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Politics : High Tolerance Plasticity -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gator II who wrote (21211)	8/24/2004 6:35:45 AM
From: chowder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23153

Ed, distorts the writing of Anonymous as well, to suit his positions. Anonymous clearly says if we don't change foreign policy we're in a war we must win and to win we must destroy the Al Qaeda forces. We can't be worried about fighting a war with few casualties. He also goes on to say that we can't expect to win if we go out and arrest people. We must kill them. History Channel had a program on last night about the hunt for Osama bin Laden. They covered what might happen if we imprisoned bin Laden as opposed to killing him. All sorts of reprisals would be taken against the West in order to seek his release. (The man must be killed in my opinion.) The program showed a former CIA intelligence officer who continuously provided commentary about bin Laden's forces. I believe the man was Anonymous because most of what he said sounded like it came out of the book Imperial Hubris. What I found most disconcerting about the whole issue concerning bin Laden was how Clinton had opportunities to take bin Laden out, but was more concerned about casualties and public opinion than he was about saving American lives. (One can not fight a war without casualties.) As it turned out, we lost more American lives than any casualties that would have originally taken place and world opinion certainly hasn't improved. dabum

To: Gator II who wrote (21211)	8/24/2004 12:17:39 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Respond to of 23153

Thank you for a thoughtful post and you needn't apologize for speaking to someone you've decided is a "zealot;" you won't, I'm sure, be labeled as guilty by association by the "moderates" on this thread. g. You are, I believe, correct in pointing out that the same "for profit" market forces were driving the press in that era. As I recall, however, there were icons of network news that faced down the "marketing" departments in the old days when THEY INSISTED on having editorial control over the content of the news. My point is that since then I believe that the fight for editorial and news reporting independence in the network news departments has been fully lost. This is true of ABC, NBC, CBS and, without any pretense, FOX. In today's market the ability to provide "unpopular" editorial content, and maybe even to present news which is viewed as controversial or critical of people or events that some people passionately support, will be limited. Soon it may be only a few fringe cable news outlets and fringe publications that present such news, and they may only attract their own "choir." I think it's getting worse and not better. In mainstream television, some politically active corporate advertisers are pulling their ads when they don't like the message, and some groups have threatening boycotts of what they perceive as politically "incorrect" outlets. The response seems to have been for the networks to self-censor their content. In the Disney/Michael Moore distribution controversy and with the airing of the network Reagon movie, we see that pressure bearing fruit, and I think we can be sure that the same executives are being very careful in the manner with which they present the news and allow editorial criticism or support of our government's actions. So, ultimately, we both agree that Laurence wrote a terrifically insightful book on the relationship between the press and the military, and maybe between the press and the "truth, and we also agree that anything the press prints must be critically viewed and sorted for snippets of truth. Additionally, I think his overview of the war got it "right." His book has the sound, sights, smells and feel of the war and it makes it easy to understand how some of the "atrocities" he relates could occur, and how, and why, they could, and would, be covered up. His overview also makes it comprehensible that moderately "decent" people could face pressures and circumstances which could result in such actions. Many of those people came home, raised families, coached little league, earned a living, went to church and lived normal, loving lives. Sometimes in war the emotional currents are so strong that they obscure the intellectual and moral roadmap our mothers and fathers taught us. There's a line in the movie Predator where Jesse Ventura says; "I ain't got time to bleed." In Vietnam I suspect many soldiers lived events where they could say; "I ain't got time to worry about the right and wrong of it." But they've had time since, and I bet their nightmares won't go away. Too sad. Ed PS, it was interesting to see how the military reacted to the PIOs that actually allowed the press access to the true state of affairs. Anyone who buys into our military as pillars of ethics and morality fails to understand the realities and pressures of that relentlessly dehumanizing machine, where stepping off the prescribed path usually means career suicide. Of course I may be "biased;" the only time the military tolerated me was in Vietnam and that's only because when the "pretend" stopped and the "real" started, I could play.