On September 14, 2001, three days after the 9/11 tragedy, A. M. Rosenthal swung virulently into action. Writing for Morton Zuckerman’s rag, the New York Daily News, he demanded the U.S. deliver an ultimatum to at least six countries- – Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Sudan- – giving them three days to hand over documents and information relating to weapons of mass destruction and terrorist organizations.
Rosenthal warned that “in the three days the terrorists were considering the American ultimatum, the residents of the countries would be urged 24 hours a day by the U.S. to flee the capital and major cities, because they would be bombed to the ground beginning the fourth day” (Source, FAIR, 09/21/01). Bombing civilian populations is a war crime, and a clear violation of the Geneva Convention. If actually carried out, Rosenthal’s proposal would have resulted in civilian deaths totaling millions of innocent souls, and would have created even more enemies among the survivors and in the Islamic World at large, for America.
How can anybody that writes this kind of warmongering nonsense be considered a journalist “with a passion for the truth” and “a source you can trust to give you the realities behind the news?” Well, that is what they said about Rosenthal, when he was awarded the “Presidential Medal of Freedom” on July 9, 2002. What dubious hogwash!
Incidentally, Zuckerman, who owns the Daily News, is a big honcho, too, with the Conference of Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations. Can you imagine anyone at his tabloid criticizing Israel and still keeping their jobs? I can’t! Rosenthal has been hanging his hat at the Daily News, in their Op Ed department, since he left the Executive Director desk at the New York Times, in 1999, after putting in 55 years at that paper.
After he left the NYT, he was praised by his fellow Zionists for never shying “away from Jewish topics, like the Holocaust or Israel” (Jonathan Tobin, Jewish World Review, 12/12/99). Rosenthal, Tobin added, gave “a clear pro-Israel point of view,” when he was pontificating at the paper. He also called him one of the “guardians of our national conscience.” Guardian of our national conscience, my foot!
I was up in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, over the weekend. I walked on that hallowed ground where the magnificent General George Washington, and the remnants of his gallant Continental Army, spent that horrific winter of 1777 (See, “The Spirit of Seventy-Six,” ed. by H.S. Commager and R.B. Morris). And when I think of someone being a “guardian of our national conscience,” the Israeli boot licking Rosenthal doesn’t come to my mind. Tom Paine was such a man in his time. As for our present age, anyone with a conscience can’t get a job with the controlled media.
And, what is so “national” about Rosenthal? He spent WWII, like so many other chicken hawks, safe at home. He’s a Jew, originally from Canada. His main connection to America is that he got a darn good free public education growing up in New York City. His first love, as indicated in so much of his biased commentaries, is Israel! Besides, no one with a “conscience” would ever suggest bombing six Arab countries, if they didn’t comply to demands that smack of a fascist rant. Only the Ariel “The Butcher” Sharon types think in those kinds of state terrorism terms.
When pundit Pat Buchanan dared to suggest, before Gulf War I, in 1990, that there were only two groups “beating the drums” for war against Iraq, (one being Israel and the other its “Amen Chorus,” in the U.S.), Rosenthal denounced him as “an anti-Semite.” Buchanan was right, of course, but the truth is no defense with the Rosenthals of this world.
Recently, in his syndicated column, Rosenthal was again lambasting Saddam Hussein as the “Serial killer of Baghdad,” and urging President George W. Bush Jr. on to Gulf War II. He said with respect to the off year election results, that “in state after state voters were not trembling at the possibility of a war with Iraq” (Washington Times, 11/11/02).
If Rosenthal really has a “passion for the truth,” then maybe he can come clean with the pubic about the disgraceful Marc Rich presidential pardon scandal; Israel’s murderous attack on the USS Liberty, that killed 34 Americans, in 1967; and, too, give us the Who, What, Why, Where and How, of the scummy Zionist Jonathan Pollard spying-for-Israel crime.
Like that mouthy Elie Wiesel, (Can you believe that he won a Nobel Prize for Humanitarianism?), Rosenthal has an egregious double standard in his moral judgments. Never once in all of his career has he ever criticized Israel; nor, as a journalist, or in any of his public statements, has he ever shed one tear, even symbolically, for the massive suffering of the Palestinian people, under the Israeli yoke. Not one single tear! Ever!
A. M. Rosenthal’s world is cold, hard and mad. It is a world devoid of any of the values and principles of the American Republic. He could never be our “national conscience.” And, the next time that he speaks the truth about the Middle East, it will be for the very first time!
WILLIAM HUGHES is the author of “Baltimore Iconoclast” (Writer’s Showcase), which is available online. He can be reached at liamhughes@mindspring.com.
(C) WILLIAM HUGHES 2002