Comments on: Uncovering the rationales

Uncovering the rationales

jasper411 — Thu, 13 May 2004 16:06:20 -0800

The 27 rationales... There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but a graduate student in Chicago found and tracked 27 different rationales used to justify the war in Iraq. Gathering over 1500 statements from the Bush cabinet, US senators, and from news stories, Largio even throws in some time series graphs in appendices, so you can see which rationales were hot, and which were not from Sept 2001 to October 2002.

By: amberglow

amberglow — Thu, 13 May 2004 16:39:50 -0800

from the exec summary: To further explain this idea, five rationales were prominent in all three phases: war on terror, prevention of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, lack of inspections, removal of the Hussein regime, and Saddam Hussein is evil. from the 2nd link: "People may wonder, why are our men and women over there? Why did we go to war? Were we misled? In this election year, these questions deserve answers. And though this paper cannot answer these questions definitively, it can provide some insight into the thinking of the powers-that-be during the earliest stages of war preparation and give the American people a chance to answer these questions for themselves." Very well done--thanks, jasper411.

By: fenriq

fenriq — Thu, 13 May 2004 16:53:40 -0800

Very interesting site. I'll have to read through the PDF's tonight. Good post!

By: tristeza

tristeza — Thu, 13 May 2004 17:12:26 -0800

Dude did this to get his BA?? Impresseeeev.

By: stonerose

stonerose — Thu, 13 May 2004 17:19:47 -0800

Good, good stuff. The kind of legwork that's difficult to extract from grad students, let alone undergrads. (See the Ralph Klein thread, below.)

By: troutfishing

troutfishing — Thu, 13 May 2004 17:56:48 -0800

jasper411, I bow deeply in your direction. This is very, very good. ( And I bow in Devon Largio's direction also ) .

By: kenko

kenko — Thu, 13 May 2004 18:03:50 -0800

He's not a grad student. It's a "Thesis for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts in Political Science".

By: rafter

rafter — Thu, 13 May 2004 18:09:25 -0800

Reread stonerose's ccomment, kenko. This is pretty interesting. I was upset that the keyword graphs only mapped Saddam/Iraq/Osama, because I feel like "Al Qaeda" was a much more popular talking point.

By: rafter

rafter — Thu, 13 May 2004 18:16:54 -0800

(arr, sorry, kenko, I didn't see it says "grad student" in the original post).

By: aaronetc

aaronetc — Thu, 13 May 2004 18:54:43 -0800

Great post -- I'm an MA student in journalism/mass comm, focusing on political communication, on this looks like it may relate to my thesis.

By: amithee

amithee — Thu, 13 May 2004 19:10:41 -0800

Not to be nitpicky, but the student is female.

By: andreaazure

andreaazure — Thu, 13 May 2004 19:21:56 -0800

Best of the web, indeed. Great find.

By: ahimsakid

ahimsakid — Thu, 13 May 2004 20:14:04 -0800

Amithee--Not a picky point at all . . . isn't it interesting how we automatically default to the presumption of the author (or doctor or CEO or chairperson) being male? I confess I did-- till I googled the name and found she still has the female record for the 800m medly at her high school. Thanks Jasper 411, excellent find!

By: sciurus

sciurus — Fri, 14 May 2004 05:35:59 -0800

Wow, this is pretty fierce. Thanks jasper! ...the student is female. She's got one of those frustrating unisex names though. Blame the parents!

By: nofundy

nofundy — Fri, 14 May 2004 07:54:59 -0800

[preemptive attack] Why does she hate America? Is that a French last name? I'm putting this traitor on the Free Republic "enemies" list! [/preemptive attack] Please allow me to add my thanks for the great find/work.

By: DrJohnEvans

DrJohnEvans — Fri, 14 May 2004 08:20:40 -0800

Very nifty. Thanks!

By: homunculus

homunculus — Fri, 14 May 2004 21:09:43 -0800

Meanwhile, Warnings go unheeded over North Korea threat.