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[shawa]

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/ts20050125.shtml

Fourth estate or fifth column
Thomas Sowell (archive)

January 25, 2005

There are still people in the mainstream media who profess bewilderment that they are accused of being biased. But you need to look no further than reporting on the war in Iraq to see the bias staring you in the face, day after day, on the front page of the New York Times and in much of the rest of the media.

If a battle ends with Americans killing a hundred guerrillas and terrorists, while sustaining ten fatalities, that is an American victory. But not in the mainstream media. The headline is more likely to read: "Ten More Americans Killed in Iraq Today."

This kind of journalism can turn victory into defeat in print or on TV. Kept up long enough, it can even end up with real defeat, when support for the war collapses at home and abroad.

One of the biggest American victories during the Second World War was called "the great Marianas turkey shoot" because American fighter pilots shot down more than 340 Japanese planes over the Marianas islands while losing just 30 American planes. But what if our current reporting practices had been used back then?

The story, as printed and broadcast, could have been: "Today eighteen American pilots were killed and five more severely wounded, as the Japanese blasted more than two dozen American planes out of the sky." A steady diet of that kind of one-sided reporting and our whole war effort against Japan might have collapsed.

Whether the one-sided reporting of the war in Vietnam was a factor in the American defeat there used to be a matter of controversy. But, in recent years, high officials of the Communist government of Vietnam have themselves admitted that they lost the war on the battlefields but won it in the U.S. media and on the streets of America, where political pressures from the anti-war movement threw away the victory for which thousands of American lives had been sacrificed.

Too many in the media today regard the reporting of the Vietnam war as one of their greatest triumphs. It certainly showed the power of the media -- but also its irresponsibility. Some in the media today seem determined to recapture those glory days by the way they report on events in the Iraq war.

First, there is the mainstream media's almost exclusive focus on American casualties in Iraq, with little or no attention to the often much larger casualties inflicted on the guerrillas and terrorists from inside and outside Iraq.

Since terrorists are pouring into Iraq in response to calls from international terrorist networks, the number of those who are killed is especially important, for these are people who will no longer be around to launch more attacks on American soil. Iraq has become a magnet for enemies of the United States, a place where they can be killed wholesale, thousands of miles away.

With all the turmoil and bloodshed in Iraq, both military and civilian people returning from that country are increasingly expressing amazement at the difference between what they have seen with their own eyes and the far worse, one-sided picture that the media presents to the public here.

Our media cannot even call terrorists terrorists, but instead give these cutthroats the bland name, "insurgents." You might think that these were like the underground fighters in Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II.

The most obvious difference is that the underground in Europe did not go around targeting innocent civilians. As for the Nazis, they tried to deny the atrocities they committed. But today the "insurgents" in Iraq are proud of their barbarism, videotape it, and publicize it -- often with the help of the Western media.

Real insurgents want to get the occupying power out of their country. But the fastest way to get Americans out of Iraq would be to do the opposite of what these "insurgents" are doing. Just by letting peace and order return, those who want to see American troops gone would speed their departure.

The United States has voluntarily pulled out of conquered territory all around the world, including neighboring Kuwait during the first Gulf war. But the real goal of the guerrillas and terrorists is to prevent democracy from arising in the Middle East.

Still, much of the Western media even cannot call a spade a spade. The Fourth Estate sometimes seems more like a Fifth Column.

[Leeman]

Thank God for the internet (thanks Al) ..lol it gives us an alternative out- let to hear from. Also thank God for the conservative talk show hosts that can counter the MSM. If it was just up to the MSM Kerry would be the President, they tried hard to crown him early with the exit polls. But that did not work either.

Thanks for the post, I believe we have to keep alert to the MSM cheerleading against our Country.

and Cheerleading against our President like Dan dan the flim Flam man did. Oh well Katie Curic is comming on board..lol

Leeman

[MSeeger]

Unfortunately for the American media, they just don't "get it"...when even a liberal like my sister can recognise that they are trying to turn Iraq into something it's not, then they have a problem. Especially since our military folks come back bringing stories that contradict the media lies.

The saving grace so far is that the majority of Americans, especially those who serve in the military or who have family members serving in the military know better and have more common sense than the anti-war protesters that were seen during the inauguration.

And too many of us remember the glory days of the anti-war protesters when they were chanting slogans against LBJ. Listening to the chants coming out of the mouths of the A.N.S.W.E.R. crowd (Hey Bush, we know you, your daddy was a killer too!) brought back memories, and not very nice ones.

My youngest daughter is living in the liberal capital of Texas, and naturally shares the prevailing opinions, for the most part. However, I like to think that the fact that she is not out demonstrating against the war in Iraq is due to the talks she and I have had regarding this issue and the anti-war protesters and their motives. Young folks in particular need to understand that we're not the warmongering Americans and the Iraquis aren't some innocent people who were living in peaches and cream til we came along to conquer them.

Maria
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Be not deceived, God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Gal. 6:7

[I B Squidly]

Gotta love the Sowell Man. Always right on.

I'm sometimes confused though. Between the Dems and the media I'm not sure which are the 5th Columnists and which are the Running Dog Lackies?

[Snipe]

I think of most newspapers a one way blogs that don't bother to
name their sources. The on air television is paid infomercials,
and nobody wants to listen to liberal talk radio.
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Tin Can Sailor

[coldwarvet]

"The more things change the more they stay the same"

Just look at the way the Vietnam War was covered. It was Cronkite and company that spun victories into defeat that embolden the enemy and undermined Americas will to win the war. On the hands of Cronkite and company is the blood of over 3 million innocent civilians that were slaughtered as America withdrew.

CWV
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Defender of the honor of those in harms way keeping us out of harms way.

"Peace is our Profession"
Strategic Air Command - Motto

USAF 75-79 Security Police

[MLB]

[GenrXr]

Another good article from Thomas Sowell, one of Americas greatest intellectuals.
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"An activist is the person who cleans up the water, not the one claiming its dirty."
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to stand by and do nothing." Edmund Burke (1729-1797), Founder of Conservative Philosophy