Barrett Kalellis
Tuesday, May 11, 2004

Newsmen obliged with stories of Cubans massacred and tortured by the Spanish, or noncombatants starved in concentration camps and subjected to sexual indignities. A few of these tales were true; others were exaggerated and even fabricated.

But Hearst’s yellow press splashed them all over the front pages as gospel, and other papers followed his lead. In news reports, editorials and pictures, the American people were reminded daily about the horrible situation in Cuba and exhorted to do something about it. This intensive propaganda campaign was certain to influence popular opinion, supported by clergy and the political establishment as well.

Sound familiar? Ironically, the current furor about the goings on in Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison is cut from the same cloth as Hearst’s yellow journalism. All the elements are there: shrill, near-hysterical headlines demanding immediate action; publication of inflammatory photos documenting mistreatment of prisoners; and editorial condemnation.

The story was broken by the mainstream liberal media and gleefully urged on by find-fault-with-America types like Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker magazine and Robert Scheer of the Los Angeles Times.

Once the story was out, it became quickly politicized as Democrat Party operatives saw a way of boosting the lackluster, sagging campaign of John Kerry with another made-to-order scandal to follow on the heels of the highly partisan 9/11 Commission hearings.

The manufactured and propagandistic coverage of the Abu Ghraib shenanigans has had its intended and predictable “piling on” effect. First, “outraged’ persons called for President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld to “apologize,” followed by ruminations on whether the apologies were sincere or strong enough.

As the weird, “orgy night” photos began dribbling out in the media, the campaign was ratcheted up as Democrat politicians and liberal newspapers started demanding Rumsfeld’s resignation, and instant Congressional committees of inquiry were being planned to probe into the matter further.

Thus, any legitimate discussion on appropriate ways to warehouse and interrogate enemy combatants and terrorists, many of whom may have murdered American soldiers and innocent Iraqi citizens, has been drowned out by a sea of anti-war sympathizers and those who would use this affair as a pretext to gain political power.

The Democrats are using their media allies to turn the whole thing into a giant anti-Bush (and anti-Republican) juggernaut, and will try, if they are able, to stretch any new shocking revelations as far as the November elections to discredit the Administration. Each additional piece of bad news will be interpreted as another sign of failure.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the yellow journalism of Hearst was directed against Spain, which was seen as a colonialist interloper. Today’s yellow journalism is inexplicably directed against our own country by many of our own citizens, even while our soldiers are engaged in war.

What is lacking is a sense of perspective and proportion. It is also the reaction of persons who, for the most part, do not have any first-hand experience on the battlefield. It cannot be emphasized strongly enough that soldiers are, in fact, warriors who are risking their very lives under extreme circumstances in a hostile environment.

They see their friends and comrades cut down or blown up every day by ruthless concealed enemies, driven by medieval fanaticism, who have no concern for human life. Is it reasonable to assume that under these stressful conditions all of our soldiers will have the mindset to play by Marquis of Queensbury rules?

One can only conclude in the Abu Ghraib affair that some of our military have exceeded their authority and they should be called to account for their actions. But to allow this to be turned into another full-blown Beltway blowout by media and political axe-grinders is just another shameful travesty that is not only repellent to watch, but also one that can only sap our national will.

Barrett Kalellis is a Michigan-based columnist and writer whose articles appear regularly in various local and national print publications, and is a featured pundit for NewsMax.com and TownHall.com. He can be reached at kalellis@newsmax.com.