look at [the referenced] studies on this subject, the first thing you'll notice is that they were written prior to the invasion of Iraq. This phenomenon has been a concern of the Army from midway through the Clinton administration. If one can believe a Washington Post article, the attrition rate for captains averaged 12.2 percent from 1999 to 2007. This means that, for each year from 2002 through 2007, the rate was on average 12.4%. That is less than 1 percentage point higher than the peacetime rate that occurred in 2000. Hardly the wartime induced catastrophe that's implied in the Wall Street Journal article. Studies have also been done that show there is no causal relationship here.
How Can We Best Demoralize The Nation?
MSM: On the front page of the January 26th Wall Street Journal appeared: "The Waiting -- Just Four U.S. Soldiers are Missing in Iraq. For Their Parents, it's a Lonely Vigil." This is a depressing and heart-rending story about the lives of those families whose solider sons are missing in Iraq. It's a subject especially disturbing to military families. In a time of war, this could be a good story to run if it were written to, let's say, provide a little balance to what otherwise might be an overwhelming supply of gung-ho-support-the-troops kind of stories. You know, a little sobering counterpoint to a plethora of overly flattering articles about the troops and the war.
Truth: The effect of such an article is to demoralize. There is no balance [in reporting] because there are virtually no favorable stories being written about the troops. From the MSM to Hollywood the media have an overwhelmingly negative view of our troops and they make that clear to us every day as they portray them as stupid, pathetic, often victims, often murderers, or against the war. And boy do they ever love stories about the infinitesimally small number who have turned against the war. Even our enemies know this:
[In] a letter written in 2005 by bin Laden's second in command, al-Zawahiri to the then leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, al-Zarqawi:
"I say to you: that we are in a battle and that more than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media."
Perhaps the biggest anti-American MSM outlet is the New York Times, which I've frequently blogged about in the past. David Paulin reports that the NYT has admitted using authors and writers who are obviously anti-military on articles that are supposed to be objective.
What are the most recent headlines? Iraq may be fine now, but Afghanistan is a wreck. You've heard that, haven't you? Well, the MSM is at it again. Here's the truth:
American and Coalition forces have taken the initiative in Afghanistan, and have the Taliban on the run. Yet major American media outlets, to the extent they cover fighting in Afghanistan, are portraying the Taliban as "resurgent". Going on the offense and succeeding at it always increases violence. But it is being spun into bad news.
The increase in fighting in Afghanistan is not a sign of a stronger Taliban, but rather a more desperate one. Despite all the media reports to the contrary it is we who are surging in the war against the Taliban and al Qaeda.
The MSM continues to mis-quote and mis-represent top military officials' comments about Afghanistan because it suits their template of anti-military. For example, Ray Robison reports the following:
"I searched for articles claiming a Taliban resurgence and found hundreds. In doing so I found this article in the India media from February 4th, 2008:
KABUL: The Taliban insurgency is not spreading in Afghanistan and 70 per cent of the violence last year occurred in only 10 per cent of the country, NATO has said in a report that contrasted with more pessimistic assessments.
Lt Col Claudia Foss, a spokeswoman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, said three-quarters of Afghanistan suffered one violent incident per week.
"It is becoming increasingly clear that the insurgent movement is being contained," Foss said yesterday at a news conference in the capital, Kabul.
And how about the leftists in Congress? It's one thing to oppose measures to protect America from terrorists (i.e. FISA, Gitmo, waterboarding) on principle, but you can't support it one year and express shock about it the next. For example, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi approved of waterboarding top terrorist leaders back in 2002, and even encouraged it. Of course, once the news of those interrogations came out and it became a potential Bush-bash opportunity, she expressed 'shock' at 'learning' about it. Hypocrisy at its finest. [On a side note, the Senate just voted to ban waterboarding. Most Republicans opposed it, but a few did not, relying on Bush to carry through with his veto promise. Cowards. McCain opposed the measure, neither Clinton nor Obama bothered to vote. Double cowards.]
Anyway, even now, Democrats are still saying -- despite all evidence to the contrary -- that the surge in Iraq was a failure. American Thinker reports on a Wisconsin poll question that indicates big problems for the Democrats unless they cut and run from their plan to cut and run:
7. Do you believe that Democrats in Congress have a better plan to resolve the Iraq War then President Bush?
Yes 18%
No 71%
Undecided 11%
Americans get it, the Left doesn't. Just take a look at the positions of the Democrat front-runner -- Barack Obama -- on Iran, Iraq, and FISA: chat with Iran, surrender in Iraq, and hinder America's ability to track down terrorists.
It is simple, and easy to see: the Left hates the U.S. military, and actively works to undermine it regardless of the consequences to this country. This is a key component of the election in November - for all of McCain's weaknesses (which are many), he should at least be solid on defense. Obama would bring disaster on America in a hurry.
When it comes to protecting America, the Right is right, and the Left is dead wrong.
There's my two cents.
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