The Media's Got A Feveh, And The Only Cure Is... More Haditha!

Ace of Spades tells about the PR effort of Fatah’s own Al Aqsa Brigades:

I had a conversation the other day about why this seems to be one of the first wars in American history without heroes.

Of course I know there are heroes in this war. Tens of thousands of them. But it seems strange that the media doesn't note the heroism of particular soldiers in particular engagements. It's as if non-covert military missions are the only secrets the media is willing to keep.

They only seem interested in stories about soldiers-as-victims. Those who died; those who lost limbs. Important stories, I admit. But what about stories about soldiers-as-heroes, or at least soldiers-as-soldiers?

I sort of embargoed the whole story about the CBS newscrew being attacked because I was damned if I was going to write about their bravery and sacrifice when CBS refused to do the same for soldiers. Those reporters were brave. But you know what? There are 150,000 plus Americans who are brave, too, plus a lot of Iraqi soldiers. Get in line.

On the other hand, there's Abu Ghraib and now Haditha, the two most famous "battles" of the War on Terror.

Isn't that strange? If the media's core mission is to report the truth -- good, bad, and indifferent -- why is it that we know so much about Abu Ghraib and Haditha and so little about... well, the thousand or so victorious operations that did not result in criminal charges being brought against American servicemen?

Meanwhile, there's this. Which you won't be hearing about, except on the Internet.

The terrorists, members of Fatah’s own Al Aqsa Brigades, took it upon themselves to make a favorable impression and today was the day they kicked off their public relations campaign.
How did they launch it? Did they bake cakes or distribute sweets to Israeli children? Nope. Did they send messages of good cheer accompanied by kegs of lemonade and vats of hummus? Nope. Did they blow kisses and smile fondly at Israeli passers-by while burying their weapons underground never to be seen again? Nope. Nope. Nope. They launched their campaign by killing a man in broad daylight, and then his alleged lover/mistress/girlfriend in broad daylight. I know what you’re thinking, you’re asking yourself whether this is an effective PR approach. That’s a valid question and I believe the Palestinians went out of their way to make this event truly unique and exemplary of what would happen in their ideal single state.

You see, the man who was killed, Jafal Abu Tzrur, was accused of being an informant who had told the Israelis about an Al Aqsa Brigades member who was killed by the IDF. How did they know that he was an informant? He confessed.

After two days of torture.

So Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah offshoot Al Aqsa Brigades simply issued a death warrant on the spot, took Abu Tzrur to a nearby public courtyard, threw him down to the ground and as he crawled back up, they shot him several times. Until he was dead.


It gets better. See, the wife of the killed terrorist was said to be a lover of this alleged informant, so the Brigades killed her too. Wait-- no they didn't. Her family pleaded with the brigades to spare her life... so that they, her family, could kill her. The woman's own brother put a bullet through his head.

The old schtick is that stories like this aren't publicized, and stories like Haditha are, because we have "higher standards" for ourselves than we do for others.

Well, for one thing, I didn't vote for that proposition. For another thing, even if it's true that Americans should hold America to a higher standard, I don't think the majority of Americans would agree that America is to be excortiated constantly for Abu Ghraib and Haditha -- despite the fact that the guilty have been/will be charged and punished -- and yet we don't even discuss the outrages of the Palestinians.

There is a "higher standard," and then there is an absurdly anti-American double-standard.