PrintApril 6, 2007
How leftists exploit grief over troop casualties
At first glance, the home page for the "Iraq Veterans Memorial" looks like a genuinely respectful site honoring the troops.
The Iraq Veterans Memorial is an online war memorial that honors the members of the U.S. armed forces who have lost their lives serving in the Iraq War. The Memorial is a collection of video memories from family, friends, military colleagues, and co-workers of those that have fallen.
Other pages on the site encourage people and show them how to submit videos about their fallen family members and friends:
We encourage everyone who has lost a family member or friend to create a video memorial so that others can better understand the life that was lived and the love that was lost. Find out more information on contributing your video.
Nowhere on the site, however, is any indication given of the politics of those who have created the site. The only clue is a link to the Brave New Foundation which created the "memorial." One sees a few code words on the BNF home page that might raise suspicion in the eyes of an observer of the left like me, but which to most people would look pretty benign:
"Championing social justice issues by using media to inspire, empower, motivate and teach civic participation that makes a difference."
But dig into the Brave New Foundation a bit further, and the real nature of the enterprise starts to come into focus. Its board of directors includes Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Hollywood heiress and editor of the hard left magazine The Nation, Dolores Huerta, hard left Hispanic activist, the "national chaplain" for Planned Parenthood (praying for the souls of aborted babies?) and the president of a local of the left wing Service Employees International Union, the union which seeks to destroy Wal-Mart for the sin of being non-union and offering low prices to low income people.
Only by digging through further though not very prominent links does one discover Brave New Films, producers of left wing propaganda pieces attacking Fox News, Wal-Mart, Tom Delay, and Iraq War "profiteers." It looks to me as though this arm of the enterprise is a major part of its activities. Brave New Films could be characterized fairly as a left wing propaganda factory, it seems to me.
Call me paranoid, but in my opinion, these people look like they are luring grieving families into sending them material expressing their loss, and stockpiling it for possible use in the sort of propaganda that claims it supports the troops but not their mission.
If these people were honest, wouldn't they indicate their political perspective right on the Veterans Memorial page? The fact that they require multiple links be followed before revealing who they really are suggests deviousness.
Hat tip: Paul Shlichta
