The first (maybe the only) thing I learned in twenty or so years of psychotherapy (hey, I wrote for Woody Allen) was one of the major psychological problems many of us have is we always want to be “right.” Indeed, this need to be right can cloud our thinking to such extraordinary degrees we will cling to a view even when the results are wildly detrimental to ourselves.
The Mainstream Media are particularly good case in point for this. They continue to ask asinine self-destructive questions, as they did today to John Howard and Tony Blair, even as media popularity plummets to the lowest (or near lowest) levels ever. These MSMers desperately want their view to be correct about Iraq and the war on terror at the very moment their fellow citizens are being attacked on all sides, sort of like the people who wanted to reason with the guards as they were gassed at Auschwitz just to prove… to themselves at least… they had the right opinion five years before… or maybe ten.
Of course the “need to be right” often leads to blatant lying as we have seen recently from Reuters and the Associated Press. Of course this kind of prevarication is a huge threat to democracy, greater I am convinced than even Bin Laden and his religious fascist cohorts.
Less than half a year ago when some of us first started talking about Pajamas Media we saw it merely as a gadfly/competitor to the Mainstream Media. Since then, the situation has gotten more serious. Who knows where all this will lead?
Blood libel is right.
Can we imagine a press ocnference in WW2 where a reporter ask Churchill if it is his fault the Germans are bombing London because the British failed to kiss Hitler’s ass.
Or December 8, 1941. Can we in our wildest imaginings concoct a scenario where the Japanese are not at fault for the bombing of Pearl Harbor, oh no…FDR just failed to pander properly.
These terrorists are killing people in Thailand the the Phillipines, and Kashmir and Turkey and Iraq and Afghanistan and the UK and Kosovo and Russia and the US…why is the press too dense to comprehend that there are forces in the world other than petty partisan politics?
If you going to look for blame, blame Lawrence of Arabia, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan the United Nations debacle in dealing with Saddam a decade ago…or blame the idiots with the bombs.
I think the MSM should be ashamed. They have done a really bad job and not only are they showing no signs of learning from their mistakes, they want more protection.
screw them.
Roger, regarding the MSM, I think it is not that “the situation has gotten more serious” but rather the degree of exposure has increased. It is the same ol’ MSM with their Machiavelian disregard for standards and morals doing what they have done for decades.
Actually, wiz, I think they *have* gotten worse. They are really shocked that anyone would have the effrontery to challenge them, and they react by becoming more strident.
I was tempted to say in many words how much I despise these creatures, but why bother any more?
They are both clueless and dangerous. Sooner or later, the you-know-what will truly hit the fan. I count the days.
MSMDE
The WWII comparison is ridiculous. It was winnable. The Bush/Neocon/promote democracy War on Terror will not succeed if it lasts for a 1000 years. You should stop being willfully blind and read Robert Pape.
“Who knows where all this will lead?”
Into a vacuum. I doubt now that the MSM can reform itself. It’s the people. Even the best are just unimaginative, slightly dim, second-rate hacks. And most are just mean-spirited, cynical conformists, who parrot the latest cliches, want prizes and promotions and recognition, and think that they’re enlightened because they agree with the academics. They don’t understand, or care, how little they know or who they hurt. Terrye said it best on the other thread. “Nobody elected them to anything. They are just self righteous self centered pompous mouthy a**holes who think they have the right to judge everyone else.” That’s the plain, if ugly, truth. But we need news. It has to be done. You know you and the others can do it. Godspeed.
Actually, there have always been people asking questions that stupid, as a brief tour through Greek or Roman history will prove. However, such people do not always have a big platform. That is the difference between now and WWII. No news corporation with any sense would have hired such an idiot 70 years ago.
It is not, for example, completely Katie Couric’s fault that she is shallow. It is the fault of her employer that she does anything more deep than talk about recipes.
I keep this in mind when so many people ding the Bush admin for not doing a better job on PR or the way Bush speaks and so forth. Hey, we got a guy with *substance*. We aren’t always so lucky with our presidents. And it was a relatively near thing both elections. Who freaking *cares* if he smirks? Couric and her ilk were hired because they had more style than substance. The fault of the bad PR is solidly on the press.
Clarktooksbury:
Maybe you could clarify for us what Richard Pape’s opinions about the War on Terror have to do with the subject under discussion here: the mainstream press’s daily lies and distortions, falling ratings, and lack of credibility.
Roger:
In Iraq there was an assasination of prominent Sunni leaders. Inanger over the killings, some Sunni participants in the process are threatening to walk out look at the words of Suha Azzawi, a Sunni member of the constitutional assembly -” We were invited to participate in drafting the constitution; after that we were subjected to pressure from the government…and we recieved threats from the TERRORISTS” (Thursday L.A. Times)
This is no bootlick who follows the Iraqi government talking points. They are negotiating hard to get the best deal for the Sunni’s that they can get. Yet they are able to call terrorists by their true name. Not bombers, not insurgents, not rebels, not dissafected youth, no, terrorists. And these sunni’s are from his religous group and some of them are probably related to them. Yet the MSM jumps thru hoops not to use that word in a fever of PC madness. Everyone knows what they are. The press pretends that if you don’t call them terrorists then there is no terrorism.
Kevin Peters
Bostonian:
I think he/she was distracted by a brief reference to the content of the media’s transgression in this instance. It’s like your dog seeing a squirrel, or your 2 year-old walking by a television showing a cartoon.
I don’t know if the media have gotten worse. They certainly seem worse to me. But then, I’m looking a bit more closely these days. I lean towards desperation as a motive.
BTW, Pape’s argument boils down to this: Suicide attacks are associated with modern democracies occupying lands claimed by zealots of all stripes, not just religious ones. Therefore, everyone should cede any land claimed by any zealots of any stripe immediately, and allow them to install anything other than a modern democracy.
Clark:
The denial that suicide bombing has nothing to do with “occupation” is wrong. But this is what the man says:
“The central fact is that overwhelmingly suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the West Bank, every major suicide-terrorist campaignÔøΩover 95 percent of all the incidentsÔøΩhas had as its central objective to compel a democratic state to withdraw.”
1. He’s only talking about suicide attacks.
2. I agree with Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Chechnya, Kashmir and the West Bank – most of those suicide bombings are related to perceived occupations or interventions, though some are strategic positionings between terror groups, such as ones in Israel related to submarining peace moves.
3. What about Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Europe, which he doesn’t mention. Religion is a great motive in the bombings in Iraq, for example the mass casualty events against Shias and the bombings of westerners in Saudi Arabia for their defiling the peninsula. The bombers even attacked a Christian Arab compound in Riyadh. Pape is deceptive about the American troops in Saudi Arabia being treated as an “occupation.” Since they were non-muslim they were seen as soiling the peninsula. Pape is also deceptive about the Tamil Tigers, see his “Marxist” tag – which hides the religious aspect of the Hindu-Buddhist dispute. Pape could be straightforward and sell his thesis fine, but he’s pushing the envelope.
5. Pape goes to the delusional, example: “Now, of course, today we have 150,000 troops on the Arabian Peninsula, and we are more in control of the Arabian Peninsula than ever before.”
6. A unique part of the European terrorism that is supposedly done in the name of Afghanistan and Iraq is that none of the bombers are Afghani or Iraqi. He should elaborate on his “homeland” thesis, such as how a transnational muslim identity is growing in alienated Muslims in the West.
clark:
Spare me the propaganda, if that is what I want I can watch Hardball.
WW2 was far from a sure thing. The difference was the press was not a bunch of snotty little dicks who would rather see the other guy win than be wrong about something.
Besides the kamikazes were suicide bombers.
Where will it all lead?
On this day, I hope it leads to many more “asinine” questions being asked of many more “servants of the people” in many more world capitals.
Ernie Pyle…
London, December 30, 1940-Someday when peace has returned to this odd world I want to come to London again and stand on a certain balcony on a moonlit night and look down upon the peaceful silver curve of the Thames with its dark bridges.
And standing there, I want to tell somebody who has never seen it how London looked on a certain night in the holiday season of the year 1940.
For on that night this old, old city – even though I must bite my tongue in shame for saying it – was the most beautiful sight I have ever seen.
It was a night when London was ringed and stabbed with fire.
CNN…
While Rice and el-Bashir were meeting, journalists were taken inside in groups to see the meeting for a photo opportunity. At first, only Sudanese journalists, not those from the United States, were allowed in.
Later, U.S. journalists were allowed access in two separate groups. In the first group, authorities pulled one journalist’s microphone out of her tape recorder.
Afterward, Sudanese officials came and apologized to the media. But when a journalist in the second group attempted to ask a question, she was pulled away and authorities intended to kick her out.
CNN’s Andrea Koppel said journalists and Rice’s staff members were “pushed and pulled” in attempts to keep them out of the meeting.
One of Rice’s aides eventually said, “We have a free press in the U.S.,” and a Sudanese official responded, “Well, we don’t here,” Koppel reported.
People here don’t seem to have any problems with the MSM’s failure (thus far) to mention things like the apparently anti-Israel draft of the new Iraqi Bill of Rights http://www.publiuspundit.com/?p=1379
Also, this past weekend one of the top stories on both the BBC and Canadian news channels was the visit to Tehran by the new Iraqi PM, Ibrahim
Jafari. It looks like the new Iraq will be very close with Iran. There was very little about this in the MSM in the US. If the MSM is so hostile to Bush’s war shouldn’t they have highlighted these recent news items to weaken the president?
To people like myself – that is, those of us who want the truth only – both the anti-US leftist press and the neocon right are equally bad. Both have pre-determined conclusions which the incoming facts must fit into.
Pape’s problem is that he equates “Islamic fundamentalism” as being synonymous with ALL Islam …he builds his flawed thesis from that “fundamental” error (pun, ahem, intended).
He doesn’t bother to differentiate between the Iranian Shi’ite perversion of Islam, from the Saud’s Wahabbi Sunni perversion, let alone the AQ offshoot of Wahabbism (as far as I bothered reading) or the secular Baathist fascists …just lumps them into Islam as a whole.
Is the Islamic community as a whole supportive of the terror masters? Who really knows …but they’re living a lot closer to these nutters than most of us. Replay in your mind that picture of the kids being blown up recently in Baghdad as the extremely likely result of speaking out against the terrorism of any of the groups from the midst of the Islamic community. Got it? – You’re umm, dead …often enough, hideously so, along with your relatives.
In other words, the real question – the one Papes doesn’t appear to bother with – is whether what remains of “monolithic Islam” (again, pun intended) is being irreparably torn apart by the maniacs subverting a culture as they undertake their chimeric quest for world domination …and whether the West (that’s us) will be required to take really, really horrendous measures strategically against large population centers to eradicate this cancer.
OUR question is: has the infection metastasized, or is topical surgery still possible? Our experience with Afghanistan and Iraq, and what is apparently happening in Lebanon and Syria (and Egypt), suggests that “surgery” is, indeed, still possible (thank g_d).
The terror masters can’t win. But – being devoted suicidists, and utterly delusionally blinded by their messianic doctrinal perversion of Islam – they have made the hideously errant calculation that the West lacks the will to survive, and that the West would be unwilling to use the “Japanese option” again. And so they are gambling their host populations lives, holding an entire culture hostage …on a truly bad bet.
Because the parasitic Islamic terrorists are wrong of course. But since they’re religious nutters, and take a nihilist view of corporeal existence anyways, they simply don’t care if their host culture millions are being “invited” to partake in an abrupt termination of the “Islam problem” (which Papes utterly mischaracterizes as localized political struggle) by a Western culture that – since the rise of the West on the Greek peninsula some 3000 years ago – has NEVER shown restraint in using whatever force was necessary to triumph in war.
Bah. Don’t bother with Papes. Read Victor Davis Hanson instead (and may I recommend Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power).
Succinctly said Terrye. Yes, Roger, PJ media may become much more important and necessary than you anticipated in the beginning. I have no trust anymore on anything I read from the MSM.
I often want to pull out my highlighter when sitting down in the morning with my local rag. Just to point out to my better half the insidious instances of a sentence here and a sentence there that alter, obfuscate and/or out and out lie about the story being told. AP is pernicious and clever in how and how often they do this, with the NYT wire stories a close second.
The other night I watched a few minutes of Jon Stewart interviewing Woodward and Bernstein. I say a few minutes because I could not stand their self absorbed and self centered bloviating about how the public just wants them to be harder and tougher on the administration and its many misdeeds. Otherwise all was well.
I too think, and have for sometime, that this country’s greatest and most important battle is among ourselves. Unless and until we can find a way around the MSM and academia, and get factual information about the world and the dangers we face, out to the vast middle of this country, I am not certain of the outcome. Thank goodness for blogs. And get PJ up
Terrye – Or December 8, 1941. Can we in our wildest imaginings concoct a scenario where the Japanese are not at fault for the bombing of Pearl Harbor, oh no…FDR just failed to pander properly
Terry, a lot of people back then believed FDR had provoked the Japanese, though must of them still joined up to fight – it was a different time after all. Few today believe FDR’s pre-Pearl policies were responsibility for the Japanese government’s decision to attack the US. Of course, today few people study history so most Americans aren’t even aware that relations between the US and Japan were deteriorating.
Coisty:
Oh come on. Look where Iraq is.
So you have no problems with a Shia-dominated Iraq having close relations with the Islamic fundamentalists running Iran? It doesn’t bother me but I find it hard to believe that most Americans would be happy about it.
Don’t forget our universities, who have diligently and meticulously shaped the “talking heads” in the MSM to reflect their world view.
They are no less a threat.
Also don’t forget that roughly 70 years ago, the New York Times ran a series of glowing articles about Russia and Stalin, basically total lies. This is not really a new problem.
You wanna talk blood libel?
One of the reasons the Church of England gave for its call to divest from Israel was that the Israelis lost the “claim” to the Holy Land when they crucified Christ.
2000 years and these “progressives” are right back with the classics…
Roger and All,
I’ve posted many comments in this thread on the MSM’s failure to objectively report to the American people on stories of significance in readers lives.
All we see is a shark feeding frenzy on a chum line thrashing about re President Bush, He lied, people died” meme. I think most here would agree the MSM has been “rooting” for the enemy.
All this does is to embolden and empower the enemy to kill more innocents and are brave men and women that go into harm’s way on out behalf to protect our very way of life, culture, and what we hold most dear -
The fundamental truth of the free will of men and women.
To win this war it must be first defined, know who who the enemy is, and the ideology that drives it.
And finally re Homeland Security we must play offense and not defense. The concept of “first rseponders” is flawed. There is no way to cover all the bases. The mindset must be, “first preventers.” The enemy must be sought out and destroyed before it can strike.
I’m in the process of retiring, rewiring, and relocating. This will be my last post for some time.
Follow the links in this post at Dr. Zin’s site regarding s summary of these key points and possible answers.
*****
THIS CULT OF FANATICISM IS NO DIFFERENT THAN DAVID KORESH’S, JIM JONES AND HIS FOLLOWERS ET AL
This ideology of hate and evil is the same as Nazism, Communism, and Fascism that have failed.
*****
This Country is in a global war on terror (GWOT) with a very cunning and determined enemy driven by a cult-like religious ideology of hate and evil as President Bush has said. The goal of this ideology is to destroy our very existence and culture, what we believe in, what we stand for, and what we hold most dear – the free will of men and women. This enemy declared war in war against the United States of America in the early 1990s. It was only after the tragedy of the enemy strike of 9/11 did we start to take notice.
This cult is no different than other cults in our culture, David Koresh and Waco, Jim Jones and his followers, the KKK, and other supremacy groups that breed hate and evil. The only difference is this cult that sprung from the deserts of Arabia and Northern Africa is funded by oil money of it’s followers and benefactors.
[...]
Dr. Zin’s Link
Coisty
There is nothing odd about the leaders of neighboring countries meeting one another. At least, in the world we are trying to make, there should not be.
It all depends on what they say to each other. If it is “Lets make joint plans to get the Ameriacan”, then we have a problem. But I see no good reason why Iran and Iraq should not try to establish relations.
The anti-Israel reference is interesting, if confusing. It suggests that Israeli Arabs could not become Iraqi citizens, but non-Israeli Jews could. I wonder if it not a means of keeping the Palistinians out?
I see the MSM as unwittingly spawning more and more competing news sources. Some of these sources will eventually combine and become powerful alternatives to the existing media. At the same time, we will see increasing compartmentalized consumption of news. This is the worst thing that can happen to the MSM, for many people will only seek out news sources that already conform to their views. In other words, there is no place to go from here but down.
Enjoy the ride, Pinch: the great log floom headed straight into the toilet. And you can take Krugman and Milbank with you.
Coisty:
I am not talking about a minority of people with the inevitable conspiracy theories.
I am talking about a press that largely treats our elected governemnt like an occupying force and our miltiary like war criminals. They live for gotcha.
We have rogue elements in the CIA leaking information to unelected people for the express purpose of doing damage to an elected government. And what is the press concerned about? Spy turned socialite and discredited aspiring author hubby pandering to a self obsessed press who created the entire debacle. It is absurd. Watching the modern day media is like tuning into a freaking soap opera.
Watergate went to their heads and they just can not help themselves. They want to recreate that moment when they brought down a president. such a rush. If not a president, a Prime Minister will do. two with one scandal would be nice.
The relationship between the media and the terrorists an the left is symbiotic. They feed off each other. The terrorists kill people, the media sensationalizes it, the left blames the government….the government loses support.
Who gains from this? The terrorists, the left and the media.
I like being right.
What I’ve found, though, is that it’s generally easier and more effective to learn than it is to attempt to re-mold reality.
Bostonian: Pape’s views shine a light of reality on the preceedings. I gather that the complaint is that the media is blaming terrorism on the Iraq war–Simon’s link takes you to the answer, not the questions. Pape suggests that occupation is the cause of suicide terrorism.
Example: I don’t know if Pape is correct in every particular, but it is obvious that as the U.S. has become more involved in the Islamic world, the more we have been subject to terror attacks. Even our support for Israel didn’t provoke the response to our putting troops into Saudi Arabia. We have been fortunate to avoid attacks at home, but Iraqi civilians and U.S. soldiers have paid a terrible price since we occupied that country
Terrye: I didn’t say that WWII was a “sure thing” I said it was winnable. As well, the progress was measurable. We conquered territory and advanced and conquered more. We conquered Iraq in a matter of weeks two-and-a-half years ago. Remember the President’s equivilant of the Missouri surrender ceremony? However, we are a thousand years from winning. Simon says, “the major psychological problems many of us have is we always want to be ‘right.’ Indeed, this need to be right can cloud our thinking to such extraordinary degrees we will cling to a view even when the results are wildly detrimental to ourselves.” That is true of the people who dragged us into this quagmire and consistently refuse to acknowledge reality.
I’ve noticed that if a person’s role or occupation implies they are smart, you’ll never convince them they are being dumb.
BTW, Roger, when did you write for The Woodman?
“The central fact is that overwhelmingly suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by a clear strategic objective…”
-exmaple quoting Pape
take away the religious(cultural)motivation
(= “reward in afterlife”)for accepting suicide attacks as a valid tactic,and watch the number of willing volunteers drop.
imo,
the “blood feud” world-view(ie continous warfare),
minus the “blessed after-life”
(and minus the blood money paid to the homicide-bomber’s family),
leads to doing more productive things
with one’s life on the planet.
BTW, i agree with commenters
who refer to those who use this murder technique as “homicide bombers”…
the perpetrator’s death in the event
is of minor significance.
moral choices,and all that.
-gumshoe
clark:
A friend of my brother’s was killed in a suicide bombing in the ME almost a decade before we went into Iraq. He was a civilian.
800 people have been killed by terrorists in Thailand since the beginning of the year. The most dangerous contry in the world for journalists is not Iraq, it is the Phillipines.
These kinds of attacks have been launched for years all over the world. I think you are having a cause and effect problem here. I think that leaving Iraq with its oil wealth to the likes of Zarqawi would not only be immoral it would be suicidal.
And as for winning, I used to hear the same kind of rhetoric about the cold war.
I don’t expect an Armistice day in the War on Terror. I expect a slow transformation.
And as for Iraq….it is too bad that some of the brilliant people out there who criticizing the war today did not step up and find a way to resolve this years ago when it might have mattered.
Instead we had years of corruption, noncompliance, defiance, smuggling, genocide, no fly zones, the UN being treated like an international whore house and a lot of human rights groups lecturing the world on what a bad man the Butcher of Baghdad was. This was not a situation that just erupted in Iraq one day.
Clarktooksbury: “Pape’s views shine a light of reality on the preceedings”
You’re funny, you know that.
What, you think this is the first time we’ve heard the cycle-of-violence myth? The first time someone has ever made an argument that US foreign policy “causes” terrorists? What are you, ten years old? Gimme a break.
Clarktooksbury:
And after we responded to the Japanase attack on Pearl Harbor, the more involved we became in Japan’s world the more we were subject to their attacks. So we should have acquiesced to their Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere?
You know, since 9/11 I have come to understand my regional culture in a way I never did before. Some folks do need killin’. And like Imperial Japan and the Nazi’s, procrastination in taking them on (or out) just makes it that much harder when the time comes.
Clark, the problem with Pape’s argument is that it’s either historically false — because, after all, suicidal attacks and what we now call terrorism have a long history, and have occurred in many places that weren’t essentially occupations — or it’s vacuously true because the definition of “occupation” is infinitely malleable. (bin Laden, after all, has explicitly named as a provocation, andcalled for an end to the “occupation” of the Iberian Penninsula that was ended by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in 1492.)
If you’re looking for historical parallels, you’d do better to look at piracy in the 18th century, or slavery in the 19th. In both cases, whatever their advantages, the risks and costs finally because great enough that, by agreement, they largely ended.
In both cases, there were moral arguments and practical ones, but what finally happened was the powerful countries of the time agreed it was too much of a pain in the ass to support.
That’s where terrorism is heading now.
This thread has gotten interesting and complicated. Left and right can barely talk to each other because their basic assumptions are 180 degrees apart. If we are indeed a colonial occupier trying to steal the Arab’s oil, then the insurgents are heroes. There is almost no evidence to support this view but those who hold it believe it and often, incorporate it as part of their view of themselves and their opponents. The left knows that they are smarter and more caring than the right and therefore they must be correct. If they are wrong, it would bring their entire world view into question, an unbearably humiliating outcome.
OTOH, the neo-cons, in part because they are being pursued by the MSM, feel that if they admit any error, they will be ruthlessly attacked and discredited. Once some percentage of the American population decides the war is a quagmire, like Viet Nam, we will have lost, and only the date of our humiliation is in question.
Blogs, especially those like Pajama Media who provide alternative sources for information, are absolutely crucial in the information war. The MSM will inevitably become more and more irresponsible and make more and more wild charges, hoping some little piece will stick and they can leverage it to regain their lost authority (see Rove, Plame, Wilson, et al). The alternative is they continue to watch their power, their circulation, and their money slip away.
As for Iraq and suicide terror, al a Pape, his argument is partially correct. By engaging radical Islamic fascism on their home turf, and attacking the Sunni ruling class in their own back yard, we are, indeed, provoking more opposition. In WWII, we were never attacked by Germany until we attacked them and then the Germans fought us with increasing vigor until we over ran Berlin; our worst losses took place at the Battle of the Bulge, when the war was effectively over, but we hadn’t completely won yet. What Pape doesn’t do is follow his own logic. If we pull out now, and abandon Iraq & Afghanistan to the fascists, the terrorists will not lay down their arms and their Korans and their ideology and go home to raise goats; they will terrorize their populations and resume attempting to make bombs, germs, and gas to use against the infidels. And after they destroy Israel, they will look toward other places where Muslims are being oppressed: East Timor, Nigeria, Andalusia, England, France…
And then our own population of Muslims, knowing which way the wind is blowing, will demand our surrender.
Sorry for the long post, but you will notice I didn’t mention Narcissism once! (Although it was inferred re: the left & the MSM.)
Terrye -
I believe part of the problem with the media is that reporters are taught that they must not take sides. (Of course, this does not stop them from being outrageously biased; it just means that they have to pretend to be neutral). They are taught that they should not have a moral compass or, if they do, that they should not let it impact upon their reporting. Thus, no position is more correct than any other. No side is more righteous than any other. We are no different than the Terrorists. (Except, of course, that we are — because we are the evil capitalists/colonialists/exploiters of the poor and underprivileged in the Third World).
The “media” doesn’t need psychotherapy, Roger. It needs brains. I just listened to a CSpan press conference, a Military guy being questioned about the ‘metrics’ comparing Iraqi forces to American forces.
The tone was: AHA!! We Gotcha!! The US Military is EVIL, and we are going to prove it to OURSELVES!!!
Not one question was designed to get more information on the Iraqi situation, and how exactly the Iraqi forces are really performing. There was not one indication that these IDIOTS realized that they are THERE in that ROOM, to clarify events for their READERS. They are deeply abysmally FRIVOLOUS.
Now, thank gracious for Instapundit and Drudge, and Michael Yon and Command Post Blog and Lileks and Roger Simon and the Belmont Club. And all the rest of the Internet people who make it possible for me, up here in northern Canada, to follow these events in a Real Way. By the way, a Yukon citizen was murdered in Bali a couple of years ago… when I point this out, that we too have had a close experience with Terrorism, my friends (who listen to the CBC) are flummoxed… and of course, on 9/11 itself, a couple of American war planes dominated out skies, during the Korean Airlines Contretemps.
heather
Your last name wouldn’t be McFarlane, would it?
Roger:
Beginning in the sixties and lasting all the way untill 9-11 the left berated America for its involvement in supporting the dictatorships in the ME in exchange for oil. In certain instances they had good arguments. When the terrorist attacks began in the seventies the popular refrain was that as long as the Middle east was ruled by non democratic regimes we could expect these things and that since we have traded oil for stability we were to blame fopr them. The right would bring up the Cold War, the economy, and lots of other arguments but the left would trumpet the crushing of democracy and the victims of repressive regimes. And America’s policy towards the Middle east was basically similar from 1940 on, democratic and republican administrations.There would be differences along the edges but the basic fact was that we would allow and support non-Democratic regimes. We fought with the Soviets for political influences and the arab states played off this battle for influence but as far as the nature of the governments they were either repressive monarchies or repressive socialist states. Some were better then others but as far as human Rights and democracy they all were different degrees of bad and the left constantly held up the stability for oil policy as a symbol of American corruption. And they often pointed to our policy as the reason and cause of the violence. And they constantly featured dissedents who were tortured by these regimes and who talked of a more democratic ME and how it was our responsibility to not ignore these crimes.
They still blame America. but now the cries and demands for free arab governments has been replaced by a old fashioned style of American isolationism. remember these leftist often raised money for liberation armies all over the world and preached for a internationalist form of unity that required us to get involved everywhere, that there were no borders, that everyone was responsible for everyone else, no matter what country.
Sunni and Al Queda terror bombers are now called minuteman who are just defending their countries. No matter that they are calling for a tribal fascist theocracy. They are defending their homeland and their politics do not matter anymore. The fact that the form of governments will be as bad or possibly far worse(remember the Taliban) then those regimes that they howled about in the sixties. They will support anyone, as long as that someone opposes America. They really believe that America and Israel are the two biggest threats to world peace. How anyone could claim that Iran, Syria,Sudan, Eygpt are suprior forms of government when compared to Israel seems beyond the world of reality but many of them really do.
Rip into Bush if you like. But Iraq has a chance of democracy. So does Afghanistan.Syria is out of Lebanon after 20 years. Before 9-11 none of those countries were within 60 years of these accomplishments and no one in the World, including America, was doing anything other then occassional UN resolutions and candle light vigils. Individual presidents would issue speeches now and then in reponse to certain attrocities but NOTHING in regards to progress towards democracy was done. Clinton held Oslo and it looked like peace but because he counted on Arafat he got screwed and accomplished little. The possible peace doesn’t count.Oslo is only great if it was implemented. Arafat threw it down the toilet so it came to nothing. Oh. and by the way, during all this time a radical fascist terror group was allowed to incubate and now is lighting up cities all over the world.
Of course Iraq pisses of OBL and his buddies.But we could pull out, get down on our knee’s. and apologize till the next millinium but he has made up his mind that we are evil and need to be eliminated. This is non-negotiable.
Kevin Peters
Clark
If suicide bombing (does this include the twin towers?) is only about occupation, then why does bin Laden say this from his online letter to the American people?:http://wikisource.org/wiki/Bin_Laden%27s_online_%27letter_to_the_American_people%27_that_appeared_on_the_internet_%28in_Arabic%29
“What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you?
(1) The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam. a) The religion of the Unification of God; of freedom from associating partners with Him, and rejection of this; of complete love of Him, the Exalted; of complete submission to His Laws; and of the discarding of all the opinions, orders, theories and religions which contradict with the religion He sent down to His Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Islam is the religion of all the prophets, and makes no distinction between them – peace be upon them all.
It is to this religion that we call you; the seal of all the previous religions. It is the religion of Unification of God, sincerity, the best of manners, righteousness, mercy, honour, purity, and piety. It is the religion of showing kindness to others, establishing justice between them, granting them their rights, and defending the oppressed and the persecuted. It is the religion of enjoining the good and forbidding the evil with the hand, tongue and heart. It is the religion of Jihad in the way of Allah so that Allah’s Word and religion reign Supreme. And it is the religion of unity and agreement on the obedience to Allah, and total equality between all people, without regarding their colour, sex, or language….
(i) You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire. ”
It goes on, needless to say. Read the whole thing, as Professor Reynolds might say.
Is Spain part of the “occupation”? bin Laden wants it “back” too.
The problem with Papes analysis is he doesn’t go far enough.
Suicide bombing are indeed a tactic being used to achieve a strategic goal. So is that goal mearly kicking the US and allies out of Iraq, or is there a larger strategic goal these murders have in mind.
So, let’s say they are successfull and kick the US and allies out of Iraq, before Iraq has a sovereign, stable, democratically elected government and the security forces to keep it sovereign, stable, and democratically elected.
What then…
That’s where the iso-cons (isolationist conservatives) get it wrong. Removing our influence from Iraq and the Middle East does not help either the Middle East, the world at large, or the United States national security. In fact, it would allow the same sort of fundmentalist theocracy or facist thugocracies that Iran and Syria now are.
Would we really be better off with those type of governments controlling 100% of the Middle Easts oil? It’s not really so much the oil we need to be worried about, but who gets the profits from the oil. To much of that profit is being siphoned to terrorists now. If we loose in Iraq, and the greater ME, the Islamist Jihadists will win control over those profits.
This is the kind of reasoned analysis that is missing from the main stream media. If I can understand and explain this, why can’t someone on network tv…
A lot of people also seem to have forgotten a primary rule of war…
When you attack the enemy, they may fight back…
Yup. Are you with the CIA….Naw, that crowd is too incompetent… ???
This is serious, though. The “Media” are really a bunch of people who managed to get to a “good” university… and I have noticed that these “good” universities have produced really ignorant people.
I hired a Harvard Grad (Fine Arts) once, and truly, she was ignorant – I had a better education when I graduated from Grade 12 in 1960 in the Yukon Territory. And I am not kidding here. Good god, I could recognize work John Donne on a first reading, and lemme tell you all, I was never a real live Literature Lover! My employee, The poor little thing, had never heard of Wordsworth, and had not idea, none, of historical fact or time… and she had ‘graduated’ from Harvard University, with a ‘cum laude’ in “Fine Arts”, whatever that may mean. I heard she is Doing Good among the Poor in the New York Area.
So, I watch these IDIOT journalists, these badly educated FOOLS, and cannot STAND IT!!!
And I will never forget that day, 9/11, the sky was a hard blue, there was a huge traffic jam of people, trying to (a) find their kid and (2) get out of town… RIGHT IN THE FLIGHT PATH OF THE PUTATIVE TERRORISTS… And up and down the valley flew those AMERICAN war planes. Amazing.
Less than half a year ago when some of us first started talking about Pajamas Media we saw it merely as a gadfly/competitor to the Mainstream Media. Since then, the situation has gotten more serious. Who knows where all this will lead?
**********
Regarding Pajamas Media, well in a free enterprise system, unmet needs are often filled by entrepreneurial upstarts with a new paradigm.
In this case a new parapeejays…
I hope this project is gaining stem, and going the direction I envision. If not, you might get some competition from me, which is always a good thing.
I want my PJ Media
Ben:
I don’t expect the media to be on my side all the time. But I do expect some sense of humanity from the people.
Suicide bombing for their territory?
Oh yeah, that is why French Muslims are going to Iraq to blow up Iraqi Shia so that a Jordanian Sunni can create a new Caliphate with a Saudi Wahhabi and hold the world economy hostage while they go shopping for a doomsday bomb that will bring their 7th century Golden Age back to life on what is left of the planet.
People these are not reasonable people. It is usesless to try to give rational western motivations to fanatics.
Imagine the Spanish Conquistador first encountering the Aztec. They see a huge city inhabitated by people whose culture revolves around human sacrifice. There was nothing in their experince that prepared them for that. They were aghast.
We are dealing with people here who are in some ways as alien to us, even when they live in our midst.
Terrye -
I certainly don’t expect the media to be on my side all of the time either. I do expect them to know that there is a moral difference between terrorists who randomly kill people and soldiers who at least make an effort to target enemy combatants. I also expect them to remember that they are Americans and that they have some responsibility to treat Americans fairly, rather than trying to sensationalize the news, create controversies or make President Bush look bad. I don’t ask for preferrential treatment – only fairness. Also, I expect them to make judgments – when terrorists make a claim that is patently ludicrous – such as blaming Iraq for the attack on Spain – I expect the media to do some actual reporting and bring applicable facts to light. Our media seems to be so focused on discrediting President Bush and/or sensationalizing the news that they lose sight of the fact that OBL and his thugs refrain from killing them only because they are today’s useful idiots.
CIA?? Please, I like to thnk I’m a little smarter than that. I am rereading Civilisation And It’s Discontents.
Mr Harris mentions Heather McFarlane of the Yukon in his acknowlegements. Assuming that is you, nice to (virtually) meet you.
I take it you were in NY on 9/11. I work near the WTC area, and it was not a day easily forgotten.
Muggeridge claimed that not only was the university system not making people smarter, it was actually making them more stupid. I thought that was hyperbole, but now I’m not so sure.
That is, Civilization And Its Enemies,
The other is a good book also.
A Freudean slip? I had to say it before someone else did.
Is there any point in telling clarktooksbury, that by the time of Pearl Harbor the Japanese had already committed acts of war against US military personnel and civilians?
This typepade thingy lost my last note.
Lee Harris is a Genius. In a recent Tech Central Station, he has a column that defines the War, from our enemy’s point of view, as a Blood Feud.
Now, the Blood Feud is the usual mode of battle of pre modern peoples, ie, most of the people in the world aside from those in the First World. Our type, the face to face Battle, on a Field, with a Beginning and an End, is peculiar to the Greeks and their descendents (us). Parallel to this, John Keegan talks about this in his History of Warfare.
Make no mistake, this is a serious war of civilization. Just one example: slavery. Our civilization stamped this out where ever it held sway. If we lose this war, slavery will spread back throughout the world.
And to watch those mediocre fools in the Press ask their stupid questions… well, thank gracious for the Web.
I know we are all neocons now, but this is ridiculous.
“Zionism Has Forged The New Testament; 60 Million In The U.S. Alone Have Left Christianity To Become Believers In The Torah”
… We read history, and we know that since The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Zionism has forged the New Testament and by now, 60 million in the U.S. alone have left Christianity to become believers in the Torah.”
Take that, Roger. Now who’s the theocrat, huh?
http://www.americanthinker.com/comments.php?comments_id=2722
What do you think of “Torah! Torah! Torah!” as a headline for a post?
Roger:
I will admit that perhaps I suffer the aforementioned affliction!
I will suggest that the goal sought by the terrorists is impossible to achieve!
I will propose that the sum of the whole is greater than its individual parts!
I will conclude that alternative motives in the pursuit of truth…
http://www.rightviews.com/article.php?id=318
OJ
RightViews.com
This is not really a new problem.
That’s the understatement of the day. Those of you who were around and (mostly) conscious, what the hell did you think was going on in the media in the 60′s and 70′s?
Television news had come into it’s own and there was a new media superstar: the nightly news anchorman (or, as in the case of “Goodnight, Chet/goodnight, David”, anchormen; or, as in the case of Harry Reasoner having Babs Walters rammed down his throat, anchorwoman).
“The Most Trusted Man in America” decided that Vietnam was a loser and called for the end of the war. LBJ said “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America”. Johnson lost his presidency and the South Vietnamese lost everything. (Later, I believe Walter Cronkite was instrumental in ending another presidency: when he began signing off each newscast with the number of days Americans had been held hostage in Iran, it was perhaps the final nail in Carter’s presidential coffin. While in this case I may have applauded the result, I still deplored the methodology.)
Today we should have few illusions about Walter Cronkite, but back then he was indeed the Most Trusted Man in America. Why? Well, for one reason, people like I who went to school in the 50′s and 60′s grew up with Uncle Walter via the You Are There series. He was the comforting father figure who guided us through the dark days of the Kennedy assassination. And although I may not have agreed with Cronkite about the war, I certainly believed what he was reporting about the war and did so for a very long time.
The primary reason, however, that Cronkite (and Huntley and Brinkley and Reasoner) were able to hold sway as such paragons of Truth and Wisdom, is because there was no one around to tell us otherwise. There were no alternative media sources. Television nightly news was king and the NYT ruled the print journalism roost. Journalism had high standards, we were told. All the news that’s fit to print. And that’s the way it is. Truth, Justice and the American Way. There was no one to tell us otherwise.
Then of course came Woodstein who, through solid investigative reporting and lots of help from an FBI mole, brought down a man whom the establishment thoroughly despised. The dye was now firmly cast and the rest history.
Today there are no excuses. It matters little what motivates the presstitutes of today. It matters only that they be brought down and stomped, to death if necessary. As I’ve said before, the situation will improve once the 60′s boomers have passed from the scene, but we don’t have that kind of time.
The world’s leading oil producer cannot abide the occupation of foreign lands by another world power. It imposes an oil embargo on this nation and promises not to lift it until the troops are withdrawn.
With limited supplies of oil to fuel it’s military, and unwilling to accept the humiliation of withdrawing it’s troops the second power lauches a pre-emptive strike agains the oil producer. Clearly the oil embargo is the cause of the reulting war.
So not only was Pearl Harbor FDR’s fault, it was also all about blood for oil.
I don’t want to be right. I want the rest of you to admit I’m right…
Kyda -
And although I may not have agreed with Cronkite about the war, I certainly believed what he was reporting about the war and did so for a very long time
Yeah. It was well into the 1990′s before I finally fully understood that the US had won the Tet Offensive in 1968 …that “Uncle Walter” had stinking lied to me …that Westmoreland had been right about the war …that we were complicit in the utter horror – the death – that was visited upon millions of people in SE Asia by our desertion of our frickin’ responsibility.
I continue to despise most of the mainstream media; frickin’ Adonis-worshipping liars, deeply enmeshed in their false veil of reality and enamored of the surety their beliefs …and so utterly and contemptuously vacuous of the shallownes of the well of historical perspective that they peer at current events from.
“Mind-numbed robots” indeed.
What is the difference really, between the way they act, and the way that a follower of a Jim Jones, or a David Koresh, or a Bin Laden sees the world?
They are despicably unable to say “I was wrong …sorry” when the depth of their error is so obvious to everyone else.
Pah. They are slaves to their historical ignorance, and hence doomed to repeat past mistakes.
“Useful idiots” indeed.
Actually, I suspect Brinkley may have been the last of the reporters in the Ernie Pyle mold. (There have been some good ones come along later, but it’s a different tradition.)
I’m pretty sure his politics were not much different than the rest of the press, but it didn’t show in his word or manner. He probably had an area or two where he couldn’t control his bias. It would be hard for anyone to avoid bias completely. But that’s a far cry from someone like Peter Jennings–of whom you can say he might have one or two areas where he can do honest reporting.
About the only time you ever saw Brinkley roll his eyes was when another reporter was saying something stupid.
Got this from a post at Rantburg:
I was Right when I was born, and I’m Right now.
I don’t want to be right. I want the rest of you to admit I’m right…–Richard Mc
LOL. That is so true.