C O M B A T
	the Literary Expression of Battlefield Touchstones ™
	ISSN 1542-1546 Volume 02 Number 03 Summer ©Jul 2004

"In the spirit of amity and conciliation, if our enemies will stop telling lies about us, then we'll stop telling the truth about them!"
anonymous

"As long as you let your enemy define you, then you will forever be defensive ... always reactive and never proactive."
anonymous

In the light of depleted Confederates throwing rocks, of overrun grunts slashing with e-tools, of determined partisans charging tanks with knives, of frustrated dogfaces counterattacking with their helmets, of primitive guerrillas firing crossbows at helicopters, my team sergeant scorned our technological dependence by claiming that anything could be a weapon! Given the number of schemes and the variety of devices employed in combat, it is obvious that human ingenuity is man's principal weapon. And, like any weapon, such ingenuity can be misused.

For most people, the most flagrant exhibition of the abuse of privilege^[1] is the realm of publishing, with particular emphasis upon the mass media. It is both the darling of entertainment and the crier of bad tidings. We protect expression, not to ensure diversity and fairness, but to preserve loyal objection ... it exists solely to guard controversial expression. What relative security, isolation, sophistication, and prosperity have wrought is a conformist dishabille^[2]. Having pulled down our great pillars and wrecked our admirable processes, we are seemingly lost in the wilderness, doing our own thing, shouting at each other, listening to nothing, and heeding nobody. We've inherited rights that we don't appreciate^[3]. We're confused and misdirected ... and much too ignorant to control our own power, our weapons, or our image.

Contrary to popular opinion, censorship is alive and well in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave ... and rightly so. No reasonable person wants military and trade secrets disclosed, insurgent or mutinous diatribes proclaimed, sensitive or offensive matter disseminated, or slander and libel unchecked. But not everyone is reasonable, particularly in the throes of impassioned conviction^[4] ... which dogmatic impasse is where most conflict is born.

And in further contradistinction with conventional doctrine, the public does not have a right to know^[5] about everything. The scandalmongers of the fourth estate^[6] do not have a mandate to investigate the idle curiosity of every meddler and wastrel; because knowledge in the wrong hands is dangerous, and can threaten the commonweal. In ancient Rome, the censor was the official charged with the enforcement of public manners and morals, and was required to give his opinion, recommendation, or assessment. Governments everywhere represent the public interest, which in other than tyrannical regimes is administered with the consent of the governed, so the public's privilege of being informed about particular issues and events is contingent upon trust ... which in America is entailed by the constitutional checks and balances preventing usurpation or arrogation. The free flow of news has always been a threat to authority, since shared disclosures only reinforce stable societies, and by implication, threaten unstable ones. But when propaganda masquerades as information, this assessment becomes moot.

The heinous reporting on the recent obsequies surrounding the decease of former president Reagan exemplifies this violation of public trust. Their malign carping, depreciatory quibbles, and other egregious transgressions upon the social compact typify the distinction between news and disinformation. Journalist, charged with accurate reporting, attempted to propagandize this solemn and sincere public observation by false characterization and misrepresentation. No reporter could long prejudice a story without the consent of his editor, nor either without the endorsement of their publisher^[7], and they pretend that their distortions constitute our national history ... but the public merely ignores them. What this antinomian intelligentsia does not comprehend about individualism is that community members have only as much independence as their community may permit; and that there are times when the self must be subordinated to the group for the good of the whole. Liberty may be endowed by the Creator, but no one exists in a pure and perfect vacuum. By choosing our civilian leaders, we enjoy the privilege of selective latitude in exchange for obedience ... and in the military meritocracy, we have the opportunity to excel and the responsibility to obey. We may elect dissent, disobedience, or resistance, and there may be negative consequences, but we are free citizens. The conversion of the American government into a medium for paternalism, the courts into a medium for injustice, and the schools into a medium for indoctrination is just another iteration of historic inevitability. But when have the children and barbarians^[8] of the present not been condemned to repeat the mistakes of the past? Our enduring social experiment may be man's last best hope on earth^[9], but we may find it necessary to liberate ourselves from ourselves! ... we may need another revolution of moral rearmament to restore our ideals, to re-establish our credibility, to recover our homeland.

Fomenters do not quail from our transgressions. With the provincialism of ignorance, we imagine that our goodness is greater than any, and our badness is the worst of all^[10] ... that our great and mighty weapons make death on the modern battlefield more terrible than ever before. And there is a profusion of yellow journalism, like an effusion of toxic waste, that waxes ecstatic over every drop of innocent blood, every inadvertently broken fingernail, every split hair of controversy. But these commentators could not utter their canards or expose their detestations in other than the most open and free society to have ever existed! It is true that the Anti-Terrorist Act and the Patriots Act^[11] inhibit civil liberties, just as the Espionage Act did during World War One and the Official Secrets Act did during World War Two, but the duly warranted excuse for these internal inhibitions was an external threat ... and the restrictions expired shortly after the threat. Some writers chose to violate those strictures and were forcibly restrained by their sovereign government for the good of their community, just as some war protestors have resisted the draft by accepting incarceration. Authors and journalists who courageously express their objections in dictatorial states are routinely silenced by maiming, mayhem, and murder. A foreign writer who complains about indigenous autocratic policies or practices may lose his tongue or his hands, may lose his home or his family, may be immured or murdered. When have these card-carrying pseudo-intellectuals, these nattering nabobs of negativism, this effete corps of impudent snobs, who characterize themselves as patriots beyond reproach^[12], braved anything more than notoriety and disdain for their outrageous irresponsibility? ... for their juvenile stunts and adolescent prattle?!

In a finer place and better time, an endless land of cookies and cream^[13], there would be no need for enforcement, because self-restraint and superior judgement would prevent deracinated agitation and dissension. The power to or the act of censoring, as exercised through a social institution, religious office, or governmental agency, examines literature, dramatic performances, public speeches, and other published or broadcast matter for the purpose of determining adherence to codes and codices, with the responsibility for excising, excluding, or suppressing, in whole or in part, anything deemed objectionable on moral, political, military, or other grounds. Censorship runs the gamut from classified documents and pirated papers to Bowdlerized literature and blocked websites. The most notable roster of excluded materials was the Catholic Index of Prohibited Books [v: imprimatur, nihil obstat] begun by Pope Leo X, which was discontinued in 1966 [cf: Protestant Index Expurgatorius], but the void has been more than filled by secular arbiters from university panels and library committees, where judgements are made without benefit of popular law or substantive ethics. Discrimination based upon political correctness is only the latest spasm of doctrinaire scrutiny by the Orwellian thought police, since everything from children's books and religious texts to seditious and salacious materials has been banned in the new Home of the Discouraging Word, with international prohibitions varying in accordance with revised policies. The media industry guidelines regulating the sex and violence ratings are a form of voluntary censorship which, like official suppression [v: Comstock], tends to stimulate prurient interest and increase profitability. The media, film producers, and other publishers have resisted the expurgations of censorship, in favor of self-regulation, so that a profit can be garnered from pandering curiosa and titillating exposés ... as evinced by blackouts of recent terrorist executions that are too shocking for hard news but are quite suitable for adventuresome entertainment, or even perverse indulgence.

In ancient times, news was gossip disbursed by traders and travelers, and later dispensed by designated heralds. With the rise of medieval literati came salons where current events were reported and ideas were discussed. Man invented paper to conveniently preserve and facilitate the communication of ideas^[14]. Some men have ignited spirits with it ... some have started fires with it ... and some have started wars with it. It's the medium of treaty and decree, of concession and appeal, of testimony and liturgy; but few have made more than hope with it. The development of public education and mechanical printing spawned the nascent news business, which has evolved into the modern mass media replete with journalistic standards and ethics, though they be illusory and synthetic. By association with gadfly, most reporters are known as fruit flies, but these muckrakers^[15] and bullyraggers imagine their pronouncements and prognostications anoint them as soothsayers of the realm. It has often been noted that journalism, which is populated by unscrupulous and disreputable persons, is a career but not a profession! As Oscar Wilde said of one correspondent: "He would stab his best friend for the sake of writing an epigram on his tombstone."; and of the fraternity: "In old days men had the rack. Now they have The Press."!

Just as censorship exists contrary to popular belief, so the right of free expression is not unfettered. As an initial point of departure, it should be noted that private communication is none of the government's business ... not that personal communication cannot be regulated, or even inspected by competent authority, but that it is not the object of constitutional guarantees. The right of people to publicly express themselves by words or images, without interference by supervening authority, is subject to the laws against incitement to violence, incitement to crime, defamation, and so forth. Privileged exceptions to the restraint of free speech extend to fair comment (ie: personal perspective, subjective speculation, or reasonable alternative) and to opinion (ie: figurative hyperbole, pernicious satire, or vituperative parody), as distinct from verifiable facts and truth. Speech proposing a transaction or exchange is deemed to be commercial or contractual, and does not enjoy the protections that freedom of speech extends to open debate. In short, freedom of speech is guaranteed so that controversial expression will not be suppressed ... but ensure does not imply enable. Just as someone may be eligible for something without being entitled to it, so no one is guaranteed a forum, a platform, a venue for their expression. It has been said that "One should never argue with anyone who buys ink by the gallon!"; and by extension: "The only way to ensure a free press is to own one!"^[16].

The use (or misuse) of an official office or social position to exhort a preferred course or to extol a favored perspective is known as a bully pulpit. Historically, the agora and the temple, as the only loci of common assembly, have served the secondary function of shared communication; which later evolved into places for the proclamation of edicts and decrees on right conduct. Churches have, even through the Vietnam era and into the present, used their good offices as a bully pulpit to incite or enjoin their congregations on things that are Caesar's. In most recent times, due to the secular transformation of society and the development of mass media, the position of authority and public visibility denoting a bully pulpit has been subsumed by the popular conscience of journalism. News no longer reports events, but interprets them. This partisanship is indistinguishable from propaganda; where bias is overt, where disinformation is manifest, and factoids or counterfactuals are customary. The media promotes personalities as noteworthy and events as newsworthy, but claims to be aloof from its suasion, as if their position within a calamity will insulate them from the surrounding disaster! They are in the business of selling their publication of foolish influence, and shall not stand accused of leadership!

In a sally that defies the righteousness of current wars duly declared, the professional association of editors and publishers has advocated the expression of common cause^[17] among its member newspapers and magazines. In this connivance of rectitude, they have instigated that each forum promote, by editorial policy or content coverage, a unanimous anti-war sentiment ... at least anti-this-war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the hypothetical war on terror. This endorsement of concerted influence may or may not have anything to do with moral conviction or national politics or international concordance; but this overtly traitorous conspiracy does impinge our civil liberties! If they have no compunction about abusing their bully pulpit for ulterior motives, then they should expect to be damaged in their reputation and finances by collective retaliation ... such as the boycotting of advertisers and the cancellation of subscriptions. We are a forbearant nation, but our constitution does not afford our opponents immunity for their attacks, nor impunity from their aftermath. We are not obliged to grant our enemies, foreign and domestic, the freedom to destroy us!

America makes it easy, perhaps too easy, for her enemies to dwell among us. They can publish manifestos, acquire training, operate businesses, infiltrate institutions, serve in government, and sue for changes in our national traits. They can form accreditation agencies, professional associations, trade organizations, labor unions, religious sects, and social groups. They can even purchase broadcast licenses. tribal peoples make their eccentric misfits into puissant shamans, while we make our maladjusted extremists into wealthy celebrities. We schedule protests and consider polemics to accommodate them, but our enemies don't reciprocate ... and actually having interrogated some captured fanatics in the field, I can assure you that they thought our civility was weakness, and our restraint was stupid! The contempt in their eyes was pronounced and unmistakable. They intended to win by any means, and anything could be a weapon! So if our irresolution or probity delivered them an advantage, then they would conscientiously beat us with it!

The concept of trigger term or fighting words is well established in both psychology and law. The fact is that words can injure more than other weapons^[18] ... "because physical wounds eventually heal", as psychological warfare operatives like to say. Scandal sheets broached the contentious issues inherent in editorial opinion, intellectual freedom, and preventative restraint that later became constituents of journalism ... and which were eventually extended to politically-correct hate speech statutes. Euphemisms once protected social norms, but now they preserve anti-social norms. And like the New Speak superimposed upon a too tolerant culture^[19], the utterances from the bully pulpit are disingenuous and deceptive. The abstruse nihilism that is now fashionable is duplicitous. It is a mode of enervation that will eventually enable the displacement of the exhausted adversary. Logical accommodation to this scheme is like any other appeasement ... asking that the rules or the game be changed is futile, for every concession contributes to their advantage. This terribly contentious game with its convoluted rules is the present reality, and the contest will be decided by these parameters. One does not fight as one would prefer, but as one must, on the present battlefield.

The stakes of this present predicament are substantial, and will affect our national character; but all crises eventually end ... whether it's the Hundred Years War or the Peloponnesian War, the last Punic War or the last World War. Curtailments from the latest victory eventually go out of date. The urgency of the moment transmutes into history, acquiring authenticity from testimonial memoirs and declassified documents. Those with the courage of their convictions will not expect guarantees, and will flout the restraints for some other purpose, suffering the consequences, risking the acclaim, enduring the ruin. Those who are willing to express their opinions on the chance of being misunderstood are preferable to those demoralized automata who cannot value free speech because they have nothing to say. The loss of initiative, the theft of birthrights, and the reign of iniquities are only the additional articles of dishonor that the defeated must bear. Too often the vanquished germinate the next embryonic clash when they repent the effects of the terms from their last treaty.

This précis on qualified and delimited free speech exemplifies our editorial policy, and reiterates its relevance. This literary magazine warrants the promotion of the free expression of facts and opinions, including the right to seek, receive, or impart information and ideas through any medium, regardless of conventional boundaries or artificial barriers. Furthermore, COMBAT magazine endorses the diversity of opinion protected by the constitution and statutes of the United States of America, including international copyright conventions and trade treaties. This periodic venue is an open forum devoted to the motives and insights from the ramifications of violence and the consequences of conflict resolution. We endorse the expression of creative views and intelligent conclusions as a substantive contribution to a dangerous world in perpetual turmoil.

The magazine's staff, as former servicemembers, have experience of many types of weapons, of their application and misapplication. The publisher and staff of COMBAT magazine do not have a concealed agenda, nor any policy other than those conspicuously displayed for the perusal of posterity^[20] ... which may seem fairly radical in a strictly bipartisan world. We passionately advocate free thought and its free expression, but we also have the courage to censor by rejection. We hope that all of our rejections are qualitative, and trust that earnest revisions shall find favor, but we shall not shirk our duty. This literary magazine shall never become a dupe or organ in the media mêlée. We know that anything can be a weapon, and shall make every effort not to become one.