inignoct wrote:
] [... again, not obvious to some. Nonetheless, I think the
] resistance to discuss the actual geopolitical strategic issues
] as you say comes from the fact that the war wasn't presented
] in the context from the beginning.
] If we start discussing all the good reasons we could've done
] it, we give them an out they frankly don't deserve. If those
] were the reasons, why didn't they use them to begin with? ...]

Much like the reasons, its complex. The most important part is that people just don't understand international relations. They don't appreciate the subtleties. They like their reality simple and loud and short term. You can't really be honest when you're trying to sell something complex and subtle and forward looking to a nation that loves muscle cars and electric guitars. We can't get everyone up to speed on the issue fast enough for them to have meaningful discourse about it. (This is kind of why we're a republic and not a democracy.)

Most things are small enough that you can do them by proxy and no one really finds out. Frankly, I didn't even hear about Somalia until Black Hawk Down started as a series in a philly news paper and someone pointed it out on a mailing list. Some things just happen to have simple, clear explanations, like the invasion of Afghanistan. Some things you have to hide with a sex scandal. Sometimes you just gotta come up with a bullshit story and hope it sticks. This time the story didn't stick, and if the republicans can pull an election out of it I'd say they got through by the hair of their chinny chin chins.

In this case in particular you have the added difficulty that this war was basically the worlds greatest global media mind fuck. You can't tell people that you are screwing with them if you expect it to work.

I don't like this aspect of the way things work. I think that people get screwed in this process because their interests are only on the table to the degree that the figure out whats up.

I'm hoping the internet will help people get more tuned in. Unfortunately, right now its mostly a wasteland of identity based partisanism, and thats when it is at it's best. However, the truth is out there. The net has been tremendously helpful to me in getting a clue.

] [... I disagree. The photos aren't of dead bodies or
] mutilated wounded men. They're of people who gave their lives
] on the assumption that the guy in charge was using them for
] the best and purest reasons.]

] Not to mention, i think this entire milti-page thread proves directly
] that emotional appeals can produce an awful lot of reason, thought
] and discourse. -k]

Sorry man, I can't reconcile those comments with this one:

] showing imagery of a casket being pulled from the wreckage is the
] lowest sort of emotion grabbing politics i can imagine. Despicable

If its your contention that the issue is bodies vs. not bodies you'd have to concede that the Bush ad would have been OK if he had used pictures of victims instead. I don't think you're prepared to do that. I'm not.

] If the first reaction one has to
] this is real, actual Hate, then I think that emotion is
] probably well established already.

You're certainly right on that point. This pic is for insiders. It re-enforces already established notions. The bush 911 ads weren't persuasive to dems either.

RE: Bush photomosaic of American dead in Iraq