2
   

Who dismissed Rumsfield?

 
 
Brandon9000
 
  1  
Reply Mon 13 Nov, 2006 12:26 pm
Cycloptichorn wrote:
Yet another Meta-argument with Brandon

Cycloptichorn

You are wrong, as usual. This was my original post:

Brandon9000 wrote:
blatham wrote:
Of course, my analysis will wait for verification and correction from brandon.

Alright. This kind of guessing in the absence of facts is pointless. It's "conspiracy theory" type thinking, imagining you can just "guess" what happened behind the scenes.


Tell me if you please how this constitutes a meta argument? It strikes me as directly on topic. If I make an on topic post, and subsequently to that, people like you make meta arguments with me, I cannot be faulted for merely responding. Indeed, my post to BBB stated that her post was off topic and that we should get back to the original topic.
0 Replies
 
Cycloptichorn
 
  1  
Reply Mon 13 Nov, 2006 12:27 pm
You are continuing the meta-argument

Cycloptichorn
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Brandon9000
 
  1  
Reply Mon 13 Nov, 2006 12:33 pm
Cycloptichorn wrote:
You are continuing the meta-argument

Cycloptichorn

Nonsense. You address a post on a meta-topic to me. I merely say that you're wrong. You then accuse me of having the meta-discussion which you started.

My original post in this thread was directly on topic. I stated that blatham lacked the facts to support the type of theory he was talking about. After that, I merely responded to things said to me.

I'm not going to waste any more time on you unless you have something pertaining to the thread topic to talk about.
0 Replies
 
Cycloptichorn
 
  1  
Reply Mon 13 Nov, 2006 12:35 pm
Actually, I didn't adress any post to you.

And, frankly, you intentionally waste people's time with devolution of threads into meta-discussions constantly.

You are continuing the meta-argument with every post you make about the meta-argument. Let it die...

Cycloptichorn
0 Replies
 
Ticomaya
 
  1  
Reply Mon 13 Nov, 2006 04:56 pm
Bi-Polar Bear wrote:
Ticomaya wrote:
Hey, BPB ... how about Shuler? You a fan?


too early to tell....he's likable, and I have heard him talk... he's plain kind of "just folksy" speaking without crossing the line into moronic illiterate like bush. We'll see how he does.

Tico, I'm sure some democrats will turn out badly. I live in the real world.


Well he's a conservative Democrat, ... so he can't be all bad.
0 Replies
 
ehBeth
 
  1  
Reply Mon 13 Nov, 2006 08:40 pm
a giggle or a gasp ...

Quote:
He might have been kidding, but the more you read and think about it, the more it provides a plausible explanation for the wholesale White House bungling in the closing weeks of this year's campaign: Bush and Rove blew the midterms on purpose. How else to accept that the normally hapless Democrats not only won, but as the president put it, "thumped"?

Okay, even reporter/blogger Will Bunch of The Philadelphia Daily News, who concocted the idea -- likening it to "The Producers" plot to engineer a flop -- revealed that he had to put on his tin-foil hat first. I admit, I still don't believe it.

But the alternative view is just as chilling: that many, if not most, of our Washington-based pundits are even more out of it than we'd guessed. How else to explain their embrace of Karl Rove-as-tactical-genius for all these years? Either they were embarrassingly wrong or ... as Bunch hints ... maybe all too correct?

Why blow the election? Go to Bunch's blog for the full explanation, but it largely boils down to Iraq -- and the opportunity to make this a bipartisan problem as the catastrophe worsens in the months ahead.

That desire, at least, is not farfetched, even if the conspiracy theory itself is a joke. I'm reminded of a Mike Peters editorial cartoon this week that offered a new twist on Colin Powell's "Pottery Barn" principle: It showed a broken pot, labeled Iraq, with Bush pointing to a Democratic donkey and saying, "I broke it ... you own it."


hand me the aluminum foil ... link
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  1  
Reply Mon 13 Nov, 2006 09:01 pm
ehBeth

The man has a serious case of over-thinking. Perhaps if we got him together with Brandon, they would cancel each other out.
0 Replies
 
Brandon9000
 
  1  
Reply Tue 14 Nov, 2006 02:06 am
blatham wrote:
Quote:
I found their [Bush's, Cheney's] statements plausible


Oh yes, I know you did. And this epistemological device would have at least a little objective credibility were you now to make a list of those instances where you did NOT find their statements plausible.

What does this have to do with my assertion that you lack the information to support your scenarios regarding the true origin of Rumsefeld's departure? You figure any random crack made to an opposing poster constitutes a logical defense of your position?

I challenge you to spell out any explanation other than simple resignation, and then support it with facts. I don't think you can do it. I have no doubt that your response will be some irrelevant distraction.
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  1  
Reply Tue 14 Nov, 2006 05:59 am
Do you really wish to play? Then let's proceed as follows:

1) we'll choose 5-10 a2k members as jury who have actually studied some basic Logic.

2) I will make the argument, you can make yours, then each get an opportunity for rebuttal

3) the jury will vote on whose argument is the more compelling in its presentation of data and in its adherence to logical rules and its absence of logical fallacies

4) the one of us who that jury votes less compelling or credible in logic and in information will leave this site for one year.
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  1  
Reply Tue 14 Nov, 2006 06:46 am
gus

Here's a good piece by Pincus... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/13/AR2006111301135.html

Quote:
One quick indication of how Gates will deal with interagency tensions will be whether Rumsfeld's undersecretary of defense for intelligence, Stephen A. Cambone, and his top deputy, Army Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, remain in their current positions.


Boykin, of course, is the "our God is stronger than their God" evangelical fruitcake. Cambone is one of the serious neocon ideologues tied into Cheney's office and Israel. Colin Powell was recently quoted in the WP as referring to Bush as having fallen under the sway "of the JINSA crowd". Wikipedia has some basics on them.
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  1  
Reply Tue 14 Nov, 2006 08:20 am
New Yorker piece on rummie (I haven't read it yet)
http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/061120fa_fact
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  1  
Reply Tue 14 Nov, 2006 08:24 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQEeH0eWEhc
0 Replies
 
snood
 
  1  
Reply Tue 14 Nov, 2006 08:28 am
blatham wrote:
Do you really wish to play? Then let's proceed as follows:

1) we'll choose 5-10 a2k members as jury who have actually studied some basic Logic.

2) I will make the argument, you can make yours, then each get an opportunity for rebuttal

3) the jury will vote on whose argument is the more compelling in its presentation of data and in its adherence to logical rules and its absence of logical fallacies

4) the one of us who that jury votes less compelling or credible in logic and in information will leave this site for one year.


Damn! Now THOSE are some SERIOUS TERMS!

<surely someone as assured in his beliefs and as grounded in documentable fact as Brandon can't pass up on such an opportunity to definitively display the strength of his arguments>
0 Replies
 
au1929
 
  1  
Reply Tue 14 Nov, 2006 08:31 am
Haven't read the comments in this thread. However, as I wild guess I would say. The same people who dismissed Bush. The American electorate. Smile
0 Replies
 
Brandon9000
 
  1  
Reply Tue 14 Nov, 2006 09:44 am
blatham wrote:
Do you really wish to play? Then let's proceed as follows:

1) we'll choose 5-10 a2k members as jury who have actually studied some basic Logic.

2) I will make the argument, you can make yours, then each get an opportunity for rebuttal

3) the jury will vote on whose argument is the more compelling in its presentation of data and in its adherence to logical rules and its absence of logical fallacies

4) the one of us who that jury votes less compelling or credible in logic and in information will leave this site for one year.

Yet another irrelevant distraction. In this thread you have claimed the ability to make this sort of interpretation of Rumsfeld's resignation. I say, go ahead, but give a specific, single theory together with some evidence to show that your theory is more than just a self-indulgent conspiracy theory. My only argument herein has been that you lack such facts, and are just making things up that you cannot support with evidence.

Once again, I challenge you to present any theory of his resignation other than simple resignation, and then support it, that is lend it some degree of plausibility, with facts. At your next evasion, I will simply conclude that you cannot do what you purport to do, and move on to matters of greater moment.
0 Replies
 
BumbleBeeBoogie
 
  1  
Reply Tue 14 Nov, 2006 09:59 am
Blatham
Blatham, thanks for the article; just finished reading it.

I've always had love-hate reaction to Rumsfeld. I despise his true-believer arrogance and unwillingness to listen to others, a classic martinet. I admired his goal to reform the Military to prepare it for the real world---as he sadly perceived it too narrowly.

The thing that puzzles me about all of the true believers and, even the military leadership, is that lack of knowledge of tribal societies and their histories. Anyone knowing anything about history understands that the weakest side in a dispute will not confront head-on a more powerful foe. They will use the techniques demonstrated by American Indian tribes from the first foreign landers on our soil. Guerrilla tactics, or call them insurgent tactics, picking them off one by one on the trail.

Why couldn't these military and civilian leaders anticipate that the weaker force remaining in Iraq would instinctively use guerrilla tactics against the invaders as well as their tribal enemies? We now know that Saddam developed such a plan for his army to follow. Why didn't we anticipate that? Was it because of a lack of understanding of human resistence to an invasion of their tribal territory and how a weaker force would retaliate?

I strongly believe that, in addition to war college military warfare training, military leadership must study world history, especially the history and culture of the hot-spot regions in which the military might be expected to be involved.

How many mistakes do we have to make before we learn these lessons?

BBB
0 Replies
 
au1929
 
  1  
Reply Tue 14 Nov, 2006 10:18 am
BBB

The lack of understanding and the mistakes you allude to were not those of the military but rather the civilian leadership in the white house.
0 Replies
 
BumbleBeeBoogie
 
  1  
Reply Tue 14 Nov, 2006 10:25 am
au1292
au1929 wrote:
BBB

The lack of understanding and the mistakes you allude to were not those of the military but rather the civilian leadership in the white house.


I rarely disagree with you, but I do in this case. The civilian leadership is guilty. Read the several books by credible authors with inside information about our military leadership and you will find some of them are guilty of bad judgement, unwillingness to challenge mistaken power. Too many of them were more interested in protecting their career advancement than doing the right thing. These few officers betrayed their troops and the American people.

BBB
0 Replies
 
au1929
 
  1  
Reply Tue 14 Nov, 2006 10:34 am
BBB wrote
Quote:
unwillingness to challenge mistaken power. Too many of them were more interested in protecting their career advancement than doing the right thing.


Yes, very true. That does not transulate into ignorance just self protection.
0 Replies
 
BumbleBeeBoogie
 
  1  
Reply Tue 14 Nov, 2006 11:42 am
au1929
au1929 wrote:
BBB wrote
Quote:
unwillingness to challenge mistaken power. Too many of them were more interested in protecting their career advancement than doing the right thing.


Yes, very true. That does not transulate into ignorance just self protection.


Sadly, it cost thousands of lives of our troops and many thousands more of Iraqis.

BBB
0 Replies
 
 

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