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August 03, 2006
Malkin's Biased Perspective on the War
In a piece entitled The Theater of Jihad, Michelle Malkin goes on a shocking rant about what happened in Qana. In it, she betrays her lack of human compassion in her zeal to side with Israel, starting right off by saying those who are concerned that the Qana attack will stir up Muslim hatred for the West are "nervous nillies." Michelle, when we're looking at the possibility of increasing terrorist attacks on US soil and the prospect of a nuclear WWIII in the Middle East, we have a responsibility to be nervous and it doesn't make us a bunch of nillies.
Malkin would have us set aside the memory of 5,000 years of back-and-forth atrocities between Israelis and Palestinians (formerly known as Phillistines – remember Golliath?). She calls what happened in Qana "the Israeli exception to the Hezbollah rule." Perhaps she was unaware of the last time Israel attacked Qana. And has anyone heard of Israel's efforts to cut off the Palestinians' water supply? Very humane. That is not to say Hezbollah hasn't been utterly horrid. Of course they have.
I must make an important point here: Hezbollah has committed terrorist attacks against the United States and Israel is our ally. So I don't wonder why we are taking Israel's side here. That doesn't mean I support Israel's decision to go to all-out war, putting so many civilians, including young children, at risk. When Iran captured 52 Americans we solved the situation through diplomacy. It wasn't perfect, but we didn't go to war and babies weren't blown up as a result of adults being unable to work out their problems.
Back to Malkin's post:
The truth about Muslim outrage over Qana is that it's not really about the tragic deaths at Qana -- just like the Mohammed cartoon jihad was not really about the cartoons. It's a pretext for much grander goals to defeat the infidels -- be they Israeli, Danish, Dutch or American.
This war isn't really about two Israeli hostages, either. As I'll show later, it seems none of what we are seeing is about what we're told it is about. Something serious is underway and we're being distracted from the truth by people like Malkin.
Malkin's distraction piece next goes on about the "manufactured" Islamic riots and demonstrations of recent months and the "real" reasons behind them. To which I would reply that perhaps the people who orchestrated those demonstrations had ulterior motives in mind, but I am certain those who participated in them were expressing their true feelings and represent a powder keg we should take seriously. You can't convince me that evil Islamic organizers with deceptive intent were able to get crowds that big to put on a convincing acting job that did not reflect their true feelings.
From here, Malkin really gets outrageous, implying that experienced AP and Reuters photographers were fooled by Hizbollah sympathizers digging up long-dead corpses of babies and parading them around as if they had just died. Citing the "sparkling clean pacifier clipped onto a dust-covered toddler carried around by the friendly corpse-parader," she berates these photographers for being basically blinded by their sympathy. (The clean pacifier reminds me of when I was a teen and my great grandmother's house burned. When the fire was out we found, sitting atop a charred desk, a perfect, unsinged postage stamp. Sometimes there is no explaining nature.)
Hezbollah certainly has not earned the right to be above question. In fact, they're known propagandists. But to question these photographers is too much. In fact, the doubts are, in my opinion, thoroughly debunked in this must-read news report, which also, conveniently, tells us the origin of the rumor Michelle cites:
A British Web site, the EU Referendum blog, built an argument that chicanery may have been involved by citing time stamps that went with captions of the photographs…. The site suggests these events were staged for effect, a criticism echoed by talk show host Rush Limbaugh when he directed listeners to the blog on Monday."These photographers are obviously willing to participate in propaganda," Limbaugh said. "They know exactly what's being done, all these photos, bringing the bodies out of the rubble, posing them for the cameras, it's all staged. Every bit of it is staged and the still photographers know it."
Rush listeners like Malkin tend to forget that he is not a news reporter. He's an entertainer. And you simply cannot rely on him to tell the truth. His purpose is to advance the Republican agenda. Period.
Malkin's flippant response to this article can be found in a post entitled How dare they be questioned!". It reads simply, "Yes, the gall."
In closing, I would suggest some reading material. First, Carla made an interesting point earlier that the right wing seems unusually willing to believe the conspiracy theory that the Qana attack was staged, even though they reject out of hand all evidence that other suspicious events, which would be politically inconvenient for them, might have been staged.
So what is the big picture in this war between Israel and Hezbollah? What are we not being told? No one should go without reading the Clean Break plan authored by the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) back in 1996. It is being played out perfectly today. Think Progress has an interesting take on this report, with further links.
For more information on PNAC this site is a useful resource. It is headed by the now infamous pre-9/11 statement from PNAC's strategy paper "Rebuilding America's Defenses": "Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor." Sounds like 9/11, doesn't it?
And, of course, no study of the current crisis would be complete without a well-rounded look at Zionism, including True Torah Jews Against Zionism, Zionism and its Impact, an explanation by Hamas of why American Christians support Israel, and the comments submitted under Kevin's recent post here on PK.
Happy reading.
Posted by Becky at August 3, 2006 09:14 AM