Jinn of Current Events

Belmont Club: It is important to notice what [Osama Bin Laden] has stopped saying in this speech. He has stopped talking about the restoration of the Global Caliphate. There is no more mention of the return of Andalusia. There is no more anticipation that Islam will sweep the world. He is no longer boasting that Americans run at the slightest wounds; that they are more cowardly than the Russians. He is not talking about future operations to swathe the world in fire but dwelling on past glories. He is basically saying if you leave us alone we will leave you alone. ...

To which the proper answer is: Die, Islamofascist! 

Here's a wonderful example of a young, very courageous Iraqi woman, fighting for freedom -- an illustration of Patrick Henry's call to arms: Give me Liberty, or Give me Death!

Robin Burk: What would you do if you were a 22 year old Kurdish Muslim woman in March of 2003, when an army drawn from several countries invaded your homeland? If you were [Humaila al-Akrawy] you would remember your brother, killed under Saddam -- and remember how they sent back just one leg and part of an arm to demonstrate his death and their power to your family. You would look at your father, who no longer has full use of his hands after being tortured by Saddam. And then, despite the disapproval of many but with the blessing and support of your family, on 23 March you would volunteer to become a translator for the 101st Airborne Division of the U.S. Army. But what would you do when Ba'athists and jihadists ambushed your car, injuring your brother and trying to kill you, and when they later killed your 24 year old sister thinking she was you -- pumping 60 AK47 bullets into her body? ... 

From the use of forged documents to the repetition of wild accusations, the Old Media have been relentless in their attacks on President Bush. They have also been particularly tolerant of Senator Kerry, neglecting his bizarre stories and outright lies.

Media Research Center: No matter who wins or loses this year's presidential election, Campaign 2004 will be remembered for the unprecedented partisanship of the so-called mainstream media, as the Media Research Center has documented all year. Here are our awards for the ten most-biased episodes in Campaign 2004, along with commendations for those instances when journalists rose above their bias and approached their craft in a fair and balanced way. ... 

• A simple request
• These are Saddam's dead
• The survivors
• What shall we tell the children
• The liberators
• What is crucial
• Who is guilty
• By what standard

How many times are we going to hear lies about missing munitions from the NYT, CBS, ABC, etc. all intended to make the case that US troops are totally incompetent -- the clear subtext being, yet again, that the Coalition should not have liberated Iraq from the Baathist tyranny?

A simple request

There is something these journalists and editors are NOT saying.

Let me ask you: Was Nazi Germany a good place to live in? Was Baathist Iraq a good place to live in?

Before you answer, please read the article at
http://varifrank.com/archives/2004/10/blood_red_fury.php

Read it to the end. Take your time. Look at the sample of pictures.

Then come back here. And think about when was the last time you saw these pictures in the mass media.

These are Saddam's dead

The fathers, daughters, mothers, sons, cousins, sisters, uncles, grand-mothers, husbands, friends, and babies who were buried in mass graves. The bakers, the engineers, the poets, the housewives, the farmers, the teachers, the truck drivers, the fishermen, the students, the merchants, and the schoolchildren who will never again use their hands to create, never again smile or laugh, never again embrace their loved ones, never again breathe nor speak. They are Saddam's dead.

They are not the tens of thousands tortured and mutilated that you don't see either, the ones who still breathe pain and feel Saddam's marks on their body every second of their life -- because that's another silenced story.

They are the Iraqi people who were being murdered at an estimated average rate of 30,000 per year. Thirty thousand innocents. Murdered. Every year.

The survivors

Now look at the survivors. The ones holding the plastic bags of bones. What do you tell them?

What do the American mass media tell them?

Have these media informed you that mass graves are still being found in Iraq? and that European "inspectors" are refusing to help in that work, because they are worried the evidence could be used to sentence Saddam Hussein to death?

What does one tell the survivors, when one opposed their liberation? what does one tell them, when one opposes punishment for the chief murderer?

What shall we tell the children

Shall we then tell our children how the Coalition should have begged for permission -- begged the bribed UN, France, Germany, China, and Russia -- begged Saddam's friends for permission to liberate Iraq? And shall we tell the children also that without permission from those who armed and made billions of dollars helping Saddam since 1991, Iraq should not have been liberated?

Do we tell the children that we should have waited for permission from Vichy France, Nazi Germany, and Soviet Russia to stop the Holocaust during WW II?

Have the children heard of the Holocaust? why isn't the more important story told by the NYT that Nazi insurgents continued to resist for two years after the fall of Berlin? or that some US soldiers may have killed German prisoners in rage? or in cold blood? or that some Nazi weapons and treasures were never found? or that there were days during WW II when more than 1,000 US soldiers died?

The liberators

Do we teach children respect for the courage of soldiers who risk --and give-- their lives for the sake of freedom?

Do we tell the children about the courageous Poles who fought against both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union when their country was invaded at the beginning of WW II? do we tell them about the heroic Polish pilots who fought so valliantly in the Battle of Britain? do we tell them about the two hundred thousand Polish troops who fought side-by-side with American and British troops to liberate Europe?

Do we tell them about the betrayal of Poland at Yalta and their decades of suffering under the yoke of Soviet Russia?

Do we tell the children about the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who are fighting now for freedom in their country -- and the thousands who have already died doing so? or do we pretend that their sacrifice is nothing compared to the death of American soldiers, that they somehow don't count? maybe they don't count in the same way as the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis in the mass graves don't seem to matter.

Shall we betray the liberators of Iraq and toss that country to the wolves for another few decades?

What is crucial

Was the Nazi mass-murder of Jews important? is it crucial to understand WW II and the destruction of Europe? what about the Baathist mass-murder of the Iraqi people? is it crucial?

Should we tell the children that Saddam's mass graves of Iraqi children do not matter in relation to the missing 380 tons of explosives -- have we taught them enough arithmetics so they can figure the proportion of 380 tons out of 600,000 tons? how important is 0.06%? how does that compare to the crushed bones of thousands of Iraqi children?

Should we also tell the children that there "never even were WMDs" in Iraq -- and pretend that the Kurds who were gassed by Saddam did not exist? shall we tell the children how many millions did not demonstrate through the streets of Europe when the Kurds were being gassed?

How many pictures of these mass graves have you recently seen on the covers of the American mass media? do you know how many Iraqis were murdered by Saddam's Baathist regime over three decades? do you wonder why you don't hear about that?

Who is guilty

Shall we tolerate silence about the Baathist mass-murders? shall we instead accuse the liberators? shall we propagate lies?

The mass media are perpetrating something truly horrible at the moment.

They are drowning the story of the end of a decades-long genocide, of the liberation of Iraq, of a new hope for freedom and prosperity. Repeatedly drowning it with wild accusations about minor issues. They are maintaining silence about the mass-murderers and their victims.

Someone is busy attacking the liberators and silencing the victims -- thereby white-washing the murderers. Someone is busy hiding the truth from you.

By what standard

In the name of what exactly is the media doing this? what is their purpose?

And who will hold them accountable? Will you?

By what standard shall we judge the lies and silence of these journalists and editors?

• the dead's standard?
• the survivor's?
• the liberator's?

Who shall we honour? who shall deserve our respect? where is our honesty, our pride?