Election postponement, and "al qaeda" - Page 4

This is a faulty match-up. I seriously doubt Saddam was running around with a gun firing off at coalition soldiers. I seriously doubt he is still running around leaving car bombs near coalition outfits. Saddam is nowhere in this picture. Saddam's men are most assuredly in this picture, and it would be your own crackpot theory that Bush has personally made some special deal to take potshots at his own coalition forces, in order for your analogy to work. Bush is the wife, the American soldier is the husband, and the husband is run down by another militant or fundamentalist combatant. That's it- nothing more, nothing less. So forget about warping the analogy into something it is not.

It's a functional example to facilitate comprehension. It is your own faulty assertion that was to somehow point out that buying milk and going to war are on the same level of complexity. I would take it this is simply your way of avoiding the real point being made. The milk is simply a stand-in element, and in no way represents the full scale of war. It is simple there to represent that the soldiers are sent to do a specific duty. ...can't believe I have to explain this.

Your decision to actually make an issue of this is akin to having a fit over a spelling error, except no spelling error has been made. You simply dislike the elements chosen to build the example. Trivial.

You're wrong. Either you believe going to buy milk and going to war are equivalent or your analogy is faulty.

When you make the decision to send someone to war, you're making a conscious decision to put someone in harm's way. When you make the decision to eat cornflakes, you don't.

And my original point was that rageous' statement was faulty, like your own. If a decision was made by someone to turn the other cheek they did not choose to kill 3000 of their own citizens. Just as sending someone to buy milk isn't making a decision to have them get hit by a car.

If you are unable to make this connection, then I can't help you. In either scenario, you are being sent to accomplish a task. That's it- nothing more.

That's why I said simplistic analogy.

The two really can't be compared because this was a very complex situation.

It compares. You just refuse to see it.

Now the analogies you frequently bring up...that's another story. It's all the typical "witty" logic superpositions we find from your pal Michael Moore that manage to only obscure things more than they clarify.

So to be sent the roof of Chernobyl to shovel sand on the open core by the government and shovel snow in the drive way by your wife is somehow equiliant because they are both tasks?

Of course your both right and wrong. Yes the soliders was sent to do a task, to go buy milk in the supermarked is also doing a task. But there is a huge difference between the two. To sent combat troops into war in a hostile country WILL cause deaths and the government who sent the soliders have the responsibility of those lost lifes. They could have chosen NOT to sent the soldiers. The government have the responsibility to show that the loss of lifes have been worth it.

All of you seem to be focusing on the wrong part of the analogy. A task is a task. Some are dangerous, and some are not. That isn't the important thing in all of this. Sending them in to a dangerous task is quite different from explicitly sending them to their deaths (imagines Moore making some flippant remark that since the probability is low enough for the coalition at large, it isn't much more to worry about than getting hit by lightening- yeah, sure, sleaze-boy...). The President has sent them in to do a task. There may be casualties in the fulfillment of the task, but that is still a different scene than when someone uses deliberately disingenuous wording to suggest that the President is sending them in to explicitly die. They don't die as a result of the task. They die because there are armed combatants (enemies) killing them. All of this word play is simply to obscure the reality of the matter- that Iraqis are killing American soldiers. Naturally, this doesn't get the necessary political agenda effect. So we get all the "clever" logic games that instead say, "President Bush is killing our soldiers!" Yeah, it grabs more attention to say that, but does it really capture the essence of the matter? Hardly. The liberal mob mentality certainly eats it up, though.

Or focusing on the right part but misunderstanding it completely.

A task is a task sure but all depends on the motivation and actual nature of the instigator of the task.

If the 'wife' is not really the wife at all but a cloned replicant hell-bent on destroying the husband for her own maleficent ends whilst successfully pretending to be the loving spouse....

If the husband has been drugged insensible so he can't tell real from illusory....

If the readers of the analogy have been drugged insensible.........

Well, who in their right mind could have foreseen that sending thousands of soldiers to invade another country might have resulted in people shooting at each other?

This argument is probably the lamest and crappest I've read on the internet for some weeks and I feel a little more stupid for even reading it.

Though I agree that the argument is lame and crappy you clearly haven´t read all of the links people use to back up their claims here.

No argument there. I'm just saying that while the UN was certainly less than happy about the situation in Iraq, they weren't considering armed action.


Believe it or not, I don't have a partisan agenda here. I'm not saying that there was no cause for concern, rather that somewhere between the people actually gathering the intelligence and the Bush administration's statements to the UN and to the American people someone decided to say something that they knew (or should have known) wasn't true. That's fucked up, and that's why I'm pissed that our soldiers are dying. Yeah, they were sent to do a job. But no matter who was at fault, they weren't told the real reasons why they were sent. In the military chain of command, there's an implicit agreement. You agree to do what your commanders order, and your commanders agree not to order you to waste your life.

I want to know whose fault it was, so until we punish those responsible, I'm going to blame Bush. The buck stops there.


I would never claim that they're nice guys, but it's THEIR country. If I woke up tomorrow and found my town occupied by foreign troops, I'd do something about it too. What you're saying is that had the Iraqis just accepted an invasion no Americans would have lost their lives. That's almost true, but when you invade a country you generally expect them to shoot back.

The most humane and cheapest (both financially and in terms of loss of life and international prestige) alternative would have been to sit here in OUR country and let Iraqis (or the UN, which believe it or not was created to deal with things like this) handle THEIR country. It's no wonder people hate the US - we just assume that we have the right to dictate terms to the entire globe.

From my response, it would appear eveyone has assumed I believe it to be impossible that the administration could have turned the other cheek. I am under no such assumption.

My point was that the one example given of governement corruption was Watergate, and it's a stretch to think that because Watergate took place that this administration could have looked past an imminent attack. There are far better examples of government corruption, and possible conspiracies, that would have better reinforced the argument that a government can be complicit, or at least neglegent. The Kennedy assassination being one.

My only point to my post was to point out that the one example given of governments misbehaving was a weak example. Nothing more.

I say don't go and bring up the "freedom fighters" BS, and what do you do? Well, we know where you are coming from now.

If you woke up tomorrow and found your town occupied by foreign troops, you would be thanking your lucky stars that the oppression by your dictator government is over. Did you think about that? Lemme guess, you liked living under Saddam. That then makes you complicit with the Baathist party. Do you still believe you represent the true will of the Iraqi people? Who cares, right? Life was good for you, screw the others!

Some day you might want to step out of that black and white view of the world. After all, what makes you think the current leadership doesn't use the old Baathist techniques, and how can you say life is so much better on the ground or even that it won't get worse because of the volitile situation.

A lot of things have to get worse before they get better. That should not keep people from just sticking with the bad situation they have.

Keep your "black & white" assertion to yourself. It does not belong here.

I guess we now observe the desperate moves of the antiwar crowd as they practice their justifications as to how life under Saddam would have been more preferable over doing anything at all. If only there was a way for you to actually experience that...(I doubt you would keep that position)

Just answer me this people...

What reason is there for Ridge to come out and hold a press conference to announce an unspecified threat on an unspecified location that should be taken seriously but not serious enough to raise the terrorist alert level?

"Hello, I'm Tom Ridge. The sky is falling. I don't know where. I don't know when. But it will be. I have nothing specific to tell you other than WOLF!!! WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF!!!!! Thank you and go shopping or something."

Sorry but what he said does not warrant a press conference and it is clearly politically motivated.

But that's the whole problem. Media folks can get away with constructing everything in terms of bad, good, better, worse, but the real questions are far more complex. What is Iraq's economy, what will it look like in 10 years, what policies can get it to where it needs to be, who decides what it should be, what are the goals and actions of each group, what group wants what and who will succeed? What is the role of organized crime groups and what businesses are they in?

If there are summary executions being performed by even the president, what is really going on and what does that say about the future of Iraq? Is the country headed for (already under) an oppresive regime that uses execution and torture instead of rule of law? Are we witnessing the reemergence of desaparecidos?

What is the state of utilities and public services (universally reported to be in very bad shape)? What is everyday life like for the average Iraqi? What will it be like over the next 5 years?

You see, the problem with this whole war from the beginning is that no pro-war types recognize the importance of these issues. Powell's State Dept. did, but was cut out of any role. Now all of the Bushists still haven't figured out that they don't have to just blindly support the defense dept's fuck ups to still be Bushists.

But that would require thought beyond "better" and "worse" and "good" and "evil," so that would be asking too much.

Hm, that's all well and good until you also consider that the infrastructure for utilities and public services was woefully inadequate pre-war and said utilities and services are subject to ongoing sabotage by insurgents. Not to mention we all like to pretend that Iraqis all had running water and electricity in their homes 24/7 before the United States invaded, which is simply not the case. Is the US to blame for the current state of these systems? Partially, but not entirely. I find it odd that you would try to make the situation appear so black and white when you constantly criticize others for doing so.

As for what will their lives be in 5 or 10 years:
Who's to say? It is just as likely, if not more likely, they will be in a bad state over the near term. However, that remains to be seen. The important thing is that they will soon have the ability to shape their own future. Hope doesn't guarantee success, but nobody would deny hope is far better than hopelessness.

Were the Saddam regime still in power their future over a 5-10 year span is far more predictable. They would have been oppressed, exploited and terrorized by their givernment.

to giant:

The catch is that America at least has a precedence for successful nation rebuilding. You don't. So excuse us if your criticisms of the way Iraq is being handled are taken as the rantings of the ultimate armchair world leader/military general/security specialist... It's easy to criticize every single thing that doesn't come off smoothly and hold it up as evidence that you knew they didn't know what they were doing. It's another thing to actually be doing it, doing something, and working towards a wide-sweeping outcome over the longterm. Certainly I have an opinion about what goes on, but by no means, do I regard that opinion as the end all, be all of the matter.

Actually, I'm parroting the statements of the people that not only have the experience in nation building, but actually worked on Iraq and were shut out by the DoD, who think they can just read Aristotle and, WHAM!, out comes a transformed Iraq. Like fast food, but with millions of people as the meat.

And by the way, I actually know in detail exactly what wolfowitz is talking about when he says the word "regime," so that puts me in more than enough of an adequate position to comment on it.

Linky-poo ?

Do you really need a link to know where the US has been successful at nation rebuilding?

And before giant chimes in, I will be the first to acknowledge that the US has been unsuccessful more often than not.

Yes a link is required!

From an unbiased source.

Phillippines possibly depends on how you judge the success of a government.

Germany maybe though it was a democracy prior to 1933 anyway, and a industrial/engineering giant.

Japan though we killed off 60% of the males age 16-50.

Haiti though the properly elected president was spirited away.

All in all the only successful nation building was Japan IMO. But, and here's the kicker, fatman and little boy played a big part in that rebuilding process as did the descimation of the Japanes male population. Given that kind of track record how could we not try our hand at nation building again?

Oh, almost forgot about Cuba and Afghanistan.

excuse me...no, I'm not ready....



Ok - I got it together now (just). See this is why I love these forums - where else can you get these iconic postmodern iconoclastic masterpieces ?

Who says Americans don't do irony ? But this goes way beyond - this is a whole new comedy genre, and it was born here !

So what if people don't get it right now - in years to come every stand-up will be doing it and we'll get write-ups in the Washington Post.

We'll have a name (like the Pythons) and people will copy us (lamely) and be outsider-esque.

The hand of history is on our shoulder people.......

wow!! constructive and mature (not)

Did you ever notice it's the conservatives that are quick to reach for the insults and the four letter explitives?

To be fair there are some hot heads on the liberal side but nothing close to the childish statements I seem to be reading from the conservatives. It's a sign that they've run out of arguments and are backed into a corner.

I'm sorry if someone takes this as bait. It's not meant to be. It's just an observation.

I think there is a tendency in these situations for the side who is making the policy to dismiss debate as simply an attack on their position rather than a democratic right to question and scrutinise policy directions.

At least the debate has largely moved on from the simplistic allegation that you're a 'commie' or in bed with OBL or AQ if you do question why we are in Iraq. That kind of response is nonsense.

I am not from the US but from a so called 'Coalition of the Willing' country. I do not simply accept at face value what an elected representative tells me. And when I question the rationale or motives behind a policy direction it does not make me a 'commie' or someone who is a supporter of a fundamentalist group bent on the destruction of the West. Rather, if I question with rigour, the decisions my elected representatives make then it only serves to improve the quality of democracy to which the West purports to aspire.

There are so many inconsistencies in the argument of the 'Coalition of the Willing', that I simply cannot accept that the basis for the Invasion and occupation in Iraq is legitimate.

Basic arguments by the 'Coalition of the Willing' were found to be baseless: where are the WMD's, where is the link to AQ. Are we better of now that we have occupied a country in the Middle East??? Are the Iraqis liberated and free???

So who said the following? Was it Bush, Blair, Howard, Rumsfeld........

"Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators. Your wealth has been stripped of you by unjust men... The government of Iraq, and the future of your country, will soon belong to you... We will end a brutal regime... so that Iraqis can live in security."

NO, none of them. It was General F.S. Maude, commander to the British forces in 1917.

Do the Iraqis aspire to be like 'us' when we humiliate them and torture them when they are detained? NO. And the argument that Saddam did worse things does not hold. The 'Coalition of the Willing' purports to aspire to the highest moral values and so on but cannot ensure basic human rights for Iraqi detainees.

So when there are questions over the conduct or direction of the 'Coalition of the Willing' I have every right to seek accountability from those who make that policy as I am told that I live in a democracy.

I welcome constructive dialogue from anyone no mater which side of the political spectrum you come from.

Well said!

thank you (haven't got much of a reply though????)

not much anyone can honestly say against that post.