White house goes after Fox News

[keith]

It seemed to me that your countering of that - that it was a requirement for perfection - was in effect saying it's OK for one administration to repeat mistakes they vowed against and use "The last administration did it too" as a reasonable response. This is not a requirement for perfection because the issue is not with the mistake or policy, but rather the defense of it (or lack thereof).

No it was simply tedium with the trope. There are a limited number of actions open to a president - they don't actually get to re-organise government as they wished it would be post election. Which is just as well really.

So if you wish to regard it as Hypocrisy for me to observe that certain actions of an administration are the same as actions of prior administrations go ahead. It probably can be called as hypocrisy if you really want to but if you're going to go that broad well...........

Of course I'm not here busy defending Obama's use of executive orders, or steering of the Justice department, not to mention his suppression of reports by professional staffers in various agencies - to do that would be hypocrisy.

I wasn't really talking about, nor am I terribly interested in the original subject of the stance the administration has on FOX news - that's why I didn't enter the conversation earlier.

I'm... not confused as to why. Personally, I think it's cool to call it out and I have no qualms with it. I just have a problem with defending "the last administration did it too" as a reasonable defense (whether or not you actively engaged in it).

I suspect we were arguing at cross purposes on this one.

If I'm wrong feel free to get back in, it's kinda nice to have a discussion with someone who is unwilling to wrap themselves in the bloody tunics of the fallen.

[Slim]

There's a few assumptions in that statement:

Assumption 1. Bombing and killing as many terrorists as we can keeps their numbers in check.

It also kills lots of non-terrorists, and fuels their recruiting efforts. We must be careful in methods used, timing, location, use of political capital, etc.

Not as many as the terrorists/taliban being killed. You do realize we go to great, great pain and expense to make sure this doesnt happen too often, correct? And it doesnt. Most of the killing of innocents is done by the taliban. Ask anyone who has been over there. We risk our soldiers lives at the expense of making a mistake.

Assumption 2. Killing them makes their life shorter lived or less painful.

They're already willing to commit suicide. I don't see how death is a disincentive to terrorists.

The ones willing to blow themselves up and take innocents with them are the ones that will never be reasoned with, so killing them gets rid of them and save innocents. That's all that matters. And I have no interest in making their lives less painful. Quite the contrary. Please re-read my post.

Assumption 3. We can find them to effectively kill and bomb them.
Where is Bin Laden again?

Hiding out in dirty caves, trying not to get bombed, basically rendered powerless. So what if he's not dead. He and his group are too busy trying not to get killed to be able to do anything effective. Or hadn't you noticed?

[Slim]

Killing innocents just sends the few survivors off to the camps to learn how to achieve revenge against us.

The taliban and terrorists kill more innocents than our soldiers do. Why dont they turn on them?

To just bring in bulldozers, remove the top soil, and put down sod, would be the traditional American way of doing things and roughly equivalent to what was done in Iraq. By contrast, my neighbor turned a weed-filled cow pasture into a nice, tranditionally landscaped lawn filled with plants suitable to the soil type and climate of this area.

Not by doing nothing. Or maybe he had some pretty reasonable weeds.

Grass doesn't grow well in the desert.

Huh? I guess that concludes having fun with this broken analogy.

[erooMynohtnA]

Not as many as the terrorists/taliban being killed. You do realize we go to great, great pain and expense to make sure this doesnt happen too often, correct? And it doesnt. Most of the killing of innocents is done by the taliban. Ask anyone who has been over there. We risk our soldiers lives at the expense of making a mistake.

I think this is the crux of the matter.

What are great pains? How often is too often?

Compared with any other conflict to date, I think the US is taking incredible measures to minimize civilian casualties. However, on an absolute scale, I would not call the killing (to which I was a party anyway) discriminant.

I, personally, am a big fan of total war. Not so much morally, but pragmatically. However, if you're not going to wage total war, I think you have to play nicer than we've been playing to win hearts and minds.

[erooMynohtnA]

Grass doesn't grow well in the desert.

Both Afghanistan and Iraq are topographically diverse.

[lindajdunn]

Both Afghanistan and Iraq are topographically diverse.

I stand corrected.

http://www.rclcapreol.ca/SoldierinAfgh.html

http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/...rass-in-kabul/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8LwKCSRuZQ

I still contend that grass from my backyard won't grow well in Iran or Afghanstan.

[tchwojko]

Not as many as the terrorists/taliban being killed.

Where did you get this info (and no news organizations, please)? No snark intended, I'd really be interested in these statistics.

And I have no interest in making their lives less painful. Quite the contrary. Please re-read my post.

That was a typo in my post. I meant to say "more" when I said "less".

Hiding out in dirty caves, trying not to get bombed, basically rendered powerless. So what if he's not dead. He and his group are too busy trying not to get killed to be able to do anything effective. Or hadn't you noticed?

To bomb or kill the terrorists, you need to find them. Are we able to do that effectively?

I was checking assumptions, and asking questions, not disagreeing. Or hadn't you noticed?

[jeff]

I can see a new way out of this:

"Peace through horticulture"

Inq: you gonna pull out the Dorothy Parker quip, or should we let somebody else have it?

And if that works..... on to the topiary!

[Slim]

I think this is the crux of the matter.

What are great pains? How often is too often?

First example that comes to mind is Marcus Luttrell's story. If you've seen any of the predator/Spectre footage, you can see how the decision to hit every target goes way up the chain of command and they are very careful about what they hit. What I've seen/read and heard from my buddies coming back leads me to believe what I stated.

Compared with any other conflict to date, I think the US is taking incredible measures to minimize civilian casualties. However, on an absolute scale, I would not call the killing (to which I was a party anyway) discriminant.

I'm not sure Iraq and Afghanistan really compare. Iraq was probably a lot closer to "total war" as you put it than Afghanistan is, and probably had a higher rate of innocents killed collaterally. At least from the folks I've talked to. But I'm certainly not going to argue this with someone who has been there.

I, personally, am a big fan of total war. Not so much morally, but pragmatically. However, if you're not going to wage total war, I think you have to play nicer than we've been playing to win hearts and minds.

I agree with you on total war idea. Playing nicer? Perhaps. I wasnt over there, so I cant comment first hand like you can. But, our guys might be playing nicer if they saw some light at the end of the tunnel or felt like we were committed enough to finish the job and really make a long term difference.

[Slim]

I think this is the crux of the matter.

What are great pains? How often is too often?

Compared with any other conflict to date, I think the US is taking incredible measures to minimize civilian casualties. However, on an absolute scale, I would not call the killing (to which I was a party anyway) discriminant.

Killed by the rules
By Diana West

August 17, 2007

- Now that Marcus Luttrell's book "Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of Seal Team 10" is a national bestseller, maybe Americans are ready to start discussing the core issue his story brings to light: the inverted morality, even insanity, of the American military's rules of engagement (ROE).

On a stark mountaintop in Afghanistan in 2005, Leading Petty Officer Luttrell and three Navy SEAL teammates found themselves having just such a discussion. Dropped behind enemy lines to kill or capture a Taliban kingpin who commanded between 150-200 fighters, the SEAL team was unexpectedly discovered in the early stages of a mission whose success, of course, depended on secrecy. Three unarmed Afghan goatherds, one a teenager, had stumbled across the Americans' position.

This presented the soldiers with an urgent dilemma: What should they do? If they let the Afghans go, they would probably alert the Taliban to the their whereabouts. This would mean a battle in which the Americans were outnumbered by at least 35 to 1. "Little Big Horn in turbans," as Marcus Luttrell would describe it. If the Americans didn't let the goatherds go — if they killed them, there being no way to hold them — the Americans would avoid detection and, most likely, leave the area safely. On a treeless mountainscape far from home, four of our bravest patriots came to the ghastly conclusion that the only way to save themselves was forbidden by the rules of engagement. Such an action would set off a media firestorm, and lead to murder charges for all.

It is agonizing to read their tense debate as Mr. Luttrell recounts it, the "lone survivor" of the disastrous mission. Each of the SEALs was aware of "the strictly correct military decision" — namely, that it would be suicide to let the goatherds live. But they were also aware that their own country, for which they were fighting, would ultimately turn on them if they made that decision. It was as if committing suicide had become the only politically correct option. For fighting men ordered behind enemy lines, such rules are not only insane. They're immoral.

The SEALs sent the goatherds on their way. One hour later, a sizeable Taliban force attacked, beginning a horrendous battle that resulted not only in the deaths of Mr. Luttrell's three SEAL teammates, but also the deaths of 16 would-be rescuers — eight additional SEALS and eight Army special operations soldiers whose helicopter was shot down by a Taliban rocket-propelled grenade.

"Look at me right now in my story," Mr. Luttrell writes. "Helpless, tortured, shot, blown up, my best buddies all dead, and all because we were afraid of the liberals back home, afraid to do what was necessary to save our own lives. Afraid of American civilian lawyers. I have only one piece of advice for what it's worth: If you don't want to get into a war where things go wrong, where the wrong people sometimes get killed, where innocent people sometimes have to die, then stay the hell out of it in the first place."

I couldn't agree more, except for the fact that conservatives, up to and including the president, are at least as responsible for our outrageous rules of engagement as liberals. The question Americans need to ask themselves now, with "Lone Survivor" as Exhibit A, is whether adhering to these precious rules is worth the exorbitant price — in this case, 19 valiant soldiers.

Another question to raise is why our military, knowing the precise location of a Taliban kingpin, sends in Navy SEALs, not Air Force bombers, in the first place? The answer is "collateral damage." I know this — and so do our enemies, who, as Mr. Luttrell writes, laugh at our ROEs as they sleep safe at night. I find it hard to believe that this is something most Americans applaud. But it's impossible to know, because this debate hasn't begun.

It should. It strikes at the core not only of our capacity to make war, but also our will to survive. A nation that doesn't automatically value its sons who fight to protect it more than the "unarmed civilians" — spies? fighters? — whom they encounter behind enemy lines is not only unlikely to win a war, it isn't showing much interest in its own survival.

This is what comes through, loud and ugly, from that mountaintop in Afghanistan, where four young Americans ultimately agreed it was better to be killed than to kill.

[jeff]

A terrible story, and a testament to our military.

However: who was Commander In Chief at that time? Coming back to the topic of this thread, can you imagine what Fox would have been like if the President at the time had been Obama?

[I_luv_saber]

So if you wish to regard it as Hypocrisy for me to observe that certain actions of an administration are the same as actions of prior administrations go ahead. It probably can be called as hypocrisy if you really want to but if you're going to go that broad well...........

Nah, simply pointing it out isn't hypocritical, and it didn't seem to me you were actively engaging in what I was describing. Again, I was simply countering the point that it's a call for perfection, nothing more. My point was that it's sloppy to defend a criticism of Obama with "Bush did it too", and hypocritical in a case where it's something he specifically said he would not do. Not that you actively engaged in this... again, I just responded to the comment that seemed to stand behind it somewhat.

I suspect we were arguing at cross purposes on this one.

Considering I entered on a tangent, that's probably pretty likely

[Slim]

A terrible story, and a testament to our military.

However: who was Commander In Chief at that time? Coming back to the topic of this thread, can you imagine what Fox would have been like if the President at the time had been Obama?

Its a disgusting story. And "testament to our military" is patronizing. You conveniently ignored the entire point of the story.

Obama's been in office almost a year and the ROE have not changed, so dont try and deflect this back on the last administration like you always do. ROEs are the way they are to protect soldiers from prosecution back home from liberals more than anything else. That's disgusting.

Imagine "what woulda happened..." all you want if that's what make you happy. According to you and most here, is it even possible for Fox to get any "worse" ? So, basically nothing would be different than today.

Here is how I see it playing out.

1. Obama continues to vote "present" while more troops are killed and morale dives even lower.
2. Public opinion starts to lean towards pulling out due to increased media coverage of soldiers dying and extremely low morale
3. Obama decides that its finally safe for him politically to pull out, so he does
4. Blames the aftermath in that area on the last adminstration
5. We end up going back to save Pakistan from being over run by the taliban who will have become energized and stronger.

Mark my words, there will be no significant boost in forces sufficient enough to stabilize things. Any increase will be a token one to buy himself time before making the decision to get out.

[jeff]

Slim, you completely miss the point - it's about what Fox would have done if the president at the time was Democrat, not about trying to shift blame about conduct of the war.

Fox would have called for Obama's impeachment had he been president at the time, but instead was a cheerleader squad for GWB and the neocons despite years of bad news and American deaths. Think about any time in the past 6 years where there was bad news in the war, and consider how Fox would have waved the bloody shirt instead of providing the unwavering support they gave GWB. Fox and its ilk had plenty of time to brand GWB a failure and demand him to fix what he started, but even over the course of years they were cheerleaders.

Politics should stop at the border in a time of war, but Fox is essentially about partisanship rather than the good of the country.

[Slim]

Slim, you completely miss the point - it's about what Fox would have done if the president at the time was Democrat, not about trying to shift blame about conduct of the war.

Fox would have called for Obama's impeachment had he been president at the time, but instead was a cheerleader squad for GWB and the neocons despite years of bad news and American deaths. Think about any time in the past 6 years where there was bad news in the war, and consider how Fox would have waved the bloody shirt instead of providing the unwavering support they gave GWB. Fox and its ilk had plenty of time to brand GWB a failure and demand him to fix what he started, but even over the course of years they were cheerleaders.

Politics should stop at the border in a time of war, but Fox is essentially about partisanship rather than the good of the country.

Hmm..kinda like CNN/NBC/CNBC are doing for Obama now. Hahaha.

You see, I dont deny the bias, anywhere here. You and others can't admit they are all biased...you just keep whining "Fox is worse, Fox is worse" like little kids. Hahaha.

So if it wasn't Fox calling for it, then who was? Who was calling them War criminals? "Bush Lied, people died"...blah, blah blah. Someone certainly was.

You're so blinded Jeff, you can't even be intellectually honest. Hahaha

[jeff]

Hmm..kinda like CNN/NBC/CNBC are doing for Obama now. Hahaha.

You see, I dont deny the bias, anywhere here. You and others can't admit they are all biased...you just keep whining "Fox is worse, Fox is worse" like little kids. Hahaha.

So if it wasn't Fox calling for it, then who was? Who was calling them War criminals? "Bush Lied, people died"...blah, blah blah. Someone certainly was.

You're so blinded Jeff, you can't even be intellectually honest. Hahaha

No, Slim - you're completely wrong. I watch CNN, and I read the NYT, and I see plenty of criticism of Obama from those quarters, on exactly the same things we're arguing about on this board. I even went and looked at MSNBC, and they take shots at Obama and other Democrats too, except they do it from their perspective. Example: on the White House vs. Fox topic, I saw commentators on CNN saying it was a mistake for the White House.

Here's the big thing, and why it's completely "Fair and Balanced" to say "Fox is worse". Pick up a copy of today's NYT, and you'll see a main section of about 20 pages, plus other sections. The editorial parts are going to be on the last two pages of the main section. The rest of the paper is news. You can say the same thing about the WSJ, even though their editorials tilt at least as much to the right as the NYT tilts to the left: the editorials are on the editorial page and the rest is news. 95% of each is going to be news. You can say the same kind of thing about CNN: they spend 20 minutes of 1/2 hour on news (and fluff) and have opinion and comment in the minority.

Fox is different. It has some news and fluff like CNN, but it spends all its time and has its peak viewers for its editorials: esp. Beck, Matthews, Hannity, and O'Reilly. It's like Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage with a better budget and production values, and fewer drugs. You don't see an editorialist on CNN taking a 2 hour time slot to promote a protest movement against the administration - and that didn't happen in the Bush administration either. When "Bush lied, people died" came up on CNN, it was them reporting news about what other people said, not them taking that as their editorial stance. That's why Fox is a partisan channel, not a news one. When they have a loon like Beck saying the Obama hates white people, they go miles and miles beyond what any reputable news organization said about Bush.

You can try to equate Fox with the rest of the media, but you're using the same argument the Soviets used during the cold war. When confronted with their abuses of human rights, they would point at problems in the US and say "who are you to point? you're no better". There was a difference then between the US and USSR, and there's a difference now between Fox and real news.

Or to put it this way: Fox said during the Bush administration that if you didn't support the president, you were anti-American. So Slim - why do you hate America?

[Slim]

No, Slim - you're completely wrong. I watch CNN, and I read the NYT, and I see plenty of criticism of Obama from those quarters, on exactly the same things we're arguing about on this board. I even went and looked at MSNBC, and they take shots at Obama and other Democrats too, except they do it from their perspective. Example: on the White House vs. Fox topic, I saw commentators on CNN saying it was a mistake for the White House.

Here's the big thing, and why it's completely "Fair and Balanced" to say "Fox is worse". Pick up a copy of today's NYT, and you'll see a main section of about 20 pages, plus other sections. The editorial parts are going to be on the last two pages of the main section. The rest of the paper is news. You can say the same thing about the WSJ, even though their editorials tilt at least as much to the right as the NYT tilts to the left: the editorials are on the editorial page and the rest is news. 95% of each is going to be news. You can say the same kind of thing about CNN: they spend 20 minutes of 1/2 hour on news (and fluff) and have opinion and comment in the minority.

Fox is different. It has some news and fluff like CNN, but it spends all its time and has its peak viewers for its editorials: esp. Beck, Matthews, Hannity, and O'Reilly. It's like Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage with a better budget and production values, and fewer drugs. You don't see an editorialist on CNN taking a 2 hour time slot to promote a protest movement against the administration - and that didn't happen in the Bush administration either. When "Bush lied, people died" came up on CNN, it was them reporting news about what other people said, not them taking that as their editorial stance. That's why Fox is a partisan channel, not a nes one.

You can try to equate Fox with the rest of the media, but you're using the same argument the Soviets used during the cold war. When confronted with their abuses of human rights, they would point at problems in the US and say "who are you to point? you're no better". There was a difference then between the US and USSR, and there's a difference now between Fox and real news.

Or to put it this way: Fox said during the Bush administration that if you didn't support the president, you were anti-American. So Slim - why do you hate America?

Whatever you say Jeff. Whatever you say. :-)

Fox bad, Others good, Fox Bad, Others good, Fox bad.....blah, blah.

[jeff]

Slim, thank you for your typically reasoned and cogent response.

When confronted by actual discussion points, you always ignore them. Nice going.

[Slim]

Slim, thank you for your typically reasoned and cogent response.

When confronted by actual discussion points, you always ignore them. Nice going.

Not always, as I am sure you know. Just when it's obviously going nowhere.

[Hauptman]

Not always, as I am sure you know. Just when it's obviously going nowhere.

You seem, Slim, we can agree on something. That's the same reason I stopped arguing with you.