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Author Topic:   Terrorists' Main Weapon is the Media
macaroniandcheese 
Suspended Member (Idle past 3928 days)
Posts: 4258
Joined: 05-24-2004


Message 16 of 25 (209433)
05-18-2005 4:18 PM
Reply to: Message 15 by mick
05-18-2005 4:13 PM


see. paragraphs are made of sentences. sentences are supposed to have a subject, a predicatory verb, and then modifying words which describe either how the verb predicates or how the noun exists. i distinctly recall a few exceptions in his post. four leaf clover or no.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 15 by mick, posted 05-18-2005 4:13 PM mick has replied

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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1344 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 17 of 25 (209439)
05-18-2005 4:34 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Tal
05-16-2005 1:51 PM


i'm gonna go out on a limb here...
... and say that terrorists' main weapon is just what it sounds like: terror.
and anything that works in getting that across is beneficial to their plan.
so that whole "terror alert" thing with the color codes? keeping america in fear? heck, they don't even have to hit us, once was good enough to keep us scared for 4 years!

אָרַח

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Trump won 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1240 days)
Posts: 1928
Joined: 01-12-2004


Message 18 of 25 (209450)
05-18-2005 5:27 PM
Reply to: Message 14 by Tal
05-18-2005 2:32 PM


Re: Weapons of Mass Hysteria
tal u agree with msg 4?

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mick
Member (Idle past 4986 days)
Posts: 913
Joined: 02-17-2005


Message 19 of 25 (209510)
05-18-2005 9:02 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by macaroniandcheese
05-18-2005 4:18 PM


okay. now i'm losing you. I'm having a brad moment.

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Silent H
Member (Idle past 5820 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)

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Andya Primanda
Inactive Member


Message 21 of 25 (209609)
05-19-2005 6:58 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Tal
05-16-2005 1:51 PM


All i can say is that Newsweek already open a can of worms. But anyway,
quote:
Now what happened from REAL reports is that a prisoner flushed a Koran down the toilet to clog it up.
where did you get this info?

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Monk
Member (Idle past 3924 days)
Posts: 782
From: Kansas, USA
Joined: 02-25-2005


Message 22 of 25 (210190)
05-21-2005 10:54 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Tal
05-16-2005 1:51 PM


More to come?
Isikoff was either wrong or premature, but it appears the story has legs anyway. I’m disturbed not because of the, flushing the Qur’an down the toilet story, but that it wasn’t even the main point of the Newsweek article.
This incident was listed as just one example of a series of abuses at Gitmo. The article goes on to say that the US Southern Command is expected to issue a report describing these incidents.
Although Newsweek has retracted the Qur’an abuse, there is a new book called Inside the Wire by a former Gitmo translator which does describe abuses.
What will be the impact in the Arab world when these sources are translated and widely distributed? More rioting and death I suppose.
The US media has an obvious profit motive for the rush to print without verification and Al Jazeera has other reasons for their yellow journalism. But if the stories are true, then the military is responsible regardless of how the stories are reported.
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.
Source
This message has been edited by Monk, Sat, 05-21-2005 10:26 AM
This message has been edited by Monk, Sun, 05-22-2005 12:18 AM

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Replies to this message:
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 Message 24 by Silent H, posted 05-22-2005 4:52 AM Monk has replied

  
jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 23 of 25 (210209)
05-21-2005 12:04 PM
Reply to: Message 22 by Monk
05-21-2005 10:54 AM


Re: More to come?
Thank you sir.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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Silent H
Member (Idle past 5820 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:
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Replies to this message:
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Monk
Member (Idle past 3924 days)
Posts: 782
From: Kansas, USA
Joined: 02-25-2005


Message 25 of 25 (210395)
05-22-2005 2:33 PM
Reply to: Message 24 by Silent H
05-22-2005 4:52 AM


quote:
This may be the first post where I've agreed with everything you have said
Yes, and we should enjoy our brief common agreement because I’m sure it won’t last. Actually, I enjoy our disagreements.
quote:
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.
Ok, I can't resist. The media stayed on that story because it was titillating.
This message has been edited by Monk, Sun, 05-22-2005 04:17 PM

This message is a reply to:
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