Fighting the anti terrorist

Cliff May:

During the Cold War, there were Communists, anti-Communists and anti-anti-Communists. It would be unfair to call the anti-antis pro-Communist. But it was the anti-Communists – the Cold Warriors -- that the anti-antis most energetically opposed.

Today, there are terrorists, anti-terrorists and anti-anti-terrorists. It would be unfair to call the anti-antis pro-terrorist. But it is those fighting terrorists -- those waging war against Militant Islamist ideologies -- that anti-antis criticize most harshly.

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The media, too, has more than its share of anti-antis and I'm not talking here only about the left-wing blogs that compare President Bush unfavorably to Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Recently, the top story on the Washington Post's front page was headlined: “Military Plays Up Role of Zarqawi: Jordanian Painted as Foreign Threat to Iraq's Stability.”

Is there anyone – even Ward Churchill -- who would argue that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the commander of al-Qaeda in Iraq, is not a “foreign threat to Iraq's stability”?

A seemingly more cogent reason for the Post to object to what it blasts as a U.S. military “propaganda campaign”: An American colonel is quoted as saying that Zarqawi and other “foreign insurgents” are only “a very small part of the actual numbers” of those fighting Iraqi government forces and the American-led coalition.

This ignores the fact that al-Qaeda is responsible for most of the suicide bombings in Iraq. Indeed, the day after the Post story appeared, U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch issued a statement saying that more than 90 percent of the suicide attacks in Iraq are “carried out by fighters recruited, trained and equipped by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq.”

He might have added that suicide bombings -- along with roadside bombings and occasional hostage decapitations -- are the primary tactic utilized by the forces fighting to prevent the emergence of a free Iraq. It's not as though the “foreign insurgents” are waging air-and-ground assaults and staging naval battles.

And, ironically, what helps make suicide bombings effective is the press coverage they attract. The mainstream media do not depict even the most vicious attacks on civilians as atrocities that should inspire outrage and fortify resistance. Instead, the media suggest the attacks be seen as evidence that the “insurgents” are succeeding and the U.S. failing in its obligation to “stabilize the security situation.”

The terrorists “play our own media with a shrewdness that would be the envy of many a political party,” British Prime Minister Tony Blair said recently. “Every act [of] carnage adds to the death toll. But somehow it serves to indicate our responsibility for disorder, rather than the act of wickedness that causes it."

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Tony Blair and Cliff May have nailed it.