On July 18, CNN correspondent Nick Robertson aired a report from Beirut. Throughout his entire report on “Anderson Cooper 360,” Robertson accepted uncritically the claims of a Hezbollah “guide” about what he was seeing.

According to NewsBusters’ Rich Noyes: “Robertson touted his ‘exclusive’ exchange with a Hezbollah propagandist who led him on a tour of a bombed-out block of southern Beirut. Hezbollah claimed to show that Israeli bombs had struck civilian areas of the city, not the terrorist group’s headquarters.

Wrote Noyes: “The Hezbollah ‘press officer,’ Hussein Nabulsi, even directed CNN’s camera: ‘Just look. Shoot. Look at this building. Is it a military base? Is it a military base, or just civilians living in this building?’ A few moments later, Nabulsi instructed CNN to videotape him as he ran up to a pile of rubble: ‘Shoot me. Shoot. This is here where they said Sheikh Nasrallah, the secretary-general of Hezbollah, is living. This is wrong!’

At one point Roberston said: “As we run past the rubble, we see much that points to civilian life, no evidence apparent of military equipment.”

As he concluded his report, anchor John Roberts gushed, “Well, extraordinary tour that you took there today, Nic. And a lot of people here at CNN say you’re very, very brave for doing it, but we expect nothing less. Nic Robertson in Beirut, thanks very much.”

Not once during the entire segment, which was unvarnished Hezbollah propaganda, did Robertson mention that he was being led around by the nose by a Hezbollah propagandist.

All this led NewsBusters to wonder if Robertson is looking to be the next Peter Arnett, the disgraced leftist Aussie journalist who allowed himself to become a mouthpiece for Saddam Hussein.

Robertson finally came clean on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” Sunday, when he admitted that “… there’s no doubt about it. They had control of the situation. They designated the places that we went to, and we certainly didn’t have time to go into the houses or lift up the rubble to see what was underneath.”

If Robertson was alone in allowing himself to be used by the enemy it would just be an isolated incident, but instead, he’s just one of a pack of journalists who never seem to be able to support the U.S. or its ally Israel in the war on terror.

Thanks to the mainstream media’s constant carping about alleged U.S. or Israeli “brutality,” the hands of the American military in Iraq and the Israeli’s in Lebanon are tied up in all sorts of politically correct handicaps that prevent them from taking decisive action when that’s what is required to win.

Recently on my radio broadcast I said if I were president for one day ending the war would be the easiest thing in the world. I would simply sign an executive order pulling all embedded reporters out of war zones where America is involved. I’d sign a second executive order having a complete media blackout of the war zone for the next six months.

I had an army Lieutenant Colonel on the show and I asked him if I did that, how long it would take him to you to end this war?

“Maybe thirty days or so,” he said.

The war goes on longer because of the media’s slanted coverage – we can’t do what we need to do for fear of the backlash with the media questioning everything we do, everyplace we go.

The media have no problem taking the word of every insurgent posing as an innocent civilian. They ignore the established fact that the insurgent’s main strategy is to bury themselves in the civilian population.

This is how they fight wars. They don’t mind women and children dying. That is all part of their strategy. They understand that the U.S., Israel and other civilized nations have values and a moral standard and they realize that we will do everything in our power to protect innocent people. They blend in with the people and when the innocent civilians they use as human shields are killed they use the deaths as propaganda tools and the media eat it up.

©2006 Mike Reagan. If you’re not a paying subscriber to our service, you must contact us to print or web post this column. Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by: Cagle Cartoons, Inc. Cari Dawson Bartley email [email protected], (800) 696-7561.