perfidy

Joe Katzman cheerfully avoids the discomfort of actually having to answer the question I posed: exactly how big is the "big tent" of Idiotarianism?

"Leftists" in universities wink at Jihadists in the same way that "Rightists" at CCC meetings wink at cross burners.

You (the collective you) draw connections where they don't exist. Can a female university student believe that Palestinians have a legitimate cause, as a people? Not in Katzman's world: her belief structure means she is a "feminazi", an "islamofascist", an "anti-semite", an "animal rights nazi"... you get the idea. But there's more! She's also "hostile to rational thought", "winking at jihadists", an an apologist for murder, to boot!

Wow, that's a lot of evil in one little girl. Who knew?

All I say is she thinks the Palestinians might have a point. But your dots become fully connected, defensively, instantly...

And yes, Joe, filling a few paragraphs fifty percent full of insult and bluster cheapens discourse.

I believe in national health care. Did that qualify me for "radical left"? I think we need more regulation on corporations. Did that qualify me? Taxes don't really bother me all that much, although they should, given what I pay. I can keep going, if I haven't qualified yet.

Maybe I can take a brief time-out, and refer to you as a McVeigh Republican. Makes sense to me; if I have only one brush. You like guns and shootin' stuff and smaller government and blowin' stuff up, and so did he. But I won't, because it's just stupid. You're a more complex individual than that, and because you share one characteristic (smaller government) with a real bad guy, doesn't mean you share the entire belief system.

A system of belief is a complex, evolving entity. Simplification of this is a very bad idea because over-simplicity creates conflict. We need to have room to move. Diplomacy needs to be able to maneuver. Tolerance is based in flexibility. Viewing social issues as members of a class of NP-complete problems renders the whole unsolvable.

The "anti-idiotarian", nose in the air, close-minded, take no shit, f-you-and-the-horse-you-rode-in-on, superiority complex delivered by the average invoker of the word seems, to many of us, to be a great way to create enemies unnecessarily. And that's how my family gets endangered.

Tolerance starts with respect, which is apparently in short supply these days.

So am I or ain't I the big "I"?

Do you want a label, or a discourse? The last line I hear from the right wingers I argue with (sorry, "debate with") in person is almost always "I can't respond to that, but you just have to respect the fact that I believe something different from you".

So I do. It's a start, because they're never going to change their minds if you don't.

I bow down to all you badass motherf@#$@rs. The kick'em in the teeth crowd; the take-no-shit crowd; the make-me-a-sandwich boys. You own the playground. You can tape signs on the backs of the nerds.

Then you grow up. You work in a gas station. And the nerd working in corporate fires your ass.

Den Beste gives us a marvelous example of true extremism -- the casual contemplation of nuclear genocide to rid ourselves of a tiny, nasty minority within a population with which we are currently somewhat adversarial. I find his words to be a smooth, oily kind of evil. This rush to judgement, rush to the end-game...it's an unnecessary exercise of brinksmanship and absolutism.

Is this the point at which I need to reassert myself as a card-carrying citizen of whatever democracy? Say a few things to earn respect? Boo-ya. Capitalism kicks ass. Taxes suck! I support the troops! I like pancakes and Samurai Jack. That's the limit of rote platitudes I can muster, in this moment.

I have said repeatedly that what the Arabs need to fear the most is that we begin to think about them the way they (or their extremes) think about us. But what do they really think about us? Would you kill Savas, the generous and kind Arab who showed me Istanbul? Because when you guys talk about your armies and your shiny red buttons, and how very much you'd like to push them, but only if somebody absolutely makes you do it.

Exactly how close do you all think we are, to the brink? Are we one step removed from annihilation?

We've been there for forty years, and the extremists had nothing to do with it. We put ourselves there. We built the technology; we built it, and now they've come, in the night. But we can't put the jack back in the box. It doesn't work that way.

There are two essential positions vis-a-vis the terrorists/extremists in this world. You can either do something to get'em to love us, or you can try to get'em to fear us.

Den Beste and rest of the button pushers sure do definitely want them to fear us. Never mind the cost of such an action to our souls, the very heart of what makes our countries fundamentally better. We try to do the right thing.

Is there not a 40 year object lesson in Israel right now that teaches us about this particular endgame? It leads nowhere. If we are unwilling to engage a final (read: death to them all) solution, a population cannot be suppressed through fear and violence. It only incites more violence and hatred. Like a bully in a playground, the blows rain down on someone who can't fight back, won't fight back. And then a gun shows up in the hands of the victim, and someone dies, and then the cycle starts again...the history of the world is written in these small cycles, and expanded to the larger canvas of civilizations.

I refuse to accept the playground. There are other ways. We can grow up, grow out of this. Hatred can be eased, when we recognize it on both sides for what it is.

Those in the center must find the strength to reject attempts at domination by the extremists.

This has been a circuitous route to "Idiotarianism"...but here's the point: You cannot eliminate terrorism through force. If you think it can be done through force, you are an idiot. Thousands of years of human history tell us, with exacting clarity that in any population there are misfits, there are malcontents, and there are those who are insane. The only defense we have against these sad souls is a population that doesn't want them around. People are the early warning system.

If America had ten Timothy McVeighs, and they went to Moscow, they rented ten white vans, bought twenty tons of fertilizer, and blew holes in buildings, killing a few thousand Russians, we'd have a number of people in this country who'd say "good riddance". A Russian Den Beste might push his button at that point, which would be idiotic.

Technology is dangerous. I get that, deeply and fundamentally. It places more and more power into the hands of fewer and fewer people, as every year goes by. There is no way to stop it. Suitcase nukes, an aerosol of death, radioactive dust...and in the future, we may have nuclear-powered nanites carrying tiny bladders of vile poison deep into the heart of the enemy, whoever that is.

When the next destructive wonder comes along, will you play the same risk analysis game? Will you decide that the newest technology wonder is too dangerous for others to have, and that it requires a pre-emptive strike? If we don't push our button, maybe we won't get the chance...and God won't give us 50 points at the Pearly Gates for having "smited enemies when we had the damn chance."

Holy Christ, I'm one of the pansy peaceniks, or something. I mean, why would God have given the US an Army if he didn't intend for it to be used?

Commenter Ben informs us: So the left will become more frustrated, radicalized, and dangerous. You shoot mad dogs. You may not like it, but you really have no choice. Either shoot the mad dogs, or let them destroy you and your family, your friends, and your nation.

With that paragraph I think we've arrived at the reason why "Idiotarian" bothers me so much. It's a big, obvious hook on which the narrow-minded, vicious hard right can hang anything or anyone they don't understand or don't like. It's a parrot-talk word. It cheapens the intellectual underpinnings of the true conservative and re-renders genuine argument into lead-based pablum. It's a single-color paintbrush in a multi-color world.

Right now there are tens of thousands of relatives of thousands of newly dead Iraqis who have developed a permanent hatred of the US. A significant chunk of that emotion is generated by the right-wing rhetorical chaining of 9/11 to Iraq; the perception is that they're being killed in retribution for something that they didn't do. I can't think of a better way to piss people off than that.

I know how the average American would react if he was convicted of something he didn't do. He'd scream bloody murder, vow revenge, and find a way to get back at whoever put him there. Why expect people in other countries to be any different?

Maybe they're on 3/5 of a person, per person, over there. Maybe it's less.

Yes, the rambling needs to stop. Here's one last bit of nasty perspective:

Den Beste says that "what we're trying to do in Iraq seems to be the only way to keep the body count in this war from making WWII look small". Let's go horrible, terrible-case and assume a nuke in terrorist hands...a crude suitcase model will do.

Deaths in Hiroshima: 65,000 in the first four months. That's about what would happen in a modern city, too, with a nuke of comparable size, within a factor of two or three.

Deaths in World War II: Around 50 MILLION.

Why don't we lay off on the comparisons between Al Qaeda and WWII, ok? It's BS. The only thing that could possibly generate truly high and horrific deaths are biologicals, which are going to be substantially easier to work with in the future than nukes. It's probably a bad time to "accidentally" kill an Arab microbiologist's son.

Al Qaeda are criminals. You don't nuke a neighborhood because it produces criminals. You don't walk into the neighborhood and shoot randomly, unless you don't think humans live in the neighborhood. Don't be suprised if the feeling is mutual, then..

This would be a great time for Buckethead to get a word in edgewise, and demonstrate to me just how far out of my tree I have managed to get myself.

Just like so many other things. Here is my new crazy idea. The primary Palestinian objection to The Fence is the economic implications thereof: They're dependent on Israel for their economy. Of course, a pretty good chunk of Israel is dependent on cheap Palestinian labor too, but that's life. There are land issues (farmers' farms being split up), but let's set those issues aside as solvable and part of the "where is the fence" problem, rather than the "should there be a fence problem".

If the US and certain other countries (like Europe) were to agree to set up factories and so forth in the new Palestine, this could jumpstart a new economy. First, it's a cheap way to buy peace. Second, it gives Palestinians jobs; a pretty good chunk of the political resistance is due to the desperation and free time created by a destroyed economy.

It might just be the cheapest way to solve much of the problem. At the end of the day, you'd have two states, relative peace, and a decent Palestinian economic infrastructure. You'd also have the US sitting as the agency that made it happen.

So I wonder...what would it cost to do something like this? Life and materials are cheap in the West Bank...what kinds of industries could be created, with international support?

And Then?

I sure do think simple sometimes. Too simple... :)

In this post Aziz Poonawalla said very neatly what I said very clumsily here. Excerpts:

I've been thinking about the GWB visit to Iraq, and found to my surprise that it was difficult to achieve clarity of opinion at first. But I've had some time to think on it and I think that the main thing that should be said about the surprise Thanksgiving visit is: well done.

There's a single reason why it deserves praise. Because for the troops in Iraq, it was an uplifting moment. Regardless of the soldiers' political or religious beliefs, hardships incurred from the long deployment, or problems awaiting them when they return, they are professionals and Bush's visit gave them their due. . . .

[P]hoto ops are nice, but good policy and leadership are better. . . .

The President did a good thing for the troops. Extrapolating it to promote his personal virtue, or his vice, is nonsensical.

My co-blogger Ross has a comment at Winds of Change regarding a post in which Joe Katzman uses the word "idiotarian." Go read for background-- I'll wait.

Ross' comment was, to wit, "I am growing a little tired of the word "Idiotarian". I know it's fun to say, and maybe it's fun to write. Who exactly do you mean? How broad is your "idiot" brush? I think the word cheapens discourse." Joe replies with another post that to me only confirms Ross' objection. He writes,

Ross of Perfidity.org [sic] finds the term overused, and I'm seeing more discomfort with it these days from the left. To which I reply in French: tant pis (too bad). The term is very useful, precisely because it calls attention to the growing neo-fascist/neo-marxist/Islamist nexus of sympathy, mutual justification, and joint action so vividly demonstrated in that neo-nazi spam's URL collection.

Which is fair enough, as far as it goes. The list of urls that Joe refers to is just what he says-- a collection sites devoted to fringe causes, moonbats, fellow travelers, and some well-meaning bystanders.

But Joe fails to do what Ross asked-- explain what he means specifically by the term. Applying the term "idiotarian" to such a wide swath of interests makes the word exactly as useful an appelation as "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy" "The G-d D-n Liberals In This Country" "Feminazis" or "The Elders of Zion." If "idiotarian" means "enemy of the country" than "enemy" works fine. If it also means "armchair marxist apologist," "antiwar advocate," "college-age ecofeminist" and "The G-d D-n Liberals In This Country" than we've got problem because "idiotarian" becomes synonymous with far too many things. Does it really denote a "Vast Left-Wing America-Hating Conspiracy"?

If so, Ross has the advantage here, because using such a broad term as "idiotarian" in a serious discussion does cheapen it somewhat.

Joe tends to post thoughtful and fiery stuff, but I'm with Ross- this particular bit, and the comments it has elicited, don't seem up to his usual standard.

[wik] Updated for clarity and stuff & junk.

[alsø wik] Again! I must be a real idiotarian.

[alsø alsø wik] And now commenters at WoC are talking about a "leftist/Islamicist alliance", that is, an active side-by-side collaboration of American leftists and Muslim terrorists, as if it's a fait accompli. Get a fricken' grip, already. This is insulting.

Glenn Reynolds thinks it's just fine to do it. If the victim of a crime talks to the press afterwards, well, there's no crime to be had! Remember that if a reporter walks up to you after you've been mugged and the cops have the guy held on the ground. In Glenn Reynolds' American, you could be giving the guy a perfect defense!

Let's see...she's photographed, but is hiding her face to avoid being recognized.

Glenn doesn't like the fact that Wilson is pissed, and is using every tool at his disposal to get back at those who went after his wife.

I can only hope that there are sober, ethical individuals running the investigation, and that they do the right thing. You have to trust in that.

Here's the question, Glenn: Given that you've just declared the scandal "bogus", do you call off the investigation?

I heard an interesting discussion this morning on NPR...the topic was the prisoners down in Cuba. The Supreme Court is hearing the Hamdi case soon, I think...the case will decide the question of whether the US Government is allowed to hold a US citizen without a trial or any other recourse, by declaring that person an "unlawful combatant".

Common sense tells us that the government can't do this. I don't even know why this has gotten as far as the Supreme Court. Sure, the guy was picked up on a battlefield. Yeah, there were enemies in the area. At least, that's what the government says. Our system of justice says that crimes (like this one) need to be proven by the government. We don't just throw people in jail because a prosecutor says they've done this or that. We already know what happens when you have a system of justice that works that way -- take a look at the waning days of the Soviet Empire, or what purports to be justice in China, today.

There are a couple of standard excuses that are trotted out by Bush supporters, to justify this. First is the "just trust us" line. Since when does this country "just trust" its elected representatives? At the heart of democracy is the free and unfettered flow of information. Yes, we "trust" our representatives, and if we don't like what they do, we can throw them out in the next election. Our ability to know whether or not we should toss them out depends on the flow of information. If the government is coming after citizens secretly, other citizens don't have access to the information they need to make voting decisions.

At a bare minimum, the government should be required to publish aggregate statistics on the numbers of secretly held captives. Substantial judicial oversight needs to be in place, and periodic reviews must be in place, with members from each branch of government, who must all be in agreement. Is this a lot of work? Yeah, but if we want to do the right thing, it's important.

On the status of the boys in Cuba: It all hinges on status of an individual. We can probably do a significant amount of sorting with one simple principle. Give each prisoner a chance to declare his citizenship, and then ask that government to acknowledge that the prisoner is one of their citizens. That government can then confer status to the prisoner. If the government declares that person to be a soldier in their army, then the person is a prisoner of war and must be treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. If they do not acknowledge that person as a soldier, then they are officially an unlawful combatant.

Once someone is in the "unlawful combatant" classification, we must then determine if they were, in fact, fighting. This appears to be one of the key problems: How do we know what a given person was doing? The Administration's attitude towards this is that we should err on the side of safety, and simply keep these people indefinitely until we are sure that it's OK to let them go. To be sure, a small number of people have been released -- their is no overt desire to hold people that don't need holding.

The question is, why should this process be secret? The only sensible reason is that there may be matters of intelligence that could be compromised. While this is a valid reason, it is applied with a very broad brush. It does not make any sense that virtually all of the Gitmo Happy Campers are in this category. Once again, even if secrecy is necessary, convene a simple tribunal with military, judicial, and executive branch members. Have congressional oversight on these tribunals, which can operate in secrecy if the case is made for it. Otherwise, they're open. Why should they be any other way?

Ultimately it's about deciding whether or not the Constitution and its principles apply universally, or whether American citizens are in some sort of special class or people. Americans don't often consider how they'd like to be treated in other countries. If an American citizen is locked up in China on bogus charges, they'd expect their government to come rushing to their aid, because it just ain't right.

Two wrongs don't make a right. We need a simple mechanism to provide oversight and effectively deal with these people, and a universal mechanism is the American way to do it.

Over at Norbizness' house, there is a discussion a-raging about a Steven Den Beste post that somebody called Balasubramania didn't like and didn't finish, that Instapundit linked to, that Norbizness called them on, and now everyone's piling on. What fun!

To sum up comments in support of den Beste: if you haven't drunk the kool-aid you cant't possibly understand the depths of den Beste. So shut your cryptoislamofascist liberal pansy piehole until you grow a pair, and learn that your snarky generalizations are inferior to others' dead-serious generalizations.

Bloggers like polemic; it garners traffic and approval. But jeez... this is a whole lot of fur flyin' from a pretty small dogfight. The Clueless piece is one of the more reasonable ones of late, and he deserves credit for that. But how can any commenter disagree with Norbizness' statement that the Clueless echo chamber have taken the loosest bits of the argument and turned them into Strangelovian crazy talk? 

The first half of den Beste's article (the part that Balasubramania read) says: "if you (I mean "Muslims") place us in a position where only you or us can survive, it's going to be us, and you'll all be dead."

I can see how that might come across a bit rectocranial.

But the second half says:

"We don't want to kill you, and we don't want you to surrender to us. We just want you to stop your fellow Muslims from trying to kill us. Do that, and this war is over."

I'm assuming #2 is what SDB meant to say, since it came at the end of his free-association where the actual thinking goes on. Also, this statement recognizes that Islam is comprised of individuals, not just suicide units and fellow travellers. The first statement is laughable and the second is tough but reasonable.

When I was teaching history, I was told always to lead my grading comments with the good news. It makes the medicine go down easier. I also taught my students that: context is everything; to make sure you've done your homework so you know the facts; to organize your work so that your point is clear; and to revise afterwards so you don't contradict yourself. Without doing all these things you risk building a castle that will very shortly burn down, fall over, and sink into the swamp. And then what do you have? A burning swamp and an ugly wife with huge tracts of land!

Den Beste? It might be a blog but that doesn't excuse lazy writing. Balu-wha? Finish your reading! Or, alternately, admit you came to uncertain conclusions.

Glenn Reynolds? Tell the whole story or go home! Also, "indeed" and "heh" don't count as incisive commentary anymore; they're schtick.

Johno? What a raging presumptuous a-hole!

SDB, Baluwhatever, and Reynolds are all guilty of lazy reading and writing, no matter what disagreements they may have otherwise. That doesn't help anyone. It's just a blog, but if you take challenges seriously, you better make sure you've done your homework. Participating in a discussion without arming yourself with knowledge is like making Shaq play donkey basketball. Weblogs tend to attract good writers and thoughtful, creative people, but the culture of polemic and generalization that tends to prevail among many weblogs is more donkey show than Shaq. Myself included.

This has been Johno, reporting from atop his high horse. Thank you, and good night.

NDR at I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts has this analysis of the EU's unity problems: "for all the people who complain that EU cannot work because agreement is impossible, they should point their fingers squarely at Blair, the chief obstructionist."

He has a point there, I think... but isn't the UK not part of the EU?

Last night I had an opportunity to attend the live broadcast of MSNBC's "Crossfire" at the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government, featuring the smooth vocal stylings of Howard Dean.

I'm pretty wiped out right now and about to commit felonies on co-workers, so how about I merely advertise in this space that I'll write something substantial about this later today, mmmkay?

In the meantime, check out this quickie discussion by brdgt that hits most of the major points.

[wik] ....well, it's later.

Howard Dean came to the Crimson Permanent Assurance yesterday as part of the Chris Matthews "I'm a JOURNALIST, dammit!" Travellin' Jolly Roadshow." I managed to snag a hoi polloi ticket through certain connections (my ibogaine dealer is a Juris Doctor candidate at Harvard Law), and showed up at the appointed hour.

My first thought is that they hold these events in a wildly inappropriate setting. The room they use is an atrium at the Kennedy School that consists of a fairly small main floor and two upper levels looking down. Great for studying, but terrible for affording 500 people sightlines to the action. I know why they chose that room: security is easy to control, the building opens to the street and not to the inner campus, and because a super-damn-packed room looks grrrreat on camera.

My first thought: Chris' Matthews' producer must be hell to work for. Maaaan.

My second thought: Chris Matthews has orange skin. And it's not makeup!

I was seated two levels up from the action, with a clear view of the back of Matthews' and Gov. Dean's heads as well as the VIPS in the front rows. Since I could not see Dean's face, it was hard to tell whether he merely sounded less enraged, or whether he had actually quit doing that terrible smile-grimace that makes him look like Bruce Banner simultaneously trying to Hulk out and pass a peach pit. Brdgt, watching from home, corroborates my conclusion that Dean was more at ease than in past TV appearances. Goody for him. One thing is for sure-- in person he has definite charisma and a prickly charm that doesn't always translate on camera.

My sense is that Dean did himself a pretty good service by appearing on Crossfire. Matthews stuck to some issues that Dean can score pretty easily off of: gay marriage/civil unions; runaway spending, and stayed away from the stuff that could be really bad for him: how he's going to pay for his national health plan; his recent protectionist trade posture. That being said, it's a little scary how Dean doesn't have a dissembling bone in his body. Last night, when pressured, he said: that he was hoping not to get drafted during 'nam; that he would support breaking up media conglomerates; and that he would pursue international solutions to terrorist crises.

I don't think that the Vietnam issue is going to play for Dean's opponents. He went to the draft board; they kicked him free. Whether not he spent the next few years skiing is immaterial-- was he supposed to keep a vigil for all the people that went 'in his place'?

The media breakup question is a tougher one, because it means toughening up antitrust and competitiveness laws that are simultaneously toothless and burdensome. In the actual exchange during the show, it was clear that Dean is not planning on crusading to break up Fox and GE, but (I paraphrase), "if a bill came across my desk to that effect, I would sign it. I'm just not going to push for it." Fair enough.

Dean had many kind words for Colin Powell last night, though he stopped short of promising him a cabinet position in the event he wins. Dean seems committed to pursuing something like the Powell doctrine of international relations, something that could work out well for him as President though it might make it hard to win the actual election. Where he is strongest is in taking the Bush administration to task for squandering the US's goodwill on quixotic tasks, while ignoring the practical, achievable things the government should be doing domestically and abroad to combat terrorism.

Dean's favorite film: A Beautiful Mind. A safe choice.

His favorite musician: Wyclef Jean. A wacky and ill-considered choice. Wyclef's albums are tending more and more to stinky-turd status with every passing year. If he wants to be hip like this, why not tout the genius of Sean Paul, Keb' 'Mo, Robert Randolph, or even Outkast? But, what the hell. Anything, anything to keep Fleetwood Mac away from the White House.

His favorite book: Dean dodged this question to present Chris Matthews with a dedicated copy of his new campaign book, Winning Back America. Funny. During the commercial break, I heard Dean say as an aside to Matthews that he had thought better of citing "Sometimes A Great Notion" instead. Matthews replied "yeah, Kesey, right? That woulda been bad. Drugs." Indeed. Dean then floated the idea that "All The King's Men" would have been a good thing to say. I can get behind this-- Ken Kesey and Robert Penn Warren are hallmarks of a well-rounded mind.

The audience questions were all pretty good with one or two exceptions: one snot-nose from Harvard asked why Dean was too "busy" to meet one-on-one with students. Brdgt's take on this, which I fully endorse: "I feel really sorry for a privileged Harvard student who doesn't get to talk one on one with every presidential candidate - really my heart goes out to you. Really."

One person asked about Dean's sealing certain records from his terms as governer, and the reply was classic: in essence, "everyone does it. If you wrote me a letter as a private citizen, and you had HIV, and you were asking for state HIV research funding, would you want that letter to be public when I leave office?" I'm sure there's more to it than Dean lets on, but the Republicans are going to have to work pretty hard to make this into more than a one-news-cycle story, especially when literally everybody does this.

Someone else asked about Dean's foreign policy experience, and Dean replied that he had as much experience as Carter, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush43 before they became President. QED.

Overall, I came away favorably impressed with Dean's forthrightness (even when it has to be dragged out of him), his clear-headedness, and his seeming willingness to table issues that he won't be qualified to discuss until after he becomes President.

Best quote of the evening: "We have to stop making every election in this country about abortion, god, guns, and gays."

Worst verbal tic: Dean kept saying "Soviet Union" for Russia, in a discussion of the nuclear threats posed by North Korea and Iran.

Dean/Clark: that's my prediction.

On Salon.com today I find this headline about Dubya's Thanksgiving visit to Baghdad: " 'Mission Accomplished' footage is no longer usable, so Karl Rove recalls his cast and crew to shoot a new Bush commercial in Baghdad."

I'm no booster of the President, but give him a little credit, please. First he isn't going to troop funerals, and he's a heartless jerk. Now he's visiting a war zone, and he's an opportunistic SOB. Isn't it possible that once in a while he just remembers to act Presidential? The "left" is going to have to stop demonizing the guy if they're going to make any headway.

Want to get educated on Proportional Representation, which just might be able to fix a lot of the problems we face as a society? Start here:

PR Library

Here's a little reading...the gap between the western and arab press never ceases to amaze me...

Hearts and Minds - US style

Dozens killed in Samarra carnage

Thwarted Ambush Was Highly Coordinated, U.S. Officials Say

U.S. Forces Kill 54 Iraqis After Ambushes

You can see the dramatic differences...

Here's the thing: Last night the lead on Aljazerra was this:

"Innocents killed in Samarra bloodbath
Al-Jazeera, Qatar - 17 hours ago
US troops in the Iraqi town of Samarra have admitted to perpetrating a bloodbath,
with one occupation spokesman confirming nearly four dozen people were killed ... "

I just cut and pasted that from google's news cache...now, if you click through that same story reads like this:

"US occupation authorities in Iraq have raised the Samarra carnage toll to 54.

An unnamed military spokesman on Monday did not specify if those killed were resistance fighters or civilians."

The Aljazeera headline was revised between last night and today. The question is, what does the Arabic headline say? Who revised it? Who wrote it in the first place? I am still trying to find a cached version of the page from last night, which basically said that US forces went in and shot up a bunch of civilians, in a "bloodbath".

At first I thought that was completely ridiculous. I still do, but this morning I heard another report describing a number of civilian casualties during this event. It is clear that at least some civilians died. It is also very clear that the "resistance" fighters melt into the local population, and therefore put that population at risk. A US soldier has the right to shoot back, when he's being shot at.

My old line about Arabs applies in this situation. What the Arab should fear the most is that we begin to think about him the same way he thinks about us. If that ever happens...they only think they know suffering.

The sheer level of disinformation that the average Arab must wade through is incredible. Read this piece by John Burns. It's a conversation between Iraqis and a reporter. It's amazing. These are smart people; how did they get to this point? How are their information sources so corrupt, so inaccurate?

If you've got the time, I also suggest reading Greg Packer's New Yorker article, which gives us great examples of the hope and frustration on both sides. It's lengthy, so set aside some time, but well worth it. I read the print version, but this online version has additional content.