A mind is a difficult thing to change

January 16th, 2008A mind is a difficult thing to change: (Part 7B: the Vietnam photos revisited)

[Part 7A can be found here. The rest of the series is located by clicking on the category "A mind is a difficult thing to change: my story" on the right sidebar.]

The last thing I was thinking about during the buildup to the Iraq War were those two Vietnam-era photos. I was busy reading online about Iraq, trying to understand the situation there and to predict what might happen if we invaded or what might happen if we didn’t invade.

I no longer remember where, how, or why I came across the two Vietnam photos again. It was probably a random thing. Perhaps I found a link to them on a blog, perhaps somewhere else.

No matter. I saw something that caught my attention and clicked on a link that led to a piece about them. Just one of many articles I saw every evening as part of my online reading.

Here were the familiar images—the field execution, the napalmed girl. I hadn’t seen them in decades, but I remembered them well. I felt the shock and sadness again seeing them once more, even after all these years.

But the story told by the article accompanying them was different. I no longer remember the specific website I encountered that day, but what it said about the first photo was essentially identical to this. The man being shot was alleged to have been “a Captain in a Viet Cong assassination and revenge platoon responsible for the killing of South Vietnamese policemenand their families.” He had just been captured—wearing civilian clothing—after killing a South Vietnamese officer and his entire

http://neoneocon.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/loan3.jpg

http://neoneocon.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/napalmgirl.jpg

family, an officer who had served under the South Vietnamese general wielding the pistol in the photo.

Eddie Adams, the AP photographer who took it, later made this statement about it:

I won a Pulitzer Prize in 1969 for a photograph of one man shooting another…The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths. What the photograph didn’t say was, “What would you do if you were the general at that time and place on that hot day,and you caught the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two or three American soldiers?” General Loan was what you would call a real warrior, admired by his troops. I’m not saying what he did was right, but you have to put yourself in his position.

As Adams said, it’s not that what Loan did was right—although apparently, because of his civilian clothing, the Viet Cong had unlawful enemy combatant status and was subject to summary field execution under the South Vietnamese law of the time. It’s that the whole story, which would have enabled the Americans who saw it to put the photo into context and to have understood the circumstances surrounding General Loan’s act and to have evaluated it for themselves, had not been told—or had been so de-emphasized that most people didn’t catch it. What we saw instead was the brutal slaying of a small defenseless man, shorn of all history and looking like an innocent Vietnamese peasant.

And then there was the other photo. The story I now read about that one was also different than I remembered. My recollection was that the girl in the photo had been burned by our forces, or by South Vietnamese forces under our direction. The details weren’t clear (and probably never had been), but the message delivered was that the killing and burning of countless young Vietnamese children was our fault, that we regularly bombed innocent civilians indiscriminately and perhaps even purposely, without motivation or justification.

But now I read that the incident had involved no US military at all. It occurred after Viet Cong troops had attacked and captureda South Vietnamese village, setting up headquarters among

civilians in the marketplace and driving them from the scene. South Vietnamese warplanes trying to protect the village from theinvaders and wrest it back—bombing not the village itself, but the perimeter—had mistaken some of the fleeing people for the Viet Cong and napalmed them. This was how the little girl got hurt.

This was not a good thing, but it was the sort of thing that was unavoidable in a war of this type, in which the enemy hid among civilians.

And this was beginning to sound vaguely familiar—not to events inthe past, but to events in the present. Bombing errors in the Afghan war, for example. Few and far between compared to successes, but covered heavily by the media.

And Jenin. Palestinian terrorists had callously hidden among townspeople there, and the inevitable civilian casualties had been blamed by the media on the Israelis, who had actually exercised every possible diligence to prevent them.

All of these details about the photo of the napalmed girl had apparently been reported in a “Stars and Stripes” article back in1972, when the incident had occurred. But who read “Stars and Stripes?” Certainly not me.

As far as my memory of contemporaneous mainstream media coverage went, it was the photo, the photo, the photo that had occupied center stage, with only a cursory description of a firefight, andnothing about the enemy and what they’d done. To most readers, ithad been as though the enemy didn’t exist; just US soldiers and their South Vietnamese victims. Even the leading role of the South Vietnamese military had somehow receded into the background.

How had this occurred? Part of the mechanism was that photos tendto affect people on a visceral level. They “read” a certain way, but the deeper story behind them is far more complex, and is not always clearly told. Even if told, however, it’s not always read.

That takes time and effort, but it only takes a moment to glance at a photo and to think you understand it.

In the case of the photo of the girl, there was further confusion, some of it perhaps deliberate:

Other journalists who were not there, through assumption, sloppy work, or malice, havesince reported that the attack was by US aircraft, and have further embellished the story with time.

As I read the article about the photos, I felt a sense of disbelief. I wasn’t quite sure what I was reading was correct. Surely, if this information about both photos were true, I’d haveheard about it before this. After all, thirty years had passed.

I spent the next few hours searching the subject online and foundquite a bit more information, but no serious or credible refutation of the stories I’d just learned. The facts therein didnot appear to be in much dispute. I read the original article again, and then again, in a tensely concentrated state.

Then the strangest feeling came over me. I don’t even have a wordfor it, although I usually can come up with words for emotions.

This was a new feeling. The best description I can come up with is that it was a regret so intense it morphed seamlessly into guilt, as though I were responsible for something terrible, though I didn’t know exactly what. Regret and guilt, and also a rage that I’d been so stupid, that I’d let myself be duped or misled or kept ignorant about something so important, and that I’d remained ignorant all these years.

I sat in front of my computer and put my face down on the keyboard. I stayed in that position for a few minutes, energylessand drained. When I lifted my head I was surprised to find a few tears on my cheeks.

The experience was something akin to being married for thirty years, thinking your husband loving and faithful, and then by chance coming across evidence that he’d been living a double life

all that time, with a wife and kids in another town. A sense of deep betrayal of a basic trust.

Photos are inherently emotional, and there’s no doubt that these were powerful photos, deserving of every prize they’d earned. If the point of publishing them had been to convey the idea that warentails violence and suffering, they succeeded admirably. And maybe this was what the photographers who took them were trying to say.

But that’s not a good enough message in and of itself. Killing isawful, yes. But not all killing is equally awful. And the press during the Vietnam War had been charged with the task of providing that all-important context.

Why did I only remember seeing photos that portrayed what we, or our allies, had done—photos stripped of all context and meant to maximize our feelings of wrongdoing? Photos that emphasized the victimhood of a Viet Cong terrorist, or made it seem as though wewere targeting civilians when the civilians were actually being putat risk by the aggressive actions of the enemy in attacking and occupying a village?

And how was it that it had taken me thirty years to become aware of any of this?

If this knowledge had come to me prior to 9/11, I doubt it would have affected me so much. I’d always known on some level that thepress was using the photos as antiwar propaganda. But I’d also felt that the cause for which the propaganda was being shown was just, and that the facts we were told were correct and essentially complete. This new knowledge of the way the press hadactually used these photos and failed to properly convey the stories behind them during Vietnam had far greater significance that it otherwise would have, because there were now harmonic vibrations with a host of other incidents such as the reportage on Jenin that had already partially eroded my faith in the press.

To continue the affair analogy, this wasn’t just similar to learning of a brief and one-time fling on the part of a husband,

something that was an anomaly that might be forgiven. It seemed possible that this was a pattern of deceit and/or purposefully misleading omissions, one I could no longer deny.

This idea reached critical mass during the process of reading andassimilating these articles, although it had actually been brewing for quite a while. The components were cognitive and emotional, and both were extremely intense. That synergistic effect accounted for the power of my response, the idea that thiswas a life-changing moment and that there was no going back. A bunch of unrelated pieces of information that had previously seemed disconnected and chaotic had suddenly fallen into place like the pieces of a puzzle and formed an image I could now read.

This image said: beware the press with an agenda. Some elements of the press seem to have had one then. Perhaps they had one now,as well.

And I found, to my surprise, that the agenda appeared to be substantially the same: to magnify our wrongdoings and those of our allies, to downplay those of the enemy, to simplify matters that were really complex, and to sensationalize.

[To be continued---soon, I hope.]

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 16th, 2008 at 3:44 pm and is filed under A mind is adifficult thing to change: my change story, Press, Vietnam. You can follow any responses to this entry

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« A mind is a difficult thing to change: (Part 7A: Jenin, Jenin)The New Democratic Congressional Theater »

132 Responses to “A mind is a difficult thing to change: (Part 7B: the Vietnam photos revisited)”

1. Dave Moelling Says: January 16th, 2008 at 4:11 pm

These photos were widely distibuted with that agenda inmind. It was considered “too painful” to repeatedly air

photos of people jumping to their deaths from the upperfloors of the World Trade Center. The people who considerthemselves part of the agenda setting clique know very wellhow powerful the images were.

2. vanderleun Says: January 16th, 2008 at 4:12 pm

The phrase “shorn of all history” pretty much sums up theagenda. An agenda to eliminate history or to make historybe, in the minds of our impressionable and uncriticalpublic. what we say it was and is. Especially when you canmint history that is “shorn of all history.”

3. DC Says: January 16th, 2008 at 4:34 pm

The distorted press is justified to tell a larger truth.The big bad USA is responsible for the Viet Nam war becausethey propped up dictators so they could make money sellingthem weapons. Fear of communism was just a ruse. That’swhat I was told, so it didn’t matter who dropped the napalmor why the defenseless man was shot.Today:Here is how Obama justifies his opposition to the Iraq war(from 2002):“What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hackslike Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured,a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income –to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock marketthat has just gone through the worst month since the GreatDepression.”fromhttp://www.barackobama.com/2002/10/02/remarks_of_illinois_state_sen.phpthere’s this too:

“What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by RichardPerle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekendwarriors in this administration to shove their ownideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of thecosts in lives lost and in hardships borne.”and so naturally the lies of the press are justified, Apicture must be painted in people’s minds so they willbelieve George Soros’s fraudulent Lancet study..

4. Tom Says: January 16th, 2008 at 4:36 pm

Bravo, Neo. I remember well seeing those photos when 1stpublished. Since I was pro-war while my univ. prof. fatherand my (all younger) sibs were demonstrating against it, Ithought Wow, the execution photo is gonna hurt; and thenapalmed girl photo generated awe at the force of theimage, and a war-is-hell thought.The antiAmericanism of American journalists is a malign butdurable force. It is us, Americans, that they in fact arecondemning with their propaganda.I fear to think how it will all end; they and theirpartners in education are dumbing the nation down, and Ifear they will suceed. People simply want to, need tobelieve the news is the Truth, especially when it’s rainingdown on them all the time- home TVs kept on for sound;airport TVs; the newly outfitted gas station near my homehas loud flat panel TVs blaring CNN above each set ofpumps.

5. Trimegistus Says: January 16th, 2008 at 5:37 pm

I’ve never quite understood why journalists turned en masseto such a stridently anti-American stance forty years ago,and have remained stuck there so long since.The idea of a conscious conspiracy directed from Moscow orwherever is silly — except that I honestly can’t think ofany other explanation which makes sense.

6. expat Says: January 16th, 2008 at 6:01 pm

I remember watching TV reports during Iraq I and observingthe differences in coverage between German TV and BritishSKY News. And then if I stayed up half the night I couldactually watch our military press conferences on CNN. SKYcoverage was superior to German, which had a lot of expertinterpretation that seemed to misrepresent what I had heardfrom our officers’ mouths. I remember being angry that theywouldn’t let us speak for ourselves and that as a newsconsumer I was denied the opportunity to come to my ownconclusions. And of course, talk about strategy, tactics,and reasons for mistakes were much less important on GermanTV than talk about victims and similar PC themes.

7. Fausta Says: January 16th, 2008 at 6:22 pm

Excellent post, Neo!

8. DonS Says: January 16th, 2008 at 7:25 pm

Trimegistus,Consider that we had our MSM supporters of Stalin back inthe day, and that during the Soviet pact with Nazi Germany,Hollywood wasn’t critical of the Nazis.We have had a 5th column for quite some time. Most are whatsome would call “usefull idiots”.


The idea of a conscious conspiracy directed from Moscow or wherever is silly —except that I honestly can’t think of any other explanation which makes sense.

McCarthy was in fact correct that the Soviets had activespys in Hollywood. Read this:http://www.reason.com/news/show/27732.html

10. Vince P Says: January 16th, 2008 at 8:11 pm

What a wicked little article that was!When the plot twist of the article itself is revealed Ifelt so cheated.. I want to see it!

11. nyomythus Says: January 16th, 2008 at 8:28 pm

The mind is a difficult thing to change, this is ourcondition; egotistical, fearful, temporal, organic,susceptible; we aren’t as much as we think we are, wearen’t there yet and may never arrive; I’m talking abouthumanity as a species. The only thing that advances us fromthe roots of our dissonant solipsism is the evolution ofall that classical liberalism envelopes; reason andscience, individual rights, liberal capitalism, autonomyand personal responsibility, and the forceful defense ofthese things unique, hard earned, and precious; also theglobalization of these principles, and the extirpation ofradical theism.


>and the extirpation of radical theism.Ah yes… this ole gem… every time it’s tried, the resultshave been wonderful… and yet people keep the dream alive.sick

13. Tom Says: January 16th, 2008 at 8:40 pm

Vince: I take nyomythus’s “radical theism” to mean Islam,and characterizing that as such seems fine to me.


I know — but like Squirrel Nut Zippers put it, “Put a liddown on it, and everything will be all right.”This damned linky thing better work :\


Exactly, the others have their moments, and will likelycontinue to have their moments, but not comes presently isquite like radical Islam, I dunno I may be mistaken; theymight be nice guys if you get to know them.


Sorry if I misconstrued your statement ny. Not knowing thatwell , I didn’t have enough info to fill in teh ambiguitythat your statement had.

17. Matthew M Says: January 16th, 2008 at 9:06 pm

Book! Book! I think you’re ready for a proposal at least.

18. harry9000 Says: January 16th, 2008 at 9:10 pm

I propose neo write a book on her journey.How’s that?

19. harry9000 Says: January 16th, 2008 at 9:12 pm

Journey…heh heh heh…cue Starwars Darth Vader theme…

20. Danny Lemieux Says: January 16th, 2008 at 9:32 pm

By the way, Neo, I believe that the S. Vietnamese generalhad the right to summarily execute the enemy combatant out

of uniform under the Geneva Conventions. A solution toGuantanamo, perhaps?Having graduated from a “radical” university in the 70s, mytheory is that members of the radical left (my classmates)actively sought to penetrate the media and education duringthat period and eventually drive out those that didn’tagree with them. This was classical Saul Alinsky radicalanarchist agenda stuff (of which Hillary is an acolyte).Largely, they have succeeded in capturing these organs ofpropaganda. Thank God for the internet and talk radio.

21. mrs whatsit Says: January 16th, 2008 at 10:07 pm

I agree, it’s time for a book. But then again, this IS abook — what could a book accomplish that this blog doesnot?Thanks, Neo, once again, for provoking genuine thought ANDfeeling. It’s not easy at all to do both at once.

22. Denis Eugene Sullivan Says: January 16th, 2008 at 11:09 pm

Greetings:One day in 1969 during my tour of duty in Viet Nam, we werebeing resupplied in the field by a helicopter “log bird.”Along with our supplies was a media film crew of three.A little later, as we were “saddling up” to go out on apatrol, our company commander came over and asked if Iwanted to take our visitors out with the squad. For somereason, my reply was “Do I have to bring them back?”

23. Yaacov Ben Moshe Says: January 16th, 2008 at 11:45 pm

There is a book- Media Cleansing: Dirty Reporting by PeterBrock Its a real eye-opener on how we were all manipulatedto the oint of tragedy in Yugoslavia. But then the samecharletans are out there doing the same stuff today.

Follow this link:http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17990696Its a great example of NPR’s monster machine. It is a shortinterview in which a scientist teaches a reporter a lessonin objectivity and responsible reporting.Here’s the crucial exchange between reporter Alex Chadwickand tiger researcher Alan Rabinowitz:CHADWICK: What did you think when you saw the recentdemonstrations by the monks there in Myanmar,demonstrations that were put down quite severely by themilitary with the imprisonment of, well, reports ofthousands?Mr. RABINOWITZ: Well, I wasn’t there so I really didn’t seeanything firsthand. How it was handled by the government issomething I actually can’t speak to because I’ve hearddifferent reports. My own people in Yangon tell me that thecrowds were not nearly as large as the media reported, thatthe shooting was not nearly as intense. But I don’t knowwhat’s true and what’s not true.CHADWICK: You know, Alan, some people listening to thiswould say right there Alan Rabinowitz is crossing the line.Mr. RABINOWITZ: I know. I thought that as I was saying it.(Soundbite of laughter)CHADWICK: He is saying I don’t know what’s going on therewhen we have reports and videotape of people being shot andwe have many reports of people being imprisoned, and howcan you not know?Mr. RABINOWITZ: How can I not know – you do not havevideotape of many people being shot. There’s no videotapeof many people getting shot there. There’s videotape of aJapanese reporter getting shot. This is what I get verydisturbed about, is that when it comes to Myanmar, peopleseem to want to deal in a lot of rhetoric, in a lot of pre-conceived notions rather than pure facts.Yes, this government is not the nicest government in the

world, but what I have seen in that country doesn’t matchup with what the media tries to portray is happening inthat country. And I don’t quite understand why people loveto hate Myanmar. I’m not an apologist for them. If anybodyreads my books, they see that I talk very strongly aboutsome of the bad things which are occurring in that country.But I balance everything. We’re talking about what – what’shappening that’s good and what’s happening that’s bad. Andthe government seems to respect that kind of balancedhonesty.


Yaacov Ben Moshe: Thanks for sharing that.It’s exactly the mindlessness of the NPR host that led toNATO bombing Serbia and on the verge of creating a Jihadstate in Europe.

25. njcommuter Says: January 17th, 2008 at 1:34 am

Neo, thank you describing your awakening. I wish it hadn’thad to be quite so rough. You are a much-needed voice;please keep up the great work.

26. strcpy Says: January 17th, 2008 at 3:12 am

“The idea of a conscious conspiracy directed from Moscow orwherever is silly — except that I honestly can’t think ofany other explanation which makes sense.”There is an easy one – simply that journalism ispredisposed to be this way. In many cases it doesn’t takean over arching effort from a group to do things – you willnote most engineers are conservatives. Why? Because thetype of mind that becomes and engineer is typicallyconservative.I would say the type of mind that goes through (and enjoys)what journalist do are generally out to do it to “make a

difference”. Generally speaking people who are activist(and for the most part journalism is a form of activism)are on the left side of the political spectrum – always hasbeen and always will be. There are exceptions, there arecertainly activist conservatives and non-activist leftistbut those are the exceptions.This is the same thing as to why the vast majority ofprotests are leftist – conservatives don’t protest, thatisn’t the way a conservative generally thinks about solvingan problem (along with most protests being a bondingexperience for the participants, something conservatives donot tend to be interested in either). There are some, butthey tend to be few and far in between.

27. Mitsu Says: January 17th, 2008 at 4:27 am

Hi,I haven’t been posting here for a while, because I foundthe discussions were getting overly bizarre for my taste,but I popped back over here and decided to read again,since I continue to find Neo’s posts quite interesting, andI’m really responding here primarily just to her.As I’ve written before, I’ve always been more partial tothe left side of the political spectrum, but I actuallythink the most sensible political position is a sort ofsynthesis of left and right. I.e., I believe in freemarkets, but I think some regulation is neverthelessessential and effective. I believe war should be avoided ifat all possible, but when necessary, one ought to go to warall out. Etc.But to me, most importantly, I don’t believe that one sideor the other has a monopoly either on the truth or onmistakes. The fact that the left has been wrong in the pastdoesn’t mean the right is correct, the fact that the presshas distorted stories in the past doesn’t mean they arealways getting the story wrong in the same way. Timeschange and circumstances change.

The press does distort stories, greatly. They tend to sidewith whatever seems to be the political tide of the moment,in fact. In the early days of the Vietnam war, they werenot particularly critical of it. As public opinion turnedagainst it, as the war dragged on, as the protests grew,the press turned against it, and critical stories becamemore prevalent.The same happened with the Iraq war. Any objective analysisof the press coverage prior to the war would conclude thatthe press was far more biased in FAVOR of Bush’s foreignpolicy than against it, at the outset. There was verylittle in the way of critical coverage. Only Reutersnoticed how fishy most of the WMD stories, which were laterdiscredited, were. The New York Times published articleafter article favoring the war, many of which have nowturned out to have been filled with factual errors.This is not to say that I think the press doesn’t tend tolean liberal, overall — but it’s obvious to me that theerrors are hardly all on one side. The press makes mistakesconstantly. One has to read everything with a critical eye.I have to say that I find Neo’s story of her journey quitecompelling, but the fact is, it strikes me as driven a bitby the shattering of illusions. But the fact that, say, aparticular Vietnam image was wrong, or a particular newsstory was hyped or distorted — does this mean that the“other” side is right? I don’t happen to think so. Thereare far more than two sides. There are many otheralternatives to “everything the press told us aboutVietnam, or Jenin, or whatever, is 100% correct” than “theright wing view of the world is correct after all.” I’venever bought into many of the ideas on the left, despite myoverall sympathy for the left — yet I certainly haven’tfound the right to be convincing (despite my adoption ofmany of its ideas as well).The Iraq war is I believe a case in point: it’s actually awar which I think might have been appropriate in many othercircumstances — right after the first Gulf War, for

example, it might have worked. But the timing, execution,and tactics I believe were absolutely terrible, and havehurt our security by diverting troops from more pressingnational security matters.In other words: just because some stories about Vietnam orJenin, etc., turned out to be exaggerations or misleadingor false — doesn’t mean the Iraq war was a good idea. Everysituation should be evaluated on its own terms, in my view.I do find Neo’s reasoning and writing very interesting andwell thought out, despite my disagreement with herconclusions, though.

28. Truth Says: January 17th, 2008 at 5:28 am

I was busy reading online about Iraq, trying to understand the situationthere and to predict what might happen if we invaded or what mighthappen if we didn’t invade.

but by the rational assessment by millions of Muslimsthat they will never win freedom or justice through non-violent means, because the world’s powers will continueto put their economic and strategic interests – which aretied to the existing system and its local leaders – aheadof supporting the systemic transformation of the world’seconomy and political system that would be necessary tobring about real democracy and peace.

Mark LeVine, PhD, is a professor in the department of history, University ofCalifornia-Irvine, and author of Why They Don’t Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on theAxis of Evil

29. Vince P Says: January 17th, 2008 at 6:00 am

Mark LeVine? Please can you come up with anyone moreunserious?


The recent success by Gen. David Petraeus, Man of the Yearin Iraq looks he is following the Biblical commandsA new command I give you:Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must loveone another (John 13:34).But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good tothose who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray forthose who mistreat you (Luke 6:27-28).Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse(Romans 12:14).We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, webless; when we are persecuted, we endure it (1Corinthians 4:12).Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do whatis right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, asfar as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Donot take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’swrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I willrepay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy ishungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something todrink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on hishead.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil withgood (Romans 12:17-21).Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, butwith blessing, because to this you were called so thatyou may inherit a blessing (1 Peter 3:9).Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates hisbrother is still in the darkness. Whoever loves hisbrother lives in the light, and there is nothing in himto make him stumble (1 John 2:9-10).


In the West and the United States in particular, we areguided by the principle of seperation of a man’s personal

religious conviction and the action he takes when acting onbehalf of the State.Those in positions of authority in the State are notmotivated by any sectarian dogma, instead they swearallegiance to the Constitution and ensure the secular lawis obeyed.Therefore it is inappropiate to link Patereus and thebible.

32. Rose Says: January 17th, 2008 at 7:02 am

Finally the iconic photos essay!. thanks. As anIranian/American I remember some seven years after thepublication of your napalmed girl photo and in the heightof anti American revoluton in Iran, while the Shah of Iranwas steadily losing his grip on power, I saw another iconicphoto published in an Iranian daily. It showed a child oftwo or three years of age, missing both arms, held aloft ona man’s(his father?) shoulder. The caption read: “anexample of SAVAK’s attrocites! The boy’s arms were sawd offin order to extract confession from his father”. SAVAK wasthe Shah’s equivalent of CIA. Prime minister A.A. Hoveida,later to be executed by post revelutionary Islamists,dismissed the claim made by the journalists saying thephoto was that of a child who was born without limbs. Hisstatement did not give pause to his critics and journalistswho were intoxicated with their revolutionary project. Theycontinued egging people on, fueling further outrage amongstthe population who were by now willing to believe anythingnegative about the Shah told them by their trustedjournalists. The photo had the desired effect as it whippedfurther anti-Shah frenzy. The rest is history.

33. Richard Aubrey Says: January 17th, 2008 at 7:27 am

Mitsu.You missed Neo’s point. “Just because” a couple of photos

turned out to have been misrepresented is not justificationfor the Iraq war. Neo’s not saying it is.Neo’s explaining how she came to discover she’d been liedto for so long, so completely.In fact, the truth of the execution picture had beenavailable almost immediately and it’s unlikely anybodydidn’t know it. But it paid a certain group to pretend itwas some kind of random awfulness. In other words, lie.The truth of the fleeing girl took a bit longer to comeout, but that wasn’t useful, either. In fact, there was adisturbed American who got some ink for several yearsclaiming to be devastated by having been the pilot whodropped that particular bomb.It’s not mistakes, Mitsu. It’s deliberate lies. Lots andlots of deliberate lies.Your pretense to think it’s something else–a couple ofmistakes–is far too late to the party.


Rose: you bring to my mind all the hand-wringing thatChristiane Amapour was doing in the 90s to try to get theWest to go to war against Serbia because of “reports” ofgenocide (that never happend)I think Kosovo will be our biggest mistake.. not Iraq(which I dont consider a mistake anyway)

35. james hankey Says: January 17th, 2008 at 7:52 am

Neo,A long time ago I told you that our generation would haveto go for the nation to shake this strange enthrallment toNam. I still belive that. Our generation has somehowrendered itself incapable of escape on it’s own.


LeVine’s wide and deep knowledge of the politics and history of the Middle Eastand North Africa, its religions and its cultures, and its relations with Europe,Africa, Asia and the United States, enables a unique breadth of insight into thebroader dynamics that have produced the events that dominate the news today.He remains singularly unafraid to write the truth, no matter who it upsets,based solely on facts and data he can confirm, as well as to challenge theactions and opinions of rulers and ruled, oppressed and oppressor alike. Such aphilosophy allows his writings to challenge the accepted paradigms for writingabout the region, and about hot-button issues such as globalization, terrorism,politics and popular culture. He is a radical voice of reason and honesty at atime when Left and Right remain locked within out-dated arguments andparadigms.

Besides his academic, journalistic and consulting activities, LeVine has a longhistory of blending art, scholarship and activism.

show us who is “anyone more unserious?” than this guy?


The linkhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-levine


The Tool-ery of Mark Levine:http://www.meaning.org/Levine_OReilly.ram

39. steveaz Says: January 17th, 2008 at 8:28 am

Thanks for the post, Neo.A modern parallel to the media’s ‘Nam lies is “GlobalWarming.” In fact, you could say that 1972′s “NapalmedGirl” = today’s “Polar Bears on an Ice Flow”Narrative #1 is “America is BAD.” Narrative #2 is “Americais BAD.” Both photos show pre-adolescent vertebrate mammalsin supposed mortal danger from America).

Obviously, lie #1 = lie #2. To this American, it appearsthat the lies always point in the same direction.When will the liars get what’s coming to them? Maybe if wereject their Obama/Clinton pet-ticket in ’08 thepropagandists will read the tea-leaves…and shove-off.

40. Sergey Says: January 17th, 2008 at 8:42 am

Ideology is more potent instrument of political action thanany conspiracy, so this groupthink of schools of journalismmakes simler explanation of prevalence of leftist agenda inmedia. But conspiracy controled from Moscow is real fact,too. There was a special department in KGB dealing withdesinformation campaigns and ideological diversions. Thereare many bodies teaching this discipline, includingmilitary academy and Highest Party School. I even had toattend special seminar and lecture courses on counter-propaganda in HPS just before perestrojka. Those commies inHolywood purged by McCarthy were not spies, but “agents ofinfluence” implanted there and obeing commands from Moscowto recruit celebrities for pro-Kremlin propaganda feats. Aserious effort, with thousands professionals preparingmassive desinformation campaigns.

41. Karen Says: January 17th, 2008 at 8:49 am

Excellent post. It is quite jarring to realize the fullscope and history of the agenda driven news/photo accounts.Powerful propaganda, to be sure.Your rational voice is much needed in today’s writings.Thank you.

42. Sergey Says: January 17th, 2008 at 8:59 am

“LeVine has a long history of blending art, scholarship andactivism.”

As I have pointed many times, political activism andscholarship in the same field are not compatible. Those who“blend” them are fraudsters.

43. Richard Aubrey Says: January 17th, 2008 at 9:32 am

You might want to start with Instapundit on the recentNYT’s hysteria over violent crimes committed by veterans.The reactions are many, linked handily, and eviscerate theNYT. The NYT can only have been lying. Deliberately.Several months ago, the NYT ran an article about how womenno longer see marriage as a necessity, citing the fact that51% are not married. James Lileks commented that the thrustof the article was, “When I am old, I shall wear purple.”,and, presumably, haunt indie bookstores in the Village.But to get to 51%, the NYT had to start with girls agedfifteen. While it is true that many fifteen-yeaer old girlsare not married, it is a stretch to say that it’s becauseof a dislike of the institution. At least, the articleshould have factored in the problem that it’s bloodyillegal, too.They counted widows who, while not married, could be saidto be unmarried because their husbands died, notnecessarily because they are tired of marriage.And, to hit the magic 51%, they counted married women whosehusbands were deployed.They lie and lie and lie.It’s not, Mitsu, a matter of a couple of photographs. Butyou knew that.

44. Erik Says: January 17th, 2008 at 9:37 am

Really fantastic article. I’m always so impressed by youreloquence and the depth of your insight. This was a reallyintense, emotional investigation of the press and your ownfeelings of betrayal.Sensational, but not sensationalized…

45. Trimegistus Says: January 17th, 2008 at 9:43 am

Mr. “Truth” quotes Levine, saying:“…they will never win freedom or justice through non-violent means, because the world’s powers will continue toput their economic and strategic interests – which are tiedto the existing system and its local leaders – ahead ofsupporting the systemic transformation of the world’seconomy and political system that would be necessary tobring about real democracy and peace.”But, “Truth” — isn’t that _exactly_ what the U.S. isattempting in Iraq and Afghanistan? Bush decided thatsupporting the systematic transformation of the economicand political systems in those lands was not only congruentwith, but actually necessary for the promotion of America’sinterests. So why are the Muslim fanatics opposing us?(Two answers to that question, actually. First, becauseLevine is a tiresome old Marxist trying to shoehorn areligious/nationalist movement into the model of a “classstruggle” — the tipoff is that he puts economictransformation first. Second, because there really are somereally evil bastards out there, who aren’t interested inthe slightest bit in rationally promoting the greatergood.)

46. Dennis Says: January 17th, 2008 at 9:48 am

I wonder how someone so unfamiliar with the truth uses itas a screen name? If you were really interested in thetruth you would be more like neo seeking the truth nomatter how it affects prior political assertions andthought, but that is not your agenda. Especially to one whocontinually tries to divert any discussion to themselves asone not representative of the truth.I must say that I have tremendous respect for many whoactually are doing the research and challenging their ownphilosophies. Many of us who have done it come away with a

far different picture of history and a better appreciationfor others.I think that we spend our whole lives finding out howlittle we really know about anything no matter oureducation or knowledge.Kudos Neo

47. Gray Says: January 17th, 2008 at 9:59 am

The fact that the left has been wrong in the past doesn’t mean the right iscorrect, the fact that the press has distorted stories in the past doesn’t meanthey are always getting the story wrong in the same way. Times change andcircumstances change.

Of course. Like the old proverb: “Once burnt, twice burnt;burnt again; roasted; incinerated; carbonized….”This is not to say that I think the press doesn’t tend to lean liberal, overall — butit’s obvious to me that the errors are hardly all on one side.

I know! Like all those times the press reported that themilitary held fire and didn’t kill civilians when theyactually did! And all those times the press reported thatthe economy was looking up for jobs and opportunities forwomen and minorities! And all those times the pressdebunked global warming!The Iraq war is I believe a case in point: it’s actually a war which I think mighthave been appropriate in many other circumstances — right after the first GulfWar, for example

Yeah, the ‘Arab Coalition’ would have sat still for thatkind of betrayal…. Furthermore, Saddam was still incompliance with the UN resolutions that left him in powerat that point. There was no casus belli at all just afterthe war….But the timing, execution, and tactics I believe were absolutely terrible, and havehurt our security by diverting troops from more pressing national securitymatters.

Hmmmm, interesting point…. How was the residence course atCommand and General Staff College? Did I know you at theOfficer’s Advance Course back in the 90′s?In other words: just because some stories about Vietnam or Jenin, etc., turnedout to be exaggerations or misleading or false — doesn’t mean the Iraq war wasa good idea. Every situation should be evaluated on its own terms, in my view.

So that’s how an ostrich gets its head back in the sand! I’dnever observed the actual mechanism….

48. Gray Says: January 17th, 2008 at 10:02 am

Besides his academic, journalistic and consulting activities, LeVine has a longhistory of blending art, scholarship and activism.

You can blend poop, flour and eggs too, but you can’t callit a pastry.Even though Al Reuters might….

49. Whispers in the airstreams » Blog Archive » The cost of learningSays: January 17th, 2008 at 10:32 am

[...] Neo Neocon talks about a Gestalt prompted by a randomlink to the story behind two famous Vietnam Warphotographs. Things clicked. The idea that the presentationof the photographs was a part of an insidious agenda wasplaced in context of many other such propaganda moments insucceeding adventures. Why did I only remember seeingphotos that portrayed what we, or our allies, had done—photos stripped of all context and meant to maximize ourfeelings of wrongdoing? Photos that emphasized thevictimhood of a Viet Cong terrorist, or made it seem asthough we were targeting civilians when the civilians wereactually being put at risk by the aggressive actions of theenemy in attacking and occupying a village? [...]

50. Talkinkamel Says: January 17th, 2008 at 10:38 am

Vince P

I think Kosovo is going to turn out to be our biggestmistake too—I’m interested in hearing what your reasons arefor believing this!And Neo, this, and the preceding post, are truly excellentpieces of writing.

51. NewEnglandDevil Says: January 17th, 2008 at 10:51 am

Neo-Just a note to say thank you for your writing. Your journeyparallels mine to some extent, though I am a generationremoved from you. I shared a moment with you when theAfghanistan conflict went far better than originallyanticipated. As opposed to the pictures you cite, I came tothe same realizations you came to as a result of thepictures when I tried to resolve the differences betweenthe way the media portrayed our troops as acting, and theactual moral fiber of the troops I personally know. Isimply couldn’t come to the conclusion that our soldierswould (generally) act in the manner described by the media.NED

52. Yaacov Ben Moshe Says: January 17th, 2008 at 11:01 am

Of course, the Caliphatists have taken this form of warfareas their own and raised it to a level of art hithertounseen. But not without help from a compliant westernmedia.Dare I mention France 2’s al Durah affair and the Tidalwave of Blood that is still circling the earth from it?(http://breathofthebeast.blogspot.com/2007/11/enderlins-ocean-of-blood-why-second.html)This is what people like Truth are opening the door to whenthey speak of “blending art, scholarship and activism” insuch reverential terms. Truth is actually a very apt namefor someone with such ideas. Journalistic damage is rarelydone by people with evil intentions – just people who thinkthey know the “Truth”. In fact, printing news that is not

factual in pursuit of activist goals is a particularhallmark of the left. Back inSeptemberhttp://breathofthebeast.blogspot.com/2007/09/yellow-press-is-alive-and-well-and.html I wrote:Yellow Press was born as an outgrowth of Joseph Pulitzer’svision as a publisher that, in contrast to the generallyaccepted ideal of impartial journalistic integrity,journalism should be used to as a vehicle of social change.As Wikipedia has it “Pulitzer believed that newspapers werepublic institutions with a duty to improve society, and heput (his newspaper) The World in the service of socialreform.” Of course social reform is one of the early codewords for what we today call progressivism and which is, inreality prototypical socialism. Pulitzer was then, as thenewspaper establishment in the U.S. is still (with someexceptions) a left-leaning, self-righteous band ofsocialistic sympathisers.

53. colagirl Says: January 17th, 2008 at 11:38 am

Thank you for this post, neo. And thank you for yourhonesty. It was worth the wait.

54. Bob Foster Says: January 17th, 2008 at 11:59 am

Yes.A few years ago a book was published called “A Better War.”I don’t recall the author’s name. It is basically a historyof the Vietnam War after the Tet offensive of 1968. TheAmerican military was successful after the Tet offensive inbreaking the back of the Viet Cong.The heart break is in the book’s account of the betrayal ofthe South Vietnamese and the 58,000 Americans who gavetheir lives to bring freedom to Vietnam by Americanpoliticians when South Vietnam was invaded by a NorthVietnamese army in (I think) 1975. The Democratic-controlled Congress refused to allow any of the promisedmaterial aid to be delivered to the South Vietnamese.

From that betrayal we have the other iconic photograph fromVietnam: the last helicopter leaving the roof the theAmerican embassy, escaping the upraised arms of helpless,hopeless Vietnamese.I suppose “disgrace” is an old-fashiooned, outmoded term. Ido hope we can avoid a repeat performance by the presentDemocratic Congress.


Talkinkamel Says:I think Kosovo is going to turn out to be our biggestmistake too—I’m interested in hearing what your reasons arefor believing this!Ok.. I have a few different reasons, so I’ll start with theones I’m sure about.1 – The amount of death and alledged genocide that “they”said was going on… was not going on. Yes there was killingof Albanias by Serbs but nothing like the scale thatHalfwit (Albright) said2 – The KLA was doing just as much violence to the Serbs3 – Kosovo is a province of Serbia, thus it’s an internalmatter.Now those reasons are enough for me to say the USoverstepped its bounds. and I dont have to go into the mudsof reality to state them and reasonable people could agree.But beyond those reasons there are many many more.For me the most important reason is this:The Serbs were protecting themselves against HUNDREDS OFYEARS of Jihad Islamic Domination which WW-II and Cold Wartemporarily froze.The Serbs understood prefectly well what would happen ifthey were in a bad stragetic position.

Unfortunately most peolpe are ignorant of history and sothey just the violence as some sort of imperialism.Secondly, Russia has traditionally be the patron of theSlavic countries. We really stuck our nose deep where itdid not belong at all.We had nothing to gain in that region.. we have notradition there.. no deep roots.. and the region was not athreat to us.I think we damaged our relationship with Russia profoundlyby humiliating Russia and Serbia by having NATO attckSerbiaThird: Going to war on behalf of Muslims does not earn ustheir gratitude or respect. So if Clinton did this war as away to get some points from the Arabs, that was a flawwedpremise.Fourth: We were supporting our enemies becuase our enemieshave goals they want to achieve in teh balkins.. namely,the islamification of all the balkans. Iran is supportingKLA so is Saudi Arabia so is Al Qaida.And I heard little snippets here and there that we wereengaged in some cooperation with IRan in helping the KLA.Fifth: Historical Betrayal. Serbia was on our side in WWIIaginst the NAZIs.. and we dare to bomb them.. who the hellare we to bomb them??So.. we are wher we are.. on the verge of forcing thecreation of a new Jihad state in the Balkins. We will pissoff Russia even more. We will inculcate to the Jihadis inthinking Allah is opening the way to them for world rule.The Rape and Pillage of Kosovo may be one of our mostshameful acts ever.ok that’s it for now.. I have to hit send or this willnever go..

56. pst314 Says: January 17th, 2008 at 12:50 pm

I’ve personally know some journalists over the years.Without exception they have been unwilling to admit thatthere is any problem with dishonest or biased reporting.And without exception they were liberals.

57. N. O'Brain Says: January 17th, 2008 at 1:14 pm

Neo, it ain’t anything new:“I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up theircamp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them asspies, which, in truth, they are. If I killed them allthere would be news from Hell before breakfast.”-William Tecumseh Sherman

58. Bugs Says: January 17th, 2008 at 1:40 pm

I sort of don’t believe the conspiracy theories aboutnewsies and photographers. I think they just have a set ofattitudes and values that we don’t share %100. What makesthat such a problem is that they seem to believe either a)their political orientation, beliefs, values, attitudes areactually moderate and most people agree with them, or b)their political orientation, etc., are outside themainstream but superior to it. The first makes them ignorecriticisms of their reporting as the ranting of non-mainstream cranks (i.e., us). The second makes them ignorecriticism because they know they’re right and the moderatesare wrong. Either way, they believe they are doing theworld a favor by reporting things as they do.I agree with Neo and others about the nature of photographyin the news today. Without context, what you get is simply“The Horror of War.” I think the photographers andreporters who do this have convinced themselves that unlessthey show us a constant stream of horrible images andreports of death, failure and hopelessness, we will forgethow terrible war is and become militarists. Any depictionof war as other than unthinkable horror is, to them, pro-

war propaganda. For many of them, there is no middleground.

59. The Thunder Run Says: January 17th, 2008 at 1:49 pm

Web Reconnaissance for 01/17/2008…A short recon of whats out there that might draw your�attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often….

60. J. Peden Says: January 17th, 2008 at 2:06 pm

[Extended Bloviation Alert]I saw both of those photos back in the day, when I wasactively “anti-war”. I thought we’d have to invade N.Vietnam to “win”, but would then only end up in a war withChina, which would also invade, along with the Sovietsthrough their continuing proxy support of anythingCommunist.So it looked more like a “no-win” war to me. I was tryingto be rational and had also searched out the history ofVietnam as described by Joseph Butterfield in a long bookcalled “A Dragon Enchained”. It seemed very credible andsupported the idea that the Vietnamese had a longillustrious history of not wanting to be ruled byoutsiders, which was emphasized quite dramatically whenthey forced the French, who we strongly backed, to actuallysurrender at Dien Bien Phu.And I really didn’t get the “blame the U.S.” message fromthe Vietnam era photos: as I watched the video on thenightly news I thought Gen. N. Van Loan must have had adamn good reason to execute that V.C. guy and felt sympathyand maybe even some admiration for the General!The only message I got from the photo of the burned girlwas something I already knew, and I did not blame anyone inparticular for what are the inevitable consequences of war.

Iow, I was at least trying to be a Classical Liberal, incontrast those of the Faux Liberal Religion who now besetus. I saw some of them start to form-up immediately afterthe Vietnam War by becoming overt Communists, which at thetime I thought was merely quite bizarre and possibly due toa rare but harmless personality defect.[Wrong!]One fellow I know quite well even became the leader ofa/the San Francisco Communist Party. Then around 1984,thinking no one would notice his clever, invisiblemachinations, he quietly became a Democrat UniversityProfessor specializing in the History of Vietnam – I onlywondered to myself, “who-the-hell would want to do that?”,given that the war was long over. Little did I know…. Andaround 1984 the Communist Party itself seemed toeffectively disappear from the larger U.S. political scene,which I didn’t even notice for a long time.Hmmmm…. remember Marx’s first principle for attaining theCommunist Utopia, the critical first majority, after whichdemocracy would be abolished and the “minority” subjugated?It turns out that the Communists here simply becameDemocrats, because they realized they weren’t going to be amajority in the U.S. as Communists.Regardless, those particular photos didn’t communicate thecorrect blame-America message to me, although I ambeginning to doubt the truth of much of what was reportedback then given the MSM’s current performance, which nowseems to easily rival the same kind of thing the MSM wastrying to tar the whole U.S. Government with back then: thecrass, ulterior motive, agenda-driven communication of liesand distortions based upon our own trust of those who aresupposed to be acting in our interests.Funny how that psychological dynamic – or deviouspropogandistic tactic – works, and it explains to me whythe Faux Liberal Progs manage to get nearly everythingexactly 180 degrees wrong. I say they either hate and fearthemselves and/or life, or else have a self of controlonly, where the ends=control justify and are also the

means=control, especially thought control. In either casethe Progs literally have nothing better to do. The rationalanalysis of reality is their target. The radical Islamicsare their soul mates.

61. Mitsu Says: January 17th, 2008 at 2:14 pm

Like I said, my point is that the press is famous fordistorting stories. But they do it on both sides. It’s notsome monolithic entity which always tried to thwartconservative aims. I don’t think Neo is claiming it is, bythe way, but I do think this deserves to be said. The presshas been known to distort things in favor of conservativepositions, when conservatism appears ascendant, and infavor of liberal positions, when the tide turns. This isthe nature of the beast — they follow the whims ofpolitical favor, for a wide variety of mostly bad reasons.So yes — I do think one ought to be critical of the press,but it’s hard to be very impressed with specific examplesof press distortion when that’s just the way the pressalways is.I remain very skeptical of the spin machines of both rightand left, because both have been egregiously guilty of liesand distortion. The run-up to the Iraq War is a perfectexample of this! And, it may be that the current anti-warsentiment in the press is also a distortion. But that’s theway the world works. I’m not about to change my politicalviews just because I found out the press distorts things.That is not to say I don’t sympathize with Neo’stransformation — I keep saying I do admire her writing andreasoning, even if I disagree with how far she took it. Iam simply saying that the press distorts on both sides, andit is worth being skeptical of the impulses to distort onboth sides.There are powerful interests on both the right and the leftwho are vying for public support. They both have theresources and the ability to put out misinformation.

62. Richard Aubrey Says: January 17th, 2008 at 2:53 pm

Mitsu.It’s always worth being skeptical.But the press does not evenly distort. One study afteranother shows that.As you know and hope we don’t.

63. Jennifer in OR Says: January 17th, 2008 at 2:58 pm

New reader-Here from Dr. Sanity’s site. What a wonderfulpost -I appreciated the history lesson, the excellentwriting, the personal story. And great follow-up discussionfrom so many. I’ll be back!

64. David M Says: January 17th, 2008 at 3:00 pm

The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the – WebReconnaissance for 01/17/2008 A short recon of what’s outthere that might draw your attention, updated throughoutthe day…so check back often.

65. Talkinkamel Says: January 17th, 2008 at 3:21 pm

Vince PMany thanks for responding—those are all good reasons, andconclusions I’d come to on my own (I was aware, forinstance, that the Serbs were our allies in WWII, and evensheltered downed American pilots.)Just adding my own two-cents’ worth (not as good as vince’spost, but just as an amusing coda), I remember at the timehow popular our glorious little war against the Serbs was,especially in the MSM. At the time, it seemed that onlymyself, my older brother and a weird goth/fantasy mag I wasreading at the time, were against it. By gum, we wereteaching those evil Serbs a lesson, showing that the

American military wasn’t just a band of murdering thugs,and—oh yeah—that we didn’t support just Israel, and, bygummety-jingo-gee, Moslems would see what we were doing forthe oppressed Albanians, and like us! They’d really LIKEus!It didn’t work out that way.There were also few protests, I recall, over the fact thatwe went in there without UN approval, or the morality ofbombing helpless Serb civilians (including kids), orbombing Serbian churches filled with priceless Medievalart, or bombing Serbs on their holiest day (Easter)—thevery same sort of stuff the Left goes ballistic over, whenthe subject is the WoT, and we’re fighting Moslems.What we did was wrong. It’s going to cause us endlesstrouble in coming decades.

66. Gray Says: January 17th, 2008 at 3:39 pm

I’m not about to change my political views just because I found out the pressdistorts things. That is not to say I don’t sympathize with Neo’s transformation— I keep saying I do admire her writing and reasoning, even if I disagree withhow far she took it.

So that means when Neo was a lib it was based on certain‘truths’ and ‘evidence’ she was immersed in at the time,when she saw counterevidence and truth, her opinionschanged.Alternatively, as you point out, your leftist beliefs areindependent of any outside influence and cannot be changedby truth, evidence or reason because truth, evidence andreason are distorted either left or right depending on whois in power.It takes a lot of intellectual honesty and moral courage to‘take it as far as she took it’. Not everyone is capable ofthat….

67. Mary C. Says: January 17th, 2008 at 4:53 pm

I love Neo’s mind changing posts which mirror my own mindchanging experience. I too was hit over the head with 9/11and it transformed me. It was probably a change that was onits way and that began with child rearing. When I adheredto the “progressive” rules for child rearing as publishedin those abhorrent books and magazines, alls I got out atthe other end was one spoiled brat! As I realized this (andit didn’t take long), I immediately reverted to the“conservative” child rearing as practiced by my parents andbegan to use all the phrases my parents did. Why did I everthink I should do it differently? Now my children stillhave issues, but at least they know they have the power andresponsibility to fix their own problems. HMM – sounds likethey have one foot in maturity. And I am not plagued byguilt in the least. As my family was discussing a possibleIraq assignment for my husband, my daughter said (tongue-in-cheek I believe because she said it with a smile),“Don’t you think about how your absence will affect myfuture and what problems will I have later because of it?”I responded, “In spite of what they are teaching you inthat public school over there, there are no victims in thishouse. And you will know your father did an importantservice for this wonderful country and did his duty.” Bythe way, I think we keep her in public school because it isuseful practice for countering all the BS she willencounter in the future.

68. Mitsu Says: January 17th, 2008 at 5:09 pm

>the media does not distort evenlyI already admitted that I agree the media have a liberalbias, on the whole. I simply am pointing out that the ideathat the media are ALWAYS biased in the same direction isobviously false. It’s biased in both directions, perhapsmore often in a liberal direction, but for fairly long,

consistent periods, it can be biased the other way. Youhave to read between the lines in all cases.My argument is very simple. Let’s say you have one “side”,call it A, and another “side” call it B. You’re a fiercepartisan of A, and then you discover, much to yoursurprise, that some things A said were false. Does thatmean B is now right?I am saying both A and B are right some of the time, wrongsome of the time. I happen to think A is more right than B,more often … so I side with A most of the time. The factthat A is sometimes wrong, however, doesn’t mean that it’sALWAYS wrong, or sometimes is misleading doesn’t mean it’sALWAYS misleading. There is a third way: C.As for liberal versus conservative child-rearing — I thinkagain this is a similar case. Just because following acertain set of rules failed for you doesn’t mean that theopposite set of rules is the best approach. Keep in mindthat other liberal parents have perfectly fine kids. Infact — blue states, overall, have lower rates of divorce,lower rates of teen pregnancy, lower rates of domesticabuse, better results in terms of education level, lowerrates of death by firearms, etc., than do red states.That’s hard statistical reality. Massachusetts, the mostliberal state in the country, has the lowest divorce ratein the country. Obviously not every liberal has a greatfamily, but on average, liberalism clearly works prettywell as a way of raising a family.


Mary said: Now my children still have issues, but at leastthey know they have the power and responsibility to fixtheir own problems.THat was really funny.. thanks for th elaugh

70. Truth Says: January 17th, 2008 at 5:57 pm

Gray Says:It takes a lot of intellectual honesty and moral courage to ‘take it as far asshe took it’.

Gary with all due respect of your view, I think most thehumans looks for the bright side of the life and the goodthings, so people or humans have their own control tochanging themselves although its hard for some (race orethnics, etc,) to do so but we living in very open worldnow ( we can say big village ) where the truth not hard todiscover between the lines of reporting or news’s the onlypower for change in human is the wellness to change andadapting new behaviours and views.How that fits with rest of humanity that’s another issueshould be discussed.


I wonder how someone so unfamiliar with the truth uses it as a screen name?

Well, Pravada means “the truth” in Russian, right?

72. Chris White Says: January 17th, 2008 at 6:56 pm

Richard Aubrey – You misrepresent Mitsu’s comments, whichcall for skepticism and balance, to perpetuate the notionthat a deliberate conspiracy exists throughout the media tofoster a specific leftist political agenda.Truth and Vince P offer dueling partisan blog links,neither is likely to accept the other’s sources, let alonethe reasoning behind their views.Gray offers a series of challenges that amount to askingwhy the press doesn’t offer simplistic and ideologicalviews congruent with those of the neocons who congregatehere.N. O’Brain offers a wonderful old quote that basicallycalls for no free press, only a press that supports andreports what the government and military want it to.

As someone who, like Neo, remembers both of those photosfrom the days when they were news, I remember them verydifferently than she does, although they still have a puncheven after all these years. I remember knowing that thefirst was a summary field execution of a Viet Cong fighterand, while it’s brutality made me flinch, for me it remainsan image of how vicious the conflict between the differentfactions of Vietnamese was at that time. The message I tookfrom the image of the girl was that naplam was being usedas a weapon of terror. That remains the way I see thoseimages.I am curious as to what the position is around here onmedia ownership; and how such media outlets as FOX, thevarious newspapers, magazines and broadcast outlets ofRupert Murdoch, etc. fit the meme of the media as some vastleft wing conspiracy set in motion by Stalin that continuesto sow the seeds of anti-Americanism. Most of the outletsfor what is generally deemed the MSM are in the hands of adozen or so major conglomerates (AOL Time Warner, Disney,General Electric, et al). If there is a dominant bias inthe media it is in favor of global corporatism, the statusquo and those politicians in which they’ve heavily investedtheir lobbying budgets.

73. Richard Aubrey Says: January 17th, 2008 at 7:05 pm

Chris.You misstate my position. Nobody I am aware of speaks of aconspiracy, although it has recently been discovered thatthe WaPo and NYT call each day to apprise each other oftheir front page stories, which, amazingly, frequentlymatch.You don’t need a conspiracy if everybody is thinking thesame in the first place.Example. On Pressthink, some months back, we kicked aroundthe NYT’s mistake of “Purple Star” for “Purple Heart”. Thejournos all thought it was an innocent mistake. Since so

few of the population are in the military, there’s noreason to think journalists should be aware of that arcanebit of military trivia. IOW, they were so far removed fromreal life they had no idea of how far they were removedfrom real life. Nor did they think such a howler shouldaffect how people looked at them.This, after the layers of fact-checkers and hard-eyededitors.Examples abound.See the NYT on the criminal records of vets. It’s beensliced, diced, vivisected, dissected and debunked. Not onlydid they get it wrong, they must have done so deliberately.Anybody with internet access could have done the work. Butthe meme was too important.Anyway, Chris, next time you accuse somebody of thinkingthere’s a conspiracy, you’ll know you’re lying like a rug,and so will everybody else.


Chris White SaysTruth and Vince P offer dueling partisan blog links,neither is likely to accept the other’s sources, let alonethe reasoning behind their views.I couldnt find a link for Truth. I feel confident in mywebsite (it’s not a blog).It’s a place for me to find reference material regardingIslam , framed in the context that the American stage/scaleof this war’s likely name is the Islamo-American War ,though I think of the overall war as the Third IslamicGlobal Jihad War.I strongly recommend the section on my home page called“Learn About Islam”Islam 101 – Explains what Islam is exactly and how Muslimsview their faith

Historical Quotes about IslamWhat Americans Should Know About JihadIslamic Mein KampfIslamic Time Capsule – ISLAM in Time Magazine. 1923 – 1967(See how Islam recovers from the destruction of theCaliphate)

75. MartyH Says: January 17th, 2008 at 7:41 pm

I think my original post got eaten for too many links.Basically, I was trying to refute Mitsu’s “blue stategood/red state bad” post above.If you are going to use stats to “prove” that being aliberal is better than being a conservative, (or visaversa) you do not do it by state. California is viewed asliberal, but large parts of it are conservative. Thecorrect analysis would be rural vs. urban. Remember thered/blue maps by county after the 2004 election? That’s agood proxy for conservative/liberal split. I looked atmurder rates for the fifty largest cities. Thirty sevenwere above the national average of 5.7 murders/100,000residents.http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004902.htmlI glancd at forcible rape-it appeared that nine cities werebelow the national average.The obvious conclusion is that cities are more violent thanrural areas.Finally, a note about Mass’s vaunted divorce rate. Themarriage rate is fourth lowest in the country as well.People who don’t get married don;t get divorced. It doesnot mean that Mitsu is wrong; it just means that the datahe cites does not support his conclusion.

76. Gray Says: January 17th, 2008 at 8:00 pm

Gray offers a series of challenges that amount to asking why the press doesn’toffer simplistic and ideological views congruent with those of the neocons whocongregate here.

If my ideological views are based on facts and events Ihave personally observed, and if I ask why the mediadoesn’t present those facts and events truthfully, am Ijust asking the press to offer views congruent with mine?Or am I asking for truth?Say I saw a black cat in a window and I form a belief:“There’s a black cat in that house.”.Then I read a story in the paper that says “all the cats inthat house are white”.Am I asking for the press to conform to my simplistic andideological views if I say: “You guys are full of it, Ithink there is a black cat in there. I saw it!”Then, of course, some dope comes along on the internet whosays: “You just want them to report that all cats are black‘cuz you are a black cattist.”I argue: “No, I don’t believe all cats are black, I simplysaw a black cat in the window of that house. They eitherhaven’t told the whole story, they got it wrong, or theyare lying ‘cuz they are white cattists.”Neither the press reports nor the internet dope change thebasic facts of the event: I still saw a black cat in thewindow and therefore I still reasonably believe there is ablack cat in that house.“It was a white cat and the Zionist Cabal in the Whitehouse painted it black: their army of occupation shot allthe white cats….”“Black cats aren’t ‘black’ they are just very, very darkgray, meaning they are part white as well. Why can’t youneocons see the nuuuuuuuance? That was a dark gray cat yousaw, so the press is right, the cats in there are white. Ifblack cattists were in power, they would say it was black.”“Black cats are black ‘cuz they were roasted in hell.”

“Black cats trap more solar heat in their fur andcontribute to Global Warming. I am very, very concerned.Someone must ban the Greenhouse Cats.”Hahahahaha!I still saw a black cat in that window…..

77. Beware the press with an agenda « Tizona’s Weblog Says: January 17th, 2008 at 9:24 pm

[...] If you’re old enough to remember Vietnam, you’llremember seeing these photographs that Neoneocon describes.I remember them well, and at the time, I was upset butsuspicious that we weren’t being [...]

78. Ariel Says: January 17th, 2008 at 9:42 pm

I have personally experienced a newspaper lying its buttoff to fit their agenda. I was accurately quoted, verbatimin fact, except that everything before and after was leftoff the quote. It gave the exact opposite meaning, whichfit their agenda to a tee.I have also witnessed a death at a local river, a divingaccident. The news account was so inaccurate that not evenRashamon could explain it.Both articles, the outright lying and the incredible,sloppy and lazy reporting, have left me nothing but cynicalabout reporters and their organizations.


Mitsu, with all due respect, you sound like someonetormented with a sore butt from way too much sitting onsharp fences. It’s good to try to see both sides of theissues but at some point one must draw a line in the sandand come to a conclusion. You’re not a fellow Episcopalian,are you?

80. Pros and Cons » For those who keep saying there’s “no political progres inIraq”, here is some countervailing consensus building, even as the kvetchingcontinues Says: January 17th, 2008 at 11:48 pm

[...] starting to sound like a consensus to me. (Stilldon’t buy it? Scan this. This piece is especially worthreading by the historically or pop culture minded, if notdirectly on point, [...]


>sharp fencesFunny. I’m not an Episcopalian, but I have been followingthe controversies in your church. Quite interesting.>marriage rate is fourth lowest in the countryActually I looked into this. Yes, the marriage rate is low,but it turns out this is also a side effect of the lowdivorce rate (something which some conservative “debunkers”of the low divorce rate in Massachusetts failed to notice).That is to say, Massachusetts has a low “marriage rate”because people tend to get married only once. In fact, thepercentage of the population which is married inMassachusetts is higher than average; more than, forexample, Texas. The reason there are fewer weddings issimply because there are fewer second and third marriages.That is to say, Massachusetts has the lowest divorce ratein the country whether you measure it per capita or permarried population. States with low divorce rates also havelow “marriage” rates — because they have fewer second andthird marriages. If you look at the rate of *first*marriages in Massachusetts it’s just as high as any of thered states.


>draw a line in the sand

And as for this — I do draw conclusions. They just don’thappen to always agree with one of the two major “sides” inthis country. I happen to think both sides are right andwrong, at different times. The strange thing is — I likethe fact that in a democracy, power tends to shift back andforth between the two sides. It doesn’t always produce thebest policy, but it tends to self-correct mistakes made byeither side, over time. That’s why, though I tend tosupport Democrats, I’m very glad that Republicans exist onthe other side. The adversarial system works far betterthan a system in which one party has monopoly power, in myview.

83. Ymarsakar Says: January 18th, 2008 at 1:30 am

I’m not saying what he did was right, but you have to putyourself in his position.In the realm of propaganda impacts, the photo speaks moreloudly and more often than the photographer that took thephoto. No, “you don’t have to put youself in his position”.That’s the point. When people are given a choice, they godown the path of least resistance. The path of leastresistance for enemy propaganda is the side thatdemoralizes their enemies and reinvigorates its allies.People want to believe horrible things about their side,because they fear it is true. And it is this fear thatcreates the path of least resistance for enemy propagandato flow along. Half of America feared things were as bad asthe photos implied. The other half of America wanted thingsto be as bad as the photos implied. Add them together andyou get reality, altered by a system of warfare that usedlittle to no actual munitions. If the range of a katana isup close and personal while the range on a sniper rifle islong ranged, then the ultimate in long distance weaponrywould be thermonuclear MIRVs and propaganda operations.Another thing people should consider in relation to theramifications of Vietnam is how many troops Vietnam would

have sent to aide America in Iraq if America had not ranaway from Vietnam and killed the Vietnamese from across theoceans. How many thousands of guerrilla veterans wouldVietnam have provided so that American troops would nothave had to relearn the lessons of insurgency and counter-insurgency with a price tally in the hundreds of fatalitiesand thousands of crippling injuries?It takes work to beat a man to death with a bat. It takes alot less effort to kill a man with a ranged weapon like afirearm. It takes even less effort and skill to order thelaunch of a nuclear weapon in the US. Compared to all that,the number of people the Left killed by sitting back anddrinking wine trumps almost every labor saving tool ofviolence around. Both Americans and Vietnamese fell and theLeft didn’t even work up a sweat. They, the Left, don’teven need to do anything. It’s like blowing up a dam, justlet the water drown all your enemies for you. Why go and dothe work of beating them to death or shooting them. TheVietCong goes to all the trouble of killing women andchildren, but it is the Left that has taken slaughteringcivilians to new heights. It is the Left that creates newmass murderers and sociopaths every day, of ever year.Leftist ideology is the ultimate in labor saving killing.Their devotion to pacifism and peace has been so great thatthey have gone beyond the need to kill. They kill just byexisting.That is top notch pacifism there.Palestinian terrorists had callously hidden amongtownspeople there, and the inevitable civilian casualtieshad been blamed by the media on the Israelis, who hadactually exercised every possible diligence to preventthem.Sherman already told us to not turn our backs on reporters.They’re on the enemy’s side. Period. Those that aren’t onthe enemy’s side, are very easy to discern from theircompatriots. You can’t ignore someone just because hehappens to be on the enemy’s side but isn’t carrying a

firearm. Bush tried that and I wouldn’t recommend copyinghim.Other journalists who were not there, through assumption,sloppy work, or malice, have since reported that the attackwas by US aircraft, and have further embellished the storywith time.When you get paid by the enemy and have your destinyhitched to the enemy’s cart, you start to attempt to helpthe enemy. They are the ones that preserve your career now,after all. It is a natural human instinct to obey the boss.One reason why most reporters and almost all Leftists don’tfind associating with the enemy a problem is due to thefact that Leftists have no honor. They have no conceptionof honor. The idea that there are innocents they shouldprotect, an objective truth they should report, or thatthey have some kind of debt and loyalty owed to their ownnation is preposterous to most Leftists. Honor is for thelittle people that will willing follow laws that disarmthem and make them prey for predators. Honor is for peoplewilling to follow the rules, something the Left has neverbelieved in. They make their own rules.After all, thirty years had passed.Death does what governments are incompetent at. Which iscensoring and covering up the truth. Dead men tell notales, Neo. That goes double for dead women and children.The facts therein did not appear to be in much dispute.Propaganda has always focused on the interpretation of factrather than the disputation of factual evidence. Much moreefficient that way. It is not, after all, a court of law inwhich each side disputes the facts.All anyone has to do to render the context or factsmeaningless is simply prevent the jury from hearing it. Youcan’t do that in a courtroom because courts have laws. Warsdo not. There is no law or rule constraining the media in

2008, except their conscience. And we already know themedia don’t have a conscience.Then the strangest feeling came over me. I don’t even havea word for it, although I usually can come up with wordsfor emotions.Could be catharsis or epiphany.A sense of deep betrayal of a basic trust.The world starts spinning and your first instinct is tograb for a foundation, to get a grip on a changing andforeign world. Some people knowingly and willing grab forwhat they know to be false and a con game, simply becausethey want stability, any stability will do even a fantasy.Other people, like you Neo, go back to their core valuesand philosophical axioms, shedding all the derived bridgesthat lead to trust in Democrats or the media or other suchthings that have proven to be mirages. It is a desperateattempt to go back to basic foundations of what one knowsto be true, in the face of so many things that have provenfalse and untrue.But they do it on both sides.-MitsuJust because you sit on the sidelines and sell weapons toboth sides doesn’t mean the media is the same.I simply am pointing out that the idea that the media areALWAYS biased in the same direction is obviously false.That has nothing to do with the topic of the media’sallegiance to America’s enemies. Deception doesn’t mean youare biased towards one thing, that being things that arefalse. Deception also means you are biased towards thetruth, truth that make good deception even better.Nothing you can say about which way the media “bias” ispointed towards, will do anything to offset the media’sallegiance to their own power and status. Fixing realproblems should be a priority in your writings, Mitsu,somewhere. You’re always concerned about which way the wind

is blowing; that’s not a nice priority to have when thecost is facilitating mass murderers and terrorists.You misrepresent Mitsu’s comments, which call forskepticism and balance-ChrisThe denial of the media’s support of America’s enemies andthe denial of the number of American soldiers and foreignallies the media has killed is not really skepticism orbalance.I remember knowing that the first was a summary fieldexecution of a Viet Cong fighter and, while it’s brutalitymade me flinch, for me it remains an image of how viciousthe conflict between the different factions of Vietnamesewas at that time.I’m amazed that Leftists still think to this day that ifthey can only sit on the fence for just a little bitlonger, that the blood on their hands will go away.American internal politics trumped Vietnamese viciousnessin the end, for it was only American internal politics thatkilled far more than the Vietnamese ever could have bythemselves. There’s only so much you can do before thatglaring circumstance comes back to the fore. Whateverviciousness you saw in the Vietnamese, Chris, it wasnothing compared to what was going on in your mind and theminds of your compatriots.You don’t need a conspiracy if everybody is thinking thesame in the first place.A team doesn’t need to have daily 1 hour meetings to beable to work together either. In fact, not meeting all thatoften would actually help teamwork.In the end, perhaps Mitsu will finally figure out whichdirection the arrow of destiny is pointing, thus allowingMitsu to make his pragmatic choice between good and eviland Mitsu’s inbetween compromise. And then Chris canrealize that a general’s decision to execute an executionerso that future women and children of his officers will stay

alive, for Chris’ benefit of course, is a decision eclipsedby the number of executions the Left decided was proper forthe Vietnamese.That remains the way I see those images.-ChrisThe ability to ignore propaganda operations must be a niceway of not having to deal with being vulnerable topropaganda.If there is a dominant bias in the media it is in favor ofglobal corporatismGeorge Soros, Warren Buffet, and all the other funders ofLeftist trust funds are only some examples of why globalcorporatism is Leftist and anti-capitalist in nature. TheUN itself is the perfect example of a world reachingcorporation, and you almost can’t get any farther to theLeft, at least in terms of government corruption andoppression.The history has already been told of big companieswillingly seeking to be part of government regulations, sothat upstart small time competitors are bankrupted by thenew regulations and legal fees that big corporations haveno trouble handling.

84. Fred Says: January 18th, 2008 at 7:22 am

“A sense of deep betrayal of a basic trust.”This is understood to be perhaps the single most importantthing in politics. This is why they picked the slogan “Bushlied — people died”.My own first sense of betrayal was learning that PresidentJohnson had simply lied when he said that the treaty of1954 guaranteed a free and independent South Vietnam. WhenI learned that, I began to listen to the Communist side aswell as the US government.The things that misled you were the media, not the officialstatements of the Communists, who apparently knew enough to

stick to what could be verified. It’s been a long time andI’m no longer so sure of this. If anybody has facts tocontradict this, I’d like to know.In practical terms, the purpose of political parties andideologies is to pick in advance who you can trust, so youdon’t have go investigate all th eissues in detail.The only way to avoid betrayal is to avoid trusting wholeparties and ideologies, and be more independent. Theconsequence is that one more often has to say “I don’tknow”.

85. Chris White Says: January 18th, 2008 at 8:46 am

Ymasakar, without any offering any objective evidence,begins from the position that reporters “are on the enemy’s side.Period.” When he speaks of “the enemy” he seems to be talkingabout some kind of on going, centrally directed,international force that directs all ‘leftists’ to follow.This strikes me as both anachronistic and paranoid.He further states, “you get paid by the enemy and have your destinyhitched to the enemy’s cart, you start to attempt to help the enemy.” While hepoints to George Soros and Warren Buffet, the paychecks ofvery few reporters get paid by Soros and Buffet, ratherthey’re paid by General Electric, Disney, AT&T, Sony and soon. Does this mean that GE, Disney et al are actuallyfronts for the anti-American international Left?Apparently it does since Ymasakar offers his intriguing andcontrarian analysis that “global corporatism is Leftist and anti-capitalist in nature. This turns upside down the opinions ofnearly everyone who has ever ventured one, from anyposition on the right/left spectrum, regarding therelationship between global corporations and capitalism. Isincerely doubt, for example, that Bill Kristol or DickCheney would agree that global corporations are anti-capitalist.

I wonder whether any of those commenting here heard any ofthe two evening series by Terry Gross on her NPR programFresh Air this week in which she interviewed militaryleaders, prominent Iraqis, journalists and policy analysts— asking whether and when America should get out of Iraqand how we should do it; probably not, because NPR isdismissed out of hand here as a leftist propaganda machine.I listened and heard what each of the following had to say;Lt. Col. John Nagl, (commander of the 1st Battalion, 34thArmor Div.), Ali Allawi (former Iraqi government official),Gen. Sir Michael Rose (commander of the U.N. ProtectionForce in Bosnia in the 90′s who called for Blair’simpeachment), Kanan Makiya (Iraqi-born professor of Islamicand Middle Eastern studies at Brandeis University whocalled for Saddam’s removal and advised the Bushadministration before the invasion), Peter Galbraith(former U.S. ambassador to Croatia and a senior diplomaticfellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation), Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (chief of staff forformer Secretary of State Colin Powell, a critic of theBush administration since leaving the State Department),Carl Conetta (co-director for the Project on DefenseAlternatives, a defense-policy think tank), William Kristol(editor of The Weekly Standard, and a prominentneoconservative intellect), Yanar Mohammed (Baghdad-bornactivist and director of the Organization of Women’sFreedom in Iraq), and Lawrence Wright (a staff writer forThe New Yorker magazine who sits on the Council on ForeignRelations).Now, this to me is excellent journalism. Ms. Gross offeredknowledgeable individuals with a wide range of opinions anopportunity to express their views in a context thatenables listeners to compare and contrast the variouspositions. Isn’t this what we want from a free press?


Terri Gross is a far-left hack. How you could sufferthrough all those interviews.. good god.Last timeI listned to her was maybe about a year after thewar. And she had on some of the original planners .. shetreated them with such a contempt and antaganism, it wasbeneath anyone..

87. Huan Says: January 18th, 2008 at 9:41 am

nice post.the media tends to want to think for us.we are all better off thinking for ourselves.no wonder trust in the media continues to dive.


Vince P – So what Ali Allawi, William Kristol, Col.Lawrence Wilkerson, and the others had to say isn’t thepoint? Two hours of diverse voices having the opportunityto give their opinions on this important topic is dismissedbecause you have a bad opinion of Terry Gross. I take ityou prefer Bill (Shut up!!!) O’Reilly’s calm and fairinterviewing style. The problem does not seem to be withthe guests, nor the divergent views they offered, rather itseems to be that you find anything in the press expressingother than uncritical support for whatever officialstatements come from the White House qualifies as leftistpropaganda.


What I’m saying is.. I have no interest in a forum wherethe ‘moderator’ is ideologically strident. And I dont trusther. She’s a bitch when she wants to be.

If I want to know what Allawi thinks I’ll buy his book thatI been thinking of buying. If I want to know what W Kirstolthinks I’ll go to his articles. Etc.I’m sure you found the program interesting.. I’m sure itwas. I probably shouldn’t have chimed in with mynegativity… I have TGDS.


Vince, you say I have no interest in a forum where the ‘moderator’ isideologically strident. Does that include Limbaugh, Hannity,Stossel and O’Reilly? Or do you only find people youidentify as from the far left ‘ideologically strident’? Asfor me, Amy Goodman is an ‘ideologically strident’ leftistwhose style of interviewing and typical guests make mereach for the salt shaker (as in taking what I hearwithmore than a pinch of salt). This scepticism goes forO’Reilly et al from the opposite side of the spectrum.Terry Gross, Jim Lerher and so on have always seemed mostconcerned with drawing out whatever their guests have tosay and allowing listener/viewers to draw their ownconclusions. Perhaps that is what you find so troublesome,that they allow different voices on their shows andlistener/viewers to draw their own conclusions.


>Does that include Limbaugh, Hannity, Stossel and O’Reilly?I dont have a TV (no cable) and I don’t listen to Limbaugh.In any case, those are opinion shows. Terri Gross ispurported to be an interview show .. it’s not about thehost. She gets nasty when she’s interviewing people shedoesn’t like.>. Perhaps that is what you find so troublesome, that theyallow different voices on their shows and listener/viewersto draw their own conclusions.

LOL.. Yeah that’s the reason. Whatever you say.

92. Benny, Jonah, Jenna & Narratives - more hot links | TheAnchoress Says: January 18th, 2008 at 2:01 pm

[...] range? Neo-neocon researched the stories behind thosetwo powerful images and discovered they did not actuallyinvolve America at all…but that’s not the narrative aroundthem. As I read the article about the photos, I [...]

93. John Cunningham Says: January 18th, 2008 at 3:14 pm

A year or two ago, Time or Newseek ran an article about aVietnamese Communist spy who had so infiltrated andmanipulated the MSM that the MSM was doing the propagandawork of our enemy. This is a Communist tactic of the firstorder. I don’t mean to sound paranoid,but behind every political lie is a Communist fomentinganarchy, revolution and a chance to spread their gospel.


Talk about a mind being a difficult thing to change.I listen to a two part series exploring whether and when awithdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq should take place onTerry Gross’s program. She presents a series of one on oneinterviews with the list of guests found in one of mycomments above. Kristol made the case for a permanentpresence in Iraq; Allawi for eventual withdrawal, but at adate uncertain; Yanar Mohammed wants to see withdrawalbegin immediately and offered a cogent and compelling casethat sees the increased sectarian divisions and rise inIslamist militancy in Iraq as a direct although unintendedconsequence of the occupation … and on it went through eachguest.I’d be happy to accept precise figures offered by someonewith a stopwatch but of the two hours of air time (less the

roughly ten minutes or so of intros, outros, and musicbumpers) Gross might have used ten to fifteen minutesasking questions and engaged in conversational give andtake. That leaves 90 minutes or so shared by ten peopleworth listening to on this important topic.Even if Terry Gross had been a leftist bitch, caustic anddismissive of Kristol and a fawning sycophant with YanarMohammed … and she most assuredly was not … what would thatmatter? Isn’t the point of an interview program to presentguests and offer them a platform from which to presenttheir opinions? Listen, one after the other, to ten viewsthat cover the full spectrum and then be able to thinkabout the issue and make up one’s own mind; isn’t thatexactly what Neo says she wants from the media?


Helllo Chris… I’m not dismissing all the great people sheinterviewed.. I reject being enticed to the views of thosepeople due to their being packaged by Terri Gross. I knowwhat most of these people already think.. just bcause Ididn’t get it packaged to me via NPR doesn’t mean I haven’tbeen exposed to them. I dont know why you assume that justbecaue I dont like Terri Gross then I am automaticallyshutting off my mind to anyone she interviews? All I’msaying is, I dont need her to get to the ideas of thepeople.. especially the biased and in some cases,belligerent way she interacts.

96. Ymarsakar Says: January 18th, 2008 at 5:27 pm

When he speaks of “the enemy” he seems to be talking aboutsome kind of on going, centrally directed, internationalforce that directs all ‘leftists’ to follow.I’m not in a position where I have to explain why theDemocrat party supports slavery and KKK lynchings in theCivil War, but then suddenly supported Civil Rights in the20th century. Leftists are tools to be used, first by the

Soviets and now by the Islamic JIhad, the ideologicalchildren of fascism and communism. There are a lot ofinternational forces going on, Chris, and there is nosingle conglomeration that can control all of them at anyone time. Lemmings can’t be controlled so much as directedwhere to go and suicide.Does this mean that GE, Disney et al are actually frontsfor the anti-American international Left?Supposedly Bush, elected officials in Congress, and theAmerican people pay the paychecks of bureacrats. Does thismean that bureacrats serve Congress, Bush, or the Americanpeople just because they owe their jobs to such? The logicdemands a yes from you, Chris, but yes is not the rightanswer.This turns upside down the opinions of nearly everyone whohas ever ventured one, from any position on the right/leftspectrum, regarding the relationship between globalcorporations and capitalism.When you are arguing a subject the way the Leftistpropaganda machine wants you to, then you are in a no winsituation. If you deny Leftist propaganda, you are seen asdefensive and suspicious. If you don’t deny Leftistpropaganda, people are convinced you are guilty anywayssimply because they hear more negative news about you thanpositive. Turning the entire philosophical foundationupside down is the only way of defeating insurgents.Getting out of a no win situation should be a priority forthe US in her fight with her enemies, both internal andexternal.I sincerely doubt, for example, that Bill Kristol or DickCheney would agree that global corporations are anti-capitalist.You actually expect us to believe that Kristol or Cheney’sopinions are something you use to justify your positions,Chris? Doesn’t that make you a political equal opportunityarms seller? I mean, seriously, after all the talk of Dick

Cheney and Haliburton, you are going to use the statementsand beliefs of your target victim as a way to justify whyyou are right? The Left rails against global corporationsthat are capitalistic and supports global corporations thatare anti-capitalistic. So Cheney and his relationships tohis business associates do not really support your side’sway of viewing the world, Chris.In reply to your comment about interviews, propaganda isnot about crossfire or debate. There may be a good reasonwhy you think propaganda is absent or present because someinterview you saw had a multisectional outlook, but that’sa reason you are going to have to find, not us, Chris.Now, this to me is excellent journalism.And for all I care, it can stay excellent journalism sincepropaganda operations do not require everyone to be onboard. Just as terrorism and guerrilla warfare does notrequire the support of everyone in the indigenous targetpopulation.The excuse the journalists use to report bad news, such asbombings, is that regardless of all the positive stuff thatgoes on, a negative news item sells and is “new” and isfull of impact. Why should a different standard apply tojournalistic malfeasance, corruption, and incompetence? Whyshould their so called “positives” be used as justificationfor why their negatives don’t exist? Why should even theirfew saving graces cover up for their vices? They don’t usesuch a standard of behavior and ethics against the media’senemies, opponents, and target audience. Is it simplyconvenient to give criminals and terrorists what they neverwould have given their victims, is that how it is, Chris?

97. galensmark Says: January 18th, 2008 at 9:00 pm

OK…I’m way lateJust found your site today (hat tip Dr. Sanity).Ne, I’ma Vietnam veteran (68), and this is the greatestarticulation of the inaccurate perceptions, created by the

American media, I have ever seen anywhere. Made me weep.Thank you and God bless you.


I listen to a two part series exploring whether and when a withdrawal ofU.S. troops from Iraq

Read the answer


A key element in the overarching story of Neo’s change ofmind, her passage from liberal to neo-conservative, is theclose minded, quasi-religious, unwillingness of heroverlapping personal and professional liberal cohorts toaccept her changing views. She found herself subject toridicule or being shunned for having the temerity toentertain views that ran counter to their own.As someone who considers himself an independent (admittedlya progressive one), who has never belonged to a politicalparty and who finds it more productive to seek outdifferent views rather than stay in a comfort zone whereeveryone is in agreement, I was happy to discover Neo’sblog. I presumed at first that since she was once a liberaland had been disappointed by the narrow minded insistenceon conformity of thought she found among her former cohortthat this would be a setting in which ideas of all sortsand diverse opinions could be offered within a context ofrespectful give and take.I was soon disabused of that Utopian notion. Rather thisvenue seems more and more to me home to a neoconservativemirror image of the censorious and rigidly orthodox liberalgroup Neo left behind. I suspect that it is, if anything,even more vicious and extreme than the social andprofessional circles Neo fled due to the freedom allowed bythe relatively impersonal and anonymous nature of the blogformat versus actual face-to-face social encounters. Any

comment that presents a view that does not absolutelyreinforce that of the group is quickly set upon andattacked for stupidity or cupidity, for being a dupe or atraitor.Here Neo has offered as a piece of the story of herconversion the very different reactions she had to a pairof iconic images from the Vietnam era at the time of theiroriginal appearance and then after thirty years when shewas well into her change of mind. She goes on to use thisexperience to ask, in effect, why the press did not makeher see the images when they first appeared the same wayshe sees them now. Whether the images initially appeared inconjunction with printed articles that placed them incontext is forgotten or ignored, as are the different wayspeople saw and interpreted them based on their own views ofthe war at the time. The images took on a life of their ownafter they were first published and have accumulated layerupon layer of different meanings and uses through the yearsthat further obscure their original context.So now these images and Neo’s original way of seeing them,contrasted with her current interpretation of them, areoffered to indict the press for reporting on current eventsin the Middle East in ways that the most strident voiceshere deem traitorous because they do not reinforce thenarrative that supporters of a hard line toward the ArabMiddle East want to see from coverage of events there.Despite the way on going coverage by “the press” brings tolight specific errors or deliberate distortions when theydo occur; despite the willingness of “the press” to beingembedded with troops in Iraq rather than covering eventsindependently; despite “the press” accepting what isessentially censorship in areas such as the prohibition onshowing flag draped coffins; and most critically despitethe width and depth of the spectrum of views that one canfind in “the press” … nevertheless many of the commentshere seem to deem “the press” nothing more or less than themonolithoic propaganda arm of some vast internationalleftist effort to crush America.

It may only take one therapist to change a light bulb, butthe bulb has to want to change. Around here there are fartoo many bulbs militantly opposed to change and they’llrelentlessly attack anyone who threatens to bring adifferent perspective to the conversation.


So now these images and Neo’s original way of seeing them,contrasted with her current interpretation of them, areoffered to indict the press for reporting on current eventsin the Middle East in ways that the most strident voiceshere deem traitorous because they do not reinforce thenarrative that supporters of a hard line toward the ArabMiddle East want to see from coverage of events there.Not quite. We just want the truth to be reported , orminimally, sought.The Press has the tendency to believe whatever tall talethe arab-side tells them and reports it uncritically asfact.This was especially true during the Second israel-lebanonwar. There’s a whole record of photos being doctored, deadbodies being staged, the same woman having her house bedestroyed almost every day (and always a new house).It happens in Iraq when Wire Services hire local arabs whothen feed the Wire Service enemy propganda that gets putinto the nightly news.And I reject your notion of “narrative”… There’s the factsand there’s spin. I dont have a narrative in the middleeast. I may have a narrative about what I want to happen inthe future, but there is no narrative about the past.Time after time the press has discovered that stories theyput as true becauase the arabs told them so have turned outto be false. I cant think of any examples of this done bythe Israeli side (unless there’s some action taken by theirsecret or special forces)

Despite the way on going coverage by “the press” bringsto light specific errors or deliberate distortions whenthey do occur; despite the willingness of “the press” tobeing embedded with troops in Iraq rather than coveringevents independently; despite “the press” accepting whatis essentially censorship in areas such as theprohibition on showing flag draped coffins; and mostcritically despite the width and depth of the spectrum ofviews that one can find in “the press” … neverthelessmany of the comments here seem to deem “the press”nothing more or less than the monolithoic propaganda armof some vast international leftist effort to crushAmerica.

That’s your own bizarre extrapolition , evidence of the wayyou perceive conservatives think. which is to say you thinkconservatives think the way letists do.Wrong.

101. Israpundit » Blog Archive » Media distortion driven by agendaSays: January 19th, 2008 at 11:50 am

[...] of the Beast comments on this question and links toan article by Neo-Neocon who does [...]

102. Bob Agard Says: January 19th, 2008 at 12:00 pm

Marvelous writing. I have linked to it and your post aboutdiplomacy.


She goes on to use this experience to ask, in effect, whythe press did not make her see the images when they firstappeared the same way she sees them now.The difference between you and her is that she isn’tconducting a propaganda operation, she is communicating.You’re conducting a propaganda operation, Chris, in order

to convince people of your views, which you never openlystate.As another nail in the coffin of the wrongness of Chris tm,we have this post about big government and local business.

I’m a big Amazon user. I think it’s a lazy guy thing. Iknow what I want, I don’t want to window shop at the mallor go to the hassle of actually driving and parking andwandering around in the mall lost (and I don’t even haveany kids). What really got me using Amazon big timethough, was their Amazon Prime program where you pay $79a year for free shipping on everything sold by Amazon(though not some third party sellers). It’s simply agreat site, great idea, and has completely revolutionizedthe way I shop.France, however, doesn’t see it the same way. Michaeltalked about France’s aversion to capitalism and the freemarket a few days ago, and now we see it in action.France has declared free shipping illegal. In 1981 Francepassed a law making it illegal for book sellers to offermore than 5% discount on the list price, (who wants bigdiscounts on books right?). This was done to protectFrench book stores from competition from supermarkets andother new retailers. Amazon.fr has run into trouble withtheir offering free shipping on orders of €20 or over(it’s $25 in the US), and a court has ruled that thisviolates their protectionist law.

The world is turned upside down just for you, Chris.LinkSo now these images and Neo’s original way of seeing them,contrasted with her current interpretation of them, areoffered to indict the press for reporting on current eventsin the Middle East in ways thatYou already know that you are the one using these images toindict Neo’s words, Chris. Stop pretending here and startbeing a conscientious propagandist.


I, for one, appreciate your postings, Chris. They offergreat insights into your world view which I truly do try tounderstand.And, as a neo-conservative, I actually love watching WTTW’sJim Lehrer news hour, to your earlier points, and I haveheard many good news reports on NPR.It doesn’t mean that I agree with these points of view,many of which I consider extremely destructive tohumankind.I can enjoy reading your points of view, but it does notgive you a pass – if I (we) disagree, we can be outspokenabout that. I have a question for you – why is it thatLiberals seem so certain that “being reasonable” is meetingsomeone half way? We’re not dealing with school groundpolitics, here. If you keep redrawing and erasing lines inthe sands of your beliefs to be “reasonable”, you won’thave anything left with which to reason. It’s OK to stickfor your beliefs, but you should be willing to stand up anddefend them rather than take umbrage whenever you arechallenged.


You’re conducting a propaganda operation, Chris, in order to convince people ofyour views, which you never openly state.

My first comment in this thread clearly states my views onthis topic. I recounted my own memory of the Vietnam imagesfrom the time of their publication and how I see themtoday. I said that I think, “If there is a dominant bias inthe media it is in favor of global corporatism, the statusquo and those politicians in which they’ve heavily investedtheir lobbying budgets.” ['they' referring to the corporateowners of major media outlets]

Later I used the example of a recent Terry Gross series asan example of how one can easily find in the mediaknowledgeable individuals discussing important matters (inthis case Iraq) from different perspectives enabling one tomake up their own mind about those topics. I alsoreferenced media figures from each side of the politicaldivide that I mistrust and from whom I do not expect to getfacts, only ideological spin.In short, my view is that I reject the position that thereis a monolithic “Press” that is leftist or anti-Americanand dedicated to disseminating propaganda to those ends.This does not mean that I presume all of the press isunbiased and I am well aware that certain journalists andpublications have political agendas. It is rather that Isee in the vast number of media options available exactlywhat one would hope for in a free and independent press,which is enough diversity that one can discern fact fromspin and make up one’s own mind on important issues.You may (and obviously do) have a different opinion, whichis just fine. It is disingenuous, however, to claim I’m‘conducting a propaganda operation’ just because my viewsdiffer from those you or Neo or anyone else here holds.

106. OBloodyhell Says: January 19th, 2008 at 6:39 pm

> Trimegistus Says:January 16th, 2008 at 5:37 pmI’ve never quite understood why journalists turned en masse to such a stridentlyanti-American stance forty years ago, and have remained stuck there so longsince.The idea of a conscious conspiracy directed from Moscow or wherever is silly —except that I honestly can’t think of any other explanation which makes sense.

I often wondered, myself, about this. Then I read anexcellent history piece in American Heritage:WHAT WE LOST IN THE GREAT WARI recommend reading it, then realize, if you look back at

it, that, after WWI, all liberals turned on The West (andAmerica, as the be-all end-all of Western Culture).Before that, liberals did not hate the West. H.G.Wells, theepitome of pre-WWI liberals, even forsaw that wars wouldhappen in The Time Machine — but somehow, when confrontedwith the reality, they turned against their culture, andlost all perspective. Certainly the Depression didn’t help,either — it solidified a set of attitudes which might havefaded away without the amplification the Depressionprovided.…But it’s all this massive, vile hangover from WWI.My U.S. $.02 — and worth every pfennig.

107. OBloodyhell Says: January 19th, 2008 at 6:44 pm

harry9000 Says:

January 16th, 2008 at 9:12 pm

Journey…heh heh heh…

cue Starwars Darth Vader theme…

From the precursor statement, as long as you don’t queue up“Oh, Cherie” followed by “The Theme from Bevis andButthead”, I’m down wit’ dat.(8oP.


You should read “Cube and the Cathedral”.. it’s premise isthat the shocks of WW-I destablized Europe to such anextent that people turned away from everything thatrepresetned the previous order, including religion. In theEurope that organized itself after WW-II, religion isreplaced by welfare secular state.

This loss of faith and other things has led to thesituation where the Euro populations aren’t even atreplacement level fertility rates, and that Europe willprobably not survive the tidal wave of Muslim immigrantshellbent on preserving Muslim way of life.


OBloodyhell : I just finished reading the link you gave..that’s a agreat article.It pretty much conforms with what I said in my lastcomment. in 1992 when your piece was written i dont thinkanyone realized the demographic collapse that was imminent.


The 1992 American Heritage article is indeed an excellentread. I wonder, however, if I read it the same way asothers here. Somehow, I suspect we might not. Theconclusion with its four lessons is quite compelling.“Before the war Westerners believed not only in the superiority of Westernculture but in the innate superiority of the white race … The Great War taught usthat all human beings are equally human: equally frail and equally sublime.”

“The second lesson … was to hammer home forever the truth first uttered byWilliam Tecumseh Sherman thirty-five years earlier. “I am tired and sick of war,”the great general said in 1879. “Its glory is all moonshine.… War is hell.” … Ifwars have been fought since, they have been fought by people who suffered fewillusions about war’s glory.”

“The third lesson is that in a technological age, war between the Great Powerscannot be won in anything but a Pyrrhic sense. In the stark phraseology of theaccountant, war is no longer even remotely cost-effective.”

“The final lesson is that it is very easy in a technological age for war to becomeinevitable. … This all too vividly demonstrated fact has induced considerablecaution in the world’s statesmen ever since—if not, alas, in its madmen.”

The question then becomes, are we at risk of forgetting, orperhaps I should say unlearning, these lessons. Does

anachronistic nostalgia for the vanished age of EdithWharton lead to longing for a return to the days whenWesterners believed themselves and their race superior? Ifthe comments here that focus on “the loss of faith” and thetidal wave Muslims are any indicator I’d say the lessonthat “all human beings are equally human” is being lost.Gen. Sherman has been quoted here regarding his opinion onnewspapermen. Does his take on war itself hold a similarplace of honor here?If we believe the rhetoric that we are in the beginningphase of a grand, existential struggle with the Muslimworld ought we not ask whether either side can win it “inanything but a Pyrrhic sense”?The final lesson about the speed and ease with which we canmake a war inevitable, with its approval of the‘considerable caution of statesmen’ and warning aboutmadmen seems to be the lesson we most need to relearn, andquickly.

111. The Return of the Twisted Spinster » Everything you know iswrong Says: January 20th, 2008 at 12:16 am

[...] tale of two photos. Even now, with the truth aboutthe Vietnam War trickling ever so slowly out into theworld, [...]

112. Sally Says: January 20th, 2008 at 3:10 am

There’s no question the “Great War” changed the Westprofoundly, but I doubt it should still be blamed for theongoing hostility to, or subversion of, such Western valuesas individualism, capitalism, industrialism, etc. thatcontinues to afflict our “liberal” elites and their mass ofsheep-like followers like CW here. No, that’s rooted in afar more sinister set of contrary values andcultural/psychological afflictions. To see how perverted

those have become, consider the four “lessons” the authorhas drawn, and then CW’s illustrative spin:The Great War taught us that all human beings are equally human: equally frailand equally sublime.

- Whether or not it actually taught that, what it certainlydidnot teach was that all cultures or ideologies are equal, asour contemporary liberal relativists would have.… [wars that have been fought since the Great War] have been fought by peoplewho suffered few illusions about war’s glory

- True enough, and that includes our present war in Iraq —which is quite a different matter from the blind andpotentially disastrous hostility to that war displayed byso many liberal leaders and followers.The third lesson is that in a technological age, war between the Great Powerscannot be won in anything but a Pyrrhic sense.

Irrelevant to the present conflict, of course, except inthe sense that occasionally even a Pyrrhic victory ispreferable to abject defeat and submission — a sense thatis altogether lost within the cowardly confines of so muchcurrent liberal culture.The final lesson is that it is very easy in a technological age for war to becomeinevitable. … This all too vividly demonstrated fact has induced considerablecaution in the world’s statesmen ever since—if not, alas, in its madmen.

- And, again, regardless of the origin of this “lesson”,there has indeed been “considerable caution” demonstratedby our own statesmen, including both our previous andcurrent Presidents — a “caution” which is all the moreimpressive in the context of the sweating fear, thecontemptible opportunism, and the cut-and-run policies ofour current liberal Congress.So when CW speaks of lessons “we” need to re-learn, he’sreally just speaking for himself and his ilk.


Sally once again uses me as a screen onto which sheprojects her distorted vision of all the ills sheattributes to liberals and ‘The Left’. As someone who hasnever been a member of a political party and has run hisown business for over twenty years I hardly rejectindividualism, (small “c”) capitalism or industrialism.It is true that I do not accept these ideals uncritically,understanding that each of these virtues becomes a vice ifallowed without checks or balance to advance to theirabsolute limits. Individualism in the extreme becomesanarchy destroying all societies and cultures, even thevery culture Sally reveres. While I am a strong advocatefor capitalism, I think the form it takes among quasi-sovereign mega corporations is well on the way towardscapitalism’s negative absolute limit, that of de factomonopolies viewing the planet and all its peoples merely asthe raw materials from which to extract the maximum profitin the shortest time for elite investors. This is relatedto industrialism; we are materially far better off than ourancestors by virtue of industry, but in certain specificsit goes well past its optimum, such as when machinesadvance to the scale that, for example, the mountains ofWest Virginia can … and are … being leveled to extract alltheir coal while simultaneously polluting the land anddestroying the culture and health of the people in theregion.Sally repeats the final line of the first lesson about allhumans being equally human, then notes that she is notconvinced of this lesson and goes on to obliquely aver thesuperiority of Western culture; at least she is careful toavoid the topic of race.As for the next three points about war she turns theauthor’s lessons on their heads. It has often been notedhere that Iraq is not THE WAR, but rather a singlebattlefield in what neo-conservative elites have set forthas a global, existential, long war. Her pejoratives are alldirected at those who question whether there can be an

effective military solution to the related (yet ultimatelyvery separate) problems of terrorism and radicalfundamentalism among Muslims.I am curious whether Sally read the linked article or justthe quotes from it in the comments. As I said previously, Ihave doubts whether everyone who posts comments here wouldread the article in the same way. I ask that because of howit relates to Neo’s topic here, the media. Virtually anyjournalism that goes beyond reporting a single, simple,fact … ‘there was a suicide bombing yesterday outside aSunni mosque in Baghdad’ … becomes subject tointerpretations and will probably be understood differentlydepending on the mindset of the person hearing it. Iimagine even this simple sample ‘fact’ will be understoodvery differently by a Sunni woman, an American soldier oran Iraqi diplomat.

114. Cold Fury Says: January 20th, 2008 at 12:00 pm

A warning…Seeing shouldn’t necessarily be believing:A bunch of unrelated pieces of information that hadpreviously seemed disconnected and chaotic had suddenlyfallen into place like the pieces of a puzzle and formed animage I could now read.This image …

115. Sally Says: January 20th, 2008 at 12:19 pm

And CW once again tries his familiar old tactic of wateringdown any idea to the point of odorless, tasteless banality,and then pretending that he’s saying anything at all. Youmight think of it as a kind of Goldilocks version of“thought” — everything should be not too hot, not too cold,not too individualist, not too collectivist, etc., butinstead everything should be — wait for it — just right!What an insight, huh?

In fact, of course, this is simply what marks the likes ofCW as the sheep, as opposed to the sheep dogs who herd themand keep them in line. Having no real ideas or principlesof his own, other than the “just right” principle (the“optimum”!), he can only repeat whatever his bienpensant media chatter, consoling himself that, well, atleast he’s not “extreme”. And he isn’t, of course — thatkind of neither-one-nor-the-other-nor-anything is toosuperficial and trivial to matter much from anyperspective.Oh, and re: Sally repeats the final line of the first lesson about all humansbeing equally human, then notes that she is not convinced of this lesson andgoes on to obliquely aver the superiority of Western culture; at least she iscareful to avoid the topic of race.– all you can say is that his reading comprehension musthave itself been severely damaged by his diet ofintellectual pablum. What I actually noted was that I wasskeptical of the notion that the Great War itself had muchto do with this lesson, self-styled “liberals”,“progressives”, and Democrats in particular being notedracists both before and after it. And I certainly didn’tmean to be “oblique” in averring the superiority of Westernculture — it was, after all, one of the principle themes ofthe essay itself, as even someone with impairedcomprehension should have noticed.


If we believe the rhetoric that we are in the beginningphase of a grand, existential struggle with the Muslimworld ought we not ask whether either side can win it “inanything but a Pyrrhic sense”?You should ask yourself why you think Sherman fighting inthe Civil War made a Pyrrhic victory.My first comment in this thread clearly states my views onthis topic.

Dodge. Your views are about Neo’s validity and correctness,not about what you thought of those photos.This topic is not your topic, I recognize. Your topic ishow your analysis is corrrect concerning Neo and whoeverelse you include in your target bracketing.In short, my view is that I reject the position that thereis a monolithic “Press” that is leftist or anti-Americanand dedicated to disseminating propaganda to those ends.Is an American Marine dedicated to warfare and causingpeople to die and suffer, Chris? Is that what you thinkorganizations are dedicated to? No, what the press arededicated to is truth, credibility, power, status, andrespect. What they do is similar to what the UN does, interms of how it relates to their stated goals and dedicatedstandards. Don’t try to confuse the issue about what thePress does with what they claim they are doing. Or evenwhat you claim they are doing.t is rather that I see in the vast number of media optionsavailable exactly what one would hope for in a free andindependent pressMicrosoft also has numerous number of “options” for youtoo, Chris. If you buy into that kind of advertisement,that’s your loss.So instead of determining whether the press is informingthe American people about the truth, you look at the numberof media options and say “case closed”. Must be easy tosolve problems in your head, Chris.which is enough diversity that one can discern fact fromspinYou’re making the assumption that you can discern fact frompropaganda, Chris. And you can’t.[I am not] conducting a propaganda operation-ChrisYou act like you don’t know what a propaganda operation is.Did you really buy into the propaganda about propaganda?

Let me remind you of something your brain rejected asinconsistent with reality.She goes on to use this experience to ask, in effect, whythe press did not make her see the images when they firstappeared the same way she sees them now.-Chris WhiteWho is this she? Is it the photographer of the photos thatis ostensibly the “subject” of this post? No, it is Neo.She goes on to use this experience to ask what Chris saysshe is asking. That’s called propaganda, in that you areseeking to manipulate data points and facts to produce aninterpretation favorable to your team, Chris. And your teamwould have to be your ideological preconceptions andprejudices.Neo’s not asking that the press make Neo realize what shenow realizes, that would be contradictory to the press’sobjectives on hurting America for people to realize thatthis is one of the media’s top goals. Your interpretationof Neo’s viewpoint is skewed because of your propagandaoperation, Chris. You are interested more in distortionthan actually understanding what Neo is communicating.The only notable question Neo would have asked the press iswhy didn’t the press emphasize the context for thesephotos, to ensure that people remembered the story behindthe picture instead of the picture. It wasn’t as if peoplewould have forgotten the picture if there were words thatcame with it.Propaganda and comprehension of what people think and meanare contradictory actions, Chris, in case you didn’tnotice. When you are seeking to comprehend and understand,you cannot also be propagandizing.Then the strangest feeling came over me. I don’t even havea word for it, although I usually can come up with wordsfor emotions.This was a new feeling. The best description I can come upwith is that it was a regret so intense it morphed

seamlessly into guilt, as though I were responsible forsomething terrible, though I didn’t know exactly what.Your reasons for thinking Neo is asking for the Press to“make her see the images when they first appeared the sameway she sees them now” is not legit. Do you really expectNeo to want the press to provide her the experiences shehad a few years ago back when she was living duringVietnam?

117. Vince P Says: January 21st, 2008 at 6:32 am

I found Hillary’s Wellesly’s Thesis, which is about herthen-idol Saul Alinsky.http://gopublius.com/hillary-clintons-wellesley-thesis/The ideas she expressed should alarm everyone. Her desirefor power for its own sake… and how she believes that shemust create divisiveness to achieve her goals. Who does shethink she ? The Clintons are poison.American Thinker has done a great job analysing this:http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/01/hillarys_oedipal_problem.html(small excerpt):While Hillary’s father was a fervently anti-CommunistGoldwater Republican, at Wellesley College, Saul Alinsky, aMarxist radical, became Hillary’s father substitute.Switching from a Goldwater Republican to Saul Alinsky washer way of breaking with her real father and rejecting heryounger self. She wrote:BEGIN QUOTE“My senior year at Wellesley would further test andarticulate my beliefs. For my thesis I analyzed the work ofa Chicago native and community organizer named SaulAlinsky”END QUOTEHillary’s thesis was titled, “There is only the Fight, AnAnalysis of the Alinsky model” (italics added)

As she wrote:BEGIN QUOTE“If the ideals Alinsky espouses were actualized, the resultwould be social revolution.“The key word for an Alinsky-type organizing effort is‘power.’ The question is how one acquires power, andAlinsky’s answer is through organization… For Alinsky,power is the ‘very essence of life, the dynamic of life’and is found in ‘…active citizen participation pulsingupward providing a unified strength for a common purpose oforganization….’” (P. 7-8)END QUOTEWhat is the “social revolution” Hillary and the radicals-cum-insiders want? Hillary doesn’t want to merely make lawor implement policy; she wants to re-shape humanity in herown image. She explains:BEGIN QUOTE“A radical is one who advocates sweeping changes in theexisting laws and methods of government. These proposedchanges are aimed at the roots of political problems whichin Marxian terms are the attitudes and the behaviors ofmen.” (p. 6)“Alinsky: ‘In order to organize, you must first polarize.People think of controversy as negative; they thinkconsensus is better. But to organize, you need a BullConnor or a Jim Clark.’” (italics added)END QUOTESee the whole thing

118. Truth, Honor, Hot Iron And Cold Water, « Sigmund, Carl andAlfred Says: January 21st, 2008 at 8:34 am

[...] A Mind Is A Difficult Thing To Change, Part 7A, JeninJenin and Part 7B, The Vietnam Photos Revisited, are two of

the most posts documenting Neo’s journey from the New YorkCity liberal [...]

119. Bonnie Says: January 23rd, 2008 at 12:19 am

neo said:But now I read that the incident had involved no USmilitary at all. It occurred after Viet Cong troops hadattacked and captured a South Vietnamese village, settingup headquarters among civilians in the marketplace anddriving them from the scene. South Vietnamese warplanestrying to protect the village from the invaders and wrestit back—bombing not the village itself, but the perimeter—had mistaken some of the fleeing people for the Viet Congand napalmed them. This was how the little girl got hurt.This was not a good thing, but it was the sort of thingthat was unavoidable in a war of this type, in which theenemy hid among civilians.————————————–that’s rich. The military WAS OURS bought and paid for. Andhere we go with the “enemies” again. Enemies because the UScouldn’t buy out their national aspirations so it was OK tokill them. Just call them “enemies”. A footnote: Christianconverts were protected. They also recieved financial aid.It paid to convert, it paid to resort to national treason.

120. Vince P Says: January 23rd, 2008 at 3:28 am

Bonnie is one of those frauds who while living in the westand enjoying it, publicly dispises it.. Why she doesntleave and live with the people she cares so much about isnot a mystery.. she’s lazy.

121. Robert Says: January 23rd, 2008 at 8:17 am

A few of the above commenters have wondered why the mediaand liberals in general turned against America.

How do liberals think? Democrats are wrong on just aboutevery issue. Give a modern liberal a choice between Saddamand the United States he will not only take Saddam, butwill side with him. The question becomes why? They’re notevil. They don’t mean to side with evil, and always doingwrong. So perhaps its stupidity? But they’re not stupid.The modern liberal looks back at the history of the last50,000 years and finds that none of the policies haveeliminated war, poverty & injustice. And the thing thatcreates all of those is the attempt to be right. So we mustdo away with the “thought of being right.” The best way toeliminate the attempt to think one is right is to workalways to show that right isn’t right.“Imagine no country, (not great countries, not goodcountries, but no countries), imagine no religion… “Lennon.Tear down what is right and elevate what is wrong, untilthere’s nothing left to believe in. Nothing must be betterthan something else. There can be no good. And no bad. Thenthere would be no reason to go to war, because no one isright, and no one is wrong. Undermine the U.S. to show thatits not worth fighting for. Elevate the Islamofacists – infact, never refer to them as Islamofacists, or eventerrorists. They are insurgents. Or like Michael Mooresaid, they’re no different than our Minute Men. Americacaused 9/11, not 9 Muslims. You get the point.

122. Ymarsakar Says: January 23rd, 2008 at 9:58 am

The military WAS OURS bought and paid for.Narcissism isn’t what the military was created to fight.

123. dzt Says: January 25th, 2008 at 11:31 am

Re: this–

I was busy reading online about Iraq, trying to understandthe situation there and to predict what might happen if weinvaded or what might happen if we didn’t invade.but by the rational assessment by millions of Muslims thatthey will never win freedom or justice through non-violentmeans, because the world’s powers will continue to puttheir economic and strategic interests – which are tied tothe existing system and its local leaders – ahead ofsupporting the systemic transformation of the world’seconomy and political system that would be necessary tobring about real democracy and peace.Mark LeVine, PhD, is a professor in the department ofhistory, University of California-Irvine, and author of WhyThey Don’t Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evil.I worked at Asia Times (the source of the above Levinearticle) for quite a while. It purports to promote an“Asian point of view” (the owner is a Thai Chinese) but inactual fact, the key editorial decisions are made by twowhite South Africans, both with fairly typical extremeleft-wing political views. I used to sit at work day afterday and watch the news editor reject what I thought werevery interesting article pitches because they didn’t suithis agenda of painting the US as the villain in everyinternational story. Furthermore, he was not above editingwriters’ work specifically to point the finger at the US.I’m not that familiar with Levine or his politics, and thearticle quoted by “truth” contains a lot of statements Iwould agree with (to be fair, the leftist tenor of thisparagraph is rather cherry picked compared to the sourcearticle as a whole). But to describe Muslim behavior vis-a-vis the US as a “rational assessment” strikes me as prettydelusional. It seems to me that an irrational infatuationwith violence as an end in itself (or as a means to 72virgins) in the Muslim world is, at the very least, a majorcause of the conflict between Muslims and seeminglyeveryone else (even Buddhists). And there are many on theleft who are willing to do almost anything to avoid

acknowledging that fact: they believe that the veryweakness and backwardness of Muslims means they arevictims, who by definition, are morally superior anddeserve sympathy and protection. The possibility that thewoes of Muslims are self-inflicted never occurs to them.Parenthetically, I would note that the Muslim states whichhave the closest relations with the West and are the leastassociated with violent anti-Westernism, in either itsBaathist or Islamic-fundamentalist forms, are in fact themost prosperous in the region (e.g. the UAE, Kuwait). Thisin itself is a compelling argument against the thesisLevine puts forth in his paragraph.


LeVine is a hippy apologist for Muslims. He used to be atalking head on cable news for a while but haven’t seen himin a few years

125. Artfldgr Says: March 31st, 2008 at 6:31 pm

This was a new feeling. The best description I can come up with is that it was aregret so intense it morphed seamlessly into guilt, as though I were responsiblefor something terrible, though I didn’t know exactly what. Regret and guilt, andalso a rage that I’d been so stupid, that I’d let myself be duped or misled or keptignorant about something so important, and that I’d remained ignorant allthese years.

your words are similar to others who found out they wereuseful idiots. tools of their own destruction. i am sorryyou felt that.however, realize that preventing that feeling can create adissonance so strong in people, that they will deny it tillthey are marching through the gates.Lenin called them “useful idiots,” those people living in liberal democracies whoby giving moral and material support to a totalitarian ideology in effect werebraiding the rope that would hang them. Why people who enjoyed freedom and

prosperity worked passionately to destroy both is a fascinating question, onestill with us today. Now the useful idiots can be found in the chorus ofappeasement, reflexive anti-Americanism, and sentimental idealism trying toinhibit the necessary responses to another freedom-hating ideology, radicalIslam. – Bruce C. Thornton

and here is sowell onUseful idiotshttp://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell090100.aspall one has to do is study the dark side of psychology. ofwhich most are also in denial even though they may belooking at some of it in the morning paper. not realizethings like desensitization, and jamming… or love bombing…ask not what your teachings can do for or in the hands ofsociopaths. one only has to see how kinsey (a sexualpsychopath. how else did he get his figures as to sexualchildren?) redefined us to have a perverse view ofchildren. we no longer can even look at family imageswithout seeing pedophiles in ourselves. after all, in orderto find them, one must think like them and then remove allimages that might stimulate them because when you thinklike that they do what?kinsey… meade… boas… friedan… the list goes on of theleftists that spent their time lying and promoting anagenda… why else celebrate “if it was rape then it was agood rape” of a 12 year old in the vagina monologues?most have no idea of the history… they are good people whohave abdicated their responsibilities, and are to scaredand its too much work to actually choose a side on merit.now it might be too late to do so.they fear the feeling you had more than than they fear themonster they are making.there is plenty on each of those names above. but theystill shape our culture heavily… just as i read a documenttoday on feminist bioethics from stanford… they refer to

tuskegee. however do they realize that the study was fundedby leftists?imany people still are using kinsey to justify many of thesexualization programs (lukacks – hungary) in a scientificway. but one only has to read his sexual behavior in thehuman male and realize that he had to be abusing babies toget his data.so kinsey a ligitimized sexual predator, is our “father ofthe sexual revolution”.Meade whose work was also a lie is the mother of what? ohyeah.. “mother of the world” (time 1969)then there is is dewey, the communist spy that was the‘father of modern education’.friedan, a CPUSA writer, is the “mother of feminism” nytimes 1970 (feminism in its modern form being a communistideology. thats what the leaders say)ah… the place is full chock a block of useful idiots.you cant swing a dead cat without knocking dozens of themoutand they will not wake up till its way too late, and whenits too late here, its too late for everyone forever. arentyou glad we dont take this too serioiusly?

126. Michael Says: December 15th, 2009 at 12:17 am

How very odd it is to read these comments after nearly twoyears. Probably Chris White and Mitsu still believe nowwhat they did then. OTOH, an awful lot of people have losttheir doubt on a number of topics. For example, we now seethat, indeed, some corporations support statist solutionsto problems, even manufactured problems, like “globalwarming.” They intend to cash in on whatever thegovernments of the world decide to do. GE is ready to startselling carbon credits. Insurance companies, so reviled bythe President, are supporting his health carenationalization schemes, because they are sure that they

can get the contracts to administer the program. Bush andCheney “lied us into war”, although no one can tell us,now, how they were supposed to benefit. Cheaper oil? Moreexpensive oil? We’ve had both. Something to do withHalliburton? They lost money on their government contracts,and Cheney had donated his stock to charity when he tookoffice, anyway. Iraq was still unwinnable back then, exceptthat now we have pretty much won. We are causing thefighting, even in places from which we have withdrawn, oronly damping down the conflict, which will flare forthagain as soon as we withdraw. Somehow, both are right? Theleftward bias of the media is ever more shameless.“Rightward-leaning”Fox news falls right in with the othertalking heads, wondering what could have caused a man toshout “Allahu akbar” and open fire on people. Stress,maybe? So he talks the jihadi talk for years before, andthey still can’t figure out his motive?And still, every day, more and more Americans learn thatthe media lie to them, about things that they,individually, know. The party line, for example, is thatFox news organized the TEA party demonstrations. Millionsof Americans went, and joke about how we are still waitingfor our ‘astroturf’ checks. Democrat congressmen complainthat all the questions about their health care bills arethe same, as if the average American is too stupid or toolazy to read the bill. Don’t even get me started onclimategate. My epiphany was in 2000, when my knowledge ofelection mechanics and voting machines, gained as aDemocrat poll worker, showed me all too starkly how theywere trying to steal the Florida election. The commentsthat this will generate will be all too predictable,various repetitions of the party line. I can’t convinceanyone who did not have the experience, but, this is myexperience. Neo learned her lessons the same hard way, indifferent circumstances, but, as with the examples I citedbefore, we have the experience of catching the leftistestablishment in a major lie about a matter of fact, knownto us. This is still happening, every day. We are stilldisorganized, loosely led, but, we are figuring out the

facts. They may have fooled us about everything else, but,on this one topic, whatever it is, we know that they arelying.

127. Pull up a chair, take a load off, and read about intellectual growth andpolitical discovery « Psssst! Over Here! Says: January 20th, 2010 at 8:30 pm

[...] learn and always question our assumptions andreceived wisdom, and to be careful about relying on visualmedia like war photographs as a source of reliable [...]

128. Remembering Vietnam « The Daily Bayonet Says: May 1st, 2010 at 11:09 am

[...] An absolutely riveting piece on the subject ofphotographs and faith is NeoNeoCon’s A Mind is a DifficultThing to Change: (Part 7B: the Vietnam photos revisited).[...]

129. maureen tabor Says: May 31st, 2010 at 4:32 pm

neoneo: I identify. Jan 16, 2008 you put your head down onthe keyboard and “when you lifted your head [you were]surprised to find a few tears on [your] cheeks.” that mademe cry just now. thank you.Last night while reading about Abraham Lincoln, I wasinexplicably moved to get out of bed and get down on myknees, as I did when i was a little girl, and pray. Iprayed for humanity, not for myself. I wondered why I hadnot been on my knees for so many decades; it felt good. Ilearned my faith on my knees. I put my face in my hands“and when I raised it I was surprised to find a few tears,”to quote you. Today I found so many good things on the web– and your blog is one of them. thank you. ~ MT

130. Patrick Woolley Says: March 1st, 2013 at 4:05 pm

Jean,

Do you know that you can meet and talk with Kim almostanytime. She is an inspirational speaker who now lives inToronto. The pilot who dropped the bomb was american insupport of Vietnamese manouvers. He had been wracked withguilt over this fog of war mistake. Kim has met him inperson in offered her love and forgiveness. They are realpeople with real experiences. (not propaganeda tools forthe left). She also has a book

131. neo-neocon Says: March 1st, 2013 at 11:14 pm

Patrick Woolley: no, the pilot was NOT an American. Kim isa real person with a real story all right, although shesometimes isused as a propaganda tool of the left. But JohnPlummer, who is also a “real person” who claimed to be anAmerican who ordered the bombing, is a liar and imposter,as well as a tool of the left:

At a Veteran’s Day ceremony last year in front of theVietnam Veterans Memorial, Kim Phuc said in haltingEnglish that if she ever meets the pilot who dropped thebomb she would urge him to join her in working for worldpeace.“I am that man,” John Plummer hastily wrote on a scrap ofpaper that was passed up to her. Minutes later the formerArmy captain was embracing Phuc, sobbing that he wassorry. Responded Phuc, “I forgive you.”A heart-rending tale, one that has since gained heavymedia attention. But Plummer’s part in it isn’t true.Neither Plummer nor any other American piloted the planethat day, June 8, 1972. The pilot was a South Vietnameseair force officer.Since the ceremony at the Wall, Plummer, a 50-year-oldMethodist minister in rural Purcellville, Va., hasrevised his tale, though continuing to exaggerate it.Appearing on ABC’S “Nightline” in June, he told TedKoppel that he “ordered” the raid on Phuc’s village of

Trang Bang. An October cover story under his byline inGuideposts, an international religious magazine, referredto “the attack I had called.” And in a documentary thataired last month on the Arts & Entertainment Network, hesaid: “Every time I saw that picture, I said, ‘I didthat. I’m responsible.’ ”In fact, the North Carolina native flew helicopters, notfixed-wing aircraft of the type that dropped the napalm,though at the time he was in a staff job. Nor did he havethe authority to order his own country’s planes intoaction, let alone South Vietnamese aircraft, say hisformer superiors. Plummer, they say, was a low-levelstaff officer. The entire operation was run by SouthVietnam’s military, with Americans playing only anadvisory role.In an interview at Bethany United Methodist Church, wherehe is the pastor, Plummer conceded that he was neitherthe pilot nor the one who ordered the attack. He said henever intended to deceive anyone but was caught up in theemotion at the Wall that day.He attributed his later comments — to “Nightline” andothers — about ordering the attack to “semantics,” sayingthe Guideposts article contained words he did not write.He continues to have a “very real feeling” that he wasresponsible for the airstrike, he said.“I think I could have been misinterpreted, but I did notintentionally misrepresent my role,” Plummer said. “WhenI used the words, I was thinking about the story of Kimand me. All I was thinking about was telling the story ofKim’s forgiveness.”

See also this.And see also this.

132. Bobbi Says: June 13th, 2013 at 11:30 pm

I notice many of the things your learning fall in line withyour “uncle” who wanted to stay in America and make Americalike the USSR

A mind is a difficult thing to change

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