Great Moments in Slanted Journalism

Here us a graph from an AP story about a young boy whom the Taliban had recruited to wear a suicide vest and kill American troops:

Boy: Taliban recruited me to bomb troops

Though the Taliban dismissed the story as propaganda, at a time when U.S. and NATO forces are under increasing criticism over civilian casualties, both Afghan tribal elders and U.S. military officers said they were convinced by his dramatic account.

Translation: "We accept Taliban dismissals without comment, but because U.S. military officers are convinced of the boy's story we at the esteemed AP therefore are not, since their words must be taken with a grain of salt due to increasing criticism over civilian casualties at their hand."

This ladies and gents is what is called 'Moral Equivalence'. I am sure that the AP would love to crticize the Taliban for this inhumane action, but they just can't find the gumption to do so because U.S. troops have killed innocents too.

But listen up everyone, there is absolutely no equivalence (zero, zip, nada) between the Taliban lying to a young boy to get him to strap a bomb to his body and blow himself up, and the U.S. military accidentally killing civilians. The fact that the AP writers can't differentiate between an intentional act and an accidental one does not speak very highly of their intelligence or their training. Of course, if we don't want to impugn the qualifications of the AP writers, the only other option to consider is that they might actually believe that the U.S. intentionally and indiscriminately kills innocent civilians, and therefore is the moral equivalent of the Taliban.

And if that is what AP writers believe, then they are already working for the enemy....they just aren't smart enough to realize it. Ooops, I guess I did impugn.....

Hat Tip: The Tank