As is evident, I installed Haloscan as the program for comments. If you have suggestions as to how to make it more user-friendly, improve its appearance, etc., please email me.
Glenn Greenwald | 07.30.06 - 11:43 am | #

"There are two kinds of terrorists: live terrorists and dead ones. The basic object of anti-terror policy should be to turn the former into the latter."
In other words if we kill everyone who doesn't like us, then everyone will like us.
stitch | 07.30.06 - 11:44 am | #

this rhetorical tactic, casting the war in Iraq as a war against "the terrorists" by defining the Iraqi insurgents not as Iraqis resisting invasion but as "terrorists."

Obviously "terrorist" is a bogeyman term used in a way similar to the way Joe McCarthy likd to throw around "communist".

As long as the use of the bogeyman is the goal of the speech, no amount of common sense or logic can be expected from these folks. They will never define the term, because defining it destroys most of their purpose, as you clearly address.
Mudge | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 11:48 am | #

I sincerely wonder if all the "pro-life" folks think abortion should be legal for "terrorists".
tsisageya | 07.30.06 - 11:50 am | #

Glenn, you are falling into another rhetorical trap here. The only "war in Iraq" was the invasion. Since then the US has been engaged in an occupation, not war.

Yeah, I know that's what George Lakoff said. I don't place much faith in those sorts of semantic "framing" tactics, for reasons I've explained before. I call it an "occupation" sometimes, but it is also a "war" - when one country's military invades another and then fights against people in that country with guns, tanks, and bombs, that is a "war" as well as an "occupation."
Glenn Greenwald | 07.30.06 - 11:52 am | #

hmm, the comments don't like blockquote.

Anyway, here is George Lakoff on the framing difference between war and occupation at the Huffington Post.
MonkeyBoy | 07.30.06 - 11:52 am | #

blah
Hypatia | 07.30.06 - 11:52 am | #

Shoot, I (Hypatia) didn't mean to post that, it was a test to see whether I could change my name in a haloscan format from what it is elsewhere.

But heck, I think I'll just take this opportunity to revert to the name I'm known as everywhere else.
Mona | 07.30.06 - 11:56 am | #

1) to MonkeyBoy -- George Lakoff? Please. Pretentious polysyllabic pedantic puffery, obfuscating obnoxious obliquity. Lakoff's arguments make the simple complex, and the complex incomprehensible. Looking to George Lakoff for clues? You may as well give your adversary the victory.

2) to Glenn -- Excellent essay, and on an issue that I've been talking about with my friends. The term "terrorist" is the jingoist key to the lock guarding the totalitarian state. Joseph Goebbels would be proud of Messrs Bush and Cheney, but as you know, having Goebbels' ghost prideful of your acts is nothing to beam about.
liquified viscera | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 11:57 am | #

Glenn,

A good move, I think. I'm no techie, but as I remember FDL had some problems with HaloScan once the volume of comments reached a certain level. (And given your well-deserved authority in civil liberties and other issues, it seems likely that your traffic will easily reach that level, if it hasn't already.)

And speaking purely disinterestedly, :-) I do hope that as the press of business permits, you'll restore the comments from earlier threads in the new format.
William Timberman | 07.30.06 - 11:59 am | #

Chomsky notes that this is how the US gov. used to define acts of terrorism:

A) involves a violent act or an act dangerous to human life that is a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or any State, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any State; and (B) appears to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by assassination or kidnapping

No question that Hezbollah are terrorists, but Israel's bombing of Lebanon's infrastructure would probably qualify as terrorism by this definition, too.
Hume's Ghost | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 12:00 pm | #

And speaking purely disinterestedly, I do hope that as the press of business permits, you'll restore the comments from earlier threads in the new format.

I wish I could, and if there is a way to do that, I would. But I don't think it's possible. I have resisted going to Haloscan precisely because I didn't want to zap all the prior comments, but once it became inevitable to install a comment program, I realized that the sooner it was done, the better.
Glenn Greenwald | 07.30.06 - 12:01 pm | #

Ronald Reagan defined "terrorist."


June 18, 1985:

Now, how do you establish a connection between them [suicide bombers] and someone else? Was there someone else that set them on their way--you have no way of knowing. So, again, as I say, you're left with only one form of retaliation and that is if you just aim in the general direction and kill some people, well, then, you're a terrorist, too.

If you call it a war, then it is something that you either win or lose, and ending only happens with those events.

An occupation, as part of its definition, includes the end which is withdrawal.

What you call it determins the questions about how it can end.

If you want a permanent occupation of Iraq it is probably best to frame it as a war.
MonkeyBoy | 07.30.06 - 12:03 pm | #

Keep up the good work G2
Jeff | 07.30.06 - 12:04 pm | #

The moving finger, having writ, moves on. It's okay, Glenn, however it turns out. The ongoing conversation is more important to posterity than the archives, I suspect.
William Timberman | 07.30.06 - 12:04 pm | #

Americans are much too culturally centrist to understand your argument about the term "terrorist."

It's not that all muslims are terrorists- it's just that for their own good and ours, some collateral damage is acceptable.

And we wonder where the term "ugly American" comes from.

(I'm aware of the irony in referring to U.S. citizens as Americans)

FYI - I HATE the new format for comments
Jerry Dougherty | 07.30.06 - 12:05 pm | #

MonkeyBoy,

it's not about "framing," no matter what Lakoff has taught you.

When you simply refer to it by the Lakoff obfuscation "framing" you allow the LIE to become something else.

It's not reframing.

It's LYING.
liquified viscera | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 12:07 pm | #

The whole "War on Terror" is ridiculous. The whole notion that you can wage war on a style of warfare is patently absurd. The ordinary American "get's this", even if they can't put it into words yet.

Based on any sane definition of "terrorism"...even Reagan's above...both the US and Israel are now state sponsors of terrorism. And until that stops, we have zero credibility in the Arab and Muslim world. Hamas and Hezbollah are also engaging in terrorism, no doubt about it...but they are certainly not the only ones.

Any American who does not view this Administrations lack of respect for Muslim life as totally appalling should be rendered extradordinarily and waterboarded for a few months while they think about it more critically.
Kurt | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 12:13 pm | #

hmm, the comments don't like blockquote.

It does work, but the formatting afterward is FUBAR. Should be no surprise; been this way forever on Eschaton. FWIW, Blogger didn't like anything more than the three most simple tags, so maybe we're a step up....
Arne Langsetmo | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 12:15 pm | #

The Economist has a front page article on its wesite that the war Israeli/Hezbollah/Lebanese conflict won't stop unless the US tries harder to stop it.

Pakistan isn't thrilled with the nuclear deal that went through with India.

Iraq is Iraq.

The "war on terror" is working marvelously ... in the wrong direction.
Hume's Ghost | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 12:17 pm | #

And while we're on the subject, don't forget that the Gonzales Justice Department classifies American environmental/animal rights activists who target only property as terrorists.

Something to remember as the Administration and its lackeys attempt to push through legislation that would allow them to detain U.S. citizens they suspect of "terrorism" indefinitely, without access to counsel, and to try them before their new kangaroo courts.
Gironde | 07.30.06 - 12:20 pm | #

FYI - I HATE the new format for comments

Me too. I guess I'll get used to it though.
tsisageya | 07.30.06 - 12:21 pm | #

It's a very dark day: I woke up listening at the news on the radio and I heard that 37 childrens died during the bombing by Israel of a building in Qafa in Lebanon.

With that in mind I must tell you that it is very difficult to concentrate on a theoric discussion of who should be considered a terrorist or not, on the semantic difference between a "war" and an "occupatuion"...

Sorry my outrage is not at you people, but against all the person that cannot see how bad and evil this course of action is... If any troll shows up to rant as usual about how good things are I cannot promise you that I am going to be able to stay civil...
kimba1970 | 07.30.06 - 12:24 pm | #

Let me try to define terrorism:

Terrorism is to offensive war what guerrilla warfare is to defensive war. When you use guerrilla (what used to be called "partisan") methods to carry the war to the enemy, in particular by attacking civilians, it's terrorism.

Isolated bands, lacking the cash to buy purpose-built military hardware, or the professionalism to organize companies, battalions and regiments, carry on the war by any available means. Tactics could be anything -- these are amateurs, after all; there's no instruction manual or "Terrorism for Dummies." They may or may be centrally coordinated, and that center may or may not be something an outsider would recognize as a "government." But all the different groups do believe they have a common enemy.

The line between terrorism and guerrilla warfare seems to be defined by whether you believe that the attack occurred on what is or should rightfully be the attacker's home turf. This is biased -- why, exactly, is it acceptable, civilized warfare for the U.S. to bomb Hanoi around the clock, but terrorism when the Viet Cong park bicycles stuffed with plastique on Saigon streets? Each is attacking civilians in the other's capital with the best tools available.

Nevertheless, that's my take on a fair-minded person's understanding of terrorist acts. Exaggerating this to include every instance of a citizen of a weaker land daring to molest a citizen of a powerful land is demagoguery. Not my department.
Stuart Eugene Thiel | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 12:26 pm | #

Remember when, just days before the invasion of Iraq began, Richard Perle said on CNN that Seymour Hersh was "the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist"?

Wolf Blitzer asked why he said that, Perle answered that Hersh is "widely irresponsible", had no "consistent theme", that he "sets out to do damage and he will do it by whatever innuendo, whatever distortion he can". Whatever the merits of those charges might have been, these were Perle's standards for drawing parallels to people who maim and murder people chosen at random.

In fact, what Hersh had done was write an article that might embarass Perle, suggesting underhanded motives for his support of war, since he had invested in companies that stood to profit from it. Terrorism, it would seem, encompasses acts of free speech that question the motives of neo-cons.
Buckeye Hamburger | 07.30.06 - 12:26 pm | #

I have no sympathy for a 'popular front'
composed of those who restrain refugees
so that they may have political 'cover'
when innocent civilians are killed. The
human shields in Lebanon seem to be unwilling martyrs which delute the
military objective to clean out the bad guys, and Hezbollah fits that description.

That said, those who think they can
merely 'wipe out' the terrorists are
like the Sorcerers Apprentice who
set loose forces beyond his control.
The unwise use of the military 'wand'
is emblematic of the current Idiotarian-in-command. Cut to the
Israelis who, although unfearful of
Washington DC, still paused to reflect
before knee-jerking to everyone's demise. The current administration has given them free reign to act with,
so they feel, impunity. The flaccid
response by Rice to civilian deaths
in Lebanon, not only weakens Israel and the US, but her potential candidacy in 2008, which is what is
motivating her most in the minimal diplomatic shuffling she engages with
her inimical Bush flair for defusing
potential bombs./
Semanticleo | 07.30.06 - 12:27 pm | #

mazen writes from Lebanon:

after 19
days
i started
to cry
cynic librarian | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 12:32 pm | #

I also strongly dislike this new format. I've never liked it on C&L or other sites that use it.
For one thing, you have to scroll to the bottom of a comment to see who the poster is. It screws up the continuity of the discussion.
Todd A | 07.30.06 - 12:33 pm | #

to the terrorists: admit you are wrong. admit you commit horrible acts that god might never forgive. admit that two wrongs do not make a right. making peace demands more courage and self-transformation than war.

to those who oppose terrorists: see above.
cynic librarian | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 12:36 pm | #

Re Haloscan: I'd prefer the nested format used on DailyKos or Slate's "Fray."
Stuart Eugene Thiel | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 12:37 pm | #

Propaganda memes, once firmly established, are also subject to mission creep. I remember talking once to an ardent feminist, who adamantly insisted that sucking your teeth at a woman was a form of rape. Not sexual harrassment, mind you, but rape.

I wasn't arguing with her, it was a casual conversation, but I do remember asking her if extending a definition that far didn't run the risk of desensitizing people to the seriousness of the original definition.
William Timberman | 07.30.06 - 12:39 pm | #

A friend of mine says that a terrorist is a man with a bomb, but no air force. That's pretty accurate to me.
NobodySpecial | 07.30.06 - 12:39 pm | #

I also strongly dislike this new format. I've never liked it on C&L or other sites that use it.
For one thing, you have to scroll to the bottom of a comment to see who the poster is. It screws up the continuity of the discussion.

I don't love it either, although I think part of the dislike is just that I was used to the other format and liked it.

But I had to install this because, among other problems, Blogger offers no way to ban anyone, so people who want to disrupt can keep leaving comments and all you can do is delete them one-by-one, but you have no way to prevent them from commenting. That was become annoying, time-consuming and impractical. With this program, you can just ban them once and they can't comment anymore.

But I agree that the asthetics with the Blogger comment section are much better, including the fact that the name of the commenter appears before, not after, the comment (which lets you know who wrote it before you read it, allows you to skip certain commenters, etc.).

I know there are ways to change the format and layout of this comment section, and having the name of the commenter appear more prominently - preferably before the comment rather than after - is one thing I hope someone who knows how to do these things will e-mail me about.
Glenn Greenwald | 07.30.06 - 12:39 pm | #

Al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbullah are all very different organizations fighting for different reasons. Lumping them all together as "terrorists" is counterproductive, because it hinders the ability to make sensible policy towards them. (Note that I don't think that makes much difference now, because I don't think BushCo is capable of sensible policy in any event. However, some day someone sensible is going to be running our country, and years of misusing the term "terrorist" is going to cause problems.

P.S. One of the things I don't like about Haloscan is that the post author's name appears at the end of the post. I have no way to filter out Bart, Shooter, et.al. until after I've read part of their blatherings. Once I hit that point, it takes a herculean effort on my part to avoid posting a response.
shargash | 07.30.06 - 12:39 pm | #

Semanticleo

So "The flaccid response by Rice to civilian deaths" is not good becuse it could jepordize her 2008 candidacy...

Not becuse it shows a basic lack of respect for human life and the principles of ethic that should drive a human being ? Regardless to which side you favor in this ... occupation, retaliation (or war call it like you prefer)... don't you think is a bit ridicolous to choose that as a reason to be unhappy with her frightenly (in my opinion) incompetent behaviour?

But maybe it's just me...
kimba1970 | 07.30.06 - 12:41 pm | #

"And while we're on the subject, don't forget that the Gonzales Justice Department classifies American environmental/animal rights activists who target only property as terrorists."

So, it is non-terrorist to kill animals, er, people, but, marred furniture qualifies one for a meeting with Mr. Roo.

Yeah, I get it now......
Sky-Ho | 07.30.06 - 12:42 pm | #

The word terrorist, like the word fascist, has become as disconnected from any literal meaning as the word motherfucker.
Laney | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 12:43 pm | #

"don't you think is a bit ridicolous to choose that as a reason to be unhappy with her frightenly (in my opinion) incompetent behaviour?"

Exactly my point. Sorry that wasn't clear
Semanticleo | 07.30.06 - 12:46 pm | #

Laney: Preeeecisely, but there is one significant non-semantic difference. Terrorist got to be what it is as a term because someone wanted to obscure the meaning of politically inconvenient phenomena, not because overuse exhausted its original meaning.
William Timberman | 07.30.06 - 12:52 pm | #

Propaganda memes, once firmly established, are also subject to mission creep. I remember talking once to an ardent feminist, who adamantly insisted that sucking your teeth at a woman was a form of rape. Not sexual harrassment, mind you, but rape.
I wasn't arguing with her, it was a casual conversation, but I do remember asking her if extending a definition that far didn't run the risk of desensitizing people to the seriousness of the original definition.

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

The word terrorist, like the word fascist, has become as disconnected from any literal meaning as the word motherfucker.

That last word is very special and should only be used on special occasions. There's so much over-use these days.
tsisageya | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 12:52 pm | #

Those of you, probably most of you, who have seen "Independence Day" will recall that it climaxes with an alcoholic waster redeeming himself in an act of suicide bombing against a vastly superior foe. Is that an act of terrorism or an heroic last ditch defence against invaders?
I don't remember any complaints at the time, but maybe when American cinema fantasises about that sort of conflict on home soil it becomes a legitimate war of liberation.
Paul | 07.30.06 - 12:53 pm | #

Semanticleo

Ok sorry if I have snapped back at you, as I said I am a bit edgy today...
kimba1970 | 07.30.06 - 12:54 pm | #

Like many words in the pre-Millenial age, terrorist is sucked dry of meaning and filled with anything that reflects the hatred and self-interest of the person using the term. As historians from Thucidydes to the present have shown, in times of social and cultural decay, meaning loses its moorings in real life and becomes the domain of fantasists.

In philosophical terms, any word is simply determined by its context and use within a given social, cultural, and historical context. Since we are witnessing not only the end of history, the person, religion, and all other convenient abstractions, words themselves become almost useless in describing the horrors perpetrated by humans.

Uprooted by phantom politics and ideologies, words simply echo the past but whose present is meaningless and whose future bodes only more horror.
cynic librarian | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 1:00 pm | #

tsisageya: You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Despite the fact that this is in the bible, and that many good fundamentalists -- Jimmy Carter, for example -- live by it, it is, in my opinion, utter nonsense except as a metaphor.
William Timberman | 07.30.06 - 1:00 pm | #

I'm just testing something here.
tsisageya | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 1:00 pm | #

William, it's a grand thing that I don't really care what you think in this regard. Also, your opinion about it is utterly irrelevant.
tsisageya | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 1:01 pm | #

"Basic constitutional protections?" The maniacs running our country right now can't even name their beloved Ten Commandments (cf. Colbert), let alone the Bill of Rights.

These guys were apparently all absent the one day in school when the Constitution was taught -- or were making fart sounds whenever the teacher turned to write on the blackboard, more likely.
Hudson | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 1:02 pm | #

In regard to Newt's remark about "World War III," isn't that supposed to be a term used after the "war" is over? After all, WWI, was called "The Great War" until after WWII.

Anyway, why do we have to have all these "wars"? Why can't we do the right thing: give the Palestinians guarantees of their homeland, respect from Israel at their borders, and the money which Israel is withholding from their democratically elected government? Why can't we achieve something through diplomacy?Why can't we acknowledge that in the same circumstances, we would also resort to "terrorism" to defend our families and our way of life? Wasn't that what a lot of the American Revolution in the Southern campaign was about?
margaret | 07.30.06 - 1:06 pm | #

Glenn...But I had to install this because, among other problems, Blogger offers no way to ban anyone, so people who want to disrupt can keep leaving comments and all you can do is delete them one-by-one, but you have no way to prevent them from commenting. That was become annoying, time-consuming and impractical. With this program, you can just ban them once and they can't comment anymore.

You will find that a few will manage to spoof IPs to get thru but this will be much better for all. Folks will get used to it.


UNSDOC proposed definitions of terrorism.

http://www.unodc.org/unodc/ terro...efinitions.html
Anonymous | 07.30.06 - 1:07 pm | #

The administration's definition of "terrorist" would certainly include the Minutemen and Founding Fathers of our country, who had the audacity to fight using asymmetrical warfare to liberate their country from a seemingly superior colonial occupier.

All one has to do to understand our current situation is to consider which side George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Albert Gonzales, et al would have been on in 1776. They certainly would have sided with the Tories in their feasance to inherited power over the rabble "terrorists" who dared to oppose their betters overseas. From one King George to another.
Mike J | 07.30.06 - 1:07 pm | #

Glenn,

I've never understood why people use haloscan. The esthetics are worse and it hurts search engine results because you have the comments moved to a separate page so Google can't pick up on them. It's a shame disruptive users forced you into this.

Haloscan claims the esthetics can be improved: "Hundreds of user-submitted templates to pick from." Unfortunately, I can't find out how to implement them without registering. I think you can find the templates here.

I hope someone finds a way to keep your comment archives available; there have been a few times when I've benefitted from the ability to go back and see what people were saying about specific posts before.
Disenchanted Dave | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 1:09 pm | #

tsisageya: William, it's a grand thing that I don't really care what you think in this regard.

Yes, it is, I agree. As for my opinion being irrelevant, fortunately you won't be the sole judge of relevance in this or any other matter.
William Timberman | 07.30.06 - 1:10 pm | #

tsisageya

William opinion may be irrelevant to you but it is not to most of us posting here.

You are welcome to post whatever opinion you like (regardless on how irrelevant it may seem to me like the bible related post under discussion) as long as you are able to keep your manner civil and avoid claiming higher moral ground that you do not have, at least in this blog.
kimba1970 | 07.30.06 - 1:14 pm | #

As is evident, I installed Haloscan as the program for comments. If you have suggestions as to how to make it more user-friendly, improve its appearance, etc., please email me.

I don't know diddley-sqat about such things, Glenn. Apparently I just like to complain. Sorry.
I really will get used to it and figure everything out and probably grow to love it...right before you switch to something else for me to complain about.
;)
tsisageya | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 1:15 pm | #

Kimba, would you like me to get the hell out? Because I can certainly do that. Glenn, it's been swell....

Shoes of Peace
tsisageya | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 1:16 pm | #

Children, Please! Cranky, cranky...
Anonymous | 07.30.06 - 1:17 pm | #

Glad to see some pushback against Framing Cult dogma. If you have a political point-of-view, and sane reasons for it, then you don't need any advice from Lakoff.
Lakoff needs people who (a) have lots of money to spend on ads, (b) have still more money to spend on ad consultants, and (c) don't have any idea what to do with it. ("Do we aim at soccer moms or NASCAR dads this week?")
If I ever started "framing" in public, like after too much to drink, I hope my friends would try to stop me.
PhilK | 07.30.06 - 1:17 pm | #

And since you guys know it all, already, and have no need for learning, you probably know that that was a quotation by Messiah Yeshua. And then you'll just tell me that you don't actually give a crap, your "opinions" being so god*amned IMPORTANT, and all.
tsisageya | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 1:24 pm | #

Over 60 years ago, Menahem Begin and other Zionists blew up the King David Hotel which was inhabited by British diplomats and civilians. Over 60 died. The world press condemned it as a terrorist act. Some see this incident as the birth of modern asymmetric warfare.

A few days ago, Israel celebrated this bombing as a key phase of its war of independence.

Manahem Begin went on to win a Nobel Peace Prize with his arch-enemy Yasser Arafat for signing the Camp David Accords, a document whose promise has yet to bear fruit.
cynic librarian | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 1:24 pm | #

From AP
"Why are they killing us? What have we done?" screamed Khalil Shalhoub, who was helping pull out the dead until he saw his brother's body taken out on a stretcher. The dead included at least 34 children and 12 adult women, security officials said.

Israel said guerrillas had fired rockets from near the building into northern Israel.

Israel is acting like a terrorist organization when it flattens an apartment building full of civilians to kill a few militants. "But we told them to leave", after destroying most of the bridges and roads that would allow escape.

Remember who is giving Israel nearly $14 million per day to buy those bombs.
Is there any wonder why the Muslim world is against us? We are complicit in the deaths of those women and children.

PS Thanks to dipshit for the new comment field...
nuf said | 07.30.06 - 1:27 pm | #

Kimba, would you like me to get the hell out? Because I can certainly do that. Glenn, it's been swell....

Shoes of Peace
tsisageya

Don't put your walking shoes on just yet.

The Wiki article on terrorism has some excellent links. The lack of a consensus on a single definition by all parties is the main problem.


Definition of ‘Terrorism’ in International Law

The lack of a single definition of terrorism has resulted in the international law choosing various forms of counter-measures against the certain acts of terrorism under different international conventions since 1963 and to introduce measures to make sure international co-operation to investigate, combat and eliminate terrorist incidents in certain situations[12]. Therefore, the major anti-terrorism conventions are drafted within the framework of the UN and ratified by many states. Accordingly, at present, there are 12 international conventions addressing terrorism and related activities, each covering a specific type of criminal activities, including seizure of airplanes, political assassination, the use of explosives, hostage-taking, nuclear terrorism and assorted bombing etc.[13]

Suicide terrorism is another matter altogether.

Ch. 2: Explaining Suicide Terrorism
Caveat: the book's conclusions do not hold for terrorism in general (8-9). Pape distinguishes among demonstrative terrorism, which seeks publicity, destructive terrorism, which seeks to exert coercion through the threat of injury and death as well as to mobilize support, and suicide terrorism, which is involves an attacker’s actually killing himself or herself along with others, generally as part of a campaign (9-11). Three historical episodes are introduced for purposes of comparison: the ancient Jewish Zealots (11-12; see also 33-34), the 11th-12th-century Ismaili Assassins (12-13; see also 34-35), and the Japanese kamikazes (13; see also 35-37). There was no suicide terrorism from 1945 to 1980 (13-14). Modern suicide terrorism began in Lebanon in the 1980s (14), followed by cases involving the Tamil Tigers (July 1990), Israel (1994), Persian Gulf (1995), Turkey (1996), Chechnya (2000), Kashmir (2000), and the U.S. (2001) (14-15). Five campaigns were still ongoing in early 2004, when Dying to Win was being written (15-16). Traditional explanations focus on individual motives, but fail to explain the specificity of suicide terrorism (16-17). Economic explanation of this phenomenon yields “poor” results (17-19). Explanation of suicide terrorism as a form of competition between radical groups is dubious (19-20). Pape proposes an alternative explanation of the “causal logic of suicide terrorism”: at the strategic level, suicide terrorism exerts coercive power against democratic states to cease occupation of territory terrorists consider homeland, while at the social level it depends on mass support and at the individual level it is motivated by altruism (20-23). “The bottom line, then, is that suicide terrorism is mainly a response to foreign occupation” (23).





Robert Pape's Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism controverts many widely held beliefs about suicide terrorism. Based on an analysis of every known case of suicide terrorism from 1980 to 2003 (315 campaigns and 462 individuals), he concludes that there is "little connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, or any one of the world’s religions. . . . Rather, what nearly all suicide terrorist attacks have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland" (p. 4). "The taproot of suicide terrorism is nationalism," he argues; it is "an extreme strategy for national liberation" (pp. 79-80). Pape's volume is divided in three parts, examining suicide terrorism in its strategic, social, and psychological dimensions.
Anonymous | 07.30.06 - 1:30 pm | #

Glenn, not a holoscan fan. Your biggest mistake to date, IMHO. Making matters worse, previous comments are now innaccessible. Like it says at the end of Buffy, The Vampire Slayer episodes, "Grrrr! Argh!"

liquified viscera: 1) to MonkeyBoy -- George Lakoff? Please. Pretentious polysyllabic pedantic puffery, obfuscating obnoxious obliquity. Lakoff's arguments make the simple complex, and the complex incomprehensible. Looking to George Lakoff for clues? You may as well give your adversary the victory.

Well, it's nice to know that anti-intellectualism is alive and well here on this "lefty blog." Did it ever occur to you that the way to refute arguments is to refute arguments?

He even gave you a link for gosh sakes. How hard can it be? Oh, yeah, the whole part where you have to refute an argument.

Glenn: Glenn, you are falling into another rhetorical trap here. The only "war in Iraq" was the invasion. Since then the US has been engaged in an occupation, not war.

Yeah, I know that's what George Lakoff said. I don't place much faith in those sorts of semantic "framing" tactics, for reasons I've explained before.

I don't recall this. Care to provide a link? (I tried googling, which is when I realized past comments are gone.) Needless to say, I disagree. But I believe in engaging folks actual arguments, so I'd like to know yours.

Glenn: I call it an "occupation" sometimes, but it is also a "war" - when one country's military invades another and then fights against people in that country with guns, tanks, and bombs, that is a "war" as well as an "occupation."

In one sense, yes. It's traditionally been called a "guerilla war." The problem is that there was also a war before that, the war of invasion. And it seems quite clear that the resistence in the current situation has some overlap with the previous regime, but is substantially different in being far more diverse. Plus, no Saddam Hussein (aka "Hitler" to some).

The closest historical analogy I can think of in our history is the invasion of the Phillipines, followed by our long guerilla war against the Phillipine freedom fighters. It's hardly an exact parallel. There's a lot more Baathists fighting against us now than there were Spanish sympathizers fighting us in the Phillipines. But the underlying point remains: by conflating the two conflicts, however inadvertantly and in passing, we reinforce the obscuring of the nature of the conflict involved. And this is obscuring is precisely what you are writing to oppose.

One does not need to invoke Lakoff to make this point and argue its significance. Orwell will do quite nicely. Or Blake: "A truth that's told with bad intent/beats any lie you can invent." While your intent is not bad, the usage of the term "war" to blind us to complexities is surely evidence of bad intent. And when we follow suit, we give some aid, however slight, to that intent.

I'm not saying you should never use the word. It's a balancing act, and I've used the word myself, in fact. But every time I use it, I have an inner struggle, because I'm aware that I'm complicit in hiding something, even as I'm writing to expose it.

In clsing, I think it's important to realize that Lakoff's arguments are not coming from left field. They connect in various ways with figures as diverse as Blake, Orwell and William James--America's leading anti-imperialist intellectual (along with Mark Twain) of the Philippine Occupation era.
Paul Rosenberg | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 1:30 pm | #

From Gideon Levy @ Haaretz:

Since we've grown accustomed to thinking collective punishment a legitimate weapon, it is no wonder no debate has sparked here over the cruel punishment of Lebanon for Hezbollah's actions. If it was okay in Nablus, why not Beirut? The only criticism being heard about this war is over tactics. Everyone is a general now and they are mostly pushing the IDF to deepen its activities. Commentators, ex-generals and politicians compete at raising the stakes with extreme proposals.

Haim Ramon "doesn't understand" why there is still electricity in Baalbek; Eli Yishai proposes turning south Lebanon into a "sandbox"; Yoav Limor, a Channel 1 military correspondent, proposes an exhibition of Hezbollah corpses and the next day to conduct a parade of prisoners in their underwear, "to strengthen the home front's morale."

It's not difficult to guess what we would think about an Arab TV station whose commentators would say something like that, but another few casualties or failures by the IDF, and Limor's proposal will be implemented. Is there any better sign of how we have lost our senses and our humanity? [my emphasis]
cynic librarian | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 1:32 pm | #

tsisegaya: you probably know that that was a quotation by Messiah Yeshua

Indeed I do. I'm not a believer in the sense that you seem to be -- I'm an atheist of the kind the French might refer to as d'expression chretienne -- but I meant no disrespect at all to you, or to the bible, which I revere in a way not permitted to believers.
William Timberman | 07.30.06 - 1:32 pm | #

These guys were apparently all absent the one day in school when the Constitution was taught -- or were making fart sounds whenever the teacher turned to write on the blackboard, more likely.

Well after all, Hudson, the President of the United States calls it a "got-dammed piece of paper." And to "stop throwing the Constitution up" in his face.
Or perhaps he said it with more of a Connecticut drawl, that being where he's actually FROM, and all...
tsisageya | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 1:34 pm | #

William, apparently you're under the illusion that I'm having a discussion with you about it.
I'm not.
tsisageya | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 1:36 pm | #

I'm sorry you switched to this comment thing, and I hope some techy types come up with a fix for you to make it less annoying.

In particular, the fact that it spawns a teeny weeny popup window totally separate from the post, and that requires fiddling with my popup blockers is a big greivance.

It's also too bad that the previous comments are gone.

Sorry Glenn, but I think I'll be skipping your blog's comment section from now on.
anonymous | 07.30.06 - 1:38 pm | #

tsisegeya: I'm not.

Fiat voluntas tua.
William Timberman | 07.30.06 - 1:38 pm | #

liquified viscera:MonkeyBoy,

it's not about "framing," no matter what Lakoff has taught you.

When you simply refer to it by the Lakoff obfuscation "framing" you allow the LIE to become something else.

It's not reframing.

It's LYING.

Like I just said, see William Blake: "A truth that's told with bad intent/Beats any lie you can invent."

Framing is ubiquitous to all human cognition and communication. There is no such thing as contextless thought. Lying is subset of framing. And, as Blake notes, is not the most dangerous sort. It is surely important to point out and oppose outright lying when it occurs. But not at the expense of ignoring the more lethal truths with bad intent.
Paul Rosenberg | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 1:39 pm | #

Paul Rosenberg said: I don't recall this. Care to provide a link? (I tried googling, which is when I realized past comments are gone.) Needless to say, I disagree. But I believe in engaging folks actual arguments, so I'd like to know yours.

Paul - The discussion of framing was in comments, and you participated in it. Both you and I distinguished between "semantic framing" (i.e., don't use this word - use that word) and "substantive framing (talking about an issue substantively which highlights how to think about it without openly plotting about how to "frame" it).

I suppose you could say that I don't oppose the concept of "framing" as much as I oppose the way it's usually talked about -- as some sort of semantic game that involves nothing more than replacing some words with others. But if all "framing" means is ensuring that the topic is discussed on your ground rather than on your opponents', I really don't see what's new about it.

As for Haloscan, I explained my reasons - I don't like Haloscan either (although there are ways to improve its appearance and format, and I will). But I was having endless morons leaving comments with no purpose other than to disrupt - a practice which grows every time my blog does - and deleting every comment on a case-by-case basis with no mechanism to prevent its occurrence just became impractical. I agree it's unforutnate that it had to be done, but in light of the reason, I don't know how it can be characterized as a "mistake" - let alone my biggest one yet.
Glenn Greenwald | 07.30.06 - 1:39 pm | #

"Hostilities" is a better word. War was never legally declared because there was no legal basis for declaring it on Iraq.
Anonymous | 07.30.06 - 1:39 pm | #

Like it says at the end of Buffy, The Vampire Slayer episodes, "Grrrr! Argh!"

I am a HUGE fan.
Of course, as you can imagine, there were some things about it that I didn't like so much...especially during the last couple of seasons when they lost their innocence, so to speak.
tsisageya | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 1:40 pm | #

I'm sorry, Glenn, but really do hate this Haloscan.
tsisageya | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 1:41 pm | #

Shoes of Peace

Did I ask you to leave ? I have asked you to keep your manners a bit more undercontrol: your answer to William was rude and the biblic content of the post, I freely admit it, is not something I particulary care about. But that just me free to use any bible quote you like.
kimba1970 | 07.30.06 - 1:44 pm | #

Paul Rosenberg -- "Well, it's nice to know that anti-intellectualism is alive and well here on this "lefty blog." Did it ever occur to you that the way to refute arguments is to refute arguments?"

1) What are you arguing, Paul? That you are an "intellectual" and proud of it? If so, define "intellectual" for me, and explain what makes me NOT one. Thanks.

1) FYI, I've read Lakoff's "Moral Politics" and that's the groundwork for my comment on his "thinking" which I find to be the most ridiculous onanistic self-gratification that I've read, short of reading Andrew Sullivan's various pieces of masturbatory metaphor.

3) The sexual constructs I'm using here are intentional. Lakoff is a mindfucker. If you find him deep or prescient, I submit he popped your cherry.
liquified viscera | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 1:45 pm | #

As for Haloscan, I explained my reasons - I don't like Haloscan either (although there are ways to improve its appearance and format, and I will). But I was having endless morons leaving comments with no purpose other than to disrupt - a practice which grows every time my blog does - and deleting every comment on a case-by-case basis with no mechanism to prevent its occurrence just became impractical.
Glenn Greenwald | 07.30.06 - 1:39 pm | #

You blog is going to grow some more. You will either become a coding wiz yourself or may switch to another platform altogether, (Typepad is the preferred platform these days) and have your own webmaster do all of this for you, (appearance, spamblocking, coding), leaving you to concentrate on content and such.
Anonymous | 07.30.06 - 1:45 pm | #

Paul Rosenberg -- "Lying is a subset of framing."

Paul,

You act as though this "framing" is something new. Are you paid royalties for your use of the term?

I suggest you try to rethink the obfuscatory purpose of the phrase "framing" -- argument is my stock in trade, I've been a lawyer for over 17 years and a thinker and rhetorician for even longer than that.

Lakoff has found a way to package his thoughts for the unsubtle pretenders at intellectualism. It's a deep shame that you find his difference-free distinctions to be something substantively meaningful. I hope you're not teaching logic, debate, rhetoric or Socratic method anywhere.
liquified viscera | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 1:48 pm | #

PhilK: Glad to see some pushback against Framing Cult dogma. If you have a political point-of-view, and sane reasons for it, then you don't need any advice from Lakoff.

The Dems have been losing elections regularly for the past 35+ years based on this premise. It's hardly cultish to suggest we try something different, especially if it's based on decades of social science research. What's cultish is to blindly believe that what's never worked in the past will magically work in the future.

Lakoff needs people who (a) have lots of money to spend on ads, (b) have still more money to spend on ad consultants, and (c) don't have any idea what to do with it. ("Do we aim at soccer moms or NASCAR dads this week?")

Aside from being a baseless ad hominem attack in place of a substantive argument, it's just factually stupid. Lakoff has a long academic career, with subtantial acclaim in his field. If money were his primary concern, he would have gone into the private realm eons ago. But he didn't. Because that's not what makes him tick.

If you want to debate his ideas, fine. But for every one instance I've seen where people want to debate his ideas, I've seen scores of baseless ad hominem attacks like this.

It does not impress.
Paul Rosenberg | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 1:50 pm | #

“The bottom line, then, is that suicide terrorism is mainly a response to foreign occupation”

I've often wondered what the circumstances, or perceived circumstances, would have to be in order to turn me into a suicide terrorist. I can now imagine it but, I'm in the process of learning how to shoot fireballs through my fingertips and make 100 pound hailstones fall from the sky, so for now, I'll take a pass. There really is such a thing, you know. They're called megacryometeors. Though, I suppose when they fall to the earth, which they do sometimes, they would have to be called megacryometeorites.
tsisageya | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 1:51 pm | #

Paul, please. Lakoff is not a saviour of any sort, least of all intellectual.

What do you want to debate, Paul? First principles suggest that if you submit Lakoff's ideas are persuasive, then we should determine their validity.

Where has gone YOUR intellectualism, Paul?
liquified viscera | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 1:52 pm | #

Did I ask you to leave ? I have asked you to keep your manners a bit more undercontrol: your answer to William was rude and the biblic content of the post, I freely admit it, is not something I particulary care about. But that just me free to use any bible quote you like.
Kimba, you're full of crap.

See, Glenn? There's no delete feature or *collapse* feature. O dear, O dear...
tsisageya | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 1:56 pm | #

Nuf Said writes: Thanks to dipshit for the new comment field...

'Twas not just he. Many months ago we had a discussion here about whether moderating comments, and disallowing anonymous posts, would serve the interests of the conversation here. At that point, Glenn decided to indulge his antipathy to those ideas. I disagreed with his decision then, but it is his blog.

Haloscan has its definite demerits. But I support the move to it so that pest control may be more effectively undertaken.

About William Timberman: He, like many others here, is relatively far to my left, and it is only the state of the current political configuration here in the U.S. that causes us to come together against a common enemy. But his opinions are virtually always well-reasoned and respectfully stated, and I enjoy them.

I must however, correct him about one thing: Jimmy Carter is not a "fundamentalist." He is an evangelical, and those are not usually the same thing. Evangelicals, even those who are politically conservative, tend to be far less interested in resorting to law to coerce people not to "sin." They also tend not to be all that interested in whether Genesis is literally true as opposed to the "theory" of evolution, at least not for purposes of public policy. (I acknowlege noteable exceptions.)

There are a lot of liberal evangelicals, many of whom, for example, are in favor of legalized abortion and who are reasonably friendly to gay rights. (E.g. Condi Rice or Laura Bush.) By contrast, one almost never finds that in fundamentalists.
Mona | 07.30.06 - 1:56 pm | #

"The Dems have been losing elections regularly for the past 35+ years based on this premise. It's hardly cultish to suggest we try something different, especially if it's based on decades of social science research. What's cultish is to blindly believe that what's never worked in the past will magically work in the future."

1) "Social Science" is an oxymoron. Sociology is not a science. It is a predictive bit of pabulum. You cannot scientifically measure human whimsy.

2) Your comment on what has killed the Dems is miles away from the bull's eye. The Dems have been undone by being Repub Lite. Joe Lieberman is a shining example, Hillary Clinton yet another. Lakoff's "proofs" are a pile of mishmashed meandering. They are no more than his thoughts, his predictions, and his whimsy.
liquified viscera | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 1:57 pm | #

Mona:

I stand corrected.
William Timberman | 07.30.06 - 1:58 pm | #

"I must however, correct him about one thing: Jimmy Carter is not a "fundamentalist." He is an evangelical, and those are not usually the same thing. Evangelicals, even those who are politically conservative, tend to be far less interested in resorting to law to coerce people not to "sin." They also tend not to be all that interested in whether Genesis is literally true as opposed to the "theory" of evolution, at least not for purposes of public policy. (I acknowlege noteable exceptions.)"

Not an "evangelical" in the sense of Oral Roberts or Jerry Falwell. Evangelism literally. Spreading the message of Christianity BY HIS EXAMPLE, not by his moral implorings to the general public. Jimmy Carter is not a proselytizer. He is not a hypocrite. In modern American culture, "evangelicals" typically are one of these nefarious types, if not all of them - Proselytizer, hypocrite, moralizer.
liquified viscera | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 1:59 pm | #

tsisageya

You are an ***hole.

Happy now ? How long should the name calling go on to make happy?

Retarded creep
kimba1970 | 07.30.06 - 2:02 pm | #

Kimba, I'm sorry I said you were full of crap. I forgot that you said you were edgy today.
That wasn't the best response to give to an edgy person.
Please excuse.
tsisageya | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 2:03 pm | #

tsisageya, kimba -- hey, there's no need for the namecalling. Make your points and let them speak for themselves. Peace to both of you!
liquified viscera | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 2:05 pm | #

Phenomenal post Glenn. One of your best, which speaks volumes about it.
Redwretch | 07.30.06 - 2:08 pm | #

Fiat voluntas tua.

William, is that pompous talk for "UNKLE"?
tsisageya | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 2:09 pm | #

liquified viscera

I don't want to start a pie fight: I shut my trap...
kimba1970 | 07.30.06 - 2:12 pm | #

Small point: I don't want whoever did 9/11 dead. If possible, I want them tried in court by our laws and if/when they're found guilty, I want the appropriate punishment we as a society deem justifiable. Personally I'd like to see them rot in prison like the blind sheik who perpetrated the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. But if I'm outvoted in the political arena and the death penalty is the appropriate penalty, so be it.

Also, in the process of trying to bring these people to justice, bringing them into a court room, if they resist violently and we have to kill them, so be it. My point is that we should be in charge of the process of justice and punishment. We should not reduced to their level of an eye for an eye. We should never become like them.

Reasonable people, therefore, can disagree that dead terrorists are the only good terrorists. It all depends on how you get there.
Fred | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 2:15 pm | #

tsisegaya: William, is that pompous talk for "UNKLE"

In a word, no. We're not having a discussion, though, remember? I don't know what it was in my original comment that prompted you to dismiss me and all my works, but I'm content not to pursue it. I don't need the points, nor do you. Let there be silence between us.
William Timberman | 07.30.06 - 2:17 pm | #

Yes, it is, I agree. As for my opinion being irrelevant, fortunately you won't be the sole judge of relevance in this or any other matter.

I wouldn't be so sure about that, William.
tsisageya | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 2:20 pm | #

Another 'frame' that's been coming up in Bush's rhetoric is 'killers.' Straight to the gut with that one.
Enoch Root | 07.30.06 - 2:21 pm | #

I don't know what it was in my original comment that prompted you to dismiss me and all my works

That is factually incorrect, William. I suggest you go back and read everything I said, word for word. I never dismissed you OR all your works. Not once.
tsisageya | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 2:22 pm | #

Fred, excellent point. Somewhere along the line, the jingoistic need for "revenge" has obscured the primary feature of our democratic society's ideal where justice is concerned -- innocent until proven guilty, trial by jury of peers.

In case anyone has forgot, we've yet to prove who is responsible for the events of 9/11/2001. The evidence suggests variously that it might be Saudi Arabians trained in US flight schools, perhaps funded by the bin Laden family, and perhaps excused by the Bush/Cheney Administration. For these theoretically culpable parties, how shall we begin the indictment process?

Just because Dubya Bush and Dick Cheney and Donnie Rumsfeld claim that bin Laden, al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein are responsible for 9/11/2001's events does NOT mean that the evidence is airtight and the case is closed. In fact, a true patriot with healthy skepticism would submit that the exact opposite conclusion is implicated.
liquified viscera | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 2:23 pm | #

Sheesh, I've had it with this. I'm afraid I'll be skipping the comment section from now on as well, Glenn.
tsisageya | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 2:23 pm | #

For myself, since my sight's slightly weak, the best part of how the comments were posted previously is that I could kick up the text size with firefox

It's a slight inconvenience, and certainly not enough to give up reading and posting replies

There's something about W's unwillingness to pull the plug on Israel's campaign against civilians that hasn't been brought up yet

The longer W grants Israel free reign, the greater the chances that events will spin out of W's ability to directly control them to any meaningful extent

With a President as politically weakened at both home and abroad as W is currently, now would seem like a logical time for various anti-Bush entities abroad to start playing their cards now

That factor includes the increasingly warming ties between the other two true superpowers on the World Stage, China & Russia

China & Russia, if they're smart, would start cutting their own deals with OPEC and other countries not enamored with the US leadership at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, countries like Iran, India and Venezuela

Which is EXACTLY what's happening right now

And to make things worse for the Administration's middle east policy would be China offering troops to patrol that buffer zone Israel wants so badly in Lebanon-China's already got the leverage for almost any proposal they make to be seriously considered, seeing as how one of the 4 UN peacekeepers killed by Israel was from China

The reason-besides being able to instantly inflict the same nuclear ruin on the US as W can with everyone else, a reality which will always trump the radical neocons blood-fueled fantasies of unchallenged world domination-China & Russia are rising powers is because of W's disastrous foreign policy decisions, policies which have now left the US unable to logically or realistically use large numbers of US troops outside of Iraq or the Korean DMZ

This inability to brandish any realistic military options is worse than Saber rattling, it's empty scabbard rattling

The lack of troops in this respect is one reason the US will NOT be attacking Syria and Iran, the numbers just aren't there, and seeing as how any US attack would have to involve large numbers of ground forces to invade and occupy Iran & Syria, the only way to realistically get enough numbers is through reinstating the draft


The polls asking if the US public supports invasions and occupations of Iran and Syria will just further bear out how tired people are of the state of perpetual warfare, death, destruction and corrupt cronyism-in the form of War Profiteering via no-bid, no-oversight contracts for Halliburton-associated with the current Administration

That lack of popular US support for further large scale military action may be one reason Israel's decided not to forward such a force itself regarding a large-scale invasion of Lebanon. The other being that Israel knows it can't weaken Hezbollah anywhere near as badly as the IDF's rhetoric had promised


And that may be the one bit of good news in terms of negating any possible US invasion of Iran and Syria

If Israel had gone ahead with a large scale ground force in Lebanon, it would have given the radical neocons the presumed cover to claim the US doing the same with Iran and Syria could be more easily accomplished

Since apparently the Israelis are unwilling to buy into the US radical neocon fantasy of unchallenged US domination, that's just another logical undercutting the neocon radicals didn't need now, not at a time when their most fervent of interventionist doctrines have been shown up as the shams & delusions they always were

The overarching lesson for Israel, Hezbollah & Hamas is an easy one to learn, but much harder to effectively practice when all sides in a conflict have their souls stained with innocent blood

Israel, Hamas & Hezbollah will NEVER kill their problems away permanently

Good Luck with the new comments formatting, although with as well done as your posts are, you'll have no lack of readers & replies
KingCranky | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 2:25 pm | #

KingCranky -- Great post. However, I disagree with this observation:

"Since apparently the Israelis are unwilling to buy into the US radical neocon fantasy of unchallenged US domination...."

I see nothing to warrant such an appearance. Your statement presumes that the US NeoCon / PNAC agenda is something other than what is happening. I think that close study of the PNAC position papers on the Middle East and Israeli conflicts would show your presumption to be a bit off-base.
liquified viscera | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 2:29 pm | #

liquefied viscera; "Social Science" is an oxymoron. Sociology is not a science. It is a predictive bit of pabulum. You cannot scientifically measure human whimsy.

Granted your last point, the other points need further clarification. I think it's true that many of our actions occur in an environment where many of us are products of socialization and programmed stimulus/response.

Sociological studies do not pretend to present absolute predictability but only probability. If many humas are determined socially and culturally in the way that many scoiologists assume, then many human actions are predictable on a probabilistic scale--something even that Aristotle would admit.

The idea that sociology is not science seems somewhat strained and based on a definition that uses the hard sciences as criterion. Yet, granted that human behavior is more dynamically variable than the behavior of natural phenomena, it still seems somewhat odd to say that sociology--when seen within these parameters--is not a science.
cynic librarian | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 2:30 pm | #

Glenn, I just saw that you'll be contributing to War Room on Salon. Heartfelt congratulations! As has been said, quality will out.
William Timberman | 07.30.06 - 2:33 pm | #

cynic librarian - You seem to define science loosely. To me, the hard sciences are "science". Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry, Biology. The rest are perhaps worthy of study, but they are not science.

I submit that like economics, sociology uses scientific tools in a halfhearted attempt to make the guesswork seem valid.

The terminal point that I made is the essence of my argument -- science cannot predict human whimsy. To say that people behave in a "determined" fashion is, quite simply, to deny the role of free will.

Now, one may contend that many humans behave as do sheep, and follow cultural and political fads and fashions and trends, but I think that you seriously downplay the role of individual free will and choice when one makes that argument.
liquified viscera | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 2:35 pm | #

The British sent a brigade out to seize two arms caches, which they did successfully, easily defeating the insurgents and removing the weapons. On the way back to their base, however, they were repeatedly ambushed with their officer corp especially targeted. Their response: they were dealing with terrorists.

Of course, that was over 230 years ago, and the locale was Lexington and Concord, MA.

Moral? Context is everything.

Using the rational offered by Hinderaker, the British would be excused for killing all families between Boston and Concord.

It's not the framing, it's the context - and there's a world of difference between the two.
RichNH | 07.30.06 - 2:39 pm | #

fred: I don't want whoever did 9/11 dead. If possible, I want them tried in court by our laws and if/when they're found guilty, I want the appropriate punishment we as a society deem justifiable.

Excellent points. The US had immense sympathy around the world, not to mention in the Mideast, after 911. Instead of bombing Afghanistan back to the stone age and invading Iraq, it could have used that sympathy to act in a conciliatory and enlightened way to confront creatively whatever resentment, envy, or anger resides in the Mideast toward America. In this way, the US would have changed the game completely and turned the tables on al-Qaeda and budding jihadists.

There's a story told that when Muhammad triumphantly took Mecca after the Meccans had killed and tried to destroy Muhammad's budding community, he did not seek revenge and kill all Mecca's inhabitants, as was his right by the rules of tribal warfare and as the Meccans expected him to do.

I just saw Kingdom of Heaven last night. After his own sister was raped and killed bu Crusader Knights Templar, Saladin laid siege to Jerusalem which was under occupation by the Crusaders. Saladin's siege brought down the walls and his army stood poised to wreak vengeance. Saladin had the right to massacre all the crusaders and their families. Instead, he gave them safe passage out of the city to safe haven.

America squandered its spiritual and moral legitimacy the day it decided on revenge for 911 and not some way of forgiveness and peace-making effort.
cynic librarian | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 2:44 pm | #

RichNH: It's not the framing, it's the context - and there's a world of difference between the two.

Well said, Rich. Abstract concepts can be useful in describing our crazy-making human foibles, but in the end, we must stand on the ground ourselves, and smell the gunpowder and the blood, or we fall prey to the sin of pride.
William Timberman | 07.30.06 - 2:46 pm | #

"Since apparently the Israelis are unwilling to buy into the US radical neocon fantasy of unchallenged US domination...."

I see nothing to warrant such an appearance. Your statement presumes that the US NeoCon / PNAC agenda is something other than what is happening. I think that close study of the PNAC position papers on the Middle East and Israeli conflicts would show your presumption to be a bit off-base.
liquified viscera | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 2:29 pm | #

First off, thank you for the reply

The reason for that statement was that Israel refusing to use a large-scale ground force to weaken Hezbollah seems to go directly against what the neocons were pushing for, and since the catastrophic success Iraq has become is not a badge of honor the Administration can easily disappear from all collective memories, it seems that Israel's refusal in this respect puts a big kink in the neocons agenda to invade & occupy Iran and Syria

Even the Brits wouldn't go along with this military strategy, and W is NOT the type who likes to take political heat all by his lonesome, he's the quickest "cutter & runner" we've had in terms of backing down from US popular opposition-Notably on the Terri Schiavo fiasco and the Ports Deal earlier this year.

Basically, I see no cards W can play that would rally the public to his side again, on just about any issue.

I think it's entirely possible that any "October Surprise" would backfire, and the closer one occurs to election day in November, the more likely will be the perception that it was staged by the Administration in a desperate attemtp to make sure the Congress and/or Senate remain in GOP hands

We saw this public outrage at the Govt in Spain immediately after the Madrid Train Station bombings last year, the people bounced their Executive Branch right out of power not long after

Since I'm not that familiar with the PNAC agenda, how would the neocons use this refusal by Israel to invade and occupy-with large scale ground forces-a buffer zone in Lebanon to actually further their claim for invading and occupying Iran and Syria, and just where the PNAC thinks the US will find the troop numbers necessary to do so?

Again, thank you for the reply, feedback is always appreciated
KingCranky | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 2:51 pm | #

Robert1014 says:

Well, I'm just showing that, for those who prefer to see the poster's name ABOVE the comment, it's possible...as long as each poster is willing to take a moment to type his or her name at the beginning of each post.
Robert1014 | 07.30.06 - 3:00 pm | #

The use of the term, "terrorist," is part of a larger script narrative, constructed by our neocon government, to 1. create an environment of permanent crisis and perpetual war; and 2. keep the governing class in power with discretion to do whatever it wishes (in the name of course of "fighting terrorism"). Israel has merely hitched its wagon to this propaganda in order to settle old scores with its Hezbollah friends.

One can accept and buy into this script narrative, written by others, for their own purposes, or one can think for oneself (believe you own lying eyes, which may be "treason" these days).

There is no such thing as a war on a tactic ("terrorism"), a tactic used by the IDF and the US as expedient, and everyone else who enters upon armed conflict. This "war on a tactic" is all a sham to construct a make-believe Manichean world in which everyone must choose sides, or risk being accused of "being soft of terrorism."

The official script narrative creates a mob mentality in which thinking or reasonable people have no place. It ignores facts, reasonable distinctions, complexities of history, and open and obvious failures. It also butchers and tortures language. Hence, the fluid and manipulative use of the term "terrorism."
MD | 07.30.06 - 3:11 pm | #

To all you Lakoff haters: Lakoff is trying to use linguist theories to analyze and illuminate political discourse. Some people get it and others don’t and for those I’m sorry if it comes off as too theoretical.

Here is a brief summary of the linguistics.

Most people think that people conceive of things the same way and that language has literal meaning – statements are either true or false and people who say false things are lying.

People who studied language long knew that there were non literal elements such as metaphor. For statements using metaphor rather than ask about truth it is better to ask how poetic, illuminating, or appropriate the metaphor is. Thus phrases like “war on drugs”, “war on cancer” and “war on terror” are metaphorical wars and are promoted by people who have a particular agenda for dealing with the underlying problem. In this sort of middle view there is still a distinction between figurative and literal language.

A modern trend is to hold that there is no literal language – metaphors and frames make up all of language and how people conceive of things, though there are some basic elements that are strongly grounded in reality. Rather than speak of truth one asks whether statements are consistent within a system of belief or how the metaphors are grounded in reality. Basically frames and metaphor have moved from the periphery of language and thought to the center.

In this view it is harder to say if someone is making false statements or lying. Something that is obviously false in your belief system can be obviously true in somebody else’s system.

The vast majority of people do not realize that there can be multiple ways to conceive of things – they hold their world view to be correct and others to be stupid or wrong. People who are aware of framing issues (even unconsciously) know the best way to oppose some position is to show the position is incoherent in the opponents world view.

People who know language is not inherently literal and fixed can try to craft it with framing and enlarging or reducing meanings to best convey their position. Sometimes they may be duplicitous, but other times they are expressing their true world view.

How an issue is framed is important because it in some ways controls thought about the issue. There are different implied policies that depend on whether the US is in Iraq as: a) a war against terrorists, b) an occupation with police action against resistance, c) an occupation with police action to suppress civil war.

“War on Terrorism” is neo-con frame that has consequential actions. Please do not use this term because just using it supports the neo-con mindset.
MonkeyBoy | 07.30.06 - 3:11 pm | #

"If Hezbollah emerges from this moment still strong, it will tower like a giant over the Lebanese government. Extremist groups around the world will be swamped with recruits. Iran’s prestige will surge."

One more doofus joins the ranks of the "Kill Them All" faction.

Old policy:

They kill us, we kill them, they kill us, we kill them.

New Policy:

Kill them all before they can kill any of us.

Nice to know everyone has taken their thinking caps off for this latest crisis in the Middle East.
George | 07.30.06 - 3:28 pm | #

Question: is there any way to enlarge the teeny-tiny comment type? My eyes can't handle it, and I may have to give up reading the comments. Techs, please advise.
Lizzy L | 07.30.06 - 3:28 pm | #

Addendum to my remarks on Saladin and Muhammad:

These were great-souled men with grand and noble visons. What we have running our country are small-souled men with grand and ignoble visions.
cynic librarian | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 3:30 pm | #

William Timberman: Fiat voluntas tua.


A fortiori:

Dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris.

All the best,
Tom Doyle | 07.30.06 - 3:31 pm | #

viscera commented:

"Just because Dubya Bush and Dick Cheney and Donnie Rumsfeld claim that bin Laden, al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein are responsible for 9/11/2001's events does NOT mean that the evidence is airtight and the case is closed. In fact, a true patriot with healthy skepticism would submit that the exact opposite conclusion is implicated."

Bush has specifically admitted Saddam was not responsible for 9-11 (well after the 9-11 Commission concluded the same). Who knows what Cheney might say? Rusmsfeld no longer answers questions; he plays with the meanings of words to entertain and insult the pigeons in the Pentagon press corps. As for OBL, he has never been indicted for 9-11; he was, however, indicted for the African Embassy bombings. The CIA shut down its "find Osama" bureau, and I believe the FBI removed OBL from its most wanted list.

The US has zero interest in capturing or killing Osama. The Bush administration needs him to prop up its script narrative of endless war and endless threat.
MD | 07.30.06 - 3:32 pm | #

is there any way to enlarge the teeny-tiny comment type?

In Firefox hitting ctrl_+ will enlarge it. (i.e. hold the ctrl and shift keys, then press the =/+ key).
MonkeyBoy | 07.30.06 - 3:32 pm | #

is there any way to enlarge the teeny-tiny comment type?

In Firefox hitting ctrl_+ will enlarge it. (i.e. hold the ctrl and shift keys, then press the =/+ key).
MonkeyBoy | 07.30.06 - 3:32 pm | #


THANK YOU!!!!

Much Better Now

:+: :+: :+:
KingCranky | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 3:36 pm | #

Monkey boy said:

"The vast majority of people do not realize that there can be multiple ways to conceive of things – they hold their world view to be correct and others to be stupid or wrong. People who are aware of framing issues (even unconsciously) know the best way to oppose some position is to show the position is incoherent in the opponents world view."

The neocons are quite aware of so-called framing issues, and they explicitly endorse the use of lies and propaganda to control the "frame" and the agenda. When neocons speak, they have an exoteric purpose and an esoteric purpose. They never mean what they say. In street terms, they are congenital liars, and moreover are proud of it. The celebrate the use of lies to create an environment, climate, and atmosphere that is congenial to their agenda.
MD | 07.30.06 - 3:39 pm | #

Just because Dubya Bush and Dick Cheney and Donnie Rumsfeld claim that bin Laden, al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein are responsible for 9/11/2001's events does NOT mean that the evidence is airtight and the case is closed. In fact, a true patriot with healthy skepticism would submit that the exact opposite conclusion is implicated.

Thank you so much. In any discussion about the meaning of terrorism and the evolution of how it's come to be used as a tool to pursue any objective, I've been biting my tongue for months regarding this point. I suggest that for anyone who views our present situation with concern, this issue is fundamental.

I have remained stunned, particularly given how subsequent events have unfolded, that so many, including most of the thoughtful, intelligent people who post here just give the junta their 9/11 narrative without any question.

Doesn't anyone remember that day? The attack came as a complete and total surprise...no one could possibly have predicted, much less stopped it. Yet, within hours, we knew exactly who the perpetrator was and had tried, convicted and sentenced him. And that story has stood as gospel from that moment forward, with anyone daring to dispute it, being shouted down by all sides as a lunatic.

In all the talk about the need for evidence and a fair trial for people like Jose Padilla, there's virtually no talk about the need for the exact same thing for Osama bin Laden. The same people who gnash their teeth about Padilla, can, in the next breath, easily condemn bin Laden and defend any attempt to achieve his extermination.

In my view, the call for the death of anyone absent a minimum of due process,is bad enough. But in this particular case, the entire thread for this abomination begins with this person and this event. And to not only ignore it, but to blindly accept it, implicates everyone who refuses to give it a second look.
willbhuman | 07.30.06 - 3:39 pm | #

Thanks, Monkeyboy, it worked!
Lizzy L | 07.30.06 - 3:39 pm | #

Tom Doyle: nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris

Yes, that was my intention. Sicut erat in principia....

Thank you
William Timberman | 07.30.06 - 3:40 pm | #

Robert1014 says:

"Is there any way to enlarge the teeny-tiny comment type?

In Firefox hitting ctrl_+ will enlarge it. (i.e. hold the ctrl and shift keys, then press the =/+ key).
MonkeyBoy | 07.30.06 - 3:32 pm | #"

It works in Camino, as well, (although, on Mac, substitute the Command key for the Control Key.
Robert1014 | 07.30.06 - 3:44 pm | #

WOW.

- The elimination of all previous comments.

- Actually stepping down from the "functionality" of blogger.

All in the mistaken belief that deleting posts and banning users will be easier with Haloscan. Bold statement of priorities combined with technological ignorance.

Pure comedy.

I would say start the countdown, but I think we are already at two.

But I had to install this because, among other problems, Blogger offers no way to ban anyone, so people who want to disrupt can keep leaving comments and all you can do is delete them one-by-one, but you have no way to prevent them from commenting. That was become annoying, time-consuming and impractical. With this program, you can just ban them once and they can't comment anymore.

Glenn, you really need to to have someone explain to you how the internet works. I can understand why you would want to believe this is true, but wishing don't make it so.
thelastnamechosen | 07.30.06 - 3:45 pm | #

Rhetoric includes not only knowing how to persuade but also knowing what to persuade about. As Aristotle pointed out long ago, every event or action in this world could be otherwise than it is. There are no givens, except the limitations of time and space.

In this regard, the current "war" on terror was not a foregone conclusion nor was it the only response possible at the time--nor is it now. That US politicians responded in the way they did says more about their own objectives and characters than it does about the "necessary" course of events.

By allowing Bush and the neocons to dictate the terms in which the US response to 911 would be carried out, US opposition politicians accepted not only the rhetoric but also the actions that fall out from that rhetoric. The opposition politicians accepted the "necessity" of the response; therefore they accepted the rhetorical and the practical means for making the rhetoric a reality.

Until the very terms of what is "necessary" in regards to this "war" are engaged, all talk about frames and who is or is not a terrorist are moot. I doubt that any reframing or whatever else you want to call "how we decide to stop those who hate us so much that they want to kill us" will work until there's a public debate on what it as a nation we want to be—empire or democratic facilitator.

That last job would not include imposing democracy on nations by violence—economic, social, or militarily—but through various enlightenment projects and educational programs that appeal to an over-arching sense of humanity. Obviously, labeling people as terrorist and attempting to put them beyond the bounds of human consideration defeats that effort from the start.
cynic librarian | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 4:06 pm | #

For the purists: in principio et nunc, et semper.....

I'm old, and my Latin grows cold. I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Mea culpa.
William Timberman | 07.30.06 - 4:12 pm | #

Glenn, you really need to to have someone explain to you how the internet works. I can understand why you would want to believe this is true, but wishing don't make it so.
thelastnamechosen

I already did that.

While it is true that many IT professionals are very often wingnuts, most of the dingbats that clutter up comment sections aren't even "script kiddies". They are not l33t hax0rz, either. This will work fine for Glenn for now.
Ted Stevens | 07.30.06 - 4:12 pm | #

cynic librarian: Obviously, labeling people as terrorist and attempting to put them beyond the bounds of human consideration defeats that effort from the start.

Wisdom from another librarian -- it's to be expected, given the gentle nature of the profession, but still gratifying. Perhaps we'd all be better off in a bunker somewhere, copying the great works by candlelight against the day when civilization is possible once again. It's not that we don't trust Google, you understand, but scriptoria, and Ray Bradbury, for that matter, are dearer to our hearts.
William Timberman | 07.30.06 - 4:20 pm | #

Paul & Liq:

Both of you, please give it a rest . . . and focus!

Lakoff is not the end all be all . . . but "framing" or whatever ever you want to call it "packaging" "making it palatable" . . . we are trying to move highly entrenched people from short term habits . . . in other words . . .we need to be in problem solving mode not endless yammering mode, mental masturbation indeed . . .

to suggest that language isn't a part of what is helping to keeping conservative ideology as popular as it is. we need a counter narrative . . . because your moniker viscera . . . you understand that "getting them in the gut" counts for something . . . so instead of criticizing engage and create your own narrative . . .

I grow weary of all the intellectual posturing . . . we aren't willing to focus on how to unravel to create solutions . . .

We really must engage now and seek and help create the outcomes we want to see in the world and not just tear down and denigrate those that others propose.

Glen . . . you totally rock . . . thanks for sharing your words . wisdom . intellect . insight . time and your singular talent.
m! | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 4:20 pm | #

Who are the terrorists?

Israel has bombed the milk factory in Beirut, the grain silos in Tripoli, hospitals, all the bridges in the country, the highways leading in and out of Lebanon, as well those leading in and out of the villages they are bombing. Israel has dropped leaflets on villages in the south telling them to evacuate, then they bomb the vehicles people are using to flee the villages.
nuf said | 07.30.06 - 4:21 pm | #

MonkeyBoy @ 3:11 pm: "The vast majority of people do not realize that there can be multiple ways to conceive of things – "

I doubt that that really is true. Many people, perhaps even a majority in the world, are at least bi-lingual. All of them know this at some level. Perhaps your statement is true of "a vast majority" of Americans?
nbm | 07.30.06 - 4:22 pm | #

MonkeyBoy @ 3:11 pm: "The vast majority of people do not realize that there can be multiple ways to conceive of things – "

I doubt that that really is true. Many people, perhaps even a majority in the world, are at least bi-lingual. All of them know this at some level. Perhaps your statement is true of "a vast majority" of Americans?
nbm | 07.30.06 - 4:22 pm | #

Ooops, sorry. I'll try not to do that again.
nbm | 07.30.06 - 4:29 pm | #

cynic librarian says: Until the very terms of what is "necessary" in regards to this "war" are engaged, all talk about frames and who is or is not a terrorist are moot. I doubt that any reframing or whatever else you want to call "how we decide to stop those who hate us so much that they want to kill us" will work until there's a public debate on what it as a nation we want to be—empire or democratic facilitator.

Wrong, it is important to define what terrorism and war means as a means to question the necessity of the action, because necessity is often dictated by frames.

You yourself blindly accept one neocon frame: "how we decide to stop those who hate us so much that they want to kill us".

Bush has repeatedly explained the 9/11 attacks as "they hate freedom and apple pie".

In looking at statements from bin Ladin, he put forth two objectives: 1) remove the sacrilegious US military presence from Saudi Arabia, 2) involve the US in a financially ruinous war in the Mid East. Both of which have been achieved.

If the 9/11 attacks were just because Al Queda hated the US, surely there would have been follow-ups – US security is not all that good against determined individuals. But by bin Ladin’s objectives there is no need for further attacks. Maybe there will be if the US pulls out of Iraq.
MonkeyBoy | 07.30.06 - 4:33 pm | #

librarian said:

"Until the very terms of what is "necessary" in regards to this "war" are engaged, all talk about frames and who is or is not a terrorist are moot. I doubt that any reframing or whatever else you want to call "how we decide to stop those who hate us so much that they want to kill us" will work until there's a public debate on what it as a nation we want to be—empire or democratic facilitator."

The neocons understand this, so they "frame" or create an environment in which "what is necessary" is self-evident (at least so long as you're a self-respecting American). We do have the "right the defend ourselves" and "protect the American people," don't we? Especially against "evil doers" who "hate freedom" and who combined against our "democracy" in an "axis of evil."

Therefore, there is no need for a debate or discussion over "what is necessary." If we are under existential threat, and in a state of permanent crisis, or perhaps involved in "WWIII," literally everything is "necessary." Presto!

This is an old trick. Hitler and Goebbels used it in Germany. Persuade the people, by simple, direct rhetoric (what Hitler called the "Big Lie") that everything dear to them is being attacked and is at risk, then assure them you're there to defend them and save them, and then exercise the ensuing blank check to pursue your own agenda (which is never mentioned, much less debated).

The people must be kept aroused. A state of crisis must be maintained at all times. A posture of command and control must be assumed by the "leaders." Perhaps the great leader will take on a new moniker: how about "Commander in Chief"? The imminent threat must be repeated again and again. The goodness of the American people and their "dream" must be re-affirmed and deified. The enemy must be demonized and de-humanized, while at the same time elevated to new heights of evil, cunning, intelligence, and super-human power. War must be made a way of life, indeed the highest and best way of life. Those who question these assumptions must be ostracized, marginalized, slandered, and destroyed. Everything is at stake; everything must be done. Blah, blah, blah.
MD | 07.30.06 - 4:40 pm | #

I give you a future (30 years) Republican president of the United States.
Ted Stevens | 07.30.06 - 4:41 pm | #

And while I'm on a Latin kick, it does seem odd to me that a furor teutonicus should afflict so many good Jewish boys in this country whose grandfathers ought surely to have taught them better. I mean, of course, the Wolfowitzes, the Podhoretzes and the Perles, who are by no means alone in their delusions, but who must have had better opportunities as young people to understand the tragedies now unfolding before us.

My own father, a protestant second lieutenant from rural Tennessee, one of those soldiers marched through Dachau by order of the Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Forces, so that we would never forget, taught me better than that.
William Timberman | 07.30.06 - 4:46 pm | #

And while I'm on a Latin kick, it does seem odd to me that a furor teutonicus should afflict so many good Jewish boys in this country whose grandfathers ought surely to have taught them better. I mean, of course, the Wolfowitzes, the Podhoretzes and the Perles, who are by no means alone in their delusions, but who must have had better opportunities as young people to understand the tragedies now unfolding before us.

My own father, a protestant second lieutenant from rural Tennessee, one of those soldiers marched through Dachau by order of the Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Forces, so that we would never forget, taught me better than that.
William Timberman | 07.30.06 - 4:46 pm | #

I didn't do anything to cause a dupicate post, I swear. What's happening>
William Timberman | 07.30.06 - 4:53 pm | #

Glenn,

Regarding framing, that's pretty much what I remembered, which is in line, I think, with how I went on to respond. There seemed to be an implication of a stronger disagreement, which I assumed I had somehow missed. Thanks for the clarification.

My reading of Lakoff is that he very much was talking about conceptual framing as well as semantic, but he obviously could have made it clearer if others, such as yourself, came away with the opposite impression.

As for Haloscan... I agree it's unforutnate that it had to be done, but in light of the reason, I don't know how it can be characterized as a "mistake" - let alone my biggest one yet.

Well, I guess that reflects on my view of your substantive work, now doesn't it?

I understand your motivations, but for the users' sake--and easy access to all the earlier comments--it seems like a steep price to pay. Not being an expert in the alternatives, I will now STFU.
Paul Rosenberg | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 5:20 pm | #

Glenn:

Terrorism is the murder of non combatants to sow terror.

Therefore, Hizbollah's killing of Israeli combatants and the Baathist / al Qaeda killing of our soldiers in Iraq is not terrorism.

However, Hizbollah's rocketing of Israeli cities and the Baathist / al Qaeda mass murder of civilian in Iraq is terrorism.

When Mr. Bush and others call Hizbollah, the Baathists and al Qaeda terrorists, he is completely correct.

It is the press, which calls these mass murdering groups "militants, " which is misleading its consumers.

This semantic deceit lays at the heart of virtually every Bush administration abuse and every warmongers' crazed dreams. Torture against allegedly suspected "terrorists" is fine because "terrorists don't deserve rights."

I won't even dignify with an response your repeated lie that our troops are torturing anyone as a matter of policy. It is a slander, pure and simple.

However, as you well know, the rights accorded enemy combatants under the Geneva Conventions are determined by whether they meet the definition of legal combatants under those Conventions.

Terrorists committing war crimes obviously do not meet those requirements and are illegal combatants outside of the Geneva Conventions.

However, enemy combatants who do not practice terrorism, but who violate other laws of war and fight as civilians against our troops are also illegal combatants outside of the Geneva Conventions.

Somehow, though, this "kill-the-terrorists" mandate is endlessly expanded and then used to justify the Israeli bombing of all of Lebanon, presumably because all of the people who are dying there are "terrorists," even the Lebanese civilians.

Hizbollah is fighting amongst civilians which they have blocked from fleeing. Indeed, the Canadians have reported that Hizbollah was using the UN position as cover before the Israelis hit it with artillery fire.

The moral opprobrium for the dead civilians and UN personnel is entirely Hizbollah's in those cases.

Time to wake up. The enemy is using our regard for civilians as a shield and then as a propaganda sword against us.

However, instead of condemning the terrorists using these tactics, you condemn the US and Israel.

Typical.
Bart | 07.30.06 - 5:30 pm | #

And since I like to have the last word on anything having to do with feminism and/or the Holy Book just before making my grand, dramatic exit, here is the original meaning of the word. Unless you count whatever the sign-language is for NO:

rape
Main Entry: 2rape
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): raped; rap·ing
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin rapere
1 a archaic : to seize and take away by force b : DESPOIL
2 : to commit rape on
tsisageya | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 5:34 pm | #

liquified viscera:

Paul,

You act as though this "framing" is something new. Are you paid royalties for your use of the term?

Um, no, as I referenced, I'm not only aware that it's been part of the social science literature for decades (I read Goffman's Frame Analysis the year it came out, in 1974, and Gestalt psychology dates back a good generation or two before that), but I used that fact to question your cavalier attitude.

I suggest you try to rethink the obfuscatory purpose of the phrase "framing" -- argument is my stock in trade, I've been a lawyer for over 17 years and a thinker and rhetorician for even longer than that.

Well, that explains everything.

(No offense, Glenn.)

And elsewhere:

1) "Social Science" is an oxymoron. Sociology is not a science. It is a predictive bit of pabulum. You cannot scientifically measure human whimsy.

And:

cynic librarian - You seem to define science loosely. To me, the hard sciences are "science". Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry, Biology. The rest are perhaps worthy of study, but they are not science.

To quote is to refute.
Paul Rosenberg | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 5:42 pm | #

Terrorism is the murder of non combatants to sow terror.

So, then, you disagree with David Brooks - Hezbollah's attacks on Israeli soliders are NOT terrorism, right?

And, your definition would also mean that attacks by Iraqi insurgents on U.S. troops is not terrorism?

And wouldn't your definition also mean that ally bombardment on German and Japanese civilians during WW2 was terrorism?

As is Israeli bombardment on the Lebanese civilian population?

Your definition of "terrorism" seems to endorse a whole slew of what many of your political comrades would consider to be morally suspect propositions of false equivalency.
Glenn Greenwald | 07.30.06 - 5:46 pm | #

Paul Rosenberg says: I read Goffman's Frame Analysis the year it came out, in 1974,

Lakoff's notion of frames has very little to do with Goffman. It is more directly descendant from Minsky's 1974 A Framework for Representing Knowledge.
MonkeyBoy | 07.30.06 - 5:50 pm | #

Monkeyboy,

While I appreciate your attempt to explain Lakoff's work to these folks, taking on such a huge project in such a limited space inevitably leads to overgeneralizations, such as when you wrote:

The vast majority of people do not realize that there can be multiple ways to conceive of things – they hold their world view to be correct and others to be stupid or wrong.

This is actually not the case, nor does Lakoff claim it is. In fact, he explicitly states the opposite--that most folks have both liberal and conservative frameworks in their heads and that the primary function of persuasive political rhetoric is to activate the preferred frame. Unless that is done, the information that fits within that frame will not be assimilated.

So, the argument is best restated as saying that we tend to be largely unaware of how much we simply assume a certain point of view, and fail to consider others. Even when we are right (about global warming, say), the failure to understand where others are coming from impairs our ability to communicate with them, and discover how to present new information so that they can assimilate it.
Paul Rosenberg | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 5:53 pm | #

to help out: I'm Anonymous

Just a clarification about "Independence Day" -- When your purpose is simply to kill, you're not a terrorist, you are a murderer (or a soldier). You may be noble, courageous, pernicious, or despicable (according to Ambrose Bierce) -- but that's another side of the issue.

My experience is that it's often harder to change people's mind than (given modern "technological advancement") to kill them. Hence the attraction of terrorism. Kill some, change the minds of the rest (hopefully.) Think of it as "making a strong case" for your argument.

As far as current events: dropping bombs all over the place with too little accuracy is at best sloppy soldiering. And if it's done with the intent of making civilians die in order to coerce the opposition -- it's terrorism, plain as day.

Is terrorism evil? Automatically? Only if you grant the premise that people, everywhere (not just you) have a right to live without fear.

Do they? It seems to me that many people do not feel that the Iraqi people, or the Lebanese, or the Syrians, or ... have a right to live without fear.

Seems to me the neocons are happy having their enemies living in fear. That would include, to date, just about everyone, including a lot of Democrats. In my mind, the way they treated Tom Daschle was calculated to send a message to others (in fact, they explicitly said so at the time.) Terrorism.

And it worked -- for a while. They sure frightened a lot of people.

As for me, I don't want people to live in fear of having our weapons or soldiers land on their necks without severe provocation. I'd even go so far as to endorse a "don't attack first" policy. Guess that makes me a paleo-something-or-other.

Also, I would suggest that, if we all came to realize that the purpose of the "terrorists" use of "terrorism" is not to kill us but to make us do what they want, we might consider that it's better to just let them try, strike back at them when we can (proportionately) and meanwhile just live without fear. Yes, I could just as well have posted under the name of Pollyanna.
anonymous | 07.30.06 - 5:54 pm | #

Paul Rosenberg says: This [The vast majority of people do not realize that there can be multiple ways to conceive of things] is actually not the case, …. In fact, he [Lakoff] explicitly states the opposite--that most folks have both liberal and conservative frameworks in their heads and that the primary function of persuasive political rhetoric is to activate the preferred frame.

My key word was realize. Yes people can have conflicting framesets and patch their worldview together from them but most people do not consciously realize that there multiple ways to conceive of things. They just adopt or change to a worldview that appears correct to them.

A good example of this is the notion of morality among the religious. Many, particularly fundamentalists and apparently GWB, hold that morality comes from God. They cannot conceive of morality apart from religion and if you try to bring it up they can’t discuss the possibility other than how wrong it is.
MonkeyBoy | 07.30.06 - 6:25 pm | #

Glenn:

Bart: Terrorism is the murder of non combatants to sow terror.

So, then, you disagree with David Brooks - Hezbollah's attacks on Israeli soliders are NOT terrorism, right?

Yes. Brooks is mistakenly coflating anything done by a terrorist group as terrorism.

And, your definition would also mean that attacks by Iraqi insurgents on U.S. troops is not terrorism?

Yes. I stated that in my post.

And wouldn't your definition also mean that ally bombardment on German and Japanese civilians during WW2 was terrorism?

Except maybe for Dresden, no. So long as you are aiming your attack on military targets including economic production and civilians get in the way, it is not terrorism. Back in WWII, bombing was a very blunt instrument.

As is Israeli bombardment on the Lebanese civilian population?

Not hardly. Show me a single incidence of Israel targeting civilians or the UN as opposed to targeting Hizbollah hiding amongst civilians or the UN. It is a war crime to use civilians as shields.

Your definition of "terrorism" seems to endorse a whole slew of what many of your political comrades would consider to be morally suspect propositions of false equivalency.

You are the one pigeon holing people. I never said I shared all of the foreign policy opinions of most of the people you are attacking.
Bart | 07.30.06 - 6:56 pm | #

As I've always said, most people hate change. I read about half of the comments on this thread this morning and scanned a few this evening. FWIW, popup blocker can be disabled on a per use basis by using the ctrl key while clicking.

I'm gonna leave my haloscan name in place, I for this comment, but for anyone who cares, I am dorita. (clearing your cache clears haloscan fwiw)

Glenn, if moving your previous comments is just a matter of time consuming data entry, I volunteer. Just this past Friday, looked something up in the comments of one of your threads. I would hate to forever lose that resource. I'll send you an email from work tomorrow.

Lastly, on topic I hope, I feel a bit of relief having heard that Israel has agreed to stop the air strikes. I've been very sad and doubtful about the chances for peace, more so this morning than at any time in the past couple of weeks. Perhaps I am naive, but I think most people can figure out the difference between terrorists, insurgents, revolutionaries etc. What one is called during the fight changes after the fight, for the most part.

dorita
fivor | 07.30.06 - 7:03 pm | #

nick said:

{I miss the old format, too. but I wouldn't want to have to be the one to decide who stays and goes on a minute to minute basis. So do what you gotta do, Glenn.}

I could be off on some details here, and stand willing to be corrected: I think that the Apartheid government of South Africa was successful for years in obtaining at least tacit US support during the Cold War because they defined, legally (as in, by statute), anyone opposed to the aparthied government as a "communist." So that, when there were foreign policy decisions to be made, the Apartheid government could be considered staunchly "anti-communist."

(I know that the ANC and many of the other indigenous political factions did and do, in fact, embrace many communist ideas. But I am talking about something different - the framing of that political discussion in such a way as to garner political support for an otherwise reprehensible cause.)

Also - the full Jimmy Carter quote:

Because I'm just human and I'm tempted and Christ set some almost impossible standards for us. The Bible says, "Thou shalt not commit adultery." Christ said, I tell you that anyone who looks on a woman with lust has in his heart already committed adultery. I've looked on a lot of women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times.... This is something that God recognizes, that I will do and have done, and God forgives me for it. But that doesn't mean that I condemn someone who not only looks on a woman with lust but who leaves his wife and shacks up with somebody out of wedlock. Christ says, don't consider yourself better than someone else because one guy screws a whole bunch of women while the other guy is loyal to his wife. The guy who's loyal to his wife ought not to be condescending or proud because of the relative degree of sinfulness.

Not to get in a pissing match, but it seemed like this was brought up in relation to someone interpreting all thought as sin in order to persecute everyone as sinners, which is, in fact, exactly the opposite of what Carter meant (not speaking for any of the other people referenced today.) Carter's point, to my eyes and ears, is that no-one, not even (and maybe even especially not) the righteous man, can afford the arrogance and self-righteousness so often associated with throwing labels out at other people.

It is a message of humility, tolerance, and mutual respect for one another within the framework of humanity. We could use more of that today, methinks.
Nick | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 7:17 pm | #

KingCranky -- You're welcome, thanks for yours.

"Since I'm not that familiar with the PNAC agenda, how would the neocons use this refusal by Israel to invade and occupy-with large scale ground forces-a buffer zone in Lebanon to actually further their claim for invading and occupying Iran and Syria, and just where the PNAC thinks the US will find the troop numbers necessary to do so?"

1) The PNAC is in the DoD, White House and the World Bank right now. So the Bush/Cheney Admin and the PNAC are not too distinguishable, practically speaking.

2) I don't mean to say that the very minutest details of Israel's methods are precisely what the PNAC would have happen. I am talking about the larger agenda of the PNAC, which is (a) long-term destabilization in the Middle East (through a "modern Pearl Harbor" scenario); (b) supporting Israeli aggression to maintain Israeli power in the region; and (c) creating and maintaining a strong US force in one of the traditionally feuding countries of Iraq or Iran (they already chose Iraq).

Points (a) and (c) already are well established by the past 6 years of the Bush Presidency. I think on point (b) the PNAC arguably might be losingm, depending on your perspective. But as I see it, regardless of who's winning the recent skirmishes it seems Israel is not losing local power status. I tend to agree with Billmon on this one, see his post today where he says that Israel is losing to Hezbollah if this is taken on a skirmish level, but winning on the point of long-term status in the region.

So you may be correct in saying that the PNAC's agenda isn't exactly what is happening, stepwise. But in the larger scheme of Middle Eastern power status, it is almost identical to what the PNAC folks started documenting as their collective position during Clinton's 2d term.
liquified viscera | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 8:25 pm | #

KingCranky -- part II of the reply, I posted too quickly.

The apparently desired occupation of Iran and Syria may be chest-thumping or it may be an actual design. With a presence in Iraq and a long-term US Military and Halliburton presence there, the PNAC have no real need to have the invasion of Iran or Syria complete. The fact that certain Israeli hawks are calling for destruction of Iran or Syria to me relates more to Hezbollah connection rather than the PNAC agenda.

In my view, Israel is functioning as a US / PNAC puppet while furthering its own nefarious ends -- terror campaign to frighten the Lebanese into rejecting Hezbollah. It's disturbing how the Israelis making the military decisions now are not treating the dying and maimed innocent Lebanese as kills or murders, but rather, "collateral damage necessary to be rid of Hezbollah." Seems to me that puts them in league with such luminaries of human history as Pol Pot, Idi Amin, and Adolf Hitler.
liquified viscera | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 8:30 pm | #

Paul Rosenberg- "To quote is to refute."

Please explain this position.

As an explanation to my reciting my history as a lawyer, that was to show that I am familiar with methods of rhetoric, and I suppose that I should have said that "framing your argument" is not new with Lakoff, it's been done by lawyers in argument since there have been lawyers, it preceded lawyers and is nothing more than a new "label" for saying this: make your best case.

Lakoff says "don't let the other side frame the argument".

I say that this is a canard. It's not about who frames the argument. If the other side says "terrorist" when there are none, then your rebuttal is that "Terrorist" is a red herring because it is incapable of precise definition and therefore an impossible adversary.

Lakoff's argument in "Moral Politics," as I understood it, was that when the other side says "Terrorist" you should choose a different label that is closer to your argument.

As Glenn's several replies above in the early part of this thread said, Lakoff's argument is one of semantics.

If you mean to say that I proved Lakoff's point, I'd like to hear you explain it, rather than play "hit and run" of a rather childish sort. So I'd welcome a reasoned explanation of your "To quote is to refute" statement.
liquified viscera | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 8:35 pm | #

MonkeyBoy said -- "“War on Terrorism” is neo-con frame that has consequential actions. Please do not use this term because just using it supports the neo-con mindset."

At the risk of being blunt, well, NO DUH!

But saying that one shouldn't use that label does NOTHING to refute the dishonesty of the label. That is the problem with Lakoff.

His point in "Moral Politics" could have been made in 10 pages or fewer. The fact that he drones on in several hundred, splitting hairs that already were split before they were split before they were split before they were split before the prior 10 times they were split is tedious, it is boring, it is silly, it is pedantic, and it pretends that the idea of "framing" is novel to Lakoff.
liquified viscera | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 8:39 pm | #

Monkey Boy said -- "A good example of this is the notion of morality among the religious. Many, particularly fundamentalists and apparently GWB, hold that morality comes from God. They cannot conceive of morality apart from religion and if you try to bring it up they can’t discuss the possibility other than how wrong it is."

I hope you're not serious when you assert that Dubya Bush is religious, or is a Christian, or is a Fundamentalist Christian. He is none of these. He is playing a role for the purpose of gaining votes among the imbecilic and quasi-religious segment of the "conservative" end of the political spectrum.

You would be better served to note that the Lakoff position would refute Bush's label as an error in framing.
liquified viscera | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 8:41 pm | #

MD said -- "Therefore, there is no need for a debate or discussion over "what is necessary." If we are under existential threat, and in a state of permanent crisis, or perhaps involved in "WWIII," literally everything is "necessary." Presto!

This is an old trick. Hitler and Goebbels used it in Germany. Persuade the people, by simple, direct rhetoric (what Hitler called the "Big Lie") that everything dear to them is being attacked and is at risk, then assure them you're there to defend them and save them, and then exercise the ensuing blank check to pursue your own agenda (which is never mentioned, much less debated)."

Exactly. Lakoff's argument is not new, Joseph Goebbels was using the idea of "framing" some 70 years ago but he didn't call it "framing" and claim that he'd discovered a novel way of examining politics.

I roll my eyes at the faux-superior attitude of the Lakoff fans. You love the emperor's new suit. I say he's naked.
liquified viscera | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 8:46 pm | #

Like so many, Hinderaker is using the 'lump of terrorism' fallacy: that there is a fixed and finite number of terrorists, and that number can only go down.

And one wonders how that rationale would be adapted to Northern Ireland (cf. IRA sympathisers such as Peter King) or the various Latin American conflicts of the 80s.
pseudonymous in nc | 07.30.06 - 8:54 pm | #

m! said -- "Paul & Liq: Both of you, please give it a rest . . . and focus!"

I hear you. I am just frustrated at the significant persuasive weight given Lakoff when his points are nothing new to the art of rhetoric. Perhaps to someone who never has had to craft an argument, Lakoff reveals hidden truths.

I think the more important point is that we should not argue over "framing" or labels, but rather, methodically disprove the distortive rhetoric used by the Bush/Cheney Admin and their many supporters in the punditry and press. Lakoff's nonsense merely serves to get the "liberal intellectuals" (I am the latter but doubt I am the former) all worked up over non-issues, when the "framing" takes root and people delight in this "new truth" about political debate.

The response is as it always has been to a rhetorician -- disprove the other side's arguments with facts and persuasive rhetoric.
liquified viscera | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 8:59 pm | #

Ted Stevens said,
I already did that.

While it is true that many IT professionals are very often wingnuts, most of the dingbats that clutter up comment sections aren't even "script kiddies". They are not l33t hax0rz, either. This will work fine for Glenn for now.

Political ideology and leetspeak have nothing to do with the percentage of people on a static IP who are incapable of using a proxy. If you have some data that shows this to be a significant number, I would be curious for a link.

With all things being equal, having the ability to ban IPs would be fine, but all things are not equal and some pretty big sacrifices were made. I will also argue that the ability to ban IPs will cause Glenn to spend more time moderating than without. When your banned IP list blocks four Fortune 500 companies and half the coffee shops in the country then it always gets pulled anyway. IP bans are like the war on terror--for every "bad" guy you stop countless others are stifled or wrongly punished.

I think whether or not this will work fine for now has yet to be determined.

I would expand by linking to some of the posts made the last couple times the issue of posters and moderation/deletion came up...Oh wait...never mind. My prediction is that this move will prove ineffective towards Glenn's goal of spending less time moderating the comments.

Even if this were 100% effective, removing the very useful indexed knowledge base that was the comments section, as the price to be paid, is an idea that should have never made it out of the boardroom.
thelastnamechosen | 07.30.06 - 8:59 pm | #

HWSNBN "Show me a single incidence of Israel targeting civilians"
He could be shown dozens of factual events and he would discard them quite casually. It is his MO and it'll never change.

The "hiding among civilians" myth.
Israel claims it's justified in bombing civilians because Hezbollah mingles with them. In fact, the militant group doesn't trust its civilians and stays as far away from them as possible.
nuf said | 07.30.06 - 9:11 pm | #

MonkeyBoy said: My key word was realize. Yes people can have conflicting framesets and patch their worldview together from them but most people do not consciously realize that there multiple ways to conceive of things. They just adopt or change to a worldview that appears correct to them.

Good point!

Then allow me to switch frames. Another school of cognitive study derived originally from Piaget concerns the development of cognitive complexity through a series of discrete stages. The one commonly associated with adulthood (Stage 3 in the most up-to-date schema) is capable of construing others as having conflicting points of view. In his book In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life, Robert Kegan estimates that about half of the adult population in America operates at a Stage 3 level, while another half operates at Stages 4 or 5. I think that he underestimates the number who don't operate at full adulthood, due to some data from other sources. However, there are surely a very large number who do, even if it's not 100%.

Of course, this refers to personal viewpoints. Anyone operating at Stage 3 is not capable of standing outside the social surround and taking a critical perspective on it. And so if this is the kind of perspective-taking you have in mind, then roughly half (by Kegan's count, or more, if my suspicions hold) the adult population can't do this. But that still leaves roughly half who can.

This would indicate (though I'm aware of only a little empirical research) that while people are generally cogntitively capable of recognizing and taking other viewpoints into account, they often do not do so, do to situational (social, institutional, interpersonal, etc.) constraints. This applies, btw, to both sorts of perspective-taking, as one of Kegan's PhD students did a study in which she discovered that groupthink was almost as pervasive among people at Stage 4 as it is among Stage 5. This is the sort of empirical study that we need much more of, IMHO.

This may seem like a quibble. But when it comes to thinking about whether it's hard to reach people, or just plain impossible, it does make a difference.
Paul Rosenberg | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 9:26 pm | #

MonkeyBoy wrote:

Paul Rosenberg says: I read Goffman's Frame Analysis the year it came out, in 1974,

Lakoff's notion of frames has very little to do with Goffman. It is more directly descendant from Minsky's 1974 A Framework for Representing Knowledge.

I apologize for the lack of clarity. I didn't mean to imply descent. My point is rather that the concept of framing has had multiple expressions in the social sciences. Some are quite at odds with one another. Yet, there are family resemblences.

One could also add philosophy--in a more direct lineage with Lakoff--since Wittgenstein's concept of "language games" is essentially a framing strategy developed in opposition to earlier context-free philosophical models of language. Lakoff does draw consciously on Wittgenstein in his book on categorization, Women, Fire & Dangerous Things.
Paul Rosenberg | Homepage | 07.30.06 - 9:33 pm | #

liquified viscera, I’m sorry you are allergic to Lakoff (or maybe it is maybe just his fanboys - similar to a common dislike of Kuhn because too many people bandy about the term “paradigm”.)

Yes, people have been framing positions to win arguments for eons. And for eons people have been picking holes in the underlying world view of their opponents rather than just responding to statements in their frame.

However Lakoff’s approach of trying to analyze systems of framing is fairly new. After all he is a (cognitive) linguist and that is what they do - from analyzing kinship terms, to figuring how people conceptualize time with respect to their body (e.g. is the past behind or in front), to Metaphors We Live By.

If you know of any prior analysis that tries to lay out what is now known as “frames”, “competing frames”, and their implications, please cite them. Maybe this paradigm has a history in “Freudian Theory”, however that is so discredited that their arguments won’t make sense.

For now, you appear to be someone who read Lakoff and said to yourself that his message is so understandable that it is obvious and you must have known it all along.

I am awaiting any pre-Lakoff cites on something like his frame analysis, or maybe you can just slag Metaphors We Live By.
MonkeyBoy | 07.30.06 - 9:45 pm | #

MonkeyBoy,

Lakoff "naming something..." or "analyzing something... in a way that is fairly new is really meaningless to anyone but someone in his field of study. Perhaps cognitive linguists have some function in our society, but I've yet to see what it is. To me it is another hair split after being split a hundred times before, just to make a new niche of study, just to glorify those who ply their grey matter in that field.

You can give it an academic label and that doesn't change the fact that you cited and agreed with -- people have been doing that very thing, what Lakoff calls "framing," for as long as they have been making statements.

I do not need to cite to prior works to prove my point. I don't know why you would ask me to do that. I do not give a rat's stinky arse about cognitive linguists, any more than I care about semioticians or people who work at defining the utter subjectivity of notions that aren't so.

Lakoff may be respected in his field, but his book told me nothing I didn't know already. All he did was give me new academic puffery to label the concepts I already knew.

If that notion of "framing" is something that you find valuable, that's good. Just do not try to tell me it's valuable to me.

I hope you understand I'm not arguing against you personally. My quarrel is with Lakoff. If you keep taking it personally as you have, and as Paul Rosenberg has, you are just being childish. You and Paul ought to know the difference between attacking an idea, and attacking its messenger, especially given that the two of you are so fond of Lakoff's "framing."
liquified viscera | 07.30.06 - 11:56 pm | #

PS to MonkeyBoy -- what I referred to as "childish" is the tenor and tone of this statement you made in closing:

"I am awaiting any pre-Lakoff cites on something like his frame analysis, or maybe you can just slag Metaphors We Live By."

Really, you ought not to take this so personally.

Have a good night.
liquified viscera | Homepage | 07.31.06 - 12:01 am | #

Hi liquified viscera

You're a Know-Nothing. You know nothing of cognitive linguistics and are not honest enough to admit that you have no real business arguing it or even forming an opinion on it.
baldie eagle | 07.31.06 - 8:28 am | #

Over 60 years ago, Menahem Begin and other Zionists blew up the King David Hotel which was inhabited by British diplomats and civilians. Over 60 died. The world press condemned it as a terrorist act. Some see this incident as the birth of modern asymmetric warfare.

A few days ago, Israel celebrated this bombing as a key phase of its war of independence.

Manahem Begin went on to win a Nobel Peace Prize with his arch-enemy Yasser Arafat for signing the Camp David Accords, a document whose promise has yet to bear fruit.
cynic librarian

Just goes to show that it's really about who wins, as well as who controls the information. And who remembers it.
baldie eagle | 07.31.06 - 8:54 am | #

Glenn: I suppose you could say that I don't oppose the concept of "framing" as much as I oppose the way it's usually talked about -- as some sort of semantic game that involves nothing more than replacing some words with others. But if all "framing" means is ensuring that the topic is discussed on your ground rather than on your opponents', I really don't see what's new about it.

The only thing that is new about it is its grounding in cognitive linguistics, and thus the study of cognition. One can take that for what it's worth.

Liquified viscera has clearly established himself in the anti-cognition camp.
baldie eagle | 07.31.06 - 9:01 am | #

LV said: cynic librarian - You seem to define science loosely. To me, the hard sciences are "science". Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry, Biology. The rest are perhaps worthy of study, but they are not science.

And there you have it. Simple prejudice.

The funny thing about this Lakoff-hatred is that the guy's books are dumbed down a little for a wider audience. So they could be called less intellectual than his usual work. Not more.

And where is the harm if nonlinguists, who don't think about words in cognotive or linguistic terms, learn a little more about the words they use and the cognition that relies on them?
baldie eagle | 07.31.06 - 9:11 am | #

baldie eagle -- "You're a Know-Nothing. You know nothing of cognitive linguistics and are not honest enough to admit that you have no real business arguing it or even forming an opinion on it."

Wow. Rank immaturity! Nice work.

So you put me down, but you cannot argue against my view, and instead say I "know nothing."

What's your supporting proof, Skinhead?
liquified viscera | Homepage | 07.31.06 - 11:47 am | #

baldie eagle:

Why do you take so personally my criticism of Lakoff?

Does your pretense at "understanding" him give you vainglory? Please explain what you have invested in the Lakoff gambit, so that I may understand why you are on an attack binge.

Do you perchance think Noam Chomsky's redundancies of polysyllabics are brilliant?

Do you measure "intellectual" calibre by the density of the prose and the number of syllables used?

Or am I just guessing incorrectly?

Perhaps you have a PhD in linguistics?
liquified viscera | Homepage | 07.31.06 - 12:10 pm | #

baldie eagle -- "(1) The funny thing about this Lakoff-hatred is that the guy's books are dumbed down a little for a wider audience.
(2) So they could be called less intellectual than his usual work. Not more."

(1) What exactly is "funny" about that observation? I think I am missing the humor, but that would not surprise me, given that I seem to miss much of the point in Lakoff's pretentious polysyllabic puffery.

(2) Please explain your definition of "intellectual".
liquified viscera | Homepage | 07.31.06 - 12:36 pm | #

Yes, Hezbollah does carry out acts of terrorism however, there is one wide splashing of that term "terrorist" that drives me crazy. It is NOT an act of terrorism, and one is not a terrorist, by carrying out ANY sort of attack on military members, be they IDF or US troops. One cannot conduct a terrorist attack on military targets. All military members, equipment, facilities, are legitimate targets. Full stop.

Intentional attack on civilian targets is an act of terrorism, whether it is carried out by Hezbollah, the IDF, or the US military.

Part of the reason, I dare say, that Hezbollah carries out terroristic attacks is because their primary weapon (Katyusha rockets) are pathetically inaccurate. The same holds for most of the other weapons they have been using (except for the anti-ship missile which cannot be a dumb ballistic missile as a matter of course). All they can do is point it in the direction they want, set the elevation to the general vicinity of their target, and fire. It lands where it lands. Of course, when they target a city rather than military bases, this is terrorism. If they attack illegal settlements built on the bones and ill-gotten property of Palestinians, it gets a little foggier. When they kill any soldier(s) they are not carrying out terrorist attacks.

The words "terrorism" and "terrorist" as used of late is way too broad and all-encompassing.
Telltale Heart | 07.31.06 - 2:14 pm | #

I have an open question for everyone commenting: I have read a lot of criticism of the President here, and yet I have not seen any alternative plans.

Does anyone have one? Not a grand sweeping thesis, but just a few bullet points of what would lead to the highest level of security for the United States.

As John Lennon, famously said, "We'd all love to see the plan."
Gotta Know | 07.31.06 - 2:32 pm | #

If the equivalent of the American Revolution were taking place today, would the Colonists be classified as terrorists? In one of his Common Sense entries, Thomas Paine noted that it would be simple for the Americans to go to England and commit acts of sabotage since they could easily integrate with the population. In today's vernacular, that's terrorism.

This may be an oversimplification, but one man's terrorist may be another's revolutionary.
Brian | Homepage | 07.31.06 - 3:15 pm | #

This reminds me of a passage in the Bible. It seems God was set to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, and told Lot and his family to leave the city. Lot bargained with God and got him to promise that he would not destroy the cities if Lot could find just 10 righteous people inside. Even the Old Testament God was against collateral damage - no matter how evil were the people he was after.
ts | 07.31.06 - 3:46 pm | #

Gotta Know

I have read a lot of criticism of the President here, and yet I have not seen any alternative plans.

Does anyone have one? Not a grand sweeping thesis, but just a few bullet points of what would lead to the highest level of security for the United States.

first, a snide aside: heh heh. he said "bullet points."

second - This is not the average malaise of malcontents you are hearing here. until there is some common ground rooted in reality and truth being discussed, there is no real opportunity to establish policy.

- stop fucking torturing people and playing semantic games to cover it up.
- stop lying to the public about the true foreign policy goals of the administration
- stop dismantling the constitution in the service of the war on terror

If we are truly going to win any "hearts and minds" it will be because we deserve them because we are, in fact, and I believe this to the core of my being, better than the opposition. I think America is the greatest nation ever to emerge from the often soupy morass of human history - not because we have the most arms and biggest guns, etc. - I think we have been able to develop the greatest and most powerful nation because we have embraced principles of diversity and egalitarianism more than any other nation in human history. In domestic policy, this has led to many decisions which stress respect for the dignity and person of the individual over the rights of the state. For whatever reason, those decisions seem to have been upended in our foreign policy.

It is not "revolutionary" to want our government to respect long-etablished international (Geneva) and domestic (FISA) laws. It is telling that your Lennon quotation makes it seem like you think it is.
nick | Homepage | 07.31.06 - 4:42 pm | #

"Gotta Know" said -- "Does anyone have one? Not a grand sweeping thesis, but just a few bullet points of what would lead to the highest level of security for the United States."

I'll take a stab, if you would be so kind as to define "Security" and its parameters, and from whom we need to be "secure."
liquified viscera | Homepage | 07.31.06 - 8:04 pm | #

A lot of the above discussion on "framing" would be put into a better perspective after reading the book "Unspeak" by Steven Poole, ISBN 0-316-73100-5 which puts an altogether different perspective, one that doesn't suffer the distortions of traditional "framing".

Another book one shouldn't have lived without reading is "Lies in a Mirror, An Essay on Evil and Deceipt" by Peter Charleton, ISBN 1-84218-101-7 written by an Irish Solicitor reflecting on several dacades of legal experience, gives a facinating relationship between Lies and the violence that is spawned by lies, in individuals and in cultures.

The third book addresses Alan Dershowitz and those of that ilk in "Beyond Chutzpah, On the Misuse of Anit-Semitism and the Abuse of History" by Norman G. Finkelstein, ISBN 0-520-24598-9 (U. of Calif. Press)which brings the acedemic credentials of Dershowitz into question in a superbly researched manner.

All three books address lies, important lies, public lies and form a loci that would shed light upon your discussion here. Two of the books may only be available there through www.amazon.co.uk which would also introduce to those using the service just to what extent the US dollar has fallen in purchacing in the world, the same dollar you buy your oil with. (Before the first purloined election the dollar bought about 1.20 Euros, now it buys less than .80 Euros - for the mathematically challenged, that would be 50 percent more purchasing power before than it buys now, a very heavy price is paid for your imports now).

Sorry this is delayed, I had to obtain the ISBNs from the book-seller.
E. X. Pat | 08.09.06 - 10:26 am | #

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Braxton | Homepage | 02.03.07 - 8:44 am | #