(Note to literalists: the Watched column presently contains only a smattering of 'warblogs' because the facilitator of the template-change--Dr. Menlo--is not very familiar with them, and will be adding more as they are sent to him. Also, this blog may contain areas of allusion, satire, subtext, context and possibly even a dash of the surreal: wannabe lit-crits beware.)
Control
[Watch this space for: Pentagon and Petroleum, The Media is only as Liberal as the Corporations Who Own Them, Wash Down With, and Recalcify]
Last Thursday's paper carried a trenchant article by John Pilger which called the United States a "rogue state" guilty of undermining international law. It referred to Bush's administration as a criminal gang which had killed twice as many people as died at the World Trade Centre. [more]
Now, I would like to address several of the critics of WBW--after looking carefully at some of their criticisms, a number of doubles occur:
1) "WBW does not publish facts." Example: Global News Watch, which currently sez: "BTW: I just noticed that WBW turned off it's comments feature. I guess they didn't like warbloggers pointing out their patent errors of fact." . . . As the implementor of the comments system, I can quite certainly say that none of the settings were recently changed, but have noticed several times when visiting WBW that the comments were all falsely coming up zeros, or not being updated regularly (the counts), etc.--this is a technical problem. If Global News Watch cared to emulate the scientific method--which in some circles lies the foundation of good journalism--they would have repeated the experiment (refresh-hit) and noticed this; instead, they leap by some magical fallacy to another alternative explanation which, by no accident, attempts to sully the good name of WBW best. Within one sentence they simultaneously accuse others of waylaying the facts while doing the same themselves--Bravo, Reducio!
(Btw, Global News Watch can also be found at the url: HBO3, which is exactly like the official Global News Watch website, except for the fact that at eleven o'clock every nite the HBO3 version switches from a conservative, quietly Christian news source to Porn! Porn! Porn!)
But let's talk about the facts--Let's, why don't we? Instead of simply charging some with the usurpation of truth while claiming it's own vicious mantle for oneself, let's instead delve deep beneath the hoodiggey and attempt a counterblow with the facts:
First of all, I challenge every single warblog, warblog wannabe or general WBW critic to SHOW US UP with a convincing (note) refutation of this single fact: "The United States is a rogue state guilty of undermining international law."
Hatred of U.S. foreign policies intensifies day by day in much of the world, but the present administration is not even examining the possibility of changing those policies to allay the hatred and reduce the likelihood of future terrorism.
Instead, the response of the Bush administration is to dig in its heels, militarize the nation beyond rationality, move toward preemptive warfare as a first-choice instrument of national policy, and, with more arrogance than ever, label as "evil" a variety of nations and groups that oppose U.S. policies. With the alleged aim of enhancing internal security, it is taking the first steps down a path that could easily convert the government itself into a dictatorship--a dictatorship to be administered primarily by the Defense Department and another monstrous bureaucracy to be set up in a Department of Homeland Security--a new body with the potential of becoming a combined MVD and KGB (the huge internal security and intelligence agencies of the former Soviet Union). To top it off, Bush, flanked before the TV cameras by Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleeza Rice, his entire top foreign-policy team except for behind-the-scenes manipulator Cheney, has peremptorily demanded the removal of an elected foreign leader, Yasir Arafat. [more]
Really, now. Refute.
2) "WBW engages in ad hominem attacks." Yes, but how else do you get a name-caller's attention without calling them one, too? The fact that WBW is charged with this by the fans of warblogs is remarkably hypocritical: i.e., after Jimmy L. inferred that the various writers of WBW [pp.] "Sucked Chomsky's toes . . . who had leprosy," and opined that the only injuries said warblogger watchers would receive during a war would be in their back as they were running away . . . I etched out, in mock-cowboy-style, a challenge to this--the ever-so-wittily-named Mr. "Choco-Salty-Ballz" accuses me of showing "hubris" (and refers to Lileks as "Him" in the middle of a sentence).
Nostalgia aside, an ad hominem attack is a logical fallacy, so I wish to point WBW critics who simply want to engage in 'logical arguments' again to number one, and the challenge I laid down in it: refute.
(Dr. Menlo is sometimes ambivalent about his role in WBW, you can be sure, because on many hands he would rather be just like Tony: aBuddhist, and restrained. But on the others, I am angry as hell [and I'm not gonna . . . repeat] about what this administration is doing right now in the US and the world--and if I can't take them on directly [corporate media lockdown], I will have to make do with the next best thing: warbloggers. Besides, as I sez to Craig once, I sez: "Killbloggers are dangerous, they promote killing." [And the status quo: "Go, Go Status Quo! We Be Evil! We Be Ho!"] But how to approach the warbloggers without feeling sullied? . . . We have all been grappling with that.)
3) "WBW produces no arguments." Here is my main argument:
Now, more than ever, war is only 'necessary' to the war profiteers.
Like most people after September 11th, I believed in the meting out of justice, the objectives of which were simple and clear: find out who did this, and put them away. The so-called left and so-called right agreed: get Osama (if, of course. you can prove with credible evidence that it was he who done this).
Almost one year later, this administration claims Osama is "not important," the 'war' will go on indefinitely, continues to regularly kill innocent civilians and then lies and/or refuses to act sorry for it, stymies any attempt at that part of a 'democracy' which believes in an 'open government,' and generally uses the 'war' as a convenient screen to additionally give more tax breaks to their corporate pals, overthrow foreign governments which are not convenient to them (or, in Venezueala's case, try), extend their oil hands to Uzbekhistan and elsewhere, clamp down on civil liberties and vigorously promote their Fundamentalist agenda at home and abroad . . . This is not the America that I was raised as a young child to believe in.
