Comments on: Words, Words, Words: Rhetoric in the “War on Terror”

By: Jannah

Jannah — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 16:51:35 +0000

Dan – You forgot one thing. “Al Qaeda” is a fiction, created by the CIA (google Power of Nightmares). Al Qaeda is actually slang for “the toilet” in some Arab cultures – not really the kind of honorable, “mujahideen” sort of name you’d want to call your little group “fighting in the way of Allah”. So yes, it is a “different enemy”; but Al Qaeda is not what’s “different” . What’s different is that more & more people (esp Americans) have been too dumbed down to realize just how seriously they have been lied to, deceived, and manipulated.

Another difference: This time it’s the world’s one & only superpower, America, that is the one committing the most evil. There is no more “just & freedom-loving America” to come to the rescue because America is now the tyrant.

Hence, American itself is going down the toilet….

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 03:15:51 +0000

Yet, it’s hard to find a voice of truth and reason that doesn’t exaggerate the case against the U.S. government. There certainly are cases of the U.S. supporting right wing death squads and arming the muhajadeen, but it is misleading to say that the U.S. “trains, arms, and shelters terrorists.” The world is an entirely different place then it was thirty or twenty years ago, and a globalized terrorist network (of which Al Qaeda is the first of it’s kind) is a much different enemy then the soviet union was. There isn’t a mutually assured destruction to shelter us now, and problems such as the commodification of weapons of mass destruction may become much more serious. I recommend Phillip Bobbit’s “terror and consent.” Seems to be where all the hot shots are getting their foreign policy, it’s very enlightening.

By: kalidas

kalidas — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 22:34:33 +0000

“A society of cheaters and the cheated.”

By: Arvind Kaushik

Arvind Kaushik — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 21:56:23 +0000

“The U.S is not hated for what it is, but for what it has done.” I disagree with that statement. I think there is a lot of reason to also hate US for what it is. Their superficial, corporate mechanical culture. Their arrogance and the capitalistic greed thats bred into them from the time they are born. Look at American teenagers. All they care about is their Xbox, wearing hip clothes and accumulating the latest electronic toys. And the sad thing is, they are spreading this mcdonalds and Wal Mart culture throughout the rest of the world. The “westernization of the world” is cultural genocide, and its a greater tragedy than the wars they have started.

By: The Angry Peasant

The Angry Peasant — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 19:42:00 +0000

Excellent article, cutting to the heart of the matter. If only the American people could be informed as far as realizing what propaganda is, and what it does; how much it works against them, then they can start piecing things together on their own. Some of us have done this already. The majority needs to follow suit, if there is to be any actual change. The average person must come to understand the bankruptcy of the system they live under. The article talks about propaganda relating to foreign matters. It should also spend some time focusing on the propaganda instituted to keep us all living as unquestioning wage-slaves without health care. That is first and foremost. If we can’t have justice in our own country, forget about the American people doing anything about the rest of the world.

By: Michael Dawson

Michael Dawson — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 19:36:08 +0000

Speaking of Chomsky, a huge part of the problem is that the relevant information has little chance of making its through the filters inherent in for-profit mass media. Most Americans don’t know the arguments one way or the other. This is the land of American Idol, not American Ideology.

By: Ron Horn

Ron Horn — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 18:21:10 +0000

Thank you for the propaganda, brainwashing exposé. The Empire makes war on all fronts, and the efforts that they put forth on the propaganda front are enormous, especially here in the US.

By: bozh

bozh — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 17:15:58 +0000

let us please consider that even words like country, USA, UK, Italy, american people are fictions as far as reality or nature is concerned.

even the words nationalism, patriotism, history of america represent a fictitious reality.
how can we have the nationalism in the sense that ruling class uses the word (not me) when US ships are cruising the oceans and US is in afh`n and iraq. a better label wld be that we now have planetarism; nationalism, along with history are possiblyforever gone.

about american people. oh, it sounds so good to the subclass. but in fact we have at least 10 different classes of amers.
the top class appears least patriotic, religious, or nationalistic; it is fiercely warlike and expansionistic.
it writes own history; forces own education on the subclass. more cld be said. thnx

By: Ramsefall

Ramsefall — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 15:31:47 +0000

Maryam,

point well made…meaning is always subject to interpretation, something that Usonians have overlooked through the incessant rhetoric of their noble leaders who spew forth their particular concept of freedom, knowing damn well that it doesn’t align with the public’s concept.

Washington is obviously not subjected to the same standards by which they judge the rest of the world; do what we say, not what we do — the bad parenting role models that they are.

I’ve always been flabbergasted as to why God, regardless of one’s perspective of who or what God really is, would play favoritism with one nation or one group of people…such maniacally foolish and arrogant beliefs that people have. God bless Amerika, the most evil-wielding nation on Earth!

I’m sure that in the mind of W, he is a born again Christian, no doubt God or His Son speaks directly to him. That’s the delusional effects of too much alcohol and coke from his bratty frat days. What he forget to tell the world is that he’s also a born again asshole.

People easily bought the “why they hate us” line by being so dumbed down and having no recollect of their nation’s political and economic influence around the world, particularly post-WWII. But let’s not forget that Washington successfully threw its weight around the world based on the premise that “we own the world”, as Chomsky asserts again and again. As such, no foul.

It’s high time that the Empire dives head first into oblivion. I’m sure everything will be better come tomorrow…and if anyone believes that, I’ve also got a friend of a friend with some prime coastal property for sale on the moon.

Best to you.