OK, put down the Twitterfeed and CNN.
Note very carefully what has happened
so far: a terrible act of terrorism in Boston occurred 2 days ago,
and we still know very little. We were deluged with information the
day of and the next, and virtually all of it was wrong.
Even today, misinformation is still
flowing out all over the place.
This happens each and every time there
is a tragedy, multiple murder, natural disaster, and so forth. To
quote a famous philosopher, it's deja vu all over again.
This phenomena is called the fog of
war, so named because it is difficult for commanders and leaders to
get accurate information during time of war. It also applies to the
American media.
Therefore, take everything you hear
about the bombing with many grains of salt.
Addendum #1
ReplyDeleteThe terrible explosion in Texas falls into the same pattern, as is expected. In the immediate aftermath, estimates of deaths went all over the place, none of which had any facts to back them up. Next day, the true number came out: around 15 and counting.
Addendum #2
It is 3 days since Boston, and only now are facts beginning to trickle out. The FBI released pictures of the suspects, and the nature of the bomb revealed. It turns out that this bomb was perfected by Al Qaeda a number of years ago and commonly used by them in Israel and Afghanistan, and plans for same were published by that organization's magazine. An ex-member of the Muslim Brotherhood, author, and bad-guy-turned-good has expressed his opinion that the suspects look like Egyptians or North Africans. Note carefully that we cannot draw any conclusions from either of these observations.
Addendum #3
All sorts of people and “journalists” and the blogosphere, some of whom should know better, are still overrunning their headlights. What a sorry spectacle.