My point is that we, as a nation do not allow the dehumanization of the enemy in media anymore. Which is what the Macs post was about. The media, dehumanizing our enemy.
This board wont even allow it.
I feel that that is worth repeating.
You can sit here all day long calling the President of the United States a thief, a liar, a traitor, a murderer ... makes no difference, it's free speech. You can say it here, you can say it on TV, you can say it in the newspaper, you can stand on your roof and scream it.
You're within your rights under the First Amendment.
But try talking about Islam.
Try suggesting that Islam is the enemy of America, the enemy of democracy. Try suggesting that the only things this "religion" values are ... hatred, murder, and death.
Granted, you may accurately say say that not all Muslims are our enemy. That is certainly true. But at the same time, it is important to remember that virtually ALL of our enemies in this war ARE MUSLIMS.
Imagine, in WWII, if you weren't allowed to suggest that the Germans and the Japanese were the enemy - that we were only at war with the "radical" ones.
Folks, not every man, woman and child who was vaporized in Hiroshima was our enemy. Nor did the Nagasaki bomb sort out the innocent from the guilty. This is the nature of war - it is stupid, brutal, bloody, cruel and horrificly unfair, to say the very least.
War is also unwinnable, when we refuse to aknowledge the true identity of our enemy. When we allow the enemy walk (and fly!) freely within our borders, planning his next cowardly attack on the innocent, and the helpless.
When do we take off the blindfold? Three years after 9/11, racial profiling - which almost certainly have prevented the attacks - is still illegal. Worse than illegal, racial - or religious - profiling is considered immoral, even evil.
Sigh.
After Beirut, after Tehran, after Pan Am 103, after Kenya and Tanzania, after the USS Cole, after the first Trade Center bombing, after Bali and Berlin and Beslan and Madrid AND 9/11 ... and ...
After all this and more, we refuse to aknowledge the true identity of the enemy.
We call this war the "War on Terror."
Terror is not the enemy, folks, any more than bullets are the enemy. Terror is a WEAPON.
The weapon of choice for an enemy we have yet to even call by it's own name.