Fw: Dumb Marines, Delighted Media -----The Left's nostalgia for My Lai is forever

["Don Greenlaw" <dgreenlaw@cox.net>]

Forwarded.

Semper fi,
Don Greenlaw
----- Original Message ----- 
From: Dave Hollenbeck
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Sent: Monday, January 16, 2012 4:43 AM
Subject: Dumb Marines, Delighted Media -----The Left's nostalgia for My Lai 
is forever




http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.11227/pub_detail.asp








A few Marines in Afghanistan did a really dumb thing: They emptied their 
“short arms” on a trio of Taliban corpses. The act was unacceptable. It was 
against military regulations and constituted a minor—very minor—infringement 
of the Geneva Convention. Those Marines showed terrible judgment and should 
receive appropriate “non-judicial punishment” that will impact their 
careers. If a non-commissioned officer was involved, his career should end.

But that’s all, folks. This was not an atrocity. No terrorists were harmed 
in the making of that video. Defiling enemy corpses is wrong, but it’s not 
murder, torture, rape or any other crime against a living human being. 
Nonetheless politically correct Washington went into manic-panic mode the 
moment the news broke about thatvideo. Everybody, from the secretary of 
defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs on down rushed to issue public 
apologies. A high-level investigation (aka “witch hunt”) has been ordered, 
but the decision’s already been made to hang those Marines and their chain 
of command. Our military just bent over: Not a word about how remarkably 
honorable and disciplined hundreds of thousands of our troops have been, and 
not a word about the Taliban’s very real atrocities.

Of course, President Karzai of Afghanistan condemned the leaky-Marines video 
as monstrous. He’s mum on Taliban massacres, suicide bombings and torture, 
though. Our own administration’s fear was that the literal pissing contest 
would derail the negotiations all the president’s men have begged the 
Taliban to enter into so we can have “peace with honor” and get out of 
Saigon. Sorry: I meant “Kabul.”

But the most grotesque and reprehensible behavior has been that of our own 
media. I’ve been stunned: Cynical though I am about many journalists and 
pseudo-journalists, I really didn’t think so many of them hated and despised 
our men and women in uniform so deeply at this point.

What I’ve seen and heard has been near-orgasmic delight in the opportunity 
to tear down our troops. The establishment media has reported this 
inexcusable, but decidedly minor incident as if it were a repeat of Vietnam’s 
My Lai massacre—if not of Nazi atrocities or the Holocaust entire. Nowhere 
on broadcast or cable televisiondid I hear anyone put the incident into 
perspective and say, “Sometimes grunts do dumb stuff. The real story is how 
few such incidents there have been, how amazingly disciplined our troops 
are.”



Please consider a couple of things:

First, this urination-euphoria in the media has been covered more 
enthusiastically and with far more airtime than any act of military heroism 
in a decade of wars. The only time the media cover a heroic act by a soldier 
or Marine is when President Obama personally presents a medal and the White 
House press corps can focus on his role as “noble” commander-in-chief. Of 
course, homeless vets get some attention as a backdoor way to attack the 
military, and amputation stories meant to discourage enlistment are always 
big, but how many stories have you seen, heard or read about the amazing 
discipline of our troops under the grinding stresses of this kind of 
warfare? For all the media’s determination to show that our Soldiers and 
Marines are really a combination of rednecks and SS butchers, you can count 
the verified incidents of U.S. atrocities from two grueling conflicts on one 
hand—and that includes Abu Ghraib (the civilian-wrought atrocities by the 
civilian mercenaries our government hired are another matter).

And every atrocity charge against our troops has involved low-level actions 
by a handful of junior personnel. Contrary to the implications of leftwing 
propaganda, bad behavior has never been policy—not even at the platoon 
level. And guess what, folks? When you’ve got 100k to 150k troops on the 
ground, a few sociopaths or even psychopaths are going to pop up, no matter 
how thorough the vetting process and rigorous our discipline. That’s 
humanity. After all, the left’s darling of the moment, the traitorous and 
infinitely creepy PFC Bradley Manning, made it through. Of course, he has 
the media’s sympathy for betraying our country. Those combat Marines who 
risked their lives to fight the Taliban are going to be crucified, though.

In historical terms, the good comportment and discipline of our troops in 
our recent wars has been unprecedented. Well over a million service members 
rotated through Iraq and Afghanistan over the last decade—and the best the 
media can come up with to discredit them is a (literally) dumb-dick video of 
three or four Marines inappropriately celebrating a small victory over a 
savage enemy.

In thousands of years of recorded history, wars in which different 
civilizations collide and wars involving different racial or religious 
groups consistently have been the most brutal, strewn with appalling 
atrocities. We’ve defied the historical record. To a serious student of 
military history, the behavior of our troops in these wars has been 
astounding in its moral rigor and humanity—if anything, we’ve been too 
gentle too much of the time.

But the media care nothing for that. At last, they have another opportunity 
to portray our troops as sick thugs. And they’re reveling in it. Because the 
establishment media remain left-of-center in their biases, and the American 
left still hates our military. Oh, leftists have figured out that they can’t 
attack it head-on anymore and even that it pays to pretend to honor the 
troops now and then. But the left hates, despises and fears those who 
volunteer to defend them and their freedoms. Aging lefties—many now at 
executive levels in the media, or in honored emeritus situations—had their 
glory days during the Vietnam War.  They were able to portray themselves as 
heroes then, and we, the people, allowed ourselves to be gulled. Journalists 
became the story, with our troops as background color. An ill-managed war 
played into their hands, along with a ragged draft-era military.

Now we have a professional, volunteer force with unprecedented skills and 
solid discipline. It’s been terribly frustrating for reporters, who’ve been 
limited to explaining why they’re smarter than the occasional “real” general 
who actually tries to fight. Worse, the ambitious, media-adept generals have 
been able to con the media with politically correct nonsense, and some of 
the reporters and commentators are beginning to realize they were taken in. 
And they’re angry. On top of all that comes the Freudian fear that the 
pallid-professor type feels when he imagines a muscular warrior: It reminds 
me of that classic scene in the R&B bar inAnimal House when Flounder cries, 
“The Negroes took our dates!” Those who never wore the uniform, but are 
consumed by intellectual vanity, fear that the Soldiers are going to take 
their dates (and we do). So the symbolism of those Marines waving their 
privates was all too perfect. Where’s Dr. Freud when we need him?

Let’s see how long the media continue to celebrate and exaggerate one stupid 
act by a couple of Marines. And let’s see if a single active-duty general 
has the decency to say, “Let’s get a grip. This was wrong, but it wasn’t the 
Katyn Massacre or the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto. We can handle those 
Marines, and now we’re going to move on.”

My prediction? Ain’t gonna happen. Political correctness and its commissars 
are in full control of our senior military leaders. It really has been 
horrifying to see top generals wet their pants because a few Marines peed on 
Taliban corpses. Come on, guys! Bad things happen in wars. By any reasonable 
standard, this is small potatoes (or tiny kebabs).

The pathetic truth is that our media want our troops to do awful things—not 
only because it makes a great story, but because it vindicates their 
life-choices. If you really want to put things in perspective, remember that 
all journalists are parasites (even the best of them): They live off the 
deeds and misfortunes of others. They get paid for being voyeurs. In war, 
they live on the battlefield’s leavings, just as they profit from crime in 
time of peace. Without brave men and women in uniform, they wouldn’t be able 
to make their bones as war correspondents. The fundamental problem here is 
jealousy (Freudian and otherwise). The journalists want to be the heroes, 
but want to pay the lowest possible dues in brief installments.

No one so far has attempted to explain the stresses of counterinsurgency 
operations, what it’s like to face an enemy who refuses to face you, but 
hides among civilians—and who engages in boundless cruelty and treachery not 
only against you, but against his own people.

What those Marines did was wrong. But the media’s delight in blowing up the 
story has been the real crime.




Family Security Matters Contributing Editor Ralph Peters enlisted in the 
Army as a private in 1976, after attending Pennsylvania State University. 
His first assignment was in Germany.
After returning from Germany, Peters attended Officer Candidate School and 
received a commission in 1980. Subsequently, he served with 1st Battalion, 
46th Infantry Regiment, then part of the 1st Armored Division.

Peters spent ten years in Germany working in military intelligence. He later 
became a Foreign Area Officer, specializing in the Soviet Union. He attended 
the Command and General Staff College. His last assignment was to the Office 
of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence. He retired in 1998 with the 
rank of Lieutenant Colonel