The US, UN & Iraq III

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Some here may have taken note of the New American Century as an ideology proposed by some who retain positions of power.

Some conclude from this that US motives are largely driven by a notion that a greater projection of power is needed and that a more assertive superpower needs to strive to ensure its dominance.

I think it's somewhat reasonable a conclusion. some would take it a bit further and dislike expantionist plolicy to the point where they consider it negatively.

I have always had respect for your opinion even if I disagreed totally with what you were saying. What is the above supposed to convey? Pussyfooting? I guess it is possible to be on the fence about "expanionist policy," but I have not seen you walking many rails like this before.

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Craven...mandering, whatever it might be, is surely ok.

Differing perspectives reveal different subjects...sure. But this clearly doesn't fully explain all that we can say about, or might know about, lack of agreement in discourse - there are the fallacies, most obviously.

But there are discourse styles which impede or are unproductive. One such is talking to a person who has fixed or factually false ideas, or who cannot make a certain cognitive move (the pope can't be wrong). Tough to get much agreement or progress.

Scrat's move, as I described above, is consistent. Possibly he thinks it Socratic, but he really ought to read some dialogues if so.

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mamajuana wrote:

Craven, I think many of us have been tempered by a number of abuzz posters who just used to put things out and then say "you show me," and never bothered to offer anything beyond their own criticisms of other people.

I get your point, I don't provide a slew of links for everything someone says, we all have a life to live and can't be librarians online.

mamajuana wrote:

scrat sounds distressingly familiar, and plays games a lot.

"scroll scroll scroll your boat" <<< is that a game too or are all the games commited by someone on the other side of the fence? You complain about his tone yet the "scroll group" stoops to name calling and a "you are too <insert negative adjective like dumb, closedminded> to talk to.

I think it's often both sides who "play games". I know that I've delved into rhetorical playgrounds.

mamajuana wrote:

There are so many people here who do read and think, and want to discuss, and most of us seem to interact with each other quite well. While I disagree with georgeob on most things, as we both know, I do respect him and his knowledge and his opinions, and this holds true with many others.

Something really funny I see here is how openmindedness is generally conceeded to the majority of the people in your political camp and a select few on the other side. It's a telling tendency. Anywho, I digest...

mamajuana wrote:

One of the ways we managed to avoid some nasty conflict was by scrolling, because we learned the hard way that there was no debate or discussion available. So scroll has become a kind of play word. But Blatham's right - there's more to this scrat thing.

As i said earlier, if you intention is to simply avoid conflict I don't think telling someone you will ignore them (which is a paradox) and then chanting about how you are going to ignore him, then questioning his intellect is a good way to avoid conflict.

Please note that the above is not something you did. Just something of a "game" (by my estimation) in which you participated that did not appear to be an attempt to avoid conflict at all.

TI'm sure there is more to the "scrat thing". There's more to all of us.

<picking daisies now...>

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blatham wrote:

Craven...mandering, whatever it might be, is surely ok.

It's remarkably similar to quaffagement.

blatham wrote:

Differing perspectives reveal different subjects...sure. But this clearly doesn't fully explain all that we can say about, or might know about, lack of agreement in discourse - there are the fallacies, most obviously.

Recently I've surprised myself at how wrong I was about a fallacy that I considered obvious.

blatham wrote:

But there are discourse styles which impede or are unproductive. One such is talking to a person who has fixed or factually false ideas, or who cannot make a certain cognitive move (the pope can't be wrong). Tough to get much agreement or progress.

I agree.

blatham wrote:

Scrat's move, as I described above, is consistent. Possibly he thinks it Socratic, but he really ought to read some dialogues if so.

I do not know his intent, but my *guess* is that its a style. Not an evil intent or anything. :-)

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Blatham, that is well put. Styles of discourse must be observed and parsed, if one is to answer in kind or be even somewhat convincing. What I find most exasperating is a disputant who doesn't answer your main point but bounces off it obliquely and scores on a point you weren't trying to make! I don't know the name of that rhetorical trick, (red herring?) but spouses often use it against each other when all else fails. Very Happy

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y simi

Kara wrote:

I have always had respect for your opinion even if I disagreed totally with what you were saying. What is the above supposed to convey? Pussyfooting? I guess it is possible to be on the fence about "expanionist policy," but I have not seen you walking many rails like this before.

It's supposed to be an example as devoid of invective as possible.

At that point I was being abstract and wanted to illustrate something. I think that using a dispassionate example is more effective than using the example and loading it with my convictions (which in the case of your example are quite strong).

The point I was making was not that I consider expantionism to be marginally wrong. I think it's the vry notion of expantionism that is at the root of every security breach.

But for the purposes of the point I was making it was better to leave my opinion for another day.

That it is and nothing more, I didn't intend to walk the fence and say "I have no strong feelings one way or the other".

I was just perambulating, that's all.

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Setanta,

I did enjoy your analysis and am grateful for your restraint with respect to 1812. On that one I agree and my omission was purposeful.

My reference in the Mexican War was to our invasion at Vera Cruz and occupation of the Capital of that country - not the Texas campaign that indeed had all the complications to which you referred. Taken as a whole it is clear that our real strategy went very far beyond the public rhetoric.

We can agree to disagree about Lincoln. He faced an extraordinary series of deadly political challenges after his election and demonstrated all the shrewdness and duplicity required by the situation. We are fortunate he was so effective in this. Take another look at his earlier "House Divided" speech to note his early intent.

I left out the war with Spain for brevity. We both agree on the public and political unanimity with respect to Cuba - notwithstanding the great exaggerations of Spanish cruelty in suppressing the revolution. However none of this required that we also take the Marianas and the Philippines.

We substantially agree with respect to Wilson and Roosevelt. But note that both campaigned and won based in part on what we now know to be deliberate deceptions of the public. I do not agree that there was no significant opposition to our entry into the world wars. There was substantial sympathy for Germany in 1917, especially in the mid west. Prior to WWII the political battles over neutrality, rearmament, Lend Lease and all the rest were hard fought and very narrowly won. Indeed it was this opposition that prompted the public deceptions by both presidents during their pre war campaigns.

Overall I believe you make my point. In war and in politics deception is often a necessary tactic and few successful leaders have not used it in weighty matters with high consequences for their nations. A right understanding of history confirms this.

Further there is the 'fog of war and politics'. I agree with you that a Roosevelt Pearl Harbor conspiracy is unlikely. However, the failure of our government to consider at all the example of the British attack on the Italian fleet at Taranto when it deployed our fleet from invulnerable bases in California to an exposed one in Hawaii, and its equally inexplicable failure to react to the sudden disappearance of the Japanese carriers and the many other indications of the impending attack on Pearl Harbor are reminders that even the most alert and focused of governments can misread the intelligence and make errors - even though their basic policy is well founded and correct.

The important questions before the United States right now involve whether our basic strategy in the face of interwoven and serious cultural, political, and military challenges is correct and likely to deliver a good result. Whether it was wise to try at all with the Security Council or to become emeshed in a legalistic argument about WMD, or to forecast what will or will not be found in Iraq is decidedly secondary.

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Kara wrote:

Blatham, that is well put. Styles of discourse must be observed and parsed, if one is to answer in kind or be even somewhat convincing. What I find most exasperating is a disputant who doesn't answer your main point but bounces off it obliquely and scores on a point you weren't trying to make! I don't know the name of that rhetorical trick, (red herring?) but spouses often use it against each other when all else fails.

I am a big fan of avoiding red herrings.

That the avoidance of red herrings is good for debate is fact. Where it gets subjective is in the judgement call of what is and is not a red herring. What is and is not the most important issue. People disagree on the point, and can also disagree without obvious logical fallacy on what the main point is.

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I guess you are allowed to perambulate. But why bring it up? What you stated were truisms. Not your usual style.

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Quote:

That the avoidance of red herrings is good for debate is fact. Where it gets subjective is in the judgement call of what is and is not a red herring. What is and is not the most important issue. People disagree on the point, and can also disagree without obvious logical fallacy on what the main point is.

Yep.

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This is a good example of how two people can not be in the same ballpark about what is the main point.

georgeob1 wrote:

The important questions before the United States right now involve whether our basic strategy in the face of interwoven and serious cultural, political, and military challenges is correct and likely to deliver a good result. Whether it was wise to try at all with the Security Council or to become emeshed in a legalistic argument about WMD, or to forecast what will or will not be found in Iraq is decidedly secondary.

I read the main point as being that this is a decision whose justification is determined by it's effectiveness in achiving current US goals. Which are presumed to be of utmost import.

I'd look at it very differently.

I do ot consider such the legal issue trivial. US goals, as good and wholesome as they may appear to some, are not the ultimate criteria of what is "right".

Billion's of people disagree with those goals and the very noton of law is to prevent the moral compass of few to go against the moral compass of the rest.

If the criteria is "what works for my goals" it is a criteria that those not alligned with you have an obligation to question.

in shrt, George see's the effetiveness in achieving American goals as the main point.

I see the question of whether American goals in this case should be allowed under the collective moral compass of the world as being as important.

No matter how justified it is to one, the others might think differently.

To me peace is the lack of such ability to flout the rest. To others being the one who can do it is worth the actions needed to reach that ability.

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Kara wrote:

I guess you are allowed to perambulate. But why bring it up? What you stated were truisms. Not your usual style.

I is perambulating! Sprinting gave me a cramp.

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Let's be clear what we're talking about here, since everyone wants to weigh in on "what's wrong with scrat".

Gelis posted a piece about an interview with Wolfowitz. When I asked what it meant to Gelis, Gelis responded in part by asking me whether I thought it was okay to lie. I responded:

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Gelis - I'm sorry, but exactly where did it say that anyone lied? The article states that Wolfowitz said that they agreed to focus on one reason, but if it also claimed that the reason they chose was false, I missed that specific point.

Can you cite me the sentence or sentences on which you base this claim, so that I can determine whether I missed something?

Thanks.

Since then I've been taking flack from every angle and from people who clearly don't even understand what was asked (Blatham). This was not me asking someone to search the Internet to prove some point he or she made. This was me asking someone to simply show me where--in a specific quoted citation within this discussion--(s)he found justification for choosing to say that the administration LIED. Period.

It is either there or it is not. I don't need to go looking elsewhere. Nobody does. Gelis gave up. Clearly there was nothing in the article that said the administration lied. Regardless of how many of you think they did or whether they in fact lied, there was nothing there to indicate that they did.

Having been challenged on this point I have then welcomed anyone who wants to offer any "proof" of this claim, but all I get in response is the whining of children who don't like being challenged on their pet beliefs.

So feel free to respond as to why you believe you "know" they lied or why you believe it "likely" they lied or why you just like to hate them, but as to the "how dare you ask questions, scrat" meeting, it's adjourned.

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Craven, I agree with you that the point of george's post was how effective was US action. If that is all he was referring to, you must argue with him on that basis. Either US action was effective or not.

If one brings up, as you continued on to do, the morality or legality of US actions, this is a different issue. In fact, you are giving an example of my pet peeve, someone who carries on at length NOT about the issue under discussion, scoring point after point, pointlessly.

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georgeob1 wrote:

The important questions before the United States right now involve whether our basic strategy in the face of interwoven and serious cultural, political, and military challenges is correct and likely to deliver a good result. Whether it was wise to try at all with the Security Council or to become emeshed in a legalistic argument about WMD, or to forecast what will or will not be found in Iraq is decidedly secondary.

And here is and will likely remain the sticking point--my take on the adminstrations actions since last autumn is that whereas the Nation was, ostensibly, engaged in a war on terroism, Bush and Company cobbled together a set of pretexts to justify preemptive war in Iraq--and i consider this to have been a dangerous distraction from the campaign which was to have been focused on terrorism. Afghanistan has been conducted on the cheap, and continues to be the ugly step-child of the administrations policy, although the administration enjoys the kind of support for the war on terror which Roosevelt got on December 8, 1941. The current equivocation about the justifications for the war, after the fact, is a very hollow sound, indeed--the expenditures, the lives lost (by Americans, Brits and Iraqis) and the long-term obligations acquired there need to have had a better justification than a string of "good" reasons, delivered after the bombs have fallen. I cannot condone what Polk did in sending Taylor to the Rio Grande, I cannot condone Truman's gaffe in the statement of foreign policy (which, by the way, he felt very deeply to his regret), and I cannot condone the casual build-up of "advisors" by Eisenhower (who ought to have known better), the nasty politcal games of Kennedy, nor the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. Therefore, i do not condone what i see as a case of the administration playing fast and loose with the truth--especially in an age in which, as Kara has pointed out, information disseminates so widely, so rapidly. Even were i a believer in the rectitude of this war, i would be among the first to criticize the administration for being a bunch of stumblebums in the run up and the conduct of the conflict, and i entertain serious doubts about their ability to deal with the responsibility which is now of necessitiy thrust upon the United States. Finally, i cannot condone this pre-emptive, nearly solitary policy (in terms of international support)--early in these discussions, long before the first bombs, Dlowan wrote that the United States was about to "cross a dark and murky Rubicon." How very well-expressed; how much that thought haunts me.

(Although conceding pre-war opposition to Wilson's and Roosevelt's possible participation in a European war, i would point out that where the rubber hit the road, in Congress asking for a declaration of war, there was substantially little opposition to either President.)

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Setanta:

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and i consider this to have been a dangerous distraction from the campaign which was to have been focused on terrorism. Afghanistan has been conducted on the cheap, and continues to be the ugly step-child of the administrations policy

Bingo. And then again Bingo.

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Kara wrote:

In fact, you are giving an example of my pet peeve, someone who carries on at length NOT about the issue under discussion, scoring point after point, pointlessly.

Thing is..

My point was that people disagree on what the issue is about.

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a
Scrat, you baited, I said what the hell and bit, your act grew stale, I got bored and went surfing.... posted some I thought interesting.

You got someone to talk with you ..... be happy,

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Gelis - You made an issue about others lying, and turned out to be lying yourself. You didn't like it that I called you on it, took some impotent parting shots, and left.

I only wish I'd had the good sense to follow you, and hadn't mistakenly assumed someone else who weighed in on this point knew what the hell they were talking about.

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Quote:

My point was that people disagree on what the issue is about.

I know. But many disputants do not disagree about the issue. They respond as if the issue is not the one clearly under discussion. Actually, I was just havin a bit of fun witcha. I'm tired but too awake to go to bed, so I had to keep talking.

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The US, UN & Iraq III

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