[thunderous_funker]

Published on Wednesday, December 3, 2003 by The Nation
Fox News' Occupation Critic
by David Corn

Fox News Channel is considered by many to be pro-Bush, pro-war, and pro-occupation. Yet one of the harsher critics in the media of the Bush administration's postwar actions has been retired Major Bob Bevelacqua, a Fox News military analyst. "Major Bob," as he is called on air, served thirteen years in the Army Special Forces, which included a nation-building stint in Haiti. He also put in three years at the Pentagon. Fox enlisted him as a commentator eight days after 9/11. When not deconstructing developments in Iraq for Fox viewers, he works with William Cowan, another former military officer who is a Fox analyst, in a company trying to provide security assistance to the U.S. occupation authority and private enterprises in Iraq. Bevelacqua, who supported going to war on the grounds that Saddam Hussein was a brutal tyrant and a threat to stability in the region but not a direct threat to the United States, is clearly unhappy with the whole contracting process under way in Iraq--which certainly colors his opinions, as does his time in the Special Forces. After hearing him challenge the administration's handling of the occupation on the air and in the corridors of the Fox News Washington bureau--I, too, am a Fox News contributor--I asked Bevelacqua to spell out his objections and talk about what he saw in Iraq during a recent month-long visit there.

What's going wrong in Iraq?

We didn't make the transition from a conventional war to an unconventional war. That occurred when President Bush said the major combat is over and now we focus on the rebuilding. We were still fighting in a conventional mindset--war done, move on to the postwar--when we needed to be fighting in an unconventional mindset against what was now an unconventional enemy.

Was it unforeseen that the invasion of Iraq would lead to a vicious insurgency? Was there no plan for that?

It was unforeseen by the politicos, but it was foreseen by the guys who had worked in and around the military. Some were looking down the road and thinkin [bad text] tion Provisional Authority (CPA) would look like and who some of the key players would be. They took questions, and I asked two questions. First, what are you going to do with the military? Then what are you going to do with the police? There was no answer. I got a shoulder shrug: "We don't know." So I got on my soap box for 30 seconds and went over what happened in Haiti and the lessons learned. We got the military to become police there. We changed their uniforms and changed their appearances. We gave them classes on human rights. We did not collapse them. The reaction was silence, "Thank you very much, next question." A few of us looked at each other and raised our eyebrows. After the meeting some of us huddled up in the hallway and said, "We don't have a plan." In the small circle that I run within, the Special. Forces, this way of doing business is known as a "guided discovery."

What does that mean?

Go over there and make it up as you go along. If it works, great. If it doesn't, we'll try something else. That's fine if you're making chocolate bars. In this context in the Middle East, it is a recipe for failure--which is what we have at the moment, though that can be changed.

It really was avoidable. Every administration does the exact same thing. You bring in your connected friends and allies, and you give them jobs, appoint them as Cabinet secretaries and other officials. Some do a good job. Some have no skills to do the job. As a prime example I would use [national security adviser] Condoleezza Rice. What does she have in her past experience to allow her to advise the president on all this? She's a Soviet Union expert.

There are a lot of smart guys in the Pentagon, and the ones with the ability to come up with a realistic plan are not going to be heard--especially if they challenge the ideology of the guys in charge. Now I think what we see in Iraq is a classic mission for the Army Special Forces--a mission heavy with civil affairs and psychological operations. It is all about working with the indigenous population of Iraq, period. The Army has doctrine on how to conduct these types of affairs. And it has flat-out been ignored.

If the military--particularly Special Forces--has the experience to do nation-building in conjunction with counterinsurgency, why haven't things gone better?

We put civilians in charge--the CAP--and that was because the Pentagon and White House wanted to control the war without having to go through the military. Now that we are in the phase when large amounts of money are being let out in contracts and private industry has to be brought in, that all has to be controlled by the White House. Is it a coincidence that one of the largest companies that was awarded a contract in Iraq is aligned with Dick Cheney?

I recently spent a month in Iraq, and I did a lot of listening and not much talking, which is not characteristic for me. The way the Iraqis see it--and they call it very accurately--is that there is a lot of corruption in how the CPA has been handling contracts with Halliburton, Bechtel, and the subcontractors. It upsets Iraqis to see subcontractors brought in from South Africa, Germany, England, India and elsewhere to do simple contracts that are not high-tech. They feel those opportunities for work should go to the Iraqi people. It is their nation; they should probably be involved in rebuilding it.

As you know, there's been some debate here about the media coverage of security in Iraq, with the White House and its supporters claiming that the media has played up stories about the security problems in Iraq. What did you see there?

The security situation as a whole is nonexistent. In certain areas and sectors, it is pretty good. But the first day I got there in October somebody parked a car bomb outside the gates of the compound where our offices are in Baghdad. That first night, mortar attacks were fired from the area I lived in, which is only a kilometer or so from where the 82nd Airborne is based. If they could get that close to the Americans and fire mortars, I don't know how anyone can argue that security is good.

The enemy has the ability to fire when and where they like. That's because the civilian population is allowing them to do that. And that's because we have not embraced that civilian population. We have isolated ourselves in Saddam castle behind concrete barriers. Think of the irony of this. We put ourselves in the castles from where he dominated and repressed that country. Who do we look like? The members of the interim council had to be searched before they would be allowed to enter their offices. It was a slap in the face, and they could see foreign subcontractors coming and going into the CAP offices just by flashing an ID card. This is totally unacceptable.

Three days before I left, an explosive charge was placed underneath the generator for our office. The blast took out the generator and blew out a portion of the glass in the office. We feel we were attacked because we were advertising what we were trying to do--that is, use Iraqis to develop information and intelligence that can be used to provide security. None of our guys were hurt. But when the attack came, the security guards we had at our offices disappeared right before the explosion. And the Iraqi who was providing us these security guards--a prominent sheik from Mosul--is working for the U.S. military, too.

Does the Bush administration have a good bead on who--and what--it is fighting in Iraq?

I've seen lists of insurgent forces they have developed, and they're missing one category: disenfranchised and disillusioned Iraqis. They don't recognize that as a potential group these people can create havoc. They think they're onlookers. But these people don't have any jobs. So when they are approached by people in the insurgency with a handful of money and asked to shoot at Americans or plant a bomb, they say, sure, we'll do it. They think there is still a chance that Saddam Hussein will come back to power and then it will have been a smart move to have helped the insurgency.

[thunderous_funker]

How angry should the American public be, if at all?

The public deserves to know the truth. There is so much cheerleading on TV. They're not getting the truth. Most pundits care about getting Bush in or out of office. Its politics at its worst. The White House is doing what all White Houses do--spinning. They give their take, which most of the time I find to be inaccurate. I'm an advocate for the soldier. I love my country, not necessarily the government.

A lot of the Democratic presidential candidates talk about turning over the occupation to the U.N. and bringing in troops from other nations. Do you think that's a feasible military option? It looks as if few other countries are eager to dispatch their troops into a counterinsurgency situation, which, as you know, is much different than a peacekeeping mission.

The Iraqis don't want to see anyone else send in troops. We have to use the Iraqi people, use their police force, win hearts and minds. It has to be peace through prosperity. We have to give them jobs. The large contracts may have to go to places like Halliburton and Bechtel, but there should be a law that they only can subcontract to an Iraqi company. Let these Iraqi firms team up with foreign companies if they have to, but Iraqi companies should be making the biggest gains from rebuilding their countries. I spoke to a German who got the contract to restring power lines from Baghdad to Jordan. He said he was going to use Indians, not Iraqis, to restring the lines. He was then told by a prominent Iraqi that the Iraqi people would not stand for this, that Iraqis would be shooting the Indians down from the towers. He had to reconsider. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what is needed. We need to use cross-cultural communication skills to understand the environment and create peace through prosperity. We need the Iraqis to do their own intelligence network, their own security, their own rebuilding.

Why don't they share your view at the White House and the Pentagon?

Ignorance--they just don't know how unconventional war is fought. And arrogance--an inability to listen to the suggestions from others. And there is some professional jealousy. The civilians in the Pentagon don't want to see the Special Forces guys handed another mission.

I thought going to war in Iraq was a good thing. But we are screwing it up. If we change our policies and truly work with the Iraqi people, things can change. If they do not change, we will have another Beirut, another Somalia. We will end up leaving, and it will implode. And that will give us negative PR in the eyes of 1.6 billion Muslims. This is the Super Bowl. Look, we trained and advised the Afghanistan mujaheddin [who battled the Soviet Union in the 1980s] and some of them managed to fight against us later. Our ability to screw things up is immense.

[davesimondotcom]

Fox has a guest commentator that aren't "conservative" or "pro-Bush" - why is this a surprise?

They have LOTS of guests who are Democrats, independants, etc. They sponsored a debate with the Democrat candidates (not as if this indicates anything, really.)

Now, if The Nation were to publish a pro-Bush, pro-War article, *I* would be shocked...

I mean, seriously, the Nation calling Fox News biased. Pot. Kettle.

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by davesimondotcom:
Fox has a guest commentator that aren't "conservative" or "pro-Bush" - why is this a surprise?

They have LOTS of guests who are Democrats, independants, etc. They sponsored a debate with the Democrat candidates (not as if this indicates anything, really.)

Now, if The Nation were to publish a pro-Bush, pro-War article, *I* would be shocked...

I mean, seriously, the Nation calling Fox News biased. Pot. Kettle.

Aside from the usual media blame game, care to comment on the substance of the article?

[davesimondotcom]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:
Aside from the usual media blame game, care to comment on the substance of the article?

I'm not playing any game. You are the one that brought up the media stuff, right?

Honestly, I didn't read the article and I don't have time right now. But knowing Major Bob from his appearances, I know that he's got his opinions and he is a pretty well spoken guy.

I did catch one question in the interview/article - the one about what is going wrong. Doesn't that question assume facts (ie. that things are going wrong) - shouldn't a more "fair" intervier ask how things are going, or at least say something like, what is going wrong or right, in your opinion?

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by davesimondotcom:
I'm not playing any game. You are the one that brought up the media stuff, right?

Honestly, I didn't read the article and I don't have time right now. But knowing Major Bob from his appearances, I know that he's got his opinions and he is a pretty well spoken guy.

I did catch one question in the interview/article - the one about what is going wrong. Doesn't that question assume facts (ie. that things are going wrong) - shouldn't a more "fair" intervier ask how things are going, or at least say something like, what is going wrong or right, in your opinion?

Come back when you've read it. I'm sure your imput will be valuable.

[davesimondotcom]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:
Come back when you've read it. I'm sure your imput will be valuable.

OK, I have now read it...

Like I said before, Major Bob is a well spoken guy.

What I took from it is that he thinks that there wasn't enough planning for the post war. That could certainly be correct. After all, who thought the main combat would end so quickly.

It seems to me that it may have been part of Saddam's "strategery" to use this guerilla type/terrorist strike kind of war. Make the Americans fight a faceless enemy.

What he said about Iraqis getting contracts to rebuild their country is spot on. Why aren't they? If they aren't being enriched, shown the benefits of an open market and given jobs, that is terrible.

What I would like someone like Major Bob to address is not whether the planning was good or bad - that's Monday Morning Quarterback. We're in the game. The first half has been played. What adjustments need to be made NOW to make sure we win when the forth quarter comes to a close? And that's sort of what he has done in this article.

Even if I disagreed with the stuff about there being "cheerleading" in the press, the article was interesting. If anything, I see the press highlighting the bad news.

P.S. I have a sincere interest in Iraq being a safer place. Not because we need an ally in the Middle East. Not because we need their oil. But because there is a very good chance my sister-in-law will be deployed there, and the safer she is, the happier I would be. And since she is a nurse anesthetist, I know she would be seeing some pretty grotesque things in wartime...

[Lerkfish]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:
Aside from the usual media blame game, care to comment on the substance of the article?

my comment is that there is a lot of substance: downright common sense that is what i've been saying all along and all we get is some song and dance from the administration and the apologists.
At least I feel better that there WERE people speaking up on how the rebuilding should go, they were just being ignored.
For a while there, I was worried no one was left in washington who could think further than their nose. At least there are some, just not powerful enough to break the neocon maginot line around the president.

[petehammer]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:
Come back when you've read it. I'm sure your imput will be valuable.

Where is the precedent for this?

[Lerkfish]

Originally posted by davesimondotcom:
I'll read it tomorrow.

you have more posts than anyone in the thread and you can't be bothered to read it?

you should, there's some cut to the chase brass tacks commentary in there that EVERYONE should read.

[davesimondotcom]

Originally posted by petehammer:
Where is the precedent for this?

Insult someone because they don't agree with you... nice style.

[davesimondotcom]

Originally posted by Lerkfish:
you have more posts than anyone in the thread and you can't be bothered to read it?

you should, there's some cut to the chase brass tacks commentary in there that EVERYONE should read.

I did read it.

But you know, sometimes that much text is intimidating to us dumb unenlightened country folk...

... either that or I may have had some work to do...finishing a site...

[zigzag]

Bearing in mind that he has his own biases, it's both gratifying and discouraging to know that there are informed people who think, as I do, that the Iraq action was a reasonable idea, somewhat badly executed, although I still hope to be proven wrong.

It was always my suspicion that the invasion was hurried along in order to avoid the '04 election, but I've kept my mouth shut because I also know that a cigar is sometimes just a cigar. However, we now have conservatives like Bruce Fein wondering whether the new strategy to accede control by June is designed to spare Dubya in time for the '04 election. I expect a certain amount of politically expedient behavior in any situation but the administration is starting to look more El Producto than Cohiba.

http://washingtontimes.com/commentar...2830-3749r.htm

Another very interesting (both pro and con) first-hand perspective:

http://freshair.npr.org/day_fa.jhtml...ate=11/18/2003

As for Fox, I don't remember seeing this Bevelacqua guy anytime recently, but I could be mistaken. In any case, it's noble of them to invite people of differing views onto their shows - the problem is that the scrutiny is almost always in one direction and the cheerleading almost always in the other.

[moki]

Originally posted by zigzag:
As for Fox, I don't remember seeing this Bevelacqua guy anytime recently, but I could be mistaken. In any case, it's noble of them to invite people of differing views onto their shows - the problem is that the scrutiny is almost always in one direction and the cheerleading almost always in the other.

Fox's presentation of the news is generally just fine, and unbiased. The rub is that the vast majority of Fox's broadcasts are not news, but news commentary.

Still, O'Reilly holds conservatives feet to the fire with regularity, and there is a Colmes to balance Hanity, Gretta van Susteran has unfathomable political biases, and so on and so forth.

Point simply being that while Fox does have a conservative bent, it isn't nearly what people like to make it out to be. I'd say the most biased, pro-Bush show on Fox has got to be "Fox and Friends" -- it can really be quite intolerable.

[davesimondotcom]

Originally posted by moki:
Colmes to balance Hanity,

I'm sure Alan Colmes is nice enough, but he's like a high school team playing against the Kansas City Chiefs in that matchup. He's too shy and can hardly get his points out against the bombastic Hannity.

Originally posted by moki:
I'd say the most biased, pro-Bush show on Fox has got to be "Fox and Friends" -- it can really be quite intolerable.

Fox and Friends is fun though. And I don't think it's any more biased towards Bush than Katie Couric and friends are biased the other way. Besides, E.D. is way too nice to look at.

[Timo]

Excellent post. A few things stand out.

First, what are you going to do with the military? Then what are you going to do with the police? There was no answer. I got a shoulder shrug: "We don't know." So I got on my soap box for 30 seconds and went over what happened in Haiti and the lessons learned. We got the military to become police there. We changed their uniforms and changed their appearances. We gave them classes on human rights. We did not collapse them. The reaction was silence, "Thank you very much, next question."

and this:

The enemy has the ability to fire when and where they like. That's because the civilian population is allowing them to do that. And that's because we have not embraced that civilian population. We have isolated ourselves in Saddam castle behind concrete barriers. Think of the irony of this. We put ourselves in the castles from where he dominated and repressed that country. Who do we look like? The members of the interim council had to be searched before they would be allowed to enter their offices. It was a slap in the face, and they could see foreign subcontractors coming and going into the CAP offices just by flashing an ID card. This is totally unacceptable.

and this:

I've seen lists of insurgent forces they have developed, and they're missing one category: disenfranchised and disillusioned Iraqis. They don't recognize that as a potential group these people can create havoc. They think they're onlookers.

See the pattern? The current administration doesn't even have a mental category for understanding the perceptions abroad of our actions -- not in Iraq with the general populace, not in Europe, not even with 50% + of this electorate.

[Lerkfish]

Originally posted by Timo:
See the pattern? The current administration doesn't even have a mental category for understanding the perceptions abroad of our actions -- not in Iraq with the general populace, not in Europe, not even with 50% + of this electorate.

or they understand, but are arrogant enough to think they can ignore the problem.

[Zimphire]

I just can't wait till next term. Bush will have it a bit easier. People wont be so venomous trying to stop him from being pres in the 2nd term.

They will still bitch, but it wont be as zealous.

[Timo]

Originally posted by Lerkfish:
or they understand, but are arrogant enough to think they can ignore the problem.

Same thing -- if perceptions didn't matter, sure, to hell with Europe, the general Iraqi populace, the unreachable parts of our electorate. But perceptions of course do matter, on a strategic level, and it amazes me that category of planning doesn't exist.

[Lerkfish]

Originally posted by Zimphire:
I just can't wait till next term. Bush will have it a bit easier. People wont be so venomous trying to stop him from being pres in the 2nd term.

They will still bitch, but it wont be as zealous.

I disagree. If Bush gets a second term, that means efforts will have to be redoubled to stop him from doing further damage.

sorry to disappoint.

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by Lerkfish:
I disagree. If Bush gets a second term, that means efforts will have to be redoubled to stop him from doing further damage.

1. Damage? HIGHLY subjective.
2. Most will just go on with their lives and wait till next election.
3. You are probably right with your post above, but it only to the political zealots.

You know the ones that would rather see their country do bad under the opposing political side than good purely out of political reasons.

To them it's not 1 people 1 country.

It's two sides one country and if their side isn't on top, screw the country!

Usually those people sit around all day on politics forums complaining about petty things from the opposition. Usually they exaggerate quite a great deal as well.

[petehammer]

Originally posted by Lerkfish:
I disagree. If Bush gets a second term, that means efforts will have to be redoubled to stop him from doing further damage.

sorry to disappoint.

As someone pointed out elsewhere: the good news is, there's not a whole lot more damage he can do. He's stripped us of environmental protections, legal protections, and has launched an assault on the Arab world. We've lost our allies and bled jobs like nothing else.

What more is there he can do?

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by petehammer:
He's stripped us of environmental protections,legal protections, and has launched an assault on the Arab world. We've lost our allies and bled jobs like nothing else.

What more is there he can do?

Yeah you forgot "And he is making the sky fall"

Give me a break.

[davesimondotcom]

Originally posted by petehammer:
and has launched an assault on the Arab world.

I must have missed this. I thought that he was launching attacks on the Taliban and Saddam Hussein and terrorism.

And I know that not every Arab or Muslim is a member of the Taliban, Saddam's regime or a terrorist.

Oh, and didn't the assault that was launched come FROM that side of the world, aimed at the United States, or did Bush launch his racist attack on the Arab world before September 11th, and I simply missed it?

[Spliffdaddy]

Originally posted by Lerkfish:
I disagree. If Bush gets a second term, that means efforts will have to be redoubled to stop him from doing further damage.

sorry to disappoint.

I noticed how effective those efforts have been so far. I reckon re-doubling them won't yield much in the way of future results, either.

[davesimondotcom]

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
I noticed how effective those efforts have been so far. I reckon re-doubling them won't yield much in the way of future results, either.

Sure it will. The Democrat party will cease to exist...

[petehammer]

Originally posted by davesimondotcom:
I must have missed this. I thought that he was launching attacks on the Taliban and Saddam Hussein and terrorism.

Wow, that's a pretty big plate!

Oh, and didn't the assault that was launched come FROM that side of the world, aimed at the United States, or did Bush launch his racist attack on the Arab world before September 11th, and I simply missed it?

I guess I missed something important then: Iraqis flew planes into buildings on Sept. 11?

Ask, oh I don't know, the Arab world... they see our attack on Iraq (who didn't fly planes into WTC on Sept. 11 or any other time) as an attack on the Arab world. And they have taken up arms to fight back (see: the mess that is Iraq).

[davesimondotcom]

Originally posted by petehammer:
Ask, oh I don't know, the Arab world... they see our attack on Iraq (who didn't fly planes into WTC on Sept. 11 or any other time) as an attack on the Arab world. And they have taken up arms to fight back (see: the mess that is Iraq).

We'll just have to agree to disagree on that... being that I can see how the war in Iraq is an extention of the war on terror, even if there wasn't a connection between Al Queda and Saddam, Saddam DID have ties to terrorists. (ie, he paid suicide bombers, etc.)

[moki]

Originally posted by petehammer:
Ask, oh I don't know, the Arab world... they see our attack on Iraq (who didn't fly planes into WTC on Sept. 11 or any other time) as an attack on the Arab world. And they have taken up arms to fight back (see: the mess that is Iraq).

Actually, there is no evidence to support your claim at all. There is evidence that the people who are attacking the coalition forces in Iraq are former Ba'athist party members who were not killed by the quick war in Iraq, and are small in number.

There's been no groundswell of Arabs coming to defend Iraq, nor has there been a groundswell of Iraqis attacking the coalition troops in Iraq. Most simply want to carry on with their lives, which is made more difficult by the attacks. They will never succeed, they'll just make life harder for innocent Iraqis in the meantime.

[thunderous_funker]

Which brings us back to Timo's observation about managing perception. The arrogance of the administration isn't that it thinks its always right--all administrations are like that--but that it doesn't even attempt to address the concerns of its critics. They treat all criticism as utterly beneath contempt.

So not only do the negative perceptions persist, but the administration's total disdain actually reinforces them in the minds of many.

They can't imagine why Iraqis aren't dancing in the streets. They can't fathom that the resistance includes patriotic Iraqis. They scoff when critics suggest we've completely played into the worst fears of Arabs around the world.

All are symptoms of the same disease--they consistantly put ideology ahead of facts. Any facts that don't fit their worldview are simply discarded.

Considering the intellectual credentials of many of the administrations key wonks, this shouldn't surprise anyone. Most of them are from a philosophical background steeped in exactly this kind of deductive thinking.

[gadster]

Note to self: sounds like a good time to brush up on your Orwell and Huxley.

[moki]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:
Considering the intellectual credentials of many of the administrations key wonks, this shouldn't surprise anyone. Most of them are from a philosophical background steeped in exactly this kind of deductive thinking.

Translation: "They don't agree with me, therefor they must simply be stupid"

[petehammer]

Originally posted by moki:
Actually, there is no evidence to support your claim at all. There is evidence that the people who are attacking the coalition forces in Iraq are former Ba'athist party members who were not killed by the quick war in Iraq, and are small in number.

There's been no groundswell of Arabs coming to defend Iraq, nor has there been a groundswell of Iraqis attacking the coalition troops in Iraq. Most simply want to carry on with their lives, which is made more difficult by the attacks. They will never succeed, they'll just make life harder for innocent Iraqis in the meantime.

Welcome back, moki!

Say, have you began pushing for impeachment yet?

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by moki:
Translation: "They don't agree with me, therefor they must simply be stupid"

Maybe you were confused by the words I used. I don't think anyone in the administration is stupid. Far from it.

They do, however, have a lot of people who have historically participated and sponsered areas of philosophical thought that are centered on the kind of deductive thinking I'm talking about.

Its not an uncommon thing. Many religious people use deductive thinking. Its especially prevalent in many areas of economic theory. Consider the Austrian School, for example, that argued that economic axioms cannot be proven or disproven based on real world observation.

"no kind of experience can ever force us to discard or modify a priori theorems; they are logically prior to it and cannot be either proved by corroborative experience or disproved by experience to the contrary . . ." --Ludwig von Mises

"[experience]can never . . . prove or disprove any particular theorem . . . The ultimate yardstick of an economic theorem's correctness or incorrectness is solely reason unaided by experience." --von Mises

"If a contradiction appears between a theory and experience, we must always assume that a condition pre-supposed by the theory was not present, or else there is some error in our observation. The disagreement between the theory and the facts of experience frequently forces us to think through the problems of the theory again. But so long as a rethinking of the theory uncovers no errors in our thinking, we are not entitled to doubt its truth" -- Von Mises

That is just a sampling of the kinds of very smart, very well regarded, scientific people who have, through the years, given credence to a kind of a priorism in regards to various areas of human thought.

Many members of Bush's Think Tank belond to various schools of thought that tend towards similar a priorism.

[Timo]

^^^^^^^yes, this is accurate. What Pierre Bourdieu used to regard as confusing or conflating 'the reality of the model' for 'the model of reality'.

Furthermore, there's little evidence of any of this administration's models being substantially reworked when they collide with the facts on the ground, in my opinion.

[moki]

Originally posted by petehammer:
Welcome back, moki!

Say, have you began pushing for impeachment yet?

I posted a response concerning this here:

http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...postid=1735551

(the one listed as Posted on : 12-08-2003 02:03 AM)