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it must feel really cool to realize you have joined such luminaries as Erik Prince in looking at a potential outbreak of hostilities and leaping, immediately, to the advertorial possibilities
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Jun 16, 2019 00:21
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Why would you interview anybody who knows literally anything about boats and damage to them and how it could be inflicted, when you could just confirm that the pixels in a picture of a ship do in fact show the ship
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Jun 16, 2019 00:22
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Herstory Begins Now posted:He verified that there are two ships out there with some amount of damage to them and literally nothing beyond that. I think his reporting capabilities are a bit diminished when he can't harass people cowering in their houses for exclusives while they potentially livestream their deaths. There aren't that many desperate people to use when a tanker is a little on fire. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jun 16, 2019 00:30
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Herstory Begins Now posted:He verified that there are two ships out there with some amount of damage to them and literally nothing beyond that. i doubt anybody outside of one of the governments involved is capable of verifying anything more.
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Jun 16, 2019 00:36
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Squalid posted:i doubt anybody outside of one of the governments involved is capable of verifying anything more. Wouldn't it be pretty irresponsible to act like you have any sort of relevant information, then? Perhaps just to score a headline at a prestigious journal?
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Jun 16, 2019 00:38
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steinrokkan posted:Wouldn't it be pretty irresponsible to act like you have any sort of relevant information, then? Perhaps just to score a headline at a prestigious journal? I mean while i didn't read the article that twitter headline just says "we don't know what happened," which sounds like a relevant point to make given the things claimed by US officials. of course if i could get an article published in the times saying "i dunno" i'd do it in a heartbeat.
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Jun 16, 2019 00:58
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Chef Boyardeez Nuts posted:You need a twitter if you're going to continue to yell at cowards who won't debate you True. I’ll take silence as reenforcing the fact he’s the Chris Cillizza of conflict. Volkerball posted:And if there's no one to be anti-imperialist against, what is the necessity for the clerical establishment to have a death grip on power in Iran? I don’t know, they haven’t gotten that far clearly. For what it’s worth there’s certainly hypocrisy on the part of the Iranian government, but it’s non-unique as far as I’m concerned.
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Jun 16, 2019 01:26
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Dude makes a living on a niche type of reporting which is "what can I interpret from open source information." He does so and mostly reaches the conclusion that he can't reach a conclusion and gets dogpiled for not appending a supplementary treatise on American disinformation operations throughout history or personally responding to posters' individual critiques. Goons, without irony a month from now: "why doesn't Brown Moses post here anymore?"
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Jun 16, 2019 02:18
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Rectal Death Adept posted:I think his reporting capabilities are a bit diminished when he can't harass people cowering in their houses for exclusives while they potentially livestream their deaths. There aren't that many desperate people to use when a tanker is a little on fire. Edgy.
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Jun 16, 2019 02:50
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Chef Boyardeez Nuts posted:Dude makes a living on a niche type of reporting which is "what can I interpret from open source information." He does so and mostly reaches the conclusion that he can't reach a conclusion and gets dogpiled for not appending a supplementary treatise on American disinformation operations throughout history or personally responding to posters' individual critiques. Seriously, it's an opinion piece. It's supposed to be someone's bullshit spewed forth.
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Jun 16, 2019 03:19
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Volkerball posted:That's not what I said at all. Simply that they weren't interested in rapprochement with the US or with Europe. But if you're going to be consistent on anti-imperialism, there's an awful lot of Iranian troops in Syria and Iraq. Please for the love of God, actually read Lenin. ------- Really not a fan of bumbling empire theory, but uhhh https://twitter.com/barbarastarrcnn/status/1139632149089456128?s=09 WhiskeyWhiskers fucked around with this message at 04:04 on Jun 16, 2019 |
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Jun 16, 2019 03:33
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jzilla posted:Seriously, it's an opinion piece. It's supposed to be someone's bullshit spewed forth. Ahhh who could forget the motto of the Grey Lady: "gently caress it bro, its just posting"
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Jun 16, 2019 04:28
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The NYT asked me to right an article based on this thread, not a treatise on American Imperialism: https://twitter.com/bellingcat/status/1139461776611913728 I also included a section in original draft about US CENTCOM previously making claims that turned out to be untrue, in particular their bombing of Al Jinah Mosque in Syria where they denied it was a mosque, but Bellingcat, Human Rights Watch, and Forensic Architecture worked together to show it was, and it was full of civilians, not Al Qaeda leaders as CENTCOM was claiming: https://youtu.be/pc3UaxLqEWw Unfortunately I was 200 words over my limit, so they editor removed it. steinrokkan posted:Frankly I can't give a poo poo about the opinion of a man who writes a 1000 word article about how he used google to "verify" information, only to end up not proving anything one way or another and surrendering his prerogative as a journalist to hold the government accountable. I can tell that by the way you've angrily posted about it multiple times since it was published. Brown Moses fucked around with this message at 07:54 on Jun 16, 2019 |
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Jun 16, 2019 07:33
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I am very curious about one paragraph of the article. I hope it is ok to ask. "Nothing presented as evidence proves that the object was placed there by the Iranians. The video shows only that the Iranians chose to remove it for an as yet unknown reason." So it can be confirmed that it is a video of iranians, that they are beside the damaged ship of this particular incident? That is not in the article, and that sounds like an assertion to me. If you have explained that one, it's enough to just tell me "the bellingcat post" or "the tiwitter thread". Thanks in advance.
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Jun 16, 2019 09:00
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Maybe the editor just conveniently cut out the part where he proved it was the Iranians just like he edited out BMs assertion that the American intelligence community isn't always to be 100% trusted 
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Jun 16, 2019 09:08
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I dunno guys, maybe you could read it in the context of the rest of the article? Obviously the mistake I made was not writing "full communism now" 333 times in a row and submitting that to the editor.
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Jun 16, 2019 09:14
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I asked my question after reading the full article. I don't care about "full communism now" and I am an admirer of your work, but I want to know the root of that assertion, please.
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Jun 16, 2019 09:23
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Does anyone know if the tankers were stationary or on the move at the time of the attack?
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Jun 16, 2019 09:28
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The assertion rests on the model of the boat they are using. It's.. Not the most rock solid evidence, so maybe some doubts can be cast on the fact that they were in fact Iranians, but while I've seen articles about Iranians refuting their responsibility in the attack I haven't seen any accusations from Iran about Americans or Saudis stealing a boat and pretending to be IRGC.
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Jun 16, 2019 09:28
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I see. Thanks.
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Jun 16, 2019 09:30
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nvm
Lambert fucked around with this message at 09:36 on Jun 16, 2019 |
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Jun 16, 2019 09:31
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The vessel visible in the video has multiple features that matches a specific vessel used by the IRGC and is known to operate in the area. Maybe I should have put "alleged" in front of it, but I was relying on the reader to take it in the context of being a US claim, despite the strong match to the known IRGC craft.Charliegrs posted:Does anyone know if the tankers were stationary or on the move at the time of the attack? I've been meaning to following this up (busy preparing our new MH17 report), but if they were moving it would exclude the possibility of divers placing the objects on the vessel, even ignoring the fact they were placed well above the waterline. That would mean a boat would had to have placed it on the vessel, so then there's the question of how a boat would have approached the vessel without it being noticed. Marine Traffic published this animation showing the boats movements on the day: https://twitter.com/MarineTraffic/status/1139096909585498113 Brown Moses fucked around with this message at 09:37 on Jun 16, 2019 |
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Jun 16, 2019 09:31
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I'm not Brown Moses, that's just my perspective of the events 
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Jun 16, 2019 09:31
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Brown Moses posted:The vessel visible in the video has multiple features that matches a specific vessel used by the IRGC and is known to operate in the area. Maybe I should have put "alleged" in front of it, but I was relying on the reader to take it in the context of being a US claim, despite the strong match to the known IRGC craft. I think one valid critique of your article is that your present the assertion that the IRGC was removing UXO rather than possibly a magnetic mooring device.
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Jun 16, 2019 09:58
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A big flaming stink posted:I think one valid critique of your article is that your present the assertion that the IRGC was removing UXO rather than possibly a magnetic mooring device. I write this in the article: quote:Yet what the videos and photographs published by the United States don’t show us is more important. While the object on the side of the Kokuka Courageous is described as a “likely limpet mine” the images presented aren’t clear enough to verify that.
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Jun 16, 2019 10:04
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So. It has somehow been almost two years and 300 pages since I posted what should have been a temporary ME thread to replace the old one that had technical issues. Since temperatures are figuratively and literally rising in the region again, the thread is seeing a lot more activity, so maybe it is time we have a small discussion about its future before we descend completely into the next chapter of miserable ForeverWar. I like the thread and its forebears. I think that at its best it's a useful resource and educational, and at its worst it's worthless poo poo-slinging and vitriol, but aside from my misgivings on how we sometimes interact with each other, I think the thread could be better in other ways. As a result of its supposed temporary nature, the OP is a complete shambles and I think the thread is maybe not quite as focused as it could or maybe should have been- at the very least, the current iteration of thread definitely strikes me as a Middle Eastern conflicts thread more than just general discussion of the region. I guess it has always been this way- this series of threads started off being about Egypt after all, so maybe that's okay! As I see it, we can certainly just keep trucking with the thread in its current format and ignore the embarrassing state of the OP- I suppose I could/should touch it up, but I'm certainly not knowledgeable enough to do it any kind of proper justice- Or maybe we need something of a re-brand or an entirely new thread. Thoughts?
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Jun 16, 2019 10:57
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Brown Moses posted:The vessel visible in the video has multiple features that matches a specific vessel used by the IRGC and is known to operate in the area. Maybe I should have put "alleged" in front of it, but I was relying on the reader to take it in the context of being a US claim, despite the strong match to the known IRGC craft. But are those features unique to that specific vessel, or are they common characteristics of speedboats used by a wide variety of nations? Finding a photo of Iranian speedboats that look kind of like those speedboats isn't proof that they were Iranian speedboats, it just means it's possible that they could be Iranian speedboats. To actually prove that they were specifically Iranian, you need to rule out the possibility that any other nation operates boats that look kind of like that. A real expert would have realized that. But the NYT doesn't want real experts when it comes to Iran, it wants amateurish rubes who unintentionally spread US propaganda even when they think they're being fair and balanced.
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Jun 16, 2019 12:14
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Tab8715 posted:What reason would Iran have with current environment to gain from attacking tankers in Gulf? The US sanctions on Iran are causing desperation. Since Iran doesn't want to capitulate, they have to escalate things to the point where USA is willing to negotiate again. At the same time, escalating to a full war wouldn't serve them but incidents like these would send enough of a message to Washington while retaining plausible deniability. If US warships were attacked then that could lead to the public supporting war measures giving Trump more room for response, but when civilian tankers are attacked then oil market prices will go up, which is bad for Trump, but most likely the public are not going to lean to hawkish measures when the cause is uncertain.
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Jun 16, 2019 12:27
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Main Paineframe posted:But are those features unique to that specific vessel, or are they common characteristics of speedboats used by a wide variety of nations? I actually went through as many examples as I could find, but if you can find any examples, especially with the same armaments as Iran uses, feel free to share them.
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Jun 16, 2019 12:41
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imo it's legitimate to criticise that article for failing to adequately address the textual context of the video - a US effort to pin the blame on iran. the problem isn't really the information analysis itself, which seems idk fine i guess i really couldn't comment, but the lack of presenting any form of real motivational analysis leaves a sort of iffy impression you start off with a gulf of tonkin comparison, which is good, but then you sort of whiff the conclusion due to what i assume is an attempt to remain rational and objective. the problem with this is that simply being rational and objective when examining possibly fabricated propaganda is not really critically engaging with propaganda, it's helping propagate it people will read the byline and think 'oh ok some inconsistencies with the data but the main thrust is probably right' which i doubt is what you wanted to achieve with that article
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Jun 16, 2019 12:50
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basically the critique is a critique of bourgeois-liberal journalism as a project, not really of bellingcat in particular
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Jun 16, 2019 12:52
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My feeling was if there was actually something about the US claims that was contradicted by the avaliable evidence then it would have been possible to make a stronger conclusion than the publicly available evidence for the US claims or the incident was a false flag was at best inconclusive. But it wasn't, so I didn't.
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Jun 16, 2019 12:55
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the iranian speedboat is considered one of the worst sexual positions
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Jun 16, 2019 13:01
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Brown Moses posted:My feeling was if there was actually something about the US claims that was contradicted by the avaliable evidence then it would have been possible to make a stronger conclusion than the publicly available evidence for the US claims or the incident was a false flag was at best inconclusive. But it wasn't, so I didn't. yah, that's sort of the rub - i absolutely understand the impulse to treat a government push as basically sincere, but this leaves one exposed to what amounts to trolling by state actors effectively, you're setting rules for yourself which are trivial to game if one is a bad-faith actor with a decent amount of resources. this is, again, not a problem particular to you or your project, but a more general issue with contemporary journalism after russia stepped up the level of state misinformation a challenge was launched to which which it seems as though liberal journalism has no answer
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Jun 16, 2019 13:01
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I have noticed everyone who is mad about the article has strong left and right wing political ideologies. The pro-US MAGA crowd are equally as mad about it as the lefties on this thread, how dare I question the word of the US Navy and Trump? Personally I'd rather write an article informed by evidence than political ideology, not much I can do about people disagreeing with that.
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Jun 16, 2019 13:14
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Some people still care about the truth regardless of who's cause it serves. So don't let the nutters get to you BM.
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Jun 16, 2019 13:18
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Brown Moses posted:I have noticed everyone who is mad about the article has strong left and right wing political ideologies. The pro-US MAGA crowd are equally as mad about it as the lefties on this thread, how dare I question the word of the US Navy and Trump? Personally I'd rather write an article informed by evidence than political ideology, not much I can do about people disagreeing with that. the issue isn't really about evidence or political ideology, it's that journalism cannot stick merely to the 'factual' (what does this mean, specifically? it's a difficult term), it must integrate an agent analysis of some sort. holding power to account actually requires one to question the basic premises of a question. effectively, this means that when you have something circumstancial which indicates that power is full of poo poo, it should be included journalism always has an agenda. it generates truth, it doesn't describe some objective reality. a journalistic statement always exists in a political context - once it's written it's going to be used by every reader for their own ends. being insensitive to such context is effectively the same as being an instrument of whichever establishment is running things in science, if there is no empirical support for a statement, that statement is generally taken to be wrong. science is not, i'm sure you'll agree, terribly politically motivated
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Jun 16, 2019 13:38
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Brown Moses posted:I have noticed everyone who is mad about the article has strong left and right wing political ideologies. The pro-US MAGA crowd are equally as mad about it as the lefties on this thread, how dare I question the word of the US Navy and Trump? Personally I'd rather write an article informed by evidence than political ideology, not much I can do about people disagreeing with that. Man I know you want another war so you can make more money profiteering off it but you don't have to help start it.
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Jun 16, 2019 13:39
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Brown Moses posted:I have noticed everyone who is mad about the article has strong left and right wing political ideologies. The pro-US MAGA crowd are equally as mad about it as the lefties on this thread, how dare I question the word of the US Navy and Trump? Personally I'd rather write an article informed by evidence than political ideology, not much I can do about people disagreeing with that. Ideology shapes what evidence you consider relevant, though? It's not really something you can just step outside.
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Jun 16, 2019 13:43
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Brown Moses posted:Unfortunately I was 200 words over my limit, so they editor removed it. had to make sure to squeeze in the marinetraffic.com primer
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