Too Much To Dream

Cowardly media tricks

Belmont Club has a few observations about the anti-American antics of media outlets like the BBC. I especially liked this passage, since it sums up my own disgust at what the pro-news creatures have been spouting lately:

There is something disgustingly craven about an entity whose courage stems entirely from the conviction that those who it reviles will be too decent to strike back. Perhaps the most appropriate fate for the BBC is simply to remain what it is. Still, it is comforting to know that if civilization should perish under the heel of Islam the destruction would encompass those who jeered loudest as the valiant manned the walls.

He suggests that it is ironic that the best thing that can happen to organizations like the BBC is for the War on Terror to succeed, since they are apparently so against every aspect of it. I suggest that this is because they seem not to realize that this is a real war, and that they are really in danger if we lose. I'm not sure what to base this on. Perhaps it was because our side, as it was then, lost (or rather, gave up on) the war in Vietnam and nothing much bad happened after all (to journalists, that is; a few million or so Vietnamese people did not exactly have a thrilling time). But I think it is because so many of these antiwar babies grew up on a steady fodder of World War Two movies. World War Two, see, was a real war, with clearly delineated sides, uniforms, an Evil Villain right out of central casting, and everyone back then knew exactly what he or she stood for and never deviated from that course. Or so it seems to people; the idea that there was -- gasp -- just as much grousing, backbiting, uncertainty, and appeasement-mongering during the Big One is shocking to today's crop of Mirandas. But leaving that aside, I also think that journalists such as infest the BBC and other networks show a condescending attitude of near-colonial proportions towards the people they report in areas of the world like the Middle East, and as we are always being told ad nauseum, memories are long in places like that. No one likes being treated like a stupid child, least of all crazy terrorists who want to kill infidels for Allah. Believe it or not, making war on these people is one of the nicest things any Westerner has ever done for them; it certainly has given them a sense of validation. Isn't that what life is supposed to be all about?