Right now, as I type this and as you read this, American soldiers are being shot at and dying. The men who fire bullets and rocks and grenades at them are men who see the void in power left by Saddam Hussein's absence as an opportunity to set up a new state in which the fundamentalist Islamic Sharia law (long story, but let's just say that Sharia is no fun, especially for women) can be established permanently and thug-o-cratic dictatorship can rule the day once again in Iraq.
Hopefully you already more or less knew that. What you may not be familiar with is the way some of our pundits at home have reacted to the carnage.
A few weeks ago, the highly popular liberal blogger Kos (aka Markos Zuniga of the "Daily Kos"), took to the Internet to comment on the horrific mutilation and death of four American contractors in the city of Fallujah, Iraq. What wisdom did this much-touted sage have to say about the deaths of innocent Americans?
"I feel nothing over the death of mercenaries [sic]. They aren't in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them."
Kos was, thankfully, raked over the coals for his statements, not just by outraged conservatives and moderates, but also by some of his fellow liberals. He even lost his spot on the links section of John Kerry's site (although links to crazed, conspiracy theory sites like the Democratic Underground still appear). Kos responded by giving an apology that wasn't much of an apology then proceeded to claim that he was being persecuted by a bunch of right-wing hate sites who were audacious enough to quote his own damning words against him. Through it all, he continually referred to civilian contractors as "mercenaries," people who apparently deserved death for the high crime of working for a company that takes money from the government to go and repair a country ravaged by decades of war and dictatorship.
But Kos was a warm-up compared to what America heard from our most premiere fifth columnist, Michael Moore. Last Wednesday, a page appeared on the "Mike's Messages" section of his Web site, www.michaelmoore.com.
Moore says, "The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not 'insurgents' or 'terrorists' or 'The Enemy.' They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow - and they will win."
If you thought that it couldn't get any lower than deliberately comparing America's founding fathers with the likes of Moqtada al-Sadr, you'd be wrong because Moore continues: "I'm sorry, but the majority of Americans supported this war once it began and, sadly, that majority must now sacrifice their children until enough blood has been let that maybe - just maybe - God and the Iraqi people will forgive us in the end."
Take these words of Michael Moore and Markos Zuniga (or any of countless threads on MoveOn.org, the Democratic Underground), and see how they compare to the most recent audiotape allegedly from Osama bin Laden; you'll find the rhetorical gap between them to be shockingly small.
It's not a large roundup by any means, but take a good, long look anyway. Kos' Web site still remains highly popular, and leftists around the world line Moore's pockets when they see his films and buy his books. Honest liberals need to ask themselves: Is this what we want? Are these our leaders?
Pick a side fast, because like I said: people are dying.
Eric Spratling is a public relations senior. Reach him at eric.spratling@asu.edu. Read his blog online at asuwebdevil.com.
