November 15, 2007--

Decent Americans owe it to our troops to loudly say "Stop it!" to Mark Cubin, Brian De Palma, and the rest of the Hollywood Left for endangering our military personnel with anti-troops propaganda such as the movie "Redacted."

     Go here if you haven't already done so, but before you do, read this. Then send it to everyone you know. Everyone saying he/she supports our troops should do so-- including sending it to everyone who sincerely, but not fanatically, opposes our troops' missions in Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere.

Imagine yourself (or your son, daughter, father, mother, relative or friend) serving our country in a role that makes you a target for fanatical killers with totalitarian mindsets who hate America no less than they hate democratic government disciplined by respect for individual rights, liberty and political/religious pluralism:

You, like virtually all your fellow troops, understand such forms of fanaticism to be "evil" and the principles of liberty they oppose to be "good" (even though you also understand the latter "good" is an imperfect "good"). You understand this to be our civic, civilized, non-theological definition of "good" versus "evil."

You know you are fighting to protect the imperfect "good" of religious (and non-religious) pluralism from the perfect "evil" of totalitarian religious fanaticism. You know you're not fighting to promote one religion (or non-religion) over another. You -- unlike the far Left -- know that fighting to defeat totalitarianism's effort to extinguish liberty is not a "fascistic" or "imperialistic" form of "totalitarianism." You understand the two opposing sides in this conflict are not morally equivalent. You don't vacuously embrace such propagandistic slogans as "one man's 'terrorist' is another man's 'freedom fighter'" any more than you would apply such thinking to Charles Manson.

You know that in every war, propaganda plays a vital role in enhancing or diminishing the motivation of each side to continue, escalate, de-escalate or abandon the struggle. Although you know that with respect to most wars throughout human history, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to seriously contend that one side was totally "right" and the other side totally "wrong." But you also know that in some wars, one side's goals fit the definition of a perfect evil even though the other side's goals may be only an imperfect "good."

You know that "propaganda" is argumentative rather than "objective" or "neutral," but you also know-- as did Churchill and Roosevelt in World War II-- that in a world in which lies are propagated to disguise, spread and support evil goals, the truth cannot survive through passivity but must instead be supported by truthful arguments (i.e., truthful propaganda). You know also that today the opportunities for descriptions of wholly aberrational "wrongs" committed on the side of "right" to be propagandistically disseminated throughout the world in a manner falsely portraying a tiny "truth" as though it were a broader truth are exponentially greater today than was the case during World War II.

You know that during World War II, war crimes were committed by a tiny percentage of Allied troops. You also know that during the Normandy invasion, support from the French underground was vital for its success. You also know that perceptions about the Allied troops and their missions in the minds of the French underground played a vital role in maintaining and strengthening their motivation to support, rather than oppose, such invasion. You know it to be a virtual certainty that during the campaign in North Africa preceding the Normandy invasion, at least some "war crimes" were committed by a tiny percentage of Allied troops against Frenchmen in North Africa. You know that if Nazi propaganda falsely portraying such aberrational war crimes as exemplifying the Allies' policies, goals and strategies were to have succeeded in convincing Frenchmen in France that the Allies would be as bad, if not worse, than the Nazis, far fewer Frenchmen would have been able to maintain their motivation to serve the Allied cause in the French underground, with the result being more deaths and casualties among Allied troops. You understand that such Nazi propaganda (and any American's support of, or participation in, it) would have, in effect, constituted "aid and comfort" to the enemy calculated and intended to strengthen the motivation of actual, and borderline, Nazi sympathizers to kill Allied troops and likewise calculated to diminish, if not eliminate, the motivation of others to aid the Allies in their opposition to the Nazis.

You understand that this is exactly what Mark Cuban, billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, the Hollywood director, Brian de Palma, and all others consciously and knowingly supporting them are trying to do with the movie "Redacted," which falsely propagandizes to the world aberrational war crimes (rape, torture and barbaric murder) by a tiny, tiny, tiny percentage of our military as though such aberrational crimes exemplify our military generally and/or our country's "policy." You understand it to be a virtual certainty that the spread of such false propaganda throughout the world by Cuban, De Palma and the rest of the Hollywood Left will intensify the motivation of totalitarian religious fanatics to kill American troops and will also make it easier for such fanatics to recruit otherwise non-fanatical people to join in their war against Americans. You know that despite such aberrational crimes, the American military today is the most morally-disciplined military in the entirety of human history.

You understand that Americans back home living safely in the cocoon of liberty you're protecting and who say they "support" you can't really mean it if they remain silent and passive in the face of such propaganda. You expect them to get off their butts and do everything they can lawfully and non-violently do to minimize the chances for such propaganda to succeed. This means such Americans must be willing to refuse to allow any of their hard-earned money to find its way into pockets of the likes of Mark Cuban, Brian De Palma and everyone and anyone providing them direct or indirect support. You likewise expect such Americans back home to act likewise with respect to all others in the Hollywood and entertainment industry providing comparable propagandistic aid and comfort to the totalitarian religious fanatics who want to kill you for trying to defeat the perfect evil of such totalitarianism in order to promote the imperfect good of the planting of seeds for anti-totalitarian, democratic systems disciplined by respect for religious (and non-religious) pluralism and individual liberty.

We who expect our military to stand between us and danger can't morally sit on our butts and do nothing while the likes of Cuban, De Palma and many others in the Hollywood and entertainment Left spread propaganda that's virtually certain to incite fanatics to try to kill our troops.

Here's a permanent link to this commentary: http://wrenncom.com/CommentaryArchives/2007/20y07m11d15-01.asp. 

(Hat tip: http://hotair.com/archives/2007/11/13/video-boycott-redacted/)

--Jim Wrenn

Editor at WrennCom.Com; also Editor at PoliSat.Com.

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