John at Power Line has posted a great essay where he discusses the role the American media has assumed in the War on Terror. He points out that the constant emphasis on casualties in Iraq with no strategic or tactical perspective is, to say the least, counterproductive.
Go read the whole thing. It’s well worth your time.
Also worth your time is this account from Michael Yon of a firefight in Iraq. Stuff like this should be on the front page of every newspaper in America. Instead we get big headlines about the casualties, and nothing else.
(My thanks to loyal reader Robert Schwartz for the heads up.)
It made Rush today.
I’ve read his communiques since being alerted to his existence by a post on “Blackfive”. Impressive reporting, especially the piece on self-censorship when concerned with ongoing military operations!
Well worth adding to anyone’s ‘bookmark’ list!
p.s. Your spam blocking software doesn’t seem to be working again!
Men of the Picts
Rudyard Kipling
Rome never heeds where she treads.
Always the heavy hooves fall
On our stomachs, our hearts and our heads.
And Rome never heeds when we bawl.
The sentries pass on, that is all.
And we gather behind them in hordes,
And plot to reconquer the Wall
With only our tongues for our swords.
We are the little folk, we.
Too little to love or to hate.
But leave us alone and you’ll see
Just how we can drag down the State.
We are the worm in the wood,
We are the rot at the root,
We are the taint in the blood,
We are the thorn in the foot!
Mistletoe choking an oak,
Rats gnawing cables in two,
Moths making holes in a cloak,
How they must love what they do.
Yes, and we little folk too!
We are as busy as they,
Working our works out of view.
But watch, and you’ll see them someday.
No, indeed we are not strong.
But we know people who are!
And we, we will guide them along
To crush and destroy you in war.
Yes, we have always been slaves,
And, yes, we will still be their slaves.
But you, you will die of the shame.
And then we will dance on your graves.
We are the little folk, we.
Too little to love or to hate.
But leave us alone and you’ll see
Just watch as we drag down the State.
Yon took me to the scene with visions of shattered femurs and exploded testicles. I could smell the propane, the sweat and the concrete dust.
Malkin’s right – give him the pulitzer.
-Steve
Here is another story that should be looked into from Spiegels in Germany. I have yet to see any mention by MSM http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,369448,00.html
It is a review of a book by a Jordanian Journalist who outlines what al Qaida really wants. If true it needs to be brought to the attention of the free world because it is as scary as hell itself!