perjantaina, syyskuuta 01, 2006

Lies media told us, part II

It seems that International Red Cross is also an active participant in the ambulance fraud. This is truly worrysome. I've known for a long time not to trust the media, but if Red Cross starts deliberately lying about these things... it seems I may need to reconsider my attitude toward International Red Cross. Via Melanie

"Now the Red Cross has rebuked Australian Foreign Minister Downer for relying on an ‘unverified’ blog for his claim. As Little Green Footballs observes, this was the same Red Cross which — as LGF previously reported — once the ‘unverified’ blog started using those vanishing journalistic attributes such as eyesight and brain activity to state the overwhelmingly obvious, quietly removed from its website the high-resolution image of the ambulance that had allegedly been struck. For if these pictures were indeed a lie, then the Red Cross itself is squarely in the frame for disseminating it."

This attitude is outrageous, and I suggest you all let Red Cross know what you think of this kind of attitude. I will. At least with Red Cross, every one of you can help by telling them that we will not be donating money through them anymore, if they do not return the images for public inquiry and respond to the accusations.

13 kommenttia:

Anonyymi kirjoitti...

So here we have a highly educated 'media critical' blogger whining about the ambulance incident.

Why aren't you whining about the AP press fake photo incident?

Why aren't you whining about all the lies told by the US government before they attacked Iraq? Ie. claims of WMD's that never existed.

Your one-eyed-jacks point of view is, frankly, pitiful.

Wars are always fought in media, too, and in your blog I can see you have swallowed so many media baits its not funny, I would have expected a more critical view.

(And by critical I mean REALLY critical in the sense of actually looking into things instead of reactionary whining about news articles)

Peaceful fridays,

J

Anonyymi kirjoitti...

Thing to consider: how do you know Red Cross is lying? Isn't your source "media" too?

Might be useful to calm down a bit and wait till you get a clear picture. Reading the story from this guy's point of view instead that one's is not very critical, as Jani points out.

Personally, I see no good guys in that war (I am capable of seeing some in some others, though).

Mikko Särelä kirjoitti...

I know that Red Cross has removed the pictures from their site, and I know they were in their site originally. Why?

Because I checked the pictures from their site before they were removed. And they are not there anymore.

I know that LGF has been quite thorough in putting forth the claims and evidence they use for those claims. They may be right, they may be wrong, but at least they show the evidence they use. I know that Red Cross has answered by removing evidence and silence.

I do not have to trust US government, I don't donate them money. I am not surprised, if Hezbollah is involved with bending truth for their ends. I expect that to happen - as somebody has said, the first casualty of war is the truth.

I have donated money to Red Cross because they have been in my eyes trustworthy aid agency aiding people in horrific situations. I can no longer trust them to be such agency, which is why I no longer support them. This has nothing to do with which side (Israel or Lebanon or Hezbollah) was right or wrong, or which side committed evil things. It is squarely about what Red Cross has done.

It is also relatively easy for Red Cross to regain my trust (or at least enough trust that I feel I can support them). Republish the photographs and answer to the claims - not by evasion and ethos, but by going through evidence and showing how it matches their claims. Should they do that they will receive my donations again.

Pikkupoika kirjoitti...

A useful idiot Jani:

Why aren't you whining about all the lies told by the US government before they attacked Iraq? Ie. claims of WMD's that never existed.

Why would Mikko write about those "lies"? Past few years all mass media has been full of that, nothing new to write.

Your one-eyed-jacks point of view is, frankly, pitiful.

Look who's talking.

I would have expected a more critical view.

First, who you are to expect anything. Second, what is this "critical view"? A synonym for leftist propaganda? Our newspapers are already full of that view, so please Mikko, do not follow that trail. Why don't you, Jani, check the ambulance incident yourself, and explain to the non-understanding "right-wingers" how it really is true. There are plenty of us around waiting for your clear explanation.

BTW, Martin Chulov, an Australian journalist who covered the incident for The Australian, is taking Jani's "critical view" on the blog reports. You can follow his success from, e.g., here.

Mikko Särelä kirjoitti...

As Pikkupoika said. The WMD issue has been beaten to death already and everybody knows none were found. And in my circles everybody knows that the evidence was embellished at the least.

I don't know, if you noticed, but it's my blog and I write to it as a hobby. My time is valuable to me, and I don't pretend that I cover all political issues equally or evenhandedly. I rather choose subjects that have not been covered in media, or which are covered in media in ways I do not particularily like. I damn well choose my own subjects and you read my texts at your own risk.

You, on the other hand, are free to set up a blog where you write about things your commenters require you to write about. I might even come there and request you to write about some things.

By the way, you did not answer my question in the other thread. Do you think Israel would have attacked Lebanon, if Hezbollah had not attacked Israel?

Anonyymi kirjoitti...

Pikkupoika wrote:
"A synonym for leftist propaganda?"

The fact that you are limited to the 60's left-right style discourse in your own argumentation is probably the best counter-argument to your rather inane arguments.

You have nothing but attacs towards my person to offer here, no real facts, nothing but reference to someone whose views I do not share and whose views I have not ever claimed to share, so why even bother writing your weak critique, waste of bandwidth really. Sad.

Please understand that left-right divisions are no longer effective in our contemporary times, even if your capacity to understand global politics is limited to such ANTIQUATED dualistic perspectives.

You dont even touch the AP incident I refer to (cant even?), nor do I think you actually even are following 'the media' in the sense that would be in any way relevant, in that sense you are very much like Mikko whose blog I am dismissing as 'populistic', basically.

As to 'who am I to expect anything', well everybody has to take responsibility for their actions - and it seems Mikko here cannot take on this critique - and you cannot really dismiss my critique - even if you attempt to question my person, with poor results.

Again, very sad. Try talking about the issues instead.

Peaceful Saturday,
J

Anonyymi kirjoitti...

Mikko:
"Do you think Israel would have attacked Lebanon, if Hezbollah had not attacked Israel?"

Did I ever make any such statements. That is YOUR statement, not mine.

'Eye-for-an-eye' is rather naive approach by the way when the wellbeing of HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE is in question, in case the history of the Middle-east has not already demonstrated that in very tangible and BLOODY way.

I find its very sad, again, that adults keep using such stone-age discourse to approach the situation. Please understand that you need to see beyound such CAVEMAN ideation to solve REAL WORLD problems.

Or in other words, would you Mikko, as a CS person, use binary to write programs to solve abstract problems instead of high level language with abstract logic?

I didn't think so. Why would you use black-and-white logic to approach REAL LIFE PROBLEMS then?

And if you have no time, intellectual capacity or resources to look into the things you write about, why are you writing about these things? We all have a certain responsebility about are actions. If you are not willing to accept that, why attempt even POSING as someone who has a grasp on the events you write about?

Again, sad!

Peace,
J

Anonyymi kirjoitti...

Logic is always black and white. It's either yes (on) or no (off)

Mikko Särelä kirjoitti...

[X] Subject is unable to answer a simple question
[X] Subject tries to taunt the author when his skills in argument fail
[X] Subject decries the anonymity of other writers while writes anonymously himself
[X] Thus, the subject clearly has no understanding of universalism
[X] Subject is unable to understand the difference between a question and a statement

Species: Troll - and not an intelligent one with that.

Recommendation to be left alone and not enganged for any reason.

Anonyymi kirjoitti...

Very well.

"Do you think Israel would have attacked Lebanon, if Hezbollah had not attacked Israel?"

This is not really a question. By asking this question you imply that 'Hezbollah attacked Israel first', and by implying that you imply that REVENGE is an effective political or tactical strategy on a state level.

While you may think so, any statesman, politician or military commander with any experience knows that such thinking doesnt really work when controlling whole state or an army.

Or DID ISRAEL GET THE CAPTURED SOLDIERS BACK? No! Did they 'stop' or 'win' Hezbollah? No. Did they manage to stop Palestinian resistance? No. Et cetera ad infinitum...

It didn't work AT ALL. They destroyed HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF LIVES, made MORE ENEMIES and their government is facing a severe political crisis as they try to find someone among themselves to blame for the WAR CRIMES committed by their troops.

But the whole question, and dialogue along the lines of 'they attacked first' is a RED HERRING. Perhaps they did need an excuse...

Anonymous:
"Logic is always black and white. It's either yes (on) or no (off)"
Have you ever heard of 'fuzzy logic'?

While YOU might only have the capacity for 'black-and-white' logic (Whatever that is!?!), that doesn't make your statement true at all. Try googling 'logic' anyway.

Relaxing saturdays,
J

Anonyymi kirjoitti...

"While YOU might only have the capacity for 'black-and-white' logic (Whatever that is!?!), that doesn't make your statement true at all. Try googling 'logic' anyway."

You are the one who first spoke about "black and white" logic. I don't know what your definition is but I interpreted "black and white" as truth vs. false

According to logic there can be only one truth and everything else is false. For example a statement is false if it contains contradictory premises. There is no measure how much it's false. It is just false. That's real logic and it won't change to anything, no matter how many Google searches you do.

Anonyymi kirjoitti...

anon:
Difference between my 'black and white' logic and your black-and-white logic is that mine comes with apostrophes ( between ' ' ), and at least where I come from using apostrophes connotates figure of speech.

(you almost got me there...)

J

Anonyymi kirjoitti...

"Why aren't you whining about the AP press fake photo incident?"

Because all the others are so f*cking busy writing about it.