Leftist Lies...Again

Yesterday I made the point that liberals argue by mis-characterizing conservative positions to make them seem horrible when they are not; and by using "softened" language to describe their own ridiculous positions and make them seem more palatable. My point was also that this is done routinely.

The most prominent example of this behavior is the liberal Congress's attempts to backstab the American military by dragging them out of Iraq before their work is done. If successful, this act would be disastrous for for Iraqis, who would be terrorized and killed in huge numbers almost immediately. It would also hurt our nation tremendously, as we would completely lose credibility with our allies with whom we would claim to stand next to in a fight. Who would trust us again, and why? After the fall of Saigon and our rapid exit from Somalia after the "Blackhawk Down" incident, leaving Iraq after 5 years of hard work would simply send a confirmation that America doesn't have the wherewithall to get "the jobs" done any more.

And the causes of all of these pullouts are the same: the Liberal Left. Senator Ted Kennedy, for one, is proud of being instrumental in cutting the funding of the troops in Vietnam in the mid 70's. That pullout has been a dark stain on our country's honor ever since. And yet he also helps lead the charge to get out of Iraq today. He, at least, didn't learn from his mistakes. Bottom line: The Left has no stomach for a fight.

One of the red herrings the Leftist congressmen and women put out there as the supposed rationale for wanting to "redeploy" our troops is their overriding concern for the troops' welfare. However I don't buy this at all. One reason is that, besides the Left always wanting to pull the troops out of combat zones, thus losing those battles/wars, the Left also is the source of anti-military protests on campuses and for the widespread banning of military recruiters on college campuses. Many leftists also want military recruiters to be kicked out of high schools in America. They give ridiculous reasons for this belief that recruiters don't belong in such places, recruiting our kids, but I believe the real reason is hatred for the military machine and what it is for.

Case in point: The New Republic magazine (left-leaning), recently recuperating from a similar scandal in 1998, just published a column written, allegedly, by a member of the military serving in Iraq, in which all kinds of horrific behavior is described being perpetrated by our troops. This behavior included laughing and making jokes about a female civilian contractor there whose face was horribly burned; finding a mass child gravesite and wearing a child's skull like a toy; and intentionally running over dogs in a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, among others. The author uses a phony name, and the editors are standing behind the story. The Weekly Standard began investigating the story, and asked milbloggers to help out, which many of them are doing.

Milbloggers starting finding problems with the story almost immediately (just as other bloggers did a few years ago with the Dan Rather fiasco) and began posting these problems online, attacking the N.R.'s credibility. Republic editors, who haven't come out for any interviews at all yet, have started backtracking and investigating the claims made in the story.

There are several places to read about this developing story: The Weekly Standard's website has a good overview, and there are a number of good milbloggers all over this investigation, including Mudville Gazette; BlackFive; and American Thinker. All these blogs are dissecting bits and pieces of the narrative in the New Republic column, and finding all kinds of signs that it was a) made up, and b) done so by a known perpetrator of this kind of fraud. If things keep going in this direction, N.R. editors will have some apologizing to do -- again. Then the question will be, did they know and try to get away with something, or did they not know but publish the whole column without fact-checking because it so readily fits their worldview?

The blog at Mudville Gazette also includes a good number of left-leaning blog quotes on the content of the article. His point is that these kinds of columns need to be combatted because lefties want to believe them and are thus drawn to them, without any checking at all. And the comments he posts from them really show how the Left feels about the military: they hate them and think of them as barbaric killers.

So enough with the b.s. that the Left cares about the military. By and large, it just is not true. John Kerry was dissing the troops in the 70's when he accused them of committing all kinds of heinous crimes. And he still does it today. Late last year, he made a comment about how the U.S. military members were breaking into houses, terrorizing women and children. And there are many, many more who make the same kinds of wild comments and betray their real feelings about out military.