Absolutely no part of your feeble analogy works, Brandon. The world is not a community in the sense of a discrete society with a police force. In such metaphorical terms, military action constitutes policing exactly to the same extent that a vigilante mob constitutes policing. We are not the world's cop. The world has not asked us to perform that function. When we act in that capacity without wide support, we are justifiably criticized. When we act in that capacity on the basis of what is in the kindest construction badly informed intelligence, and in the worst, outright lies, we are justifiably condemned.
Everyone here is by now familiar with your paranoia about terrorism which verges on the irrational. Don't expect us to buy a simplistic analogy to the police which does not anywhere parallel the realities of the Iraq War.
And don't forget; to bring democracy to the ME. Such ignorant goals even after having changed their justifications for our invasion so many times; none are justified. After all this carnage, some people still think "it's worth it."
You are objecting to an analogy I wasn't making. Of course, it's easier for you that way.
If a policeman frisks a suspect and finds he doesn't have a gun this time, how is that a fiasco? For all the cop knows, he had the gun 60 seconds before he saw the cop coming. And even if that isn't true, failure to frisk suspects being arrested will certainly cause the cop's death at some point. And please don't triumphantly point out parts of the metaphor that aren't parallel. The point, of course, relates to investigating lethal possibilities with some significant probability of being true.
My point is only about how to deal with a threat that is probabilistic in nature. As I have said before, the relevant factors are
(1) What is the probability that the threat is present?
(2) If the threat is present what are the consequences?
(3) What is the cost of resolving the threat?
As must have been obvious, I was not comparing policework to the purpose of the US military.
If a policeman frisks someone he is in proximity to upon probably cause, and the person turns out to have no weapon, it doesn't even remotely mean that the policeman shouldn't have done it, even though the presence of the gun on the suspect was only a possibility.
The rest of your post is mere name calling. You say, "Everyone knows you're a nut.
"This frees me from the burden of defending my viewpoint."
Such a response is merely a forfeit.
Brandon9000 wrote:You are objecting to an analogy I wasn't making. Of course, it's easier for you that way.
That is patently false, whether or not you are willing to admit it, because:
Earlier, Brandon wrote:If a policeman frisks a suspect and finds he doesn't have a gun this time, how is that a fiasco? For all the cop knows, he had the gun 60 seconds before he saw the cop coming. And even if that isn't true, failure to frisk suspects being arrested will certainly cause the cop's death at some point. And please don't triumphantly point out parts of the metaphor that aren't parallel. The point, of course, relates to investigating lethal possibilities with some significant probability of being true.
This is your policeman analogy. I was responding to that.
Brandon9000 wrote:My point is only about how to deal with a threat that is probabilistic in nature. As I have said before, the relevant factors are
(1) What is the probability that the threat is present?
(2) If the threat is present what are the consequences?
(3) What is the cost of resolving the threat?
As you have never been privy to the intelligence sources upon which the Shrub and his forty theives have based their dirty little war, you are hardly in a position to make absolute statements about the probability of threat, yet you have done so time and again in these fora. The report of the September 11th Commission details the attempt of Wolfowitz to implicate Iraq on September 12th, 2001. That was dismissed by Rice and Rumsfeld. Subsequently, memoranda have been obtained in England which show that the administration, having invaded Afghanistan with widespread and justifiable international support, then began casting about for ways to justify an invasion of Iraq. From early in 2002, legal experts in England consulted by Blair expressed their doubt about the legality of such an invasion, and pointed out that the increased bombing of Iraq was illegal, and a very transparent precursor to war.
Your points two and three above are irrelevant in view of the complete lack of the ability to reliably allege the threat for which the assessment is called in your point one.
In the absence of a reliable delivery system for weapons of mass destruction, Iraq was no threat. In the absence of contacts with international terrorists willing to attempt to smuggle such weapons into the United States, Iraq was no threat. It has been established since the invasion that Iraq did not possess the weapons alluded to in the run-up to the war, and that there was no evidence of cooperation with al Qaeda which could reasonably suggest Iraq would supply them with weapons of mass production. Of course, as they had none, they could not have supplied them if they had been so inclined.
To use your policeman frisking a suspect analogy is ludicrous. Our action is, in the metaphor you attempted to construct, the equivalent of getting an anonymous tip, and using that as an excuse to kick in someone's door and beat them and their family senseless, and then to acknowledge that the threat didn't exist--and then contend that the head of the household was abusive, and the entire action was taken to protect the people who have been beaten senseless.
Quote:As must have been obvious, I was not comparing policework to the purpose of the US military.
How odd of you to say that--to what were you comparing police work?
Quote:If a policeman frisks someone he is in proximity to upon probably cause, and the person turns out to have no weapon, it doesn't even remotely mean that the policeman shouldn't have done it, even though the presence of the gun on the suspect was only a possibility.
You repeat your feeble analogy--the UN inspections were the equivalent of frisking a suspect. As i've pointed out, the invasion was the equivalent of kicking in someone's door on an anonymous tip, the information from which subsequently proves to have been false. You assume the probable cause without demonstrating it.
Brandon9000 wrote:The rest of your post is mere name calling. You say, "Everyone knows you're a nut.
This is patently a lie on your part. I did not refer to you as "a nut."...Yes, claiming that i have referred to you as "a nut" when i have not done so is an attempt on your part to free yourself from supporting your opinion.
Your original response stated that my analogy was untenable in part because we are not the world's cops.
I had not suggested that we were or should be.
Twelve years of trying to get the guy to disarm and prove it, with him even denying the inspectors access at times, and so on, is hardly equivalent to an anonymous tip that some upstanding citizen is a criminal. Now you're just being silly.
I was giving a familiar example, generally understood by my audience here, of a sensible response to a threat that is just a possibility, but possibly lethal if true. If you find it amusing to claim that I was saying the US military ought to be used like police, go ahead, but I wasn't.
Since Hussein had had WMD, had lied about them, had deceived the inspectors before, and persistently refused to furnish real proof that the weapons were gone, there was probable cause. The policeman analogy is intended to demonstrate only one idea, that checking for a lethal threat and not finding it doesn't mean one shouldn't have checked.
It's close enough. A well known paranoid, a nut, it's close enough. Pointing out that you didn't mouth those very words exactly doesn't prove your point.
My response was valid. Stating that one's debating opponent is well known for responding to an issue irrationally is usually an attempt to escape from the burden of debating him point by point.
Brandon9000 wrote:Since Hussein had had WMD, had lied about them, had deceived the inspectors before, and persistently refused to furnish real proof that the weapons were gone, there was probable cause. The policeman analogy is intended to demonstrate only one idea, that checking for a lethal threat and not finding it doesn't mean one shouldn't have checked.
...I find it hilarious that you contend he be capable of proving the non-existence of something, as you so frequently ridicule such a contention by others in threads relating to scientific topics.
The entire purpose of Brandon's posts in this thread is to justify Bush's Iraq incursion by saying that actually finding WMD's is not necessary for the war to be justified-only a probability based on his reports is necessary.
Public support is finally waning for the Iraq war, so Brandon is here to say that the actually existence of WMD's is irrelevant-only a 25% or so possiblility that they ever existed is reason enough.
Forget all the lies and deception you leaders told you-a long as the possiblity was something over 20%, there is nothing wrong with the war. And we might have to do the same thing again soon, according to Brandon.
What is hilarious is the locution: "furnish real proof that the weapons were gone"--of course now, you have once again modified your statment, as you attempted to do with your failed policeman analogy. Keep workin' at it Brandon, you might eventually come up with a statement which is worth defending--although i doubt it.
What amazes me is America's willingness to claim an entire foriegn policy based on 'Do what I say, not what I do.'
We ignore previous pacts to downsize our nuclear arsenal - yet we want the world to dissarm (saying they are madmen when we are the only ones to have ever used that particular weapon - on an enemy that was desperately trying to surrender).
We demand that other countries forgive African debt when we will only forgive our debt if Africa only uses American vendors in the future (essentially mega rich windfall).
We tell the world that we are hunting down terrorists - but we pick and choose our terrorists by what natural resources we want from them. (Saudi Arabia for instance) And we cannot even call Sudan genocide because it would mean our intervention.
With this said and the ability to go on for days on the topic - how we treat other countries and thier WMD's should be somewhat consistent with how we treat ours - unless we are so totally convinced that our egocentric, hubris filled, bull **** conception of 'we good - they evil' has so pervaded our souls that we cannot see around it.
TTF
We had a valid "search warrant" to go into Iraq and search for WMD and remove the regine for flagerant violations of the cease fire agreement from Gulf 1. That was the mission.
How is that hilarious? A videotape of their destruction and the availability of their remains would have constituted such proof, and been quite possible for him to supply, had he wished to satisfy the requirement to disarm verifiably. You say it's funny that he be asked to prove a negative, but it would have been easy.
Brandon9000 wrote:How is that hilarious? A videotape of their destruction and the availability of their remains would have constituted such proof, and been quite possible for him to supply, had he wished to satisfy the requirement to disarm verifiably. You say it's funny that he be asked to prove a negative, but it would have been easy.
No, it would only have been easy for him to use such a means (and a highly dubious one) to demonstrate that he had acted to create the void--he could not have proven the void once it existed--as i've said, keep trying to edit your statement until it works, but don't expect much from the process.
