Word: distracter
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...danger is that a safe haven will become the semipermanent home of Kurds who will turn into an embittered, stateless and disruptive population. But no political solution to prevent that can be quickly engineered, and the search for one must not be allowed to distract anyone from the immediate problem. That is, quite simply, to save the lives of the thousands of Kurds who will die every day that foot-dragging, bureaucratic bumbling and political maneuvering delay desperately needed relief...
...report early in the war that 60 Iraqi tanks had defected, it was later disclosed, was falsely planted by the CIA to try to lure more defectors. In the days before the ground offensive, reporters were frequently taken to see troops near the Kuwait border in order to distract the Iraqis from the hidden buildup going on far to the west...
Moral controversy is often the filmmaker's friend. If you can get people spinning their wheels about whether your characters did good or bad when confronting a hot contemporary issue, you can usually distract them from your deficiencies as a craftsman...
...silence oppressed us all the more. We tried to distract Father by attempting to strike up a conversation about some more or less neutral news from Moscow, but he didn't react. Sometimes he broke the silence himself by saying bitterly that his life was over, that life made sense as long as people needed him, but now, when nobody needed him, life was meaningless. Sometimes tears welled up in his eyes...
...Trade-union leader Lech Walesa, who has made no secret of his presidential ambitions, has been pushing for elections even earlier than next year, which is when the government proposes they be held. But Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki opposes moving up the date, arguing that a campaign now would distract attention from economic reforms...