What the Heck was I Thinking!?

An interesting article was posted on Strategy Page compares Japanese wartime propaganda with that of our own press nowadays on Iraq:

Information Warfare: Japanese Propaganda and American Mass Media

June 29, 2007: U.S. troops have been mystified at how differently the war they fight in Iraq is portrayed by the U.S. media back home. Most just shrug it off as “politics,” and yet another reason to not trust what the mass media presents as reliable reporting. But recently, the troops have been passing around an interesting discovery. Namely, that the Japanese psychological warfare effort during World War II included radio broadcasts that could be picked up by American troops. Popular music was played, but the commentary (by one of several English speaking Japanese women) always hammered away on the same points;

1 Your President (Franklin D Roosevelt) is lying to you.

2 This war is illegal.

3 You cannot win the war.

The troops are perplexed and somewhat amused that their own media is now sending out this message. Fighting the enemy in Iraq is simple, compared to figuring out what news editors are thinking back home. A few times, the mass media has been bold, or foolish, enough to confront the troops about this divergence of perceptions. The result is usually a surreal exchange, with the troops giving the journalist a “what planet are YOU from” look. Naturally, this sort of thing doesn’t get much exposure. When pressed, a journalist or editor will dismiss the opinions of the troops (of all ranks), because they are “too close” to see “the big picture. For the same reason, reporters who send back material agreeing with the troops, find their stuff twisted into an acceptable shape, or not used at all. Historians will have a good time with all this.

Source: Information Warfare: Japanese Propaganda and American Mass Media

Bruce Thornton posts a fascinating review of the twisted thinking of the Left. It’s a well-written, thoughtful read. Thanks to The Discerning Texan for the pointer.

VDH’s Private Papers::The Passion of the Left

But don’t confuse ‘progressives’ with the facts. Their melodrama of moustache-twirling capitalists and their Republican minions controlling the oafish masses with God, patriotism, and Wal-Mart is too flattering to the typical liberal’s elitist pretensions. In fact, this leftist narrative performs a debased religious function for the otherwise Godless. It identifies the wicked and the good and puts both into a justifying narrative replete with the promise of salvation (vote Democratic), holy writ (Michael Moore and the New York Times), thundering prophets (Al Gore), messiahs (Hillary, John, or Barack), the blessed saved (liberal Democrats), the evil damned (Republicans) and even apocalypse (global warming or another Republican president). And let’s not forget, it bestows status value as well, giving the liberal-progressive an exalted moral perch from which to look down on the masses stupefied by the machinations of their corporate overlords.

The proliferation of such pseudo-religions - faith-based narratives of meaning and value disguised as rationally derived political systems - is the tragic story of modernity, polluted as it is with the mountains of corpses sacrificed to failed gods. The 21st-century progressive church may appear less lethal than fascism or communism, but its eagerness to don the hair shirt of Western guilt and self-loathing is in the end as suicidal as the rants of Jim Jones in Guyana.

Source: VDH’s Private Papers::The Passion of the Left

Would people think it so clever?

I have some heartburn over this poem (the original is no longer available via Dr. Sanity’s link). I work in DC, with Congress people and their staffs. This sort of bigoted (no other word for such blatant prejudice) condemnation of all the “Hired fools, hired crooks, hired liars, hired scum”  is just a bit too much for me.

Should we condemn all psychiatrists for those arrogant, egotistical, or actually criminal shrinks who wreak more havoc than they repair? Or how about all those lawyers? We know what they’re all like.

I don’t like to read this kind of sloppy, lazy thinking by people I’ve come to admire for most of their writing.

Maybe it’s just those damned conservative blogospherians…

Oh, and if you DID do away with Congress and the other afflictions of Washington, you’d just reinvent it under a different name at a different location.

Dr. Sanity: FOR POETRY LOVERS AND CONGRESS HATERS

FOR POETRY LOVERS AND CONGRESS HATERS This just has to be shared. It is by The Corner’s John Derbyshire and he has, I think, captured in the rapture of his poetry (style and meter stolen from elsewhere, but what the hey! ) captured the essence of all rational people’s perspective on today’s Congress. Here is a short bit:

Come, friendly bombs, fall on D.C.!

It’s not fit for humanity.

There’s nothing there but villainy.

Swarm over, Death!

Come, bombs, and blow to kingdom come

Those pillared halls of tedium

Hired fools, hired crooks, hired liars, hired scum,

Hired words, hired breath.

Mess up this mess they call a town

A seat for twenty million down

And rights to the incumbent’s crown

For twenty years. …

And smash his desk of polished oak

(Paid for by honest working folk

Toiling ‘neath taxation’s yoke)

And make him yell.

Definitely make him (or her) yell.

Source: Dr. Sanity: FOR POETRY LOVERS AND CONGRESS HATERS

In a recent article on Congressional Quarterly (sorry for the long quote below, but it requires an account to access), Eileen Sullivan reports that the US is looking to the Europeans for advice on dealing with radical Muslims and Muslim populations in general.

This doesn’t make much sense to me. If you watch much of the news lately, or better, read Mark Steyn’s book “America Alone,” you get the sense that the Europeans have less of a handle on their Muslim populations that the US does.

The most obvious example of that is Ms. Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She’s from Holland!

There are other examples ranging from so-called “honor killings,” to car bombs. I don’t think the Europeans have any great advantage over the US on treating immigrant populations well, or understanding religious minorities.

Here’s the whole article: 

CQ HOMELAND SECURITY - INTELLIGENCE June 26, 2007 - 8:39 p.m. U.S. Looks Across Pond in Addressing Home-Grown Terrorist Threat By Eileen Sullivan, CQ Staff The Dutch government has reduced the potential for Islamic radicalization in its country by including Dutch Muslims in the civic process, removing radical sites from the Internet and training Muslim religious leaders in the Netherlands instead of importing imams from other nations.

U.S. lawmakers hope to learn from Europe’s experience with Islamic radicalization, as America faces an increasing threat of homegrown terrorism, evidenced most recently in plots to attack Fort Dix in New Jersey and New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. Officials have been working to penetrate such sleeper cells and curb the radicalization process in local communities and prisons, but experts say the nation has a ways to go.

Lidewijde Ongering, the Dutch deputy national coordinator for counterterrorism, is scheduled to share his country’s counter-radicalization tactics before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday. This will be the fifth hearing the committee has held on radicalization in a year. Lawmakers will also hear recommendations for integrating - as opposed to alienating - Muslim Americans into American life, according to copies of advanced testimony obtained by Congressional Quarterly.

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joseph I. Lieberman said the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks showed Americans it only takes a handful of terrorists to carry out a massive attack, and the recent plots against Fort Dix and JFK Airport show that homegrown terrorists do not need to meet with an al Qaeda operative or attend training camps to be radicalized.

“They can now become fully radicalized as members of virtual networks just sitting at their computers,” Lieberman, I-Conn., said in an e-mail to Congressional Quarterly. “That’s why it is important to understand how people become radicalized; so we can counter that process before it turns into action.”

The Netherlands created its counterterrorism office after the Madrid train bombings in 2004. Since then, Ongering says it has broken up several terrorist networks and disrupted jihad-recruiting initiatives. Today the threat in the Netherlands is “limited,” whereas previously the government viewed the threat as “substantial.”

One tactic the Dutch have employed to prevent radicalization is integrating more Muslims into Dutch society. Ongering says this includes paying more attention to issues young Muslims face in the Netherlands and encouraging Muslims to participate more in society and politics.

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs’ task force on Muslim American Civic and Political Engagement suggests a more unified, national effort of integration and inclusion. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Americans - not knowing much about Islam - identified Muslim Americans with the terrorists, prompting deep suspicion and doubt, according to the task force’s recent report on strengthening the civic and political integration of Muslim Americans.

Experts say a better understanding of Islam, including the multiple internal debates within the religion, could help Americans embrace Muslims in their communities and prevent the alienation that could prompt a young Muslim American to latch on to jihadist ideals.

But in some instances, there are differences between the homegrown problem in Europe and the one in America. The Muslim American community is mostly middle class, whereas the European communities consist largely of unskilled laborers, according to forensic psychiatrist Marc Sageman, who is also scheduled to testify Wednesday. Because many Muslim Europeans are unemployed, they are able to fill their days with talking about jihad, he said.

“One cannot underestimate the importance of boredom in an idle population, which drives young people to seek the thrill of participating [in] a clandestine operation,” Sageman’s prepared testimony says.

An important step in reducing radicalization is taking the glory out of the fight, he adds. “There is nothing more glorious than to go against men and women in uniform from the only remaining superpower. We need to demilitarize this fight against terrorists and turn it over to law enforcement.”

Sageman says one way to reduce the glory to common criminality is to resist the urge to hold major press conferences announcing another “major victory” in the war on terror, because it elevates those alleged in the plots as heroes.

“All of these considerations are important as we seek ways to combat violent extremism directly and to curb its growth by improving outreach efforts to our Muslim neighbors, and by promoting the inclusion of all resident Muslims in the peaceful and tolerant fabric of American life,” the committee’s ranking Republican, Susan Collins of Maine, said in her prepared opening statement for Wednesday’s hearing. Eileen Sullivan can be reached at esullivan@cq.com.

The Democrats are seeking to win their war in court - the war to control the federal government, not the war on terrorism.

The have already proposed withdrawing troops from the real battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have even proposed pulling the troops completely out of any combat situation (retreat to Okinawa?) Yet they fear being labeled “soft on terrorism, according to both the New York Times and Washington Post of June 28th (subscription or registration required).”

In what sociologists call a self-fulfilling prophecy, they have demonstrated through their subpoenas on the NSA’s Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP) that they are softer on terrorists than they are on representatives of the administration. Their interrogation techniques against AG Gonzales and VP Cheney’s staff are harsher than what they’d approve being used against true terrorists.

It’s kind of hard to make the case that they’re tough on terrorists, even when they try to label the administration “the real terrorists.”

Robert Niles, from the Online Journalism Review, wrote “Are blogs a ‘parasitic’ medium?” back in March of this year.

Over the past months, I’ve heard several journalists make the same comment at various industry forums: That blogs are a “parasitic” medium that wouldn’t be able to exist without the reporting done at newspapers.

I hear the frustration behind the comment. You bust your rear to get stories in the paper, then watch bloggers grab traffic talking about your work. All the while your bosses are laying off other reporters, citing circulation declines, as analysts talk about newspapers losing audience to the Web. It’s not hard to understand why many newspaper journalists would come to view blogs as parasites, sucking the life from their newsrooms.

This idea, that bloggers are some sort of parasite, living on the “original reporting” of legacy print, radio, TV or online authors, is interesting to me. I fall into that “parasite” category - no original reporting here, just my comments and observations.

As noted in the article and some of the comments made by other bloggers, there is original reporting begin done by some blogs, even some not associated with legacy press outlets.

Much of the rest of blogs are actually commentary - not expected to provide original reporting, just as the editorial and commentary pages of news papers. The nature of thee blogs points, in my mind, to the reason there are so many blogs, and why they’ve grown so much so fast.

the point of much of the commentary is to challenge the statements and claims made in the legacy press - both original and repeat reporting (is it parasitic to reprint a Reuters, AP or other news article?).

The legacy media have in many cases gotten lazy or sloppy in their fact-checking.

In addition, they have mostly refused to identity their political biases, while frequently letting those biases color their reporting or affect their accuracy. Agenda journalism has gone on for a long time without the cover begin pulled back. The blogs are a way to pull that cover off. Some reporters don’t like their errors being pointed out in public.

Others don’t like their biases being revealed. Some of those with biases want to believe they don’t have any or can keep them out of their reporting.

I strongly doubt that , and there is mounting evidence that almost none can prevent their biases from seeping in.

Some of these biased reporters don’t like their work being exposed because they are either apologists for some group, government or faction, or they are propagandists, advocating for some group’s, faction’s, or country’s goals under cover of neutral reporting.

When a government does this it’s called information operations. When AP or Reuters does it (see fauxtography), it tears at the fabric of trust that organization has built for itself.

This is why some legacy reporters don’t like blogs. The true coin of the realm for reporting  (original or repeat) is trust of the source. The reporter tests, then trusts the source(s). The reader tests, then trusts the reporter. Anything that breaks that trust threatens the ability of that reporter to continue reporting (see Rathergate).

That’s the “life” the reporters are afraid will get sucked out of them.

 

Source: Are blogs a ‘parasitic’ medium?

and they shall reap the whirlwind. (Hosea 8:7-8 KJV)”

The Belmont Club points to a fellow blogger, Augean Stables, who has an extensive quote from an Egyptian blogger. In the quoted text, the Egyptian laments that the push to eradicate Israel has bred a culture where the only recourse to solve problems is violence.

Augean Stables » Egyptian comments on Gaza (the quoted text from his site)

“It is definitely all of this. But the most dangerous thing about this, and that which the bilateral meetings between the sides, or meetings under the auspices of a third party, or even the folkloric Arab League summits have been unable to overcome, is that the all-against-all infighting and its basic code have become the mental and psychological makeup of the Palestinian people, as a natural result of the predominant discourse of hostility and incitement. [This discourse] has been adopted by Palestinians of all persuasions and in all the factions - religious, pan-Arab revolutionary, and leftist. It is a discourse whose aim was sowing hatred, having recourse to violence, and enjoying spilling blood.

“At first it was directed against the so-called the Israeli enemy, and it uprooted any possibility of or tendency towards rational mutual comprehension or of recourse to discussion, dialogue, and negotiation - what is known as peaceful resolution - and it raised the slogan of ‘clinging to the choice of resistance.’

“But one clings to goals, not methods, and resistance (meaning armed resistance) cannot, psychologically and culturally, be the only choice for peoples to achieve their goals, without there being any alternative”

Once you stop thinking of alternatives to come to a solution, you’ve thrown away most of your tool box.

And, as the saying goes, “if all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.”

Source: Augean Stables » Egyptian comments on Gaza

Catching up on my milblog reading, I found this post by Grim at Blackfive:

BLACKFIVE: Hear That?

Hear That? Posted By Grim No? Me either. What I want to be hearing is grunts of pain from RCT-6’s PAO, as he hefts box after box of printed-out emails supporting our Marines. Since I’m not hearing any complaining yet, I think we need to do it harder. You read how our Marines need, more than anything else, to hear that you love them. By God, you ought to. And according to my email, Col. Simcock “admonished” them into getting a separate email account set up for us, just hours after we started mailing. [send email to

RCT-6lettersfromh@gcemnf-wiraq.usmc.mil via gmail] Let’s fill it.

I thought you all should know about a simple, quick, but important thing to do to show our troops that the likes of Pelosi, Murtha, Reid and Durbin don’t speak for the rest of us.

I’ve sent an email. How about you?

Source: BLACKFIVE: Hear That?

Several bloggers have pointed to the speech by Tony Blair about the changing media. Some have also pointed to the editorial by Simon Kelner of the Independent, a paper singled out as a metaphor for the problems he was describing. those problems included the mashing of news and commentary into one article without telling the reader.

In the response, Mr. Kelner ends his editorial with the following. It sounds to me like an admission that that is in fact what they do. He just doesn’t see it as causing any problems:

Simon Kelner: Would you be saying this, Mr Blair, if we supported your war in Iraq? - Independent Online Edition > Commentators

Of course, news is still the backbone of our offering, but we feel our readers today want more: a diverse range of commentary, colourful debate, provocative front pages and, yes, the views behind the news. It is difficult to imagine what kind of newspaper Mr Blair envisages in his platonic heaven, but it’s probably safe to say that this isn’t it.

Source: Simon Kelner: Would you be saying this, Mr Blair, if we supported your war in Iraq? - Independent Online Edition > Commentators

…who thought the Dems overreached after the election. Jules Crittenden has the following post.

Jules Crittenden » Dawn Over DC

This is what it would look like:

Step 1. Dems acknowledge impotent overreach.

Step 2. Dems acknowledge lack of mandate.

Step 3. Dems acknowledge they are wrong.

Step 4. Dems begin to support the troops and actively plot ways to win the war.

Source: Jules Crittenden » Dawn Over DC