From: Hermit (hidden@lucifer.com)
Date: Sun Aug 11 2002 - 14:36:11 MDT
Jonathan, you make the same error as Joe Dees.
As previously noted, when mainstream press suppresses stories, it is time to look elsewhere for your news. In such circumstances, a source is not relevant to a story except in so far as goes to establishing likely veracity and slant. The more off-stream, the more careful one has to be. Having found a story which was not present in the US news, I cross validated it, and while I did not originally locate it at the Ithaca Journal (a respectable small town paper), I did discover 4 more versions of the story which used the same quotation. A dead give away for a wire story. In other words, somebody saw the story in the Ithaca Journal, recognized the significance of it and wired a report on it. Notice that there was no effective difference in facts between the Pravda story and the Ithaca Journal story. So in fact Pravda had very little to do with this - you could have established this for yourself - and your attacks were completely misplaced.
No matter what your opinion of Pravda, trying to discredit a story simply on the grounds that it was printed by it is invalid. Impugning sources unless they are notorious for distortion (and these days Pravda is not) doesn't do anything except make you look silly. Rather, if you want to "debunk" a story, you have to show the story is either untrue (it wasn't) or biased (it wasn't). As is shown by the original Ithaca Journal report, the words are quoted and it is not possible to draw any inference about the unequivocal statement, "We were told specifically that if there were women and children to kill them" except that the US contravened Clause 4 of the Geneva convention.
Private Matt Guckenheimer believed he was intended to kill women and children when he made that statement - and in the follow on letter, did not attempt to explain why his impression was mistaken, instead he attempted to simply repudiate his previous statement (and perhaps worth noting that his attempted repudiation had not been printed when it was taken up by news sources throughout Europe).
In my opinion, his attempted repudiation was highly unconvincing in comparison to the original. Firstly because the original didn't leave any wriggle room. "We were told specifically that if there were women and children to kill them" can only be understood one way. The fact that it was highlighted makes it very clear what the intent was. His putative retraction was, in contrast a maze of qualifiers, which lead me to conclude that somebody else said to him "Private, you just put yourself, me and our commanders in line for a war crime tribunal. Is that really what you wanted to do?"
My opinion is supported by the internal evidence that the two items, the interview and the retraction, were almost certainly written by two different people. The original scored 4.8 on the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, while the putative retraction scored 8.4 on the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level. A massive 4 years difference in apparent education. The overwhelming probability is that the second was dictated by somebody else. The fact that it is largely in the passive voice makes this probability stronger. Finally, as previously noted, the original version is supported by the external demographic evidence that the US is not being particularly careful about casualties.
So I'd suggest you approached debunking it the wrong way. If you didn't like his original statement, you had only two valid options. To assert he was lying the first time (in which case you need to explain why you believe his retraction), or to assert that he was telling what he thought was the truth the first time but was mistaken. Pravda simply repeated the story.
Of course, your and Joe's reactions - it is Pravda, it is anti-American - it is a lie, is understandable, is comprehensible. As is your immediate acceptance of the putative retraction at face level. It matches your preconceptions. Trouble is, as the internal and external evidence, and Rhinoceros' excellent letter all show, your preconceptions appear to be faulty.
Hermit
---- This message was posted by Hermit to the Virus 2002 board on Church of Virus BBS. <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;threadid=26018>
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