[quote][QBIts hardly a secret that 1) the sanction list have things that only remotely can be used for chemical weapons and 2) the sanction commitee(yes my spelling sucks) is using unnessesary long time to let import licencees go through. If you have exported one thing (a pencil) with the blessing of the commitee and you want to export another pencil the next month it takes up to several years before you get the permission[/QB]<hr></blockquote>
You'll get no argument from me that sanctions aren't the smartest way to deal with this situation.
Actually a great idea: Why not spare the bombs and go into Iraq and repair the food factories, water systems, hospitals aso instead and let it be heard all over the middle east. Saddam have had nothing but advantage from the sanctions and Osama is making great "moral" profit among the people from what we are doing now.</strong><hr></blockquote>
So, don't enforce cease-fire or UN resolutions with armed response, and lift sanctions.
Why is it that we have come to a point where we only have 2 options to choose form - either to be naive and choose appeasement or to be murderous and to choose a pre-emptive war?
bunge:
I'd say because Bush has backed himself into a corner.
me:
I dare say that both Bush and Shroeder have painted themselves into a corner respectively. Bush is effectively war no matter what, and Shroeder has flat out said no war no matter what.
any US citizen can be labled an "enemy comabatant" and denied trial by a jury. This is a fact. Joseph Padilla is an example.
The problem with this is that now the administration can lock anyone up indefinitly for reasons known only to them. Maybe he deserves to be locked up but maybe not. We can not know.
This flies in the face of the intent and purpose of our constitution; the thing that makes The United States of America honest. Checks and balances. Remember that?
One thing to remember with Bush is that prior to 9/11 he was not all that interested in the meddling in the affairs of other countries. It would be safe to assume, and we have to---whatever we decide---due to asynchronous information, that something has changed to make him spend billions to go after, in this case, Hussein.
Chirac-Schroeder have no great love for Bush-Blair...this situation is probably very complicated---and no one is showing their hand.
I'd be careful of painting any of this with too broad a brush.
There may have been a connection between the governments and ambitions of Imperial Japan and Third Reich Germany, but Germany did not yet pose an immediate threat to the US, no gun pointed at your head yet as you say. So, how was US involvement justified by your "wait till the gun is primed, pointed and aimed" reasoning for war?</strong><hr></blockquote>
We were attacked by a power that was working with Germany at the time. It was pretty clear that they were both pointing a gun at us and that we wouldn't be able to stay out of the conflict.
However Iraq ( which is the main topic of conversation here ) is incapable of pointing a gun at us. Now if iraqi agents blew up a U.S. city with a bomb or were caught trying to do so that would be the only way. But, that hasn't even come close to happening.
<img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> Mother ****er it hurts from laughing too much <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> How did freedom of speech "fall by the wayside after Sept.11"? You'd have to be very ******* **** to think that.
[ 02-17-2003: Message edited by: Scott ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
I thought I had added my $0.02 and was planning to withdraw myself from this thread, but your post begs for a reply.
If you would have paused to THINK for a moment before shooting off your big mouth, you may have understood what I was saying... it is pretty obvious that in any conflict of the kind we have now civil liberties suffer.
I stated that "one of the first things that fell by the wayside after Sept. 11 was freedom of the press and free speech."
And here, dear Scott, is why:
After 9/11/2001, self-appointed pseudo-patriotic committees on campuses around the country were silencing scholars (with expertise in foreign policy, middle east culture, history, etc.) who were trying to explain how it could be that some people hate the U.S. enough to carry out terrorist attacks (which is a far cry from justifying the attacks), so there goes your "freedom of speech".
And as far as "mainstream media" were concerned there was only ONE printable opinion. Everybody was scared out of their wits of being labeled "Un-American" (including all but a couple of Democratic senators and Representatives).
Just a few examples of how our "free press" is doing their job these days:
- In November 200,000-300,000 marched against attacking Iraq in Wash., D.C. (you'd think that they have their crowd estimation techniques down, with demonstrations occurring often enough) and the Buffalo News ran a small headline "30,000 protest war in Iraq", whereas the NY Times had the number of protestors at 10,000.
- This past Sunday, the NY Times (in different articles in both the NY Metro and the National editions) reported that "hundreds of thousands of people in Europe protested war on Iraq". In reality there were many millions. In 5 major cities in Spain alone there were over 2.5 million people on the streets according to police estimates (which is the lower estimate, organizers had crowds in just these 5 cities at over 4.8 million. This is huge, since Spain only has some 45 million people... It was in response to their government backing Bush's plans. I have to give the NY Times credit though, for printing 3 photos of demonstrations on the front page, but again with the numbers off by a factor of 10).
- Powell and Bush are saying that the new Osama tape proved Saddam and he were in cahoots. Then BBC played the tape along with a translation, and even an idiot could conclude that these guys hate each other even more than than they hate the USA. The main stream press headlines were sth. like "Tape proves link". (???)
I'd say that more than 2/3 of Americans get their news from front page headlines (above the fold) and the 11 o'clock news - CBS, NBC, ABC - which have been just as bad if not worse in what they chose to report and what not...
What "news" reaches the people is determined by what stories "resonate" in the media. Writers who were critical of the official White House point of
view simply were not given any space at all in most main stream media, so their opinions didn't resonate. O.k., on page 20 of the N.Y. Times Sunday edition you can find a couple of pieces penned by journalists who haven't been scared into towing the line yet.
Of course you can still write and say what you want without being arrested, and you can find stories with a different viewpoint in alternative newsweeklies and on certain news websites. This is where you also find all sorts of facts and facets
which are routinely omitted by the mainstream media.
And there also have been no amendments to the constitution, of course - although, if you'd look into all the implications of the Homeland Security Bill and Total Information Awareness you probably will find something that effectively changes freedom of the press/free speech in certain situations, but you'd have to ask a legal expert, which I'm not...
--> So while we still have a free press/freedom of speech on paper, what all of the above amounts to is that there effectively is no free (main stream) press in the U.S. right now, it's more like a press with an agenda!!!
And here is why this is very dangerous: Let's say you are an intelligent, thinking person. If you try to form an opinion of the current situation based on what you read in the U.S. mainstream press (and TV) your opinion will be skewed. You simply don't have enough "data". And I personally think we have seen a few opinions based on an insufficient set of "data" in this forum, including yours.
The same goes for making general statements about certain European countries without ever having spent any time there, you just don't have enough "data" to make such statements.
Scott: I hope this helped to explain where I'm coming from. (And next time, don't call me names.
)
mw
P.S.: btw: Here are the "U.S. mainstream media" which I base my opinion on: I regularly read the NY Times, Buffalo News, Washington Post, yahoo! news and watch 11 o'clock broadcast news (NBC, CBS, ABC). Occasionally I read SF Chronicle and SJ Mercury for The "west coast view" on things, and sometimes I pick up a USA Today left behind in airports.
To balance the "official opinion" the outlets above are just regurgitating for the most part, I regularly read German and French news, and articles on sites like <a href="http://www.commondreams.org"; target="_blank">this one</a>
Yes, I am a bit of a news junky and spend several hours a day on it.
P.P.S.: I need to add that I have observed a slight change in "main stream media reporting" in the last couple of days since the massive peace demonstrations. Maybe they are waking up to the fact that a significant part of people they like to consider their target audience is opposed to the mad rush to war. Or maybe we'll be back to the "press with an agenda" state soon...
To all of you who don't agree that war should only be the very, very, very last measure after all other options one could possible think of have been fully exhausted:
You have either
(a) never been in a war, or
(b) never lived in in a country that has recently been completely destroyed by a war.
Again, you simply don't have enough experience/information/"data" to advocate war.
This also holds for most people in the Bush administration.
This strikes me as being in the category of "emotional plea". Experiencing war firsthand certainly gives exclusive faculty over how bad war is. It doesn't automatically engender you with special knowledge/wisdom of the issues that "properly" precipitate a war. Knowledge of the issues would seem to be a basic quality to having relevant say in the matters of war or no war. It's the "issues" that should dictate the engagement of war, not whether or not it will be "unpleasant".
<strong>This strikes me as being in the category of "emotional plea". Experiencing war firsthand certainly gives exclusive faculty over how bad war is. It doesn't automatically engender you with special knowledge/wisdom of the issues that "properly" precipitate a war. Knowledge of the issues would seem to be a basic quality to having relevant say in the matters of war or no war. It's the "issues" that should dictate the engagement of war, not whether or not it will be "unpleasant".
...well, you can call it an emotional plea, I call it "agreeing that war is morally repugnant and is only to be used as a last resort" (what's the f**king rush?). Often an "emotional plea" actually comes from a "knowledge of the issues", in this case, e.g., from knowing how the U.S. military plans to conduct a war against Iraq (basically level the place). Aside from my "emotional plea", there is also more than just an uneasiness about the following two things:
(1) The motivation for the U.S. to go to war and strike a nation without being attacked:
- Prevent use or proliferation of weapons of mass destruction? Yes, Saddam has certain WoMD, and no one knows it better than the people in the admistration, especially Donald Rumsfeld. As part of "normalizing ties" between the two countries, special envoy Rumsfeld in 1983 negotiated - among other things - the sale of chemical and/or biological weapons to Iraq. We then watched as Saddam used them against the Iranians and the Kurds in his own country.
- Natural resources, i.e. oil? After all, Iraq sits on top of reserves of 112.5 billion barrels, or 11% of the world's oil. Let me quote Larry Goldstein, president of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation: "If we go to war, it's not about oil. But the day the war ends, it has everything to do with oil."
(2) Consequences of a war (as much as Osama hates Saddam right now, a strike against Iraq with civilian casualties will rally Muslim extremists behind the Iraqis):
- Again, a quote: retired general Wesley Clark told the Senate Armed Services Committee that a war would "super-charge recruiting for Al Qaeda."
I would go as far as to predict that should there be an attack on Iraq with massive casualties among the Iraqi population we will see Al Qaeda suicide bombers (think mall, movie theaters, etc) in the U.S. within 6 months.
There was a reason why we didn't just go and attack the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and that was consequences outweighing potential benefits.
And I don't think that the majority of people protesting the war are "appeasers", who take a "no war under any circumstances" stand. I think these people are just being rational about the situation and feel as uneasy about (1) and (2) as I do.
I hope (1) and (2) satisfy your criteria for "knowledge of the issues". I'd appreciate your comments...
My "emotional plea" was aimed at people who throw the idea of WAR around lightly as if it was just a tool like any other in international dipomacy.
(To illustrate the gravity of bombing, think back to Gulf War I: CNN kept showing the same video of a precision hit on a bunker over and over again. Studies after the war showed that as much as 70% of the bombs dropped on Iraq missed their intended targets. Now reverse the tables and imagine you'd try to take out the handful of military installations in a major U.S. city by bombing it and 70% miss - that's a lot of dead people... This is obvious, of course, and I feel silly having to resort to examples like this, but it is an issue that just isn't discussed openly in mainstream US media...)
I thought I had added my $0.02 and was planning to withdraw myself from this thread, but your post begs for a reply.
If you would have paused to THINK for a moment before shooting off your big mouth, you may have understood what I was saying... it is pretty obvious that in any conflict of the kind we have now civil liberties suffer.
.
.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Hmm,..
So not having the opinion that you might identify with printed on the front pages of your ?main stream? propaganda outlets constitutes a lack of free speech? You should have let your $0.02 slid down the drain where it belongs.
[quote]Originally posted by mw:
<strong>
And here is why this is very dangerous: Let's say you are an intelligent, thinking person. If you try to form an opinion of the current situation based on what you read in the U.S. mainstream press (and TV) your opinion will be skewed. You simply don't have enough "data". And I personally think we have seen a few opinions based on an insufficient set of "data" in this forum, including yours.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
How does that relate to you? Specifically: ?the intelligent, thinking person? bit? Try reading PRIMARY sources, and not the infotainment they feed the droids.
btw, in the official statement after the emergency meeting of the European Union yesterday, the heads of states of the EU acknowledge that the "amassing of U.S. troops in the middle east contributed significantly to being able to resume U.N. weapons inspections in Iraq".
So the credible threat of war proved helpful, but that doesn't mean that you actually have to go to war. There are many more layers of how Saddam can be controlled and contained. War is not inevitable at this stage.
So not having the opinion that you might identify with printed on the front pages of your ?main stream? propaganda outlets constitutes a lack of free speech? You should have let your $0.02 slid down the drain where it belongs.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
<img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" /> In the post you are referring to I didn't even state what opinion I identify with, I was simply making a point of how one-sided the media approach has been since 9/11 ...
[quote]Originally posted by zKillah:
<strong>
How does that relate to you? Specifically: ?the intelligent, thinking person? bit? Try reading PRIMARY sources, and not the infotainment they feed the droids.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
I was laying out an argument, on how there effectively has not been a truly free press in this country after 9/11 IF you only get your news from the "non-primary" "mainstream media outlets" mentioned in my post. I did not say that those are the only ones I get my information from.
Learn how to read.
I think I raised a valid point about how (what I labeled as) "U.S. mainstream media" have handled the terror attacks/war on terrorism & Iraq thing in a very skewed way and you are pulling cheap shots - is it because it is not the "opinion that you identify with"?
In the post you are referring to I didn't even state what opinion I identify with, I was simply making a point (and expressing my disgust) at how one-sided the media approach has been since 9/11 ...
.
.
I was laying out an argument, on how there effectively has not been a truly free press in this country after 9/11 IF you only get your news from the "non-primary" "mainstream media outlets" mentioned in my post. I did not say that those are the only ones I get my information from.
Learn how to read.
I think I raised a valid point about how (what I labeled as) "U.S. mainstream media" have handled the terror attacks/war on terrorism & Iraq thing in a very skewed way and you are pulling cheap shots - is it because it is not the "opinion that you identify with"?
I know how to read. I also know how to analyze. Your opinion was already very clear to me prior the your subsequent posts.
I looked at your ?sources?. You referenced some of them, and one you even grace on your sig - your favorite, I suppose. Again, I did not find a single PRIMARY source - Just more crap to supposedly ?balance? the crap that you can?t get enough of from local sources. You don?t care for ?data?. What you care for, is your opinion dominating the front pages. And when it?s not, you cry that your civil liberties are taken from you, and that freedom of speech is being curtailed. Being a conceited sloth has its disadvantages as well, you know. I wouldn?t normally care, but your dishonesty about this matter is what got to me.
Lift the sanctions, skip military enforcement of ceasefire and binding resolutions...Saddam, carry on as you will....the anti-war movement has spoken.</strong><hr></blockquote>
You don't have to lie about what someone says to try and win an argument, do you?
Knowledge of the issues would seem to be a basic quality to having relevant say in the matters of war or no war. It's the "issues" that should dictate the engagement of war, not whether or not it will be "unpleasant". </strong><hr></blockquote>
The thing is, you can't weigh the issues if you have no first hand understanding of what a war truly brings. If you get your knowledge of war by watching CNN, you'll probably say to yourself 'Self, we can beat Iraq in two weeks. We should just do it now.' The problem is, CNN isn't a good reference.
If you know war, you can weigh the issues that should or should not lead to war.
If you just know the issues, you can't even imagine when they're strong enough to lead to war.
After 9/11/2001, self-appointed pseudo-patriotic committees on campuses around the country were silencing scholars (with expertise in foreign policy, middle east culture, history, etc.) who were trying to explain how it could be that some people hate the U.S. enough to carry out terrorist attacks (which is a far cry from justifying the attacks), so there goes your "freedom of speech".
So, non-governmental committees, encouraging scholars to exercise a little sensitivity towards the pain of the US people, by not spewing excuses that laid the blame on the Americans, is a loss of freedom of speech? Sorry, but often, we are encouraged to be sensitive in our language when dealing with sensitive situations. This isn't a loss of freedom of speech, it was simply a matter of giving people time to grieve without rubbing salt in their wounds. it's mot laike they would have been persecuted or arrested for their speech anyway.
[QUOTE]Originally posted by mw:
[QB]
And as far as "mainstream media" were concerned there was only ONE printable opinion. Everybody was scared out of their wits of being labeled "Un-American" (including all but a couple of Democratic senators and Representatives).
</strong><hr></blockquote>
So, because they were worried about how they would be perceived by public, that means they lost their freedom of speech? Sorry, but if you are going to make unpopular statements, you have to deal with the fact that the public might not like them...again, that's not a loss of freedom of speech, that is PR.
[quote]Originally posted by mw:
<strong>
Just a few examples of how our "free press" is doing their job these days:
- In November 200,000-300,000 marched against attacking Iraq in Wash., D.C. (you'd think that they have their crowd estimation techniques down, with demonstrations occurring often enough) and the Buffalo News ran a small headline "30,000 protest war in Iraq", whereas the NY Times had the number of protestors at 10,000.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Oh, they disagreed on the number of people of in a protest, so they must have felt pressure to keep the numbers low? Give me a break. That may be poor reporting, if in fact their numbers were the incorrect set and not the inflated numbers reported elsewhere, but it's not a loss of freedom of speech.
[quote]Originally posted by mw:
<strong>
- This past Sunday, the NY Times (in different articles in both the NY Metro and the National editions) reported that "hundreds of thousands of people in Europe protested war on Iraq". In reality there were many millions. In 5 major cities in Spain alone there were over 2.5 million people on the streets according to police estimates (which is the lower estimate, organizers had crowds in just these 5 cities at over 4.8 million. This is huge, since Spain only has some 45 million people... It was in response to their government backing Bush's plans. I have to give the NY Times credit though, for printing 3 photos of demonstrations on the front page, but again with the numbers off by a factor of 10).
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Same as above. The protesters will also always inflate their numbers. So, when they submit that X number of people attended, and perhaps not that many really attended, have they taken away freedom of speech as well?
[quote]Originally posted by mw:
<strong>
- Powell and Bush are saying that the new Osama tape proved Saddam and he were in cahoots. Then BBC played the tape along with a translation, and even an idiot could conclude that these guys hate each other even more than than they hate the USA. The main stream press headlines were sth. like "Tape proves link". (???)
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Gee, perhaps they were persuaded by the information on the tape. if it was less than compelling, they could be accused of being gulliable, or accused of believing what the man said, but again, that's a loss of freedom of speech how?
[quote]Originally posted by mw:
<strong>
I'd say that more than 2/3 of Americans get their news from front page headlines (above the fold) and the 11 o'clock news - CBS, NBC, ABC - which have been just as bad if not worse in what they chose to report and what not...
What "news" reaches the people is determined by what stories "resonate" in the media. Writers who were critical of the official White House point of
view simply were not given any space at all in most main stream media, so their opinions didn't resonate. O.k., on page 20 of the N.Y. Times Sunday edition you can find a couple of pieces penned by journalists who haven't been scared into towing the line yet.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
So, because people choose what the read and view, and you disagree with their choice of media outlets, that means freedom of speech has been lost?
[quote]Originally posted by mw:
<strong>
Of course you can still write and say what you want without being arrested, and you can find stories with a different viewpoint in alternative newsweeklies and on certain news websites. This is where you also find all sorts of facts and facets
which are routinely omitted by the mainstream media.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
But, with freedom of speech having been so sorely damaged, how is it that these alternative outlets can report different viewpoints, without being arrested?
[quote]Originally posted by mw:
<strong>
And there also have been no amendments to the constitution, of course - although, if you'd look into all the implications of the Homeland Security Bill and Total Information Awareness you probably will find something that effectively changes freedom of the press/free speech in certain situations, but you'd have to ask a legal expert, which I'm not...
--> So while we still have a free press/freedom of speech on paper, what all of the above amounts to is that there effectively is no free (main stream) press in the U.S. right now, it's more like a press with an agenda!!!
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Oh a press with an agenda that you don't like. Yup, freedom of the press is surely gone. I don't you it's really agenda. Just a common viewpoint that you don't like. Or perhaps poor reporting, but again, that does not mean freedom of speech is lost. A free press does not mean all viewpoints will be heard through mainstream press outlets. What would make you think a free press was still active? Requiring them to present stories from your viewpoint?
[quote]Originally posted by mw:
<strong>
And here is why this is very dangerous: Let's say you are an intelligent, thinking person. If you try to form an opinion of the current situation based on what you read in the U.S. mainstream press (and TV) your opinion will be skewed. You simply don't have enough "data". And I personally think we have seen a few opinions based on an insufficient set of "data" in this forum, including yours.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
So, because this "intelligent, thinking person" decides to limit his/her intake of information to a few mainstream outlets and then makes "informed decisions" on these limited viewpoints, freedom of speech is threatened? Sounds more to me like the person wasn't so intelligent or thoughtful.
[quote]Originally posted by mw:
<strong>
The same goes for making general statements about certain European countries without ever having spent any time there, you just don't have enough "data" to make such statements.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Sure you could. You might not have enough to make as informed a statement on some aspects of the country, but you could still gather information from various sources, come to a conclusion and follow with an informed statement. The person who visited the country might be able to make a more informed statement, but of course depending on the person, they may not have picked up as much information about the country, even visiting it, as you might from gleaning other sources. Visiting a country does not de facto make you more informed. It gives the opportunity to become more informed, but opportunities aren't always taken.
[quote]Originally posted by mw:
<strong>
P.S.: btw: Here are the "U.S. mainstream media" which I base my opinion on: I regularly read the NY Times, Buffalo News, Washington Post, yahoo! news and watch 11 o'clock broadcast news (NBC, CBS, ABC). Occasionally I read SF Chronicle and SJ Mercury for The "west coast view" on things, and sometimes I pick up a USA Today left behind in airports.
To balance the "official opinion" the outlets above are just regurgitating for the most part, I regularly read German and French news, and articles on sites like <a href="http://www.commondreams.org"; target="_blank">this one</a>
Yes, I am a bit of a news junky and spend several hours a day on it.
P.P.S.: I need to add that I have observed a slight change in "main stream media reporting" in the last couple of days since the massive peace demonstrations. Maybe they are waking up to the fact that a significant part of people they like to consider their target audience is opposed to the mad rush to war. Or maybe we'll be back to the "press with an agenda" state soon... </strong><hr></blockquote>
That's great that you keep yourself informed and up to date with varied and diverging outlets. The fact that you do so speaks volumes about how threatened freedom of the speech has become.
Comments
[quote][QBIts hardly a secret that 1) the sanction list have things that only remotely can be used for chemical weapons and 2) the sanction commitee(yes my spelling sucks) is using unnessesary long time to let import licencees go through. If you have exported one thing (a pencil) with the blessing of the commitee and you want to export another pencil the next month it takes up to several years before you get the permission[/QB]<hr></blockquote>
You'll get no argument from me that sanctions aren't the smartest way to deal with this situation.
War is the answer.
<strong>
Actually a great idea: Why not spare the bombs and go into Iraq and repair the food factories, water systems, hospitals aso instead and let it be heard all over the middle east. Saddam have had nothing but advantage from the sanctions and Osama is making great "moral" profit among the people from what we are doing now.</strong><hr></blockquote>
So, don't enforce cease-fire or UN resolutions with armed response, and lift sanctions.
"Stop! Or I'll say 'Stop' again!!!"
Why is it that we have come to a point where we only have 2 options to choose form - either to be naive and choose appeasement or to be murderous and to choose a pre-emptive war?
bunge:
I'd say because Bush has backed himself into a corner.
me:
I dare say that both Bush and Shroeder have painted themselves into a corner respectively. Bush is effectively war no matter what, and Shroeder has flat out said no war no matter what.
[much boo-boo]
[ 02-18-2003: Message edited by: BuonRotto ]</p>
any US citizen can be labled an "enemy comabatant" and denied trial by a jury. This is a fact. Joseph Padilla is an example.
The problem with this is that now the administration can lock anyone up indefinitly for reasons known only to them. Maybe he deserves to be locked up but maybe not. We can not know.
This flies in the face of the intent and purpose of our constitution; the thing that makes The United States of America honest. Checks and balances. Remember that?
There are two cases of this, one guy suspected in a plot to set off a radioactive bomb and another captured while fighting for the enemy.
Anyone, indeed.
I am not for holding Padilla without charge but the other is fine because he really is an enemy combatant.
It's unConstitutional, yes, but absolutely idiotic to act like it's a real threat to simple political dissenters. Just ridiculous.
Chirac-Schroeder have no great love for Bush-Blair...this situation is probably very complicated---and no one is showing their hand.
I'd be careful of painting any of this with too broad a brush.
<strong>
There may have been a connection between the governments and ambitions of Imperial Japan and Third Reich Germany, but Germany did not yet pose an immediate threat to the US, no gun pointed at your head yet as you say. So, how was US involvement justified by your "wait till the gun is primed, pointed and aimed" reasoning for war?</strong><hr></blockquote>
We were attacked by a power that was working with Germany at the time. It was pretty clear that they were both pointing a gun at us and that we wouldn't be able to stay out of the conflict.
However Iraq ( which is the main topic of conversation here ) is incapable of pointing a gun at us. Now if iraqi agents blew up a U.S. city with a bomb or were caught trying to do so that would be the only way. But, that hasn't even come close to happening.
[ 02-18-2003: Message edited by: jimmac ]</p>
<strong>
<img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> Mother ****er it hurts from laughing too much <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> How did freedom of speech "fall by the wayside after Sept.11"? You'd have to be very ******* **** to think that.
[ 02-17-2003: Message edited by: Scott ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
I thought I had added my $0.02 and was planning to withdraw myself from this thread, but your post begs for a reply.
If you would have paused to THINK for a moment before shooting off your big mouth, you may have understood what I was saying... it is pretty obvious that in any conflict of the kind we have now civil liberties suffer.
I stated that "one of the first things that fell by the wayside after Sept. 11 was freedom of the press and free speech."
And here, dear Scott, is why:
After 9/11/2001, self-appointed pseudo-patriotic committees on campuses around the country were silencing scholars (with expertise in foreign policy, middle east culture, history, etc.) who were trying to explain how it could be that some people hate the U.S. enough to carry out terrorist attacks (which is a far cry from justifying the attacks), so there goes your "freedom of speech".
And as far as "mainstream media" were concerned there was only ONE printable opinion. Everybody was scared out of their wits of being labeled "Un-American" (including all but a couple of Democratic senators and Representatives).
Just a few examples of how our "free press" is doing their job these days:
- In November 200,000-300,000 marched against attacking Iraq in Wash., D.C. (you'd think that they have their crowd estimation techniques down, with demonstrations occurring often enough) and the Buffalo News ran a small headline "30,000 protest war in Iraq", whereas the NY Times had the number of protestors at 10,000.
- This past Sunday, the NY Times (in different articles in both the NY Metro and the National editions) reported that "hundreds of thousands of people in Europe protested war on Iraq". In reality there were many millions. In 5 major cities in Spain alone there were over 2.5 million people on the streets according to police estimates (which is the lower estimate, organizers had crowds in just these 5 cities at over 4.8 million. This is huge, since Spain only has some 45 million people... It was in response to their government backing Bush's plans. I have to give the NY Times credit though, for printing 3 photos of demonstrations on the front page, but again with the numbers off by a factor of 10).
- Powell and Bush are saying that the new Osama tape proved Saddam and he were in cahoots. Then BBC played the tape along with a translation, and even an idiot could conclude that these guys hate each other even more than than they hate the USA. The main stream press headlines were sth. like "Tape proves link". (???)
I'd say that more than 2/3 of Americans get their news from front page headlines (above the fold) and the 11 o'clock news - CBS, NBC, ABC - which have been just as bad if not worse in what they chose to report and what not...
What "news" reaches the people is determined by what stories "resonate" in the media. Writers who were critical of the official White House point of
view simply were not given any space at all in most main stream media, so their opinions didn't resonate. O.k., on page 20 of the N.Y. Times Sunday edition you can find a couple of pieces penned by journalists who haven't been scared into towing the line yet.
Of course you can still write and say what you want without being arrested, and you can find stories with a different viewpoint in alternative newsweeklies and on certain news websites. This is where you also find all sorts of facts and facets
which are routinely omitted by the mainstream media.
And there also have been no amendments to the constitution, of course - although, if you'd look into all the implications of the Homeland Security Bill and Total Information Awareness you probably will find something that effectively changes freedom of the press/free speech in certain situations, but you'd have to ask a legal expert, which I'm not...
--> So while we still have a free press/freedom of speech on paper, what all of the above amounts to is that there effectively is no free (main stream) press in the U.S. right now, it's more like a press with an agenda!!!
And here is why this is very dangerous: Let's say you are an intelligent, thinking person. If you try to form an opinion of the current situation based on what you read in the U.S. mainstream press (and TV) your opinion will be skewed. You simply don't have enough "data". And I personally think we have seen a few opinions based on an insufficient set of "data" in this forum, including yours.
The same goes for making general statements about certain European countries without ever having spent any time there, you just don't have enough "data" to make such statements.
Scott: I hope this helped to explain where I'm coming from. (And next time, don't call me names.
mw
P.S.: btw: Here are the "U.S. mainstream media" which I base my opinion on: I regularly read the NY Times, Buffalo News, Washington Post, yahoo! news and watch 11 o'clock broadcast news (NBC, CBS, ABC). Occasionally I read SF Chronicle and SJ Mercury for The "west coast view" on things, and sometimes I pick up a USA Today left behind in airports.
To balance the "official opinion" the outlets above are just regurgitating for the most part, I regularly read German and French news, and articles on sites like <a href="http://www.commondreams.org"; target="_blank">this one</a>
Yes, I am a bit of a news junky and spend several hours a day on it.
P.P.S.: I need to add that I have observed a slight change in "main stream media reporting" in the last couple of days since the massive peace demonstrations. Maybe they are waking up to the fact that a significant part of people they like to consider their target audience is opposed to the mad rush to war. Or maybe we'll be back to the "press with an agenda" state soon...
You have either
(a) never been in a war, or
(b) never lived in in a country that has recently been completely destroyed by a war.
Again, you simply don't have enough experience/information/"data" to advocate war.
This also holds for most people in the Bush administration.
Case closed.
[ 02-19-2003: Message edited by: Randycat99 ]</p>
<strong>This strikes me as being in the category of "emotional plea". Experiencing war firsthand certainly gives exclusive faculty over how bad war is. It doesn't automatically engender you with special knowledge/wisdom of the issues that "properly" precipitate a war. Knowledge of the issues would seem to be a basic quality to having relevant say in the matters of war or no war. It's the "issues" that should dictate the engagement of war, not whether or not it will be "unpleasant".
[ 02-19-2003: Message edited by: Randycat99 ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
...well, you can call it an emotional plea, I call it "agreeing that war is morally repugnant and is only to be used as a last resort" (what's the f**king rush?). Often an "emotional plea" actually comes from a "knowledge of the issues", in this case, e.g., from knowing how the U.S. military plans to conduct a war against Iraq (basically level the place). Aside from my "emotional plea", there is also more than just an uneasiness about the following two things:
(1) The motivation for the U.S. to go to war and strike a nation without being attacked:
- Prevent use or proliferation of weapons of mass destruction? Yes, Saddam has certain WoMD, and no one knows it better than the people in the admistration, especially Donald Rumsfeld. As part of "normalizing ties" between the two countries, special envoy Rumsfeld in 1983 negotiated - among other things - the sale of chemical and/or biological weapons to Iraq. We then watched as Saddam used them against the Iranians and the Kurds in his own country.
- Natural resources, i.e. oil? After all, Iraq sits on top of reserves of 112.5 billion barrels, or 11% of the world's oil. Let me quote Larry Goldstein, president of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation: "If we go to war, it's not about oil. But the day the war ends, it has everything to do with oil."
(2) Consequences of a war (as much as Osama hates Saddam right now, a strike against Iraq with civilian casualties will rally Muslim extremists behind the Iraqis):
- Again, a quote: retired general Wesley Clark told the Senate Armed Services Committee that a war would "super-charge recruiting for Al Qaeda."
I would go as far as to predict that should there be an attack on Iraq with massive casualties among the Iraqi population we will see Al Qaeda suicide bombers (think mall, movie theaters, etc) in the U.S. within 6 months.
There was a reason why we didn't just go and attack the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and that was consequences outweighing potential benefits.
And I don't think that the majority of people protesting the war are "appeasers", who take a "no war under any circumstances" stand. I think these people are just being rational about the situation and feel as uneasy about (1) and (2) as I do.
I hope (1) and (2) satisfy your criteria for "knowledge of the issues". I'd appreciate your comments...
My "emotional plea" was aimed at people who throw the idea of WAR around lightly as if it was just a tool like any other in international dipomacy.
(To illustrate the gravity of bombing, think back to Gulf War I: CNN kept showing the same video of a precision hit on a bunker over and over again. Studies after the war showed that as much as 70% of the bombs dropped on Iraq missed their intended targets. Now reverse the tables and imagine you'd try to take out the handful of military installations in a major U.S. city by bombing it and 70% miss - that's a lot of dead people... This is obvious, of course, and I feel silly having to resort to examples like this, but it is an issue that just isn't discussed openly in mainstream US media...)
[edited for spelling]
[ 02-19-2003: Message edited by: mw ]</p>
<strong>Anders/Bunge:
Please do not act like your real cause is to protect Iraqis. They die by the thousands already without war.
Keep ignoring that, I guess, because that's the result of playing the diplomatic game with Saddam.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Well, lift the stupid sanctions...
<strong>
I thought I had added my $0.02 and was planning to withdraw myself from this thread, but your post begs for a reply.
If you would have paused to THINK for a moment before shooting off your big mouth, you may have understood what I was saying... it is pretty obvious that in any conflict of the kind we have now civil liberties suffer.
.
.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Hmm,..
So not having the opinion that you might identify with printed on the front pages of your ?main stream? propaganda outlets constitutes a lack of free speech? You should have let your $0.02 slid down the drain where it belongs.
[quote]Originally posted by mw:
<strong>
And here is why this is very dangerous: Let's say you are an intelligent, thinking person. If you try to form an opinion of the current situation based on what you read in the U.S. mainstream press (and TV) your opinion will be skewed. You simply don't have enough "data". And I personally think we have seen a few opinions based on an insufficient set of "data" in this forum, including yours.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
How does that relate to you? Specifically: ?the intelligent, thinking person? bit? Try reading PRIMARY sources, and not the infotainment they feed the droids.
<img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[oyvey]" />
[ 02-19-2003: Message edited by: zKillah ]</p>
So the credible threat of war proved helpful, but that doesn't mean that you actually have to go to war. There are many more layers of how Saddam can be controlled and contained. War is not inevitable at this stage.
<strong>
Hmm,..
So not having the opinion that you might identify with printed on the front pages of your ?main stream? propaganda outlets constitutes a lack of free speech? You should have let your $0.02 slid down the drain where it belongs.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
<img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" /> In the post you are referring to I didn't even state what opinion I identify with, I was simply making a point of how one-sided the media approach has been since 9/11 ...
[quote]Originally posted by zKillah:
<strong>
How does that relate to you? Specifically: ?the intelligent, thinking person? bit? Try reading PRIMARY sources, and not the infotainment they feed the droids.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
I was laying out an argument, on how there effectively has not been a truly free press in this country after 9/11 IF you only get your news from the "non-primary" "mainstream media outlets" mentioned in my post. I did not say that those are the only ones I get my information from.
Learn how to read.
I think I raised a valid point about how (what I labeled as) "U.S. mainstream media" have handled the terror attacks/war on terrorism & Iraq thing in a very skewed way and you are pulling cheap shots - is it because it is not the "opinion that you identify with"?
<img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />
[edited for spelling]
[ 02-19-2003: Message edited by: mw ]</p>
<strong>
In the post you are referring to I didn't even state what opinion I identify with, I was simply making a point (and expressing my disgust) at how one-sided the media approach has been since 9/11 ...
.
.
I was laying out an argument, on how there effectively has not been a truly free press in this country after 9/11 IF you only get your news from the "non-primary" "mainstream media outlets" mentioned in my post. I did not say that those are the only ones I get my information from.
Learn how to read.
I think I raised a valid point about how (what I labeled as) "U.S. mainstream media" have handled the terror attacks/war on terrorism & Iraq thing in a very skewed way and you are pulling cheap shots - is it because it is not the "opinion that you identify with"?
<img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />
[edited for spelling]
[ 02-19-2003: Message edited by: mw ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
I know how to read. I also know how to analyze. Your opinion was already very clear to me prior the your subsequent posts.
I looked at your ?sources?. You referenced some of them, and one you even grace on your sig - your favorite, I suppose. Again, I did not find a single PRIMARY source - Just more crap to supposedly ?balance? the crap that you can?t get enough of from local sources. You don?t care for ?data?. What you care for, is your opinion dominating the front pages. And when it?s not, you cry that your civil liberties are taken from you, and that freedom of speech is being curtailed. Being a conceited sloth has its disadvantages as well, you know. I wouldn?t normally care, but your dishonesty about this matter is what got to me.
<strong>
Well, lift the stupid sanctions...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Lift the sanctions, skip military enforcement of ceasefire and binding resolutions...Saddam, carry on as you will....the anti-war movement has spoken.
<strong>
Lift the sanctions, skip military enforcement of ceasefire and binding resolutions...Saddam, carry on as you will....the anti-war movement has spoken.</strong><hr></blockquote>
You don't have to lie about what someone says to try and win an argument, do you?
<strong>
Knowledge of the issues would seem to be a basic quality to having relevant say in the matters of war or no war. It's the "issues" that should dictate the engagement of war, not whether or not it will be "unpleasant". </strong><hr></blockquote>
The thing is, you can't weigh the issues if you have no first hand understanding of what a war truly brings. If you get your knowledge of war by watching CNN, you'll probably say to yourself 'Self, we can beat Iraq in two weeks. We should just do it now.' The problem is, CNN isn't a good reference.
If you know war, you can weigh the issues that should or should not lead to war.
If you just know the issues, you can't even imagine when they're strong enough to lead to war.
<strong>
After 9/11/2001, self-appointed pseudo-patriotic committees on campuses around the country were silencing scholars (with expertise in foreign policy, middle east culture, history, etc.) who were trying to explain how it could be that some people hate the U.S. enough to carry out terrorist attacks (which is a far cry from justifying the attacks), so there goes your "freedom of speech".
So, non-governmental committees, encouraging scholars to exercise a little sensitivity towards the pain of the US people, by not spewing excuses that laid the blame on the Americans, is a loss of freedom of speech? Sorry, but often, we are encouraged to be sensitive in our language when dealing with sensitive situations. This isn't a loss of freedom of speech, it was simply a matter of giving people time to grieve without rubbing salt in their wounds. it's mot laike they would have been persecuted or arrested for their speech anyway.
[QUOTE]Originally posted by mw:
[QB]
And as far as "mainstream media" were concerned there was only ONE printable opinion. Everybody was scared out of their wits of being labeled "Un-American" (including all but a couple of Democratic senators and Representatives).
</strong><hr></blockquote>
So, because they were worried about how they would be perceived by public, that means they lost their freedom of speech? Sorry, but if you are going to make unpopular statements, you have to deal with the fact that the public might not like them...again, that's not a loss of freedom of speech, that is PR.
[quote]Originally posted by mw:
<strong>
Just a few examples of how our "free press" is doing their job these days:
- In November 200,000-300,000 marched against attacking Iraq in Wash., D.C. (you'd think that they have their crowd estimation techniques down, with demonstrations occurring often enough) and the Buffalo News ran a small headline "30,000 protest war in Iraq", whereas the NY Times had the number of protestors at 10,000.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Oh, they disagreed on the number of people of in a protest, so they must have felt pressure to keep the numbers low? Give me a break. That may be poor reporting, if in fact their numbers were the incorrect set and not the inflated numbers reported elsewhere, but it's not a loss of freedom of speech.
[quote]Originally posted by mw:
<strong>
- This past Sunday, the NY Times (in different articles in both the NY Metro and the National editions) reported that "hundreds of thousands of people in Europe protested war on Iraq". In reality there were many millions. In 5 major cities in Spain alone there were over 2.5 million people on the streets according to police estimates (which is the lower estimate, organizers had crowds in just these 5 cities at over 4.8 million. This is huge, since Spain only has some 45 million people... It was in response to their government backing Bush's plans. I have to give the NY Times credit though, for printing 3 photos of demonstrations on the front page, but again with the numbers off by a factor of 10).
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Same as above. The protesters will also always inflate their numbers. So, when they submit that X number of people attended, and perhaps not that many really attended, have they taken away freedom of speech as well?
[quote]Originally posted by mw:
<strong>
- Powell and Bush are saying that the new Osama tape proved Saddam and he were in cahoots. Then BBC played the tape along with a translation, and even an idiot could conclude that these guys hate each other even more than than they hate the USA. The main stream press headlines were sth. like "Tape proves link". (???)
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Gee, perhaps they were persuaded by the information on the tape. if it was less than compelling, they could be accused of being gulliable, or accused of believing what the man said, but again, that's a loss of freedom of speech how?
[quote]Originally posted by mw:
<strong>
I'd say that more than 2/3 of Americans get their news from front page headlines (above the fold) and the 11 o'clock news - CBS, NBC, ABC - which have been just as bad if not worse in what they chose to report and what not...
What "news" reaches the people is determined by what stories "resonate" in the media. Writers who were critical of the official White House point of
view simply were not given any space at all in most main stream media, so their opinions didn't resonate. O.k., on page 20 of the N.Y. Times Sunday edition you can find a couple of pieces penned by journalists who haven't been scared into towing the line yet.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
So, because people choose what the read and view, and you disagree with their choice of media outlets, that means freedom of speech has been lost?
[quote]Originally posted by mw:
<strong>
Of course you can still write and say what you want without being arrested, and you can find stories with a different viewpoint in alternative newsweeklies and on certain news websites. This is where you also find all sorts of facts and facets
which are routinely omitted by the mainstream media.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
But, with freedom of speech having been so sorely damaged, how is it that these alternative outlets can report different viewpoints, without being arrested?
[quote]Originally posted by mw:
<strong>
And there also have been no amendments to the constitution, of course - although, if you'd look into all the implications of the Homeland Security Bill and Total Information Awareness you probably will find something that effectively changes freedom of the press/free speech in certain situations, but you'd have to ask a legal expert, which I'm not...
--> So while we still have a free press/freedom of speech on paper, what all of the above amounts to is that there effectively is no free (main stream) press in the U.S. right now, it's more like a press with an agenda!!!
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Oh a press with an agenda that you don't like. Yup, freedom of the press is surely gone. I don't you it's really agenda. Just a common viewpoint that you don't like. Or perhaps poor reporting, but again, that does not mean freedom of speech is lost. A free press does not mean all viewpoints will be heard through mainstream press outlets. What would make you think a free press was still active? Requiring them to present stories from your viewpoint?
[quote]Originally posted by mw:
<strong>
And here is why this is very dangerous: Let's say you are an intelligent, thinking person. If you try to form an opinion of the current situation based on what you read in the U.S. mainstream press (and TV) your opinion will be skewed. You simply don't have enough "data". And I personally think we have seen a few opinions based on an insufficient set of "data" in this forum, including yours.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
So, because this "intelligent, thinking person" decides to limit his/her intake of information to a few mainstream outlets and then makes "informed decisions" on these limited viewpoints, freedom of speech is threatened? Sounds more to me like the person wasn't so intelligent or thoughtful.
[quote]Originally posted by mw:
<strong>
The same goes for making general statements about certain European countries without ever having spent any time there, you just don't have enough "data" to make such statements.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Sure you could. You might not have enough to make as informed a statement on some aspects of the country, but you could still gather information from various sources, come to a conclusion and follow with an informed statement. The person who visited the country might be able to make a more informed statement, but of course depending on the person, they may not have picked up as much information about the country, even visiting it, as you might from gleaning other sources. Visiting a country does not de facto make you more informed. It gives the opportunity to become more informed, but opportunities aren't always taken.
[quote]Originally posted by mw:
<strong>
P.S.: btw: Here are the "U.S. mainstream media" which I base my opinion on: I regularly read the NY Times, Buffalo News, Washington Post, yahoo! news and watch 11 o'clock broadcast news (NBC, CBS, ABC). Occasionally I read SF Chronicle and SJ Mercury for The "west coast view" on things, and sometimes I pick up a USA Today left behind in airports.
To balance the "official opinion" the outlets above are just regurgitating for the most part, I regularly read German and French news, and articles on sites like <a href="http://www.commondreams.org"; target="_blank">this one</a>
Yes, I am a bit of a news junky and spend several hours a day on it.
P.P.S.: I need to add that I have observed a slight change in "main stream media reporting" in the last couple of days since the massive peace demonstrations. Maybe they are waking up to the fact that a significant part of people they like to consider their target audience is opposed to the mad rush to war. Or maybe we'll be back to the "press with an agenda" state soon... </strong><hr></blockquote>
That's great that you keep yourself informed and up to date with varied and diverging outlets. The fact that you do so speaks volumes about how threatened freedom of the speech has become.