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The Media Falls in Love with Hassan Nasrallah

by Rush Limbaugh - Jul 18,2006

RUSH: All right. So it’s on the table that the media, ‘Noooo, they’re just reporting facts about Hezbollah. They’re not promoting them, and they’re not saying that they’re really good people. They’re just reporting facts!’ Yeah, like they report the facts of US soldiers and how we are murderers and rapists and we tear up people’s homes — not just the Drive-By Media saying that, but John Kerry has accused US soldiers of terrorizing Iraqis in their homes at night and disturbing religious services. You know what Senator Durbin and others in the Drive-By Media have said about people that run our prisons, Club Gitmo and Abu Ghraib?

We know Ted Kennedy has talked about how Abu Ghraib is no different now than when Saddam ran it, it’s just under different ‘management.’ You don’t get any heroic stories about the US military in Iraq, no stories of heroism and sacrifice — and certainly nowhere else in the US effort in this war on terror are such stories to be found in the Drive-By Media. The Drive-By Media just today, ladies and gentlemen, reporting on how many civilians Israel has killed with their missile strikes into south Lebanon, and not a word about the missiles launched from civilian locations in south Lebanon!

I mentioned to you yesterday that the Hezbollah ‘social workers,’ the matchmaking services, all the wonderful garbage removal and sewage work that Hezbollah is doing. Never do we hear that they are launching missiles into Haifa and other areas of Israel from private homes. You don’t hear that reported. No, no, no, no, no, no! You don’t — and now this from the Christian Science Monitor. ‘With Israel’s confrontation with Hezbollah and Lebanon lurching closer to all-out war, winds of anger are blowing through the Middle East that are likely to strengthen the political hand of radical Islamists from Egypt to Saudi Arabia.’

Well, this is a prediction; it’s not a news story! See the word ‘likely to strengthen the political hand of…’? It’s a prediction.

‘The confrontation, coupled with the rising civilian toll also poses a serious threat to US interests in the region. Islamists who are hostile to Israel and the US and to their Arab allies who have criticized Hezbollah, are shoring up support, increasing the chances that they will seize power if the elections [President] Bush has urged for the region take place. Countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia have little influence over the militant Shi’ite group and its backers, Iran and Syria, so their statements may be of little practical value. Instead, their comments emphasize the widening gap between their regimes and their people.’

What that’s about is this story. I had one yesterday and have another one here, from the Jerusalem Post: ‘Arab World Fed Up with Hezbollah.’ I told you yesterday; this reports it again today, that Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Jordan, the Emirates, none of them — they are not condemning Israel as they have in the past. They are condemning Hezbollah. So here you have CNN International doing this story humanizing the ‘great leader, the great sheik,’ Hassan Nasrallah of Hezbollah, and we hear about all the great work that he’s doing, to make life better for his people, including strapping bombs on their backs and sending them out to die in acts of terror.

Winning over the Arab street? Hezbollah winning over the Arab street? The Arabs are divided over this. How do they know this is happening? They say it’s ‘likely to strengthen the political hand.’ What do they do? Are they taking a poll of registered Arab voters, for crying out loud? How do they know any of this? By the way, we’re not talking about democracies here. What the hell does it matter what the Arab street thinks as long as their governments are calling the shots? What you have here is, quite simply, the Drive-By Media trying to counter the reality of Arab division and creating their own reality again, their own alternative universe here.

You know why Arab governments are not rallying behind Iran and Hezbollah here? It’s not Arab! Iran is Persian. They are not Arabs, and the Arab nations that are in the region see them as a threat to their oil fields, because of their ramping up with their nukes. Now, the Christian Science Monitor won’t write this. Christian Science Monitor is not going to write anything about the fact that neighboring countries fear Iran. No! It’s always gotta be hatred directed at the United States. I wonder what the Iranian street thinks about what its mullahs are doing, and will they look into that? I wonder what the Drive-By Media thinks about what kind of unrest is going on inside Iran.

So what you have here, folks, is a classic example of the humanizing of our enemies, the humanizing of Israel’s enemies, the demonization of our guys, the demonization of our allies that stand with us — in this case Israel. It’s all done for the express purpose of portraying the United States and its allies in this case, as the focus of evil in the modern world. Here’s a story from the Boston Globe today. It’s a Reuters story, actually. The headline: ‘Iran’s Hezbollah Says Ready to Attack US and Israel — Iran’s Hizbollah, which claims links to the Lebanese group of the same name, said [today] it stood ready to attack Israeli and U.S. interests worldwide.

”We have 2,000 volunteers who have registered since last year,’ said Iranian Hizbollah’s spokesman Mojtaba Bigdeli…’ He’s not a spokesman, he’s a spokesterrorist. He was ‘speaking by telephone from the central seminary city of Qom. ‘They have been trained and they can become fully armed. We are ready to dispatch them to every corner of the world to jeopardise Israel and America’s interests. We are only waiting for the Supreme Leader’s green light to take action. If America wants to ignite World War Three … we welcome it.” This is the Iranian branch of Hezbollah. The Iranian branch of Hezbollah is also in Lebanon. Hezbollah is Iran, and it’s funded, trained, and maintained and they’ve even issued them orders, and now the Drive-By Media is beginning to say that, ‘You know, the Israelis are just… It’s all over so little. It’s just two kidnapped soldiers! ‘Why, now Israel’s out-of-proportion response…’ and I want to deal with that after the break.

Israel’s ‘out-of-proportion response’ is, guess what, folks? It’s ‘creating new terrorists,’ just like our trip into Iraq is said to have been ‘creating new terrorists.’ It’s the Drive-By Media and the Democrats who say that. Now the same thing is being said about Israel, which in this case, is acting in self-defense. Israel is making them mad by defending themselves! See, we’re just supposed to see that Israel is so big compared to these poor little Hezbollah guys. Look at these Hezbollah guys. They haven’t shaved in 200 years! They’re so poor — and what do you expect them to do? They have rockets; they launch them. Israel should know better. Israel should be grown up, but no, Israel is making them mad.

So the media template here and the action line are easy to see.


BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I just saw it again. CNN just played their puff piece profile of what’s his name, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader, the ‘charismatic leader’ of Hezbollah, who’s building sewers and massive social programs to help his small group of disadvantaged people deal with the big Goliath of Israel and the United States. They went to Damascus. They’re in Syria doing man-on-the-street interviews with Syrians who speak English, praising this Nasrallah guy to the hilt. ‘He’s great. He’s this; he’s that. We love him,’ and the conclusion on the part of the CNN reporter was: his support is increasing. His popularity is going up. It’s big. It’s big. It’s big — and of course this action against Israel is making him even more popular.

I’m telling you, I have seen videotapes of this guy’s speeches to his people, and it’s the one thing that anybody could go get. CNN, none of the news agencies, bother to do that. They don’t go out and find speeches of these people to their own people — and they never did it with Arafat. You know, Arafat would respond in English, condemning every act of terrorism that occurred, and then when he went back and started speaking in his native tongue, he would say something totally different. Everybody in the Drive-By Media knew it but would not make a bill deal out of it. They’re not doing it now. This guy Nasrallah is not who he is being portrayed to be by the American Drive-By Media. David in Vancouver, Washington, I’m glad you called, sir. You’re next on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Hi. I am real nervous to talk to you here. Anyway, one of the things that hit me as you were talking earlier, is you were talking about how they were praising everything that he does, and it just hit me that it’s almost a smoke screen-type argument that they’re putting out, similar to what they’ll do… It’s almost like they’re making him a made man, sort of like the Mafia would do. They take somebody that’s wicked and does bad things but (garbled) he’s doing all these great things, and the great things create a smoke screen for his what real motives and desires are, and that is to take power and destroy others.

RUSH: Of course, but I’m not sure I heard everything you said (not your fault) but I think one of the aspects of this is, is that you get no judgment from the media when reporting on the bad guys. You get no judgment on the US military. You get judgment on the US president. You don’t get any judgment on Ted Kennedy’s actions. You don’t get any judgment of Chuck Schumer or Dick Durbin’s actions. You get judgment on George Bush’s actions and Rumsfeld and it is clear to the Drive-By Media who the good guys are and the bad guys. So if you want to say, ‘Well, they’re just doing a factual report here on old Nasrallah,’ there’s no judgment on Hezbollah as a terrorist organization!

There’s no judgment on actions that they engage in and the acts that they commit, and there’s plenty of judgment elsewhere from the Drive-By Media. You know, who can explain it, folks? We all have our theories. I just think it boils down to two things. I think there’s such hatred for George W. Bush, just such hatred. He’s the bad guy to the Drive-By Media, to liberals — and that’s who the Drive-By Media are — and then I also think that there’s little thing about they’re just small people. ‘You know, they’re just little victims. They’re just trying to eek a life in a part of the world that was theirs until these European Jews were given this little plot of land that somebody called Israel back in 1949. The United Nations did that, and it’s just not fair. It’s just not fair, and so any time somebody is being acted upon in an unfair way whatever they do is permissible, because they have no power. They’re just people striking back trying to be heard; they’re fighting for their cause.’

There’s no judgment whatsoever. Gene, Albuquerque, New Mexico, welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.


CALLER: Hello. I just wanted to offer something to the mix. First of all, I’d say you’re a hell of a choreographer. You do a great job of pulling a lot of divergent things together. I heard something this morning that really kind of put together a series of dots for me. I heard one of our local stockbrokers talking about how some NYMEX traders were watching a lot of heavy activity buying of oil futures, oil contracts all through June, very large acquisitions, more than the normal concern for prices and hedging. The second thing I’d add to that is the big meeting in Damascus, where all the major players in terror were there. Iran, Iraq, Hezbollah, Hamas, PLO, Al-Qaeda was supposedly there. All of them were there, and then you put that together with Blair’s comments yesterday that there was concern about this whole thing being orchestrated. It starts to really raise some real serious questions about what’s going on here and how serious it is. If everybody remembers, one of the major things that happened in front of 9/11 was heavy buying of oil future contracts. So I just wanted to run this by you and see what — if it raised red flags in your mind.
RUSH: Now, don’t stop there. I mean, I need you to tell me where you think — leave 9/11 out of it for a minute. Because one thing that can’t be denied: the whole thing was orchestrated. What did happen was that Hezbollah did blow up an Israeli Humvee and kidnapped a couple of soldiers. That is what started it. Now, somebody had to say, “We’re going to do this.” So obviously it was something that didn’t start by accident. There was not an accidental shooting. There was not an accidental missile launch. There was a purposeful act of aggression against Israel by Hezbollah. Now, take your theory out, because I don’t know where you’re going with this. You got the terrormasters meeting in Damascus. You’ve got the oil futures guys going nuts before the meeting. Where does it all lead in your mind?
CALLER: Well, my mind is that this is a choreographed, you know, orchestrated effort across the Arab world of the —
RUSH: By who?
CALLER: — terror leaders to really do something. I mean, this is more than to just expand the war in the Middle East. It could be a great smoke screen for other things here in the domestic arena. I just think that there’s some seriousness to a level that a lot of people aren’t talking about. You know, it’s not about this isolated thing or an escalation in the Middle East. I think your points earlier raised this whole thing about, you know, it’s not about two people getting kidnapped. You know, it’s an orchestrated plan to really do what they’ve been saying. A lot of people didn’t believe Hitler; a lot of people don’t believe these guys and they keep blowing it off until we had 9/11. I’m just concerned that this is going to go much — and I’m concerned about what’s going to happen here in August.
RUSH: So basically this is a distraction, and Israel fell for it, and everybody else now is falling for it by getting involved into thinking that we’re on the verge of a major, major war when in fact it could just be a diversionary tactic to get us focused elsewhere while something really big is planned outside the region? Is that basically your theory because you think that’s what preceded 9/11?
CALLER: I’m just suggesting because we get so easily distracted. We’re such total crows: we go for the shiny thing and we beat it to death. That’s what the media does. They get fixated. Well, you and I know that. Terrorists know that. So I’m just trying to think outside the box here, and when you start — when people start — putting hundreds of millions of dollars of their money into oil contracts, you know, they’re sure something’s going to come down.
RUSH: Well, they’re not sure, but they’re betting.
CALLER: Well, it depends on — I’d like to know who they were. That’s what I would like to know, and I’d like to know why there isn’t some media coverage of this whole thing that happened in Damascus. I mean, where was it? I mean, if that isn’t a major event, what would be?
RUSH: Well, look, I know about it, and you know about it. There has been coverage of it, otherwise we wouldn’t know. Now, Fox is doing a puff piece on this guy Nasrallah! (Laughing) Well, I don’t know if they’re doing a puff piece but they’ve got some guy talking about him with the cutest, most cuddly looking picture of this terrorist that you’ve ever seen! You mentioned Hitler and because people are ignoring Ahmadinejad as they ignored Hitler. This DVD that I saw, this documentary/movie that some people very concerned about this have put together called Obsession, many of these Arab terrorists and the Al-Qaedas and this Hezbollah guy praise Hitler. They have a common bond in that these guys hate Jews and Hitler hated Jews, and Hitler is a model for these people, in some of the speeches and some of the comments that they’ve made in interviews that are on this DVD. It’s not out yet. Don’t try to find it. I, of course, have an advance copy. I don’t know when it’s coming. I don’t know if it is.

END TRANSCRIPT

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