After slamming the press for not reporting enough good news from Iraq over the past several days, one would think that the Right in this country would greet the rescue of three activists from the Christian Peacemaker Teams with shouts of joy.
Alas, apparently it's only good news when it's good for the Right. The fact that these folks were in Iraq to bear nonviolent witness to their Christian faith invalidates their suffering as well as any joy over their return. As noted at Liberal Catnip,
Perhaps the most egregious of the many egregious quotes on this topic comes from the always reliable National Review Online:
The stunted morality of these Christian "Peacemakers" is apparently boundless. They evidently didn't grasp the lesson of their long capture and the murder of their comrade - that, even if you spend weeks on end with them and even if you agree with them, the jihadists still decline to acknowledge even the most basic common humanity. Even though you're objectively on their side, to the jihad you're still "the other". The late Mr. Fox didn't need to acquire Stockholm Syndrome: he was already on the "insurgents''' side. But they killed him anyway.
Right Wing blogger and advocate of locking up Arabs without a trial Michelle Malkin leads the charge against the CPT activists today, complaining that they didn't show sufficient gratitude to their rescuers.
It should be noted that, while the original statement did not convey thanks to the soldiers, a follow-up on their website included the following paragraph:
We are grateful to the soldiers who risked their lives to free Jim, Norman and Harmeet. As peacemakers who hold firm to our commitment to nonviolence, we are also deeply grateful that they fired no shots to free our colleagues. We are thankful to all the people who gave of themselves sacrificially to free Jim, Norman, Harmeet and Tom over the last four months, and those supporters who prayed and wept for our brothers in captivity, for their loved ones and for us, their co-workers.
So, here we have genuinely good news coming from Iraq. We have genuinely good people being rescued from captivity by U.S. Forces, we have Christians standing up for their most deeply held principles in the middle of a war zone. We have prayers of thanksgiving and praise, but Michelle Malkin focuses only on the politics of the rescued.
Of course, to comment on the genuine goodness of the news would undermine the meme that the media only report the bad news.
Catnip has it exactly right:
The fact that Malkin attempts to malign these hostages with the phrase "left-wing, anti-war activists" and then accuses their organization of being "ungrateful" is an absolutely pathetic attempt by her and those she quotes on her site to attack people who have just suffered through 4 months of captivity at the hands of the enemy and all of those who truly care about them.
<SNIP>
THAT is how malicious right-wingers have attacked the Christian Peacemakers Teams on this, the day their colleagues have been freed as they still mourn the loss of the one who was murdered - Tom Fox. They'd rather go after semantics than join with the rest of the reality-based world in celebrating the fact that these ex-hostages will now be free to live their lives once again.
These are the same right-wingers who constantly berate the media for the supposed lack of Good News(TM) stories from Iraq. Then, when they finally get a major headline that plays to their bias, they still have to go after the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy(TM) for pissing in their Corn Flakes(TM).
What the hell is wrong with these people?
Nobody knows, Catnip. Nobody knows.
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