Posted on 03/05/2005 8:08:22 AM PST by Beckwith
I didn't realize President Bush was in agony.
In other words, we not only made mistakes in regards to the intelligence, but we even attacked the wrong country.
In AMERICA'S SECRET WAR Friedman observes:
The Saudis had developed a very refined method of managing Washington: They stayed away from the Israel question, except in a very formal, perfunctory way; they cultivated key decision-makers in Washington and created webs of financial relationships with a range of people outside the government. Finally, and most important, they allowed the United States to use Saudi territory for military operations. They assumed that if they signaled a military breach, the United States would find a basis of accommodation with the Saudis and cancel plans for an invasion of Iraq. To the Saudis' shock, the U.S. went ahead not only with withdrawing but with plans for invasion. This is where the light assault strategy became important. It didn't need the Saudis' participation. Practical or not, in introduced the idea that war didn't depend on agreement from the Saudis.
...
The decision to invade Iraq was not a good one and very few in the administration thought it was. It was simply the best decision available given the limited menu. It was the best of a bad lot. Taking out Al Qaeda through covert operations was not a practical option. Getting Saudi Arabia to incur the political wrath of its radical elements by cutting off financial support was also not going to happen unless the United States forced them to do so. The United States faced the option of hoping for the best or making the best of a mediocre strategy. In a sense, Iraq reminds us of Guadalcanal. no one wanted to be there and no one really cared about it. It was, under the circumstances, the best available option.
The question, “Have you stopped beating your wife?” as others have noted, is not strictly a logical fallacy, in the sense of a fallacious argument. It is a form of attack question intended to trick the responder into an admission against interest, no matter how they answer, because it presupposes the answer to a preliminary question. So, it is what is generally known as a “loaded question,” or ”complex question.” It presupposes you have, at some time, beaten your wife, which may not be true at all . . . . it may also be true that you do not have a wife, in which case your interrogator didn’t do his homework!
If you prefer the Latin, Plurium Interrogationum – “many questions,” the demand for a simple answer to a complex question. It differs slightly from Petitio Principii, or “begging the question,” in which the conclusion is assumed as established or proved in one of the premises.
For a good sources on this and other logical fallacy inquiries, you might enjoy the following links.
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/loadques.html
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/badmovesprint.php?num=37
http://www.lkwdpl.org/thinkingcity/usefulterms.htm
http://education.gsu.edu/spehar/FOCUS/EdPsy/misc/Fallacies.htm
Your answer -- "I've never beaten my wife," -- is the right way to respond.
I love how the dems are using "dismantling" and "destroying" to describe the changes in SS.
But .. I agree with President Bush - in 2006 - the dems don't want to be on the wrong side of this issue.
Sydney is having illusions again by thinking Bush will get defeated on this.
Sorry for the misunderstanding Beckwith.
My entire prior comment, including the conclusion -- Your answer -- "I've never beaten my wife," -- is the right way to respond. – - was merely directed to Archangelsk because he said he had plum forgotten “the lawyer Latin for this type of question.”
I remembered, and thought I might direct him to a few sources of logical thinking. Judging from many of his responses, they could certainly be put to good use.
Alas, some things just don’t take! Note, for example, a classic example -- bookended ad hominem arguments, surrounding an accusation that someone else was using an ad hominem argument! You just can't make this stuff up:
“And you write like a fricken idiot. I point out facts, you ad hominen [sp] attack. Smart move, keyboard warrior.”
As to Sidney Blumenthal, Salon’s Talbot says they initiated the discussions that led to his quick departure -- Salon! He is now also writing a book on Presidents and race . . . I suspect a polemical screed in the making. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/gossip/story/268471p-229923c.html
"Apples and oranges. If the DC figure was 1000 law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty there would be a tenuous connection.
Your simplistic rationalization astounds me."
To me a life is a life, people are not apples and oranges. If anything, the thousands and thousands of people murdered in our big cities is much more alarming than the relatively small number of troops killed in our present war. I'm just saying we need to keep this in perspective. You being astounded doesn't surprise me at all.
Actually he's not, strictly speaking. He was stripped of his citizenship by the Saudis some years ago. Wanna say '96 or '98, but I forget exactly when.
there was zero connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda (the President said this)
Have you been smoking crack the last several years? The President and the administration repeatedly affirmed (and still does) that there were indeed connections between Hussein's regime and al-Qaeda, as there were in fact. It is not in dispute that there were multiple high-level contacts over a period of nearly a decade. The only proviso is that there is no unambiguous and public evidence of "operational coordination" between Iraq and al-Qaeda. (And even that's not entirely true, as there is good evidence they did jointly operate Ansar al-Islam.)
And, btw, since you're bitching about faulty intelligence, how could or why should the president affirm a negative: "there was zero connection"? Obviously the most he could say is that was no evidence of a connection, which he did say wrt Saddam and 911, but did not say wrt to Saddam and al Qaeda, where connections have been verified (even if we don't know exactly how much cooperation those connections engendered).
And why were you complaining about the reference to tens of thousands of body bags? Have you forgotten how Bush and Rumsfeld were hammered by the press (not even just the hard left) over the fact that "only" ten thousand body bags were sent to Iraq? This is what the freeper you bizarrely bitched at was quite sensibly referring to as a previous predictive failure: that the MSM and 'Rats of Sid's ilk were saying that ten thousand bags would not be nearly enough, even for the initial phases of the war.
Bush knew this would happen. Hell, he even planned it that way. IMHO SS reform was/is a feint. His real plan is the overhaul of the tax system, read national sales tax. Adoption of a national sales tax will solve the SS problem. A twofer so to speak. Another perfect Rovian storm. hehehe!
bttt
Don't insult ferrets by including Sid.
You beat me by a couple. Wish I'd have a thread in my honor. Everthing they say warms my heart.
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