good article worth a read

"Is Nothing Worth a War?"

The article deals with perceived "moral defeatism" in the West. A Ukrainian diplomat expresses frustration whenever he does interviews with the Western press, and he thinks the press wants Ukraine simply to give up. This prompts him to ponder where such defeatism comes from and to ask the question, "[Is] it because they [journalists] know they wouldn’t be fighting like us if they were in our shoes?"

I'm pretty sure the West's journalistic class would pussy out if called to fight in a war. I don't doubt for a second that most journalists are, at heart, cowards. Sure, some might visit war zones or "bad neighborhoods," but in war zones, they're either embedded with friendly troops or near such troops. In bad neighborhoods, journalists rely on the talismanic power of their press passes to keep them alive. There's nothing especially brave about hiding behind a pass. It's a variation on the old "You wouldn't hit a man with glasses, would you?" I'll grant that some journalists lose their lives visiting nasty places (Daniel Pearl comes to mind), but they normally go in thinking they will somehow survive the experience. The movie "Natural Born Killers" features a journalist (Robert Downey, Jr.) who thinks he can just ride along with a pair of serial killers and not get hurt. That's a separate issue from the question of one's willingness to fight and take lives. (Here's one journalist pissing his pants about firing an AR-15.)

Anyway, moral defeatism from the left is certainly nothing new, but it's indicative of a larger problem that concerns us all if we want our civilization to survive.