Disagreement with our government within the country is a needed, good and healthy thing for various reasons. What is dangerous and unhealthy is taking that same message outside our borders. That is the cheerleading that I don’t agree with. To the outside world we have to present a united front which is why politics is supposed to stops at the waters edge. What is happening in the last few wars is our dirty laundry is being aired for the world to see and we wonder why we are not respected anymore. Before WWII it was perceived that we were a nation divided, weak, and unwilling to fight a long or costly war because we were soft. One of our ambassadors sided with Chancellor Hitler against the U. S. and he was not shot only removed from his post, not even arrested to make an example of him, so it was assumed that there was not enough political will to fight since by their standards Americans were too weak to stop someone from publicly speaking treason. This assumption was most incorrect but most nations do not understand America and see the world through their own eyes in a world they know. Syria for example, speaking ill of the leader or the government will get you arrested and most likely your whole family killed to remind people not to do something so foolish. Seeing what we do through that kind of world makes our President look weak because he allows it to happen with no reprisals.
Now people write that there were less people killed in Iraq before we invaded than after, and I shake my head. People actually think that there is less death when in fact there was more death. In every totalitarian regime they control the press. Nothing bad is ever reported or if it is it is done in code. In the old Soviet Union when they had the nuclear reactor melt down and explode in the news it was reported they had a minor accident and small fire. It was not until Finland reported being irradiated did the Soviet Union finally admit they had a problem. In America we have independent news organizations protected by the constitution and can not be manipulated by the government. Their mandate is to keep the American people informed of what is happening within the government and to inform us of other things as they see fit. The government has no direct control over the press. By law the most the government can do is ask not to print something or please print something. This is unheard of in most countries around the world. So when people outside our nation read our press reports they filter what they read with an understanding of their world. If they live in a dictatorship then they know that the press is filtered through the government first and if the papers are so bold as to report something bad about the government then it must be 10 times as bad as what is reported. If ten people are reported murdered then it must be 100 people murdered and the government is covering the rest up. So anything bad that is printed about the government must mean the government and its leader is weak and about to lose power. When our press prints crap like we went to war for oil or we are losing in Iraq then it must be worse than what is reported.
In North Korea people are just starting to believe that their press might not be telling the whole truth. That their standard of living is not 10 times better than South Korea and America. The fact that over a third of the population is starving to death was almost ok as long as they believed that they were the lucky ones on the planet. Look at a satellite photo of North Korea at night. Two cities are lit and the rest of the nation is dark. They can’t even afford to put street lights on but they think the great leader is giving them the best the world has to offer. You will never read bad press reports in nations that are controlled by dictators.
We in America are free to protest anything we want with few restrictions, this is not the case in most nations of the world. A country like Jordan has a protest in the streets it is organized by the government. In Iraq when Saddam Insane was in power he allowed free elections. This sounds great right? They can vote for whomever they want. What most people did not know was on the ballot you had to put your name and address. Yeah, vote for anyone you want but if you vote for the wrong person they will know where to look for you. Was anyone surprised when Saddam received 100% of the vote? The next election in Saddam’s Iraq he ordered people to vote for his opponent. Just to prove that it was a fair election. He got 99% of the vote. Oh yeah, everyone was still required to put name and address on the ballot so if you were not part of the 1% that was ordered to vote for the other guy you were in trouble.

When the New York Times prints information on how we were tracking Osama bin Laden by his cell phone. He stopped using it. Then it was leaked that we were tracking him by his satellite phone and he stopped using that. Then it was reported that we were tracking him through his internet connection and he stopped using that. Each time it was reported that we were 24 or 48 hours behind him. Now people wonder why we have not caught him yet.

We took years to get on his trail again and just as we are getting close it is reported that we were listening in on phone calls from known terrorist into and out of the US it gets reported that the government is listening in on Americans phone calls which was not the case. When in the 90’s we were reading all e-mail looking for codes and phrases to find and track terrorist it got reported in the news. The carnivore program was almost shut down because of it. It was a computer that read the mail and if there was nothing there it was erased if something looked like a code or a phrase that was in the program it was given to people to read. Is that an invasion of privacy? Sort of. Did it make the president look bad? Not at all because it was in the papers one day and in a few movies and that was it. All quiet. The difference is that there was a democratic president when carnivore was discovered by the press. A republican president does something similar but not as invasive and everyone in the press wants to talk impeachment. Invasion of privacy! Can’t trust the government!

We started tracking terrorist money producing a lot of good results I am told. Once again freedom of the press allowed this to be sent out around the world and almost crippled the project. No invasion of privacy unless you are privately moving huge sums of money in and out of the country and have contacts with terrorist groups. If that is the case please don’t read this and forget what you have read so far. The government will crawl up their butts with a microscope to see what they are doing. Why does the government do all these nasty things? Because the government is charged with the responsibility of safeguarding the American people. I myself refuse to buy or read the New York Times and I guess others feel the same way because they are bleeding money. They have had to reduce staff and reduce the number of pages they print. They are losing advertising so the people are speaking with their wallets that they don’t like what the Times is doing. Every paper that has a reputation for hurting America under the guise of freedom of the press is starting to suffer for it and I am glad. There is a cost for what people do, say, and write.

So yes, it is good that we allow people to oppose our government and our way of life. But understand how it can be seen outside our wonderful country. This is why protests are so close to treason it is not even funny but it is a valid right that should be exercised just like voting.