deep
Blue Crack Addict
joyfulgirl said:
Wow, I don't know why I didn't bother to read this yesterday;
could it be
ah, because of the poster?
joyfulgirl said:
Wow, I don't know why I didn't bother to read this yesterday;
deep said:
could it be
ah, because of the poster?
A_Wanderer said:
I think that you are talking out one side that opinions cannot be silenced and that there must be diversity but on the other you claim it as a fact, undisputed, that 9/11 and terrorism in general is caused by US government intervention. This is the almost unanimous opinion of the left and it represents a dangerous level of group think. Do you not consider the religious factors involved? The US has meddles in every country and screws over many but not all of those produce terrorism. Is it so inconcievable that religion and believe is a tool for indoctrination of a totalitarian political system and that much of the terrorism in the world today is a spread off effect of this. Do we consider the role reversal in the victim mentality ~ the attacker becomes the poor defenseless victim of America's actions in the world and is driven to murder thousands of innocents (yes innocent, the people in the towers did not all go about murdering children or running wars). Do we not question what we are told about Islam by organisations such as CAIR or do we wallow in sweet PC ignorance about the various factions involved - there are definitely moderate peaceful Muslims out there but it does them a disservice to ignore their suffering so that we can host terror supporting bastards as pillars of the Moderate community.
There is a level of blame for terrorism on the US ~ things that it has done in the past or could have done may have made tragedy inevitable but to only blame the US and totally ignore the decades of Islamic Terrorism around the world ~ from the Middle East to the Subcontinent all the way to Indonesia and the Phillipines ~ is wrong.
Iraq New Terror Breeding Ground
War Created Haven, CIA Advisers Report
By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 14, 2005; Page A01
Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of "professionalized" terrorists, according to a report released yesterday by the National Intelligence Council, the CIA director's think tank.
Iraq provides terrorists with "a training ground, a recruitment ground, the opportunity for enhancing technical skills," said David B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats. "There is even, under the best scenario, over time, the likelihood that some of the jihadists who are not killed there will, in a sense, go home, wherever home is, and will therefore disperse to various other countries."
Low's comments came during a rare briefing by the council on its new report on long-term global trends. It took a year to produce and includes the analysis of 1,000 U.S. and foreign experts. Within the 119-page report is an evaluation of Iraq's new role as a breeding ground for Islamic terrorists.
President Bush has frequently described the Iraq war as an integral part of U.S. efforts to combat terrorism. But the council's report suggests the conflict has also helped terrorists by creating a haven for them in the chaos of war.
"At the moment," NIC Chairman Robert L. Hutchings said, Iraq "is a magnet for international terrorist activity."
Before the U.S. invasion, the CIA said Saddam Hussein had only circumstantial ties with several al Qaeda members. Osama bin Laden rejected the idea of forming an alliance with Hussein and viewed him as an enemy of the jihadist movement because the Iraqi leader rejected radical Islamic ideals and ran a secular government.
Bush described the war in Iraq as a means to promote democracy in the Middle East. "A free Iraq can be a source of hope for all the Middle East," he said one month before the invasion. "Instead of threatening its neighbors and harboring terrorists, Iraq can be an example of progress and prosperity in a region that needs both."
But as instability in Iraq grew after the toppling of Hussein, and resentment toward the United States intensified in the Muslim world, hundreds of foreign terrorists flooded into Iraq across its unguarded borders. They found tons of unprotected weapons caches that, military officials say, they are now using against U.S. troops. Foreign terrorists are believed to make up a large portion of today's suicide bombers, and U.S. intelligence officials say these foreigners are forming tactical, ever-changing alliances with former Baathist fighters and other insurgents.
"The al-Qa'ida membership that was distinguished by having trained in Afghanistan will gradually dissipate, to be replaced in part by the dispersion of the experienced survivors of the conflict in Iraq," the report says.
According to the NIC report, Iraq has joined the list of conflicts -- including the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate, and independence movements in Chechnya, Kashmir, Mindanao in the Philippines, and southern Thailand -- that have deepened solidarity among Muslims and helped spread radical Islamic ideology.
At the same time, the report says that by 2020, al Qaeda "will be superseded" by other Islamic extremist groups that will merge with local separatist movements. Most terrorism experts say this is already well underway. The NIC says this kind of ever-morphing decentralized movement is much more difficult to uncover and defeat.
Terrorists are able to easily communicate, train and recruit through the Internet, and their threat will become "an eclectic array of groups, cells and individuals that do not need a stationary headquarters," the council's report says. "Training materials, targeting guidance, weapons know-how, and fund-raising will become virtual (i.e. online)."
The report, titled "Mapping the Global Future," highlights the effects of globalization and other economic and social trends. But NIC officials said their greatest concern remains the possibility that terrorists may acquire biological weapons and, although less likely, a nuclear device.
The council is tasked with midterm and strategic analysis, and advises the CIA director. "The NIC's goal," one NIC publication states, "is to provide policymakers with the best, unvarnished, and unbiased information -- regardless of whether analytic judgments conform to U.S. policy."
Other than reports and studies, the council produces classified National Intelligence Estimates, which represent the consensus among U.S. intelligence agencies on specific issues.
Yesterday, Hutchings, former assistant dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, said the NIC report tried to avoid analyzing the effect of U.S. policy on global trends to avoid being drawn into partisan politics.
Among the report's major findings is that the likelihood of "great power conflict escalating into total war . . . is lower than at any time in the past century." However, "at no time since the formation of the Western alliance system in 1949 have the shape and nature of international alignments been in such a state of flux as they have in the past decade."
The report also says the emergence of China and India as new global economic powerhouses "will be the most challenging of all" Washington's regional relationships. It also says that in the competition with Asia over technological advances, the United States "may lose its edge" in some sectors.
Staff writer Bradley Graham and researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
joyfulgirl said:
Certainly not, you trouble-maker you.
speedracer said:
Churchill has a right to say these things. He doesn't necessarily have a right to get paid to say these things.
I said that Churchill's writings were morally reprehensible and intellectually dubious. I don't think that all leftists have to act this way.
Adolf Eichmann was one of the chief architects of the Nazi extermination schemes. Churchill is trying to draw a comparision between WTC workers and Eichmann. And make no mistake, Churchill applauded the attacks and said that the WTC victims got what they deserved. (The quote that Dreadsox posted was taken from Churchill's book "The Justice of Roosting Chickens", if I'm not mistaken.)
Okay, so let's look at his analysis:
1. The US military commits atrocities in other countries.
2. The US military is "enslaved" to America's "global financial empire".
3. Therefore, America's global financial empire is complicit in these atrocities.
4. The WTC victims are intelligent people who should understand point (3), yet willingly choose to work for the large banks and firms that constitute America's global financial empire.
5. Therefore, the WTC victims are complicit in US military atrocities.
6. Therefore, the WTC victims deserve death.
Let's see...I'd say that points (1) and (2) are sufficiently vague and controversial that it's morally acceptable not to agree with point (3). Hence points (4) and (5) are invalid, and the argument breaks down.
Or instead of analyzing the argument point-by-point, we can argue by reductio ad absurdum: Churchill's analysis could be extended to imply that secretaries in the WTC, people who use credit cards, people who drink coffee, and George Soros all deserve death.
Or even better: Churchill is an employee of the University of Colorado, a large research university that does military research and receives funds from the DoD for a wide variety of other projects. Hence Churchill deserves death.
That's why I think Churchill's work is intellectually dubious. And claiming that people deserve to die based on such work is morally reprehensible.
Klink said:
They don't but if it's the truth, why shouldn't they speak it?
I'm familiar with Eichmann. If I agreed with your interpretation of the argument I would agree, but I think it's a straw man. Here's mine:
1)American's elect a government.
2)The government is responsible of setting a foreign policy and deploying the armed forces.
3)The US gov't and military has killed or helped to kill, maim or kidnap millions of innocent civilians since WWII.
4)When the US government deploys the military which commits attrocities for the benefit of the United States, the public bears SOME responsibility because it has elected the government that has deployed the military which has committed attrocities.
I think these statements are incontrovertible:
Do (1) American's not elect their government?
Is (2) the government not responsible for deploying the military?
Does the military
Have (3) the gov't and military not killed, maimed and kidnapped millions since WWII?
EDIT: The US gov't is directly and indirectly responsible for the deaths of (a "conservative estimate") 8,000,000 people, mostly civilians since WWII.
Sorry, but when you elect your government, you are at least partly responsible for its actions (not deserving of death, though). I find this logic incontrovertible, although I would never fire an academic for disagreeing.
I think you misunderstand what "reductio ad absurdum" is. It's a poor form of reasoning, a fallacy, in fact. Arguments that reply upon 'reductio ad absurdum' are immanently flawed because they attempt to prove something by contending that the opposite would be too unbelievable to accept. You can't argue using this technique because you're ignoring that reality could be equally absurd.
I wouldn't take his argument that far at all. I would say that all attacks are unjusitfied, but those citizens are partly responsible for the acts of the govt they elected. That doesn't mean that the justifiable reprisal is terrorism, though.
In your first paragraph, you're allowing the subjugation of education to political and economic will, sacrificing its integrity and breeding ignorance.
They don't deserve to die any more than any Iraqi, Chilean or Afghani children. That's the point he's making. But it's intellectually dubious to claim anybody deserves to die. I don't think he's doing that at all. I think he's exaggerating with an analogy to make his point, which is the only thing intellectually doubtful thing that he's doing.
Klink said:
Personal attacks like "loser" do not make what he says untrue.
Jon
speedracer said:
I do not know what the antecedent to the pronoun "it" in the sentence above is. If "it" refers to "morally reprehensible and intellectually dubious arguments", I should think that the answer to your question would be obvious.
I'm reading exactly what Churchill wrote, not what you think he should have written.
Well, you go from "killing innocent civilians" in (3) to "atrocities" in (4), ignoring the fact that not all cases of killing innocent civilians are morally equivalent. But your opinions aren't my primary target here.
Unless you're willing to cut up your credit cards in order to right yourself relative to this absurd reality we inhabit, I can't buy your argument.
Again, the aim of my previous post was not to make you look like a fool, it was to make Churchill look like a fool.
Churchill could have kept the thrust of his argument without making a jackass of himself. It's unfortunate that he chose the alternative.
You gotta be kidding me. Read Dreadsox's post again and tell me with a straight face that Churchill wasn't being mean-spirited.
A_Wanderer said:I think that by according weight to Mr. Churchill's salute to "combat teams" of mass murderers wiping out "little Eichmanns" is an example of opinion being transformed into fact. We stand here reading a piece of utter nonsense and then one steps forward defending it on the basis that it is a "different perspective" and a "dissenting point of view" that deserves equal recognition. It is no different than holocaust denial or creationism; they are both of a "different perspective" and they are indeed each a "dissenting point of view" and just like Mr. Churchill's comments they are inflammatory and factually wrong
Would we be so supportive if children went to a biology class and instead of learning principles of evolutionary biology were taught that the earth was created by God 6000 years ago and that all evidence to the contrary was the work of the devil?
How about if in high school history kids learned the other side to the holocaust; how Jews were responsible for the war and how the death camps didn't exist, that the numbers have been manipulated to furthur their zionist cause. that Hitler was not a bad guy he was simply the victim of a Jewish plot?
We live in a world of fact and it is when people blur the line between fact and opinion by placing them upon equal footing that the quest for knowledge is corrupted and an aversion to facts sinks into the process.
The man shouldn't be fired and nor should he be censored ~ he should just be listened too so that people can see for themselves how sick and twisted those like Mr. Churchill really are.
And for the record I think that Pinochet was a bastard and I think that the United States should be ashamed of it's bastard but I also think that people should stop parading around Pinochet as the be all and end all of dictators in the world. For every US supported dictator like Pinochet or Suharto there were and still are in some cases Soviet backed ones like Fidel Castro's, Idi Amin's and Saddam Hussein's out there. Could scorn be directed at all of these people rather than just one; they were and are all enemies of democracy and the world without them is better for it.
speedracer said:
Or even better: Churchill is an employee of the University of Colorado, a large research university that does military research and receives funds from the DoD for a wide variety of other projects. Hence Churchill deserves death.
That's why I think Churchill's work is intellectually dubious. And claiming that people deserve to die based on such work is morally reprehensible.
Klink said:
"It" can be whatever you want. I'm arguing that people should have the freedom to say what they conclude, feel etc, without the worry of being fired etc. If your position exists to prmote the existing state (like a whitehouse speech writer, for example), then I find dismissal more understandable. But education is not about a political agenda (or is it?).
And I'm suggesting your literal interpretation fails to read between the lines. Meaning and context can be as important as the expression itself.
I'm not sure why this matters. Killing innocents is considered an atrocity to me. Maybe not the same for you. That's totally understandable. I'm curious if you would consider one instance morally acceptable if you were a relative of one of the victims. i don't think you can ask victims and their families to see these acts in that way.
I'm not sure what you mean here? My argument here was not about cutting up credit cards. I was suggesting that what he saying cannot be discredited simply because it seems too ridiculous to be true. My actions are irrelevant to the point Churchill is making. This style of arguing is called "ad hominem tu quoque" or the "you too" fallacy. What I am saying cannot be discredited by my actions. They are unrelated.
I wasn't referring to dreadsox' post, but rather the one above it. I don't agree with everything the guy is saying...don't get me wrong. He was out there with the Eichmann thing, but does that mean that he should be fired? I don't happen to think so. I don't care if his position were the theoretical one A_wanderer posted before. I do think freedom of speech and academic integrity are more important than mean-spiritedness and soft, sticky opinion-based terms like that.
"I disapprove of what you right to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
- Voltaire [Francois Marie Arouet] (1694 - 1778)
There is an inherent danger in outcasting people for their positions. I do not find the limiting of the spectrum of possibility for the benefit of political or personal agendas at all consistent with societies that wish to to promote themselves as justifiable spreaders of freedom and "moral" values. Wouldn't that be hypocritical? We have these rights for what we perceive to be a good reason and I don't find a valuable argument for labeling and dismissing these people so that our children's minds are formed to fit the current political direction. I know you are not necessarily arguing that, but I can't buy it.
Respectfully,
Jon
Dreadsox said:Here is the part of his writing that makes me want to puke:
verte76 said:We once had a governor who was so klutzy that we joked that he'd gone to college and majored in football. The guy had indeed been a football star at Auburn, and as governor he drove us all crazy meddling in education. I am embarrassed to have to admit that I'm distantly related to this joker. While I do not approve of the professor's comments, I resent politicians, of all people, sticking their noses in education matters. Let the people at the university decide if they want to dump someone who's making such dumbass remarks.
speedracer said:
Or even better: Churchill is an employee of the University of Colorado, a large research university that does military research and receives funds from the DoD for a wide variety of other projects. Hence Churchill deserves death.
speedracer said:
What I am arguing is that if you're say that certain people deserve to be murdered, you better have a pretty darn good argument for it.
Klink said:
Re your absurdum argument; It's not simply weak. It's considered a reasoning fallacy by the standards of formal logic. It is immanently flawed because it seeks to eliminate conclusions solely by claiming that they are too absurd to be believable, not because they are false. What is 'absurd' is subjective, and arguments are often labeled as absurd out of self interest rather than in the spirit of truth. This appeal to ridicule constitutes its own fallacy in that arguments are not false simply because you ridicule them. Absurdity can still be truth.
Again, simply put, my actions are irrelevant to the truth of these arguments as well. Nothing can change that. Ad hominem tu quoque arguments are flawed. You, in fact, actually help demonstrate my point with your Wal-Mart example. Your shopping at Wal Mart cannot be construed to say that you support Wal-Mart's treatment of their employees because, as you said, morally you don't....even though your actions suggest otherwise. I think that demonstrates more that social relationships can be irrational and actually absurd, not that we are violating moral imperatives.
I have yet to hear a good reason for the US interventions that have murdered millions of innocents in the last 50 years.
That said, it is possible to contend that the Western public is complicit in these murders without arguing that they deserve to die. That is, in fact, what I'm doing. I'm not a proponent of the death penalty.
I can see we agree on about 90% of the issue, which is that he should stay and let individuals judge for themselves...except many here have already judged on behalf of society.
Can anybody tell me why there's such a public backlash against sensationalism? Why are people more concerned about the degree to which a position deviates from the mean than they are about whther the position has merit? Sensational claims can be true. Where's the interest in truth?
Jon
Scarletwine said:I am not a "defender" of the September 11 attacks, but simply pointing out that if U.S. foreign policy results in massive death and destruction abroad, we cannot feign innocence when some of that destruction is returned. I have never said that people "should" engage in armed attacks on the United States, but that such attacks are a natural and unavoidable consequence of unlawful U.S. policy. As Martin Luther King, quoting Robert F. Kennedy, said, "Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable."
[/B]
They did not license themselves to "target innocent civilians."
There is simply no argument to be made that the Pentagon personnel killed on September 11 fill that bill. The building and those inside comprised military targets, pure and simple. As to those in the World Trade Center . . . Well, really. Let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire – the "mighty engine of profit" to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved – and they did so both willingly and knowingly. Recourse to "ignorance" – a derivative, after all, of the word "ignore" – counts as less than an excuse among this relatively well-educated elite. To the extent that any of them were unaware of the costs and consequences to others of what they were involved in – and in many cases excelling at – it was because of their absolute refusal to see. More likely, it was because they were too busy braying, incessantly and self-importantly, into their cell phones, arranging power lunches and stock transactions, each of which translated, conveniently out of sight, mind and smelling distance, into the starved and rotting flesh of infants. If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it.
[/b]
speedracer said:
My point is not so much that a given conclusion is absolutely, undeniably absurd as that the statements "the people in the WTC deserved to die" and "people who use credit cards deserve to die" both follow from Churchill's arguments. The "absurdity" really just points to the flaws in Churchill's arguments: (1) his assessment of industrial complicity in atrocities is too weak to draw any moral imperatives from it, and (2) even if one agreed that we are complicit, it doesn't follow that we deserve to die.
Klink said:
I think we have to be careful about slippery slopes. That is a slippery slope fallacy. It's like saying that polygamy logically follows from allowing gay marriage. That's not necessarily the case as it is possible that there are intervening variables which can change the logical conclusion.
Scarletwine said:It should be emphasized that I applied the "little Eichmanns" characterization only to those described as "technicians." Thus, it was obviously not directed to the children, janitors, food service workers, firemen and random passers-by killed in the 9-11 attack.
seankirkland said:calling for first amendment rights has got to be the most abused thing in America these days. it's not a ticket to say or do whatever you want. if everyone could say or do whatever they want, in the name of first amendment rights, there would be anarchy. but hey, we'd be "free" and not hindering anyone's "expressions."