Bush in Iraq
And speaking of propaganda, Bush’s visit to Iraq is a nice piece of it.
The quote I like the best:
I’ve come to not only look you in the eye. I’ve also come to tell you that when America gives its word, it keeps its word.
Especially poignant in light of this sad history.
If you believe it, Charles, then why do you not concern yourself with the truth/falsity ratio of the answer you gave to Conned?
If I’m arguing the truth or the falsity of what you said, and you believed what you said, that has applications to the subject as far as I can see.
Truth cannot be seen without a human component. So if you see something and if you believe something, that has to be justified, otherwise you should not believe it, because it isn’t the truth. And really, it isn’t the truth because there are no justifications nor reasons to believe that it is the truth. Or at least you don’t explain them, if they exist.
By the way, with regard to Iraqi blogs: how do you know that any given Iraqi blog (which has positive-sounding messages) is not part of the US government’s propaganda efforts to promote a positive feeling about the war?
Two reasons.
Because I know propaganda, and if this is propaganda, the home of Iraq the Model would be protected by Special Forces/Rangers. 24/7. Because of the lack of official recognition and official protection, it isn’t propaganda as propaganda should be conducted.
2nd reason. Bush doesn’t do propaganda. Bush doesn’t use Iraq the Model in order to win arguments, he does not conduct PR campaigns with the “brothers”, nor give any collaborating evidence that Bush is actually using Iraq the Model directly. Bush is either incompetent at propaganda, or Bush refuses to authorize any propaganda.
This is supported by the 2004 elections and Fallujah, among other things, and it is supported by how completely inefficient Bush is at convincing and selling his views.
Not completely ineffective, but less effective than Clinton.
Ymarsakar wrote:
I don’t use statistics to determine truth. 5 billion people could believe the US is an oppressive nation, but I as one man will still believe otherwise.
Fair enough, but notice that this is quite orthogonal to my post, as my post was not about matters of truth or falsity but a response to the question that neoneoconned had raised in his comment. He had asked:
“And how do you think that made Iraqis feel?”
Thus, the question I was responding to was did not concern truth-values at all. It was a question about “what I think” about what subjective opinions/feelings that Iraqis may have about this. And I wrote about what I think Iraqis might feel about the incident. Objectively, the only hope of what Iraqis feel about this incident can only be determined with a scientifically carried-out opinion poll or survey.
By the way, with regard to Iraqi blogs: how do you know that any given Iraqi blog (which has positive-sounding messages) is not part of the US government’s propaganda efforts to promote a positive feeling about the war? After all, the military has a budget for this sort of propaganda effort. (Likewise, for Iraqi blogs that have negative-sounding messages, we have no way of knowing that they are not part of the insurgent propaganda effort; we have to take all Iraqi blogs with a good deal of caution, I think, as there is no way to determine the authenticity of the bloggers).
One Iraqi individual’s subjective opinion posted on a blog can hardly be taken as representative of what the majority opinion is.
That one Iraqi, however, is greater than your own personal opinions, of course. Which is of course, the point I chose to make.
One opinion has no statistical significance.
I don’t use statistics to determine truth. 5 billion people could believe the US is an oppressive nation, but I as one man will still believe otherwise. Statistics concerns itself with inductive logic, I’d rather use deductive logic because it is far more accurate in discerning the truth of matters.
Polls are not opinions. People do not write down what they believe as a whole, they only write down answers to specific questions. Thus, a person could believe A, but not B, disbelieve C, and then say A makes them disbelieve B. While another person could say he disbelieves A, disbelieves B, and believes C but that A makes them disbelieve in B( the exact same conclusion as the former).
Polls are just pieces to the puzzle, without the bigger picture, it gives not the truth of the matter because the truth encompasses the whole of the picture and not just its specific parts.
Statistically speaking, you can catalogue the data about birds and have the result to be 900,000,000 out of 900,000,000 times that the bird you’ve catalogued is white. You are taking the position that these statistics give you a reason to say that the Truth then is that ALL birds are white. That is the inductive logical inference and conclusion.
However, the first time that you see a black bird, a crow, then obviously the truth then becomes changed. Hence when you use statistics to derive truth, you are creating a malformed and malleable truth, not a standard of inflexible diamond.
What matters now is not how many Iraqis believe this or that based upon statistics and polls, what matters is whether what you said here is true or not.
It probably made them feel what they already knew — that, in the US’s eyes, their government has no sovereignty.
Them being the Iraqis, all I have to do to disprove your opinion is to show an Iraqi that does not feel what you claim that they Iraqis feel. If you want to counter it, you must find your own examples of Iraqis believing as you have portrayed them as believing.
Ymarsakar,
One Iraqi individual’s subjective opinion posted on a blog can hardly be taken as representative of what the majority opinion is. One opinion has no statistical significance. Only opinion polls with wide enough sampling can give any idea, scientifically speaking, of what opinions are held within a group of people about an event, and with what percentages. So, pointing to a single blog opinion is not relevant at all, I’m afraid, statistically speaking.
But, for Iraq, those niceties are apparently not necessary. The president of the US can simply hop on a plane and land at five minutes’ notice, as if he were landing in Kansas, or Puerto Rico, or Alaska. No permission of the Iraqi government is needed.
Such is the comraderie and implicit trust in comrades of arms, the Band of Brothers. Those who have fought and shed blood together, need no written or spoken permissions.
Special relationships are obviously different than the relationship between strangers or enemies.
People define sovereignty as “the power to do what they want independent of what is real and what is reality”. I define sovereignty as “the right of the people to determine their government, laws, and taxation”.
It probably made them feel what they already knew — that, in the US’s eyes, their government has no sovereignty.
It probably made them feel that you’re putting your opinions in their mouth, pulling their strings like the puppetmaster. Contrary to reality, which is this.
It seems that President Bush’s visit to Baghdad has given more credibility for the operation; that at least was what I heard from people around me or read in Baghdad’s papers today; the visit definitely left a positive impression that America is dead serious this time about finding solutions for Iraq especially when it comes to security and critical parts of reconstruction like electricity.
http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/
When people think of sovereignty as being independent of reality, then they see visits by the President of the most powerful and influential nation in the world as a delegitimizing force. This is backed by Charles’ idea that the US has no right to exercise global power nor influence simply because of the facts of the matter. However, for Iraqis and Indians that understand that sovereignty is a thing recognized by others as much it is fundamentally derived from respecting the wishes and rights of the citizens of a sovereign country, they do understand that acquiring the approval and acceptance of the world’s foremost and lone superpower goes a long way towards establishing legitimacy and sovereignty.
Anyone who has not studied guerrila wars, rebellions, the Israeli fight for nationhood in 1949, or any other incidence in which people had to contest for the approval and legitimacy that the world could provide them, will have trouble understanding what sovereignty really means and how best to achieve it.
neoneoconned wrote:
> yeah well if he [Bush] had such
> great trust in the Iraqi PM how come
> he only gave five minutes notice he
> was coming?
There’s an even more important issue here than the trust issue. The point is, it is unthinkable that a U.S. president could simply go off and land in, say, France, or Germany, or any other sovereign country, without informing and seeking permission from that country’s head of state.
But, for Iraq, those niceties are apparently not necessary. The president of the US can simply hop on a plane and land at five minutes’ notice, as if he were landing in Kansas, or Puerto Rico, or Alaska. No permission of the Iraqi government is needed.
What this shows very clearly, is that Iraq’s government does not actually have any sovereignty: Iraq is treated by the US as if it were US territory — like Alaska or Hawaii — where the US president can simply fly in and land without taking any prior permission or information or authorization. The lord of the manor come to pay a visit.
Neoneoconned is quite right to raise the question that he raised, therefore: “And how do you think that made Iraqis feel?” It probably made them feel what they already knew — that, in the US’s eyes, their government has no sovereignty.
It was a very, very tone-deaf thing to do on the part of the US president.
douglas said…
100,000?
DU?
See here for confudes “dogged reliance upon the veracity of well rebutted and debunked “facts”.
5:09 AM, June 15, 2006
Well debunked by whom? Rebutted by those who refuse to provide casualty figures as required under the Geneva Conventions. The ones who say “we don’t honestly know”. Oh but that’s alright dougie a few ultranationalist blogsters have better facts. i.e. the ones that have the same agenda as you.
http://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=9349
They tried to shoot these messengers too but fell a little flat.
While I believe that the Baby Boomers questioned authority because the authority of the WWII generation was quite obvious, the newest generation, my generation, does not question authority because there is no authority other than fake liberal professors and business bosses.
There is none of the 15 year growing up period in which the Baby Boomers had time to rebel against their parents and formulate a philosophy based upon always fighting authority.
The authority of parents has been growing less and less, so in essence there is nothing to rebel against. Teenagers are increasing looking for more order and authority, in the weirdest of places. If they don’t find it, they feel helpless and a failure, and they either suicide, go on a columbine killing spree, or they do drugs to forget.
Too much order and parental protection (i.e. WWII) and you have the Baby Boomer 60s. Too little order and authority, and you have the 90s gang problems, drugs, and other psychotic episodes.
that will be it stephen, childhood incident explains those who oppose Bush.
*sigh*
I think what many can’t stand about President Bush is that he says things that are deeply moving; yet they’ve been taught to be so cynical, that any emotion they feel apart from anger is immediately suspect. Perhaps they felt very betrayed by an adult as children?
you need to get rid of that Brad guy, he is just a jerk
Why don’t we, doug, say that we did, and don’t.
100,000?
DU?
See here for confudes “dogged reliance upon the veracity of well rebutted and debunked “facts”.
If there is anything more pathetic than trolling, it is troll psychoanalysis.
I will engage the trolls at my pleasure. One can either delete me, delete the trolls (my preferred option), delete me and the trolls, or accept that one really prefers to have everyone talk (including the trolls) and stop blubbering about it.
Elements by which a troll may be identified:
1. Uses the topic at hand to segue onto hackneyed, oft-repeated unrelated matters. This segue need not be fluid or logical.
2. Gratuitous use of what Mike would define as “one-time funny” phrases and insults, directed equally toward public figures and fellow commenters.
3. An overall combative vice conversational tone, even when discussing the most mundane of topics.
4. A dogged reliance upon the veracity of well rebutted and debunked “facts”.
Generally, it has always seemed to me that the prototypical troll desparately wants the exposure and traffic of a popular blog but can’t do it themselves so they rely, instead, on hijacking a comment thread to get the attention and recognition they crave.
kungfu is only kungfu. I’ve posted here before.
I liked al fin’s satire because it makes fun of actors and agents in a non-intuitive manner. Sarcasm and comedy makes fun of people in parts and situations that others already believe to be true or that it could be true with a high probability.
It is a different kind of satire and irony to make fun of Bush when you support Bush, as a way of making fun of the people making fun of Bush. It shows a certain presence of humour, the ability to laugh at one self. Not because the things you believe are funny, but because you can see how others can think it is funny even if you don’t. Thus is empathy, and people who can’t laugh at themselves, who can only ridicule and laugh at their enemies and opponents, have no right to claim compassion.
Some on this site are called trolls because their behavior has deteriorated to an uncivil level.
At one point, one of them promised to behave and even expressed apparently sincere regrets. I’m sure being outnumbered is difficult, and the inevitable uncivil or less than intelligent comment directed at him sets him off.
It is unfortunate, when I found this site, it was the only one without rancor.
Perhaps this seemingly intelligent and prodigious poster would like to rise above the gutter into which he has fallen and rejoin civil society, knowing full well he will be subject to ridicule and name-calling at some point by some others on this site that lack restraint.
However, if your point, as you have so eloquently stated at times in various ways, is merely mischief, then I’m sure most of us will be skipping your posts, as I do now.
Neoneoconned’s witty and literate defense of trolls to the contrary, “al fin” (el fin?) provides exactly zero substance in his somewhat less witty and literate comment.
Trolling is somewhat off the main topic, which was something like “We keep our word, when in fact Viet Nam proved the opposite”. The things leading up to that debacle are many and complex – not the least of which is that we lost that one for the most part because of the war that was fought on the front pages of newspapers and on the nightly news. (And the North Vietnamese knew it, and took advantage of it.) Kerry even managed to play his not inconsiderable part in that loss.
Much the same thing is going on now – the nightly news tries to convince us that the cause is hopeless, that we are monsters for even thinking about toppling Saddam, that the world would enjoy peace and tranquility – that roses would bloom the world over – if only we brought our terrible killing machines back home.
LOL. Are you a fan of Deadwood?
Cooked up that one myself after reading about how the Muslims treat pig flesh as if they are eating human flesh. Then combined with the support of blackfive’s commentators responding to Z Man’s tortuous last 59 minutes, I combined human flesh and pig flesh to give the terroists a gourmet meal worthy of Guantanamo inmates. It’s better than bat guana, at least.
If so, it still doesn’t seem accurate to me, since many posts are provocative, yet those accused of “trolling” are only those with contrary views. Can I get a clarification?
Trolls, as best as I take it, means people engaging in sabotage and agent provocateur actions. As part of asymmetrical warfare, it seeks to demoralize and fatigue enemies rather than confronting them man on man, square on square, with symmetry. The objective is to maniplate, deceive, twist, distort, riposte, block, parry, and deflect attacks of the enemy, by going into enemy territory harass and raid their supply lines. To apply the military analogy. Thus Confud and Conned sees interest and value in going itno what they perceive as enemy nests, in order to infiltrate and accomplish objectives for The Cause.
Psychologically, people become upset, annoyed, defensive, fatigued, tired, and angry when faced by opposing and mutually exclusive views, perspectives, and beliefs. Thus, the motivation for Confud and Conned to stay here at neo-neocon, reading and writing and reading and writing, must be greater than the natural human psychological detriments would allow.
Republicans cannot read the New York Times or Daily Kos or Atrios 24/7, they would become too tired, upset, and fatigued. So what energizes Confud and Conned, except the true belief that they are here for fun, games, and productive exercises? A person can be frustrated, but if he loves his job and his family, he will keep trucking on. Confud obviously loves the Palestinians, therefore he takes pains to fight neo-cons here, since it is his perception that neo-cons are out to destroy Palestine, in league with the Jewish state.
You cannot truly understand what people mean by troll, until you understand humans and one way to understand humans is to study warfare, which is the art of how to defeat human beings. By learning how to defeat an opponent, you learn his weaknesses, his beliefs, and his strengths. Thus warfare and psychological warfare applies in many respects, to common day human activities. Anything inherently basic can be reduced down to human fundamentals, even the accussation of troll. Because most people only understand their personals beliefs in an intuitive manner, they are unable to explain through descriptions and analysis. Thus, they use a simple agreed upon term, that is troll, acquiring meanings (both denotative and connotative) that is beyond what you cna find in the dictionary. In essence, words mean what the speaker knows it will be interpreted as, as well as how the speaker interprets it himself. Therefore people use the same word, troll, but they don’t mean the exact same thing, thus a dictionary is no help.
A classic fundamental extrapolation of troll behavior, is when the woman guilt trips the man, through manipulation, into doing what the woman wants and which is detrimental to the man’s interests. And yet the man does the woman’s bidding, because the woman holds the morale high ground and the man feels guilty for his lack of standing and seeks to redeem himself through sacrifice. Deception, manipulation, or lies of omission are not possible without telling the truth. Thus people misunderstand the very fundamental potential of manipulation, the ones they use and the ones used on them. Troll phenomenon as termed on the blogosphere, is only one trick out of the grab bags of guerrila warfare, psychological warfare, and propaganda warfare. And on the scale of human affairs, it is quite a spec amongst the stars.
Sad History : that’s a stain on our national honor which we have all been too quick to forget. I believe President Bush; I don’t Congress or us, the American people.
not me sunshine although i certainly agree with th epoint. Glad to see you have managed to find an argument tha you can sustain;
Please continue to ignore the trolls Just about your level
1. Anyone who disagrees with me is wrong
2. Trolls are wrong
3. We should ignore wrong people
4. Ignore the trolls.
yeah even youve got the brain power for that.
dunno who Kungfu is. Could it be confud? Please let it be spank?
….do not think that all this “troll” nonsense is going to stop me arguing with what I think is wrong. I fully intend to comment on your right wing nonsense…afetr all what would you talk about otherwise?
“oohh yes neo. Lovely point, yes they hate us, and we are god’s chosen people.”
live with it apple thief.
….have plans, may steal my own apple soon. Watch the neoneoconned link 🙂
conned said…
“trolling” are only those with contrary views.
Please continue to ignore the trolls
I’ve always been confused about the “troll” accusations. I did a “google: define” on “troll” and this is what I got: “a newsgroup post that is deliberately incorrect, intended to provoke readers; or a person who makes such a post.” It seems like most around here mean the “intended to provoke readers” definition. Is this correct? If so, it still doesn’t seem accurate to me, since many posts are provocative, yet those accused of “trolling” are only those with contrary views. Can I get a clarification?
Amerca is going to take your terroists, chop off their body parts, and feed them to pigs
LOL. Are you a fan of Deadwood?
That’s what we need in this war – less “hearts and minds” more Bullock and Wu.
Actually, the Iraqis are the ones who leave dead terrorists out to be eaten by dogs. They don’t like them any more than we do.
People around the world must be asking themselves what they have to do to knock that smirk off Bush’s face? All the chimp-hitler hate/mockery in the world thrown at him, and he still prances into Baghdad with that silly smirk!
It seems that he is too stupid to understand how much people do not like him. If he only understood, if he could only be made to swim against that irresistable rip tide of contempt, surely that smirk would go away? Surely then?
How simply infuriating, that man! I can tell you one thing. We must all pray for hurricanes this summer. Hurricanes and victims, many victims to put in front of the camera to blame Bush for the weather and all the forces of nature. Perhaps an asteroid collision?
That would be just like Bush to cause an asteroid to hit the earth just so he could get Valerie Plame and Haditha off the front page! Oh, that man!
How proud we all are (americans and non-americans alike) that the planet has a leader such as GWB! After Bush what? The same taste, as those behind the president will not change. They will just have another puppet play president. That’ s all!
Amerca is going to take your terroists, chop off their body parts, and feed them to pigs. After Bush is gone that is. Pray, to Allah or whomever you believe in, that Bush stays the full 2 years.
Once Bush is gone, after successfully taking a beach head at the coast of France, it’s all over exept the dieing for the enemies of America. Once we get our Truman to commence the coup de grace, it will finally be over.
I was also moved, almost as if I was physically struck, by hearing Bush speak those words.
“America keeps its word….”
A nation which strives for that type of greatness is a nation I want to live in. It is part of my vision of who we are: dreaming big, acting righteously, imperfect – yes, but striving…
I just want to remind commenters to please ignore trolls. There’s been a lot of feeding them lately. I know it’s tempting; they seem so very hungry.
yeah well if he had such great trust in the Iraqi PM how come he only gave five minutes notice he was coming? And how do you think that made the Iraqis feel?And how much do you want to bet that the whole mess becomes an “Iraqi” problem the first chance America gets.