May 15, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
James Taranto found this story of a courageous soldier from El Salvador:
One of his friends was dead, 12 others lay wounded and the four soldiers still left standing were surrounded and out of ammunition. So Salvadoran Cpl. Samuel Toloza said a prayer, whipped out his knife and charged the Iraqi gunmen. In one of the only known instances of hand-to-hand combat in the Iraq conflict, Cpl. Toloza stabbed several attackers swarming around a comrade. The stunned assailants backed away momentarily, just as a relief column came to the unit's rescue. [Washington Times, 4 May 2004]
May 14, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
InstaPundit has a good round-up regarding media coverage of the Berg execution: Why The Big Media Continue To Lose Their Audience. Excerpts from the post:
From Neal Boortz:This morning in most of the newspapers I scanned during my preparation for the show the top story was still the Iraqi prison abuse scandal. Nick Berg had already disappeared from many front pages, but the prison abuse stories remain. May I suggest to you that there is a reason for this? Maybe it's just this simple: The prison abuse scandal can damage Bush, the Nick Berg story can only help him. Given the choice many editors will chose the stories that serve their cause, getting Bush out of the White House, rather than one that hurts it.
From Rod Dreher of the Dallas Morning News:Our letters page today is filled with nothing but Berg-related letters, most of them demanding that the DMN show more photos of the Berg execution. Not one of the 87 letters we received on the topic yesterday called for these images not to be printed. My sense is that there's a big backlash building against the media for flogging the Abu Ghraib photos, but being so delicate with the Berg images. People sense that there's an agenda afoot here. As somebody, can't remember who, wrote yesterday, "Why is it that the media can show over and over again pictures that could make Arabs hate Americans, but refuse to show pictures that could make Americans hate Arabs?"
From Glenn Reynolds:These [media] guys are marginalizing themselves with their agenda-driven coverage. And they're so out of touch they don't realize it.
Michael Getler, ombudsman of The Washington Post, recently explained why it was important to publicize photographs of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib: "The reality of war in all its aspects needs to be reported and photographed. That is the patriotic, and necessary, thing to do in a democracy." (Via Ace of Spades HQ via Gil Ronen)
Yet The Washington Post didn't publish photos of Nick Berg's execution. Apparently they don't consider it patriotic to publicize -- much less dwell on -- our enemies' atrocities.
If you want to see the pictures big media don't want you to see, the following link contains stills from the video of Al Qaeda beheading Nick Berg: WARNING: Extremely graphic images.May 12, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
Writes Allen Forkum:
After days of intense media coverage of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, one could easily get the impression that certain American soldiers and their commanders are the most evil people in the world, much less Iraq.
The latest news should put things back into perspective: Video Shows Beheading of American in IraqAfter reading a statement, the men were seen pulling the man to his side and putting a large knife to his neck. A scream sounded as the men cut his head off, shouting "Allahu Akbar!" -- "God is great." They then held the head out before the camera.
Perhaps now the media will have a better idea of who the real enemy is in Iraq. Perhaps CNN will create an in-depth investigation into the death-worship, oppression, racism and murderous barbarism that is "systemic" to the Islamist ideology driving the terrorists. Perhaps Reuters will pen an exposé on the insurgents' "chain of command" and shine the harsh light of journalistic truth on Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia for providing moral and material support to terrorists. Perhaps AP will ask Al Qaeda to apologize to the families of its victims. Then again, perhaps not.
At least President Bush seems to know better than the media who the enemy is. The question is: What's he doing about it? Will President Bush unleash our military to do whatever is necessary to arrest, kill or otherwise render harmless the Islamist threat in Iraq? Or are we going to risk still more American lives in deference to world opinion and Islamic sensibilities?
Regarding Nick Berg, the victim of this Islamist atrocity, CBS News reports: Slain Man Thought He Could 'Help'Last week, before Berg's fate was known, his father said that his son had gone to Iraq partly out of a sense of adventure, partly for the opportunity for work, and partly because he was a "staunch supporter of the government position in Iraq and he wanted to go over there and help."
***
It took mere hours. The story that displaced the Nick Berg murder story on CNN's main page is about Abu Ghraib: Senators to view abuse images Wednesday. And The New York Times follow-up is focusing on the one aspect of the story involving the American government in Iraq instead of focusing on the killers: From a Strange Encounter With Iraqi Police to Fatal Capture.
May 10, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
CNN reports: Lawmakers to review new Iraq prison images[Vice President Dick] Cheney issued a rare weekend statement Saturday in which he voiced support for Rumsfeld, calling him "the best secretary of defense the United States has ever had. People ought to let him do his job." Cheney is also a former defense secretary. [...]
Cheney's statement followed calls by several Democrats for Rumsfeld's resignation after an Army report found numerous instances of "sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses" of Iraqis held at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.
Charles Johnson highlighted a David Frum editorial on the reasons why Rumsfeld must stay:1) Resignation would be utterly unjustified. The abuses in Abu Ghraib were in no way Donald Rumsfeld's fault. Nothing he ever said or did could have given anyone in the chain of command beneath him any reason to think that he countenanced or would countenance the humiliation and degradation of prisoners.
2) Resignation would be pointless. The damage done by the Abu Ghraib pictures is irretrievable. The president could fire his entire cabinet, without changing a single mind in the Arab world -- or for that matter Europe -- about what happened and why.
Johnson also noted some spot-on comments from Senator Joe Lieberman regarding who's really owed an apology:"The behavior by Americans at the prison in Iraq is, as we all acknowledge, immoral, intolerable and un-American ... I cannot help but say, however, that those responsible for killing 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, 2001, never apologized. Those who have killed hundreds of Americans in uniform in Iraq, working to liberate Iraq and protect our security, have never apologized. And those who murdered and burned and humiliated four Americans in Fallujah a while ago never (apologized)..."
"I hope as we go about this investigation we do it in a way that does not dishonor the hundreds of thousands of Americans in uniform who are a lot more like Pat Tillman and Americans that are not known, like Army National Guard Sgt. Felix Delgreco, of Simsbury, Conn., who was killed in action a few weeks ago, that we not dishonor their service or discredit the cause that brought us to send them to Iraq, because it remains one that is just and necessary."
May 8, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
President Bush's apology for Iraqi prisoner abuse comes admid news of yet another taking of an American hostage, this time by a group called the "Islamic Rage Squadrons."
The first article notes that Bush is trying to counter a "worldwide wave of revulsion" over the prisoner abuse. Charles Johnson notes a disturbing double standard:Remember that "worldwide wave of revulsion" when a pregnant Israeli mother and her four daughters were murdered in cold blood by Arabs who videotaped the atrocity? Remember the "worldwide wave of revulsion" when four security contractors helping to rebuild Iraq were burned alive, ripped apart, and hung from a bridge by Arabs in Fallujah? Remember the "worldwide wave of revulsion" when an Italian hostage was murdered by Arabs on video? ... You don't?
If our government and media pursued justice against Islamist tyrants and terrorists with the same vigor they display in pursuing our own criminals, perhaps the war could be won.May 7, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From the New Zealand Herald:
Less than 24 hours after accusing the Walt Disney Company of pulling the plug on his latest documentary in a blatant attempt at political censorship, the rabble-rousing film-maker Michael Moore has admitted he knew a year ago that Disney had no intention of distributing it. The admission, during an interview with CNN, undermined Moore's claim that Disney was trying to sabotage the US release of Fahrenheit 911...and lent credence to a growing suspicion that Moore was manufacturing a controversy to help publicize the film, a full-bore attack on the Bush administration...
In an indignant letter to his supporters, Moore said he had learnt only on Monday that Disney had put the kibosh on distributing the film, which has been financed by the semi-independent Disney subsidiary Miramax.
But in the CNN interview he said: "Almost a year ago, after we'd started making the film, the chairman of Disney, Michael Eisner, told my agent he was upset Miramax had made the film and he will not distribute it."
Did they recently pull the plug---one year ago? Perhaps Kerry is Moore's script writer.
...A front-page news piece in The New York Times was followed yesterday by an editorial denouncing Disney for censorship and denial of Moore's right to free expression.
Moore told CNN that Disney had "signed a contract to distribute this [film]" but got cold feet. But Disney executives insists there was never any contract. And a source close to Miramax said that the only deal there was for financing, not for distribution.
You have a contract Mr. Moore? Well show us the contract. 
Cartoon by Cox and Forkum
Legally, only the government can censor someone in the anti-freedom sense of the term. Censorship is when someone initiates force to physically prevent you from expressing your views, such as when Moore's hero Fidel Castro imprisons and tortures pro-democracy protestors in Cuba, or when the U.S. government's fines Howard Stern for making comments they do not like, or when a "peace protestor" in Berkeley shouts down a pro-Bush speaker to prevent him from expressing his views.
Disney's refusal to promote the Time's pet monkey is not censorship--it is their inalienable right--just as it is the right of the New York Times--the so-called "champions of free expression" (if you expressing the views of the Far Left) --to refuse to publish my comments. (In their latest round of published letters all of the letters were pro-Moore.)
Disney actions are not a sign of "cowardice" but a sign of courage by standing up to the Far Left who seeks to destroy the difference between true censorship--committed by the government, violent student rebels, and the Mafia--and the right of a company to decide how it spends its own money. The only one guilty of "craven behavior" is the New York Times for perpetuating and encouraging Moore's farce.
