What do we get when there is a disagreement between one of the most meticulous members of the English-language Korean blogosphere and a man smart enough to have not one, but two master degrees?
- They have a frank but civil exchange of ideas leading to a compromise.
- The fur flies
The answer…
We get one of the best blog fights I have seen in a long time. We get to see charges of (among other things):
- Being a North Korean apologist
- Being petty and immature
- Naivety
- Slander
- Itellectual dishonesty
- Bizare [sic] venting
- Blinded by biases
And there is more. Oh, there is more.
By the end, we end up with the inevitable argumentum ad hominem (aka: the ad hominem attack) and an appeal to one’s own authority, both longtime favorites of blog fights.
I will leave it to the readers to decide who came out the better in the scrap.
Perhaps they have both come out winners since both of their sites are getting more hits.
5 Comments
Thanks. I’ll add that some of the heavy lifting was also done at OneFreeKorea;
http://freekorea.us/2007/02/22.....own-for-c/
http://freekorea.us/2007/04/08.....-albright/
A good old blog war. The caviar of the blogosphere.
Yeah. When Albright’s piece came out, I e-mailed Richardson to ask him if he was already writing the fisking I was about to write. Sure enough.
I’m not denying that there are uncertainties about the scale of North Korea’s HEU program. There are uncertainties, Kim Jong Il created them, and he’s not entitled to the benefit of the doubts he himself created. Furthermore, the program’s scale is not the issue; the very prohibited existence of the program is. Albright just about concedes that point if you parse his writing carefully. Those writings really raise questions as to whether Albright misses the point entirely (ie., why do we care about a few aluminum tubes that could be used to make centrifuges when Pakistan admitted selling entire centrifuges subsequently?). When challenged on the specifics of his argument, Albright refuses to respond, makes blunt accusations that we’re being unfair to him, and ultimately falls back on “I know more than you do.” So I draw adverse inferences about the rigor of his analysis.
Now, I understand that Albright is a physicist and I’m not. That’s why I read his writings and asked him to show me where Richardson and I got it wrong. Hence, I asked him specific questions, which he won’t answer. And in fact, much of Albright’s argument is political rather than scientific, and the flaws in his arguments are logical rather than scientific.
If you’re going to go to someone’s blog and kick over his hive by accusing him of inaccuracies and misquoting (to include the journalists we quoted and linked), I think you ought to come prepared to give specifics what those inaccuracies are, and to back your arguments up. Otherwise, it just degenerates into a Monty Python Argument Clinic.
I have two masters degree: one in Chemistry and one in Computer Science.
And, I say “stay away from these NKs, lying bitches”. Just say “No”.
Do not engage them in talks. I have advocated for long time that the US should just walk away from the six-party talk. Just walk away with no explaination. Do not even grace this exercise in stupidity called the six party talk. Everyone knows nothing gets done when more than two parties are present.
Just ignore, ignore and ignore. Let SK and Japan pay the ransom if they believe KJI have them by their balls.
The US has no reason to help NK. Just ignore these sobs. Just ignore.
Collect information. If any ship leaves NK harbor with suspected nuclear material or missile technology, just blow it out of the water. No explaination. Just attack.
Talk doesn’t achieve anything when the other party is a lying sob like NK. Just attack.
The US got in there to boost its anti-missle program.
However, sitting in the six party talk was a mistake. The US should just pull out from the talk. Let SK and Japan talk to NK and China. There is no reason for the US to join in this “Grovel party”. KJI is threatening SK and Japan. It cannot shoot nuke missile to the States. It does not have the guidance system.
Therefore, there is no reason for the US to join in the six party talk. None, whatsoever. Whether NK has nuke or not does not matter. It is non-issue for the US.
Walk away, just walk away. And, let SK and Japan deal with problems in their neck of the woods. They have got the money.