MetaFilter posts tagged with deception

War? Well only as a favor to you, George.

CheeseDigestsAll — Mon, 04 May 2009 17:08:52 -0800

What lingering doubts anyone might have about the case for war in Iraq took another body blow today, as the former deputy director of MI6, claimed Britain had been "dragged into" the war. MI6, officially known as the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), is responsible for foreign intelligence, similar to the CIA in the US. When it came to Iraq, however, the agency found itself acting as a propaganda arm for the government, rather than serving it's true mission. In 2003, Scott Ritter revealed an ongoing effort to convince the public that Iraq was a far greater threat than it actually was. MI6 had been forced to reveal in 2004 that their primary rationale for going to war, the so-called "45-minutes" documents, were invalid, but they had continued to insist the war had been the "right thing to do". Today's news shows even that claim to be false.

The Great Imposter

Effigy2000 — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:01:59 -0800

Ferdinand Waldo Demara Jr was a prison warden, a monk, a lawyer and a religiously-oriented psychologist, and yet he was actually none of those things. Now known as "The Great Imposter", Demara held many careers as he faked his way through life, but his most famous exploit was to masquerade as surgeon Joseph Cyr aboard the HMCS Cayuga, a Royal Canadian Navy destroyer, during the Korean War. During his time as a surgeon on the Cayuga, Demara managed to improvise successful major surgeries and fend off infection with lots of penicillin. He performed surgery on 16 Korean combat casualties who were loaded onto the Cayuga. The way he pulled off this deception was as impressive as it was dangerous for his patients. Apparently after ordering personnel to transport injured patients into the ship's operating room to prep them for surgery, Demara would disappear to his room with a textbook on general surgery and proceed to speed-read the type of surgery he was to perform, including major chest surgery. Amazingly, none of these patients died as a result of his surgery. Ironically it was because of his skill as a surgeon that Demara was exposed. According to this article, the removal of a bullet from one wounded soilder made the papers, and when the mother of the real Dr Joseph Cyr read that her son, who operated a civilian practice, was now in the war, she rang him only to be assured by her son that he was indeed still in civilian practice. She then contacted the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and Demara was exposed for the fraud that he was. His life and exploits would go on to inspire a movie and the name of a band. When asked to describe why he did what he did, Demara is said to have responded "Rascality, pure rascality." Ferdinand Demara died in 1982.

The psychology of cons

homunculus — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 22:48:23 -0800

How to Run a Con. A neuro economist looks at the Pigeon Drop. [Via]

Not a Cough in a Carload

kirkaracha — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 14:47:46 -0800

Not a Cough in a Carload: Images from the Tobacco Industry Campaign to Hide the Hazards of Smoking.

Our intention is to tell--principally through advertising images--the story of how, between the late 1920s and the early 1950s, tobacco companies used deceptive and often patently false claims in an effort to reassure the public of the safety of their products.

Honesty, deception, and autism

Prospero — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 09:50:07 -0800

An interesting article by Simon Baron-Cohen on honesty, deception, and autism.

"It's Fun To Be Fooled"

amyms — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 18:21:17 -0800

House of Deception is dedicated to the history of the deceptive arts, including magic, carnival sideshows and pro wrestling.

When Scientists Go Bad

MetaMonkey — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 17:19:05 -0800

When Scientists Go Bad

Minority Report

kirkaracha — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 16:52:13 -0800

The Constitution in Crisis: "The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Coverups in the Iraq War, and Illegal Domestic Surveillance." The 350-page Final Investigative Report of the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff "identifies 26 laws and regulations Bush Administration may have violated." [more inside]

Lying in International Politics

bhouston — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 14:16:02 -0800

Lying in International Politics is a 2004 speech given by John J. Mearsheimer which reminded me of yesterday's post on but controveral but well spoken Michael Ignatieff. Mearsheimer argues that...

"...international lying takes four forms. Inter-state lying is where states lie to each other to gain strategic advantage. Fear-mongering is where foreign policy elites lie to their own public because they believe that the people do not recognize the seriousness of an external threat and they need to be motivated to deal with it. Nationalist myth-making is where elites tell lies about their state’s history to help foster a powerful sense of national identity among all segments of society. Anti-realist lying is where elites attempt to disguise brutal behavior carried out in pursuit of realist (or other) goals, because it conflicts with widely-accepted liberal norms." (more...)

(Mearsheimer has recently been covered on mefi on a more controversial subject.)

Conversation with Paul Ekman

hortense — Sat, 10 Dec 2005 01:42:30 -0800

Face to Face: The Science of Reading Faces. Transcript(and video)of a 2004 interview with psychologist Paul Ekman, who is known for his research on facial expression and the development, with associates, of the Facial Action Coding System (FACS). Includes a few facial expression photos. Part of the "Conversations with History" series at the Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley .

Cherry picking shopping

Ignatius J. Reilly — Wed, 13 Aug 2003 08:28:02 -0800

$20,000 bonus to official who agreed on nuke claim A former Energy Department intelligence chief who agreed with the White House claim that Iraq had reconstituted its defunct nuclear-arms program was awarded a total of $20,500 in bonuses during the build-up to the war, WorldNetDaily has learned...His officers argued at a pre-briefing at Energy headquarters that there was no hard evidence to support the alarming Iraq nuclear charge, and asked to join State Department's dissenting opinion, Energy officials say. Rider ordered them to "shut up and sit down," according to sources familiar with the meeting.

Appellate Court Rules Media Can Legally Lie

vraxoin — Fri, 07 Mar 2003 11:10:46 -0800

Appellate Court Rules Media Can Legally Lie. "The attorneys for Fox . . . argued the First Amendment gives broadcasters the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on the public airwaves." And they won. Learn about the alleged deception (regarding BGH in milk). Read the appellate court's opinion which essentially says that there's no law against lying.

adnanbwp — Thu, 20 Sep 2001 16:02:07 -0800

A four part tale(1993) of deception, covert operations and secret revelations, which covers :
How The Blind Sheikh Came To USA
CIA's Friends Against Soviet Union
Was Mossad Behind WTC 1993
How The CIA Won It's Jehad

Search These Terms
"Mossad World Trade Center", CIA, Hekmatyar, Hekmatyar Heroine, The Blind Shiekh, ISI, The Village Voice, Robert I. Friedman, Victor Ostrovsky