Even when we don’t. Don Surber, on continuing self immolation of the New York Times.

[Update in the afternoon]

OK, I don’t have a lot of time for this, but I’m seeing a lot of nonsense being spouted in the comments section.

Yes, perhaps it isn’t, or shouldn’t be, news that Al Qaeda tortures people. But many people seem to not know that, or have forgotten it, particularly when the major thrust of the news coverage is how awful America is.

Yes, we are supposed to be the good guys. And you know what? We are. When an Abu Ghraib happens, we investigate it, and we try people, and we punish them, and that happens even without the New York Times running it on the front page for weeks on end. When Al Qaeda does it, as prescribed by their training manuals, they, and millions of their supporters in the Muslim world, ululate and cheer.

But somehow, the New York Times and the other enablers of the enemy in what is fundamentally an information war, can’t be bothered to point that out, or point out the differences, instead descending into hand wringing and moral equivalence, in an apparent effort to cast doubt on the goodness of our own society and values, and even whether or not they’re worth defending.

[Saturday morning update]

Follow-up post here.

Lorie Byrd has an article about how Al Qaeda has made allies, witting or not, of the western press.

…when I read this:

“In every war, there’s conflict between hawks and doves. O’Donnell and Hasselbeck’s fight harkens back to a Vietnam-era exchange between liberal Gore Vidal and conservative William Buckley.”

Did someone at ABC News really write that with a straight face?

[Update a few minutes later]

You know, I can’t figure out which comparison is more ludicrous–Rosie and Gore Vidal (well, at least they’re both gay), or William Buckley and Elizabeth Hasselbeck. Somehow, when I think Elizabeth Hasselbeck, the word “sesquipedalian” is not the first one that comes to mind. Actually, over the last couple days, I would probably associate her with fatwas.

There’s an old saying that success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan. Well, when it comes to reporting on Al Qaeda, the MSM seems only interested in their successes, and not their failures.

But isn’t that the way any good propagandist works?

And what isn’t news?

And what isn’t news?

And what isn’t news?

…in Iraq:

So far this year, many more parts of central Iraq have been cleared of terrorists, and the remaining ones know they have to maintain their visibility to survive. Setting off several bombs a day keeps the terrorists in the news, even if the explosions take place in a smaller and smaller area of Iraq. The terrorists play more to the international media, than they do to anyone inside Iraq. The terrorists are already hated and feared throughout the country, even in Sunni Arab areas. There, the terrorists must increasingly divert resources to terrorize Sunni Arabs, and keep them in line. They are aided by Islamic conservatives, who see all the unrest as an opportunity to impose Taliban like rules on the population. If the terrorists accomplish nothing else, they will have shown how to manipulate the mass media, and divert attention from the true origins of the terrorists, and their objectives. It’s been a masterful job which, of course, the mass media will have no interest in examining anytime soon. In a generation or so, there will be books and articles about it, but the subject will never get a lot of media attention.

…Pro-Iranian Shia groups are having second thoughts. Several years of having a Shia majority running the country has instilled a confidence in the Shia community that has not been felt in generations. The thought of Iran pulling the strings in a Shia run Iraq was never very palatable. Iraqi Shia know that the Iranians despise Arabs, especially Iraqi Arabs. The Iranians try to hide this, but the Iraqis know, and now the thinking is “we can do this.” No one will know for sure until the Americans leave, and the security forces either stay united, or fragment to join the dozens of tribal, religious and political militias.

Whitehouse.org, whitehouse.gov, it’s all good.

Islamberg.

Good thing we have a “Department of Homeland Security.” Otherwise, things like this might be going on…