The last few weeks have been about war and terror, "deranged loners" with Bipolar Disorder, media shortcomings, and information warfare. Some highlights, or lowlights if you prefer:
Charles has once again shown the power of the blogosphere at its best. Reuters Doctoring Photos from Beirut? raises questions on multiple levels. It is worth wondering if Reuter's use of an obviously doctored photo is a sign of desperation, perfidy, or inattention; it is also worth wondering how much of the motivation is shared by Hezbollah and Reuters. LGF is slow because it has been swamped with so many people going by; if you have trouble getting to his site, Dan Riehl has a collection of links to the photo affair and Michelle Malkin does her usual exceptional job putting together a complete summary.
The MSM has been doing its best, or worst depending on your POV, to destroy its credibility for quiet some time now. Chris Anderson has some basic facts on the Mainstream Media Meltdown III which should help you decide if they are succeeding.
Alexandra once again points out that the enemies of civilization represent a functional alliance between the left-controlled media (and their laziness and need for "stories" does not relieve them of the responsibility for occasionally trying for objectivity) and hate-filled, Islamist inspired minions of death who want nothing more than to kill us all. Too many either don't appreciate that (though how they can miss it is hard to fathom) or think that the enemy's ineptitude means we should ignore and minimize the danger.
For the single best explanation of the ways in which the media facilitate the carnage, take a look at this cartoon from Yaakov Kirschen at the Dry Bones blog.
There are other fronts in the war:
Tuesday's Connecticut primary has national significance. AJ Strata suggests that a Leiberman Loss Will Push Democrats Hard Left. Such a move left by the Democratic party is very dangerous. It would mean that Republican failures and short-comings will result in the choice between continuing to have ineffectual and occasionally venal leadership, versus leadership by those who would pursue the policies that have brought us to disaster time and again.
Iraq war opponents have been salivating over the prospects that the Bush administration will suffer a severe setback by the civil war that is either already happening or threatening to happen in Iraq. Grim offers some helpful balance to the despair and glee (depending on viewpoint, as always) about the situation in Iraq in Where Are We Going?. Too many people think that if we do not immediately have a functioning liberal democracy in Iraq, the whole effort will have been shown to be a disaster and a mistake. As luck would have it, in the real world life is not quite so black and white.
Mark Steyn discusses proportionality today; it is fascinating that the media never finds murderers of Jews to be acting in a "disproportionate" manner. In fact, murderers of Jews and Americans (honorary Jews in the Islamist mindset) who do not loudly and repeatedly proclaim their adherence to designated terrorist groups are usually known as militants when they kill in groups.
[The EU and the UN have trouble identifying Hezbollah as a terrorist group because a lot of Muslims support them, therefore the fact they are non-state actors with a genocidal writ and use terror tactics somehow makes them what, a political club?]
When such haters act in small groups or alone, they are usually identified as troubled souls, often with Psychiatric problems. As a Psychiatrist, allow me to point out that the current efforts to depict Naveed Afzal Haq as a Psychiatrically disturbed man who planned and carried out a murderous attack against the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle because of his illness are absurd. I cannot really comment on his Psychiatric illness and I am perfectly willing to believe he is a disturbed individual but most people who suffer from Bipolar Disorder have enough on their plates managing their illness that they comment violent crimes at a lower rate than the "normal" population. For Haq to become violent against Jews requires a somewhat more sophisticated and nuanced theory. [That was a touch of sarcasm.] Perhaps his statement that he is an American Muslim and his further statements might offer clues to his behavior:
"These are Jews," he told 911 dispatchers in a recorded conversation "I want these Jews to get out."
"I'm tired of getting pushed around, and our people getting pushed around by the situation in the Middle East."
And for those who are etymologically challenged, when you plan an assault on innocent people because they are members of a particular group that you consider an enemy and then shoot to kill them (and succeed in one case) you may be many things, but one thing we can be sure of, you have committed a terrorist act. That makes you a terrorist. After all, that is what terrorists do: they target and attempt to kill innocent non-combatants, for political reasons. That shouldn't be so hard to comprehend but it continues to befuddle people.
Finally, many people reasonably criticize me and other bloggers for talking about "the left" as if it is a monolithic bloc. I appreciate that using such shorthand leads to somewhat artificial differentiations and can be polarizing. Yet, if every time a blogger writes about his positions and criticizes the positions of the opposition, he or she must first define all his terms, bloggers would end up never blogging about anything. Beyond that, I think there is a certain disingenuous quality to some of the comments. Certainly, I have been called a neo-con and a conservative and since many of my opinions coincide with those that are currently covered by those terms, I do not dispute it every time it happens. In point of fact I continue to consider myself a traditional liberal, which these days seems to mean Conservative.
On a related, lighter, note James Wolcott of vanity Fair has taken it upon himself to state some objections to postings from myself, Dr. Sanity and Gagdad Bob. Wolcott can be an entertaining read, but if this is how he understands Narcissism then he has a fair amount of further work to do. His comments are worth reading if only to note the way in which his criticisms, however accurate they may be, are immediately undercut by his manner of expressing them. Dr. Sanity and Gagdad Bob respond in their own inimitable fashions.
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