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Selling
Their Souls For Silver
EDITORIAL
Frank Salvato
June 17, 2004 |
James Bamford should be charged with aiding
the enemy. To a lesser extent, Time magazine, the New York Post and
Doubleday Books should be charged with stupidity. Although being stupid
isn’t a criminal offense and is more of a societal pox-mark some sort of
collective eye-roll should be headed their way from the American people. We
talk a lot about outrage, this time we should be outraged.
In his new book, A Pretext for War, James Bamford, an intelligence
expert so I’m told, gives not only the location of the secure facility used
by Vice President Dick Cheney during times of terrorist created uncertainty
but also gives details such as the number of buildings, their physical
attributes and some of their components. Now, maybe I’m being just a bit on
the cautious side but isn’t a secret and secure location supposed to be,
well, secret and secure? Bamford may have raw data knowledge and book-smarts
but his common sense seems to be a bit askew.
In this age of progressive terrorist activity it is necessary to have
facilities that our country’s leadership can consider sanctuary when
uncertainty arises. This is essential for a plethora of reasons and need
only be explained to the terminally daft or in this case James Bamford and
the doltish editors and reporters at the aforementioned publications.
It doesn’t matter whether you care for the leadership of our country at the
moment or not, the need to preserve the leadership and the chain of command
is essential for our governments performance in a time of crisis. All one
has to do is recall the uncertainty that enveloped our country in the direct
aftermath of the September 11th attacks to understand why. If you need more
of an explanation you should truly consider either educating yourself on the
current events of the day or opting out of exercising your right to vote
this November. I’m sorry but our national security is simply too important
an issue – and the most important issue in the upcoming election – to fall
victim to the narcissistic agenda and political power play of the left. Not
this time around.
Our electorate needs to understand the importance of our national security.
They need to understand the reality of the fact that we are in just as much
of a war right now as we were during World Wars I & II, The Korean War,
Vietnam and the Cold War – in fact the Cold War wasn’t a shooting war, the
war on terrorism is. We are fighting against those who would kill you, me,
our kids, our parents, all of us just because we don’t share in their
intense and dark desire to subjugate ourselves to the whims of a few
power-hungry, self-proclaimed messengers of Allah. We didn’t start this
conflict, and much to the chagrin of many a Democratic and Kerry operative
neither did President Bush, but we have reacted to their need to slaughter
us and we truly need to see this initiative through, no matter how unsavory
the road.
It is equally important that those who make their living in the media,
whether in the print medium or the electronic medium, understand that
freedom of the press doesn’t necessarily come without an ethical obligation.
While freedom of the press is a right guaranteed to us in the US
Constitution it was written into the Constitution with the idea that every
person protected by that right would use it while employing civic
responsibility. To be sure, "we the people” – not all but many – have failed
to carry that responsibility into the current era.
Today we see people like James Bamford offering the location of a secure and
secret facility used by our leaders during times of national duress. He does
so while hiding behind the very freedom for which his pen was to stand
guard. Then we see his publishers and editors enabling him by publishing and
promoting his information while employing little or no professional ethic at
all, civic responsibility be damned. They do this all in the sensationalized
pursuit of the almighty dollar.
Then we have reports from CentCom that on the other side of the world a
western news crew appeared just moments before an ambush was to take place,
this facilitated by an "anonymous tip.” This ambush was designed to kill US
and Coalition forces and the news crew knew it, yet they chose to get the
story rather than to help our young men and women preserve their lives,
lives providing security for a budding democracy.
A recent study by the Pew Research Center has proven without a shadow of a
doubt that there is a tremendous media bias to the left in this country and
in the European Union (sorry MoveOn.org people, the truth is the truth
although I’m not sure you would be able to spot the truth if it fell from
the sky onto your heads). But employing a media bias, a political agenda as
it were, is one thing, giving information to those who would gleefully saw
our heads off on a tape for al Jazeera is quite another. Similarly, getting
the story so that the truth can be broadcast all over the world is one
thing, withholding information, or potential information, that could save
the lives of your neighbor’s son or daughter is quite another. In both of
these scenarios, scenarios that have come to pass, we have to ask, whose
side are they on?
I touched on the very urgent need for civic responsibility in our country
today. It’s needed from every one of our citizens. It’s how our Founders
intended for it to be, no matter what Michael Newdow and the atheists of our
country believe. To be quite sure, James Bamford and the media have
forgotten the implied duty of civic responsibility altogether, if they ever
knew it at all. It’s amazing that traitors are still selling their souls for
silver.
Frank Salvato is a political media consultant and the
managing editor for The New Media Journal.us.
Click here for his complete bio.
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