Does the medium advantage terms that maximize disagreement?

[cthulu2016]

Thinking about the Syrian gas attack question, and how it is discussed...

I see three main branches of possibility.

1) No nerve gas barrage happened. (extremely unlikely.)

2) Rebels did it. (Almost as unlikely.)

3) Regime forces did it. (Close to 100%)

Okay, so accepting that regime forces did it, we then get:

3a) Assad ordered it directly,
3b) Assad established the policy under which it was done,
3c) Assad established the policy of some sarin use, but not that scale,
3d) commanders under Assad ordered it with Assad being vaguely acquiescent,
3e) commanders under Assad ordered it without his knowledge,
3f) commanders under Assad ordered it despite his policy,
3g) regime forces made it too big accidentally... and so on.

Now, the terms "Assad" and "Assad Regime Forces" are used interchangeably when arguing 2 versus 3, but are everything but interchangeable when arguing 3a versus 3e.

My question is, are terms sometimes selected to maximize disagreement?

The statement "Assad did it" covers only 3a and 3b. Thus "Assad did not do it" covers all the rest, including "rebels did it" and "there was no attack at all."

On the other hand, "Assad Regime Forces did it," covers all of #3.

To what degree is Assad a personal identifier and to what degree is it a regime identifier? It seems to vary.

(The White House carries a lot of the blame here because they get first crack at setting the terms of the national discussion, and the WH has played a game of personalizing Assad while talking about the Assad Regime.)



I suspect that the average internet statement is contrary. (Why else are top posts usually flame-bait?) And misunderstanding generates more "action" than agreement.

Hence the most common uses of terms and framing of issues will be those that lead least to consensus.

Hence the worst possible language to clarify an issue may well be the most adaptive, in a Darwinian sense. A bed framing leads to argument which leads to repetition of the bad framing.