[mardifoufs]

Reputable, reliable (tm) American sources also led to a million deaths in Iraq based on what turned out to be false premises. Yet your very own logic would've called "a spade a spade" and would've meant actually believing Iraq had usable WMDs because I mean, that's just the hard truth! Every reliable source on your side said so! Who would even believe Iraqi/arabic media that shouted for a year that Iraq didn't have them, over prestigious and western institutions like the NYT!

I have absolutely no doubt that North Korea is hell in earth, but there is a very very very good reason to say that every story has two sides. But maybe you just haven't experienced being the victim of "the reputable side" lying without any consequences. As a Muslim that grew up during the war on terror, I can't really say the same.

[metabagel]

To be fair, it’s important to point out that the Bush administration politicized the intelligence apparatus. Specifically, Darth Cheney pressured the CIA into supporting his pet theories.

I bitterly told people before the second war with Iraq that there were no WMDs. Any well read, educated, intelligent person should have been able to confidently say the same.

[tensor]

There is no reason to say "every story has two sides." Some may, and you can call that out, but no, not every story has two sides.

For example, a report about a new science result, the science is "one side." The "other side" is not the crystal healing quack that believes in magic. Two, you have video evidence of something along with multiple eye-witnesses. That is one side. The other side is not "oh but maybe all the witnesses are really part of a huge conspiracy and the video is fake!"

Some claims are not strong, and if a specific claim is not strong then you can explain why. But you cannot just flippantly say every story has two sides, that's bullshit. You need to say why a particular claim should be doubted.

[mardifoufs]

When people say that every story has two sides, it means that you as an observer might not know the full truth. Not that the full truth does not exist. Again, I gave a pretty good example of a story that was pretty solid "truth" but turned out to be a complete lie. Without taking a step back and wondering if there was more to the story than the obvious(tm) truth, you are completely vulnerable to believing bullshit as long as it's credible bullshit

Again, the saying means that we as mere observers of huge, complicated geopolitical moves cannot know the full context and are vulnerable to propaganda. Yes even from the good(your) side. No conspiracy is required for that.

[fndex]

There are multiple links in this thread showing how the media lied multiple times in the past, a whole documentary interviewing defectors who want to go back and telling how the South Korean Intelligence Service coerce and pay people to speak against the NK regime, but you probably didn't bother to open a single link and read about it.

You talk about science, yet, every anti-NK article sent in this thread are extremely poorly written and lack evidence to their claims. How is that "science"? Unless you are claiming that "science is when it matches my beliefs".

[metabagel]

An even more bitter pill - a lot of Americans still apparently believe there were WMDs found in Iraq.

[mariuolo]

Doubling down is a well known ego protection mechanism.