On 11 Aug 2002 at 14:36, Hermit wrote:
> Jonathan, you make the same error as Joe Dees.
>
> As previously noted, when mainstream press suppresses stories, it is
> time to look elsewhere for your news. In such circumstances, a source
> is not relevant to a story except in so far as goes to establishing
> likely veracity and slant. The more off-stream, the more careful one
> has to be. Having found a story which was not present in the US news,
> I cross validated it, and while I did not originally locate it at the
> Ithaca Journal (a respectable small town paper), I did discover 4 more
> versions of the story which used the same quotation. A dead give away
> for a wire story. In other words, somebody saw the story in the Ithaca
> Journal, recognized the significance of it and wired a report on it.
> Notice that there was no effective difference in facts between the
> Pravda story and the Ithaca Journal story. So in fact Pravda had very
> little to do with this - you could have established this for yourself
> - and your attacks were completely misplaced.
>
Except for the fact, that if they run across a story that slage the US, they
will print it; kinda like your posts, Hermit.
>
> No matter what your opinion of Pravda, trying to discredit a story
> simply on the grounds that it was printed by it is invalid. Impugning
> sources unless they are notorious for distortion (and these days
> Pravda is not) doesn't do anything except make you look silly. Rather,
> if you want to "debunk" a story, you have to show the story is either
> untrue (it wasn't) or biased (it wasn't). As is shown by the original
> Ithaca Journal report, the words are quoted and it is not possible to
> draw any inference about the unequivocal statement, "We were told
> specifically that if there were women and children to kill them"
> except that the US contravened Clause 4 of the Geneva convention.
>
Or that the speaker was not speaking carefully, and thus spoke
incorrectly.
>
> Private Matt Guckenheimer believed he was intended to kill women and
> children when he made that statement - and in the follow on letter,
> did not attempt to explain why his impression was mistaken, instead he
> attempted to simply repudiate his previous statement (and perhaps
> worth noting that his attempted repudiation had not been printed when
> it was taken up by news sources throughout Europe).
>
Of course not. Whadday expect out of the European news? This
reminds me of the terse little poem on the Andrew Sullivan Website:
The British Journalist
You cannot hope
to bribe or twist,
Thank God! the British journalist.
But, seeing what
the man will do
unbribed, there's no occasion to.
>
> In my opinion, his attempted repudiation was highly unconvincing in
> comparison to the original. Firstly because the original didn't leave
> any wriggle room. "We were told specifically that if there were women
> and children to kill them" can only be understood one way. The fact
> that it was highlighted makes it very clear what the intent was. His
> putative retraction was, in contrast a maze of qualifiers, which lead
> me to conclude that somebody else said to him "Private, you just put
> yourself, me and our commanders in line for a war crime tribunal. Is
> that really what you wanted to do?"
>
Or it was occasioned by the OMIGOD! reaction to seeing such a
horrendous misstatement correctly attributed to him and appearing
widely in the media.
>
> My opinion is supported by the internal evidence that the two items,
> the interview and the retraction, were almost certainly written by two
> different people. The original scored 4.8 on the Flesch-Kincaid Grade
> Level, while the putative retraction scored 8.4 on the Flesch-Kincaid
> Grade Level. A massive 4 years difference in apparent education. The
> overwhelming probability is that the second was dictated by somebody
> else. The fact that it is largely in the passive voice makes this
> probability stronger. Finally, as previously noted, the original
> version is supported by the external demographic evidence that the US
> is not being particularly careful about casualties.
>
What is infinitely more likely is that he stepped on his verbal dick the
first time, so was very careful in his clarification, perhaps going so far
as to compose it in advance, which clearly was not the case with the
original remark.
>
> So I'd suggest you approached debunking it the wrong way. If you
> didn't like his original statement, you had only two valid options. To
> assert he was lying the first time (in which case you need to explain
> why you believe his retraction), or to assert that he was telling what
> he thought was the truth the first time but was mistaken. Pravda
> simply repeated the story.
>
He made a brainless misstatement and, when it became mediabound
and came back to him, hastened to correct it. End of story. But of
course, Hermit Scatflinger will see a deep dark military/media
conspiracy there, and probably in every listing in the local telephone
book, and and indulge in his best pseudoanalytically fulminating
imitation of Deep Esophagus in order to plumb, with a pen rather than a
sword, how deep his self-deception goes (hint: it is driven by gut
feelings of bias, bigotry and bile).
>
> Of course, your and Joe's reactions - it is Pravda, it is
> anti-American - it is a lie, is understandable, is comprehensible. As
> is your immediate acceptance of the putative retraction at face level.
> It matches your preconceptions. Trouble is, as the internal and
> external evidence, and Rhinoceros' excellent letter all show, your
> preconceptions appear to be faulty.
>
Hermit, you remind me of a Man in Black, checking the tablod 'hot
sheets' for news of aliens.
>
> Hermit
>
>
> ----
> This message was posted by Hermit to the Virus 2002 board on Church of
> Virus BBS.
> <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;thread
> id=26018>
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