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Comment by ever1 | Hacker News Reader

What is the political line of this website ? I've read different articles and it seems to lean towards far-right opinions

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Their line is reminiscent of the Cheney era, a lot of neocon bs like working with Saudi Arabia and Turkey for geopolitical reasons (e.g. containing iran) under the guise of 'democracy & human rights'. It's pretty much garbage to me but that's just my opinion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East_Forum

It's ran by Pipes, here's a piece on just one of his many silly positions:

> Pipes notes that many in the Muslim world believe Barack Obama is or was a Muslim. Pipes alleged that Obama falsely claims that he had never been a Muslim, and his "the campaign appears to be either ignorant or fabricating when it states that Obama never prayed in a mosque." Pipes wrote an article for FrontPage Magazine entitled "Confirmed: Barack Obama Practiced Islam." According to Pipes, "this matters" because Democratic presidential candidate Obama "is now what Islamic law calls a murtadd (apostate), an ex-Muslim converted to another religion who must be executed", and as president this would have "large potential implications for his relationship with the Muslim world." Ben Smith, in an article on Politico responded to these accusations claiming that they amounted to a "template for a faux-legitimate assault on Obama's religion" and that Daniel Pipes' work "is pretty stunning in the twists of its logic".

I mean it's just ridiculous, and it's pretty indicative of his well known fetish for all things muslim or arab, which shines through the 'middle east forum'.

What would that matter? It's the arguments which count, not what the person who wrote them "really thinks".

Understanding the typical biases of a given source can allow you to better watch for certain flaws in their arguments.

And also prompts reader biases and red herrings.

Watch for — yes. But this often leads to prejudice instead.

Usually it only leads to a reader reading what they already believe into the text, instead of engaging with what's actually written.

Right, it's the "ad hominem" logical fallacy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

In a context like global politics, where you can never even hope to have any access to any actual "facts", there are no arguments - only manipulation of "opinions". So the agenda of the author is the ONLY thing that matters.

And how do you know author's agenda? From what other people with their own agendas write about him? Also, any information that's closer to political labels ("a communist", "a right-wing somethingsomething") than to actual details about him ("spent 20 years publishing anti-soviet writings, focusing on corruption in the government", etc.) is of negative utility - political labels are bullshit and only lead you to assume things about people that are not true.

There's some info on the article's author here http://www.usni.org/author/colonel-norvell-b-de-atkine

Seems quite reasonable and very different from Pipes, the website owner.

Well, you have to confirm they are of your same political party before you give any consideration to their arguments. If they are from the other party, even reading the piece would clearly be a waste of time because they are wrong.

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