Tag Archives: lying

Russia – Syria — Prelude To The End of Lies

13 Friday Sep 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Philology, Politics, Psychology, Russia, Syria

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Will the report by the UN inspectors, the conclusion of whose work Russia, at a minimum, proposes waiting for, help to resolve the dispute between Putin and that portion of the international community that supports him, on the one hand, and, on the other, the leaders of a number of Western countries, including several regional powers, who have been certain from the outset that the use of chemical weapons was the work of the Syrian president and that he therefore needs to be dealt a retaliatory strike?

The Alchemy of Syria’s Conflict For US, Russia – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East 9/12/2013

The whole world is watching, also judging, thinking, weighing, and a greater percentage of its citizens, from Riyadh to Islamabad, have today the intellectual tools for separating substance from bullshit.

In the above cited piece, Vitaly Naumkin pitches the Putin line — no surprise there — even while knowing that view also may be subject to dissection.

From whence came this:

Who held the camera, edited the recording, produced the music?

Who manufactured the projectile, the rocket engine, the launch platform?

If the production represented a rebel false flag, why is the launch team not in Syrian uniforms?

Would that not have been more authentic?

Or would it have been too much?

Also, who has the reputation for lying baldly?

How did that come about?

When is it going to stop?

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“We don’t know if Syria will accept the offer, but if imposing international control over chemical weapons stored in the country can help to avoid military strikes, we are immediately going to start working with Damascus,” explained Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov yesterday.

Russian Diplomacy Transforms Debate on Syria – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East 9/10/2012

So far, with the Russian navy at least temporarily absent from Tartus and several hundred Russian civilians evacuated from Syria, Bashar al-Assad appears to be driving for advantage with this latest (no pun intended) breathing space formed by the gap between the American and Russian ways of doing business.

American discredit in the region seems to relate primarily to Bush’s dumb lie over Iraq WMDs, but the removal of one of the world’s most vicious dictators and his army plus the restoration of the Marsh Arabs and the securing of the Kurdish Community against Saddam Hussein’s depredations, which  included gassing, would seem to make for a bright side.  Add in the possibility of modern open democracy (MOD, lol), access to international news, and modern education, global in breadth and concerns — perhaps those are worth something too.

While remnants of the still leftward Arab finger in Iraq often points to America for subsequent bloodletting, it really has to point back to itself for the internecine and sectarian bloodshed that continues by way of its own hands.

Russian discredit starts with the accusing and contemptuous language of the old propaganda and drifts off into the cesspool of known banditry, corruption, dictatorship, and culture-permeating mafia technique.

Even so, Russia has become a modern state.

Perhaps it faces a primarily medieval post-modern question: if “information is power” how much power may one (man, organization) have over information and its effects in influence, intimidation, and perception?

It’s the question of the day.

The post-KGB KGB-infused (at minimum by Putin) FSB and post-Soviet new oligarch Russia has still in place old business, intellectual, and state political architecture, and while it has demonstrated its power to transfer wealth to its own, perhaps, and drive a Far Out Left propaganda press, perhaps, Syria continues to come down, day by day, hour by hour, and within miles of Bashar al-Assad’s own feet, and there is no one, including Russia,  who wants to fiddle with it other than to let it burn a little more safely — without chemical weapons, if Putin is sincere in this matter — and toward a secular path, as no one between NATO and Russia wants Al Qaeda or Chechnya II either, and the cultural results of apparent if superficial convergent evolution by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Qatar toward the west — neither of those official Al Qaeda or Muslim Brotherhood buddies either — remain to be seen.

Assorted Reference

Direct link between Assad and gas attack elusive for U.S. | Reuters 9/7/2013

‘IDF intercepted Syrian regime chatter on chemical attack’ | The Times of Israel 8/26/2013

Listing Demands, Assad Uses Crisis to His Advantage – NYTimes.com 9/12/2013

Russian Diplomacy Transforms Debate on Syria – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East 9/10/2013

Bouthaina Shaaban, Senior Assad Spokeswoman, Blames Al Qaeda For Syria Chemical Attack (VIDEO) 9/4/2013

mafia state luke harding | Mafia State by Luke Harding | The Guardian

Why Saying No to Syria Matters (It’s Not About Syria) | Alternet 9/1/2/2013

And Recently Encountered

13 Objectively True Statements From The Vladimir Putin Op-Ed – Business Insider 9/13/2013

Vladimir Putin’s New York Times op-ed, annotated and fact-checked 9/12/2013. Excerpt:

But what rankles many analysts about this paragraph is that it ignores Putin’s own role in enabling the already quite awful violence, as well as the extremism it’s inspired. Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s regime has killed so freely and so wantonly in part because it knows Putin will protect it from international action. Putin has also been supplying Assad with heavy weapons. It’s a bit rich for him to decry violence or outside involvement at this point.

Conversations with John le Carré – FT.com 9/6/2013

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Care and Integrity in Language – and Syria

02 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by in A Little Wisdom, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Philology, Politics, Psychology

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The lie never serves the listener.

The lie always serves the liar in two ways: to conceal discomforting information or though — material that would be embarrassing, impolite, or shameful if expressed — or to manipulate the listener for gain, emotional or monetary, directly or indirectly.

Perhaps fiction serves for exception, but that entails literary invention in service to the emotional, political, social, and structural truth of a thing in aspects beyond the purview of journalism (for the journalist cannot record, for example, interior monologue).

* * *

A Jew may suggest, and possibly should, that each time the religion was hijacked, more or less, it may have been done with less concern for those inveigled in and by the New Power (two majors and lots of lesser camps in that category).  One gets a lesson, say, about snakes and devils, a fall from grace, but go back and read Genesis 2 and 3 and “The Fall” is not there — and what is there is an awakening in awareness, self-awareness, and conscience, each an aspect of consciousness and knowledge.

And while our Original Couple may “cover” with the fig leaves, it’s God who sews them clothes of skin — and clothed and conscious of their lives as human beings, out into the world they go.

What happened to that telling?

* * *

From Adam and Eve and the charming story of their creation and birth as human beings to Bashar and Maher al-Assad would seem a stretch, but it’s not.  The former emblematically tells a truth about the truth: indeed, humankind is conscious, self-conscious, and possessed of conscience; the latter symbolically tell a story about exceptional evil and how brazen, unconscious, uncaring, unconscionable, and sadistic a human or comparative handful of the same can be.

The initial mismatch involved in flying jets against neighborhoods in response to a guerrilla challenge at the low intensity level signals the delusion of grandeur in which the Assad brothers had been knocking about all of their lives.  Theirs was a kingdom, never mind the exploitation, hunger, and suffering of some fair portion of their constituency.

Damascus, 30 October 2007 (IRIN) – Syria is struggling to reform unsustainable and inequitable subsidies, despite warnings from leading economists that delays increase the likelihood of drastic economic shocks and possible social unrest.

 The question is how to do so without provoking sharp price increases in a country where the average state wage remains little over US$120 a month.

IRIN.  “SYRIA: Economic reforms threaten social unrest.”  October 30, 2007.

Ah, the good old days.

Syrians know how they lived.

Like kings, some.

Like peasants, most.

That is the way of kingdoms — and dictatorships — and they are all happy, are they not?

A more recent article in Al Monitor (“Failure of Economic Reform in Syria,” December 28, 2012) goes more deeply into the from-there-to-here aspect, but suffice it to say: all were not happy and however helped along or joined by fanatics or mercenaries, the seeds for insurrection would seem to have been homegrown.

As much, the Assad brothers would deny.

* * *

Remember: it’s never the narcissist.

* * *

Andrew Tabler: One of the ways the Syrian government defends itself is by obscuring everything that happens inside the country. Right now there’s a huge question about whether or not to intervene. The government can dispute whatever argument pro-interventionists have. This isn’t unusual for these kinds of regimes. Assad is a master at manipulating the press. Often times hardly anyone is even paying attention to Syria, though that’s changed now. At the time they could snow job us, but now it’s a lot harder, especially when so much violence is being captured on YouTube.

Totten, Michael J.  “An American in the Den of Assad.”  Interview with Andrew Tabler.  World Affairs, March 10, 2012.

A false false-flag in which troops dress down to look like rebels and a disinformation industry gins it up to look like “the other guy” tells the character of the primary actor, and it never changes: bullies are cowards and cowards are liars always.

* * *

This may be the last I write about language, integrity, narcissism, and political psychology for a while.  It may take funding or it may be for others to do, but with so much behavioral and cognitive machinery visible, one may pursue curiosity down into the nuts and bolts of child rearing, social grammar, the drama of, say, narcissistic mortification, and experiments with and development of criminal power as the basis for political and social power across large constituencies that will pay a high price for having allowed as much to happen to them.

The civil war in Syria provides the drama of the day; violence in Islam associated with mixed ambitions provides a convenient theme: however, observations proposed or stated here may have more universal qualities.

For certain, for example, Robert Mugabe has held on to power for decades, reintroduced cholera to Zimbabwe, displaced the white farmers, destroyed the nation’s agricultural prowess, watched as adults crawled across borders for work and children sank to eating bugs, and yet, probably, he will pass away peacefully in his sleep, fulfilling the dream of every dictator who ever believed he had actually defended and saved his country, accumulated his wealth legitimately, and arrived on his death bed with as good a conscience as any.

Additional Reference

Anderson, Hans Christian.  “The Emperor’s New Clothes”.

BackChannels.  “Syria – Dictators Do Not Negotiate Internal Affairs.”  May 28, 2013.

Debka File.  “Reported Syrian gas attack killing hundreds after first US-trained rebel incursion from Jordan.”  August 21, 2013.

Debka File.  “The sarin shells fired on Damascus – by Syrian 4th Division’s 155th Brigade – were followed by rockets on Israel and car bombings in Lebanon.”  August 24, 2013.

Dow, Nicole.  “Getting to know Syria’s first family.”  CNN, July 18, 2012.

Kahn, Laura H.  “Who would use chemical weapons?”  Bulleting of the Atomic Scientists.”  April 16, 2013.

McIntyre, Douglas A.  “As War risk Falters: Syria’s Economy by the Numbers.”  24/7 Wall Street, September 1, 2013.

Oppenheim Arts & Letters.  “Chomsky Think.”  May 17, 2010.

Oppenheim Arts & Letters.  “Guilt and Jealousy in Two Lines.”  February 27, 2012.

Oppenheim Arts & Letters.  “Israel and the Dark Mirror.”  June 25, 2010.

Oppenheim Arts & Letters.  “Not Tolerance: Trust — Cordoba Initiative, Imam Faisal Abdul Raif, and Primary Commentary.  August 24, 2010.

Oppenheim Arts & Letters.  “Obama and the Double Story.”  May 20, 2010.

Oppenheim Arts & Letters.  “Obama’s Double Story and the Islamic Small Wars.”  July 31, 2012.

Oppenheim Arts & Letters.  “Ye Who Would Wish to Help Man, Write for God.”  February 2, 2012.

RIA Novosti.  “Moscow Concerned about Syria, Not Assad – Minister.”  February 25, 2013.

RIA Novosti.  “Syrian Communists Urge Economic Reforms as Crisis Solution.” February 26, 2013.

Tabler, Andrew J.  “The Day After Assad Wins: The Hard Truths About Post-War Syria.”  Foreign Affairs, August 21, 2013.

The Heritage Foundation.  “2013 Index of Economic Freedom: Syria”.

Wikipedia.  “Gaslighting”.

Zelizer, Julian.  “Obama’s Syria dilemma: Becoming the president he didn’t like.” CNN, September 1, 2013.

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What Said Said – A Critique; Also An Old Post About Not Lying

19 Sunday May 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology

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It may be that Said, as he claimed, “scrupulously” recounted his life in his autobiography where at last the true facts of his education and residence emerge. But, as his critics continued to ask, does finally telling his story truthfully wipe away twenty years of lying about it?

Muravchik, Joshua.  “Enough Said: The False Scholarship of Edward Said.”  World Affairs, March / April 2013.

A Facebook friend brought to light this companion piece:

Farooq, Adil.  When Ibn Warraq met Edward Said.  Islam Watch, January 28, 2007.  Excerpt:

“Despite his Arab heritage, there is also a peculiar condescension towards Arabs and Muslims that runs throughout many Said’s works. This is disturbing, given that many Arabs and Muslims share much of Said’s conclusions of who is to blame for their mess. And yet for Said to place much of the blame on Western shoulders strongly implies that Arabs and Muslims are inherently incapable of beginning to sort out their societies; that such people are pathetic, downtrodden children . . . .”

I have not read the work of Edward Said but 1) know the name and 2) know that integrity plays a thematic role in each theater of the Islamic Small Wars.

People lie.

Or just “bend and twist it some”.

They shouldn’t.

What follows I reprint from my old blog.

Ye Who Would Wish to Help Man, Write for God

In the design and engineering of a properly motivated conflict complex, pandering may count first among the evils available to speech.

Of course the Emperor’s clothes look dashing even though he’s not wearing any.

And not one of anyone’s ilk would have burned the Great Library of Alexandria.

Looking for the root of all evil?

Forget about money.

Look here:

  • bluffs
  • cheats
  • concealments
  • deceptions
  • deflections
  • denials
  • exaggerations
  • equivocations
  • false analogies
  • false claims
  • frauds
  • fabrications
  • innuendos
  • libels
  • lies
  • misrepresentations
  • obfuscations
  • omissions
  • understatements

From there, the basics of lying, one might go on to similarly pleasant and damnable behaviors: bribery (and patronage), conning, intimidation — basic infernal leverage, those three.

To get really down and dirty, one might go on to behaviors lending themselves to disinhibition in various dimensions — addiction, eroticism, gluttony, masochism, sadism, etc. — which may involve matters of degree and where to place the sort of limit about which most and one’s self would say, “no more — not another bite!”

Somewhere in my Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy concept, one might notice that the (privately sane) rock star’s public excesses have a way of being contained by concerns for the bottom line, the next show, the continuing good will of the fans, and such, making the wrecking of the hotel room an expensive publicity stunt (it was probably a lot of fun too but not the sort of behavior to bring home to the mansion), and there are internal contrainers too, those little devils that say, “Enough already, that will do for a buzz or a photo-op.”

Those who go beyond, really get Out There, so much so they really need to be caught in a net and caged.

The nanny can’t keep the baby quiet?  Well then, throw a pot of boiling water over her head!

Some of the people seem upset about something?  Send out the army!

Not getting along in or with the modern world?  Blame the Jews!

Probably the first lie, whatever it may be, and getting away with it, creates the first license, and if the one who does it or the culture that indulges the same is not careful, the gyre around greed and power take off.  The militia may not really care, but for $50 per month, they’ll go out on the streets and gun down protestors without flinching, just so long as they’re not outmaneuvered, outnumbered, and outgunned themselves.

Greed or fear may subdue conscience, or so regularly and ruthlessly abuse it as to make it go away (and make it corrosive and shameful in the most hellish ways to have it back and nagging over one’s every breathing moment).

I will tell you it’s frightning when one starts to see the outline of a low-level drudge doling out torture at Evin Prison (reference: Then They Came for Me) and start to connect that with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, an even more potent more private force under the direct control of Ayatollah Khamenei, and then with perhaps less involvement but certainly some presence Russia, Turkey, Syria, and their interest.  That’s a lot of evil come from selling a “Zionist conspiracy” that doesn’t exist (and Jews as devils, except that in realspace, all over real life, really, I and mine are producing publications, engineering miracles in healthcare and other productive areas, and volunteering services involved with every do-good possibility on the planet: in fact, if you happen to see solar arrays decorating floating villages in Peru, do blame the Jews).

In any case, the arms racers and suppliers, legitimate and black market, have their best days.

—-

Let me take you to the other side in my idealism: if you would wish to help people, write for God.

This is not to say don’t take some money for the effort, but if it’s going to be a good effort, put away that tempting contract with the Devil.

Average mediaphiles know the basics:  if in journalism, you will make every effort to publish work that is “clear, accurate, and complete”; if in soft science research, you will do all that may be done to establish expert validity for proposed dimensions and variables in your theories and go on to produce “valid” and “reliable” data as well as fully plausible and challengeable hypotheses and theories.

Perhaps even as pundit with an attitude, curiously about how things work and delving into them to ferret that out may seem more fair to the work than conveniently spooling out a familiar schpeil on a soapbox.

Convenient honest will not be enough to turn the darker tides: in fact, I should think it evil to invent or promote “alternative viewpoints” to influence politics or score social points, all of which is just ass licking whether of individuals or in-groups or ambitious organizations with agendas.  What the heavens — God, nature, the nagging signal from one’s better moral compass —  beg for are accurate and clear analyses and assessments of things as they really are.

A mind in which all things are possible and all possibilies and proposals are equal has absolutely no value to anyone, least of all the whacked-out owner of such confused perceptions and low standards.

No need to be mechanical or neutered, bereft of personal interests and social affinities and alliances: the truth to be observed and reflected in things won’t care, for if you have uncovered a little bit of true story and real knowledge, such a notation, organic and quite independently of your efforts will withstand challenges from many directions and, if surviving, attain growth and stability until debunked, which may never happen, or once settled, grown repetitive and tiresome, and finally played out and punched out by the best who should have beaten it, integrated into something greater.

Leave the cant, parroting, propagandizing to minds already chained by habits, constrained perhaps by their watchers or “handlers”, numbed by bad old desires and dreams, and dependent on “mission approval” for confidence.

Discern, test, assert; be accountable, responsible, universal in reflection and statement; what doesn’t work, stop defending, let it go, adjust; eschew constructivism, embrace coherance; and not least important, leave room for creativity, empathy, and imagination.

Consider even becoming comfortable with the ineffable.

I would not mean to prod any into flying in the face of local or fashionable social conventions and expectations for the sake of it, and yet, if you have stumbled upon a right path where others seem to you lost and walking off the cllifs, go with God — and great good, comprehensive, valid, and reliable data — and invite the lost to scout the new frontier with you.

Enjoy one’s skeptics most of all.

Just don’t toady to them.

Should one as an analyst, writer, or researcher be one’s own best fan, remember: whatever the best findings, the most truthful conclusions, none will change if true, and if not true and undermined by peers, none will repair themselves merely to be kind to you.

Get over it.

Move on.

A Dios.

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