After reading the latest story on an advertising campaign by WakeUp Wal-Mart, I was left with a little "shock and awe" about the message the activist group has put out against the world's largest retailer. In what I would consider a very strong yet indirect connection, the new advertising campaign loosely attempts to connect Wal-Mart with terrorism as it mentions the cookie crumb trail from Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) to China to Afghanistan. Okay, that inference warranted a little more reading from yours truly.

The connection that is made links the dots between Wal-Mart's business relationship with China (which is mind-boggingly huge) and how China also supports terrorists in Afghanistan by shipping weapons there. The television ad then ends with "So, before you think about shopping at Wal-Mart think about that." What is doesn't mention is that the U.S. economy turns daily on its business relationship with China. In fact, I hate to think what would happen to consumer spending (about two-thirds of the U.S. economy) if we serviced all consumer need from U.S. resources instead of Chinese resources, overnight. Immediate collapse, my friends.

Now, that is not to say that the U.S. consumer's dependence on Chinese goods could not go away over time, but that's another post. So many companies have so many links to Chinese-made goods that Wal-Mart and just about every other Fortune 500 company that makes a product would be guilty of "terrorism links" in the context of this advertising campaign. If you read my weekly Wal-Mart column, you'll know that I give Wal-Mart a fair shot always -- good and bad. But this shot, while having some semblance of legitimacy (except where the facts are to support the accusation), should not be directed solely at Wal-Mart, but at any company that makes products in China with Chinese labor. Like that new iPhone? I'll bet it was made in China. Is Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) getting beat up here? Doubtful.

I've said many times that Wal-Mart should be more defensive in responding to the mountains of critics it has that cover just about every move the retailer makes. Well, although Wal-Mart pleases just as many people as it displeases, there will always be an avalanche of opinions on the company, from hiring practices to health care to its overall effect on the American economy, to how it treats employees.

With Paidcritics.com launching last week -- backed by Wal-Mart -- this website appears to target Wal-Mart Watch, a watchdog website that tracks much of what Wal-Mart does in the global landscape with fervency. Paidcritics.com says that Wal-Mart Watch is controlled and funded by unions that want to infiltrate Wal-Mart for union dues and control over employees. Wal-Mart Watch says that the retailer treats and pays most employees like dirt and could care less about employee benefits like a minimum level of acceptable health care.

So, has the mud-slinging moved out of the political race territory into the mainstream? Sure it has -- and I'm surprised it took this long. Wal-Mart has needed a public face on the defense for quite some time just to respond to the "other side". It's a good thing to have two parties on opposite sides of the fence watching each other -- this keeps things open and invigorating among other things.

Calling Wal-Mart's "moral responsibilities" in question, a critic of the global retailer took out a full-page advertisement today in the New York Times. The ad, which called on Wal-Mart to increase wages and provide better health insurance options to employees, asked Wal-Mart to "handshake with Sam" (a reference to Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton). Included in the handshake was seven voluntary commitments that, most likely, Sam would have agreed on for the world's largest retailer.

Wal-Mart, which apparently dismissed the ad -- stating that it mentioned nothing new -- said that is already has commitments in many areas that full-page spread specifically points out. Wal-Mart's response to the key commitments -- health care and employee wages/career paths -- was standard fare, as it cited a few loose examples of what it has supported in those realms. Ok, the examples in the response weren't that loose, but we've seen these retorts before. Recently, Wal-Mart has said that is provides "above-average pay and benefits for the retail sector". Without complete qualification and open specifics, I'm not sure this is 100% accurate -- are you?

If we really want to get to the meat of this issue, take this quote: "I don't think there is a disconnect between what Mr. Sam said and where our company is today. We're proud of our heritage and we're proud of what we do today," a Wal-Mart spokesperson quoted in the article said. Well, that's great -- what we need is a bona-fide set of Sam's values and an unbiased and factual comparison of those values to Wal-Mart's movements in those areas -- and then we'll see how that quote stacks up.

The rule of any goods or service seller is this: if you grow too fast and gain too much notoriety (and power), your opponents start looking at every minuscule move you make and taking you to task on everything. It's called checks and balances and it's accelerated as you become more famous. Ask Microsoft about this, as I'm sure they know (and so does MSFT's pocketbook). Well, that said, have you ever heard of Wal-Mart Watch? This is the MoveOn.org equivalent to the retail political left. Checks and balances are always good things, as everyone is kept on their toes. It's generally disastrous for people and entities to go unchecked. Ask a historian about this...

Wal-Mart Watch and Sprawl-Busters (another watchdog website/blog) have teamed up to give Wal-Mart opponents one centralized place for fighting strategies, lawyer contacts and complete archives of information on any and all moves on the part of our friends from Bentonville. In other words, here's yet another perfect example of the web being used to communicate across boundaries to rally troops against a cause. My thinking is that Wal-Mart, which seemingly dodges these things, needs to enhance its PR image quite a bit and start standing up for itself using a pretty back-boned defensive position. If you remain quiet, your enemies can dig you out of your hole and, by public perception, you can be found guilty by non-admission.