Interesting day last Friday. I bought the Evening Herald and went to the barber's to get a hair cut. While waiting for the hair cut, I read a column by Kevin Flanagan that says a lot about what annoys me about the Irish media. It's not available online, so here is a key snippet:
"Surely modern anti-terrorist warfare has the means to disable four males (one a 14-year-old teenager) so they can be taken into custody and face justice - or has someone higher up decreed that the only justice they will face is a bullet?"
I don't know what this guy is talking about. First of all, he seems to have watched way too many James Bond movies. What "means" could he be talking about? Maybe they could have used the same gas the Russians used in the theatre in Moscow, but if I had been in the unit approaching that house I would have assumed that whoever was inside would have had gas masks.
And, from all I've read of what happened in Mosul last week, the 101st Airborne did give Saddam's sons a chance to surrender, but they opted for a firefight. If they had really cared about the 14 year old in their midst, they would have sent him out before fighting to the death.
He then goes on to talk about Nuremburg as if all those Germans who were tried were arrested by unarmed members of the Gardai.
But, then I got my haircut. And, the barber said to me that it was a great thing that those two (Saddam's sons) were dead. When I told him that it sometimes was a little uncomfortable being American here, he asked "Why, when 99% of the people here agree with what the British and Americans have done in Iraq".
I think his figure is exaggerated, but it has been my suspicion for a while that the anti-American attitude of the Irish media is not really reflective of the general population. Unfortunately, I think it is reflective of the Dublin middle class, but maybe of not much else.
