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:	post by ShadowSD at 2006-03-29 19:45:22

PatMeebles said:

The only originaly source for a number even close to 100,000 was the lancet study. Slate tore it apart a while ago.

John McLaughlin (certainly no liberal, and a host who makes sure at least half of his panel is far right at all times) of PBS's The McLaughlin Report routinely quotes statistics for US Troops Killed, US Troops Wounded/Amputeed, and Iraqi civilians killed. Several months ago, I remember seeing that the number of Iraqi civilians killed had exceeded 120,000.

Whenever McLaughlin puts these figures on the screen, he always names the original source of the numbers. I wish I could remember it offhand... but it's certainly no controversial source, and it'll be right there on the screen the next time he quotes the figures. (It should also be noted than neither far right wingers Tony Blankley or Pat Buchanan ever take issue with the veracity of those numbers after McLaughlin lists them.)

PatMeebles said:

When watching the history channel, the estimation was that taking japan through regular forces would have cost maybe 5 times the amount of lives that the bomb took. You also assume that I think WWII itself made Japan more advanced. I'm saying that because of the swiftness that we ended the war with, we were able to force the Japanese to surrender, and we forced our way of life on the population in a much "worse" way than we have in Iraq.

OK, fair enough, I had thought you meant WWII vs. no WWII; however, if you're talking about using the atom bomb versus fighting the Japanese conventionally, that's a different argument, and certainly a more complicated one.

PatMeebles said:

When you compare my reluctantly utilitarian stance on civilian deaths, to Al Qaeda's, you severely clout the reason why I bring up these statistics in the first place. Citing utilitarian statistsics wasn't a justification to go to war in the first place; merely a rejection that Iraqis are somehow now worse off.

I would think that justifying the war implicitly includes the assumption that Iraqis won't be worse off afterwards. (Seems kind of necessary for the whole bringing democracy argument...)

PatMeebles said:

If that's your opinion, then you haven't really been paying attention. The fact is that the evidence was strong, since everyone believed it. The fact is that the government hasn't had the resources to translate the millions of documents recovered SINCE 2003 (so they wouldn't have been presented in 2002). Negroponte owned the documents, and stalled in releasing them until now. His reasons for not releasing them have gone from "nothing interesting" to "far too interesting to declassify." And right now, all the info from the documents has provided tons of evidence for the invasion; you don't have to pull teeth to extract pro-war supporting intel from these documents.

I think your point of view comes from a leap of faith in our government that I'm not willing to make. Obviously, declassification and analysis take time, but so do falsification and cherry picking.

The reason I assume the latter where you assume the former is the past behavior of this administration. 1) As determined by the 9/11 commission and countless other neutral sources, much of the Iraq/Al Qaeda evidence was cherry picked if not fabricated, which means the Bush Administration has a history of doing this. 2) When Joe Wilson challenged a piece of their "evidence", the White House retalliated by outing his wife as a CIA agent, proving they retalliate against anyone who challenges the veracity of their claims, even when it risks breaking the law. 3) Armstrong Williams was among "independant" conservative talk show hosts and cable news commentators who backed up the pro-war arguments, and was eventually revealed to be a paid Bush Administration mouthpiece, which means the adminisration has a history of propaganda and attempting to deceive the public about the war.

I could list about a hundred other reasons I don't trust these people, but you can see why I'm not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt...

PatMeebles said:

ShadowSDsaid:

Dershowitz is suggesting that the fact that certain arguments and figures exist on Neo-Nazi hate sites as well as in the paper automatically means the paper got its information from those Neo-Nazi sites

No, Dershowitz is saying that academics took already-out-of-context quotes from neo nazis and quoted them as documented fact.

That's what I just said. I simply added that Dershowitz is making that assumption because he sees certain information in the paper that is also used by Neo-Nazi sites, and he assumes the paper therefore must have gotten the information from those sites. I think I explained pretty well why such an assumption is a) flawed and b) a red herring that stifles debate, exploiting sympathy to shame people away from even considering a different viewpoint.

PatMeebles said:

But these people directly quotes nazis and put it forward as fact.

How do you know that for certain? Based on Dershowitz' faulty reasoning that I just deconstructed in my last post?

PatMeebles said:

That's not the only article on it. The authors refuse to debate the validity of their claims. They try to act like they never wrote it, even when Jews want to debate them openly in public (so much for Jews silencing critics).

If all that is actually true, I totally agree with everything you've said on this subject, and I've picked the wrong people to defend.

But since anyone who speaks out at all against Israeli influence in American politics is smeared with the exact same claims, you can understand my skepticism.

PatMeebles said:

This whole idea that Israel controls US foreign policy is ludicrous, with our support of a two state solution, our economic assistance to Palestinians before Hamas took power.

Israel Prime Minister Olmert (and Sharon before him) advocate a two state solution. In fact, anyone in their right mind advocates a two state solution, and just the existence of a two state solution certainly doesn't mean the Palestinians will automatically get a fair shake. The question is what territory will the Israelis and Palestinians each get? If the Israelis get all the fertile land and religous shrines, and the Palestinians get nothing but shit, a two state solution is hardly fair.

In addition, the fact that there wasn't a two state solution in 1948 or the fifty eight years since then (and the fact that Israel has only in this decade agreed to it) suggests a gross unfairness towards the Palestinians (who apparantely didn't deserve their own country until this decade, and yet have been expected to police themselves without sovereignty, and since they're unable to do that, they deserve no seat at the negotiating table; WTF?!).

Economic aid to the Palestinians has been pennies compared to the aid we give Israel every year. Also, Israel has nuclear weapons, but the Bush Adminstration refuses to even admit that out loud, while at the same time criticizing Iran for preparing to have such capabilities in ten years; the irony is that Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, whereas Israel never did.

All this is bad news for us (and Israel) when it gets out to the world, and good news for Al Qaeda recruitment. Too bad they're the only ones who see it...

If we wanted to protect American interests, and in the long run Israeli interests, we would have been even handed in the process starting decades ago: even levels of aid per capita, standing up to Israel when it violated UN Resolution 242 just like we stood up to the Palestinians any time they did something wrong, and threatening BOTH sides with a total suspension of aid unless they sat down at the negotiation table. This whole strategy of "the Palestinians have no state, but we expect them to at the same time police themselves and prevent terrorism, and since they can't, they won't have a say in negotiations" is the most self-defeating strategy I've ever heard of, inherently designed with no possible hope of succeeding, only perpetuating a stalemate that leads to the inevitable deaths of countless Israeli and Palestinian civilians (and with that policy now a rallying cry for jihadism, it has since lead to the deaths of thousand of American civilians too, and will sadly lead to countless more).

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