LAST TIME, I INTRODUCED A PROPAGANDA email by giving you the first 26 words :
Proof of "torture"??
Whatever you do just keep this going please!!!
It is always good to see pictures like these.
Proof of abuse by our Troops.
I pointing out how they very subtly twist reality through a process called "conflation": treating different things as though they were the same.
This wasn't done directly, but by implication and assumption, with the result that it was hard, even after all the explanations, to be clear about exactly what the email had done.
So I promised some handy charts, to make things clearer.
The first chart lays out the difference between the actual Conservative and Liberal positions on torture, the second shows the positions as the email misrepresents them:
|
In the real world... | |
| The Liberal Position: | The Conservative Position: |
|
Conservatives and Liberals agree that Abu Ghraib was clearly done by some of our troops, and that it constituted both torture and abuse. | |
| Liberals tend to believe basic policy came from above, and that the troops were acting in accord with a tone set by the Bush administration. They tend to think that the majority of the responsibility rests at the top. | Conservatives tend to blame it on the the troops involved. They tend to absolve the Administration of any responsibility for the scandal and focus as far down the command chain as possible. |
|
Conservatives and liberals agree that the methods used at Guantanamo, etc. were sanctioned from above, by the Bush administration. | |
| Liberals tend to believe that Guantanamo, etc. was torture, and that it was not necessary. They think it was wrong, and dangerous, since evidence shows torture produces false information and other techniques get us the truth. | Conservatives tend to argue that Guantanamo, etc. was not torture or abuse, and that it was necessary. They think torture works, that it's okay if the stakes are high enough, and that waterboarding, etc. isn't really torture anyway. |
The "conservative" and "liberal" opinions cited above are, of course, generalizations. There are definitely conservatives, for example, who are strongly against waterboarding, etc.
By the time we have read the first 26 words of this email, however, the real situation, in the chart above, has become:
|
In the propaganda fantasy world... | |
| The evil "someone's (liberal) position: | "Our" (conservative) position: |
| Our troops (in general) are to blame for torturing and abusing Iraqi's. | There is no such proof, and it wasn't really torture anyway. |
| Subtext: "See? They're just another example of the 'blame America' crowd, who hate the troops. | Subtext: We're the true Americans, who stand behind the troops. |
Of course all of this is never actually stated—it would be far too easy to see through. Instead, it's implied in a whole variety of ways.
The conflation works on multiple levels here:
- It conflates the two, quite distinct, situations of torture, making it hard to sort out the differences between Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.
- It conflates "our troops" in general with those few troops who really were involved at Abu Ghraib. This, combined with number one, makes any criticism of Guantanamo a criticism of our troops as a whole.
- It conflates the administration policy with the troops, making it impossible to say that the Bush administration had a flawed policy without seeming to be insulting the troops as a whole.
- It also conflates the real-world conservative position, which focuses the blame on the troops, with the liberal position. Meanwhile it manages to imply that the conservatives are the ones standing up for the troops—just the opposite of what has really happened.
A complex real-world scenario, in which conservatives don't look so good, is replaced by a simplistic fantasy scenario where their sins are attributed to liberals and any criticism of a conservative amounts to a sin itself.
All in 26 words.
Now comes the ironic twist—the first photo:
Yes: all this buildup about how someone is trying to say that our troops are out there torturing Iraqis is answered by this charming picture of those same troops (of course they aren't the same, but that's conflation for you...) on seesaws with Iraqis and Iraqi children.
Don't those liberals look ridiculous now? Wouldn't they just hate these pictures?
The real world answer, of course, is no—they wouldn't hate these pictures. I can speak here as a liberal myself.
I'll explain why next time...
