By: Mary Mostert,
April 21, 2003
It never ceases to amaze me at the lengths people who claim to be journalists will go to justify their anti-George W. Bush bias. While most people think the anti-Bush extremists we hear from are Democratic Party operatives, some claim to be Conservatives. They lambaste the President, and then the socialist wing of the media picks up their comments and claim that “even the conservatives are alarmed” at what the President is doing.
A recent example of this was an article entitled “On pimps and presstitues” published in World Net Daily on April 16th, written by Ilana Mercer: “As the CBC reported, "So far, soldiers have found gas masks, chemical suits and some white powder. None of it has turned out to be the biological or chemical weapons they are looking for."
“Knowing what we know about Saddam Hussein, it's probably safe to say that if he had an arsenal, he would have used it. Since he didn't use his lethal stash in the face of "decapitation," it's reasonable to conclude that, either he didn't have WMD or, if he had them, he was an extremely responsible tyrant. Both conclusions incriminate Bush.
Mercer’s premise here is the embedded American reporters were “supervised by the military in the same way” Saddam Hussein managed Western journalists and the, therefore, the fact that no chemicals weapons were used on the American troops were either because the “extremely responsible” Saddam Hussein didn’t have them or because they just don’t exist.
This, of course, it a patently silly position to take. Saddam Hussein also did not use chemical weapons against American troops in 1991. According to my son, Dr. Guy Grooms, who was battalion surgeon for the 1st Marine Battalion of the 7th Regiment that recaptured Kuwait City, there were two main reasons why they were not used: (1) the speed the Marine moved against the Iraqi troops and (2) the U.S. Air Force blew up chemical weapons in bombing raids. The chemical warning device on his ambulance, however, did go off numerous times.
Apparently Mercer has already forgotten what happened in Operation Iraqi Freedom, which has taken place within the past month. Not only were there a lot of weapons arsenals being blown up, during the first part of the campaign, but also there were a series of dust storms, some of them with winds up to 55 mph blowing from the Southwest, behind the US troops, towards Baghdad. In the first place, chemical weapons are virtually useless under those conditions and in the second place by the time the winds subsided a bit, the U.S. troops had moved so rapidly they were on the outskirts of Baghdad. Had chemical weapons been used under such circumstances, it would have been the population of Baghdad that would have gotten the brunt of them, since the U.S. troops were well prepared and could have continued fighting in chemical suits and gas masks.
The larger question involved in this issue is, simply, WHY? Why do we have people like Ilana Mercer, who apparently claims to be libertarian, whose only reason for writing articles, apparently, is to trash George W. Bush? Mercer viewed the embedded reporters traveling with fast-moving troops during Operation Iraqi Freedom as an example of the Bush administration “controlling and shaping the emerging information” and states that “the dearth of hard-edged questions from the press in general at the Pentagon briefings would have done any dictator proud.” She appears to base this statement on the fact that she “learned about 12-year-old Ali Ismail Abbas from the Canadian Broadcaster. Most of my information about Iraqi civilian casualties comes from the CBC. Abbas lost both his arms when an American missile smashed into his home, killing both his parents. His doctors say he is dying.”
He’s not dying, having been airlifted to a Kuwait hospital where he is being treated and is awaiting artificial limbs. As tragic a this story is, it is almost a footnote in history compared to the horror tales being uncovered in Iraq that were being perpetrated by Saddam Hussein and the Baath party. Where is the media’s public compassion for the 3000 people found in unmarked, shallow graves in Kirkuk, a story reported in Egypt’s Middle East Times? Where was, and is, the media compassion for the thousands of Iraqi citizens that have had their tongues cut out, their ears cut off, their wives and daughters gang raped to force the men to confess to opposition to the regime? Where was, and is, the media admiration for a victor in war that saved the Iraqi people’s future by putting out oil well fires set by Saddam Hussein, and ending a brutal regime that turned hospitals, mosques and schools into military arsenals?
Is the only use for the media in a free society the trashing of government and the only use for media in a tyranny the support of government? Whatever became of the idea that the purpose of the press is to tell the truth? Why are so many journalists of the opinion that their only role is to, as Mercer put it, tell “stories that should have been told and weren't?” such as the injuries suffered by Ali Ismail Abbas.
The story of Ali’s injuries is a human-interest story, used extensively by the anti-war lobby to convince the public of something they already know: War is hell and people get killed and injured in war. Do we need a commentator to tell us that people get injured in war? Over 50 million people died in World War II. Is one person’s injury enough to describe 50 million deaths and injuries?
The story Mercer is NOT commenting on, that most people actually saw with their own eyes, was a group of Iraqis spontaneously trying to tear down the statue of Saddam Hussein in central Baghdad's Paradise Square on April 9th with a rope and a sledgehammer while the American Marines watched. That was a picture worth a million words. Perhaps ten million words of writers like Ilana Mercer. As Thom Hinckley, one of my readers put it, “I didn’t realize until then how much the Iraqi people hated Saddam Hussein.” It was a brutal, rotten, hated regime, waiting for someone to push it over. George W. Bush was the world leader wise enough to give it a shove.
Hinckley believed what he saw – not the spin by someone was trying to distract the public with “stories” and “commentary” that not only show ignorance of the facts, but who lacked understanding of the issues facing both America and the Iraqi people.
This does not bode well for self-inflated commentators who have little respect for the intelligence of their readers.
To comment: mmostert@bannerofliberty.com