You ARE a trusting soul!
If they do not let us in on what they know, it is not because they are in the dark -- it is because they feel it is necessary or advisable to keep us in the dark.
See above.
In war, sometimes there are legitimate reasons for keeping the masses in the dark about important issues. I remind you of the "Ultra-Secret" of the Enigma Decoder during World War II.
Why am I getting this disturbing "Mussolini made the trains run on time" feeling? Richard, hopefully you're not naive enough to believe the Father Knows Best argument.
I can only hope and pray that our government is keeping us in the dark today for good and legitimate reasons. Until given good reason to believe otherwise, I will continue to trust our president. What choice do we have?
No, you can do much more than hope and pray. You can maintain a healthy skepticism whenever America commits its sons and daughters to die (and kill) in a foreign land. If all you've got left is hoping and praying, the battle for truth is lost.
The fact is, we're both speculating. My speculation is based upon faith, hope and trust -- yours upon cynicism and despair. For both of our sakes, I hope that I am the one who turns out to be right.
Once again, you've founded an entire argument on "hope." While it may be the "thing with feathers," it doesn't fly here. Your hope that Bush & Co. is doing the right thing is no substitute for empirical proof that we're justified in this war. And you're right: we're both speculating.
That is a most interesting analysis. But what real value does it have? Your analysis depends completely on your assumption that you are privy to all the facts. And obviously you aren't, because those who know the facts have not taken you into their confidence.
And, by your own admission, neither have they you. But my "cynicism" is less frightening than your blind trust in the rightness of a government that has ever proven duplicitous. My ignorance is forced on me; yours seems a willing blindness.
As the Chinese sage Lao-Tzu put it: "Those who know don't talk. Those who talk don't know."
As I recall, you started the "talk."
If it is so easy to explain why nations go to war, perhaps you could explain to me why the United States entered World War I. I'm still trying to figure that one out.
Red herring. Subject for another thread sometime perhaps, but irrelevant to this one.
If the Iraqis are running false flag operations -- as Laurie Mylroie charges in her book -- then you would not expect Iraqis to be arrested. You would expect the patsies to be arrested.
Certainly that is one explanation. Another might be that no Iraqis have been involved. We'll let Occam's Razor decide which is more plausible. It seems logically "convenient" that the absence of something proves it.
< ...all kinds of terrorists have been arrested in Europe since 9/11. They were Saudis, Pakis, Algerian, Egyptian... etc. There were ZERO Iraqis among them. >>
Poe responded:
If the Iraqis are running false flag operations -- as Laurie Mylroie charges in her book -- then you would not expect Iraqis to be arrested. You would expect the patsies to be arrested.
Iron Jack responded:
Certainly that is one explanation. Another might be that no Iraqis have been involved. We'll let Occam's Razor decide which is more plausible. It seems logically "convenient" that the absence of something proves it.
Poe responds:
Well, IronJack, you can let Occam's Razor decide, if you wish. However, Occam's Razor is probably the worst analytical tool you could possibly employ in any game of strategy.
Take chess, for instance. If your opponent could read your mind and know in advance exactly how you plan to checkmate him, he could easily counter your every move.
The only way to win in chess is to deceive your opponent. You move your pieces in such a way as to make him think he knows what you are planning. But, in fact, you attack him in a different and unexpected way.
In chess, applying Occam's Razor -- that is, assuming that the most obvious explanation for your opponents' moves is the correct one -- will make it impossible for you to win. You will fall for your opponent's deceptions 100 percent of the time.
The same holds true in the eternal "chess game" of geopolitics. Applying Occam's Razor is the surest route to defeat. Whatever trap your opponent lays for you, you will walk right into it.