Resistance “is a normal thing, and a right for everyone” - The Long War Journal
I think all of it happened because of a little mistake. A mob tortured contractors, killed the contractors [at Blackwater Bridge] in 2003. They hung them and dragged them and all of that [stuff] happened. And the Americans took revenge on all people, and they didn’t make a suitable solution to that particular issue. Maybe you could have had intelligence, videos, [informants], maybe you could have [targeted] the same people responsible for the [killings], and dealt with it a better way.
So everything that happened before was completely built on the first mistake.
I think some commentators and analysts have gotten a bit too much carried away with the “hearts and minds, information war” aspect of the war, and forgotten the war part of the war - or denigrated its importance a bit too much.
The barbaric savagery dealt to the American contractors was not a “little mistake,” and the fact that those of the city that perpetrated the atrocity can think so, or that interviewers can let that supposition go unchallenged, is more revealing than the interviewee might understand.
Note: Many other Fallujans and a Marine intelligence officer also cite the incident when soldiers from the 82nd Airborne fired into a demonstration after taking fire from insurgents as a significant reason the insurgency gained local support.
Neither is armed response to armed attack a “mistake” in a time of war, especially on what was, to all effects, an open battlefield.
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No, no - the torture, lynching, and burning of the contractors wasn’t the mistake. That was the righteous resistance to the American oppressors’ mistake of entering the country.
As for
Of course not. Oppressors have no rights.
You’re almost right. Oppressors aren’t people, so they have no rights. Actually, they’re less than animals, sineveryone knows animalsdo have rights.
“Screw ‘em” ring any bells?
Same thing with Israel as the designated oppressor, see Melanie Philips latest on the France 2 “non-event” regarding the faked death of Muhammad Al-Dura .
Dang, can’t seem to get link to display. Try http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/?p=1612.
Thanks
I really need to get that fixed. See the discussion toward the bottom of the OT thread, George: It’s a problem in the live preview generation; there was likely nothing wrong with what you were trying to post.
Interesting link. I hadn’t read this before
I’ll admit I could easily have missed it at the time. A few generations shy of being civilized aren’t they.
Let me try to explain this simply to you, Bill Q:
1. First, you are misinterpreting what he’s saying: the interviewee is not saying that the killing of the contractors was a “little mistake;” he was saying that some folks killed the contractors, they were bad, not all Fallujans were responsible, and that Americans responded in a way that Fallujans perceive as being non-targeted which fueled the popularity of the insurgency. That is “the little mistake” from his perspective. In case I need to be explicit, and evidently I do to satisfy you, I do not agree with this perspective, beyond the fact that it’s what they think.
2. , or that interviewers can let that supposition go unchallenged, is more revealing than the interviewee might understand.
I take offense to this. I’m not there to advocate or set him straight, I’m there to gather the information and present it, so you can then pass your opinion on it, whatever that may be. Which I’ve given you the opportunity to do.
In short, I’m not your more palatable, inverse version of Katie Couric or Dan Rather. I can live with that.
So I pass my opinion, and you have problems. Tough.
If you’re going to play the role of “I am a tape recorder,” then don’t get your panties in a bunch when your reporting doesn’t produce the effects in the readers that you think proper. Explaining your own journalism after the fact is sort of like having to explain your own jokes when nobody gets them. It tells you more about the jokes than it does the recipient of them.
Yeah, bad as they were, they at least had some training in journalism. You obviously have your own interpretation of what the interpreter told you. Whose fault is it that a reader doesn’t get that interpretation?
Explicitness about your interpretations is always a good thing in reporting, especially if your writing isn’t competent enough to make your point clear.
The only thing I’ll add is that it’s also very easy to criticize an interviewer for not being aggressive enough a la Mike Wallace when one isn’t sitting in the room full of armed former insurgents.
Yeah, nevermind. Forget I even commented.
The question is not whether the criticism is easy, but whether it is correct.
If you can’t do the job, you can’t do the job. But that’s not my fault.
Maybe you could post that at the bottom of all your reports:
“Don’t criticize my reporting, I’m in difficult circumstances where I can’t really do a full and complete job.”
Of course, that path leads eventually to the sort of self-serving justifications that undergirded CNN payoffs to Saddam Hussein. “It doesn’t matter what sort of job I do, as long as I have access.”
If you don’t like my tone, don’t open your own response with a condescending sneer like “Let me try to explain this simply to you, Bill Q:”
Plenty of folks “got” the interview and had the exact same opinion as you without me having to “Hannitize” the Fallujan about his self-evidently, blatantly euphemistic interpretation of events.
If you don’t like what the interviewee has to say, don’t accuse the interviewer of moral relativism in your post because he fails to advocate for your opinion in the interview. When, again, everyone else got it without the injection of my opinion.
In short, you’re really just that dense, Bill.
It is incorrect.
I’m not saying “don’t criticize it,” I’m defending it. Criticizing your criticism, if you will. Maybe you should put at the bottom of your posts: “Don’t criticize my blogging about people doing reporting, I’m sitting on my sofa the tv is a little loud.”
With the difference that I’m not putting out soft propaganda. I’m simply not advocating his position. And to top it off, you are misinterpreting it. HE didn’t kill the contractors. He wasn’t even referring to the killings as justified, or “the little mistake.”
You may criticize the fact that my questions did not make this clear enough for you, but it still remains that your analysis was incorrect, whereas others got it without any additional aid.
Can you read any better than you report, dumbass? Do you comprehend the difference between “interviewer” and “interviewee?”
Your interpreter doesn’t understand what you let pass unchallenged, but we do. Now get back to doing a fine job with your partial reporting under great duress. And stop begging me for links to it in email. I won’t make the mistake of “misinterpreting” your stuff again.
Cool. Ardolino now espouses the chicken-hawk theory of journalism.
Can you make yourself any more ludicrous?
Yes, see here:
Seems like I got it right.
Heh, sure, you are off the distribution e-mail consisting of a simple description and link.
Seriously, you’re always great fun, Bill.
Seems like you’re no better at reading for comprehension than you are at writing for comprehension.
Not so seriously, you’re always so easy, Bill.
Most panhandlers can do it with even less - an open palm and a puppy-dog look. But thanks, anyway.
Charming. Let’s by all means sit down at the bargaining table and reason with these people.
But I think we should probably be in charge of the catering.