Subject:
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Re: I'm just going to take a back seat.... Re: You Can Lead A Horse To Water....
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 14 Mar 2003 16:11:24 GMT
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Viewed:
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502 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Mike Petrucelli writes:
> What the heck are you talking about? Unlike World War 2 we (any "Western"
> country) do not carpet bomb cities anymore. The big Tomahawk cruise missles
> are accurate to within half a meter, let alone the smaller missles. Civilian
> casualties would exist but they would likely be less than what Saddam would
> otherwise kill during the next year anyway.
Let's attack this point by point.
1. If you're going to accuse Saddam of murders he has not yet committed,
then you absolutely must provide evidence that he will do so. Since you're
proposing some sort of comparision between the relative number of civilian
casualties of war and civilian casualties of Saddam, it is imperative that
you provide a basis for these numbers. It is not sufficient to say "he has
killed X number of Kurds, therefore he will kill X number of Baghdad
residents," and you simply can't assume that. Even accepting that Saddam is
brutally repressive of dissent (which no one disputes, by the way), you
cannot assume baseless numbers as justification for a baseless war.
Your argument is this: "It's okay for us to kill innocent Iraqis, because
I have decided to believe that Saddam would have killed them anyway." If
that's the case, then you might as well kill everyone on Earth, since
they're all going to die eventually anyway.
> Do you honestly think Saddam would even be doing the irrelevent token gesture
> of destroying a few obsolete missles if it were not for the 300,000
> "peacekeepers" locked and loaded on his doorstep.
Is that justification for going to war? Absolutely not, unless your goal
is to go to war regardless of circumstance or reality. If the objective is
to get Saddam to disarm (which, Bush alleges, truly is the objective) then
why does it matter that he's only doing it because our military is there?
If he is disarming, then he is disarming. If you want to refer to 300,000
hidden weapons, you absolutely must provide evidence for them, otherwise
you're simply evangelizing. Further, Saddam is legally allowed to have
certain kinds of weapons, so if he has 300,000 of those, you can't condemn
him for it. And, if Bush has information about 300,000 hidden, forbidden
weapons, he must come forward with that information, or else he is
concealing evidence solely to support his cause for war, which is *not*
about disarming Saddam.
> > So I have to ask, "Who would this war be good for? Who would benefit from
> > this war?"
>
> The people currently living in Iraq. You know the people that are executed for
> questioning Saddam. Or how about some of his troops that would likely
> surrender because US Prisoners are fed and treated better than Iraqi soliders.
> Thats what happened in 1990-1991. Of course then their families were executed
> for betrayal so maybe we should eliminate Saddam's ability to do that first.
In making these claims, you are assuming that war is the only way that
life can be improved for Iraqi citizens, which is 100% circular reasoning:
"War will be good for them because the lack of war is bad for them." Nonsense.
Yes, Saddam is a monster. Yes, he persecutes Iraqi citizens. Yes, he
hates the US. But explain to me how we are therefore justified in killing
innocent Iraqi citizens as a result. The death of even one innocent person
as a result of US action during this arbitrary war is unacceptable.
> I keep seeing the sign: "No war in Iraq, Save the Iraqi Children." So what is
> it; "No war in Iraq" or "Save the Iraqi Children."? I mean people how can
> people be so delusional to think that Saddam will magically chage his ways
> without a strong show of force.
Straw man and ad hominem. Rephrase your assertions as arguments, and
we'll deal with them.
> Saddam and Al-queda probably do not have any formal ties but the both share
> one common belief. The "Western Powers" will be too "soft" and "weak" to
> challenge them.
I would assert that the oil-rich Bush and Cheney families have stronger
private ties to Saudi Arabia than Saddam has to al Qaeda.
Dave!
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