As to real-life not working that way- ask the families of american soldiers, or the families of the dead Iraqis. I'm sure they know more about the 'real life' facts of the matter than you do, sitting in your safe suburb.

tom wrote "As I have explained until my fingers bleed, there is NO ANALOGY between your silly "yeti" scenario and the situation in Iraq."


Well, then refute my direct comparison in the preceeding post, or stop griping about your fingers bleeding until you do. I care not about your poor weedle fwingers. Go tell your mommy, I'm sure she'll make them better ;-)

tom wrote: "Iraq did have WMD programs for many years. They manufactured, and USED them on innocent civilians, both their own and those of other nations. Iraq actively pursued the development and/or acquisition of nuclear weapons, even though the Israelis destroyed their first efforts. This was documented and proved."


So, between 300,000 and 20,000 years ago a giant ape DID live in asia, in the area of china/tibet where the Yeti is supposed to live. This means diddly about the TRUTH that the yeti exists.

Tom, let me parse it out for you:
The claim AT HAND, THAT YOU ATTEST AS TRUE is that Iraq had large amounts of WMD, terrorist ties and posed a clear and present danger to the United states. So far, you have NOT been able to substantiate that claim. NADA. NOTHING. BUPKISS. GO FISH. etc. Your belief in that proposition, in the absence of evidence is equivalent to the Yeti scenario. Again, cry about your bloody fingers. I don't care.

Arguments about the PLAUSIBILITY of WMD in Iraq (that they were likely there 5 years ago, that saddam is a poopy-head, that they were certainly there 20 years ago and even 10 years ago) DOES NOT SUPPORT THE TRUTH of that claim. You accepted this (see earlier messages in this thread), Robert and I have explained it to you. Do you wish to re-arrange the canons of logic and reason so that you don't have to alter your epistemological content?

Tom wrote: "Iraq had a long history of concealment, lies, and misdirection regarding these programs. This has also been documented and proved. The nuclear weapons program revealed after the first Gulf War was a complete shock to U.N. officials who had no idea of its existence, despite an ongoing inspection program prior to the war. Iraq supplied no documentation to show that it had destroyed previously proven stocks of WMD."


Again, please see the above remark about the fundamental epistemological difference between arguments of plausability and arguments of empirical fact . I'm not sure we should desire to live in a war where pre-emptive strikes are initiated off of simply plausable arguments.

tom wrote: "--There was sufficient evidence of such programs during the debate to go to war--just a few months ago--to convince the Congress of the U.S., including many Democrats now bitching about Bush lying or being an idiot, to vote in Bush's favor. Please check this post again. Are they all liars and idiots? Is that plausible? And if you say Bush is and they aren't, how do you justify that statement?"

So, bu-bu-butMommy-they-did-it-too!! arguments don't sway me. Again and for the 1000th time.

Tom wrote: "If I went to your house, that of a person with no known criminal record, and claimed you had stolen gold buried there, and dug up half the yard without finding it, you would rightly think I was an idiot.

If I went to the house of a train robber who had in the past stolen and hidden a lot of gold, and dug up half his yard searching for it, a reasonable person would concede that there might be a good chance the gold could be somewhere in the remaining half, even if I hadn't found it yet. This does not rule out, of course, that he buried it somewhere else. "

But Iraq is not a train robber. The WMD are not gold. People DIED in the 'Real world' (do you understand this? people who had nothing to do with this dispute were blown to bloody painful bits!). A 'reasonable person' MIGHT concede that killing 10-15,000 folks and not finding evidence of the justifying cause of that war presents a REAL PROBLEM to the credibility, integrity and quality of the nation that started that war... Much less the administration that led that nation.

tom wrote: "This is what you call "real world thinking""

Oh, thats what we are calling unjustified homicide nowdays? How neet. I'll be sure to notify my lawyer about that when I next shoot someone dead for no real reason.

Davin L.