Just heard Monica Crowley of MSNBC tell Don Imus (the semi-crazed seer of morning media) that Zarqawi is the leader of the terrorist insurgency in Iraq.
TALKING POINT!! "The insurgencies are altogether made up of Jihadis. Zarqawi is their leader."
THIS WILL BE ON THE QUIZ!! (In fact Zarqawi "owns" only a small percentage of the insurgents)
She then went on to say that what had "gone wrong" was that the United States had invaded only one country in the Middle East. She maintained stoutly that what is needed is to "take down" all the tyrants at once.
TALKING POINT!!! "More countries need regime change before a tranforming revolution will occur in the region."
WATCH OUT _______!!! (Fill in appropriate name)
Imus then asked her if she has an "IV drip" to receive her Jacobin neocon Koolaid every day or does she just "guzzle it" by the gallon.
NOMINATION: Monica Crowley for Jacobinette of the year.!!
Pat Lang
No surprise there.
But did Imus really ask her if she has an "IV drip" to receive her Jacobin neocon Koolaid every day or does she just "guzzle it" by the gallon?
If so then there is some good out of that show ...
Now for a question; everyone see Donahue on O'Reily?
My question is about the al Qaeda connection to Iraq (pre-war). From what I have seen there is no evidence of a connection, yet O'Reily claims there was/is. Furthermore, AEI - PNAC hacks and their allies continue to spew this point, with some administration officials joining in. So, my question is, what is an answer to this talking point? I've yet to see an opposing view from any Dem, Progressive or Lib. In my experience you can look up links to stories and reports but people discount these in favor of the Neocons. Therefore, a lot of the right leaning public sticks by this line of reasoning although there is little to back it up and pleanty to discount it and so the myth lives on. How do we stop this?
Posted by: Geoff | 23 September 2005 at 08:53 AM
Geoff
In re - That's what he said. he seems to like the Koolaid metaphor. He also asked her if she knew how crazy she sounded.
I am not "Democrat, liberal or progressive," but I debated Stphen Hayes of the WS on this point on one of Blitzer's shows a year or so ago.
Their argument about Saddam's government and AQ can not be defeated because it is both ignorant and deceptive.
They (Jacobins) gave up the possibility of showing evidence of Iraqi participation in 9/11 years ago.
Their remaining argument is based on the evidence that there were contacts between the Iraqi intelligence services and governments and various Jihadi groups including AQ and the then independent Zarqawi group.
This is an argument based on the idea of "guilt by association," a favorite method for the Jacobins. An example of this is their claim that Zarqawi's presence in Afghanistan at one point "proves" that he was always AQ's man.
Two things:
- The "evidence" as compiled by by OSP and Hayes consists of a number of unconfirmed Intelligence Information Reports (IIR) received from the intelligence community. These are not analytic documents. They are "raw" reports of observations or rumors collected by the intelligence collectors in the field and sent to Headquarters where they are normally considered in the light of a mass of other information AND THE ANALYSTS' SKILLS so that a judgment is reached as to their veracity and accuracy. These disconnected IIR that the Jacobins cite were judged by the Community as being unreliable and meaningless. Nevertheless, the Jacobins believe that they are better at judging the validity of information collected by the Community than is the Community. They believe this is true because they, the Jacobins, have the "correct" attitude towards history in that they generally see the world through the lens of "resistance to the tyrants." (Churchill, etc.)
2- They do not seem to know, or they pretend not to know that Arab governments operate everywhere on the basis of either imprisoning their present and possible opponents or remaining in sufficient "touch" with them to ensure a knowledge of "what they are up to." To that end, it is a commonplace of Arab statecraft to meet with opponents (often this is carried out by the security services)often enough to assess the situation and the threat. It is a fairly common thing for Arab givernments to give medical treatment to dangerous 3rd party actors or even offer asylum to unstable elements in the political world. The asylum thing particularly appeals to them since they then "have the body." A number of people under asylum have learned that to their sorrow, or at least the sorrow of those who survived.
So, the Jacobin method method is to string unconfirmed reports together to say that "where there is smoke there must be fire," or to claim that contact or custodial assistance equals alliance.
This has been exploded a number of times, but THEY have mastered the Goebbals propaganda technique which is basically to keep shoveling falsehoods and half-truths at the barn door until it sticks.
Pat Lang
Posted by: Pat Lang | 23 September 2005 at 10:04 AM
Well that doesn't help much but thanks for the great reply. The thing is this plays into their hands, most Repubs are going to have a hard time comprehending all that rather than just believing the kool-aid that tastes so good.
oh well...
Posted by: Geoff | 23 September 2005 at 12:50 PM
Guilt by association and a horse pill sized dose of equivocation wherein all things bad are labeled "terrorist" and so become a single entity.
Blurring meaningful distinctions has never helped make a better decision, but we now have a living laboratory of blurred distinctions as proof.
Posted by: Some Guy | 23 September 2005 at 09:52 PM
Standards are very important. Is there not some critical mass/threshold at which the sources of these half truths, equivocations, blurred distinctions, factually deficent (formerly known as untrue) statements, etc. can be referred to as LIARS?
Posted by: RJJ | 24 September 2005 at 02:01 AM