A moral idiocy picture you really do need to see…

Yeah, Leathernecks and dog faces bad, terrorist good. Move along nothing different here. Somewhere there is justice for these HMMMMM. people.

To the left, there are only two aggressors in this world: the USA and Israel. Anybody else is either a victim or a casual observer. This is a cult-like belief system that can’t be argued with.

There have been a few posts recently on the leftist message being broadcast these days, so here are my two cents. Of course, promoting moral equivalency and blurring distinctions are not confined to the extreme left wing blogs. They are also present in the MSM and sometimes in subtler and more insidious ways. Here is one example.

On June 19, 2007 the NYT published a story entitled “A Militant Fights From a Basement on Emergency Street.” The journalist is identified as Nada Bakri. The report describes an Islamic militant named Abu Omar who operates from several Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. Mr. Omar’s intention is to reinstate Islamic rule and the Muslim Caliphate. He is quoted as saying “Palestine is not just for the Palestinians, Jerusalem is not only for Palestinians, It is for all Arabs and Muslims.” (As an aside, this does not seem to allow much room for Jews and Christians who, it should be pointed out, were in Palestine thousands (Jews) and hundreds (Christians) of years before Islam existed.)

In the eyes of the Lebanese authorities Mr. Omar is wanted in connection for numerous killings and bombings, but the article goes to great lengths to describe how he is a seen in the camp as a local hero who is showered with kisses and blessings by the women as he walks through the street.

We also learn that Mr. Omar has a private cash of TNT, other explosives, land mines, guns, etc. and that he has found time to have eight children in the camp who, I have no doubt, will grow up to be angry, frustrated young people ripe to commit aggressive acts.

However, the part of the article that was the most interesting was the picture of Mr. Omar. We see a photo of a Semitic-looking man in front of a bullet-ridden wall. He has a dark beard and long hair and is gazing upward toward the sky with an almost biblical and saintly expression on his face.

I looked at that picture and it reminded me of something. Finally I realized what. In the Christian tradition, one often-used depiction of Christ is in the Garden of Gesthemene where, according to the New Testament, he went to pray before he was arrested by the Romans. The picture is usually of a man with beard and long hair kneeling down, face uplifted towards the heaven praying.

The point to understand here is what incredible propaganda confronts us, even to the point of appropriating Christian religious symbolism. When the NYT shows us Mr. Omar, it is not the picture of man surrounded by AK47s and grenades. He is not portrayed as menacing. On the contrary he is made to look saintly, even Christ-like. It is very hard for me to believe that the persons who selected this picture weren’t aware of the symbolism they were using and the image they were creating. For me, this kind of subliminal propaganda is just as bad, or worse, than the blunt attacks of ultra-left bloggers.