But what I find very disturbing about AL's viewpoint is his apparent belief that it's okay to manipulate American public opinion to support whatever war the Establishment chooses to fight at the moment. According to "Betz," whom AL quotes:
Third, by contrast, we do not focus enough effort on winning and maintaining the hearts and minds of the most critical and accessible population: our own. [emphasis in original]
This of course presumes that the war that the US is fighting is a just one and that the cause is a good one. The Establishment certainly thought Vietnam was a good cause, the American public disagreed. Certainly the Establishment under President Ronald Reagan thought it was a good idea to get involved in Lebanon, at least until the Marine barracks was blown up with nearly 300 Marines inside. They supported President Bill Clinton getting involved in Somalia until the "Black Hawk Down" incident occurred.
See, the problem is that the American public is supposed to act as a brake on leaders who want to get our country involved in unwinnable conflicts. We're supposed to act as a "check" or a "balance" against overeager warmongers. AL doesn't seem to understand that there is something deeply undemocratic about treating our own population as a dumb audience to be manipulated. It's explained in the Whiskey Fire comments section that AL is not a liberal at all, he's a libertarian, which is a different creature altogether.
ALs view of the American and Islamic audiences is an interesting one;
Basically, if you need to target your base and find that it is fractured and lacks purpose, lacks the attention span for in-depth appeal to argument but is exquisitely sensitive to manipulation and possesses an innate mastery of semiotics then you have a problem. And if, moreover, your opponent’s base is unified, has a sense of purpose, a rich oral tradition which lends itself well to story-listening (and telling) and is fairly credulous when it comes to conspiracy theories then you have got a very serious problem.
First off, we've known since very early in the Iraq War that the Iraqi insurgency is made up of many different groups with many divergent viewpoints and strategies. The problem for the US has been that they all agree on ejecting US troops from what is, after all, their country. Second, this is a very, VERY insulting way to describe the American public! Obviously, someone who describes us as a population that "lacks the attention span for in-depth appeal to argument but is exquisitely sensitive to manipulation and possesses an innate mastery of semiotics" is someone who simply doesn't believe in democracy. Period.
There's a reason we liberals keep saying that conservatives worship Gee Dubya Bush, their "Dear Leader."
