Now, imagine the scenario flipped: What if a soldier had attempted to murder a peace activist over the holidays in order to "make a statement"? The Times would be holding front-page vigil, and Katie Couric's brow would be furrowed for a week. The yakkity yaks on "The View" would be clucking their tongues about the culture of violence bred by the military -- and who knows what Rosie O'Donnell would be dressing her poor child in to exploit the story on her website.
Funny how the Root Causes crowd becomes so incurious about the root causes of crime when the suspects are anti-military nutballs and anti-war protesters. To the extent leftists pay any attention at all to this attempted murder, you can expect it to be downplayed as an isolated incident. Never mind the pro-fragging comments made by troop-bashing academic fraudsters like Ward Churchill; the iconic banners that proclaim "We support our troops when they shoot their own officers" and "Don't impeach Bush . . . execute him"; the countless acts of vandalism against military recruitment offices nationwide since 9/11; and the burning of soldiers in effigy by hate-filled peaceniks.
Oh, and this week, the trial of Michael Curtis Reynolds began. He's a Pennsylvania man and al Qaeda sympathizer accused of plotting to blow up U.S. energy installations in order to drive up gas prices and precipitate a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. In e-mail exchanges with Internet sleuth Shannen Rossmiller, who unmasked the bombing plot, Reynolds called the United States an "accursed country" and said "it isn't the land of the free, but the home of the new dictators."
Harmless rantings? No. Ideas, like the bullet in Jon Schrieken's chest, have consequences.
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Readers can send get-well wishes to Schrieken at www.cooperhealth.org/content/PatientGuide_egreetings.htm.