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Reductio ad Absurdum (Belmont Club on Berg video. WARNING: Graphic content on thread)
Belmont Club ^ | Wednesday, May 12, 2004 | Wretchard

Posted on 05/12/2004 3:55:16 AM PDT by Eurotwit

Andrew Sullivan suggests that the mainstream media publish pictures of an American hostage's severed head in order to balance, among other things, the slide show presentations depicting the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

Let's start an internet campaign to insist that the major media - including the New Yorker, the networks, the major newsweeklies, and every major paper - run a picture of Zarqawi holding up Nick Berg's severed head. It's time to release the Pearl video and stills too. Enough with the double standards. The media were absolutely right to show the abuse photos. But they are only part of the story. It's about time the media gave us all of it, however harrowing it is.

And yeah, why not. If Michael Getler, the ombudsman of the Washington Post can assert that "the reality of war in all its aspects needs to be reported and photographed. That is the patriotic, and necessary, thing to do in a democracy" there is no logical reason why the video showing the Al Qaeda decapitating a screaming Nick Berg shouldn't be given the same treatment. That is, unless the Getler's premise was false in the first place.

The reductio ad absurdum "is a type of logical argument where we assume a claim for the sake of argument, arrive at an absurd result, and then conclude the original assumption must have been wrong, since it gave us this absurd result." The fallacy in Getler's premise was the claim that the Abu Ghraib photographs were simply a factual documentation of an abuse which the public had the right to know about. The existence of the abuses had been known from January, from CENTCOM itself.

January 16, 2004

Release Number: 04-01-43

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DETAINEE TREATMENT INVESTIGATION

BAGHDAD, Iraq – An investigation has been initiated into reported incidents of detainee abuse at a Coalition Forces detention facility. The release of specific information concerning the incidents could hinder the investigation, which is in its early stages. The investigation will be conducted in a thorough and professional manner. The Coalition is committed to treating all persons under its control with dignity, respect and humanity. Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the Commanding General, has reiterated this requirement to all members of CJTF-7.

What was new about the May coverage was that the press had pictures of the Abu Ghraib abuses and was in a position to project, not a new set of facts, but a new set of powerful emotions upon the public. Getler's claim is really an assertion of the right to invoke outrage, disgust and hatred at a specific act and its perpetrators, and those who may have been indirectly responsible for it. By taking this logic to its limit, Sullivan claims the same right: to unleash a symmetrical set of set emotions at another group -- and demonstrates the absurdity. For it must either be correct to publish both the Abu Ghraib and Berg photos or admit partisanship. Surely, if it is acceptable to run the risk of tainting the entire US military with the brush of Abu Ghraib then there can be no harm in coloring all Muslims with the hues of Al Qaeda. But this is madness.

The Belmont Club predicted that "the sad balance of probability is that Abu Ghraib will be displaced from the front pages by the next terrorist outrage, the next Bali, the next Madrid, the next 9/11 until we find ourselves wondering why it upset us at all" -- and the process has already begun. People who only yesterday were beating their breasts at infamy of the 800th MP brigade will be calling for a MOAB to dropped on Fallujah tomorrow. And to the inherent madness of war we will add another lunacy: strategy by manic-depression. 'Are we feeling generous today toward the enemy? Or do we want to get some aggression off our chests? Hmm?'

This is what comes of asserting the right to unleash emotions disconnected from rational perspective as "patriotic". This is what comes of not sticking to facts and they are these. The enemy has attacked America on its own soil and therefore must be defeated utterly. Members of the US military have committed a court-martial offense and therefore they must be punished severely. Any withdrawal from Iraq will not bring safety from enemy action inasmuch as they attacked Manhattan and Washington DC nearly two years before OIF. Any withdrawal from Iraq without first setting up a stable and responsible government there would result in a bloodbath beside which the massacre of the Shi'ites and the gassing of the Kurds by Saddam would be a pale moonlit shadow. Therefore we must persist until victory.

And the final fact is this. The only exit from war's inhumanity is through the doorway of victory. For while it may be mitigated, controlled and reduced to a certain extent fundamentally "war is cruelty, and you cannot refine it", though victory can end it. While it continues, as many in the Left who long for a 21st century Vietnam hope, it will unleash unpredictable forces which no one can control. Those who delighted in discovering the photographs at Abu Ghraib little imagined Nick Berg's video. And while we can safely grant Andrew Sullivan's plea and publish both, for reasons the media imagine are laudable, it is what comes next that I am afraid of.


TOPICS: Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: belmontclub
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The original article can be found here:

Belmont Club

1 posted on 05/12/2004 3:55:16 AM PDT by Eurotwit
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To: Antoninus; lainde; RightWingMama; sartorius; DAVEY CROCKETT; Cannoneer No. 4; Dog; Cap Huff; ...
Belmont Club Ping.
2 posted on 05/12/2004 3:55:46 AM PDT by Eurotwit
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To: Eurotwit
BUMP


AMERICANS BEHEADED BY ISLAMIC SUBHUMANS

THIS LATEST BEHEADING WAS DIRECTLY DUE TO SCHEMING DAN RATHER AND PROTERRORIST CBS.


AMERICANS HANGING ON A BRIDGE IN FALLUJA BY ISLAMIC SUBHUMANS


TORTURE OF AMERICANS BY ISLAMIC SUBHUMANS



3 posted on 05/12/2004 3:59:14 AM PDT by Diogenesis (We do what we are meant to do)
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To: Eurotwit
Thanks for posting Belmont Club and our own Wretchard.
4 posted on 05/12/2004 4:00:07 AM PDT by dennisw (Exposing John Kerry--> Swift Boat Veterans for Truth---> http://www.swiftvets.com)
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To: Diogenesis
A Democratic strategist was just on Fox and said the beheading was cause to reconsider the war on terror. The Democrats have endorsed this savagery as support for their cause.
5 posted on 05/12/2004 4:03:23 AM PDT by paguch
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To: paguch


6 posted on 05/12/2004 4:12:48 AM PDT by Diogenesis (We do what we are meant to do)
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To: Eurotwit
bttt
7 posted on 05/12/2004 4:17:00 AM PDT by firewalk
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To: Eurotwit
Bump.
8 posted on 05/12/2004 4:17:23 AM PDT by Rocko (Michael Moore: "Dude, I'm a hypocrite.")
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To: Eurotwit
bttt
9 posted on 05/12/2004 4:51:49 AM PDT by SeeRushToldU_So (Confused yet?)
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To: paguch
A Democratic strategist was just on Fox and said the beheading was cause to reconsider the war on terror. The Democrats have endorsed this savagery as support for their cause.

Translation: Tuck our tails between our legs and run for the house.

10 posted on 05/12/2004 4:57:16 AM PDT by SLB ("We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us." C. S. Lewis)
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To: paguch
A Democratic strategist was just on Fox and said the beheading was cause to reconsider the war on terror. The Democrats have endorsed this savagery as support for their cause.

Translation: Tuck our tails between our legs and run for the house.

11 posted on 05/12/2004 4:57:48 AM PDT by SLB ("We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us." C. S. Lewis)
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To: SLB
Sorry - thou shalt not hit the "post" button twice.
12 posted on 05/12/2004 4:58:37 AM PDT by SLB ("We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us." C. S. Lewis)
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To: Eurotwit
People think with their emotions rather than their brain and fall for all the left wing media BS

It will take another major hit on USA soil with deaths in the tens of thousands if not more before the boob public wakes up and before Bush ends this compassionate conservatism and apologizing BS

Maybe then we will go on a real war footing

Until that happens things will keep getting worse

Even then the dumbasses on the left won't get the message but maybe enough Americans will
13 posted on 05/12/2004 4:59:42 AM PDT by uncbob
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To: SLB
The left is really upset that at one of their most triumphant moments in a long while ( the overinflated Iraqi prison abuse issue ) their terrorist good buddies would give them a kick in the crotch like this. They don't know how to handle it and are asking why and questioning the timing of the execution. It's because their friends who the think are "freedom fighters" are completely INSANE! Crazy as outhouse rats. You are known by the company you keep.
14 posted on 05/12/2004 5:08:14 AM PDT by Hillarys Gate Cult (Proud member of the right wing extremist Neanderthals.)
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To: Eurotwit
The body on the overpass, I wonder if that is Nick or the university professor that was also beheaded last weekend. I can't imagine them changing his clothes after he was dead.
15 posted on 05/12/2004 5:12:09 AM PDT by eastforker (The color of justice is green,just ask Johny Cochran!)
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To: uncbob
A large segment of our population will adopt a pro-war attitude when Oprah adopts a pro-war attitude. Unfortunately, this will not happen until there's another big (maybe very big) terrorist attack on our soil.

Just being realistic.

(steely)

16 posted on 05/12/2004 5:13:37 AM PDT by Steely Tom
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To: paguch
A Democratic strategist was just on Fox and said the beheading was cause to reconsider the war on terror.

I hate to say it, but he's partly right, but not in a way he thinks.

We need to reconsider our methods, but not the validity of the effort.

Just as Truman made an unspeakable decision to bring WWII to a quick, devastating end, it may now be time to consider that option in this war. Let's not drag this out any longer than necessary.

17 posted on 05/12/2004 5:20:18 AM PDT by tdadams (If there were no problems, politicians would have to invent them... wait, they already do.)
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To: Steely Tom
I normally avoid train wrecks and accident scenes, just not my thing, but I have always resented the sanitizing of the 911 event while it was unfolding.
I wanted to get the full picture then, as I do now, since it certaily is "the reality of war in all its aspects needs to be reported and photographed."

I want to see muslim primitive savage inhumanity (spare me the fraternity BS). I need to feel anger. If I am ever faced with the islamic enemy, I guarantee you, there will be no ROE or one sided conventions.

18 posted on 05/12/2004 5:25:38 AM PDT by Publius6961 (I don't do diplomacy either.)
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To: eastforker
The body on the overpass, I wonder if that is Nick or the university professor that was also beheaded last weekend. I can't imagine them changing his clothes after he was dead.

Please fill us in. I missed that one. One of our lapses in the propaganda war (we are dealing with subhumans here so this is the major element of the ongoing war) is that we, after all this time, fail to keep a running list of all the atrocities. Taking them one at a time makes them all look like isolated incidents. All the thousands of them...

Of course, I don't expect our moron press to be constant and faithful to the "the reality of war in all its aspects needs to be reported and photographed. That is the patriotic, and necessary, thing to do in a democracy".

19 posted on 05/12/2004 5:32:46 AM PDT by Publius6961 (I don't do diplomacy either.)
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To: Publius6961
here you go.http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1133821/posts
20 posted on 05/12/2004 5:38:59 AM PDT by eastforker (The color of justice is green,just ask Johny Cochran!)
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