This has been mentioned elsewhere, but I’m going to repeat it here because it boggles the mind and the fellow who wrote it represents my home state:
>Thanks to the liberal mainstream media, Americans fully understand the consequences of continuing our efforts in Iraq — both in American lives and dollars. The American people do not understand the consequences of abandoning that effort or the extreme views, goals, and intentions of the radical Islamist movement that is fueling the war in Iraq and the attacks on westerners and unbelievers throughout the world.
Read the rest here (they conflate the war in Iraq with the war against radical Islam). The strangest thing about this passage however is how sloppily they make the causal claim. They should remember that the liberal media misinforms people, not the other way around. Unless they really mean that it’s good that people are informed. If this is the case, then they ought to put a “but” at the beginning of the next sentence.
I do think the authors of the paper have a point. I think that whether the reporting is labeled as ‘liberal’ or not the truth is out. I also think that it is fair to point out that the authors are wanting to ignore the facts and argue on the potential for long term problems. Is it not true that people that are perceived to be radical Islamist by the ‘liberal’ media are ‘fueling’ the war in Iraq and Afghanistan? Is it not true that a man regarded by the ‘liberal’ media is in control of Iran and wants Nuclear potential whether it is for power or weapons? It seems that the authors of the paper have a point and a warrant to ‘conflate’ the war in Iraq with the war on militant Islam. Whether they have made a case or can make a case needs to be seen, but I think it is there to be made. I think the case can be made that ‘hindsight is 20/20’ and Americans were too ready to believe what they were being told, and that those interpreting the data were too eager to interpret it in the worst way. I think the war in Iraq has gotten out of hand because of a long standing desire to seize a window of opportunity to ‘change the regime’ in Iraq resulted in a hasty, poorly considered action. I think that the quagmire that America is in now was brought on by a lack of foresight, understanding and oversimplification about that region. In any case I think that the dialogue about the war in Iraq should be changed to reflect the new context that it seems to have taken, to include the facts presented by the ‘liberal media’ and the potential for continued problems in the region promoted by the ‘hawkish right-wing’. I think America ‘opened up the whole can of whoop-a**’ and now doesn’t know how to deal with it. In my view a shift in the context of discussion to say that the war in Iraq is not so much about Iraq anymore as it is a war between cultures is warranted. I think that the question of whether the war in Iraq is right or wrong, warranted or not is better left to decide after it has been resolved, but in my view the resolution must necessarily consider the problem of ‘Radical Islamists’ because I think it is likely that this is chronic rather than acute.
The two fellows who authored the piece have confused the usual media critique of the Republican party. For them, the liberal media distorts and misinforms. Here they said on account of the liberal media, people are informed. That’s quite unusual. As to your other point, now of course there are radical Islamists in Iraq. They weren’t there to begin with. But they’re there on account of our imprudent course of action. As many suggested before the war–many, by the way, who were vilified as cowards and traitors–a war in Iraq would strengthen Iran and Syria. It turns out they were right.