Who will rise up for me against the evildoers? or who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity?
~ Psalm 94:16
Time Magazine Baghdad bureau chief Michael Ware was interviewed on Hugh Hewitt’s program today. He scared the booties off me—Ware did, not Hugh.
Here’s a payday question from Hugh:
"But more importantly, going to the Islamists, about whom...you'll agree with me, they're evil. Won't you, Michael?"
And Ware’s response: (emphasis added)
Well, I certainly...I mean, one has to be careful that as the Islamic army of Iraq reminded just last week on Al Jazeera, the insurgent groups study very closely everything that we hear, say and write. And given that we're within their grasp, one always must be diplomatic. Suffice to say, it's very hard to relate to the goals or tactics that the hard-line Islamists employ.
So, we must be “diplomatic” to the head-lopping murderers of Islamic radicalism? I wonder if murdered journalist Daniel Pearl would agree with his colleague Ware about diplomacy being appropriate towards his butchers?
In response to Hugh’s question about having a hypothetical embedded reporter “to go back and forth to Germany to visit various Nazi encampments or policies, would that have been acceptable in World War II, Michael Ware?”
If you believe in the reality of right and wrong, you may want to grab a chair before reading Ware’s answer:
Well, I think the values would be different back then. All I can talk to about are the circumstances that have presented themselves to me, and the wars I've found myself in.
How very scary. How terribly frightening that answer is, and how telling of the troubles of our times. There is nothing relative about evil. There is no evil action or intent today that wasn’t also evil a thousand years ago. Evil is constant, it exists, and it destroys--especially when it deceives humans into viewing it as an accessory to the theory of relativity. It’s Satan’s crowning achievement, this convincing of mankind that he doesn’t exist.
There is no difference between Islamist evil and Nazi evil, except the times and the tools. To be defeated, as we learned well in World War II, evil must be recognized for what it is. The challenge of the GWOT is to stand up to evil, against increasing pressure to fall and roll over.
We must call evil out and beat it down. That’s going to be an impossible goal if, as Michael Ware seems to be doing, we’re grading evil on a curve.
