Why are democracies disappointing Glenn Greenwald?

[Ykcutnek]

On the one hand, when you strip away the polemical parts of Greenwald’s post, he has a point on causation. International Relations 101 tells us that when Country A attacks Country B, there will usually be a military response. In cases where Country A is pretty damn powerful, it will not be surprising if that response is asymmetrical — guerrilla warfare, terrorism, etc. Furthermore, there’s an entire literature on enduring rivalries that examines why particular dyads in world politics seem to fight each other again and again and again and again.

On the other hand, Greenwald’s argument is both banal and incomplete. It’s banal because, by Greenwald’s criteria, every country with great power or even regional aspirations should be awash in terrorism right now. As bellicosity goes, Canada is way down on the list of countries. There’s obviously the United States and United Kingdom, but there’s also, you know, Russia and China and Iran and Saudi Arabia and Turkey and North Korea and… well, you get the point. Furthermore, if Greenwald thinks Canada is wallowing in war glory, I’d really love for him to focus on the Russian response to its actions in Ukraine, or the Chinese response to its actions in the Senkyakus. If the logic were as simple as “if Country A uses force, it will be awash in terrorist responses,” then Moscow and Beijing would be besieged by suicide bombers.

No, the reason there’s shock in Canada and elsewhere is that democracies at least claim to adhere to jus in bello when they prosecute violent conflicts, whereas some of their opponents do not agree to those parts of the just war canon. When Russia invades Ukraine or mucks around in Sweden or the Baltic states, Moscow is not anticipating that it will be awash in Estonian suicide attacks. Similarly, when China bullies the Philippines, it’s not anticipating Filipino terrorist responses. Democracies do not always adhere to the rules governing armed conflict, but they do tend to shy away from terrorist responses.

It’s possible that the deep source of frustration behind Greenwald’s post is that voters in Canada and other democracies continue to support a robust anti-terrorism response – despite what Greenwald sees as catastrophic anti-terrorist policies. But that’s democracy. It’s not enough to criticize existing policies as stupid — one has to persuade voters that there’s a better way. And despite the fact that publics can and should be receptive to this message, it hasn’t played all too well in elections. Which suggests that Greenwald needs to do a better job with persuasion than he has to date.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/10/23/why-are-democracies-disappointing-glenn-greenwald/?TID=SM_FB

[1StrongBlackMan]

1. This will not be met well. eom.

[zappaman]

54. Looks like they are just suspended

for the moment.
But it IS a coincidink.

[KoKo]

2. Ahh..Brookings Think Tank..attacks Glen Greenwald in Jeff Bezos Owned "WaPo" Article

What else is new?

Why are democracies disappointing Glenn Greenwald?

By Daniel W. Drezner October 23 at 9:28 AM
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at Tufts University and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

[Maedhros]

3. This article makes the same mistake with respect to democracy

that free market proponents make with the economy: They assume the participants are rational actors in their own self interest. The author states that voters support a robust anti-terrorism response and, aw shucks, that's just democracy in action.

Herman and Chomsky were on to something when they wrote "Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of Mass Media" in 1988. Voters have repeatedly demonstrated that they aren't rational, and do not act in their own self interest - they are told how to vote and what to think by various media authorities. How else to explain that at the time of the Iraq invasion in 2003, 92% of Americans believed an obvious, blatant falsehood - that Saddam Hussein was directly responsible for the WTC attacks in 2001?

Similarly, Americans have been fed a steady diet of falsehoods and fear designed to elicit support for the War on "Terror." It's not democracy, it's propaganda and crowd psychology.

It's hard to "do a better job" persuading people who have come to love Big Brother.

[Luminous Animal]

4. It also assumes that the war on terror is being led democratically.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/10/18/vote-all-you-want-the-secret-government-won-change/jVSkXrENQlu8vNcBfMn9sL/story.html

Vote all you want. The secret government won’t change.
The people we elect aren’t the ones calling the shots, says Tufts University’s Michael Glennon

THE VOTERS WHO put Barack Obama in office expected some big changes. From the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping to Guantanamo Bay to the Patriot Act, candidate Obama was a defender of civil liberties and privacy, promising a dramatically different approach from his predecessor.

But six years into his administration, the Obama version of national security looks almost indistinguishable from the one he inherited. Guantanamo Bay remains open. The NSA has, if anything, become more aggressive in monitoring Americans. Drone strikes have escalated. Most recently it was reported that the same president who won a Nobel Prize in part for promoting nuclear disarmament is spending up to $1 trillion modernizing and revitalizing America’s nuclear weapons.

Why did the face in the Oval Office change but the policies remain the same? Critics tend to focus on Obama himself, a leader who perhaps has shifted with politics to take a harder line. But Tufts University political scientist Michael J. Glennon has a more pessimistic answer: Obama couldn’t have changed policies much even if he tried.

Though it’s a bedrock American principle that citizens can steer their own government by electing new officials, Glennon suggests that in practice, much of our government no longer works that way. In a new book, “National Security and Double Government,” he catalogs the ways that the defense and national security apparatus is effectively self-governing, with virtually no accountability, transparency, or checks and balances of any kind. He uses the term “double government”: There’s the one we elect, and then there’s the one behind it, steering huge swaths of policy almost unchecked. Elected officials end up serving as mere cover for the real decisions made by the bureaucracy.

[Maedhros]

7. Yes, indeed.

We live in a country with a President that is shrouding government activity in Kafka-esque levels of secrecy, criminalizing investigative journalism and punishing whistle blowers to an unprecedented degree. We also live in a country that has systematically and insidiously crippled its education system in an effort to dumb down the electorate.

Democracies can only function if the electorate is well-educated and well-informed. By that measure, we are nowhere near to being a functional democracy.

[randome]

12. Obama expanded whistleblower protection.

http://www.whistleblowers.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=1429

The bill contains important advances including an expanded definition of "protected disclosure" and permits whistleblowers to collect compensatory damages. Kohn and Colapinto worked for over two years to successfully block three "poison pills" that had been inserted into the law. These "poison pills" would have permitted the MSPB to summarily dismiss cases without a hearing, repealed existing protections for FBI whistleblowers and permitted the executive branch to fire whistleblowers for reporting "minor" violations of law.

You're talking about leakers, not whistleblowers. You're not the first to make that mistake.

And when someone sells national security secrets or, worse, gives them away to other countries, you're damned right they should be prosecuted.

It took 2 years to get this passed. That's the type of obstruction we've had to put up with.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]TECT in the name of the Representative approves of this post.[/center][/font][hr]

[1StrongBlackMan]

64. +1 and there is a difference between a "whistleblower" and a "leaker" ...

the former should be celebrated as one who has the courage of their conviction; the latter should be shunned as a coward.

[Tarheel_Dem]

5. Who gives a f**k what "disappoints" GG? He's working his way into the Billionaire's Club....

while cashing in on information that belongs to all of us. Ca-Ching!

[stevenleser]

6. As a friend noted, Greenwald has found a way to profit from internet trolling.

His missives, like the recent one concerning Canada, are about as sophisticated as the stuff you normally see from a troll. He seeks to inflame rather than report and he is really good at it, but so are most trolls.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

66. Of course, without him,

we'd never get to see any of that 'information that belongs to all of us', since our patriarchical government thinks we're too immature to be told any of it, all the while sneaking into our rooms and reading our diaries.

[geek tragedy]

8. isn't it funny how Greenwald always seems to justify terror attacks as a natural response

to the real evildoers, and never, ever, ever, ever expresses the tiniest shred of moral outrage against anti-government attacks whether they be from Islamists or from the Anders Breivik crowd?

Or for that matter, anything China or Russia does.

Stuff Canada, or the US, or any other western country does: evil and monstrous.

Stuff done to their citizens: shut up, you whiny Canadians/Americans, you're getting what you deserve.

I wonder why those responsible for anti-terror efforts don't bend over backwards to please him.

Also curious that he fails to break out the "what did you expect" card when it's abortion clinic bombings or rightwing loons committing the terrorism. Apparently Islamist terrorists are unique in Greenwald's view as he views their actions as largely justified and principled, rather than being rooted in any kind of rancid ideology.

[stevenleser]

9. It IS funny. It makes sense if he is a troll seeking to inflame and not a reporter/journalist.

A real principled reporter/journalist would be concerned that behaving/writing as you described would expose them as having a completely unbalanced and agenda driven approach where their only agenda seems to be attacking the US and several other western countries and ignoring mitigating issues.

His approach is so ridiculously biased that it makes one wonder what is wrong with his supporters.

A troll drops in every now and then to try to inflame and disrupt. That describes Greenwald to a 'T'.

[Luminous Animal]

14. Funny. Greenwald praises the author, Dan Drezner, of not distorting his position as you have done.

Last edited Thu Oct 23, 2014, 03:28 PM - Edit history (1)

Via twitter.
Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald · 5h 5 hours ago
It is actually possible to critique my arguments on Canada without blatantly distorting them, as @dandrezner shows

From Greenwald's article (bold mine).

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/greenwald/

The issue here is not justification (very few people would view attacks on soldiers in a shopping mall parking lot to be justified). The issue is causation. Every time one of these attacks occurs — from 9/11 on down — Western governments pretend that it was just some sort of unprovoked, utterly “senseless” act of violence caused by primitive, irrational, savage religious extremism inexplicably aimed at a country innocently minding its own business...

....

Again, the point isn’t justifiability. There is a compelling argument to make that undeployed soldiers engaged in normal civilian activities at home are not valid targets under the laws of war...

One more time: the difference between “causation” and “justification” is so obvious that it should require no explanation. If one observes that someone who smokes four packs of cigarettes a day can expect to develop emphysema, that’s an observation about causation, not a celebration of the person’s illness. Only a willful desire to distort, or some deep confusion, can account for a failure to process this most basic point.

And he goes on to quote Professor Thomas Kapitan :

Obviously, to point out the causes and objectives of particular terrorist actions is to imply nothing about their legitimacy — that is an independent matter — nor is it any endorsement of a particular method for dealing with the problem of terrorist violence.

More from Kapitan in the NY Times below:

Obviously, to point out the causes and objectives of particular terrorist actions is to imply nothing about their legitimacy — that is an independent matter — nor is it any endorsement of a particular method for dealing with the problem of terrorist violence. Yet, to ignore these causes and objectives is to undermine attempts to deal intelligently with terrorism, since it leaves untouched its motivating factors, and paves the way for blind reactions of the sort that are likely to exacerbate rather than resolve the problem.

To put it bluntly, by stifling inquiry into causes, the rhetoric of “terror” actually increases the likelihood of terrorism. First, it magnifies the effect of terrorist actions by heightening the fear among the target population. If we demonize the terrorists, if we portray them as evil, irrational beings devoid of a moral sense, we amplify the fear and alarm generated by terrorist incidents, even when this is one of the political objectives of the perpetrators. In addition, stricter security measures often appear on the home front, including enhanced surveillance and an increasing militarization of local police.

Second, those who succumb to the rhetoric contribute to the cycle of revenge and retaliation by endorsing military actions that grievously harm the populations among whom terrorists live. The consequence is that civilians, those least protected, become the principle victims of “retaliation” or “counterterrorism.”

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/19/the-reign-of-terror/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=3&

[geek tragedy]

18. I will buy this as a valid characterization

when Greenwald et al start spinning abortion clinic bombings and McVeigh/Breivik style attacks as armed resistance/responses to wrongful government actions.

Of course, anyone seeking to 'explain' abortion clinic bombings as an unavoidable consequence of current government policies would rightfully be denounced here as an apologist for such terrorism.

[Luminous Animal]

22. I'll buy your argument when you claim that there should have been no French resistance.

In a war, your opponent is expected to fight back violently. That is the unavoidable consequences part. And we are currently engaged in multiple wars, overt and covert all over the globe, including in western countries that are our allies. We have declared this a global war and surely, if we will attack them there, they will attack us here.

The righties may have declared a "war" on abortion but that does not make it so. In our democracy, we are expected to proclaim our differences through protest and the powers of persuasion. In our democracy, we are expected to solve those difference at the ballot box, the courts, and the legislature.

[geek tragedy]

23. So you think all Canadian Muslims should be viewed not as

regular Canadians loyal to their country but rather as aligned with AQ or ISIS?

Was there an issue with Catholics bombing US cities when we were bombing Central America?

I must have missed the stories of Nicaraguan suicide bombers.

Also--why do you and Greenwald ignore the possibility that this guy was a hyper-religious nut in your rush to anoint him as an anti-imperialist resistance fighter?

[Luminous Animal]

24. I didn't even hint at thinking anything like that. Not even close.

Greenwald based his article (and he stated so) on the proclamations of members of the Canadian government that the soldiers who were run over were victims of a terrorist act. (And that is what his article is about - not the shooter. The article was written and published BEFORE the shooting in Parliament.)

From the article.

Canada’s Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney pronounced the incident “clearly linked to terrorist ideology,” while newspapers predictably followed suit, calling it a “suspected terrorist attack” and “homegrown terrorism.” CSIS spokesperson Tahera Mufti said “the event was the violent expression of an extremist ideology promoted by terrorist groups with global followings”

[geek tragedy]

25. Please tell me why Canadian Muslims

are fairly described by the words you used, in bold.

In a war, your opponent is expected to fight back violently. That is the unavoidable consequences part. And we are currently engaged in multiple wars, overt and covert all over the globe, including in western countries that are our allies. We have declared this a global war and surely, if we will attack them there, they will attack us here.

Why do you include Canadian Muslims in the "them/they" category instead of in the "us/we" category?

[Luminous Animal]

26. Because I don't think Muslims are a monolith. I believe President Obama has defined our enemies and

I'm pretty sure it does not include all Muslims in that category. I am referring to those who take up the fight. Those who strike back, either with violence or raising money or sending arms are the them and they.

[geek tragedy]

27. If they live in Canada they are not fighting back.

They are no different than Breivik or McVeigh.

[Luminous Animal]

35. What? I'd like to make sense of your post but I'm not sure I can.

The west has declared a global war against terrorism. A person can be muslim and not a terrorist. A person can be muslim and not agree with terrorist tactics. The problem with the west's war, is that the targeting, in many geographic areas, are capricious and indiscriminate.

[geek tragedy]

36. What does that have to do with Muslims in Canada? nt

[Luminous Animal]

40. I have no idea because I cannot make heads or tails of your post.

[geek tragedy]

42. Your entire premise is that if 'we' attack 'them'

abroad, then 'they' will attack 'us' here.

Why are you raising that argument in a discussion about two crimes committed by Canadian Muslims?

[Luminous Animal]

47. It's an ideological affiliation. The "they" also includes those who currently live in the west

and are ideologically affiliated (and commit violent actions supporting that affiliation), with terror organizations with which we are at war in other specific geographical locations.

[Adrahil]

56. Justifications DOES matter....

... I think Greenwald wears his sympathies on his sleeve. It's why I find it impossible admire him... He's far too willing to ignore horrific acts under the guise cold analysis when it suits him.

[orpupilofnature57]

55. + 1000

TRUTH

[Spazito]

10. Fuck Greenwald...

He IS a POS used car salesman, acts like one, reacts like one, imo.

[randome]

11. Democracies have fairly well functioning systems of taxation, too.

That's why Greenwald doesn't like them. That 'little matter' about his back taxes that, so far as I know, he is still trying to evade.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]TECT in the name of the Representative approves of this post.[/center][/font][hr]

[Luminous Animal]

15. If he's evading them, why did the IRS lose a perfectly good opportunity to arrest him while he was

on his book tour of the U.S. recently?

[randome]

17. I don't think it's an 'arrestable' offense. He just owes us money and is trying to evade it.

From what I recall, it's something to do with his failed porn business from 10-15 years ago.

A little more than a year ago, he still owed taxes. http://www.mediaite.com/online/greenwald-preempts-emerging-smears-about-him-news-orgs-asking-me-about-porn-ties-and-back-taxes/

Notice how he changes the question about whether or not he owes back taxes by inserting non-allegations of fraud, thereby painting himself as being persecuted.

I’ve always filed all of my tax returns and there’s no issue of tax evasion or fraud. It’s just back taxes for which my lawyers have been working to reach a payment agreement with the IRS.

The reason so many dislike him is because he comes across as smarmy and plays fast and loose with language.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Precision and concision. That's the game.[/center][/font][hr]

[Tarheel_Dem]

19. "smarmy and plays fast and loose with language". It's what failed attorneys do.

[Luminous Animal]

20. Yes. Tax evasion in an arrestable offense. It can result in a prison term.

But Greenwald likely will never be charged with evasion because what he owes is an unpaid obligation from his stint running his own law firm that he is paying down. I have no idea where you got the notion that the porn business failed. Greenwald was bought out by one of the partners.

You would be surprised how many sole proprietors and members of simple partnerships owe back taxes. As long as they are willing to pay the penalties, interest, and principle, they remain in good standing with the IRS.

[VanillaRhapsody]

32. then why isnt Cliven Bundy in jail yet?

[Luminous Animal]

37. Perhaps you should take that up with the Bureau of Land Management.

[pnwmom]

28. Because he's small potatoes to the IRS. n/t

[Luminous Animal]

30. People have been arrested for evasion and fraud for a significantly smaller amount than

what Greenwald owes. (According the Daily News, he owed the Feds $85,000.) And even a small amount is considered a felony.

The reason Greenwald wasn't arrested is because the IRS does not consider his unpaid back taxes as fraud or evasion.

[VanillaRhapsody]

33. and are you demanding he pays us what he OWES US?

How much you want to bet he is another Libertarian hypocrite (ala Ayn Rand) that will want his SS and Medicare when he comes of age too?

[Luminous Animal]

39. Of course. Greenwald has said that he negotiated a payment plan. I've helped dozens of people

negotiate payment plans with the IRS. They are happy to receive the money AND the penalty AND the interest.

[Comrade Grumpy]

13. The absolute loathing for Greenwald never ceases to amaze.

You'd think the guy took a dump in their coffee cops or something.

[Luminous Animal]

16. I really wish they would come up with some new insults. The repetitiveness is extremely dull.

[pnwmom]

29. It's because he's a libertarian, and libertarianism is a loathsome philosophy. n/t

[VanillaRhapsody]

34. and Sophmoric and hypocritical!

[Comrade Grumpy]

45. Or could it be because he has embarrassed the Obama administration?

[QC]

51. Bingo. n/t

[Puglover]

57. I listened to Amy Goodman and her guest

Laura Poitras discuss Poitras's new film coming out about Snowden and Greenwald today.

http://www.democracynow.org/2014/10/23/citizenfour_inside_story_of_nsa_leaker

I suppose Goodman needs to be jailed and I need to go off to a gulag somewhere.

<sigh> I could have skipped all of that and learned from DU's finest.

[QC]

59. You exposed yourself to false doctrine!

Go into your closet and pray, Carrie White!

[Puglover]

60. ...

[QC]

62. I can see your dirty pillows!

[Luminous Animal]

61. I am going to see the movie this weekend. I am very excited. It has gotten so many good reviews

that I stopped reading them because I didn't want to soak up too many spoilers.

[Puglover]

63. I am awful.

I really don't care a whole bunch about either Greenwald or Snowden. I happen to think what was exposed was a good thing.

It is just endlessly entertaining for me to see to see the same posters in thread after thread coming utterly unglued every time one of their names are mentioned.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

21. Why can't democracies "persuade" the people who support terrorism to give up terrorism?

If "democracy" is the end all/be all of governance it should be an easy sell, even to monarchists, fascists, oligarchs, whoever.

The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same. Marie Beyle (Stendahl)

[orpupilofnature57]

67. + 1000 !!!

[DonCoquixote]

31. The Russians

are too busy paying GG's bills for him to criticize.

Notice he had not done any articles condeming Russia's stance on LGBT rights.

[Luminous Animal]

41. You spelled Russians wrong. It's spelled Rooskies.

The list of things that people demand Greenwald write about is laughable and exhaustive. "But... but... but... why are you writing about what you want to write about? Why aren't you writing about what I want you to write about?"

I don't think I've ever seen one reporter nagged at so regularly to report on EVERYTHING but the very thing they are reporting on.

[DonCoquixote]

44. Well, let's see

He has lambasted Obama for his admitted foot dragging on LGBT issues, but has been SILENT on the fact the Russians, who he takes money from every time he gets on RT, are doing things even bigoted countries curl their lips at.

[Luminous Animal]

49. As he has stated over and over and over and over and over again. His focus is on the U.S. because

that is an area, as a U.S. citizen, he can be more affective. He also hasn't condemned Uganda's anti-gay laws, either.

[DonCoquixote]

65. and if he thinks

that u.s anti gay acxtrivists are not using Russia as an example of "what we should do." then he is naive, as are all that agree with him.

[Blue_Tires]

38. Brilliant

about time more people started waking up and calling out Greenwald's orgasmic delight whenever the west is attacked...

[Luminous Animal]

43. Which, unfortunately for you, Dan Drezner did not do.

In fact, Greenwald thanked Drezner for not mischaracterizing his article as you have in your post.


Via twitter:

Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald · 7h 7 hours ago
@dandrezner Thanks for criticizing what I wrote without distorting it. After yesterday, that's appreciated.

And again,

Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald · 7h 7 hours ago
It is actually possible to critique my arguments on Canada without blatantly distorting them, as @dandrezner shows http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/10/23/why-are-democracies-disappointing-glenn-greenwald/ …

[Blue_Tires]

46. Ah, so you follow GG's twitter TL as well

If you read his tweets regularly, then you should already know better...GG was trying to double down on his stupidity yesterday instead of admitting he just *might* not know everything about how the world works...

Drezner didn't fully call him out, but he didn't cheerlead it, either...Qualifies a lot of his criticism with token praise...Here's a stronger piece: http://opencanada.org/features/when-argument-becomes-comedy-glenn-greenwald-blames-canada/

Need I remind you, Greenwald has a long history of this fuckwittery -- He trots out the same argument every time:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/apr/24/boston-terrorism-motives-us-violence
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/23/woolwich-attack-terrorism-blowback

[Luminous Animal]

48. He didn't double down. He repeated what he clearly TWICE stated in his article.

And then repeated it again in an update. That people chose ignorance is not Greenwald's responsibility.


Via twitter.
Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald · 5h 5 hours ago
It is actually possible to critique my arguments on Canada without blatantly distorting them, as @dandrezner shows

From Greenwald's article (bold mine).

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/greenwald/

The issue here is not justification (very few people would view attacks on soldiers in a shopping mall parking lot to be justified). The issue is causation. Every time one of these attacks occurs — from 9/11 on down — Western governments pretend that it was just some sort of unprovoked, utterly “senseless” act of violence caused by primitive, irrational, savage religious extremism inexplicably aimed at a country innocently minding its own business...

....

Again, the point isn’t justifiability. There is a compelling argument to make that undeployed soldiers engaged in normal civilian activities at home are not valid targets under the laws of war...

One more time: the difference between “causation” and “justification” is so obvious that it should require no explanation. If one observes that someone who smokes four packs of cigarettes a day can expect to develop emphysema, that’s an observation about causation, not a celebration of the person’s illness. Only a willful desire to distort, or some deep confusion, can account for a failure to process this most basic point.

And he goes on to quote Professor Thomas Kapitan from his NY Times OpEd :

Obviously, to point out the causes and objectives of particular terrorist actions is to imply nothing about their legitimacy — that is an independent matter — nor is it any endorsement of a particular method for dealing with the problem of terrorist violence.

More from Kapitan in the NY Times below:

Obviously, to point out the causes and objectives of particular terrorist actions is to imply nothing about their legitimacy — that is an independent matter — nor is it any endorsement of a particular method for dealing with the problem of terrorist violence. Yet, to ignore these causes and objectives is to undermine attempts to deal intelligently with terrorism, since it leaves untouched its motivating factors, and paves the way for blind reactions of the sort that are likely to exacerbate rather than resolve the problem.

To put it bluntly, by stifling inquiry into causes, the rhetoric of “terror” actually increases the likelihood of terrorism. First, it magnifies the effect of terrorist actions by heightening the fear among the target population. If we demonize the terrorists, if we portray them as evil, irrational beings devoid of a moral sense, we amplify the fear and alarm generated by terrorist incidents, even when this is one of the political objectives of the perpetrators. In addition, stricter security measures often appear on the home front, including enhanced surveillance and an increasing militarization of local police.

Second, those who succumb to the rhetoric contribute to the cycle of revenge and retaliation by endorsing military actions that grievously harm the populations among whom terrorists live. The consequence is that civilians, those least protected, become the principle victims of “retaliation” or “counterterrorism.”

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/19/the-reign-of-terror/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=3&

[Blue_Tires]

52. Is that why he refused to call the English soldier stabbing "terrorism?"

Or why he at least put in on the same level of morality as a drone strike or any other violent act happening in the middle east at a given time?

We can go on for the rest of the day about whether Greenwald's TRUE intent of his standard boilerplate "blame the victim for their own attack" -columns is to illustrate justification or causation...But GG's mission was accomplished since people are talking about him (his favorite subject), and he was able to attract some much-needed traffic to his site...

I also know Greenwald is scheduled to speak in Ottawa on Saturday...Assuming he doesn't bitch out, I'll be very interested to see how much weight his argument holds with that crowd...

My final parting shot: I know that it isn't "justification" if a woman who is dressed provocatively gets gang-raped, but does it really make that much difference to the big picture or put me in the right if I tried to argue that her short skirt and cleavage was a "causation" instead??



Bradley P. Moss, Esq @BradMossEsq · 8h 8 hours ago

If you apply @ggreenwald causation logic to non-democracies, Russia and China should be under daily terror attacks. cc @dandrezner

[Luminous Animal]

58. Your rape analogy is despicable.

It would only make sense if rape were an expected outcome to wearing a short skirt.

If someone hits me, an expected outcome is that I will hit back.

I'm going to quote your disgusting remark in case you decide to delete it.

My final parting shot: I know that it isn't "justification" if a woman who is dressed provocatively gets gang-raped, but does it really make that much difference to the big picture or put me in the right if I tried to argue that her short skirt and cleavage was a "causation" instead?? - Blue_Tires

[orpupilofnature57]

53. He tells the truth and that indicts media, that's Their disdain not

OURS, Glen Greenwald is enjoying the same fruits for facilitating the truth, via Edward Snowden, as did Smedley Butler ( my Avatar ) for exposing the ' Great Business Plot ' and Media helps vilify these heroes because it frees them up for humor instead of pertinent information, and they're owned by the seldom exposed benefactors .I suggest the Post looks at it's own history .