The front cover of Newsweek’s March 5th issue featured a woman with amputated legs and a sweatshirt that said “ARMY” across the front. Inside, there were pages and pages of other pictures of badly wounded and disfigured military veterans, in a long article that began under the big headline: “Forgotten Heroes.”
The utter hypocrisy of all this can be seen in the word “heroes.” There have been many acts of heroism among our troops in Iraq — but those heroes didn’t make the front cover of Newsweek.
One man fell on a grenade to protect his buddies, smothering the fatal blast with his body, so that those around him might live when he died. But that never made the front cover of Newsweek. It was barely mentioned anywhere in the liberal media.
They are not interested in heroes. They are interested in depicting victims — in the military as in civilian society.
The Newsweek hypocrisy is not unique. It has been the rule, not the exception, as much of the mainstream media has devoted itself to filtering and spinning the news out of Iraq.
Parading casualties is called “honoring our troops.” But what does it mean to honor someone? When we gather at a memorial service to honor someone in death or at a ceremony to award prizes to them while they are alive, what do we do?
We talk about the good things they have done, their endeavors and their achievements. We don’t call simply pointing out that someone is dead “honoring” them. Nor is simply pointing out that someone is dismembered or disfigured “honoring” them.
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