Salon has an amusing piece I saw linked on /. today, wherein they expose the funny dumbness of incorrectly redacted documents regarding the occupation.
This kind of thing always gets me. As an employee, as a worker-bee, you have certain responsibilities, and when your job is to not expose all your secrets to the world, you should really pay attention to features like "track changes." I mean, isn't there some kind of policy to turn this shit off when you're editing top-secret documents?
Anyway, for those of you who like to get your information about how dumb US agencies are from the source, instead of through liberal or conservative media bias, you can read the document for yourself. [Links to the Word doc in question.] Share your favorite pieces of idiocy.
US Coalition Provisional Authority can't operate computers
Out of curiosity, how many of you virulently anti-war, anti-Bush, anti-US, anti-action-in-Iraq people bothered to read this document? I'm always interested to know how far people will go in pursuit of their beliefs, and to what degree they'll simply assume something will reinforce their beliefs. It seems like, on the internet, more than 20 seconds of reading to defend your peculiar worldview is vastly too much work: most people would prefer to simply assume they're right, and ignore evidence when it's too complicated or time-consuming to parse, even if that evidence supports their suppositions.
My personal favorite refers to the "Enagagement" portion that was deleted where it speaks towards "the various groups of losers in the new Iraw." The section entitled "Rounding Up The Bums" was a close second.
It's amazing how many names one can see in the deleted text. That and the overall callous attitude they have to the situation. However, I can more easily see those in command discussing the situation in that way versus the official releases that come out.
This document isn't something I would or could claim as definitive proof against the actions in Iraq. It speaks volumes about the attitude of certain people in command of the situation though.
It's amazing how many names one can see in the deleted text. That and the overall callous attitude they have to the situation. However, I can more easily see those in command discussing the situation in that way versus the official releases that come out.
This document isn't something I would or could claim as definitive proof against the actions in Iraq. It speaks volumes about the attitude of certain people in command of the situation though.
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Crazy Elf
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The deleted text is actually pretty balanced. It's clearly written from an ideological perspective, but what they're saying isn't overtly culturally insensitive. There's a bit of cultural misunderstanding and simplification:
<i>Violence in Iraq is a form of political discourse as well as being culturally acceptable for settling disputes and scores. Thus for a people which is nearly universal in its opposition to being occupied, attacking the occupier is a natural reaction and is widely accepted, even by those who are friendly to us. “It is nothing personal,” one businessman told me, “I like you and believe you could be bringing us a better future, but I still sympathize with those who attack the coalition because it is not right for Iraq to be occupied by foreign military forces.”[/i]
Disliking being occupied, and wanting to attack occupiers isn't a distinctly Iraqi occurrence, and isn't really an indication of cultural trends. It's pretty much universal for occupiers everywhere. To draw the conclusion that "Violence in Iraq is a form of political discourse as well as being culturally acceptable for settling disputes and scores." is to make a vast generalisation without trying too hard to look at things in perspective.
This isn't to say that this piece of writing isn't aware of its own actions. This section is rather interesting:
<i>Most raids also leave in their wake a number of innocents who were either rounded up and detained or had their houses busted up. These can conceivably lead to bitterness over the occupation and spawn new attacks.[/i]
Stating this, even with the disclaimers afterwards, is to admit to some major operational faults. It's the sort of thing that they don't want the international press getting their hands on... which they now have. In my eyes, this is the exact sort of thing that the military should be admitting to and trying to rectify. In fact, they are.
There's a new mentality that's going into the manner in which the military is working in Iraq. One very interesting piece of work that I've stumbled across is Twenty-Eight Articles, a guide to counterinsurgency. It's well thought out, well written, and not at all jingoistic. This new trend is a very good sign, and is a major step away from the simplistic views inspired by Civilisation theory, and old Cold War mentalities.
In other words, what was deleted isn't nearly as bad as it's made out to be. They're dealing with the people, and beginning to gain some understanding. This is a good thing. Referring to a few of them as "losers" when you're actively engaging with the people isn't as big a deal as people not on the ground would make it out to be.
<i>Violence in Iraq is a form of political discourse as well as being culturally acceptable for settling disputes and scores. Thus for a people which is nearly universal in its opposition to being occupied, attacking the occupier is a natural reaction and is widely accepted, even by those who are friendly to us. “It is nothing personal,” one businessman told me, “I like you and believe you could be bringing us a better future, but I still sympathize with those who attack the coalition because it is not right for Iraq to be occupied by foreign military forces.”[/i]
Disliking being occupied, and wanting to attack occupiers isn't a distinctly Iraqi occurrence, and isn't really an indication of cultural trends. It's pretty much universal for occupiers everywhere. To draw the conclusion that "Violence in Iraq is a form of political discourse as well as being culturally acceptable for settling disputes and scores." is to make a vast generalisation without trying too hard to look at things in perspective.
This isn't to say that this piece of writing isn't aware of its own actions. This section is rather interesting:
<i>Most raids also leave in their wake a number of innocents who were either rounded up and detained or had their houses busted up. These can conceivably lead to bitterness over the occupation and spawn new attacks.[/i]
Stating this, even with the disclaimers afterwards, is to admit to some major operational faults. It's the sort of thing that they don't want the international press getting their hands on... which they now have. In my eyes, this is the exact sort of thing that the military should be admitting to and trying to rectify. In fact, they are.
There's a new mentality that's going into the manner in which the military is working in Iraq. One very interesting piece of work that I've stumbled across is Twenty-Eight Articles, a guide to counterinsurgency. It's well thought out, well written, and not at all jingoistic. This new trend is a very good sign, and is a major step away from the simplistic views inspired by Civilisation theory, and old Cold War mentalities.
In other words, what was deleted isn't nearly as bad as it's made out to be. They're dealing with the people, and beginning to gain some understanding. This is a good thing. Referring to a few of them as "losers" when you're actively engaging with the people isn't as big a deal as people not on the ground would make it out to be.
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Serious Paul
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Serious Paul
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Crazy Elf
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No, the document 3278 did.
Edit: Also, thanks for the link to the document. I'll probably use it in my thesis as an example of language that at first looks to be horribly bias, but ends up being pretty balanced instead. I was discussing this point with someone earlier, and it's a fucking great example of it.
Edit: Also, thanks for the link to the document. I'll probably use it in my thesis as an example of language that at first looks to be horribly bias, but ends up being pretty balanced instead. I was discussing this point with someone earlier, and it's a fucking great example of it.
Well, I've read rthe document a couple of times, and I would actually have preferred it if the deleted text hadn't been deleted at all. The reason being that the deleted portions of the text came across as candid and honest, rather than so much political fluff. As Elf said, it ended up being balanced, and it read as much more "real" than the edited/public version.
The problem I see coming out of this is that this will bite the administration of the occupying forces in the ass a lot harder than if they'd just kept the deleted portions in, since there's now 'proof' of double-talk. Not that this is a surprise to me, but it might be to quite a few people.
The problem I see coming out of this is that this will bite the administration of the occupying forces in the ass a lot harder than if they'd just kept the deleted portions in, since there's now 'proof' of double-talk. Not that this is a surprise to me, but it might be to quite a few people.
Geneticists have established that all women share a common ancestor, called Eve, and that all men share a common ancestor, dubbed Adam. However, it has also been established that Adam was born 80.000 years after Eve. So, the world before him was one of heavy to industral strength lesbianism, one assumes.
-Stephen Fry, QI
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