george wrote:
Quote:You and the author of the piece you cited claim to know what Cheney is thinking or has considered,
False. I've written no sentence suggesting that. There's no way I can know what he's thinking. Further, neither the Newsweek nor the Ha'aretz writers make that claim.
Quote:It turns out what you claim he has considered is merely ordinary contingency planning of the type done by every administration and every government in such situations.
Again, there's no claim in the sense you use it. This is a report of what sources have told the reporter. Such sources can be in error or can be lying for various motives. Such sources can also get it right. As we know, politicians and military personnel (and many others) often attempt to deceive, misdirect attention or just downright lie. And that can be on matters of deep importance, like war. I'll assume you don't believe that reporters ought merely to transcribe what those in power tell them.
Quote:You now rationalize youe earlier unfounded fault-finding by claiming that these routine contingency options fly in the face of the desires of the American people. How do you know the will of the American people on this or any matter? Do you claim to speak for them?
Would you consider it "routine" for an american administration to, for example, consider covertly staging an incident or provoking an incident so as to - entirely deceitfully - trick american citizens into supporting a war started by America?
The last two sentences above are simply silly, george. Polling information gives us a good sense of what opinions have gained or failed to gain consensus in a population. If you wish to believe that the majority of Americans are in support of Bush's war with Iraq then you wish to believe it and there's not much I can say to you. If you don't believe that the majority of Americans support Bush's war in Iraq but would be pleased as punch about a new war on top of that one, with a much stronger country and with certain negative consequences to the security of americans, then you wish to believe that and my talking won't alter your ideas.
Quote:By definition any political leader who considers or plans something new runs the risk of contemplating things contrary to the will of the people. This hardly seems to be a rational for such fault-finding. Would you apply the same standard to Franklin Roosevelt who we now knconspired for several years to get this country involved in a war that very few in the country wanted and most vigorously opposed? Indeed he did this while campaigning for a reelection on the basis of continuing our neutrality policy.
Yes. There is an example where retrospectively most of us would conclude that the president, though operating covertly and contrary to citizens' wishes, did the best thing. But this example hardly gives licence to all future presidents in all cases to operate in this manner. Though perhaps to your mind it does. Perhaps you do consider that american citizens ought not to know what is going on, that they ought to be deceived, that they really cannot be counted on to have correct ideas and that it is really just a small elite who have the capacity to rule a republic.
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