28 Pages Later
Jul. 29th, 2003 12:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lapsedmodernistOn Sunday night, my daily dose of insanity was administered via Meet The Press with Paul Wolfowitz. Here is what I want to do: I want to get a tape of the segment and insert subtitles into it, just marking and naming every logical fallacy that transpired. Ah, here's a straw man, here's ad hoc, hopping like a bunny all over the place, obviously the entire neocon discourse around WMDs at this point is like a textbook illustraion of argumentum ad ignorantium (reverberated through the medium of ad nauseum). There is also plenty of Circulus in demonstrando, ignoratio elenchi, bifurcation; some statements, depending on the context, fall into more than one category, and all of this will be diagramed on my version of the tape which I will then sell at cost. Possibly I could do, like a mini-series. I believe Rumsfield was on MTP a few weeks ago. But anyway, everyone should be able to appreciate the insanity of the dialogical impasse between Wolfowitz and tim Russert. I was hoping the transcript from Sunday would be up, but it's not yet, and actually I am not sure it will ever be, because the DoD website only sees it fit to transcribe Rumsfiledstiltskin's press appearances, and the following situation is happenning on the MSNBC page entitled "MEET THE PRESS TRANSCRIPTS": it says, in, like, 22-point font: "For transcripts not available from this page, please contact Burrelle’s at (800) 777-TEXT, or write to: Burrelle’s, Box 7, Livingston, NJ 07039. Transcripts are $10 each." This would be all well and good, were there any transcripts, ANY TRANSCRIPTS AT ALL available on that page. but there are not. I guess I am retarded in assuming that a sentence construction like the one above, even if it is brought to me by MSCNBC, implies that *some* transcripts are available via the page in question, while others must be special ordered from New Jersey. Fine, whatevs. This means I can't quote verbatum, but I can do my best impression.
First of all, I want to say that it is my impressiont that there used to be a certain de facto code in interviews with politicians BB (Before Bush). Like, the journalists would ask these kind of coded questions, and there was a mutually understood acceptable line between code and bullshit, and that permitted the politician to answer within the allowed parameters of the code, and civility was maintained, but information was transmitted as well. I think the code is dead. Probably both because at this point the media (FAUX news nonwithstanding) is pissed off (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nuncstans is right, when the media starts reporting Presidential activities in a way that is subversive through being too exact, like "From 7.16 to 7.24 today President Bush visited with the Veterans" you know they are pissed off--and why shouldn't they be? anyone remember the fiasco at the Baghdad hotel, where in addition to assassinating a bunch of foreign journalists, the US troops busted into the rooms of the CNN crew and roughed them up?) and because, obviously, the politicians in question, do not feel the gentlemen's obligation to stick to the permitted brackets of bullshit in order to preserve the implicitly agreed-upon ratio of information-to-crap, because in their Baudrillardian simulacra of press briefings, there is no actual information provided, ever, except the meta-level of showing how they are zigzagging like rabbits, caught in their own incomprehensible spin. So witness the completely insane argument between Wolfowitz and Russert--that's the new, schismogenetic model of media interviews. I am going to do my best to recreate bits and pieces of it here. If you are unhappy because you have a verisimilitude fetish, and don't trust me to capture the ethos of the encounter, you can call 777-TEXT and order your own transcript. so, the exchange would go something like this:
RUSSERT (fully armed with various quotes from Wolfowitz from domestic and foreign press sources): You have said before that it would be hard to imagine that the military force needed for stabilizing Iraq would be as large as the force deployed for the war itself, which you named at 200,000. Yet, 200,000 troops were deployed, and now the same number of soldiers are still stationed there.
WOLFOWITZ: Well, originally I said, a couple hundred thousand, that does not necessarily mean 200,000, it could mean 150,000, I don't think it's productive for us to argue about what a couple of hundred thousand is. I said it would be hard to imagine, but that means nothing, this is a military situation, you have to understand, there is no way to plan for a military situation, the most important thing right now is stabilizing Iraq.
RUSSERT: the WMDs have not been found. Previously, you said that WMDs were selected as a main reason for war for bureocratic, PR reasons. really, you said, there were three causes for the war: production of WMDs, ties to terrorist networks and the suffering of the Iraqi people. You said that the third cause by itself was enough to justify an invasion, but not enough to justify risking the lives of American kids. So at this point, no WMDs have been found, there is a serious rift in the intelligence about *any* connection between Saddam Husein and terrorist groups. Your first two reasons are, at the moment, unjustified, yet American lives are endangered and ended every day.
WOLFOWITZ: The WMDs will be found, you must have patience. Baghdad is a big city with lots of basements, and every basement may have a stockpile of tons and tons of deadly anthrax. I am not aware of any dissent in the intelligence of the sort you mentioned.
RUSSERT: The former head of the CIA expressed an opinion that Saddam Husein had no tied to Al-Quaeda.
WOLFOWITZ: And I am sure while he was the head of the CIA he was reporting the opposite
RUSSERT (looking like he is about to have a seizure): But in terms of the weapons, don't you think the inspections could have worked, and that's why the WMDs have not been found?
WOLFOWITZ: Saddam is wily and tricky and basements with anthrax and we think the best strategy is to gain the confidence of Iraqi people for information-gathering purposes, and they have started talking a lot more since Saddam's sons have been killed (sidebar:nuncstans, please write about that agit-prop film about Evil walking the earth in the skins of Saddam's sons and how they rape their own mothers and daughters, that you saw on FAUX).
But the best part was when the discussion turned to the newly released 9/11 report with 28 classified pages. They kept showing this incredibly fake-looking deep blue book with 28 white LINED pages.
RUSSERT: the classified information pertains to foreign funding of Al-Quaeda. Can you tell us this why this is classified? Doesn't the American public have the right to know who was financially supporting the terrorist organization responsible for 9/11?
WOLFOWITZ: I am not at liberty to reveal the classified information, but the American public should know, and I believe (sotto voice) the American Public can draw its own conclusions, if it thinks hard enough, it will make the connection (sidebar: if that's not an invite for the lowest and most frequent common denominator of the American public to construct a xenophobic imaginary of a wily, secretive country called Arabistan, whose secret citizens include everyone on the street wearing a turban or selling falafels, then I don't know what).
RUSSERT: On the FRONT PAGE of today's New York Times, it says that the whited-out pages have to do with Saudi Arabia. That's the New York Times. This assertion seems to be supported by Saudi Arabia itself, considering the angry letter written by the embassador that also says that the classified pages have to do with Saudi Arabia. What do you mean, you can't talk about it?
WOLFOWITZ: Like I said, we'll let the American public draw its own conclusions (wink-wink, nudge-nudge).
So, you know, that was insane. But not nearly as insane as this story from today's New York Times entitled "Pentagon Prepares a Futures Market on Terror Attacks" Here is the first paragraph in its entirety:
"WASHINGTON, July 28 — The Pentagon office that proposed spying electronically on Americans to monitor potential terrorists has a new experiment. It is an online futures trading market, disclosed today by critics, in which anonymous speculators would bet on forecasting terrorist attacks, assassinations and coups.
Advertisement.
Traders bullish on a biological attack on Israel or bearish on the chances of a North Korean missile strike would have the opportunity to bet on the likelihood of such events on a new Internet site established by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency."
Um. UM.
Apparently, the spin from The Pentagon, that must have gone insane from the mysteriously lost 1.3 trillion dollars, and is, now, like a down-and-out wild-eyed gambler in Vegas grabbing all the levers on the slot machines and coming up with insane ideas to beat the house, is that this "initiative" is part of "the broadest possible set of new ways to prevent terrorist attacks." PREVENT? don't you mean, incite? If you make a market for gambling on terrorist attacks, don't you think that would create, oh, I don't know, ECONOMIC IMPETUS and SPECIAL INTEREST groups who would get very rich if, say, North Korea got provoked into nuking Hawaii, or if the Empire State Building went the way of the WTC. Listen to this "explanation" of how the whole thing would work:
"According to descriptions given to Congress, available at the Web site and provided by the two senators, traders who register would deposit money into an account similar to a stock account and win or lose money based on predicting events.
"For instance," Mr. Wyden said, "you may think early on that Prime Minister X is going to be assassinated. So you buy the futures contracts for 5 cents each. As more people begin to think the person's going to be assassinated, the cost of the contract could go up, to 50 cents.
"The payoff if he's assassinated is $1 per future. So if it comes to pass, and those who bought at 5 cents make 95 cents. Those who bought at 50 cents make 50 cents."
It does not alleviate my worries in the slightest that the man in charge is none other than Pointdexter, former security advisor to Reagan (and look how well that worked out!), of the Iran-contra scandal fame, but recently rejuvinated, and, full of zombie juice, put in charge of the Total Information Awareness submonstrosity of Homeland Security.
I mean, shit. I did not realize that the current administration was really, literally using "Dr. Strangelove" as a model for how to deal with things on a global scale.
As a coda, I would just like to say that the AOL headline today did not even bother with bad puns, but simply, in what is possibly an act of defiance (at least for some AOL copy writing drone, the kind I was once upon a time), read "Pentagon's plan is STUPID, critic says. Do you agree?"
Yes, AOL. Yes, I do. I'm gonna go lie down in a dark room now, and feel all the veins in my head pop one by one.
First of all, I want to say that it is my impressiont that there used to be a certain de facto code in interviews with politicians BB (Before Bush). Like, the journalists would ask these kind of coded questions, and there was a mutually understood acceptable line between code and bullshit, and that permitted the politician to answer within the allowed parameters of the code, and civility was maintained, but information was transmitted as well. I think the code is dead. Probably both because at this point the media (FAUX news nonwithstanding) is pissed off (
nuncstans is right, when the media starts reporting Presidential activities in a way that is subversive through being too exact, like "From 7.16 to 7.24 today President Bush visited with the Veterans" you know they are pissed off--and why shouldn't they be? anyone remember the fiasco at the Baghdad hotel, where in addition to assassinating a bunch of foreign journalists, the US troops busted into the rooms of the CNN crew and roughed them up?) and because, obviously, the politicians in question, do not feel the gentlemen's obligation to stick to the permitted brackets of bullshit in order to preserve the implicitly agreed-upon ratio of information-to-crap, because in their Baudrillardian simulacra of press briefings, there is no actual information provided, ever, except the meta-level of showing how they are zigzagging like rabbits, caught in their own incomprehensible spin. So witness the completely insane argument between Wolfowitz and Russert--that's the new, schismogenetic model of media interviews. I am going to do my best to recreate bits and pieces of it here. If you are unhappy because you have a verisimilitude fetish, and don't trust me to capture the ethos of the encounter, you can call 777-TEXT and order your own transcript. so, the exchange would go something like this:RUSSERT (fully armed with various quotes from Wolfowitz from domestic and foreign press sources): You have said before that it would be hard to imagine that the military force needed for stabilizing Iraq would be as large as the force deployed for the war itself, which you named at 200,000. Yet, 200,000 troops were deployed, and now the same number of soldiers are still stationed there.
WOLFOWITZ: Well, originally I said, a couple hundred thousand, that does not necessarily mean 200,000, it could mean 150,000, I don't think it's productive for us to argue about what a couple of hundred thousand is. I said it would be hard to imagine, but that means nothing, this is a military situation, you have to understand, there is no way to plan for a military situation, the most important thing right now is stabilizing Iraq.
RUSSERT: the WMDs have not been found. Previously, you said that WMDs were selected as a main reason for war for bureocratic, PR reasons. really, you said, there were three causes for the war: production of WMDs, ties to terrorist networks and the suffering of the Iraqi people. You said that the third cause by itself was enough to justify an invasion, but not enough to justify risking the lives of American kids. So at this point, no WMDs have been found, there is a serious rift in the intelligence about *any* connection between Saddam Husein and terrorist groups. Your first two reasons are, at the moment, unjustified, yet American lives are endangered and ended every day.
WOLFOWITZ: The WMDs will be found, you must have patience. Baghdad is a big city with lots of basements, and every basement may have a stockpile of tons and tons of deadly anthrax. I am not aware of any dissent in the intelligence of the sort you mentioned.
RUSSERT: The former head of the CIA expressed an opinion that Saddam Husein had no tied to Al-Quaeda.
WOLFOWITZ: And I am sure while he was the head of the CIA he was reporting the opposite
RUSSERT (looking like he is about to have a seizure): But in terms of the weapons, don't you think the inspections could have worked, and that's why the WMDs have not been found?
WOLFOWITZ: Saddam is wily and tricky and basements with anthrax and we think the best strategy is to gain the confidence of Iraqi people for information-gathering purposes, and they have started talking a lot more since Saddam's sons have been killed (sidebar:
nuncstans, please write about that agit-prop film about Evil walking the earth in the skins of Saddam's sons and how they rape their own mothers and daughters, that you saw on FAUX).But the best part was when the discussion turned to the newly released 9/11 report with 28 classified pages. They kept showing this incredibly fake-looking deep blue book with 28 white LINED pages.
RUSSERT: the classified information pertains to foreign funding of Al-Quaeda. Can you tell us this why this is classified? Doesn't the American public have the right to know who was financially supporting the terrorist organization responsible for 9/11?
WOLFOWITZ: I am not at liberty to reveal the classified information, but the American public should know, and I believe (sotto voice) the American Public can draw its own conclusions, if it thinks hard enough, it will make the connection (sidebar: if that's not an invite for the lowest and most frequent common denominator of the American public to construct a xenophobic imaginary of a wily, secretive country called Arabistan, whose secret citizens include everyone on the street wearing a turban or selling falafels, then I don't know what).
RUSSERT: On the FRONT PAGE of today's New York Times, it says that the whited-out pages have to do with Saudi Arabia. That's the New York Times. This assertion seems to be supported by Saudi Arabia itself, considering the angry letter written by the embassador that also says that the classified pages have to do with Saudi Arabia. What do you mean, you can't talk about it?
WOLFOWITZ: Like I said, we'll let the American public draw its own conclusions (wink-wink, nudge-nudge).
So, you know, that was insane. But not nearly as insane as this story from today's New York Times entitled "Pentagon Prepares a Futures Market on Terror Attacks" Here is the first paragraph in its entirety:
"WASHINGTON, July 28 — The Pentagon office that proposed spying electronically on Americans to monitor potential terrorists has a new experiment. It is an online futures trading market, disclosed today by critics, in which anonymous speculators would bet on forecasting terrorist attacks, assassinations and coups.
Advertisement.
Traders bullish on a biological attack on Israel or bearish on the chances of a North Korean missile strike would have the opportunity to bet on the likelihood of such events on a new Internet site established by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency."
Um. UM.
Apparently, the spin from The Pentagon, that must have gone insane from the mysteriously lost 1.3 trillion dollars, and is, now, like a down-and-out wild-eyed gambler in Vegas grabbing all the levers on the slot machines and coming up with insane ideas to beat the house, is that this "initiative" is part of "the broadest possible set of new ways to prevent terrorist attacks." PREVENT? don't you mean, incite? If you make a market for gambling on terrorist attacks, don't you think that would create, oh, I don't know, ECONOMIC IMPETUS and SPECIAL INTEREST groups who would get very rich if, say, North Korea got provoked into nuking Hawaii, or if the Empire State Building went the way of the WTC. Listen to this "explanation" of how the whole thing would work:
"According to descriptions given to Congress, available at the Web site and provided by the two senators, traders who register would deposit money into an account similar to a stock account and win or lose money based on predicting events.
"For instance," Mr. Wyden said, "you may think early on that Prime Minister X is going to be assassinated. So you buy the futures contracts for 5 cents each. As more people begin to think the person's going to be assassinated, the cost of the contract could go up, to 50 cents.
"The payoff if he's assassinated is $1 per future. So if it comes to pass, and those who bought at 5 cents make 95 cents. Those who bought at 50 cents make 50 cents."
It does not alleviate my worries in the slightest that the man in charge is none other than Pointdexter, former security advisor to Reagan (and look how well that worked out!), of the Iran-contra scandal fame, but recently rejuvinated, and, full of zombie juice, put in charge of the Total Information Awareness submonstrosity of Homeland Security.
I mean, shit. I did not realize that the current administration was really, literally using "Dr. Strangelove" as a model for how to deal with things on a global scale.
As a coda, I would just like to say that the AOL headline today did not even bother with bad puns, but simply, in what is possibly an act of defiance (at least for some AOL copy writing drone, the kind I was once upon a time), read "Pentagon's plan is STUPID, critic says. Do you agree?"
Yes, AOL. Yes, I do. I'm gonna go lie down in a dark room now, and feel all the veins in my head pop one by one.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-07-29 02:12 pm (UTC)Jesus Christ, it's so fucking unbelievably insane. I am now officially ready to believe anything.
Happy Judgement Day from DARPA
Date: 2003-07-29 02:47 pm (UTC)But the story is so unbelievable apparently people in Washington have trouble believing that it was not a hoax.
I found it very interesting that BushCo had allocated $8 mil. for that specific project (budget projection through 2005)
we officially now live in some bad futuristic sci-fi movie. It's like Rollerball--the Neocon cut.
Re: Happy Judgement Day from DARPA
Date: 2003-07-29 04:37 pm (UTC)Re: Happy Judgement Day from DARPA
Date: 2003-07-30 03:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-07-29 08:40 pm (UTC)oh well. we'll never know now.
seltix
no subject
Date: 2003-07-30 03:10 pm (UTC)transcript
Date: 2003-07-29 11:52 pm (UTC)http://www.msnbc.com/news/944794.asp
-mjm
p.s., aren't you really a lapsed Meta modernist?
Re: transcript
Date: 2003-07-30 03:12 pm (UTC)re: your question, see the dialogue between myself and
Re: transcript
Date: 2003-07-30 08:31 pm (UTC)yes, i read your dialog (transcript?). i was referencing it :) after all, as jane austen said, "it is a truth universally acknowledged that nuncstans is always right." or something like that.
-mjm
Re: transcript
Date: 2003-07-31 07:22 pm (UTC)