Lola
Glad you've decided to revive this thread because it was/is my favorite also. Let's go back and review parts of your last post----you said to me:
Lola wrote:You are, perc, inclined to judge situations and people as black or white. You say so yourself. But I don't agree with you that this is an accurate picture of reality. It's a distortion of reality. In relationships with people, nothing is that simple or clear cut. We all have multiple motivations, and often our motivations conflict. So it takes some mature judgement about what is going on and what to do about it.
I admit to reducing factors as I see them down to the lowest common denominator-----the reason I tend to attempt this usually difficult feat is perhaps analogous to the reduction of masses of mathematical data to a simple equation. My final determination of either/or is only after Observing an event, Orienting myself to the observable factors surrounding that event, deciding what action is warranted and then acting as I see fit.
It much like the old survival tactic of fight or flight----it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that immediate action is required therefore if you analyse for a split second too long you're history.
It is my sincere belief that when action is required complex analysis must be performed with a profound sense of urgency however after all the KNOWN factors are analyzed the final decision might be taken based on whether it is----good --OR---evil. I will argue all day long that Bush made his final decision based on good --- or----evil---IT WAS THE RIGHT THING TO DO. Now you and the left will say but it wasn't legal. Legal according to whose rules? That can be answered by saying that it was according to international law as established by the UN Charter---that is completely outmoded because it mistakenly allows thugs to thumb their nose at the international community because they have found a flaw in the International law. Then the next question is----do we have a moral obligation to break recognized international law in the case of Iraq? The answer is yes because the alternative is horrific. Now this becomes a moral issue not a legal issue. Bush decided morality was on our side because we must free the Iraqi people from a man who has murdered hundreds of thousands of his people and has turned the country into his personal toy to play with as he chooses. After this reasoning is established then the question is how do we justify this action to the American people? This is where the blunder developed but the end result would have been the same IMO. If----he had gone to the people (and the congress) and said : We must remove this man because he is a tyrant who has murdered X number of people, has imprisoned and tortured X number of people, we know he is supporting terrorism which is causing instability all over the ME(it was a fact that he was sending checks to the families of suicide bombers) and we think it is essential that we try to establish a gov't in Iraq that will represent all it's people. Had he laid out this simple set of reasons I think the American people would have supported him through congress and we would have still gone war.
He and his advisors did not trust the American people so they used reasons that had been accepted by the Clinton administration as being justifiable reasons which were supported by the best intelligence that was available at that time( we now suspect that intelligence was flawed) (HINDSIGHT IS ALWAYS 20/20)
Now many of you---not all ---will grudgingly acknowledge that ---THE DECISION TO RID THE WORLD OF SADDAM--was the right decision.
It is also obvious that serious miscalcutations about the aftermath of the war, were made by Wolfowitz et al because they did not listen to the right people. Should he be fired-----I would not ----- because----he did have the guts to go there and see the mess for himself and realizes he screwed up----he is human after all and he still knows more about the situation than almost anyone else AND he wants to correct the situation more profoundly than anyone else..
Now if you want to call my reasoning flawed and simplistic be my guest-----I would say I'm guilty only of breaking the complexities down to simple explanations.
You all say perception only sees things as either/or----black or white. That is true----but only after analysing all the known factors and the suspected consequences but in the final analysis you either do or you don't ----- go to war.
Blatham:
I have just seen your latest post before mashing the submit button----your posts are always challenging but if I may say just one thing. Instead of trying to find areas where we could agree(as I tried without success with Lola but I'm not giving up) you seem much more interested in intellectualizing instead of trying to find common ground. The final result could be categorized as an indictment against you but not nearly as bad as yours is against us.
Could I suggest that in each post each of us should at the end, ask a question which would be worded in such a way that would leave space for agreement----wouldn't that be a great achievement and something to aim for? As it is now we are talking past each other because of this thick wall of soundproof material separating us. I think we all have a great need to have a point acknowledged now and then??????????
