The Wussification of America

i should start this off by saying that i'm probably not the most patriotic of americans, but that i do appreciate my country. while i do appreciate it, it sure does bug the heck out of me sometimes. the title for this post comes from a radio host in LA, so i can't take credit for the term.

it doesn't take one long to realize that our country is not the same bold nation it was just fifty years ago. its hard to believe that just sixty years ago our country was involved in World War II. The entire country came together and did what it needed to to support the war and to support the country. we saw some of that attitude return with September 11, but that quickly faded. today, all we see on tv is updates on bad things that happen. the media feeds its customers with just enough information so that they will come away thinking what the media wants them to think. The consumer, largely having no clue, decides that it has enough information to form a valid opinion on how things are going. this leaves the consumer complaining how things aren't going the way they want them to go and they sincerely believe that they have a valid opinion. but could that person even explain the basics of the conflict at hand?! probably not.

i have some many problems with the way things are portrayed. the first is this whole flushing of the Koran thing. the arab world gets a hold of this questionable story (seriously, what kind of toilet can flush an entire book? would the attendant have the patience to rip a few pages out at a time and wait for the toilet to refill?!) and they go nuts. the american consumer finds out that people died in demonstrations against america and cry foul play on america's fault. so because a few nut jobs got killed in a demonstration, america is supposed to apologize and have more 'kind and gentle' interviewing techniques. isn't there something wrong with this picture. first of all, those people demonstrating aren't demonstrating because they really didn't like what america did. they are protesting because they hate america. we aren't dealing with a rational enemy.

second of all, if a guy has information that could lead to the revelation of a terror cell or the preventing of a terrorist action, are we to be that concerned with their religious convictions? their religious conviction is that we should be dead. these aren't rational people that we can deal rationally with. they'll hate us no matter what we do. if flushing a book down a toilet is gonna get a guy to talk, they flush away!

what bothers me the most is that if World War II was fought today the country would not have the stomach to win it. instead, the arm-chair general at home would watch cnn and think they can come to conclusions about how war should be carried out. they think that they can better decide the course of actions to be taken than the trained soldiers on the ground in the actual battle. imagine what would have happened if a cnn camera was there when an american soldier, wearied from battle, accidentally shot a civilian being held as a human shield by a nazi. arm-chair generals in america would demand that that soldier should be recalled and court marshalled. that's pretty much what happens today. i say we let soldiers be soldiers and let them decide what the best way to do their job is.

another thing that really bothers me is that the media who decide to portray the war don't portray the whole thing. i've never seen video of an american building a hospital or building a water system. why is this? because the media has an agenda and they know they can edit the war to make it whatever they want to be. we have to many movie directors in news studios.

maybe the most disappointing byproduct of this all is the fact that the soldiers are returning home villians instead of heroes. now, instead of concentrating on winning a war, they are asked to think about how this might look to the media hunting for a villian. the problem is, we aren't the villians. our media is just cooperating with arab nut jobs in making us the villians and not the blood thirst enemy that wants us all dead.