Regarding Jill Carroll

The Christian Science Monitor reporter, Jill Carrol has become a victim of her liberal philosophy. She has entered the cage of wild animals armed with the faith that if she demonstrates good faith and tries to be fair to them, they won't eat her. This is the great Liberal/Pacifist fallacy, the belief that madmen bent on seizing power are only motivated by fear of the West, and if we show them they have nothing to fear, they will drop their weapons and open their arms and the world will have peace. Applied to dangerous wild beasts, this has been called the Disneyfication of nature. It might today also be called the Greening of the wild, as the advocates of restoring grizzly bears and wolves to their former ranges portray them "noble" animals, who care for their young and aren't really a threat to humans as long as we respect them. People whose pets have been killed by coyotes and cougars get scolded for encroaching on the habitats of these animals.

Perhaps, that's how people like Jill Carroll should be viewed, as intruders into the habitat of terrorists without taking proper precautions. But the peacenik delusion was not her only one. She was also a "journalist" which I put in quotes to distinguish it from reporters who see their job as telling their readers what's going on fairly, completely and objectively as they can. "Journalists" have their own philosophy which too often leads them to view their rule as somehow superior, even antithetical, to government.

They tend to view their personal political views as revealed knowledge and taking an evangelistic approach to them. Ms. Carroll, by all accounts, is a sweet, kind person and certainly doesn't deserve the peril into which she has fallen. This is not George Bush's fault, or Dick Cheney's or Don Rumsfeld's. She believed that she couldn't be an honest reporter without going into enemy territory without protection.

Bad, sad move. We can only pray for her rescue or release.

I don't admire or respect such people, because they start from the idea that whatever our side shows you is somehow tainted, and that only "journalists" can tell you the truth. That doesn't leave much room for us readers to apply our own intelligence to the facts. Those who believe we have to be fed only strained carrots and pabulum may have all the good intentions in the world, but they aren't giving their readers the credit they deserve for being able to interpret the world from their own experience and perspective. All of us have to be able to distinguish between what we perceive as reality at the moment and what reality might really be. It's a tricky thing to master, and having others who can't or won't acknowledge that they have the same problem telling us what to believe doesn't make it any easier.

You can talk all you want about the unfairness of life and the results of poverty and third-world conditions, but at some point, you should also consider that the terrorists may not be real victims, but dupes, or even worse, evil people. Either way, they are killers and you treat them otherwise at your own peril.

America has always been magnanimous in victory. The surest way to get vast sums of foreign aid is to be defeated by the U.S.A. But first you have to put down your weapons and agree to work things out in a civilized way.