I don’t disagree… but you did quote several tabloids. The Daily News is one. HuffPo might be the internet equivalent, and if InfoWars became a tabloid it would be a huge improvement.
I also quoted CNN, which some are already questioning as tabloid, or well on its way to becoming one.
The point is this: headlines (and the many people who fell for them) first said the video showed a beheading. Now, current headlines mirror what Rigamarole expressed, and I gave credit where credit was due.
I, too, didn’t want to watch it, although I’ve seen some bad things before. Upon hearing of the James Foley beheading, I remembered reading the Cecil Adams “Does the head remain briefly conscious after decapitation?” article years ago. When I Googled the article so I could read it again (to me, the quickest way to find something on a specific website instead of going to said website in the first place), I was led to this thread and wanted to see the video myself to see if Rigamarole was on to something.
This forum is a collection of some of the rudest pseudo-intellectuals on the web, and they collectively demonstrate why it was so easy for GWB to attack Iraq. Against the counsel of history and their own experience, they yield to authority the benefit of the doubt even though they have been betrayed repeatedly by that authority in the past.
In politics, it is naive to accept that things are as they appear simply because no contrary evidence has yet surfaced. Rather it is wise to be skeptical of all appearances unless they are proven genuine. And any such proof must be transparent and unambiguous - anonymous experts or redacted intelligence reports are cause for greater skepticism, not less.
This of course is because in politics, facts are routinely and deliberately hidden, and lies routinely and deliberately told. In the absence of known facts, skepticism reigns. The anti-skeptic is left in the weak position of accepting political appearance as fact, and is naturally the most prone to resort to subtle name-calling terms like “conspiracy theory,” a phrase that expresses an ironic ignorance of the deeply conspiratorial nature of politics as well as an absurd faith that the party line is superior to speculation simply by virtue of its official status.
It’s especially amusing to see them trot out Occam’s razor and apply it to a Machiavellian world where secrecy and complexity are the norm. Not only is the simplest hypothesis usually wrong in politics, it is also usually fed to the public as propaganda, because Occam’s razor is really just an ordinary human trait, the same that allows a magician to convince an audience that he has supernatural powers instead of trapdoors, mirrors and wires. Politicians are always trying to fool you - if you are not skeptical, they will always succeed. Watch for their sleight of hand.
In this context, there is plenty of circumstantial evidence that there is some kind of political trick behind the Foley video. Whereas the evidence that it is genuine is either weak - e.g. faith in some supposed difficulty in manufacturing fake corpses - or sourced to professional political tricksters like the FBI. This should be taken by any wise person as a nearly complete absence of facts. Until more facts are found, the only thing that can be done is speculate.
My political instincts guide my speculation as follows:
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the video does not involve a non-western person and was produced by western standards. That doesn’t mean IS couldn’t have made it, of course, but that’s because IS itself has a large western component. Not only do I not accept as fact that Foley is dead, I am not convinced that he is even a prisoner. Though if he is, I see no reason for much sympathy for a daredevil photographer who repeatedly ventures into war zones where foreigners are likely to be kidnapped and beheaded.
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The IS is a predictable result of US and British support of the Arab Spring movement. When the US destabilized Afghanistan in the 80’s, an Islamist government took over. When it occupied Iraq, an Islamist insurgency formed and battled it for years. When it interceded for the “democrats” in Libya, the end result was an Islamist government. I find it hard to imagine anyone in US intelligence saying, “maybe our support of the Syrian rebels will turn out different.” Nor do I believe they would go down that road unintentionally.
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geopolitically, US actions in the past few decades have stirred up sectarian tensions between Sunnis and Shiites. This seems to be a long-term “divide and conquer” strategy aimed at weakening both. Iraq and Syria roughly straddle the border between Shiite in the east and Sunni in the west, and the US has paid heavy attention to Iraq for decades.
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The United States economy is full of unnecessary but “too big to fail” sectors, and the military is one of them. History is full of militarized governments that found themselves economically dependent on continuous war.
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For two decades, the population of the United States has been most compliant and supportive of its government when a new war breaks out. It provides them a temporary sense of unity and purpose that they otherwise lack.
Thus I speculatively conclude that the Islamic State has “United States” written all over it. It is a manufactured enemy for the purpose of keeping US soldiers employed and for keeping an increasingly uppity populace under control. You can speculate all you want that the IS was holding Foley prisoner, executed him and released a genuine video to that effect, but don’t call it a fact. The first of us to claim to know for sure is wrong.
Your speculation is your cite? That’s rich.
Everytime you ask “why?”, the answer will be “kozz”.
Glad you got that off your chest, kozz.
Well, some of it might have shot *on *your chest, but I’m sure you had a tissue handy.
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Kozz has a point. After all, we can only blow up the World Trade Center once. We had to create an army of orcs… er, Muslims… to fight with. Connect the dots, sheeple!
No, ISIS is an unintentional result of US meddling. Not an intentional one.
Yes, and I agreed with your broader point. I gave up on CNN after its string of Boston marathon bombing fuckups, but that’s just me. But quoting an actual tabloid didn’t do much to prove your point. 
This is frustrating because you’ve just repeated your earlier post without acknowledging anything I said. Quoting three headlines does not prove your point. On the last page I quoted three headlines from the day the news broke that described the video in appropriate terms: they said the video appeared to show the death of Foley. Other media outlets were less precise, I’m sure. But you and Rigamarole and EasyPhil are wrong to say everybody described the video one way last week and another way this week.
Go to hell, idiot.
The irony here is that most of the SDMB was strongly against the war at the time. You might know that if you’d ever participated in any discussion of the issue, but why let facts get in the way?
Make that please go to hell, idiot. Let’s not prove him right.
Better yet, “Go thou to Hades, idiot!”
Just to clear up the n̶i̶t̶p̶i̶c̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ confusion…
I’ll rephrase: some headlines, be it from tabloids or more reputable sites (and the many people who fell for them) first said the video showed a beheading. Now, some current headlines, which may or may not be from tabloids or more reputable sites, mirror what Rigamarole expressed, so I give credit where credit is due. I know there were some that reported the video appeared to show the death of Foley, not that the video did, in fact, show the actual beheading.
I can’t speak for them, but I know I did not literally say “everybody” described the video one way and another way this week and that’s just an assumption on your part but hopefully my rephrasing is enough. I suppose you didn’t want Rigamarole to say, “Why are major news outlets reporting that it’s real?” and instead wanted him to say, “Why are some news outlets reporting that it’s real?”
At the end of the day, the “you need to be specific” line of defense is just silly, argumentative, doesn’t advance the topic at hand, and takes away from the point he clearly made (which you won’t give him credit for), which was that the video didn’t show a beheading and him questioning why some were believing that characterization . I understand some are paying attention more to how he said it rather that what he said, but he made his point and he was right. Having never seen the video, I also assumed it showed the actual beheading, until coming upon this thread via Google and after watching the video itself (which I would not have seen in the first place had there been no question the video actually showed Foley’s gruesome fate).
ISIS, whether a result of U.S. meddling or not, is just scary. They’re currently in the process of or already in control of good portions of Syria and Iraq, they’re brutal, and they’ve been effective from a military standpoint. They aren’t going away any time soon, unfortunately.
Then stop speaking for them. They’ve said a lot of dumb shit and they debate like assholes, so you’re not doing yourself any favors here.
You made a generalization about the way the video was covered and I’m not sure it’s borne out by the facts since some sources reported the substance of the video accurately right from the beginning. That was the entire point.
I’d like him to say why it matters. The situation doesn’t change one iota if Foley was murdered off-camera instead of on-camera. You may have noticed that we’ve been asking him about this since page one.
It’s not a line of defense. It’s a question about the relevance of the whole goddamn topic, and it’s one they (and now you) are unwilling or unable to answer. It also makes their arrogant conspiracy theorist dickery that much more annoying. EasyPhil offered a theory on what happened, at least - it’s a CPR dummy that looks nothing like a dummy and maybe they went to the trouble ordering a fake head and disguising it? - but it’s one of the stupidest things I’ve ever read around here.
That’s based on whoever you happened to read that day. If you’d read some different websites, you’d have gotten a clearer picture immediately. That doesn’t sound all that outrageous to me - and it suggests that not everybody changed course to take Rigamarole’s position. (And for what I wish were the last time, even if they did, so fucking what, toolbox?)
Giving credit to Rigamarole for pointing out something that some may not have realized and/or trying to decipher what his post meant doesn’t mean I’m speaking for him or anyone else. 
I rephrased what you perceived to be a generalization and what I perceive to be nitpicking bitching to this: “Some headlines, be it from tabloids or more reputable sites (and the many people who fell for them) first said the video showed a beheading. Now, some current headlines, which may or may not be from tabloids or more reputable sites, mirror what Rigamarole expressed, so I give credit where credit is due.” What more needs to be said? Moving on… :smack:
In my opinion (my opinion only, not speaking for Rigamarole), Rigamarole’s point was that the beheading video was fake, i.e., no actual beheading took place, and that some were naive to believe it to be real. It’s not that hard to understand and it was written in plain English.
Again, I can’t speak for anyone else but I feel, in my opinion, the relevance here is that the media, as a whole, should be more responsible and report the facts and investigate something before just regurgitating what others say or report. I’d also add that (again, in my opinion only), it matters because there are questions now as to why the video ended up looking the way it did and whether or not Foley was executed another way, which would give further insight into how ISIS operates.
To me, that’s the relevance of Rigamarole’s original post, unless I misunderstood. And I agree with the spirit of that original post. You’re over-thinking it here.
While it’s true other websites got it right and didn’t report the video to be an actual beheading, not everyone got it right. Some read the “wrong” headline, and the ones behind the wrong headlines should be called out for it. After I watched the video itself (instead of relying on any other headlines, articles, etc.), I gave Rigamarole credit and the fact that he brought up the question as to why some believed the video to be real, i.e., showed an actual beheading.
Lest I be thought rude, I’d be happy to provide Kozz with the bus schedules to Hell, and to pay his fare.
I’d also like to add that (in my opinion only, not speaking for anyone else) it matters (it being whether or not Foley was killed on- or off-camera) because we don’t really have proof how Foley was executed, if he was executed at all. If we’re to understand how ISIS operates, how they think, what makes them tick, we have to know these things. I’m not saying there’s a conspiracy. I’m saying (again, in my opinion only) that the circumstances behind the video and what is actually seen or not seen on that video (i.e., where are they? what weapon is used? are they all talk? are there clues as to the whereabouts of these animals?) gives us much needed insight into how these barbarians work. The video gives more questions than it does answers, is what it all boils down to.
Really simple to understand, when you stop over-analyzing why “it” matters.
I just realized I already made this point in my second to last post (not including this one). Didn’t mean to repeat myself. In any case, this just elaborated on that aforementioned point.