Slashdot Mirror
Rumsfeld Requests 24-hour Propaganda Machine
jasonditz writes "The BBC is reporting that US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is unhappy with the existing propaganda systems in place and insists that the US must create a 'more effective, 24-hour propaganda machine' or risk losing the battle for the minds of Muslims. In an era where we've already got government-created and funded media outlets and the Pentagon bribing Iraqi journalists to run favorable war stories, not to mention other departments paying journalists to endorse their positions, it begs the question, how much more can they possibly do?"
They need to install mind probes in the brain of every one of us. As well as receiving suggestive messages they also act as a tracking device. People will accept it because they get 2% off gasoline when they fill up and there's a shorter line at the airport for people who have been chipped.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Why exactly is this on Slashdot? Doesn't necessarily fit the "news for nerds" mantra...
I am defenseless. Use your button. Mod me down with all of your hatred.
Don't use cartoons.
This tagline is copyrighted material. Please send $10 for an affordable replacement.
I think that it is double plus good!
- Tempestdata
We control all that you see and hear.....*chime*
We control all that you see and hear.....*chime*
We control all that you see and hear.....*chime*
Wiat a sec.... This isn't Soviet Russia
Thanks god for the BBc, AlJazeera, Slashdot and other less biased media.
Res publica non dominetur
Story submitter is complaining about US propaganda and then links to an article on Al Jazeera?
Yeah, that's an unbiased source.
Go look it up and learn something new.
Surely we can come up with something better than this. Will extra servings of horseshit make up for our tragedy of a foreign policy?
~ Brave New World
It is not as bad as it could be...
......
However, he also used his speech in Florida to claim progress in the war on al-Qaeda
So, who is flip-flop again?
For the last time, that's NOT what "begging the question" means. http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/begging-t he-question.html
Propaganda comes in 3 flavours:
White - factual.
Grey - some facts, some half-truths and a little bit of lying.
Black - all lies.
Just for the benefit of a doubt, I'm going to guess that he wants to focus on distributing more white propaganda.
That means that he seriously believes that the people opposing us would stop if they just heard how nice we are.
That boggles the mind.
I think that the US Government is past the point of no return on the propaganda thing. It depends on two concepts: that the rest of the world trusts the good things that they hear about America, and that the rest of the world isn't smart enough to find out the truth themselves.
I'd wager a guess that most of the people who care enough to pay attention to the propaganda war have probably figured out its rigged. In fact, since this is so well known (Hell, the government is even *admitting* it these days?!), it can only be serving to darken and discolour any actual real positive information that may be out there.
What they really need to do is start using truth. There *are* still enough good things about the United States to be proud of. Unfortunately, our arrogance tends to obscure that. We're like the mean guy at the party that won't shut up.
I'm kind of curious, because I didn't see any question in the write-up at all. Just a bunch of assertions. See: Begs The Question...
"You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free"
Those with power can own the truth....this is what we call propaganda.
Be afraid, very afraid....
Yeah, after all we need more organizations that "fair and balanced" LOL!
Donald Rumsfield was never quoted to have said the word "propaganda", though the Slashdot description connotes this. It's nice to know the submitters and moderators look in the RIDICULOUSLY HUGE fine details.
On the other hand, when you're a force that's saving lives and making things better- as the U.S. military was in Indonesia- our popularity goes up. The problem isn't the perception of our foreign policy, the problem IS our foreign policy. The neocons need to get out of their little alternate universe of spin and start dealing in the real world, like the old-school Republicans of Bush H. W. Bush's administration.
The history of government propaganda is long and diverse, and includes successes as well as failures. Effective propaganda does not need to be evil. During WWII, Allied propagandists printed newspapers for Axis soldiers, and they were much appreciated by their recipients for being rather more reliable than the official German news sources.
Rule 1 of effective propaganda is telling the truth. At least most of the time. There is nothing that really beats that, when it comes to convincing people.
well they should invade a country that has NOTHING to do with Al Qaeda, repeat video clip saying Iraq is bad, it is a evil doer and lie to the American People saying what they are doing is right....remind you of something? Americans don't feel or believe they are still fighting a war for 9\11 reasons or the enemy Al Qaeda..
24 hour propaganda machine
sulli
RTFJ.
You want to know why people listen to Bin Ladan and his ilk? Because there are a lot of poor, miserable, hungry people over there whose lives suck, and he (and Zarquai and all the rest) are managing to successfully convince them to blame an innocent third party. Ok, not ENTIRELY innocent *cough*assassinations*cough* but still, the theocrats and fascists sitting in power are FAR more to blame than the US.
And when people are hungry enough, and desperate enough, and you tell them, "THAT guy! HE'S to blame!" They'll believe you.
Especially if That Guy has never done a damn thing they've ever seen to help them.
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
Why not make this propoganda machine come with running water, electricity, and phones. I bet you could get quite a captive audience that way. Worked for Saddam.
it's your future .. 1984 is all about the technical future .. not to mention generational amnesia
..
got it yet
Use flash instead. Reginold is tired of the Muslim attitude. Watch his scathing editorial on the state of the Middle East. Ouch... this one's gonna hurt.
It begs the question, how much more SHOULD they do? Should we, western society, have to do propaganda to win the hearts of Muslims? Or should we simply rely on saying the truth, including the ugly side?
I would like to see a 24/7 channel established which would be objective. Propaganda channels can only go so far, because people eventually realise that the picture shown by them is too rosy, and when this happens, the channels loose all credibility. I do understand the need to have a western channel in Iraq, because I suspect that Iraqi channels might not be objective either. I know that in Canada our national television channels are not always objectives. So if I cannot trust my own country channels, I guess I cannot trust those of Iraq.
But for a 24/7 channel to be objective, it should be established by an international organisation and have muslisms on its board and production staff. Editorials from both camps should be allowed. Of course, who is to say that it will be totally objective? But it would be a start.
Remember the year 2000? They promised us flying cars. They delivered the PT Cruiser...
That means that he seriously believes that the people opposing us would stop if they just heard how nice we are.
the bias has been planted deeply on both the sides. only the cream or intelligent crowd would become aware of the *actual* facts and think/decide wisely. rest of the herd would sway with what the media shows (depends on where you are, and what you see.
Same is with the India-Pak issue (kinda unneccasary to mention here, but related), where both the sides (media, govt.) try their best to project themselves as good, and get support from outside by getting their side of story.
As it stands, I have to post this as anonymous because I am realizing that the current witch hunt against Muslims is such that anything we say can be turned against us so hopefully the mods will forgive me.
As a Muslim and as an American I totally agree with you. Most people living in those countries just have to step outside to see the ravages of the United States foreign policy. If going outside isn't cutting it, they can always call a friend or relative in another country. Foreign policy must change to win the minds of Muslims not putting out more propaganda. Once the Bush Administration learns this, we'll be up for the next presidential election. At that time, I hope my fellow Americans see the last 8 years for what it was: a dismal failure. It's time to vote in new leadership or, at the very least, split the legislative and executive branches such that no one party controls both.
What the US needs is to act with caution and responsability and be a good world citizen. Stop using torture and avoid collateral damage in foreign countries. Demand the same things from both friends and foes (like, why let Israel have illegal nuclear weapons but bash Iran wich has none nor the ability to develop them).
et rid of the need to alter the reality and the problem is solved.
HTTP/1.1 400
Is this the same Rumsfeld that doesn't use email?
When we helped arm and train the Afghan Muslims (including Saudi Muslims like bin Ladin) to fight the Soviet Union, we promised to help them rebuild their country after. Instead, we left Afghanistan to their warlords, and eventually the Taliban.
We did not aid them in rebuilding their country. Once they accomplished our common aim (displacing the soviets), we left them to their own poorly-funded devices.
Yeah. Not keeping promises is part of what got us into this mess.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Once regular sources of information have become tainted with disinformation, people will turn away to what they feel are more "trustworthy" outlets.
If you destroy TV, radio, newspapers and even the internet with lies, people in need of the truth will turn back to the pulpit, to obtain comfort and security from the man who spits bile at infidels, women and modernity, and who tells them that masturbation is wrong and menstruation is unclean and that we're all tainted by some sin that someone who never even existed committed.
I live in a country that was like this not too long ago. I'd rather not have to go back to it, or see anyone else forced to either.
May the Maths Be with you!
Its been my experience in talking to friends who are not US citizens and do not live here that the quickest way to get them to distrust any information source is for them to find out it is backed officially by the US government.
An even more sad fact is that speaking for myself as a US citizen and a US resident, that also makes me distrust the information source too. And I have found that to be true regardless of which party is in power.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
*patiently waits for logic nazis to explain how it RAISES the question, not BEGS it.*
Maybe they can release some good videos of us killing some Insurgents and flood the internet with them like the insurgents do when they blow up humvees.
well, unless the democrats get control of the senate and impeach our dictator, then it looks like another 3 years worth of damage
"how much more can they possibly do?"
Clearly with the war effort going as well as it has been, and with the troops under the wing of such a glorious leader, it is time to turn our attentions to better teaching the people of the Middle East how to fulfill the promise of democracy and freedom for all.
Yes, a 24 hour US government news agency in the middle east is exactly what we need to raise our profile there. And not just satellite tv, but newspapers, people on street corners talking into cell phones, police officers with funny looking badges visiting schools, secret service agents with vans making people disappear in the middle of the night... Forget I said that last one.
Yes, it is a glorious, democratic future awaiting the middle east, and we just have to show them how. And who better to do it than Haliburton, America's #1 trusted news source? Haliburton, when you need it done right, without the pansy left.
("psst. Can I get my five bucks now?")
The ______ Agenda
We should have never went into Iraq. It was a pretty stupid decision. All we did was legitimize the growing Shiite theocracy. How many American lives were lost for what? Iraq and Saddam had nothing to do with terrorism and the government we will have installed there will have nothing to do with democracy. That's if it lasts longer than 5 years. I'm not saying the Muslim world isn't ready for a democracy but it's going to be a democracy that is starkly different than what we had in mind. Also how friendly will these governments be towards the USA? The administration keeps stating that we must stay in Iraq for the long haul but in reality how long before the government there kicks us out?
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
Rumsfeld should try the new strategy of doing something right, then telling the truth to independent reporters. Then "the good news" will "be believed".
--
make install -not war
That is exactly what Rumsfeld wants. White propaganda. I mean, the Pentagon defended the Iraqi story plant thing by saying "everything we say is true".
... unless I was involved in some kind of weird human pyramid shit while I was there and came back home packed in ice.
So another words, say me and a bunch of troops brake down your door at 2am, shoot your father, tear up the place and take you to a horrible prison for six months and later releace you. You learn that they were looking for terrorists and real sorry for your father and gave your children some rations before they left, then Rumsfeld could say:
"We are helping the Iraqi people by fighting terrorists and feeding the Iraqi children."
Nothing he said was untrue, but your father is dead, you were in prison for six months and someone came into your house and busted the place up.
If some Iraqis came and busted up my house in the middle of the night and took me to prison, I know I'd have an IED with their name on it. Once I got out of prison that is....
Some say he is made with ascii, others that he is eyeballed daily by millions. All we know is, he is known as the Sig
Yeah, they're wrong, and you are right. That makes a fuckload of sense.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Story submitter is complaining about US propaganda and then links to an article on Al Jazeera?
You got that right. These are the same savages who gleefully conspire with the captors of Jill Carroll to play sadistic tapes of her begging for her life to a to a gloating Muslim audience. All in the name of Islam, hmm? I would cheer if the Air Force put them out of business permanently.
an ill wind that blows no good
why not blow mecca and send sanax for the depressed muslims?
if the mecca and islam is "the real" religion, then the mecca will be intact and mecca will never be distroyed.
Anti-Americanism != reporting the revolting things perpetrated by the US military and/or government in the name of the US.
Who says that unbribed news stories aren't biased to start with? Perhaps bribing results in more fair stories being published.
In 2004, the US government launched Alhurra, a 24-hour propaganda news network that was created to counter Aljazeera.
Maybe Rumsfeld didn't get the memo, but that's not surprising considering that he doesn't even use e-mail.
In order to keep a sense of unexpectability on slashdot, for which I suspect the Orwell quotes will soon appear. Allow me to present... A Disney quote!.
-- If you can dream it, you can do it.
Retreat from Iraq. Cut support from Israel...
Uh oh wait a minute, there was more oil need for that SUV's...
So that mean you have to invade IRAN too, because you don't want give any drop oil and natural gas to china and india...
Mr Rumsfield, for my point of view, comments from Microsoft about Linux are more realistic...
[My english is better than most other people's Turkish, so please point out mistakes politely. Thank you.]
The left wing media bias is so great (and so blatatnly obvious) that there needs to be something to counteract all of the crap coming out of Iraq. Sure, the USA has made some mistakes (abu gharib) but has done a lot of good in Iraq, something which is never shown. Journalists are kidnapped left, right and center in Iraq and they still refer to the terrorists flowing over the Syrian border from Iran as "freedom fighters" or "insurgents." As for abu gharib, the media just drug out photos from SEPTEMBER to re-incite controversy again.
12 churches have been burned down in a matter of a few weeks in the USA. The detectives are doing everything they can to prove that there it is NOT a hate crime. If it were Mosques it would be on the front page of every newspaper in the world. There would be even more massive riots than over the stupid cartoons. I would go so far as to say the media would blame Bush for the mosque attacks claiming "Bush is doing nothing." There would be massive condemnation in the UN for the USA to "let" the burning of such holy shines continue. "Fortunately" it's only happening to Christian churches, so nobody cares.
Oh, and the king of the liberals, Bill Clinton, just called for the conviction of those cartoonists and publishers "guilty" of blashphemy of Islam by publishing those parody cartoons.
I am sick of everyone sucking up to the "nation" of Islam and defending their "rights" when Islam has absolutely no tolerance for any other religion or way of life.
There needs to be an anti-propaganda machine. Every time I turn on the t.v. I see Muslims rioting, shooting something, killing someone, kidnapping someone, starving or hacking someone to death, but this is spun in the media in a good light. Nobody says anything good about this country anymore. The USA is made out to be the eternal bad guy. The rest of the world is Jealous of the USA's power and money and whereas they would love for the USA to go in right now and take out Iran and it's nukes, the rest of the world would be the first to condemn the USA.
Oh, and before I get "modded down" for being a troll, this article is a "freebie" it should have not been posted on slashdot, as it's certainly flamebait.
"Jeremy, you need to get to an internet cafe and cut and paste some appropriate sentiments about me from the world wide
"Our enemies have skilfully adapted to fighting wars in today's media age, but... our country has not," he said. Mr Rumsfeld said al-Qaeda and other Islamic extremists were bombarding Muslims with negative images of the West, which had poisoned the public view of the US.
How is it possible for al-Qaeda to be so far ahead of us in PR when we have entire industries built on PR and marketing??? Or is it because we are in fact doing a shitty job? Pictures from Abu Ghraib weren't simply made up by the media. Someone in our leadership screwed up (notice how they sacked the soldiers but few officers) and the TRUTH go out. The truth will get out eventually.
The US must fight back by operating a more effective, 24-hour propaganda machine, or risk a "dangerous deficiency," he said.
No, the US must fight back by doing a better job instead of trying to distort the truth. We've already lost a ton of credibility when no WMDs were found. A propaganda machine isn't going to help. It's make people believe us even less and then we'll truly be in a "world of shit". Rumsfeld and our leadership need to get it through their heads that saying "2 + 2 = 5" a million times isn't going to change the fact. Face it, we're a foreign country in someone else's land. That's not going to make people happy. When things don't improve like we've promised and car bombs start going off, they're going to be pissed. Remember how ridiculous the Iraqi PR minister was when he try to tell everyone that Americans are being defeated as our tanks moved into Baghdad? That's how Rumsfeld is going to look when he get this PR machine going.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
Why the hell are we putting these political stories up now? Bad enough that we do it at all, but Slashdot is fast becoming a kind of geeky Daily Kos; Taco and all you other editors...you guys have to be approving this stuff. Non-technical political articles shouldn't be posted, simply because this isn't the place for them. What's next? Stories about the CIA bombing the Twin Towers on Bush's orders? A guest column from Michael Moore? What's else?
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
"or risk losing the battle for the minds of Muslims"
Try not invading countries on false pretexts, imposing sanctions that kill millions of children, lifting embargoes that crush countries and being more fair with the palestinians.
No propaganda machine could possibly change the effects of the ground realities.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
Because while all that is said can be considered "factual" (to certain people), not all that occured was said.
So, a different source could publish more factual information on the event and your propaganda drive would fail.
And THAT is the core problem when dealing with propaganda. It only really works when YOU are the one seen as providing the most accurate information.
Even if you're lying, the lies have to be perceived as factual.
Right now, Al Jazeera is perceived as providing more facts and fewer distortions ("lies") by the Iraqi people (and others).
Come on! I thought the propoganda machine was up and running since 1999, why do they need another one? Oh I see, its probably going to be put up as contract work so more money can be funneled into H*B*.
As if 500 billions are not enough.....
because it's worked so well at home!
If Chaos Theory has taught us anything, it's that we must kill all the butterflies.
Unless they buy all international news outlets and impose strict control on them, find a way to ban reporting of their attrocities altogether (persecute underground/independent reporting), filter out or censor internet communications, and crash dissent on an international scale, they might as well try to empty the sea with a tea spoon.
American hubris at a grandiose scale. The informed citizen will read a report about another massacre perpetrated by the american arrogance and then a report of how an american hero saved a dairy cow from certain death in the killing fields of iraq and somehow the latter will weigh over the former? Sure if your name is Joe Sixpack and you live around 38 00 N, 97 00 W...
Yam, yam, uga booga, yam, yam, yade, yade, uga booga, yam, yam, yade, yade
It's easy to create convincing propaganda if the war's running well for you. It's more believable, and thus is more readily believed.
If you see your friends fall left and right, and your country tells you it's fine and everything's running as planned, and your opponent tells you you're about to lose, who do you believe?
Unfortunately, it doesn't run that well for the US. So the credibility of their propaganda could be a little bit lower.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
While I do not like some of the provisions of the PATRIOT Act, this is of no bother to me. Fighting propoganda with propoganda is always a constant. Propoganda has a very pure definition from both sides. Basically, you are stating your point of view with not facts or education to support it. Given that Al Qaeda uses propoganda in such a HUGE (and I mean in terms of reaching hundreds of millions of uneducated poor) way, it seems totally obvious that we use propoganda in the short-to-medium term in exchange. To me, it makes complete sense to use propoganda in certain parts of the world. I see the point because there are so many hundreds of millions who are not as educated as those of us here on this forum.
I am a huge believer in the case that has been made that corporate investment (plants) in the mid-east and Africa will have huge benefits for world-wide peace over time. I am not opposed to UAE taking over port control in our 6 ports here in the US. I am not scared of so-called terrorists. You?
There is NO SUCH THING AS RELIGIOUS OR CULTURAL WARS (such as cartoon wars or wars with Islam, etc.). It does not exist. Every war and dispute is about "HAVE and HAVE NOT." Always has been and will always be. This has been displayed again by free trade with the far east and South America, etc.
Differneces in religion and so-called-culture are brought up only by over-zealous leaders with personal agendas. These issues are used only to fuel a fire. Religion is only ever used as a weapon instead as a reason to go to war. Go to ware for "stuff", and get your people to go to war over "cartoons". And, that last sentence works both ways.
Moe
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
The author states: In an era where we've already got government-created and funded media outlets and the Pentagon bribing Iraqi journalists
Perhaps I'm the only one, but to me the author seems to imply that this is a new phenomena. Hardly.
Propaganda operations are common, particularly in other-than-war operations where winning public approval/disapproval for whatever policy, leader, or nation is important.
They've been used by and against the US to great effect - the movie JFK, for example, was based off a book by Jim Garrison. Most of Garrison's findings in his book are the result of Soviet propaganda about CIA involvement in the Kennedy assassination. The US used propaganda extensively in its WWII operations to encourage the enemy to surrender, and the Soviets used it against the US to try to break the back of the Marshal plan and move communist parties into power in France and Italy. It encouraged many Iraqi soldiers to surrender rather than fight in 1991, greatly reducing the number of casualties on both sides.
Information is powerful and can greatly change perceptions or, at least, cause some confusion. It is a legitimate weapon - one which can often acheive its objectives without shedding blood. To set it aside is foolhardy.
That said, it must be used carefully. Blowback must be avoided, and more must be done to prevent that. It must be used with restraint - something that certainly has not always happened.
To say, "well, if we play nice, everyone else will" is foolishness. I'm not going to defend every action of the present or any previous administration, as there is a great deal to disagree with on all sides, but the /. consensus is to throw propaganda out completely.
The simple fact is that the enemy's talking and doing the same thing. Our silence - not even our adopting the stance the enemy wants us to adopt and becoming perfect global citizens, a utopian prospect at best - will shut him up. In a world where one of our greatest threats comes in the form of ideology rather than solid weapons, we should be ready to fire back and blunt that ideology through non-violent means. If we grease a palm or two on the way, so be it.
The final irony is, of course, that the real place where government funding WOULD be appropriate when it comes to media, namely the Public Broadcasting System is being cut in the current budget, by the tune of 64 million. Public media systems like that (think BBC, CBC, etc.) actually might benefit the citizenry by giving an alternative and less sensationalist based viewpoint. But no, we don't want to fund those, let's get it on with the propaganda instead ! Man, America, your priorities are so messed up.
To compare what other nations spend on their public media systems compared to Americans check this out.
This story begs the question of how often the phrase "begs the question" can be misused.
After reading the headline I immediately had the thought 1984 pass through my mind. Slashdot is good at promoting that kind of thought. Then I went and read the article. And you know what? Rumsfeld is right. In many respects we in the west are losing the war of ideas with facist islam. I think it is very cynical and one-sided to call what Rumsfeld is talking about "propaganda" while conveniently neglecting to recognize that these islamofacists such as Al Qeada and similar groups in Iraq are already recognizing the tremendous power of propaganda and are using it on us. Do we recognize this? If we truly value our western society, free and open as it is, patriot act notwithstanding, then we should be very alarmed that somehow more and more people are becoming convinced of these other points of view that directly threaten our very way of life. If anything the cartoon stuff should illustrate that clearly. While I think the cartoons were in very poor taste, the fact that a few radical imams and clerics have managed to stir up a couple hundred million people over a simple drawing should be setting off some huge warning bells in our minds.
So how do we convince others that our way is better? We're going to have to talk to them. And that is the very definition of propaganda. Even Slashdot is really propaganda. It's not a bad thing; it's just the free expression of ideas with the intent to convince others of these ideas' legitimacy (trolls and OS religious zealots notwithstanding). I'm surprised that people on slashdot would bash Rumsfeld for saying these things since ensuring a free expression of all ideas is supported by almost all slashdotters!
So For those that don't care to read the article, Rumsfeld is merely saying that these people, who have sworn to destroy the west if they can, are using propaganda much more effectively than we are. We need to be better arguers (hint to all americans: western-style logic does not apply to the Middle East), and come up with better ways to help people see that having a totalitarian, facist, Islamic state is *not* going to bring about any benefit to them in terms of people or religion.
While I have huge problems with our current administration, I do understand the Middle East, and I recognize that some things have to be done. I greatly fear what will happen as these aberations of Islam continue to spread. As we can see from the Denmark fiasco, it's not just America that is being targeted. Islam is at a cross-roads. Maybe we can influence the cooler Islamic heads to bring back the original, peaceful meaning of Islam. That is what Rumsfeld is talking about.
Did you actually read what Rummy is proposing?
From the end of TFA:That sounds really freakin' nerdy to me.
They're talking about creating a radio, tv and print framework in whatever country he has a problem with.
It's relatively easy for the U.S. to blast propaganda into Cuba, since they aren't that far away, but it is a completely different story when you're trying to push information into countries like Iran or Syria.
Think about the technical side of deploying his 'framework'. I bet that would be News for Nerds
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
A Russian and an American meet over a round of drinks, and start talking about freedoms in their countries. The American begins by saying: We have the absolute freedom of speech. I can stand in front of the White House, and say "Bush Sucks", and nobody can touch me! They will even show me on the TV!
Well, says the Russian, we got that too! I can stand in the Red Square and say "Bush Sucks", and nobody will touch me either.
What is the bottom line of this joke? Well, saying that Fox News is fair and balanced because they bash Arabs is like saying Russians are free because they bash Americans.
Use your brain, its a bit hard to grasp right away.
The only thing that would make a difference would be to actually change their foreign policy to be less aggressive and unilateral, and to treat the rest of the world as partners to be co-operated with in good faith, rather than as marks to be subjugated/exploited/suppressed. Trying to solve the problems by propaganda alone is merely putting lipstick on a pig, and won't fool anyone.
Of course, the above won't happen any time soon, because it would involve sacrificing much of the profit that our current policies squeeze out of the third world.
(disclaimer: this isn't meant to be flamebait or a troll, it is merely my honest appraisal of the situation)
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
You keep mentioning 'hungry' and 'desperate'. I'm from Afghanistan and I can tell you the extremists that form the Taliban and Al Qaeda powerbase are neither hungry nor desperate.
People in Afghanistan/Pakistan tribal areas are very proud and autonomous. They have trouble accepting another nations rule over them (did America accept the British rule?). They're religious but were'nt crazy religious until recently.
In their opinion, the US simply came marching by, gave tonnes of weapons to the wrong people, and started playing games with the countries right after USSR stopped doing the same. The whole 'war' is considered to be as nationalistic (think US Civil War) as religious (think Crusades). Their saying is our rule, our leaders, our will, our religion. They prefer to push their culture in other peoples faces rather than have others' language, dress and thinking forced over them. The whole fact that Pakistan and Afghanistan are directly or indirectly under US control is what drives them. Its not the religious sermons or promises of 7 virgins etc. They just want freedom in the purest of sense.
Other Muslim countries too are subordinated by the US like Saudi Arabia, Jordan etc. A few are resisting like Iran and Palestine, and paying dearly for it. Yes there is a collective Muslim identity, and people in Afghanistan/Pakistan seem to want to carry the flag for that identity.
Think of it this way. If there was some outside power ruling the US, people would want to rise and overthrow the power. They'd be willing to pay the price. I think Americans do know the real price of 'freedom' (real freedom, not the Iraqi type), and would be willing to pay that price. They just cant relate Muslim extremists to have that sense of freedom too.
Calling them all crazy, insane, brainwashed, hungry, desperate is just trying to remain ignorant just as the majority of Americans still dont know what bin Laden's demands were when they did the 9/11 attacks.
http://www.democracynow.org/ itunes link http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/ viewPodcast?id=73802554
...is do not call it a propaganda machine.
Just broadcast Fox News over there.
That is all.
Wasn't that what Voice of America broadcasts were for?
Let's face it. The value of propaganda lies in its credibility. Or rather, the readiness of people to believe it.
To convince your own population is easy. That's how the nazi propaganda managed to keep the Germans in line even when it should've been obvious that the war is lost. They've been brainwashed for so long, and it WAS actually more or less true what they heard until about 1941, so they believed it.
When you try to convince your opponent, or at least an "undecided" person, you can't start with lies. You have to use truth, in other words, you have to first of all put some action before your words. Promises won't work. They've heard promises before, from Al Quaida and their former government. They have heard lies before. And people who have been subject to heavy propaganda only to have it revealed as lies are very resilent against this kind of tactic.
Ask anyone in eastern Europe.
So first of all, you have to put some "good" actions into place, then you can use your media to stress their existance and use this in the war for the minds. And I hope Rummy has this in mind, not some half-assed promises and long-term goals that nobody cares about.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You could waive a signed check from Saddam to terrorists, and he'd find a way to explain it away.
This is very much about more than cartoons. The west has been manipulating the middle east for years, and continues to do so to this day. Muslims in the middle east have every right to hate the governments and businesses of the west, as they've been looked down upon and toyed with for years. They have been exploited, we did put basically all of the puppet governments in place, we are continuing to support Israel who is continuing to behave badly. The west has also been scapegoated for so many years that the we are now seen as the cause of a lot of things which do fall on the feet of corrupt or indifferent governments.
But the outcry for violence against westerners by Muslims has been atrocious. "Behead the infidels" "Kill those who make fun of Mohammed," etc. They called for violence, they killed people, they've been killed... it's a stupid situation. And instead of taking it to the people who are actively trying to wring the middle east dry, they attack the Danish. The Danish. The only thing the Danes ever killed anyone with was delicious confectionaries.
It is going to be difficult to convince people that the middle eastern countries are ready to sit at the international table with the rest of the world and behave like civilized people when they're running around threatening to chop people's heads off and burning down embassies over a newspaper cartoon.
The fact that it is a newspaper cartoon makes it all the worse: there might not be a tradition of this in the muslim world, but in the West the newspaper cartoon is officially the lowest, dirtiest, least funny form of political communication. They're always poor in taste and poor in execution. They're the Fox News of cartoons.
And so, of course, we joke about it. That's the western way of expressing displeasure with something. That's our way of letting someone know when they've gotten too serious. You're allowed, in the west, to expose basically any viewpoint so long as it is funny. That's how gay people came to be accepted in our culture, and before that, women. You can expose anyone to anything so long as it is funny.
I think the western view of the situation was well-summed-up by a fark poster
"You know what is blasphemous in my religion? Burning down embassies and killing people."
The ______ Agenda
Saddam was secular. He did not enforce Islamic law (Sharia).A third time. Under Saddam, women could work. Under the new government, this is not always allowed.You might want to take a look at the fundamentalist Taliban and their implementation of Sharia.
Seriously, do some research. It's not like it's that difficult.
any riots in the usa.
I think the whole thing is a lot deeper than a cartoon.
The cartoon thing is just the spark the real problem is the way they are viewed around the world.
unfortaunatly they are acting exactly the way the rest of the world views them.
You see, after seeing all these riots I began to fear... what happens if all muslims are like the Wahabi? Sometimes I've even had the thought of WWIII beginning because of something like this. Specially after a) Iran enriching uranium, and b) Hamas getting elected.
How plausible this would be? I know not all muslims are like the Wahabi you speak of, but how permissive are all muslims with them as to let them riot without anybody punishing them?
Are my fears unfounded? Thank you.
(Knowing this is offtopic, I wish you could at least mail me, my e-mail acct is in my profile)
It was a blatantly political hit piece, painting Rumsfeld and the administration in Gestapo-like terms. If you're going to support that kind of activity here, then be honest about it. Don't smother it with a thick layer of bullshit, and go "no, it was a technical article, really".
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
One "aw shit" wipes out a whole bunch of "attaboys".
It isn't that we don't do nice things for them. It isn't that they don't know about them.
It's that we also do a lot of things they don't like. And we seem to not care very much that they don't like them.
Screw that. We're not gonna be able to compete with the lie thay they get forty virgins and an afterlifetimes' supply of wine after they blow themselves up in the process of killing infidels.
No, we need to coat our bullets with bacon grease.
fox isn't enough.
Rumslfeld can fonk off. He's a complete and utter cnut.
Approximately 1 American life for 100 Iraqi lives
The Raven
What? FOX News went off the air?
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
... is needed is HONESTY?
Oh wait... that would fuck up 98% of the worlds beliefs.
Hmmm... maybe its time for that.
At one time Islam was the strongest force behind human advancement, gathering knowledge of all kinds and developing it further as well as being productive with such knowledge. Islam was considered of the highest quality products and education.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Islam
then an ottoman feeling the pressure to go to war in his royal ?(or whatever you want to call it) position, though there wasn't a real cause for it, started the downfall of islam in going to war.
Knowledge begets knowledge... and specific knowledge, such a war knowlegde, begets its own kind.
War is destructive and the opposite of productive....
Just ask father physics and mother nature. They are very persistant in telling you, no matter how much you don't listen.
Shouldn't that be 24/7 propaganda machine?
..US must create a 'more effective, 24-hour propaganda machine' or risk losing the battle for the minds of Muslims.
The scope is significantly larger than the Muslim and Arabic countries. Poll.
...because actions speak louder than your words.
(oh? perhaps the actions are talking too loudly?)
Slashdot is my favorite site, open source software, a Linux admin and avid BSD user. I have lost some respect for slashdot today when its posting political spin including a link to aljazeera no less to prop up the credibility of the story, There is plenty of sites out there for the political spin. ....disappointed
AlJazerra is nothing but pro violent Muslim TV. You don't blow it up, you make an Anti-violent Muslim TV station.
God spoke to me.
But of course, then slashdot introduced "politics" just in time for the 2004 election.
Now this section is just an excuse for Scuttlemonkey and other editors to use slashdot as their own personal soapbox to rant against the US and GWB. Maybe in politics leftist nerds would be interested in, if you're not one of the Kos kids, it's not interesting at all or appropriate for this site.
Thats like saying that its going to be difficult to convince people that Hitler is happy and peace loving when he is running around invading countries.
They don't have a 24 hour propaganda machine, they have numerous 24 hour propaganda machines. - Those who benefit from war will support both sides to prolong it.
MTV europe is available to anyone with an 18 inch dish.
We will own the arabs children.
They will sell themselves for a look a Tiffany Spear's boobs.
Once the brain rot sets in to their younger generation it's over, we win.
Nobody will blow themselves up when the new Backdoor boys CD is shipping NEXT WEEK!
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
"The only thing the Danes ever killed anyone with was delicious confectionaries."
They were Vikings you goose!
http://www.friesian.com/germania.htm
Actually, Wessex was not able to absorb all of England, for as it began to do this, the Vikings arrived. This started with the sacking of the Monastery at Lindisfarne, in Bernicia, in 793. Eventually, Northumbria, East Anglia, Essex, and about the north-eastern half of Mercia were overrun and became part of the Danelaw. At first the Vikings raided, sacked, and carried off slaves, or were bought off with "protection" money -- "Danegelt" -- but then Danes and Norwegians began to establish their own Kingdoms. They also passed around to Ireland and the Isle of Man and began encroaching from the west on Wales and England. This finally led to the outright annexation of England to Denmark by King Canute in 1016, though the Danish Kings only lasted until 1042. A fair number of Danish words ended up in English, like "skiff," which is simply the Danish cognate of the English word "ship."
...how much media that we get exposed to is effectively propaganda?
We must replace google, yahoo, msn et cetera with a Patriot Search Engine to ensure that Government-Approved Information is delivered to your desktop!
It can also that your search terms are automatically submitted to the government for analysis, without the risk of judicial oversight, congressional enactments, or probable cause. This will make your even more secure from terror, terrorism and terrorists!
Surely if you are a true patriot with nothing to hide and interested only in The Truth As Patriots Know It To Be, you will use Patriot Search today. If you don't, then surely in the interests of security someone will have to find out why.
--- Attorneys Assisting Citizen-Soldiers & Families -
The submitter also linked to the BBC and USA Today. By your way of thinking, that's two to one odds in your own favor. I don't see your point.
When I first saw this headline I immediately thought, "That what FOX News is doing." Now I guess he's pretty unhappy with them as it seems like the only people who are paying attention are in the US, and not Iraq.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
For a moment there I thought they were talking about implanting a 24 hour propaganda machine in the US and then I remembered we already have Fox News.
Incompentant Middle Eastern governments use religous furvor to cover up for their own lack of up to date and relevant policies. They are no more representatives of Islam than the inhabitants of Bloody Kansas were of Christianity. It all goes to show what happens when you are too arrogant/conservative/hateful to have adequate societal venting mechanisms like professional sports, Mecca or enough Funny sitcoms
I research peak oil. We have entered into rather intresting times.
n try&authorid=75&blogid=189&archive=0
The best political summary i've discovered on my travels is
http://www.evworld.com/blogs/index.cfm?page=bloge
The best overview of peak oil and related energy issues is
"The Parties Over" by Richard Heinberg. (available via amazon.com)
Enjoy!
Troll? How is that a troll?
Just to add to the topic, there's quite a fascinating documentary about Al Jazeera, which followed the journalists and news staff around during the American invasion, asks them about what they do, how and why they do it, and so on. It's called Control Room, and if you have any interest in this sort of thing, I think it's a must-see film whether you agree with the conclusions or not.
Come on now. There's plenty of reason to jump on the present administration but this isn't one of them. Every company, every public figure, every organization with an ounce of good sense takes a bit of care with public relations. They have to do so, otherwise folks, organizations and other countries who mean them harm and no good will own the field. If you are the United States military and you only let the liberal pressdanistas define what is reported and said and discussed about you then you're going to have major public relations problems. In other words, if that next door neighbor of yours who doesn't like you is the only one who speaks about you to anyone and everyone guess what everyone is going to think about you? It would be a good idea for you to be able to speak for yourself about who you are and the military in the United States, run by elected civilians, should be able to do the same thing. The very fact that so many of you automatically run to the 'propaganda' tag instead of the 'public relations' tag goes to show that the effort at public relations is needed.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8FIG FB00.htm?campaign_id=apn_home_down&chan=db has a story about Overstock.com.
==Begin quote==
In its most recent quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said its net loss for the 12 months ended Sept. 30, 2005, widened to $18.41 million, up from a loss of $10.63 million during the same period the previous year. Net cash provided by operations was negative $28.15 million for the recent period, a sharp turn from $9.53 million cash generated the previous year.
An upgrade of the company's information technology system that Byrne said was "the equivalent of a heart, lung and kidney transplant" didn't go smoothly. In September, the company said it hadn't loaded new products onto its Web site in five weeks.
==End quote==
So rather than admitting that they screwed up...
==Begin quote==
Patrick Byrne, the Internet retailer's chief executive officer, has called short selling of his company's shares -- essentially a bet their price will fall -- a conspiracy orchestrated by a "Sith Lord." He later likened the conspiracy to an organization structured like al-Qaida and said his stock has been targeted by "naked short-sellers," a practice he said has ties to Italian, Russian and Israeli mafia.
==End quote==
If Overstock ran their operation properly and showed a profit next quarter, the naked short-sellers would be in for a world of hurt, financially. Instead, Mr. Byrne is whining about web boards just like Darl McBride whines about Groklaw and Rumsfeld whines about Al Jazeera.
The USA seems to have the same mentality. The Bush administration doesn't admit that they earned their bad reputation by invading a country that they knew didn't have WMD, and holding prisoners incommunicado and torturing them. Rather than actually acting kinder-and-gentler, the US wants propaganda to show that it's kinder and gentler.
That mentailty seems to be pervasive in the USA. Overstock and SCOX have had bad financial results. But they blame their falling stock prices on web boards and short sellers. If a company is found to be distributing spyware, they'll SLAPP the anti-spyware companies that fingered them. And let's not forget how spam^H^H^H^H ethikul email marketeers SLAPPed the MAPS RBL into uselessness.
Corporate USA, and its puppet administration, seem to believe that rather than acting nicer, they merely have to spend money on propaganda, and lawyers for injunctions to shut down websites that expose their misdeeds. They're acting uncannily like Soviet Russia, which spent 10 times as much money trying to jam BBC broadcasts as the BBC spent on broadcasting to the Soviets. Remember what happened to the USSR.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
Call me old-fashioned, but don't actions speak louder than words? They're also often less expensive to maintain.
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
I'm afraid to link to my blog entry on this topic but there are a few articles I think you should read. I'll post links for you.
First of all, millions have protested the cartoons and only a very small minority of hoodlums have gone through and committed acts of violence. When we in the United States try to focus on these minorities, we further alienate Muslims around the world. Why? Muslims are forced onto their heels to defend themselves against a rampaging minority much like what we had to do post-9/11 with terrorism. It hits squarely on the idea that Muslims are guilty until proven innocent wherever they are. I think the right course of action is to recognize the millions who protested peacefully around the world and understand our grievances. The best analogy I can give you is that after Hurricane Katrina there was severe lawlessness in New Orleans but it was a minority of people. Some took advantage of the situation but that didn't make the plight of the people dealing with the aftermath any less important. Trying to smear all Muslim protests with the they-are-evil-and-violent brush is just like neglecting to give aide to the thousands in New Orleans because of a few idiots. I hope that makes some sense.
In terms of the Taliban, they support a minor interpretation of Islam. It is akin to what Christian nutcases like Pat Robertson sound like when they say Prime Minister Sharon deserves what he gets because he gave up land to the Palestinians. I doubt any sane majority in the US would ever think that and you don't see Muslims labeling all Christians as fanatics.
By the way, I believe that many ancient Greek and Roman texts were translated into Arabic and then re-translated to English during the Renaissance.
This video from "Newshour with Jim Lehrer" provides a great explanation on this topic. Focus on what Ali Abunimah says. His viewpoint is right in line with 95% of Muslims worldwide.
1. EI on PBS's "Newshour with Jim Lehrer" (Flash based video player)
Here are the articles:
1. Conscience or commerce: that is the question By Roy Greenslade
2. These cartoons don't defend free speech, they threaten it by Simon Jenkins
Let me know if you want to continue.
"But I see the reaction by other muslims to be more cultural than religious."
Sorry, but I'm not buying that one anymore. That argument just doesn't hold water when Muslims are rioting from Nigeria to Indonesia. Futhermore, isn't the culture in these countries defined, to a great extent, by Islam?
I think many in the West are finnaly getting wise to what the "religion of peace" is all about. After the Van Gogh murder, the subway attacks, the French riots, and now the "cartoon riots", I think many of use who once felt that islam was being portrayed unfairly are reconsidering our position.
These cartoons were originally published back in September and did not elicit any response. Only now when the Danish
representative to the UN is slated to head the board that decides investigation and punishment for countries like Iran, did Syrian operatives start whipping up this sentiment.
So later when this rep, who is pro-America, tosses his vote in to punish Iran, the jihadists can say, "See! He hates our religion, remember the cartoons from his country, he is anti-muslim and we reject his authority."
The sad part is that most of the protesters don't even realize they're being played. Of course, they're mostly young, unemployed thugs, so I guess that's not so odd, after all.
"I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." -- Warren Zevon
I think it's pretty safe to say we already lost that battle. Here are a few suggestions, which you'll continue to ignore:
Unfortunately, the right wing's stupidity got us into this but it isn't going to get us out.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I do not think it is really wise to talk about those strategies in public, as later every news item that is favorable to the USA may be dismissed as "propaganda paid by Washington" and hence look unreliable.
Why can't
It's so nice to see them recognizing that public opinion is such an important battle field.
But are they really doing all that they can do win this battle? No. Take, for example, the prison torture scandal. I don't care whether or not the response to the scandal was appropriate or not; that is totally irrelevant. What is relevant is whether the world thinks the scandal is relevant. Pulling a Clinton by trying to play technicalities with the definition of torture does not help. Duking it out with McCain on the issue does not help. Forget propaganda! If you can't make the right gestures, you won't be going anywhere.
In many societies (particularly in Japan), it is considered the honorable thing for the guy on top to publicly apologize, accept responsibility, and/or resign even if something was totally the fault of some underling. Did Rummy do any of that? Nope.
Kids these days.
When I was in grade school -- in the height of the cold war, my teachers drumed into my head how bad the Commies must be because they weren't willing to tell their own people or the world THE TRUTH. At some level, I realized I was being fed propaganda, but the arguement made sense to me and I started to believe it. Inconveniently for our present administration, I still believe it.
1: Put properly trained people in charge of prisoners (no more pictures of naked prisoners and killings/beatings) 2: Stop encarcerating people without a proper trial and without being judged by a jury of their peers 3: Follow the Geneva Convetions completely and unequivocally instead of "for the most part" as Rumsfeld famously stated
If only we'd had an effective propaganda machine in the 1960s-70s, we'd have won the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese. Who knew?
Islamo-Fascist countries in the Middle East have government-run media that portrays western culture negatively. Regardless how you feel about the US, we are a free country in fact the majority of the media is liberal and anti-establishment. In these countries both sides are never reported and the government engages in one-sided anti-Western journalism. Rumsfield is simply talking about the US Govt responding to OTHERS propoganda, and you can add BBC to that list.
Kim Jong-Il swears by it. Loudspeakers all over the countryside so you can't escape from the low voice telling you that you love your government and your government loves you (despite starving you), creating subliminal messages...
That's the pattern America surely wants to follow. Both here and there.
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
Tempestdata - that's really insightful. Thought that was a really good post. I'm a practicing Christian, and I'm able to laugh at the Jesus joke, but it's still a little disrespectful. It's just that America is more tolerant of bashing people in a place of respect, and laugh it off. It's our culture.
I just returned from Iraq (with the Army) and their culture is VERY respect oriented. Respect for family, respect for religious leaders, etc...
Of course that respect doesn't extend to the people who's heads they're sawing off.
I thought you went to war with the propaganda machine you have, not the propaganda machine you'd like to have. . .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
from the perspective of these people, there might not seem to be a great deal out there apart from religous dogma for them to grab hold, but does that make it right?
couldn't that excuse be used by any fascist that has ever lived?
sure, dr strangefeld and Bush are evil men, but how many prayers or senseless acts of violence will it take before the biggest fairy at the bottom of the garden appears on the scene and zaps them and what they represent out of existence?
If you go back and read Islamic history, the rights many women enjoy in the west were already being utilized by Muslim women we'll over a thousand years before Europe even caught on. Google will show you the various councils taking place in Europe deciding whether women were actually incarnations of the devil right around the time Islam came out. Christianity and the Bible specifically blame Eve for tempting Adam and then the punishment has been women going through childbirth. Islam disagrees with all of this and you must be blind not to see these things.
Case in point, my family is Muslim and the women in my family have been successful business women for hundreds of years. A more modern example is my aunt who is the chairman on one of the largest banks in one particular Muslim country. Never forget that it is the West that is catching up to Islam, not the other way around.
I know people like you tend to make large blanket statements focusing on tiny examples to give the impression that your arguments have any worthwhile meaning. As a Muslim, your speech sounds ignorant to me because you don't live in a Muslim country nor do you have family there. All you do is buy into the propoganda. Is there a problem with women's rights all over the world even today? Yes and that includes the US.
As far as the tourist example, I'd like to ask you a quick question. Some African tribes have women who don't cover their chests. When traveling to the United States, what do you think would happen if they walked on the street like that? They would be arrested. I know that is an extreme example, but it illustrates a point. The point being that in Islamic nations conservatism is the rule. Isn't it our own cliche that says "when in rome, do as the romans do"? I know that my fellow westerns always focus on women having to cover themselves in public because it goes against our American cultural norms. However, I challenge you to go to a Muslim woman in the United States or abroad and ask her if you can liberate her by removing her headscarf. Almost 99.9% of women will scream, call the police, etc. to show you that they CHOOSE to wear it.
You bring up the entire thing about working. Well, under Saddam women worked but he is a bad dictator that Reagan and company supported. Pakistan, India, and Iran have women that work too. Iran has women in parliment. Pakistan has already had a female head of state which America can't claim yet. So tell me, are you going to focus on minor examples and blow them up to represent 1 billion Muslims? I hope not because I'm sure we wouldn't like it done to us.
Lastly, the Prophet Muhammad's own wife Khadija was one of the most successful and powerful business women in Arabia. Are you going to tell me the Prophet's wife got it wrong?
Nerds especially like machinery that does useful things, like serving web pages or delivering email. Political machinery sometimes helps deliver mostly-safe streets, kinda-sorta-enforceable contracts, a near-stable currency and banking system, and all the other goodies that allow nerds to survive.
Politics is also a high-maintenance machine, kind of like a Fiat only worse. Without constant attention, politics quickly goes bad and produces things like $YOURFAVORITEEXAMPLE.
Politics is well worth nerdly attention, especially in cases like this one where it may affect information flow.
Pat Robertson never drove planes into buildings, he's never had an entire country under his control that not only condoned but sponsored terrorist activity, Pat Robertson has, to the best of my knowledge, never killed a political or religious opponent.
And neither did the other 1 billion Muslims around the world. What is your point?
If I remember correctly, Hitler killed millions and, to the best of my knowledge, no Muslim in the last century has been responsible for as much bloodshed. Don't label us Muslims, it's that simple.
This video will freak you out!. google "rumsfeld disease".
Sometimes I've even had the thought of WWIII beginning because of something like this. Specially after a) Iran enriching uranium, and b) Hamas getting elected.
A) Iran enriching Uranium does not correspond to them building a bomb, or even wanting to use it. However, just like the first wave of nuclear armamant race, everyone wants it. Afterall, india, pakistan, and Israel have it, why not Iran? What's to protect Iran in, say 10-20 years, when OIL is even more scarce than it is now, and some western coutry with an oil-starved economy to upkeep decides to invade Iran in order to "free the local citizens" and "promote democracy"?
I must add though, that I do not approve of them having a nuclear bomb, and I hope they never do, but my point is that an issue needs to be looked at from more than one point of view.
B) Hamas startig WWIII? Hmmm. Not that I like their tactics, but their only aim is Palestian's rights. As far as I can understand from their propaganda, their enemy is Israel and those who support her (usually the USA). They do not have an army, tanks, planes or anything except home-made rockets and guns. Somehow, I don't think they're capable of even defeating Israel, let alone start WWIII. Their biggest weapon is propaganda, and they seem to use it effectively: they managed to get Israel to withdraw from Gaza. That took them about 10 years. Maybe in 20-30 years, the Israelis will decide to give up the rest of the land they invaded and occupied in 1967.
How about actually reporting ALL the news that's going on there.
Not just the bad things.
The American people have such a screwed up idea of what that whole country is like... You'd think that ever square inch of that place was ready to explode, rather than what's happening in a relatively small area where Saddam loyalists and jihadists (who came over the border) are right now.
Doesn't Fox News run 24/7?
So all 1 Billion Muslims are pilots flying planes into buildings? The bloodbath at the hands of Christians over the last thousand years is insane but yes, let's use your scewed logic to take the actions of 19 people and apply it 1/5th of the World's population.
Your rhetoric is Islamophobic which is defined as "a persisting latent structure of hostile beliefs towards Muslims as a collective manifested in individuals as attitudes, and in culture as myth, ideology, folklore and imagery, and in actions - social or legal discrimination, political mobilisation against the Muslims, and collective or state violence - which results in and/or is designed to distance, displace, or destroy Muslims as Muslims."
Here is the structure of Islamophobic beliefs. To Islamophobes: "Muslims are not only partially but totally bad by nature, that is, their bad traits are incorrigible. Because of this bad nature: (1) Muslims have to be seen not as individuals but as a collective. (2) Muslims remain essentially alien in the surrounding societies. (3) Muslims bring disaster on their 'host societies' or on the whole world, they are doing it secretly, therefore the Islamophobes feel obliged to unmask the conspiratorial, bad Muslim character."
Sound familiar? It does to me.
The saying: "Every boy can be President" is complete, utter BULLSHIT...and everyone in the world knows that the USA lives on GREED! The USA is run by hypocrites, that were elected by special interest groups while most voters stay home apathetically watching HBO off their Satellite dishes and hoping that "Big Brother" just leaves them alone...
Prehaps if we actually LIVED what we CLAIMED, we'd have more credibility with others...but of course, our Govt. has enough problems getting cerdibility with it's own citizens these days!Sorry, but there is an enemy who would gladly kill each and every one of you, and you complain that the government wants to promote their cause to the enemy? What a bunch of sorry, snotty geeks you all are. What Hitler would have given to have a slashdot crowd in the 1940's.
the whole synopsis and the article and Rumsfeld's comments strike me as odd. I thought Fox was already broadcasting 24/7?
The only way muslims will accept civilization back into their lands is to PROVE to them that ALLAH IS NOT ACKBAR.
Extream sacrilige seams like a great place to start.
Congrats, this joke just gets funnier with every variation on the theme. It must have taken you hours to craft and hone this witty line.
Maybe you should work at the Daily Show with your fine rapier wit and devastating subtlety.
No matter of propaganda is going to whitewash crap. Crap is crap. Attack a country for false or stupid reasons, be so blatant about caring only about oil, and be so inept at maintaining social services, there is nothing short of outright brainwashing that is going to work.
Al Qaeda doesnt have to propagandize about how good they are, they just have to make the case the US is bad. And so far we have only ourselves to blame, we have been feeding them more ammunition than they could ever hope to generate by themselves.
Jebus, what a fucking load.
...
... or touching a book?
Listen, I know you are trying to impart "knowledge" and/or "understanding" or such, but 'cmon
Burning buildings and killing people over a goddamn cartoon?
No, seriously. Touching a book.
Cry me a goddamn river. I'm the first to get in line to understand and give slack, but give me a fucking break.
... to stop blowing up their countries, and killing women and children and calling it "collateral damage", and you might not need so much propeganda.
But I guess that would be too difficult.
why not arm Parliament and Clinton and send 'em out into the Bush.
Damn, that would freak the funk!
Did it ever occur to you that if your troops, not mine even though I live here, I disown them, they can be all yours, WEREN'T over there they wouldn't be getting shot at? Huh? Huh? Ever think of that? Have you noticed THEY invaded Iraq, and Iraq had NOTHING to do with any attacks on the US? Saddam was a medium level bad guy as middle eastern leaders go, why not invade all of the above? How about in Africa, south america, asia? You planning on invading everywhere there's a bad guy? That's THE BULK OF THE PLANET.
So far, US forces have killed more innocent civilians than saddam did, by the year. You got any excuses for that besides just mumbling "unfortunate collateral damage"? What would YOU do if some nation decided they were going to "regime change" and invaded the US, even if the current president du juor wasn't to your liking? Would you cooperate with them and be a quisling traitor, or fight them? And since when is it a legit war when there are no PRISONERS OF WAR? Just "detainees" with hoods over their heads, including women and children. How would YOU like your neighborhood invaded by people from another nation, using high tech killing methods including air strikes? And just kidnapping people and disappearing them? Would you think that was so cool you would go join up with them?
You can't have it both ways. You can't contend some other people are badguys when you are doing exactly the same thing. Give it up, the US government and military and it's leadership are AT BEST moronic, and worst, outright murdering thieving invaders who are ONCE AGAIN installing some puppet government, same thing they have been doing for over 100 years all over. Do you need a list? The difference is now we have the internet, so it's harder to lie to people. Before, they only had to control a few domestic media outlets to brainwash the population, now they have to contend with people having access to many and diverse news sources, and it gets so embarrassing for them to keep this up they need even more "official propoganda" outlets. If all those Iraqis really wanted us there, the so called "resistance" would be a pitiful few, as it is, the BULK of the Iraqi people want us out, and the resistance has been gaining strength in numbers, DESPITE all the murdering going down by US troops, who have shown they are perfectly willing to engage in murder, theft, and mass genocide like in Fallulah. You want to know WHY they got some many to join up the puppet iraqi police force? it's because WE DESTROYED THEIR ECONOMY and there's pitiful few jobs. And coincidently that's the ONLY way they are maintaining a pitiful recruitment goal in the US, where MOST of the "volunteers" are coming from destroyed manufacturing areas where entry level jobs that pay anything or have any benefits are few and far between because the same billionaire globalist idiots in charge decided it was a good idea to kill off the manufacturing base.
ARE YOU SEEING A PATTERN YET?
WAKE UP, you really DON'T have to be a tool of those idiots. They are playing both sides against the middle with this scam, to keep the civilian populations in iraq and the US dumbed down and defensive and under one or the other kind of terror in order to maintain their fatcat leadership poisitions. And they off people to do this! That makes them murdering thugs, so please don't support them. Egads man, read between the lines a little! This is not that hard to see!
about a CARTOON.
3,000 people murdered in the name of Islam and no worldwide Muslim led riots against this terrorist act committed against the West. Why not? Those extremist, Saudi funded mosques which originally brainwashed and recruited the hijackers as soldiers of Islam dominate the landscape in the Muslim world and Europe too. Maybe the only way we could appease Muslim anger is to allow another terrorist attack. Then they will party and dance in the streets like it's 9/11
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/cnn.htm
NM
So Slashdot is not only anti-MS, but they're anti-Bush/Iraq War?
He lamented that the Pentagon was losing the Information War; abroad in getting it's point of view across (Al Qaeda and bin Laden are losers, don't join Jihad essentially) and at home (the US is beating Al Qaeda).
In that he's right because the media by and large has actively taken sides with Al Qaeda. Regardless of how you feel about the decision to invade Iraq, we are fighting Al Qaeda there (and in Yemen and the Horn of Africa and Pakistan and Afghanistan and many other places). Without exception the Media in the US and the WEst has not been much distinguished from propaganda places like Al Jazeera.
During WWII Edward R. Murrow openly took sides with the British People; and helped American officials rewrite press releases for better efficiency. THAT sort of pro-US and pro-Allied attitude would get him drummed out of journalism today. Mike Wallace in a symposium decades ago browbeat the late Peter Jennings into admitting he'd not warn US forces of an ambush so he could get the story and that journalists were not supposed to take the side of the US.
When Muslim fanatics of Al Qaeda behead hostages, the media will not show it. When the Muslim fanatics bring down the towers and people jump from them holding hands, the Media won't show it. When Muslim fanatics hold up signs saying "Freedom go to hell" or "God Bless Hitler" the media won't show it (only the Web will).
Part of it is abject fear and submission by the media, acting essentially as Al Qaeda's press agent because they fear being murdered (as Tom Friedman and Jordan Eason of CNN admitted). Relaying blatant propaganda against the US brings zero retaliation from the US.
Rumsfeld was merely being honest in saying that the Pentagon can't get it's message out that it does have successes in killing or degrading the Al Qaeda leadership and command. Instead the media runs phony stories of Korans flushed down toilets or various propaganda allegations of "Torture" at Guantanamo.
Rumsfeld advocates using the Web and the internet to get the Pentagon message out since the Media is either abjectly afraid or on the other side in the fantasy of "journalism as citizen of the world." In this I think he's right, communication wise.
It's a lot better to make Al Qaeda seem the loser than encourage more terrorism when Iran likely already has nukes, and the danger is losing a couple of our cities and ALL of theirs. Getting the message out that we won, so stop fighting can save a lot of lives.
Should read: "Rumsfeld Requests Another 24-hour Propaganda Machine"
Because, really, when the administration can spin "We leaked the identity of an active CIA agent, which is tantamount to treason" into "It's the fault of the media for publishing the leak we gave them," along with, "Oh yeah, it's no problem that there are warrantless wiretaps going on; the real problem is that someone spilled the beans," and who can forget "Saddam has weapons of mass destruction" -- dammit, the whole government is already a 24-hour propaganda machine, and its target audience is the American citizen.
If they want to add another audience, they're going to need another machine.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not wearing a tinfoil hat, and I am generally prepared to give the bemefit of the doubt. But I have to call shenanigans on this administration.
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
You can spin it any way you like but you are an Islamophobe. You hinge your argument of label all 1.1 billion Muslims as being terrorists based on the actions of 19 hijackers. By the way, I'm Christian myself and I agree with the grandparent poster. You sir, are an Islamophobe.
Your rhetoric is Islamophobic which is defined as "a persisting latent structure of hostile beliefs towards Muslims as a collective manifested in individuals as attitudes, and in culture as myth, ideology, folklore and imagery, and in actions - social or legal discrimination, political mobilisation against the Muslims, and collective or state violence - which results in and/or is designed to distance, displace, or destroy Muslims as Muslims."
Here is the structure of Islamophobic beliefs. To Islamophobes: "Muslims are not only partially but totally bad by nature, that is, their bad traits are incorrigible. Because of this bad nature: (1) Muslims have to be seen not as individuals but as a collective. (2) Muslims remain essentially alien in the surrounding societies. (3) Muslims bring disaster on their 'host societies' or on the whole world, they are doing it secretly, therefore the Islamophobes feel obliged to unmask the conspiratorial, bad Muslim character."
I think that describes you quite well.
More recently, to beg the question has been used as a synonym for "to raise the question", or to indicate that "the question really ought to be addressed". For example, "This year's budget deficit is half a trillion dollars. This begs the question: how are we ever going to balance the budget?" This usage is often sharply criticized by proponents of the traditional meaning, but has nonetheless come into sufficiently widespread use that it is now the most common use of the term.
I guess it's just me, but when the "the most common use of the term" is something, I'm ready to say that the language has evolved, and the that something is now correct use of the language. We don't have an equivalent for the French Academy in English to determine what's part of our language.
So, Anonymous Coward, what makes you think I'm Christian? I can tell you, you're dead wrong.
When you lost the argument of labeling all Muslims are terrorists above you quickly moved the argument to this point: a red-herring. I guess there are a bunch of us and I, too, agree with the other posters that you are an Islamophobe.
Kinda vital to the discussion . . .
I believe parent was referring to *George* Clinton and Parliament. Of course they already have the bomb and aren't afraid to drop it.
Are you kidding? It got them continued access to all the oil! We wouldn't give a flying fuck about the region in the first place if it wasn't for oil money!
Do you really think the U.S. intervened in Kuwait because the nice Republicans wanted to help the poor defenseless Kuwaiti people? Or do you think it was because Kuwait has a metric fuckton of oil.
I can't help noticing the U.S. has been giving its oil buddies big reconstruction contracts in Iraq since this latest war of aggression was "won".
In an era where we've already got government-created and funded media outlets and the Pentagon bribing Iraqi journalists to run favorable war stories, not to mention other departments paying journalists to endorse their positions, it begs the question, how much more can they possibly do?"
I think this is simply disingenuous. The United States certainly has propoganda organs, but I think it's indisputable that it also has the most free and open media community (circus) in the world.
I think Rumsfeld's point is more that, Fox news aside, every other media outlet in this country seems dedicated to 'taking down' the president in any way that they possibly can. In an era where a higher percentage of Washington reporters voted Democrat than REGISTERED Democrats, and where media networks formerly of some standing don't hesitate to run stories without research, plaigarize from web blogs, and outright fabricate evidence (Courier Font for the win, Dan) out of their irrational hatred of George Bush, I don't think it's suprising for a senior member of the administration to say that it would behoove the government to act more aggressively to get GOOD news about US efforts out and AROUND the anti-US media conglomerates.
-Styopa
After all, the Islamofascists have ABC, NBC, CBS, the BBC, CBC, Der Speigiel, Le Monde, etc etc etc working for them.
Why can't those of us who would rather not submit and become dhimmis use the media to get our message out?
You know, it's all fun and self-pleasing to pose as "enlightened progressives" but at the end of the day do we really want to return to the 14th Century?
What?
im not muslim but i was born in a muslim country and i learned in australia why there is an uproar about the cartoons..
it's not about the prophet, people almost don't care about the prophet in islam.. it is about god/allah/whatever you wanna call him.
in islam it is extremely forbidden to have any image depicting the prophet mohammed because often prophets become idolised and worshipped and people forget about the true reason of the religion and that is god.
basically in christianity a lot of people say jesus == god or jesus == son of god or in some way completely divine.. in islam people believe that mohammed is not of god and is just another human being and should not ever be shown as a visual representation of that god because it misleads the direction of the faith.
if an uneducated fool like me can know that and you guys don't, then there's really no hope for understanding anything about the differences between the west and east.
-Sj53
tell them allah is pissed and they need to quit with the jihad/extremeist/idealism before he drowns them like a one-legged leper colony living next door to Noah.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
First, as long as I see all these posts coming from an AC you are not different people to me. I doubt that you are.
Wow... we are all teh same people!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! you just are butt hurt cuz ur ass got called out bitch
. When I saw Cindy Shehan in Crawford calling our troops terrorists, I drove out there with 1000 other families and showed my disaproval of Cindy and my support for our troops and their families.
If you actually did support the troops, then you would be more upset that they were set up as terrorists by this administration. You would be pissed off that they were sent over their for an ivory tower intellectual scheme of world domination.
So, save it sparky. You don't give a flying fuck about the troops since you're obviously quite happy to see them disgraced by their CinC.
If you did you'd actually do something to support them rather than supporting their exploiters.
Jesus Christ I fucking hate fuckwad lying sacks of shit like you.
Get a spine, and get some integrity.
"In an era where we've already got government-created and funded media outlets and the Pentagon bribing Iraqi journalists to run favorable war stories, not to mention other departments paying journalists to endorse their positions, it begs the question, how much more can they possibly do?""
Sadly, it does not beg the question. It might raise a question though. Sure, you can say I am being anal about linguistics, but the meaning of words do matter. Frankly speaking, I do not see any logical fallacy in what Rumsfeld is saying and the posting makes no sense at all.
People really should know the meaning of expressions before using them. Given slashdot is a place where people who supposedly deal with logic on a daily basis hang out, this is even more inexcusable.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
To see where these folks are coming from.
Just for the benefit of a doubt, I'm going to guess that he wants to focus on distributing more white propaganda.
That means that he seriously believes that the people opposing us would stop if they just heard how nice we are.
That boggles the mind.
I can see why your mind is boggled since it is pretty certain that you are completely mistaken as to the intent.
It's more likely that the intent is to provide another source of news and views for the mass of Muslims & Arabs who are not committed to the violent Islamists cause. It might be a good thing if they had sources other than the hateful lies of the Islamists, and the government controlled media in the Middle East, which tends to spew some pretty vile things which you can see here. Muslim spokesmen regularly say that most Muslims want to live in peace. Maybe they will be more favorably inclined to so do, and to not assist the extremists, if they have access to news which sticks to being factual, or at least programming that doesn't regularly refer to Westerners as Crusaders, pigs and monkeys, call for the reconquest of Spain, applaud the exploits of terrorists bombing pizza parlors & pubs, etc. It is hard enough getting balance out of the American & European media. I don't think I've ever seen anything like this reported in the mainstream media. Arthur Chrenkoff's column listing good news from Iraq was practically unique, and not for lack of material. It is clear that if we don't speak up for ourselves, few if any there will.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage it's always interesting to see how the news is reported by the "arab cnn".
Thank you for giving another Muslim perspective. It is very clear that MUCH more communication between the West and the Muslim world is necessary. I don't think open propaganda is going to cut it, either.
... was moderated insightful proves you wrong.
Your post shows no evidence that the parent post was right or wrong. It shows NO evidence whatsoever of what you assert is true or not. However, it threw a ton of insults at the parent, and coincidentally, aligned with the groupthink that the rest of the flaming liberals on this site agree with. Therefore, it was modded up, despite having no redeeming value, but did agree with the anti-Bush sentiment. Therefore, your post proved the very thing that you were saying wasn't true is ACTUALLY TRUE!
In Soviet Russia...
Oh well i tried. Here is a linky
http://store.russiananimation.com/ansopr.html
From 1924 to perestroika the USSR produced more than 4 dozen animated propaganda films. They weren't for export. Their target was the new nation and their goal was to win over the hearts and minds of the Soviet people. Anti American, Anti Capitalist, Anti Fascist, some of these films are as artistically beautiful as the great political posters made after the 1917 revolution. A unique series. With a unique perspective. Includes commentary by a leading Soviet film scholar.
Mind you that is only 4 dozen dilms of propaganda in animated format for over 70 years
If I had to vote today, I would pick Bin Larden as opposed to George Bush.
Now, when do we start bombing America back into the stone age? Seriously!
I support the Administration. I think Mr. Bush is doing a fine job. No, I'm not joking. I don't think he's Mt. Rushmore material, but I do think the majority opinion of him here is paranoid idiocy tempered only by urban liberal orthodoxy.
As for Slashdot, all opinions are tolerated except those that are conservative, americentric or at odds with the popularly accepted view in a given scientific field.
In other words, if you believe as you suggest that Slashdot is tolerant of all well-expressed views, you may be suffering from craniorectal inversion.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
So, as Americans, *we* are (partially) responsible for the genocide *and* we are responsible for blowing the shit out of lots of innocents supposedly to take out the whacko *we put in power*.
If we put him Saddam in power, don't we have a duty and responsibility to remove him from power? To correct our mistake, if you will?
People constantly criticize the US for supporting bad, violent, etc, leaders. Well, as soon as we remove one, that we did at one time support, why are people still upset at the US? Shouldn't you people congratulate us for finally recognizing at least ONE of our past mistakes and taking steps to correct it?
-john
Slashdot: you'll not find a more wretched collection of villainy and disreputable types...
Check out government newscasts from the Middle East (translated to English). It's like watching the other side's version of Fox News. al-Jazeera is way ahead.
The US should be encouraging al-Jazeera, not complaining about it. The US has little to fear from an honest press. (Bush may, but that's a personal problem.)
Sure the fuck it does NOT beg that question -- it rather PROMPTS that question.
Geez, talk about sounding stupid...
Another thing I want to point out.. that the word "Muslim" is about as descriptive as "Christian". There are as many kinds of muslim as there are kinds of christian. Baptist, Born Again, protestant, presbeterian, orthodox, catholic, etc. There are many differences between each of them.. Most of the terrorism, and a lot of the rioting is being caused by a particularly extremist sect that is deeply entrenched in Saudia Arabia, and was the backbone of the Taliban. Wahabism. It was founded by an Islamic scholar Abdul Wahab. I am not a wahabi. :)
This doesn't appear to be true. You're saying that most of the rioting is a result of Wahabism? I thought wahabism was mainly in Saudi Arabia and some other Persian Gulf countries only. The rioting has been happening in virtually every muslim country, including Iran (a Shia country not highly regarded by Wahabis).
It is not very clear why the rioting has been so widespread, and also why it's taken so long (after all, the cartoons appeared in september alst year!).
My gut feeling is that it is organised by people who will benefit from such widespread animosity to the West at this particular time.
I mean, this is certainly not the first time that the prophet has been "denigrated" or "insulted" or Islam insulted in the West. The question everyone needs to ask is why now? who benefits from all this?
Here, take your pick
+ deaths+in+iraq%2C+us&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=u tf-8
m
http://www.google.com/search?q=estimated+civilian
One at random
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3962969.st
"by the year". The kill rates are going to be comparable. Direct, indirect, it all adds up. And to refresh memories, Saddam used to be our "ally" and we supported him and helped keep him in office when he was fighting the Iranians. And the Iranians became our "enemy" AFTER our spooks helped to off their elected leader who DARED suggest his nation should maybe get to keep 20% of the oil profits, so we then stuck that goon the most freeking exalted royal jerkoff the Shah in power, who's SAVAK organization made it EASY for the nutjob mullahs to recruit people.
c'mon, let's get real here. This is just constant and evolving heglian dialectic blood profits conjobs promulgated by these globalist goons. War is a racket.
Here's a thought, just STOP meddling with those people over there, they are just sick and tired of it. Let them sort their own crap out. How about we take that 200 BILLION a year this war is costing, some say it might go as high as two trillion, and invest it in alternative energy research instead, to free up this dependence on oil? Ever notice these bad guys we pick out to actually attack, or some country to occupy, sit on some huge oil deposits or other strategic minerals? Ever read about our support for Pinochet, how that came about, what was involved, who was involved, who got to profit from it?
Sorry, I refuse to stay dumbed down and not learn from history. When I was much younger I was just the biggest flag waving John Wayne worshipping rah rah rah yahoo out there. Unfortunately for them I decided that going beyond the headline snooze propoganda was more interesting. Whoops! It WAKES you up to do that, try it out, go ahead, better than caffeine! Wars based on lies, sticking in dictators then later on going "gee, he's a dictator, we got to do something!" is lame and moronic and to a lot of people around the world,outright deadly. I'm all for self defense,but I draw the line at purposeful offense based on lies with an economic and political profit motive involved, which this war clearly is. Remember, he was the same murdering goon back when we supported him, why did it change? Oh ya, he decided to switch his oil sales to Euros, THEN all of a sudden he became a "real" badguy so "we have to do something". They initially said he was somehow magically tied to the 9-11 attacks. What happened to that? Are we supposed to forget those and other gems of "quality intel" uttered by our so called "leaders"?
Sorry, homey don't play bait and switch no mo, or near real time revisionism, or just telling a lie over and over again until somehow we are supposed to accept it as the truth, it just won't work on me. Try someone else. Out-gooning the goons is not a solution, it's THE PROBLEM.
Well, DUH: how's this for starters?
1. GET THE FUCK OUT OF IRAQ. AND STAY OUT.
2. DEVELOP NON-PETROLEUM ENERGY SYSTEMS, ASAP.
3. RENOUNCE EMPIRE
That would be a good start.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
The Iranian Mullahs are exceptions to the rule.
In Kuwait, there were a couple of 'demonstrations' that were quite non-violent. But then every one went back to their lives. The standards of living here is quite high, no one would go on rioting and throwing stones when they work from 8 AM - 2 PM, and then spend the rest of the day having fun, driving their luxury cars just to waste time, shopping in malls, and flirting with girls all night long.
It comes no surprise to me that there were no major riots in the Persian gulf overall. Having said that, there are always fanatics who would go to the extreme regardless of their financial status.
Shrug. Read 1984. It's all there, with slight changes in terminology and technology. But not much. What comes pretty soon is imprisonment for those who dispute the propaganda.
As an atheist, you should have enough sense to realize that only religious people expect to live forever.
You WILL die! NO MATTER WHAT... EVERYONE DIES!!
What the fuck is wrong with you people... accept the fact that you'll kick the bucket sooner or later, and get over it. Go party, drink, fuck, sing, write, enjoy life, you fuckers have helped destroy the environment just as the rest of us have, so suck it up, only an IDIOT would want to live forever, given how fucked up the world will get in the next 100 years.
History is being rewritten more aggressively than ever, and few are contesting it.
Unlike Orwell's 1984, nobody will overthrow the rich... THEY are the ones he wrote about... just that such a direct allusion would've probably gotten him murdered and his book burned before it hit the presses.
No, many future thinkers were prophetic, but nobody is thinking nowadays... why think when there's American Idol to watch? And speaking of which, lets all get real, the rich will fuck this world into a shithole slum, where the only air you can breathe is from a canister on your back, which you have to "be a good citizen" "to receive your lawfully alloted air". Perfect tool of control, can't even fight when the only way to get air is to be a perfect slave. Clean air, clean water, who the fuck gives a shit about oil and money when the things you need to LIVE will be limited?
But go on, tell me how you're an atheist and scared of those mean old muslims. And then go fuck off with the rest of the religious, consumerist, shit sucking scumbags that are the majority of this world. You've fucked those of us that care by sheer weight of your numbers. If there is a god, I hope she (or he) lets me torture you for eternity. All of you... christian, muslim, atheist, or whateverthefuckian you are.
~D
PS - if you think this is a flame or troll, perhaps you should live in my shoes, and watch everything degrade, and know that no matter how much power you wield in the political and economical system, unless you are the ultra rich, and richer than those who print the money, you'll NEVER be strong enough to counteract their poisonous influence. Just like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and even the guys who run Halliburton and all the other rich *individuals* are not rich enough to counteract Alan Greenspan if he decides to hand out a loan that quadruples the debt, which you can bet everything you own that Bush and Co will gladly accept and waste almost immediately. Suddenly their funds will be worth dip shit. This is the problem, the point, the fear... the money printers wield such INSANE power (though fictitious, it is amazingly widely accepted) that nobody can fight them. Rothschild could've never asked for better avatars.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
What kind of propaganda system do they want? Are they talking about a news service like Voice of America used to be for Eastern Europe during the Cold War? Basically an unbiased news service that brought the same news found in USA newspapers to people who had no access to non-Communist news sources? That service is already provided by CNN and, to a certain extent, the newer-more open Arab news services like al-Jazira.
Or do they want a focused pro-American pro-West service to counter the incessant anti-American message coming from Iran?
Perhaps they are talking about a 'black' propaganda service, where stories that may or may not be true are introduced into the 'Arab street' for the sole purpose of provoking an extreme reaction. The Arabs and the Pakistanis will go into violent riot mode on just rumors now. For example, I doubt that anyone rioting in Libya, Syria, or Pakistan has actually seen any of these editorial cartoons that have whipped them into a frenzy. It is also doubtful that anyone in the west would have started massive street riots without actually seeing the provocative images themselves. It's unlikely that provocative images or unproven news rumors would cause riots in the west anyway.
Having a 'black' propaganda service that could introduce false rumors would allow the controllers of this service to have a 'light switch' to start violent street riots in the Islamic world at any time that is convenient for them.
I think I've seen pretty much every piece of propaganda used by the US in the last 20 or 30 years trotted around as fact in this one discussion. Sweet!
It's OK Bender, there's no such thing as 2.
Here's some great propoganda that will keep the muslims happy!
... Canada! Recall? those great people who had the balls to stand up to the USA and NOT attack Iraq because they knew Iraq was already fully contained, and that there was no believable evidence of any WMD's at all.
... then you are obliged right now to invade zimbabwe and end that dictatorship ... oh wait! no oil! no daddy to avenge! funny, freedom doesn't matter anymore now does it?
DONT BOMB THE SHIT OUT OF THEM FOR NO JUSTIFIABLE REASON!
How about NOT giving yourselves a president with the intentions of invading a country simply to finish his daddy's job, that was willing to make up any lie in order to get the common american sheep to support the idea.
That's a start.
Need an example?
Think the war really was about freedom?
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
If you did you'd actually do something to support them rather than supporting their exploiters.
Jesus Christ I fucking hate fuckwad lying sacks of shit like you.
Get a spine, and get some integrity.
Uh, I did that. I was a soldier. I went to the mid east and saw the brown people you so happily write off. I put my life on the line for their freedom, and trust me, they were extremely grateful.
I guess you think political decent is God Given right for us white people over here, but to those brown folk over there who were getting their tongues cut out because they said something that offended the wrong person, you say "fuck 'em", right? How about the kids who were tortured and killed because their parents belonged to the wrong party? Tell me again how Bush is the terrorist for taking out the man that did this stuff? Tell me again how Kuwaiti's and Iraqi's are not worth fighting for? Have you gone over there and talked with some of them before coming to that conclusion?
If you hate me so much and think you have some integrety, why don't you go to the nearest military post, find the bar that is closest to the back gate, and tell a Soldier or Marine how much you "hate lying sacks of shit" like us. You'll find out how much spine we actually have. If you're lucky, you'll get to see your own.
Why don't you ask one of those Marines who they want support from, people like you, Cindy Sheehan and Hugo Chavez, or people like Shemane and Ted Nugent and myself.
You are even worse than the Bushists.
Scheiss auf Amerika.
...I like discussing issues with others that have different points of view, but in a civil manner, and I don't want a bunch of flamewars. Anything political though, inevitably starts with the "McChimpyBushHitler" paranoid raving that's so fashionable here. I'm beginning to think Taco and other editors support that point of view and basically think "screw the others".
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
We don't hear too many moderate christian voices on our airwaves either. (or even christ-like voices for that matter...)
It seems like the ratio of NUTS vs SANE groups in the media does not differ much on either side of the world. With a few controlling the coverage, it makes one wonder if it a goal to create more conflict to distract us.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Actually, there are mountains of proof for both of those (including testimonies from aformer Iraqi General). John Miniter has a book called "Disinformation" -- you should try reading those two chapters in it sometime.
I never thought of it that way before, but I think you're right! ;)
-The art of programming is the pursuit of absolute simplicity.
Do you actually believe "Demo"cracy is real?
It's utopia my friend.
Do you also believe in Fairy Tales?
How about changing their style: stop randomly detaining and torturing people, being honest instead of putting on a sanctimonious face while engaging in all sorts of underhanded activities, etc etc. In short - clean up their act altogether. Fat chance of that happening, though. Not until the American people decide to lynch the lot.
You can't propagandise a whole nation into thinking your way. Think back to the Soviet Union - they had a whole captive population (who at least initially trusted their government), almost isolated from the outside world, and the propaganda machine turned up to full power; plus they were good at it, but it still failed. So how big are the chances that this inept, bumbling lot will be able to change the minds of a nation of people who are mostly hostile, simply with propaganda?
There are two types of Propaganda, true and untrue. There has never been a war fought, hot war or cold war, that did not use propaganda. We are fighting a war goodness sakes! Propaganda is necessary. You fight fire with fire. If we do not counter their propaganda with ours, then only one side of the story ever gets out. Now, as far as bribing Iraqi journalists is concerned. Sometimes the ends justifies the means. Remember, all is fair in love and war. Why are some Americans so nieve to believe that we must be so fair when the radical Muslim world certainly is not.
REALLLY . . . I was a nerd long before the term was ever invented. Hey, Rochester! Warm up my computer please.
Wow. Only in Bizzaro World can you be accused of liberal bias for posting a quote from the Secretary of Defense and noting some relevant facts.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
instead of 'more effective, 24-hour propaganda machine' read
'more effective 24-hour propaganda machine'.
I think Mr Bush is doing a fine job.
Let's see, we have two major terrorist attacks on the United States, where neither Bin Laden nor the anonymous anthrax mailer were ever caught. We have the completely failure of our intelligence and defense forces on 9/11 with no explanation and no plan to fix. We have a trillion -- a *trillion* dollars, do you have the slightest idea how much that is? -- pissed away in a war in a country most Americans couldn't identify on a map, for *nothing*.
We have double-digit increases in the military's main budget every year *on top of* this crazy war; and as a result we have cutbacks in all the services that might make life worthwhile if you weren't crazy rich.
We all watched over *days* while the government sat there and did nothing and we lost New Orleans. George Bush lost New Orleans. He didn't even *pretend to try* to save it. He didn't act concerned, he didn't do anything, and the city was destroyed.
But the worst part is all the dead. There are the thousands of American dead in the ruins of the World Trade Center, the thousands dead in the rubble of New Orleans, the thousands of young American men and women finding miserable and painful deaths in Iraq for nothing (not to mention the tens of thousands of young people returning multilated and crippled) -- and there are the tens of thousands of Iraqis and Afghanis killed by Americans, very many of whom were women, children, or simply people who were trying to mind their own business when an American bomb went off in their vicinity.
You think Mr. Bush is doing a fine job, do you?
On the contrary, even if Bush were impeached this very moment, based on the results of the first five years he'd still be by far the worst President the United States ever had.
What rubbish. Israel, the so-called state, refuses to even decide its own borders. Oh, didn't know that ? Didn't know either that there is no treaty between the USA and Israel, because Israel would be forced to identify its borders ? Hence, they are NOT allies. Certainly Israel has no intention of colonising the USA. But they actively expropriate their neighbours' lands, resources, heritage, and lives. How does that strike you for "dogma" ? As for wiping Israel off the face of the earth, I understood the comments not to refer to literal destruction of the population and firebombing or nuking the "israeli territories", but to reestablishing a non-apartheid, integrationist entity, as repeatedly recommended in UNSC resolutions, and just as repeatedley ignored. I'm not anti-anything, except anti-ignorance and anti-violence. All parties are guilty, and so few admit to being so. Like another respondent, I have to ask the question about which countries own, have used, and intend to use their own nuclear weapons, as opposed to those who see the obvious deterrent value of acquiring them. The NPT is rubbish, boys club mentality, because the "boys" won't give up their own toys. USA = Nuclear Armageddon Global Terrorists The current admin has openly threatened "anyone and everyone" with preemptive nuclear strike. You think this is anti-US propaganda ? I name it "calling the stripes on the tiger". And stop using that "collateral damage" tag, you coward. It's called "murder of innocent bystanders". One "damages" the car, one "murders" the innocents. Yours truly, Another Coward
Fairly organized groups of people who support violent acts - check.
Leading to death - check.
Almost winked at - check.
Look, I've spent time with people who did abortion clinic defense. Let me tell you, our own radical religious minority is just as dangerous, and they operate with a lot of people saying "well, I don't agree with their tactics, but they're defending children, so I won't stand in their way".
How come we don't see news coverage of the preachers that condemn abortion clinic bombings? Because that's not news. Nutjobs on a high-caliber Mission from God - now that's great television.
Why can't I mod "-1 Idiot"?
We can't find out. From WP: Like all forms of U.S. Public Diplomacy (propaganda), its broadcast is forbidden in the U.S. itself under the 1948 Smith-Mundt Act.
Does this strike anyone else as, well, fucked up?
White House Debuts Iraq War Infomercial
[% slash_sig_val.text %]
So what? Israel is a political state not a religion. As much as apologists would like to associate it with Judaism, it has nothing to do with it and is simply a politicised form of racism and apartheid.
If you want to get down to it, Israel is at the foundation a bunch of 1st, 2nd and 3rd generation European squatters occupying land belonging to others. That and a recent enormous infusion of Africans to boost the population.
As to wiping them off the map. Maybe that's a good idea at this point. They've made their bed since 1947 and now complain about having to sleep in it. If the US stopped pumping public and private funding into that territory, they'd have to change their tune quickly and arrive at a peacable solution instead of constantlyprovocing violence.
Now there's no reason why all those people can't live in peace and work towards eachother's benefit, but in order to do that the, state sanctioned racism, apartheid, genocide and terrorism on Israel's side and the racism and terrorism on the other side have to stop.
An erratum to my own post: the decimal points were omitted after HTML processing, e.g., (1 -dot-in-center- 5) became (15) instead of (1.5).
The above quote should read:
Findings
The risk of death was estimated to be 2.5-fold (95% CI 1.6-4.2) higher after the invasion when compared with the preinvasion period. Two-thirds of all violent deaths were reported in one cluster in the city of Falluja. If we exclude the Falluja data, the risk of death is 1.5-fold (1.1-2.3) higher after the invasion. We estimate that 98000 more deaths than expected (8000-194000) happened after the invasion outside of Falluja and far more if the outlier Falluja cluster is included. The major causes of death before the invasion were myocardial infarction, cerebrovascular accidents, and other chronic disorders whereas after the invasion violence was the primary cause of death. Violent deaths were widespread, reported in 15 of 33 clusters, and were mainly attributed to coalition forces. Most individuals reportedly killed by coalition forces were women and children. The risk of death from violence in the period after the invasion was 58 times higher (95% CI 8.1-419) than in the period before the war.
Let's look at what the word "Propaganda" means
a nda
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Propag
Dude,
What you say is 100% in agreement with my points
- I said women are allowed to work in Islam freely
- I said that tourist women are mistaken because they didn't respect the rules of the place
- And yet , Muslims are tolerant of said behaviour and they shouldn't threaten or harm them, merely tell them to come only if they respect the rules.
Why do you keep telling me that I don't understand Islam and that I make blanket statements?
Did you mean to reply to someone else?
"Insightful" is reserved for comments which actually provide a new or unique perspective. It should not be applied to patent and banal ramblings which bear not semblance to actual facts.
It was on Slashdot a couple years ago, can't find it though. It was a BBC article basically saying that US allies in Iraq (mainly UK troops) were afraid of Americans. Virtually all of friendly fire events are US firing on allies, it's almost never allies firing on US.
Now about collateral damage. WW2 showed that strategic bombing was a great way to achieve goals without risking too much casualties. Vietnam showed that infantry combat was indeed very costly in terms of human casualties and that the US public was not willing to accept heavy losses. The cold war officialized the absolute superiority of the US in technology and in air power.
I think all of this led the US to orient their military doctrine toward a massive use of air power before, during and after ground assault. This has proved very efficient at destroying ennemy military and infrastructure at a low price (in US lives). But this, imho, renders the US army pretty inefficient when it comes to occupying a country or winning "hearts and minds".
So you're right when you say : "It seems to me that US forces already tries to avoid collateral damage. It sounds more like you're calling for elimination of collateral damage - and that's a fantasy". The US tries to limit collateral damage within its doctrine of "bomb first, walk later". But that very doctrine generates more collateral damage than other doctrines with more boots on the ground and less laser-guided bombs.
Everybody tries to avoid collateral damage. No commander will decide to kill civilians if it brings no military advantage. At the end of the day, discussing collateral damage means answering the question "If razing that building risks killing X civilians but not razing it risks losing Y soldiers, should I do it?", in other words "How many foreign civilians is a US grunt worth?"
If your primary objective is to reduce your losses at a minimum, chances are that this implied number is very high.
It would be nice to be sure of anything the way some people are of everything.
I'm confused; we can either use propaganda, or we can wind up having to bomb more people. If you're opposed to the bombing, why are you also opposed to the propaganda? Don't you want peace?
Right now there are daily killings over some cartoons, because a huge number of people are hearing only one side of the story. You got the previous attempts to get both sides of the story to them squashed by complaining that it wasn't right for the US to pay journalists to run stories; now you're going to object to the entire concept of the US getting our side of the story out to these people?
You're condemning us to perpetual war, if you succeed.
Voice of America was established in 1942, and, as far as I know, has operated since then. It's not like their webpages go down half the time.
Of course, it may be not be obvious that it's a government mouthpiece; like the Department of War effectively becoming the Department of Defense after World War II, the United States Information Agency (the US propaganda division) was renamed to the Bureau of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs in 1999.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
So the government is complaining to Google that they're selling "american values" short by working with the Chinese government, while simultaneously undermining the free and unbiased media of other countries? Hey congress; don't look to silicon valley for trouble, try looking up the street 16 blocks.
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
Two points:
First, in China, white is a color of mourning. Wedding dresses are normally red, which is a "good" color in China. In the United States, this would have a connotation of prostitution.
Second, physical attractiveness has shifted. In medieval times, an attractive woman was pale white and definitely plumper than one is today; it showed that she was wealthy and did not need to leave the house to work in the sun. Today, in the US, a somewhat darker skin tone is generally considered attractive, and women pay to expose their skin to UV light in tanning devices to darken it; darker skin and a light build shows that they are healthy and exercising and are wealthy enough to do so instead of having to work in a cubicle all the time.
I think that lighter skin in Japan being more attractive is a result of the amount of Western media becoming popular in Japan, but I could easily be wrong.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Yes & Unfortonally it's called fox news
On the contrary, even if Bush were impeached this very moment, based on the results of the first five years he'd still be by far the worst President the United States ever had.
That is of course a matter of opinion and can as such not be falsified. However, James Buchanan, hurling the United States into civil war, ultimately killing some 560 000 of his own people, pretty much tops my list.
How about whatever it takes?!
There are only two options for Iraq now, success and freedom, or failure and chaos. Only idiots or monsters would suggest quitting now and dooming those people to a dismal fate.
You see, just as you often see posts out here on slashdot, kuro5hin or other internet message boards by western internet users showing their rage and frustration with Islam.
You think *Slashdot* and *Kuro5hin* has rage and frusteration with Islam? These are fairly socially liberal forums compared to most of the US.
If you want to understand the neocon mindset (I read rightnation.us for a while, which had many people advocating the nuclear destruction of Mecca to "teach those Muslims a lesson"), you have to watch something like the Dirty Harry series. Dirty Harry pretty much *exactly* epitomizes the thought process I've seen from neocon postings (even to the extent of having the potentially gay peace-symbol wearing guy be the villan). The thought process goes something like this: Politicians are corrupt and they and judges and other high-ranking authority are crippled by "civil rights" and their lack of manliness. As a result, they won't do anything. The whole problem could be solved with our powerful military hardware -- after all, look how powerful it is -- if only someone would have the balls to apply it without being held back by stupid things like civil rights. What is necessary is for people with lousy jobs who don't have much influence to just stand up and show that they have a pair of balls and are willing to extreme force, and they'll protect their women and children. Then they'll be heroes, and the authorities that refuse to do anything will be demonstrated to be clearly wrong. Oh, and it won't matter that they're xenophobic.
Do not think that this is not an influential mindset. It ties very well into machisimo, dislike of the system, and lack of understanding of civil rights. For uneducated males, this is a significant driving force. "Respecting weaker cultures/countries" is seen as weak, womanish, and so forth.
If you go somewhere like West Virginia, you'll find that there are very few minorities present in the state. Very few people have experience with non-whites, there is *still* a social barrier to hiring blacks, and the Christian churches (mostly very conservative Baptist) have far more impact than the occasional news story about the plight of some half-imaginary Arabs -- besides, Fox News is the primary source of news. The main impact of minorities has been immigrants that take low-paying jobs that the local inhabitants could otherwise have. That results in a lot of hard feelings towards Mexicans, blacks, and so forth. Slashdot's irritation over Indian competition for jobs is very, very mild compared to what you'll see in a place like this.
If you want a somewhat less applicable example of a movie with this mindset (really more oriented towards people that are a result of growing up bombarded with anticommunist propaganda), I'd suggest watching Red Dawn.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
So here's the deal moron, the hallmark of mankind is his uncanny ability to exploit his fellow man. Karl Marx's vision completely ignores that fact, well it assumes that because you work in a car factory or on a farm that somehow you're morally superior to everybody else and wouldn't take advantage of someone else.
Marx's socialist world revolution obviously didn't happen. However, the man was also an influential philosopher, and showing that he was wrong about one thing (Einstein, Newton, and Aristotle had plenty of wrong ideas too, man) doesn't mean that nothing he says holds value.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
This whole Muslim issue can be easily resolved by a very simple event to occur by any oil consuming county that's feed up with these mean sprited loud mouths; Just go to a Hydrogen, Wind, and Solar Economy.
The word 'propaganda' says more about the author of the original article that it does the subject. The author is leftist and has a negative opinion of the current administration. This is obvious from his use of the word 'propaganda'. Not sure if the author hates America, but I wouldn't be surprised.
You have no problems asserting propaganda that boosts your own religion, and bashing anyone who does not share your faith.
"Rothschild?". Thanks for bringing up a name common to the whacky "Jews control the banks" conspiracy theories.
Many people have this negative connotation about propaganda, assuming it means lies you tell people in order to manipulate populations. That is one way propaganda has been, and is, used. But, generally speaking, propaganda just means communicating the government's message. That message could be false, or true. One critical truth is, the insurrectionists and terrorists have plenty of propagandists out there spreading half-truths or outright lies about the US and it's mission in Iraq and elsewhere.
If we are to have any hope of succeeding, we need to present our side of the story to the rest of the world, and particularly to Muslims. If anything, the US government has done too poor a job of propaganda, not too good of a job. I will say that doing things like bribing journalists makes you look bad, makes it looks like you are corrupt, and can't get anyone to carry your story unless they too, are corrupt. The current administration has ham-handedly gone about propaganda, but it must be recognized that propaganda is essential in any operation.
When they find out it was all lies, will they stay our friends?
Oh, wait, the same country is now trying to build a nuclear reactor.
...they are trying to build TWENTY reactors.
Because "news for nerds" is really "advertising dollars for Slashdot's parent company", and this article is a clickfest goldmine.
Unlike, say, any other news source?
The article is really about Rumsfeld being, gasp, honest about one of the fronts of the war.
Really. Do you have inside information into Islamic media to validate his claims?
Kneejerks will misinterpret this as Donald "Big Brother" Rumsfeld trying to control their minds.
Well, yes, we got a little bit burnt when we listened to him last time and he convinced everyone to, you know, invade, occupy, and set up a puppet government in Iraq without any legitimate justification? Why would be believe him now?
Oh, that's right. It was all the CIA.
The CIA was scapegoated for Iraq by the Rumsfeld-Cheney-Wolfowitz faction, which has a long history of pushing for more hawkish policies against the recommendations of the CIA. You have to know a bit of the background story.
Let's see: first it was the Soviets. The CIA said that they weren't going to nuke us. Wolfowitz's Team B decided that the CIA didn't know what the hell it was talking about, and that we needed to jack up our weapons production:
Team B, came to the conclusion that the Soviets had developed several terrifying new weapons of mass destruction, featuring a nuclear-armed submarine fleet that used a sonar system that didn't depend on sound and was, thus, undetectable by contemporary Western technology. When the CIA argued that the economic chaos in the Soviet Union was hindering their ability to produce an air defense system, Team B countered by claiming that the Soviet Union was trying to deceive the American public when in fact their air defense system worked perfectly.Some members were even considering promoting a "first strike policy" against the U.S.S.R.[13][14][15]. Rumsfeld took a good deal of power from the CIA during the Ford Administration.
During this period [Rumsfeld]...was instrumental in increasing the power of the military within the administration and at the expense of the CIA and Henry Kissinger. This was accomplished by promulgating the view that the Soviet Union was increasing defense spending and pursuing secret weapons programs, and that the proper response was a re-escalation of the arms race. Some say that this view was in direct contrast to CIA and generally accepted reports on the declining state of the Soviet economy, and the earlier success of Richard Nixon in establishing Detente (referring to a thawing of the Cold War) with the Soviet Union.
In Iraq, the CIA did their job well, handing up data that Iraq and al-Qaeda were *not* linked. Rumsfeld took issue with this.
"[OSP] was created in order to find evidence of what Wolfowitz and his boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, believed to be true--that Saddam Hussein had close ties to Al Qaeda, and that Iraq had an enormous arsenal of chemical, biological, and possibly even nuclear weapons that threatened the region and, potentially, the United States. [...] 'The agency [CIA] was out to disprove linkage between Iraq and terrorism,' the Pentagon adviser told me. 'That's what drove them. If you've ever worked with intelligence data, you can see the ingrained views at C.I.A. that color the way it sees data.' The goal of Special Plans, he said, was 'to put the data under the microscope to reveal what the intelligence community can't see.'"
After the fact that Iraq didn't actually have any weapons of mass destruction, and the justification-of-the-day-for-invading-Iraq started shifting around, the PR strategy began to blame "bad intelligence" for the invasion -- which was effectively taken by the public as being the CIA's fault. A Congressional investigation into the CIA was started, the Bush Administration put pres
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
My bet is on #1.
Secondly, and this is a question about biology and learning, what is it that makes some people believe that
The above belief pattern is found in (among others):
Everyone I've known who thinks like that is not able to free himself from it. The childhood ditty:
helped me understand this difference when I was a child.
Spoken words or images can be extremely shocking, nauseating, upsetting, etc. but to me they are, at bottom, only words and images. They are representations of reality, they do not control reality. There is a fundamental difference between the mind of a person who thinks that way and the mind of a person who goes boinkers when he sees Mohammed depicted with a lit dynamite stick in his cap.
What does it take to show people that words/images/pictures/movies are not reality? Or should we leave it for an attitude adjustment?
and well supported by an extensive system.
Islamic fundiesn and terrorists are a real problem but the USA approached this problem clumsily and is now trying to put makeup on a pig.
Most of the terrorism, and a lot of the rioting is being caused by a particularly extremist sect that is deeply entrenched in Saudia Arabia, and was the backbone of the Taliban. Wahabism. It was founded by an Islamic scholar Abdul Wahab. I am not a wahabi.
Then it seems to me that the rest of the moderate Muslims should be able to see that it is in their best interest to get together and do something about the troublemakers since the rest of the planet is rapidly identifying those extremists as being the general accurate representation of all Muslims and like MaestromX just said, if you are unable or unwilling to fix the problem, someone else certainly will... and probably in a manner that neither you all (nor the rest of the planet either) will particularly approve of.
Propaganda is cheaper than bombs, and better than killing people. Bribes, tricks and lies don't seem as noble as a soldier's duty, but when you put it in perspective that people don't (usually) have to die for propaganda to work it makes a lot of sense.
The US propaganda engine is not anywhere near WWII levels, there can be a great deal more than there is currently.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Then why aren't any Muslims in the United States rioting?
Because they know they'll get their asses kicked faster than they can blink if they even try. Except maybe in certain Detroit neighborhoods, they are extremely outnumbered here.
On the morning of 9/11/01, here in a small Texas city, a prominant and wealthy local Muslim businessman (an Iranian who escaped Iran during the Shah's last days of power and moved here) was in the lobby of a local bank, there are TV's mounted from the ceiling for the customers to watch CNN as they wait in line, and the scenes of the planes crashing into the buildings were shown, this man began dancing and celebrating in public. Most of the other people in the bank lobby instantly started to turn against him ready to serve up some small town Texas justice and the bank's two security guards had to escourt him out of the building to protect him from the crowd. The cops also showed up to help disperse the crowd. This Iranian has since then had to sell his fancy million-dollar house and move to another town. The local businesses he owned (clothing stores and restaurants) lost virtually all customer patronage overnight and he sold those too. For the more than two decades since the fall of the Shah, this man had been a respected member of our community. People thought well of him and considered him fortunate to have escaped the Iranian revolution and make a prosperous life for himself in our town, but that one act in the bank on 9/11 showed his true colors and now he cannot even show his face in town without fear of his personal safety... the rednecks around here now hold a permanent grudge against him.
Shock and awe, what a joke.
--- guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people ---
Wow.....the number of posts this topic has generated is astounding....the more so as only a small percentage actually address the article at hand. I've got a few pennies here, so let me throw in a few thoughts.
First, Rumsfeld (as much as I hate to say it) does have a point, although I doubt he looks at it the same way. The greatest strength of the terrorists and insurgents is their complete lack of a rigid bureauracy. They can adapt rapidly to fickle public awareness and a lazy, sensationalist media. Our government, on the otherhand, is incapable of this because of the very procedures we have created in the name of "efficiency". A brief example (I beg pardon for this digression) is when I went through some government training (sorry, can't say what type as I might get in trouble for criticizing the gov't) and found glaring errors and omissions in the information they were giving to students (some of it outdated over 30 years ago). I went through the bureaucratic two-step and filled out all the requisite forms to remedy this until I was told to stop submitting critiques for "questioning the course's integrity". I was told that, while my critiques (complete with citations and references) may be valid, it would take years to get even simple changes approved, evaluated, tested, re-evaluated, re-approved, and eventually implemented -- too much of an effort to be worth fighting for. I realize I have been vague here, but the changes I was fighting for were changes to a medical curriculum that was teaching information that could potentially harm patients if not remedied. To make a long story short, any "grass-roots", decentralized, or cellular movement is FAR more flexible than our rigid, over-regulated system. So Rummy is right, we do need to be able to adapt more quickly to media-driven public emotion, but, being who and what he is, will attempt to do this with further rules, regulations, and guidelines that serve exactly the opposite end.
Now, on the much debated Left/Right wing Fox/Aljazeera Good/evil secular/religious debates.... As far as politics go....no independent thinker worth his or her salt judges any individual politician solely by party association. Many independent (rightly) supported Clinton's impeachment for lying (I don't care what about...he tried to cover up) and voted (initially) for Bush because a focused effort against Afghanistan seemed warranted after 9-11. (Let's face it, focusing on a given issue is not the Dems' strong point.) It didn't take long, however, for the Bush administration overstepped its bounds and was vociferously opposed by these same people. Slashdot is rife with people pointing fingers and whining about how unfair bias is in one venue or another, but any bias reflected here is that of the readers, not some business conglomerate. No administration releases exclusive slashdot interviews or uses this site as a method to release their latest "victory" speech. Both Fox, and AlJazeera have political and economic interests that trump any obligation to print the views of all comers. Yes, Fox kisses Republican @$$, but there are plenty of other networks that lean the other way. AlJazeera is a business and has been pressured, bribed, coerced, and encouraged to bias stories from whatever group happens to be in power. To expect otherwise of a major news organization is irrational and overly idealistic. Actions DO speak louder than words, as some other posters have noted in calls for US foreign policy change, but this axiom also applies to individuals. There is a difference between dedicated spirituality and the abuse of religious symbolism to advance a political agenda. To believers of Islam the world over: the beauty of your religion and it's message of "peace" is being destroyed by these extremists. They are not religious, they are abusers of the message of the prophet and must be fought at all costs. To the righteous Christian-American "moral" majority....the terrorist attacks of 9-11 are NOT an excuse for you to start the next crusade. The rhetor
He who would be a man, must be a nonconformist. -- Emerson
Why don't you go do that?
You think there's stories to be told out there besides what we hear (mostly from inside the green zone), why don't you go over there and report them?
Part of the problem is it is unsafe for our reporters to leave this area (as ABC's Bob Woodruff so well illustrated) and Americans don't seem to want to listen to any reporters from other countries. It's kind of ironic on that 2nd part, because back before the election the Bush administration was saying everything was hunky-dory, that the insurgence was just a bunch of "dead-enders", most reporters couldn't safely leave the Green Zone to report the real story without being embedded, in which case the military could not only lead them where they wanted, but also censored their reports. One major new reporting agency was sending reporters outside the Green Zone and they were saying that the citizens were not greeting us as heroes and the insurgents were making major inroads. That agency was Al-Jazeera. In response, the Bush administration demonized them, closed down their offices until after the (US) Presidential election and eventually ended up bombing their location in Baghdad (and claiming it was a mistake).
Meanwhile, all the American news sources were just reporting wine and roses. But now that the American news sources finally did their jobs and actually report what is going on instead of what the Bush administration told them is going on, you say the "real" story would get out better if we had other news sources that could get out into the countryside.
I'd love to think that manipulating the media came back to hurt the Bush administration. I'd love to think that the media kowtowing to the Bush administration and showing an inaccurate picture of the situation came back to hurt the media too. But honestly, I just don't see it. The Bush administration is merely reaping what they sowed, and yes, things are very bad over there. Yes, things are least bad in places that we meddled the least in.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
How can someone that claims to support out troops, the ones who raid home in the dead of night and abuse women, but not the war... speak negatively about a propaganda machine while siting sources like Aljazeera? WTF? How completly backwards can your logic be? I think if there is an ounce of reasoning in their you did yourself and all liberals an injustice by not supporting your point with credible facts.
There are worse things than death. Living under slavery, or under a dictator, is worse than death. If we fail to defend and advance the ideals of liberty and justice, our children will know that all too well.
Our sons and daughters who have volunteered to defend and advance the cause of liberty know that it puts them in mortal peril to do so. Rather than acknowledge the awesome risk they are taking and applaud them for it, you choose to label one phase of the struggle as unjust.
If you had ever been in the military you'd know that with a divided mind, a soldier will fail. Without the belief in the rightness of his cause, he cannot endure the hardship of war. When soldiers are weak, they die in greater numbers and fail to accomplish their mission.
On the other hand, when our enemies hear about a U.S. divided on the war, they are emboldened. Their cause is winnable, they think. That causes them to go on strapping bombs to their chests and blowing up fruitstands, rather than undertaking a peaceful path. The blood of our soldiers and Marines is on the hands of those who for cynical political expediency oppose their mission.
Huh? Talk about losing sight of your own ideals. Tolerance, as long as everyone agrees.
Joe Biden? Come on. The man has only secondhand acquaintance with the truth. He's a pompous, arrogant liar. I know you can find someone better than him to quote.The Presidency is a position much more easily critiqued than occupied, and Mr. Biden is still bitter about his own failed aspirations.
Find another source. Surely there's a student newspaper, a DNC press release, or a deposed dictator out there who would offer evidence supporting your cause.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
And that's where a good portion of twenty-somethings get practially all their international news from. Sad, but true. Though, in their defense, The Daily Show tends to have more national and international facts than my local mid-market 5 o'clock news. By a long shot. And, it turns out that even though John Stewart clearly leans left, he's not above pointing out the weaknesses of the left. He just gets a little more satisfaction when he pokes fun at the right.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I for one probably am not alone when I say I neither trust nor believe anything the Emperor or his minions say. Hamas winning is a prime example of US foreign policy at it's worst. All of the leftist governments in South America taking over is another fine example. How does a propaganda machine supposed to work if they cannot control all media outlets. Yes, the US government controls the US and Iraqi media, but the Europeans know the US is full of it and report accordingly. Everything touched by the government either dies or runs away. I would run if I had a place to run to.
Do you know anything about the "man who brought George W. Bush to God"? He's a fundamentalist charismatic operating out of Texas, where supposedly he used to fill stadiums and shout from the stage "Can a JEW enter the KINGDOM OF HEAVEN?" (this was the cue for the crowds to shout " NO! ", or course). You don't hear much about him these days, although he still visits the white house regularly. Do you even know his name?
The Zionists and Fundie Xians each believe they are using each other to achieve their own ends, and they don't care how dirty their tools are. To the hard-core Zionists, money is good regardless of whether it comes from churches, mosques or synagogues, and Judaism is a swell way to recruit fanatic soldiers. To the hard-core Xian fundies, Israel is a red heifer that needs fattening for the slaughter.
Perhaps you don't know that Avraham Stern wanted to ally his Zionist terror organization (the NMO, that later became Lehi, and then merged with Haganah and Irgun to form Eretz Israel) with Hitler? Do you feel dirty now too?
Wikipedia describes propoganda as a type of message designed to influence the opinions of people, rather than impartially providing information.
In my view, whether that is necessarily a good thing or not depends on the overall intention. For political reasons it is not a good thing because opinions do not have to be based on facts, they are, after all, just opinions. Conversely, look at what data is used by the average American populace when deciding on a political candidate -- very little, most American's vote based on their personal feelings towards a particular candidate and not on the issues, raw data or even facts.
So, is it effective? Yes. Is that good? Unfortunately, no.
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
> Then it seems to me that the rest of the moderate Muslims should be able to see that it is in their best interest to get together and do something about the troublemakers
I keep seeing this sentiment stated, yet no one making it replies to the obvious response "Why don't Christians see that it's in their best interests to do something about their troublemakers" -- the KKK being the obvious choice.
Most just ignore the order to kill infidels much in the same way as most christians ignore the rule that slave trade is okay.
1 119503544502&pagename=IslamOnline-English-Ask_Scho lar%2FFatwaE%2FFatwaE
My credentials: Muslim with extensive knowledge of the West and Middle East.
Here is a DIRECT response, by Muslim SCHOLARS/CLERICS, to the allegation that Islam instructs to kill non-Muslims. http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?cid=
I think it is the responsibility of Western media to amplify messages like these instead of the action-movie-like scenes of bearded guys burning flags!!It is also the responsibility of Muslims to reach out to Westerners to educate them. I find that islamonline.net is one of the best examples that speak to a Western culture. Of coures, much more can be done, on both sides. Similarly, for you Americans, when English aljazeera comes to American homes, just CONSIDER it as another source for news. It is my opinion that it's unbiased (routinely aggravates BOTH political sides) BUT it will focus on matters that are important to Muslims and Arabs.
RELIGION DOES NOT KILL! RELIGION DOES NOT KILL! RELIGION DOES NOT KILL!
--- widget evolution: enhanced, plus, super, ultra, extreme, exxxtreme, ultra-extreme,
That will answer how far they can go. With a Congress that rubber stamps and covers up everthing King George does the sky is the limit as long as the Chinese and other countries are willing to buy our debt.
The FBI had an agent inside the cell that pulled the first 93 WTC attacks, that came out in the trial, yet it still occurred. And there's just a ton of evidence of government involvement and prior knowledge about the 2001 attacks. I am not even going to bother with any links, anyone can find them and I know they have been posted here over and over again.. If you can't smell a rat I can't help you any longer. This whole business is a reichstagg event, and it was outlined exactly what they were going to do in the PNAC documents by those total fascist pigs.
You can dumb down and buffalo some of the people with constant overlapping lies of omission and outright lies, but not everyone. You neo-conmen are just a pack of lying murdering thugs. Kill foreigners, kill your own if it suits your blood profits schemes. You and your kind have been constantly meddling and interferring with those people for *generations* now, and you WONDER why they are upset?? We listened to you way back with the "gulf of tonkin" attacks and it took three decades for the truth to come quietly out. How many did you kill there? This time you have to deal with the net and people being able to go do some research and find out the things you don't want them to know. No one disputed saddam was a goon, I certainly didn't, he should have been popped decades ago, along with his demon sons, but like others of the low IQ ilk, you once again attempt to change the focus with debate 101 tactics. Sorry, that don't fly.
Being against yet again another corporate conman war is not the same as support for some random ass dictator. You get it yet?
I am against rewarding the idiots who helped stick saddam in in the first place, and they are THE SAME IDIOTS WE GOT NOW. It is not prudent to give political power to the same criminals who set Saddam up and supported him for years. I REFUSE to stop at some point in history YOU PICK when looking at events. You do not reward a burglar by making him a security guard, the same should be true with these bogus "leaders" we have now, yet it happened, so I speak out about it.
Capeche?
Take your conman fascist propoganda and shove it. Go preach to the dittoheads, they love that crap because they get to "let's roll" without any inconvenient pesky data getting in the way. You are wasting your time on anyone who has even remotely researched this subject, stick to the mouth breathers. You pick bad trying to push that crap on slashdot, because it is trivially easy to see through the bs now.
The reasons for violence for invading Iraq are not even similar to the reasons for those resisting or getting revenge against the invadors of Iraq.
Amazing how hard it is for so many americans...
So the violence justified by the french resistance in WW2 also justifies germany invading france by use of violence? (well thats not similar enough; this iraq thing makes vietnam look smart.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
You're telling us you've never heard of George Clinton and the P.Funk?
You need to get out more!
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
"This never happens."
He has a strong grasp of the facts.
"No. What is happening is that when you reduce yourself to the level of your opponent, as the US and increasingly the UK have done"
Neither has done this.
"And there entirely because of American actions."
The terrorists were there long before the US actions. A terrorist leader even ran the country, and hosted terrorist camps for several terror groups, and he also provided funding to external ones. Iraq was a hotbed of terrorism, and the US and UK are reducing it. The problem is being solved, no thanks to your "Protect Saddam" side.
"WRONG! Show them. Stop bombing and invading countries for their oil"
No countries have been invaded for their oil. And we reserve the right to bomb those who attack us and refuse to stop attacking us. It is reasonable self-defense.
"Just as installing a power-mad dictator into a country"
Saddam installed himself. The US briefly helped him when it looked like Iran would annex Iraq, but the US support was only for a short time, and was rather minor.
"....in order to secure the country's oil supply for your own use. "
Oil had nothing to do with the many valid reasons for retaliating against Saddam Hussein. Your simple ideas may look appealing, but they have nothing to do with reality. I caught you lying again.
"Perhaps we should stop the billion-dollar recruitment drive for the other side then."
We actually have a billion dollar drive to discourage recruitment of terrorists. The terrorists are learning that if they commit atrocities and aggression, they might end up in one of those prisons.
That is what Rumsfeld is talking about.
"he was doing it when he sold WMD to Saddam"
At least you can't later lie and say "Saddam had no WMD". But oops, you later DID lie and say that they were all gone. Despite overwhelming proof and evidence.
"Rumsfeld is an old liar who's been caught out again and again."
He is extremely truthful. The main lies are found on your side, the pro-terrosist side.
"Hardy a glowing example of the superiority of the Western system of government. "
Rice and Rumsfeld are are an excellent example of the high moral ground. They tell it like it is and offer good solutions, and try to make things better, despite the lies of ignorant people who only support terrorism.
Here's something I don't understand, and I hope that you can explain it to me. If the purpose of the ban on depictions of Mohammed is to prevent idolatry (which is a form of worship), then why would people be upset at an irreverent and teasing depiction? The cartoons are hardly intended to promote the worship of Mohammed, so why is this blasphemy?
It seems to us that the real offense is in irreverence and not in reverence.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Because I would like to see it for myself. But the State Department warns Americans against going in the strongest terms possible. Because it's not safe anywhere but in the Green Zone, and the airport isn't in the Green Zone.
But either way, I would have done it because I wanted to do it, not because I wanted to be some kind of authority on an internet chat board. I don't really care if the next person doesn't feel the same way I do over Iraq. I had to give that up before the war even started because I saw this stuff coming a mile away. It really isn't difficult to figure out that if you occupy someone's country they're not going to be happy about it, no matter how many times you say you're doing it for their own good.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Very few in Mexico will regard other people "inferior" in the sense you are implying.
But it is a matter of fact on Mexican life that people of European descent, for reasons quite obvious, have held economical power.
In Mexico it is always quite a good bet to assume that the more European you look (i.e. "White") the wealthier you are.
But not superior.
When the French sent a poor Austrian chap to attempt to become emperor, he was eventually captured and executed, the pardon, in the hands of a dark skinned Zapotecan Indian, was denied.
That is a lesson that no Mexican, of any given race, has forgotten.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Isn't that who Bush was running against in 2000? or was it 2004? I don't remember why I hated the guy, I just did.
Will you vote Ayatollah if he runs in 08?
.... I think I know more about how your religion is used as a tool of opression.
Lets not delve too deeply in the fact that men can have 4 wives, but not the other way around (hearing Muslims trying to justify this is an exquisite exercise of double speak and self delussion).
Lets forget that Islamic costume makes it OK for very old men to marry girls so young that in many ocassions have just left infancy (but never the other way around, thankfully).
But it is a wwll known documented fact that Islam imposes on women a life of domesticity and servitude to their men (be this the father, the husband or the brothers).
In the most extreme Islamic countries (like Saudi Arabia), a WOman is not her own person. They very often can't vote and almost never are electable for an elected body (when they exist).
Inheritance law in Muslim societies is also less favourable towards women, as is divorce law.
There are a few examples of Islamic countries that are more enlightened, like Malaysia and to a degree some parts of Indonesia. But the element that would like to see the complete sujugation of women to men is always a trend all too easy to find on Islamic countries and societies.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
"The CIA hired Saddam to assassinate the previous leader of Iraq"
A perfect example of a claim which "entirely unsupported assertions which flies in the face of literally years of contrary evidence"
"at which point Saddam was installed by the US as a puppet leader"
Two lies with one statement. He installed himself, and he was never a US puppet. In fact, he was always an enemy except for the brief time we gave him some aid to prevent Iran from taking over Iraq.
"Retaliating for what, exactly?"
For attacking us many times. For violating the cease fire. For engaging in terrorism. If you don't know this, you know nothing. This is a perfect example of someone who expresses hatred for the American people because that someone supports the terrorists... and in your support, you deny their actions.
"There are various options but I suspect you don't know what any of the real ones are."
I know only the real ones. I don't know the fake reasons (for oil, for the PNAC, for the Jews, etc.)
"Which exists only in your mind. None have ever been found."
You claim that the WMD were used all in the war with Iran. Do you need links to the lengthy lists of materials found from the first Gulf War onward? It is like you will tell any lie to defend Saddam. You might find it interesting to read the UN reports. Do you want me to post entire inventories of WMD's from the mid 1990s, long after the Iran war?
"Rumsfeld is a mythomaniac and Rice is probably the most unpleasant, nasty, hypocritical woman in the world; she's certainly the most dangerous."
Did Saddam write that for you? Sure looks like it. Only someone who really hates America and its people would say such things. (It is already given that you really hate Iraq, and did not want anyone to stop Saddam Hussein). As for the argument, I've never seen Rumsfeld express a myth. Rice is a straightforward, constructive, and honest woman, and is only dangerous if you are a fascist megalomaniac. Not only that, she is very smart, well spoken, and good-looking. A good choice for another President.
"As with so many people who simply don't understand what is going on in America"
No. I refer only to the facts. You don't seem to know what is going on in America or anywhere else.
"you take the approach that opponents of the US's actions are supporters of terrorists."
No. I only take this approach if the opponents are actually supporting the terrorists. This does happen very often. Logically, if you oppose retailating against terrorists and other aggressors then you are arguing in favor of those terrorists and aggressors.
"to many people there simply is no difference between the terrorists and the US."
Only if they are extremely ignorant of world events. Or are really mean-spirited, Or both. Incorrect opinions are still incorrect, and we should not make decisions based on the fact that some people (like you) have no idea what is going on, or are filled with hatred.
"Both kill indiscriminately in pursuit of political goals"
The US does not do this. Caught you in another lie.
"and most importantly, both use terror to make people do what they want them to."
Another lie.
"The terrorists are not good people"
They must be, to you. Why else would you lie about what they have done?
"They decided that thousands of innocent lives were worth a pathetic political gain in a part of the world they had no business being in in the first place."
It is a part of the world we have every business being in until the terrorists are entirely eliminated. I could understand your view: you support the terrorists and want them to operate unhindered.
I'm sure glad that people who are informed about these matters and want to work in positive ways are making decisions, and not you.
Rule 1 of effective propaganda is telling the truth. At least most of the time. There is nothing that really beats that, when it comes to convincing people.
The German master of propoganda Goebbels would disagree with you. According to him the truth is the last thing that a proper propogandist needs:
When the State controls the media, it only speaks what is convenient to itself which is not necessarily the truth. Propoganda is the ultimate enemy of democracy because it changes the will of the people to match that of its elites without regard for what is and isn't fact, which leads straight to my other favorite Goebbels quote:
Sound familiar -- almost like what got us into this mess that he want the propoganda for in the first place? Never forget why democracy failed in Germany and be wary of leaders that openly use propoganda to further "our" ends.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
The general imperialist practice has been to control 90% of the media and brainwash the masses amid all the 'free nonsense'. Now it seems the US govt. wants to try fascist methods of 24 hour propaganda. All this does result in populations which tend to keep off such 'politics' in severe ways.
Prof(Miss) A Mani CU, ASL, AMS, ISRS, CLC, CMS, IEEE HomePage: http://www.logicamani.in Blog: http://logicamani.blogs
Regardless of the numbers, the point is that Saddam, and other American puppets of the region were/are commiting their crimes while recieving our support. Which by itself doesn't matter much, except for the fact the Americans are so preachy about supporting "freedom".
Mod this entire topic FLAMEBAIT
Jews are just a scapegoat, much like the blacks, muslims, etc. Its a distraction.
... those "evil" chinese are what keeps us spending like crazy, by buying out our obscene levels of debt... eventually, once all of our industries are wiped out, and all our people are serving burgers, or living in boxes, perhaps then they'll smile and say "so sorry, our banker called, they can't extend you more credit... very sorry *click*" What do you think we'll do then? The Chinese already manufacture the targetting systems for our missiles, and most of the parts in our mighty "nukular" subs and aircraft (+ ac carriers, etc) They even make the plastic parts for the M16, which are then bought by Mattel and sold to the military. Funny how our so called "enemy" is supplying us... charging us money, and then using that same money to buy our "debt", our debt increases, we receive cheap shit parts, and the Chinese lose nothing. They do, however control our currency, and can, at any time if they deem so, cut off any supply we want. As might be obvious as reported by all TV news, China HAS recently stated that they WILL use their nuclear arsenal if we interfere between them and Taiwan. Keep in mind that once Taiwan goes, China has just situated themselves as the ONLY supplier of electronics to the west. Other than Tyan, there are NO US motherboard manufacturers. And only a SCANT few chip factories remain in the west (AMD in Dresden, etc, thanks to the germans actually PROTECTING their industries when push came to shove).
Can you be as stupid as to believe that "its the jews" ??
Ye gods. Naivete amazes me still...
Listen here, Rothschild is an extremely influential group, but if you think its "because they're jews" you're more gullible than I had expected. At one point they might've been jews, but as with most people who get to insane levels of power, they BECOME god in their minds. Every dictator who thinks he's invincible has the exact same complex, the only difference is most dictators rely on military power... which can be usurped or outright destroyed. Controlling currency is a different story, and YES, originally the rothschild family was a bunch of jews... if you think any of them care for judaism other than to say "ahah they're prosecuting us for our religion", you are gravely mistaken.
*** NOTE: You should watch the foreign exchange markets. If you had, you would've noticed that THE ONLY THING THAT HAS PROPPED UP THE DOLLAR, EVEN WHEN THE EURO WAS OVERBOUGHT, was the CHINESE AND JAPANESE BANKS BUYING UNITED STATES DEBT!!! Yes... THEY
Back to the religion idea, just like christians in the white house use that religion to further their own ends, and just like Usama Bin Ladin uses his religion to further his ends. He's far too cunning to actually BELIEVE... no, he's merely using it to further his ends. As is Bush, and Cheney, and co, etc.
Only the plebeians (otherwise known as "the proles" or "the proletariat") actually still believe in "the jews are evil" or "the christians are evil". THEY ARE ALL EVIL... for they are religions used to produce mass histeria and mass hatred of "them" with "them" being anyone that is not "us" with "us" being the religion of the group at hand. They are evil by mob mentallity alone. Take an intelligent "believer" (not an average joe, most are plain stupid, without enough reasoning ability except to rationalize that the way their life sucks is the way its always been and always will be, hence a must to be accepted as is). If someone disagrees they are "a kook" or "a lunatic" or a "conspiracy theorist". Funny how when the communists took over in eastern europe and fucked everyone over, "conspiracy theory" was no longer a theory... it is sad that it takes such a terrible loss like that to make the naysayers become "prophets" or "farseers" instead of "kooks" and "lunatics". Most of you lived sheltered lives, and spent your time shooting blips on a screen. Try waking up and seeing the world a bit without your TV and see what yo
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
What ayatollah paid you to say this?
"Are they building nukes? Have you any evidence? Has anyone anywhere shown any evidence of this?"
They've pretty much announced their intent to nuke Israel. The Iranian dictatorship has even whipped up protests in the street: protests in favor of nuclear POWER, with a wink. Come on now, you know as we all do that these protests are in favor of Iran waging nuclear war.
"And the difference with America is what exactly? "
All the difference in the world. Unless you think it is OK for a regime to have nuclear weapons when they have announced their intent to exterminate an entire nation of millions of people.
"The simple answer is that the US wants to run the world "
You are a paranoid boob. The US has shown no signs of wanting to rule the world. It has shown every sign of wanting to help solve global problems, as when a rogue regime starts to go nuts. As before, the US ends up acting in concert and cooperation with a large number of allies.
"I know treaty obligations are meaningless to America and always have been, "
If that were true, we would not keep all our treaties as we have been doing for decades.
"but I think it's still worth pointing out that the only illegal action occuring in the Iran-nuke context is by America. "
The US actions in this regard are quite legal.
"Now, because of Rice and Bush ranting"
Do you know who Rice is? Probably not. She never rants. She never even raises her voice. She just tells it like it is.
"Once again, the problem American foreign policy is currently addressing in Iran is one created by American foreign policy"
The problem of Iranian nuclear aggression is entirely created by the Iranian regime. The US and the other nations are trying to solve and reduce the problem.
"Jews are just a scapegoat, much like the blacks, muslims, etc. Its a distraction."
And that must be why you supported the side of those who want to slaughter jews like goats? You did imply that the solution to the Arab-Israeli problem was to remove the Israelis. How would you do that? Gas ovens?
"Listen here, Rothschild is an extremely influential group"
Yeah. Yes. Certainly. Just like the Bildeburgers, the Rockefellers, Pinky and the Brain, the Trilateral Commission, the Illuminati, and the Men in Black.
"....mighty "nukular" subs and aircraft..."
I bet you had no idea that the only president who was an actual nuclear engineer pronounced it this way. Not surprising, you know little about anything else.
"He's far too cunning to actually BELIEVE"
You fail to accept that those who do not have the same religion as you do can STILL have sincere belief. What arrogance. I'll let your false claims about Bush go by the wayside. Wild blind partisan lies like yours defeat themselves.
"Humans that could and would do this are rare, and we all have some WANT"
Your wants and needs are not the same as another's wants and needs. Whether or not something is a want or need depends on your viewpoint and situation.
"Didn't your mother teach you that "excess is bad" ? "
Yeah. She also taught me to mind my own business.
[i]Well, I guess if I'm going to be accused of firebombing I guess I really can accuse the entire Muslim community of 9/11. What's the old saying? What's good for the goose is good for the gander?[i]
Difference being, the actions of the U.S. is being done by a government elected by the people. As a citizen, I do feel somewhat responsible for the wrongs done by our government. They get their powr through us. Osama Bin Laden is a criminal supported by religious fundamentalists. He wasn't voted in to any form of office by the muslim world. Terrorists can operate with less then 1% of the population supporting them.
Even if they can't do something fancy, it doesn't take a lot of resouces to blow yourself up.
Hmmm... Pie...
Almost winked at - check.
Being on the FBI top ten list is "almost being winked at"? I think you need to go check your facts. There was probably more manhours spent on the hunt of Eric Rudolph than the vast majority of crimes! Let's not kid ourselves about this. And certainly no government entity housed him either.
Let me tell you, our own radical religious minority is just as dangerous, and they operate with a lot of people saying "well, I don't agree with their tactics, but they're defending children, so I won't stand in their way".
Just as dangerous as people who killed 3000 in a single attack? Again, check your facts. Let's see the danger you speak of. How many people have died at abortion clinics in the US since 1973? I defy you to prove me wrong.
Of course, you'll throw in the spin that I'm defending them but the truth is far from it. But you'll doubtlessly try to put a spin on it instead of coming up with some numbers to defend your position. Insightful? Hardly.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Because Hamas doesn't kill Americans, only Jews.
If we went to war anytime somebody killed a Jew, we'd, no wait...
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Well, that and they'd like to categorize the people who criticize them as "terrorists."
Once the public accepts that "propaganda is necessary" and "this is a war of ideas," they'll see that as a mandate to crack down on the "enemy ideas."
Under this government's preferred reading of current law, you are technically providing support to terrorists by criticizing American leaders.
The US government is composed of adults who can discern between people trying to kill Americans with explosives, poison, bullets, knives, or radioactive materials versus those who don't like its policy and express their disagreement verbally or in writing. One is going to get you in big trouble, maybe even killed, and the other might get a laugh behind closed doors. Sadly, you don't seem to be able to figure it out. Here is a hint: Since the media currently feels completely free and comfortable exposing ongoing CIA and NSA operations against the same terrorists who are trying to kill Americans by the millions, what makes you fantasize that the government will be rounding up people who simply criticize it? What a wonderful example of nonsense.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
The US government is composed of adults who can discern between people trying to kill Americans
Hardly. If you're not with them, you're with the terrorists.
And those terrorists consist of 1) an isolated, sanctioned, former western-puppet dictator throwing a few petrodollars at Palestinians and threatening to move to the Euro, 2) a Islamist republic standing in the way of Israeli domination of the Middle East, developing nuclear power in violation of a treaty signed by a previous western-puppet dictator, moving it's petrodollars to the Euro, and helping other OPEC countries do the same, 3) an isolated, sanctioned, communist-puppet dictator with poofy hair that already has nuclear weapons, and is threatening to use them unless it gets more US food and oil for its million-man army and failing socialist economy, 4) a small band of religious fundamentalists "oppressing" women in the poorest country on earth, preventing the opium harvest, and standing in the way of a Unocal pipeline from the Caspian, and, lest we forget, 5) a former CIA operative who flew planes into the two of the tallest buildings in the US, killing thousands of Americans.
This is the clear-headed leadership you envision? Assuming so, which "terrorist" do you suppose a "discerning adult" would attack first?
Nice article, btw. It clearly shows not that they want to, but that they feel justified in killing or injuring millions of us because we have killed or injured millions of them. Again, evil "terrorists" who fight back when attacked. *shock*
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
As if you needed any proof that Fox News plays favorites with the right, maybe you should read the 923 items at the link detailing lies, misinformation, and right-wing bias brought to you by the Fox News Channel.
http://mediamatters.org/issues_topics/outlets/fox
When even Bill O'Reilly thinks the network slants to the right, maybe you should too.
When you are more likely to be misinformed as a Fox News viewer than as a consumer of any other channel on television, maybe you should change the channel.
http://www.alternet.org/story/16892/
Q: What did the comedian say to the crowd?
A: If I knew, this joke would be funny.
but false religion does according to the Bible
Babylon the Great, as it is called in the Bible, is the source of the concepts of trinity, clergy/laity divisions, immortality of the soul and others.
Revelation 18:26.
Create your own list of those that have been involved in political conflicts like World War I, World War II and the Rwandan genocide just for recent examples of professed worshippers of God slaughtering others.
"Israel has actually announced that they'll bomb Iran if they start building basically anything that they don't like the look of."
Incorrect. Israel says they will bomb Iranian nuclear weapons factories. This is reasonable: Iran has announced its intention to nuke Israel. Israel striking back is self defense.
"If Cuba said that about America you'd be singing a different song, wouldn'd you, my little warmonger?"
Yes indeed, because the situation is very very different.
"Funny how the problems it wants to solve are always the ones that make money, isn't it?"
Like Kosovo???????
"As before the allies have been told to get on side or find out what the wrath of the US will mean in trade terms. "
So? Why not cut off trade with countries that decide to the wrong thing.
"No you haven't."
Yes, the treaties have been kept, except for those Indian treaties in the 19th century.
The US actions in this regard are quite legal
"International law is another thing America ignores at its whim."
The retaliation against Saddam's regime was quite legal.
"Yes, she is the ex-director of Chevron oil who has no qualifications for her job but has got there with the help of Dick Chaney"
Her wide experiences during the first four years of the Bush administration made her perfectly qualified for the Secretary of State job. The Senate, including Democrats, overwhelmingly approved her nomination.
"The Iranian election was very poor and far from fair. BUT IT WAS MORE OF AN ELECTION THAN RICE EVER FACED TO BECOME ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL PEOPLE IN THE WORLD. "
Your blind partisan rabidness is showing again. Can you name ONE United States Secretary of State who ever faced a national vote? (Hint: Carter's and Clinton's and Kennedy's sure did not either)
"What nucelar aggression?!"
They've announced a nuclear bomb building program, and the intent to use it in their prime foreign policy goal of exterminating another nation.
"Iran backing down now would screw up any chance of starting a war with them, and that would be a disaster for the rabble of cutpurses that currently make up the American cabinet. "
Such silly conspiracy theories. It is obvious that the intent is to avoid war, and to get Iran to back down from its belligerance.
"I think American people are pretty decent when they know the facts but the propaganda machine keeps them in the dark."
Translation: people have access to the facts, so they all come to different conclusions than you do.
"Most don't even seem to know how many Americans have dies in Iraq, they certainly have no idea how many Iraqis because the government refuses to count them."
Why is such a census necessary? Iraq Body Count has stepped up to do the job.
"That's because they care about the oil. They don't give a shit about the Iraqis."
No, you are the one who doesn't give a shit about them. You wanted them to stay under Saddam's rule. I side with the Iraqi people. You choose to side with Saddam.
"Yeah, yeah. Arabs don't like jews"
u rope/31afp-iran.html?ex=1296363600&en=a9b804207336 fb47&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
We were discussing Iran, not any Arab country. Oh wait. I get it. You have proven that you know so little about anything that I bet you are one of those hicks who think that Iranians are "Ay-rabs!" This is too funny. Thanks for letting us know that those gawldang towelheads are all the same thing!
http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/001401.html
Concerning Iran's nuclear weapons program which you deny exists, here is some further documentation:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/31/international/e
If you don't know that Iranians are not "Ay-rabs", it is not surprising at all that you know nothing about their nuclear weapons building. I think you operate from a "hate the United States first" M.O. and let everything flow from that, including the idea that the U.S. is the ultimate arch-villain in everything, regardless of the facts.
As for your statement, "Saddam knows there isn't a God"? That is just a statement of your religious faith. You have a faith that there is no God, and you project it on others.
I love all of these "brave" Anonymous Coward posters. They are like the jihadists who wear ski masks to hide their faces--very brave indeed.
"Care about people's opinions and you will be their prisoner." ~~Tao Te Ching~~
"Not believing in fictional characters"
The assertion that God/etc is a fictional character is nothing more than an assertion of religious faith. It deserves to be treated like any other statement of religious faith.
"Certainly someone who commited the crimes that Saddam did could not have had any belief in gods."
It does not logically follow at all. There is no causality, no relationship.
Truth, Justice, and the American Way of Life?
Last I checked, we're pushing Lies, we Torture and have been called on it by the UN and most countries, and the Middle Class is under attack.
The military can't win if people refuse to deal with reality.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The Gandalf example is entirely irrelevant. It's loaded: it pre-supposes the (your) religious assertion that God is a fictional character. Here is a much a better example in which we actually compare similar statements:
"God exists"
"God does not exist"
The two have the same content: assertions of "fact" concerning matters of religion (specifically, one quality of a deity). Explain what the difference is the and why first one is a matter of religion but not the second one.
"I already did. The second one is all one knows at birth"
The above statement with the word "knows" again pre-supposes your religious-faith assertion that God does not exist. A better wording for the argument might have been "the second is what one believes at birth". However, if we are looking at it from the most neutral and ignorant point of view, at birth someone doesn't know if God exists or not.
"The statement that god exists is a position one has to take up"
Yes. Just the same as the position that God does not exist.
"Not getting into a car for a drive is not a type of journey, and not beleving in a god is not a type of religion."
When you assert that God does not exist, you are driving down the road. The only way to avoid religion in this matter is to avoid making faith assertions. You could take the agnostic-type view and say "you don't know". If you think you know, you are on that journey.
"The key here is that non-existance is not a quality of a deity or anything else just as black is not a colour"
It is indeed a quality. Asserting one or the other? No different. Black is indeed a colour: just check any dictionary, or check your palette in Photoshop. Or go buy some paint! In fact, you have brought us to a very apt analogy. Black, red, brown, yellow etc are all colours: just as strong atheism, Buddhism, Christianity, etc are all religions.
" "God exists" and "Aslan exists" or "the Moomins are real, you know."
One apple. Two oranges. Again, you inject your faith into it and pre-suppose God is a fictional character.
You are earning a designation of "Moomin Troll". A +2 troll, however: anyone who brings Moomin into an argument deserves some positive mod points.
I appreciate the info!
So much of what you typed had nothing to do with anything that ever happened (Hint: the only guy who put Saddam in power is the same guy wearing Saddam's clothes). However, your reference to the PNAC shows you are a kind of black-helicopter braindead boob. (The PNAC document is irrelevant, and is associated with people who happen to be strongly anti-fascist). I sure hope you don't vote: people like you really don't deserve to be able to put their paranoid conspiracy-theory ravings into any sort of political power, no matter how small.
"And there's just a ton of evidence of government involvement and prior knowledge about the 2001 attacks"
"....another corporate conman war..."
Aha. more "corporate conspiracy" tinfoil helmet blatherings. It would help sometime if you bothered every once in a while to refer to actual historic events and real things people have done.
We both know there is none, other than the expected "cry wolf" previous mention that some terrorists might crash airplaines (along with a myriad other warnings of other possibilities). That's just one warning among many, and no government involvement. Please don't lie about things. If you really believe this, you should stop relying on the LaRouche websites. Either way, you are a nasty liar OR someone who is extremely gullible.
"You can dumb down and buffalo some of the people with constant overlapping lies of omission and outright lies, but not everyone"
That is exactly what you are trying to do, but I don't think you are fooling anyone.
...like some folks do. I mean, if you want to discuss wild assed whacko conspiracy theories, look no farther than any random executive branch press release...
The PNAC documents aren't relevant? Guys in big positions in government now who outlined what sneaky crap they were going to pull in the middle east and did it, based on the "new pearl harbor" 9-11 attacks? The 93 WTC attack, with a fed inside, yet the attack occurred, that's not relevant and a major clue? That's pretty relevant. The gulf of tonkin attacks, now admitted to be 99% fabrication? We aren't supposed to be seeing patterns here?
Sorry, I admit a long time ago being extremely naieve and just believing the government all the time...a long time ago...then I noticed the JFK whack..wenjt WTF?? and well, what they said about it certainly STUNK BAD. Pretty obvious there was more to it than the "lone nut". I gets to thinking... been paying attention since then.
Tell ya what, little about me. I worked for the goldwater campaign. I saw what these neocons are about, what they do, how they act, their character, what motivates them. You see, there was a big internal civil war of a sorts back then, and unfortunately, the "paleo" wing of the party lost, the side I supported, and still would if it even existed as an organized party, the neocons (we call them that now, didn't then) "won" and have controled the R party since. I saw it go down. You get it yet, they sabotaged their own "party" candidate, so that later on their wing would take over, and it did, and we still got them. These guys are lying murdering goons man. Give it up, you are being lead by chronic serial liars and blood profiteers. And that is just the regular cold hearted ones, there's some serious megalomaniacal "armageddon endtimes" nutjobs mixed in there, too, REAL scary guys. And they got some pretty high level cooperation going in with some elements in the dim party as well, along with some entrenched bureaucracy of the criminal sort, in both the civil, mil and paramil areas of "government". Not all, but enough and high enough so some pretty weird stuff goes down..and has been going down for a long time.. It's a racket, dig? A racket, a big fat giant trillion buck like the mafia but on turbo boost and nitro *racket*. That's it, it's that simple, they prove it over and over again. And 9-11? That stinks worse than the kennedy whack, them boys got their prints all over that, fits their MO to a T..
They don't care about other humans.
I don't WISH it that way, but I would be amiss, especially to any of the younger readers here, to not speak out against it. At least, give them a chance to think on things some and realise you DON'T have to take what the government says all the time at face value. that's a pretty important lesson to learn for anyone really. I've always had this pesky 'civic duty' deal with me. Some times I wish I didn't, but mostly I am OK with it, seems to be my old fashioned square boy scout nature. If I really thought they were right, righteous, making sense, on the up and up, were honest, etc, I would SAY SO. I would be OVERJOYED to be able to say so.
But I can't.
I ain't shy. None, zero. I gain nothing by saying what I say, other than trying to pass on a little insight, the best a dude can do based on personal anecdotal, data anlaysis, and the willingness to talk about things. I am not going to lie or sugar coat anything, no reason to, and it would be..hmm, how to put it.. just wrong,man, dishonest of me, I just don't *do* that. Sorry if it offends anyone but it's designed to make people think about what they have been told as opposed to what really happens and what is likely to happen.
I do hope you realize that George Bush is a Methodist. That is not and never was a fundamentalist brand of christianity. It's not my cup of tea (I'm romanian byzantine catholic) but if you're going to make the methodists into an unreliable sect that also knocks Hillary out as she belongs to the same Church.
George Bush was elected by a lot of people. You can bet that if he was really in the pocket of the fundamentalists we wouldn't have 5 Catholics on the USSC, the first time that's happened. Christian fundamentalists aren't known for being fond of us papists.
President Ahmadenijad is undertaking physical preparations for the arrival of the Mahdi in a way that is clear and unmistakable. Contrary to your fantasies, this is unique on the political world stage today.
"You see, there was a big internal civil war of a sorts back then, and unfortunately, the "paleo" wing of the party lost"
There are few neocons in power. (Remember the definition of neocon, which involves them being former socialists. When were Bush, Cheney, and Rice ever socialists????) What you have is regular ol' conservatives. The Paleocons were the ones who split off. You can see the wonderful ideas of paleocons in the columns of Pat Buchanan, as he blathers on about how Churchill was the aggressor and Hitler the victim in WW2, and about how we need Washington to control more of our private lives.
"I noticed the JFK whack..wenjt WTF?? "
That is kind of a litmus test for the conspiracy nutjob (whether or not someone believes the magic theories of multiple bullets and someone other than Oswald).
try again, troll, Garrison was on to something, pretty obvious. Anyway, that's enough, you can have the last word, no more replies to ACs.
~D
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
"People constantly criticize the US for supporting bad, violent, etc, leaders. Well, as soon as we remove one, that we did at one time support, why are people still upset at the US? Shouldn't you people congratulate us for finally recognizing at least ONE of our past mistakes and taking steps to correct it?"
Oh I don't think our actions had anything to do with correcting a past mistake. You have a real uphill battle to support that point of view.
I'm thinking that it is far more likely that we wanted a permanent military presents in the region. I'm sure that there are those in the Administration who feel it never hurts to have a big stick in an oil rich area of the world.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
the gov't is spending more money on propaganda then on the actual reconstruction. Gee, I wonder what speaks louder, an article that says that the US is rebuilding Iraq and things are getting better, or the crazy terrorist who is blowing up religious shrines and killing people. Maybe if Rummy actually tried to fix the problems he and his boss created he would have better luck.
Fool me once...shame on you, fool me twice...won't be fooled again (our president)