Subject:
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Re: Excellent summation of truths and falsehoods about our little war
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 24 Mar 2003 06:44:49 GMT
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Viewed:
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179 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> Pitched at students, it's still a good summation of a lot of the arguements
> flying around. It's also a good scorecard you can to use to evaluate the
> players here and their relative grips on reality. (note that RM fails point
> 3 badly)
>
> http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-goldblatt032303.asp
>
> Note that after 9 points that the author reasons about (on all of which, I
> agree with his assessment of falsehood/truth, for those keeping score), the
> author's point 10 is (in part) "Conclusion. Nothing you've just read proves
> that war with Iraq is either morally justified or strategically wise."
> (which I agree with too)
>
> Most of the NRO writers came out thinking that it IS morally justified and
> IS strategically wise... I came out thinking only the first part, it's
> morally justified.... but neither morally required, nor strategically wise.
Hmmmm, I'm find my myself in disagreement about the first three points
already...
1: The war it legal (conclusion).
What in the world makes a war "legal"? A better term would be "sanctioned",
but if the author really likes the other, I can deal with it. The answer is
no, it's isn't legal in the sense that it is not sanctioned by the UN. When
you are taking a UN resolution as your basis for war, but the UN does not
sanction that war, how can you use that resolution as the basis of legality?
2: The inspectors are verifiers, not detectives.
Okay, maybe the inspectors really aren't supposed to be detectives, but that
sidesteps the point that *somebody* has to be or otherwise there is
absolutely no point in having the weapon destruction verifiers (i.e. you
have to prove that something exists first).
3: The war is not being fought for oil companies
Maybe it isn't, but the analysis is very bad. Oil companies get the
contracts for drilling, transporting, and distributing the oil. One doesn't
have to have total control to get a piece of a very big pie. The author
pretends like oil companies couldn't see a dime out of it because of supply
and demand.
4: North Korea is not a greater threat than Iraq
This one is truly amazing. He does not spend a single word on establishing
*any* threat that Iraq poses to the United States.
I'm going to skip the rest (maybe it gets better, but it seems a waste of
time reading any farther). I wouldn't call this a good summation, in fact
I'd hold this up as a particularly *bad* summation, regardless of the
conclusion.
-->Bruce<--
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