recoculous

I read this article, written by an author I enjoy, Orson Scott Card.

Although I liked "Ender's Game," I don't know quite how I feel about his politics. It turns out that Card hates liberals; or at least smart people. He blames terrorism on

"Hollywood to newspeople to the soft-subject professors in our universities, the culture that makes people like Osama bin Laden want to blow us up or crush us into dust is the culture of the R-rated movie, the anti-religion intellectual, the glorified abortionist, the babies-without-marriage crowd, and the what-me-worry media elite."

...neglecting to mention that maybe, just maybe, the U.S. government's policy of meddling around in middle eastern affairs for the last 30 years hasn't worked, isn't working, and has (with the exception of Afghanistan) resulted in theocratic minorities seizing hold of the government after our puppets fall from power. No, it's the college prof that taught me about Third Way feminism or that made me write a paper about the Crusades, or the girl I know that has a beautiful daughter but no husband to help raise her. They are the real reason that Muslims on the street are angry about what they perceive to be a physical, tangible attack on their way of life.

The thesis of this article is that Newsweek should not have run the story about U.S. interrogators flushing a Koran down a toilet. I think everybody, including Newsweek, knows that now (they did, in fact, retract the story). Card doesn't stop there, though.

"Even if the allegations about Quran desecration were completely and absolutely verified, why in the world would you publish the information during wartime? It's not that the Media themselves regard the Quran as sacred. It's just paper to them. And surely they would have to agree that if such actions might somehow gain the cooperation of a potential source of useful information (though that seems extremely unlikely to me), it would be infinitely preferable to physical torture."

Now a perfectly good science-fiction author and generally smart guy starts showing some pretty freaky jingoistic leanings; maybe it's the soft-subject liberal college education talking, but it seems pretty obvious to me that if our guys are flushing/burning/peeing on holy books, it's a form of psychological torture, or at least an abuse of power, and it should stop. (Card makes the silent assumption that our prisoners must be tortured, and holds up psychological torture as superior to physical; maybe that's just because there are no scars on a broken mind)

The media is obligated to publish stories like that. If the news is truly the fourth branch of government, and if it is the only check on executive power, we need it, because they have shown us that our military has lied, cheated, and tortured its way out of situations in this very same war. To suggest that it would have been better for everyone if nobody published the Abu Ghraib story is ludicrous. This time, Newsweek made a mistake. They will no longer use anonymous sources for news items without the approval of a senior editor. They are being severely punished by their peers, discussed by their readers (I've been a subscriber for years)... and FOX News will forever hold this example up as another global incident caused by the "left-wing media."

Card wants the offenders fired; a cleaning up of Newsweek's front office. I suggest we do what President Bush did when his senior staff made serious, grievous mistakes that ended the lives of thousands of people: give 'em all promotions.