Facts by themselves mean nothing. What makes Pilger special is the half-baked tutti-frutti Honk! Honk! rhetoric in which he dresses the facts.
As in…?
Examples or just more mud slinging?
Lump, you’re response is the usual one trotted out to Pilger (and Chomsky) by conservatives but please furnish an example of where he’s either blurred or misrepresented facts. Sorry but comments about his hair and whatever tutti fruitti is meant to mean aren’t in any way constructive.
HG
His “expose” on Camp X-Ray liberally used rhetoric like “human rights outrage”. He muffed the facts on “barbaric conditions.” He ignored his sources’ agenda. Tutti-frutti Honk! Honk! Numjubberlycarpico…
As fair-minded as a cobra.
cake, did you read my posts at all? NOWHERE in my posts on this thread have i been defending the us. i have spent my time trying to point out how silly your arugments are. did the us do some terrible shit in southeast asia? of course we did. but are we directly responsible for the khmer rouge genocide?? you think we are. in fact, you think the us is responsible for anything anyone we give aid to does. the fact that you would construe my posts on this thread to be some kneejerk defend-america-we-are-an-uptopia argument shows how slanted your world outlook is. must be the argument you throw out anytime someone disagrees with you, but surprise, it doesn’t apply in this case.
funny you would admit that the us and britan did some bad things. that’s expected. in fact, you revel in listing all the terrible things you think the us is responsible for. the hard part is if someone with your anti-us views can admit that the us has done some GOOD things in the world. admit that the occupation of japan and germany were good. admit that the us helped save europe during ww2. come on, can’t be that hard, can it?
the website you linked is written by a crackpot. the point of the page you linked was that the jews weren’t totally evil, they were being controlled by a cabal of satanists who made them do evil things. hello? the fact that you would surf sites with that kind of jibberish and link them for others to see says something about you. oh, and for the last time, it makes NO DIFFERENCE to me whether a crackpot is jewish or not.
and huang, no condemnation for the crap cake is linking on this thread? i know you agree with a lot of his political views, but don’t tell me you found that “satanic jews” page interesting and informative, as well.
lump, just forget it. i don’t think cake would ever willingly accept evidence if it doesn’t implicate the us in some way. he would rather believe that the us and israel(!!) planted a mini nuke under a parking spot outside a nightclub in indonesia rather than anything as mundane as a terrorist attack in a region simmering with religious tension with an active militant islamic presence. of course his evidence consists of poorly arguely websites written by people who have a terrible grasp of basic physics and not a SINGLE SHREAD of concrete evidence, but hey, let’s not nitpick here.
[quote=“cake”]Piger actually states facts. That is it facts, he uses facts, that is why I admire such people.
There is no way I can take serious the Indonesian government when it arrests someone and then accuses then of something.
In the west there is a long history of miscarriages of justice. So what would make Indonesia any different?
The US uses torture in Cuba with innocent prisoners so imagine what goes on in Indonesia.
No one has been charged for the bali bomb attack if there was enough evidence, surely there would be someone charged.
Yes there are suspects, but they could round up any Islamic nutter and claim he is guilty and if they have no evidence and with foreign pressure they could resort to doing just that. What is the price to pay for a few Islamic nutters being executed if it means your tourist industy gets back on track.[/quote]
funny you follow your “i admire facts” sentence with a list of assumptions and conjecture.
Yes I admire facts and you will not get all the facts with the mainstream media. That is why I admire the work of Pilger, Chomsky etc. With other avenues that you use, there is a guarantee that facts will be withheld. There is a guarantee that we will not get the full picture. That is why it is great that the internet has provided a continuing base (not just newspapers) for alternative news resources such as medialens.org - this is the type of website where I read articles and take seriously
So this is crap according to flipper:
members.aol.com/bblum6/American_holocaust.htm
home.cfl.rr.com/gidusko/liberty/
johnpilger.com
tarpley.net/bushb.htm
This one from the Mainstream press too!:
abcnews.go.com/sections/us/Daily … 10501.html
jewsnotzionists.org
answering-christianity.com/iraqi_torture.htm
The last link is quite shocking and you regarding it as crap is worrying. Like I said maybe to you they are unpeople, so it doesn’t matter and you never did answer that question.
Yes there are crackpots with websites on the internet and when one reads something that you believe to be idiotic it is entertaining.
But one thing I learnt from Henry Makow from an earlier piece by him was that there are Rabbi’s and Jews who do not want to be associated with Israel - so crackpot or not, I became aware of a movement that I had no idea existed, and in turn so did you.
You think there is no torture in the US concentration Camp in Cuba?
Why are they there, what are they guilty of? Why can’t they be charged in a court of law?
The US over and over again breaks international law, but so do other countries. You see that is what people across the world do not like about the US, they do not like the injustice. Have you ever asked why People hate the US? I don’t hate the US, I don’t like US foreign policy.
Yes the US have done good things, but it is always blighted by the business interests that always follow. That is the sad thing.
The US helped liberate europe just as the russians did, the french resistance, the british, the polish, the Italian resistance etc etc.
Yes the occupation of Japan and Germany made a lot of money for the US and continues to do so. So I suppose it was good for these countries that uncle sam was there to protect them.
But the fact is with anything in life people remember the bad things much more than the good things and unfortunately the US has carried out too many bad things and will continue to do so.
Actually I haven’t met that many people who actually disagree (maybe if I spend more time with americans than that may be the case? I would hope not.) with me and if someone did I wouldn’t use the argument you suggest, as any disagreement wouldn’t get that far and I wouldn’t ever say anything like that, it is too superficial. Most of my friends here are canadian, arabic japanese and european and guess what they all have a negative view of american foreign policy and that is not their fault.
I know the US is no utopia, I know that if a baby is born in Cuba it has more chance of survival than if it was born in the US, I know there is a higher literacy rate in Cuba than in the US, etc etc.
I asked you questions because all you have seemed to do is look for reasons to ridicule me. This has no effect on me by the way. I don’t have an ego problem so you can carry on and on, it won’t work.
You can’t use the ‘Is the US directly responsible line’. If that was the case why are people chasing Kissinger? So is Milosevic directly responsible for the genocide in Bosnia? Again, one rule for one, one rule for another - Milosevic is taken to a war tribunal and Sharon gets away scott-free. Funny how convenient it was that the star witness who was going to testify against sharon was blown to bits in a car bomb.
Regarding the Bali bomb, I have no evidence. I am not investigating. Yes I used an assumption, maybe I will have to stop looking at those Murdoch news items. But at the moment everyone is making assumptions yourself included. I said that the bali thing is like 9/11, I have no idea who was responsible for it and I don’t think we will ever know the full truth, and I have my doubts about the people they have arrested (and that doesn’t mean some Islamic nutter didn’t do it either) but if this was 1963 and Kennedy was just shot and I said oswald was a patsy, you would ridicule me and you know that. Maybe you believe Oswald actually did it I don’t know.
One thing though flipper, I informed you where I read information online, you have yet to do that, please don’t tell me you actually believe all the Murdoch, time warner news?
If you were in Indonesia and you were arrested, would you have faith in the system there? I wouldn’t.
“The news and truth are not the same thing.”
Walter Lippmann, American journalist, 1889-1974
Things are picking up nicely now chaps.
Good links too! Maybe the mod could past them into this links: http://forums.segue.com.tw/viewtopic.php?t=6525&highlight=
HG
I’m curious as to why there’s no mention in the mainstream US news media – at least that I’ve seen – about the current large-scale anti-American demonstrations in South Korea over the acquital by a US military court of two soldiers accused in the traffic deaths of two Korean girls. Apparently some restaurants and hotels are even refusing to serve Americans over the incident so at the very least it’s an inconvenient time for an American to be going there, if not somewhat risky.
I heard this from an acquaintance living in Japan who knew I was scheduled to go to South Korea on a business trip and suggested I wait.
I found coverage of the situation on BBC which reported that an American congressional delegation cancelled a trip to S. Korea over the seriousness of the situation and that George Bush had stepped in with an official apology of some sort.
No coverage on CNN etc. just doesn’t make sense to me in this age of heightened awareness of anti-Americanism around the world.
I’ve been keeping up with it for several days.
news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2& … sia_137614
I don’t think it’s being pushed much in the US media because the Koreans are ALWAYS demonstrating about something.
nowhere in your statement is there a single piece of evidence that points toward torture being used in the us camps in cuba. you seem to have confused due process with torture. i think this is refered to as a “bait and switch”.
please. give it a break. it’s like you just can’t force yourself to say anything good about the us. really, it’s quite sad. you can’t even make a simple statement like “the us involvement in ww2 was good.” you need to sneak your “but it was because of business interests.” you’re so seeped in your own anti-americanism that you MUST throw it out there any chance you get.
wrong. infant mortality rate is higher in cuba than in the us(7.39 versus 6.76 per 1000).
huh? what are you going on about? i’m talking about blaming a country for the actions of an ally and you’re rambling about how stupid and hypocritical the international criminal court(which americans detest) is.
how about you use some of the examples i’ve thrown out? cambodia. please explain to me how a chinese/viet cong backed radical communist regime which overthrows a us backed regime and starts a massive genocide can be blamed on the us. please, show me your logic here.
turkey. show me why the us is responsible because turkey abused its kurd minority. so much so that you would count those deaths as terrorist deaths caused by the us.
from the mixed bag of links you’ve put up which included anti-semetic drivel talking about satanists and evil jewish blood sacrifices, your sources seem much less credible and much more biased than anything cnn or fox would put out.
as for me, i get my news from pretty much every major english language media outlet out there. ones that actually have journalists and editors and not just a guy with 20 megs on a geocities site. i read the major american papers and newsites, globe and mail from canada, guardian, independent, bbc, and the times from the uk, sydney morning herald and the age from oz, as well as the big wires(ap and afp). the non-us papers i read for international coverage. many other counties have media which have english versions of their news which is interesting to read when something happens there, but i don’t follow the asahi shimbun(for example) closely unless it’s concerning an event i’m interested in.
yahoo full coverage is a great place to get consolidated news about events from different sources in different countries. some of the sites they link to are even sites which make no pretenses to be unbiased(like the world socialist web site).
the economist is also great for more local stories that don’t really make waves outside of the country it involves. like this week’s stories on nigeria and the phillipines.
please look up the words “facts”, “unbiased”, and “editorial” and come back and show me how any of those sites are “news” and not “opinion”.
“the uss liberty was blown up by israel in 1967” is what i would consider an unbiased piece of news. “the hypocritical us government has conspired with the evil israelis to downplay the attack on the uss liberty” is an opinion.
hint, when you see this line in something “These are damned lies and meaningless words” you can pretty much assume that the author is not reporting news, but advancing his view on the issue. why are you blasting the biased western media when you can’t even distinguish news from opinion?
i challenge you to link some alternative media sites which present news in the form of facts devoid of editorial content(outside of a serperately marked editorial/opinion section). please, show me that you don’t get ALL your news from opinion/editorial sites.
guest,
i’ve seen stories in all the major papers on the rising anti-americanism in korea. the nyt has actually run a couple of stories on it. cnn has pulled stories off the wires related to it like this one: cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/e … index.html . the bbc has been following it more closely and has more stories on the topic on its site. the yahoo full coverage site for south korea has lots of articles from different sources which have touched on it. it doesn’t get huge coverage because well, there’s anti-americanism is most countries, so what’s the big deal? the demonstrations in venezuela and iran have much greater ramifications in the us and around the world.
Blueface666 and Flipper,
Thanks for the links to stories about the large-scale anti-US demonstrations in South Korea. It showed up on CNN today:
cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/e … index.html
I see above you guys are slugging it out over the USS Liberty. That issue had a big effect on me. I was in the US Navy for four years and never once heard about it when I was in. Never once heard anyone mention the incident while I was growing up and living in the US. In fact, to this day, it’s rare to find anyone in the US who knows anything about the Liberty. Having found out about the Liberty incident only after I started living outside the US is the single most important reason why I tend to be so skeptical about the US media. Otherwise, I’d probably be tag-teaming with Tigerman and Flipper in defense of all things American.
If you want facts, I suggest going to this website run by surviving crewmembers of the Liberty, none of whom, by the way, accept the official story that Israel mistakenly attacked them, including the recently deceased captain of the ship, William McGonagle who was awarded the Medal of Honor over the incident:
Flipper you obviously see non Americans as unpeople. I asked you about the depleted uranium twice and you have not responded, so I guess in this case silence speaks louder than words, you are cold and quite amoral to not critisize such sick acts.
You are classic politician fodder, or mainstream journalist fodder, no regard for humanity and only self interests. It is sad, I know you do not see a fault with yourself, you have been socialised into a way of thinking - actually writing this with a hope that you can see the light will be futile.
OK the prisoners in Cuba are treated like kings, sorry you still didn’t answer the question (as usual) regarding why they haven’t been charged:
web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/recent/AMR511862002!Open
How can one say the US involvement was good in WW2 when they dropped 2 atom bombs (for no reason to win the war) and after the Japanese had announced they would surrender they flattened Tokyo and killed more than what the two atom bombs did.
One hypothesis: If the US sells the gun, provides the arms, knowing full well that the gun will be used to kill people, gives advice, trains death squads, funds them, I think there is a case there for involvement.
So Why is Christopher Hitchens trying to bring kissinger to trial?
versobooks.com/books/ghij/h- … nger.shtml
The US were involved with Pol Pot:
By January, 1980, the United States had begun secretly funding Pol Pot. The extent of this support - Dollars 85 million from 1980 to 1986 - was revealed six years later in correspondence between congressional lawyer Jonathan Winer, counsel to a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and the Vietnam Veterans of America. When copies of Winer
cake,
do you not understand the difference between torture and due process?
you said that the us was TORTURING prisoners in cuba. you have so far not offered a single shred of evidence that is the case.
i have NEVER argued that the prisoners were receiving due process under the us constitution. i only argued that you are WRONG and being DECEPTIVE when you use the two terms(torture and due process) interchangibly. i will have to assume at this point that you can make no differentiation between the right to a lawyer and being tortured.
as for depleted uranium, huh? i’m talking global politics and you want to talk about weapons composition? i don’t really care about the issue either way. get rid of it, keep it, who cares? i hate non-americans because i am not obssesed with depleted uranium? once again your logic shines through.
so you’re saying the world would have been a better place had the us not gotten involved in ww2? there are 3 choices here. either the us had a positive impact on the resolution of ww2, a neutral impact, or a negative impact. which one is it, cake? can you swallow your anti-americanism long enough to say the us had no impact on the war rather than a negative impact? i’m curious to see how deep your anti-americanism runs. 
who the hell cares about kissinger? i think he’s a pompus ass and i’m glad he got hounded out of the 911 commission. arrogant mainland commie kiss-ass, no less. want to bring him to trial? be my guest. we agree here so why do you keep bringing it up? did you prepare yourself for an argument that wasn’t there? are you arguing with me or are you too busy setting up strawmen?
the cambodian genocide occured from 1975-1978 and claimed anywhere from 1.5 million to 3 million lives depending on the figures you believe. learn some history, please. your us-cambodian conspiracy is based on hearsay, but even if it was all true, it is dated 2 years after the vast majority the killings and only shows the us was courting the pol pot regime after the massacres. yet you blame the us for the genocide. trying too hard to squeeze the time frame in your favor, yes? funny, i knew you were going to post that conspiracy theory sooner or later, and somehow i figured you wouldn’t bother to check the historical dates. 
so let’s accept everything you say at face value. the us gave money and support to pol pot 1.5-2 years after the massacre. how does that make the us responsible for the massacre in the first place? china was still by far the main backer of the khmer rouge while it was doing the killing and yet you blame the us the killings. why?
stop trying to quote those websites and form an opinion on your own, cake. i’m not asking something that can be answered with a pilger or chomsky or michael moore(lol!) quote. i’m asking you YOUR opinion. are you even paying attention to what i’m asking you, or are you just digging into your bag of “arguments to use when bashing america”?
and finally, so cuba is safer for babies than the most crime infested area of the us. woohoo! you want a cracker? that’s like saying there is less prostitution in the us on average than in old havana and la rampa. yay, i just made myself feel all better now with a completely biased and unfair comparison that proves absolutely nothing.
I have to quote websites otherwise you will try to ridicule me even more - like you’d say where is the proof, I have my own opinion and you know that.
With the US concentration camp, the Amnesty thing is good enough for me. For you there is no torture. OK I will except that you have no regard for human rights. Due process and torture are different and so were the original questions I asked. They are interchangeable for you, but I saw two questions. There was no deception.
The depleted uranium thing was referring to the website with deformed Iraqi babies as a result of depleted uranium dropped in Iraq. You say you don’t care and who cares. You use the term hate, which suggests to me that you are quite unstable and extreme in your views.
Very sad, you have no regard for humanity, oh I forgot, Iraqis and arabs are unpeople for you.
I used Kissinger as an example for the direct involvement thing you were talking about.
Hearsay and conspiracy theory, I was waiting til you would use those terms. I see. So the quotes I give in the earlier post are hearsay, one from Richard Holbrooke and that Richard Holbrooke is involved in conspiracy theories.
So Pol pot in 1980 became a saint. And as the US assisted him then he became a respectable man. So he killed no one after 1978?
I never said the US were responsible for ‘genocide’ in Cambodia, you trying top put words into my mouth yet again.
Either way, you seem to defend US involvement(even though you may deny this) and fail to see that killing, torture, murder, death squads, genocide, etc are despicable acts.
YOU HAVE THE TRAITS OF A STALINIST.
Regarding WW2 I would say the US as a whole had a neutral impact in Europe, in some cases maybe even positive. Regarding Asia, I would say Negative.
I really think there is no hope for you. You have no regard for human rights and the welfare of people and I think that would be the case in America with your fellow countrymen. Classic Reaganinte - selfish, self-righteous and cold.
Give Bush a call he is always looking for cold blooded assistants.
Or is Charlton Heston your president?
‘One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic’
Stalin
I haven’t really been following this thread cloely, but are you saying that there IS torture being used at the US operated prison camp for taliban-Al Qaeda prisoners in Cuba? If yes, what type of torture and how do you know of this?
Neutral? I’d say the US impact on Europe was far from “neutral” with respect to WW2 and post WW2.
Negative? Could you explain?
Oh please.
you: us is torturing prisoners at cuba
me: where is the proof of torture?
you: uh, well, they’re being denied due process!!! here, let me link an amnesty international site that talks about how they can’t get lawyers…
me: so where is the proof of torture?
you: you’re a horrible person, how dare you defend us torture on the prisoners in cuba! you have no regard for human rights!!
me: ???
i dare you to find ONE quote on this thread where i defended torture, murder, death squads or genocide in any way, shape or form.
you seem to be having an argument with someone else here. i have not bothered to challenge any of your assertions about us misconduct(except for the torture thing because it’s obvious you have no proof and pulled that out of the anti-us rhetoric list). instead, i have been showing that even if all your assertions were true, your conclusions are STILL false.
i think you have a little list of anti-us arguments stored somewhere and you’re pulling them out one by one only to see that i’m not playing along and you’re just ending up looking lost and confused.
ps: don’t blame me for bush. i was pulling for gore(karl rove is the devil…i was a mccain guy until the bushies screwed him with dirty tactics in the primaries). blame the damn nader voters who gave bush the election. i sure hope you weren’t one of those nader people who helped bush win. lol.
Presumably because:
You believe that only governments can do good. Business can only do bad. Yet it is US business interests that lifted Asia out of poverty.
[quote=“cake”]You think there is no torture in the US concentration Camp in Cuba?
Why are they there, what are they guilty of? [/quote]
Facts? No facts. Accussations. Pring, pring…Beeep! Beeep! Rooty-toooty… Arooooooogah… hoof hoof… jibber, jibbber, jibber…f’tang!