pinions of buddy don: losin harts n minds

we aint figgered out how to win the harts n minds of them folks we need to cunvints that we are the good guys. ifn we caint do that n sum of em gits democrussy, aint no doubt they a'gone vote us out of vote agin whut we stand fer. but we have figgerd out how not to doot.

• see that thar articull ye orta not read frum yesterdys post.


• ignore whut ye dun add mitted wuz true sos ye kin attack the press in sted, lack the washington post splains this mornin in thar editorial bout that newsweek thang:

  The Bush administration's first response was equally straightforward. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard B. Myers, told reporters last week that the U.S. commander in Afghanistan believed the violence "was not at all tied to the article in the magazine." Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pledged that "appropriate action" would be taken if the allegations proved true. But then the administration's spinners, led by Pentagon and White House spokesmen, took over. The result has been a cynical campaign to capitalize politically while deflecting attention from serious issues.
  [emphasis by buddy don]

• ignore how them folks that wuz putt into gitmo on suspishun but then turnt out to be innocent mite tell on ye, witch this articull in todays new york times writ by Somini Sengupta n Salman Masood name of Guantánamo Comes to Define U.S. to Muslims:

  Accounts of abuses at the actual American detention center at Guantánamo Bay, including Newsweek magazine's now-retracted article on the desecration of the Koran, ricochet around the world, instilling ideas about American power and justice, and sowing distrust of the United States. Even more than the written accounts are the images that flash on television screens throughout the Muslim world: caged men, in orange prison jumpsuits, on their knees. On Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, two satellite networks, images of the prisoners appear in station promos.
  
  For many Muslims, Guantánamo stands as a confirmation of the low regard in which they believe the United States holds them. For many non-Muslims, regardless of their feelings toward the United States, it has emerged as a symbol of American hypocrisy.
  
  "The cages, the orange suits, the shackles - it's as if they're dealing with something that's like a germ they don't want to touch," said Daoud Kuttab, director of the Institute of Modern Media at Al Quds University in Ramallah, in the West Bank. "That's the nastiness of it."
  
  The Bush administration's response to the Newsweek article - a general condemnation of prison abuses, coupled with an attack on the magazine - apparently did little to allay the concerns of many Muslims. Then on Thursday, the International Committee of the Red Cross issued a report detailing the many complaints from detainees at Guantánamo about desecrations of the Koran between early 2002 and mid-2003.
  
  In India, a secular country by law whose people and government are growing increasingly close to the United States, a cartoon appeared in Midday, an afternoon tabloid, on Friday showing a panic-stricken Uncle Sam flushing copies of Newsweek magazine down a toilet.
  
  To the cartoonist, Hemant Morparia, it appeared as though the Bush administration's answer to the problem was to bury the truth.

kin sumbidy git a retrackshun of gitmo? kin they retrack the torchur in afghanistan? in iraq? at gitmo? kin we win thar harts n minds by gittin folks to quit publishin whut the folks that hate us alreddy know?