Drive-By Media Labors to Draw Moral Equivalence Between Enemy and Us

RUSH: Have you heard, ladies and gentlemen? When I first saw this, mere moments ago, I literally started cracking up. “Iraq: Al-Qaeda Names Zarqawi successor.” What did they do? Did Al-Qaeda have a convention over there and they named the successor to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi? Come on, folks. You know what this is. This is nothing more than Al-Qaeda playing our dumb idiots in the media like a Stradivarius, trying to westernize their organization. They had a convention! They had a new leader they appointed. They named a successor. These people self-appoint. These are renegades. They wipe each other out as well as everybody else. Who “appointed” Zarqawi? He just showed up one day. What I also love is a story that comes from Dubai from Al-Reuters. In fact, let me let you hear how this was done on NBC this morning from Baghdad. Here is a portion of NBC Middle East correspondent Richard Engel’s report on the new Al-Qaeda leader.
ENGEL: Al-Qaeda in Iraq has also announced, I should say, that it has a new leader. On an internet statement released today —
RUSH: Hold it! Stop the tape. Recue that. Do you hear how breathless the guy is? How excited he is? (panting). Sounds like Ian Whitcomb, “You Turn Me On,” back in the ’60s. Anyway, he is excited as he could be. Why, Al-Qaeda! Al-Qaeda named a new leader.

ENGEL: Al-Qaeda in Iraq has also announced, I should say, that it has a new leader. On an internet statement released today, not missing a beat, Al-Qaeda in Iraq governing body said it unanimously chosen Sheik Abu Hamza ak Muhadjir as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s successor. This is not the person that the U.S. military had been expecting. He is not very well-known in the west and it is something of a dark horse here.
RUSH: Yeah, the U.S. military was totally dumbfounded by this, not on the short list of candidates to be named successor at the Al-Qaeda in Iraq convention. I have the Al-Reuters story and Mr. Engel here, by the way, Mr. Engel was just reading from the Al-Reuters story because everything he said is here. “‘The shura council of al Qaeda in Iraq unanimously agreed on Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, to be a successor to Sheikh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,'” said a statement signed by al Qaeda and posted on a Web site frequently used by Islamist militants. ‘Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Muhajir is a good brother, has a history in jihad and is knowledgeable. We ask God that he … continue what Sheikh Abu Musab began,’ it said. Muhajir, little known in the West, was not among the names that al Qaeda experts had expected as Zarqawi’s likely successor.”

So they are all just thrilled they could be because they want the death of Zarqawi to not mean anything. They want it to be just absolutely worthless in terms of the Bush policy. Remember the template, remember the prism and the lens that the Drive-By Media uses here to see all of these events. I guess, you know, if they had a convention, if somebody had to put this guy’s name in nomination. You know, they are trying to westernize this. They are trying to make our media think that Al-Qaeda is a legitimate organization and that they are democratic and that they had a convention, probably even confirmation hearings. They probably sought the foreign council of Pat Leahy and Russ Feingold and Ted Kennedy.
Maybe these three the voted for the confirmation of this Muhajir guy to be the new successor to Zarqawi in Al-Qaeda Iraq. See, the libs want it both ways here, folks. Time and again they demand that we kill Bin Laden. Yet we kill this guy, who is infinitely more important as a general on the ground than Bin Laden is. Bin Laden is just a mythical figure now. As I pointed out last week, this guy was on the battlefield. This guy is a general; he’s directing the troops, inspiring and motivating them. It was a big, big kill — and of course they dismiss that. “Zarqawi? Why, it doesn’t mean anything.” In fact, I think that there is a new thing. I would call it Language Deficit Disorder. You know, we got IED, ADD, AHDD, we got all kinds of DDs and Ds. We have syndromes and so forth and I think that I have discovered a new disorder, Language Deficit Disorder. “Cut and run,” doesn’t mean cut and run when the libs use it. “Amnesty” doesn’t mean amnesty when the president and McCain and Kennedy use it talking illegal immigration. The death of Zarqawi is meaningless because he will be succeeded by a successor. So the death of Zarqawi is meaningless. It doesn’t mean anything — and, I love it. I’m just having a ball laughing at the way this story has been treated since it came out. You know, we want these clowns to appoint new leaders, just like we want these terrorists at Club Gitmo to keep killing themselves.
Have you noticed the libs wringing their hands? “Oh, no, three suicides at Club Gitmo. Oh no, what are we doing wrong?” That is great. Let them kill themselves. That is three fewer terrorists that we have to deal with! With Zarqawi gone, let them name a new successor. We’ll take him out. They name a new successor; we’ll take him out. All the while, the libs and media wringing their hands in frustration, “Does this mean we can send fewer troops now? Get some troops out?” I thought the media wanted more troops in there because Bush wasn’t doing this right. They are just all over the place. The truth is, the media doesn’t know very much about Al-Qaeda. They know very little how it works because they haven’t infiltrated Al-Qaeda. The military knows far more about Al-Qaeda than the media — and, whatever the media learns is leaked to them by somebody in our government or another government or from one of the Jihaddist websites.

Can you just see this website whre it’s announced, where Jihaddists congregate to find the latest information. Can you see a picture of that? We would love to see a editorial cartoon of the Jihaddists. It probably would look like the Daily Kos Convention that happened in Las Vegas. They all gather around computers looking for the latest news to find out who the new successor is, find out who is doing what. It is an ongoing effort to portray our enemies as just like us, to somehow strike a moral equivalence in what we are doing and what others happen to be doing. I tell you, we put a montage together, too, of some reporters questions regarding the death of Zarqawi and how it happened. Ludicrous questions from the Drive-By Media. They want to know if Zarqawi was beaten, if his body was treated respectfully according to Muslim law. This is from this morning with Major General Bill Caldwell, spokesman for U.S. Military, his press conference with reporters and the Drive-By Media, a montage of questions.

VOICE: I would just like to understand a bit better why it took 28 minute for the first coalition of ground forces to arrive at the scene.

VOICE: Was there any evidence that Zarqawi was beaten up before he was taken away?

VOICE: Were they handcuff and forced to take their shirts off?
VOICE: Have you determined if the child was Zarqawi’s or if there were any other relationships there?
VOICE: Describe to us whether Zarqawi was dressed when the autopsy began. If so, what he was wearing? Tell us whether the clothing of Zarqawi was ripped apart as part of the medical procedures at the site.
VOICE: If there is any concern paid to Muslim burial rights or handling of the body?
VOICE: Zarqawi appeared in the video that was made available about three, four weeks ago to be a rather hefty individual, what would you say about his shape? Was he a fit man?

RUSH: All right. So you can sense the caring and the compassion and the desire for respect to have been shown. I mean, this is one of the things that is most offensive. This guy was an absolute barbarian, a butcher, a wandering shred of human debris who was not worth the respect that he did get from U.S. officials during the autopsy and in the aftermath. Now, you might have heard this question from a reporterette, an infobabe, “Was there any evidence that Zarqawi was beaten up before he was taken away?” That’s because the Associated Press has found a “witness” who said that Zarqawi was beaten up and that they stood on his chest and they beat his chest and forced blood out of his nose, and the LA Times picked it up yesterday.
“The two bombs fell in the heart of the orchard near this village north of Baghdad a little more than a minute apart. Abu Musab Zarqawi’s last refuge, a whitewashed house in an idyllic rural setting, was obliterated.” Have you seen pictures? Idyllic? (Laughing.) God! You would think that they hit the neighborhood of the Desperate Housewives. What is that? Wisteria Lane. “He also confirmed that a girl between five- and seven-years-old had died in the bombing. Two unidentified women and one man were also killed in addition to Zarqawi and his spiritual advisor, Sheik Abdel Rashid Rahman,” that’s the “spirtual advisor” and the guy that we were actually tracking to find where Zarqawi was.

“An Iraqi police lieutenant who said he was among the first people at the scene told The Times on Saturday that after Iraqi police had carried Zarqawi to the ambulance on the stretcher, U.S. troops took him off the stretcher and placed him on the ground. One of the Americans tried to question Zarqawi and repeatedly stepped on his chest, causing blood to flow from his mouth and nose, said the lieutenant, who spoke on condition of anonymity. A man identified only as Mohammed, who said he lived near the Zarqawi hide-out, told Associated Press Television News that he had witnessed Americans beating Zarqawi. ‘They stomped on his stomach and his chest until he died and blood came out of his nose,’ he said.” Is that possible? We’ll examine if somebody in a nearby house could have seen any of this and back up what he mentioned to the AP.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Back to this Zarqawi business. The Associated Press, as we just shared with you, got this whole notion started that U.S. troops beat Zarqawi up. They literally dragged him out of the a stretcher in front of witnesses and started pounding on his chest, and blood started oozing and flowing out of his nose. This is all seen by somebody. An eyewitness, a supposed eyewitness, identified as “Mohammed,” says that Americans beat and stomped Zarqawi until blood flowed from his nose and he died. “The Iraqi, identified only as Mohammed, said he lives near the house where al-Zarqawi was killed. He said residents put a bearded man in an ambulance before US forces arrived. ‘When the Americans arrived they took him out of the ambulance, they beat him on his stomach and wrapped his head with his Dishdasha, then they stomped on his stomach and his chest until he died and blood came out of his nose,’ Mohammed said, without saying how he knew the man was dead.”
What makes this is interesting is that Al-Reuters had reported earlier that the house could not be seen from any of the other local houses because it was screened off from roads and other dwellings by idyllic-looking palm groves that hid it from private eyes. You couldn’t see this house. It was one of the reasons it was chosen. It was 400 yards from the road. That is four football fields. There is no way anybody in a neighboring house could have seen any of this take place — and yet, the mainstream media eager to indicate that the U.S. military is a bunch of brutes and beat him up. They’re eager to believe such a story and delve into it. I will guarantee you their in-depth “investigation” is going on even now to find out the real cause of death even though the autopsy results have been announced, because the last people you can believe, of course, if you are the Drive-By Media, are the U.S. Military. We have the press conference that took place today. This is Colonel Stephen Jones who is the command surgeon in Iraq. He held a press conference with reporters. A portion of his opening statement, giving the results of the autopsy:

JONES: There was extensive blast injury to the lungs with bruising and disruption of the lung tissue. There was bleeding in the middle ear on both sides and there was no evidence of firearm injuries. The cause of death was closed spaced primary blast injury of the lung. Blast waves from the two bombs caused tearing, bruising of the lungs and bleeding. These injuries are not apparent from an external inspection. They can only be seen by examining the lungs. This wound was not immediately fatal. Death occurred as lung function deteriorated and the lungs became progressively unable to absorb oxygen into the bloodstream.

RUSH: Yeahy. Yeah. Do we believe the guy? The Drive-By Media will obviously think that this is all a set-up. Most of them will be very suspicious, because one of the requirements to being a Drive-By Media is you don’t believe anything that a government led by Republicans has to say about anything. You just don’t. That is how you make your mark. You “speak truth to power.” You tell these people in charge, “We don’t believe you. You are corrupt! You are lying to us.” You go on that assumption, then you run around trying to prove that they are lying to you. If you succeed, you get promoted somewhere in the Drive-By Media. Now, they are panicking at other locations in the Drive-By Media. On the Today Show today Matt Lauer interviewed retired Army general Barry McCaffrey and they have this little exchange.
LAUER: Do you worry about a political side of this that the administration may pull a substantial number of troops out of Iraq just prior to November’s midterm election simply to sway public opinion?

McCAFFREY: I don’t think so. Although I do think there is a political dimension to it. There’s no question.
RUSH: Now, what is going on here, Matt? You guys in the Drive-By Media have been hell-bent on getting troops pulled out of there. You have been demanding it for a year and a half, as have members of the Democrat leadership and others of the Drive-By Media. Now, all of a sudden that Zarqawi is dead, the left is in panic mode because now there are Democrats suggesting, “Well, now that Zarqawi is dead we start pulling our troops out there.” Now they’re saying, “Wait a minute! Start pulling troops out of there? That would be a political move. It’s like an October Surprise. That will change public opinion. We have revved up public opinion against the war but if Bush pulls troops out of there, oh, no! If Bush does what we want, oh no! Why, it could help him politically. Oh no! Is this a conspiracy?” This is absolutely deranged. These people are delusional. Yesterday on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, General George Casey, commander of forces in Iraq, was one of the guests. Wallace said, “General, we understand the autopsy of the body has been completed. Do you know what those results show and how do you respond to this claim by at least one Iraqi man who was on the scene, he saw Zarqawi’s body beaten before he died?”
CASEY: The way I respond to the comments of the alleged Iraqi who saw what went on there is: that’s bologna, and we have already gone back and looked at it. Our soldiers who came on the scene found him being put in an ambulance by Iraqi police. They took him off, rendered first aid, and he expired. So he died while American soldiers were attempting to save his life, and so the idea that there were people there beating him is just ludicrous.

RUSH: Now the media today: “What do you mean trying to save his life? You just dropped a couple bombs on him and tried to kill him!” Yes, Drive-By Media, but we military have rules. We have standards. Once we attempt to kill an enemy combatant and wound that enemy combatant, he ceases being an enemy combatant and assumes the status of “wounded,” and as is the case, we make every effort to save that life once that life is incapable of defending itself. We were unable to do so in this case. The media can’t grasp, because they have no concept. They cannot grasp. You should have seen it this morning. They were dumbfounded.
“What do you mean? You just dropped two 500 bombs on this poor guy’s head and you say you’re trying to save his life! You can’t fool us! We’re not that stupid.”
Yes, they are. They are not stupid; they are just ignorant. They have this disdain for the military. They don’t really make much of an effort to understand its rules and standards and how it operates and this story clearly illustrates that and a lot more.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Mike, in Wildwood Texas, you are up first today on the EIB Network. Hello, sir.
CALLER: Good morning. Rush, when I saw that picture of Zarqawi, I saw his face picture, I thought about Vietnam. I flew helicopters over there and followed Arc Light bombings around, and we picked up survivors if there were any. They had that same look: the puffy face, the blood from the ears, the eyes, and the thought came into my mind, “Oh, boy. He looks like he has been beat up.” But that is consistent with damage from those kind of bombs.
RUSH: Well, it’s the shock waves that do this, isn’t it?
CALLER: Absolutely. It’s concussion from being near a large explosion. I just heard the autopsy read and the lungs being damaged? You know, that concussion is severe. Five hundred pounds is a lot of ordinance to go off near you. Shrapnel doesn’t have to hit you. It is that concussion that squeezes your body and it squeezes it very fast, and they do get damaged like that. The swelled eyes. Blood from the nose. Blood from the eyes and ears. It is normal. that’s consistent with what happens when a bomb is exploded.
RUSH: You’re right. Most of it is internal damage, bleeding, organ deterioration as in this case. It was the lungs. But, you know, folks, pardon what some of you out there particularly on the left might regard as cruelty, but: So the hell what? You know, what are we talking about here? Do you realize, this guy, Zarqawi is getting more concern and sympathy than American military victims. I mean, so what? I don’t care. The guy is dead! I don’t doubt the military whatsoever. In fact, I got e-mails. I’ve met some people. I’ve travel around, folks, and I have gotten some e-mail since this all happened, and the e-mails are from people who know others who were on the scene.

Everything that the military is saying is very consistent with everything else that others who know are saying about this. They arrived on the scene, internal injuries. There were no apparent external injuries other than the blood from the ears, inner ears, and the nose and so forth. Nobody beat anybody up. The U.S. Military does have a standard that once you injure somebody, they are no longer enemy combatant and you don’t go in and put a bullet between their eyes. That rumor was out there. So the hell what? This is a war for crying out loud! It is like the story we had early last week or late the week before last about this…
I know this is going sound like an odd comparison to you, but it all goes to the lack of historical context and perspective and understanding in how we’ve all been trained and conditioned, even against our will, over the course of many generations to think in this stupid PC manner — and I speak of the story that these idiots released showing that there is a new phenomenon out there among teenagers, and that is that teenage boys pressure teenage girls to have sex, as though that hasn’t been going on since the beginning of time. Ever heard of Adam and Eve? It has been going on since the beginning of humanity.
There is nothing new about it, and if it didn’t happen that way, there wouldn’t be babies. It is just that simple. It is called biology. These things happen. Well, this is a war. It is not a criminal proceeding. It is not a criminal activity. It is a war — and this was one of the guys whose has beheaded Americans, done it live on videotape. We have seen it. Those of you who have sought to see it on various websites where they have been posted. He represents the group that killed 3,000 Americans on September 11th. I mean, what are we talking about here? What are we really talking about? “They beat him up. They were squashing on his chest and there was blood coming through his nose!”
Good! Who cares. So what? He is dead! The purpose of war is to kill the enemy and break the things that they use to kill you. It has forever been that way! My gosh, can you imagine if we would have gotten Hitler? Would there have been this kind of angst over how it happened and were we humane and did we have compassion and did we care? And were we cognizant of German customs at the time? And what are we going to do about burial? I’ll tell you what we are going to do about burial. We’ll turn him over to Iraqis and they’ll figure out what to do. It is their country! It is that simple. None of this is complicated. I pity these poor military guys standing up there. You can see on their faces at these press conferences, it is difficult to suffer fools. They just want to lash out and say, “You idiot! You are ‘stuck on stupid.'”

They all want to be General Honore from New Orleans. You are stuck on stupid. But nope, have to be politically correct. Troops are going to sensitivity and values training to learn how to take care of people that we just blew up with two 500-pound bombs. (sigh) We wanted him to survive? If we wanted him to survive, why would we have bombed his idyllic house in the idyllic neighborhood with the palm grove forest and the lovely white picket fence? Gag me with a spoon. Can you imagine? “Well, we really didn’t want to kill him. We were hoping the bombs would just scare him, flush him out so we could capture him and ask him questions like, ‘Where is Bin Laden?'” Sometimes this program is actually difficult to do, commenting on the sheer idiocy that surrounds it among people who are supposed to be the best and brightest. Jean in St. Mary’s, Ohio, I’m glad you called. You are next on the program.
CALLER: Hi Rush. It is an honor and thrill to speak with you.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: You know, I don’t remember this much concern or sympathy or measure of compassion towards Timothy McVeigh. You know, in 1992 —
RUSH: Wait, wait, wait, wait a minute. That is actually an excellent point. Here is an example of a caller building on a point that I had made, rather than repeating it. That is excellent. They hated McVeigh! In the first place, he was a white guy with a crew cut (that meant he was a hayseed hick) plus he was in the Army. Plus he was a white supremacist. He deserved to die.
CALLER: That is right.
RUSH: He also listened to talk radio. Got his ideas from talk radio according to Bill Clinton.
CALLER: I didn’t know that, but that doesn’t surprise me. You know, Rush, in 1992 I lived in south Florida and I remember every gay man that I knew wanted Andrew Cunanan, who was the guy that killed Versace, dead. They didn’t want him taken alive. They didn’t want him treated with any compassion or measure of humaneness. They wanted him dead. So what is the difference between Zarqawi and Timothy McVeigh and someone like Andrew Cunanan? They are all terrorists.
RUSH: Well, Cunanan took out on icon out there, Johnny Versace, and that was not good. Cunanan was a guy that gave everybody a bad name. He was a wacko. He was a nut case. I could never understand why anybody knew who he was. There were actually Vanity Fair stories on Andrew Cunanan months before Andrew Cunanan was known to anybody. It was the first thing that led me to believe that I lost touch with pop culture, because not only did I not know who Andrew Cunananwas but I could have cared less. This was long before the Versace thing happened. But you are absolutely right. McVeigh? The media hated McVeigh all of the way up until the time we executed because he would never express remorse. He didn’t say he was sorry — and he laughed at them while they strapped him on the gurnee! Remember that? They strapped him on the gurnee where they executed him and put the first series of drugs into him. He was smiling at them, and that made them mad. She’s got a point. Far more sympathy here for Zarqawi than there was for Timothy McVeigh. Josephine in Montauk, New York. Hi. Welcome to the program.
CALLER: Hi.
RUSH: Hello.
CALLER: Hi, how are you doing?

RUSH: Fine.
CALLER: My comment basically was that Zarqawi got better treatment than the Italians gave Mussolini. They hung him upside down even with his girlfriend. It wasn’t as if (Zarqawi) was abused. The guy died in a bombing!
RUSH: Yep, yep. That just shows you how times have changed Josephine. There weren’t a bunch of hand-wringing analysis about — are we humane? Are we civilized? Or are the Italians humane and civilized over — what they did to Mussolini. Now, this is actually sickening to watch all of this and watch the military have to be PC with all of this. But, it is what it is. Josephine, great call. Thank you very much. “On the day of the running of the final leg of the triple crown…” this is from Newsbusters.com, this would have been Saturday. “On the day of the running of the final leg of the Triple Crown, we’ve got a new leader in the Wackiest Zarqawi-Take Stakes. The new favorite in the kooky conspiracy derby is far from a colt. Galloping ghosts! It’s De-Frosted Anti-Vietnam War Man and battle-hardened Jane Fonda veteran Tom Hayden.” Tom Hayden is suggesting that Zarqawi might really have been our agentsin Iraq!
He wrote a piece on Arianna Huffington’s deranged little blog out there. He tries to give himself cover by stating, “I have no reason to believe Zarqawi was an American agent,” but then he immediately goes on to contradict himself by musing this: “But I still wonder what those British soldiers disguised as Iraqis were planning on the day they were discovered in Basra in September 2004. I wonder if US Special Forces ever dress up as Iraqis and paint their faces. It is enough to argue for now that Zarqawi served the purpose of dividing and fragmenting the Iraqi national resistance into bloody sectarian strife. One wonders who really turned [Zarqawi] in.”
So he gives himself cover saying, “I don’t think he was an agent,” but goes right on to talk about how he might have been a U.S. agent! There you have it, the latest from Tom Hayden, and that pretty much sums up the Zarqawi story. Other things, suicides at Club Gitmo, hurricanes. (interruption) Well, that is another thing. Are they really suicides? You can’t see in those cells. You know, those cell? The windows are covered on those cells. You know why the windows are covered on the cells? Can I tell you why? Because Human Rights Watch demanded it.
Human Rights Watch told the Club Gitmo people, “Cover those windows so that those men have privacy.” They have requirements. So because of Human Rights Watch, this wacko liberal human interest group, human rights group, they covered the windows — and now maybe they weren’t suicides! Maybe they were murdered! Here’s another thing. I don’t think people have an understanding of who is down there. These are all Zarqawi types down at Club Gitmo. These are terrorists who have sworn to kill themselves as they kill, hopefully, in their minds, thousands or hundreds of others. This is genuine human debris down there, and we’ve all now been privy to the PC notion that:
“These are just innocents stolen from the battlefield without charges. We have no clue who they really are but because of certain discriminatory judgements that we are making, these people… They could be innocent and we don’t know and the Bush administration is making no effort to find out.”
These are the worst of the worst and they are never going to be let go. They are never going to get out of there, folks. They are going to die in there or they are going to be punished or whatever, but they are never going to get out of there. It would be suicide to let the remaining group out of there. The people who have gotten out of there have been judged to be –and even at that, some who have gotten out of there have rejoined the jihad. This is absurd. All of this is. It’s being concerned about the wrong group of people.

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