Letter To America From Marines From Iraq!

Re: You must have read this site.

Assuming you are referring to me, please point out where in this thread I have made these fallacious arguments.

Specifically. Please.

 

My favorite's

Despite the fact that most countries in the world thought Saddam had WMD, since he didn't we are now in the wrong and everyone is liers. Then, your tendency to interject another argument after one has been refuted is symptomatic of the third type of argument....

 

Re: My favorite's

When did I say this? I didn't.

It's funny that you accuse me of using a "straw man" argument and then to prove your point, you use a "straw man" argument. Quite clever.

You also accused me of a couple of other logical fallacies. Please, point out specifically where I employed these fallacies.

Please.

Please give me an example of where I have done this.

Please.

 

Re: In the real world.

That is incredibly twisted logic.

Here's what happened:

The U.N. imposed sanctions with the purpose of ridding Saddam of WMD.

The U.S. and the U.K. favored those sanctions. (But they also favored getting Saddam out of power. They had veto power, but it would have been foolish for them to use it because, after all, the sanctions worked in their favor.)

Now, here's the twisted logical jump: Therefore, the purpose of the U.N. sanctions was to get Saddam out of power.

What anglo-centric nonsense.

 

Re: Re: Re: Where is this said?

I would like to say several things here. First, why is it that America is always trashed and the enemies given the benefit of the doubt?

Why is it that Bush lied about WMD's but Saddam is given the benefit of the doubt that he didn't possess them?

Why isn't Bush given the benefit of the doubt with the belief Saddam had them but got rid of them?

Second, we all know he had them. So, where are they? This seems to me to be the most grave concern of our time. Yet, it goes nearly unreported and the concern is virtually nonexistent.

Third, had America not rid the world of Saddam, does anyone really think he would be behaving himself right now and that he wouldn't be developing WMD's or using the ones he had prior to the invasion?

Myopia is dangerous, very dangerous!

 

Re: Good morals, Carl, bad research.

Hey Janko, my mistake for not noticing your observances. I guess I never paid much attention to all that Sorbon discussion - way over my head.... Glad to see that you are also sickened by this ancient garbage in our modern age.

 

Sense of direction

Hi Carl:

You are a civilized person. It wasn't over your head, it was beneath your posterior. I am reminded of what the great organist and composer Max Reger* once wrote to a snotty music critic: "Sir. I am in the smallest room of my house. I have your review before me. Soon I will have it behind me."

Janko

*Isn't it interesting--typical--that neither of the great rescuers of J.S. Bach
from oblivion was a Lutheran (Mendelssohn being Prussian Union and Reger a Roman Catholic).

 

I read it and honestly thought it was a typo.

 

Completely understand. One does not expect to encounter such blatant slurs in discourse on an academic discussion board these days. Therefore seeing it as a typo is a natural reaction.

 

Regarding the "A letter from a Marine" mails that are circulated on the Internet.

Try reading this article by Harry Browne:





Rich Lowry received a note from the father of a Marine fighting in Fallujah. In it the proud father recounted what his son had told him. Many residents of that besieged town left bedding for the Marines and soldiers, along with notes thanking them for liberating their town from the terrorists and inviting them to sleep in their homes if necessary.

Every day, I receive wonderful, uplifting, heart-wrenching e-mails from Marines and soldiers or their families with similar stories of Iraqis' expressing their gratitude and relief that the Americans are doing the hard work of democracy and decency (the latter being vastly more important than the former).

See, see — it's all worthwhile!!! Why are you opposing this wonderful war?

It's amazing how much conservatives have adopted the ways of liberals — now that the conservatives are in power.

Do you remember how, in Bill Clinton's State of the Union speeches, he would always call attention to some child or family in the audience who had benefited from some Clinton program? Clinton never mentioned the family whose taxes were increased, or whose access to market resources were reduced, or who had to pay higher prices because of the Clinton program. Just point to a few beneficiaries and make us think that the program is an unqualified success in making life better for Americans.

In the same way, conservatives point to the success stories that "we hear so very little of from the media" in order to make us think the Iraq war is a great endeavor — one we shouldn't be criticizing.

But, in passing on his "success stories," Goldberg neglects to mention the tens of billions of dollars that have been drained from our pockets, the 1,000+ Americans who have died, the thousands of Americans who have been maimed, the tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers and resisters who have died, the tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians (men, women, and children) who have died, the tens of thousands of homes that have been destroyed, and the tens of millions of people around the world who have learned to hate America because the U.S. military invaded Iraq without provocation and without any provable excuse.

Are a handful of emails and tales of gratitude worth all that?

Bill Clinton as President was a demagogue. And conservatives have learned to imitate him.

Understanding the words: And supporting the demagoguery concerning Iraq are the media (you know, the "liberal media" that Rush Limbaugh and other Republicans love to hold up as a threat to truth and the American way). TV reporters utter many empty statements in defense of the Bush rule-the-world policies in Iraq and elsewhere.

We really need a translating dictionary in order to understand what these empty statements are supposed to mean.

I'll do my part by contributing a few entries to start off the lexicon:

Support our troops = Don't say anything bad about the Bush war in Iraq because that might demoralize the soldiers fighting there. So just let them continue to die, rather than suggest that they might be dying in vain.

The French are weak and cowardly = They may have been right about Iraq, but when was the last time they invaded a country without provocation? (Comments about French cowardice generally come from people who have not volunteered to go to war.)

Pat Tillman (the professional football player who gave up a lucrative career to enlist, go to Afghanistan, and die) is an example for us all = Aren't you ashamed of yourself for ignobly focusing on earning a living for yourself and your family, rather than laying down your life for a promise that the world's problems will be solved once Iraq is completely destroyed? And don't ask me why I haven't enlisted.

America has the best-trained military in the world = I can't think of anything intelligent to say, and I have no way of knowing how well-trained our soldiers are, but maybe this will make people feel good and earn me some brownie points.

We need to involve the international community, so that American troops can come home = Face it — we're never going to leave Iraq, so learn to live with it.

More emptiness in the conservative media: Incidentally, if you want to see just how empty conservative writing can be these days, read Jonah Goldberg's entire article for examples of muddled thinking in support of a bad war.

Note that he cites the U.S. Marines' "good works" in Fallujah as evidence that America is a "wonderful, decent nation, brimming with millions of people who take people as they find them and do what is right because that is their character" — neglecting to mention that America is "helping" people in Fallujah because our government has coercively confiscated the resources from us, not because it's in the character of the American people to voluntarily give up their earnings and their lives to change a government halfway around the world.

He talks of the self-correcting nature of our way of life, saying: "Not all criticisms are fair or accurate, and some are just plain silly. But when an idea is valid we adopt and nurture it." But now that every excuse for invading Iraq has proven to be wrong, why aren't "we" correcting the mistake? Could it be because a conservative government admits of no error and cares little what has proven to be true?

And he says: "For every politician who takes a bribe, every journalist who plagiarizes, every husband who hits his wife, every child who cheats, there are multitudes who do none of these things, . . ." And for every President who confiscates $2.4 trillion of our money, sends Americans to their deaths, locks up people without trials, and alienates almost the entire non-American world, there are hundreds of millions of Americans who don't steal, don't murder, don't kidnap, and don't make America look bad.

 

*I was in the service so I think that I'm qualified to say that the French are weak and cowardly. You forget that they were being bribed in Iraq. Jimmy made a good point...Saddam had those weapons...where are they now? Another good question to ask is whether or not France knows where they are (since they knew that they were gone).

*You keep talking about "conservative media"? That's an oxy-moron. I watch the news every day and the majority of it is liberal. You rarely hear of anything good that our military does-all you hear about is the death toll. The good that our guys are doing isn't reported much at all. That wouldn't be in keeping with the "America is bad" mindset that some of you are in. It's amazing how some Americans can see us as bad guys when we are the most giving, and self-sacrificing nation on the planet (bar none).

*Just so you know, all war is bad. Also another fact for you: we were hated long before the Iraq invasion. I believe 9/11 happened before that---I could be wrong. It seems like the left has a different logic than those of us who are either in the middle or on the right. Based on what they believed at the time, the war in Iraq was the next logical step. Contrary to what you believe, holding hands with them would not have solved any of this--summits would have been a waste of time (they only know war and death <good thing we can relate to all people on all levels>).

 

"I was in the service so I think that I'm qualified to say that the French are weak and cowardly."


Now let us be fair. There are good and bad soldiers in all armies.

 

I didn't know what it was

I thought he was making fun of Bush for being a hick because people parody hicks and hispanics by replacing the "you" sound with a "ju". (ala, Cheech and Jong and others "ju got that right") As an Anti Semetic slander it didn't really make any sense. Maybe I am just slow...

 

Twisted maybe to you

There were what, seven sanctions passed against Saddam? Five of them were passed after 2 veto members of the security counsel stated to the other members that the only remedy Iraq could offer to get out of the sanctions was for Saddam to resign. That is pretty clear to most of us in the world.

I guess your little rant about "Where's the WMD" above didn't qualify? Twist it however you want. There was a listing for that argument on the link I sent you...

 

Examples

I was involved in planning a NATO military police competition for 3 years. Each and every year the French MP's would show up complaining about their billeting or needing a rules change that benefitted them. One year they brought too few magazines for the timed combat pistol course. Not having to change magazines gave them a serious advantage. At the friendship banquet they would NEVER mingle with any of the other NATO MP's not even the ones who spoke French. They did bother, however, to make fun of the vocabulary of the interpretor we had translating into French. Pretty arrogant lot they are. I have always found it funny that their best soldiers are known as The FOREIGN Legion. Just so you know, almost every NATO soldier I met hated the French. And I met a lot, I was over there for 12 years...

 

Yeah, let's all hate the French. And all the other allies who disagreed with us. We don't need them unless we want to survive and stuff.

 

Nice try Khan

You forget your world history. It is a fault of many to assume everything started on 9/11/01 but there is a whole lot of history prior to that. People hated the French for a lot of things before that recent date. DeGaulle being the primary catalyst for anyone over 50.

I haven't liked them or their politics for years. Take some time to look at their politics for the past couple of decades and then come back and tell us they are the sweet innocents. Their arrogance is legendary. I speak two languages but finding a Frenchman who will admit to speaking anything other than French is a virtually impossible. You go over the border and ask the agent a question and he just looks at you like he cannot understand. I love it that when when they were busy blowing shipd protesting their nuclear tests (yes, they refused to sign the test ban treay) the liberals were against them. Now they're best friends. The French create their own problems we don't have to work at it for them....

 

Re: Nice try Khan

Yes, for example, the U.S. probably wouldn't have won the Revoluationary War or the War of 1812 without the help of the French. Those bastards.

But now all "good Americans" hate the French. And it's fine to express that hatred, call them names and wish for the death of every single one of them.

But you you better not even hint at saying something bad about Isreal.

Got it.

 

Re: Nice try Khan

No one is saying anything about liking their politics. Especially now that they are moving way right. But they are our allies and we're bad-mouthing them constantly. You don't have to like them, but you don't have to smear them either.
I've been following world politics my whole life. I'm not forgetting the Rainbow Warrior or any of the other whacked things they have done. But if this taking over the Islamic world thing blows up in our faces (in 5, 4, 3,.....) we're going to need allies.

 

Re: Twisted maybe to you

It is clear what the intentions of the U.S. and the U.K. were. That says nothing about the intentions of the U.N. nor the true purpose of the sanctions. To claim that it does is blindly anglo-centric.

Once again, YOU are putting up a "straw man" argument. I never said anything about "where's the WMD." I simply said that we had bad intelligence. And that the person that we trusted to be in charge of that -- President Bush -- is completely unwilling to take any responsibility for it.

Now, I will ask you once again. Please point out where I employed any of the logical fallicies of which you have accused me.