Posted on 09/25/2002 1:21:32 AM PDT by MadIvan
Excerpt: "Let's leave the military aspects to one side for the moment - the tactical questions of Iraqi weapons and their possible uses are a matter for the defence experts. Let me deal here just with the moral arguments, which have filled columns of newspaper print and hours of broadcast airtime.
I have spent a good portion of the past 48 hours locked in televised confrontations with critics of the United States. The shrillness of their accusations seems to rise in direct proportion to their incoherence. Even by the usual standards of political doublethink, there is something very desperate and unscrupulous about this case which so ostentatiously claims the moral high ground. It is as if the anti-American reflex came first and the need to substantiate it followed as an afterthought."
Yup!
Oh, get over yourself. Your friend Ivan is the one who decided to disregard points that I made about Pakistan. And how that's not a niggling threat, either. And how it's reasonable to conclude, without being a "coward," that this is a greater danger than the penned-in Iraq regime. And who took my contention of not being a pacifist and deciding that, yes, he's read my mind, and he's determined that I am a pacifist after all. I don't take kindly to being accused, implicitly, of being a liar.
Those who pose the notion that someone is a "coward" or a "traitor" are given a pass around here from supplying well-supported or courteous dialogue. This is nothing new.
I maintained, somewhat more pungently, that someone who only offers assertions and insults is being rhetorically empty. I didn't say that someone who was (British, pro-Bush, fill in the blank) was thereby incorrect. Only the latter case is one of ad hominem.
Insisting on reasonable dialogue doesn't mean that one suffers fools until the end of time. When you slam your buddy Ivan about abandoning substance ("Thank you, Tariq Aziz" qualifies, methinks), I might acknowledge that you're being even-handed. Not until then.
The only real difference lies in those that want to attack Iraq before America is devastated by his weapons of mass destruction versus those that those that want to attack Iraq after America is devastated by his weapons of mass destruction.
Take your pick...
--Boot Hill
In a nutshell.
As you Americans say, if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...
And you have no evidence that Pakistan is a greater threat apart from you saying, "I think Pakistan is a greater threat". I pointed out Musharaff has been helpful during the War on Terror. He has nukes for a different purpose than Saddam Hussein. Nothing you've said has refuted this. It's amazing that you actually think you've refuted it just because you're so certain in your pacifism.
Those who pose the notion that someone is a "coward" or a "traitor" are given a pass around here from supplying well-supported or courteous dialogue. This is nothing new.
If the shoe fits, have the courtesy to wear it. You come on here, make statements without any evidence or logic to back it up and are surprised that you get your head pounded in.
I maintained, somewhat more pungently, that someone who only offers assertions and insults is being rhetorically empty. I didn't say that someone who was (British, pro-Bush, fill in the blank) was thereby incorrect. Only the latter case is one of ad hominem.
Oh dear God, here we go again with the same old pacifist whinge. You offered only assertions. I have challenged you, repeatedly, to provide evidence that Musharaff is a greater threat than Hussein. You have not done so. I have put forward facts - that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons, Iraq has invaded its neighbours and so on. These are facts. You counter by saying my facts are assertions and your assertions are facts. And you wonder why you are regarded with thinly veiled contempt?
Insisting on reasonable dialogue doesn't mean that one suffers fools until the end of time. When you slam your buddy Ivan about abandoning substance ("Thank you, Tariq Aziz" qualifies, methinks), I might acknowledge that you're being even-handed. Not until then.
Awww, did I hurt your little feelings? Wait until hell freezes over for an apology.
Ivan
Precisely and admittedly by those who did it. They wish to eliminate us because we are free; they wish the world to be ruled by Islam and by Shaia. It is exactly an attack on freedom. Have you not read their own words and stated purposes?
You think they attacked us because of oil? How silly.
Those pesky details!
More precisely, they wish to conquer and subjugate us, and then impose Islamic law on us. They violently disagree with the notion of separating church and state, and despise us for having a secular government.
Strange, I don't recall Iraq ever attacking us. All I recall is us attacking them. Tell me where they attacked, Oregon?....Maine?....Florida?
It's called a "metaphor"...you should try it some time!
How in the world do you figure this? It's 2002, not 1962.
The question is, of course, how can we justify a "regime change" for Iraq in 2002 and not have justified a change for Cuba in 1962 (or today, for that matter - surely you don't think that Castro has not accumulated nasty weapons specifically for use against the US??).
The answer is that we've become a different people - and a morally inferior people.
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