I can see why. It's a form of essentialist thinking: the FBI isn't really doing anything wrong because they're only showing up what is already there. In other words, the amount of enabling is irrelevant. These rotten apples have to be removed and then everything will be bright and shiny again.
Contrast this with another view: where a considerable fraction of people at some point is willing to do something very ugly. Think of the tail of a gauss curve. And this fraction varies over time. Now the challenge is to keep this fraction low, to avoid things boiling over. And to intercept those that come too close to action. It's very different.I think it's much more realistic.
While the case in the article seems a clearcut case of entrapment I think you'll find sting and entrapment overlap in the real world. There are clearcut cases for each, there are cases where it's harder to draw the line, and there are cases where there is overlap. As soon as you start setting up your sting operation you have to be aware that you'll also be masking signs of entrapment. It becomes harder to say if the people involved would have gone ahead without your operation. You can be convinced they would have gone ahead but this is judgement.
So part of the decisionmaking has to be an analysis of how reliably you can monitor activity without interference. If you can follow the evolution well enough there should not be intervention because as soon as you interfere you will be encouraging and enabling.
I don't think there has to be a world of difference between initiating, infiltrating, and facilitating. I'll list some relevant thoughts.
- there's a large reservoir of people who think about doing terrorist attacks. - there's a large reservoir of people whose thoughts are really scary when you pay close attention to them while from a distance it's easy to dismiss them. - most of the people in the reservoir never get around to it. If you don't count vandalism and arson. - an inbetween fraction of the people that is pretty large can be coaxed into participating with a terror attack. - an effective way to get information about a plan is to infiltrate - an effective way to infiltrate is to facilitate, to offer help - it is hard to tell when facilitating makes things happen that otherwise wouldn't. - some people have lousy judgement in telling what terror plots amount to a realistic threat.
So I think it's not easy to tell when the FBI is deliberately nurturing a plot that they know would not amount to anything otherwise. But I also think most of what they come up with will be the hyped modest threat type
No it's a different type of math actually. Just like lightspeed minus another speed remains lightspeed, 50 years minus 10 years remains 50 years. It takes a bit of getting used to but after a while you start to see that it makes perfect sense. You just have to get used to the different math.
Yes, framing fits. And people have very little skill when it involves taking control of framing.
My general feeling is that people aren't as immune as they think for nazi era ideologies. Dismissing 'Mein Kampf' for its bad writing? Easily fixed with a good ghostwriter. The hate issue? Not essential at all. Nazism was to a large extent a feel good ideology. With unfortunate collateral victims. When you decide some people are lesser people and you strive for a pure and superior people, then the decision to eliminate all the lesser people really doesn't have to be a matter of hate. And thinking you're safe because you're not hating, really does not offer much protection.
That's an interesting concept, I'd never heard of it. But it's not what I mean. The Overton window would be what makes the Mighty Wurlitzer successful. For example in the case of Iran's nuclear weapons it currently means that if a person wants to be reasonable, it's impossible to claim that Iran does not want nuclear weapons. It makes you sound naive and ignorant. The most extreme position that is deemed acceptable is that it is perfectly understandable for Iran to want them.
The agenda setting mechanism is different. It can happen on a very individual level. It's about what questions you ask, or what questions someone makes you ask. The perception of a situation can change wildly if you ask different questions.
I've always held that the German/French stance of stopping people talking about, reading about, selling "memorabilia" of these things only makes things WORSE.
I don't know if that's true. In any case I think there's no "law" that makes things improve or get worse by either bringing things in the open or hiding them. You can bring things out and try to make people understand them correctly, but there is no guarantee things will turn out for the better and certainly not without effort. So while I approve of the policy not to suppress things, I don't believe it will always give good results.
Well I hope your'e right but making it just a matter of intelligence sounds terribly naive to me. My problem is with what's commonly called "Agenda setting". I know little about the book's content but I know that I know that there is a lot of "blaming the Jews for things they did". Now if you take identifiable group X , and if they have some political relevance, and if you start listing all the things you think they are doing wrong, the average reader will dismiss some items, will agree with other items, and will partially agree with other items. And then you notice that the discussion revolves around "what they really did wrong" with people agreeing and disagreeing on it. And the people disagreeing sometimes taking unreasonable positions in defense because (you happen to know any group of people that are completely innocent?) really they allowed the central issue to shift to whether group X is totally innocent or not innocent at all. The degree of innocence shouldn't matter. When someone is inclined to a strategy of radical eliminating the undesirable people, do you want the discussion to shift to how real the problems are/were with the Roma, the Jews, the Communists, the gays, the handicapped, or the violent psychopaths and the child rapists? The central problem is the kind of radical thinking that wants to purify the population, the culture, the language and everything else. The central problem isn't hate either. It's possible to have this radical philosophy without any feelings of hate, and in fact to perceive them as very positive.
As long as its facilities are not bomb-proof, "the program is too vulnerable, in Iran's view. If the supreme religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wants, he will advance it to the acquisition of a nuclear bomb, but the decision must first be taken. It will happen if Khamenei judges that he is invulnerable to a response. I believe he would be making an enormous mistake, and I don't think he will want to go the extra mile. I think the Iranian leadership is composed of very rational people. But I agree that such a capability, in the hands of Islamic fundamentalists who at particular moments could make different calculations, is dangerous."
The claim that Khamenei would decide to build nukes if given the chance is weak, but at least Gantz says Khamenei is very rational.
I don't think many policymakers care about the religious zealot issue. Not with Iran. It's little more than power politics. Iran wants an independent course. For Israel the goal is to keep Iran small and to drive(maintain) a wedge between Iran and the US. For the US it's more complicated. The more hegemonic style of thinking in the US wants full control, that means keep Iran under your thumb, and try to install a more pliant regime instead. This style overlaps with pro-Israel thinking and lobbying. The more realist strain of thinking is relatively weak. It would push the US towards better relations with Iran and giving them a role in the region. Israel won't like it but they can adapt. I think in the end this realist strain will win out - if no war is started inadvertently, but the longer they wait the worse the US will be off.
The israeli threat to attack is bluff to keep the US in check. They might get away with an attack in the short run, but a year later the US and Israel will only be much worse off. You can never be sure though because there is always the pressure to deliver on your bluff. It's important for Israel to keep asserting their freedom to freely strike anywhere.
Yes, US and Israeli intelligence - with all the uncertainties that come with such assessment - say that whatever there was, stopped or mostly stopped in 2003 . The NYTimes talks about it eg here http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/25/world/middleeast/us-agencies-see-no-move-by-iran-to-build-a-bomb.html?_r=1 . The confusion is normal because Western intelligence contracticts everything you hear so how can it take in account the IAEA. This confusion is especially large with the press themselves because they've been exposed to the full load of propaganda.
There have been discussions about the IAEA report and while the IAEA is currently overstating the problems with Iran, careful reading should show they're not making the strong claims people believe they're making. They're not saying Iran is working on a bomb, or probably working on a bomb, and what they're saying is a bit shaky. The Parchin story in particular is weak, and there is no plausible connection between the container for controlled explosions and work on nukes.
Maybe you're overstating things a bit but I roughly agree, and it's called nuclear capability. Iran is fully aware of the military capability of a civilian program, and this is part of their deterrence strategy. This is El Baradei's viewpoint and US and Israeli intelligence agrees with it. It is also a legitimate strategy.
An agreement with Iran would involve keeping the development time to a full bomb as long as possible and the safeguards as thorough as possible. The real sticking point lies elsewhere: normalization of relations with Iran will make them a regional player. Unfortunately that's happening anyway so the question for the US is whether they want to be part of it or not.
I don't see how pp would be implicating that. And your imagination is seriously lacking. A majority of Americans at some point believed Saddam was behind 9/11, and in the military it was over 80%.
The claims about Iran aiding Al Qaedy aren't very successful.. On the other hand currently 71% of americans think Iran already has nuclear weapons (CNN nationwide poll, quality of sampling not known). While at the same time the NYTimes has stopped claiming that the west suspects Iran is working on a bomb, as a result of intelligence services speaking out loud enough. The claim has been quietly modified to "Iran might want to use their civilian program to help them to make a bomb later on".
"A 2000 divorce led Price to let loose and pursue his dream."Sources say he's frequently been heard exclaiming "So you want me to get a nosejob hey? Hey? How's this for a nosejob!"
I think it's very worthwile to overhaul the general description of middle east conflicts as sunni vs shia. Not that it's wrong, certainly not in Iraq, but it misleading. Iran's strategy in the region doesn't rely on it in any case. It's easier for them to connect with other shia but they won't stop there. The new egyptian government is sunni. It allowed iranian ships through the Suez canal. That's the first time in 30 years. Iran tries to have a good relationship with Turkey, also mostly sunni.
I think the Saudis try to fuel sectarian divisions so that the conflict becomes Sunni vs Shia. But it follows from a containment strategy based on national interests. So you'll get salafist extremists trying to kill shia and people think that's because extremists. While it can also be "because it's in someone's (national) interest to support and incite those extremists". Shia|Sunni polarisation becomes a strategy, not a cause.
The role of Iran in Bahrain is distorted. The idea that the shia want to revolt because Iran put them up to it is outright silly. All Iran needs to do is try to establish a friendly relationship with the opposition. And then wait.
"assassination arm" sounds so subordinate. But yes, there is sufficient confirmation that MEK and Mossad are working together. The US provided the training. Articles about US and Mossad involment are at foreignpolicy, msnbc and the newyorker(in order of publication):
Nice, I didn't know Poe's law. My interpretation of Poe's law would probably be more friendly that most though. Or less friendly to the guys in the role of the superior intellect.
Not really joking. Let's call it "ironic emulation". The interesting/frustrating bit is that you've got the guy doing the thinking all set up to conclude that since the simulation is nearly equivalent to the real thing, why should he bother about the difference. But then he wiggles out again by introducing free will/guilt/responsibility. The more general question is how an intelligent inquisitive person can continue to believe in creationism.
Slashdot Mirror
I also think parents should not allowed to be alone with their kids. Bad things have been known to happen. Fact!
Sharks are cool and they know it.
I can see why. It's a form of essentialist thinking: the FBI isn't really doing anything wrong because they're only showing up what is already there. In other words, the amount of enabling is irrelevant. These rotten apples have to be removed and then everything will be bright and shiny again.
Contrast this with another view: where a considerable fraction of people at some point is willing to do something very ugly. Think of the tail of a gauss curve. And this fraction varies over time. Now the challenge is to keep this fraction low, to avoid things boiling over. And to intercept those that come too close to action. It's very different.I think it's much more realistic.
If i google for "moron" site:slashdot.org there are only 27000 hits. Is this a bug or is google filtering it out , together with "the" and "and"?
While the case in the article seems a clearcut case of entrapment I think you'll find sting and entrapment overlap in the real world. There are clearcut cases for each, there are cases where it's harder to draw the line, and there are cases where there is overlap. As soon as you start setting up your sting operation you have to be aware that you'll also be masking signs of entrapment. It becomes harder to say if the people involved would have gone ahead without your operation. You can be convinced they would have gone ahead but this is judgement.
So part of the decisionmaking has to be an analysis of how reliably you can monitor activity without interference. If you can follow the evolution well enough there should not be intervention because as soon as you interfere you will be encouraging and enabling.
I don't think there has to be a world of difference between initiating, infiltrating, and facilitating. I'll list some relevant thoughts.
- there's a large reservoir of people who think about doing terrorist attacks.
- there's a large reservoir of people whose thoughts are really scary when you pay close attention to them while from a distance it's easy to dismiss them.
- most of the people in the reservoir never get around to it. If you don't count vandalism and arson.
- an inbetween fraction of the people that is pretty large can be coaxed into participating with a terror attack.
- an effective way to get information about a plan is to infiltrate
- an effective way to infiltrate is to facilitate, to offer help
- it is hard to tell when facilitating makes things happen that otherwise wouldn't.
- some people have lousy judgement in telling what terror plots amount to a realistic threat.
So I think it's not easy to tell when the FBI is deliberately nurturing a plot that they know would not amount to anything otherwise. But I also think most of what they come up with will be the hyped modest threat type
No it's a different type of math actually. Just like lightspeed minus another speed remains lightspeed, 50 years minus 10 years remains 50 years. It takes a bit of getting used to but after a while you start to see that it makes perfect sense. You just have to get used to the different math.
Yes, framing fits. And people have very little skill when it involves taking control of framing.
My general feeling is that people aren't as immune as they think for nazi era ideologies. Dismissing 'Mein Kampf' for its bad writing? Easily fixed with a good ghostwriter. The hate issue? Not essential at all. Nazism was to a large extent a feel good ideology. With unfortunate collateral victims. When you decide some people are lesser people and you strive for a pure and superior people, then the decision to eliminate all the lesser people really doesn't have to be a matter of hate. And thinking you're safe because you're not hating, really does not offer much protection.
I dare anyone to say that it isn't a horribly written egowankfest. Say it with a straight face.
How many tries do I get?
That's an interesting concept, I'd never heard of it. But it's not what I mean. The Overton window would be what makes the Mighty Wurlitzer successful. For example in the case of Iran's nuclear weapons it currently means that if a person wants to be reasonable, it's impossible to claim that Iran does not want nuclear weapons. It makes you sound naive and ignorant. The most extreme position that is deemed acceptable is that it is perfectly understandable for Iran to want them.
The agenda setting mechanism is different. It can happen on a very individual level. It's about what questions you ask, or what questions someone makes you ask. The perception of a situation can change wildly if you ask different questions.
I don't know if that's true. In any case I think there's no "law" that makes things improve or get worse by either bringing things in the open or hiding them. You can bring things out and try to make people understand them correctly, but there is no guarantee things will turn out for the better and certainly not without effort. So while I approve of the policy not to suppress things, I don't believe it will always give good results.
Well I hope your'e right but making it just a matter of intelligence sounds terribly naive to me. My problem is with what's commonly called "Agenda setting". I know little about the book's content but I know that I know that there is a lot of "blaming the Jews for things they did". Now if you take identifiable group X , and if they have some political relevance, and if you start listing all the things you think they are doing wrong, the average reader will dismiss some items, will agree with other items, and will partially agree with other items. And then you notice that the discussion revolves around "what they really did wrong" with people agreeing and disagreeing on it. And the people disagreeing sometimes taking unreasonable positions in defense because (you happen to know any group of people that are completely innocent?) really they allowed the central issue to shift to whether group X is totally innocent or not innocent at all. The degree of innocence shouldn't matter. When someone is inclined to a strategy of radical eliminating the undesirable people, do you want the discussion to shift to how real the problems are/were with the Roma, the Jews, the Communists, the gays, the handicapped, or the violent psychopaths and the child rapists? The central problem is the kind of radical thinking that wants to purify the population, the culture, the language and everything else. The central problem isn't hate either. It's possible to have this radical philosophy without any feelings of hate, and in fact to perceive them as very positive.
If you want an example (from today)contradicting the 'religious zealots' thinking: IDF chief of staff Bruno Gantz http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/idf-chief-to-haaretz-i-do-not-believe-iran-will-decide-to-develop-nuclear-weapons-1.426389
The claim that Khamenei would decide to build nukes if given the chance is weak, but at least Gantz says Khamenei is very rational.
I don't think many policymakers care about the religious zealot issue. Not with Iran. It's little more than power politics. Iran wants an independent course. For Israel the goal is to keep Iran small and to drive(maintain) a wedge between Iran and the US. For the US it's more complicated. The more hegemonic style of thinking in the US wants full control, that means keep Iran under your thumb, and try to install a more pliant regime instead. This style overlaps with pro-Israel thinking and lobbying. The more realist strain of thinking is relatively weak. It would push the US towards better relations with Iran and giving them a role in the region. Israel won't like it but they can adapt.
I think in the end this realist strain will win out - if no war is started inadvertently, but the longer they wait the worse the US will be off.
The israeli threat to attack is bluff to keep the US in check. They might get away with an attack in the short run, but a year later the US and Israel will only be much worse off. You can never be sure though because there is always the pressure to deliver on your bluff. It's important for Israel to keep asserting their freedom to freely strike anywhere.
Yes, US and Israeli intelligence - with all the uncertainties that come with such assessment - say that whatever there was, stopped or mostly stopped in 2003 . The NYTimes talks about it eg here http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/25/world/middleeast/us-agencies-see-no-move-by-iran-to-build-a-bomb.html?_r=1 . The confusion is normal because Western intelligence contracticts everything you hear so how can it take in account the IAEA. This confusion is especially large with the press themselves because they've been exposed to the full load of propaganda.
There have been discussions about the IAEA report and while the IAEA is currently overstating the problems with Iran, careful reading should show they're not making the strong claims people believe they're making. They're not saying Iran is working on a bomb, or probably working on a bomb, and what they're saying is a bit shaky. The Parchin story in particular is weak, and there is no plausible connection between the container for controlled explosions and work on nukes.
Gareth Porter has been following the IAEA work for years now so you could read up on that. Here's Seymour Hersh's articles about the matter.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2011/11/iran-and-the-iaea.html
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/06/06/110606fa_fact_hersh?currentPage=all
The poll I was referring to is two years old, so it could use an update.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/02/19/cnn-poll-american-believe-iran-has-nuclear-weapons/
Maybe you're overstating things a bit but I roughly agree, and it's called nuclear capability. Iran is fully aware of the military capability of a civilian program, and this is part of their deterrence strategy. This is El Baradei's viewpoint and US and Israeli intelligence agrees with it. It is also a legitimate strategy.
An agreement with Iran would involve keeping the development time to a full bomb as long as possible and the safeguards as thorough as possible. The real sticking point lies elsewhere: normalization of relations with Iran will make them a regional player. Unfortunately that's happening anyway so the question for the US is whether they want to be part of it or not.
I don't see how pp would be implicating that. And your imagination is seriously lacking. A majority of Americans at some point believed Saddam was behind 9/11, and in the military it was over 80%.
The claims about Iran aiding Al Qaedy aren't very successful.. On the other hand currently 71% of americans think Iran already has nuclear weapons (CNN nationwide poll, quality of sampling not known). While at the same time the NYTimes has stopped claiming that the west suspects Iran is working on a bomb, as a result of intelligence services speaking out loud enough. The claim has been quietly modified to "Iran might want to use their civilian program to help them to make a bomb later on".
"A 2000 divorce led Price to let loose and pursue his dream."Sources say he's frequently been heard exclaiming "So you want me to get a nosejob hey? Hey? How's this for a nosejob!"
Nah, it just smells funny. Where's your sense of humour?
I think it's very worthwile to overhaul the general description of middle east conflicts as sunni vs shia. Not that it's wrong, certainly not in Iraq, but it misleading. Iran's strategy in the region doesn't rely on it in any case. It's easier for them to connect with other shia but they won't stop there. The new egyptian government is sunni. It allowed iranian ships through the Suez canal. That's the first time in 30 years. Iran tries to have a good relationship with Turkey, also mostly sunni.
I think the Saudis try to fuel sectarian divisions so that the conflict becomes Sunni vs Shia. But it follows from a containment strategy based on national interests. So you'll get salafist extremists trying to kill shia and people think that's because extremists. While it can also be "because it's in someone's (national) interest to support and incite those extremists". Shia|Sunni polarisation becomes a strategy, not a cause.
The role of Iran in Bahrain is distorted. The idea that the shia want to revolt because Iran put them up to it is outright silly. All Iran needs to do is try to establish a friendly relationship with the opposition. And then wait.
"assassination arm" sounds so subordinate. But yes, there is sufficient confirmation that MEK and Mossad are working together. The US provided the training. Articles about US and Mossad involment are at foreignpolicy, msnbc and the newyorker(in order of publication):
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/01/13/false_flag
http://rockcenter.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/08/10354553-israel-teams-with-terror-group-to-kill-irans-nuclear-scientists-us-officials-tell-nbc-news#star3
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/04/mek.html
It will depend on how you measure it. In a weighted count the modern weapons get a higher weight.
Nice, I didn't know Poe's law. My interpretation of Poe's law would probably be more friendly that most though. Or less friendly to the guys in the role of the superior intellect.
Not really joking. Let's call it "ironic emulation". The interesting/frustrating bit is that you've got the guy doing the thinking all set up to conclude that since the simulation is nearly equivalent to the real thing, why should he bother about the difference. But then he wiggles out again by introducing free will/guilt/responsibility. The more general question is how an intelligent inquisitive person can continue to believe in creationism.