Media vs America
The Nazis were unlucky. Had they started the war seven decades later, Germany won’t suffer a crushing defeat. Media would scream over the Allied body count and call for abandoning alliance with Russians who routinely perpetrated war crimes. Lovers of ancient Japanese culture would rend their shirts protesting from strategic bombing of Japan. American pilots would be court-marshaled for bombing German civilians. Democrats would declare the war lost in Pearl Harbor and almost won on Sicily, calling for peaceful settlement. Pundits would declare clash of civilizations, New World vs. Aryan, which has no military solution. Guess what, that political, ideological, and civilizational problem did have military solution. The fundamental change since 1940s could be described as victory of utopists. That Platonic crowd, reinvigorated by Rousseau, did not die out with the Soviet Union. The plague of rationalism infected free societies. The Enlightenment expanded from the attempt to understand the Universe to the notion that the Universe is entirely comprehensible. If comprehensible, it could be planned and corrected. Informational age strengthened the idea of everything’s comprehensibility. Leftists imagined they could be omniscient. Throughout the history, people solved conflicts the old-fashioned way: they fought them out. Leftists, taken by the utopian belief in human rationality, imagine talking the conflicts out. Thus the UN, Arab-Israeli peace process, and incessant conferences. Liberal media, for its part, is neither wicked, nor anti-American. Journalists, following the utopian mould, imagine that they know better than crowds, especially than the lowly soldiers who fight in dirt and disgusting blood. Journalists feel they must benefit the public with their advice – and valuable advice, by definition, runs against the commonly held (and therefore likely correct) opinion. Initially, media go ahead of the public mood. At that point, the media are very patriotic. Then the public mood catches with flaming headlines, and the media could no longer lead. At that point, it switches to criticizing whatever decision government or the army takes. History doesn’t offer examples of dealing with the modern problem of media that shapes public opinion. Church held similar power before, though on much smaller scale. Just like with Church, media grip on society cannot be reformed, but would be eventually broken – preferably, through some new technology of propaganda which offers more diverse information. In the current environment of raging media and self-serving political debate, desertion increasingly looks like an honorable option in Iraq. American soldiers die and kill for nothing, senselessly. Only such wars are worse fighting where the nations are prepared to gather resolve and disregard body count of their soldiers and enemy civilians. Starting a war in Iraq, non-essential for American people, predetermined the fall of Baghdad to pro-Iranian insurgency. If things turn out good, the ordeal will be orderly than in Saigon.
Obadiah Shoher is a pen name taken for security reasons, and the author’s identity is a closely guarded secret. Shoher was born in the USSR, emigrated, and became a top lawyer before entering politics. He served in several public offices, managed election campaigns, and leads a political party. Shoher wrote dozens of articles and essays on politics, political philosophy, religion, economy, and security matters. | More from Obadiah Shoher
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