My sentiments, exactly! Has “liberal” now become a “loaded” word? Everyone is so damned touchy…
Is that really your opinion of flag wavers and patriots, or is this more of that message board inside baseball that I’ll understand only after three or four thousand posts?
I disagree with 'luc that it is a loaded phrase. It is a dishonest phrase. It conveys the notion that al Jazeera acts as spokesman for al Qaida or the Iraqi insurgency. As I have already pointed out, al Jazeera is also the voice of the U.S. in that region (whether we employ it effectively, or not, is a different issue) so claiming that it is the voice of al Qaida or the insurgents, without mentioning that it is also the voice of the U.S., the voice of the Saud family, the voice of the Iraqi governing council, and the voice of the Knesset in the region, is to portray it in a manner that distorts reality. The phrase expresses a tiny fraction of its activity in a way designed to magnify one single (intermittent) variety of action out of all proportion to reality. It also implies that al Jazeera actively seeks to support al Qaida or the insurgency, which, again, seems dishonest unless you actually have evidence that such is true. (If al Jazeera was attempting to support al Qaida, then its reporting of the recent Jordanian bombings should have been substantially different–and it should have, but did not, suppress news of the anti-al Qaida demonstrations that followed. If was seeking to support the insurgency, its reporting on bombings and terrorist acts against Iraqi civilians should be markedly different.)
I didn’t know that a phrase could be dishonest, Tom. I can see how a phrase could be used in a dishonest fashion, such as “al Jazeera exists only as the voice of the enemy” or some other such deliberate and clearly inaccurate construct, but the phrase itself, as it stands, dishonest? I just don’t see it.
You are, of course, correct. I misspoke.
Have it your way: for the reasons I have already posted, I find your use of the phrase dishonest.
No, Tom… we’ll be having it your way… despite anything I have already posted.
You have continued to use the phrase, even taking the time to point out that it is raising hackles, when there is no reason to use it other than to portray al Jazeera in a bad light. The phrase does not represent reality–that al Jazeera is a news organization that gives voice to every (major) player in the MENA region–and gives the appearance that a major focus of al Jazeera is to perform that action. Nothing you have posted mitigates against the distortion of that usage.
I don’t know, Tom, your continued implication that my intentions were other than I have stated is frankly causing me concern. I’m beginning to wonder what it takes to illustrate the difference between what I think I mean when I say something and what you think I mean, and whether it really makes any difference.
Maybe you could set me straight on one or more specific actions I might take in the future that would prevent this type of problem from re-occurring, or at least minimize the chances. I realize that there will always be some lunkhead who will take offense at something I say, whether or not it’s benign or even if it’s factual, maybe even more so if it’s factual, but I suppose that’s to be expected to a certain extent from certain people. What I’m looking for would be some useful tips on how to avoid giving you the impression that I’m a liar, which is what I’m beginning to sense you may be suggesting.
Please be as specific as you can. It should be clear to you that I sorely need such specificity, because from where I stand right now, it would appear that about the only option left to me with regard to avoiding the use of phrases you deem to be “dishonest” would be for me not to use any phrase which you might also deem to be not to be completely, entirely and exhaustively inclusive of each and every conceivable facet of whatever the fuck it is that I’m attempting to describe, even if the one facet I have included is an un-fucking-deniable fact.
Undeniable, that is, by an honest broker.
In any case, that’s a pretty high bar, Tom, even for someone like me who should expect to have every word parsed ad nauseum. I’ll try to be open-minded and understand, as I was and did with the expansion of the “two-click” rule, previously applied only to shit, smut and garbage, being thoughtfully extended to protect the sensitivities of our fellow posters from the untold trauma one might suffer by inadvertent exposure to the truth.
Now, as I said over an hour ago (my how time flies when we’re being accused of being a fucking liar), I have to get some work done here to justify my existence. Once that is accomplished, I will be completely satisfied with myself and will set out once again to enjoy life and all that leisure time brings my way, to include returning here for the free and open exchange of unvarnished opinion. I’ll be looking for some guidance from you, Tom, as to where exactly I might find that.
Hey, I started out from a position that the phrase was dishonest, not that you were deliberately lying. You insisted that the phrase cannot, in and of itself, be dishonest, so I went along with you.
The statement that “al Jazeera is the voice of the enemy” is a false statement. al Jazeera is one prominent medium that provides various groups (such as the U.S.) communications access to the rest of the world. The phrase, as delivered, using the definite article and no qualifiers, portrays al Jazeera as the sole conveyor of information from various groups we don’t like with an implication that that is their primary motive. It is rather like identifying the New York Times as the “voice of the Unabomer.”
I have no idea why you insist on returning to the phrase (or why you even mentioned it in the first place). When it was simply an off-the-cuff comment in a longer post, I was willing to mention that it was inaccurate and let it drop. When you return multiple times to repeat and defend the phrase, despite the fact that it conveys an error of fact and a worse error of implication, then I am going to point out that you seem to have an inordinate fondness for supporting the error.
I’m agreeing with Tom, here. The construction of the phrase is dishonest. It is a disingenously stated sentence.
Sorry, Dish. Yelling louder doesn’t make it true.
:rolleyes: Jeez . . . I’m a fucking lawyer and this kind of gnat-straining and camel-swallowing makes my eyes glaze over!
No kidding!
Not quite up to code, eh?
Sez yu. Oh, and Tom, too… that would be the guy you agree with.
And agreeing with Tom doesn’t make you right. 
A lawyer? I had no idea! Well, at least now we know it’s possible! :rolleyes:
Fine … we’ll leave it there, then - me with what I said, why I said it, and a record of both which pre-dates your objection; and you with your tortured rationalization for branding it “dishonest”. I almost wish you had called me a liar, Tom… considering the other luminaries on this board who wear that same label, and knowing now how low the threshold is before that card is played, I’d have considered the source and cultivated this budding pride at finding myself in such damned good company.
Sorry. If I had thought you were lying, I’d have said you were lying. I do not find the use of a dishonest rhetorical device to quite reach the level of establishing a lie.
As to your defense of the usage, I certainly find that tortured. The idea that the messages of those who oppose us (even if we limit that to the dozen or so tapes from al Qaida) could only be heard on al Jazeera is not supported by the facts. They may be the broadcaster of first resort, being the largest local language outfit in the region, but that no more makes them the voice than the sizes of the New York Times or CNN or FOX or the Beeb attracting missives from nutcases makes them the voices of nutcases. Had al Jazeera chosen to suppress stories, al Qaida would have simply moved on to some other company.
But they didn’t move on, Tom, because al Jazeera gave them a voice… their voice!
If I might take one last shot at this, allow me to posit the following: that Al Qaeda is a movement without a country - no formal government, no Prime Minister, not even a low-level diplomat who can properly deliver statements to a world body like the United Nations; that they have no voice, in the generally accepted sense of the word when used to describe a delegate or spokesperson who has been given the task and the authority to represent the interests of a principle or a nation; that when al Qaeda wishes to address the world, since they have neither the legitimate standing as a country nor a recognized diplomatic mechanism with which to represent themselves freely and openly on the world stage, they must appoint a surrogate or advocate of their own choosing, lending them the authority to represent their interests… to speak for them, if you will.
Need I ask what it is we are hearing when we listen to someone speak? Whether they are speaking for themselves or for someone else, they are speaking with their voice. In most cases, when one wants to speak to another, one uses one’s voice, as long as there is one to use. I would submit once again that, lacking a voice in the generally accepted sense that I have described above, al Qaeda acquired one by providing its tapes, its words, its faculty of speech to al Jazeera along with the implied (possibly implicit, although I speculate) authority to present it to the world. They acquired a voice, I say again.
In accepting the tapes and presenting them as expected, requested or directed, whichever the case may be, al Jazeera performed the function of speaking for al Qaeda, or, dare I say it again, they became, if only for that moment, they became nonetheless the voice of al Qaeda, or from the perspective of George W. Bush as the Commander in Chief of the United States armed forces currently engaged in a war with al Qaeda, the voice of the enemy.
I rest my case… and now I leave it to you, lady and gentleman of the Tomndeb screen name, to judge for yourselves whether my use of the term “the voice of the enemy” was an innocuous, benign and accurately descriptive idiom as I have said since the beginning of these proceedings, and as I have shown beyond a reasonable doubt, or was it an inaccurate, dishonest rhetorical device, a distortion, a false statement or a disingenously (sic) stated sentence? Was it, as charged, a deliberate attempt to portray al Jazeera in a bad light? Were those words leapt upon by politically polarized individuals reacting to what they perceived as a politically charged turn of phrase, words that would have no such impact on the common, everyday man who shared neither that particular brand of politics nor those rather volatile sensitivities? I believe you will see that to be the case, that no harm was intended, no harm was caused. The only harm was that imagined by those who interpreted something that was never said, never intended, and never even contemplated.
Scott ‘Satan’s voice in America’ McClellan is back, and is quite certain he knows nothing about any comments made by the president in regard to bombing al Jazeera:
I suppose, that from the perspective of President Bush (he of the simplistic, binary, with-us-or-against-us view of the world), which in fairness, you did mention in your first post on this issue, we could consider al Jazeera the voice of the enemy. However, you have continued to defend that position as your own throughout this discussion, which ignores the fact that if al Jazeera had chosen to not brodcast the tapes, al Qaida would have simply moved on to al Aribiyah or ASBU or the Beeb or France’s RFI and continued shopping until they found someone to make the brodcasts. Any responsible news agency would have broadcast the tapes, (and most did, picking up relays from al Jazeera).
Portraying al Jazeera as the voice simply because they happened to be picked as the messenger would just be limited (if typical) thinking on the part of Bush.
In any case, all that is probably irrelevant. According to the Daily Mirror scoop that started this thread, at the time in question (April 2004) Bush apparently had a mad-on for al-Jazeera, not because they were accepting bin Laden’s or Zarqawi’s own propaganda for broadcast, but because al-J journalists were reporting on the ongoing Coalition assault on Fallujah in a remarkably unflattering, that is to say honest, way.