Polls show Americans are 'confused'

That was not the only reason.

A couple of things, I believe you have failed to grasp the distinction between "definitely are THERE (in Iraq), and definitely EXIST.
You seem to want to emphasize the former, I would rather focus on the latter.


What can I say, frank? We have to agree to disagree on this one, since I see no "reasonableness" in your assessment.



Ditto.

all one can do is call the fools out when they mouth the party line.

The power of the major media to define the debates on issues and of setting national agendas for the benefit of business interests above those of this country's citizens is the nation's greatest threat. The most severe threat to democracy is from the inside, not outside the nation's borders.

If you read a little link on this media control and the engineering of opinions, you might just think twice about what you think you know is true, because it isn't necessarily true.

It amazes me that people who pride themselves on their abilities to discern things in their personal lives about money, seem so clueless about how and why the information they get from the major media is presented to them. These kind folks would never be snookered in a real estate deal or when buying a car, but they seem to believe, without critical examination, what they receive from the major media sources. For them, connecting the dots appears to be beyond their reach. I can only assume that they are comfortably numb.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Media/MediaControl_Chomsky.html

By Chomsky, "The major media are large corporations, owned by and interlinked with even larger corporations, they sell a product to a market. The product they sell is the popular viewer, their customers are the corporations that buy advertising, and the picture of the world represented reflects the narrow and biased interests and values of the sellers, the buyers, and the product. Profits and the issues drive the media and items reported are for the financial benefit of the companies that own these enterprises. The fact that the posing of the information delivered is not for the benefit of the people, as we would define the presses role is obvious. No issues will be debated or given much play that make the audience, advertisers or press them uncomfortable, regardless of its value to the nation and its people."

But even Chomsky emphasizes that media bias on a macro-political level is unconscious, almost class-based. In the mid 1980's the New York Times wasn't anti-Sandinista because the White House issued an executive order; it was anti-Sandinista because it fit better with the narrative the Times used to interpret the news of the day.

I direct you to the following site where Orcinus (Dave Neiwert) has produced a 30,000 word series showing in great detail the collusion of the right wing, millionaire sympathizers, and the multinational media giants to produce manufactured consent appealing to the right wing and fascism in general.

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/

And a fascinating analysis from the old Soviet Union (of all places, eh?) where they know something about thought control.

"FASCISM WILL COME TO AMERICA LIKE THE CHILL OF AUTUMN"

"As in Rome, all the old forms will still be there: legislatures, elections, campaigns - plenty of bread and circuses for the folks. But the 'consent of the governed' will no longer apply; actual control of the state will have passed to a small group of nobles who rule largely for the benefit of their wealthy peers and corporate patrons...there will be factional conflicts among this elite, and a degree of free debate will be permitted; but no one outside the privileged circle will be allowed to govern or influence state policy. Dissidents will be marginalized - usually by 'the people' themselves. Deprived of historical knowledge by an impoverished educational system designed to produce complacent consumers, not thoughtful citizens, and left ignorant of current events by a media devoted solely to profit, many will internalize the force-fed values of the ruling elite, and act accordingly. There will be little need for overt methods of control."

"The rulers will often act in secret; for reasons of "national security," the people will not be permitted to know what goes on in their name. Actions once unthinkable will be accepted as routine: government by executive fiat, the murder of "enemies" selected by the leader, undeclared war, torture, mass detentions without charge, the looting of the national treasury, the creation of huge new "security structures" targeted at the populace. In time, this will seem "normal," as the chill of autumn feels normal when summer is gone."

It will all seem normal.

Yes it does, as we creep evermore towards a national security state where we are less and less secure.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2001/11/10/107.html

Max

You quoted me saying

And then wrote:




But I wasn't talking about what you are focused on, Max, I was talking about what the Bush Administration said BEFORE THE WAR -- and they not only said the weapons EXISTS but that they are there in Iraq and that because of that, Saddam presented a danger to us.

So the fact that you now want to change the discussion to "exist" rather than "are there" is irrelevant -- and a red herring.

In any case, the Bush administration is unable at this point to show the weapons still EXIST.

I'll stick with my impression that you are both unable to be reasonable with regard to whether or not the administration was purposefully deceptive -- and that you are naive.

That sword cuts both ways.

Having perused the URL's you cite as "concrete evidence" of your point, leads me to wonder which party line (complete with dull axes) you seem to be mouthing.

frank: It appears that you are being obtuse, whether intentionally or not is a matter of conjecture.

If one focuses on the existence, rather than belaboring the point of them not being easily found in Iraq, one can reasonably come to a different conclusion than you.

I guess my appearance as a naive individual to you is my cross to bear.

Good thing I have broad shoulders!! :wink:

Well, you did make another point. Namely that you doubted Acquiunk could show us even ONE article or report that WMD have been found, that later had to be retracted. Suggesting that we just make that kind of stuff up, that the hypes we think we've seen about loudly touted 'finds', that later turned out to be nothing, exist only in our imagination.

So, we show you one - out of many; because it's essential to the argument many of us made here, that the people who in this poll responded that WMD had already been found, did so because they were influenced by such government- and/or media-inspired hypes. You ignore it, and insist instead that the only claim you made here, was the one that isnt refuted yet.

<shakes head, sighs, forgets about it>

On the positive side, however, concerning that remaining point of yours, I do believe we are actually nearing some agreement here.

You say your "simple point" was merely, "some who answered that poll might have considered these items [the mobile labs, the missiles] 'weapons of mass destruction' and this may have been the reason for their answer to that question."

Isn't that kinda what so many of us were actually saying? Yes, after all the reports about those labs and the like, many people do actually believe WMD have been found thanks to the war - even if they weren't. Which is what begs that question, that so many of us here have been exploring in different ways, how did they come to believe that? What is responsible for such apparent, widespread misinformation?

Might it be the endless reports on TV, night after night, about newest finds that now really seemed to prove Saddam's WMD threat? Reports fueled by anonymous army spokesmen confiding that this or that looked "convincing" or "huge"?

Might the intent about that not possibly have been a wee bit deliberate, considering how important it is for the Bush administration that people do actually believe proof for the acute WMD threat was found?

Apparently, we share the observation: many people like those polled in this survey, are disinformed about the actual nature of proposed "finds" like that of the mobile lab thingies. Many posters here have asked the follow-up question of how this came to be, and suggested answers referring to media and governmental briefing practices. Your answer on how this disinformation came to be, on the other hand, seems to be merely that "these are people who aren't paying close attention to the issues".

No, obviously. But they're not just people who aren't paying close attention. They're not saying, for example, "the US troops killed at least 50,000 people in the war", or, "Turkish troops have occupied Mosul" - they're not disinformed in any random way. What they mistakenly belief happens to be exactly what the US government would like them to believe. That still doesnt in itself prove an evil intent, but at least raises the question, now, how did this specific misinformation came about? Care to explore?

oh, pa -leeze!

bush even said he was invoking his authority to invade iraq because it "posed an imminent threat" from wmd. it was an afterthought and a propaganda effort to tell the american people that we were going in to save iraqis from hussein or to build democracy in iraq and the middle east. american foreign policy in the region has never promoted democracy over the current system of family run regimes.

the middle east is composed almost entirely not of nations but family run regimes who were originally set up by the british after the second world war to control the oil. of all the countries in the islamic middle east, only egypt has any semblence of even a semi-free press. the rest are vassel states of US/british polices. have you heard anything about the US pressuring saudi arabia to allow free elections, or elsewhere in the middle east countries who were our allies in the recent conflict? i sure haven't.

geeze that fellow bush sent over to run iraq now admits that he will only allow as much democracy in iraq that will stablize the country so oil can be pumped without problems. the americans, as rumsfield acknowleged, will not allow an islamic republic to be formed, even if it has popular support. so don't even use the ploy that we went in for the protection of the iraqi people. it's just not true.

if not for the unsubstantiated "allegations" of the imminent threat of wmd unleased on america, we would have done what we have done about iraq as we have for 25 years of hussein's regime, nothing (unless he messed with "our" oil in kuwait). BTW kuwait, now 12 years hence is still not a democracy. so much for freedom loving american foreign policies of promoting democracy.. i guess you forgot that, didn't you?.

we stood by in february-april of 1991, and watched as hussein slaughtered both southern shiites and northern kurds. and now we are to believe that we cared about what hussien was doing? come on.

as to hussein exporting wmb to al queada, that is so untrue. it has been so de-bunked by US and british intelligence, even by al queada leaders, who hate hussein. even bin laden a month before the americans attacked iraq, spoke of the US and Hussein as two heads of the same enemy.

hussein giving wmd to people who have sworn to destroy him? that man was no fool. he would have never let al queada near anything that could be used against him.

I am not being obtuse -- so the question of whether it is intentional or not is irrelevent.



I fail to see how. My comments are not directed to now -- but to what the Bush administration said BEFORE THE WAR.

Fact is though, if one focuses on the existence (somewhere in the universe of these weapons rather than focusing on the fact that we have not found them -- that relieves them of having to deal with the embarrassing FACTS that exist.

I suspect that is the reason you are doing what you are doing here, Max. And I were defending the Bush administration, I would also try to muddy things up as much as possible -- for two reasons. One, I would want the people I am talking to be fogged up -- and two, so that I wouldn't have to face up to the facts myself.

So as you can see, I am being much more empathetic to your plight than might appear at first blush.

Frank said that "the Bush reasoning" [emphasis added] was that the WMD werent just 'not accounted for', they were definitely there - in Iraq.

He wasn't failing to grasp any distinction of the kind you sketch, because "the Bush reasoning" did not make any such distinction.

When Bush speeched, he didn't say that the WMD that Iraq once posessed still "existed" - somewhere; he said that they were in Iraq, ready to be used, and that that's why we had to go in. "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." No French in there.

Now we are questioning that intelligence, and the sincerity of his claim to that intelligence. He did after all use that intelligence as the main line of his argument for America to go to war. He didnt say we had to go to war because the WMD still "existed", somewhere, since we wouldnt have bought that - waging war after all is not the most efficient way of tracking an object lost in the Middle East. He said we had to go to war because "the Iraq regime continued to possess" WMD - and that there was "a clear danger" that it would "help" terrorists "obtain" them. Was he deliberately deceiving us? Any argument you would make that he wasnt would have to be based on what he said, not on what you would rather have focused on.

Does anyone else, on an aside, feel the left is getting to pose a case quite like that of the Reps in times of Clinton turmoils? As in: "This is not anymore about what happened - it's about whether the President lied about it!" ?

well, max as i stated days ago, i worked with the natrual law party, which i believe has the proper method to deal with the problems in the modern world. that is, a desire for the untainted facts to be presented without hidden agendas and a scientific analysis of the facts unbesmirched by subjectivity.

the press presents the facts, as they see them. to question whether they have distorted them for their own purposes would be, i think a healthy attitude for citizens in a republican democracy, and a duty.

Yes, I have made other points in this discussion, but I was pointing out that kuvasz was completely missing that most recent point. But fair enough, I was not clear in what I meant. You got me.

As to my exchange with Acquiunk, in looking back I see I may have inferred something in (his) original comment that was not there. I read (him) to be writing that there had been intentionally false reports that were later retracted. That is not what was written. Acquiunk wrote that there were reports which turned out to be false which had to be retracted. That seems true in the sense in which (he) is using it.

Of course, it was the belief that what had been found was related to WOMD which was false, not the report that something believed to be same had been found.

According to one response, Fox News reported, "'Huge' Suspected Chemical Weapons Plant Found in Iraq". Now, was that true? YES. A SUSPECTED chem plant had been found. Did Fox News claim it was DEFINITELY a weapons plant? No. They reported the facts. When it was later found that the suspicion was wrong, they reported that.

This is what journalists do--they report the news. When scientists said that they thought they had discovered cold fusion, the media everywhere reported exactly that: scientists THOUGHT they had discovered cold fusion. When the scientists were proven wrong the media weren't retracting anything when they reported that finding, it was simply more news.

But again my response came out of my inference that Acquiunk was claiming that reports were falsified, and I now see clearly that (he) did not write anything to justify that inference.

YES, there were reports of suspected WOMDs where those suspicions later turned out to be unfounded.

Do you think Tom Cruise would have cause for a libel case if Fox News reported that "Man claims to be Tom Cruise's Longtime Gay Lover?" Or "Tom Cruise's Homosexuality Suspected?" They didn't say "Man IS Tom Cruise's Lover." They didn't say "Tom Cruise IS Homosexual."

If someone were claiming to be Tom's gay lover a report that the man had said so would not be actionable, unless Fox News knew that the man was lying.

(Pretty obvious and not terribly useful for the topic, don't you think?)

If that's "obviously" good journalism to you, then nothing anyone says to you will help this discussion.

Which is the problem with the whole minute-by-minute news concept, whether it's intentionally distorted or not. The mode of news now is to constantly barrage the viewer (especially) or reader (increasingly) with information and leave it to them to sort out what can be verified. Not surprisingly, given the dramatic nature of (especially, again) televised news, reasoned reflection and analysis gets less play than the "big moments." Of course, it's the citizen's responsibility to seek out confirmation from other sources, but, let's face it, most people don't. It's a lot easier to leave the tee-vee on the same channel and find out what the network's paid talking heads have to say about said network's news.

Yup.

Snood, you get what I was going for. I was attempting to set a trap for scrat (didn't do very well), and he only took part of the bait. What I was trying to get at is that people assume that there is a certain filter on "news" before it is broadcast, even at the "suspected"/ "alleged" level. If a guy called up CBS and said he swore he saw a UFO last night, and they broadcast this, they are giving a certain official primatur to that "news" even if it is in terms of "suspected" or "alleged." "Suspected" and "alleged" appear all over the place, and people start to filter them out -- just some legalese.

All of that aside, one of the examples nimh came up with was "US Troops Capture Chemical Plant." That's pretty unequivocal.

Apparently obtuseness is contagious, I think I heard nimh cough.

Once again, for those in the back row, I feel that the focus on whether or not the weapons are in Iraq is counterproductive to our determining whether or not they have been transported elsewhere.

I realize that this takes a leap of proportions that are foreign to most on this board, but to do otherwise will be futile.

Was our information deficient?
It appears so at this writing.

Does Bush shoulder the entire blame?

I would even be gracious and allow a qualified stipulation to this point.

The Japanese have a tradition of focusing on solving a problem rather than attempting to affix blame for the problem.

It is a philosophy that would prove most helpful in our present situation.

If proof that there was intentional deception by the present administration is forthcoming, and I don't mean speculative op-eds in "unimpeachable" foreign and domestic news outlets, then so be it.

Wishing it just don't make it so, however, and I have seen nothing that would lead me to believe that this is anything more than a typical bushbashing from all the usual suspects.

I am no apologist for this, (or any other administration), I just have found that it is far more productive to not go off "half-cocked" regarding matters of such magnitude.

A belief that apparently is sadly lacking in others.

Snood, try to avoid the personal comments and stick to the topic.

Scrat, on Tuesday you questioned my ability to demonstrate retractions of announcements of discoveries of weapons of mass destruction, often you are right, the announcement is made and then the issue just disappears and is forgotten or the retraction is buried in a later news story. But in answer to your comment I offer the following. The governments claim that WMD existed in Iraq, a list of those findings where I can recall them and links if I can find them and admissions of the Bush administration that they might have been wrong.

Claims that Iraq possessed stocks of WMD

Claims by non governmental agencies (NGO's)
The International Institute for Strategic Studies
http://www.iiss.org/news-more.php?itemID=88

The National Security Archives
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB80/

Claims by the British and American Government

Electronic Journal of the US Department of State Vol. 7 No.2 July 2002
THE EVOLVING THREAT FROM
WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION IN THE MIDDLE EAST
http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itps/0702/ijpe/cordesman.htm

CIA assessment October 2002
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2002/Iraq_Oct_2002.htm

Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction : The Assessment of the British Government
http://www.fco.gov.uk/Files/kfile/iraqdossier.pdf

Contrary view on WMD, Newsweek article appears to no longer be on line 2/27/03
http://www.fair.org/press-releases/kamel.html

Claims for the discovery of weapons of mass destruction.

Many of these claims were included in the context of other news reporting or in articles I can no longer find on the internet. Below are instance I have a record of with links were I can find them.

Ansar al-Islam. Powell said the group linked Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network to Saddam Hussein, and had plotted chemical attacks across Europe.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/World/iraq_nochemweapons_030330.html
Artillery shells with green bands said to indicate chem./bio weapon found north of Baghdad in closing days of the war. - no further mention
Cases of chemicals found near Alb Mahawish about 4/15/03 - turned out to be pesticide
Boxes of white powder recovered - turned out to be explosives
Large shipping container with chemical equipment found buried near Baghdad - belong to the Iraqi Department of Agriculture
Mobile labs - weather balloon trucks sold to Iraq by Britain - This last claim has been well covered in recent days

The willingness of the Bush administration to admit error has been muted at best but I have found two articles:

Agence France Presse 4/10/03 Rumsfeld admits no weapons found
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/030409220519.dkkgsp3h.html

Bush says Iraq's weapons of mass destruction may have been destroyed
Published Thu, Apr 24, 2003
By RON FOURNIER, AP White House Correspondent
http://www.beaufortgazette.com/24hour/politics/story/866819p-6053148c.html

I apologize for my slowness in responding to your post.

Acquiunk

Patio - The "problem" with up-to-the-minute news reporting lies in the failure of some news consumers to understand what they read, see and hear. When a report reads that a "suspected" weapons plant has been found, it is not the fault of the media that some people fail to fully appreciate the importance of the word "suspected".

Sozobe - Perhaps you would fare better here if you simply sought to engage others in discussions rather than attempting to lay "traps" for them. The rather puerile question you asked, I answered, and the answer I gave was factually and legally accurate. Now, if what you really sought was not an answer to that question, why not simply come out with what it is you want next time, and set aside the silliness.

Snood - I was not asked whether Sozobe's was an example of "good" journalism, I was asked whether it was actionable.