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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (139668)	7/10/2004 1:40:50 AM
From: GST	Respond to of 281500

<I wouldn't go to someone else's country and tell them I am going to win because God is on my side.> That proves it -- you are not George Bush. I have nothing against praying, but I would have preferred that George Bush take the time to read the National Intelligence Estimate to make an informed, rational and intelligent decision before sending the United States of America to war to bring "God's gift" to Iraq.

To: Ilaine who wrote (139668)	7/10/2004 4:40:17 AM
From: Sun Tzu	Respond to of 281500

> How about the Iraqi Information Minister? Oh God! How lame can you get?!! You use Saddam's propagandist to make your case...and the lobbyists and propagandists here don't lie? This is what your original quote said: I willingly concede that most Americans are completely unable to cope with the facility with which people from the Middle East tell lies. It's a skill set vastly superior to any we deal with among ourselves. We are as babes in the woods compared to you guys. Kudos and all that. Heck, according to you even your secretary and everyone else you work with can tell these are liars. Then how good of a liar can they really be? It seems to me that if a people are naturally good liars and practice it as much as you claim, then they should be able to produce better propagandists than Saddam's information minister...someone say more like Karl Rove?

To: Ilaine who wrote (139668)	7/10/2004 10:20:50 AM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

I wouldn't go to someone else's country and tell them I am going to win because God is on my side. Why you don't say?! Then for example you would not support someone who'd say "Our enemy is a spiritual enemy because we are a nation of believers. . . His name is Satan.", right? The general leading the hunt for Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein has publicly declared that the Christian God is "bigger" than Allah, who is a false "idol", and believes the war on terrorism is a fight with Satan, it emerged yesterday. Investigative reporters from the Los Angeles Times and NBC television have dug up two years' worth of seemingly incendiary comments from Lt Gen William "Jerry" Boykin, the newly promoted deputy undersecretary of state of defence for intelligence. Gen Boykin has repeatedly told Christian groups and prayer meetings that President George W Bush was chosen by God to lead the global fight against Satan. He told one gathering: "Why is this man in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him. He's in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this." ... telegraph.co.uk I wonder if his conversations with God were a factor in his promotion. After all, Bush and him seem to be cut from the cloth.

To: Ilaine who wrote (139668)	7/10/2004 4:48:42 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

How about the Iraqi Information Minister? He's an excellent example of what I am talking about....."I swear by a million camels, I swear by the virginity of my mother, there are no US Marines in Baghdad!" Good point Cobalt. What a ditz. He should have taken a lesson from the psychological operations U.S. colonel who has now admitted that he totally STAGED the Saddam Statute destruction. Wouldn't you agree that it's so much more subtle to use American forces, loudspeaker prompted Iraqi-looking Arabs, along with narrow shots to create a false illusion of reality. And so much more subtle, especially when you realize that the purpose was to fool both Iraqis and Americans. Of course that same medium enraged our Secty of Defense when he said "No one could have anticipated that those people would take pictures," or something similar when referring to the irrefutable photos of American torture that left him with no "deniability." I believe, therefor, that if your point is that we're morally superior because we lie less often, or because we lie more selectively, or because we lie better, then I have to disagree. If your point is, however, that some cultures lie more than others then I will agree that different cultures have different propensities to lie. That only make sense, since not all cultures share all values equally. The question is whether those cultures common to the Mideast are much more prone to lie than others and your personal experience is, you'll have to admit, fairly narrow. I have, however, read studies where those with less power, both individually and as groups, are more prone to lying. In the mideast it seems that lying might be a pretty good thing to have in your bag of tricks since so many of the regimes are unbounded by the restrictions of justice, and thus telling an unpleasant truth may have fatal consequences. The most interesting observation I read on lying was from an account of conversations with an Indian Chief whose life had covered the mid to end of the 1800s and the early 1900s. He stated simply; "only cowards lie."