[extropy-chat] Who thinks the Bush admin lied overIraq?Onwhatbasis?

[Mike Lorrey]

--- Robert Lindauer <robgobblin at aol.com> wrote:

> Mike Lorrey wrote:
> 
> >--- Brett Paatsch <bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au> wrote:
> >>IF Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq illegally. And you supported
> >>him would you be, in your view, a thug coddler?
> >>    
> >>
> >
> >Whether Bush had bad intel is irrelevant to the issue of whether the
> >invasion was illegal.
> >
> 
> His characterization of questionable intelligence as legitmate is 
> precisely at issue.  Instead of saying "we know there there and we
> know where they are" the administration should have said "we think
> they might be there because of some questionable intelligence and
> we may know where they might be keeping them".  Note the difference
> is emphasis is significant for intelligent people.
> 
> An analogy for -people like you-. 

I do believe I've been treated in a prejudicial or stereotypical
manner.

> Say I say "I have a gun in my 
> pocket."  You may be inclined to do what I ask of you if I say it in
> a threatening voice.  Now say I say "I may have a gun in my pocket." 
> You may be inclined to reply with "show me the gun, then we'll talk."

> What kind of crazy person carries around a gun and threatens people
> with maybe they have one?  The point, MAYBE is a lot less
> threatening than DOES.

Which is why people don't claim they have a weapon when they don't
unless they are crazy, even sociopathic, or absolutely positive there
is no way you can verify their claim. If someone comes up behind you
and sticks a pen against your back, claims it is a gun, and if you make
one move you are dead, are you going to debate whether it's actually a
pen or actually a gun if you can't verify without risking death?

In the case of Iraq, the picture that has seemed to emerge is that
Saddam believed he had WMD developed, because his underlings told him
so. Whether he actually did or not was irrelevant, he acted like he had
them: he had mobile weapons labs built, he had chemical weapons spray
planes made out of Mig jets (which have no use as crop dusters). 

Saying you have a weapon that you don't have AND won't be able to use
unless you really intend or need to commit an atrocity is a cheap way
to the equivalent of a MAD deterrence. I mean, how many nukes did the
US or the USSR actually have to test to convince the world they each
had thousands of them? Israel has never tested one but pretty much
everybody is convinced they have at least 100 nuclear weapons they are
prepared to use on arab cities as a second strike. Since the test ban
treaty, the US and USSR still maintain they have tens of thousands of
warheads, but who can prove for a fact that they work unless you test
them?

> 
> Maybe I'll get cancer.  Maybe I'll get run over by a truck.  Maybe a 
> homocidal maniac will kill my in my sleep.  Maybe the sun will
> explode.  

If you have a risk of cancer, you take precautions, change behavior.
If, in the example of some women with virtually a 100% chance of breast
cancer for heritable reasons, you may seriously consider having your
breasts cut off as soon as your last kid is weaned, if not sooner, as
many other women have done. If you have a high risk of prostate cancer,
you get your prostate cut out at the very first sign of odd behavior by
that organ.

You might get run over by a truck, but you don't refuse to look both
ways when crossing the street, and if you are smart, you will purchase
and learn to use and carry a gun to protect yourself against homicidal
maniacs (or move some place where they are less likely to be). A smart
person takes intelligent preemptive actions to minimize risks to
themselves. An idiot keeps doing the same old things, ignoring the
risk, and blaming everybody else, especially those who warned them,
when it actually happens...

> Maybe the Iraqi's have nuclear weapons.  You see how that goes.
> 
> NONE OF THESE CONSTITUTE A MATTER FOR WAR.

Bullshit. If someone who is a documented nutter (like Kim Jong Il), or
has a documented record of using WMD in the past on innocents (as
Saddam does) actually has them, particularly if they posess them in
conflict with international agreements they've signed and ratified to
not posess them (not just UN resolutions, cease fire agreements, but
also the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty), I am going to seriously
consider it, particularly if those individuals have established records
of funding terrorism (as Saddam does in offering $50k bounties to the
families of homicide bombers), and sending assasination squads into my country.

Mike Lorrey
Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
                                      -William Pitt (1759-1806) 
Blog: http://intlib.blogspot.com

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