Without comment!
US media's march to war
In the wake of the devastating attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, many media pundits focused on one theme: retaliation. For some, it did not matter who bears the brunt of an American attack: "There is only one way to begin to deal with people like this, and that is you have to kill some of them even if they are not immediately directly involved in this thing." — former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger (CNN, 9/11/01)* * * "The response to this unimaginable 21st-century Pearl Harbor should be as simple as it is swift — kill the bastards. A gunshot between the eyes, blow them to smithereens, poison them if you have to. As for cities or countries that host these worms, bomb them into basketball courts." — Steve Dunleavy (New York Post, 9/12/01)* * * "America roused to a righteous anger has always been a force for good. States that have been supporting if not Osama bin Laden, people like him need to feel pain. If we flatten part of Damascus or Tehran or whatever it takes, that is part of the solution." — Rich Lowry, National Review editor, to Howard Kurtz (Washington Post, 9/13/01)* * * "TIME TO TAKE NAMES AND NUKE AFGHANISTAN." — Caption to cartoon by Gary Brookins (Richmond Times Dispatch, 9/13/01)* * * "At a bare minimum, tactical nuclear capabilites should be used against the bin Laden camps in the desert of Afghanistan. To do less would be rightly seen by the poisoned minds that orchestrated these attacks as cowardice on the part of the United States and the current administration." — Former Defense Intelligence Agency officer Thomas Woodrow.* * * "Time to Use the Nuclear Option" (Washington Times, 9/14/01)* * * Bill O'Reilly: "If the Taliban government of Afghanistan does not cooperate, then we will damage that government with air power, probably. All right? We will blast them, because..." Sam Husseini, Institute for Public Accuracy: "Who will you kill in the process?" O'Reilly: "Doesn't make any difference." — (The O'Reilly Factor, Fox News Channel, 9/13/01)* * * "This is no time to be precious about locating the exact individuals directly involved in this particular terrorist attack .... We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."— Syndicated columnist Ann Coulter (New York Daily News, 9/12/01) Many media commentators appeared to blame the attacks on what they saw as America's unwillingness to act aggressively in recent years.* * * As conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer (Washington Post, 9/12/01) wrote: "One of the reasons there are enough terrorists out there capable and deadly enough to carry out the deadliest attack on the United States in its history is that, while they have declared war on us, we have in the past responded (with the exception of a few useless cruise missile attacks on empty tents in the desert) by issuing subpoenas."* * * The Washington Post's David Broder (9/13/01), wrote: "For far too long, we have been queasy about responding to terrorism. Two decades ago, when those with real or imagined grievances against the United States began picking off Americans overseas on military or diplomatic assignments or on business, singly or in groups, we delivered pinprick retaliations or none at all."* * * In 1998, Bill Clinton sent 60 cruise missiles, some equipped with cluster bombs, against bin Laden's Afghan base, in what was presented as retaliation for the bombing of US embassies in Africa. One missile aimed at Afghan training camps landed hundreds of miles off course in Pakistan. A simultaneous attack in Sudan levelled one of the country's few pharmaceutical factories. The media cheered the attacks though careful investigation into the case revealed no credible evidence linking the plant to chemical weapons or to Osama bin Laden.* * * The Chicago Tribune's John Kass declared (9/13/01), "For the past decade we've sat dumb and stupid as the US military was transformed from a killing machine into a playpen for sociologists and political schemers." This "playpen" dropped 23,000 bombs on Yugoslavia in 1999, killing between 500 and 1500 civilians, and may have killed as many as 1,200 Iraqis in 1998's Desert Fox attack.* * * The Wall Street Journal (9/13/01) urged the US to "get serious" about terrorism by, among other things, eliminating "the 1995 rule limiting whom the US can recruit for counter-terrorism. For fear of hiring rogues, the CIA decided it would only hire Boy Scouts." One non-Boy Scout the CIA worked with in the 1980s is none other than Osama bin Laden, then considered a valuable asset in the fight against Communism.* * * Why They Hate Us "[The World Trade Centre and the Pentagon] have drawn, like gathered lightning, the anger of the enemies of civilization. Those enemies are always out there.... Americans are slow to anger but mighty when angry, and their proper anger now should be alloyed with pride. "They are targets because of their virtues — principally democracy, and loyalty to those nations which, like Israel, are embattled salients of our virtues in a still-dangerous world." — George Will (Washington Post, 9/12/01)* * * "This nation symbolizes freedom, strength, tolerance, and democratic principles dedicated to both liberty and peace. To the tyrants, the despots, the closed societies, there are no alterations to the policies, no gestures we can make, no words we can say that will convince those determined to continue their hate." — Charles G. Boyd (Washington Post, 9/12/01)* * * "Are Americans afraid to face the reality that there is a significant portion of this world's population that hates America, hates what freedom represents, hates the fact that we fight for freedom worldwide, hates our prosperity, hates our way of life? Have we been unwilling to face that very difficult reality?" — Sean Hannity (Fox News Channel, 9/13/01)* * * "Our principled defense of individual freedom and our reluctance to intervene in the affairs of states harboring terrorists makes us an easy target." — Robert McFarlane (Washington Post, 9/13/01)