Farris Hassan's Hoax Iraqi Vacation

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Farris Hassan's Hoax Iraqi Vacation

Postby robertdreed » Fri Jan 13, 2006 7:50 am

There's something sort of funny about the 16-year old runaway to Iraq story- you know, his dad got him the visa- although that fact didn't become part of the story until it had been out for several days- <br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>...Hassan's father, Redha Hassan, a medical doctor, told CNN that he had helped his son get a visa into Iraq from Beirut. The elder Hassan said he was leaving Iraq himself when the teen called, unable to get into the country from Kuwait. He told him to go to Lebanon and said he spoke with him almost daily. <br><br>When asked why he helped, Hassan said his son had come so far by the time he called that he couldn't see not helping him... </em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>? <br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/01/02/teen.iraq/">www.cnn.com/2006/US/01/02/teen.iraq/</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <br><br>and the kid comes back talking like a press release for the U.S. occupation. Sure got a lot of air time on television, too. <br><br>The initial version: <br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051230/ap_on_re_mi_ea/journey_to_iraq">news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051...ey_to_iraq</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <br><br><br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>...The teen traveled to Kuwait, where a taxi dropped him in the desert at the Iraq border, but he could not cross there because of tightened security ahead of the Iraqi parliamentary elections on Dec. 15. He went to Beirut, Lebanon, to stay with family friends, and flew from there to Baghdad...</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> <br><br>Actually, that's not the complete story- he didn't have a visa to get into Iraq when he arrived in Kuwait. He had to fly to Lebanon and meet his dad to get the visa. <br><br>His total time in Baghdad: <br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>...After his second night in Baghdad, he contacted the AP and said he had come to do research and humanitarian work. The AP called the U.S. Embassy, which sent U.S. soldiers to pick him up...</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> <br><br>After which he spent all his time in the Green Zone. <br><br>What a heart-warming Christmas fable. <br><br>I suppose it beats lying about babies being disconnected from incubators. But not by much. <br><br>And so it came to pass, that the story broke on Dec. 29, 2005- with all the spin that they saw fit to print, by the Associated Press <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/12/29/D8EQ72LO3.html">www.breitbart.com/news/20...72LO3.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <br><br>But somewhere in there, however vaguely, they still felt compelled to include the nut of it: <br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>...His ride at Baghdad International Airport, arranged by the family friends in Lebanon, dropped him off at an international hotel where Americans were staying. <br><br>He says he only strayed far from that hotel once, in search of food. He walked into a nearby shop and asked for a menu. When no menu appeared, he pulled out his Arabic phrase book, and after fumbling around found the word "menu." The stand didn't have one. Then a worker tried to read some of the English phrases. <br><br>"And I'm like, 'Well, I should probably be going.' It was not a safe place. The way they were looking at me kind of freaked me out," he said. <br><br>It was mid-afternoon Tuesday, after his second night in Baghdad, that he sought out editors at The Associated Press and announced he was in Iraq to do research and humanitarian work...</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>Bollocks. He was there to grab headlines so that he could do PR for Bush's war effort. And if any of you heard any of his television interviews last week, you should realize that now. <br><br>What a propaganda hoax.<br><br>Why do I bring up this bubble-busting news? Because I was one of the hoaxed. And it's a part of history that needs to be recorded and remembered accurately. <br> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 1/13/06 5:05 am<br></i>
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Re: Farris Hassan's Hoax Iraqi Vacation

Postby marykmusic » Fri Jan 13, 2006 1:46 pm

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>part of history that needs to be recorded and remembered accurately. <hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br>Robert, I'm with you on accurate history. Now seems like a good time to start doing that. --MaryK <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Farris Hassan's Hoax Iraqi Vacation

Postby StarmanSkye » Fri Jan 13, 2006 3:51 pm

What a sad sap:<br><br>Quote Yahoo and Breibart 'news' stories:<br><br>"There is a struggle in Iraq between good and evil, between those striving for freedom and liberty and those striving for death and destruction," he wrote. <br><br>"Those terrorists are not human but pure evil. For their goals to be thwarted, decent individuals must answer justice's call for help. Unfortunately altruism is always in short supply. Not enough are willing to set aside the material ambitions of this transient world, put morality first, and risk their lives for the cause of humanity. So I will." <br><br>****<br>This kid has a totally skewed notion of who the biggest terrorists are.<br><br>On the one hand, I have a grudging respect for this kid's naive idealism -- but his ignorance re: what the REAL deal in Iraq is, and how the US occupation has made it the most dangerous place in the world, is directly attributed to how mainstream media is complicit in promoting out-and-out propaganda.<br><br>There are numerous subtle gems in these 'official' stories, that despite the upbeat human-interest PR spin indirectly reveal the absurdities, outright lies, inconsistencies, contradictions and idiocies of the US's project in the Middle East -- from anonymous officials who aren't 'authorized' to speak, revealing the climate of secrecy, duplicity and locked-down on-message by-the-numbers-discipline that surrounds the White House/Pentagon and which keeps government in an insulated bubble 'protected' from public accountability -- to the true sentiments of Iraqi citizens, keenly distrustful of and hostile to outsiders. Yeah, what a glorious 'success' the US invasion is shaping-up to be.<br><br>Yeah, this IS sort-of funny in an upside-down Twilight Zone meets Texas Chain Saw Massacre with a Wacky Wally World subplot kinda-way. The Taxi-Drivers who were sorely-tempted to punch this kid in the face likely thought it would have been a thankless and generous humanitarian gesture on their part to help him wake the Fuck UP. I can appreciate when he FINALLY realized he was totally out of his depth. If this guy ever manages to learn the truth about how he and the public are being scammed by his 'government', he'll probably make one helluva activist-advocate for Truth and Justice. (But you just KNOW he'll likely be hard-pitched as a prospect-dupe, to become one of the PTB's deluded footsoldiers -- I suspect the Corporate-Intel goons are gonna keep their eyes on him and carefully cultivate him as a choice prize for their organization).<br><br>Starman <p></p><i></i>
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hoax

Postby robertdreed » Fri Jan 13, 2006 5:18 pm

I think the story is a hoax, and that the kid already had his statement figured out before he got on the plane to leave the USA. <br><br>Who's it aimed at? The youth, primarily. It will be discussed all over the USA in high schools for the next few months- officially, as part of a class session in civics&government class in at least some places. Great recruiting pitch in the talking points of his carefully crafted press conferences, as well...<br><br>The fact that the kid spent a total of maybe four hours outside of the pricey hotel where he was staying during the 2 days he was actually in Baghdad is unlikely to enter into the discussion. Neither will the fact that he doesn't even know enough Arabic to order food in a food stand, or the fact that his father- already voerseas- got him the visa, and that the reason Farris gave for why he was initially unable to enter Iraq was bogus...or the fact that almost all of his "3 weeks in the Middle East" was spent either sheltered by family friends, in an international traveller's hotel, or within the American enclave known as the Green Zone. <br><br>What got me looking into this thread was seeing the kid on TV and hearing him talk exactly like one of Don Rumsfeld's pep talks...<br><br> <p></p><i></i>
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re:hoaxers/ bubble-busting & the water in VA.

Postby hanshan » Fri Jan 13, 2006 6:06 pm

<br><br>well, robert, it's either something in <br>the water, the new & unsavory climate <br>of Virg., or, that new combination of SSRI's you 've<br>been scarfing. Or, just maybe, you're like <br>the rest of the soap opera addicted:<br><br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.mackwhite.com/tv.html" target="top"><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>TELEVISION AND THE HIVE MIND</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--></a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br>by Mack White<br><br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Experiments conducted by researcher Herbert Krugman reveal that, when a person watches television, brain activity switches from the left to the right hemisphere. The left hemisphere is the seat of logical thought. Here, information is broken down into its component parts and critically analyzed. The right brain, however, treats incoming data uncritically, processing information in wholes, leading to emotional, rather than logical, responses. The shift from left to right brain activity also causes the release of endorphins, the body's own natural opiates--thus, it is possible to become physically addicted to watching television, a hypothesis borne out by numerous studies which have shown that very few people are able to kick the television habit.<br><br>This numbing of the brain's cognitive function is compounded by another shift which occurs in the brain when we watch television. Activity in the higher brain regions (such as the neo-cortex) is diminished, while activity in the lower brain regions (such as the limbic system) increases. The latter, commonly referred to as the reptile brain, is associated with more primitive mental functions, such as the "fight or flight" response. The reptile brain is unable to distinguish between reality and the simulated reality of television. To the reptile brain, if it looks real, it is real. Thus, though we know on a conscious level it is "only a film," on a conscious level we do not--the heart beats faster, for instance, while we watch a suspenseful scene. Similarly, we know the commercial is trying to manipulate us, but on an unconscious level the commercial nonetheless succeeds in, say, making us feel inadequate until we buy whatever thing is being advertised--and the effect is all the more powerful because it is unconscious, operating on the deepest level of human response. The reptile brain makes it possible for us to survive as biological beings, but it also leaves us vulnerable to the manipulations of television programmers.<br><br>It is not just commercials that manipulate us. On television news as well, image and sound are as carefully selected and edited to influence human thought and behavior as in any commercial. The news anchors and reporters themselves are chosen for their physical attractiveness--a factor which, as numerous psychological studies have shown, contributes to our perception of a person's trustworthiness. Under these conditions, then, the viewer easily forgets--if, indeed, the viewer ever knew in the first place--that the worldview presented on the evening news is a contrivance of the network owners--owners such as General Electric (NBC) and Westinghouse (CBS), both major defense contractors. By molding our perception of the world, they mold our opinions. This distortion of reality is determined as much by what is left out of the evening news as what is included--as a glance at Project Censored's yearly list of top 25 censored news stories will reveal. If it's not on television, it never happened. Out of sight, out of mind.<br><br>Under the guise of journalistic objectivity, news programs subtly play on our emotions--chiefly fear. Network news divisions, for instance, frequently congratulate themselves on the great service they provide humanity by bringing such spectacles as the September 11 terror attacks into our living rooms. We have heard this falsehood so often, we have come to accept it as self-evident truth. However, the motivation for live coverage of traumatic news events is not altruistic, but rather to be found in the central focus of Cantril's War of the Worlds research--the manipulation of the public through fear.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br><br> <p></p><i></i>
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addictions

Postby robertdreed » Fri Jan 13, 2006 10:56 pm

Mine remains books- I'm reading about 10 a week. <br><br>However, the general tendency is for the television to stay on in the gym, and that's where I saw the kid doing his bit. <p></p><i></i>
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