Tim Russert memory stayed the same throughout the ordeal. Mr. Libby is the one that changed his story on 07/10/2003 he told the grand jury he learned Plame’s identity from Russert. Later he recanted that and “remembered” seeing a note that jogged his memory and really heard the name from Cheney.

Another big difference Tim Russert is a reporter and private citizen, while I. Lewis Libby was a government employee and must abided by the laws and rules that job is govern by (just like the rest of us). You should not feel sorry for Mr. Libby after all the big boss pardon him, would he have done the same for Russert?


Problem is that Russert himself admitted that he "couldn't rule out" the subject coming up, but that he had no specific recall of it. Sounds like HC with the Rose Law Firm files. Libby, by comparison, tried to cooperate with the prosecuter and was fried for it. Seems they had to settle for a smaller fish when they couldn't get Cheney et al. Basically, the lesson of Scooter Libby is that if you you don't recall spefics, stick to that story. When criminals use it it's called the 5th Amendment. When journalists and politicians resort to it.....I guess it's called convenient memory. Btw, if one is "lying" to a prosecuter.....I don't recall there being any distinction made about the employment status of the "liar" in the law. Someone like Russert, Novak, Matthews, Rather et al must be just as honest as any government employee. As for pity.....I wouldn't waste it on Scooter less he were completely thrown under the bus (ie. no pardon).

Good point, but since I cannot honestly say if Russert is lying or not I will not judge him. However, neither he nor any law firm associated with President Clinton was the one that made the convenient memory loss defensive popular. President Ronald Regan gets that honor for his handling of the Iran-contra affair. Mr. Libby also was quite found of using it during his testimony in this case, just not on the issue you brought up.

I would have had a problem if Russert would have disclosed this information to the public, but the crime happened when another reporter disclosed this information to the public. I don’t believe he went to jail or was fired either and who told him about Valery Plame? Mr. Libby?

Well, I suspect that "swiss cheese memory", in all fairness, probably predates RR. But, that reference does remind of that SNL bit with Phil Hartman as RR. Perhaps you saw it? Whether one falls in the "I hate Ron/I love Ron" camp, it was hilarious.

Precisely. It's just his word. So until you get some corroborating evidence, would you kindly can the definitive statements about how sadistic and evil our military commanders are.

Hello wise sir. Since you would very much like to see evidence of American "sadistic and evil military commanders", I thought I would give you this little link:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0806-07.htm)

But alas, since you and Mr.RobQel-Droma make yourselves out to be such American history experts, human rights experts, and seem to have about a dozen Ph.D's in many various fields (judging from how you make statements propaganda, and the "9/11 attacks"), this probably isn't news to you.

I am curious as to whether or not you will fail to see the similarities of how the American Military handled Vietnam and now handles the Iraq War. I doubt you will question the authenticity of this information as it is sourced very well.
This is straight from the Los Angeles Times, and the report is written by a freelance journalist who did his research.

If you would like a report such as this about the Iraq War crimes, then I am afraid I will have to make you wait for about 30 years or so until the military documents are declassified.

---

For people who are interested what Vietnam Veterans have to say about Iraq:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/engelhardt/engelhardt157.html)

My apologies, Jae.

The statement that I made to you was:
I'm not sure how one condones collateral damage while snubbing torture.

...after you had said:
Oh, yea, Achilles. That totally compares to taking people who are KNOWN to be civilians and torturing them and killing them brutally. Yea.

So at no point did I say that you did, however I have been waiting for you to clarify your statement for over a week.

First of all, you brought forth an idea of collateral damage being not as bad as torture, which I never put forth.

But, anyways, I have been answering your want of clarification for over a week now. Perhaps you remember my little piece about collateral damage being most often either unavoidable or unknown until after the fact.

My argument was that I'm not sure how one condones collateral damage while snubbing torture. If you're not telling me that you don't, then that's fine, however that would appear to contradict the tone of your earlier statement.


You said you attack contradictions, but you just made one yourself. You said you never said I didn't say that I condoned collateral damage (lol, mouthful), but you just said:

I'm not sure how one condones collateral..... -snip-

Who are you talking about there? Nobody did.

No, we didn't have evidence. In fact, we had an operative go the the country where Saddam allegedly bought the nuclear materials that came back and said that there was nothing. We had U.N. weapons inspectors in the country looking where the intelligence told them the weapons were and saying there was nothing. So, no, we didn't have any evidence.


Instead of saying all over again what was said just above by Totenkopf, I will refer you to what he said very well. I agree - It's just too bad that you find it ok to bash my source by his connections or suppposed beliefs, but you fail to examine your own source.

And since your argument seems to be built entirely upon Saddam having a bomb (which we now know for certain he did not) then it would seem that the your reasoning falls flat.


Er... maybe in your opinion. First of all, he had the plans for one, and secondly, he was building other weapons to try and move against his neighbors. It's not just about a bomb, it's everything else Saddam was doing. Which we warned him not to do, but he ignored.

Really? When did I ask that?

You asked why we were in Iraq, and then asked why we weren't in Afghanistan where the al-qaeda training camps were, as I remember....

No, I caught that, I'm just waiting for something from a credible source (i.e. not an neo-con think tank that helped to orchestrate the invasion of Iraq)


Nice "spin" on discrediting the guy. I'm waiting for you to come up with something else other than just calling the guy a "neo-con think tank". Which, just an FYI, isn't a very strong argument. Now, just what could I say about your "sources"? I'm sure I could give Russert and Charles Ferguson various baseless attributes as well.

It shows that the "evidence" isn't evidence. It's like calling a bank after you find out there's been a robbery and then believing the robber when he answers the phone and tells you that everything's fine.

I fail to see the analogy.

E) All of the above.

I see. I hope that is not your way of discrediting info, by bashing everything connected to it.

It's called questioning sources and identifying potential sources of bias. It's key to critical thinking. snipped

Lol. Says the man who is right now, believing "No End in Sight" and Tim Russert. I wonder what is basis of faith in these sources is? I'd like to figure out that one. I guess I just mean: do you think that they might, just might be some bias in your sources as well? If it is the key to critical thinking, I would hope you would apply it to yourself as well.

That the members of the PNAC probably squealed like small children on christmas morning on September 11, 2001.

So, let me get this straight. You are accusing them of celebrating the murder of thousands of innocent Americans?

And, just to let you know, I don't see this as any more than another weak attempt to smear someone in connection with the evidence I presented.

That's one way to put it. You're free to present a counter-argument if you don't agree with my thinking.

I don't really think I need to. At this point in our discussion, I think I'll let other people make the judgement on your decisions regarding my source, and your "reasons" for them.

It's entirely possible, but your accusation is not going to persuade me. You'll actually need to provide some sort of evidence that should cause a reasonable person to question the validity of the information presented (i.e. flawed methodologies in the data collection, etc). Kinda like what I did when I pointed out that your source is the mouth piece of a neo-con think tank.

It is rather hard to take this seriously. Your statement is almost funny, if you look at it. You talk about "some sort of evidence that should cause a reasonable person to question the validity of the information presented". So this method is all well and good - but shall we look at your example of how to do this?

Here it is: You point out that a good example of this superior type of reasoning was making a statement of how he was a "mouth piece of a neo-con think tank."

So, is calling someone names (i.e. a mouthpiece) and smearing their connections the new way of discrediting evidence?

In fact, it's even funnier when you consider that you have no evidence for this first "evidence". All you said for your reason of your accusation was: Kristol founded an organization that made some comment that (you think) meant they were celebrating on 9/11.

I think most would agree that your "example" or your reasoning method is, well.... a little weak, to say the least.

All you offered was "What?" so I'm not sure which part you need help with.

As I said, the only part there.

But I will rephrase. What are you pretending is not happening?

Was this a counter-argument to something? This seems very out of context for the section you quoted.

I was asking you if you could explain why I would believe the movie, to put it differently.

Because the director Charles Ferguson is really just a usual war-hating liberal who had the usual indoctrination through college, where he was most likely taught by biased liberals.

So, was that a good job of discrediting him? ;)

Just kidding.

In fairness, I think I might see the source of the division in our thinking. I would like the U.S. to be a good example of leadership for the world, aka a role model of other nations. It would seem though that you just want to U.S. to be in charge regardless of how we're viewed or how we get there.

Not quite. But we got there by ourselves. We don't depend on people to tell us what we should do and shouldn't do. I'll explain more:

Yes, you can lead by fear and intimidation, but that only goes so far for so long and usually there are consequences. Not how I prefer to do business.

I hope that is not want you see America as doing. But if you want us to do business, than I agree. Let's do business - lets take care of these terrorists like we know we can, but haven't put our full force into.

But, let me say this. We don't need other countries to tell us what is right or wrong. To use an analogy like you did, it is like letting the other kids in the playground decide what you do, whether it is right or not. No, you do what is right regardless of what any other third-world country or other thinks. You don't decide not to do something because of their opinion.

King of the hill...for now. Yay for us.

I agree. God bless America.

And we will be for a long time, if we start getting back to being the strong nation we once were.

Of course it does. If the terrorists come here, we've got troops here to defend the citizens that are here. Armed guys in uniforms at the airports. Fighter pilots ready to scramble. National Guard guys at large public events to help act as security.

I'm really glad your not in charge of this kind of thing, because that is not how you defend a country unless you are completely hemmed in.

I will, again, refer you to what Totenkopf said.

Right, like when you realize that the bombs that you drop may have killed innocent civilians. Our guys have to live with that. And we have to live with the reputation that sort of action earns us around the world.

No we don't. We take out who we have to, and those guys are going to have a much easier time if they do.

Are you suggesting that we not drop bombs on any targets unless there are absolutely zero civilians or "maybe civilians" near the target?

I would suggest that we follow the instructions of the Framers and the Constitution and avoid foreign entanglements. As I have been trying to point out in this thread, foreign entanglements is how this situation got started in the first place (via our support of our allies in the early 20th century and again via our direct actions during the 70's-90's).

I'm interested to hear your views on World War I and II.

Who's "slamming" them?

Several of the prominent - or not - people on your "side" (for lack of a better word), to put it bluntly.

If you're a small guerrilla force trying to fight off a militarily superior occupying army?

Exactly. They are a small guerilla force. Why would they sacrifice members to blow up perhaps a dozen troops? That is not how they operate. Otherwise, it's going to be a really short war. :xp:

Sure. I don't like it and I don't condone it, but as you keep pointing out, war is hell.

I do? Lol. I never remember saying that, but it doesn't matter, b/c its not like I don't agree with that somewhat.

Oh, and I thought you said that it was the people over their had justification to hate us and want to suicide bomb us?

[quote=Achilles]Which part? The holy land part? Don't take my word for, Osama bin Laden will tell you himself. He's been trying to tell us for more than a decade.

I'd love to believe him. But strangely, his place on my trusted source list falls just short.

[quote=Achilles]The blowback part? It only stands to reason. You're more than welcome to present a counter-argument if you don't agree with my thinking.

They hated us long before then, man, it's been like this for a while. It doesn't help when half of the religious leaders are preaching the idea of "convert or die" to the masses.

The condensed version is that we stationed troops in Saudi Arabia, which is where Mecca is (you know, the place that all muslims face when they pray 5 times per day). It also happens to be where Medina is. These two places are considered sacred and that infidels are occupying these lands really, really pissed off devout muslims (aka fundies, aka islamic extremists). So Osama bin Laden decided that the king was now in bed with the devil (figuratively, but maybe literally too) and that action must be taken against said infidels (aka us). When he didn't get our attention with the embassy bombing in Africa, the barracks bombing in Saudi Arabia, the first attack on the world trade center, or the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, he decided to set is aims higher.

And that is ok with you? Because it is "our" fault?

And so the proper action is to bomb buildings and kill civilians? What?

Oh, and I didn't miss your little "devil" part, of "figuratively but maybe literally". So, now you are calling America the devil - or very close. I honestly hope I misunderstood you.

I'm not even going to try and get to the issue of stationing troops yet, because I think that this issue should be resolved first.

Wow.

I meant every word of it. We need to end this "lifestyle" of suicide bombing and hating all Western Powers a.k.a "infidels". Otherwise, more Americans will die.

Yes, that sounds exactly like what I said.

Before I just let your previous quote speak for itself (at this point I don't think we'll convince each other of anything on this specific issue), I would like to ask you this:

What should we do? Take our beating?

As before, this is something else that I will let other people make the judgement, because there's not much else I could say right now. (short of flaming or some other pointless action)

Not an extreme I'm willing to adopt, but it's a free country and you're welcome to your opinion.

How far are you willing to go, hmm? When does it become "all right" for America to go to war?

Within reason, yes, that's precisely the argument that I am making.

Well.... interesting belief, I'll say that.

And splitting hairs wins you what?

.....Whatever.

I really don't care. I was wondering, however, how you got your idea of those wars. I wasn't splitting hairs - just trying to clarify exactly what your opinion of those wars were.

It seems to me that there is either conventional warfare or unconventional warfare. Since unconvential warfare is almost the exact definition of "guerrilla warfare", I'm not sure what you're hoping to prove here.

I spoke about guerilla groups earlier, so I won't repeat.

Just whom are you suggesting we “completely eradicate”? If you are taking about al-Qaeda then I completely agree, but it sounds like you are talking about the Islamic people. I’m going to assume you are not condoning genocide of a people based on where they live or their religious belief.

Oh, lol, you really don't think that do you? Of course not, I'm not proclaiming genocide. If that was what being a Muslim is, then I don't know, but I was clearly referring to the Al-Qaeda and other assorted terrorists in that region.

I mean, seriously, you do realize that we have many Muslims in the U.S. who feel no need to blow themselves up for this "cause". ;)

Are you speaking to 911 about people attacking the U.S. and blowing up civilians? If you are speaking of 911 what does that have to do with the people of Iraq?

I already talked about this earlier. Al-Qaeda has many different connections. In fact I just mentioned some in my previous two posts....

Try being one without having people “decided” you are a leader. Without followers, there cannot be a leader. Of course a leader can pay people to following them, but the followers still decide that the pay is enough to give there allegiance. A leader can use threats and fear to obtain followers, but the followers still have to decide if the peril is real.

Taking a stand may get someone admiration from people that believe similarly, but it does not by its self make someone a leader

On the contrary, I believe it does, because it shows you to be the leader just by the action, if you understand me. Just because people vote you to be a leader does not mean you really are one, no? It has to do with the individual, or country in this matter. People tend to flock around a leader, you can see it happen everyday; and it usually doesn't matter too much if there is a difference of opinion. That is why they are "followers" and that one person is a "leader", lol. I'm not saying we should do whatever we want, but it is not up to the "followers" to tell the "leader" what is right.

Well, they can tell them, but as a leader, you usually do what they want just because they want it. I understand what you mean. The line between "I can do whatever I want" and "I operate by my own creed although I do listen to my followers" is very slim. However, I guess my real point is that the leader in this situation is the one who makes the decision, and people will fall in behind. You don't suck up to your followers, right?

Besides, countries would support the U.S. It might not be out of admiration, but if it is because we did the right thing and they didn't want us to, who cares? You don't let that dictate your policies. What America needs now, and I believe this, is to do just that: "take a stand", and show people what we are and what we stand for. Simply showing strength will do a lot to stopping terrible things such as terrorist suicide bombings, and whatnot.

But alas, since you and Mr.RobQel-Droma make yourselves out to be such American history experts, human rights experts, and seem to have about a dozen Ph.D's in many various fields (judging from how you make statements propaganda, and the "9/11 attacks"), this probably isn't news to you.

Geez, someone takes offense at our opinions. I hope you don't mind if I treat you the same way.

Oh, and BTW, giving us info about the Vietnam War which may or may not be legit really does nothing for this discussion about the Iraq war. :dozey: So I will let you wait for your 30 years - then you can tell us about these unknown atrocites that you, however, know are happening right now.

I guess you must be the new "American future" expert. ;)

First of all, you brought forth an idea of collateral damage being not as bad as torture, which I never put forth. Actually, I did not. If you go back and read the post I said:

I'm not sure how one condones collateral damage while snubbing torture.
Which does not mean that collateral damage is not as bad as torture. It means that it is as bad as torture.

But, anyways, I have been answering your want of clarification for over a week now. Perhaps you remember my little piece about collateral damage being most often either unavoidable or unknown until after the fact. IIRC, that's not how you posted it, but regardless of the words used, the thrust of the message was that collateral damage is an unavoidable cost of doing war. I agree that this is the case when you drop less-than-100% precise munitions on targets, accidentally kill civilians that you believe to be insurgents because they failed to respond to verbal commands, etc. But what this still doesn't tell me at the end of the day is how one condones collateral damage while snubbing torture.

You said you attack contradictions, but you just made one yourself. You said you never said I didn't say that I condoned collateral damage (lol, mouthful), but you just said:

I'm not sure how one condones collateral..... -snip-

Who are you talking about there? Nobody did. Then perhaps you can put this original quote in context for me then? Here it is once more:
Oh, yea, Achilles. That totally compares to taking people who are KNOWN to be civilians and torturing them and killing them brutally. Yea. Which was your reply to my pointing out that we drop bombs on Iraqi civilians (not intentionally, of course, hence why it's known as collateral damage). I hope this helps to clarify the discrepancy.

Instead of saying all over again what was said just above by Totenkopf, I will refer you to what he said very well. I agree - It's just too bad that you find it ok to bash my source by his connections or suppposed beliefs, but you fail to examine your own source. I don't see Totenkopf's posts, so I'll need a quote if there is something that you would like for me to address. As for the 2nd part, if you can find fault with any source I provide, you are most warmly invited to share your concerns with me. In turn, I will point out any concerns that I have with sources that you provide.

In the mean time, we still don't have any evidence that Saddam had the WMDs that we said that we had evidence for. I'm not sure how I would source a "no evidence" argument. Since you are the one claiming that he did have them, it would seem that the burden of proof is on you to support your claim. That's not me; that's just how the burden of proof works.

Er... maybe in your opinion. First of all, he had the plans for one, and secondly, he was building other weapons to try and move against his neighbors. It's not just about a bomb, it's everything else Saddam was doing. Which we warned him not to do, but he ignored. Well that's a different story and not the rationale that we were originally provided for our justification to invade.

You asked why we were in Iraq, and then asked why we weren't in Afghanistan where the al-qaeda training camps were, as I remember.... I repeat: Please show me where I stated that we weren't in Afghanistan.

Nice "spin" on discrediting the guy. I'm waiting for you to come up with something else other than just calling the guy a "neo-con think tank". Which, just an FYI, isn't a very strong argument. Now, just what could I say about your "sources"? I'm sure I could give Russert and Charles Ferguson various baseless attributes as well. I'm not sure how it's spin if it's true. And just for clarification, I didn't say he was a neo-con think tank, I pointed out that his neo-con think tank was a neo-con think tank. They have all flavors of think tanks, the one that he founded and helps to run just happens to have a neo-conservative agenda.

I fail to see the analogy. Well, you're using a neo-conservative publication which shares ownership with the same neo-conservative think tank which built the framework for the justification for the invasion of Iraq as a source for how our invasion was justified. I suppose if we wanted an additional level of verification of these statements we could have asked the Vice President, The Secretary of Defense, or the Deputy Secretary of Defense for their assessments, but it would seem that they are all members of the same think-tank, so that doesn't really do us any good.

Also, the aforementioned Deputy Secretary of Defense was a gentleman named Paul Wolfowitz. Paul Wolfowitz drafted something known as the Wolfowitz Doctrine, which was the foundation for the policies put forth by the PNAC.

You're free to research all of this yourself and draw your own conclusions if you're concerned that I am somehow attempting to spin this or fabricate any part of it. It's all public record.

I see. I hope that is not your way of discrediting info, by bashing everything connected to it. Yes sir, it simply known as skepticism. If I "bash" it and it falls apart, then I don't believe it. If I "bash" it and it stands up to scrutiny, then I place a small measure of reliability in it.

Lol. Says the man who is right now, believing "No End in Sight" and Tim Russert. I wonder what is basis of faith in these sources is? I'd like to figure out that one. I guess I just mean: do you think that they might, just might be some bias in your sources as well? If it is the key to critical thinking, I would hope you would apply it to yourself as well. Well, perhaps we could start by examining each of the specific concerns that you have with any source that I have provided and take it from there. It's obvious that you're incredulous, and I don't fault you for that, however the lack of specificity makes it difficult to nail down what your precise arguments are.

So, let me get this straight. You are accusing them of celebrating the murder of thousands of innocent Americans? "Celebrating" as in cake and ice cream with silly hats? No. Happy that they just happened to get the catastrophe that they said that they would need to fast-track their agenda? Yes, I imagine they were very happy indeed. And that it happened exactly one year after they published the paper asking for it was just a bonus.

And, just to let you know, I don't see this as any more than another weak attempt to smear someone in connection with the evidence I presented. You're welcome to see it however you would like.

I don't really think I need to. At this point in our discussion, I think I'll let other people make the judgement on your decisions regarding my source, and your "reasons" for them. Sounds good. Thanks.

It is rather hard to take this seriously. Your statement is almost funny, if you look at it. You talk about "some sort of evidence that should cause a reasonable person to question the validity of the information presented". So this method is all well and good - but shall we look at your example of how to do this?

Here it is: You point out that a good example of this superior type of reasoning was making a statement of how he was a "mouth piece of a neo-con think tank."

So, is calling someone names (i.e. a mouthpiece) and smearing their connections the new way of discrediting evidence?

In fact, it's even funnier when you consider that you have no evidence for this first "evidence". All you said for your reason of your accusation was: Kristol founded an organization that made some comment that (you think) meant they were celebrating on 9/11.

I think most would agree that your "example" or your reasoning method is, well.... a little weak, to say the least.Hmmm...well there's a lot here.

Yes, I pointed out that the source you provided is owned by a neo-conservative that also founded a neo-conservative think tank, and that this source frequently acts as a mouthpiece for the think tank. Is any part of this untrue?

Second, "mouthpiece" is not a pejorative.
: one that expresses or interprets another's views : SPOKESMAN

Third, I'm not "smearing" their relationship. I'm only pointing out that it exists and therefore calls into question the journalistic integrity of the publication itself. Doesn't say out right that it's garbage; it simply calls it into question.

Fourth, I have no evidence that Bill Kristol founded the Weekly Standard and the PNAC?
The Weekly Standard was founded in September 1995 by William Kristol, the son of neoconservative intellectual Irving Kristol and a former aide to Dan Quayle when he was vice president.
Link (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/29/AR2005082902109.html)
William Kristol is editor of The Weekly Standard, as well as chairman and co-founder of the Project for the New American Century.
Link (http://www.newamericancentury.org/williamkristolbio.htm)
It's public record, sir. I have no need to make it up.

Fifth, the PNAC published a paper in September of 2000. In it, the authors made the following statement:
Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor. (page 51)
Link (http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf)
Again, public record so no fabrication necessary on my part.

So please be so kind as to point out which part of what I said was "weak". Thanks in advance.

But I will rephrase. What are you pretending is not happening? To the best of my knowledge, my statement had nothing to do with me not pretending. Do you believe that civilian women and children are being killed by American forces in Iraq?

I was asking you if you could explain why I would believe the movie, to put it differently. You might not. I was simply inviting you to see it for yourself before deciding that none of what it said was true.

Because the director Charles Ferguson is really just a usual war-hating liberal who had the usual indoctrination through college, where he was most likely taught by biased liberals. And your evidence for any of these stereotypes being accurate or true?

Not quite. But we got there by ourselves. We don't depend on people to tell us what we should do and shouldn't do. I'll explain more: Please let me know where I can find this additional explanation. I am unable to locate it now. Thanks.

I hope that is not want you see America as doing. At least in part, yes.

But if you want us to do business, than I agree. Let's do business - lets take care of these terrorists like we know we can, but haven't put our full force into. And in so doing make more terrorist, just like we made the last batch. Except this time, highly educated and in bed with countries that do have access to nuclear weapons like Pakistan.

But, let me say this. We don't need other countries to tell us what is right or wrong. To use an analogy like you did, it is like letting the other kids in the playground decide what you do, whether it is right or not. No, you do what is right regardless of what any other third-world country or other thinks. You don't decide not to do something because of their opinion. I think you might be missing the point. It's not that we need other countries to tell us what's right and wrong. We're a big boy country now and we can figure out "right and wrong" all on our own. And if we continue to do wrong in the interest of being "Number One", then we cannot call ourselves leaders and we cannot claim that we extend our influence via the example that we set.

I'm really glad your not in charge of this kind of thing, because that is not how you defend a country unless you are completely hemmed in. I acknowledge that this is your opinion.

I will, again, refer you to what Totenkopf said. Again, you'll need to quote his post if there is something you would like for me to address. Thanks.

No we don't. We take out who we have to, and those guys are going to have a much easier time if they do. Right and then live with the consequences.

Are you suggesting that we not drop bombs on any targets unless there are absolutely zero civilians or "maybe civilians" near the target? I am suggesting that this would be one way to eliminate collateral damage if one were so inclined to do so.

I'm interested to hear your views on World War I and II. Fire up a thread and I'll be more than happy to join you.

Several of the prominent - or not - people on your "side" (for lack of a better word), to put it bluntly. And what is "my side"? Am I to be indiscriminately burdened with arguments made by people other than myself?

Exactly. They are a small guerilla force. Why would they sacrifice members to blow up perhaps a dozen troops? That is not how they operate. Otherwise, it's going to be a really short war. :xp:You are aware that this is precisely what is going on over there, correct? They blow themselves up and try to take as many infidels with them as they can. Martyrdom is sacred in islam.

And Viet Cong did the same during Viet Nam. Ho Chi Minh said that we could kill 10 of his for every one of our but they would still win. The war lasted for about 15 years, cost our country millions (if not billions) of dollars, and took the lives of 50,000 american troops before we finally had to leave because we had been routed out.

Granted, not the same conflict, but I think there is a little bit of history repeating going on here.

Looks like there was some "fun with tags" below. I'll try to clean it up. My apologies if I inadvertently miss anything.

I do? Lol. I never remember saying that, but it doesn't matter, b/c its not like I don't agree with that somewhat. Well at least that seems to be your position. If it is not, then my apologies.

Oh, and I thought you said that it was the people over their had justification to hate us and want to suicide bomb us? Yes, I believe I did state that. Doesn't mean that I think that they should though or that I like that they are. Same thing goes for us with our sanctimonious "war on terror".

I'd love to believe him. But strangely, his place on my trusted source list falls just short. Fair enough.

They hated us long before then, man, it's been like this for a while. It doesn't help when half of the religious leaders are preaching the idea of "convert or die" to the masses. Long before when?
Also, why do you think there has been a resurgence of islamic fundamentalism for the past 80 years?

And that is ok with you? Because it is "our" fault? Is what ok with me? The attacks of September 11th?
No, that's not ok with me. I'm not sure how that absolves our government (past and present) of our involvment in events leading up to it though (i.e. stationing troops in Saudi Arabia, supporting dictators, etc). Can't necessarily draw little black hats on all of them if they are "getting us back" for what we did.

And so the proper action is to bomb buildings and kill civilians? What? Proper? Who's argument is this?

Oh, and I didn't miss your little "devil" part, of "figuratively but maybe literally". So, now you are calling America the devil - or very close. I honestly hope I misunderstood you. You probably did. islamic fundies refer to the US as "The Great Satan". Since the king was considered to be partners with us, I imagine there was both a figurative and literal bent to how that was interpretted.

I'm not even going to try and get to the issue of stationing troops yet, because I think that this issue should be resolved first. Erm...but keeping our troops there and sending more...er...doesn't...resolve it. It makes it worse. That's my whole point.

I meant every word of it. We need to end this "lifestyle" of suicide bombing and hating all Western Powers a.k.a "infidels". Otherwise, more Americans will die. And we do that...how? Kill everyone that dislikes us? That list is going to continue to get longer, not shorter.

Before I just let your previous quote speak for itself (at this point I don't think we'll convince each other of anything on this specific issue), I would like to ask you this:

What should we do? Take our beating? In moments like these, I like to ask myself: What would jesus do?
Now, I imagine that statement is probably going to tweak a few people, but before they snip it/petition to have it snipped, I'd like for them to answer it for themselves (and me too, if you're so inclined).

Wasn't part of jesus' message to love your enemy, turn the other cheek, take a beating for the greater good? It seems that there's some wisdom in the jesus story regardless of whether or not you believe it to be true, don't you think.

And if we know that this is what jesus would do and part of being a christian is to be more christ-like, then how can we claim that America is christian nation?

But religious philosophy aside and pragmatism back on the front burner: I think we take our enemy's word at face value and assume that they might be a little more inclined to leave us the hell alone if we removed our christian troops from their islamic holy lands. Maybe we tell Osama, "Hey, we're pulling our guys out, but if you come near us or any of our allies, we'll nuke you back to the stone age you love so much". But then again, maybe that will never happen because Iraq has the 2nd largest oil reserves in the world and we are a nation addicted to oil (source: the guy who's family made it's fortune in oil and his vice president, the other oil guy).

As before, this is something else that I will let other people make the judgement, because there's not much else I could say right now. (short of flaming or some other pointless action) Fair enough.

How far are you willing to go, hmm? When does it become "all right" for America to go to war? The short answer is: when we are justified to do so. And preferably when the war has been approved by Congress, unlike in this situation where they voted to abdicate their exclusive right to approve war to the Executive Branch, thereby circumventing every balance of power laid out by the Framers in our Constitution.

I really don't care. I was wondering, however, how you got your idea of those wars. I wasn't splitting hairs - just trying to clarify exactly what your opinion of those wars were. I hope I have been able to do so. If not, please let me know and I'll be happy to try to clarify further.

I believe the rest of this is a response to Mimartin (and maybe others), so I'll step out.

Thanks for your response.

In a bid to sidetrack this flame war a little I ask what you would do if you were a soldier in Iraq.

Never happen; I'd file for conscientious objector status. If I felt that we had a moral reason to participate in a legal war, I'd happily fight to protect my country, but this doesn't meet either of those criteria.

Never happen; I'd file for conscientious objector status. If I felt that we had a moral reason to participate in a legal war, I'd happily fight to protect my country, but this doesn't meet either of those criteria.

:eyeraise: Did someone reinstitute the draft while most of us weren't looking?~snip~Since this is an all volunteer military, if you found yourself in Iraq or going there, it'd be b/c you joined the military and not b/c you were pressed into service. So, conscientious objector status really doesn't work and your stance on the morality of this particular "war" isn't being questioned.~snip~The better question (given your answer), perhaps, is would you in essence become a deserter or risk anything other than honorable discharge?

Actually, I did not. If you go back and read the post I said:

Quote:
I'm not sure how one condones collateral damage while snubbing torture.

Which does not mean that collateral damage is not as bad as torture. It means that it is as bad as torture.

You misunderstood me. I was not saying that you believed that, I was just saying that nobody had said anything like that before you asked me "how one condones collateral damage while snubbing torture." So I was saying that you were the first one to suggest that something like that had been said.

IIRC, that's not how you posted it, but regardless of the words used, the thrust of the message was that collateral damage is an unavoidable cost of doing war. I agree that this is the case when you drop less-than-100% precise munitions on targets, accidentally kill civilians that you believe to be insurgents because they failed to respond to verbal commands, etc.

You can remove the parts I put in red, because they really are just your own beefs about what you see the army as doing in Iraq. If you take them out, you get the real idea of it:

"...this is the case when you drop munitions on targets...."

And that by itself is true. It happens in all wars.

Oh, and everything is less-than-100% accurate.

But what this still doesn't tell me at the end of the day is how one condones collateral damage while snubbing torture.

You are saying it again.

Who condoned collateral damage while snubbing torture?


Then perhaps you can put this original quote in context for me then? Here it is once more:
Quote:
Oh, yea, Achilles. That totally compares to taking people who are KNOWN to be civilians and torturing them and killing them brutally. Yea.

I was not saying one was ok and one was not. I was merely pointing out that torturing and brutally killing civilians is a slightly worse crime than dropping bombs on military targets and accidentally killing civilians. As you say below:

Which was your reply to my pointing out that we drop bombs on Iraqi civilians (not intentionally, of course, hence why it's known as collateral damage). I hope this helps to clarify the discrepancy.

Exactly, we don't intentionally drop bombs on civilians.

I don't see Totenkopf's posts, so I'll need a quote if there is something that you would like for me to address. As for the 2nd part, if you can find fault with any source I provide, you are most warmly invited to share your concerns with me. In turn, I will point out any concerns that I have with sources that you provide.

Seeing as how Totenkopf's posts are just a little below mine, I'm not sure what the problem is with you going and looking at them yourself. :)

As for what you said after that, well; does it depend on what I say? It's not like I would say anything that would convince you probably, so basically you come out ahead, because you don't seem to want to take the time to examine them yourself. By your own ideals.

In the mean time, we still don't have any evidence that Saddam had the WMDs that we said that we had evidence for. I'm not sure how I would source a "no evidence" argument. Since you are the one claiming that he did have them, it would seem that the burden of proof is on you to support your claim. That's not me; that's just how the burden of proof works.

Do you have the other people in this thread blocked right now or something? Because I'm pretty sure I referred you to one of the other people posting right now who brought up the issue of Tim Russert.

Oh, and FYI, WMDs are not necessarily nukes. What do you think Saddam used on the Kurds in the North during that one incident where he gassed large mass of Kurdish Iraqis? Gas can be WMD as well. In fact, there was evidence that Saddam used chemical warfare in the Gulf War as well.

Just like Bill Clinton said, "We know they've got weapons of mass destruction." (perhaps not the exact quote, but close enough) ;)

Well that's a different story and not the rationale that we were originally provided for our justification to invade.

And your point is?

I repeat: Please show me where I stated that we weren't in Afghanistan.

Dude, it's not that hard to go back through your own posts. And I repeat - if I'm wrong, I apologize, but I remember you quoting something like:

"Then why aren't we in Afghanistan? I thought that's were the al-qaeda training camps are?"

I'm not sure how it's spin if it's true. And just for clarification, I didn't say he was a neo-con think tank, I pointed out that his neo-con think tank was a neo-con think tank. They have all flavors of think tanks, the one that he founded and helps to run just happens to have a neo-conservative agenda.

It's "true"? Perhaps. Circular? Yes. He's a neo-con think tank because he's a neo-con think tank? True because you said it?

It's nice wording though. It tends to give the person a negative attribute by using the words "mouthpiece" and etc. It’s much different if you just say that they have an organization that is neo-conservative in its beliefs.

Well, you're using a neo-conservative publication which shares ownership with the same neo-conservative think tank which built the framework for the justification for the invasion of Iraq as a source for how our invasion was justified.

That is a lot by itself. First of all, if it is indeed (as you put it) a "neo-conservative publication", why is that a problem to begin with? Does that somehow smear his name?

And secondly, your "evidence" is that he shares ownership of a company that you say, is a "neo-conservative think tank" (again, so what - you can word it however you want) and then make the claim that they helped orchestrate the invasion of Iraq. How did they do that?

I suppose if we wanted an additional level of verification of these statements we could have asked the Vice President, The Secretary of Defense, or the Deputy Secretary of Defense for their assessments, but it would seem that they are all members of the same think-tank, so that doesn't really do us any good.

Right, I see. So a conservative think tank, as you call it, has no value compared to your very reliable sources? Apparently you can now call people a member of this think tank and immediately discredit anything they have to say.

Do you have anything that actually combats the evidence that this "think tank" provided, regardless of their supposed motives?

Also, the aforementioned Deputy Secretary of Defense was a gentleman named Paul Wolfowitz. Paul Wolfowitz drafted something known as the Wolfowitz Doctrine, which was the foundation for the policies put forth by the PNAC.

Cool. Can't trust him now either I guess. :dozey:

You're free to research all of this yourself and draw your own conclusions if you're concerned that I am somehow attempting to spin this or fabricate any part of it. It's all public record.

No, you can claim that it is all truth. And it is, that is the beauty of it. But you can now get away with giving them this persona of being some kind of mouthpiece for a strongly biased group - if you can word it right. And its all "public record"!

But first of all, they don't have flashing red signs by their heads saying "conservative think tank". Just because you seem to feel that your view of them somehow makes them unworthy for you to listen to them, you don't bother to actually try and disprove the info on Saddam provided by Kristol.

You just "identify" these "biases." Which I could easily do for Ferguson - if you don't believe that he doesn't have bias, then there's not much I could say. This conversation isn't going anywhere if you want to keep on with this slightly hypocritical stance.

Yes sir, it simply known as skepticism. If I "bash" it and it falls apart, then I don't believe it. If I "bash" it and it stands up to scrutiny, then I place a small measure of reliability in it.

Bash away. Maybe you could convince someone else besides yourself that my source has fallen apart.

I didn't know skepticism disproved evidence, either.

Well, perhaps we could start by examining each of the specific concerns that you have with any source that I have provided and take it from there. It's obvious that you're incredulous, and I don't fault you for that, however the lack of specificity makes it difficult to nail down what your precise arguments are.

Lack of specificity? I don't think there is any question of what I am saying. Why don't you go see if there is anything similar to what you have accused Kristol of for your sources?

"Celebrating" as in cake and ice cream with silly hats? No. Happy that they just happened to get the catastrophe that they said that they would need to fast-track their agenda? Yes, I imagine they were very happy indeed. And that it happened exactly one year after they published the paper asking for it was just a bonus.

Splitting hairs here, but I don't care. But, you said it. You imagine that is what they are doing. And that is where your "evidence" for this is rather wobbly. Most of it is based on the fact that these people were "happy" about 9/11.

What do you think? That they had magic powers to cause 9/11 because of their own agenda?

You're welcome to see it however you would like.

As are you. ;) I just wonder how other people will see it.

Hmmm...well there's a lot here.

Yes, I pointed out that the source you provided is owned by a neo-conservative that also founded a neo-conservative think tank, and that this source frequently acts as a mouthpiece for the think tank. Is any part of this untrue?

You could argue that it is "true", but it is kinda easy to pin a name on a group or individual and call it "true" because of their political beliefs.

Second, "mouthpiece" is not a pejorative.
Quote:
: one that expresses or interprets another's views : SPOKESMAN

And you have evidence that Kristol's belief is not his own?

Third, I'm not "smearing" their relationship. I'm only pointing out that it exists and therefore calls into question the journalistic integrity of the publication itself. Doesn't say out right that it's garbage; it simply calls it into question.

So? He's a conservative. Does that mean it calls what he says into question?

And if that is all it does, why have you completely ignored the publication because of this "question"?

Fourth, I have no evidence that Bill Kristol founded the Weekly Standard and the PNAC?
Quote:
The Weekly Standard was founded in September 1995 by William Kristol, the son of neoconservative intellectual Irving Kristol and a former aide to Dan Quayle when he was vice president.
Link

Quote:
William Kristol is editor of The Weekly Standard, as well as chairman and co-founder of the Project for the New American Century.
Link

It's public record, sir. I have no need to make it up.

I wasn't talking about that. Again, you have “public record”, but that isn’t the issue? I won't repeat myself on this, as I addresed this above.

Fifth, the PNAC published a paper in September of 2000. In it, the authors made the following statement:
Quote:
Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor. (page 51)
Link

Again, public record so no fabrication necessary on my part.

Again, what is the problem here? All they say is that a process of transformation will likely be slow (true) unless it perhaps is given a kick in the pants by some kind of catastrophic (notice the word) event. (also true to some extent)

And from this, you get the idea that they were happy on 9/11? What?

So how does this throw the PNAC in a bad light, using something that is actually a proven fact?

So please be so kind as to point out which part of what I said was "weak". Thanks in advance.

Because your so-called "reason" for this evidence being meaningless simply comes down to the fact that you disagree with the organization and think (without any solid proof) that they celebrated on 9/11.

Basically, you could have just said that they were conservatives, and so had conservative beliefs - or possible bias. Which is nothing, because everyone has some measure of bias. Including your sources.

To the best of my knowledge, my statement had nothing to do with me not pretending. Do you believe that civilian women and children are being killed by American forces in Iraq?

You said that you were also "not pretending any of this was happening."

And yes, I do believe that some have died.

You might not. I was simply inviting you to see it for yourself before deciding that none of what it said was true.

Would you mind investigating the report I brought forth before judging it simply by Kristol, as well?

And your evidence for any of these stereotypes being accurate or true?

Apparently you didn't read the fine print below what I said - I was joking.

Please let me know where I can find this additional explanation. I am unable to locate it now. Thanks.

Just look a little farther down....

At least in part, yes.

Where?

And in so doing make more terrorist, just like we made the last batch. Except this time, highly educated and in bed with countries that do have access to nuclear weapons like Pakistan.

Again, we come to it. Don't kill the terrorists because we'll "make" more. Rather an interesting viewpoint. I'm not sure what practical good it will do us, unless you want more innocent Americans to die.

I think you might be missing the point. It's not that we need other countries to tell us what's right and wrong. We're a big boy country now and we can figure out "right and wrong" all on our own. And if we continue to do wrong in the interest of being "Number One", then we cannot call ourselves leaders and we cannot claim that we extend our influence via the example that we set.

No, I don't think I did. Perhaps you think we are just doing what we are doing in the interest to be "Number One" (especially since right now, I think we are pretty weak in strength as a country - not military strength, mind you). But there are many who think that we should not do things that would bring the "scorn of the world community upon us".

Well, you know what? Screw them. As I said, they don't cause us to change our actions because they dissaprove.

To be fair, though, I can see why you believe what you do. :) I agree in some parts; we shouldn't act arbitrarily, but we should do what we have to do, regardless of what the "world community" thinks. We are a superpower, after all, and so we are the ones in charge. Not to abuse that power, but to be the leaders and set and example, like you said.

I acknowledge that this is your opinion.

Go talk to someone who has military experience and you might find that it’s not just my opinion. It’s rather naпve to try and defend a nation by setting our army around it and hoping they can stop stuff before it gets to us.

If you had a rival village attacking your village, what would you do? Set your soldiers around it in a big circle, 6 men deep? :xp: And try and stop the bad guys from getting through? No, they would just keep coming, because you’re not making any progress.

Again, you'll need to quote his post if there is something you would like for me to address. Thanks.

Again, why it is so hard for you to do it yourself? :)

Right and then live with the consequences.

You’d rather we had no blood on our hands (whether it was guilty or not) so our “conscience” would be “clear”? At the cost of more attacks, just so you can feel good about us?

I am suggesting that this would be one way to eliminate collateral damage if one were so inclined to do so.

Just like starving yourself would be a good way to lose weight.

Fire up a thread and I'll be more than happy to join you.

Since I am a little busy to do that right now, perhaps you could just give me a quick overview of what you think our foreign policy is – and what we are doing wrong.

And what is "my side"? Am I to be indiscriminately burdened with arguments made by people other than myself?

No, no. :)

I’m not necessarily talking about you. Just that some who have similar political beliefs do bash them for “crimes” they committed. Like Mr. foolproof, for example.

You are aware that this is precisely what is going on over there, correct? They blow themselves up and try to take as many infidels with them as they can. Martydom is scared in islam.

Yes, but you still have not told me how they would be considered a “small guerilla force”. It would be more accurate to call them a “large terrorist organization.” As I said, a small guerilla group would not sacrifice members to take out a few enemy troops. Unless it had plenty to spare, in which case it would not be small; not to mention that they are not very guerilla-like in their structure at that point.

And Viet Cong did the same during Viet Nam. Ho Chi Mihn said that we could kill 10 of his for every one of our but they would still win. The war lasted for about 15 years, cost our country millions (if not billions) of dollars, and took the lives of 50,000 american troops before we finally had to leave because we had been routed out.

And this is relevant to small guerilla groups how?

Granted, not the same conflict, but I think there is a little bit of history repeating going on here.

Perhaps in a limited way. I’m still not sure what comparison you were trying to make.

Well at least that seems to be your position. If it is not, then my apologies.

Its ok, I think I might agree with that anyways.

Yes, I believe I did state that. Doesn't mean that I think that they should though or that I like that they are. Same thing goes for us with our sanctimonious "war on terror".

You kinda confused me here. So are you saying that we are justified to go attack them, but you don’t like it?

Secondly, how are they justified to kill innocent civilians? I don’t think anything could justify the purposeful planning to suicide bomb an area containing civilians who have never done anything to these guys.

Long before when?

Long before you think it has.

Also, why do you think there has been a resurgence of islamic fundamentalism for the past 80 years?

I dunno, why?

Is what ok with me? The attacks of September 11th?
No, that's not ok with me. I'm not sure how that absolves our government (past and present) of our involvment in events leading up to it though (i.e. stationing troops in Saudi Arabia, supporting dictators, etc). Can't necessarily draw little black hats on all of them if they are "getting us back" for what we did.

Most of this seems to be based on your opinion that we started this all, which I don’t agree with. If you could tell me what very first action (in your opinion) we took to “make” these people hate us, that would be great. :) Thanks.

Proper? Who's argument is this?

I hope its not yours.

You probably did. islamic fundies refer to the US as "The Great Satan". Since the king was considered to be partners with us, I imagine there was both a figurative and literal bent to how that was interpretted.

By you or by them? Oh, and if this is true, you wouldn’t put “literally” in there; I think that it still falls under the “figuratively” category, right?

Erm...but keeping our troops there and sending more...er...doesn't...resolve it. It makes it worse. That's my whole point.

I was referring to your point about us stationing troops there and starting this, which I wasn’t going to talk about yet since I was focusing elsewhere first. But, again…

What do you propose we do instead?

And we do that...how? Kill everyone that dislikes us? That list is going to continue to get longer, not shorter.

I don’t have a problem with people disliking us. I have a problem with people disliking us and going to great efforts to kill innocent civilians.

In moments like these, I like to ask myself: What would jesus do?
Now, I imagine that statement is probably going to tweak a few people, but before they snip it/petition to have it snipped, I'd like for them to answer it for themselves (and me too, if you're so inclined).

Yep, its tweaking me already. :D

Just a question: are you actually a Christian? Because if you aren’t, well, it would be kinda strange that you would use this….

Wasn't part of jesus' message to love your enemy, turn the other cheek, take a beating for the greater good? It seems that there's some wisdom in the jesus story regardless of whether or not you believe it to be true, don't you think.

Um...

Ok….

So we let our civilians get killed by terrorists for a while for the greater good of…. Er…. Something?

Huh?

And if we know that this is what jesus would do and part of being a christian is to be more christ-like, then how can we claim that America is christian nation?

This is really tweaking me now. ;)

But, I will stay polite. First of all, this is not “Jesus” and “what would Jesus do”. People abuse this a lot. (and a lot of them aren’t even Christians) But this whole thing about Jesus – how does that even apply? If Jesus zapped back down to Earth for some coffee one day, and saw a terrorist bomber prepare to blow up some people, do you think he would let it happen?

But religious philosophy aside and pragmatism back on the front burner: I think we take our enemy's word at face value and assume that they might be a little more inclined to leave us the hell alone if we removed our christian troops from their islamic holy lands.

You know, that’s funny – I thought we weren’t even in the Middle East when Osama hit the World Trade Centers.

Maybe we tell Osama, "Hey, we're pulling our guys out, but if you come near us or any of our allies, we'll nuke you back to the stone age you love so much".

I like the last part, but, the first part of it still irks me, as I have explained before. :)

But then again, maybe that will never happen because Iraq has the 2nd largest oil reserves in the world and we are a nation addicted to oil (source: the guy who's family made it's fortune in oil and his vice president, the other oil guy).

Yes, that would make sense as our whole economy is powered by oil.

I doubt that it is a matter of “those guys” fortunes….

The short answer is: when we are justified to do so.

And that is where it becomes very subjective. In other words, when you feel like it’s ok for us to go to war. Not even if they attack us, we still have to be “right.”

And preferably when the war has been approved by Congress, unlike in this situation where they voted to abdicate their exclusive right to approve war to the Executive Branch, thereby circumventing every balance of power laid out by the Framers in our Constitution.

Well, that would be their decision, right?

I believe the rest of this is a response to Mimartin (and maybe others), so I'll step out.

Thanks for your response.

Yep, but feel free to step in if you like. :)

Well, in closing….

I’m just having this vision right now:

“Hey guys, can the bombing mission; it’s over.”
“What? Why?”
“There are civilians within the area that might get hurt. In fact, pack everything up, we’re going home.”
“What about the terrorists?”
“We’re hoping they don’t attack cause we’re leaving. You’re going to defend the Homeland now on our soil.”
“So we’re going to go back and try and shoot some suicide bomber before he blows up an airport at home?”
“Oh, no, you can’t use guns. Have to be careful that you don’t make some other guys mad over here that you killed their buddy, ya know…”

If you get my drift. :)

You misunderstood me. I was not saying that you believed that, I was just saying that nobody had said anything like that before you asked me "how one condones collateral damage while snubbing torture." So I was saying that you were the first one to suggest that something like that had been said. I provided you your own comments. You're still welcome to clarify them if you wish.

You can remove the parts I put in red, because they really are just your own beefs about what you see the army as doing in Iraq. If you take them out, you get the real idea of it: They aren't my "beefs" at all. I was simply providing potential causes of collateral damage. Are you saying that these aren't potential causes of collateral damage?

"...this is the case when you drop munitions on targets...."

And that by itself is true. It happens in all wars.

Oh, and everything is less-than-100% accurate. So again, you're stating that collateral damage is an unavoidable cost of doing war. If you're not denying that this is your argument, then I'm not sure what is behind your contention.

You are saying it again. Indeed because you still haven't addressed it.

Who condoned collateral damage while snubbing torture? Until you clarify your comments, I am still considering the possibility that you did. Since you won't clarify your comment, I really can't know for sure.

I was not saying one was ok and one was not. I was merely pointing out that torturing and brutally killing civilians is a slightly worse crime than dropping bombs on military targets and accidentally killing civilians. As you say below: Thank you for clarifying. How killing civilians via torture worse than killing civilians via bombs?

Exactly, we don't intentionally drop bombs on civilians. But you just stated again, that collateral damage is an unavoidable cost of doing war. So if we intentionally drop bombs, then we do so knowing that they may strike civilians. So we either drop bombs on civilians or we do not. I'm arguing that we do.

Seeing as how Totenkopf's posts are just a little below mine, I'm not sure what the problem is with you going and looking at them yourself. Since you didn't provide the quotes, then I'll assume that they didn't contain anything that you wanted me to address.

As for what you said after that, well; does it depend on what I say? It's not like I would say anything that would convince you probably, so basically you come out ahead, because you don't seem to want to take the time to examine them yourself. By your own ideals. I already have. But examining them via "my own ideals" won't tell me what problem you have with them. If you have facts or sound arguments, then it would be pretty unreasonable of me not to consider them, don't you think?

Do you have the other people in this thread blocked right now or something? Because I'm pretty sure I referred you to one of the other people posting right now who brought up the issue of Tim Russert. Yes, I imagine that I do.

Oh, and FYI, WMDs are not necessarily nukes. What do you think Saddam used on the Kurds in the North during that one incident where he gassed large mass of Kurdish Iraqis? Gas can be WMD as well. In fact, there was evidence that Saddam used chemical warfare in the Gulf War as well.Yes, I'm quite aware of that. What evidence do we have that he had them 5 years ago when we invaded? To the best of my knowledge, we haven't found any WMDs in Iraq at all. We did find some chemicals that we thought might have been used in chemical/biological weapons, but it turned out to be nothing.

Just like Bill Clinton said, "We know they've got weapons of mass destruction." (perhaps not the exact quote, but close enough) ;) I'll be more than happy to address an exact quote.

And your point is? My point is that we should have had justification before invading rather than after. And changing the story from "Saddam has weapons of mass distruction pointed at us" to "Saddam was a cruel and brutal dictator" seems like someone had these posted on a "foreign policy dartboard" or something. We knew that Saddam would be a cruel and brutal dictator when we helped put him in power back in the 70's. We didn't care because he was pro-Western and hated Iran (whom we feared because they were mad at us over a cruel and brutal dictator that we helped put into power there back in the 50's).

Dude, it's not that hard to go back through your own posts. And I repeat - if I'm wrong, I apologize, but I remember you quoting something like:

"Then why aren't we in Afghanistan? I thought that's were the al-qaeda training camps are?" You are wrong and I accept your apology.

PS: I know exactly what I said in post #28. I don't need to look it up.

It's "true"? Perhaps. Circular? Yes. He's a neo-con think tank because he's a neo-con think tank? True because you said it? Which part of what I wrote is circular? If it helps, you still appear to either misunderstand or misrepresent my actual comment. I clarified in the last exchange, so please let me know if that was unclear.

It's nice wording though. It tends to give the person a negative attribute by using the words "mouthpiece" and etc. It’s much different if you just say that they have an organization that is neo-conservative in its beliefs. If there's another word that you would prefer I use, that's fine. The argument was that I called the source "a name". The publication does frequently act as a mouthpiece for the think tank. Are you contesting this? If yes, on what basis?

That is a lot by itself. First of all, if it is indeed (as you put it) a "neo-conservative publication", why is that a problem to begin with? Does that somehow smear his name? It identifies bias. Being associated with a neo-conservative think tank tends to be a cue that some of your statements might contain neo-conservative bias. The more strong the association, the more likelihood there is for bias. Therefore, being a co-founder/editor would tend to indicate a very strong likelihood for bias.

And secondly, your "evidence" is that he shares ownership of a company that you say, is a "neo-conservative think tank" (again, so what - you can word it however you want) and then make the claim that they helped orchestrate the invasion of Iraq. How did they do that? He shares ownership of a think tank. They're called think tanks (http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?sourceid=Mozilla-search&va=think+tank). And what they are generally known for is drafting policy. In this case, the PNAC, working with the Wolfowitz Doctrine, drafted a policy that suggested some key steps to increasing U.S. domination. In the paper, published in September 2000, they identified Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as being key to this objective. They also suggested that "a new Pearl Harbor" would help to grease the wheels for the continuance of this agenda. One year later were the attacks of September 11th, carried out by a terrorist organization based out of Afghanistan. 18 months later, we invaded Iraq under false pretenses. 5 years after that, we find ourselves in escalation with Iran. And the whole time, we've been going back and forth with North Korea. I don't see this as a coincidence, especially when you consider that many members of the Bush administration are associated with the PNAC.

Right, I see. So a conservative think tank, as you call it, has no value compared to your very reliable sources? I'm not sure I follow the comparison. Could you please elaborate?

Apparently you can now call people a member of this think tank and immediately discredit anything they have to say. I think my argument was that you can't ask the people that helped orchestrate the war if the war itself was justified and expect an objective answer. If you call that "immediately discrediting anything they have to say", then yes , I'm doing that.

Do you have anything that actually combats the evidence that this "think tank" provided, regardless of their supposed motives? Possibly. Was there something specific that you would like for me to address?

Cool. Can't trust him now either I guess. You're free to trust whomever you would like.

No, you can claim that it is all truth. And it is, that is the beauty of it. But you can now get away with giving them this persona of being some kind of mouthpiece for a strongly biased group - if you can word it right. And its all "public record"! I take it you won't be doing your own research then? Ok.

But first of all, they don't have flashing red signs by their heads saying "conservative think tank". Just because you seem to feel that your view of them somehow makes them unworthy for you to listen to them, you don't bother to actually try and disprove the info on Saddam provided by Kristol. How would you propose that I verify the veracity of internal, top-secret memo? The articles basically says, "We got access to top-secret memo. This is what it said. Trust us". If it came from a prestigious journalistic source with employees that had working titles such as "Fact Checker", etc, I might be willing to put a little bit of my trust into that "Trust Us" bucket. However, if that source has the problems that I've outlined for this source, then none of my trust goes into that "Trust Us" bucket.

Hence why I asked your for a different source almost a week ago. I'm still willing to say that there is some evidence for your argument, I'm just not going to accept that source.

You just "identify" these "biases." Which I could easily do for Ferguson - if you don't believe that he doesn't have bias, then there's not much I could say. I've repeated invited you do so.

Bash away. Maybe you could convince someone else besides yourself that my source has fallen apart. Maybe.

I didn't know skepticism disproved evidence, either. I don't believe that is skepticism's role. If the Weekly Standard's reporting is sound, then I imagine that it could easily be corroborated by one or more other sources. I never said that I wouldn't consider the evidence for your argument, only that I wouldn't accept The Weekly Standard as a reputable source.

Lack of specificity? I don't think there is any question of what I am saying. Why don't you go see if there is anything similar to what you have accused Kristol of for your sources? On the contrary, I don't see any specificity at all. I know that you've called the director "liberal", but that doesn't tell me anything.

Splitting hairs here, but I don't care. But, you said it. You imagine that is what they are doing. And that is where your "evidence" for this is rather wobbly. Most of it is based on the fact that these people were "happy" about 9/11.No contest from me. If you wanted to me to admit that my statement was conjecture, all you had to do was ask. I have absolutely no way of objectively proving how any of these people actually felt. But since they asked for it, I imagine that they were pleased. I'm generally pleased when I recieve something I've asked for, and I tend to suspect that others are as well.

What do you think? That they had magic powers to cause 9/11 because of their own agenda? Magic powers? No, not magic powers. But that's fodder for another thread.

As are you. ;) I just wonder how other people will see it. Good. Done and done. :)

You could argue that it is "true", but it is kinda easy to pin a name on a group or individual and call it "true" because of their political beliefs. I'm not asking you to vouch for their ideology. I'm simply asking you if you think any of what I stated is not factual.

And you have evidence that Kristol's belief is not his own? Nope, not at all. My statement was that The Weekly Standard frequently acts as a mouthpiece for the PNAC, both of which co-founded by Kristol. So contrary to what you've posted, my contention is that it's all Kristol, all the time (well...figuratively).

So? He's a conservative. Does that mean it calls what he says into question? It might. There's conservative like my neighbor and there's conservative like some of the people in this forum and then there's conservative like Bill Kristol. Depending on what flavor of conservative we're dealing with, yes, it could potentially call what he says into question.

And if that is all it does, why have you completely ignored the publication because of this "question"? Hopefully, I sufficiently addressed this question earlier. Please let me know if I did not.

I wasn't talking about that. Again, you have “public record”, but that isn’t the issue? I won't repeat myself on this, as I addresed this above. I must have missed it. Thanks anyway.

Again, what is the problem here? All they say is that a process of transformation will likely be slow (true) unless it perhaps is given a kick in the pants by some kind of catastrophic (notice the word) event. (also true to some extent)

And from this, you get the idea that they were happy on 9/11? What?

So how does this throw the PNAC in a bad light, using something that is actually a proven fact? Well, they asked for a catastrophic and catalyzing event and they got one. Not sure what degree that "throws them in a bad light", however I imagine they were happy to see that the event they had hoped for had come to fruition.

Because your so-called "reason" for this evidence being meaningless simply comes down to the fact that you disagree with the organization and think (without any solid proof) that they celebrated on 9/11.

Basically, you could have just said that they were conservatives, and so had conservative beliefs - or possible bias. Which is nothing, because everyone has some measure of bias. Including your sources. Oh, I think I said more than that, but I acknowledge that this is what you took away from my post.

You said that you were also "not pretending any of this was happening."

And yes, I do believe that some have died.I'll simply repeat that I'm very aware of what I did (and did not) say in post #28.

Thank you for answering my question. Now I know that we both acknowledge that this is happening.

Would you mind investigating the report I brought forth before judging it simply by Kristol, as well? How? It's based on a top-secret memo. How did you investigate the information before accepting it as true?

Apparently you didn't read the fine print below what I said - I was joking. Nope, I read it.

Where? Err...Iraq? I mean, we did invade their country on false pretenses and began building 14 permanent military bases there.

Again, we come to it. Don't kill the terrorists because we'll "make" more. Rather an interesting viewpoint. I'm not sure what practical good it will do us, unless you want more innocent Americans to die. Indeed. I suppose that we will continue to "come to it" so long as you keep asking me to repeat my rationale and then reply with an incredulous tone without actually addressing my argument or pointing out flaws in my reasoning. Please don't hold it against me if I keep answering the questions that you ask.

No, I don't think I did. Perhaps you think we are just doing what we are doing in the interest to be "Number One" (especially since right now, I think we are pretty weak in strength as a country - not military strength, mind you). But there are many who think that we should not do things that would bring the "scorn of the world community upon us".

Well, you know what? Screw them. As I said, they don't cause us to change our actions because they dissaprove.

To be fair, though, I can see why you believe what you do. I agree in some parts; we shouldn't act arbitrarily, but we should do what we have to do, regardless of what the "world community" thinks. We are a superpower, after all, and so we are the ones in charge. Not to abuse that power, but to be the leaders and set and example, like you said.I'm glad we were able to make some progress here.

Go talk to someone who has military experience and you might find that it’s not just my opinion. It’s rather naпve to try and defend a nation by setting our army around it and hoping they can stop stuff before it gets to us.

If you had a rival village attacking your village, what would you do? Set your soldiers around it in a big circle, 6 men deep? And try and stop the bad guys from getting through? No, they would just keep coming, because you’re not making any progress. That's a good analogy, but I'm not sure how applicable it is for the situation that we are in. I agree that sometimes the best defense is a good offense, but you can't go into a village, murder women, children, and old men, and then act as though the warriors of that village are out of line when they try to exact revenge.

Again, why it is so hard for you to do it yourself? As I already stated, I don't see his posts. That makes it supremely difficult.

You’d rather we had no blood on our hands (whether it was guilty or not) so our “conscience” would be “clear”? At the cost of more attacks, just so you can feel good about us? I'm speaking in the context of the individual soldiers that pull triggers and drop bombs. I imagine many of them would prefer not to have to live with the knowledge that they killed innocent civilians.

Just like starving yourself would be a good way to lose weight.It certainly is one way. It's not the only way, but it's one of them.

Since I am a little busy to do that right now, perhaps you could just give me a quick overview of what you think our foreign policy is – and what we are doing wrong. Our foreign policy is imperialism. Imperialism is wrong.

No, no.

I’m not necessarily talking about you. Just that some who have similar political beliefs do bash them for “crimes” they committed. Like Mr. foolproof, for example. Ok. I'm not sure how much I can do about what other people say.

Yes, but you still have not told me how they would be considered a “small guerilla force”. It would be more accurate to call them a “large terrorist organization.” The "large terrorist organization" drives a car filled with explosives to a check point and then detonates a bomb?

The "large terrorist organization" is successful because they have organized themselves into small "cells" that are capable of operating independently with minimal intervention from the top. But again, I think you're confusing al-qaeda with the insurgents.

As I said, a small guerilla group would not sacrifice members to take out a few enemy troops. Unless it had plenty to spare, in which case it would not be small; not to mention that they are not very guerilla-like in their structure at that point. Sure they would. Not sure what part of suicide bombing you consider to be "large-scale" or "conventional".

And this is relevant to small guerilla groups how? Because the viet cong operated in small units carrying out guerilla warfare.

Perhaps in a limited way. I’m still not sure what comparison you were trying to make. Only that those that do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

You kinda confused me here. So are you saying that we are justified to go attack them, but you don’t like it? From a very one-sided point of view, one could argue that we are justified. I don't think that we are, but that's neither here nor there with regards to the war in Iraq.

Secondly, how are they justified to kill innocent civilians? I don’t think anything could justify the purposeful planning to suicide bomb an area containing civilians who have never done anything to these guys. It seems we've come full circle once again. :D

They are justified because we acted first. So they acted. So then we acted back. Then they acted back. We send missles. They send hijacked planes.

Their argument is that since we are a democracy and we elect the people that do these things, then we are complicit in the acts and therefore no longer "innocent civilians". Might make one think twice about how they vote.

Long before you think it has. Fine. How long do I think it has?

I dunno, why? Because of western interference in the middle east.

Most of this seems to be based on your opinion that we started this all, which I don’t agree with. If you could tell me what very first action (in your opinion) we took to “make” these people hate us, that would be great. Thanks. From post #15:Remember that Iraq only exists because of British colonialism. The modern country known as Iraq didn't exist until the 1920s. The ethnic tensions which we are now seeing have roots that go back decades (if not centuries). We supported the British in their carving up of the middle east after WWI. We later acted directly to help orchestrate the overthrow of unsympathetic governments and sometimes replaced them with dictators that liked us. I suppose that if you wanted one specific event though, we could look to the 1953 coup in Iran. That would probably be the least obscure starting point.

By you or by them? Oh, and if this is true, you wouldn’t put “literally” in there; I think that it still falls under the “figuratively” category, right? Dunno. Those islamic extremists are pretty serious guys. You and I might think they're speaking figuratively, but I get the impression they are being literal.

I was referring to your point about us stationing troops there and starting this, which I wasn’t going to talk about yet since I was focusing elsewhere first. But, again…

What do you propose we do instead? I believe I addressed this in my last post. (You most likely typed this before you came to it).

I don’t have a problem with people disliking us. I have a problem with people disliking us and going to great efforts to kill innocent civilians. Well, if they're disliking us because we killed their innocent civilians, then I imagine that this is a reality that we're going to have to learn to live with.

Yep, its tweaking me already.

Just a question: are you actually a Christian? Because if you aren’t, well, it would be kinda strange that you would use this…. :lol: You must be new here :D
No, I'm an atheist.

Um...

Ok….

So we let our civilians get killed by terrorists for a while for the greater good of…. Er…. Something?

Huh? Who said that? I don't advocate allowing our citizens to be killed. I also don't equate killing other country's civilians with protecting our own. And since terrorists don't wear name tags....

This is really tweaking me now. ;)

But, I will stay polite. First of all, this is not “Jesus” and “what would Jesus do”. People abuse this a lot. (and a lot of them aren’t even Christians) So christians shouldn't worry about being more christ-like (with specific reference to the "good" parts of the new testament)?

But this whole thing about Jesus – how does that even apply? If Jesus zapped back down to Earth for some coffee one day, and saw a terrorist bomber prepare to blow up some people, do you think he would let it happen? "Gospel of John" jesus or "Book of Revelations" jesus? For the former, no. He would sit down and have a nice talk with the terrorist or use his divine power to prevent it or allow it to happen and then perform miracles to bring everyone back/heal them. For the latter, he would probably let it happen, yeah (but I'm just guessing).

You know, that’s funny – I thought we weren’t even in the Middle East when Osama hit the World Trade Centers. That's ok. I imagine many people thought that as well.

I like the last part, but, the first part of it still irks me, as I have explained before. :) You asked what I would do and there it is.

Yes, that would make sense as our whole economy is powered by oil.

I doubt that it is a matter of “those guys” fortunes….Kinda puts that whole altruistic "brutal dictator" thing into persepective. At least I think so.

And that is where it becomes very subjective. In other words, when you feel like it’s ok for us to go to war. Not even if they attack us, we still have to be “right.” Yep, because we're supposed to be the leader and the leader sets the example (whether they want to or not).

Well, that would be their decision, right? Their decision to circumvent the Constitution? Yes, it seems quite obvious that it was. I guess the Framers didn't anticipate that level of corruption when they drafted the Constitution. I mean, they emphatically told each branch to fight tooth and nail for the power they were given. I guess they kinda thought that we would care enough about our democracy to do something about it if we saw one branch violating their Constitutional powers (2 out of 3 of them being elected and all).

Yep, but feel free to step in if you like. :)

Well, in closing….

I’m just having this vision right now:

<snip>

If you get my drift. :) Yes, I see where you're taking it. Enjoy your vision.

Take care.

Hi guys,

Seeing how this thread is really going nowhere fast (for the past 10 days), I'm going give you both one more closing post before I close the thread. Please don't use any quote blocks to make your closing arguments as I will remove them.

Your biggest fan,
tk102

Well, since this would seem to be my last post on this subject, thanks for the debate.

In, closing....

First of all, even though you seem to be unsastified with my explanation of collateral damage vs. torture and murder, I have clarified it for about the third or fourth time now.

Collateral damage can be an unavoidable cost of going to war, since you can almost never stop it. Although now, with better technology, we have very accurate bombs that can successfully pinpoint the correct target within a few feet - which, just on a sidenote, makes me wonder about why you seem to think there has been so many civilian deaths by bombs. It probably comes back to the article you quoted, which I believe I did not take very seriously, due to the stated lack of facts that made up the estimate.

However, collateral damage is not something that always happens every time a bomb is dropped, because it is always an accident. Either civilians were just in the wrong place, or the bomb turned out to miss its target. Which is by no means intentional, and cannot be blamed on the person dropping the bomb unless it was incompetence.

However, I would just venture to say that maybe kidnapping, torture, and murder of innocent civilians is not so accidental. If you know what I mean. :) And the fact that those terrorists would feel the need to commit such a heinous crime makes an accidental death of a civilian that happens from dropping bombs, which has happened in every war, pale in comparison.

You seem to suggest that perhaps a way to stop this is to not go to war at all. Which you stated very ambiguously, BTW, after I asked you what should be done to stop this. If this is the only thing you could come up with, well.... I'll repeat what I said. It's just about as rational as starving yourself to lose weight. Sure it is a way, but that really doesn't mean anything.

Also, off this topic for a moment: you contradicted yourself in the last statement, besides your claims to attack contradictions. When you first stated the following: "I'm not sure how one condones collateral damage while snubbing torture," you said - after I asked - that I had not said something like that.

Except in this last statement you tell me that you are saying this because it was something I had stated. Which I'm still not getting. But, moving on...

On the actual matter of the war, you have stuck very close to your sources: "No End in Sight" and Tim Russert being some of the top two. I also provided sources of the connection between Hussein and Al-Qaeda, a publication by a newspaper run by Kristol - which you promptly ignored.

When I started to get to the bottom of your reason, it came down to... it was a "mouthpiece of a neo-con think tank." Now, of course, the mouthpiece is correct (in fact it doesn't mean anything) because the paper is, well, the voice for that organizations views. Duh. ;) Which you seemed to concede as we came down to it. Now, if you boil down the rest of that statement, you admitted that it was because they were "neo-conservatives", and so therefore, had strong bias, and for some reason you should not have to accept anything they say. You may not have said it, but you never dealt with the info in the publication; just those who published it.

When I stated that basically all you were saying was that they had bias - which, whether you want to believe or not, most of your sources have as well - you came back with another ambiguous answer that that was part of it, but I had missed something. I had taken everything out of what you said, but there was "more."

You conveniently left out what it was that I had missed. (still deciding what it was? or perphaps it will just be something that isn't revelant to the discussion?)

Oh, and in the matter of the validity of your sources, I did provide something: or rather, I referred you to Totenkopf, who had summarized very well about Tim Russert. However, this seems to have been too hard for you to go and unblock his posts and look at yourself. I'm not going to hand you his quote on a platter, of course; so you chose to ignore it because I had not. Again, conveniently ignoring a piece of info.

From what you have said, you obviously do not believe we had the "right" to invade Iraq. There were no WMD, so we were wrong to do it. To which I replied that we had evidence that he had them currently, knew he had had them before and used them, and known that he was a dangerous dictator in that area. But it still did not seem to be enough for you.

What did you expect, that our invading troops would just open up Saddam’s garage and find some nukes layin’ around?

But we had to be "justified." And we can't change our story, it's still "wrong." Even though all of what was said was still true. Also, according to you, we evil Americans started the whole thing. Because we stationed troops in the Middle East and they didn't like it.

So they bomb us and kill innocent civilians who never did anything to them? What? And you think they are justified to do that? First of all, I stated that I thought we didn't have troops in Afghanistan or Iraq when 9/11 happened. As your point was our "occupation" in past years had made them angry at us, and we should apologize and get out, I would think that would be a problem. If we were already out of there, why attack us afterward? That would put holes in your theory, obviously.

To which you gave yet another ambiguous answer that many people thought like I did too. Again, sidestepping the issue. To which I reply: We weren't in Afghanistan, or Iraq, or near there. We had some troops in Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, in friendly countries, and it wasn't some kind of occupational force. They were there just to keep an eye on things. So I seriously doubt it was our "occupation" that happened some years past, as you testified to, that got Osama going...

Even besides that, it does not justify the murder of thousands of innocent Americans. Except maybe you think so - next thing I know, you're telling me that since people voted for the person that these people hate, they take part of the blame and are no longer innocent. :xp: So they should be killed? I guess we should all going around with nametags. Ya know... "I voted for Bush", "I voted for Kerry", etc. Then the terrorists should know who to blow up. (must be your attempt to make people vote for who you want them to)

But wait.... according to you, we can't kill terrorists. Because then their family will get mad at us for killing those terrorists (who you neglected to point out that they were trying to blow up innocent Americans) and will become terrorists themselves. Right... You asked me to give you the flaws in your reasoning, but its hard when its not reasoning at all. What do you expect us to do? (again, you gave me very ambiguous answers in response to this) Let the terrorists bomb us? And hope they stop eventually? They have been training people there to hate us for a long time, and whether or not we kill them, more will rise up. The only answer is to go out and take them out.

Not fall back to the U.S. and “defend” the country on our own soil. As I said, you don’t protect a village by stationing men around it six rows deep. Besides, what made you think we are on defense? We are attacking these terrorists, they are the ones on defense. Otherwise, more and more will keep coming. (and we didn’t do anything to deserve them coming at us) You, however, believe they are justified, because we did some wrong action “first.”

Talking of changing stories, you finally decided to surprise me with the classic “What Would Jesus Do?” I, frankly, was incredulous. How can you take a phrase like that and start talking about “turning the other cheek” in regards to a war? If you aren’t suggesting that we should let ourselves get bombed for some unknown greater good (which was your term), I’m not sure what the point of this was. In fact, you never really stated what this meant for us. You even went on to say that a “Revelation” Jesus would let a civilian die from a terrorist, which I don’t understand. There’s no difference between a “John” Jesus and a “Revelation” Jesus – take it from someone who’s actually a Christian.

All besides the fact that you are a self-proclaimed atheist, which doesn’t really make sense with your new argument.

So, finally, after taking all of what you said together, I will go back to my vision. I know you tried to blow this off, but trust me…. I didn’t take it any farther than you had already taken it. We shouldn’t drop bombs on targets because of coll. damage, we should pull out to appease these Middle Easterners (which we already had by 9/11), we should defend the country on our own soil, and yet not kill terrorists because we will “make more.” Very interesting idea… I dunno, I think it would be obvious to everyone that that would be a very bad idea, but maybe that’s just me. ;)

Well, to wrap up my rather long closing “speech”, I recall that you asked me for an exact quote that I once provided. Well, I’ll over-humor you. (just to make my post even longer…)

"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."

President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998.

"Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations."

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, February 5, 2003

"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983."

Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998

"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998.

"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."

Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998

"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real ..."

Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003

Funny, they stopped repeating this some years later. Must have had their political fingers up in the wind and decided that it was no longer popular to tell the truth about this.

Cheers. Oh, and (of course)…

God bless America. ;)

God bless America. ;)
Yeah. Damn godless foreigners :carms:

I find invoking religion when you are against it odd myself. Is it illogical or fair game for atheists to use god in their arguments?

I find that it's most often done for provacative reasons. In essence, to try to call the other guy hypocritical.

As my initial draft of this message hit the 5 page mark in MS Word, I realized that it had well surpassed the point where anyone would actually read it. This is my second draft, which I will attempt to keep significantly shorter. Please note that the degree of detail will suffer for this, however anyone that wants to see the initial draft should feel free to PM me with their email address. Thanks.

Western nations, specifically the U.S. and Great Britain, been heavily involved in the Middle East since oil was discovered there in the early 20th century. The CIA has been involved in the overthrow of sovereign governments in the region that were not sympathetic to the U.S. agenda and has supported governments (even those helmed by “brutal dictators”) that were willing to work with the U.S.

Right, wrong, or indifferent, people having to live with the consequences of such interventions have gone on to see the U.S. government as a terrorist organization. Feeling that the U.S. acts with impunity while they are forced to suffer the consequences, many of them turn to radical Islam as a means to exact their revenge. Whether we choose to accept this rationale or not does not matter because their actions are not conditional upon our understanding or acceptance. Similarly, our insistence upon acting as though we are the ones that have been slighted (again, whether we have been or not) results in retaliation which only further fuels the cycle of revenge.

The U.S. is responsible for the circumstances that led up to the Iraq war. We gave military aid to Saddam Hussein during his war against Iran. We told him that we would not get involved with his border dispute with Kuwait and then invaded when our allies (and Bush family friends) in the Saudi Arabian monarchy realized that Saddam’s occupation of Kuwait would put Iraqi forces dangerously close to important U.S./Saudi oil fields. President Bush knew that Saddam did not have WMDs because the U.N. had been inspecting weapons sites inside Iraq for more than a decade and destroying what they found. When the U.N. inspection teams were invited to leave, the U.S. staged covert bombing missions against suspected sites. The chemical and biological weapons that we knew he had had either been destroyed or rendered inert years before. The intelligence suggesting that Saddam had a nuclear program in the works was faulty and Bush had been presented with reports stating as such before he uttered the famous 16 words in his January 2003 State of the Union address.

Despite this evidence however, political forces that have deep roots in American history had long since determined that Iraq was one of three countries that stood as potential barriers to the U.S. world domination promoted by the Wolfowitz Doctrine. Political players such as Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Scooter Libby, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Armitage, and John Bolton all subscribed to the tenets of the Wolfowitz Doctrine and are directly associated with the Project for a New American Century. The PNAC was co-founded by William Kristol. William Kristol also co-founded (and is the editor for) a publication known as The Weekly Standard. Therefore, when Secretary of Defense (a former U.S. envoy to Iraq that broke bread with Saddam Hussein) leaks a story to The Weekly Standard that the intelligence shows that the war in Iraq was justified, and someone want to point to The Weekly Standard as a reputable source for objective and unbiased works of high journalistic integrity, I am not persuaded.

All of this leads me to conclude that we are in Iraq for two reasons: oil and furthering of U.S. imperialism (evidenced by the priority placed upon security for the Iraqi Oil Ministry soon after our invasion, and the subsequent construction of 14 permanent military bases). I do not believe that American lives are somehow more valuable than Iraqi lives, or vice versa. Therefore, I do not consider the deaths of Iraqi civilians a trivial thing, any more so than I would consider the death of American civilians a trivial thing. So if the 3,000 civilian deaths on September 11th is a travesty, then I don’t know what to consider the 100,000 (and counting) civilian deaths in Iraq.

Some may try to argue that 100,000 dead Iraqi civilians aren’t as egregious an offense because they are collateral damage, whereas the 3,000 American civilian deaths were the result of an act of terrorism. I would ask these people if they would feel terrified for themselves and their loved ones if they were awoken in the middle of the night to the sounds of an air siren, or the sound of a tank belonging to occupying military force rolling down the street outside your home, or the sight of your son, brother, father, etc being hauled away in the middle of the night because the occupying army got a report of insurgents in your neighborhood and your loved one is of military age and did receive the mandatory military training required by the former regime. I would argue that both are equally terrifying. I would also note that the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001 were 4 events that were finite in duration and impact, whereas this type of terrorism goes on day after day for these people. Sadly, the Iraqis weren’t even involved in September 11th, so our actions can't even be justified in the name of revenge.

I’ll end here by saying that the moral comparison between torture of innocent Americans and the collateral damage against Iraqi civilians isn’t even applicable. As I have already pointed out, Iraq had nothing to do with al-Qaeda or the attacks of September 11th. Therefore every Iraqi death that we chalk up to “collateral damage” is a stain on our reputation and another source of hypocrisy when we presume to lecture other governments regarding human rights. Some of us would hope that America is capable of conducting itself in a manner worthy of emulation and respect, rather than as a bully that gets its way by pushing others around.

I hope I have adequately addressed every point raised in this thread. I thank you for reading. Take care.