Is Dick Cheney high on drugs???

[Usually Lurkin]

Originally Posted by alexamenos

I know you don't see it as either, but the funny thing is that it was both. It was, in fact:

a) a transparent staged event masterminded by a guy with a baboon heart (ok, maybe the army colonel that masterminded the event didn't have a baboon heart, but the point is the same); and

b) reported ad nauseum by breathless dolts as a monumental event in human history.

and c) was an important event.
That you keep avoiding that, and that you misinterpreted my "either or" as an "either" really annoys me. You do a lot of propaganda to get your points across, and it's not needed here.

Which is exactly what happened....

--the war started--then....
--the debate started--then and only then...
--we started calling the war a war because it's inappropriate to say that the US is at war before congress has discussed the matter.

Military action was ongoing. They picked it up in preparation for war. Congress gave up their voice in declaring war decades ago.

Calling the war a war before we had any sort of a national debate (or the pretense thereof) would lead to all sorts of wrong thoughts about the lawless way our government really behaves (and the chief of the aim of propaganda is to prevent people from thinking the wrong thoughts).

blah, blah, black helicopters and mind control. It's easier, simpler, and more accurate to say that it would have confused the debate.

When Cuban and Co. say, "we love our team," do you get all bent out of shape because they love the team, or do you get all rant-filled 'cause they are lying to you, or are you happy they said it because it's better than publicly declaring, "we hate Dampier and are trying real hard to replace him" ?

[alexamenos]

Originally Posted by Usually Lurkin

and c) was an important event. That you keep avoiding that...

sorry...I didn't realize you were saying the toppling of Saddam's Statue was an important event.

It wasn't an important event, it was a simple army psy-ops mission. I'm not avoiding the point, it's just that the event in and of itself wasn't of any significance other than as a piece of propaganda.

Military action was ongoing. They picked it up in preparation for war.

So....military actions which include dropping bombs on another country is not 'war', but preparation for war in your view? In my view dropping bombs on another country is war, but clearly that's a crazy way of looking at things.

It's easier, simpler, and more accurate to say that it would have confused the debate.

Yes, certainly the fact that we were already at war with iraq would have added an element of confusion to the debate of whether we should go to war. I can't argue with you there.

blah, blah, black helicopters and mind control.

I don't think black helicopters are relevant (or any other colored helicopters for that matter), but as for mind control....

Psychological Operations (PSYOP, PSYOPS) are techniques used by any set of groups to influence a target audience's value systems, belief systems, emotions, motives, reasoning, and behavior. ...The use of such euphemisms for what is in effect "mind control" is itself an example of psychological operations, i.e. using psychological techniques to persuade a large number of people to support something that they wouldn't normally support.

Yeah, mind control, call it whatever euphemism you might prefer. As Bernays said (approvingly)...

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised opinions and habits of the masses is an important element in democratic society.

It's an interesting thing to study and there's a bit more to it than a maverick owner telling white lies about his ham-fisted center.

[Usually Lurkin]

Originally Posted by alexamenos

sorry...I didn't realize you were saying the toppling of Saddam's Statue was an important event.

It wasn't an important event, it was a simple army psy-ops mission. I'm not avoiding the point, it's just that the event in and of itself wasn't of any significance other than as a piece of propaganda.

as a marker for how much control we had, yes it was. "psy-ops" and "important event" are not in an either-or relationship. Edit: As a sign for how happy Iraqis were over the downfall of Saddam, who knows? There were probably a lot of Iraqis who were happy about it, and a lot who weren't. It's war.

So....military actions which include dropping bombs on another country is not 'war', but preparation for war in your view? In my view dropping bombs on another country is war, but clearly that's a crazy way of looking at things.

if it's all the same thing, then what's your beef? The US gov. let everyone know for a decade or so that they were doing this stuff in Iraq. Most people couldn't be bothered with the details cause they didn't think we were at war, and most people who knew didn't think of it as "war." And if the gov had been saying, "we're at war" all along, then they would have confused the matter greatly, because we weren't.

[alexamenos]

Originally Posted by Usually Lurkin

As a sign for how happy Iraqis were over the downfall of Saddam, who knows?

I know.

This event that Reuters compared to the fall of the Berlin Wall involved a a rent-a-crowd of 50 or so Sadr city (mostly) teenaged boys in USMC sealed area in and around Firdos Square. I vividly recall one scene of some reporter with *throngs* of cheering Iraqis standing behind him. He was describing the jubilation when the camera panned to the left, revealing the *crowd* to be nothing more than 6 or 7 people and showing one dude standing off to the side, literally picking his nose.

(Not-too-surprisingly, the cameraman quickly returned his focus to the "action"....)

The event itself was no more monumental than a scene from Walker, Texas Ranger which uses some real-live local folks as stand-ins.

What makes the event something more than trivia (in my mind, at least) is the extent to which the free and independent watchdog media reported this as something monumental. These media outlets had boots on the ground. They could see what the scene really looked like. Why didn't one fairly prominent media outlet report something like, 'this is a small crowd of guys who were escorted into the square that by US tanks, and frankly it looks Army Psy-ops is running the show.'?

... if the gov had been saying, "we're at war" all along, then they would have confused the matter greatly, because we weren't.

We weren't at war in Iraq in the fall of 2002, yet we were repeatedly bombing Iraq in the fall of 2002...right?

[Usually Lurkin]

Originally Posted by alexamenos

The event itself was no more monumental than a scene from Walker, Texas Ranger which uses some real-live local folks as stand-ins.

we could not have done it before making war.

We weren't at war in Iraq in the fall of 2002, yet we were repeatedly bombing Iraq in the fall of 2002...right?

well, if bombing Iraq is what you want to call war, then we were at war with Iraq long before that, but the government wasn't hiding it. They were reporting the bombings.

[alexamenos]

Originally Posted by Usually Lurkin

we could not have done it before making war.

We also couldn't have had this photo-opportunity.

Do you realize you're spinning propaganda? That's kind of like lying about catching a fish and then exaggerating the size of a fish you didn't catch.

Firdos Square was presented as one thing when the reality was quite different. It was inherently and purposefully deceitful. The government and the media were complicit in the deceit -- it was Pravda, USA. (and by many accounts, the US produces way better propaganda than the commies and their party press)

well, if bombing Iraq is what you want to call war, then we were at war with Iraq long before that, but the government wasn't hiding it. They were reporting the bombings.

I think you're missing the degree to which the level of bombings and intensity of covert operations ramped up in mid-2002. This wasn't the same old box them in and starve them out campaign that had gone on during the clinton years. 2002 was the beginning of the re-invasion. Also, daily 100 plane raids dropping bombs on another country's military installations is unequivocally war. One of the logical consequences of calling unequivocal acts of war 'war' is that the absurdity of the State's propaganda becomes all the more apparent (and the aim of propaganda is to make the absurd seem reasonable).

So I'm not talking about the government hiding things -- I'm talking about propaganda (and the overwhelming degree to which absurd propaganda was absorbed by the masses). The propaganda and the reality were grossly at odds with one another.

The propaganda at the time was that the US Government was doing all it could to avoid war. The reality is that the US Government was already bombing the crap out of Iraq by the early fall of 2002. The propaganda at the time was that Iraq Part II was about 9-11, a crucial part of the war on terror. The reality is that this war which began in the early 1990's didn't have a freaking thing to do with 9-11-2001, nonetheless...

70% of folks in the US believed Saddam Hussein was personally involved in 9-11. <-- This is a fact, an overwhelming majority of people really believed this. A person doesn't have to be a stark raving mad tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist to ask how 70% of folks in the US came to believe that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in 9-11.

Suffice it to say, 70% of the people in the US didn't spontaneously and independently conclude this.

I think 70% came to believe this because of a very successful propaganda campaign. My conclusion is not based on the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy (as you've suggested). The propaganda campaign began in October of 2001 when anonymous government officials began "leaking" the notion that Saddam Hussein was behind the anthrax attacks and it evolved into a pr bombardment making an emotional connection between Saddam Hussein and 9-11.

If somebody has a better explanation as to why an overwhelming majority of people came to believe something which was a) factually baseless; b) absurd on it's face; and c) highly conducive to selling a war with iraq, then I'd like to hear it.

[Mavdog]

Originally Posted by alexamenos

If somebody has a better explanation as to why an overwhelming majority of people came to believe something which was a) factually baseless; b) absurd on it's face; and c) highly conducive to selling a war with iraq, then I'd like to hear it.

the fact that an overwhelming majority of people are dolts seems to be a valid explanation.