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Old 13-12-06, 05:40 PM   #21
Mazer
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Originally Posted by Ramona_A_Stone View Post
Of course the military has a political agenda, it's the embodiment of a political agenda. The current agenda is to win the "war on terror," "spread democracy" and make Americans "feel safer" by fighting in Iraq.
You're projecting the president's agenda onto the people who have to do what he orders them to. The buck stops with Bush, Ramona.

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You maintain that it's the duty of soldiers to keep their mouths shut about their own political opinions lest recruitment should suffer, but it's apparently lost on you that that in itself is a political agenda, and you go on to argue that the military has ascended to a state of neutrality!
Who said it was their duty? Soldiers keep their political opinions private out of necessity. Almost nobody in the military gets to pick who their superior officers will be. Those who can't take orders from people they disagree with don't last very long, so military life actually requires the kind of tolerance and open-mindedness that liberals pretend is their hallmark. Reticence is not about duty, it's about teamwork, without which there is no military.

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Of course the military isn't neutral, the aggressive sterilization of individual opinion itself is a hard political line
Well it would be if it wasn't voluntary. That people from all walks of life sign up for this kind of treatment on purpose, even educated people with college degrees, speaks to the fact that individuality is less important to some people than it is to you. Hey, different strokes for different folks, right?

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Also you suggest that Iraq is blanketed by free agent reportage in a journalistic orgy that must be filling virtual warehouses with videotape as evidence that there's no chance the violence is underreported, and yet oddly you could compile all the footage and reports that have emerged from Iraq and been shown to the American public since the outset, edit it together and probably view it in a single evening. Seems to be a small margin of discrepancy there, no?
Blame the free press, not the military. Maybe Iraq war news is a ratings killer and people just don't give a damn anymore. I'm sure there are people you can call to request more Iraq war news coverage, but they've got their advertisers to think about. And there's always print news. I doubt you could read all the printed Iraq war news in a month, let alone an evening.
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Old 14-12-06, 04:49 AM   #22
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Maybe, If we bomb all the people without the internets...
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Old 14-12-06, 12:03 PM   #23
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Originally Posted by Mazer
You're projecting the president's agenda onto the people who have to do what he orders them to. The buck stops with Bush, Ramona.
Your toilet is broken. You call a plumber. Your neighbor asks "what's the plumber doing there?"

If you want to be a smart ass, you might say the plumber is there to get paid, but you would really be avoiding answering your neighbor's question. On the other hand if you answered "he's there to fix the toilet," I doubt your neighbor would accuse you of unfairly projecting your own agenda on his.

If the almighty Buck Stopper has an agenda and he orders people to carry it out it is exactly the same as saying that those people are serving as the embodiment of his agenda. I don't really understand your need to refute this beyond the fact that you seem to be a self-appointed although somewhat flailing apologist for the sainted, perfectly neutral, politically agenda-less military. Or perhaps you're suggesting that there is in fact a hidden ulterior motive--a concept that, I'd concede, isn't beyond the realm of possibility. Perhaps the plumber is using the idea of fixing the toilet as a ruse and is actually there to raid your medicine cabinet?

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Originally Posted by Mazer
so military life actually requires the kind of tolerance and open-mindedness that liberals pretend is their hallmark
lol, well now you've convinced me. I'm heading straight down to the local recruitment office to sign up, dressed as Elizabeth Taylor.

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Originally Posted by Mazer
Soldiers keep their political opinions private out of necessity.
In a 2003 Gallup Poll, nearly 1/5th of the soldiers surveyed said they felt the situation in Iraq had not been worth going to war over and the number of military families who believe that war was not the right course of action is actually higher than that in the general population. They may have divulged this information privately, but it's no secret.

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Originally Posted by Mazer
Blame the free press, not the military.
In July, Rod Nordland, who served as Newsweek’s Baghdad bureau chief for two years, told readers of Foreign Policy this:

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FOREIGN POLICY: Are Americans getting an accurate picture of what’s going on in Iraq?

Rod Nordland: It’s a lot worse over here [in Iraq] than is reported. The administration does a great job of managing the news. Just an example: There was a press conference here about [Abu Musab al] Zarqawi’s death, and somebody asked what role [U.S.] Special Forces played in finding Zarqawi. [The official] either denied any role or didn’t answer the question. Somebody pointed out that the president, half an hour earlier, had already acknowledged and thanked the Special Forces for their involvement. They are just not giving very much information here.

FP: The Bush administration often complains that the reporting out of Iraq is too negative, yet you say they are managing the news. What’s the real story?

RN: You can only manage the news to a certain degree. It is certainly hard to hide the fact that in the third year of this war, Iraqis are only getting electricity for about 5 to 10 percent of the day. Living conditions have gotten so much worse, violence is at an even higher tempo, and the country is on the verge of civil war. The administration has been successful to the extent that most Americans are not aware of just how dire it is and how little progress has been made. They keep talking about how the Iraqi army is doing much better and taking over responsibilities, but for the most part that’s not true.

FP: How often do you travel outside of the Green Zone?

RN: The restrictions on [journalists’] movements are very severe. It is extremely dangerous to move around anywhere in Iraq, but we do. We all have Iraqi staff who get around, and we go on trips arranged by the U.S. State Department as frequently as we can.

But the military has started censoring many [embedded reporting] arrangements. Before a journalist is allowed to go on an embed now, [the military] check[s] the work you have done previously. They want to know your slant on a story—they use the word slant—what you intend to write, and what you have written from embed trips before. If they don’t like what you have done before, they refuse to take you. There are cases where individual reporters have been blacklisted because the military wasn’t happy with the work they had done on embed. But we get out among the Iraqi public a whole lot more than almost any American official, certainly more than military officials do.

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Old 14-12-06, 01:40 PM   #24
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At least I can count on you to understand the difference between secrecy an privacy, but what's the difference between a soldier and a plumber? The plumber has the option to turn the job down and go fix someone else's sink instead. By definition, people without free agency are incapable of serving their own agendas unless their handlers happen to have the same agendas. Your poll says that many soldiers want to leave Iraq. If the president rescinded all his orders and told the Army and Marines that they could pull out of Iraq if they wanted to, do you think they'd stay? I don't know either, but if they actually had an agenda then that's when it would surface. Until that happens—and it probably never will—all this talk about the military's agenda is hypothetical.

Why am I defending the troops from the accusation that they are totally responsible for the effects of Bush's politics? I'm looking for hypocrisy. People can't say they support the troops while criticizing their mission if they believe the troops chose this mission for themselves.

Last edited by Mazer : 14-12-06 at 01:54 PM.
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Old 15-12-06, 10:10 AM   #25
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Originally Posted by Mazer
By definition, people without free agency are incapable of serving their own agendas unless their handlers happen to have the same agendas.
And this is the same as an admission that 'their handlers' do have an agenda. And indeed it is simply absurd to suggest otherwise--tantamount to insisting that there is a military presence in Iraq wandering around aimlessly for no reason at all. Arguing about whose agenda they are carrying out is A: unnecessary and B: does not change the fact that they are in fact carrying out an agenda. Nor does it make that agenda "hypothetical."

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Originally Posted by Mazer
Why am I defending the troops from the accusation that they are totally responsible for the effects of Bush's politics?
I really had no idea frankly, as any school child knows that the troops are only following orders and probably also realizes that in wartime civilians are rarely privy to the full extent and nature of these orders, but saying they are not responsible is not the same as maintaining that their deeds and the ramifications thereof do not exist.

If they have orders to withhold certain information and by their actions successfully suppress such information, then you can argue about 'responsibility' until doomsday but the information gets suppressed all the same.

I'm only really interested in the reality of the situation: what information has been suppressed and to what extent. Your argument is about blame--and seems a little magical: if we can't blame the military then perhaps the information isn't really being suppressed. Blaming the guy that took all the toilet paper will not wipe your ass. It'll still have shit on it.

It seems clear enough that information has been suppressed to some extent even though you seemingly want to avoid acknowledging it altogether in your rhetoric. However I find myself unable to conclude that you are naive enough to think that this is the unprecedented Virgin Mary of All Fully Publicly Disclosed Wars in Real Time, even though your rapturous arguments of a near-mystical Militant Purity glowing like some moral Tinkerbelle seem, kind of crazily, to insist it.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mazer
I'm looking for hypocrisy. People can't say they support the troops while criticizing their mission if they believe the troops chose this mission for themselves.
Well as self-appointed Chief of Napsterites Hypocrisy Police, first go pick on probably about 80% of the people driving around with "Support The Troops" bumper stickers and point out to them that a general agreement with "the president's agenda" for whatever heartfelt reason is in no way supporting the troops in any conceivable world, it's merely lip service and cheerleading--and remind them that when done uncritically it has a grave potential to get more of them killed and maimed and psychologically fucked than may be absolutely necessary... or even sane.

Such is the power of opinion and the importance of having the right information to formulate it.
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Old 15-12-06, 02:06 PM   #26
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You're in top form today, Ramona. Your rhetoric hasn't convinced me, but it has certainly upstaged me. Take a bow.
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Old 05-01-07, 05:51 PM   #27
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Ok Jack, help understand your thinking, The AP is caught lying and you are not at all concerned about that. Instead you want to spew "well, then I guess everything is swell in Iraq”, hmmm who said or implied that? What does one have to do with the other - Then you want to start namecalling the blogger who discovered it, because he's not a liberal who hates the war, he has to be just a silly or stupid person along with anyone who believes him. His discovering it is just not important. – BS I say


Iraqi Government Confirms That Jamil Hussein Exists

Ministry spokesman Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, who had previously denied there was any such police employee as Capt. Jamil Hussein, said in an interview that Hussein is an officer assigned to the Khadra police station, as had been reported by The Associated Press…

Khalaf offered no explanation Thursday for why the ministry had initially denied Hussein’s existence, other than to state that its first search of records failed to turn up his full name. He also declined to say how long the ministry had known of its error and why it had made no attempt in the past six weeks to correct the public record…

Khalaf told the AP that an arrest warrant had been issued for the captain for having contacts with the media in violation of the ministry’s regulations.

Hussein told the AP on Wednesday that he learned the arrest warrant would be issued when he returned to work on Thursday after the Eid al-Adha holiday. His phone was turned off Thursday and he could not be reached for further comment.

Khalaf said Thursday that with the arrest of Hussein for breaking police regulations against talking to reporters, the AP would be called to identify him in a lineup as the source of its story.

Should the AP decline to assist in the identification, Khalaf said, the case against Hussein would be dropped. He also said there were no plans to pursue action against the AP should it decline.
http://hotair.com/archives/2007/01/0...ussein-exists/


U.S. News Agency Says Photographer Killed in Iraq

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A photographer with the Associated Press has been shot and killed in Baghdad, the U.S. news organization said on Friday.

The body of Ahmed Hadi Naji, 28, was found with a gun shot wound in the back of his head, six days after he was last seen by his family as he left for work, the agency's Director of Media Relations and Public Affairs said in a statement.

Linda Wagner said Naji, whose body was found in a morgue, had been a messenger and occasional cameraman for the Associated Press (AP) for two-and-a-half-years.

``All of us at AP share the pain and grief being felt by Ahmed's family and friends,'' AP President and CEO Tom Curley said in a statement.

``The situation for our journalists in Iraq is unprecedented in AP's 161-year history of covering wars and conflicts. The courage of our Iraqi colleagues and their dedication to the story stand as an example to the world of journalism's enduring value.''

Wagner said the circumstances of Naji's death were unclear. He is survived by his wife and four-month-old twins.

Iraq was by far the deadliest country for journalists in 2006, with 32 killed, according to the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

The group has said a total of 92 reporters have been killed in the country since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, as well as an additional 37 media support workers -- interpreters, drivers, fixers and office workers.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world...tographer.html
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Old 06-01-07, 06:55 AM   #28
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Iraqi Government Confirms That Jamil Hussein Exists

Ministry spokesman Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, who had previously denied there was any such police employee as Capt. Jamil Hussein, said in an interview that Hussein is an officer assigned to the Khadra police station, as had been reported by The Associated Press…

Khalaf offered no explanation Thursday for why the ministry had initially denied Hussein’s existence, other than to state that its first search of records failed to turn up his full name. He also declined to say how long the ministry had known of its error and why it had made no attempt in the past six weeks to correct the public record…

Khalaf told the AP that an arrest warrant had been issued for the captain for having contacts with the media in violation of the ministry’s regulations.

Hussein told the AP on Wednesday that he learned the arrest warrant would be issued when he returned to work on Thursday after the Eid al-Adha holiday. His phone was turned off Thursday and he could not be reached for further comment.

Khalaf said Thursday that with the arrest of Hussein for breaking police regulations against talking to reporters, the AP would be called to identify him in a lineup as the source of its story.

Should the AP decline to assist in the identification, Khalaf said, the case against Hussein would be dropped. He also said there were no plans to pursue action against the AP should it decline.
http://hotair.com/archives/2007/01/0...ussein-exists/[/url]
the Jamil Hussein thing has been quite the cause celebre for the right, ever desperate to blame the problems in iraq (and in fact, all the world's problems in general) on their darkest fanatsy - the "liberal media". sorry sinner - bs indeed. better luck next time.
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Old 13-01-07, 02:50 AM   #29
Mazer
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Originally Posted by Ramona_A_Stone View Post
I'm only really interested in the reality of the situation: what information has been suppressed and to what extent. Your argument is about blame--and seems a little magical: if we can't blame the military then perhaps the information isn't really being suppressed. Blaming the guy that took all the toilet paper will not wipe your ass. It'll still have shit on it.

It seems clear enough that information has been suppressed to some extent even though you seemingly want to avoid acknowledging it altogether in your rhetoric.
I know this is a dead issue by now, but hindsight is 20/20 right? Here's the answer I should have given last month.

In my first and second replies to this thread I did acknowledge that information was being systemically suppressed, or rather filtered to make it usable. By asking and answering a related question, why has information been suppressed, it becomes obvious what has been suppressed and to what extent. Since this information was contained within a database that was not open to the public, it's wrong to conclude that the motive was to deceive the public. No, the information was being filtered for the same reason that horses wear blinders. The intent was only to filter data which was peripheral to the task at hand, to the extent that it made the task manageable. That was the reality of the situation as the Baker Commission saw it, and their suggestions for improvement were not accusations of censorship.
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