January 11: "Faced with a losing war against Salvadorian rebels," Newsweek's Michael Hersh and John Barry remind us,
the U.S. funded or supported "nationalist" forces that allegedly included so-called death-squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers.
Once again, the same media phenomenon: take a "nationalist" gunman, put a mask on him and set him in some Spanish speaking country and he becomes a "paramilitary"--or, as Newsweek has it, a member of a "death-squad." Take the same masked killer, place him in Iraq and he becomes an "insurgent," a "guerrilla," a "Minuteman." Which of the two sets of terms has a better claim on our sympathies?
Now we have a new wrinkle. If ex-Baathists, or Syria, or Iran, or Al Qaeda or Abu Musab al-Zarqawi trains men to target leaders for assassination, they create insurgents. If the United States does the same--we unleash death-squads. The first description evokes assistance to some heroic anti-colonial guerrilla struggle; the second, support for terror in the name of some reactionary regime. Which stands the best chances of winning people's hearts and minds?
Fascists, hiding in the plain view of the media spotlight--how did it come to this?
(Credit: Instapundit)
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