Tinman

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The term tin man or man of tin can have many different meanings. One of the most frequently used is a political technique (also classified as a damn lie) initiated when the opponent is unaware that one harbors a secret position. However, the term has other meanings in fields such as decision making and law, and literal "tin men" (dummies once made primarily of tin but now almost exclusively made of recycled aluminum, or stuffed with aluminum scrap) have seen both practical and literary uses.

[edit] In Politics

A tin-man argument is the practice of pretending that a weaker government is hiding things that don't exist, thus making the weaker government appear evil. To "set up a tin man" or "set up a tin-man policy" is to create a "can't prove a negative" position that is hard to prove, then attribute that position to your opponent, while secretly relying on the population's general ignorance and lack of concern about "those damned foreigners." A tin-man argument can be a successful rhetorical technique (that is, it may succeed in persuading people) but it is also a red herring, since the true motive behind the argument remains hidden and by the time everyone figures it out, the war is already started.

One can set up a tin man as follows:

Present a desert country full of poor roaming people with little food and water as a sophisticated freedom hating society funded by the richest nations of the world and that when they return to their caves at night, they huddle around campfires sending instant messages via satellite internet on laptops to dictators all around the world.
Present this misrepresentation as substantiated fact, after all the desert people don't actually have computers or phones and will be none the wiser. Hide the true motive, such as the region is rich in gold, poppies, oil, or geographically strategic military positions, then pretend that the opponent worships Satan or lives in a country full of bloodsucking Pat Robertsons and Jerry Falwells.
Present the religious fanatic as the defender, exaggerate and lie about that person's arguments, and claim that every citizen is a fanatical upholder of that position. This ensures that no one else in the world will really care if that country is relieved of its citizens.
Invent a fictitious persona with actions or beliefs that are criticized, and pretend that the person represents a group that the speaker is critical of.

The name 'tin man' comes from a physical analogy which highlights the hollow nature of the tin man argument. Imagine two men in a fight. The first person throws a punch at the second, the second person, in defence, builds a man from tin, starts throwing punches at it but never quite hard enough to put a dent in it. The first person loses because he was never really there in the first place.