A Painfully Familiar Conversation
Orson Scott Card, a Democrat for most of his life, also relates a painfully familiar conversation.
No, it's not a parody. It's honestly how I feel much of the time, and I know it's exactly how many of my friends feel. Of course, I expect only mocking from the other side when they read it. Seriously contemplating that there may be some real truth here, something they desperately need to look at inside themselves is, I suppose, too painful for many people. Thus I expect very little but sarcasm in response.
I am a huge fan of Orson Scott Card. (I don't find his writing style particularly great, but the concepts in his books are brilliant.) I agree about Michael Moore and all his documentaries. He makes a living by pandering to what people want to hear. Like most any celebrity I've ever heard of. It's just like when Bush first declared he would go to war in Iraq, and a whole host of moron celebrities felt the need to voice their opinions, downplaying anything any serious left-winger has to say.
His accusations about the democrats in 2000, though, are just as unfounded as anyone's accusations about the republicans.
dowingba,
Rather than provoke yet another rehash of Florida 2000, why not address the crux of the piece - the unwillingness of some to lay aside for a moment pure partisanship?
I gleefully toss Democrats upon rhetorical horns - I am a very, very partisan person...but, then again, some things are entirely too serious for partisan politicking. I realise, also, that some of my fellow conservatives went a bit 'round the bend during the Clinton years - ascribing the worst possible motives for each and every action. But two rights don't make a wrong and its time, while our bravest and best are fighting and dying overseas, to set aside petty, partisan squabbles.
This is the fundamental flaw of the so-called "anti-war" people - they aren't anti-war, they are anti-Bush...if Bush hadn't got in to liberate Iraq, the same people who are today calling it a quagmire would assuredly be condemning Bush for not acting on Iraq. The position of most of President Bush's critics has descended into entire absurdity - but worse than that, because their bizarre, hateful fixation has encouraged our enemies and, in the end, will result in more people being killed than otherwise would have.
I found this article quite interesting.
Interestingly, he does invoke, or at least seem to invoke, the nigerian yellowcake canard. It still bares repeating, I think, that Bush did not say Nigeria and that the notion of trying to purchase uranium from Nigeria has not been seriously debunked. It's not, in the grand scheme of things, very significant.
Still, it's funny how convinced people are that Bush was lying in order to get the country in favor of war after congress had already given him permission to do so.
Don't these people think that we're going to remember their (indirect) claims to stupidity?
Moreover, I just don't understand blind hatred of a man, president or not. I didn't like Bill Clinton. Indeed, I got so nauseated after watching him in political debates that I never watched him deliver a speach again; I just couldn't stand how utterly fake and insincere he sounded. But the guy could do things right.
For example, NAFTA was a good idea, and Clinton was quite right to back it and sign it. Maybe he had good motives and maybe he had bad motives — perhaps he had a mixture of both — but he did his job well by signing NAFTA and I count it as a mark in his favor.
How do some people get themselves so worked up that they come to hate a president so much that he can do no right? I honestly don't understand it. The democrats and republicans are in practice very similar in government. They're not the same, but if you alternate between them nothing very wild happens. I'm only 24 years old and I'm old enough to have noticed this. Why do people think that the sky falling is a necessary corollary to Bush being in office? Can anyone explain this to me?
Mark I didn't talk about the "crux" of the piece because I had no qualms with it. It didn't spark much interest. It just seems like one of many articles Dean links to to demonstrate how stupid leftist anti-bush people are.
I am anti-war, Mark, not anti-Bush. And that's why I agree with everything you just said. I have played both sides of several issues. Issues that no one knows enough about to seriously take any side on -- like "Bush lied(tm)". Sure, no one knows he lied, but no one knows he didn't. And there are arguments for each side...no evidence, of course. It almost always boils down to semantics and petty nit-picking and frankly it's tiring. So I've just given up on the whole thing.
But I wish people like Michael Moore and his buddies didn't make serious thinking people's rational left-wing views seem stupid, just because they are idiots; as I stated above.
dowingba,
All if forgiven - but I do get testy whenever anyone brings up Florida, again. :o)
Mark:
Oh jeez. The only people who brought up Florida were Orson Scott Card and Dean Esmay for linking to Card's piece that mentioned it.
I realise, also, that some of my fellow conservatives went a bit 'round the bend during the Clinton years - ascribing the worst possible motives for each and every action.
As if!
And for the record -- I supported the war before during and after the fact and because of that (or in spite of that?) I am extrememly disappointed with Pres. Bush's handling of that war. His Defense Department has fought the war on the cheap and his State Department has continued to negotiate with terrorists.
So please don't conflate the so-called "anti-Bush" movement with "anti-war" movement. You are making a mistake.
Yes, I'll give you that you claim to support the war, Ara.
Of course, you criticize the President for doing things "on the cheap," but when the generals in the field are asked if they need more troops or equipment, they say no. Emphatically no, in fact.
You criticized the President for going through the UN, but now talk about supporting politicians who say we should have worked even more extensively with the UN than we did.
You criticize the President for "negotiating with terrorists," yet say good things about Howard Dean, who pledges openly to be even nicer to those exact same terrroists.
You defend the lopsided press coverage which soldiers in the field and combat veterans have criticized, and instead attack those of us who criticize the lopsided press.
You wail at every combat loss while refusing to acknowledge that by historical standards these losses are light. You even refuse to acknowledge that you were wrong when you said we never took any casualties during the occupations of Germany or Japan.
When asked what courses of action you'd like to see persued that are not being persued, or what you want done differently, you almost invariably answer "above my pay grade!" or "win the war NOW!" while refusing to say what that means to you in any way that can be measured or pinned down.
You consistently refuse to give our leaders the benefit of the doubt on anything, and instead leap on any small thing as proof of corruption, dishonesty, or incompetence.
I've been talking to you for a year about this, and I'd honestly like to know what "I support the war" means to you. Because so far it seems to consist of nothing but kvetching, hindsight-criticism, and saying nice things to politicians who pledge to do everything you criticize the President for doing, only they pledge to do more of it.
So I guess you're right, there are two separate movements: the anti-war movement, and the "I'm so anti-Bush I'll support politicians who promise to be weaker than Bush on the war" movement.
A most masturbatory conversation. Card's making straw men up and knocking them down. Good show!
Damn, JC, I stand in awe of your brilliant logic. There is just no way I can counter, well, a flat assertion without supporting remarks, now is there?
dowingba, if you think that Dean has ever said "leftist anti-Bush people are stupid" you really haven't been paying attention. Dean's point, from day one, as been the fact that there is a large faction out there who will say anything, and take up any notion, just to discredit Bush.
Your mention of BushLied(tm) is both exemplary, and typical. First, you try to establish moral equivalence by saying there are arguments for both sides. Um, WRONG. All the "lied" side has ever advanced are opinions, tortured definitions of perfectly comprehensible words, and inferences of what they think Bush did, or intended.
The defense, on the other hand (at least the folks around here) has merely said "Where's the evidence? Any evidence? Anywhere at all? We're waiting..." It's a very simple position: if you don't have any reliable proof, shut the fuck up until you do.
(an aside: hmmm, isn't this exactly what Card's point was?)
The other problem is, is that it's just the anti-Bush crowd that has been pushing this idea since day one. They're the ones that thought of it, and they're the only ones who believe it. Now that they've been hammered by other people asking the simple question "proof, please," they're retreating to complaints about nitpicks, semantics, and so on. This is not a two-sided question. This is a question about unfounded accusations.*
What's really sad is that you just can't seem to understand that -to the many people who aren't reflexively anti-Bush- every time someone tries pushing the BushLied(tm) horseshit, they sound exactly like Moore!
Ara: are you really so dense as to actually think State is doing what Bush wants? Even a soft-headed leftie like you should be able to recognize that State is persuing their own agenda.
In fact, this is why many of the ...well... (I'll break down and use the term neo-cons here) the neo-cons in and out of the administration want Powell gone for that reason. They think he's pushing the State agenda, not the president's.
And, in case you never noticed, that's been the State approach for decades in the Mid-East: recognize, and work with, anyone who provides stability. Which is why State doesn't like Bush's policy.
And, and, in case you didn't pay attention to the Whitehall speech, Bush put eveyone on notice that State's approach is no longer the policy of the United States of America.
*next week on Springer: People who hate Bush, and the Democrats who love them.... :)
Hey Casey, I was calling Card's fiction a most masturbatory conversation. Geesh. At least get your strawmen to look like a crayon drawing of my arguments.
Personally, I love all these delusions y'all have about democrats. Normally it takes an awful lot of work to get your political foes to fight something that really doesn't exist.
You guys do it all on your own! Keep up the good work.
I think that fictional conversation (and all of those real conversations like it) are a veneer that covers up the real meat of the argument. It's a lot of "is not / is too" where both sides are trying to find that prime moral soft ground where one is the most "misunderstood".
Just like there are solid, factual reasons to support the war in Iraq, there are solid, factual reasons to oppose it. The real conflict is that anti-war people know what the reasons are to support the war -- and they don't care. Likewise, pro-war people know what the reasons are to protest the war -- and they don't care either.
There are some people who believe that getting a blowjob from an intern and then lying about it is worse than dropping bombs upon and then occupying a third-world country. There are some people who don't believe that. Neither group is likely to change its mind anytime soon.
JC, I knew exactly what you were talking about. You can wave that tiny little thing you think is intelligence around here, but we'll just be laughing. Your remarks about mastubatory conversations are ironic, since you obviously have an onanistic relationship with your own wit.
You still haven't said anything. Folks around here aren't impressed with argument by declaration. They generally expect things like supporting arguments, good reasoning, or physical proof.
*PLONK*
John, typical liberal bullshit. First you twist things around to provide the illusion of moral equivalence (what is it with liberals and moral equivalence? Since all positions are morally the same, it's all ok??) between the idiots who smear Bush with false accusations, and the people who ask for proof of those accusations.
Then you try to change the subject by making the smear campaign just an anti-war tactic. These are separate issues. Neither Dean nor Card are talking about people who disapprove of the war. They are talking about people who insist on smearing the President with unsupportable accusations, instead of using reason.
"There are some people who believe that getting a blowjob from an intern and then lying about it is worse than dropping bombs upon and then occupying a third-world country."
Wow, two for one! Moral relevance coupled with an artifical dichotomy. You must have been taking your vitamins this morning.
First the dichotomy: this isn't about bombs vs. blowjobs. This is about the left's hysteria about hanging Bush with any rope they can get their hand on. The whole thread here is about lies and false accusations. Which part of "no proof" can't you understand? The word "no" or the word "proof?" Actually I suuspect you have an excellent grasp of the concept, which is why people like you keep changing the argument. You don't have any real argument, so you shift, shuck, and jive while you hope no one notices the complete lack of substance.
As for the moral relativsm, that's a losd of horseshit. You can make almost anything sound not so bad, as long as you find a suitably groteque alternative.
Hell, by those standards, Michael Jackson and pervo Catholic priests didn't do anything so bad. After all, what's a blowjob or two, compared to killing people, eh?
Orson Scott Card made up a character who embodied every bad argument anyone has ever said, in order to feel good about himself by winning an argument with his own made up character. Sounds like hitting down a strawman to me. So Casey, it sounds like even some god-like pro-war folk will do anything to make their point. He could've interviewed a real person; an intelligent, rational person; but instead decided to make up the stupidest moron imaginable...who by the way seems only to combat Card's calm, genius-like demeanor with one-liner paranoia taken out of context. It happens to be the most exaggeratingly clear example of a strawman argument I've ever laid eyes on.
And as for the BushLied(tm) debate: if you really think there are no arguments for the Lied(tm) side, that's your problem. I already stated I'd given up that entire debate.
Dean:
Stop talking to me like I'm somebody else.
when the generals in the field are asked if they need more troops or equipment, they say no. Emphatically no, in fact.
Fire the generals. Lincoln did. Hell, Hugh-freaking-Shelton did!
What's the big hairy deal, anyway? The results of this crop of generals speak for themselves.
Come on! This is 10th grade civics, man -- our military is run by civilians. The Commander in Chief is at the top of that command structure. And he's elected by you and me.
Get the picture?
You criticize the President for "negotiating with terrorists," yet say good things about Howard Dean...
Whoa. You're dreaming. When did I say that? In a word: Never.
You defend the lopsided press coverage which soldiers in the field and combat veterans have criticized, and instead attack those of us who criticize the lopsided press.
Hm. I criticized you for saying "Thoughtless reporters kill soldiers." I stand by that. Let's not start that again.
You wail at every combat loss...
Again, you are dreaming of someone else. I've never said any such thing.
You even refuse to acknowledge that you were wrong when you said we never took any casualties during the occupations of Germany or Japan.
Never said it.
You consistently refuse to give our leaders the benefit of the doubt on anything, and instead leap on any small thing as proof of corruption, dishonesty, or incompetence.
I support the Bush Doctrine. Too bad President Bush doesn't.
P.S. I'm getting tired of being more Catholic than the Pope.
When asked what courses of action you'd like to see persued that are not being persued, or what you want done differently, you almost invariably answer "above my pay grade!" or "win the war NOW!" while refusing to say what that means to you in any way that can be measured or pinned down.
Oh get over yourself. It's not my job to flyspeck everything the CINC does. Do you know ridiculous you sound? I'm not an armchair general. Not even close.
All one person can do is call it the way they see it. If you're satisfied with the progress of the war, then fine. I'm not.
It's not my job to run this war. I don't have access to the tools, materials and intelligence resources to do so. To offer specific solutions without those key components only makes one look like a buffoon.
It IS my responsibility to speak out when I think it being run badly. You don't like that? Tough shit. It's the price YOU pay to live in a free country.
I've been talking to you for a year about this, and I'd honestly like to know what "I support the war" means to you.
It's pretty simple. We must eliminate the threat that terrorism poses to our interests at home and abroad, by any means necessary. That is the key to promoting freedom in the Middle East and elsewhere.
... so far it seems to consist of nothing but kvetching, hindsight-criticism...
Translation: disagreeing with you about the conduct of the war. Hee.
..and saying nice things to politicians who pledge to do everything you criticize the President for doing...
I have no idea what you're even referring to.
Are you even talking to me? Dude, this is Ara you're talking to: You haven't got many other visitors to Dean's World that support this war more than I do, and you know it.
Your beef with me seems to be that I refuse to conflate support for the war with support for President Bush's handling of it.
You ever fired a nice guy who just couldn't get the job done? I have. More than once. Oh sure, you try to line up a suitable replacement before you do it. And that's what we, the American people, are tasked with doing in Nov. 2004. By then, there will be at least one potential replacement for this POTUS and we'll have to make up our minds if "removal-and-replacement" is the best course of action.
There's a lot at stake here Dean; and contrary to what you believe, I haven't made up my mind yet.
But so far, the way I see it, this POTUS is just another nice guy who can't seem to do the job.
Casey:
are you really so dense as to actually think State is doing what Bush wants?
Well knock me over with a feather. I thought the buck stopped on the President's desk. What was I thinking?
Seriously, Casey, it's pretty much just the wonks and geeks and historian-types who give a shit about the culture at State. What the average American cares about is if POTUS can get the job done or not. Most people can't even NAME the State Department as a Cabinet level force, let alone WHO the current Secretary of State is at any given time.
We elected POTUS. We hired him; we expect him to perform. Get it?
And, and, in case you didn't pay attention to the Whitehall speech, Bush put eveyone on notice that State's approach is no longer the policy of the United States of America.
And, godammit, this time he really means it!
Right?
ctl: IMO it's because for many people, politics ARE religion. Once that phase is reached, the core of the system becomes ideological and only a few of the incidental factors are rational and up for questioning. Anything that challenges the core ideology is, bluntly, heresy and will be defended to the last gasping keystroke.
I've heard conservatives use arguments every bit as stupid as Card's fictional liberal. In fact, I can barely even remember hearing any intelligent rhetoric before stumbling upon Dean's World. I can easily construct a straw man argument out of that, and you know what would happen? You'd all scream at me for making a fictional character out of a bunch of stupid people's comments taken out of context. Seriously, what happened to actual debate? Are we all so weary as to actually resort to making up combatants just so we can feel good about ourselves?
dowingba,
The fictional conversation, however, is a conversation that we've all had - even you've probably had it; the bulk of people who don't support the war are, indeed, that obtuse.
Casey. Wow. Amazing how you pulled all that from my short comments. I actually do have a long, written record on what I actually think. Try banging against that rather than your silly fictional characters. You might actually get somewhere.
Ara,
You said, "Oh jeez. The only people who brought up Florida were Orson Scott Card and Dean Esmay for linking to Card's piece that mentioned it.". But the first comment in this thread is "His accusations about the democrats in 2000, though, are just as unfounded as anyone's accusations about the republicans."
That is, dowingba brought up florida as well.
My point is, Mark, that the bulk, yes the bulk, of the people who do support the war, are every bit as obtuse. I will actually transcribe some right now...actual words from actual war supporters (sorry in advance for the bad language that follows):
" I was just wondering, while reading your made-up hippie bullshit
about our government and our country, if you would like to purchase a
Re-elect Bush bumper sticker. Perhaps a t-shirt? We have them in all sizes,
including moron."
"Hey U DUMB ASS LIBERALS! Don't U Have Any Respect for this Country. U Don't even know YOUR History & How WE (USA) Started It wasn't with just a Hand Shake from the KING of England giving US this Land. HELL NO WE FOUGHT FOR IT DUMB ASS! Spewing Your BULLSHIT About President to Young Adults I think Your as EVIL as the MEN who Flew the JETS into the Trade Towers! YOU People Need to GO Live With YOUR DADDY SADAM!"
"Dear left wing, candy assed, dope smoking "communist no, socialist, enviroterrorist, hate America first idiot, pacifist, asshole!!!!!"
" fuck u stupid anti war hippies, i am pro america so jump off a bridge"
"Well it looks like another Jew profitting off of "democracy"."
All words actually written by real pro-war people,just like yourself! According to mr. Card: that's enough to make a pretty good anti-war argument. Look! There's like 6 people there who are idiots, that means pro-war people are idiots!!
JC,
Why? Everything that you wrote is wrong.
Dowingba,
From Card's article:
He did not create a strawman, at most he fictionalized a character to aggregate several people that he knew. However, that charge is not substantiated by his introduction, in which he claims that this is an accurate representation (subject to some stylistic modifications) of conversations which he has actually had. I think that he's a better authority on what conversations he's had than you are.
Moreover, a strawman is not a fictional character who espouses the real arguments of one side, a straw man is a fictional character who espouses arguments that no side does, in an attempt to lure one of those sides into defending not his position, but that of the strawman.
Thus even at the worst of what you're claiming, Card did not create a straw man, but rather fictionalized an accumulation of arguments and thoughts in real people who happen to be an especially bad example of people against this war and Bush.
However, the purpose of Card's piece was not, clearly, to attempt to convince anyone of a side of the discussion. Rather it is a description of the emotional impact of having friends who take positions recognizeable in his fictionalized friend; it is about what one feels about them.
In order to talk about this, he necessarily had to describe such a friend. They may or may not be representative of the left as a whole; I genuinely doubt that they are not and certainly hope that they aren't. However, they do exist, and Dean's empathizing with the article clearly shows that they're not just limited to Orson Scott Card's aquaintance.
Are you in a mood to claim that they are limited to Dean's and Card's aquaintance?
This isn't a strawman, you've mistook the nature of the article entirely. If you read it as having a limited audience and being not about the arguments but about the people, you'll see what I mean. Of course Scott is claiming that this is somewhat widespread, and some may disagree with that. But that isn't a matter of him making a strawman, it's a matter of his statistical inferences being imperfect, and by how much.
Those arguments I copied and pasted above are also an accumulation of pro-war people. What is your point? Are those copied/pasted arguments representative of your side? I thought not.
By the way, I think that it's telling that I have yet to see an anti-war position (i.e. collection of arguments) which I respected. I often respect people who take contradictory positions to me. For example, I am a christian and am sometimes involved in apologetics, but I have several atheist friends who I respect greatly. I am very pro-capitalist, but I have at least one socialist in my aquaintance who I have tremendous respect for. (in both cases, I mean this in the sense of respecting his position as he espouses it, not just respecting him as a position.)
I have not heard a set of arguments that I respect for any of the popular talking points of the left about this war. I've yet to hear an argument for "it's about oil" that wasn't laughable; I have no heard an argument for "Bush Lied!" that doesn't amount to willful stupidity. "We need more troops and rumsfeld is fighting this war on the cheap" is never made with any sort of recognition that more troops are more targets, especially given the tooth-to-tail ratio in our military. Moreover, I've never heard a good explanation of how more boots on the ground are going to prevent the occasional harassment attack with missiles and remote mines. Until we have enough troops to keep a gun trained on every Iraqi 24/7, we're going to have to let them out of our sight and they can set up traps when out of our sight. There's no necessary corollary between more troops and fewer attacks; not every problem is solved faster by applying more men. The man month is not mythical only in software development. I've never seen a good argument that it would be anything but mythical in Iraq (using realistic numbers — obviously 200 million troops would fix things right quick — the question is whether a mere 100,000 additional troups could do anything meaningful that the current 100,000 troops cannot). And this says nothing about whether or not those extra 100,000 troops could be doing more good by, say, being a threat to North Korea. The world is a big place, and has more than Iraq in it.
Criticism is not a position, only alternative courses of action are a position. The mere fact that someone takes one side of an argument does not mean that there is a reasonable way to do so. I've seen plenty of people like John Kusch who claim that both sides have good arguments as if that necessarily follows from there being two sides (I'm speaking of tone, not explicit claims, and if not John, there are others).
But while I've seen plenty of people against Bush/The War/Etc. say that they're not getting respect, I've never seem them provide arguments worthy of respect. I've seen plenty of people provide arguments worthy of respect against all sorts of things that I believe (God, free will, open source software, capitalism, government regulation, deregulation, removing profanity laws, etc.). I've seen lots of protestors complaigning that no one is taking their position seriously, without giving a position for people to take seriously. I've seen lots of people complaining that there is no debate about Iraq, but no one stepping up to give a good debate out it that didn't amount to saying "justify your position better".
And its telling the response. When you assault pro-war positions (at least the first few hundred times), you either get arguments or pointers to arguments that include things like some discussion of side-effects as well as discussion of alternatives. When you assault anti-war positions, you get empty rhetoric and complaints that people are ignoring their arguments, not actual arguments.
This can happen only so many times before one starts to notice the pattern and infer causes. The sun rises every day, and most people believe that this is caused by the earth revolving. What are we to infer when anti-war positions are never defended by careful argument but only by doubts, denials, denunciations, and predictions that turn out to be outlandishly wrong? If one side acts like it has no good arguments very consistently, are we really supposed to not infer the obvious cause?
Dowingba,
Are you in the habit of reading entire comments, or do you just read the first sentence or two and then respond?
Actually ctl, you hit the nail on the head. I'm actually illiterate, as all liberals are.
Dowingba,
Wow. And I just thought that you had a short attention span. Still, illiteracy would explain how you can read posts and comments and pretty fundamentally misunderstand them. I guess that you just sound out the occasional word and guess at the rest (I presume that you mean that you're functionally illiterate, not completely illiterate).
Well, if learning to read is too difficult for you, there are programs which will read text out loud. There are even free ones available. By the way, which speech-to-text processor are you using to "type" your posts? It's pretty good.
I know that living with such a disability is difficult, but if you have the courage to admit it, you can overcome it. You don't need to go through life feeling like a chimpanzee who escaped from a zoo, a stranger in a strange land. Being unable to read does not make you any less of a person, remember that. Reading is merely a skill, and human beings are very complex. Sometimes small things affect only very tiny portions of the brain and have no effects beyond their immediate symptoms. And who knows, perhaps if you could read like a normal adult your age you would only be able to play your musical instrument like a normal adult; that is, without any skill. Sometimes gifts come in the form of trade offs. Don't let the fact that yours has get you down.
I'm still wondering why so many here feel that the Card essay is about them.
I read dowingba's list of pro-war idiots, and never once felt like any of them were indictments of the pro-war position generally. Perhaps I have more confidence in my convictions than some here, but still: why is that?
I think we all must admit that the arguments Card talks about in his essay are seriously held, and not just in blogs. When Senators and nationally syndicated columnists engage in this kind of rhetoric, we have to take it seriously.
And I welcome any efforts to take pro-war, pro-Bush idiocy on the same level just as seriously.
Casey:
It sounds like you were in the mood to yell at a liberal for all of his/her "liberal bullshit", so that's what you did. I hope you enjoyed yourself.
The part where you actually said something *useful*, however, is where you artfully illustrated the very point that makes most liberals roll their eyes at Card and his ilk: you are convinced that you're right, and you're convinced that "we" (whoever that is) are wrong, and you refuse even the possibility that we have a point. You do not see any intellectual or moral equivalence between your own world view and those of the MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of people who believe our war against Iraq serves no purpose but bolstering the United States' hegemony in the Middle East. Certainly not liberating Iraqis. Certainly not fighting terrorism.
Regardless: if you don't believe that anti-war people have any point whatsoever and are completely wrong, then why do you argue? The answer to that question says more about you than it does about us.
As for moral relativism: I have morals. The fact that you aren't interested in (or capable of) understanding them is your concern, not mine.
John,
"you are convinced that you're right, and you're convinced that 'we' (whoever that is) are wrong, and you refuse even the possibility that we have a point."
If you have a useful point, i.e. one that actually has some substantial bearing on future action, then FUCKING MAKE IT. I don't care about the president's soul, I don't care about whether US hegemony will be increased, I don't care about whether some people will profit.
What matters is what we should do.
If you have a point that actually argues for some specific course of action, make it. Stop talking about having one, and demonstrate it. Note: the status quo is not the default. Arguing for the status quo requires just as much proof as for any other course of action.
I've heard no congressman or senator argue for any sensible course of action. There was an idea about continuing the inspections forever. That was a bad idea, but at least it was an idea. The balance of evidence was greatly against it, but it was a position. No one, on a national level, advanced any position which did not involve war but was a better idea. If you wanted permanent inspections which no one claimed were genuinely effective (i.e. guaranteeing into perpetuity that Iraq would not develop WMD), you're an idiot. If you want something else, state it.
But stop saying that you have a reasonable position until you at least indicate what that position is. Being against this war is not a position, it's a facet of whatever position you do hold. Say what that position is, and you'll get respect for it. Claim that your position, whatever it is, is just as good as other people's and you're just babbling. Prove it. Stake out a positive position and defend it.
If all you're arguing is that life is imperfect, stop. Everyone over the age of 10 knows this. Until you can say what we should be doing, you have nothing worthwhile to add to this discussion.
The moment that you actually add something worthwhile, you'll be treated like it.
John,
Oh, and millions and millions of people believe that the Jews control the world and are the root of most evil in the world. The mere fact that millions and millions of people believe something does not make it a respectable intellectual position. The mere fact that some of them are willing to put together signs and go march somewhere does not make it a respectable intellectual position.
Carefully reasoned argument that weighs pros and cons, considers alternatives, and argues to a particular course of action makes something a respectable intellectual position.
CTL:"There was an idea about continuing the inspections forever. That was a bad idea, but at least it was an idea. The balance of evidence was greatly against it, but it was a position."
Which evidence is that? Was there any evidence found that indicated that inspections and sanctions had not been effective at preventing development of WMD? If they had previously been successful (as they evidently were) why do you think it's impossible to believe they would continue to be effective? Surely they could have been funded at the same level of intensity for many years on just the budget of one year's worth of war.
ctl:
By the way, I think that it's telling that I have yet to see an anti-war position (i.e. collection of arguments) which I respected.
That is chiefly your problem.
Wow, thanks for letting me know just how intellectually weak and ineffectual and pointless I am. I've been waiting for that heads-up my whole life.
1. THREAT
Many of us anti-war people do not believe that Iraq was or is an imminent threat to the United States. We saw clearly that Clinton kept Iraq contained during his presidency, though we disagree with the suffering and starvation caused by U.N. sanctions (which only strengthened Saddam). Many of us actually believe it is Saudi Arabia that presents a greater threat to our security -- yet we are allies with them (somewhat), just like we were allies with Saddam once (somewhat). Many of us -- myself included -- continue to believe that we should have finished our business in Afghanistan and Pakistan before turning our eye to Iraq, but we didn't.
The 9/11 bombers were not Iraqi. Saddam did not pay for or organize the attack. The push for war against Iraq was being made before 9/11, and was based upon the stability of oil resources there.
We still don't have Osama bin Laden. We still haven't rooted out al-Qaeda. And now we have given them a whole new stage upon which to fight us.
2. RESOURCES
This war is costing billions of dollars that could be used to help Americans at home: by defending our borders, by educating our children, by making our communities safer and by helping those in need. Americans. Here. In America.
To those of us in opposition to the war, this is a horrific waste.
3. HISTORY
Vietnam is still very fresh and real for many of us. Vietnam vets are in our families and in our communities, and the historical record on the lies, deceit and needless pain, suffering, death and devastation wrought by that immoral war is clear. As a result, many of us do not believe in the moral authority of our government to wage this war (see 1. and 2. above). We do not believe the calls of freedom and liberation. We do not feel safer.
CTL, if you're comparing anti-war objectors to anti-semites, then you're a disgusting pig. As things stand, however, you're just a hypocrite. Weighing pros and cons before this war would have included consideration for a non-military solution. But there was never any question that this war would happen. It was, from the get-go, unstoppable. Even the Democrats helped, as little as they're thanked for their utter lack of opposition to Bush's war plan and spending requests.
If you think that no "better" alternative to war has been proposed, then there's a lot you're ignoring. In the end, our military will have failed. Our victory will be cultural, as Iraqis still admire our culture, even as they are coming to resent and despise our government and military.
You're talking like you're a force of judgement, a representative of some "us" who will treat me better if I behave. You are mistaken.
“Seriously contemplating that there may be some real truth here, something they desperately need to look at inside themselves is, I suppose, too painful for many people.”
Damn, I think he’s got a point:
http://www.rgj.com/news/stories/html/2003/11/21/57365.php
What I see in this entire conversation:
1) The pro-war side understands the anti-war arguments perfectly.
2) The anti-war side doesn't even attempt to understand the pro-war side's arguments, it merely attempts to stereotype and demean them.
3) The anti-war side doesn't even want to consider the possibility that it might be closed-minded, thoughtless, or mean-spirited. It merely assumes the other side to be stupid and ill-informed.
Pretty much as Orson Scott Card describes.
Ah well. Nothing new.
John,
A few clarificational quesitons:
(1) When will afghanistan be finished? I.e. what are the conditions under which you will consider it finished?
(2) Do you consider Clinton to have kept Al Qaeda contained during his presidency, and if so, do you consider his treatment of Al Qaeda to have been sufficient?
(3) What should we do about Saudi Arabia that we currently aren't doing?
(4) Would finishing Afghanistan and Pakistan, and going after Saudi Arabia, not consume significant resources?
(5) Do you generally conclude that any organization which has sinned in some action is not morally capable of doing further action, regardless of how different the staffing of said organization is from the 30 years ago when it sinned?
(6) Related to 5, do you consider all of the pork barrelling that the government has done to invalidate the income tax?
(7) If you read my comment, I said anti-warism (to coin the term) and anti-semitism is similar in that they both have millions of adherents. This is undeniable. I claimed no other similarities. My point is that if you want to say that anti-warism is a valid point of view because millions hold it, you must, by the same logic, conclude that anti-semitism is a valid position, since millions of people hold that as well. There are millions of people who also believe in being kind to strangers. I am not saying that there is necessarily a moral equivalence between any of these positions, merely that the logic that you are employing will prove things that you probably do not think is true; consequently you would do well to justify this claim by some other argument which would not work equally well to validate anti-semitism.
If you would be so kind as to clarify these points, I would be grateful. Once I better understand your position, I will respond substantively to it.
Dean,
That's not quite true. John Kusch has laid out a coherent position. He seems to understand the pro-war side, but rejects it due to extreme skepticism. I do think that he understands it, though.
Dean,
That seems like lumping of the grandest order.
What are the arguments that you fell John left out?
Deposing Sadam was important because he was an awful dictator?
By that standard we should be conducting wars in a half-dozen african and asian countries where there are dictators and thugs far worse.
We need to establish a democracy in the middle-east as an example for other countries there?
We've already got two, how many more do we need to fund?
We need to stamp out terrorism?
Very little of the support for terrorism was generated in Iraq. Wouldn't Syria and Saudi Arabia be much better targets?
I'm not saying that these aren't valid reasons for going to war in Iraq...I think they are. But I think there is plenty of room for debate about their relative importance. And I think that there are plenty of rational people who weighed these benefits vs. the potential price and didn't (don't) think it was worth it.
I've given up. I've been stereotyped, lambasted, insulted, demeaned, and accused of believing things I don't believe and saying things I've never said so many times, I no longer care.
I've had enough. You kids have fun. This former Democrat and proud liberal knows where he stands, and it'll never be with the anti-war side, for they've so routinely shown themselves to be shallow, mean-spirited, and ill-informed, I now view them as aliens whose brains don't even work the same way mine does.
There's nothing more to be said, except that for them, the status quo pre-9/11 was better than today, and the world would be a better place if Saddam Hussein and the Taliban were still in power, because America's a bully and those guys were ultimately better and nothing is done right if someone with an (R) next to his name advocates it.
I'm done. This isn't about figuring out what's right and wrong anymore. It's about kicking the shit out of each other, and I want no more part of it.
In the end, our military will have failed.
While you've got the crystal ball out, can you tell me how Amazon stock will be doing in, say, twenty years? Thanks.
"1) When will afghanistan be finished? I.e. what are the conditions under which you will consider it finished?"
When Afghanistan is a unified country with a coherent government which is not at significant odds with or threatened by its military, with a constitution and system of government that is agreed upon by a majority of its people, and where al Qaeda no longer has a substantive presence. It's what we're claiming to work toward in Iraq, but we should have finished it there first.
"(2) Do you consider Clinton to have kept Al Qaeda contained during his presidency, and if so, do you consider his treatment of Al Qaeda to have been sufficient?"
I cannot answer that question in the manner it deserves. However, in terms of domestic terrorism, the Clinton presidency had failings, just like the current presidency, in that terrorist attacks took place during both.
"(3) What should we do about Saudi Arabia that we currently aren't doing?"
Openly challenging them on their exportation of Wahabi Islam, as well as their direct funding of terrorist organizations. In addition, we should be aggressively exporting our culture to their country, rather than ordering our own military personnel to adhere to Islamic proscriptions.
"(4) Would finishing Afghanistan and Pakistan, and going after Saudi Arabia, not consume significant resources?"
Yes.
"(5) Do you generally conclude that any organization which has sinned in some action is not morally capable of doing further action, regardless of how different the staffing of said organization is from the 30 years ago when it sinned?"
I conclude that any military undertaking by any nation with our size and power (and our history of prevarication and propaganda in support of such military undertakings) should be closely scrutinized at length in the absence of an imminent and credible threat. We had *time* before invading Iraq. We didn't take it. We didn't ask hard questions. The Bush administration moved forward virtually without challenge. Why we hate Saddam so much (and not Robert Mugabe or Khadafi or Kim Jung Il) remains a mystery to me. He has done horrible things to his own people, like many dictators. What he's done to the United States is something I still can't figure out.
"(6) Related to 5, do you consider all of the pork barrelling that the government has done to invalidate the income tax?"
I personally believe that the income tax is inappropriate at best, unconstitutional at worst. That said, I do not believe that the misuse of government funds it itself a justification to do away with taxation per se.
"(7) If you read my comment, I said anti-warism (to coin the term) and anti-semitism is similar in that they both have millions of adherents. This is undeniable. I claimed no other similarities. My point is that if you want to say that anti-warism is a valid point of view because millions hold it, you must, by the same logic, conclude that anti-semitism is a valid position, since millions of people hold that as well. There are millions of people who also believe in being kind to strangers. I am not saying that there is necessarily a moral equivalence between any of these positions, merely that the logic that you are employing will prove things that you probably do not think is true; consequently you would do well to justify this claim by some other argument which would not work equally well to validate anti-semitism."
We live in a democracy, which means that each of us has a part in steering the direction of this country. Even if all opponents of war were objectively wrong (something I do not believe), they must be reckoned with in terms of the business of the nation. When it comes to national decisions like whether to go to war, it sows ill-fated seeds to dismiss out of hand a significant chunk of the country.
I am not arguing that numbers = truth. I'm arguing that in a democracy, it is short-sighted to dismiss out of hand the losers in any vote. Especially when that vote costs lives.
"If you would be so kind as to clarify these points, I would be grateful. Once I better understand your position, I will respond substantively to it."
If you want. I don't see my role as changing minds. I see my role as maintaining visibility for those who believe as I do.
"There's nothing more to be said, except that for them, the status quo pre-9/11 was better than today, and the world would be a better place if Saddam Hussein and the Taliban were still in power, because America's a bully and those guys were ultimately better and nothing is done right if someone with an (R) next to his name advocates it."
Now who's shallow, mean-spirited or ill-informed?
I understand your frustration, Dean, but I don't hate or disrespect you for your support of this war. I merely disagree. I know you want what you want because you think it will bring about the most good. That's why I want what I want.
Just no more questions about whether it's a good thing that Saddam is gone. He isn't even *gone* yet -- we don't know what happened to him. It is a good thing when any dictator falls, but there is always a price; and it's the price I'm concerning myself with here.
Here is exactly what I want: for the Middle-east to become a liberalized region through the intervention of a united band of nations.
I don't think Bush is evil, or that he lied, or that he's a "warmonger", or anything like that. I think of Bush as a simple program: the situation played itself out so as to force him to go to war. And yes, he did it more intelligently than some past presidents would have. If I was president (God forbid), and the events of 9/11 played out as they did, I would have done the same thing. (Meaning I went to war...what strategy I'd devise who knows. I wouldn't have given that stupid "ultimatum", for one thing. And with 20/20 hindsight, I'd say I wouldn't go with the WMD argument either.)
And yet I'm an anti-war liberal. I guess it might be hard to understand.
John,
One small question only. Really big, widespread wars (like the Cold War) are not ususally fought in one place at a time, one place after another. While we were fighting in Vietnam, we had troops in Korea, even though it wasn't finished. We had troops in Germany, even though the Soviet Union wasn't finished. We were enbargoing Cuba, which still isn't finished. We were supporting Taiwan, even though China still isn't finished.
In WWII we didn't finish with Japan and then fight Germany.
Therefore I must ask you, and seriously, not mockingly or critically, why should we fight our battles in this war in sequence? I have read that each of these battles is using different strategic resources, so why shouldn't they be fought in parallel?
In addition, this is not really an argument against going to war with Iraq, it is merely an argument against going to war with Iraq now.
dowingba,
I'm anti-death but I don't think it's a practical position. Is this similiar?
Yours,
Wince
Nope.
I spoke to soon: yes, it is similar.
America (and friends) had to go to war. There was but one choice in the matter. I, however, can't support war.
dowingba,
In this you remind me of my mom. This is a complement. We need people who dream of peace. But when too many dream of peace at the same time as too many dream of war we have a problem.
Yours,
Wince
dowingba,
But only the last was weird....
Anyways, the point of the article, for me at least, was not that pro and anti war can get into a pissing match, but that the anti-war people just don't put forth a rational alternative to war.
Sure, I've seen some of my fellow pro-war people go off the deep end into a shouting frenzy...bound to happen from time to time...if the only problem with the anti-war people was that they shouted then we wouldn't have much of a problem....but they don't just do that; they use the hate-filled rhetoric, of course, but the fundamental flaw is the aforementioned lack of an alternative...and this lack of an alternative calls into question why they are anti-war.
If you don't have a carefully reasoned alternative which will stop the terrorists and gain victory for us, then opposition to the war simply must lie someplace other than disagreement with current foreign and military policy.
Boiled down, opposition to the war revolves around anti-Bush animus specifically, anti-GOP animus generally...and of late I've even seen a growing anti-American animus in the American anti-war movement; this is something I warned my anti-war friends about when they foolishly jumped on to ANSWER's bandwagon way back when; can't join up with specifically anti-American people and not be infected by such thoughts, by and by. But, no, my warnings went unheeded...and now the anti-war movement is becoming quite the bizarre, and amazingly obtuse, hate-fest.
Drop it, dowingba; jump ship - join the pro-war side whole-heartedly and get on the right side of the river. You wont regret it 20 years from now.
I think Mark, that the way you see it, I already am pro-war. I don't disagree with the war, as I've said. But this is why I don't bring it up very often on this site. Politically speaking, sure, I'm pro-war. 100%. Hence: the reason I'm anti-war has nothing to do with politics. And hence, it rarely comes up on this site which is mostly full of political discussions.
and now the anti-war movement is becoming quite the bizarre, and amazingly obtuse, hate-fest.
I am more appalled than anyone. I seriously can't believe what I'm seeing these days.
And no, I won't get on the "right" side of the river (if by "right" you mean "as opposed to 'left'"). Heck, I can't even swim.
Since Afghaninistan hasn't been a coherent country for quite a long time, setting up stability there as a pre-requisite seems to be overly ambitious.
I agree that Saudi Arabia is a bigger sponsor of Terror than Iraq I think Steven Den Beste has laid out a strong case that attacking the source directly was out of the question until we established an alternative to Saudi Oil. I am willing to wage a war for a generation, but to be able to wage a war we need a functioning economy. Attacking the Saudis first would be an unneeded risk to the world economy. Iraq was easier, the sponsorhip of terrorism nearly as great and they at least prophesed the desire for WMD and have used them in the past.
Tom Friedmann also said it was past the time we kicked someones ass and stayed and took names. Iraq is ideal from so many strategic reasons that opposition to the invasion really, from my point of view, comes down that this is not really a war, merely a police matter. This was the position Gore laid out recently. That was the policy of the Carter, Reagan, Bush 1 and Clinton administrations. It has some intellectual cohesion, it worked for a time, Deaths were on the periphery, stability looked good.
But 2 years ago, something changed. 3,000 people were killed by 19 Saudi nut jobs, working out of Afghanistan, getting funding and help for all their terrorism from the Saudis, and Iraq and Iran, thier recruits from Saudi, Syria, Egypt and weapons from NK, etc. They professed a desire to kill us, Western Civilization, for the very freedom we hold to be self evident, endowed by our creator and all that.
And our intellectual class, people who have beenable to make a living behind the walls of fortress America, they counseled giving into them, they still do. Oh they pay lip service to freedom of expression, to the glory of Westen Civ, but they counsel delay, to do nothing, not aggravate the fascists any further and maybe they will go away. Its all about oil they sneer, illigitimate president, waging an illegal war.
You know what war came to us, we no longer could bury our heads in the provebial sand and say its not happening. Open war is upon us and we can either fight the enemy where they are or they can fight us where we live. I prefer blowing muslim shit up, I have seen 2 buildings burn and collapse on American soil. That is enough, And you know what the people who do the real work, who do the heavy lifting in this country, the non intellectual elite who listen to Kid Rock and country music, like football, nascar and budweiser looked up and said we have a job to do, lets roll up our sleeves and do it, And their intellectual class (the pro war, old fashioned liberals like Dean and the neocon have stopped debating the need for war, for death and ruin, they have no moved past that and are debating the course the war should take, how do we do it better, what can we do to make Iraq a better place Toys for Iraqis, Music for our troops etc, getting involved. And people who should no better, whose own brother called a generation to action in the peace corp, who vowed to bear any burden, now whines about an illegal war hatched in Texas, a war hero blathers how yes he voted for war, but didn't think we should actually follow through with what we say. What they say to me that America is not worth defending, that our 200+ year of history, as checkered as it may be, is not worth standing up for. The anti war people lost the debate on its merits, becuase the majority of the people through thier elected representatives, and thousands of opinion polls, voted for this course of action. No one was misled, we who supported the war, knew the stakes.
Freedom is not free, it has a cost in blood and treasure, a free man does not hide behind his walls and cower, he confronts his enemies on the battlefield. They chose war as this battlefield and we will give them war, when we are done we will also give the the gift of freedom. We have done this before, WW1, WW2, Korea. We can do this again
The problem (and yes, it's on ample display in this very comment thread) is the misapprehension that holding the proper attitude toward the case is sufficient, and that those who do not share your attitude will never understand your position, and therefore you need not bother to actually make any arguments. Just assert your position (either briefly or verbosely) and adopt a snarky attitude toward any who dare question the position or ask for facts to back it up.
Instead of arguing, I've been forced to invoke a quote I heard from Boortz but which probably originated elsewhere: "Just because you have silenced me, do not think that you have convinced me." The pro-war people have made their case; the antis have failed to do so, and I think they know that in some small, sad part of their minds. To be so wrong for so long requires a good deal of turnaround time. I know, I've been very, very wrong in the past, too. I say give them time, be ready to forgive them the snarky shit, and we'll all move on.
“Anyways, the point of the article, for me at least, was not that pro and anti war can get into a pissing match, but that the anti-war people just don't put forth a rational alternative to war.”
“The pro-war people have made their case; the antis have failed to do so, and I think they know that in some small, sad part of their minds.”
Speaking of sad minds, you might try looking somewhere other that right-of-center blogs:
1) Didn’t NEED to do it. There were soooooo many other ways to deal with Saddam.
1) It wasn’t very relevant to our life-and-death struggle with Islamic fundamentalist terrorists and a huge diversion of the attention and resources that are needed for that struggle.
2) It’s not smart foreign policy to PISS-OFF THE ENTIRE WORLD.
3) It’s not smart domestic or foreign policy to use a false premise to justify a pre-ordained war.
After that it can get silly and even hysterical. But there is a cogent, I would say irrefutable, argument against at least the way we went about it that’s coming from people who aren’t reflexively anti-war and know we have to finish the job we started in Iraq. It’s not even hard to find, once you pull your head out of the right-wing media machine (great metaphor, huh?) – if you can.
Shep:
Thanks for: (choose one)
1. Whisking away the veil of mendacity that has surrounded this topic but I and the rest of the sheeple have just been too blind to see.
or
2. Proving my point.
Your choice!
Best, B
When you make fun of our position, it's snarky anti-Americanism. When we make fun of your position, it's the truth.
That viewpoint is the very embodiment of Ann Coulter. Embrace it, and you embrace her.
At that point, the debate becomes more tribal and animalistic than the participants will ever admit to.
John: OK, just watch.
Shep:
1. What are some of the soooooo many other ways to have contained Saddam? Why are those myriad ways better than what was done?
er...1. Prove it.
2. Prove it. Make a case. Please.
3. Prove that the premise was false and that the war was pre-ordained.
Better, John?
OK, Brian.
1) The way Bush started at was pretty brilliant (he even fooled Congressional Democrats): convince Saddam that we, along with the international community, would do whatever is necessary, no matter how long it takes. That was getting us everything we needed to “contain” a self-preserving asshole with no effective means of doing harm to anyone outside Iraq. Then I’m thinking a very cheap, well-aimed “final solution” would have actually got Saddam and left us better-off than we are likely to be for some time. That’s just only one (of thousands) way to go beside unilateral, pre-emptive, $200 billion, 130,000 American sons and daughters in-harms-way war.
er…1) I don’t have to prove that there’s no evidence of a connection between Al Qaeda and Saddam (according to the administration), you have to prove that this war has any relationship to fighting Al Qaeda and then that it was the best way to go about it.
3) Tell me you’re joking.
4) See 1) and er…1), above. For further reading, Google “The Project for The New American Century”. If you can find yesterday’s Diane Reem interview, you can hear William Kristol take personal responsibility for the war. That would be the author the plan that he and his neocon buddies (many of whom now coincidentally populate the Bush administration) have been pushing for around ten years.
shep,
Thanks for the specifics.
My argument from another comment thread:
Do you play chess? The battle against Hussein is such a fabulous move in the war against Arab Fascism because it works on so many levels. It's like moving your knight into a position where it is triply protected and it attacks five enemy pieces including the King and the Queen.
The case for battle against Hussein is thus:
1. We were already at war against him.
2. The ongoing war against him was tying up American resources anyway.
3. Iraq was a problem that hadn't been solved.
4. The solutions we were trying were showing few signs of working and there was increasing pressure to abandon them.
5. Keeping a large number of US troops in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to keep pressure on Hussein was expensive, unlikely to correct his WMD problem, very unlikely to result in his overthrow and even more unlikely to result in his replacement with a significantly better government.
6. Many of our troops were based in Saudi Arabia. This both upset Muslims who didn't want kufr in the Holy Land and demoralized our troops since the Saudi's treat kufr like excrement.
7. Iraq had WMD's and had used them in the past. They may have destroyed them before the war, but nobody on the left or right, in Europe or America believed this at the time.
8. Iraq supported terrorists with logistics, training and cash, including Al Quaeda.
9. Saudi Arabia is the biggest supporter of Islamic terrorism, especially ideologically.
10. Saudi Arabia had been our ally for many years and had fought alongside us in the first Gulf War.
11. As a democracy it is difficult and takes time to consider an ally to be an enemy.
12. Attacking Saudi Arabia could easily escalate in a major world-wide war with Islamic nations, and could go nuclear.
13. Saudi Arabia does have all that oil.
14. OTOH almost everyone hated Hussein.
15. Having all the Iraqi oil online will make the Saudi oil less crucial and it will lower oil prices which cuts their ability to fund terrorists and it will boost our economy which makes paying for the war easier.
16. It puts pressure on Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Egypt.
17. It pays off fabulously well in a humanitarian way.
18. It allows us to address a root cause of Islamic hatred by ceasing to support repressive dictators and bringing the very best thing we've got, democracy, to the Arab world. This is a worthy, positive goal to shedding our blood and spending our money. Not just fighting Communism or fighting Fascism, but promoting democracy.
19. I really hate 'He may be a dictator, but he's our dictator'. If you bring up Uzbekistan, please realize that I don't like their government and wish we could dump them but we can't do everything at once.
20. We've actually been pretty good at midwifing democracies when we stick with it. Sometimes it takes a long time. Here's a list: The Philippines, Western Europe (which was very iffy after WWII), Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand.
21. We're also very good at creating repressive dictatorships when we bug out before victory: North Korea, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, Angola, Somalia and Afghanistan.
The battle against Hussein has risks. The second biggest is that we bug out before mutual victory. The biggest is that when we bug out prematurely we end up with something much worse. Mutual victory is a good government in Iraq with a healthy relationship with the US.
The biggest problem with Iraq is that it is a war. To many this is like saying the biggest problem with my plan for personal wealth is that it involves a murder. They are completely repulsed by war. My reply is that we were already at war with Iraq. It was just a low level war with a large amount of red on red civilian casualties (Hussein's strategy seemed to be to kill more of his own people to claim we were creating a human right tragedy).
I had read about and considered all this before the war, which is why my opinion changed from unsure to blood-thirsty war-monger. I don't think Bush deceived us, because I don't feel deceived. To me it seems like a no-brainer, but then I'm not actually a very good chess player, nor do I seem to have written any respected military histories.
I've never had to promote or sell a war to a republic. In addition, Bush could not emphasize all these points because they could have driven other countries into the Iraqi camp. Perhaps his sales job could have been better. It seems to me that Tony Blair is good at that sort of thing, and look at what a hard time he is having.
Is your stand against the Iraqi campaign a no-brainer for you? Are you repulsed by war? Do you have trust issues with Bush? Do you dispute most of my claims? Since there are so many positives, I think you have to discredit a lot of them as well as come up with some big negatives to convince me the Iraqi campaign is a mistake.
Later in the thread, Steve Malynn points out that1-8, 16-18, 21 and 22 of my points above are expressly addressed in the Joint Resolution that authorized force in Iraq. (I don't know where he got number 22.)
My responses to your four:
1. Your very cheap, well-aimed “final solution” does not have the many benefits I've noted above.
2. See 6-15 and 18 above.
3. There wasn't just one premise in support of the war. See above.
4. The failure to solve the Hussein problem at the end of Gulf War I was addressed in 1 to 5 above.
There, now we have plenty more to discuss.
Yours,
Wince
I don't have to prove anything I haven't asserted, shep. You've made some pretty shocking claims. So back them up. While you're at it, please demonstrate that alleged ties between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein has in this discussion. Who in the administration has justified going after Saddam because of ties between him and Al Qaeda? Where have I asserted ties between them?
As for the "tell me you're joking" bit, this is known as the "plain as the nose on your face," assertion which I've encountered before, is utterly impossible to refute (because meaningless), and was mentioned in the Card piece that originated this discussion.
Wince: I'm glad you managed to make sense of the "cheap, well-aimed 'final solution'." I'm still trying to figure out what that meant.
Brian,
I assumed a decapitation. Very difficult to do to Hussein, leaves the Ba'thists in power. The only other monetarily cheap option I can think of is nuclear. That would be wholly unacceptable, although it is certainly final. Other cheap, well-aimed solutions have not occurred to me.
Yours,
Wince
I was surprised (OK, not really) at the hand-waving and opaque nature of the proposed alternate solution. To me, that means it's fairly translated as, "anything except what Bush actually did."
Brian,
It is pretty hard to come up with an alternate strategy, because, well, strategy is hard. I'm no good at it.
Yours,
Wince
“Do you dispute most of my claims? Since there are so many positives, I think you have to discredit a lot of them as well as come up with some big negatives to convince me the Iraqi campaign is a mistake.”
Wince, No, I won’t dispute most of your claims though I’m not sure that the many which seem to say, “containment was expensive, deadly and pissing off some of our allies,” really justify a war which is expensive, deadly and pisses off even more of our (real) allies. From 12 on, we’ve entered the realm of conjecture, if I even understand all your points.
(And yes, I was talking about something, say .306 sized. Does the fact that you don’t like “decapitation” leaving Baathists in power mean that you prefer Shiite Muslims or civil war? - it's a trick question like "what's your strategy"; there are no good answers ;-)
But it is not even my argument that we shouldn’t have invaded Iraq, only that, contrary to the denials (and I mean that both in the rhetorical and psychological sense), there is a cogent case that has been made. I think the case for war is also valid. But, without a doubt, I believe it was falsely sold to the public and became infinitely more dangerous for America the moment we went ahead without securing an international imprimatur.
Brian, I agree that that the claim of taking the country to war on false pretenses is shocking (I’m not sure which others you find extremely startling, distressing, or offensive). That’s why people who can see straight about it are so outraged. I’m sorry, I thought when you told me to prove that Iraq “It wasn’t very relevant to our life-and-death struggle with Islamic fundamentalist terrorists” you knew who had attacked us. It was AL QAEDA.
And if you think I need to prove a) that we’ve taken a huge beating in sympathy and support from the rest of the world or b) that that’s a bad thing, then it should be “plain as the nose on your face” that I should take that as a joke. Or you; your choice.
Shep, I'm not claiming startlement, distress, or offense (although I will also add that I've grown quite accustomed to having my own requests for further information characterized as such.)
Just sitting and waiting for somebody who made a big claim to provide support for the claim. And waiting and waiting and waiting.
John:
I rest my case.
Well, if you can't find the facts in a dictionary, Brian, I can't help you any more. Perhaps you could look it up while you're waiting.
[Allen Ludden's voice]: The word is "shocking".
Shep:
Way to change the subject. I'd do the same if I were in your position. The definition of "shocking" is not being discussed here.
Here, I'll take your next turn: "But you used the word! And now you're disowning the specific portions of the definition I've selected from the Random House Student Dictionary, 3rd ed.!"
I really can't do this any more, shep. How about if we simply agree that there must be, somewhere, intelligent and rational arguments to be made against the campaign in Iraq and leave it at that?
shep,
When discussing the future ramnifications of a given strategy conjuecture is required.
Start conjecture:
I don't believe we upset our allies, I believe we exposed them as rivals.
Now I will conjecture about your alternative startegy :
Actually I don't like decapitation because it had been tried my times and was never successful, and because I was looking for an actual payoff. I have no reason to beleive that replacing Hussien with another Ba'athist would result in any useful improvements, and it might be worse. But a constituional democracy (if we can get one) would be a true improvement.
: End conjecture
Yours,
Wince
Brian,
I think Shep has made some intelligent arguments against the Iraqi campaign. Jerry Pournelle, who has written important works on military strategy, has some excellent arguments against it, which can be summarized as follows:
This march (accidental or not) towards an American Empire will doom the Republic and make serfs of our descendants.
He also offers alternative strategies.
He cannot, however, be described as a leftist. Too bad more leftists don't read his stuff.
Yours,
Wince
BTW, there is a difference between 1) intelligent, 2) convincing and 3) absolutely free of logical errors. #2 is harder. #3 is way harder. Not sure I've ever seen #3 on any side.
Yours,
Wince
"I really can't do this any more, shep. How about if we simply agree that there must be, somewhere, intelligent and rational arguments to be made against the campaign in Iraq and leave it at that?"
Lets' hope so, Brian. Good points, Wince. I'll owe you a beer if we manage to pull off that constitutional democracy thing.
shep,
JW Dundee's Honey Brown's my favorite. But if it takes as long as the Phillippines did you'll probably have to dig me up to drink it. OTOH, we tend to cut and run pretty quickly when we choose that option. What's your favorite?
Yours,
Wince
Oh, so many choices. Can't beat a good Guinness but I also sometimes go for Bass Ale and some of the Sam Adams brews and then there's the micro-brews, Moose Drool (when I can get it)...perhaps we shouldn't wait ;-)