It becomes spin on the part of the side that is defending action when the focus shifts away from the facts at hand as a result of that action, in favor of some alternate reality that may or may not have occurred. Spin, in effect is a rationalization process....and is needed when the "obvious" facts create a doubt or a negative light on any particular idea or action. Spin as is practiced by the supporters of a policy, is an attempt to tell people how things should be seen, rather than what is "obvious." "As so often, you have misread something whose plain meaning should be obvious:" Oh, so you if I understand you correctly, you are never in a position of having communicated something wrong, or misleading, or confusing, or so plain that the meaning should be "obvious." Perhaps it should have been "obvious" but wasn't. This is such a typical response of narcissistic journalism, where the writer always makes the assumption that they are always right and clear, and have written their ideas in such a manner that is above reproach. Step back for a second Jack. Not everyone has your reality. The key to successful journalism is in the ability to communicate to people who don't assume your particular bias, and to communicate in a manner which is plain and forthright. I did not misread what you said. You are simply attacking me with your "as so often, you have misread something" comments because you don't agree with my position or the points I brought up. This subtle attack is often missed by many, but is an attempt to place the writer in a superior position, a de facto expert position, by an attempt to diminish the reading or understanding skills of an opponent. This tactic is consistent with your constant ad hominem attacks, and attempting to weaken the position of those who don't agree with you. It is a common practice, and it is a practice of little men and small thinkers. Every stop to think that maybe your writing skills are not as great as you believe they are? A normal response would have been: "Perhaps I did not make myself clear. Let me explain my position more fully or in a different way." You always take the position that you are right and others have misunderstood your position. Intellectual vanity. "Unfortunately, it's often hard for people to agree on what actually has happened, much less on what might have happened." If we stayed within the realm of facts it is not too difficult for people to agree. You seem to want to gloss over the facts, in favor of "well we don't know what would have happened if we didn't act" policy.
I am gratified that you can see beyond my rhetoric and comprehend the stark message contained therein, my Brother... in the symbolic game of cops 'n robbers, it is rather painful to admit that we fall into the latter category... but those of us with a grain of honesty do indeed muster up the courage to make such an admission, much to the chagrin of those in perpetual denial ...
ouch!!! moderator, can i post that pic of brother candle on the shitter with a porno mag again?? i'll place a DO NOT VIEW IF EASILY OFFENDED stamp above that attachment...? i wish we were all discussing this on jerry springer...i'd really love to see candle cheerleading for the war and getting into fisticuffs with the audience, even those who were in support of the war, simply because they weren't strongly enough in favor for brother candle's tastes... god bless the meritorious postings of our dear brother candle. may he stand firm against the evil, conspiring realm of normalcy...
Private Lynch, symbol of a fictitious war July 14 2003 The rescue of Jessica Lynch defined the Iraq war - and now defines what it was not, writes Malcolm Knox. Private Jessica Lynch has amnesia. The soldier, now reportedly in hospital, can bear witness neither to what happened nor what didn't. Lynch remains the governing metaphor for the war, which, like her, is less a substance than an absence, a portrait drawn in silhouette. Just as Lynch is coloured around by what did not happen to her on April Fool's Day, what is not happening in Iraq is growing clearer by the day. On April 4 The Washington Post reported that Lynch was rescued from the Saddam Hospital in Nasiriyah by "navy special operations forces, or Seals, extract[ing] Private Lynch while under fire". In fact, there were no Iraqi soldiers in or near the hospital. It was reported on April 6 that after being ambushed, Lynch "fought fiercely and shot several enemy soldiers, firing her weapon until she ran out of ammunition despite having sustained multiple gunshot wounds". Rather than being ambushed, it has now emerged that Lynch's convoy leader misread his orders and drove into Nasiriyah past waving Iraqis. Realising his error, he tried to turn the 13-vehicle convoy around but they ran out of petrol, or collided with each other, or broke down, or got stuck. It's unclear whether Lynch fired her weapon or, like others in her convoy, her gun jammed due to poor maintenance. [Lest this imply that the leader, Captain Troy Kent King, blundered, that too is not the case. According to the military investigation, King did nothing blameworthy, but committed a "navigational error caused by the combined effects of the operational pace, acute fatigue, isolation and harsh environmental conditions".] This newspaper's Miranda Devine, reporting from Sydney, described the Lynch rescue as "the feel-good story of the war", but said it was being hijacked by "feminists": "It is inevitable that Jessica Lynch will be immortalised as the invincible female warrior princess, her heroics exaggerated for feminist propaganda. The ramifications for all women are profound." Or not. By the time she comes to, Lynch's world will have changed, then changed back again. What has not changed, however, is her status as the human symbol of what the war on Iraq was not. It was not a war to disarm Saddam Hussein of the weapons of mass destruction he did not have, or the "enriched uranium" he did not buy. It was not a war to remove the "45-minute" danger Iraq did not pose. Nor was it a war to disable an elite Republican Guard which was, in fact, a poker party of old men manning sandbags with rusty rifles, and tank drivers who cheerfully drove into the B-52s' crosshairs. It was not a war to bring democracy to Iraq, for a democratic expression of a majority Iraqi will is precisely what the occupiers will not allow. Nor, of course, was Saddam the tactical genius he (or we) pretended he was. Had Saddam been a coach in the National Rugby League, he would also have been out of a job by April. He certainly wasn't a leader with 100 per cent electoral approval, as he claimed, but then in a free election he'd still likely have won more votes than the 24 per cent of Americans who voted for George Bush. [A note on the difference between Saddam democracy and American democracy: in the former, people are forced to give their consent by voting for the one available candidate; in the latter, people are liberated to give their consent by not voting for anyone.] Most potently, the war isn't a "was", but an "is". It's here now, in the present. The fact that it's no longer being broadcast live on Fox News only makes it feel more real then when it was. Meanwhile, Private Ryan - sorry, Lynch - will become a hero of a telemovie that tells her story as it could, perhaps should, have happened. When the telemovie is screened, Lynch's amnesia will be relieved and she can become, at last, what Michael Moore might have predicted as her destiny: a fictitious character rescued fictitiously from a fictitious war to which she had been sent by a fictitious president, as seen by an audience who can't remember. Malcolm Knox is a Herald journalist. www.smh.com.au
Dying in Iraq By BOB HERBERT - NY Times Those are good kids that we're sending into the shooting gallery called Iraq, and unless you have the conviction of a Bush or a Rumsfeld or a Bechtel or a Halliburton, you have to be nursing the sick feeling that each death is a tragic waste, and that this conflict is as much of a fool's errand as the war in Vietnam. Despite the deceit and chronic dissembling of their political leaders in Washington, and the wretched conditions on the ground in Iraq, the young men and women are fighting bravely. So there was Gov. George Pataki earlier this week with the unhappy task of asking for a moment of silence in remembrance of Sgt. Heath McMillin, a 29-year-old National Guardsman from Clifton Springs in upstate New York. Sergeant McMillin was killed on Sunday when his unit was attacked while on patrol south of Baghdad. Over the weekend The New York Times had an article about the close-knit family of Cpl. Travis J. Bradach-Nall, a 21-year-old marine from Portland, Ore., who was killed on July 1 while clearing mines in south-central Iraq. The corporal loved tattoos, and his favorite movie was "Ghostbusters." The article was accompanied by a photo showing his brother and three cousins with memorial "Ghostbusters" tattoos. Why are these kids dying? The United States was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001. But instead of using all the means available to hunt down and destroy Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, the Bush administration became obsessed with the ouster of Saddam Hussein and the takeover of Iraq. That is a very peculiar ordering of priorities. The federal government issued public warnings this week after being alerted to potential new terror attacks against Americans by Al Qaeda, including the possibility of airline hijackings in the U.S. or overseas. President Bush said yesterday, "We're talking to foreign governments and foreign airlines to indicate to them the reality of the threat." But even as the president was speaking, word was coming out that the Transportation Security Administration is trying to cut back its air marshals program to save money. The war in Iraq is costing scores of billions of dollars a month, and the president's tax cuts have grown so large they're casting shadows over generations to come. But we can't afford to fully fund a program to protect American airline passengers. "When we are faced with more priorities than we have funding to support, we have to go through a process of trying to address the most urgent needs," said a spokesman for the security administration. The credibility of the Bush administration is approaching meltdown. The White House won't level with the American people on the cost of the war, or the number of troops that are really needed, or the amount of taxpayer money that is being funneled to the politically connected corporations that have been given carte blanche for the reconstruction. While the Bush crowd was happy to let the public believe that Saddam Hussein was somehow connected to the Sept. 11 attacks, it won't come clean about the real links between the Saudis and Al Qaeda. And you won't hear from the administration that the phantom weapons of mass destruction were never the real reason for the war, but merely the pretext. The real goals were to establish a military foothold in the region, remake the Middle East and capture control of Iraq's fabulous oil reserves. Right now there is no viable plan for securing the peace in Iraq, and no exit strategy. There is no real plan for demolishing Al Qaeda and the genuine threat it poses to the security of all Americans. (Similarly, at home, there is no plan to get the economy moving and the millions of unemployed Americans back to work.) Iraq is not Vietnam, where more than 58,000 Americans were killed. But it is like Vietnam in that deceptive leaders have maneuvered the country into a tragic situation that I do not believe Americans will support over time. For the Bushes and the Rumsfelds, this is a grand imperial adventure, with press-conference posturing and wonderful photo-ops, like the president's "Top Gun" moment on the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln. For the youngsters condemned to the shooting gallery, it's a fearful exercise in survival in a conflict that has never been adequately explained.