1. Beth* A.

   04/05/2006 at 11:13 pm

   “You know, for a people who really hate us, they seem to be helping us out quite a bit.”
   That. Speaks. Volumes.

   Oh, D (and E) Was this a trick question? You didn’t say there couldn’t be two answers, right?

   Reply
2. Moose

   04/06/2006 at 6:05 am

   I just read an article by P.Noonan who states that our troops in Iraq have a wonderful relationship with the children and that it is going to have a lasting effect. I agree and have an even crazier idea. I think in years to come Bush is going to be an icon amongst the arabs for introducing democracy to the middle east and getting rid of a ruthless dictator.

   Reply
3. Anonymous

   04/06/2006 at 1:58 pm

   I see, so we’re all “angered” that you post some good things are happening in Iraq as well. Well, guess what, I’m not angered. I’m glad when I see the days where we aren’t sending as many body bags home, when fewer decapitated bodies are found scattered around Bagdad, and when IEDs get found by means other than exploding in our faces.

   You might find this page helpful to you. I guess you could either use it for further hints as to how to mis-characterize anything anyone says who disagrees with you, or perhaps, just perhaps, you could see where you are doing some of these things in your own text: http://www.vandruff.com/art_converse.html

   For example, “The post that angers liberals and peaceniks.” You see, you’re basically using argument techniques like LUNATIC FRINGE, where you argue that anyone who disagrees with you, perhaps saying that we shouldn’t have ever gone into Iraq on false pretenses in fact wants all our soldiers to die horrible deaths. It’s not true, but it makes for good dogma.

   Reply
4. White Rose

   04/06/2006 at 11:41 pm

   I don’t think it is a matter of putting all that disagree with this opinion into one category. It is more that the ones that are so far out in left field are the ones that want to shout over all others. It is so very hard to be accepting of those whose opinions differ from ours when there is such a racket going on that is so one sided. As the mother of a soldier, yes, I don’t want to see my son killed in battle. Yes, I would like to see all the violence in Iraq and around the world come to an end. But I am not so naive to believe that if we pulled all our troops out of Iraq today that we would not be back in a matter of months and have more of our brave men and women coming home in body bags. Today, does it really matter why we first entered Iraq? Or is the more important issue that we are here, lets finish this the right way so we don’t have to come back again. I see every day that I run a mission into Iraq, the lives these people live. My first mission into Iraq was in September 2003. I have seen first hand the good and the bad that has happened, not only to our troops, but to the Iraqis as well. I STILL believe that we are doing the right thing in being here. That is a message that is not being heard back in the states. It is a story that our media refuses to cover. Why? I think because bombs, bullets, and mayhem sells more papers, and get more viewers. Just like with the domestic news. How many good, positive stories do you hear in your nightly news? Or do you hear more about the crime, the killings, the car wrecks and other horrors that go on in our country? When there are those that shout at the top of their lungs all this doom and gloom, then someone has to have the balls to step up and shout right back. I applaud CJ for having the guts and balls to stand in their face and shout right back at them that they are full of shit!

   Reply
5. Anonymous

   04/07/2006 at 8:17 am

   > Today, does it really matter why we first entered Iraq?

   Obviously yes. We still have the same leadership that got us there in the first place. If you can eventually come to accept that you’re there under false pretenses and have incompetent leadership in both the political arena and in the military arena then you will finally get it that we’ve got to change that leadership as part of moving forward. The person running this site and yourself, don’t get that. Polls tell us that finally, FINALLY, the majority of the country get it. But you don’t.

   It’s a bizarre, “Yes, my son might die because he lied but let’s let bygones be bygones.” There’s a line in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where someone says, “Let’s not bicker about who killed who…” That line is there to be funny, not as advice.

   Yes, good stuff is happening in Iraq. Believe it or not, and clearly you don’t, we get that. We really really do. I live in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Every night I turn on the news and watch car crashes, murders, various crimes. But I know that I can still walk out my front door and I’m largely safe. There are a huge number of people here, probably close to 3M and the local news is very much oriented towards “it bleeds, it leads.”

   The difference is that in Iraq, there’s 7.5M in Baghdad and 46~! of them died yesterday. If we had 20 die in a bomb explosion in DFW it wouldn’t be on the news at 5PM, it would be a nationwide alert and we’d be glued to our freaking TVs. Especially if it had been preceeded by the same thing every few days. So, we get that good things are happening in the background, but you need to get that those things are going to pretty much disappear into the background in the context of what else is happening.

   Reply
6. CJ

   04/07/2006 at 9:14 am

   “Anonymous”,

   Even if we leave now, you think that will stop “46 of them” from dying? We’re the reason that number isn’t 460!! Next, you’ll use the number of soldiers dying in Iraq. Consider this:

   Iraq: 1844 (as of 6 April 06)
   CA. = “The land of fruits and nuts” 7,300 murders since the invasion.

   Maybe we should pull our military out of California as well?

   Reply
7. White Rose

   04/07/2006 at 10:37 am

   I quote, “It’s a bizarre, “Yes, my son might die because he lied but let’s let bygones be bygones.â€? This is an inaccurate statement. If my son had been killed in his 10 months over here or if he is deployed here again and is killed, his death would not be because we were lied to! It will be for the same reasons that he joined the military in the first place. The love of our Country and to defend it to his dieing breath! I will tell you this and you could ask him yourself, my son also believes in what we are doing here. He, like many others, is not sure as to why we invaded in the first place, but he, like me, believe that we are here now, so let’s do this right and finish the job. He and I have had many talks about this. We both have been shot at, we both have seen the condition that these people live in and we both have seen it improve in the time that we have been here.
   I am not letting bygones, be bygones. The issue of should we stay or should we go, has nothing to do with why we invaded Iraq in the first place. Let me ask this… You would have us pull out now and leave this country in a more vulnerable state that it has ever been in before? Would you have us pull out to have to come right back within the year? If so, you are very naïve.
   You and many others think you know so much about what is really going on over here, but you don’t. You only know what the media tells you. For that matter, all of us only know what the media dictates is news worthy….that is unless you have been here and seen it first hand. You want to really know what is going on in Iraq! Get off your duff and hop a plane and come see for yourself…..if you have the balls!

   Reply
8. Anonymous

   04/07/2006 at 12:15 pm

   Perhaps if I actually quote that page rathering than asking that you go read it…

   ====================================================
   LUNATIC FRINGE:
   If a person is making an imaginative or novel point, the approach here is to push the idea to a radical extreme generally agreed to be bad. The extreme can be either real or imagined. The hope here is that the other person will reflexively back off and retreat to a defensive position, thus short-circuiting the progression of the argument.

   “So you think we ought to just throw out the whole system, then?”

   “How is that different from classic fascism?”

   “So you would just like to kill off anyone who disagrees with you, it appears!”
   ====================================================

   Now, with that in mind, let’s look at your last argument.

   “Consider this:

   Iraq: 1844 (as of 6 April 06)
   CA. = “The land of fruits and nuts� 7,300 murders since the invasion.

   Maybe we should pull our military out of California as well?”

   See that, notice how I didn’t say anything about pulling the military out? In fact I never mentioned it. I was trying to explain why the bad news is dominating over the good news in coverage and also, point out to White Rose why it does still matter.

   It’s not a cover up. We aren’t too stupid to know that there is good news. It’s just that when a baby is born while Rome burns, you talk about Rome burning, not the cute new baby.

   And you sir, seem to follow the page I pointed you to like it’s a textbook. Maybe that should tell you something about how little you are listening, how much you villify anyone who says something you don’t like, or how little you’ve thought about your own position.

   I’m pleased to hear that there’s some good news in Iraq. I would love to hear some more. Here’s an idea. Put up a website with a good side and a bad side and let one person run the bad side and you run the good side, or even better, find somebody impartial to run the whole thing and let people see both sides of the news. On a website, they don’t have the time constraints the evening news has. And above all, drop the BS rhetoric about how anybody who doesn’t agree with you is either ignorant or a traitor. Get it.

   Reply
9. CJ

   04/07/2006 at 1:57 pm

   “Anonymous”, (it’s easy to hide behind a facade), that’s a great idea. Why don’t you start a website with the good and bad? Why do I have to do it? If you think it’s such a great idea and really what this country is missing out on, hop on it. Domain names are cheap and so is webhosting.

   What you’re basically saying here is that there is no way to disagree with you without being on a “lunatic fringe”, I think. I’m not sure. What was your point anyway? You brought up the dead PROBLEM but the not the dead SOLUTION. What is that solution then, in your non “lunatic fringe” opinion?

   Reply
10. Anonymous

    04/07/2006 at 7:24 pm

    The point of my original reply was that anytime somebody says something you don’t like, you attempt to twist what they said into some bizarre extreme that has nothing to do with what they actually said. That’s an argument technique the article I pointed to calls “lunatic fringe”. You try to make it sound like the argument is from the lunatic fringe. It referred to the argument technique you are using, not to you.

    I wish I knew a solution, I don’t. We’re in this awful situation and we’re going to have to get out of it together. Here’s a quick set of suggestions though that might make things significantly better:

    1) Realize that anyone who disagrees with you isn’t your enemy and you don’t have to use nonsense phrases like “The land of fruits and nuts”, “The post that angers liberals and peaceniks”, “New York Slimes” for (New York Times). See, when you do that, you communicate to your choir. No doubt you’ve got a dedicated audience who would sign up to hear that crap all day long but they also listen to Rush in the afternoon, watch only Fox News, and the latest Ann Coulter sits on their bedside table. Your good news hits only their ears. If you really want to communicate anything to anybody outside of a fan base for bashing, turn it off.

    2) Drop the idea that you are a lone voice shouting out against the “main stream media”. The main stream media is going to report on the biggest story for any given day. Today it was probably the suicide bombing nuts in Baghdad. Anything you can provide is an addition to that information, not something that should be reported instead of it. Without the left wing bashing, there might be lots of news outlets interested in reporting on a round up like yours. I’d try communicating with one of them, it’s very interesting material.

    3) Recognize that even among Democrats and Independents we get that we can’t just pack our bags, say, “Good luck,” and walk out the door in Iraq. Doing so would be a national disgrace. So realize that many of these people are actually calling for very different things than an immediate pullout. For example, a change of leadership starting with Rumsfeld and continuing on through anybody he hand picked in favor of somebody who said, “Maybe we should prepare for a lengthy stay,” or “We’re going to need more troops.”

    Bigger changes are probably going to take until 2008.

    When someone almost ruins your business, you let them go and find new management. You don’t tell the people who almost ruined it to “fix it”. Nobody in the current administration from the topmost levels down has any ideas on what to do differently, nor do they have a shred of credibility left with the U.N. or other nations who could help us in Iraq.

    4) Sorry you don’t like that I post anonymously. That’s a choice. My grandfather and father were in WWI and WWII respectively and I feel like they fought for just those kinds of freedoms. I’ll use them if I like. If you chose to turn off that capability, oh well, I can live without posting here. If it makes it easier to see me as a single entity I guess I could adopt a pseudonym.

    P.S. The good/bad website was just an idea. As for doing it myself, I could except that I have no original source of any information. You can at least supply some portion of the news yourself rather than relying on external sources for all news. That makes you a more trustworthy source than me.

    Reply
11. Beth* A.

    04/08/2006 at 1:36 am

    Please forgive me for any toe mashing and the length of this, CJ; just couldn’t help myself. latin sqcic and all that.

    Anon:
    “so we’re all “angeredâ€? that you post some good things are happening in Iraq as well.”
    – CJ wrote: ‘the post that angers liberals and peaceniks.’ He is basing that on his own past experience. How do I know this? I read the comments in every one of his previous IED reports. And he didn’t say ‘all’- you wrote that, and you come across as somewhat angry and more significantly, condescending (a la ‘Over Your Head’), which is an instant killer for civil discourse and debate. Putting the word “angered” in scare quotes in an attempt to distance yourself from the word only works if the body of your work backs it up. It doesn’t.
    As for the condescension, using phrases like “obviously, yes” in response to a question, “Let’s look at your last argument” as if you were given the position of teacher to someone’s assigned role of student, and “Perhaps if I actually quote that page rathering than asking that you go read it…” – also teacher to student.

    “You see, you’re basically using argument techniques like LUNATIC FRINGE, where you argue that anyone who disagrees with you ….. in fact wants all our soldiers to die horrible deaths.”
    -actually, CJ didn’t say that, you did. He wasn’t using LF, and ‘Distorted Active Listening’ here, you were.

    “You might find this page helpful to you. I guess you could either use it for further hints as to how to mis-characterize anything anyone says who disagrees with you, or perhaps, just perhaps, you could see where you are doing some of these things in your own text:”
    – a tricky combination of ‘Listen up’, some ‘Distorted Active Listening’ again, (“anything anyone says” – Lunatic Fringe still fits) and a bit of ‘even you’ (implied, I’ll admit, by the “perhaps, just perhaps (even) you could see…”

    ————-
    Let your own words hoist you by your own petard. They fit you, Anon, much better:
    “And you …(I took out the “sir”, NCOs will respond to that with the fact that they actually work for a living, huh, CJ? ) seem to follow the page (you) pointed (CJ) to like it’s a textbook. Maybe that should tell you something about how little you are listening, how much you villify anyone who says something you don’t like, or how little you’ve thought about your own position.”

    Mirror, mirror…

    CJ, on the other hand, opens HIS OWN blog up to commenters from both sides. I read about 30 blogs in rotation and I can only think of a handful of those that are as accomodating with varying levels of civility in debate. The rest demand more rigid standards of their commenters at all times or they simply won’t post their commments. Either way is within their scope, as well as his. CJ is after all “the person running this site” as you yourself wrote.
    He does not EVER deserve to be lectured on his own blog with “And above all, drop the BS rhetoric about how anybody who doesn’t agree with you is either ignorant or a traitor. Get it.”
    No, YOU get it. ‘It’ being your own blog as CJ suggests if you like the idea so much. How dare you? I know, ‘Selective Quotation’ throughout and a very deliberate ‘Bombast’ as a final note. It just felt lovely to say.

    I predict your ‘Denial of a Valid Conclusion’ any time now.

    Reply
12. Beth* A.

    04/08/2006 at 1:43 am

    One final point; the name of that link you (and I) used so extensively: “Conversational Terrorism.”
    Terrorism? Get real.

    Reply
13. CJ

    04/08/2006 at 8:18 am

    “Anonymous”, I have no problem with you not wanting to be known. But “anonymous”? How about Bob, Andy, or Mike or make up some name. Anonymous TO ME means you don’t want to be taken to seriously.

    This is my site. I am not a credentialed media outlet. I’ve stated from the very beginning that my intention, goal, and mission here is to bring out the GOOD NEWS of our efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan and the greater war on terror. If you’re looking for bias in that respect, you won’t find it here. I make no hidden agenda that I’m here to be fair. When I see stupid things happen that affect that good news IN MY OPINION (like the paultry sentences given to Abu Ghraib soldiers and the fact that their commanders walked free) I mention that as well. But, make no mistake that those areas are well covered by the MSM.

    I am an independent myself, not a Republican. I’ve been invited to Republican events, but I’ve also asked hard questions to those Republicans. I’m not a Democrat either. But, I can tell you that I’ll be slamming them more because I’m in the military and they could not care less about us IN MY OPINION. Eight years of Democratic rule only got us 9/11. There was no backbone. Even the Republican leadership before that didn’t do much to curb terrorism. This is the first president in my lifetime that has stood up to the worldwide bullies. So, I support that.

    The New York Slime is just that…Slime. The same with the Washington Compost. There were easily 35 people at Walter Reed during the hateful Westboro idiots rally and yet the Compost downgrades our contributions to “20 or so”. Those people are out there supporting soldiers EVERY Friday night, but no mention of that. Nope, let’s cover people with signs that read, “Thank God for Maimed Soldiers”. If my characterization of these “respectable” newspapers as “slime” and “compost” gains an approving nod, great. Again, I’m not here to be balanced. I’m here to give a “Soldier’s Perspective”. I happen to be that soldier.

    While I highlight news items, this is not a news site. It’s an opinionated blog. It’s also here for entertainment. I like to do things that have nothing to do with the military or politics. I screw with those darn email fraud criminals. I tell funny stories about my son. And I publicize my nerdiness is picking up pennies from the ground.

    Reply
14. ConversationalTerrorist

    04/08/2006 at 9:04 am

    > One final point; the name of that link you (and I) used so
    > extensively: “Conversational Terrorism.�
    > Terrorism? Get real.

    Come on Beth, I didn’t write that page or title it, I can’t pick the title he used. If you can find the same material elsewhere or get the author to change his/her title please do so. Objecting to a nit like that is, I don’t know, somewhat like “OUT OF CONTEXT”.

    Reply
15. ConversationalTerrorist

    04/08/2006 at 9:39 am

    I read your response CJ and I feel like it’s the first time you really read mine. I understand, or at least think I do, that your weblog is an opinion piece and you don’t feel like you should have to change your references to the New York Times or Washington Post if you don’t feel like it.

    But, all I was trying to say was that doing so might make your blog inclusive enough to actually communicate outside a group of people who probably all already have plans to vote a straight party ticket in November or in 2008. Wouldn’t you like to be able to say something about candidates in the next election _of any party_, “Hey, this guy over here seems to respect the troops and have some real ideas for what to do in Iraq,” or, “This woman is fighting hard to restore veterans benefits which have been cut,” and have somebody listening other than those people.

    If all it took was looking at your post from someone elses perspective and toning down some of the rhetoric, is that too high a price?

    As far as the Walter Reed thing goes. I see that as another example of you over reacting to news reporting. I hang out on another website that is probably liberal enough to make some people’s teeth hurt. But we hate those Westboro assholes as much as you do. We typically just post the pictures unaltered though It tends to make us mad enough to spit.

    It’s unfortunate that there was an undercount of people there for the counter-protest but that happens all the time. I don’t think most reporters are necessarily good at estimating crowds. Why conflate a low count on that and reporting on the Westboro people were carrying with biased reporting? By far, most people who see a picture or read in the newspaper what is on the signs are going to be horrified. They will be glad that somebody showed up to tell them what for and they’ll see the same picture I see when I bring it up in my browser. A man standing in front of all the other protestors, he’s identified as Bill Barnette and he’s holding up a sign that supports the soldiers. The Westboro nuts are way in the background. In fact, one of the Free Republic members gets the last word in in the article. That’s not biased reporting CJ, it’s just reporting.

    There’s an old quote, and I wish I could attribute it correctly but I don’t know who said it, “Everything in the newspaper is correct, unless you happen to know something about it.” It has been true for every story I’ve ever read where I actually had some involvement in what was being reported upon. They were all wrong to some greater or lesser extent.

    Reply
16. CJ

    04/08/2006 at 9:47 am

    CT said: “Wouldn’t you like to be able to say something about
    candidates in the next election _of any party_, “Hey, this guy over here seems to respect the troops and have some real ideas for what to do in Iraq,”

    Not at all. That is not the function of this site. I think Howard Kaloogian in California truly understands soldier issues and should be elected, but you don’t see me pining for him here. The reason is because I’m not about endorsing political candidates for office. I get emails all the time from great politicians and their campaigns, but I don’t publish them. I think the closest I came was a reference to an email from Joe Wilson in this very post.

    It’s not just the undercount. That’s just another marble on the scales. I’m really just not interested in pushing anyone else’s agenda.

    Reply
17. Beth* A.

    04/08/2006 at 9:56 am

    Anon./Con. Terr.:
    You CAN pick the title you yourself use. Interesting choice.

    ‘Selective Quotation’ as your latest note. Although I don’t fault you for that, as I like quotes too. So my latest note? ‘Knee Jerk’.

    Reply
18. ConversationalTerrorist

    04/09/2006 at 8:08 am

    It seemed apropos given your own posting.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply