Attention: TDR Forum Junkies 
Some folks here could benefit from this, but they won't know it, LOL.
A matter of trust and the truth
BY LEONARD PITTS
-- email address removed --
So it turns out that Odai and Qusai are not really dead.
Granted, the U. S. military says they are. It has had the corpses visually and forensically identified. It has shown the bodies to Iraqi journalists. It has put them on Iraqi TV.
No matter. Many Iraqis remain unconvinced.
''A U. S. ploy to try to break the spirit of the resistance,'' one of them told a reporter.
''Those photos are not them,'' another said.
In other news: It now turns out that God did not make little green apples and it, in fact, don't rain in Indianapolis in the summertime.
Sorry. Couldn't resist.
There are those who will say the United States has earned the skepticism of people in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East and I won't debate that. There are some who will point out that people who have been exposed to only one officially sanctioned viewpoint their entire lives cannot be expected to break that mold overnight and I won't disagree with that either. Finally, there are some who will argue that it is always wise to be skeptical of governments. You have only to survey the flap over President Bush's ''16 words'' to know that they, too, have a valid point.
But what happens when skepticism becomes not a tool for evaluating information but a default position? When everything is a lie until proven otherwise? And the bar for what constitutes proof is set so ridiculously high -- must the military drag the corpses to every doorstep in Iraq? -- that nothing ever qualifies. Nothing is ever finally true. Or, for that matter, false.
That's the state of things on the so-called ''Arab Street,'' which explains why the United States has its hands full in trying to sway Middle Eastern public opinion. But has anyone noticed that it's also that way, albeit to a lesser degree, on the American street?
I first noticed this phenomenon of reflexive disbelief in 1969 when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon and people kept trying to convince me that he had done no such thing. That it had all been faked on a soundstage in Burbank. Not a shred of evidence did they have to buttress the wild claim, but not a shred did they need. Every time somebody said that, somebody else would give a sanguine nod of assent.
The falsity of the moon mission remains to this day an article of faith in some corners.
And it's only gotten worse since then. Blame the Internet, which has made it possible to disseminate lies and half-truths more efficiently than any of us could have dreamed back in '69. Bill Clinton selling drugs, George W. Bush using war to help his corporate pals turn a profit, Tommy Hilfiger saying bad things on Oprah, black voting rights soon to be repealed, the post office planning to tax e-mails. . . . You want to laugh at the absurdity of it all until you realize that people take this stuff seriously.
People, some of them, at least, believe.
We have come into an era where everything is equally credible whether you got it from a stranger on the Internet or the government of the United States. Indeed, some might find the stranger on the Internet more credible, if only because that stranger brings the cachet of the underground source, providing information ''they'' don't want you to know.
Whoever ''they'' is.
I make no argument for unquestioning acceptance, particularly where government is concerned. In a democracy, skepticism is more than a right. It's an obligation.
My only point is that not all ''truth'' is created equally. And that where skepticism becomes reflex it becomes indistinguishable from paranoia. If you will not agree with me that blue is blue for fear that blue is really a U. S. government ploy, then we lose common truth, common language and the common ground that allows debate to be constructive and disagreement meaningful.
A matter of trust and the truth
BY LEONARD PITTS
-- email address removed --
So it turns out that Odai and Qusai are not really dead.
Granted, the U. S. military says they are. It has had the corpses visually and forensically identified. It has shown the bodies to Iraqi journalists. It has put them on Iraqi TV.
No matter. Many Iraqis remain unconvinced.
''A U. S. ploy to try to break the spirit of the resistance,'' one of them told a reporter.
''Those photos are not them,'' another said.
In other news: It now turns out that God did not make little green apples and it, in fact, don't rain in Indianapolis in the summertime.
Sorry. Couldn't resist.
There are those who will say the United States has earned the skepticism of people in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East and I won't debate that. There are some who will point out that people who have been exposed to only one officially sanctioned viewpoint their entire lives cannot be expected to break that mold overnight and I won't disagree with that either. Finally, there are some who will argue that it is always wise to be skeptical of governments. You have only to survey the flap over President Bush's ''16 words'' to know that they, too, have a valid point.
But what happens when skepticism becomes not a tool for evaluating information but a default position? When everything is a lie until proven otherwise? And the bar for what constitutes proof is set so ridiculously high -- must the military drag the corpses to every doorstep in Iraq? -- that nothing ever qualifies. Nothing is ever finally true. Or, for that matter, false.
That's the state of things on the so-called ''Arab Street,'' which explains why the United States has its hands full in trying to sway Middle Eastern public opinion. But has anyone noticed that it's also that way, albeit to a lesser degree, on the American street?
I first noticed this phenomenon of reflexive disbelief in 1969 when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon and people kept trying to convince me that he had done no such thing. That it had all been faked on a soundstage in Burbank. Not a shred of evidence did they have to buttress the wild claim, but not a shred did they need. Every time somebody said that, somebody else would give a sanguine nod of assent.
The falsity of the moon mission remains to this day an article of faith in some corners.
And it's only gotten worse since then. Blame the Internet, which has made it possible to disseminate lies and half-truths more efficiently than any of us could have dreamed back in '69. Bill Clinton selling drugs, George W. Bush using war to help his corporate pals turn a profit, Tommy Hilfiger saying bad things on Oprah, black voting rights soon to be repealed, the post office planning to tax e-mails. . . . You want to laugh at the absurdity of it all until you realize that people take this stuff seriously.
People, some of them, at least, believe.
We have come into an era where everything is equally credible whether you got it from a stranger on the Internet or the government of the United States. Indeed, some might find the stranger on the Internet more credible, if only because that stranger brings the cachet of the underground source, providing information ''they'' don't want you to know.
Whoever ''they'' is.
I make no argument for unquestioning acceptance, particularly where government is concerned. In a democracy, skepticism is more than a right. It's an obligation.
My only point is that not all ''truth'' is created equally. And that where skepticism becomes reflex it becomes indistinguishable from paranoia. If you will not agree with me that blue is blue for fear that blue is really a U. S. government ploy, then we lose common truth, common language and the common ground that allows debate to be constructive and disagreement meaningful.
Last edited by a moderator:
I wonder who they are?
