DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: The_Professor on October 30, 2006, 05:58:14 PM
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LYNN CHENEY IN CNN SITDOWN, SLAPDOWN: DO YOU WANT AMERICA TO WIN?
Fri Oct 27 2006 18:29:49 ET
Lynne Cheney, wife of Vice President Dick Cheney, took on CNN Friday evening during an interview with anchorman Wolf Blitzer.
Transcript:
CHENEY: You made a point last night of a man who had a bookstore in London where radical islamists gathered. Who was in Afghanistan when the Taliban were there. Who went to Pakistan. You know, I think that you might be a little careful before you declare this as a person with clean hands.
WOLF: You are receiving to the CNN "Broken Government" special. This is the one John King reported on last night.
CHENEY: Right there, Wolf. 'Broken Government.' What kind of stance is that? Here we are. We are a country where we have been mightily challenged over the past six years. We've been through 9/11, we've been through Katrina. The president and the vice president inherited a recession. We are in a country where the economy is healthy. That's not broken. This government has acted very well. We have tax cuts responsible for the healthy economy. We are a country that was attacked five years ago. We haven't been attacked since. What this government has done is effective. That's not broken government. So, you know, I shouldn't let media bias surprise me, but I worked at CNN once. I watched a program last night.
WOLF: You worked on CROSSFIRE.
CHENEY: ...And i was troubled.
WOLF: All right. Well that was probably the purpose, to get people to think. To get people to discuss these issues. Because --
CHENEY: Well, all right. Wolf, I'm here to talk about my book. But if you want to talk about distortion --
WOLF: We'll talk about your book.
CHENEY: Right, but what is CNN doing? Running terrorist tape of terrorists shooting Americans. I mean, I thought [Rep.] Duncan Hunter asked you a very good question, and you didn't answer it. Do you want us to win?
WOLF: The answer of course is we want the United States to win. We are Americans. There's no doubt about that.
CHENEY: Then why are you running terrorist propaganda?
WOLF: Well all do respect, this is not terrorist propaganda.
CHENEY: Oh, wolf.
WOLF: This is reporting the news. Which is what we do, we are not partisan.
CHENEY: Where did you get the film?
WOLF: We got the film, look, this is an issue that has been widely discussed. This is an issue we reported on extensively. We make no apologies for showing that. That was a very carefully-considered decision why we did that. And I think, I think --
CHENEY: Well I think it's shocking.
WOLF: If you are a serious journalist, you want to report the news. Sometimes the news is good, sometimes the news isn't so good.
CHENEY: But wolf, there's a difference between news and terrorist propaganda.
Cheney also took on Virginia senate challenger Jim Webb.
JIM WEBB: There's nothing that's been in in of my novels that in my view, hasn't been either illuminating surroundings are defining a character or moving a plot. I'm a serious writer. I mean, we can go and read Lynne Cheney's lesbian love scenes if you want to get graphic on stuff.
CHENEY: Jim Webb is full of baloney. I have never written anything sexually explicit. His novels are full of, um, sexual explicit reference to sex. Sexually explicit references to, well, I don't want my grandchildren to turn on the television set. This morning Imus was reading from the novels. And it's triple X-rated.
END
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Clearly Lynn didn't like the press looking at her sex book past.
She wasn't expecting to get asked about it.
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You know, I haven't read this article, because I actually wanted to respond to the title of the thread. It's a question that really does facilitate some deep contemplation. Now, I'm obviously coming from a partisan angle, AND I'm not ready to "put myself in the other person's shoe" at this moment, while I speak my mind.
The war against Islamofascism, or for those who overtly disapprove of such a title, the war against militant Islam. Where is that line, that we Americans draw? At what point do we actually tell ourselves, "yes, I think America needs to lose this war", based on what we're supposedly doing to our Constitution and innocent civilians? Take the media. The right argues, rightfully so I might add, how the mainstream media will frequently & repetatively focus on the negative aspects of the war, and of Bush in particular. They argue that the "public has a right to know", and it's their 1st amendment right to publish stuff, that may indeed be perfectly legal to be done by the Bush administration or the NSA, but could hurt Bush politically, and worse, put more of our soldiers at risk. The left, in their anti-war zeal, will undoubtedly, and at times wrecklessly, perpetuate a lengthening of the war, just as they did in Vietnam, by emboldening the enemy, while cyphoning public approval, with the perseverating Bush lied us into war garbage.
All that said, and speaking for myself of course, as a supporter of the war, I do support the idea that the bad news be minimized. I understand how bad news can wither away confidence & morale, of both troops and the American Citizenry, which also explains why the anti-war and Anti-Bush folks want such maximized.
I support the idea that embedded American journalists have an absolute obligation that if they are aware of any plots against our troops or know the locales of enemy combatants, they absolutely need to tell our soldiers.
I support the effort of aggressive and uncomfortable tactics used to interrogate prisoners, which would include waterboarding. I do NOT support such tactics just to terrorize prisoners.
I support the idea that our CnC use whatever constitutional methods at his disposal, to deal with this threat, which includes listneing in on suspected foreign terrorists, monitoring suspected terrorists bank accounts, and detaining any and all prisnoers taken in battle indefinately, as we've done in prior wars, until the war is over.
My belief in this threat, as concluded by the myriad of reports combined with the public pledges by those who lead this movement, prompt me to take this position, buoyed by the history that when we allowed a similar threat go unchallenged, we faced a global threat we could have never imagined. We were -->this<-- close to either speaking German or Japanese
Is that over the line? Is that wanting America to win more than the terrorist threat to lose? ???
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(http://cagle.msnbc.com/working/061027/lester.jpg)
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CHENEY: But wolf, there's a difference between news and terrorist propaganda.
Yes, there is. But some people seem to have decided any news about the war that they don't like is terrorist propaganda.
Do you want America to win? Sure I do. Do you? Should the truth be told? Do we have anything to fear from the truth, from knowing the truth? Is anyone forcing you to watch CNN?
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CHENEY: But wolf, there's a difference between news and terrorist propaganda.
Yes, there is. But some people seem to have decided any news about the war that they don't like is terrorist propaganda.
Do you want America to win? Sure I do. Do you? Should the truth be told? Do we have anything to fear from the truth, from knowing the truth? Is anyone forcing you to watch CNN?
Is a repetition of selected truths with the deliberate absense of others that may negate the pre-selected truths, lean more towards "terrorist propoganda" than "news" perhaps?
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We want the people of America to win. Right now- 74% of Americans want a change in leadership. That is not anti-american, that is anti-bush agenda.
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Interesting question. I suppose in Germany in WWII the same kind of question could have been put to a German. Do you want Germany to win?
But before answering that question, it's legitimate to ask: just what is Germany doing? what would be the effect of a German victory? And of course, I think you have to ask the same preliminary questions about the U.S.A. before answering the big question, Do you want the U.S. to win?
IMHO, the U.S. is engaged in an illegal war of criminal aggression against a country that never attacked it. This "war of civilizations" stuff is pure bullshit. The U.S.A. wasn't attacked by a "civilization," it was attacked by 19 or 20 ignorant fanatics belonging to a criminal gang of similar misfits who probably all together don't add up to the population of the City of Santa Barbara. if that's a "civilization," then I am a mighty nation. So, with all the spin stripped off, that's just what the U.S. is doing.
If you ask the second preliminary question, what would be the effect of a U.S. victory? the answer is clear: the fascists and militarists who now run the country (and who would continue to run it even in the event of a Democratic "victory" in the 2006 and 2008 "elections") would be vindicated and the foreign policy of the U.S. government would be set for the foreseeable future: that the U.S. can and will replace (by force if necessary) any government of any country anywhere that it deems on whatsoever evidence it pleases to be a threat directly or indirecly; and in its efforts to overthrow that foreign government, no holds will be barred, including torture, massacre, assassination and the use of nuclear or any other weapons of mass destruction. Not only will there be no more international law, there will be no more talk or pretence of international law. The only law that will govern relations between nations will be the original law, the law of the jungle.
Having answered the two preliminary questions, I think it is clear what the answer should be to the original question: No. A U.S. victory in this illegal and criminal war would be a catastrophe for the entire human race.
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Is the price of winning the loss of my country? The loss of America's military? Then no. I want my country intact, my country's military intact to be able to protect my country. I have a healthy instinct for survival.
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Is the price of winning the loss of my country? The loss of America's military? Then no. I want my country intact, my country's military intact to be able to protect my country. I have a healthy instinct for survival.
Have you confused the price of winning with the price of looseing?
If we leave , what will keep us from haveing to return in worse circumstances?
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Is a repetition of selected truths with the deliberate absense of others that may negate the pre-selected truths, lean more towards "terrorist propoganda" than "news" perhaps?\
I think you give the news media far too much credit. Whatever bias they might have, they're not secretly trying to propagandize for the terrorists. If you have evidence to the contrary, then you should have no trouble convincing the U.S. Justice department to charge them with treason or something similar. Otherwise, this "terrorist propaganda" talk is just a lot of biased verbiage with no real substance.
"Terrorist propaganda"? Can we please save that for actual terrorist propaganda? Communication is much easier when the words we use actually mean something.
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Is a repetition of selected truths with the deliberate absense of others that may negate the pre-selected truths, lean more towards "terrorist propoganda" than "news" perhaps?\
I think you give the news media far too much credit. Whatever bias they might have, they're not secretly trying to propagandize for the terrorists.
Oh, I agree. I don't believe they're doing it "secretly", nor are they actively trying to help the terrorists. The point remains, that the perpetual showcasing of 1 side of a story, minus the other half, which also includes "the truth", becomes a rallying cry for both Terrorists, and those who are both anti-war and/or anti-Bush. THAT becomes a technical definition of Terrorist Propoganda, I'm afraid
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the perpetual showcasing of 1 side of a story, minus the other half, which also includes "the truth", becomes a rallying cry for both Terrorists, and those who are both anti-war and/or anti-Bush. THAT becomes a technical definition of Terrorist Propoganda, I'm afraid
First, you haven't demonstrated they have only ever shown one side of the story. Second, how does that become a technical definition of "terrorist propaganda"? Are we just making up definitions as we going along?
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the perpetual showcasing of 1 side of a story, minus the other half, which also includes "the truth", becomes a rallying cry for both Terrorists, and those who are both anti-war and/or anti-Bush. THAT becomes a technical definition of Terrorist Propoganda, I'm afraid
First, you haven't demonstrated they have only ever shown one side of the story. Second, how does that become a technical definition of "terrorist propaganda"? Are we just making up definitions as we going along?
The production of that film was the purpose of shooting those soldiers.
The insurgency is makeing no attempt to take or hold territory , the attrition rate is much harder on them than us and they have no hope of matching our military in any sort of strength.
But they can get a snuff film made and depend on CNN to carry it.
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the perpetual showcasing of 1 side of a story, minus the other half, which also includes "the truth", becomes a rallying cry for both Terrorists, and those who are both anti-war and/or anti-Bush. THAT becomes a technical definition of Terrorist Propoganda, I'm afraid
First, you haven't demonstrated they have only ever shown one side of the story. Second, how does that become a technical definition of "terrorist propaganda"? Are we just making up definitions as we going along?
The production of that film was the purpose of shooting those soldiers.
The insurgency is makeing no attempt to take or hold territory , the attrition rate is much harder on them than us and they have no hope of matching our military in any sort of strength.
But they can get a snuff film made and depend on CNN to carry it.
Thank you, Plane
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The production of that film was the purpose of shooting those soldiers.
Was it? How do you know?
The insurgency is makeing no attempt to take or hold territory , the attrition rate is much harder on them than us and they have no hope of matching our military in any sort of strength.
But they can get a snuff film made and depend on CNN to carry it.
Even if I accept your categorization of it as a snuff film, so what? I realize this seems a harsh position, but frankly it isn't any more harsh than the notion that we all have to accept the fact sometimes innocent people die in war. What do we have to fear? Is it a surprise that they have snipers targeting our troops? Is it a shock that our soldiers and marines die in Iraq from enemy fire? Do the terrorists seem more sympathetic now than they did before? I understand some people find the film offensive. So don't watch it. I haven't. Are you offended by CNN? Then don't watch. Organize a boycott.
I don't see how we have anything to fear from seeing the enemy as the enemy really is. I don't see how we have anything to fear from seeing the truth. President Bush has said that we're supposed to pay attention to what the enemy says and does, that we need to keep in mind what the enemy wants to do to us. So why are we berating CNN for "terrorist propaganda"? I just don't buy it.
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plane: <<The production of that film was the purpose of shooting those soldiers.>>
So you're saying the insurgents would have been sitting around playing video games, smoking dope and watching hard-core DVD's, had the film-makers not knocked on their door and asked, "Hey, wanna make a movie and kill some infidels?" These guys are engaged in a life-and-death struggle in repelling an invading army from their home soil, part of which involves sniping the occupation forces, and just like the American army, they are accompanied by photographers who record their experience for news and posterity. The soldiers were legitimate targets and were just as likely to have been taken out (with or without a cameraman present) in the course of the struggle. Do you think Iraqis killed by the occupation are killed for the purpose of the six o'clock news?
<<The insurgency is makeing no attempt to take or hold territory , the attrition rate is much harder on them than us and they have no hope of matching our military in any sort of strength.>>
Sure they do. They can outlast you. They can take more of it than you can. They can take it longer than you can. But what does any of that have to do with the nature of the film?
<<But they can get a snuff film made and depend on CNN to carry it.>>
That "snuff film" is called news. The danger of getting ALL your news from the cameras of "embedded" reporters is that everything is seen through the sights on an American weapon. You get a sense of what "we" can do to them. But I think (particularly for those Americans who are so easily led into glorifying and supporting war) the "enemy" film shows pretty graphically that war is a two-way street and you see , not only what "they" can do to "you," but how easy it all is. That's not propaganda either, that is FACT. People who support war should know that fact. And see it in actual operation, because "knowing" in the abstract sense is not the same as actually seeing.