Tom, are you trying to write a Politcal attack Commercial, or have a discussion? I'll finish out this thread with you and everyone else, but when its done, I'm back out of CE. This is just pathetic and sad. I have no desire to take this sort of abuse for disagreeing with the Great George Bush and his NeoCon Hordelet here on the CE CircleJerk.

Davin Wrote: "The point is, on the other hand, do we then have the right to wage war upon a people because their leader is not legitimate. Obviously, Saddam himself was not the immediate target of the vast majority the millions of tonnes of ordinance expended in the war in Iraq.

I think many would say that the appropriate metaphor here is raping the people in question to restore their chastity. Its an irrational and nonsnsical approach to the problem "Leader X is illegitimate". What makes Leder X illegitimate, after all, is the use of force to impose his will upon the people- regardless of the will of the people."

Tom replied Note the blurring of the concept of the use of force, regardless of motivation or ends of the user. Coalition troops and Saddam's thugs are identically illegitimate, because they both use force.

We did not expend our munitions primarily on civilians, as Davin well knows. We have lost many Americans to keep from killing Iraqi civilians.

Tom, and do you think the 'military' personnel that died from our strikes where volunteers? Military service in Iraq was a mandatory 3 years.

Please point out exactly where I say our troops are the moral equivalent to 'Saddam's thugs'. My point is that if we are to use the unilateral force of our might to enforce our will, to displace a thug because he used the unilateral force of his might to enforce his will, then our stated aim seems contradictory. This has nothing to do with our troops. And no moral equivalencies are drawn. My above statement is devoid of value judgements but thiose that you extrapolated (falsely). Quite frankly, and as I have stated explicitly and without qualification: I believe our military men and women are patrotic heroes and I want them home with as few deaths as possible.

Ah, yes- you can't find where I denegrate our troops, can you?. Unless you want to put words in my mouth or distort my actual words.

Tom continued: We killed a grand total of about 5,000 non-combatants to liberate twenty million people from a regime, that over its twenty-five years, killed an average of 140 Iraqis a day. By this calculation, we broke even back in April. Of course, the anti-war people insist that there is no proof that Saddam would ever have killed anyone in the future, so this is not relevant to them. These same people believe that another forty years of tyranny, restrained only by angry letters from the U.N., bumbling inspectors, and totally useless sanctions, would not have resulted in any danger to the rest of the world.

(actually, by most accounts its 10-30 thousand NC's, with a likely estimate at just under 12)

Tom, you run back continually to this argument:

Saddam was bad
We got saddam
Therefore, we did the right thing.

There is no contest by anyone that Saddam was a BadGuy- not the worst out there for sure, but pretrty damn bad. What you want to do is play this game: I disagree with the statement "We did the right thing" and you immediately try to shove down my throat the contradiction to your premise:

Saddam was NOT bad

It doesn't work that way, Tom my lad, and if you were in my logic class (back when I used to teach) and could not grok this little basic point of discourse, I would flunk you.

My argument is that: we were not right to fight this war to 'get' Saddam. We were not right because it was not a war of self defense. We were not right because this claim was falsifiable, empirically, way in advance of the war because Saddam was in a box and had no connections to Al-Qaeda

Tom wrote "By Davin's standards, it seems that one could not liberate a people from a tyranny unless they first voted to have you do it (while under the control of that tyranny.)"

Gee, tom, this 'make-up-a-conclusion-and-misdirect-the-debate' game sounds fun. Let me try it:

'By Toms standards, it seems the only arbiter of the will of the people is the conservative party of the United States.'

Davin wrote: To a large degree, though, this argument stands as a value laden red herring for the real justification of this war. As I have pointed out before: the argument 'we should invade because leader X is a tyrant' is a purely values-based argument that's validity and appeal, in the end, boils down to what ethical/moral premises you accept. This is not to say that its relative- but it is to say that a roomfull of rational folks can disagree about about its truth/falsity until the end of time.

Tom replied: Only leftists can use the word "values" as a pejorative. There are reasons for this, which I won't go into right now.

I see, now I'm a 'leftist'. Whats next, Tom- you gonna call me a stalinist? Blame me for every little pocket dictator and tyrant this world has ever seen?

And you dare talk about me being pejoritive? Do you even realize the depths of your hypocrisy here? You are behaving like a mule...

So lets discuss your indefensible slander- I dare you, Tom: defend your statement or wear the label of liar:

How exactly is it pejoritive to anyone at all to say that value laden arguments are arguments that "a roomfull of rational folks can disagree about about its truth/falsity until the end of time"

I dare you. If you are going to use insulting tactics, have the courage to jump in and back it up.

Tom continued Of COURSE Davin is saying it's "relative." How else does one interpret this paragraph? And please find me a single rational person, let alone a roomful of them, that would not agree that Saddam was a tyrant. For sure, I could find some irrational people who would say something along the lines of "who am I to decide?" but the reasons for that are also another story.

Its sad you need this tutelage:
Relative issues are, by definition, issues that the truth of which is relative to the observer. What Blue is the most blue shade of blue, for example.

It is simply the case that if you argue from values, then someone else who is equally rational but holding different values will disagree with you.

If you think your values are exactly and only the set of values that are absilutely true, then I don't want to know you, I don't want to come to your house and I don't want to see you on the street. The world has been raped by people like that for thousands of years, and we don't need any more.

The point is: There are some things (values) about which rational and reasonable people can disagree without having hope of ever arriving at consensus.

Davin wrote: However, as a tool of distraction, it is marvelous. All those responsible for this war have to do is to convince their followers to shift the debate into this swamp of non-reason, value and emotion and you can hide, forever, the fact that the original argument presented for this war was false: That saddam had WMD, that Iraq had ties with Al-Qaeda, and that Saddam was an immediate threat to the US and her allies. We therefore must invade.

Tom replied: This is a misstatement. The truth is that we thought Saddam had WMD and ties with terrorism (not necessarily al-Qaeda specifically), and that this combination was too dangerous to be allowed to become an immediate threat.

Ah, yes, your rusty underpinnings are showing through here, Tom. Reasonable people (ala the Paul O'Neil statements, the Wilson statements and ALL THE RESEARCH I did before the war indicate) can disagree that we had actual reason to think this. All of the information before and since that has been brought before the public has not been decisive. It was so faulty, in fact, that the intelligence services of our allies discounted whole swathes of it.

So suddenly it becomes a LIE/MISSTATEMENT to argue a legitamtely debatable point? Dissent is dishonesty? In a pigs eye, Tom. Stop acting like Maoist schoolboy in the cultural revolution.

Tom continued: Is this a new approach? Maybe so. The whole point of the concept of "pre-emption" is that the enemy is NOT attacking you at that time, but presents a future danger. You can't accuse Bush both of describing Iraq as an immediate threat AND of engaging in pre-emptive war. The two ideas don't mesh.

Ah, yes- this bold and daring and brave new approach that seems to require virtually no hard evidence and in which decisions on what constitute 'imminent threat' are made by a single branch of government. Yes, we will see how you like this when a Democratic president exercises the exact same procedure and standards. What was that you have said about Kosovo?

Tom wrote: McFly, I suggest you go back to accounts from before the war, particularly from the anti-war people. I can provide links if necessary. The myth that "everyone knew" what we would find in Iraq is being painted over what actually occurred back then, and what predictions were actually made. Fortunately, it's getting a lot harder in this day of archives to rewrite history.

Yes, please McFly- look at my posts... Posts Tom is well aware of, where I knock holes in the AlQaeda connection and all the absuurd and groundless claims on imminent threat. Follow my links. Follow my data back to State Department and CIA whitepaper. Please do.

tom wrote: "The Left is coming from a single direction: the political destruction of George W. Bush. Iraq is just the most effective tool they can use right now. ."

I see, its not that we could possible have a honest disagreement about anything- its all just a political attack using a diushonest excuse.

Mary annes right Tom: You and your little tribe here are not worth any time.

You all behave like attack dogs who can't tolerate informed dissent and do not engage in dialogue to test views and truth. You have destroyed this website. I though I'd try to come back now that Fox and MA were trying to post some, but its not worth my time. You are starting to sound like Ebnelson

Enjoy your circle-jerk.

Davin L.