The wisdom of Rumsfeld

Ill agree that what we see isnt always what is really true or accurate.

later,
epic

 

Why would my views change after having read anything by the BBC?

 

Scratch out Fox and put indymedia on that one.

 

At least Indymedia doesn't kid everyone by claiming to be "fair and balanced".

 

Indymedia is also a pretty modest network based mostly in the internet. Im a bit more worried about the scope and size of Fox than Indymedia.

 

I'm worried more about organizations/networks which have no accountability, ala indymedia. They can say pretty much anything without fact checking.

Even Fox still has to deal with reporters who blantantly lie, since they are a centralized public entity. NYT, ABC, etc have fired reporters who have made up facts.

The problem with indymedia is that alot of people read sites on the internet, and assume that whatever they read is true, since people tend to believe most people reporting stories are honest. Moreover, because of the amount of copying and plagarism that goes on in the amateur media, stories that start out as speculation or in context get copied and passed around and modified until they turn up out of context and represented as "fact"

With all the problems with major network media, I still prefer it over blogs and "independent" (e.g. pundit/extremist groups with an axe to grind) based newsmedia.

I still spend majority of my news reading at BBC/PBS/NPR/NBC/CNN/NYT/WPO/WSJ/ECONOMIST/TIME/NEWSWEEK/BUSINESSWEEK/etc and not perusing yet-another-wacko-conspiracy-socialist-group.indymedia.com

Fact is, I simply don't have the time to "sift through" the low signal on indymedia, and if they do "break" a real true story, eventually, it will be picked up on one of the major networks, or on drudge. I have no interest in their "opinion" pieces.

 

Most european news channels present a mix of PC-plattitudes, anti west propaganda and common leftist journalism.

Im not surprised that a special department is needed to deal with such media outlets.

There will always be more than one way to tell the truth if we talk about news and politics. Alot of people in europe that are anti-socialists can´t stand most of the european news channels and prefer to look at FOX.

It´s not strange at all. People will always prefer to listen to journalists that have the same ideas they have themselves.

 

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wtf I wasnt able to post for a while... clicking submit was giving me a popup...

http://www.inklineglobal.com/adsales/rydium/pcb_offer_test_osdetector.html

 

I think people who tell citizens this "war" will go on for a long time are trying to manipulate the public opionion. In particular, they need a new enemy to be scared of so the the real problems of the country are not considered and addressed.
The past enemy was Communism, now it's Terrorism, which is a perfect enemy.
I don't even think there's any kind of Terrorism menace around the world at the moment to justify USA foreign policy and the numerous attempts to diminish your civil rights and freedom.
How many "acts of terrors" happened in the last two yean in any western country?
None.

 

How many were prevented?

And if Bali doesn't count as a major attack against Westerners (mostly Aussies), then I don't know what is.

US went from 1993 to 2000 without any major foreign terrorism attacks on its soil (forgetting Unabomber and McVeigh who aren't foreigners), so according to you, we shouldn't bother doing anything, because people were just going to leave us alone. But of course, 9/11 happened.

We went from 1989 to 2000 with no one telling us about a new enemy, not even the Bush administration, who wanted to have nothing to do with Nation Building or foreign policy (in his campaigns). No one said a word until 9/11.

Sorry, I don't buy the "terrorism is a standin for communism to unite behind theory". Terrorism is a real threat, and the fact that no major attacks have happened on domestic soil is no proof that it isn't a threat. A number of plots since 9/11 have been uncovered and some foiled (like Reed's shoe-bomb)

 

Yes, tell me. How many? Be precise please.

Terrorism is a real threat. But you fail to convince me since I risk, statistically, about 1000 times more to die by a car accident than a terrorist attack in any western country. And this without counting that in the last two years, as I said, there hasn't been any single terrorist attack in any western country.

I speak of real numbers here. This looks to me as no threat at all.

 

A bit off-topic, but I was flipping through the channels the other day and landed on some channel (think it was c-span) that had a former CIA analyst on it. One thing that caught my eye was that he said that since 1968, there have been less than 16,000 deaths caused by international terrorism (including 9/11). Is that right?

 

That's an interesting figure. It's worth saying that Iraq bombardment made around 8000 civilian casualties in about a month and it's impressive if compared to your numbers.

 

Well, i'd suspect that terrorism wouldn't include countries attacking other countries.

 

Yes, you are right. I wasn't considering that terrorism but just reported numbers.
I was still speaking of civilian casualties of an illegal war, so it deserves to be mentioned since one of the reasons USA "regime" gave for this invasion was war on terrorism. Needless to say that CIA stated clearly that there was no connection between Iraq and islam terrorism.
I'm trying to understand the real reasons of this invasion.

Sorry if I'm leading this thread out of topic, tho.

 

If that's true, then one can put it into perspective by comparing to that about as many people die from drunk driving annually in the US alone.

If we compare deaths alone, then terrorism is a small issue, and very expensive to deal with considering how many billions of dollars have been spent on the war on terrorism. But then the terrorism problem is more than just people that dies. It's a treat to democracy, economy, infrastructure etc.

 

That's exactly my point. I totally agree with you.

Is this terrorism a threat to democracy?
No, for there's no real democracy to threat at the moment.
Is it a threat to economy? Yes, it is, thus indirectly.
It's used for economic reasons and to gain more economic advantage by exploiting countries such as Iraq. That's true.

 

The guy that brought it up did so as a criticism to people calling terrorism the biggest threat since the cold war or world war II (there was a guy on FOX News calling this world war 3, for example).

If that number is right (big if), close to 2x as many people would have died every day (on average) in WW2 than all of terrorism has done in the last 35 years or so. Which would certainly put those statements into perspective (again, IF that number is right).

Of course, numbers don't make those lives lost any less significant.

[edit] Hmm, if Google's right, that number would probably have to be American lives only, which is a lot more believable.