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[Split] (Ed) 9/11 in perspective

Ziggurat said:
That's the great thing about talking about classified documents: the public can't read them to tell if you're giving an accurate and balanced description of the document. Given the NYT, which intelligence officials do you think want to talk to the Times, and which officials accounts do you think the Times will choose to highlight? How useful is this story in evaluating the contents of the report? Not very.
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I never spoke of the NYT. But never mind; you want to throw doubt on the source. So let me challenge you in this way: what reasons do we have to put stronger trust in the Whitehouse report than in the content of the report as reported by these anonymous sources?
Is it just because of the anonymity? But given the classified status of the document they have good reason to remain anonymous, don't they?

Ziggurat said:
Logically, however, if these new cells are sprouting up without connection to established terrorist networks, they also won't have access to the sort of funding and expertise such networks can provide. So while the number of attacks might increase, the severity of a typical attack might also decrease.
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Interesting argument. It all depends what kind of safety you're after. If you'd rather have a potential suicide bomber on every streetcorner than once in a while a big bang.... which, incidentally, would be more likely to be found out beforehand.... then... OK.

Ziggurat said:
But that possibility would never be mentioned by the NYT, because that goes against the narrative, man. Wouldn't want to confuse the plebes.
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We all have our narrative, don't we. So what makes yours more valid, that's the question.
 
brumsen said:
I never spoke of the NYT.
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That was the source for the article you linked to, and the article made that clear. Your link is now dead, so I can't quote it anymore.

So let me challenge you in this way: what reasons do we have to put stronger trust in the Whitehouse report than in the content of the report as reported by these anonymous sources?
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None. Nor did I ever suggest that, which makes this a strawman. But it seems that a lot of critics want to apply extreme skepticism to anything coming out of the Whitehouse, but never apply anything of the sort to sources critical of the Whitehouse. I'm not asking you to just accept whatever the whitehouse says, I'm asking you to NOT accept what anyone else says without equivalent skepticism.
 
Ziggurat said:
That was the source for the article you linked to, and the article made that clear. Your link is now dead, so I can't quote it anymore.
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Well, no. It said it confirmed reports in the NYT (and Washington Post).
Here is the repaired link.

Ziggurat said:
None. Nor did I ever suggest that, which makes this a strawman. But it seems that a lot of critics want to apply extreme skepticism to anything coming out of the Whitehouse, but never apply anything of the sort to sources critical of the Whitehouse. I'm not asking you to just accept whatever the whitehouse says, I'm asking you to NOT accept what anyone else says without equivalent skepticism.
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What you said was this:
Ziggurat said:
Given the NYT, which intelligence officials do you think want to talk to the Times, and which officials accounts do you think the Times will choose to highlight? How useful is this story in evaluating the contents of the report? Not very.
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I take this as a suggestion that the reporting on the contents of this document is biased. So that does not mean we'd better take somebody else's word for it?

I'd be interested in your reply to my point about small-scale terrorism.
 
brumsen said:
I take this as a suggestion that the reporting on the contents of this document is biased. So that does not mean we'd better take somebody else's word for it?
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No, it doesn't. There's absolutely no logical connection there. We are not under any obligation to take anyone's word for it.

I'd be interested in your reply to my point about small-scale terrorism.
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Well, your point wasn't serious, or you wouldn't have used such hyperbole (a pontential suicide bomber on every street corner).

But is 10 attacks which kill 10 people on average worse than 1 attack which kills 100 people? Could be pretty equivalent (I'm ignoring property damage for the moment). That's my point: if the factor cited which may drive up the number of attacks is also likely to drive down the severity of attacks, then figuring out how the overall threat changes isn't simple. But the press is only going to cover one aspect of that. In this case, it's not exactly a bias against Bush as it is a bias for sensationalism. "Things are getting better" stories don't sell as well as "things are getting worse". And "Things are changing in a complicated way and we don't know the overall effect" stories hardly sell at all.
 
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