By Selwyn Duke

During WWII, the medium of film was used to great effect in the combating nations’ war efforts.  Adolf Hitler had his propaganda filmmaker extraordinaire, Leni Riefenstahl, who exalted Nazi Germany.  But such film footage was used to demonize as well, and we certainly characterized the Japanese in less than flattering terms.  (The Japanese gave as good as they got, calling the Western man "the hairy white ape.")

Obviously, the purpose of such propaganda is to galvanize support for a nation’s military campaign; it’s much easier to channel popular will against an enemy if you dehumanize him than if you tell people that he must "be understood" and is "just like us."  Of course, to quote G.K. Chesterton, "A true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him."  Alas, though, not everyone is capable of being a true soldier and thus must be animated by less ethereal motivations.   And, make no mistake, this negative imagery does motivate.  Boy, does it motivate.

Sadly, while not everyone is a true soldier, not everyone is a true citizen either.  And in this category belongs a truly odious individual, billionaire Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks.  Cuban has financed the anti-American film Redacted, which portrays our troops in a horrible light, even depicting the rape of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl by American soldiers.

Now, let there be no doubt: This film will be used by the jihadists for propaganda purposes, and it will lead to the deaths of American soldiers (perhaps civilians as well); oh, I can’t tell you exactly what number, as it may be a few or may be many.  Regardless, their blood will be on Mark Cuban’s already dirty hands.

The anti-American elements of Redacted constitute exactly the kind of footage that the Nazis or Imperial Japanese would have made about us or we about them.  It is what an enemy does.  So I have a question:

If a citizen creates a work reminiscent of enemy propaganda footage, what can you conclude about that citizen?

Mark Cuban has now branded himself as one of the many Tokyo Roses of the Iraq war.  During WWII, liberal icon Franklin D. Roosevelt would have had him arrested — and for good reason.

Cuban is a traitor.

Moreover, not only is he too cowardly to be a true soldier or any other kind, he doesn’t even have the guts to defend his nail in America’s coffin on shows such as the O’Reilly Factor.   Of course, though, how do you defend the indefensible?

It just goes to prove that there is no correlation between billionaire status and brains. 

Oh, I might be wrong about one matter, however, as Cuban is one kind of soldier: He who fights in the jihad’s fifth column against the country that has given him everything. 

In light of this, I will print something said two millennia ago by Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman statesman, philosopher and orator.  And note, Mr. Cuban, he’s talking to you.

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot
survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable,
for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves
amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through
all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the
traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his
victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the
baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a
nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the
pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no
longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.

And less to be despised.