Heh, it’s funny, I stayed up waay too late on Sunday night to watch Saddam Hussein’s address, and yet when George Bush, Ari Fleischer or (especially) journalist-hater Don Rumsfeldt comes on I change the channel. Turns out Saddam’s BS is a lot more enlightening on the general situation than hearing “we will prevail…no more questions” for the hundredth time :wink: …
I think the US media is heavily under the influence of the Pentagon in this war, but that doesn’t mean I don’t believe what I see there is really happening. What I look for is what I DON’T see, what I DON’T hear, what other smaller news organizations are saying & the bits of obvious propaganda (like the story about Iraqi expatriates yearning to return to a free Iraq I mentioned before) I ignore…
I disagree that we’re hearing “disinformation”. I think a lot of Americans are seeing a whole bunch of information they can’t use, and not enough really important stuff, but it’s NOT LIES.
Keep in mind that most people on the left distrust the military, and so are less well-informed about the military than some on the right. Show these people footage of a “bypassed” city putting up resistance to troops attempting to invest it & they will scream “LIES!” because they thought the city was “taken”. The current regime in the US has a history of patronizing these people (like their huge “al’Qaeda/Iraq connection” blunder) and so they are I think justified in rejecting the Pentagon’s assessments on those grounds. But there are many on the far left–I call the ultra-left–who will reject all news, all reports, all statements from politicians that do not agree w/ their own predisposed positions on the matter. “GW Bush is an ultra-hawkish right-winger so he is always wrong” That is just not logical. “I don’t watch CBS, ABC, NBC or CNN because that’s all lies. I only listen to NPR.” Well, you are gonna get a skewed impression of what’s going on.
And (not talking about F_alk here, just the public in general) if you choose not to educate yourself on the rudiments of military matters, don’t complain that you are confused by what’s going on in Iraq & it must be due to government lies. That’s like having a physicist tell you about black holes & not believing him 'cuz “wait, time doesn’t ‘slow down’!” Or you know what I mean…
BTW heard today there is a civilian uprising against Saddam going on in Basra. Guess maybe some Iraqis could use our help after all… :wink:
Ozone27
I think the US media is heavily under the influence of the Pentagon in this war, but that doesn’t mean I don’t believe what I see there is really happening. What I look for is what I DON’T see, what I DON’T hear, what other smaller news organizations are saying & the bits of obvious propaganda (…) I ignore…
True, that should be way how to “consume” the news.
I disagree that we’re hearing “disinformation”. I think a lot of Americans are seeing a whole bunch of information they can’t use, and not enough really important stuff, but it’s NOT LIES.
“disinformation” is more than open lies. The “Emser Depesche” which launched the Franco-prussian/german war in 1870 was classic disinformation: It was cutting out parts of the news, bringing a totally new context into it through that omissions. It’s not really lieing, because that would be “adding something untrue”. But “omitting something true” is part of disinformation, just as the other.
Show these people footage of a “bypassed” city putting up resistance to troops attempting to invest it & they will scream “LIES!” because they thought the city was “taken”.
Well, it always depends on your sources of the news as well. If you have to rely on a “noisy channel”, then “bypassed” can change to “taken” pretty quickly. And of course, it is easy to say the first, but add words so the feeling of what you heard goes to the second. Another strategy for misinformation, though i think this one happens more or less accidentally at the moment, through the media.
The current regime in the US has a history of patronizing these people (like their huge “al’Qaeda/Iraq connection” blunder) and so they are I think justified in rejecting the Pentagon’s assessments on those grounds.
I strongly agree.
But there are many on the far left–I call the ultra-left–who will reject all news, all reports, all statements from politicians that do not agree w/ their own predisposed positions on the matter. “GW Bush is an ultra-hawkish right-winger so he is always wrong” That is just not logical. “I don’t watch CBS, ABC, NBC or CNN because that’s all lies. I only listen to NPR.” Well, you are gonna get a skewed impression of what’s going on.
Absolutely true, but let me add:
I think this is not a problem of “far-left” only, but on “far-right” as well. Let me say: it’s a problem of “far” :)…. You can see the “biased perception” on either side.
BTW heard today there is a civilian uprising against Saddam going on in Basra. Guess maybe some Iraqis could use our help after all… :wink:
I heard that as well, though not yet as much more than “gossip”. We will see wether this news is news or propaganda.
Hey, I totally agree that the ultra-right is guilty of the same things. But this war has really opened my eyes to the hypocrisy of the ultra-left as well. Coming as I do from a left-leaning political perspective, this has never been as obvious to me as it is now. If this kind of radicalism (left & right) is not tempered soon, this country will be torn apart. I am not kidding.
Regarding the media, what I am saying is that sensational media works both ways. As I stated, the big US news agencies are shall we say, “shaded” toward the Pentagon view of the war. Today, antiwar protesters hit CNN demonstrating against this biased coverage. Presumably in addition to the images & stories about Iraqi war-crimes, US military battles & “shock & awe” these people want to also see broadcast the reality of civilian hardship, civilian injuries & deaths & destroyed homes & apartments to show the “other side”. This is natural, but consider how these things can skew the public perspective as well. If the war were to end with, say (totally making this up here) 200 civilian deaths, that would be a huge vistory for precision arms over overwhelming force in terms of the protection of human life. But show one dead baby on national TV and you know people would go ballistic. In legal terms this is called “prejudicial” because the effect of the image is out of all proportion to its importance in the context of the issues at hand. Now I’m not saying even 1 human death is something that should be callously ignored–it IS tragic. But also tragic is the effect that 12 years of UN sanctions and government mistreatment have had on the citizens of Iraq, & thats a HUGE part of the story too. Seems at this point no one–left or right–wants this part of the story shown at all. The left don’t want their hypocrisy of opposing the sanctions & the regime but also simultaneously opposing the 1 action that could stop it. The right don’t want it shown for obvious reasons–their complicity in the continuation of the hostilities for so long. So the story is never told.
On Monday, US stocks took a nosedive. I attribute this directly to the coverage of the war by the big news agencies. I recall hearing many anchorpeople & correspondents refer to Sunday-Monday as “a bad day for the Coalition”. And yet it was obvious to anyone with any knowlege of military matters that this was simply the 1st time that the Coalition was encountering any significant opposition–something everyone knew would happen & yet the media had promoted the idea that victory was hours away, without even realizing it, with their coverage. As soon as it became obvious that the advance was continuing, stocks began to recover. That’s the danger of second-by-second & day-by-day coverage of a rapidly-changing series of events by news agencies that either don’t understand, or don’t explain, what it is they are reporting.
So see it works both ways.
Ozone27
All I need is the tape of the Iraqi guy hitting the picture of Sadam Hussein with his shoe.
Oh, btw, it seems like the uprising in Basra was not that big as TB first said.
And did anyone hear anything new about that so-called chemical weapons facility? It’s a few days ago now that it was taken by the US…. and i bet it would have been a major headline had it really been a factory for WMD.
@F_alk:
Oh, btw, it seems like the uprising in Basra was not that big as TB first said.
And did anyone hear anything new about that so-called chemical weapons facility? It’s a few days ago now that it was taken by the US…. and i bet it would have been a major headline had it really been a factory for WMD.
Both good points. Saw an interview yesterday w/ a UK military spokesman who stated the British never said anything to his knowlege about an uprising in Basra–just that the situation within that city is very confused. Since the discovery of the “possible chemical weapons plant” in s/w Iraq, the situation there has been remarkably quiet. Could be for a lot of reasons, but IMO, F_alk is right–if it could be proven conclusively that it was a chemical weaps factory, I’d think it’d be all over the news in about 12.5 seconds.
The way I see it if Saddam has the weapons (& I still think he does), he would have to use them if the circumstances arose to favor their use. The reason being that if he’s going to lose anyway, he can have nothing to lose by using the weapons & revealing their existence. Possibly up till now he’s been seeing where the wind is blowing (both literally & figuratively) to see whether the situation can be salvaged. If it can, keeping the weaps a secret would still be a priority–the man is nothing if not a survivor…
The latter reminds me of how we in the US never see nor hear anything about the exTaliban & al’Quaeda prisoners being held in Guantanamo. They are a regular feature of debate on the news in Europe but Americans never hear a peep about them…
Ozone27
The way I see it if Saddam has the weapons (& I still think he does), he would have to use them if the circumstances arose to favor their use. The reason being that if he’s going to lose anyway, he can have nothing to lose by using the weapons & revealing their existence. Possibly up till now he’s been seeing where the wind is blowing (both literally & figuratively) to see whether the situation can be salvaged. If it can, keeping the weaps a secret would still be a priority–the man is nothing if not a survivor…
Very true.
That’s the reason why -now that the US have started this cr*p- they must bring it to an end, otherwise they would only have strengthened SH massively (and still have given rise to all those negative possible developments with starting the action). That, globally speaking, would be the worst case scenario.The latter reminds me of how we in the US never see nor hear anything about the exTaliban & al’Quaeda prisoners being held in Guantanamo. They are a regular feature of debate on the news in Europe but Americans never hear a peep about them…
Regular, but not that high frequency. We still hope that the US do stick to the western values / we don’t want to see how much they don’t. With that, i guess the report to the EU council about Echolon won’t make it far into the news… with the small detail of the US not caring about OECD rules.
Just as Patriot Act I and II didn’t make it very far. Or execution of mentally handicapped people, or denying foreigners to get legal help from their embassies before a trial…Oh, btw, did you hear that one of the mothers of one of the “executed” british soldiers said that her son was killed in combat, as told to her directly from military officials?
@F_alk:
The way I see it if Saddam has the weapons (& I still think he does), he would have to use them if the circumstances arose to favor their use. The reason being that if he’s going to lose anyway, he can have nothing to lose by using the weapons & revealing their existence. Possibly up till now he’s been seeing where the wind is blowing (both literally & figuratively) to see whether the situation can be salvaged. If it can, keeping the weaps a secret would still be a priority–the man is nothing if not a survivor…
Very true.
That’s the reason why -now that the US have started this cr*p- they must bring it to an end, otherwise they would only have strengthened SH massively (and still have given rise to all those negative possible developments with starting the action). That, globally speaking, would be the worst case scenario.Oh, btw, did you hear that one of the mothers of one of the “executed” british soldiers said that her son was killed in combat, as told to her directly from military officials?
Point one. Very true, the US did attack 1st & must now finish up w/ Hussein as quickly & judiciously as possible.
One thing I’ve gotta ask though is whether you think the standoff w/ Saddam Hussein could’ve been ended without a war. Not saying the way this war was started was the best scenario, of course, but could UN sanctions, oil-for-food, and weapons inspections have worked given enough time or would the UN have had eventually to attack anyway? How long do you think that would’ve taken? If neither of these scenarios is what you have in mind, what would your ideal scenario have been for the resolution of the Iraq situation prior to the war starting?
Re: the British military–they might’ve been trying to spare her feelings. Let’s not read too much into this or you’ll end up like me vis-a-vis the Basra misreports… :wink:
Ozone27
I believe the situation could have easily gone on for a matter of years, and we’d still have to use military force eventually. If not with Saddam, it would’ve been against one of his psychotic kids.
I believe, in the wake of 9/11, most people would be MUCH MORE hesitant about giving a guy like that more time to disarm, especially given the 12 years he’s already had. The circumstances and potential consequences are just too great to sit by and watch…HOPING one day he’ll have a dramatic change of mind.
Does anybody deny that the only reason Saddam even “agreed” to inspections was because the US military was parked on his border?
@Deviant:Scripter:
I believe the situation could have easily gone on for a matter of years, and we’d still have to use military force eventually. If not with Saddam, it would’ve been against one of his psychotic kids.
I believe, in the wake of 9/11, most people would be MUCH MORE hesitant about giving a guy like that more time to disarm, especially given the 12 years he’s already had. The circumstances and potential consequences are just too great to sit by and watch…HOPING one day he’ll have a dramatic change of mind.
Does anybody deny that the only reason Saddam even “agreed” to inspections was because the US military was parked on his border?
i will agree with that. I’ll also agree that it was costing the US a fortune to park the machine there. Furthermore, i’ll agree that many other nations, particularly Canada and European nations (including Russia) helped speed this conflict along by being sideline wimps. I think that if more pressure had come from the international community much earlier, this war may have been avoided - if only because Bush would have lost his excuses to invade (although the regime change card would likely have still been played). Still, although i have little other than my gut to go on here, i believe that this is not a reason for a bunch of people carrying guns to march into someone else’s country in order to kill a bunch of other people . . . .
@cystic:
@Deviant:Scripter:
I believe the situation could have easily gone on for a matter of years, and we’d still have to use military force eventually. If not with Saddam, it would’ve been against one of his psychotic kids.
I believe, in the wake of 9/11, most people would be MUCH MORE hesitant about giving a guy like that more time to disarm, especially given the 12 years he’s already had. The circumstances and potential consequences are just too great to sit by and watch…HOPING one day he’ll have a dramatic change of mind.
Does anybody deny that the only reason Saddam even “agreed” to inspections was because the US military was parked on his border?
i will agree with that. I’ll also agree that it was costing the US a fortune to park the machine there. Furthermore, i’ll agree that many other nations, particularly Canada and European nations (including Russia) helped speed this conflict along by being sideline wimps. I think that if more pressure had come from the international community much earlier, this war may have been avoided - if only because Bush would have lost his excuses to invade (although the regime change card would likely have still been played). Still, although i have little other than my gut to go on here, i believe that this is not a reason for a bunch of people carrying guns to march into someone else’s country in order to kill a bunch of other people . . . .
All true. I just don’t see how war could’ve been avoided in the end, without letting Saddam Hussein pretty much have his way for an indefinite amount of time.
JMO–a lot of great observations here from the other side as well.
Ozone27
