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Author Topic:   Terrorists' Main Weapon is the Media
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5819 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 5 of 25 (209054)
05-17-2005 2:25 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Tal
05-16-2005 1:51 PM


Michael Isikoff is directly responsible for the deaths of 16 people. But that's on him.
Directly? I have to say his screw up is bad, and a bunch of idiots then went on to make it worse. To directly blame Isikoff is a little off as its not like he said people should go out and riot and kill people. I mean what was killing people going to do to solve the problem anyway.
But since we are on the subject of blame, what about the reports of wmd and nuclear materials which were false and yet published by the media. Or what about Bush specifically using that false information (whether he knew it or not, he and Tenet are in the same league with Isikoff) to actively encourage an action that resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and maimings?
I will note with irony that while you are criticizing Isikoff, so is Michael Moore. Why would your criticisms end with this mistake, and not go further?

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Tal, posted 05-16-2005 1:51 PM Tal has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 6 by Tal, posted 05-18-2005 9:43 AM Silent H has replied

  
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5819 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 7 of 25 (209322)
05-18-2005 10:24 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by Tal
05-18-2005 9:43 AM


We are in agreement that the media is basically a stooge of advertising interests and hype to gain audience. Some wave the flag and produce false info to inflame American proBush interests to get their viewers, while others wave the same flag and produce false info to inflame American and International antiBush interests to get their viewers, and others still spit on the flag and produce false info to inflame International antiBush interests to get their viewers.
There are also cases of poor judgement, which I think the Rather case was. I really do not believe he'd have gone ahead with false info or that which he thought was not supported. You have still not responded to my query that despite the forgery of the specific document, those involved have expressed that it accurately conveyed the man's feelings at the time.
This latest case was a bit of poor judgement and using antiBush material to generate viewers. I think we can both agree with this.
You were the one that suggested that Isikoff is then liable for the deaths that resulted, which I find a bit of a stretch. And I am not confident in the distinction you made between gov't and media...
The Government and News Media are 2 different animals. The Government(s)all acted on the intelligence that everyone had, and WMD was only 1 reason for Iraq. The difference is the News Media is supposed to report news...period.
I can agree that they are two different animals but frankly I expect the gov't to be more informed and held more responsible for its intelligence failures. Especially given the nature of modern media, which is beholden to corporate sponsorship, I expect more bias and mistakes to come from them than the gov't.
You are also not being clear in your argument above. The US networks were not reporting the news accurately and in support of Bush policies. This is pretty much fact. They squashed material that was available outside the US which refuted US positions, as well as portraying administration claims without adequate questioning.
I cannot say the Bush administration is responsible for controlling US media, as it may have simply been US media's errant sense of patriotism and caution in the post 911 environment.
The problem is that those in the gov't should have known better. You say all gov'ts acted on the info they had and the majority were against this action.
Some, including Britain, acted to support given that the US was going to go ahead and it would be better to support the US than allow it to go alone. That is similar to why I am not supportive of current calls for pullouts and wish more nations would help Iraq. Despite Bush's foolish moves, Iraq is not better off by people abandoning it. That goes especially for those that backed the invasion initially "to make things easier".
It is a bit disingenuous to portray international opinion as to be for the Iraq War, or behind the intelligence that the US said it had. The only common ground was that Saddam has intent to try and get such things at some point, and he might have some unaccounted reserves of material (nonnuclear). MOST nations opposed invasion.
The fact that you have quoted the list of the "coalition of the willing" in the past just goes to show your own acceptance of US gov't disinformation as well as proBush media spin.
As far as there being other reasons, it is quite clear that no other reason was going to justify invasion, including to the American people. Yes there were other reasons but none of them were sufficient.
Bush then pushed a policy which was not well researched, telling us it would be easy, and the result of his actions were tens of thousands killed. If Isikoff is connected, I do not see how Bush gets off, despite their heading two different types of organizations.
Right, and is it kinda silly to get so upset over a book being flushed down the toilet? Not in my eyes. I'm a christian, but you can flush the bible or do anything you want to it. Its not the book, its what is written in it and how I apply it to my life that matter to me.
Not so with Muslims. Supposedly if you desecrate the Koran its an insult to all of them.
Wow, check yourself before you wreck yourself. First of all you can't portray all muslims as believing what you just said, just as you cannot bill yourself as the example of what all Xians will believe.
Most certainly some Xians will freak out if you stuffed a Bible down a toilet. Lesser things have been done (like putting crucifixes in urine or removing religious statues from public grounds) and people have gone berserk.
This is not to mention the fact that many Americans go nuts at the idea of people burning flags, because it supposedly insults us all. Bearing a nipple has supposedly stunted children and so now media are afraid to play Oscar winning movies as well as supporting long running popular media stars.
Ye Gods, ignorant ass Americans actually renamed french fries, and avoided buying them because France "insulted Americans" by not agreeing to an invasion (nevermind that about half of the US population was against that same invasion). These morons continued to do so despite the fact that french fries are not french and that fact was made public.
Suddenly a bunch of people getting riled up... because a false news story was errantly published of an insulting action, and in the context of other verified stories of aggression against muslim detainees... doesn't look as outrageous.
Although I still wanna know how/why these people were killed. Was it like the people that get killed at rock concerts, or like those killed at sports events, or were they actually targeted for some reason?
To sum up, we have enough of a PR problem without people making stuff up to inflame it further.
I agree, so do they. Why are you making up that all muslims are nutty and likely to go on rampages, or die during large commotions, that Americans or Xians are not?

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 6 by Tal, posted 05-18-2005 9:43 AM Tal has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 8 by Tal, posted 05-18-2005 11:32 AM Silent H has replied

  
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5819 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 20 of 25 (209605)
05-19-2005 6:28 AM
Reply to: Message 8 by Tal
05-18-2005 11:32 AM


Holms...this sounds eerily close to Bush/Intel/WMD. So you'll give Rather the benefit of the doubt but not Bush? (Yes, one issue has far more reaching consequences than the other; but the principle is the same.
Okay, so it looks like we are starting to move toward the same page.
I do not feel as safe in assuming that Bush and Co were as clueless as Rather. The reason being that the main architects of the Iraq War had essentially announced their plans years before and outlined rationales (read the works of Perle and Wolfowitz and oh man I forgot the other guy's name but when I remember I'll give it to you).
I have already shown (elsewhere at EvC) that Bush did not believe Iraq was a real significant threat early in his administration, yet had brought in people that were looking to push for such a conflict, and likely had a feeling against Saddam.
After 9/11 the hawks had the floor, IMO because Bush has no real ideas and was grasping for any semblance of strength which most cowards find in violent action unlikely to lose, but whether MO is right or not that is when they gained the floor.
After that the message changed from Bush's administration regarding the threat. Now we know that no additional info was actually being gathered. He had the full assessment when he changed his tune as when he came in. And if ANY additional info came in it was counter to his claims.
By the time we were about to start the invasion, Bush had been forced to revise his factual statements regarding Iraq and they were to downgrade the threat.
This is not comparable to Rather, who had increasing corroboration of a piece of evidence, and did not get real counterfactuals until afterward. He was notified by an expert (if I remember right) that the paper could not truly be authenticated as is and so he shouldn't run it, but with the amount of verbal support he had behind it, that was a calculated risk I could see him taking. Indeed as I have pointed out repeatedly, whether or not the paper was a forgery, the people closely involved agree that it reflected that person's position on events at the time.
Thus we have three points of difference:
1) Gov't is much more important than for profit news media, and so should be held to a much higher standard as well as sanctions...
2) Bush actually changed his actual position twice, first moving from nonthreat to imminent threat, then from imminent threat down toward potential threat, when the information flow was only toward the negative the whole time... except by those in his administration that were for a war in Iraq well before 9/11. Rather had corroboration though not entirely sufficient and a piece of physical evidence was disproven AFTERWARD.
3) Bush and Co's words and actions resulted in real life deaths on our hands, as well as wasting resources and diverting action from pursuing greater threats to the US. Rather created a bad piece of journalism which did nothing but implicate the president (correctly) but used pieces of evidence he should not have used.
Oh yes and I might add yet another point...
4) Despite the glaring mistakes that are now revealed for all of these cases: Bush awarded some of the chief failures with awards and kept others at their high ranking offices, while Dan Rather owned up to the mistake and retired.
Bush doesn't get off. He, as Commander-in-Chief, in personally responsible for the exectutive decisions he makes.
He has personally dodged all responsibility for every failure, and then gave political cover to those in his administration who failed. Other than karma, I'm trying to figure out how he is not getting off scott free. The Republicans had a chance to clean house and instead they sold out their principles on a strange idea that if he got re-elected that would somehow prove he was right or something. It didn't he's still wrong, and yet he does not pay.
Unless serving as president another four years was his punishment?
Look around the world and what has happened. Its pretty clear.
Yes it is quite clear to me. There are religious fundamentalists of just about every religion and denomination, locked in some insane struggle for power. All of them are trying to move back in time to when they were the unquestioned authority.
In the MidEast as well as parts of the Pacific, Islamic fundies are utilizing the tools and weapons given to them during the cold war by the US to fight a perceived control and slighting of their once proud "empire" by Jewish and Xian fundies.
In the US and Israel, it is Jewish and Xian fundies who have control of superior weapons technologies and so kill in devastating numbers and at will without fear of real repercussion for their actions many Islamic people. Israel is to be ressurected from 3000 years of dust, and America is to be a Xianity based superpower.
As far as individuals go, there are Muslims and Jews and Xians which are all right and don't want to hurt anybody, much less move back in time. You will find there are Islamic organizations which overtly fight the fundamentalist, specifically militant fundamentalist factions. Interestingly enough, though a despot, Saddam Hussein was one of those fighting fundamentalism. That's why we gave him power in the first place.
The no true scotsman fallacy cannot be used against any religion. In addition to a logical fallacy, it is counter to evidence, and just plain slander.
I don't think anyone has died because the 10 Commandments were taken out of a courtroom or a nipple was popped at the Superbowl, incidently those things actually did happen.
I did not claim that those incidents you just cited resulted in deaths, just noting that they did result in people getting bent out of shape and reacting to them. You are correct that they were real stories, but then you have skipped mentioning the false story that people bought into regarding French Fries and still didn't calm down after it was made quite public.
I guess I could have added that at least the Islamic people rioting had a newssource to quote. Over 60% of Americans believed Hussein had something to do with 911 and another rather large percentage believed he actually used WMDs against us! Where did any of this come from? Oh yeah, that helped push us to war which killed people. Even some troops in Iraq (so you must have known someone like this) believed Iraq was a direct response to 911, and could not wait to get revenge by killing someone.
My point was to show that as far as ridiculous behavior, either counter to fact or out of proportion to news, is not an Islamic phenomenon.
Give me an comparable example.
Well I'm still not sure how the people were killed so what examples would be appropriate.
If it was targeted then I could reference killings of people, including mistaken killings, of people alleged to have something to do with abortion. Or I could cite the number of cases of Xians killing children because God is telling them to, or that they have discovered a child is possessed and so needs to be cleansed. I might also point to the Oklahoma city bombing as well as Waco. I could also point out Jewish and Xian massacres of Muslims within the Palestinian territories (and no I don't mean ones that were during actal war or in direct retaliation for a killing by Palestinians). I could also point to the number of murders of ethnic minorities after 911.
If it was just random death because of mob action, then we could discuss many different riots across our recent history. But to match the inanity of these particular deaths I'd probably refer to the numerous murders at sports matches. Some have reached higher than those killed during the protests. They are not Islamic radicals doing these riots. If you want to claim they were not doing so for religious reasons, all I have to ask is what's the difference? One group finds religion more important than sports. Even the rumor of a cancelled event, or delay in show has resulted in riot.
If it was random death do to crush of crowds and accidents, then I'd point to the many deaths at concerts and sports events.
On top of all of this, I might note that a broadcast of the War of the Worlds turned part of the US upside down.
Humans are silly and idiotic, trying to portray one group as inherently more silly and idiotic is simply showing yourself to be engaged in the same pursuit.

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 8 by Tal, posted 05-18-2005 11:32 AM Tal has not replied

  
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5819 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 24 of 25 (210354)
05-22-2005 4:52 AM
Reply to: Message 22 by Monk
05-21-2005 10:54 AM


Re: More to come? But where does the buck stop?
In light of the Abu Grahab fiasco and if the accounts of abuse in these sources prove to be true, then Rumsfeld, along with the top military brass involved, should pay the price.
This may be the first post where I've agreed with everything you have said. I guess I'd want to springboard off of your last sentence though, into a follow up question for anyone in the thread.
I find it interesting that when liberals criticize Bush for being just a puppet to Cheney and his hawk crew, everyone including Bush come out stamping saying that there is absolutely NO QUESTION that Bush is the man in charge of everything and is driving policy all by himself. Then when people (and its liberals and conservatives) come out to criticize ANY mistaken policy or action, Bush immediately denies any connection and lays the blame at someone else's feet. Hell that guy is nowhere to be found. There is NO QUESTION that he cannot be held responsible.
So which is it? Does he gets the praise and the blame? No praise and no blame? Or all the praise and no blame? I understand what he wants, but I don't see that as a logical choice.
Where does the buck stop, and why is American media avoiding pushing that question? When it came to a blowjob, the media stayed on it 24/7.

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 22 by Monk, posted 05-21-2005 10:54 AM Monk has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 25 by Monk, posted 05-22-2005 2:33 PM Silent H has not replied

  
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