Don’t Call Them Liars

In a review of Bad Science Val Jones finds a very useful distinction, which I am sure will serve me well the rest of my life.

The liar knows and cares about the truth, but deliberately sets out to mislead; the truth-speaker knows the truth and is trying to give it to us; the bullsh*tter, meanwhile, does not care about the truth, and is simply trying to impress us.

Ben goes on to quote the philosophy professor Harry Frankfurt (from his 1986 essay “On Bullsh*t”):

[The bullsh*tter] is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.

Good News, Bad News

Michael Yon has the good news about Iraq: The war is over and we won. And the bad news about Afghanistan: We’re losing. Yon has some good advice for Obama.

To ensure that we have influence on the outcome, we need more soldiers in Afghanistan, and fast.  They need to be U.S. forces, British, Canadian, Aussie; we cannot depend on NATO in general and they don’t know how to fight anyway.  Unless President-elect Obama knows some kind of magic spell, he will not be able to persuade most NATO countries to do the right thing.  Springtime 2009 will likely bring very heavy fighting in Afghanistan.  We will not have credible negotiating positions while we remain outgunned by a bunch of old rifles and dinged up RPGs.

While security in Iraq continues to improve, Afghanistan is drowning in a frothing quicksand.  While most of the 2008 fighting season is over, we can be assured that the Afghan national sport – guerrilla warfare – will become the 2009 Taliban Olympics by April.  They know this is a marathon.

Whatever else, Mr. President-elect, this is no time to go wobbly. It is important to note that some top British and U.S. commanders believe that we can make a “success” out of Afghanistan.  We’ve learned a few things over the past seven years.  We’ve truly got a “dream-team” of military commanders with great in-theater experience, to advise and guide the next phase. They saved Iraq. Use them well, Sir.

Epitaph

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