Those Who Know Support Bush
By Monte Kuligowski (10/27/04)
With Old Media’s staunch refusal to fully report on the good that’s been done in Afghanistan and in Iraq, it’s no wonder that America is divided over the Iraq War. And it’s more than the absence of positive stories, it’s the framing of the Iraq effort in the worst light possible. It’s the ongoing barrage of stories to support the Howard Dean view of the war. That view, adopted by Kerry/Edwards is now the mainstream view of the Democratic Party and their friends in the party’s media branch – a.k.a., the national press corps.
Day after day we hear stories about the “mess” in Iraq. If the general public knows nothing else, it knows that soldiers are dying in a country where no weapons of mass destruction were found, where “insurgents” are beheading Americans and where no connections to 9/11 can be found. From the “grim milestone” of U.S. troop casualties as Exhibit A, to reports like the “60 Minutes” special on the dire conditions in Iraq, the half-informed public can resound in unison, “Bush mislead the country into the wrong war at the wrong time and place.”
Of course, any war can be framed in a negative light by the liberal media. I suppose the Civil War could have been Lincoln’s unnecessary war he stubbornly led the Union into over personal political views. War certainly wasn’t the last resort; especially considering the southern states weren’t invading, but just wanted to be left alone. Just imagine today’s media showing the thousands upon thousands of bodies on Gettysburg’s blood-soaked field coupled with a “60 Minutes” special report interviewing grieving parents having one northern son dead and one southern son without limbs. If the media had viewed the president with utter contempt and scorn, that war could have been the wrong war at the wrong time and place as well.
I’m not alone in suspecting that if the Iraq War had been reported fairly and honestly, showing the good the bad and the ugly, rather than just the bad and the ugly (or at least exposing the bad and the ugly of Saddam’s mass murders, tortures, rapes and mutilations), this presidential election would be an absolute rout for President Bush. It wouldn’t even be close. I can say that because those who grasp the magnitude of what’s being accomplished in Iraq support the president by a landslide.
There is no single group that understands the significance of the Iraq War more than the brave men and women of the U.S. armed forces who are there. They know what’s really going on. They know what the war is really about. And according to a recent “USA Today” survey of over 4,000 troops, “they support President Bush for re-election by a 4-to-1 ratio.”
With news of a 4-to-1 ratio of troops supporting Bush, the Associated Press quickly countered with a story on Oct. 16, entitled, “Military Families Express Some Iraq Doubts.” I’m sure there were also military families expressing some doubts over the storming of the beaches of Normandy after their husbands, brothers and sons were gunned down by Germans sitting on the banks with 50 cal. machine guns. Sorry to say that’s war. The question is whether the war is just.
Senator Kerry made the news back in May of this year when he addressed military families in the Tidewater area of Virginia. The senator tried to sell his version of the war with the words, “President Bush didn’t learn the lessons of our generation in Vietnam.”
But it seems more likely that Sen. Kerry has yet to learn the lessons from Vietnam. According to “USA Today,” the vast majority of military servicemen say John Kerry’s anti-war activities after he returned from Vietnam make them less likely to vote for him. On Oct. 14 a local newscast in the Tidewater area, which houses the largest naval base in the world, reported that military families are in favor of the president’s re-election by 70%, while only 30% plan to vote for Kerry or not at all.
Our troops and their families are well aware of Sen. Kerry’s betrayal of his country during the 1970s. They know of his opposition to President Reagan and of his anti-military voting record throughout the 1980s. They know of his opposition to the Gulf War and of his support for base closings in the 1990s. And they know full well of his mixed messages over the Iraq War, extending his counter-culture values into the new Century.
That’s why those who know know that Sen. Kerry is “unfit for command.” Those who know are voting for President Bush on Nov. 2.
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