what did you expect? - Page 2 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Willravel · 02-08-2005, 08:42 PM

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1) End the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Saddams government has been removed from power (and a large percentage have been assasinated, a.k.a. killed without trial) but has Saddam been found guilty by trial? don't expect that for a nother year or more. What if by some aweful chance he isn't found guilty? Almost impossible, but until he is found guilty, his reign isn't totally over.
Not done yet.

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2) Eliminate Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

You can't really find what isn't there.
Neutral or failed.

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3) Capture or drive out terrorists.

Nope! They're still attacking.

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4) Collect intelligence on terrorist networks.

That's laughable, as the people are being tortured for information, but it is still illegal to use information gathered by torture.

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5) Collect intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction activity.

We have all the intelligence we'll ever need. No WMDs.

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6) Secure Iraq’s oil fields.

But we went into Iraq to free people! Why would oil be one of our goals?!

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7) Deliver humanitarian relief and end sanctions.

The sanctions (that claimed thousands upon thousands upon thousands of lives) were our fault. Aren't we nice to have finally let them have food and medical supplies?

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8) Help Iraq achieve representative self-government and insure its territorial integrity.

We'll see.

shakran · 02-08-2005, 08:44 PM

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Originally Posted by irateplatypus

taking the analogy farther than its initial employment is to make an argument null.

Translation: Pointing out that an analogy is stupid isn't allowed because it would counter the argument of the one who posted the analogy. Rather circular IMO.

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according to our objectives... we have clear success in five of them, two are unabled to be measured by we on TFP (#'s 3 and 4), one was a failure.

They sold it to the public as a WMD elimination mission because iraq presented a "threat" to the United States. Pretending they didn't is denying reality.

Manx · 02-08-2005, 08:55 PM

It's a simple thing, irate.

I didn't support this war before we were taken in, therefore by the very fact that the war took place, it is undeniably a failure.

Only you, someone who supported the war, could experience the feeling of success.

Consider yourself lucky that you don't view it as a failure.

C4 Diesel · 02-08-2005, 10:07 PM

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1) End the regime of Saddam Hussein.
2) Eliminate Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.
3) Capture or drive out terrorists.
4) Collect intelligence on terrorist networks.
5) Collect intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction activity.
6) Secure Iraq’s oil fields.
7) Deliver humanitarian relief and end sanctions.
8) Help Iraq achieve representative self-government and insure its territorial integrity.

this list was compiled from the secretary of defense's official statement on 21 March 2003

Wait, wait... Irate... You're saying that you accept this as the "official" objective list? This was released in March 2003, well after the war was started, and while Rumsfeld & associates were shitting a brick about the possibility of there being no WMDs. Half of that list was created in retrospect to try to save face. I dare you to find any type of official objective list from before the war that contains any more than 4 of those objectives.

Mojo_PeiPei · 02-08-2005, 10:24 PM

Diesel if everyone is asserting that the administration lied, or at best was dead wrong about the WMD's, why would they release a list containing said objectives when they were trying to save face?

I think everyone here agree's we went to war on the premises (in good faith or bad) of 1 & 2, 4-5, 6 being implied; not smart to mention oil as a premise of war; and 7-8. So really the only sham objective would be number 3, but at the sametime I think that was one of the original objectives, somehow the American populace thought Saddam was directly involved in 9-11.

shakran · 02-08-2005, 10:31 PM

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Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei

Diesel if everyone is asserting that the administration lied, or at best was dead wrong about the WMD's, why would they release a list containing said objectives when they were trying to save face?

I think everyone here agree's we went to war on the premises (in good faith or bad) of 1 & 2, 4-5, 6 being implied; not smart to mention oil as a premise of war; and 7-8. So really the only sham objective would be number 3, but at the sametime I think that was one of the original objectives, somehow the American populace thought Saddam was directly involved in 9-11.

Everyone here most certainly does not agree. We went on the premise of WMD. Period. Sure, getting rid of Saddam was mentioned as a nice little bonus, but the reason we were going to war was because the Big Bad Arabs were gonna throw chemical weapons at us. They never explained how Iraq would pull this off, considering they couldn't hit anything they aimed at with their shortrange scuds, so how would they manage to make a decently accurate ICBM in order to launch a chemical missile at the US mainland, but ya know, details details.

All those other reasons have been fabricated after the fact to try and obscure the fact that the original reason that was pitched to the American public was a bald faced lie.

Mojo_PeiPei · 02-08-2005, 10:37 PM

Regime change was right up there with WMD's. I thought that was universal knowledge... I must admit Shakran, your knowledge here is a little lacking. Regime change was the samething CHeney, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfield came pushing on Clinton in 98' in and around Operation Desert Fox and us actually finding some WMD's. Only thing was Clinton didn't want regime change, so the Hawks had to bide their time until they had a window being 9-11 and Dubya.

Maybe we are saying the same thing though, the WMD's were the means, but the objective was most certainly regime change.

Manx · 02-08-2005, 10:40 PM

Let's not confuse objectives with selling points. Not a one of us can say what the objectives of this administration were or are - but only the short-term memory deficient among us can deny that the primary selling point was WMDs.

Which brings me to my next point, back on irate's topic:

I honestly had no idea whether Iraq had WMDs. I certainly didn't believe Saddam and I certainly didn't believe this administration. So, in fact, the existence or non-existence of WMDs had absolutely no bearing for me in regards to my opinion that this war was wrong. Which means, even if we HAD found WMDs, I would still consider this war, by it's very existence, to have been a failure.

See how far apart we are?

Now try and tell me again why I'm supposed to think we've been successful.

(As an aside, I'm getting tired of conservatives complaining about people blaming Bush + Co. He's the President, he's the spokesman for guiding policy. I vehemently disagree with the policies this administration has been enacting. I'm going to continue to blame Bush. Deal with it.)

smooth · 02-09-2005, 02:24 AM

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Originally Posted by Manx

(As an aside, I'm getting tired of conservatives complaining about people blaming Bush + Co. He's the President, he's the spokesman for guiding policy. I vehemently disagree with the policies this administration has been enacting. I'm going to continue to blame Bush. Deal with it.)

I think it's worse than that. I don't mind complaints about me blaming bush, but I really get sick of being accused of "hating" a man I never met. Like they try and remove the rational basis for my disagreement with his administration's foreign policy.

And then the second prong of that is that I dislike the message for the messenger or some variant, like I'm being partisan? Which is just absurd given that I'm non-partisan. But it doesn't matter anymore, so I usually just not respond to those kinds of statements because they just make no sense anymore.

host · 02-09-2005, 03:41 AM

It's not hate, irate.....that's just your excuse for avoiding
debating the reality of Bush's.....and your own.....disconnect.
I'm outraged, and moved by the suffering of the affected
families living through this and for the dead Amercans,
young soldiers Bush is ordering to die....for nothing..... many
who were close in age to Barbara and Jenna. This is on you,
now, irate, because we've told you and shown you, and you
won't confront your enabling of war criminals and their crimes.
Instead, you create a thread to gloss it all over and to keep
cheering it on.

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The War Party

By Jim Hightower, AlterNet. Posted February 5, 2005.

............Lavish balls, sumptuous gourmet meals, copious champagne brunches, indulgent corporate-sponsored receptions in posh private clubs—a cornucopia of excess for the privileged and connected, dancing in a swirl of political self-congratulation (and in anticipation of political rewards-to-come for those elites who picked up the $40-million tab). All this unseemly splurging while— 7,000 miles away in Iraq—the loved ones of Americans who are neither privileged nor connected are mired in the deadly mayhem of George W's disastrous war.

One inaugural visual summed up the moral divide between those few so gaily dancing the war away in Washington and those many trapped so miserably in the brutal reality of Iraq. It was the recurring scene of stretch Hummer limousines ferrying the resplendent Gucci crowd from one gaudy gathering to the next—while soldiers driving real Humvees have been denied the protective armor that could save their lives.........

....................There were even special inaugural blowouts for the twentysomethings, including George's own war-age daughters, who loudly proclaim their support for daddy's war—but not so much that they would join it. In BushWorld, the elites declare war... other people do the fighting and dying.

shakran · 02-09-2005, 06:22 AM

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Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei

Regime change was right up there with WMD's. I thought that was universal knowledge... I must admit Shakran, your knowledge here is a little lacking. Regime change was the samething CHeney, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfield came pushing on Clinton in 98' in and around Operation Desert Fox and us actually finding some WMD's. Only thing was Clinton didn't want regime change, so the Hawks had to bide their time until they had a window being 9-11 and Dubya.

Maybe we are saying the same thing though, the WMD's were the means, but the objective was most certainly regime change.

My knowledge is not lacking. Througout the buildup to war we heard nothing but "weapons of mass destruction" and how the Axis of Evil member was gonna create 9/11's all over the place with 'em. THAT is what the public was told was the reason for going to war. THAT is the publicly stated objective.

Now obviously I'm not gullible enough to think Bush really believed that nonsense, and of course I know his REAL objective was to go get the guy that tried to kill his daddy (and to have a nice fun little war while he was at it).

But the public was told nothing of this until AFTER the war started and they realized there was no way the WMD story was gonna hold water. So slowly they started removing WMD's from the rhetoric and replacing it with "regime change."

Remember, initially in his list of demands, he said Saddam must disarm. Only after Saddam said "ok, I'll disarm" did Bush change his demands to "Saddam must disarm AND step down and leave the country forever."

It was very obvious at that point to those of us who were paying attention that Bush wanted his war and he would get it no matter what concessions Saddam made to try and stop it.

And back to the original question, this "democracy comes to iraq" garbage is pure crap. They've had "democracy" for all of 2 weeks now, and it's not working real well considering there's well over 15,000 insurgents in the country, and only a tiny fraction of those are non-iraqi. In other words, there's a whole shitload of Iraqis who aren't going to take this democracy thing lying down.

Makes sense really - democracy (I always laugh when Bush says he wants them to be a democracy like us. He's not real good with political systems because we are a constitutional republic, NOT a democracy) is not something that can be forced on people. They have to choose it for themselves. It's certainly the height of irony to march in with soldiers and tell people "you do not have a choice. You must install a government with freedom of choice."

Incosian · 02-09-2005, 07:09 AM

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Originally Posted by shakran

My knowledge is not lacking. Througout the buildup to war we heard nothing but "weapons of mass destruction" and how the Axis of Evil member was gonna create 9/11's all over the place with 'em. THAT is what the public was told was the reason for going to war. THAT is the publicly stated objective.

Now obviously I'm not gullible enough to think Bush really believed that nonsense, and of course I know his REAL objective was to go get the guy that tried to kill his daddy (and to have a nice fun little war while he was at it).

But the public was told nothing of this until AFTER the war started and they realized there was no way the WMD story was gonna hold water. So slowly they started removing WMD's from the rhetoric and replacing it with "regime change."

Remember, initially in his list of demands, he said Saddam must disarm. Only after Saddam said "ok, I'll disarm" did Bush change his demands to "Saddam must disarm AND step down and leave the country forever."

It was very obvious at that point to those of us who were paying attention that Bush wanted his war and he would get it no matter what concessions Saddam made to try and stop it.

And back to the original question, this "democracy comes to iraq" garbage is pure crap. They've had "democracy" for all of 2 weeks now, and it's not working real well considering there's well over 15,000 insurgents in the country, and only a tiny fraction of those are non-iraqi. In other words, there's a whole shitload of Iraqis who aren't going to take this democracy thing lying down.

Makes sense really - democracy (I always laugh when Bush says he wants them to be a democracy like us. He's not real good with political systems because we are a constitutional republic, NOT a democracy) is not something that can be forced on people. They have to choose it for themselves. It's certainly the height of irony to march in with soldiers and tell people "you do not have a choice. You must install a government with freedom of choice."

Very well put shakran.

roachboy · 02-09-2005, 07:47 AM

yes, shakran--and this is why there is no way to seperate the "elections" and positions on the war in general--what is at issue is the whole narrative that lets you connect elements together. this narrative is political through and through. and this applies to all positions.

i find the trope of "bush hating" to be a rightwing cliche, meaningless both in itself and as a move put forward here to explain why irate, for example, kept running into responses he did not like in this thread.

as for what i might have expected for the iraq debacle---i did not expect anything. i opposed the war at every step, not because i thought saddam hussein a swell guy, but rather because i understood, from very early on, that the administration was making things up to justify war. i watched the explanations/rationales change, over and over, along the lines outlined quite ably in earlier posts here.

the way i understood the motvations for war, i assumed that the rosy scenario hallucinations of the wolfowitz crowd would have to pan out in the real world for the gamble embodied in this adventure to work--for an outline, read "the project for a new american century" mission statement with a critical eye, and direct it toward the war in iraq. which would mean that there would have had to be no insurrection. and the photos of the hussein statue being toppled by an imported pseudo-crowd would have to have had some documentary value--one that extended beyond a measure of the dreamworld the administration lived in, and the extent to which its military apparatus performed the roles of actors in this dreamworld. the wolfowitz scenario was of course a farce--and so far as i was concerned, the war from that point onward slipped inexorably into debacle.

later i had--and still have--a more conflicted view in that i found the logic of my own opposition to the war leading directly into an implicit cheerleading for signals of further debacle---which ran counter to the more pacifist-oriented elements in my positions, which pushed toward looking for ways to reduce deaths. so i began to think in terms of a best scenario that would enable the bush squad to pull out of iraq while saving face, mostly because doing so meant the minimizing of death--on all sides. with that in mind, i thought--and still think--that the conditions under which these past elections were held were so dubious as to make the whole process into something of a charade--i could not understand why allawi, the bushpuppet, and the administration in the states insisted on holding them despite these problems. and now i am interested in the problems that the apparent wide defeat of the allawi regime--and the apparent victory for al-sistani---pose for the administration.

in general, i think that the elections should have been delayed. it is in the refusal to treat the elections as a possible space for meaningful transition away from american occupation that i began to see that bush is to the discourse of democracy what stalin was to the discourse of socialism. and that is a disaster for everyone. including the conservatives, whose position a priori leaves them no alternative but to see iraq upside-down.

but none of the above functions as confirmation of my opposition to the war.
but i admit that within this lay the knot posed by my opposition.

what really alarms me is the saber rattling about iran. because i do not think this administration is above launching another misbegotten adventure to distract from the endgame of the previous misbegotten adventure.

expectations are projections into the future.
these projections rely on premises.
this applied to all sides, conservatives included.

Mojo_PeiPei · 02-09-2005, 08:15 AM

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Originally Posted by shakran

And back to the original question, this "democracy comes to iraq" garbage is pure crap. They've had "democracy" for all of 2 weeks now, and it's not working real well considering there's well over 15,000 insurgents in the country, and only a tiny fraction of those are non-iraqi. In other words, there's a whole shitload of Iraqis who aren't going to take this democracy thing lying down.

This is the one thing I'm going to call you on. Up until now, all the figures I have been using put the insurgency at 200,000-250,000. Iraq is a country of 25+ million people, so even those inflated numbers, in light of the new ones putting the numbers closer to 20,000, only equated to one percent of the population of Iraq. The numbers you are using, the new numbers, the "whole shitload" of insurgents...all 15,000 of them, equates to .08% of all Iraqi's.

Don't you see something a little misleading about this huge and glorious insurgency? Hell I didn't even think the thing was even remotely legitmate when the numbers said 1% of the population. Boohoo some ex-baathists and religious nutjobs don't want democracy, that really represents the whole 25 million of Iraq.

How many people voted?

C4 Diesel · 02-09-2005, 08:39 AM

It really baffles me how people can think that 1%, or even .1% of the population being involved in the insurgency is a small number. Even at 1 in 1000, that's still pretty nuts. If there were .1% of people in your city/town that were well armed and willing to kill you at random to (supposedly) prove their point or break your will, you'd probably shit yourself every time you went outside.

...and you think that the insurgency in insignificant? "Boohoo", only 1 in 1000 are crazy enough to kill at random? Get a grip.

MoonDog · 02-09-2005, 08:58 AM

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This thread is a symptom of, and a prime example of the psychological disorder that has overtaken America. I am fascinated by the inability of contributors to this forum to persuade "the other side" of anything that would signifigantly lessen the distance between our points of view. This isn't new. The thing that is newer, is using the internet to discuss issues and opinions. We now have a luxury of offering links to sources of information on other websites that did not exist during other major national periods of division that I have experienced in my adult lifetime. Two major divides that I recall are the Vietnam war and the Carter "malaise".

Well, I would hope that people who get sucked into this forum game are aware ahead of time that the belief and value systems of others are usually NOT going to be changed, whether the person supplying the argument is friendly, attacking, or condescending. The best a poster should hope for is presenting his or her view, backing it up with "facts" linked to web resources, and then hope that - by exploring the links - readers can gain a wide enough source of information from differing viewpoints to develop a new position.

Or it might solidy their current position. Who knows?

I support us being in Iraq, but not for the publicly stated WMD crap. Nossir - I've been a stout proponent of regime change since the early Clinton years. I will call this operation a success - in my eyes only - if the Iraqi people have a democratically-elected government representative of their values and beliefs, that does not mistreat vast ethnic or political subsets within its borders. Do I get thrilled about a the Shi'ite ticket that seems to be leading - no. But if that is what the people elect, and they can partner with the Kurds and Sunnis to draft a constitution that the entire country can live with and go through several peaceful exchanges of power, then it will be a success, and hopefully an example for other Middle Eastern countries to move towards in their own fashions.

Incosian · 02-09-2005, 09:22 AM

I think the term 'Iraqi' is a bit of a misnomer.

Winston Churchill and others created the term Iraq when they arbitrarily structured the modern-day middle east. The people in Iraq are various conglomerations of ethnic groups - i.e. the Kurds, Sunni and Shi'a Muslims. It is a ridiculous concept to try and establish a 'democratic' government in a country that contains such radical polarization on many spectrums...This little project over in Iraq will turn into a theocracy based on the principles of the ethnic majority (i.e. the Shi'a Muslims). Oppression is unavoidable in such a situation...and the Shi'a will want payback for their sufferings under the former Sunni regime.

Not in his defense, but Saddam did not gas his own people. He oppressed a competing religious/ethnic faction that threatened his dictatorship. In a slightly different sense, Vladimir Putin uses a similar method of exterminating the competition, as when he locked up the oil tycoon for 'tax evasion'...it is widely known that the rich executive had big political plans and ambitions, so Putin shut him out. Same principle with Saddam, except to a much less severe degree.

Mojo_PeiPei · 02-09-2005, 09:31 AM

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Originally Posted by C4 Diesel

It really baffles me how people can think that 1%, or even .1% of the population being involved in the insurgency is a small number. Even at 1 in 1000, that's still pretty nuts. If there were .1% of people in your city/town that were well armed and willing to kill you at random to (supposedly) prove their point or break your will, you'd probably shit yourself every time you went outside.

...and you think that the insurgency in insignificant? "Boohoo", only 1 in 1000 are crazy enough to kill at random? Get a grip.

Well call me crazy, but I'm not going to let a fringe faction comprising less then 1 percent of the total population scare me. And I didn't call them insignificant, I just said I didn't consider them legitimate because 1) they comprise less then 1% of the population 2) they are ex-baathists 3) Sunni's who can't come to grips that their run is over 4) Lunatics like Al-Sadr 5) Terrorists like Ansar Al-Islam (Iraqi) 6) And foregin terrorist like Al Qaeda and Zarqawi trying to impose their radical doctrine on the people of Iraq.

On the other hand some of them valid beef, but at this point they should buck up and start working within the system, killing Americans and their own country men isn't doing them any good and is only prolonging our presence there.

Mojo_PeiPei · 02-09-2005, 09:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Incosian

I think the term 'Iraqi' is a bit of a misnomer.

Winston Churchill and others created the term Iraq when they arbitrarily structured the modern-day middle east. The people in Iraq are various conglomerations of ethnic groups - i.e. the Kurds, Sunni and Shi'a Muslims. It is a ridiculous concept to try and establish a 'democratic' government in a country that contains such radical polarization on many spectrums...This little project over in Iraq will turn into a theocracy based on the principles of the ethnic majority (i.e. the Shi'a Muslims). Oppression is unavoidable in such a situation...and the Shi'a will want payback for their sufferings under the former Sunni regime.

Not in his defense, but Saddam did not gas his own people. He oppressed a competing religious/ethnic faction that threatened his dictatorship. In a slightly different sense, Vladimir Putin uses a similar method of exterminating the competition, as when he locked up the oil tycoon for 'tax evasion'...it is widely known that the rich executive had big political plans and ambitions, so Putin shut him out. Same principle with Saddam, except to a much less severe degree.

So I supose that when Saddam assumed power of Iraq, dominion over all three ethnic groups, even the kurds who were displaced as an ethnic group, but still inside a sovereign Iraq, he wasn't gassing his own people? That would be like Bush gassing Indians or something; they were in his country and under his stewardship, he did gas his own countrypeople.

roachboy · 02-09-2005, 09:34 AM

i am not sure that you want to invoke, at any level, the history of the american treatment of native americans as if it helped you make a distinction between the united states and saddam hussein, mojo. think wounded knee. fyi.

Mojo_PeiPei · 02-09-2005, 09:39 AM

I'm not invoking any part of our history in the mistreatment of American Indians.

I'm drawing a hypothetical parallel, saying that Saddam's gassing of the Kurds, who were "autonomous", would be similar to Bush gassing Indians on a sovereign reservation.

martinguerre · 02-09-2005, 09:41 AM

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Originally Posted by roachboy

i am not sure that you want to invoke, at any level, the history of the american treatment of native americans as if it helped you make a distinction between the united states and saddam hussein, mojo. think wounded knee. fyi.

*nods

history just isn't very kind to idealism.

Incosian · 02-09-2005, 09:57 AM

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Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei

So I supose that when Saddam assumed power of Iraq, dominion over all three ethnic groups, even the kurds who were displaced as an ethnic group, but still inside a sovereign Iraq, he wasn't gassing his own people? That would be like Bush gassing Indians or something; they were in his country and under his stewardship, he did gas his own countrypeople.

I understand what you are saying Mojo, please do not think that I approve of ANYTHING Saddam did during his regime, I was merely indicating that technically the situation is rather complex over there as to 'who is who'

.

I would like to point out, however, that the "Iraqi" people did continually vote for Saddam to remain in power...whether or not they were abused if they did otherwise I am not sure.

I blame Churchill and Co. for the mess in the Middle East. They created it, if only we could undo what has already come to pass...Frankly, the Ottomans were significantly more humanitarian than most of the governments over there currently...

Mojo_PeiPei · 02-09-2005, 10:17 AM

It's sort of tough to vote someone out of office when he is the only person on the ballot and you "monitored" into checking the "yes" box.

And yes the Brit's have certainly left us all a cluster fuck between Iraq and Palestine.

raveneye · 02-09-2005, 11:04 AM

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nope. i'm not using my own criteria and i'm sure as hell not using yours. i'll stick with the official list thank you very much.

You're not using eliminating Iraq's WMDs as a criterion of success? Because it's not part of the official list? Have you read the list that you posted?

Willravel · 02-09-2005, 11:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei

This is the one thing I'm going to call you on. Up until now, all the figures I have been using put the insurgency at 200,000-250,000. Iraq is a country of 25+ million people, so even those inflated numbers, in light of the new ones putting the numbers closer to 20,000, only equated to one percent of the population of Iraq. The numbers you are using, the new numbers, the "whole shitload" of insurgents...all 15,000 of them, equates to .08% of all Iraqi's.

Don't you see something a little misleading about this huge and glorious insurgency? Hell I didn't even think the thing was even remotely legitmate when the numbers said 1% of the population. Boohoo some ex-baathists and religious nutjobs don't want democracy, that really represents the whole 25 million of Iraq.

How many people voted?

The Ba'athist coup against Qasim (led by Saddam) had only 9 tanks, and 850 members at the time. 850 isn't a lot of people out of the 18+ million people living in Iraq in 1963. The current rebelion of 15,000 dwarfs the 850 who were able to assasinate the leader of the nation and take power. We shouldn't assume they are not a threat because of percentages overall.

The United States population is currently 295,431,744. 0.08% of 295,431,744 is about 250,000. Imagine the entire population of a city like Baton Rouge was spread out over the united states, united in removing our government. What if half the population of Washington D.C. suddenly revolted?

host · 02-09-2005, 11:33 AM

I heard a news report last night that there were an estimated
500 foreign fighters and about 1000 combatants following
al Zarqawi. If you minimize the signifigance of a domestic
Iraqi insurgency of about 15000, how do you react to
statements from Bush and his supporters that "we will
fight them there so we won't have to fight them here?"
Following your logic, isn't it ludicrous to commit 150,000 troops,
an equivalent to almost one third of your entire active duty
ground force, and try to justify it with the "flypaper" argument?

When a force is "decimated", a minimum of 10 percent of
it's total number is killed or seriously wounded. With an
average force total of less than 150,000 troops in Iraq since
March, 2003, and casulaties of more than 12,000, isn't fair to
say that the Iraqi insurgency has succeeded in decimating
our forces? You are trying to downplay a catastrophe, but
the numbers contradict your assertions.

roachboy · 02-09-2005, 11:51 AM

and so it appears that this thread landed (so far at least) in exactly the spot you would have anticipated had you simply thought about the matter and never launched it: the folk who support the war with one variant of "reality"--those who opposed with another. and it seems no way to move between positions.

and still no willingness on the part of conservatives to put their positions fully on the table, to question the linkages between their own assessments of the situation in iraq and their support for bushwar up front.

both these positions cannot simultaneously be correct.

so we go back to the earlier argument within the thread, about the underlying causes for this differend, if you like---in the world where there is no difference between policy and politics, no difference between what is marketed and what is "real" this is what you get--conservatives who work from within the reigning discourse can do and say nothing in response to critiques either of their particular positions, nor of the results that bush's policies are continuing to generate on the ground, except to work through already banal talking points. it really does seem that conservsative modes of argument are entirely closed, entirely self-referential, and entirely incapable of interacting with positions that are framed differently.

host earlier had talked about this is psychological terms--i talked about it in terms of a particular style of argument--either way the results are the same.

is it really impossible for a reflective conservative defense of this misbeggotten imperial adventure to be mounted? one that at least poses the question of what kind of relation obtains for them between their initial assessment of the arguments put forward by the bush people and their take on what is going on now in iraq?

the positions--left (if you want--this is america after all) and right are mutually exclusive. if this and other threads like it are any index, conservative arguments really hold no water whatsoever. and they cannot be justified as arguments by any of those who rehearse them. so from the outside, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the positions are simply arbitrary, and to go from there to a psychological explanation for it. but this cannot--seriously, cannot--exhaust the matter. there must be a reflexive/reflective version of support for this war somewhere, one that grapples with the kind of questions anyone who works in opposition has had to--i woudl think that the burden of proof to the contrary now rests with conservatives, at least insofar as this thread is concerned.

host · 02-09-2005, 12:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

host earlier had talked about this is psychological terms--i talked about it in terms of a particular style of argument--either way the results are the same.

is it really impossible for a reflective conservative defense of this misbeggotten imperial adventure to be mounted? one that at least poses the question of what kind of relation obtains for them between their initial assessment of the arguments put forward by the bush people and their take on what is going on now in iraq?

the positions--left (if you want--this is america after all) and right are mutually exclusive. if this and other threads like it are any index, conservative arguments really hold no water whatsoever. and they cannot be justified as arguments by any of those who rehearse them. so from the outside, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the positions are simply arbitrary, and to go from there to a psychological explanation for it. but this cannot--seriously, cannot--exhaust the matter. there must be a reflexive/reflective version of support for this war somewhere, one that grapples with the kind of questions anyone who works in opposition has had to--i woudl think that the burden of proof to the contrary now rests with conservatives, at least insofar as this thread is concerned.

There is disturbing evidence that the folks in the Red states do not vote in
their own best interests, and play into the hands of the conservative agenda.
It is ironic that the agenda that Bush supporters now walk to in lockstep
(goose step?) was created by, and is financed by the wealthiest conservative
families in the country:

When we request candor in the opinions of Bush supporter, this is the "wall"
that we find ourselves up against. A well financed, cohesive machine that
is remarkably successful in persuading those lulled into it's fold by it's
repetitive "information" barrage to think and speak in a unified voice.

Quote:

The Right-Wing Express
<a href="http://alternet.org/mediaculture/21192/">http://alternet.org/mediaculture/21192/</a>
By Don Hazen, AlterNet. Posted February 7, 2005.

Consider that the conservative political movement, which now has a hammerlock on every aspect of federal government, has a media message machine fed by more than 80 large non-profit organizations – let's call them the Big 80 – funded by a gaggle of right-wing family foundations and wealthy individuals to the tune of $400 million a year.

And the Big 80 groups are just the "non-partisan" 501(c)(3) groups. These do not include groups like the NRA, the anti-gay and anti-abortion groups, nor do they include the political action committees (PACs) or the "527" groups (so named for the section of the tax code they fall under), like the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which so effectively slammed John Kerry's campaign in 2004.

To get their message out, the conservatives have a powerful media empire, which churns out and amplifies the message of the day - or the week - through a wide network of outlets and individuals, including Fox News, talk radio, Rush Limbaugh, Oliver North, Ann Coulter, as well as religious broadcasters like Pat Robertson and his 700 Club. On the web, it starts with TownHall.com

Fueling the conservative message machine with a steady flow of cash is a large group of wealthy individuals, including many who serve on the boards of the Big 80.

Rob Stein has brilliantly documented all of the above in "The Conservative Message Machine Money Matrix," a PowerPoint presentation he has taken on the road across the country, preaching to progressives about the lessons that can be learned and the challenges that need to be overcome.

An intriguing symptom of the disconnect is the persuasion of primarily lower and middle class, rural state, voters to vote against their own financial
status quo:

Quote:

<a href="http://www.makethemaccountable.com/misc/Maps2000.htm">http://www.makethemaccountable.com/misc/Maps2000.htm</a>
Givers and Takers

By DANIEL H. PINK

Published: January 30, 2004

...Using the Tax Foundation's analysis, it's possible to group the 50 states into two categories: Givers and Takers. Giver states get back less than a dollar in spending for every dollar they contribute to federal coffers. Taker states pocket more than a dollar for every tax dollar they send to Washington...

78 percent of Mr. Bush's electoral votes came from Taker states.

76 percent of Mr. Gore's electoral votes came from Giver states.

Of the 33 Taker states, Mr. Bush carried 25.

Of the 16 Giver states, Mr. Gore carried 12...

Most people who vote Republican say they want less government and not to pay for the welfare of others. What's actually happening is that those of us who live in the states that tend to vote Democratic are subsidizing those who live in states that vote Republican.

How do they do it? By having more representation in the Senate than those of us who live in the Net Giver states. The fact that every state has two Senators, regardless of population, guarantees unequal representation for the states with smaller populations. And the fact that the Electoral College is made up of one vote per U.S. Representative and one vote per U.S. Senator skews the presidential vote in favor of small population states, as well.

You could say that the Net Taker states are suckers on the federal teat, but it's we in the Net Giver states who are the suckers.
<a href="http://taxfoundation.org/sr132.pdf">http://taxfoundation.org/sr132.pdf</a>

MoonDog · 02-09-2005, 02:35 PM

Roachboy points out that the left and right positions are mutually exclusive, and then infers, like Host, that - since the proponents of the right spout arguments that "can't hold water" - then the supporters of the right must have some sort of psychological issue.

Well, a very learned individual once said:

Quote:

In our country are evangelists and zealots of many different political, economic and religious persuasions whose fanatical conviction is that all thought is divinely classified into two kinds-that which is their own and that which is false and dangerous.

If you know who it is who said that, cool, but it brings home MY point - each side can poke holes in various aspects of each other's positions. You obviously aren't going to change someone's position here, so what's the goal? My guess is the thrill of debate, the opportunity to denigrate another's point of view as inferior. The nature of the language used on many posts on politics, here and in other forums, usually demonstrates this. So who has a psychological issue now? I strive VERY hard to not belittle other's opinions, because no matter how much I belive that I am right, I have to acknowledge that others won't agree with me and are entitled to that opinion.

Then Host trots out the tired argument that Republican voters apparently vote against their own interests...whether they be medical, economical, blah blah blah. Well, every time I hear this, I have to point out that some people vote based on BELIEFS and CONVICTIONS. And, believe it or not, they may differ from those that you and other Democrats might share.

I'm not saying that there aren't some real ignoramus' out there voting, but they are doing it on both sides of the aisle.

tecoyah · 02-09-2005, 02:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei

Well call me crazy, but I'm not going to let a fringe faction comprising less then 1 percent of the total population scare me.

One has to wonder if that 1% scares the trained soldiers that must face them on a daily basis, Truly you are a braver man than I.

roachboy · 02-09-2005, 03:33 PM

moondog: this is why i prefer to emphasize style of argument: but in situations like this, the boundary between that and speculating about psychological motives gets to be really tempting to cross....i reiterate my basic challenge to folk who support the war to spell out their positions in the kind of way that they have tried to pressure those of us who opposed and oppose this war to do.

as for the matter of politics being a question of belief--well, most beliefs are rooted in some kind of contact with a world beyond them. so are convictions. both are amenable to testing--i expect that you, like anyone, indulges testing all the time. if you use either belief or conviction as a device to make all political argument arbitrary, and if this reflects a wider pattern (and i believe it does) then we are all in a pretty sorry state of affairs in which nothing can be refuted by recourse to either evidence or argument: when that goes out the window, so does even the slightest pretense to democratic process. but maybe you prefer abandoning even those faint traces of democracy that still float about in the american system. for myself, i think the consequences of it are too high.

shakran · 02-09-2005, 04:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei

This is the one thing I'm going to call you on. Up until now, all the figures I have been using put the insurgency at 200,000-250,000. Iraq is a country of 25+ million people, so even those inflated numbers, in light of the new ones putting the numbers closer to 20,000, only equated to one percent of the population of Iraq. The numbers you are using, the new numbers, the "whole shitload" of insurgents...all 15,000 of them, equates to .08% of all Iraqi's.

Don't you see something a little misleading about this huge and glorious insurgency? Hell I didn't even think the thing was even remotely legitmate when the numbers said 1% of the population. Boohoo some ex-baathists and religious nutjobs don't want democracy, that really represents the whole 25 million of Iraq.

How many people voted?

Well then you should have picked something else to call me on. The numbers I used are a PENTAGON estimate. The Pentagon, remember, is run by Rumsfeld, who's such a font of misinformation about this situation that nothing he says can be trusted. In all likelihood, the "inflated" numbers are probably closer to the truth.

However, as others have pointed out, only a fool would fail to be concerned about 15,000 insurgents running around a country armed to the teeth and willing to kill anyone to get their point across.

I remind you that the U.S. and its allies FAR outnumbered the enemy in Vietnam (in 1967 there were 280,000 viet cong, and 1,174,000 allies), and we still got our asses kicked.

raveneye · 02-09-2005, 04:17 PM

Hear me out, here.

I got a lynching party together and managed to find a murder suspect holed up in a meth lab last week. The police weren't doing their job, so we went in. We watched him for awhile, waited until he went inside, then set the place on fire.

Sure enough, he came running out, and we got him. Turned out there were a couple people inside the house who were burned to death. Plus the guy he supposedly murdered turned up alive somewhere in Aruba. So he wasn't a murderer after all.

But heck, it was a successful operation wasn't it? Only two people died, and we got the guy. He may not have been a murderer, but he was a bad guy.

It could have turned out a lot worse, in fact I expected it to. I don't know why everybody keeps criticizing what we did, when we accomplished just about every one of our goals.

Mojo_PeiPei · 02-09-2005, 04:38 PM

Again I never said I don't think they are of concern or an issue, I just merely said I don't consider their cause legit, and I'm not going to be bullied into fear or submission by them and their tactics.

Willravel · 02-09-2005, 04:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by raveneye

Hear me out, here.

I got a lynching party together and managed to find a murder suspect holed up in a meth lab last week. The police weren't doing their job, so we went in. We watched him for awhile, waited until he went inside, then set the place on fire.

Sure enough, he came running out, and we got him. Turned out there were a couple people inside the house who were burned to death. Plus the guy he supposedly murdered turned up alive somewhere in Aruba. So he wasn't a murderer after all.

But heck, it was a successful operation wasn't it? Only two people died, and we got the guy. He may not have been a murderer, but he was a bad guy.

It could have turned out a lot worse, in fact I expected it to. I don't know why everybody keeps criticizing what we did, when we accomplished just about every one of our goals.

Excelent anaolgy. I think that corrrectly reflects what really happened over there (in simple but efffective terms).

shakran · 02-09-2005, 05:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei

Again I never said I don't think they are of concern or an issue, I just merely said I don't consider their cause legit, and I'm not going to be bullied into fear or submission by them and their tactics.

Sorry, their cause IS legit. Their cause is "get the hell out of Iraq. This is OUR country not YOURS. Hands OFF."

And they're right.

Mojo_PeiPei · 02-09-2005, 05:49 PM

Zarqawi = Jordianian... he is our biggest problem there. Hmmm....

C4 Diesel · 02-09-2005, 05:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei

Again I never said I don't think they are of concern or an issue, I just merely said I don't consider their cause legit, and I'm not going to be bullied into fear or submission by them and their tactics.

At this point in time, it doesn't matter if they're "legit" to you or not. They're "legit" enough to kill thousands of people, they're "legit" enough to make people live in fear, and they're "legit" enough to be a destabilizing factor in the regions where they assert their presence.

And I find it very convenient for you to say that you're "not going to be bullied into fear or submission by them and their tactics" being that you're not in Iraq. Shit, I'd bet a good deal of money that you've never seen a car bombing or an act of terror. You've probably never been in a gunfight. I wouldn't be surprised if you've never even seen a violently killed dead body. So saying that it wouldn't scare you seems a little haughty on your part.

I, for one, would not willingly go to Iraq right now. Why? 'Cause it's one hell of a fucked up place right now and there's a decent chance (at least WAY better than in almost every other place) that I might die.

C4 Diesel · 02-09-2005, 05:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei

Zarqawi = Jordianian... he is our biggest problem there. Hmmm....

You're not even making a point. So he's Jordanian? So what? That doesn't mean you can discount the problem because it's international. If anything, the problem originating from other countries makes it WORSE because we have no way of regulating what goes on there.

02-08-2005, 10:24 PM	#45 (permalink)
Mojo_PeiPei Kiss of Death Location: Perpetual wind and sorrow	Diesel if everyone is asserting that the administration lied, or at best was dead wrong about the WMD's, why would they release a list containing said objectives when they were trying to save face? I think everyone here agree's we went to war on the premises (in good faith or bad) of 1 & 2, 4-5, 6 being implied; not smart to mention oil as a premise of war; and 7-8. So really the only sham objective would be number 3, but at the sametime I think that was one of the original objectives, somehow the American populace thought Saddam was directly involved in 9-11. __________________ To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

02-08-2005, 10:37 PM	#47 (permalink)
Mojo_PeiPei Kiss of Death Location: Perpetual wind and sorrow	Regime change was right up there with WMD's. I thought that was universal knowledge... I must admit Shakran, your knowledge here is a little lacking. Regime change was the samething CHeney, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfield came pushing on Clinton in 98' in and around Operation Desert Fox and us actually finding some WMD's. Only thing was Clinton didn't want regime change, so the Hawks had to bide their time until they had a window being 9-11 and Dubya. Maybe we are saying the same thing though, the WMD's were the means, but the objective was most certainly regime change. __________________ To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition. Last edited by Mojo_PeiPei; 02-08-2005 at 10:40 PM..

02-09-2005, 07:47 AM	#53 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	yes, shakran--and this is why there is no way to seperate the "elections" and positions on the war in general--what is at issue is the whole narrative that lets you connect elements together. this narrative is political through and through. and this applies to all positions. i find the trope of "bush hating" to be a rightwing cliche, meaningless both in itself and as a move put forward here to explain why irate, for example, kept running into responses he did not like in this thread. as for what i might have expected for the iraq debacle---i did not expect anything. i opposed the war at every step, not because i thought saddam hussein a swell guy, but rather because i understood, from very early on, that the administration was making things up to justify war. i watched the explanations/rationales change, over and over, along the lines outlined quite ably in earlier posts here. the way i understood the motvations for war, i assumed that the rosy scenario hallucinations of the wolfowitz crowd would have to pan out in the real world for the gamble embodied in this adventure to work--for an outline, read "the project for a new american century" mission statement with a critical eye, and direct it toward the war in iraq. which would mean that there would have had to be no insurrection. and the photos of the hussein statue being toppled by an imported pseudo-crowd would have to have had some documentary value--one that extended beyond a measure of the dreamworld the administration lived in, and the extent to which its military apparatus performed the roles of actors in this dreamworld. the wolfowitz scenario was of course a farce--and so far as i was concerned, the war from that point onward slipped inexorably into debacle. later i had--and still have--a more conflicted view in that i found the logic of my own opposition to the war leading directly into an implicit cheerleading for signals of further debacle---which ran counter to the more pacifist-oriented elements in my positions, which pushed toward looking for ways to reduce deaths. so i began to think in terms of a best scenario that would enable the bush squad to pull out of iraq while saving face, mostly because doing so meant the minimizing of death--on all sides. with that in mind, i thought--and still think--that the conditions under which these past elections were held were so dubious as to make the whole process into something of a charade--i could not understand why allawi, the bushpuppet, and the administration in the states insisted on holding them despite these problems. and now i am interested in the problems that the apparent wide defeat of the allawi regime--and the apparent victory for al-sistani---pose for the administration. in general, i think that the elections should have been delayed. it is in the refusal to treat the elections as a possible space for meaningful transition away from american occupation that i began to see that bush is to the discourse of democracy what stalin was to the discourse of socialism. and that is a disaster for everyone. including the conservatives, whose position a priori leaves them no alternative but to see iraq upside-down. but none of the above functions as confirmation of my opposition to the war. but i admit that within this lay the knot posed by my opposition. what really alarms me is the saber rattling about iran. because i do not think this administration is above launching another misbegotten adventure to distract from the endgame of the previous misbegotten adventure. expectations are projections into the future. these projections rely on premises. this applied to all sides, conservatives included. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 02-09-2005 at 07:52 AM..

02-09-2005, 08:39 AM	#55 (permalink)
C4 Diesel Crazy Location: Troy, NY	It really baffles me how people can think that 1%, or even .1% of the population being involved in the insurgency is a small number. Even at 1 in 1000, that's still pretty nuts. If there were .1% of people in your city/town that were well armed and willing to kill you at random to (supposedly) prove their point or break your will, you'd probably shit yourself every time you went outside. ...and you think that the insurgency in insignificant? "Boohoo", only 1 in 1000 are crazy enough to kill at random? Get a grip. __________________ C4 to your door, no beef no more...

02-09-2005, 09:34 AM	#60 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	i am not sure that you want to invoke, at any level, the history of the american treatment of native americans as if it helped you make a distinction between the united states and saddam hussein, mojo. think wounded knee. fyi. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

02-08-2005, 08:55 PM	#43 (permalink)
Manx Loser	It's a simple thing, irate. I didn't support this war before we were taken in, therefore by the very fact that the war took place, it is undeniably a failure. Only you, someone who supported the war, could experience the feeling of success. Consider yourself lucky that you don't view it as a failure.

02-08-2005, 10:40 PM	#48 (permalink)
Manx Loser	Let's not confuse objectives with selling points. Not a one of us can say what the objectives of this administration were or are - but only the short-term memory deficient among us can deny that the primary selling point was WMDs. Which brings me to my next point, back on irate's topic: I honestly had no idea whether Iraq had WMDs. I certainly didn't believe Saddam and I certainly didn't believe this administration. So, in fact, the existence or non-existence of WMDs had absolutely no bearing for me in regards to my opinion that this war was wrong. Which means, even if we HAD found WMDs, I would still consider this war, by it's very existence, to have been a failure. See how far apart we are? Now try and tell me again why I'm supposed to think we've been successful. (As an aside, I'm getting tired of conservatives complaining about people blaming Bush + Co. He's the President, he's the spokesman for guiding policy. I vehemently disagree with the policies this administration has been enacting. I'm going to continue to blame Bush. Deal with it.)

02-09-2005, 09:22 AM	#57 (permalink)
Incosian Upright Location: In my head.	I think the term 'Iraqi' is a bit of a misnomer. Winston Churchill and others created the term Iraq when they arbitrarily structured the modern-day middle east. The people in Iraq are various conglomerations of ethnic groups - i.e. the Kurds, Sunni and Shi'a Muslims. It is a ridiculous concept to try and establish a 'democratic' government in a country that contains such radical polarization on many spectrums...This little project over in Iraq will turn into a theocracy based on the principles of the ethnic majority (i.e. the Shi'a Muslims). Oppression is unavoidable in such a situation...and the Shi'a will want payback for their sufferings under the former Sunni regime. Not in his defense, but Saddam did not gas his own people. He oppressed a competing religious/ethnic faction that threatened his dictatorship. In a slightly different sense, Vladimir Putin uses a similar method of exterminating the competition, as when he locked up the oil tycoon for 'tax evasion'...it is widely known that the rich executive had big political plans and ambitions, so Putin shut him out. Same principle with Saddam, except to a much less severe degree.

02-09-2005, 09:39 AM	#61 (permalink)
Mojo_PeiPei Kiss of Death Location: Perpetual wind and sorrow	I'm not invoking any part of our history in the mistreatment of American Indians. I'm drawing a hypothetical parallel, saying that Saddam's gassing of the Kurds, who were "autonomous", would be similar to Bush gassing Indians on a sovereign reservation. __________________ To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

02-09-2005, 10:17 AM	#64 (permalink)
Mojo_PeiPei Kiss of Death Location: Perpetual wind and sorrow	It's sort of tough to vote someone out of office when he is the only person on the ballot and you "monitored" into checking the "yes" box. And yes the Brit's have certainly left us all a cluster fuck between Iraq and Palestine. __________________ To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

02-09-2005, 11:33 AM	#67 (permalink)
host Banned	I heard a news report last night that there were an estimated 500 foreign fighters and about 1000 combatants following al Zarqawi. If you minimize the signifigance of a domestic Iraqi insurgency of about 15000, how do you react to statements from Bush and his supporters that "we will fight them there so we won't have to fight them here?" Following your logic, isn't it ludicrous to commit 150,000 troops, an equivalent to almost one third of your entire active duty ground force, and try to justify it with the "flypaper" argument? When a force is "decimated", a minimum of 10 percent of it's total number is killed or seriously wounded. With an average force total of less than 150,000 troops in Iraq since March, 2003, and casulaties of more than 12,000, isn't fair to say that the Iraqi insurgency has succeeded in decimating our forces? You are trying to downplay a catastrophe, but the numbers contradict your assertions.

02-09-2005, 11:51 AM	#68 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	and so it appears that this thread landed (so far at least) in exactly the spot you would have anticipated had you simply thought about the matter and never launched it: the folk who support the war with one variant of "reality"--those who opposed with another. and it seems no way to move between positions. and still no willingness on the part of conservatives to put their positions fully on the table, to question the linkages between their own assessments of the situation in iraq and their support for bushwar up front. both these positions cannot simultaneously be correct. so we go back to the earlier argument within the thread, about the underlying causes for this differend, if you like---in the world where there is no difference between policy and politics, no difference between what is marketed and what is "real" this is what you get--conservatives who work from within the reigning discourse can do and say nothing in response to critiques either of their particular positions, nor of the results that bush's policies are continuing to generate on the ground, except to work through already banal talking points. it really does seem that conservsative modes of argument are entirely closed, entirely self-referential, and entirely incapable of interacting with positions that are framed differently. host earlier had talked about this is psychological terms--i talked about it in terms of a particular style of argument--either way the results are the same. is it really impossible for a reflective conservative defense of this misbeggotten imperial adventure to be mounted? one that at least poses the question of what kind of relation obtains for them between their initial assessment of the arguments put forward by the bush people and their take on what is going on now in iraq? the positions--left (if you want--this is america after all) and right are mutually exclusive. if this and other threads like it are any index, conservative arguments really hold no water whatsoever. and they cannot be justified as arguments by any of those who rehearse them. so from the outside, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the positions are simply arbitrary, and to go from there to a psychological explanation for it. but this cannot--seriously, cannot--exhaust the matter. there must be a reflexive/reflective version of support for this war somewhere, one that grapples with the kind of questions anyone who works in opposition has had to--i woudl think that the burden of proof to the contrary now rests with conservatives, at least insofar as this thread is concerned. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

02-09-2005, 03:33 PM	#72 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	moondog: this is why i prefer to emphasize style of argument: but in situations like this, the boundary between that and speculating about psychological motives gets to be really tempting to cross....i reiterate my basic challenge to folk who support the war to spell out their positions in the kind of way that they have tried to pressure those of us who opposed and oppose this war to do. as for the matter of politics being a question of belief--well, most beliefs are rooted in some kind of contact with a world beyond them. so are convictions. both are amenable to testing--i expect that you, like anyone, indulges testing all the time. if you use either belief or conviction as a device to make all political argument arbitrary, and if this reflects a wider pattern (and i believe it does) then we are all in a pretty sorry state of affairs in which nothing can be refuted by recourse to either evidence or argument: when that goes out the window, so does even the slightest pretense to democratic process. but maybe you prefer abandoning even those faint traces of democracy that still float about in the american system. for myself, i think the consequences of it are too high. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

02-09-2005, 04:17 PM	#74 (permalink)
raveneye Born Against	Hear me out, here. I got a lynching party together and managed to find a murder suspect holed up in a meth lab last week. The police weren't doing their job, so we went in. We watched him for awhile, waited until he went inside, then set the place on fire. Sure enough, he came running out, and we got him. Turned out there were a couple people inside the house who were burned to death. Plus the guy he supposedly murdered turned up alive somewhere in Aruba. So he wasn't a murderer after all. But heck, it was a successful operation wasn't it? Only two people died, and we got the guy. He may not have been a murderer, but he was a bad guy. It could have turned out a lot worse, in fact I expected it to. I don't know why everybody keeps criticizing what we did, when we accomplished just about every one of our goals.

02-09-2005, 04:38 PM	#75 (permalink)
Mojo_PeiPei Kiss of Death Location: Perpetual wind and sorrow	Again I never said I don't think they are of concern or an issue, I just merely said I don't consider their cause legit, and I'm not going to be bullied into fear or submission by them and their tactics. __________________ To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

02-09-2005, 05:49 PM	#78 (permalink)
Mojo_PeiPei Kiss of Death Location: Perpetual wind and sorrow	Zarqawi = Jordianian... he is our biggest problem there. Hmmm.... __________________ To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.