Imagine this scenario: A top government official of a foreign country visits your country, and during that visit makes numerous statements to the effect that your country's murder rate is twice that of his country, that the overall crime rate of your country was "probably 40 percent higher" than in his country, and that your prison population and rates of drug usage were "way up." You, as a citizen of your country, know all of these assertions to be false, that the murder rate in the visitor's country is actually 4.5 times higher than in your country, that the overall *violent* crime rate in his country is actually closer to 50 percent higher than in your country, that he is comparing *violent* crime rates in his country to *overall* crime rates in your country to obtain his figures, and that the prison population in your country is actually closer to *one-ninth* the prison population of his country.
Is this visitor some sleazeball from the Ministry of Propaganda from Nazi Germany of sixty years ago, or a denizen of the Kremlin out of the old Soviet Union of thirty years ago? Hardly. He is General Barry McCaffrey, the so-called "drug tsar" of the United States, and his statements were aimed at the tiny European country of Holland. But his tactics are the same as those employed by those regimes. It is called "The Big Lie." It is the technique of exaggerating or even manufacturing "facts" and repeating them over and over, ignoring all rebuttals, until the majority of your own population believes them.
Before visiting The Netherlands a few weeks ago on a nominal "fact-finding" tour, McCaffrey denounced their approach to minimizing drug use as "an unmitigated disaster." He subsequently announced to an incredulous world that, "The overall crime rate in Holland is probably 40 percent higher than the United States. That's drugs." He also asserted that the Dutch drug policies were the main cause for a murder rate of 17.6 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to a rate of 8 per 100,000 in the United States.
The Dutch government responded at first that it was "confounded and dismayed" at the General's opening remarks, and that the timing of the General's remarks, coming six days before he had even set foot in their country was "rather astonishing." And in answer to his broad assertions about their murder and crime rates, they noted that the General had arrived at his figures by including cases of attempted manslaughter in Holland with the number of actual murders (while using the figure for cases of "murder or non-negligent manslaughter" in the United States for comparison), and by including cases of all reported crimes in Holland while being more selective in his figures for the United States. The Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs said, "His expressions are negative and he has thereby created the impression not to come to our country without prejudice."
(The U.S. crime index consists of offenses such as murder, non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape (female victims only), robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft and arson. The number of total crimes in The Netherlands contains ANY crime committed, including bicycle theft in a country where there are more bicycles than people.)
When confronted with the Dutch statistics on the comparative murder rate, McCaffrey responded, "So what if she's [the Dutch respondent] is right? All that means is that they aren't very good at murder." (Is this to be taken as an indication that the General thinks Americans are "very good at murder"?)
(Later, after returning to the U.S., the General remarked, "Deceptive terms should not obscure a position so that it can't be debated coherently.")
An analysis of the General's figures regarding teen drug use, on which he based his assertion that drug use among Dutch teens is twice that of the United States, was found to be similarly skewed. The General's figures for Holland included "any lifetime use," while his figure for the U.S. was "recent (last month) use."
When asked why the number of those who use hashish in the Netherlands was much lower than in the United States, McCaffrey replied, "I'm not sure if it's lower in the Netherlands. I also don't know if I want to know that." (So much for the General's stated intention of visiting Holland to take part in a "frank exchange of views amongst friends"! Later the General said, "I listened very carefully to their ideas.")
When confronted with statistics that differed from his own, McCaffrey is reported to have fallen silent and gazed into the distance.
Upon his return to the United States, McCaffrey noted that while he was in the Netherlands, "There was a huge uproar over murder rates and crime stats, and was I right or wrong?... For an American to suggest that their crime rates were higher than the U.S. absolutely blew their mind."
The General was wrong, and the reason for the "uproar" is clear to everyone except the General and his own "dittoheads."
Thirty years ago, it was a common joke to laugh when the Soviet Union made these kind of comments about the United States. I don't hear any laughter now; in fact, I don't hear much of anything about McCaffrey and his brand of instant statistics!
What do you call someone who repeatedly and willfully distorts the truth? You call him a liar.
McCaffrey has no legitimacy in his job. I am calling for his immediate firing.
--David G. Porter