Glenn Greenwald: U.S. manufactured militant threat as pretext to bomb Syria

[wandy]

100. Well, a man sees what he wants to see and I'm still seeing the media as the problem......

I think we as humans with the encouragement of the PTB would like things to look something like this (sorry haven't figured out how to get DU to not strip spaces)

DECLAIR 1 al-BADGUY_OTHER,
. 2 ISIS,
. 2 al-QAEDA,
. . 3 KHORASAN,
. ... 4 MUSHIN_ al-FADHLI,

Now we have a nice orderly structure and we can locate any item in that structure as a displacement off al-BADGUY_OTHER.
Darn does that look wrong with out indentation.

Unfortunately the world doesn't work that way. And all manner of difficulties arise when we try to see it that way. A bit of information is given to a reporter and then the nasty processes of force fitting it into a structure acceptable to the advertisers, the owners, the government, the stakeholders and a population willing to read not much further than the headline begins.

Lets just look at the name. At some point in time it was likely "some bunch of guys in Harold hum Syria".
That would hardly work for a news report and work even less for military planning. Even if an attempt were made to use a name with a historical and geographical reference the name Khorasan was likely pulled out of some bureaucrats thin air.
Consider, by what name were the Bundy Cow-Pie Vigilantes known before I stuck them with that handle.

Then we come to the problem of 'strange people in faraway lands. No matter how many times we are told that the "Islamic State", if that is what the wish to call themselves (see naming problems above) is not representative off all Islam, the aforementioned readers of headlines only will see it that they are.
Even if the news originations were honest they would still have to play to the lowest common denominator.
The news originations are not honest.
I begin to wonder if the RW spin machine has the right idea. Make it fit on a bumper sticker...

ISIS BAD Impeach them.
Obama BAD invade him.

Or something like that.

Now let me throw a curve.
What in all hell are we doing in Syria?
We worry that if we rout ISIS from Iraq they will take safe harbor in Syria.
But we do not like Syria. We do not like Assad. We do not like Putin.
Think of ISIS like they were mice. It is the time of year when mice realize your house is warmer than outside and come in.
If you did not like your neighbor and found a way to have your mice infest that neighbor, why would you rid his home of mice for him.
Why worry about Syria and just give Assad and Putin all the IsisMices they can play with.