Most of your argument is spin control. In order to legitimize your argument you twist rather than deny.
These are useless sentences. Where's the substance?
The statement: "What was that again" pretty well sums up your argument and reasoning.
huh?
You know what the mistruths and exaggerations were.
No, I don't. Tell me. If you can.
It does you very little good to try to win an agrument by ignoring the issue and concentrating on word play.
I'm not.
I ask again: "Where are the WMD's" that Bush stated were the reason we had to go to war to eliminate.
Actually I've looked at all your posts on this thread and that's the first time you've asked this (so you're not asking "again"). On a similar note I can't figure out who you're quoting. But very well.
You ask me, Where are the WMD? Here's the answer: I don't know and I would like to find out. In particular I'd like to keep that dangerous stuff out of the wrong hands.
Um, so what's your point?
"Where are the WMD", like the rest of your post, is not an argument for anything. It's not the same thing as saying "there were no WMD" for example, because as you know, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
I keep hearing this koan-like statement. It's not true. Consider this counter-example:
- I suspect that my kid is smoking dope (because of that damn rap music he listens to). To prove my hunch, I search the house from top to bottom. I find no stash. While he's asleep, I take a hair sample and send it to a lab. The test comes back negative. I hire a team of private eyes to follow him 24/7. They find nothing.
There is an absence of evidence here. If this does not, in addition, constitute "evidence of absence", what would? What further evidence would be required to demonstrate that my son is not smoking dope, the testimony of an omniscient being?
I am _not_ suggesting that the above scenario is in any way analagous to the hunt for WMD. My point is that the absence-of-evidence talisman is bunk. I suspect that this silly tongue-twister was initially coined with the intention of inducing cerebral paralysis, thereby nipping discourse in the bud. To that sordid end it has worked wonders.
Part of the problem is that this reasoning could be used in defense of utterly absurd positions:
- I contend that purple crows exist. Since no one has ever seen such crows and ornithologists swear they do not exist, I will reluctantly grant that there is an absence of evidence for my contention. But as Rumsfeld and everybody else keeps telling us "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
This expression is not one of logic's Ten Commandments and has no place in geopolitical discourse. We could perhaps ask "At what point does an absence of evidence become evidence of absence?" but then we're doing conceptual analysis and might as well tackle the all-time gem "Is the difference between a difference of degree and a difference of kind a difference of degree or a difference of kind?" I think both questions are in the same ballpark regarding their practical application.