(By Ray Drake)
One of the most sinister media programs in Germany is one aimed at an audience too young to differentiate bias and think critically about the political messages directed at it. In this case we are talking here about "Lilipuz", a radio news program broadcast daily for children at 2:05 PM Berlin time and sponsored by WDR 5 (West German Broadcasting, Channel 5), a public radio channel funded by German taxpayers via the German government. Just a glance at the "Lilipuz" program's homepage is a lesson in and of itself:
Question for German Kids: "Why is Sex Called Sex? The Answer is on Heart Radio."
And while the kids aren't busily learning the ins-and-outs of sex on Lilipuz, they are being indoctrinated and trained to be Germany's bright new generation of future anti-Americans. Here is the translated text of a recent "Lilipuz" radio broadcast (listen to the broadcast in the original German):
Americans at a Loss
Certainly you can still remember the terrible pictures from the Iraq war. Led by the USA and England, several states attacked Iraq. They justified that primarily with the claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and threatened others. Today we know, that that is not true. And why are we reporting about it today? Barbara Paeffgen:
"The Iraq War is indeed over. But there is still no peace. One repeatedly hears of attacks, kidnappings, injuries and deaths.
The land and its people are totally agitated and simply find no way to keep peace. And the American and English troops find themselves in the middle. They are supposed to ensure justice and order, however many Iraqis don't want them in their land."
In America the people are also slowly getting angry. Many want to pull the American troops out of Iraq. Why won't they do that?
"The American government under President George Bush doesn't know at all how it will get out of Iraq. It is totally at a loss. That is why President Bush is talking up the situation in Iraq (putting makeup on a pig).
The American Defense Minister Donald Rumsfeld doesn't even want to talk about insurgents anymore and wants that nothing more negative is written about the American military.
Critics hold that for the totally wrong direction because it does nothing to change the situation."
What critics are they talking about exactly? They obviously missed the fact that the vast majority of Iraq's states are, in fact, largely peaceful and stable and that the lack of peace is limited to the central Sunni sector of the nation. The broadcast also totally failed to mention any of the positive things happening in Iraq. What about the new roads, schools, businesses, newspapers, hospitals and power plants? What about the elections and constitution? What about the increasing prosperity in much of Iraq? What about the declining infant mortality rates? Is there some law against reporting on positive things happening in Iraq in the German media? It would certainly seem so...
And President Bush certainly did not sound as if he were "at a loss" with regard to the Iraq situation in his speech to the Naval Academy this week. Here are a few excerpts from the President's speech:
"As we fight the enemy in Iraq, every man and woman who volunteers to defend our nation deserves an unwavering commitment to the mission -- and a clear strategy for victory. A clear strategy begins with a clear understanding of the enemy we face. The enemy in Iraq is a combination of rejectionists, Saddamists and terrorists. The rejectionists are by far the largest group. These are ordinary Iraqis, mostly Sunni Arabs, who miss the privileged status they had under the regime of Saddam Hussein -- and they reject an Iraq in which they are no longer the dominant group. (...)
To achieve victory over such enemies, we are pursuing a comprehensive strategy in Iraq. Americans should have a clear understanding of this strategy -- how we look at the war, how we see the enemy, how we define victory, and what we're doing to achieve it. So today, we're releasing a document called the "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq." This is an unclassified version of the strategy we've been pursuing in Iraq, and it is posted on the White House website -- whitehouse.gov. I urge all Americans to read it.
Some are calling for a deadline for withdrawal. Many advocating an artificial timetable for withdrawing our troops are sincere -- but I believe they're sincerely wrong. Pulling our troops out before they've achieved their purpose is not a plan for victory. As Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman said recently, setting an artificial timetable would "discourage our troops because it seems to be heading for the door. It will encourage the terrorists, it will confuse the Iraqi people."
Senator Lieberman is right. Setting an artificial deadline to withdraw would send a message across the world that America is a weak and an unreliable ally. Setting an artificial deadline to withdraw would send a signal to our enemies -- that if they wait long enough, America will cut and run and abandon its friends. And setting an artificial deadline to withdraw would vindicate the terrorists' tactics of beheadings and suicide bombings and mass murder -- and invite new attacks on America. To all who wear the uniform, I make you this pledge: America will not run in the face of car bombers and assassins so long as I am your Commander-in-Chief. (Applause.)
Media Double Standards: Ignoring Lieberman while Lauding Murtha
And of course the German media has widely ignored the positive statements made by Senator Joe Lieberman (D) on Iraq while trumpeting the negative, defeatist statements of Representative John Murtha. This is because Lieberman's remarks violently contradict the prevailing ideology in German media and politics while Murtha's confirm them. The same is largely true of the American media. Murtha's statements have been headline news for days while Lieberman's statements on the successful progress in Iraq are largely sidestepped by the "mainstream" media. If German media had an ounce of credibility (which they don't) they would give just as much play to Lieberman's remarks (which they won't). In any case, here are some of the things the Senator from Connecticut wrote on Iraq:
"I have just returned from my fourth trip to Iraq in the past 17 months and can report real progress there. More work needs to be done, of course, but the Iraqi people are in reach of a watershed transformation from the primitive, killing tyranny of Saddam to modern, self-governing, self-securing nationhood--unless the great American military that has given them and us this unexpected opportunity is prematurely withdrawn.
Progress is visible and practical. In the Kurdish North, there is continuing security and growing prosperity. The primarily Shiite South remains largely free of terrorism, receives much more electric power and other public services than it did under Saddam, and is experiencing greater economic activity. The Sunni triangle, geographically defined by Baghdad to the east, Tikrit to the north and Ramadi to the west, is where most of the terrorist enemy attacks occur. And yet here, too, there is progress. (...)
None of these remarkable changes would have happened without the coalition forces led by the U.S. And, I am convinced, almost all of the progress in Iraq and throughout the Middle East will be lost if those forces are withdrawn faster than the Iraqi military is capable of securing the country.
The leaders of Iraq's duly elected government understand this, and they asked me for reassurance about America's commitment. The question is whether the American people and enough of their representatives in Congress from both parties understand this. I am disappointed by Democrats who are more focused on how President Bush took America into the war in Iraq almost three years ago, and by Republicans who are more worried about whether the war will bring them down in next November's elections, than they are concerned about how we continue the progress in Iraq in the months and years ahead.
Here is an ironic finding I brought back from Iraq. While U.S. public opinion polls show serious declines in support for the war and increasing pessimism about how it will end, polls conducted by Iraqis for Iraqi universities show increasing optimism. Two-thirds say they are better off than they were under Saddam, and a resounding 82% are confident their lives in Iraq will be better a year from now than they are today. What a colossal mistake it would be for America's bipartisan political leadership to choose this moment in history to lose its will and, in the famous phrase, to seize defeat from the jaws of the coming victory.
The leaders of America's military and diplomatic forces in Iraq, Gen. George Casey and Ambassador Zal Khalilzad, have a clear and compelling vision of our mission there. It is to create the environment in which Iraqi democracy, security and prosperity can take hold and the Iraqis themselves can defend their political progress against those 10,000 terrorists who would take it from them.
Does America have a good plan for doing this, a strategy for victory in Iraq? Yes we do. And it is important to make it clear to the American people that the plan has not remained stubbornly still but has changed over the years. Mistakes, some of them big, were made after Saddam was removed, and no one who supports the war should hesitate to admit that; but we have learned from those mistakes and, in characteristic American fashion, from what has worked and not worked on the ground. The administration's recent use of the banner "clear, hold and build" accurately describes the strategy as I saw it being implemented last week."
Senator Lieberman clearly demonstrated a high degree of intellectual and moral courage in writing the above, especially considering how members of his own party are likely to react. The intellectually dishonest ideologues who run much of the German media are certain to largely ignore Lieberman's comments because they represent a threat and contradiction to everything they have been reporting to the German people on Iraq for the past three years.
Peace the Lilipuz Way
So how would "Lilipuz" have dealt with Iraq? Of course not attacking would have meant more of the same sort of "peace" that prevailed under Saddam Hussein for over two decades (but of course WDR doesn't want to inconvenience the children with that information because it doesn't fit into the anti-American, anti-England indoctrination program):
Saddam's Victims: "Peace" the Lilipuz Way
And just like their predecessors, elements of today's German state-run media recognize how important the hearts and minds of German youth really are. Americans, along with Brits and Israelis, can only view this sinister and shameless form of German media indoctrination with a sense of foreboding and dismay for the future. Perhaps the most upsetting aspect of all this is that the German government (and not some insignificant private entity) is sponsoring these profoundly biased programs.
You can contact the staff of "Lilipuz" here. Be sure to fill in your first name and email address on the left-hand side before composing your message in the box provided. To send, click "Abschicken".
(Here's more on anti-American youth manipulation in Germany. Scroll down page.)
Update: Check out this outstanding montage put together by Moonbattery and based on this piece.
Update #2: Erik of No Pasaran writes us that French kids receive a "much healthier and objective view" of Uncle Sam.
(You may want to cast your vote in this competition for the "Best European Blog" (Non UK)).
WDR (Westdeutscher Rundfunk): "
NDR (Norddeutscher Rundfunk): "
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