Comment by komali2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by komali2 | Hacker News Reader

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>so long as only one million people

Nobody has claimed one million were killed. Stop trying to spread wrong information, it is the same thing as lying.

>I wonder if you think the NYT had a hand in pushing for the first Iraq war? How about in Yugoslavia? Panama? Libya? Syria? Or were all of those moral and noble humanitarian wars where the death and destruction was worth it?

Holy fucking non sequitur, batman. What does a media agenda have to do with a moral position on war? How is "NYT had a hand in pushing for" related to the question of whether your examples were "moral and noble humanitarian wars?" You can't just say a thing that's absurd, and then immediately assume they're true, so that you can jump to making a moral attack. Here's a great resource for you: http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/eng207-td/Logic%20and%20Analy...

>best and most blatant example of NYT's warmongering

Somehow we started at outright lies about the number of deaths in the Iraq war, and concluded that the NYT is a warmongering institution with the power to mobilize the most powerful military on the planet at it's whim, and thus is responsible for every death caused by the US military throughout history.

Hey let's take it up a notch, did you know humans never landed on the moon and that Mark Zuckerberg's evil twin, Matt Zuckerberg, is running a robotic pizza factory that snoops through people's emails? Benghazi.

Yes, people have claimed over one million have been killed in the second Iraq war. And you can easily make an argument for the fact that the war has never really ended, thus if you include figures up to 2017 it is unequivocally over one million.

I'm simply pointing out that the NYT functions as a critical cog in the overall propaganda machine that provides cover for the establishment warmongering agenda. That cover, almost without exception, revolves around framing these wars as humanitarian wars that supposedly help the people and bring them freedom and democracy (by bombing the crap out of them). I'm sorry I didn't spell that out explicitly. NYT absolutely had a hand in pushing for all the aforementioned wars.

Finally, I'm not saying the NYT is controlling the military, it is obviously the other way around - NYT is the mouthpiece of the established powers. But this discussion is in the context of comparing what is more dangerous; an establishment mouthpiece propaganda outlet that provides cover for killing millions, or Trump saying some questionable things from time to time. As of right this moment, NYT's track record looks much worse to me. But hey, maybe you're on the side of people like Madeleine Albright who think that killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children through sanctions was totally worth it.

>people have claimed over one million

According to the Wikipedia article 2 people have linked to you, only Opinion Research Business survey claims it was one million. And only one million, not "maybe 2 million or more!". If you have evidence or other sources, could you please contribute to our collective knowledge by updating the Wikipedia page? You don't even need an account to do it and we're all guaranteed relative quality by editor review that way.

>And you can easily make an argument for the fact that the war never really ended

When you say "Iraq War" people are going to think you mean this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War which took place from 2003-2011. There's an article on the Iraqi Civil War if you want to talk about that, but it's a different thing. If you want to talk about Middle East action in general, ok, but as we go on you're going to be lumping more and more extremely complicated conflicts into your "This is the NYT's fault" argument, which is already tenuous.

>simply pointing out that NYT functions as a critical cog in the overall propaganda machine

Dude, this is an extraordinary claim. You can't just toss that tidbit over the wall and be like "FACTS!" You gotta support that. You haven't yet, that I can see.

>agenda

Extraordinary claim. Burden of proof (or at least argument) is on you.

>NYT is the mouthpiece of the established powers

How can that be true when NYT is critical of the current government? Are you suggesting there's a shadow-government that is opposed to Trump, and in control of the NYT as well as the US military?

>maybe you're on the side of people... who think that killing hundreds of thousands

Stop trying to do that. It's so fucking transparent when you try to derail the argument through personal attack via non sequitur like that. You want to talk about propaganda techniques? You're (attempting) to employ them as mechanically as if you've got the "Guide to Misinformation via Trolling on the Internet" textbook sat next to you.

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