Comments Posted By Dilbert
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A RESPONSE TO CRITICS OF MY LAST POST
Sorry, I wrote poorly again, as I am in a hurry.
If he had OFFICIALLY falsely accused someone of a crime he’d be in big trouble.
Just writing fiction doesn't get you 10 years in Leavenworth.
Comment Posted By Dilbert On 10.08.2007 @ 07:12
If they had actually done what he said they did they would be in big trouble.
If he had falsely accused someone of a crime he'd be in big trouble.
Writing fiction isn't against the law even in the military.
Comment Posted By Dilbert On 10.08.2007 @ 07:08
Not saying Mr. Beauchamp was telling the truth, but if the proof he lied is...
We don't need to speculate about whether he lied or not or how we know. The proof he lied is that TNR says he retracted the part about the woman in Iraq.
His *first sentence* says he saw her every day at chow in Iraq. Unless you think he just made an error about what he saw and did *every day in Iraq* he's a liar by TNR's admission.
A multiple liar in his first sentence.
If people then choose to believe anything else the guy says I obviously can't do anything more than say it isn't true and let those folks go on about their business. But their choosing to believe a guy that admits he told (by my count) 2 lies in the first sentence of that story over a mountain of other evidence.
Comment Posted By Dilbert On 9.08.2007 @ 09:33
busboy33-
I’m not trying to start a flame war, but I have a serious question: if the Beauchamp story were true, would it still be propaganda to publish it?
No. It would not be propaganda if it were true. I tried to be clear and careful in my wording but obviously I wasn't careful enough.
The original blog says (paraphrasing here) this isn't the war, its not like we won a battle in the war, you guys are getting sidetracked'.
What I am saying is that propaganda is most definitely part of the war (I'm going to take for granted that this isn't in dispute). Part of AQ's propaganda is that US troops are committing atrocities, that they are a crusader army running amok and raping, pillaging and burning.
This (false) story by TNR plays into AQ propaganda.
Since this story plays into AQ propaganda TNR (or any other media player doing something like this) should be damn careful fact check to ensure it is true before publishing it. They weren't and they didn't.
You can speculate on what their motives were as you wish. I am trying to be generous by assigning the motive as money. I could have decided I think it is a flat, deliberate lie to perpeptuate a false narrative that the magazine believes. Frankly I doubt the only other motive I can think of, that TNR is deliberately trying to aid AQ in its propaganda effort, is true (seems pretty dumb to me).
They are careless and stupid. At BEST.
I am saying that the OB, posturing as being thoughtfully focused on the war, and saying others are sort of gleefully dancing around pointing at their new Dan Rather target, and that they are getting distracted from the war, misses the point that this propaganda is, in fact, part of the war. Refuting propaganda is legitimate, and part of the war.
Or alternatively we could all sit back and let TNR and anyone else publish all manner of BS that discredits and slanders the US military *as a group* and that some of us readily *KNOW* to be untrue - even knowing that is part of AQ's propaganda.
For me, as an former Marine, I am willing - actually I consider it a duty of sorts - to call BS when I see people slandering the troops.
I apologize for the length.♦
Comment Posted By Dilbert On 9.08.2007 @ 08:37
Propaganda is designed to undermine the will of the American people to fight the war. Potraying US troops as an undisciplined mob running amok committing war crimes and atrocities is a very specific part of AQ's propaganda. Beauchamp and idiots at TNR have done their part nicely. I assure you AQ is quite pleased with this story being published in TNR. That's why the people engaging in this sort of behavior are called "useful idiots".
TNR was pro-war when that was popular (and sold magazines) and now they're anti-war and slandering the troops (when that sells magazines). TNR obviously doesn't care one whit about whether the story is true - only whether it can be disproved. That's one reason the abused woman story was moved from a forward base (smaller, tighter, limited population) to a rear base in Kuwait (larger, more contractors, more troops, multiple facilities) - doing so makes it near impossible to disprove.
Allowing TNR to go unchallenged in publishing lies about the troops is allowing enemy propaganda to go unchallenged.
For me personally as a former Marine what galled me most about Beauchamp's ridiculous crap - and the clearest indication that it was horse hockey - was his statement that they were doing this *as a group*. That is in fact a key aspect of his little wonder world and what sells it to a rag like TNR. It portrays the military *as a group* as behaving in an undisciplined, out of control manner.
That isn't the military in which I served.
I have just about given up trying to explain military service to people that haven't served and aren't able to grasp the concept. Those people cannot grasp why someone would volunteer in the first place (outside of some personal profit motive like money for college) and their ability to understand the military skews out from that point into ever widening circles of nonsense - because the basic concepts are, from what I can tell, foreign to them.
Propaganda is part of the war, one of the battles. Your initial post, posturing as a broader more thoughtful perspective, somehow misses that.
For some of us dispelling the falsehoods being traded for money by the likes of this punk and TNR is important. Allowing TNR and this chump to portray us as roving mobs of undisciplined sociopaths running over dogs in our 30 ton multi-million dollar tracked vehicles and playing in graves bothers us a bit. Go figure.
Comment Posted By Dilbert On 8.08.2007 @ 03:38
