Finally: Obama gets a foreign policy success—unfortunately, it’s in Honduras, not Iran
Fausta reports that Honduras has caved to Obama’s pressure and agreed to reinstate Chavez’s protege Zelaya in a power-sharing interim government. Apparently, Honduras got more than a taste of the Chicago Way, and it wasn’t very appetizing:
El Heraldo (in Spanish) makes it clear that US State Dept. envoy for Latin America Thomas Shannon went to Honduras to twist arms: his position was that the November 29 elections would not be recognized unless Zelaya was returned to power. I guess nothing ensures democracy like restoring to power the guy who did his outmost to undermine democracy, at least in Shannon’s eyes.
The bad news is that, when our President has finally shown some international cojones, it’s in the wrong venue and for the wrong reasons.
The good news is that Hondurans will be going to the polls in a month, and Zelaya won’t be running. Now that the US and the international community have decided to recognize the results, one can hope that the beleaguered Hondurans will finally be left alone to decide their own destiny according to their own very adequate constitution.
And then there’s Iran. Would that Obama could show just a bit of the courage there that he showed against the wrong people in Honduras. Robert Kagan wonders:
Tehran apparently will not accept the [previously arranged] deal but will propose an alternate plan, agreeing to ship smaller amounts of low-enriched uranium to Russia gradually over a year. Even if Iran carried out this plan as promised — every month would be an adventure to see how much, if anything, Iran shipped — the slow movement of small amounts of low-enriched uranium does not accomplish the original purpose, since Iran can quickly replace these amounts with new low-enriched uranium produced by its centrifuges. Iran’s nuclear clock, which the Obama administration hoped to stop or at least slow, would continue ticking at close to its regular speed.
Tehran is obviously probing to see whether President Obama can play hardball or whether he can be played. If Obama has any hope of getting anywhere with the mullahs, he needs to show them he means business, now, and immediately begin imposing new sanctions.
The test Obama faces in Iran is two-pronged, because it involves Russia as well. Kagan reminds us that Obama undercut the Czech and Polish governments when he reneged on the already-agreed-on missile defense there, but the justification at the time was that he’d won certain promises from the Russians that they would cooperate with sanctions on Iran if they became necessary:
Russia joined France, the United States and ElBaradei in agreeing to the proposal on Iran’s low-enriched uranium. Iran is now rejecting that proposal. If the administration’s engagement strategy is working, then Moscow should come through by joining in sanctions. If, on the other hand, Moscow declares that Iran’s counterproposal is satisfactory, or calls for further weeks or months of negotiations, then we will know that Russia, too, is playing Obama. Here again, Obama will have to show whether he is someone whom other powers have to take seriously, or if he is an easy mark in a geopolitical con game.
Somehow I can’t quite picture Obama making a strong move in this particular game of chess. But we should be finding out soon enough.
[NOTE: Fausta’s post also contains many links on the Honduran situation, if you’d like to know more.]
[ADDENDUM: Of possible interest (hat tip: commenter “perfected Democrat”).]
Re Honduras, messages to the world:
1. Barack values spread the wealth over democracy and opportunity.
2. Barack values accommodation over principle; appearance over accomplishment.
3. Barack is a naif who cannot distinguish friend from enemy; who will punish friends and reward enemies.
Pingback:Fausta’s Blog » Blog Archive » Honduran government caves into US pressure, agrees to Zelaya’s restitution
gcotharn: I’m afraid he can distinguish friend from enemy. But as you say, his actions towards them are backwards.
Certainly makes one wonder.
Sen. Pat Moynihan (D-NY) on Pres. Jimmy Carter:
“Unable to distinguish between our friends and our enemies, he has essentially adopted our enemies’ view of the world.”
Maybe my thoughts overlap themselves.
Barack’s Honduras actions burn me up: revoking visas, withdrawing aid, refusing to recognize the coming Nov 29 election result, the U.S. Ambassador twisting arms. Honduras, by standing up to Chavez and to the United States of America for four months, has made a statement to the world about constitutional democracy. In the end, Honduras has, for the sake of her people and for the sake of ensuring her government can go forward, made an accommodation to United States Government. Pending further revelation about this new agreement, I do not blame Honduras. She has been brave, yet her first responsibility is to her people. I blame Barack Obama. I am angry. I am now part of the angry right.
gcotharn: I agree. Obama’s actions on Honduras have made me more angry than anything else he’s done, which is surprising in a way. After all, they affect me personally the least. But they are the clearest example I can think of to demonstrate Obama’s profound lack of appreciation for liberty and autonomy, as well as his alliance with reprehensible enemies of liberty such as Chavez. He is a thug—and I don’t just mean Chavez.
For me the exasperating thing is Obama pontificating that “for too long we’ve interfered in the internal affairs” of countries such as Honduras, as he moves Heaven and Earth to do precisely that, yet again, and in support of the wrong side.
I’m horrified at the Honduran situation too, but again, it’s not just Obama. Most of the world is united in favor of restoring Zelaya:
International reaction to the 2009 Honduran coup d’état of June 28, 2009, was that the coup was widely repudiated around the globe.[1] All Latin American nations (with the exception of Honduras itself), as well as the United States, United Nations, and others, publicly condemned the military-led ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya as illegal and most labelled it a coup d’état.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_reaction_to_the_2009_Honduran_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat
Given Obama’s obsession to restore the US as a team player on the world’s stage, it’s not a surprising move.
In the past I have heard routinely that the U.S. is bad when it interferes with the internal operations of another country’s government and uses its enormous power to coerce the country into doing what the US wants them to do rather than what the country’s own law requires. Here, the US has done just that: bullied little Honduras into disregarding its own Constitution because it suited US interests to do so. But this time, I’m told, it’s good, not bad.
I’m confused.
basically everyoene now will move to communism.. you dont want to be on the wrong side do you?
It’s easy. The “rest of the world” (cough Europe cough) is a lot more communist-infested than we are. The Reds can produce in a heartbeat whatever reaction they want. Remember, e.g., all of the demonstrations against US missles in Europe pointing towards the USSR (not a peep about the SS-20s pointed at the demonstrators), against US involvement in Vietnam (bupkis about the Soviets invading East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, or Afghanistan), against Pinochet (no problem with Castro, Chavez, or Ortega), against the US bombing Libya or invading Iraq (zip against terrorism anywhere)?
In the US, look at how NOW throws a conniption fit if someone looks cross-eyed at a woman (but didn’t bat an eyelash at Clinton, or at stoning deaths of women in Islamic countries), at how black organizations lay awake at night thinking up new grievances and/or excuses for their own behavior (didn’t quite get around to pondering, e.g., Rwanda or Liberia, however), homosexual groups flounce around about homosexual marriage (executions of homosexuals in Islamic countries no biggie), and environmentalists enraged by American inaction over “global warming” (but China and India churning out carbon dioxide is A-OK; it’s Third World CO2, which is totally different).
The conclusion is inescapable. We’re seeing not a legitimate expression of opinion, but rather the work product of communist agitation. The common thread: all of these issues present opportunities to weaken America and constraint her freedom of action. Cui bono?
nicely put occam
Rafael Correa is now in russia.. wonder what they will now plan out that Correa signed a strategic treaty already.
at the summit of Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), lots of people got to chat with each other. people like Nikolai Patrushev, current secretary of the Russian Security Council (ex head of FSB too).
“You cannot call South America a backyard of the USA.” Patrushev
lets see, who else has been visiting moscow recently? Kirchner went, so did evo morales. ortega did, and chavez is always visiting.
everyone is selling them all weapons too…
all kind of things. new mirage fighters are trying to get to venezuela (columbia wont let them fly over). chavez has bought a lot of stuff and has signed contracts to manufacture too.
no mention here about Alfredo Jalil (father of acting defense minister). he was kidnapped recently.
no mention either as to the kidnap and murder of Enzo, nephew of micheletti
Comcepcion Jiminez was shot outside his home. he is an army colonel.
so yeah i can see them caving to let him in again to ligitimize the next election results.
Mrs. Whatsit,
“Here, the US has … bullied little Honduras into disregarding its own Constitution because it suited US interests to do so.”
What US interest is that?
As bad as Obama’s domestic policy is proving to be, his foreign policy leaves me speechless. He is about to bring terrorists from Guantanamo to the US, creating an unnecessary but all too real fear that he is not serious about the war on terror (“man-made whatever”) and leaving those with whom we were allied for more than 60 years at a loss as to our intentions. One thing is very clear. The US cannot be relied on by our traditional allies for support of any kind. I suspect that France and Germany will soon be spending a much larger percentage of their GDPs on defense. Israel has been indirectly warned (by Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s puppy national security advisor) that US planes may (should) be ordered to shoot down their planes if they fly over Iraq on the way to bomb Iranian nuclear assets. Given Obama’s erratic responses to foreign developments. it must be taken into account by Israel. Can you imagine US planes shooting down Israeli planes and getting us into a war with Israel.
So, what are US interests under Obama?
Just what US interest did Obama foster by forcing Honduras to install Zelaya for 2 months. He just looks foolish. Hillary looks even more foolish as the messenger. The US now appears to have surrendered any claim to having a intelligent foreign policy.
All I can think is that we have left the world in a quandary as to our foreign policy. What actions will be rewarded? penalized? On what basis should France, Great Britain, Germany, and every other country in the world, continue to deal with us. The asylum is now under the control of the inmates.
My pore tiping is surpast only by my inabilty to type.
Dysflexics of the world untie!!!
The conclusion is inescapable. We’re seeing not a legitimate expression of opinion, but rather the work product of communist agitation.
What?
The UN, EU, OAS, Canada, most countries of Latin America and Europe, Taiwan, China, and Russia all have condemned the ouster of Zelaya as a coup and recommended his return to power.
I don’t think communist agitation covers this unless one assumes that communist agitation runs the world these days.
Re communist agitation, as I should perhaps have made clearer, I was referring to the views of vocal indiviiduals and non-governmental groups (as opposed to governments, where “communist agitation” doesn’t make sense), but even without that qualification your list still comports well my statement:
To account for the actions of these governments, we need only broaden my attribution of motivation to include “nationalism.”
huxley Says:
October 30th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
That appears to be the case. Or we could call it organized crime instead of communism. Same difference.
The world is increasingly ruled by thugs and criminals. Freedom is dying.
We may be entering a new Dark Age, unless something changes soon.
rickl,
I hate it. But I’m with you–I’ve been thinking in recent days that we’re looking at the dawning of a new age–a New Dark Age.
I hate it especially because I have children. Me, I’m closer to the end than I am to the beginning (pace Paddy Chayefsky). But I have kids, and I may have grandkids, God willing. This is looking awful. There was a time when we in this country could think that the world was our oyster. I know that’s an un-PC sentiment, but we were the good guys in the neighborhood, and people relied on us, and even if they didn’t like us, they trusted us. No more. Shoot, we can’t even trust ourselves anymore.
God Bless the United States of America, happy memory.
Huxley,
Communist agitation does not run the world these days, as you point out, but it’s running more than it did before its home bases failed and collapsed. These people never give up (quoth Robert Duvall as Lt Bill Kilgore in Apocalypse Now). They took over the Democrat Party and since then they have never stopped waging total war against the Republicans and any other opposition. They are relentless. I don’t think anyone who opposes them has a clue of the kind of determination they have. The Left is like a force of nature. The Republicans, to the extent that they constitute the opposition, have not the first clue of what they are faced with. They keep wanting to “reach across the isle,” they claim to believe that that’s what the American people want. It’s not what the American people want. The American people want their freedom saved. No one is offering that, though. No one seems to have the stomach for a fight. Those who pretend to be our leaders don’t see that the terms of the battle have changed. I’ll be glad to fight, but I hope we can find a leader so we don’t have to fight as simple ad hoc groups. That way we will be picked off one-by-one.
I know that saying these things makes me, in the view of some, seem like a nut. But still, I can’t help thinking that we’re in mortal danger.
Damn my destructive ’60s generation.
And Dark Ages do come from time to time.
The good news is that Hondurans will be going to the polls in a month, and Zelaya won’t be running. Now that the US and the international community have decided to recognize the results, one can hope that the beleaguered Hondurans will finally be left alone to decide their own destiny according to their own very adequate constitution.
I regret to say that I don’t expect for a minute that this will happen. I don’t think Zelaya will accept the death of his dictatorial ambitions, not after all this. Nor do I think Obama has run a full-court press against the mighty enemy Honduras just so Zelaya can be a lame duck for a month or two.
I’m not sure the elections will be allowed to take place. If they do, I’m not sure Zelaya won’t find a way to run, Constitution or no Constitution. If he doesn’t, I don’t expect him to leave office peacefully when his term is up, and I don’t expect the usual suspects to recognize or respect the election results. And if he is removed, I do expect the parrots to begin crying “Coup! Coup!” all over again, with economic sanctions, visa withdrawals, diplomatic pressure, and so on and so forth.
It simply doesn’t make sense to me that, after all this, Honduras will be allowed to proceed as a democracy without Zelaya. If the Obama administration wee willing to see that happen, they wouldn’t have acted as they have for the last several months.
Barack Obama will recognise the Honduran election result, so long as the Hondurans vote for Chavez.
Nor do I think Obama has run a full-court press against the mighty enemy Honduras just so Zelaya can be a lame duck for a month or two.
Exactly. One crisis requiring martial law, coming up.
OB, betsy, rickl: I object to this easy equation of liberalism = New Deal Liberalism = socialism = Marxism = Communism that I find running throughout these discussions.
While there are elements and influences that overlap, these things are not the same.
This equation underlies much of the shrillness and near hysteria in this blog’s comments.
Dark ages do happen, but not often. Raising each and every setback to the apocalyptic level of an oncoming Dark Age is neither historically realistic nor psychologically practical.
It’s like driving your car while constantly expecting a horrific accident. It’s true that you could be maimed or killed every time you venture out on the road, but you can’t drive that way without becoming a nervous wreck and possibly causing the accident yourself by an over-reaction.
Nor do I think Obama has run a full-court press against the mighty enemy Honduras just so Zelaya can be a lame duck for a month or two.
If Obama supports Zelaya’s ambitions to stay in power, I will ratchet up my concern about Obama accordingly.
However, I predict that Zelaya will finish his term, a new president will be elected, and life will go on.
If this happens, will participants here ease back on the Obama-Chavez rhetoric? Somehow I doubt it.
huxley: no they won’t. Nor should they, and I’ll tell you why.
The “Obama-Chavez rhetoric” is based on a great deal more than his policy regarding Honduras, and it began long before that policy was instituted. His Honduran policy only solidified the connection and made it more overt. But the comparison is actually based more on his domestic policies and some of his methods (especially his attitude towards opponents and towards dissent and towards power). It is based on an aggregate of policies and positions.
Some of those policies will succeed and some won’t. His Honduras policy of reinstating Zelaya met with a surprising amount of opposition from Honduras itself, and I don’t think he bargained for that. So it didn’t totally succeed, but not for lack of trying.
How Obama responds to Honduras’s new leader will depend on a host of things, including who it is. But if the elections seem to go smoothly and the international community is satisfied with them, he probably will be as well. Honduras itself is not a huge concern of his. He’s looking at the big picture, and Honduras was just a tiny piece where he saw an opportunity for a moment. If that opportunity closes, so be it. He’ll go on to others.
huxley: no they won’t. Nor should they, and I’ll tell you why.
neo: I didn’t ask them or you to give up on Obama-Chavez rhetoric. I asked whether they would “ease up” on it.
It seems that for many here the view of Obama as a would-be tyrant is now fixed and no developments in the real world will change or modify that view.
So let’s put it in Popperian terms.
Is the hypothesis “Obama is a would-be tyrant similar to Chavez” falsifiable?
huxley: Yes, it is falsifiable, over time. It would take a lot of evidence to undo it, however, just as it took a lot of evidence (at least for me) to come to the original conclusion.
Obama not making a fuss about the Honduran elections-to-be simply wouldn’t be enough to affect it one way or another. It’s a neutral event. There has been way too much from Obama to the contrary on Honduras—active rather than neutral.
huxley Says:
November 1st, 2009 at 1:43 pm
“Yes” to the first part of your sentence.
As for the second part, I certainly would revise my opinion if he gave me a reason to. So far, he hasn’t come close to doing so.
huxley Says:
November 1st, 2009 at 12:02 pm
I admit that my terminology might be sloppy from time to time, but I’m not really interested in making fine distinctions between Socialist/Communist/Fascist etc. theory and doctrine. To me, they are all flavors of collectivism or statism, and are diametrically opposed to American ideals of individual liberty, limited government, and free-market capitalism.
During the 1930s, the Fascist Mussolini spoke approvingly of FDR’s New Deal, by the way. See Jonah Goldberg’s “Liberal Fascism”.
rickl: Obama has spoken approvingly of Ronald Reagan, but I don’t think that makes Obama a Reagan Conservative.
Yes, I have read Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism and consider a fine, enlightening book.
As it happens, today Goldberg made a similar point in The Corner to mine:
A lot of conservatives today are too quick to think that because liberals have some affinity for Marxist sentiments that they are actual Marxists. Liberals often make the same mistakes as Marxists, but they’re not Marxists. In the 1960s, the distinctions between Marxists and liberals was much more apparent and it’s worth remembering that the radicals often hated the liberals more than they hated the conservatives.
neo: I remain perplexed by the limb you’ve gone out on to say that Obama is a would-be tyrant in the Chavez mode.
Chavez actually mounted a military coup against his government before he was a president, so that was a gimme. With Obama one must do a great deal of mindreading and ignore the substantial obstacles in his way.
I understand why a person might consider the possibility that Obama is working towards tyranny, but that’s quite different from concluding that it’s the truth and requiring a great deal of evidence to undo.
… in the Chavez mold.
huxley: I’m getting very tired of having the same argument over and over with you. Go back and look at previous ones if you’re forgetting what I’ve said.
Never would I have said that it is “the truth” that Obama is in the Chavez mold, and I would think if you’ve read here as much as you have, you would know that. I believe, however, that there is a great deal of evidence that is very disturbing and points in that general direction. I also believe it would take an equal amount of contrary evidence to undo that perception. I have seen nothing so far that points in that direction, much less a great deal of contrary evidence. And neutral things do not count as evidence.
neo: You’ve been quite emphatic that Obama is a would-be tyrant similar to Chavez, whether I can paraphrase the exact degree of your certainty or not. A conclusion sounds like closer to a truth than an opinion.
However, you have not argued with me so much as referred me back, repeatedly, to previous unspecified posts, as you are now doing.
As I recall those discussions, they were not convincing and involved much handwaving as to the mechanics of how Obama could become an American tyrant.
In any event, your opinion that Obama is playing to become tyrant is an extreme opinion, however great the amount of evidence you judge supports it. Very few commentators — aside from the more excitable commenters here — agree.
huxley: I certainly don’t have the time to go back through all my posts on the subject plus the comments section to find every statement I ever made on the subject.
But in your own comment here you say [emphasis mine] “the mechanics of how Obama could become an American tyrant.” That’s exactly what I think—he could, not that he will.
But I have no certainty about that, nor is it something that can be proven. However, about 100 of my posts here delineate the evidence I see of his possible intent to come as close as he can. He has shown a remarkable interest in supporting dictators and stifling free speech and dissent in this country, for example.
Unless you bring something new to this discussion, I’m not spending more time arguing with you about it.
neo: Do as you like. I don’t require you or anyone to respond to my posts.
It does seem to me that you are softening your earlier claims. It seems to me you were saying something stronger than Obama could become an American tyrant. Heck, history can be very strange and even I would have to agree with that.
However, it seems to me you were saying that Obama wanted to be a dictator and he was actively working to become a dictator and your only qualification was that you didn’t know if he could pull it off.
But I’m not interested either in sifting through your posts for that claim, especially since this topic is stale and likely no one is reading it.
Frankly, though, given all this onus-shifting and hedging and handwaving and referring back to unspecified posts and huffing about not arguing with me anymore, I have concluded that you really can’t defend whatever you were saying very well.
That’s my conclusion.
That said, I consider you a remarkable blogger and writer and I wish you well.
huxley: Thanks for the compliments, which I appreciate.
But I remain unimpressed by having my opinions misrepresented. I have gone back and briefly read a couple of what I consider to have been my most negative Obama posts, and I stand by everything I said in them.
In them all, I am quite consistent in saying that I believe (not that it’s the absolute truth, but that the evidence shows—and I list the evidence) that Obama has radical plans for America, and wishes to place it somewhere between a European social welfare state and Chavez’s Venezuela. I also state that I believe he is the most radical and dangerous president we’ve had in my lifetime.
So far events have borne me out—and I don’t mean an event or two, I mean virtually every move the man has made so far as president. Some of this danger is through his purposeful policies, both economic and foreign, and some is through his incompetence. The exact proportion of each cannot be known, but I believe it is a mix, and the proportion of the former (purposeful—as in moving towards socialism and media control at home and appeasement and naive internationalism abroad)—is rather high, as I see it.
I had said I would not engage you any more on this, but I’m tired of having my views misrepresented.
Goldberg HAD to say things a certain way to always sound reasonable no matter how unreasonable what he was saying was.
he knew how to say what he wanted to say to people who have everything wrapped up wiht a certain reasonable end… and because of that REFUSE emphatically to follow any thread that does not lead there.
A lot of conservatives today are too quick to think that because liberals have some affinity for Marxist sentiments that they are actual Marxists.
using AFFINITY, they get to leave the REASONABLE the out they need to read the rest of him.
but once you expand it to say what it says, by adding some of the things they ahve affinity for, then you can see its just a word game.
AFFINITY – inherent likeness or agreement; close resemblance or connection.
however people like ***, will of course focus on the definition they WANT… a natural liking for or attraction to a person, thing, idea, etc.
in this way, by carefully choosing his words to always leave a logical out for the permanently incredulous, he gets them to listen to him.
but please do explain how having an admiration, affinity and such for Stalin and his ideas or Mao and his ideas naturally filters them along the lines you want them to!
that is, how is your assumption that they are taking the best and throwing out the worst have any validity?
we have a movement for abortion planned on top of something called the negro project. which was for the extermination of said indigent races.
that negro project was turned into planned parenthood. and even though hitlers people wrote to Gamble, sangers left hand man for advice, the whole of the movement is wrapped up in ambiguity that allows the REASONABLE the pacifier they need to sit still.
there are many times more abortion clinics in minority neighborhoods, and some films like the ones for acorn were made that show that they will take donations from racists to help abort children of color.
but as long as there exists even a semblence of an argument couched in ambiguity, those searchign for the reason NOT to decide, are given the pablum they need to go to sleep.
my major problem is that i cant get any of those guys to read instructions and methodologies that explain waht i just did above.
that is in the absence of education, the idiots win.
so if they never read things like this:
Using Ambiguity to Achieve Organizational Objectives
There are organizational leaders who embrace ambiguity for their own means as well to assist in affecting changes in the enterprise. This “use” of ambiguity is often in the form of ambiguous communications from executive management. Paul & Strbiak (1997) conclude that it is a widely recognized phenomenon that communications within organizations are often unclear and ambiguous. They further conclude that although clarity is usually considered desirable for communication, that ambiguity may be more effective in certain circumstances. Eisenberg (1984) uses the term strategic ambiguity to refer to “those instances where individuals use ambiguity purposefully to accomplish their goals”.
they wouldnt know the over 100 years of study, work and dynamics used to control groups of people, or the names of the researchrs.
they would deny that what i am saying is true or valid because I said it, not because it was or wasnt valid.
that is, they win because they are ignorant…
and the ones that know more, are losers becaause the ignorant have created boundaries to what they will accept in conversation.
of course to get them to assemble psychology, social science, politics, and history is way way too much…
even forensics:
Conversational Strategies Used to Create Crimes
”Part of the intelligence analysis in any criminal case begins by recognizing whether the crime was actually committed by the target or whether an illusion of a crime was created by the person wearing the mike” (p.29). This assertion frames Shuy’s intentions throughout the rest of his analysis. By identifying eleven conversational strategies (e.g. using ambiguity, contaminating the tape, and scripting the target) that are commonly employed by undercover officers and cooperating witnesses in the information gathering stage of a criminal investigation, Shuy shows that it is often just this created illusion that may result in a guilty verdict, rather than actual evidence of a crime
committed.
so ambiguity and the technique is known to those who are versed with those who manipulate others.
its use has been defined, researched and disemminated for over a century…
maybe they might use neos new book link to buy something?
I would recommend:
The Art of Deception: An Introduction to Critical Thinking : How to : Win an Argument, Defend a Case, Recognize a Fallacy, See Through a Deception,
how do you know whether you saw a snake or a worm if you have not spent your time learning anyting about either of them?
The author advocates using ambiguity, trickery, and insulting your opponent to try to win arguments. For example, he states that you should not use the words “all” or “some” or that you should use vague terms so that later on you can claim any of a number of different meanings. He also states that you must have a deep voice in order to be successful at arguing
notice how they say barry has a baritone when he is not a baritone, other than maybe a barry tone.
its funny reading a review and commentary from a person who has been schooled in REASONABLE, and how they completely are vulnerable to it all becayuse they think they are superior to it, the way others do.
and he even brings up *** tactic
He even has some ridiculous suggestions, like if you don’t agree with certain ideas, then you should attack all knowledge in general, and claim that there is a conspiracy among those people who support those ideas. In addition, he often suggests that you attack your opponent rather than their argument. This might be a good strategy for elementary school kids, but not for adults! He also states that you should never admit defeat, and you should refuse to be convinced of your opponent’s argument.
the one that everyone seems to argue that never gives in no matter what information is presented is WHO?
its a tactic, and one they probably dont relize they are using. but alas, if you read these books and you know lawyers books, you then know these games for what they are, even if the people using them have no such meta knowlege.
i learned my knowlege of deception from people who died if they made a mistake. that meant that they became VERY good at seeing deception.
the way that inner city bad neighborhood kids and rural hunters can spot IEDs in the theater of operation, but the suburbians are dropping like flies since they had video games and have no peripheral vision, and have no ‘alarm’ system (since in their game world a death was not a death but a disappointment).
the study of the soviet union and war is a study in nothing but deception.
those who hav studyed the methods recognize them when they are being employed, those that dont, sit there and come up with a greate reason why it wont work.. (despite it working all aroudn them and they are blind to it).
Some literature on the hows of deception
The Art of Deception: An Introduction to Critical Thinking : How to : Win an Argument, Defend a Case, Recognize a Fallacy, See Through a Deception
The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security
The Art of Deception keven mitnick.
All, or nearly all, of the examples are fictional, but quite plausible. Many are frightening or at least unsettling because they expose the ease with which a skilled social engineer can subvert many rules most people take for granted.
And now you can read some translated ones on Maskirovka
Once you get the basics down… and then move to the papers of those who want to use such power and use it to get more. Then you realize “communism” is not “dead.” It is only underground. There were no purges. Those who ran the KGB still run the SVR and a dozen other services in the former Soviet Union. They learned that to control things overtly was not the way, and so like others in the past have slipped into the shadows where there is no one to blame.
There is Article X: the sources of soviet conduct by George Kennan
The books below come from a list from the austrailian airforce
Mesmerized by the Bear: The Soviet Strategy of Deception, edited by Raymond S. Sleeper. New York, Dodd, Mead & Co, 1987. 384 p.
Book call no.: 355.033547 M579
The New Image-Makers: Soviet Propaganda & Disinformation Today. Washington, Pergamon-Brassey’s International Defense Publishers, 1988. 262 p.
Book call no.: 327.17 N532
Shultz, Richard H. and Godson, Roy. Dezinformatsia–Active Measures in Soviet Strategy. New York, Berkley Books, 1986. 241 p.
Book call no.: 327.47 S5622d 1986
Soviet Strategic Deception, edited by Brian D. Dailey and Patrick J. Parker. Lexington, MA, D.C. Heath, 1987. 538 p.
Book call no.: 355.033547 S7293
Dunn, Michael J. (Maj, USAF). The Soviet Disinformation Campaign. Maxwell AFB, AL, Apr 1987. 67 p. (Air University (U.S.) Air Command and Staff College. Student report)
Doc. call no.: M-U 43122 D9234s
George, Robert K. (Maj, USAF). An Historical Investigation of Soviet Strategic Deception. Maxwell AFB, AL, Apr 1987. 93 p. (Air University (U.S.) Air Command and Staff College. Student report)
Doc. call no.: M-U 43122 G348h
United States. Army. Center of Miltary History. Soviet Deception Operations in World War II, by Bruce R. Pirnie (Maj, USA). Washington, Aug 1985. 15 p.
Offers an analysis of Soviet deception operations during World War II with emphasis on Operation URANUS in November 1942 and Operation BAGRATION in June 1944.
Doc. call no.: M-U 43594-4
United States Army Command and General Staff College. Combat Studies Institute. Soviet Operational Deception: The Red Cloak, by Richard N. Armstrong (LtCol). Fort Leavenworth, KS, Dec 1988. 56 p.
Doc. call no.: M-U 36500-34
How the Communists Win the Minds of Men: Interview. American Legion Magazine 122:20-21+ Mar ’87.
TO WIN THE MINDS OF MEN
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=6731978
The Story of the Communist Propaganda War in East Germany
No one who is reasonable can withstand them because to them your reasonableness is their weapon. Détente is a weapon. Etc.
In 1958 this was said:
“War has changed its form, the Communists have discovered that a man killed by a bullet is useless. He can dig no coal. They have discovered that a demolished city is useless. Its mills produce no cloth. The objective of Communist warfare is to capture intact the minds of the people and their possessions, so they can be put to use. This is the modern conception of slavery that puts all the others in the kindergarten age.
So the idea that totalitarianism is gone, is wrong..
And note the march through the culture from 1968 on…
Kind of matches the planning documents written in the 30s, and the defectors claims from the 40s as to the work they did.
Its just realized that its prior method last century was so wasteful, when one can EASILY deceive the reasonable people, crush the unreasonable, and completely change everything piece by piece where each separate piece is not enough to convince the reasonable.
Its how ithappened in germany… and the key is that the reasonable accept all information that is conducice to their point, as valid. Even if its from a state known for collusion, assassination, manipulation, and such.
You can see a leaping example of it in the conversation above!!!!
It was applied to me when the germans who lived through wwii said something that favored the reasonable, and that swept away all the others who were trying to explain how it worked. The authors, the defectors, the historians, the diplomats, and my family.
from 1958 again:
“The Communists have been in operation for a full generation, taking strategic advantage of the American principles, exploiting the best sides in our characters as vulnerabilities, and succeeding for a generation in changing the characteristics of Americans. I remember when I was a young man, every personnel department was looking for leadership qualities. What was sought was a man’s capacity as an individual to achieve new things. Today that is not even considered by personnel departments in their employment policies. They ask, instead, if the man ‘gets along’ with everybody. They do not ask what is his individuality; they ask how he conforms. When we raise a young man to believe that at all costs he must get on with everyone, we have put him into a state of mind that almost guarantees, if he falls into the hands of an enemy such as the Communists, that he will react as he had been raised, to try ‘to get on,’ because he must not be ‘antisocial.’
the training of the reasonable has been going on for a while…
heck, they dont even call them personel departments any more… they are now human resources… as if we were type writers and interchangeable marxist parts.
so submerged in it, the smartest of the programed cant tell they have been programmed to be comfortable with these mental things.
“Being ‘antisocial’ has become the cardinal sin in our society. We have to again go back to characteristics of ours which made us, as individuals, say that what is right is right, and whether or not it is antisocial, makes no difference. The young man who broadcast for the Red Chinese was simply ‘getting along’ as he had been taught to do by our educators.”
“The most deadly misconception of all, that requires a softening up in our thinking before we can make it, is the idea that there are different kinds of communism, and that besides international communism there is something called national communism, which fundamentally differs. There is nothing of the sort. We are again interpreting, on the basis of wishful thinking, what the Communists themselves are plainly saying. We base this national communism conception on Titoism. Tito at no time disowned or expressed doubt in any of the fundamental tenets of communism, and he is today expending all the time he can in trying to tell the world that he believes in communism, intends Communist objectives to win out in the long run all over the world. Communism in this, too, has been able, as always, to get the help it needs from the non-Communist and principally the anti-Communist world.
“Each time there has been a crisis in Soviet Russia, it could depend on the outside world for help. Today, under the theory that there are different forms of communism, and some Communist forms are not really Communist, or are less Communist than others, we are giving through aid programs and such propaganda assists as so-called exchange scholarships, the help and sustenance that these Communist countries require to survive. I have heard that under certain technical requirements of the law, completely fantastic statements have come from the White House and the State Department that communism in Yugoslavia really isn’t communism any more, and that communism in Poland is not real communism. I thought we had learned our lesson in China. We said that the communism of China, the communism of Mao Tse-tung was not really communism. We said it was not the communism of Moscow. Mao Tse-tung was saying it was the same communism, exactly as Tito says that the Communist ideology is basically the same everywhere, and that the objective for a Communist world is identical.”
you cant convince the ignorant
because they dont have the requisite information to actually make the choice
and they will not admit that tehy dont…
instead they will make the critical information seen unecessary, so that they preserve self esteem at the cost of everyone else.
Planned over a century ago, the framework for managing and monitoring this worldwide revolution was in place by 1945.
Frankly, though, given all this onus-shifting and hedging and handwaving and referring back to unspecified posts and huffing about not arguing with me anymore, I have concluded that you really can’t defend whatever you were saying very well.
That’s my conclusion.
frustrating your opoenent till they give up is how a 2 year old wins an argument.
refusing to give in when you ahve lost is a technique in the book i linked to. it makes everyone dance to your tune trying to change what you have decided not to change out of hand.
that is, you have no argument to support otherwise. the people here have given you more than several volumes of books to show why so. while you have done nothing but say, nope, that isnt it, not that one either, etc.
you REFUSE to take ANY unreasonable position.
your not that smart, you just learned a game where you can look and SEEM superior by refusing to give in and let others come to you to try.
it in no way shape or form conveys any validity any more than argying with a rock and getting no where means the rock won
this is how lesser intelligence can pretend to be a higher intelligence by ‘conducting’, rather than actyually participating at the same set of rules AND conceding points.
the rock never wins, no matter what…
it just sits there feeling good pretending it won after everyone else has left them alone in the room.
That’s my conclusion.
by the way… according to the definition of the word conclusion, you have reached no such thing!!!!
all you have is a blind assertion made in a room after you have refused any conclusions as acceptable to you!
Conclusion
the last main division of a discourse, usually containing a summing up of the points and a statement of opinion or decisions reached.
nope… the other person walked out given that your not wiling to change your position on any information EXCEPT themloading you into a truck. but by then the argyument woudl be moot… kind of like argying AFTER the lottery.
a reasoned deduction or inference.
you DEFINITELY did not do that… in fact all you did was put up a bunch of goals that you claim were not met and so your deducting from that.
but none of your points can make a valid argumetn from where you are that your deduction is right. in fact it was completely eroneous and only had value in being snarky and attempting to gain an emote point on the same score card as trolls.
my or anyones refusal to meet your criteria is not a sign we are wrong, it may be a sign that you moved the goal posts to outside the park.
your the one that changes your postion and shifts onus.
you will say some large statment that X cant do Y beacuse of Z… then i or someone will show that X CAN do y evenwithout Z… and you then say it was irrelevent… you are the one doing the shifting.
you are always heding to reasonableness… i can prove it… you will make comments that lead to your position.
It does seem to me that you are softening your earlier claims.
and where is your evidence referrig back to unspecified posts?
oh… i see… what rules you apply are not hte same as to the others.
so neo has to go back and prove her point abotu her own words, but you can do what you just spoke against in the same post and not do so.
neoneocon.com/2009/10/30/finally-obama-gets-a-foreign-policy-success-unfortunately-its-in-honduras-not-iran/#comment-132046
It does seem to me that you are softening your earlier claims.
SEEM… what an exact term… your just baiting her. and where is your proof? where is your reference… follow the link and read the lower paragraph…
Frankly, though, given all this onus-shifting and hedging and handwaving and referring back to unspecified posts
not only did you refer back to unspecified posts, but you averaged them by your personal feelings and experience!!!! then you argued that your SEEM is more valid than NEOs actual writing.
wake up as to whom is doing what.
we have tried quopting other threads.
but then you say they are too long.
i am glad you wont read this.
that way others will see what an ass you are, and you wont know why.