quote:

---

The survey found that 72 percent of Bush supporters believe either that Iraq had actual WMD (47 percent) or a major program for producing them (25 percent), despite the widespread media coverage in early October of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA’s) “Duelfer Report,†the final word on the subject by the one billion dollar, 15-month investigation by the Iraq Survey Group.

---

quote:

---

Add to this the fact that our troops tortued Iraqis because of this war. Add the fact that we've added hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit because of this war. Add the fact that trust in America has dropped all over the world, especially in the countries we most need for the war on terror, because of this war. Add the fact that we have had to force many of troops to stay in military service, against their will, because of this war. And the fact that 1000 of our own troops and countless Iraqi innocents have died because of this war.

All of this, and what have we bought with it? We've managed to replace a tyranny with no WMDs and no proven connection to Al Qaeda with an anarchy where terrorists have free reign and the Iraqi people are unsafe.

Given all that we now know, who could call this war "necessary"? Who could even call it right?

---

quote:

---

The fact is that the U.N. was right: We COULD have waited longer. They were not moments away from developing a nuke. They were not days away from giving away chemical weapons to terrorists. We ended up finding exactly what the U.N. inspectors found, after implying they had failed. We went out by ourselves on a limb to say that the U.N. was wrong and being absurd, that Iraq was an immediate threat, and we were flat out wrong.

---

quote:

---

First of all, we were already at war with Iraq. We were shooting at each other practically every day. So we "started" nothing.

And yes, I support the idea of winning the war on terrorism. That will take more than punitive missile strikes, and it will take more than the Afghani campaign. Perhaps we merely disagree on what the next step should have been, but please don't tell me that you think there should have been NO next step. That Afghanistan was enough.

In order to be safe, we must destroy our enemies' ability to make war. Our problem is, our enemies are not nations. They are factions that take refuge within foreign countries who support them while denying that they support them.

Politically, this is a minefield. If you think invading iraq was a diplomatic disaster, imagine invading Iran or Syria, nations that are NOT currently shooting at our planes every day. THAT would have been a disaster.

Iraq was a country that (1) was already engaging us in battle regularly, (2) had a populace that would benefit from a regime change, (3) would give us a military advantage against our other targets, and (4) was believed to be a legitimate target itself because of its possession and potential distribution of weapons that at the time, everyone was pretty sure they had.

In other words, it was the ideal next step in the war on terrorism. The only drawback was some Americans' suicidal squeamishness. People who want to eat beef without hurting cows, who want to read books without cutting down trees, and who want to defeat our enemies without going to war. It sounds like a pretty world, but when you wake up, you still have to deal with this one.

---

quote:

---

Chad,
I found out a little while ago a kid who grew up down the street from me and went to the same grade and high school that I did (some years younger than me and I never actually knew him, but I sort of know the family) got a large part of his liver (among other things) blown away while patrolling over in Iraq. He wasn't outfitted with the best body armor, which to be honest may or may not protected him, but would have given him a better chance. Can you see how I would consider criticizing the person most directly responsible for sending him there without the best protection as supporting the troops?

In my mind, there is a big difference between supporting the troops as people, as trying to make their difficult job as easy as possible and supporting the President. This difference is especially pronounced when people more or less give the President a blank check in terms of uncritically supporting whatever decisions he makes with regard to the troops. In this case, I'd say that supporting the troops and supporting the President are usually opposing concerns.

I supported the war based on the overwhelming case the government made for WMDs. Time has shown that at least some parts of where intended to deceive and that many other parts were the result of poor analysis and planning. The conduct of the war has shown to me many other cases where at the very least there was both poor analysis and planning. And during all this, the Bush administration has been unwilling to be held accountable for their mistakes. I am trying to influence the public to apply pressure on the administration to accept the responsibility for the course they've put us on, the decisions that they've made, and perhaps most importantly the way they've gone about making these decisions. One of my major motivations in this is concern for the safety of our troops, so it makes me sad to see that one of the biggest forces opposing me are people who I feel have conflated supporting the troops with supporting the President.

It is possible to think that the decision to do something was a mistake and yet support the effort to get as much good out of the situation that has developed because of that mistake as possible. I still think that the U.S. had the legal right to invade Iraq, but I don't necessarily think that it was a good idea to do so. It has polarized the country and squandered a large part of the goodwill of the world on something that hasn't significantly improved America's security and may have even harmed it. It has also taken the focus off of hunting down the terrorists and, by fostering opposition and distrust of our foreign policy, lost us useful international tools and alliances.

I don't think that the choice to invade was a good one or at least te best one that could have been at that time. I don't think that the analysis and planning both pre-war and post-war have been sufficiently responsible. I wish that our troops weren't there, but, as they are there, I want them to do their best in making Iraq a good place to be and I want them to be as safe as possible while doing it. I don't believe that President and his staff have shown that they should be trusted to achieve these ends and so I criticize them in the hopes that they will be foreced to the accountabilty that they have so far dodged.

I think "Wrong War, Wrong Place, Wrong Time" was a pretty stupid way to express this and I don't think I ever supported John Kerry as a candidate, but I agree with what I think was the underlying message of this, which I believe matches up pretty well with what I said above. Do you consider me someone who doesn't fully support your cousin as well as the many people I've got on the ground over there?

---

quote:

---

It's only to say that we had a whole sh*%load of really good reasons-though as MrSquicjy points out, some of those reasons were negligent or outright fraudulent-to invade Iraq.

---

quote:

---

I supported the initial saber-rattling leading up to the war, because I thought it was a ploy to get the UN weapons inspectors allowed back in. When Blix's team was allowed in, I thought OK, it's over. Especially after they found no initial evidence of WMD, and reported sufficient cooperation on behalf of the Iraqis to verify disarmament within a matter of months.

---

quote:

---

Then we attacked anyway, before that time was up. At that point I remember staring at the TV saying "WTF? WTF?" over and over.

---

quote:

---

There was definitely a need to verify that Iraq had no weapons program, given the intelligence that suggested they had one. There was no need to invade, given that the verification was already in progress.

---

quote:

---

Anyone who followed Iraq's dealing with the US and the world would have known that Iraq was not involved with 9/11 and was a threat to Iran and the Kurds but not to us.

---

quote:

---

Anyone with any knowledge of history would have realized that it was not going to be the 6 week cake walk that Rumsfeld touted.

---

quote:

---

Anyone, that is, without an investment in invading Iraq. I agree that the anti-war movement is naive, but that, I think, is better than having no hope.

---

quote:

---

Really? They reported total freedom to inspect possible sites as they saw fit, interview scientists and workers freely and in private as they say fit, both without preparation?

---

quote:

---

This presupposes two things that I don't think are givens at all: one, that the inspections process as it actually was in Iraq could be relied upon to *guarantee*, or even close to it,Saddam's disarmament; two, that WMD were the onky reason to invade.

---

quote:

---

Their judgment was probably based in part upon which privileges they reasonably thought they could negotiate in the near future.

---

quote:

---

On that question I trusted the judgment of the experts, Blix and el Baradei. The record in the years since has certainly borne out their preliminary findings, and not the opinions of those who disagreed with them.

---

quote:

---

On the second point, I don't deny that there were other reasons to attack. I do deny that they were good enough reasons, by themselves, to justify an attack.

Remember that the price was more than 100,000 dead.

---

quote:

---

The relative risk of death due to the 2003 invasion and occupation was estimated by comparing mortality in the 17.8 months after the invasion with the 14.6 months preceding it. The authors stated, "Making conservative assumptions, we think that about 100,000 excess deaths, or more have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq."

---

quote:

---

"We estimate that between March 18, 2003, and June, 2006, an additional 654,965 (392,979–942,636) Iraqis have died above what would have been expected on the basis of the pre-invasion crude mortality rate as a consequence of the coalition invasion. Of these deaths, we estimate that 601,027 (426,369–793,663) were due to violence."

---

quote:

---

The same legal obligations?

---

quote:

---

The same critical location in the world economy?

---

quote:

---

The same populations whom we have promised to protect?

---

quote:

---

Those other countries regularly fire on our lawfully behaving soldiers with their regular military?

---

quote:

---

Like it or not, the only relevant legal entity was the UN, which specifically decided that an invasion was not a legitimate way to enforce the law.

---

quote:

---

I don't think you can argue that they were a significant threat to their neighbors at the time, if we assume the UN inspectors were correct about the WMD situation.

---

quote:

---

I don't see how this matters except as a trumped-up excuse to start a fight. How many of those Iraqi potshots actually did any damage to any American people or materiel.

---

quote:

---

When you're fighting an insurgency (which we definitely should've known we'd be doing), your troops are going to get freaked out and break the rules. That's psychologically inevitable. Then when they break the rules, the local population gets even more upset with you, and you enter into the cycle that characterized at least the first 3-4 years of our occupation in Iraq.

---

quote:

---

I don't think that crap occurred only because the war was mis-managed. It was inevitable. Atrocities are inevitable. The bad guys will commit them, and the good guys will commit them, in every war. That means if you start a war, the cause has to be a big enough deal that you're willing to sully your nation and pay the moral price of committing atrocities. Iraq was nowhere near.

---

quote:

---

ETA: When I say the war in Libya was already happening, I mean people were already dying in considerable numbers. There's a sense in which we already had some low-level conflict with Iraq, but it was not the cause of much loss of life.

---

quote:

---

You're sending what appear to be mixed signals, but perhaps I'm misunderstanding. One of your first (and as I'm reading it, and you'll correct me if I'm wrong) is that inspections were underway, thus we shouldn't have invaded. Later you wrote about several reasons, after a little prod, why perhaps the inspections as they were happening might not have been as comprehensive and reliable to the total question as they seemed.

---

quote:

---

You also discuss the impossibility of Iraq's 'guaranteeing' of their disarmament, despite the fact they were legally bound to do just that.

---

quote:

---

ou also discuss the impossibility of Iraq's 'guaranteeing' of their disarmament, despite the fact they were legally bound to do just that. Nowhere do you address the deep doubts that ought to occur when a country under weapons inspection has years with which to partially mislead, outright lie, harrass, and simply stop the process can be really said to be disarmed with the inspections of just a few weeks or months.

---

quote:

---

We come back to the issue of reliability of inspections, but let me ask you this: the means by which we ensured Iraq wasn't a conventional military threat to its neighbors-did you support them? Sanctions, large military presence in the region, no fly zones, etc.?

---

quote:

---

The *only* relevant legal entity here? The USA, which would have borne an overwhelming proportion of the military and economic burden of dealing with this problem, is to be completely bound by the UN's word in this matter?

---

quote:

---

And this all sidesteps how effective and trustworthy the inspections were *at the time*. Are you claiming, however much you were shocked and upset when we invaded, you would've wagered anything of value that they had really disarmed as they claimed?

---

quote:

---

Heh, I saw your post before the edit and was ready to jump. But even with the edit, allow me to point out that you're saying Iraq cannot be said to have started the war, because even though they were illegally shooting at us daily, they weren't killing enough of us?

---

quote:

---

Proportionality should be a guideline of war. 600,000 Iraqi's dead, no weapons of mass destruction found or even evidence that they existed. Your excuse is that they merely *fired* on your forces is reason for a massive coordinated invasion and regime change? Shameful.

---

quote:

---

On April 9 U.S. forces took Baghdad. On April 14 the Pentagon announced that most of the fighting was over. On May 1 President Bush declared that combat operations were at an end. By then looting had gone on in Baghdad for several weeks. "When the United States entered Baghdad on April 9, it entered a city largely undamaged by a carefully executed military campaign," Peter Galbraith, a former U.S. ambassador to Croatia, told a congressional committee in June. "However, in the three weeks following the U.S. takeover, unchecked looting effectively gutted every important public institution in the city—with the notable exception of the oil ministry." On April 11, when asked why U.S. soldiers were not stopping the looting, Donald Rumsfeld said, "Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things, and that's what's going to happen here."

This was a moment, as when he tore up the TPFDD, that Rumsfeld crossed a line. His embrace of "uncertainty" became a reckless evasion of responsibility. He had only disdain for "predictions," yes, and no one could have forecast every circumstance of postwar Baghdad. But virtually everyone who had thought about the issue had warned about the risk of looting. U.S. soldiers could have prevented it—and would have, if so instructed.

The looting spread, destroying the infrastructure that had survived the war and creating the expectation of future chaos. "There is this kind of magic moment, which you can't imagine until you see it," an American civilian who was in Baghdad during the looting told me. "People are used to someone being in charge, and when they realize no one is, the fabric rips."

On May 6 the Administration announced that Bremer would be the new U.S. administrator in Iraq. Two weeks into that job Bremer disbanded the Iraqi army and other parts of the Baathist security structure.

If the failure to stop the looting was a major sin of omission, sending the Iraqi soldiers home was, in the view of nearly everyone except those who made the decision, a catastrophic error of commission. There were two arguments for taking this step. First, the army had "already disbanded itself," as Douglas Feith put it to me—soldiers had melted away, with their weapons. Second, the army had been an integral part of the Sunni-dominated Baathist security structure. Leaving it intact would be the wrong symbol for the new Iraq—especially for the Shiites, whom the army had oppressed. "These actions are part of a robust campaign to show the Iraqi people that the Saddam regime is gone, and will never return," a statement from Bremer's office said.

The case against wholesale dissolution of the army, rather than a selective purge at the top, was that it created an instant enemy class: hundreds of thousands of men who still had their weapons but no longer had a paycheck or a place to go each day. Manpower that could have helped on security patrols became part of the security threat. Studies from the Army War College, the Future of Iraq project, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, to name a few, had all considered exactly this problem and suggested ways of removing the noxious leadership while retaining the ordinary troops. They had all warned strongly against disbanding the Iraqi army. The Army War College, for example, said in its report, "To tear apart the Army in the war's aftermath could lead to the destruction of one of the only forces for unity within the society."

"This is not something that was dreamed up by somebody at the last minute," Walter Slocombe—who held Feith's job, undersecretary of defense for policy, during the Clinton Administration, and who is now a security adviser on Bremer's team—told Peter Slevin, of The Washington Post, last November. He said that he had discussed the plan with Wolfowitz at least once and with Feith several times, including the day before the order was given. "The critical point," he told Slevin, "was that nobody argued that we shouldn't do this." No one, that is, the Administration listened to.

Here is the hardest question: How could the Administration have thought that it was safe to proceed in blithe indifference to the warnings of nearly everyone with operational experience in modern military occupations? Saying that the Administration considered this a truly urgent "war of necessity" doesn't explain the indifference. Even if it feared that Iraq might give terrorists fearsome weapons at any moment, it could still have thought more carefully about the day after the war. World War II was a war of absolute necessity, and the United States still found time for detailed occupation planning.

The President must have known that however bright the scenarios, the reality of Iraq eighteen months after the war would affect his re-election. The political risk was enormous and obvious. Administration officials must have believed not only that the war was necessary but also that a successful occupation would not require any more forethought than they gave it.

It will be years before we fully understand how intelligent people convinced themselves of this.

---

quote:

---

It was an awful idea, perhaps the worst America has ever tried on foreign soil. But if you were in on it, it was great work while it lasted. Since time immemorial, the distribution of government largesse had followed a staid, paper-laden procedure in which the federal government would post the details of a contract in periodicals like Commerce Business Daily or, more ­recently, on the FedBizOpps Web site. Competitive bids were solicited and contracts were awarded in accordance with the labyrinthine print of the U.S. Code, a straightforward system that worked well enough before the Bush years that, as one lawyer puts it, you could "count the number of cases of criminal fraud on the fingers of one hand."

There were exceptions to the rule, of course -- emergencies that required immediate awards, contracts where there was only one available source of materials or labor, classified deals that involved national security. What no one knew at the beginning of the war was that the Bush administration had essentially decided to treat the entire Iraqi theater as an exception to the rules. All you had to do was get to Iraq and the game was on.

But getting there wasn't easy. To travel to Iraq, would-be contractors needed permission from the Bush administration, which was far from blind in its appraisal of applicants. In a much-ballyhooed example of favoritism, the White House originally installed a clown named Jim O'Beirne at the relevant evaluation desk in the Department of Defense. O'Beirne proved to be a classic Bush villain, a moron's moron who judged applicants not on their Arabic skills or their relevant expertise but on their Republican bona fides; he sent a twenty-four-year-old who had never worked in finance to manage the reopening of the Iraqi stock exchange, and appointed a recent graduate of an evangelical university for home-schooled kids who had no accounting experience to manage Iraq's $13 billion budget. James K. Haveman, who had served as Michigan's community-health director under a GOP governor, was put in charge of rehabilitating Iraq's health-care system and decided that what this war-ravaged, malnourished, sanitation-deficient country most urgently needed was . . . an anti-smoking campaign.

Town-selectmen types like Haveman weren't the only people who got passes to enter Iraq in the first few years. The administration also greenlighted brash, modern-day forty-niners like Scott Custer and Mike Battles, a pair of ex-Army officers and bottom-rank Republican pols (Battles had run for Congress in Rhode Island and had been a Fox News commentator) who had decided to form a security company called Custer Battles and make it big in Iraq. "Battles knew some people from his congres­sional run, and that's how they got there," says Alan Grayson, an attorney who led a whistle-blower lawsuit against the pair for defrauding the government.

Before coming to Iraq, Custer Battles hadn't done even a million dollars in business. The company's own Web site brags that Battles had to borrow cab fare from Jordan to Iraq and arrived in Baghdad with less than $500 in his pocket. But he had good timing, arriving just as a security contract for Baghdad International Airport was being "put up" for bid. The company site raves that Custer spent "three sleepless nights" penning an offer that impressed the CPA enough to hand the partners $2 million in cash, which Battles promptly stuffed into a duffel bag and drove to deposit in a Lebanese bank.

---

quote:

---

Atrocities were most certainly inevitable-they were already happening, had been for years, with no end in sight. You're speaking as though the options were between 'no atrocities' and 'atrocities'. That's just flat-out wrong.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by TomDavidson:
I have little to say in this thread that I have not been saying for over a decade, increasingly stridently. It makes me physically ill to have this conversation anymore; worse, it nauseates me that it's still necessary to have this conversation with some people.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Destineer:
At the same time, Sam, as good as those articles are... they leave it open that maybe, if the war had been executed honestly and intelligently, it would have been a good thing.

I want to deny that as well.

---

quote:

---

I have little to say in this thread that I have not been saying for over a decade, increasingly stridently. It makes me physically ill to have this conversation anymore; worse, it nauseates me that it's still necessary to have this conversation with some people.

---

This. In fact, reading through those threads and getting a full hit right in the face of all those hideous things we want to forget, like how strident pro-war partisanship led so frequently and easily towards the defense and support of american torture programs.

This is why it's so much nicer to have internet discussions about, say, how japanese swords are blatantly inferior for combat, or practically anything else. It doesn't relate to having to waft through a nauseating, delusional illness of the 2000's American zeitgeist.
 

---

Posted by Bokonon (Member # 480) on :
 
I'm usually embarrassed about old posts (heck, I was in my 20s when i wrote that! ), but I actually liked this one. And Storm Saxon's response here.

I know, apropos of nothing. but I thought I put it pretty well.

-Bok
 

---

Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rakeesh:

quote:

---

Proportionality should be a guideline of war. 600,000 Iraqi's dead, no weapons of mass destruction found or even evidence that they existed. Your excuse is that they merely *fired* on your forces is reason for a massive coordinated invasion and regime change? Shameful.

---

If you're not willing to discuss this fairly, Blayne, I'm not going to discuss it with you. I make that claim of dishonesty or sloppiness on your part for good reason: you've clearly read my posts in this thread, and that's nothing like what I said. I didn't say the reason to invade was because they shot at our planes. You know I didn't, or you simply weren't paying attention. Take this as a victory, if you like-I know my own thoughts on this subject, and what I've said as well.

Destineer, wanted to say not ignoring you-have to respond later, though.

---

quote:

---

You brought up China, which was a complete non-sequitor, there can be no reason other than that you are so lacking in a substantiative reply to the most basic fact that the war was dissaproportionately out of proportion to the supposed casus beli that it doesn't matter what you believe the cause ultimately was.

---

quote:

---

Sorry if the signals appeared mixed. My position is that the UN inspections were not 100% reliable, since no complicated information-gathering effort can be 100% reliable. But they were reliable enough that we should have reduced our estimate of the Iraq threat well below any reasonable threshold that might justify an invasion.

---

quote:

---

Further, as it turned out the inspectors demonstrated a good record of success compared to US intelligence. Their preliminary findings turned out to be right, while the CIA was abysmally wrong. I think we can conclude that the people who listened to US intelligence weighed the evidence wrongly.

---

quote:

---

When you talked about guaranteeing, I took you to mean proving something with certainty. That's obviously impossible, so it must not be the requirement that the law placed on Iraq. In that case, in this weaker sense of 'guarantee,' I think the UN inspections would have guaranteed disarmament after a couple of months of further work.

---

quote:

---

Also, even if (horror of horrors) Iraq did develop a nuke, consider the odds of it actually getting into terrorist hands. That hasn't happened with Pakistan's weapons, despite the fact that Pakistan's culture is far more closely aligned with Islamic fundamentalist terrorism than Iraq's. I would say the odds of Iraq passing on a nuke or other WMD to terrorists, assuming they had one, were less than 5%.

---

quote:

---

Well, they weren't actually killing any of us.

The important question is, who started the major conflict? Who made the decision to invade? Whether than constitutes "starting a war" or not is pure semantics. Call it what you like, we started something when we invaded, and the something that we started is what I object to.

---

quote:

---

Let's stipulate that 'atrocities' means something like violent-type war crimes. My impression is that Hussein's violent campaigns against the Kurds and Shiites were basically over by '03. The only atrocities being committed in Iraq at that time in appreciable numbers had to do with torture in the prison system. (I could be wrong about this in some respect, since I haven't looked into it closely.)

---

quote:

---

even tossed a winky in there to illustrate my mention of China was not intended to be some bitter insult, but rather a suggestion to take a more nuanced view, dropping the absolutist statements. Not only are you still unwilling to discuss this honestly with me, you won't even drop the absolutist language.

---

quote:

---

China's nukes? What a profoundly stupid argument. Your suggestion is that because we treat one nation that can within hours kill *millions of our citizens*, if we don't treat another nation that can't in the same way there's some sort of hypocrisy? There was *no* justification of *any* kind? You're worse than boots. We didn't try a diplomatic solution? It would be one thing if you said we didn't try enough, or we didn't have good enough reasons, etc, but you don't say that, do you?

---

quote:

---

I'm not even going to touch the nonsense about Chinese non-aggression without diplomacy except to note it.

---

quote:

---

I'm pretty sure I said that or are there reading comprehension issues? IE: The whole portion of my post regarding proportionality, that invading iraq was out of proportion to whatever casus beli's it may have presented. A point you refuse to engage or address. There is room for a nuance that there may have been options for the United States, but it is clear that there is no justification for invasion. A fabricated case doesn't mean that there was a good case.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rakeesh:

quote:

---

I'm pretty sure I said that or are there reading comprehension issues? IE: The whole portion of my post regarding proportionality, that invading iraq was out of proportion to whatever casus beli's it may have presented. A point you refuse to engage or address. There is room for a nuance that there may have been options for the United States, but it is clear that there is no justification for invasion. A fabricated case doesn't mean that there was a good case.

---

You actually made a lot of points, not just about proportionality. One of those points was to mention our different behavior towards nations with nukes pointed at us. Apparently you still don't get it: *we treat nations with nukes pointed at us differently than those without*. That is 100% rational. Your mention of it was simply absurd.

I know you're not actually that foolish, hence my refusal to discuss this with you until you stop ranting. Or, hey, keep it up. I'm having fun with this, too.

---

quote:

---

Also, the evidence we had then was 'meager'? Well against just *any* state, sure. But Iraq was on parole. And Saddam worked *really hard* to keep the world on edge, uncertain, about his disarmament, wouldn't you also agree? I feel that this is one of those half-truths that is so often believed about Iraq, that the evidence was 'meager' because it wasn't overwhelming.

---

quote:

---

Anyway, to answer your question, I do feel we have justification to intervene in Iran with military force. I don't feel we should because I don't think we could, on our own, and the rest of the world is largely content to wait and let things continue to simmer, or else directly profit. And (heaven help me) before anyone makes mention of it, yes, this sort of thing is one of the bigger problems I have with the so often inept and stupid way the Iraq war was conducted.

---

quote:

---

I don't know, I feel like the legal justifications are the same as before, namely none. As I said before, the only legal reason for going into Iraq was to enforce UN law, and the UN had decided that an invasion was not an appropriate way to do that. The circumstances about the previous war certainly provide a disanalogy, but I don't see how they bear one way or another on the legality of the US attack.

---

quote:

---

The UN has also decided on multiple occasions that the appropriate response to genocide is to do...what, exactly? I'm just pointing this out to illustrate that it's hardly as though the UN is a consistent, reliable enforcement body that we should've relied upon to enforce its own rules (and of course, to enforce those rules itself, without relying, whenever it *did* decide to enforce its own rules, on an overwhelmingly American military presence).

---

quote:

---

You also don't note the process by which the UN arrived at that decision, Destineer. Did it decide to take that 'course' by arriving at that conclusion based on objective debate free from influence?

Of course not. Now, your key point is right: the UN had made a decision. I just feel it needs some context.

---

quote:

---

There isn't any sillyness but the 100% serious allegation that the United States committed war crimes and crimes against peace under the standards and precedents set at Nuremburg and continues to flout international law as it sees fit.

---

quote:

---

Also again to address the "parole" argument, international law makes it very clear that nations are only akin to individuals but otherwise do not have the same standards applied to them as applied to individuals. After all the United States was not Iraq's parole agent, the UNSC was. Further enhancing the war's illegality because its vigilante justice outside your jurisdiction to carry the analogy further.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lyrhawn:
Some of the blame for those dead goes to Iraq itself. It's a country designed to fly apart at the seams without a strong bonding agent. Saddam was that bonding agent, and he only governed effectively when he was killing off scores of potential violent forces. When we destroyed the bonding agent, the country immediately fell apart.

Do we bear the blame for breaking the bond? Yes, of course we do. We should have had a bonding agent in place ready to go.

Do we bear all the blame for the destruction that followed? No. You take some heat for putting a gun on a table and walking away. But when an adult picks up the gun and shoots someone else, you don't say it isn't murder because someone gave him the gun. Sectarian violence claimed many of those lives.

Having said that, I'm glad Iraq is over, I was never, ever in favor of the war, and I think we have a lot to answer for.

---

quote:

---

Like you've said before, Blayne, I just don't give a crap about civilian deaths-in fact I'm *happy* about them, I'm sorry there weren't *more*! Why, I certainly haven't expressed contempt for the way the Bush Administration waged the war in this very thread and dozens of times elsewhere!

Man, I just hate me some Iraqi civilians. It's probably because they're usually so *brown*, and as a fat self-glorying American I just hate 'em!

ETA: Again, Blayne, take refuge is fantasy however you like, this isn't a case of you posing damning arguments and observations, and me getting all blustery arrogant American and just refusing to answer because your powerful truth makes me realize a guilty conscience. Nothing like that. I'm willing and indeed eager to discuss this, as I have with Destineer and others.

I'm just not willing to engage with you, because of the straightforward dishonest or careless way in which you're discussing it. Instead, I'm having a good time watching you go nuts-just now I had some fun watching you declare I just don't care about the civvies, and I think my country is a white knight in this affair. If it were someone else saying it, I'd be suspicious of irony.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rakeesh:


Kmbboots,

By all means, seize on one-word self-righteous replies founded in the substantive posts other people make (Samprimary, in this case) rather than actually replying to the objections and criticisms I've raised to you specifically.

---

quote:

---

You are the one that relied on fallacies as your opening statement, you are the one that relied on a false equivalence "well china did this or that" as a deflection tactic to avoid have to be accountable for your argument and avoid substantiating it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Samprimary:

quote:

---

You are the one that relied on fallacies as your opening statement, you are the one that relied on a false equivalence "well china did this or that" as a deflection tactic to avoid have to be accountable for your argument and avoid substantiating it.

---

Blayne, I'm going to be more direct. Shut up. Stop telling people like Rakeesh how they're obviously moving heaven or earth to not substantiate their argument, or explaining how someone obviously has no standing for their position and are just trying to avoid being "accountable" for it.

The first step towards pretty much anyone being able to take you seriously in debates (especially in your extremely rocky reputation for debating international issues) is to quit acting like this when you're usually always wrong and blustery and useless, otherwise people will just continue to know that you can't rationally be engaged on these matters. It's annoying and you're being ridiculous, stop it.

---

quote:

---

As for Germans after WWII, quite true. Why the Nuremberg trials are held so highly is curious to me, though, considering what happened to so many of the convicted defendants. I have to wonder, though, aggressive war like the Nazis? We're still in Iraq, after all, we took and held much of its territory and deported or enslaved or murdered their inhabitants, yes?

---

quote:

---

Really, Destineer? That's all you have to say? 'He made some good points?' He didn't, say, tell some insulting lies about my own statements?

---

quote:

---

Principle VI states,

"The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:
(a) Crimes against peace:
(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;
(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).
(b) War crimes:
Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation of slave labor or for any other purpose of the civilian population of or in occupied territory; murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the Seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.
(c) Crimes against humanity:
Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime."

---

quote:

---

As for the point about the UNSC...yeah. That fair-minded august body that was, as a group, totally doing its part to enforce *it's own rules* in Iraq prior to the invasion, yes? That group which everyone expected to shoulder collectively the burden *when*-as Democrats and Republicans agreed-military intervention was required? The UNSC that is so justly famed for thwarting tyrants and protecting the innocent? That UNSC?

---

quote:

---

I don't say these things to suggest America's invasion was legal by UN standards. I bring these things up to ask the question, "How many things are *legal* by those same standards? Half-assed,population-crushing ineffective sanctions were legal. Well known violations of those sanctions by businesses and even politicians among the UNSC was if not legal at least known.

---

quote:

---

Now, as for war crimes, yes in fact I think many Administration members are guilty of some. Mostly centered around their negligence that led to so many civilian deaths (not that I care about those at all, Destineer, as the good-point-making Blayne has said; and it is really frustrating that your comments on him are only 'he's making some good points'; how about I claim you don't care about Iraqi civilians at all, because you were happy to see them suffer under Saddam, would that be a 'good point'?)

---

quote:

---

But 'waging aggressive war'? Good grief!

---

quote:

---

Ohh, ohh, Blayne-hey, if Taiwan fired on a PRC plane in PRC airspace, would that count as provocation for military response? Just curious-it's not as though we don't know your answer already.

---

quote:

---

The way "war crimes" are defined is indeed farcical, although I would identify the farce quite differently than you. It's a "war crime" to use a laser to blind the other guy's soldiers. What a joke. What a comparatively minor, harmless offense compared with actually starting an unnecessary war in the first place.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Parkour:
I don't understand why any of you ever bother to respond to blayne bradley. He will never change and he will always act like this, and always be deluded about it. Give it up.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Blayne Bradley:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Parkour:
I don't understand why any of you ever bother to respond to blayne bradley. He will never change and he will always act like this, and always be deluded about it. Give it up.

---

If you have something substantiative to discuss, discuss it and let the jury of the peers be the judge

---

quote:

---

One word posdts are so much easier from my phone. It wasn't all that tricky. I had originally mentioned investment. You said you didn't know what I meant by clarification. I clarified and then noted when Samprimary gave an example of people with an investment in going to war.

You mentioned the anti-war movement's naivety. You also talk about regretting the civilian deaths. Do you really think that the invasion could have been accomplished without those deaths and various other atrocities? What makes you think so?

---

quote:

---

(And before you go about complaining of personal attacks, Blayne, bear in mind you've called me a liar, a fool, a lover of war criminals, and suggested I am apathetic to the deaths of hundreds of thousands-all of these you've done more than once. Just try and bear that in mind when you really start the whining in earnest, m'kay?)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Samprimary:

quote:

---

(And before you go about complaining of personal attacks, Blayne, bear in mind you've called me a liar, a fool, a lover of war criminals, and suggested I am apathetic to the deaths of hundreds of thousands-all of these you've done more than once. Just try and bear that in mind when you really start the whining in earnest, m'kay?)

---

or jonesing out for the claim of being the victim of strawmen, or telling other people to 'grow thicker skin'

---

quote:

---

As some people seem to be a little unclear as to what constitutes dogpiling, here is a quick and dirty guide to it. Dogpiling is, in general, the act of multiple posters simultaneously engaging a single opponent. While I admit that the line between dogpiling and having an open debate is blurry, there is one.

Generally, when you already see one or two people debating a single poster, please refrain from doing so as well unless you have a new argument to make. Even then, when a mod has put out a general warning against dogpiling, one should seriously consider whether another post is warranted.

---

quote:

---

Holy crap, and I'm totally a rightwing crackpot! As for my last post, I certainly didn't take care to repeatedly use words like seems and take special note that I am well aware that such a wide group cannot really be pigeonholed all together.

Speaking of strawmen, though, Blayne, let's talk about how you noticed me saying more than once I don't care about civlian deaths, hmm? Or how the attacks made by Iraq on our military before the war were enough, in and of themselves, to warrant invasion? Or how I totally said that we're required to invade everywhere there are bad leaders, and didn't at all mention that I felt there were multiple reasons in this particular case that together were sufficient?

I could go on, but doubtless you'd get your usual hysterical self and insist with that self-pitying whine you do so well that I haven't actually made any arguments, that you're being dogpiled, etc. etc. I mean anyway it's practically guaranteed-I mentioned China, and then Samprimary spoke directly to you. So let's hear it! You're due, man, really let it flow, open the faucet all the way.

(And before you go about complaining of personal attacks, Blayne, bear in mind you've called me a liar, a fool, a lover of war criminals, and suggested I am apathetic to the deaths of hundreds of thousands-all of these you've done more than once. Just try and bear that in mind when you really start the whining in earnest, m'kay?)

---

quote:

---

Here's the way you're lying about what I've been saying, Blayne: I put forward several reasons why I felt the decision to invade, when taken as a group, was acceptable. When you responded to me, you spoke repeatedly as though I were saying that they were each, individually, much much more than enough to justify the invasion and further that if they weren't, individually, much much more than enough, it was unambiguously evil and awful.

---

quote:

---

Well, I mean that's just one of the ways you've lied repeatedly about what I said (though I guess on Hatrack we should just be prepared to take some shots, right Destineer?). You insisted I was saying that because there are problems with the UN and the Nuremburg Trials (and by the way, my problem wasn't that we didn't prosecute everyone, it was rather that once we'd prosecuted lots of people, more than a few were let off after only a few years; so much for the moral superiority of Nuremburg was what I was getting at), that we should be permitted to disregard them entirely.

---

quote:

---

I mean, I could go on here. False equivalence? Please. I tried talking about this directly with you early on, and I gave you multiple opportunities to either pay closer attention to what I was saying-I'm happy to be disagreed with-or stop lying about it, but you chose instead to get even more holier-than-thou. First you say I'm ignoring the way the Bush Administration conducted the war, even though from the very start I said I hated the stupid and wasteful ways they behaved. Then when I pointed out I said that, you said I was 'minimizing' it. I could point out why calling me a right-wing crackpot is stupid and dishonest, such as opposition to torture, much of the Patriot Act, extraordinary rendition, but I'm sure that wouldn't count somehow. Good grief, I specifically said I felt members of the Bush Administration-up to the top-were guilty of war crimes in their execution of the war.

---

quote:

---

I think the decision to invade was morally acceptable, therefore I'm a right-wing crackpot. Your reasoning is pretty transparent here, Blayne. I'm fine with being thought of that way-I have little doubt that many or even most in this thread, as they indirectly said earlier on (cannot believe anyone would be so blind as to...varieties of posts), but you have to show it. Or else I'm going to laugh at you for whining and being stupid.

---

quote:

---

HEY GUYS! We should *totally* not convict a rapist because in the past some dudes were let off on a technicality and some other dudes were found guilty when later DNA evidence exonerated them! The SYSTEM IS FLAWED SO IT SHOULDNT BE USED!

---

quote:

---

Rakeesh, given the threat that Iraq actually was to us - how many US civilians they reasonably could have killed before we stopped them - how many Iraqi civilians were we justified in killing? Given the damage they could reasonably do to our infrastructure, how much damage were we justified in doing to theirs?

---

quote:

---

What makes you think that a full scale invasion ever would have been limited to that? You have said that it was so much worse than it needed to be (which also was no surprise to anyone paying attention) but how bad do you think it should have been given the real threat to us?

---

quote:

---

You don't have to be a right-wing crackpot - and, for the record, I don't think that you are - to have been and remain emotionally invested in believing our country to be just and right in our actions. Recognizing that we were the bad guys hurts those of us who love this country. Believing our leaders that feckless or greedy is terrifying and exhausting. I think, though, that it is our duty.

---

quote:

---

I talk about the threat aspect because I am not sure what else could justify a full scale invasion. I was against the sanctions - those generally just make a despot more powerful within the country - but supported ongoing inspections (forever, if necessary). I think that the air strikes in Libya (for example) while causing some civilian deaths, have probably saved more. I could have seen something like that in Iraq. I had no serious problem with the no-fly zone.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rakeesh:

quote:

---

I talk about the threat aspect because I am not sure what else could justify a full scale invasion. I was against the sanctions - those generally just make a despot more powerful within the country - but supported ongoing inspections (forever, if necessary). I think that the air strikes in Libya (for example) while causing some civilian deaths, have probably saved more. I could have seen something like that in Iraq. I had no serious problem with the no-fly zone.

---

How then would you propose to keep Saddam's military machine weakened so he wasn't actually a threat to his neighbors? Or would we just be bound to periodically smashing his military over and over again, until he (as he obviously would have done) decentralized his armaments?

---

quote:

---

As for inspections, would you have supported inspections that included the inspectors being permitted to go anywhere in the country, interview anyone they wanted, alone, all of that without advanced warning? Because that is not even close to the kinds of inspections that we actually had. Oh, and inspections where Saddam didn't have a say in who did the inspecting.

---

quote:

---

As for the no-fly zone, you say you had no serious problem with it. That means you had some problem with it? How much and why? I admit that the idea of someone objecting to the no-fly zones, given the reasons they were enacted, seems even stranger to me than I think my position seems to you.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rakeesh:

quote:

---

I talk about the threat aspect because I am not sure what else could justify a full scale invasion. I was against the sanctions - those generally just make a despot more powerful within the country - but supported ongoing inspections (forever, if necessary). I think that the air strikes in Libya (for example) while causing some civilian deaths, have probably saved more. I could have seen something like that in Iraq. I had no serious problem with the no-fly zone.

---

How then would you propose to keep Saddam's military machine weakened so he wasn't actually a threat to his neighbors? Or would we just be bound to periodically smashing his military over and over again, until he (as he obviously would have done) decentralized his armaments?

As for inspections, would you have supported inspections that included the inspectors being permitted to go anywhere in the country, interview anyone they wanted, alone, all of that without advanced warning? Because that is not even close to the kinds of inspections that we actually had. Oh, and inspections where Saddam didn't have a say in who did the inspecting.

As for the no-fly zone, you say you had no serious problem with it. That means you had some problem with it? How much and why? I admit that the idea of someone objecting to the no-fly zones, given the reasons they were enacted, seems even stranger to me than I think my position seems to you.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by JonHecht:
(It also might help if you stop making tv trope references such as "white knight", but that's a less important point).

---

quote:

---

Sanctions didn't really do as much to weaken Saddam as to weaken possible resistance to Saddam. Periodically smashing his military over and over again - should it have become a threat - would have been far preferable to what we ended up doing.

---

quote:

---

I am not sure what you mean by this question. I supported inspections. I also supported paying attention to the inspectors.

---

quote:

---

Beyond the scrutiny that any military requires, I didn't have a problem with maintaining no-fly zones. I hesitate to say "no problems" because you tend to glom onto absolutes.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by vegimo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by JonHecht:
(It also might help if you stop making tv trope references such as "white knight", but that's a less important point).

---

What would seriously help (coming from this lurker) would be a reduction in the "bad argument" tropes. It sometimes seems like there is a laminated logical fallacy list being used as a primary reference. Ensuring that every response includes a pigeonholed categorization becomes very ineffective.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by JonHecht:
I retract what I said earlier about this being a good thread.

Blayne, you seriously need to stop insulting people. Please. If you don't want people to insult you back, you need to stop doing it first. Maybe you're fine being insulted, but I know that you're not fine not being taken seriously. You won't be taken seriously until you act more mature and stop it. You may be making decent points--it doesn't matter. Presentation is just as important as substance. (It also might help if you stop making tv trope references such as "white knight", but that's a less important point).

Rakeesh, you need to act more mature as well. Do you really think the best way to respond to ad hominem attacks is to acknowledge them? If you just ignore them and deal with the substantive claims, then either he'll stop making them or everyone will see that he looks like an arse. Responding to them does nothing good and maybe some harm.

---

quote:

---

Hee. You'll kindly point to where I said it shouldn't be used, rather than pointing out that the Nuremburg Trials just weren't as sacrosanct as you appear to be suggesting-as well as the UN. Hell, I even said specifically I think we should have gotten consensus. But I don't think they're valid or useful or something. Man! How do I hold all these contradictory positions without my head just exploding, anyway? Maybe it's a diet rich in protein, for strong cranial bones.

---

quote:

---

Now I'm a jingoist? Good grief, that's such an expansive club now! I didn't realize it included people like me who object fundamentally to quite a lot of 'security' policies and feel we've screwed up badly, past or present, with respect to the rest of the world.

---

quote:

---

Heh, this is fun. I'm piling up awfulness as we go, and I had no idea! Now I'm a jingoist as well as not caring about hundreds of thousands of deaths. Good grief, Blayne, you are just being stupid as hell here. How on Earth can you seriously suggest I'm saying 'my country right or wrong' given what I've repeatedly said here in this thread, recently? I know you've seen it.

---

quote:

---

How then would you propose to keep Saddam's military machine weakened so he wasn't actually a threat to his neighbors? Or would we just be bound to periodically smashing his military over and over again, until he (as he obviously would have done) decentralized his armaments?

---

quote:

---

As for inspections, would you have supported inspections that included the inspectors being permitted to go anywhere in the country, interview anyone they wanted, alone, all of that without advanced warning? Because that is not even close to the kinds of inspections that we actually had. Oh, and inspections where Saddam didn't have a say in who did the inspecting.

---

quote:

---

As for the no-fly zone, you say you had no serious problem with it. That means you had some problem with it? How much and why? I admit that the idea of someone objecting to the no-fly zones, given the reasons they were enacted, seems even stranger to me than I think my position seems to you.

---

quote:

---

And you would've supported, wholeheartedly, this repeated smashing and targeted air strikes? Really?

---

quote:

---

Well, few people seemed much concerned with paying attention to the inspectors during the very frequent violations and BS Saddam was pulling during the interval between the two wars. Suddenly, when an invasion was imminent, then people clamored to pay attention to the inspectors. As for what I meant by inspections, I meant the kind of inspections where Iraq had no say whatsoever in how they were done or who was doing them, and would not be permitted any continual hedging and lying about them.

---

quote:

---

*rolleyes* Right. Well, when they're used in application to a real-world situation that is far from absolute, yeah, I do. Anyway, it sounded like you would've had a problem with no-fly zones. I'm glad to see at least that much involvement you would've been willing to, not just tolerate, but endorse.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Destineer:

quote:

---

Heh, I saw your post before the edit and was ready to jump. But even with the edit, allow me to point out that you're saying Iraq cannot be said to have started the war, because even though they were illegally shooting at us daily, they weren't killing enough of us?

---

Well, they weren't actually killing any of us.

---

quote:

---

The reason the Bush Administration won't take the latest firefight to the Security Council is that most of the Council doesn't share Washington's interpretation of the resolution as it applies to the "no-fly" zone. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has made clear that the international body does not view "no-fly" zone confrontations as a violation of the resolution. "Let me say that I don't think the Council will say that this is in contravention of the resolution that was recently passed," Annan told reporters Tuesday during a visit to Kosovo.

---

quote:

---

The problem is, the flyers aren't enforcing a Council resolution. The U.S., Britain and France began in 1991 denying Iraq the right to fly in parts of its own airspace as a way of implementing UN resolutions urging protection for the Kurds in northern Iraq and the Shiites in the south from the wrath of Saddam. But the "no-fly" zone was never specifically mandated by the UN Security Council, and was rejected from the outset by Iraq as a violation of its sovereignty. Iraq's objections were backed by Russia and China, and in 1996 France withdrew its participation.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Blayne Bradley:
Totally give him a free pass regardless of what he says or does so long as it lets you have a free chance at me.

---

quote:

---

Also I am being abrasive, not the same thing as being insulting.

---

quote:

---

If you want to keep fingers in your ear and keep screaming "NYAH NO NO I CANT HEAR YOU" go right ahead but ultimately it is your outrageous and catastrophic opinions you are trying to defend here, and if you don't bother defend them what sort of message are you trying to get across?

---

quote:

---

You also *choose* to misread or not read at all my posts

---

quote:

---

It was a foolish promise to make to the Kurds. Unless we are going to back an independent Kurdistan and royally piss off the Turks, we have no business telling them to rebel or promising anything.

---

quote:

---

\How does noting that repeated smashing of Saddam's military should it become a threat is better than an invasion costing hundreds of thousands of lives equal "wholeheartedly support"? Do you really think that those are the same? But, yes. If Saddam's military (such as it was) were to have become an actual threat, I would have agreed that targeted air strikes were necessary.

---

quote:

---

Sure. Saddam was a pain in the ass to the inspectors. So what?

"No problem with" is not "endorse". Are you deliberately taking my statements much farther than they should be read?

---

quote:

---

When you say that the invasion could have been much better, how would you have done it? How many casualties would you have expected if we had done it your way?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Samprimary:
Blah blah words blah blah words blah blah blah

---

quote:

---

Because it's great to be anti-war, but the time for that is well before, for example, Saddam is in the process of attempting to wipe out the Kurds. Once things like that start happening, morally speaking, the anti-war position becomes much less moral in my opinion. That's why I'm asking what you would have supported, when. One of the reasons, anyway.

---

quote:

---

So what? Really? You remember what those inspections were for, yes? Why they were implemented? He was not allowed to do that, and yet he did, for years, with hardly a comment from much of the world.

As for endorse, I wasn't saying you said you'd endorse-I was asking if you would. Again, an effort to discover what you would have supported actually doing-'don't invade!' is not a plan of action-and to what extent.

---

quote:

---

Put broadly, I would have done it with a primary goal that we were actually committed to of serious nation building. That is, in fact, what I felt would be at least attempted prior to the invasion, hoping and believing that the less-than-necessary talk about it beforehand by politicians and the press was to appeal to both the anti-war movement and the 'eff the Middle East' right. As for how many casualties, I really don't know. I'm not in a position to make a real estimate of that, I think you know. I would be very surprised if it were the same or more deaths than has occurred, though, which seems to be a key of your position here.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Blayne Bradley:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Samprimary:
Blah blah words blah blah words blah blah blah

---

You are still not contributing to this thread, if you have a problem take it up with a moderator.

Otherwise, make me.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Samprimary:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Blayne Bradley:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Samprimary:
Blah blah words blah blah words blah blah blah

---

You are still not contributing to this thread, if you have a problem take it up with a moderator.

Otherwise, make me.

---

You're not so impervious to behaving maturely that you demand to be forced into it, are you? You just want to broadcast that you eminently refuse to act like an adult unless forced?

Because, if so, you're not offering a counterargument excusing your behavior. Just a deflection and a concession of your immaturity. Thanks for that surrender, by the way, but it doesn't help anything.

---

quote:

---

So we're back to this? The idea that the world wasn't convinced Saddam was a threat? Heh.

---

quote:

---

'The world' couldn't be convinced (with good reason, as it turns out)

---

quote:

---

. But by no means did the world think there wasn't an inherent threat in Iraq under Saddam. In fact, the world largely agreed he was a threat that was going to demand dealing with sooner rather than later.

---

quote:

---

But hey, if all we had to do was convince the UNSC that it was necessary for it then to be moral. Well!

---

quote:

---

Doing almost nothing in Rwanda was moral then, wasn't it? I mean just for the most famous example. Hee. But no, seriously, let's go on about the white knights in the UNSC, shall we Blayne? God, your view of international relations is just so weird when you get all hysterical and angry like this.

---

quote:

---

Put broadly, I would have done it with a primary goal that we were actually committed to of serious nation building. That is, in fact, what I felt would be at least attempted prior to the invasion

---

quote:

---

*snort* They sure as hell didn't want what they had, and Saddam gave us the right (in my opinion) to wreak some serious changes there.

---

quote:

---

Do you really think that because the Arab Spring happened just this past year, that the people throughout the reason were content with their leadership? If you've actually thought that through, it is an awful belief. People who are content with their governments don't have those same governments brutally oppressing and killing them and prohibiting free speech-and those governments aren't doing all those things before they have started to do anything unusual. Do you see what I mean? Throughout the region, not excepting Iraq, governments would prohibit free speech, prohibit free elections, prohibit assembly, and suppress with violence and torture and murder anyone who disputed that, and it was so commonplace that the world largely didn't think anything of it-not excluding the UN and yes, the anti-war movement-until they really ratcheted up the brutality.

---

quote:

---

So that's how I know they didn't like their leadership, kmbboots. Because their leadership would kill them if they complained too often, not uncommonly after raping their wives and killing their sons. Were the Iraqis trying to overthrow Saddam themselves? Is that a serious question? Y'know, as outraged and baffled as you and some others are at me for the stance I'm taking here, I feel at least as strongly about the questions you've just asked.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rakeesh:
So, wait, let me see if I'm understanding this-evidence that Saddam's regime wasn't so bad is that not enough people spoke up?

---

quote:

---

After considering that position, you have to ask, "How can I find out?" and if you *can't* because dissent is illegal from the start, and those who do dissent are often jailed, tortured, disappeared, or murdered...the question answers itself.

---

quote:

---

As Curveball watched Powell make the US case to invade Iraq, he was hiding an admission that he has not made until now: that nearly every word he had told his interrogators from Germany's secret service, the BND, was a lie.

Everything he had said about the inner workings of Saddam Hussein's biological weapons programme was a flight of fantasy - one that, he now claims was aimed at ousting the Iraqi dictator. Janabi, a chemical engineering graduate who had worked in the Iraqi industry, says he looked on in shock as Powell's presentation revealed that the Bush administration's hawkish decisionmakers had swallowed the lot.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rakeesh:
So, wait, let me see if I'm understanding this-evidence that Saddam's regime wasn't so bad is that not enough people spoke up? Oh, God.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mucus:
Rakeesh: Usually, in the coverage of protesters from Egypt, the protesters if they have anything to say about the US, wouldn't be "thank goodness, the Americans brought democracy to Iraq, we should try that," but rather "shame on the US for propping up Hosni Mubarak to help Israel."

The Arab Spring may very well have happened earlier if the US was less enthusiastic about demonstrating how democracies can still back dictators, torture, hire mercenaries, etc.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rakeesh:
And Blayne, your thoughts on oppressive, authoritarian or even totalitarian regimes are well known around these parts. You've got a pretty bankrupt position on this, and the fact that you feel so sure about it makes you, on these topics anyway, that much more laughable.

---

quote:

---

Because suppose worst case I have some reputation that says I support dictatorships, how does that weigh in at all on the current argument? How does it change the validity of my argument?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Blayne Bradley:
Do you ever get tired of talking? You're the one who said "shut up" it's not even your thread nor have you participated in it, drive by posting a newspaper article or similar and otherwise not sticking around is not contributing.

If you have a problem discuss it with a moderator.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rakeesh:
If it wasn't a huge thing, the penalty for dissent would've been hard labor or major fines or surrendering property or something.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rakeesh:
... "We really, really need to listen to the UN!" I wonder, oh I wonder, what they had to say about Iraq's human rights situation prior to the invasion.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rakeesh:
Mucus, the comparison doesn't follow.

---

quote:

---

What sorts of things does Japan have a death penalty for

---

quote:

---

http://www.un.org/terrorism/pdfs/2/G0215272.pdf page 80.

---

quote:

---

I'm extremely skeptical if it surprises you or kmbboots ... whose tolerance of murderous tyrannies is shall we say high

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mucus:

quote:

---

I'm extremely skeptical if it surprises you or kmbboots ... whose tolerance of murderous tyrannies is shall we say high

---

That seems pretty rude.

We're currently discussing the failure of the war in Iraq, a war which was instigated in large part by poor intelligence gathering and a total failure to properly judge the Iraq population ("we'll be greeted as liberators" and all that). In that context it seems critical to properly assess the quality of intelligence and the mood of the Iraqi population rather than hand-wave it like you seem to be doing.

Perhaps for old times sake, you're enjoying a "if you're not with us, you're against us" Bush-style dig, implying that people that disagree with you must be friendly to the enemy. But I would remind you, that's a big part of what got you/America in this mess in the first place.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rakeesh:
Well initially I just took it as a given, really, going hand in hand not just with actual sane regime change, but dovetailing with the idea that we would actually do things long-term in nations where terrorists would be fostered. Thematically it seemed to fit. I frankly just believed they were campaigning when they said that it would only be a few weeks. When they kept talking like that as the months began to stack up, and almost at once after the invasion when it became clear they really didn't have much in the way of planning ready for things that were realistically predictable, then I was deeply surprised and worried that maybe that nonsense wasn't just pandering to the economy-focused American politicial scene.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dan_Frank:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mucus:

quote:

---

I'm extremely skeptical if it surprises you or kmbboots ... whose tolerance of murderous tyrannies is shall we say high

---

That seems pretty rude.

We're currently discussing the failure of the war in Iraq, a war which was instigated in large part by poor intelligence gathering and a total failure to properly judge the Iraq population ("we'll be greeted as liberators" and all that). In that context it seems critical to properly assess the quality of intelligence and the mood of the Iraqi population rather than hand-wave it like you seem to be doing.

Perhaps for old times sake, you're enjoying a "if you're not with us, you're against us" Bush-style dig, implying that people that disagree with you must be friendly to the enemy. But I would remind you, that's a big part of what got you/America in this mess in the first place.

---

That is a priceless hack job you did on that quote. Almost as good as a movie trailer quoting a negative review and changing "Hillariously bad and an action-packed, overproduced mess" into "Hilariously... action-packed!"

The part you excised was where he brought up Blayne, and the part about tolerance for murderous tyrannies was obviously directed solely at Blayne and a reference to his slavish devotion to China.

I really hope you're just really, really oblivious, and that you didn't intentionally warp what he said to make him seem more insulting.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Samprimary:
As fun as it is to joke about, this is territory that demolishes threads. Whoever said that was pretty much totally wrong!

---

And not at all a distortion of what I actually wrote.
 

---

Posted by Parkour (Member # 12078) on :
 
Well, what you wrote didn't really answer my question at all, either.
 

---

Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
You were quoted, kmbboots, and you can hardly complain it was out of context because there was almost no context save you making a false equivalence.

------

As for you, Blayne, you're hardly one to complain of derailing the conversation, given the dishonest and hysterical way you've been trying to talk with (at) me about this from the start. But hey, get all victim s'more, would?
 

---

Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
The part you excised was where he brought up Blayne, and the part about tolerance for murderous tyrannies was obviously directed solely at Blayne and a reference to his slavish devotion to China.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rakeesh:
You *asked* for an example of how awful the human rights situation was in Iraq ...

---

Well, no. I didn't.

From my POV, first I disputed that dissidents are a good way of measuring the mood of a population. Second, I disputed that measuring the punishments given to dissent are a good way of measuring how often a dissent occurs. You brought up the UN and implied that I wasn't listening to the UN, so I asked you "Well, what did they say?" which probably wasn't clear enough in retrospect.
 

---

Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
 
I'm a little fuzzy on what's being argued about here. I was interested in this thread personally: I was one who supported the Iraq war during the lead-up. Looking back I'd like to pretend that I was on the cutting edge of hipster technology and was just for the war ironically but sadly that was not the case. Yet, I feel there's a good chance I'd be singing a different tune if the post-war activities has been up to snuff.

I was gone on my mission from 2005 to 2007 so I missed a lot of the events that really defined the post-invasion Iraq, I'm a little hazy on some of the details. My impression was always that the whole "Mission Accomplished" debacle was an accurate representation of the Bush adminstration plan. Basically that they really had accomplished all their goals and plans and done so quickly and efficiently. Just that their goals and plans ended with invasion. I think the best reporting I saw on it was the ~2009 (maybe end of 2008?) Frontline which certainly did give that impression. A major let-down for me. Not that it wasn't criminal in its own way but lying about things like evidence of WMD had a lot less imapct on my support of the war than the discovery that there was no realistic plan to deal with Iraq after it was invaded.

Anyway, I'd like to comment further here, but I really can't quite follow what the discussion is about at this point...

Hobbes
 

---

Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
So...you weren't asking me about what the UN had to say with respect to the human rights situation in Iraq, just after I was talking about how awful the UN said that situation in Iraq was?

As for the tolerance quote, I was speaking to Blayne about having a high tolerance for that, not you or kmbboots. I thought that was clear, but I can see how you might not have.

And as for comparisons between punishments, the only way that is a valid comparison is if criminalizing dissent can be considered similar to criminalizing homicide, and the punishment isn't the only way of measuring government response but more importantly rate of enforcement. For example, I'll bet that in both Canada and Japan pretty much every single time a dead body turns up, officials working for the government look into it pretty hard.

Something pretty similar could have been said of dissent in Iraq. It's a given. It's laughable that it's even up for serious discussion. As I said, totally reasonable to think the invasion shouldn't have been done, even knowing what we did then. Lots of room there.

To suggest that things weren't all that bad, and even that Iraqis weren't especially unhappy with their government? You can't find a serious person who will take up that argument, outside of debate purposes.
 

---

Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rakeesh:
To suggest that things weren't all that bad, and even that Iraqis weren't especially unhappy with their government? You can't find a serious person who will take up that argument, outside of debate purposes.

---

quote:

---

So...you weren't asking me about what the UN had to say with respect to the human rights situation in Iraq, just after I was talking about how awful the UN said that situation in Iraq was?

---

quote:

---

As for the tolerance quote, I was speaking to Blayne about having a high tolerance for that, not you or kmbboots. I thought that was clear, but I can see how you might not have.

---

quote:

---

Something pretty similar could have been said of dissent in Iraq.

---

quote:

---

I'm a little fuzzy on what's being argued about here. I was interested in this thread personally: I was one who supported the Iraq war during the lead-up.

---

quote:

---

I'm not claiming that because the Iraqi government systematically brutalized its people, the Iraqis themselves were unhappy with it and would've just loved Americans to come in and blow stuff up. I'm only claiming the first two-that's *all* I've been claiming. I'm not sure how you got the idea I was taking that a step further.

---

quote:

---

Are people just not hearing me when I say, repeatedly, that the human rights situation alone isn't enough?

---

quote:

---

My position here has been that the war was a mistake in every sense. The reasons for invading were insufficient by any reasonable measure. So supporting the war was wrong, even for those who believed it would be carried out more capably than it actually was.

---

I see (and thanks for explaining ). A few questions: does this assume "more capably" means basicilly flawlessly, or do you feel that being bogged down in another desert quagmire was inevitable and thus part of the reason we shouldn't have gone in? If the adminstration's claims had been accurate (from WMDs to the preception of the Iraq people) would that change your position? If not, can you give some examples of things that would make you support an invasion in general (genocide for example)?

[Not trying to be confrontational, all honest questions and open to anyone who wants to answer. It's an attempt to figure out where the disconect is rather an attempt to attack or undermind]

I wish I had a better memory as to what it was I believed was happening in Iraq at the time. I know it wasn't the same as the truth but I know it wasn't all falsehoods either. I posted about this a few times here in some depth but I think that stuff is old enough to have been deleted.

Hobbes
 

---

Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
Something to note about genocide, we're legally bound (if we're going to pay heed to the UN) to stop, by force if need be, genocide when and where it happens. It's supposed to be the law. And yet, it has been attempted and in some cases come near to success since we and other nations agreed to that little piece of history, which is one of many reasons I've got less patience than many, and less than some would like, when it's pointed out what the UN does or doesn't sign on for. It's not because I think it should be done away with, it's because I think if we're going to talk about doing things the UN legal way, especially as if that makes things moral or immoral, a more comprehensive look is needed.
 

---

Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
 
Thanks, Hobbes.

quote:

---

A few questions: does this assume "more capably" means basicilly flawlessly, or do you feel that being bogged down in another desert quagmire was inevitable and thus part of the reason we shouldn't have gone in?

---

quote:

---

If the adminstration's claims had been accurate (from WMDs to the preception of the Iraq people) would that change your position?

---

quote:

---

In some ways it would, although I can't answer this question without stressing again that the administration's claims were obviously mistaken, and anyone who paid attention to the details of the news should have known that.

---

quote:

---

They weren't obviously mistaken at the time (WMD claims, that is).

---

quote:

---

What do you base your claim that bio-weapons are much less dangerous than people think?

---

quote:

---

The case didn't only rest on dissident testimony (though to some it seems human rights violations does *shrug*), but also on years and years of intransigence.

---

quote:

---

It's hardly unnatural to believe he was hiding something, and to think it was likely, given the situation.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rakeesh:
We've spoken before on the limitations of the inspections as they were, in spite of their justified confidence in their findings so far as they went. The case didn't only rest on dissident testimony (though to some it seems human rights violations does *shrug*), but also on years and years of intransigence. It's hardly unnatural to believe he was hiding something, and to think it was likely, given the situation.

---

quote:

---

Hey Blayne, could you keep doing that 'substantiate or concede' thing in bold, please? I'm running a little wager as to how many times you'll say it, and that makes it easier to spot.

---

quote:

---

The reason why you end up just having to get told to shut up is because you act like this and make claims like this which have absolutely nothing to do with other people's actual "contribution" or lack of thereof.

The claim that I have not participated in this thread is you being completely bankrupt. This post ups the ante on your last one, and is the largest and most flagrant deflection by you yet.

So, again. Thanks for effectively giving up the ghost on this one, and leaving only your frustration and your half-hearted, hypocritical insults in its place, like "do you ever get tired of talking?" If you'd like to round up a moderator to 'arbitrate' this, since you seem intent on hiding behind that excuse, go right ahead.

---

quote:

---

As for you, Blayne, you're hardly one to complain of derailing the conversation, given the dishonest and hysterical way you've been trying to talk with (at) me about this from the start. But hey, get all victim s'more, would?

---

quote:

---

Well, I'm not disputing it in the case of Blayne because it's actually true in his case. But I read it in the sense that he was painting kmbboots and myself with the same brush.

---

quote:

---

As for the tolerance quote, I was speaking to Blayne about having a high tolerance for that, not you or kmbboots. I thought that was clear, but I can see how you might not have.

---

quote:

---

So you are just petty and spiteful empty shell of an adult then?

---

quote:

---

Again, how is a single post, from which you have not substantiated or built up upon, or in any way engaged the actual argument of other posters, contributing to the thread?

---

quote:

---

So far you are only in this thread it seems because of a perverse partially sexual obsession. I suspect some combination of bestiality and necrophilia considering how often you beat off to a dead horse.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rakeesh:
Really Blayne, you're in no position to comment on my hygiene! Goodness, tone it down, man!

Heh. Hey, if people from all sorts of political opinions suggest you've got a high tolerance of totalitarian governments, you should not pause to consider the idea and instead reject it outta hand;)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Samprimary:
Knock what off? Are you going to be the latest to describe calling blayne out for his horrid argumentative behavior as "egging him on?"

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rakeesh:
Heh, Blayne I didn't mean 'tone it down' literally-I was joking. I thought that was clear when I appeared to take your remark as a comment on my cleanliness. Anyway, though, that you characterize a post where you call someone a filthy liar as 'toned down' is kind of the *point* behind why I'm making fun of you rather than 'substantiate or concede' as you so stridently command: you cannot discuss this in a calm, adult, honest way, right from the start. I described how way back in the beginning, and my reasons still stand-your by now constant resort to name calling while simultaneously (and really, it's just WEIRD how hypocritical this is) claiming to be a victim of ad hominem attacks illustrate it.

I really object to the way you have around here of getting hysterical and start tantruming, and then when people call you directly on it you get WORSE, and somehow people interpret that as some sort of mutual thing. I guess it's mostly because people *expect* hysterical childish tantrums from you periodically, and so the responsibility shifts away from you not flipping out to others not to set you off. The onky relief is that it used to be worse.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Destineer:
There are several substantive posts up addressing the actual topic of the thread. I'm not sure why you'd rather reply to Blayne than to Lyrhawn and me.

---

quote:

---

Also, winding Blayne up is a bit fun too. One never knows when one will be called a filthy liar while also being accused of personal attacks;)

---

quote:

---

Blayne, your complaints that I'm not talking about the topic are funny and probably untrue. I'm not talking about it *with you* which is different.

---

quote:

---

As for totalitarian regimes, naw. I think I'll just make mention of your well known attitudes regarding the USSR, PRC, and now even Iraq under Saddam, as not so bad or even virtuous and maligned.

---

How are these "well known" how are they "totalitarian" also how is this not a massive strawman? Do you have not an ounce of self respect regarding the topic you are discussing that you would submerge yourself in mediocrity?

Also how, even if true are they relevant to the arguments composed? Surely you should be able to look at the arguments themselves and see, on their own merits if they have particular flaws, resorting instead to blatant ad hominem attacks at this point I believe reacts poorly on your character.
 

---

Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
Wait a second, I've ascended to mediocrity from the pits of I'll-washed deceivers and jingoists? Well, that's nice to know! Happy New Year to you, too!
 

---

Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Samprimary:
Knock what off? Are you going to be the latest to describe calling blayne out for his horrid argumentative behavior as "egging him on?"

---

quote:

---

Iraq has on the whole cooperated rather well so far with UNMOVIC in this field. The most important point to make is that access has been provided to all sites we have wanted to inspect and with one exception it has been prompt. We have further had great help in building up the infrastructure of our office in Baghdad and the field office in Mosul. Arrangements and services for our plane and our helicopters have been good. The environment has been workable.

Our inspections have included universities, military bases, presidential sites and private residences. Inspections have also taken place on Fridays, the Muslim day of rest, on Christmas day and New Years day. These inspections have been conducted in the same manner as all other inspections.

---

quote:

---

Actually I know a few people who've been to Iraq during Saddam's regime, it wasn't anywhere near as bad as people believe, it wasn't totalitarian.

---

quote:

---

The UN didn't seem to think it wasn't 'anywhere near as bad' or 'not totalitarian'. It's almost like you're willing to speak as though the UN hasn't spoken when it's inconvenient to your global politics, or something.

---

quote:

---

It's almost as if that was one of my points for quite some time now: not that we should ignore the UN as we see fit, but by all means we need to *stop* speaking as though a) UN approval equates to morality, and lack or disapproval equates to immorality,

---

quote:

---

b) the UN is itself a just and honorable organization (behold, to use the contemporary and famous example, its mighty and effective intervention in Rwanda) as opposed to an organization with great goals made up of largely self-interested governments, and

---

quote:

---

c) as though we all listen to the UN as a rule, except when bad old 'merica decided to go it alone.

---

quote:

---

(As for suggesting you have a high tolerance of brutal, totalitarian regimes, well, that quote above illustrates my point well enough I think, Blayne.

---

quote:

---

It might not feel fair to have to ignore some of his more objectionable posts, but is it worth derailing thread after thread just to feel like you've done your due diligence with calling him out?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Destineer:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Samprimary:
Knock what off? Are you going to be the latest to describe calling blayne out for his horrid argumentative behavior as "egging him on?"

---

I'd prefer to describe it as "wasting everybody's time." But we've had this discussion already.

---

quote:

---

You say I'm 'whiteknighting' my country (and goodness, it does you no credit, this use of Internet slang like this) and that I don't care about civilian deaths, in spite of over years now many complaints about the awful injustice and stupidity of it.

---

quote:

---

on the terrible human rights conditions in Iraq

---

quote:

---

but you know some guys who told you it wasn't so bad, it wasn't totalitarian.

---

quote:

---

As for where I got it, why, I got that from you! Not an especially prestigious source of anything but your own opinions, it's true...

---

quote:

---

As for adhering to the UN, I *specifically stated* that we should have used what diplomatic, economic, political, and rhetorical means necessary to gain consensus. So when you moan at me that I am saying we should ignore the UN, that is *another* lie you're telling about what I've said. I've lost count now.

---

quote:

---

And as for a high tolerance, clearly I'm not going to be able to prove that to you, since you've shown a remarkable ability to believe what you want to believe when you want to believe it. We need to respect the UN, the UN didn't want such and such so it was immoral. But when the UN says, "Geeze, Saddam's government is just plain awful," how quickly the tune changes to, "Hey, I know some guys who say it wasn't so bad!"

---

quote:

---

You say I'm a jingoist, my country right or wrong even though I've said more than once that our execution of the war was terribly bad and negligent, and because of that members of the Bush Administration were likely guilty of war crimes.

---

quote:

---

You say I'm 'whiteknighting' my country (and goodness, it does you no credit, this use of Internet slang like this) and that I don't care about civilian deaths, in spite of over years now many complaints about the awful injustice and stupidity of it.

---

quote:

---

Now I don't know if you're a liar or if you're stupid or if you're confused. I don't actually think you're a liar, or that you're stupid, even though you're saying many clearly untrue and stupid things about my remarks on this topic, lver and over again. So I'm left to think you're confused-as with several topics of international politics (and anime, for that matter), if you get heated up about it...well you just don't have to listen anymore. As you clearly aren't listening now.

---

quote:

---

What the hell. I'll poke fun at you as I like, and smile at your change-ups, your boldings and your italicization, until I get tired of it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Samprimary:
[QUOTE]

Words wall of text and more worthless words

---

Will never happen because you are ultimately a part of that problem.
 

---

Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
I wasn't aware disagreement with world consensus equated to jingoism, Blayne. You'll have to show me where in the definition that is said, else I'll cheerfully point out you're once more telling a stupid lie: jingoists don't say, "My country has made an awful, stupid, evil, mistake."

No. What's happened here is that early on you decided that since I didn't think the correct things with respect to invasion, I simply must be a jingoist.

Iraq under Saddam could very, very easily have been called totalitarian. Look up what the UN had to say about its government, and then look up the definition of totalitarianism. It fits. This is why I correctly say you have a high tolerance of brutal, totalitarian regimes if they have the right enemies. I say it because it's simply true, and it's an amusing piece of moral cowardice on your part: you defend governments that regularly enact human rights violations on their own populations that, if your own government even considered perpetrating on you would be an outrageous obscenity. You couldn't safely make criticisms half as passionate of the Iraqi government under Saddam as you regularly do of the USA, but they are 'not totalitarian'. It's 'not that bad'.

I've never understood this kind of moral hypocrisy: it's OK to despise things like Saddam's Iraq, or Stalinism, or Mao for the awful, awful things they did. You can *still* loathe the things we've done too! They're not mutually exclusive. And yet somehow you end up being a reverse jingoist: anti-West, right!

As for anime. Hee! I enjoy anime, actually. Watched dozens and dozens of hours of it. Love the stuff! I wasnt poking fun at you for liking it, I was poking fun at you for your reactions in defense of it. And I'm not making fun of the habits of posters-just you!

(How long before I'm a racist Christian Crusader wanting to exterminate Islam, and/or a Red-hating McCarthyite?)
 

---

Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
That doesn't make any sense, unless you're admitting that you are the problem I'm taking part in.

Uh, okay?
 

---

Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
 

quote:

---

As for anime. Hee! I enjoy anime, actually. Watched dozens and dozens of hours of it. Love the stuff! I wasnt poking fun at you for liking it, I was poking fun at you for your reactions in defense of it. And I'm not making fun of the habits of posters-just you!

---

quote:

---

Iraq under Saddam could very, very easily have been called totalitarian.

---

quote:

---

I wasn't aware disagreement with world consensus equated to jingoism, Blayne. You'll have to show me where in the definition that is said, else I'll cheerfully point out you're once more telling a stupid lie: jingoists don't say, "My country has made an awful, stupid, evil, mistake."

---

quote:

---

As for ignoring Blayne, there are some people who have the credibility to make that case. Others, at least two in this discussion, don't, not when they say, "He's making some great points," or, "He's rude but right." If we're to ignore him when he behaves like this, we have to actually ignore him. Not just ignore him but then chime in, "Well he makes a good point every now and then!" and later chide people for reacting to him.

---

quote:

---

Yes, we did! Involving Katharina, of all people. It's an edifyingly vindicating comparison (though I don't think that's what you intended) because she couldn't be ignored for the sake of 'saving threads' either.

---

quote:

---

Not sure why you say that. I have ignored rudeness from Kat for the purpose of pursuing actual reasoned argument, and God didn't somehow descend from on high and force me to pay attention to her.

---

quote:

---

But it's easy to say 'ignore the bad, reply to the valid' when we're talking about an extremist angle of your own outlook.

---

quote:

---

I am, to be honest, left wondering if you don't-like him-feel I'm a lying, jingoistic, war-criminal-loving, Iraqi civilian despising jerk like he does, and if you do, why you won't simply say so. To be clear, I think that's pretty unlikely, that you think that, but when your remarks on his outbursts are to say, 'He makes good points' and then to chastise *me* for replying...well.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Destineer:
And I don't see why the 'problem' of katharina or Blayne needs to be anyone's problem but their own.

---

quote:

---

but maybe you can at least understand why those of us who are instead interested in discussing Books, Films, Food and Culture don't see the appeal.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Samprimary:

quote:

---

It might not feel fair to have to ignore some of his more objectionable posts, but is it worth derailing thread after thread just to feel like you've done your due diligence with calling him out?

---

Is it worth giving him free reign to act exactly the way he does that causes him to be called out in the first place?

Nobody should act the way blayne is acting in this forum.

Your position is inadvertently proposing that because blayne passes a specific threshold of hopelessly bad behavior that it makes it wrong to tell him he shouldn't aggressively misrepresent and insult people. You are allowing yourself to confuse and then ultimately forget who really derailed the thread (blayne) and then blame the people who are telling a derogatory poster that he should not be derogatory. You are allowing Blayne to not only have exhausted you into leaving him alone when he's insulting others and blatantly violating "the TOS," still ostensibly the rules of this forum, but to blame others for his TOS-violating behavior because they're not similarly exhausted into ignoring and tacitly permitting his immaturity just in the hopes of keeping it minimized.

To answer your qusestion though: no, it is not fair to have to ignore his objectionable posts. I do not have to, in fact, so I don't have to worry about that. The fact that it is a repeating cycle does not make it wrong. It means that Blayne should not be allowed to make objectionable posts in the first place.

And if pointing it out every time encourages people to report blayne quickly next time because I am empowered to guarantee this to be the outcome, and/or if it encourages official action to prevent what happens when he is fairly called out on his bad behavior, all the better.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Blayne Bradley:

quote:

---

As for totalitarian regimes, naw. I think I'll just make mention of your well known attitudes regarding the USSR, PRC, and now even Iraq under Saddam, as not so bad or even virtuous and maligned.

---

How are these "well known" how are they "totalitarian" also how is this not a massive strawman?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lyrhawn:
Besides, Blayne thrives on attention. Poking the bear is fun from time to time, but if you stop leaving out picnic baskets, he'll stop coming around. You think that by engaging the bad behavior you are in some way thwarting it, but you're only egging him on, something Rakeesh tacitly admitted when he said that goading Blayne can be fun. So if you know this doesn't lead anywhere, why continue doing it?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dan_Frank:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Blayne Bradley:

quote:

---

As for totalitarian regimes, naw. I think I'll just make mention of your well known attitudes regarding the USSR, PRC, and now even Iraq under Saddam, as not so bad or even virtuous and maligned.

---

How are these "well known" how are they "totalitarian" also how is this not a massive strawman?

---

I know there's a big discussion over whether or not to respond to Blayne or whatever but I just had to say I did a huge double-take here. Even coming from Blayne, this was shocking.

Blayne were you genuinely asking how someone might characterize the USSR or the PRC as "totalitarian?"

Truly? Really truly? I know you're a huge fan of communism, but this takes a really staggering level of willful blindness even for a staunch communist.

---

quote:

---

First of all the PRC is *not* totalitarian for sure by any reasonable stretch, secondly the USSR is almost never discussed at Hatrack so I would almost never have had a "reputation" for discussing or defending it.

---

quote:

---

Perhaps our different opinions come from some underlying difference in trust levels of the Bush Administration. I was okay with the pressure Bush was putting on Saddam to force inspectors into the country, and the threat of force was successful in giving inspectors much broader access to sites than they'd had before. I think more work and more pressure would have yielded better results, and a smarter invasion might have as well. But there was no way we were ever going to do this right. Even today we're forcing the Kurds to be part of Iraq when they basically have an autonomous state in everything but name. And we'll do nothing to back them up when they start fighting with the Iraqi government over oil profits as western companies begin to drill for oil in massive, massive finds in Kurdish territory in the north. Even now our legacy in that region inspires little to be proud of. If we're really installing democracy in the region, I think we should have let go of our inner imperialist cartographer and let them have the power of self-determination for the first time in centuries.

---

quote:

---

Once someone has opened fire on us, even if they miss, well they've really just given us the decision over what to do with them.

---

quote:

---

We were even bound, by law, to put a stop to some of the things-genocide-that were going on in Iraq between the two wars.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by TomDavidson:

quote:

---

First of all the PRC is *not* totalitarian for sure by any reasonable stretch, secondly the USSR is almost never discussed at Hatrack so I would almost never have had a "reputation" for discussing or defending it.

---

I don't want to engage, here, but I would say that both these assertions are completely false. Namely:

1) The PRC is indeed totalitarian by any reasonable stretch;
2) You do indeed have a reputation for discussing and defending the USSR, and I have no doubt at all that if you were to ask any Hatrack regular which poster would be most likely to run around calling himself "Somebody Somebodivich" and defending Lenin's political decisions, your name would be at the top of the resulting list.

---

quote:

---

I'm certain you confuse a fascination with Russian and slavic culture and thinking the Soviet Union was kind of cool with having an explicit apologist stance on various Soviet issues and policies.

---

*grin* No, but you did. That said, if you're saying you've outgrown that stance, that's cool by me.

quote:

---

I ask you a direct question, do you honestly give a flying**** what previous discussions I have or have not been in in context of this discussion?

---

quote:

---

I strongly disagree with this. Think through the implications.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by kmbboots:

quote:

---

Once someone has opened fire on us, even if they miss, well they've really just given us the decision over what to do with them.

---

I strongly disagree with this. Think through the implications.

quote:

---

We were even bound, by law, to put a stop to some of the things-genocide-that were going on in Iraq between the two wars.

---

I probably would have agreed with this if we were having this argument in the late 1980s.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rakeesh:

quote:

---

I strongly disagree with this. Think through the implications.

---

I have. Carefully. Please note I didn't say we are required to retaliate with any kind of military force if we are fired upon. Just that, morally speaking, if our soldiers are fired upon, the people firing have declared war on us. Whether we acknowledge it or not.

As to the second, our obligation doesn't change with the passage of time. We're not less obligated in 2012 than we were in 1980. Our credibility for claiming humanitarian purposes, though, is another story. And anyway, I also brought that up to point out that the world in general is totally fine with disregarding UN law when it suits us, and I'd rather we didn't have any illusions about that.

---------

Hee. The distinction is a question of whether or not the PRC is totally totalitarian or only somewhat totalitarian, with gradual progress towards other things. I feel perfectly comfortable in pointing out that if you lived under such a government, you would call it totalitarian. (Protest all you like! Heh)

---

quote:

---

Just that, morally speaking, if our soldiers are fired upon, the people firing have declared war on us. Whether we acknowledge it or not.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by TomDavidson:

quote:

---

I'm certain you confuse a fascination with Russian and slavic culture and thinking the Soviet Union was kind of cool with having an explicit apologist stance on various Soviet issues and policies.

---

*grin* No, but you did. That said, if you're saying you've outgrown that stance, that's cool by me.

quote:

---

I ask you a direct question, do you honestly give a flying**** what previous discussions I have or have not been in in context of this discussion?

---

Yes, of course I do. What sort of person wouldn't?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rakeesh:

quote:

---

I strongly disagree with this. Think through the implications.

---

I have. Carefully. Please note I didn't say we are required to retaliate with any kind of military force if we are fired upon. Just that, morally speaking, if our soldiers are fired upon, the people firing have declared war on us. Whether we acknowledge it or not.

---

quote:

---

As to the second, our obligation doesn't change with the passage of time. We're not less obligated in 2012 than we were in 1980. Our credibility for claiming humanitarian purposes, though, is another story. And anyway, I also brought that up to point out that the world in general is totally fine with disregarding UN law when it suits us, and I'd rather we didn't have any illusions about that.
\

---

quote:

---

To #2 Actually the United States is NOT legally bound, the Charter of the UN and its founding principles don't explititly state that the USA or any member country has to move to stop genocide, what happens is that if a country is doing such then it is raised by petitition from the General Assembly to the UNSC as a security concern, then the UNSC can make a ruling, probably with the advisory opinion or ruling from the ICJ whether it is a war crime and something should be done.

---

quote:

---

This right here is what makes you proof positive a jingoist. Your own words, unedited, for all to see: Jingoism "Our country won't stand back for anything by jingo!"

---

quote:

---

There are over 180,000 protests (they are called incidents) per year. The whole "why don't you live there" counter argument though is also fallacious, you sure love your inability to argue a point.

---

quote:

---

Are you saying that any attempt at injury - whether or not the offending party has or even can actually cause injury gives us the right to do anything we want to them? Really? Far beyond what is needed to prevent injury to us?

---

quote:

---

So we should invade Rwanda now? I think that the point of invasion to stop genocide is to stop genocide that is about to or is currently happening, not genocide that has already happened. Saddam's major war crimes happened with our knowledge and tacit if not approval then at least permission. Before the first Gulf War.

---

quote:

---

Do you agree with Rakeesh's assessment, that because in theory I have a "high tolerance" for totalitarian dictatorships my point that Iraq's own human rights record is insufficient reason under international law to warrant invasion in 2003? If so, why?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rakeesh:
Hee. The distinction is a question of whether or not the PRC is totally totalitarian or only somewhat totalitarian, with gradual progress towards other things. I feel perfectly comfortable in pointing out that if you lived under such a government, you would call it totalitarian.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mucus:
Wikipedia has a pretty good description of the difference between totalitarianism and authoritarianism.

quote:

---

According to Karl Lowenstein, "the term ' Authoritarian' denotes a political organization in which the single power holder - an individual person or "dictator", an assembly, a committee, a junta, or a party monopolizes political power. The term " Authoritarian" refers rather to the structure of government than to the structure of society. An Authoritarian regime confines itself to political control of the state.

The governmental techniques of a totalitarian regime are necessarily Authoritarian. But a totalitarian regime does much more. It attempts to mold the private life, soul, and morals of citizens to a dominant ideology. The officially proclaimed ideology penetrates into every nook and cranny of society; its ambition is total.

---

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totalitarianism#Difference_between_authoritarian_and_totalitarian_states

China is most definitiely authoritarian. It is not totalitarian, that designation is reserved for North Korea or China during Cultural revolution.

Its is fairly obvious to anyone that has actually spent time in China that the lack of a dominant ideology is actually *characteristic* of modern China and one of the main problems going forward. Pragmatism or realpolik is the order of the day and it has been ever since Deng and his parable about white and black cats. And only an authoritarian rather than a totalitarian government can explain the anomaly of Hong Kong and the various Special Economic Zones.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ron Lambert:
...
As for China not being totalitarian, just be thankful you don't live there.

---

In addition to having spent time there, I've had a fair number of relatives, both native and foreign-born which have moved back to China to live for various reasons (or have moved from China recently).

---

quote:

---

I’ve covered this issue many, many times on this blog. The concept of the totalitarian State, as believed by many foreigners, is one of the top misconceptions about China. Not understanding key federalism issues and the relationship between local and State-level officials can lead to a lot of trouble.

---

quote:

---

Everywhere you look (history, economics, business, law, politics), federalism is of paramount importance. It’s probably a slight exaggeration (but only a slight one) to say that what separates a casual China observer from a learned one is in-depth knowledge of how the federal system works here — for example, no IP lawyer worth a damn goes along with the China-as-totalitarian-monolith meme. For the record, although I don’t consider myself a learned China pundit, I do have some talent in spotting bullshitters.

---

quote:

---

Why not now? We are roughly the same amount of time after the Rwanda genocide as we were the Iraq genocide when we invaded. And I bring it up because it makes it pretty darn clear that genocide was only an excuse for invasion (15 years after the fact) when it was convenient. We likely could have stopped it with a word at the time. Saddam needed our support.

---

quote:

---

We were even bound, by law, to put a stop to some of the things-genocide-that were going on in Iraq between the two wars.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rakeesh:
I think I know what you might call it if you ... couldn't voice a dissenting opinion in reliable safety.

---

quote:

---

You do know that the genocide didn't happen between the two wars, right?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rakeesh:

quote:

---

There are over 180,000 protests (they are called incidents) ...

---

... if you lived under a government that had restrictions such as that, well. They wouldn't be 'incidents', let's just say.

---

quote:

---

Since I am a statistician by profession, I get very sensitive and sensitized about numbers and their exact meanings. The number that has been bothering me for some time is the number of "mass incidents" in China. This particular number is one of the most frequently cited numbers for China (well, not as often as the total population of 1.3 billion people, about the same as the 123 million Internet users and more than the US-China trade deficit/surplus). The reason for the frequent citations is that it is favored for certain types of discussions, such as the "Coming Collapse of China" theory. For example, it is frequently cited that there were 87,000 "mass incidents", which then gets spun into (365 days) x (24 hours per day) x (60 minutes per hour) / (87,000 incidents) = 6 minutes per incident -- every six minutes, another mass resistance against human rights violation occurs in China! How shocking! And how could a nation stay together at this rate!
...
<long analysis>
...
I do not enjoy being put in this position. I attribute all my grief and discontent to certain Chinese bureaucrats thinking that manipulation and obfuscation is the best approach. It isn't. And I promise that I will remind you of this fact every time that another update is issued.

Meanwhile, I know that I will continue to read about "every six minutes, another mass protest against human rights violation occurs in China" while knowing full well that we may be talking about disco brawls or gambling den raids.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rakeesh:

quote:

---

You do know that the genocide didn't happen between the two wars, right?

---

Really? There was just the one attempt?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rakeesh:

quote:

---

Are you saying that any attempt at injury - whether or not the offending party has or even can actually cause injury gives us the right to do anything we want to them? Really? Far beyond what is needed to prevent injury to us?

---

Nope. Not any. Please take note of the comparison I made above. But, y'know, just because they were much less powerful than us doesn't mean we have to respond to warlike provocations with military force they can stand a chance against.

---

quote:

---

Technically true, in the intentionally murky language of things like this, they only say stuff like 'shall be punished'. But we signed on to punish it, as did many other members of the UN. And we don't. All the time we don't. We're not doing it right now, in fact, in parts of the world. That's kind of my point. Just wanted to make that clear.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dan_Frank:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rakeesh:

quote:

---

Are you saying that any attempt at injury - whether or not the offending party has or even can actually cause injury gives us the right to do anything we want to them? Really? Far beyond what is needed to prevent injury to us?

---

Nope. Not any. Please take note of the comparison I made above. [b] But, y'know, just because they were much less powerful than us doesn't mean we have to respond to warlike provocations with military force they can stand a chance against.
[B]

---

I think this is really interesting, Rakeesh. I think you're completely right, and I think the root of this is similar to the idea that it's wrong to shoot someone who is trying to kill you with a knife (because that's excessive force), just writ large.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dan_Frank:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rakeesh:

quote:

---

Are you saying that any attempt at injury - whether or not the offending party has or even can actually cause injury gives us the right to do anything we want to them? Really? Far beyond what is needed to prevent injury to us?

---

Nope. Not any. Please take note of the comparison I made above. [b] But, y'know, just because they were much less powerful than us doesn't mean we have to respond to warlike provocations with military force they can stand a chance against.
[B]

---

I think this is really interesting, Rakeesh. I think you're completely right, and I think the root of this is similar to the idea that it's wrong to shoot someone who is trying to kill you with a knife (because that's excessive force), just writ large.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rakeesh:
I admit I'm beginning to wonder just why I'm being misunderstood: any nation, should its military be attacked-whether successfully or not-by another while its military is behaving legitimately reserves the right but *not* the obligation to retaliate with military force.

---

quote:

---

Rakeesh, I understand you; you are just horribly wrong. Inefffectual chest thumping may give us the right to do what we realistically need to do to defend ourselves not to rain down whatever destruction we feel like on a country and its people. If it did, half of Saddam's genocidal actions would also be justified.

---

quote:

---

It's an issue with these guidelines — an issue that exists at any level of being plainly stated. What "rights" to retaliation do they reserve? Are these rights, should you sit down and write them in a book somewhere, governed at all by any degrees of proportional limitation? Does this hard and fast rule have clear delineations of what kind of 'attack' gives the 'attacked' country the ability to claim the 'right' to respond in any way they opt to?

---

quote:

---

I agree. You're using the word 'right' in such a way that having "the right to do X" apparently doesn't mean that it's morally OK for you to do X. So you're robbing the word of much of its meaning and leaving it up in the air exactly what your statements imply about when the use of force is actually permissible.

---

quote:

---

This all gets well beyond the specter of the Iraq war, which doesn't even really get to benefit from a self-assurance of legitimate behavior, or a free pass for the blanket "right to counterattack" — we have the advantage of analysis in great detail, seeing the actual motivations, convictions, and intents of those who perpetuated it, and knowing that those motivations, convictions, and intents — the real reason why we were committed to this war — are ultimately indefensible, no matter how many post-hoc official justifications they could subsequently try to slap on top of it. A moral methodology for justifying wars that grants a blanket justification for what the bush administration did is — and my wording is precise here — as practically useless as they come.

---

quote:

---

For example, morally speaking, if you shoot at us, and we're behaving legally, to me we're allowed to retaliate with our military, if we choose. Open and shut. Once someone has opened fire on us, even if they miss, well they've really just given us the decision over what to do with them. It then becomes a question of pragmatism and efficiency, to me, what we should do afterwards.

---

quote:

---

I think I've gone to substantial lengths to say that when something such as that exists alongside other criteria-firing on our soldiers, vitally important region, supporting terrorism-then the case becomes more compelling.

---

quote:

---

I understand the view, but you have to grant that it's a difficult one to argue against except in a piecemeal way. The "WMDs" by themselves weren't enough, the human rights weren't enough, the history wasn't enough by itself, but somehow each of these gives us a little bit of reason to invade Iraq, and together these little reasons add up to be enough to tip the scale and make invasion the right choice.

It's a very tough view to argue against. If the weight/importance you assign to one of these considerations (weapons, human rights, international lawbreaking) is a little bit off, that by itself could determine whether your view is right or wrong.

I'm not saying that makes your view false, but it does make it a very tough view to evaluate. In general, I don't like the idea of our government starting wars of choice on the basis of that kind of slippery reasoning, because it makes it too easy to trick yourself and others into making a bad decision. If you want to start a fight, your reasons for starting it should clear the bar by a wide margin. The default assumption should, if possible, be peace.

---

quote:

---

As a point about the dialectic here, too, when we attack you on one of the particular points (human rights, firing on our aircraft, WMDs), you don't need to interpret that as us falsely imputing to you the view that that one factor was sufficient reason for war. What we're trying to do is attack the idea that that factor was important enough to even contribute much to a justification. At least, that's my view: none of these factors was anywhere near worth starting a fight over, so even summing them all up we didn't have much of a case.

---

quote:

---

Rakeesh, I am not diminishing the attacks on the Kurds; they were terrible and genocidal. I am saying that they weren't an excuse for invasion because they were over long before we invaded. We couldn't put an effective stop to them because we were 15 years too late to stop them. The Halabja attack was in March of 1988. The al-Anfal Campaign ended in 1989. It wasn't going on in 2003 so we couldn't have stopped it.

---

quote:

---

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religions group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

---

quote:

---

We don't use the word 'right' like that all the time? For example, it would be my right to write into my newspaper that black people are inferior to white people, and we ought never ever intermarry, and man we'd all be better off if they moved back to Africa. I would be completely within my rights to do so, and most Americans I think would agree. Morally speaking, should I do that? Of course not. I don't feel I'm robbing the word of much of its meaning at all, I think I'm using the word in a different but commonly accepted way.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rakeesh:
"Blanket justification"? *sigh*

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mucus:
Wikipedia has a pretty good description of the difference between totalitarianism and authoritarianism.

quote:

---

According to Karl Lowenstein, "the term ' Authoritarian' denotes a political organization in which the single power holder - an individual person or "dictator", an assembly, a committee, a junta, or a party monopolizes political power. The term " Authoritarian" refers rather to the structure of government than to the structure of society. An Authoritarian regime confines itself to political control of the state.

The governmental techniques of a totalitarian regime are necessarily Authoritarian. But a totalitarian regime does much more. It attempts to mold the private life, soul, and morals of citizens to a dominant ideology. The officially proclaimed ideology penetrates into every nook and cranny of society; its ambition is total.

---

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by The Rabbit:
I don't see much point in debating whether or not China is totalitarian or authoritarian when that distinction itself is controversial.

As best I can tell, the distinction was invented to rationalize the USs support for oppressive non-marxist dictators during the cold war. It was a post-hoc rationalization then and it continues to serve as a post-hoc rationalization for doing things like trading opening with China but continuing the embargo on Cuba.

The truth is that governments don't fit into any ridged academic classifications. Each one is unique. Trying to decide whether we should call China authoritarian or totalitarian is an exercise in splitting hairs.

Today's China is clearly far less oppressive than it was during the cultural revolution, its also clearly still denies people basic human rights we take for granted in the West.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by The Rabbit:
I don't see much point in debating whether or not China is totalitarian or authoritarian when that distinction itself is controversial.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Samprimary:
Stop saying "deflection tactics." You have worn it through the floor.

---

quote:

---

When asked not long ago about the effectiveness of the European Union’s posture toward an increasingly assertive and illiberal Russia, former Czech president and communist-era dissident Vaclav Havel argued that the European democracies had lost their voice and needed to take a firmer, more open stand against abuses by their large and strategically important neighbor to the east.*

He warned that today’s Russia is advancing a new form of authoritarianism, with methods of control that are significantly more sophisticated than the classic totalitarian techniques of the Soviet Union.

Finally, the former Czech leader lamented that as democratic states increasingly gave primacy to economic ties in their relations with Russia, the promotion of human rights was being shunted to the margins. The Kremlin was intensifying its repression of the political opposition, independent journalists, and civil society organizations, but the response from established democracies had softened to the point of inaudibility.

Havel was referring only to Russia, but he could just as easily have been speaking of China, another authoritarian country whose high rates of economic growth and rapid integration into the global trading system have had the effect of pushing the issues of democratic governance and human rights to a back burner. China, like Russia, has modernized and adapted its authoritarianism, forging a system that combines impressive economic development with an equally impressive apparatus of political control.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by BlackBlade:

What's the difference between pollution statistics and human rights lawyers?

Beijing is considering releasing its pollution statistics.

---

quote:

---

) the distinction matters because it clearly illustrates that some people really do not know what they are talking about (because it is not controversial, it is commonly taught in University political science courses)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Blayne Bradley:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Samprimary:
Stop saying "deflection tactics." You have worn it through the floor.

---

Screw off? If I say a true thing a hundred times, it doesn't matter if I say it 10, 100, or 10,000 because it is still true.

---

quote:

---

. After all what is your best evidence? Nitpicking the grammarical wording of a wikipedia article?

One government suppresses human rights, so does another, therefor they are the same!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Samprimary:
According to that definition (with power word of the day 'attempts') you can easily make a case for totalitarian against authoritarian. In what turns out to be a startlingly meaningless definitional debate.

---

quote:

---

I don't consider the pragmatic propaganda that justifies the CCP being in power in and of itself an ideology.

---

quote:

---

A lot of things that are taught in undergraduate courses are controversial.

---

quote:

---

who would with the weakest of nudges go back to the former. Hooray?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by TomDavidson:

quote:

---

I don't consider the pragmatic propaganda that justifies the CCP being in power in and of itself an ideology.

---

I think that's unnecessarily narrow; in fact, requiring a totalitarian government to care more about ideology than remaining in power actually requires that totalitarian governments be among the most idealistic on Earth, if not completely fictional.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by TomDavidson:
I think that's unnecessarily narrow; in fact, requiring a totalitarian government to care more about ideology than remaining in power ...

---

I don't think I said that a totalitarian government has to care "more" about ideology than power.

Rather, I think a totalitarian government needs to at least take some concrete steps towards putting an ideology into practice. Propaganda on its own isn't sufficient.

One reflection of this is to see what kind of influence governments place on foreign governments. European governments usually tie aid in Africa to democratic reform for example. After Mao, the Chinese government isn't pushing Communism in Africa. It isn't even pushing the opposite of democratic reform (authoritarian reform?). Rather, it doesn't care what a government does as long as it is stable. I think thats basically a self-reflection.
 

---

Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
 
You know, by this definition Oceania from 1984 would not count as "totalitarian," since its ideology was only a convenient front to enable the higher party members to hold power.
 

---

Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
 
Oceania is clearly totalitarian because it takes concrete steps to control all aspects of private life, thought and will of its citizenry towards the glory of the state and the mythology of Big Brother. It's implied the Inner-Inner party are doing it For The Evulz but its clear that there conceptualization of power is the obliteration of any and all forms of private thought that could be contrary to love to the state. It is not enough to shoot Winston, they have to make Winston LOVE them before shooting him.

The difference I think is most starkly depicted between the differences between 1984; bleak totalitarian dystopia of where all economic and political freedoms are not merely suppressed, but erased from history and language itself and Huxley's Brave New World where every citizen is given jetpacks and all the drugs and sex they want in exchange for self determination.

To simplify, one form of oppression is total up from on high and all encompassing, they do what they want because they can. Authoritarians have to instead bargain for power, promising the people something concrete, the good of the many at the expense of the few. Totalitarians are the expense of the many for the good of the few.
 

---

Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
 
As for me *shrug* I'm not terribly concerned with the classification of fictional governments.

I do find interesting the differences between totalitarian governments like North Korea and Mao's China which often do/did put ideology before practical results and which didn't recognize limits on state power as opposed to modern day China which is pragmatic and contains a Hong Kong which has remained largely unchanged for a decade and a half.
 

---

Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
So you're saying that an authoritarian government is a totalitarian government that can no longer get away with it?
 

---

Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
 
Just as far as one could say that republic is a government for a country too big to be a democracy? That there be overlapping spectrum here on some facets here was never denied, but none of this was really the point in the first place.
 

---

Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
 
TomDavidson:
Well, I would say that Hong Kong wasn't an authoritarian government under the British occupation because it somehow transitioned from totalitarian rule.

Likewise, I wouldn't necessarily say that Hong Kong retains the elections that were introduced at the last minute by the British because the CCP couldn't "get away" with removing them and going back to what it previously was.
 

---

Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Blayne Bradley:
Just as far as one could say that republic is a government for a country too big to be a democracy?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jake:

quote:

---

Originally posted by BlackBlade:

What's the difference between pollution statistics and human rights lawyers?

Beijing is considering releasing its pollution statistics.

---

:: snort ::

---

 

---