It cannot be that good people actually like the US and oppose those who share the "enlightened" public's hatred of Uncle Sam

Caroline B. Glick:

… TV news broadcast [Kevin] Sites's footage [of a Marine shooting a prostrate terrorist lying in the mosque] over and over as wizened anchors shook their heads with revulsion over the inhumanity of US armed forces in Iraq. The newspapers played up coverage of the event to make certain that all of us knew just how awful American forces really are.

No one bothered to make mention of the fact that Marines and soldiers fighting in Fallujah had been repeatedly attacked by terrorists playing possum. No one bothered to make mention of the numerous instances of terrorists raising the white flag of surrender only to fire at forces coming to take them into custody. What does the context of the battle matter when a case can be made for vilifying US Marines as war criminals – on the basis of Sites's isolated, deconstructionist footage – rather than praising them as battle-trained warriors?

Terrorists have two basic advantages over the Western armies and societies that fight them: their own invisibility, and the self-obsession and hatred of Western Leftists. By not abiding by the centuries-old rules of war that stipulate that combatants are uniformed members of the armed forces of a country or a recognized insurgency in control of territory, the terrorists have an upper hand despite their relatively small numbers and outdated weaponry. How can a war be justified against an enemy you can't see who looks just like the civilians you are obligated by law and your values to protect?

Add to this the fact that terrorists eagerly exploit universally recognized symbols of non-combatants and you have a war that you simply cannot justify on camera. Terrorists shoot from mosques so mosques must be raided. Terrorists are transported in ambulances so ambulances must be inspected. But of course, the television cameras aren't filming when the terrorists fire RPGs from minarets, only when terrorists wounded while shooting them lay pitifully on the floor. And there is no camera on hand when they plant explosives beneath gurneys. …

Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum reported this week that a new legend is being propagated in left-wing circles in Europe and the US that the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians who have been demonstrating against the patently fraudulent elections results in their country are actually all CIA provocateurs. An article in the UK's Guardian, for instance, alleged that the protests are "an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in Western branding and mass marketing." As Applebaum argues it, the myth is being created to explain away the inconvenient truth that millions of people look to the US as an inspirational beacon of freedom which they wish to emulate. It cannot be, say these reactionary anti-American "progressives," that good people actually like the US and oppose those who share the "enlightened" public's hatred of Uncle Sam. Therefore, anyone advancing a claim that could be viewed as pro-American cannot be an authentic activist. Rather, the CIA must be paying his light bill. …

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Anne Applebaum adds:

Many of the same people who would refuse to condemn a dictator who is anti-American cannot bring themselves to admire democrats who admire, or at least don't hate, the United States.