Re: Torture and war « Reply #165 on Mar 19, 2008, 2:03pm »
It's not a matter of just a little confusion of beliefs. Al Qaeda attacked the United States on 9/11 and is a legitimate target of the United States. Linking them to Iran then links Iran to the perpetrators of 9/11. And then....
Joined: May 2006 Gender: Male Posts: 5,579 Location: Terra / Solomani Rim 1827
Re: Torture and war « Reply #166 on Mar 19, 2008, 2:54pm »
Quote:
Since you chose to completely miss my point, let me hammer it home for you...
Oh I saw your point, I just didn't see much point in commenting on it.
Quote:
It scares the crap out of me that a man who could be president could be so easily confused about things that directly relate to the security of this country.
I'm more worried about possible presidents who will leave the people of Iraq to the tender mercies of the terrorists than about John McCain's ability to tell Shi'ite from Sunni. If Barack Obama made the same flub I wouldn't hold it against him either.
'How shall a man judge what to do in such times?' 'As he ever has judged,' said Aragorn. 'Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves, and another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.'
Joined: May 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 4,620 Location: Lost Deimos Moonbase
Re: Torture and war « Reply #167 on Mar 19, 2008, 4:25pm »
Hang on, you guys are arguing over if a Presidential Candidate should know the difference between sects of a religion they likely don't even understand, when the current president didn't even know who the President of Mexico was before being elected and thought the Taliban played instruments (okay so the last was a little harsh since it appears he might have misheard the question, but still...) BTW has anyone asked Hillary or Barak to explain the difference?
It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. -- JayUtah
"On two occasions, I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." -- Charles Babbage (1791-1871)
wdmundt Guest
Re: Torture and war « Reply #168 on Mar 19, 2008, 4:32pm »
We aren't arguing about whether or not he should know about the differences. It is about whether or not he should know if Iran is supporting al Qaeda. Different argument and a completely different meaning if he doesn't know the answer.
Joined: May 2006 Gender: Male Posts: 5,579 Location: Terra / Solomani Rim 1827
Re: Torture and war « Reply #169 on Mar 19, 2008, 5:10pm »
Hmmm. Perhaps I should wait until I can view the original video (at home, as I can't do it here at work) before commenting further. I thought we were talking about not knowing the difference between Sunni and Shiite. Claims that Iran is assisting Al Qaeda are a different matter, because that's entirely possible and some intelligence reports have suggested it is happening.
'How shall a man judge what to do in such times?' 'As he ever has judged,' said Aragorn. 'Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves, and another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.'
wdmundt Guest
Re: Torture and war « Reply #170 on Mar 19, 2008, 5:28pm »
Not in the way that McCain states. Joe Lieberman has to correct him and he then corrects himself.
'How shall a man judge what to do in such times?' 'As he ever has judged,' said Aragorn. 'Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves, and another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.'
Joined: May 2006 Gender: Male Posts: 5,579 Location: Terra / Solomani Rim 1827
Re: Torture and war « Reply #173 on Mar 20, 2008, 12:19pm »
"I have failed to liberate Iraq, and transform its society into an Islamic society." -Moqtada al-Sadr, in the Asharq Al Awsat newpaper, March 8, 2008
Moqtada al-Sadr was dubbed "The Most Dangerous man in Iraq" by a Newsweek cover story in 2006. He has just unilaterally extended the ceasefire he imposed on his Mahdi Army militia last summer, and he issued a statement which not only included that declearation of defeat, but also lamented the new fissures in his own movement. Sadr became very close to establishing a state-within-a-state in Iraq. His followers basically controlled the Shiite Sadr City (named after his father) portion of Baghdad and large swaths of southern Iraq in 2006. His Mahdi army set up their own security checkpoints, took control of gas stations, and set up Sharia courts to administer justice (death, typically) against Iraqi Shiite "heretics". By the end of 2006 US military officials concluded that sectarian violence had surpassed Al Qaeda and the insurgency as the principal threat to Iraqi stability. Then in 2007 the surge began, and the US military decided to start providing the security that had been Sadr's claim to the hearts and minds of the people. Ethno-sectarian violence declined 90% from June 2007 to March 2008. Sunni attacks against Shiites declined, and Sadr found his empire crumbling around him. Newsweek predicted in 2006 "the longer the American occupation lasts, the less popular America gets -- and the more popular Sadr and his ilk become." New polls by ABC shows that support for Shiite local militias has in fact plummeted over the past year. Sadr has been marginalized by the new tactics of the Surge, and he knows it.
'How shall a man judge what to do in such times?' 'As he ever has judged,' said Aragorn. 'Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves, and another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.'
Joined: May 2006 Gender: Male Posts: 5,579 Location: Terra / Solomani Rim 1827
Re: Torture and war « Reply #174 on Mar 24, 2008, 1:56pm »
We mentioned a little earlier on this list the Pentagon report that said, based on translated Iraqi government files, that there was no clear operational link between the government of Iraq and Al Qaeda. Well, apparently this is true, but what most press reports failed to mention is that the document provides plenty of evidence that the CIA actually undersetimated Iraq's ties with other terrorist groups. "The rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the region gave Saddam the opportunity to make terrorism, one of the few tools remaining in Saddam's 'coercion' toolbox, not only cost effective but a formal instrument of state power," the report concludes. The IIS (Iraqi Intelligence Service) cooperated with Hamas, the PLF, Force 17, and others. It provided training for Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the "emir" of which, Ayman al-Zawahiri, later became Osama Bin Laden's #2 man when EIJ merged with Al Qaeda in 1998. According to the report the secular Saddam was perfectly willing to work with religious extremists to hurt the U.S. The documents "reveal that the regime was willing to co-opt or support organizations it knew to be part of al Qaeda -- as long as that organization's near-term goals supported Saddam's long-term version." For 20 years this support included Fedayeen Saddam training camps to train terrorists, especially Palestinians but also non-Iraqi's "directly associated" with al Qaeda. After 9/11 the IIS stockpiled weapons in Iraqi embassies overseas and began to manufacture IEDs "designed to be used in civilian areas," and local Baath Party leaders competed to provide recruits to the "Martyrdom Project."
So whereas the report fails to show an operational link between Iraq and Al Qaeda, it definitely shows a link between Iraq and terrorism.
'How shall a man judge what to do in such times?' 'As he ever has judged,' said Aragorn. 'Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves, and another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.'
Joined: May 2006 Gender: Male Posts: 5,579 Location: Terra / Solomani Rim 1827
Re: Torture and war « Reply #175 on Mar 26, 2008, 12:50pm »
Researchers at Harvard performed a study that shows that publicly voiced doubts about the Iraqi war here in the U.S. have a measurable "emboldenment effect" on the terrorists there.
Quote:
Periods of intense news media coverage in the United States of criticism about the war, or of polling about public opinion on the conflict, are followed by a small but quantifiable increases in the number of attacks on civilians and U.S. forces in Iraq, according to a study by Radha Iyengar, a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in health policy research at Harvard and Jonathan Monten of the Belfer Center at the university's Kennedy School of Government. The increase in attacks is more pronounced in areas of Iraq that have better access to international news media, the authors conclude in a report titled "Is There an 'Emboldenment' Effect? Evidence from the Insurgency in Iraq."
The study can be found here. This goes back to something I've said often, that the biased negative media coverage the war has received has in fact intensified it, and caused the loss of more lives.
Fortunately, with the success of the Surge this biased negative media coverage has dropped off quite a bit. As James Taranto put it yesterday: " If the Harvard study is right, we may be looking at a virtuous circle: Less violence means less media coverage, which in turn means less violence. Perhaps one day we'll wake up to discover that America won the war in Iraq months earlier, but no one noticed because the reporters were all busy with other things."
'How shall a man judge what to do in such times?' 'As he ever has judged,' said Aragorn. 'Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves, and another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.'
wdmundt Guest
Re: Torture and war « Reply #176 on Mar 26, 2008, 4:50pm »
If the media hadn't so happily played along with the run-up to the war and then ooohed and aaahed about "shock and awe," maybe we wouldn't have gotten into the stupid war in the first place. The "embedded" news reporters and their networks did not give much in the way of healthy criticism during the build-up or during the invasion. The job of the media is to hold those in power accountable and this was not done before the war. It was only quite some time into the war -- when if became bleedingly obvious that things were deteriorating -- that the reporting became more realistic (or "biased" as you would call it). It isn't biased media, it is bad media that is the problem.
Not covering events in a war that has killed 4,000 US soldiers is a bad idea.
Joined: May 2006 Gender: Male Posts: 5,579 Location: Terra / Solomani Rim 1827
Re: Torture and war « Reply #177 on Mar 26, 2008, 4:59pm »
I don't think there should be no media coverage of Iraq, merely that the media went overboard to play up a negative image of the war and that their negative coverage caused real damage. A more balanced view of events would have benefited both nations better.
I remember quite a bit of reporting in the run-up to the war that threw around the possibility of being mired in a "quagmire" of some kind. True, few of them predicted what actually happened - they were focused on the idea that Saddam's armed forces would fight harder than predicted, or that biological or chemical weapons would hurt more of our troops, or even that a sandstorm would cause the American advance to bog down - but it's inaccurate to say the media painted an entirely positive picture before the war or during the initial invasion. EDIT: In fact, one of the reasons President Bush made a big deal about the now infamous "Mission Accomplished" end of major combat operations against the Iraqi military was that the invasion itself had gone so much better than its critics had predicted it would.
So I guess I agree with you that bad media is a problem, we just differ a bit on the details of what constitutes bad media in this instance.
'How shall a man judge what to do in such times?' 'As he ever has judged,' said Aragorn. 'Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves, and another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.'
Joined: May 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 4,620 Location: Lost Deimos Moonbase
Re: Torture and war « Reply #178 on Mar 26, 2008, 6:32pm »
Quote:
If the media hadn't so happily played along with the run-up to the war and then ooohed and aaahed about "shock and awe," maybe we wouldn't have gotten into the stupid war in the first place. The "embedded" news reporters and their networks did not give much in the way of healthy criticism during the build-up or during the invasion. The job of the media is to hold those in power accountable and this was not done before the war. It was only quite some time into the war -- when if became bleedingly obvious that things were deteriorating -- that the reporting became more realistic (or "biased" as you would call it). It isn't biased media, it is bad media that is the problem.
Not covering events in a war that has killed 4,000 US soldiers is a bad idea.
Out of curiousity, how many Reporters were embedded with the troops landing during D-Day when the US lost over 3000 troops as either KIA or MIA in less than 24 hours?
« Last Edit: Mar 26, 2008, 6:33pm by PhantomWolf »
It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. -- JayUtah
"On two occasions, I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." -- Charles Babbage (1791-1871)
wdmundt Guest
Re: Torture and war « Reply #179 on Mar 26, 2008, 6:53pm »
Are you saying Iraq is like World War II? Hitler declared war on the United States and was actively attacking the United States in the Atlantic, so the situation was completely different. In the Iraq conflict, there was no clear justification to go to war, as there was in WWII.
Hard questions should have been asked and pressed home by the media during the run-up to the Iraq war. They were not.
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