The Omega Letter Intelligence Digest
 

Vol: 32 Issue: 30 - Sunday, May 30, 2004

The Media's Memorial Day
by Jack Kinsella

The memorial honoring what is now officially known as 'the Greatest
Generation' was, fittingly enough, timed to open for this year's Memorial
Day.  Those who fought World War Two aren't known as the Greatest
Generation just because they endured the challenges of war, although that
by itself would qualify its members for the title.

Throughout the history of warfare, the principle; 'to the victor go the
spoils'  generally described the purpose of warfare in the first place.
The Axis' goal was world domination, and they raped every country that
they conquered.

But when they were conquered in turn by the Greatest Generation, the
victors turned the spoils back over to the vanquished.  For the first time
in the history of war, (but not the last) nations vanquished by the
Greatest Generation could count on emerging from the conflict better off
than they were when the entered it.

(This was famously illustrated by the hysterically funny Peter Sellers in
the 1960's movie, "The Mouse that Roared.")

It is hard to imagine the hardships endured by the men who landed on the
Normandy beacheads.  The late Stephen Ambrose and WWII historian (and
veteran) helped design a computer game called Medal of Honor that
simulates the journey from the landing craft to the seawall at Normandy
from a first person perspective.  (Ambrose oversaw the historical accuracy
of the simulation)

Playing it, one wonders how ANY of the flesh and blood heroes it simulates
ever actually made it to the seawall alive.

It strains the limits of the imagination to contemplate what it must have
been like to be one of the men climbing up the sheer faces of the cliffs
at Normandy as enemy forces shot them down from above.

And having survived, imagine the prospect of facing perhaps YEARS more of
the same, liberating the whole of Europe, one town at a time.

The Greatest Generation was the generation that, having endured all that
they endured at the hands of a determined, sadistic and vicious enemy,
left their bitterness on the battlefield and built a world in which most
of their children lived out their lives having never heard a shot fired in
anger.

The Greatest Generation is also so-titled because of the tenderness with
which it is treated by the media. It was the Greatest Generation that
built and controlled the great media empires of their time.  The veterans
who had seen war understood both the cost of war and the price of peace.

They didn't come home to saturate the pubic with stories of American
atrocities against the enemy.  They didn't defame the men who fought and
died for freedom, or those who survived to enjoy its benefits.

America's warriors were portrayed by John Wayne and Randolph Scott, and
they weren't cowards or baby killers. To this generation, they seem corny
and almost like caricatures, but to their audiences of the time, they were
believable because they reflected the character and nature of the people
that they attracted to the theaters.

There were honors and parades and plenty of commentators lamenting the
passing of the Greatest Generation (somebody calculated it at 1,057 a day)
and there were news cameras all over the place to capture the event --
before broadcasting snippets of it in between stories of military
misconduct and accusations of war crimes being leveled against US troops
fighting in Iraq.
 
 

Assessment:

As America honors -- and deservedly so -- the generation that made America
the greatest nation in the history of the world, an ROTC recruit
complained to the New York Post Friday, "I've been called a baby killer,"
by her fellow students at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University.

The future military officer told the paper, "I was thinking, I took an
oath to defend their right to call me that."

The peace and safety that was won by the Greatest Generation is now being
defended by troops no less committed to America than were their
grandparents, but it seems unlikely they'll get any parades.

Since none of the other efforts to discredit the administration have borne
fruit, the media has decided to attack the current Commander in Chief
through his troops.

Consider the efforts that have been tried so far without success;

The war against Saddam was a neoconservative conspiracy, a capitalist
conspiracy, a Zionist conspiracy, a Jewish conspiracy, and, according to
some,  a conspiracy between all the above and the faceless 'oil
companies', (which are not to be confused with OPEC -- the liberals LOVE
those guys!)

Howard Dean went so far as to claim Bush knew in advance of the September
11 attacks, but did nothing to stop it.  Dean's comments were immediately
picked up by the wire services and flashed to every newspaper editor in
the world.

Then there was the effort to claim there is no evidence of a link between
al-Qaeda and Saddam.  (Despite reams of evidence to the contrary that
seldom gets mentioned outside the pages of the Washington Times).

There has been what can only be called a bizarre effort to convince
America there is absolutely no evidence that Hussein ever possessed WMD's,
effectively rewriting history as it unfolds.

None of that has worked.  So now the mainstream has turned on the military
forces fighting in Iraq, representing them as war criminals fighting an
illegal war.

Right now, as we honor the sacrifices made by our fighting men in prior
wars, there are convoys of reporters scouring Iraq and Afghanistan,
looking for former detainees to tell their stories of abuse and torture at
American hands.

America is a nation at war. We are in a battle for our national lives,
against a world filled with enemies. Even our alleged friends are
suspicious of our motives, prepared to accept any story that confirms
their pet suspicions, to the point that even when confronted with the
evidence, still condemn us for removing Saddam Hussein and his terror
machine from power.

And most of the anti-American propaganda abroad is being spread by the
liberal media and American politicians  so hungry for power that America's
national interests are secondary to partisan propaganda. And the idiots
that support them.

The media's Memorial Day honors those who protected America's freedom in
past wars. As we pray for America, let us remember those who are
protecting us right now.  May God bless and keep them safe.