Counting Down the Dead

My friends at Good Morning America, the New York Times and various other media outlets are trying to undermine the military efforts of their home country. That's a bold statement, but let's face it, I have proof. In the New York Times, they ran pictures of every soldier killed in the war with Iraq. ABC's Nightline has done the same thing already this year.

Today on GMA they memorialized the 2000th soldier killed in the Iraq War. That really, in and of itself, doesn't bother me. The problem I had with was the morbid countdown we've had all week on GMA. Monday they told us we were close to 2000. Tuesday they said the 1999th had died. Today they mentioned that the 2000th soldier had been killed. They showed his picture. They interviewed his mother. It really hit home and made you question war exactly as they intended.

Weekly they tell you support for the war is waning. Weekly they tell you the president's numbers are down. DAILY they tell you the number of dead in the war.

Can you recall, ever, seeing a war in which we heard every day how many people had died? It didn't happen in the war in Afghanistan. It didn't happen with the Persian Gulf War. And America won both of those conflicts so fast they can hardly be called wars at all. But daily now we're told how many people have died, and support wanes, and spineless Republican leaders bend in the face of increased scrutiny so that we fight the war halfheartedly always concerned with public opinion polls and media backlash.

When America supports a war, it wins. Period. When America doesn't support a war, it doesn't win. See Vietnam. There is a difference between not supporting a war and working to undermine the support of others. Today the media, as it will everyday, continues to attack us at our subconscious being. And when America fights this war half-heartedly and suffers defeats, the media will tell you about it. But when America wins battles and makes progress, you will not hear it.

I'm getting sick of it, as you can tell. I'm nearing a boycott of ABC. But if I boycotted every network that does this, I'd have to sell my TV and devote myself to reading books by Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter and Lara Ingram. So I won't boycott ABC yet, but I'm getting closer. As I said yesterday, someone has to call the media out, and I guess it's us bloggers.