Is the US media giving us disinformation to aid the US war effort? Should it?

as long as it helps war effects, why not?

 

If you look at news sites outside of the US, you see lots of photos of injured children and coverage of the daily Iraqi civilian casualty toll. Of course these could be injured by AAA fire coming back to earth, except for the ones right next to the 25 foot deep bomb craters. However, this is not covered much at all by the US media. Folks who wonder why these foreigners don't like the way the US conducts its foreign policy ought to pull their head out...

Yet another view

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/24/1048354546196.html

 

Some of us don't believe the truth has to be sacrificed to win this war.

 

Maybe it's not what they show you, but what they won't show you on American TV?

http://www.smh.com.au/ftimages/2003/03/25/1048354571053.html
http://www.smh.com.au/ftimages/2003/03/25/1048354571693.html
http://www.smh.com.au/ftimages/2003/03/25/1048354571695.html

The Iraqi disinformation campaign?

 

Full article is interesting, some stuff about Al Jazeera stuck here

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0325/p01s04-woiq.html

Washington watches Al Jazeera

The Bush administration sees Al Jazeera - the cable news channel made famous for its airing of Osama Bin Laden tapes - as having an anti-American bias. But, since the seven-year-old Al Jazeera has grown from six to 24 hours of daily programming and reaches more than 35 million Arab speakers around the world, including 150,000 in the United States, Washington seems to be attempting to work more closely with the network.

The Pentagon offered Al Jazeera four choice spots for its reporters to be embedded with US military units and assigned it a special media liaison officer and both National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have given extensive interviews to Al Jazeera in recent days. Al-Arabiya and Abu Dhabi, two other 24-hour Arab-language stations, have received similar attention from the administration.

 

Does this reporter somehow have some inside information about the 9/11 attacks? How is he so sure that "nearly half" of the American public is wrong?

Once again, glynch appears incapable of recognizing the difference between his own conspiracy-driven opinions and fact. Please provide proof that Bush has lied about this. And please provide proof that Saddam was not involved in 9/11. You appear to have such proof, so...

Don't you mean to say that "It's a sad fact we will never know what the true support for this war would be if the American public would have just listened only to my own opinions on this issue"?

 

It is not glynch's responsibility to prove or disprove an accusation that Bush made. Bush has not done adequately convinced the world. If Bush had had any quality evidence, France, Russia and Germany would have voted to use force against Saddam.

 

Didnt France say it would not authorize force under any circumstances?

 

You silly people. Your beer keg/water cooler debates always go nowhere.

 

lol So true...

 

Glynch:

I'm interested in the US media as well. What people need to be aware of is that the media doesn't only screw up the facts, they also pick sides and do "truthful yet incomplete reports". Regarding this war, I have this question. Does the US media give any information that is in favor of the Saddam side, or they only report things that's in favor of the warmongers? I'm currently in Shenzhen, China. A big city that's just beside Hlongkong. The Chinese media here reported instances of Iraqi civilians expressing their resentment to the US invasion. I saw on TV a furious Iraqi man in a hospital shouting in front of the camera:" Where is humanity? Where is international oder? Those Americans will never conquer Iraq. They will never win!" Also another live account of a Iraqi man full of tears holding his wounded child. My feeling is that, ok, Saddam is badass, no doubt, Iraqis want freedom and domocracy, but they don't neccessarily want to risk their lives, watching their loved ones die to get it. On the other side, what I see from the Western media is the opposite. Reporters go to visit the Kurds revealing their resentment towards Saddam as victims of MDWs, or telling stories of how Iraqis civilians are used as human shields and how they hate the Saddam administration etc... It seems that the US media coverage is one sided in US favor, is this what happening?

 

No we don't get stories of Iraqi citizens with negative reactions toward the U.S. invasion. Though they are now reporting the possibility that Iraqi citizens might be responsible for bringing down a U.S. Helicopter

 

Can you read? I asked glynch to prove an accusation thast*glynch* made, not one that Bush made. Read before you post.

Bulls*it. They were convinced before we went to the UN. They have been antiwar from the beginning, and it doesn't have a thing to do with evidence.

 

Yeah...once again we are the victims of everyone else being biased and wrong, while we are noble and right. It's interesting that, for someone who is so quick to demand proof of others suppositions and throw out the title of conspiracy theorist ( with accompanying rolleyes) with reckless abandon, you are also among the quickest to dismiss the arguments of most of the rest of the world without proof on the basis of some sort of massive anti-American conspiracy...


Predicted response: Some sort of quote by one of the many world leaders opposing us on this ( probably Chirac) which reads as anti-American coupled with a claim that if I don't recognize how obvious it is that the other nations decisions were all based on ulterior motives, I'm blind.


On a side note, tree, I have a couple of personal questions, if you don't mind. Note: these are not questions I am asking to prove some sort of point, nor do I intend to use whatever you answer as support of some argument...I am just curious about military matters, as you know. You have probably already said this somewhere, but I didn't see it..Can you tell me a bit about your military career? Rank, length of service, where you've served, what if any your specialized training has been, how/why you decided to enlist, do you have a military family, that kind of thing...Cool?

 

I did read before I posted. Perhaps, you should think before you post.

There is a difference in import between an assertion made by the President (that will lead to war) and one made by a poster to basketball forum (that may lead to a heated debated). I sometimes think that you blur this distinction.

 

Are you sure you did? You apparently did not understand my request to glynch. I asked him to give evidence that Bush was lying, since he seemed to know that Bush was lying. Why did you not understand that? It was pretty straightforward.

Oh, I get it. This is another of your little "misdirection" games, intended to deflect a question without addressing it. Correct?

Where did I say anything about being biased or wrong? You are constantly throwing this out there (I seriously do not know why, although I suspect it is also misdirection), and it's getting old. But again, asll I asked glynch to do was support his assertion that Bush was lying. And that the American public is wrong. Why is it too much to ask glynch (and yourself, on many occasion) to back up what you claim with facts?

Yesd, how dare I ask that someone back up what they say with facts. How friggen dare I...

Well, to answer your unasked question first, yes, I really am in the military. Army. Haven't been in long, enlisted in December 2001. Specialist, awaiting OCS when my current deployment ends. 13F - Fire Support Specialist (Forward Observer). Military family, yes. Always wanted to enlist, didn't get around to it until late (I'm 30); 9/11 gave me the kick in the ass I needed to do it. I'm currently deployed on a Homeland Security mission as part of Noble Eagle II and am not going to discuss that here.

As for my military knowledge, some of it I have gained while in the service (mostly operational stuff and a better understanding of capabilities), but I have been studying it for years. Studied terrorism and military affairs in grad school.

That better?

 

It is an indisputable fact that France, Russia, Germany, and the PRC specifically have massive financial interests in propping up the current regime in Iraq. That is simply indisputable. That says nothing of the massive geo-political advantages gained by those countries through realpolitik in the arena of world opinion on the issue. Nor does it speak to the fact that when/if Saddam were to be aggressive again in the future, it would be US power that would be at the core of any response to such aggression, not Chinese, Russian, German, or French. As such they have little to lose in allowing this regime to remain in place, and much to lose in removing it. That is not conspiracy theory. That is fact.

 

glynch can no more prove irrefutably that Bush is lying anymore than you can prove that Bush is not. What can be said that is irrefutable is that the onus is on Bush to prove to the world the justifications for this war and he has not. In particular, one of the justifications that Bush put forward was the link between Saddam and OBL, which since has not been irrefutably proven (or disproven).

As I see it, Bush has overstated his case and mislead everybody about what he can prove for certain. In this, I find Bush to be dishonest and can easily see how others could see him as a lier, especially since he plainly lied without compunction about other things since becoming president.

I find it humorous that you have accused others of misdirection.

BTW, if you are asserting that Bush is not lying, wrt the Saddam OBL link, I say make me a believer.

 

Are you discounting the overwhelming public opinion against the war in both France and Germany?

As usual, I am very interested in your well thought out opinion.