Michael at Metopolitician has a very timely and insightful essay on the Middle-school girls accident in 2002. It should be translated into Korean.
Hindsight Is Easier Than Acting Intelligently
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A good read. A little depressing, but good.
Is it good? I just clicked over for a moment, and felt my eyes getting poked by all the “I….I…I..I..I…I..” etc.
Are the timely insights sufficiently general to be worth reading through the personal?
‘In the end, the accident was horrible. No one wants to see anyone die. Yet, compensation and apologies were immediately offered by the US military and accepted by the families, the first set of which were given the very next day after the incident, even as official apologies were given by members of the chain of command all the way up to George W. Bush himself, a fact I was shocked to learn, since I had been witness to countless protests demanding compensation and “even a single, simply apology.” Who would assume that this was simply an untruth? I guess Hitler was right when he said that the bigger lies are actually easier to fob off than smaller ones’
a lie. what was immediately offered was the declaration that the case was closed. i believe that happened within a couple hours after the incident.
and i like how the writer disaprages those who don’t live their lives according to his rules with hitler reference.
The copious evidence gathered by GI Korea in his comprehensive post on the accident shows that this is a lie.
Pawi lying to defend the indefensible from Korea? Wow, I’m shocked.
According to this JoongAng Daily article from the day after the accident, the Korean National Police and 2nd Infantry Division were jointly investigating the case.
Case closed? Nope. A lie from Pawi to obfuscate the real issue? Looks that way.
Pawi: Do you have like some special super han power that teleports you to every incident in Korea, privy to information that people who actually live in Korea and experience what happens on the streets here aren’t aware of? You seem to discredit any story on any given topic about something negative happening in Korea.
If this is the land that you love so much, why are you not living there? Why live in a land of a people who you despise?
btw.. seems your avatar situation which you said takes a week to change (when you had your pedophile pic up) sure seems like its not a problem anymore. Or is that more bs you connected?
Jesus Christ Pawi, how have you convinced yourself of all these things? Do you ever wonder if you’re wrong? I read the article and it’s really sad. I remember the incident, it was wonderful Korean society that I love once again on the brink of something that always feels like fascism, once again the angry frog in the well, totally blinded by being so separated from the rest of the industrialized world, and blinded by a victim complex, with no sense of national guilt. That’s what Korea really needs, a little national guilt. But unfortunately before the height of Korean civilization (that’s to say the 21st century while enjoying the Pax Americana) Korea was powerless to do any real harm to outsiders. It’s just so damn easy to blame America, Pawi. How can you not see that? Let me ask you, had the US never gone to Korea after the fall of Japan, what do you think would have happened? Another question Pawi–what country is Korea’s best friend?
Pawi is mentally sick. I was here when the tragic accident happened to the to poor young girls and the hatred that these protesters were giving out was sickening. The graphic pictures being displayed in subway stations were truly tasteless. Those people were shameless liars and propagandists.
I felt utterly disgusted that those scum were exploiting the accident to further their political agenda.
Pawi, you and your ilk need help. What is it with some Koreans thinking that such tasteless imagery is appropriate. There are countless examples of various degrees of offensiveness.
Nazi themes and bars
911 adverts
Squashed children photographs
Anti-Jewish imagery
‘Blacked-up’ pop ‘musicians
Anti-Japanese illustrations by children
And on and on, it’s a sickening and depressing aspect of this country.
great piece, i found though the rokdrop link to be fascinating.
pawi, ugggghhhh, all i can say you need some serious help
#8, Pawi isn’t mentally ill, but rather a fully KKKognent member of the KKKlaque of KKKorean exceptionalism. Having been conditioned to believe that the world revolves around him and the Minjok, he’s got no-one else to blame but the migooks.
And yet everyone keeps giving Pawi the attention he wants so desperately.
Dude is probably a white 40 year old in a bathrobe somewhere.
Deleted (offensive posting)
Offensive, indeed, mainly by deleting it. You know Koreans are reading your blog and you’re scared, so you are censoring your blog. Not good.
Just noticed that “Brian in Jeollanam-do”
(http://briandeutsch.blogspot.com/2008/06/ive-attracted-ire-of-korean-netizen.html) is being hounded by zealous Korean netizens for his “offensive postings,” so I guess we should understand why RJ Koehler has decided to censor posts on his website that are too critical of Korea. When in Rome, ….
I imagine you were censored by Elgin, not Marmot.
I deleted your comment “BFK” because it was clearly offensive and racist.
I urge you to put your mind in a more positive place.
Who the heck is Elgin? There were no four-letter words or the like anywhere in the post. No sarcasm, either, as far as I can remember. OK, the post was long-winded and judgmental. Opinionated, yes. Just some very frank and, from my viewpoint (40+ years in Korea, fluent in Korean), objective opinions about Korea’s future. Why the censorship? I was hardly shouting fire in a crowded theater.
Not racist. My wife is Korean, for one thing. Anti-Confucianist, yes. This is one toxic import than is ruining Korea. But I’ll take your advice and put my mind in a more positive place.
“Dude is probably a white 40 year old in a bathrobe somewhere.”
hahaha
Opinionated, objective opinions?
If you’ve been in Korea that long, you must be very, very well-known among the expatriate community. I might have even met you or worked with you. C’mon, tell us your real name. It’ll add credibility to your “opinionated, objective opinions.”
And no doubt some of your best friends are, too.
You’re right: opinionated objective opinions is absurd. It must be the heat.
One last thing: you were right Elgin to delete that absurd post. Now that I’ve calmed down a little (I read something earlier in the day that bothered me a lot), I can see that the post was way over the top and it certainly should not have been posted. I’ve learned my lesson.
“”Not racist. My wife is Korean”
And no doubt some of your best friends are, too.”
X-D Had the exactly same reaction as well. Of all the ways you can assert that you’re not a racist against Koreans, that may be the worst way you can achieve it.
I think the 2002 accident/incident, along with the beef issue, demonstrates the almost terrifying hold media can have over the general population. Questioning authority is a time-honored tradition, but questioning the media is a fairly recent attitude by anyone’s standard. I almost sympathize with the protesters in a way – suppose that NBC, CBS, CNN, ABC, NYT, WP, and other respectable news media in your country reported that (for the sake of the argument) Fan Deaths are real and scientifically proven. Though a little research online and critical thinking can absolve the fears, wouldn’t the general public have fears about Fan Deaths? (Yeah, there won’t be huge protests but that’s more of the whole obsolete protest culture and collectivist attitude)
The problem with that scenario is that NBC, CBS, NYT, WP, and other respectable news media would never, ever announce anything like that (I can think of one news network that might), because regardless of their faults, they do have a sense of journalistic integrity. Same cannot be said for their Korean counterpart without laughing out loud.
Tim Russert died yesterday. I wish I believed in Buddhism or Hinduism, so that I can hope that he gets reincarnated as a Korean. Because, despite the public’s penchant for mass hysteria, no hysteria will come about when the fourth branch of the government holds the fort. “No folks, it’s just some crazy asshole on the internet.”
The US military’s apology and offer to the victim’s familles were directed by the ROK’s Commander within 48 hours of the accident. The USFK commander always takes the advice of the ROK commander
in these matters of Korean culture, tradition, etc.
I wonder where Metro got the idea that the girls were wearing MP3 players? That sounds like bullshit.
#24 — Well, I didn’t make it up out of thin air, if that’s the “bullshit” you’re thinking of. It’s from a very credible source, but I think it would be inappropriate of me to name it. But I believe the source, and believe the veracity of the statement.
Since I can’t name it, though, I understand if you choose not to believe it. But I didn’t just make it up, just so you know.
You’re not a journalist — name it.
OK, let me get this straight. Michael at Metropolitan has problems with the fact that the 2002 anti-American protests over the accidental deaths of these two students were based on fiction built on fantastic lies and political exploitation, but he regurgitates the lies that American leftists have been hurling at Bush ever since the Iraq war became unpopular to the general masses in the US? Huh? WTF?
Not trying to get off topic here and I’m in an awkward situation since I agree generally with Michael’s “essay” on this topic. But I can’t help but going ape shit whenever I hear the mindless drivel of the American and European left who chant “Bush- lied-about-WMDs-to-get-us-into-the-Iraq-war” mantra. How can anyone accuse Koreans of lacking critical thinking skills when you actually believe in bullshit propaganda about people you don’t agree with politically. After all, isn’t this what these anti-US beef protestors are doing, namely giving themselves freely to believing in all the fucked-up irrationalism fueling these protests so that they can accuse someone on the other side of the political aisle of being the Great Satan himself?
Yes, Bush was wrong about WMDs. But so was everyone else. If you go back to the months leading up the war, you will see that even liberal stalwarts such as Kennedy, Pelosi, Clinton and the NY Times believed that Saddam had fully functional WMDs!!! Do you know who else believed Saddam had WMDs? His own fucking generals!!! They were calling central command and asking that the WMDs be unleashed when the US miliary began annihilating the Republican Army. The great irony about the Iraq war was that Saddam became the victim of his own success. He was a master of deception and he and his inner circle had managed to convince the world, including the British, the French and even the Chinese, that he was more powerful than he actually was, i.e., had in possession WMDs.
So does that mean that Bush is above criticism? Certainly not! There are many things you can criticize about this particular war. But people who say that Bush lied about WMDs are no less brain-dead and malicious than the mob network of punk ass Korean kids sitting in some dark, unsanitary PC bang spreading lies about the safety of US beef to satisfy their their own lurid and infantile political desires.
‘The problem with that scenario is that NBC, CBS, NYT, WP, and other respectable news media would never, ever announce anything like that (I can think of one news network that might), because regardless of their faults, they do have a sense of journalistic integrity. Same cannot be said for their Korean counterpart without laughing out loud.’
iraq, anyone? don’t kid yourslef.
“iraq, anyone? don’t kid yourslef.”
Then the difference would be the newscaster’s ability to say “I’m sorry, I was wrong.”
@jude747
Didn’t Senate just release investigation that blatantly said Bush administration manipulated the intelligence data to fit the narratives of the justification to invade Iraq?
McCain, Clinton, and most other members of Congress did not read the 90-page CIA-authored, classified National Intelligence Estimate prior to voting in support of the invasion. Shame on them.
“Bush lied” is an oversimplification of the reality that there was conflicting evidence regarding WMDs, and naturally, the Bush administration included only favorably interpreted intel in its war sales pitches. An example of selective presentation of intelligence would be the omission in the National Intelligence Estimate of fall 2007 meeting between CIA director George Tenet, Bush, Rice, and others in which Tenet informed Bush and his staff that the Iraqi foreign minister, collaborating with the US, had reported to the CIA that Iraq had no active WMD program. Tenet would later be quoted in the media as calling the WMD charge a “slam dunk;” After leaving office, he claimed that the “slam dunk” quote was taken out of content; he had actually described the use of WMD allegations in pitching the war to the American public as the “slam dunk.” Another example is the the trailers alleged to have been used as mobile weapons labs. Colin Powell called their discovery “the smoking gun,” yet even at the time of their discovery, the CIA was uncertain whether these trailers were used to make hydrogen for artillery weather balloons or for something more lethal, like bioweapons. No evidence was ever found that these trailers had been used in the manufacture of WMDs.
The French? The French vehemently opposed the invasion and believed the UN inspection program was effectively de-arming Iraq. In early 2003, then President Chirac stood beside an equally skeptical Russian President Putin and declared that France did not have undisputed proof of the existence of WMDs in Iraq. The Chinese were likewise opposed to the war. I’d be interested in seeing evidence that the Chinese government thought Saddam was a threat to world peace.
#26 — No. I don’t have permission to. It’s a minor point, and if me not naming the source means you can’t buy it, that’s legit. It still doesn’t change the argument any. Sorry.
#27 — I love how people always try to list off who did go along with the WMD crap or didn’t, as if that disproves my point. *I* never bought it, I never thought there were weapons of mass desctruction in Iraq, and I winced from the first day of invasion when the media was crowing about being greeted as “liberators.”
There’s no inconsistency in my argument, no flip-flopping, none at all. I didn’t buy the crap Colin Powell was trudging out at the UN presentation, and I didn’t buy the crap that Bush had presented in his State of the Union. Never, for one moment, did I buy the Bush administration’s load of bull about there being WMD’s in Iraq, and there were a lot of people around me who didn’t, either. And in the media I was reading, the “left” was deadset against it from Day 1.
So, this attempt to recreate reality that the left was somehow for the war or thought there were WMD’s at the beginning, before flip-flopping when the war started turning sour — no one I knew was like that. The way I remember it, my friends, colleagues, and the people around me who were anti-war were so from the beginning, the lack of WMD’s being assumed from well before the war started.
Basically, we were right. Period. Weren’t there. And I, at least, for the sake of this argument, thought so from the first moment Bush started his saber rattling in Iraq’s general direction.
That position has never changed. Ever. So if Kennedy, the Clintons, and the NYT thought there were, that has nothing to do with me, since I was right, and was so from the very beginning. And so was everyone else I seemed to know, and all the newspapers I was reading. And if you want to really know what major piece really did a good job illuminating things, it was Vanity Fair’s articles on the yellowcake that did the trick.
So, at the very least, Vanity Fair was “right” about it. And so was I. I could give two craps what Kennedy and the Clintons said. Funny how a few specific people and the NYT defines the “left” for you.
I believe it was a Korean newspaper source that said the US side said the two girls had their fingers in their ears and were walking with their heads down due to the noise as the first vehicles of the convoy passed. There was also a video reenactment off Voice of People that superimposed a clip of a tank over a clip of two young girls walking with their fingers in their ears.
Someone in the comments above mentioned what the 2008 Cows Gone Wild!! Hysteria and the 2002 armored vehicle accident have in common.
I’ll stick to my current theme and say that both those and the 2000 Great Water Dump have something in common: how strong and/or secure Korean society feels at the moment.
In 2000, it was the NK-SK Summit that made even conservative Koreans believe for a short while that peace was at hand – which meant USFK wouldn’t be needed —- which directly led to a pretty much year long cycle of rolling protests over everything under the sun.
In 2002, it was Korea’s strong showing in the World Cup that made Koreans feel as if they could take on the whole world —- or at least the US in Korea.
And today, as I’ve been arguing, President Lee being in the Blue House has —— greatly eased anxiety over the strength or weakness of the US alliance — and anxiety that arose with the ending of the 2002-2003 tank accident and realization Roh was crazy enough, perhaps, to put anti-US thought into actual policy.
Michael at the M: You’ve just proven my whole point: So you believe everything you read? Isn’t that the whole problem with Koreans, that they will believe in anything that someone else tells them is true? So if Vanity Fair tells you that Bush lied, it certainly must be true! As a gyopo who loves his adopted country, I am perpetually amused at white lefties like yourself who claim to have an open mind but always take a “blame-America-first” attitude toward pretty much everything, especially when there is a Republican administration in power (by the way, I’m NOT a Republican).
Let’s try some real soul searching here. If the Iraq War had been launched by a Democratic president or Katrina had occured under a Democratic president, you and your echo chamber full of like minded people would not be having any problems with the actions of your political party.
So you see Michael, for all your introspection about how objective you had become regarding the two school girls who were killed back in 2002, if you were Korean, you would be exactly the type who would have believed in all the lies and fantasies about the accidental deaths of these two girls, which should have been treated as personal tragedies and nothing more, and you would right now be on the bandwagon about US beef, which is safe or at worst, no more dangerous than Korean beef. Whether you want to admit it or not, the Korean liberal is your blood brother when it comes to processing and neatly packaging information for your own polemical needs, filtering out any inconvenient data: Korean liberals hate LMB and so it must be true that US beef is unsafe, and American liberals hate Bush and so it must be true that he lied about WMDs!
And by the way, I don’t know why you brought up the fact that you and your circle of association never bought into the thesis that Saddam had WMDs. Even if this is true, you and your associates did not at that time leading up to the Iraq War have access to any of the classified reports on Saddam. So how is it that you, citizen Michael and his band of clogs-in-the-wheel types, were able to have unique, factual insights into Saddam’s WMD program that eluded and escaped persons, entities, organizations and whole countries with far more expertise and resources? I will tell you how: all that you and your life companions needed to know is that Bush is a Republican. The syllogisms espoused by today’s liberal are all pretty much the same becasue they all start with same premise: 1) Republicans bad and evil; 2) Bush, he Republican; 3) Bush attacked Iraq, where people living in a benign dictatorship and shit, kinda like Puff the Magic dragon frolicking in the autumn mist in a land called hanah lee, yea; 4) He must have lied becasue Bush is bad and evil!!! Daddy, look, no hands! I can reason with the worst of them! Aren’t you so proud of me?
I don’t like idiots from both sides of the aisle. Heck, I just don’t like idiots. To be selectively objective, especially about an incident in a foreign country, does not make you any less of an idiot, my fellow American Michael at the M.
And another by the way, I never said the French did not oppose the invasion of Iraq (you liberals are always caricaturing your opponent’s argument,aren’t you). But they themselves believed that Saddam had WMDs. Unlike the Americans, they differed on whether this was destablizing to the region and whether Saddam with his WMDs represented a clear and present threat.
Bum from Korea: Go and conduct some original and primary research by reading the report itself, not what others have written on the report. Not trying to be funny but you sound college educated. Didn’t you have to write a senior thesis to graduate? And didn’t your thesis have to be based on primary sources, as opposed to the typical paper where you can get away with secondary sources?
Are you callin’ Mike Hurt white? Maybe you oughtta lurk a little longer and get to know the regulars before you start shooting at the hip. BTW, I noticed you dodged my request for supporting links regarding China’s recognition that Saddam had WMDs at the time of the invasion.
#33 — Whew. I simply mentioned that Vanity Fair article as where my thinking really got deep on that issue. That proves your point? This is the difference between being a CRITICAL THINKER and simply being ARGUMENTATIVE.
Unless you’re in the middle of the meetings at the State Dept. and the White House and have a first-hand account of everything in the world, one must judge through secondary and other kinds of sources.
You judge based on the reliability of the source itself, what sources they used, if they corroborate with others you read, etc.
I read around, I did my do-diligence, and I came to the conclusion that indeed, the evidence was flimsy. And I was right.
You’re simply being argumentative — not critical. “Do you simply believe everything you read? You’re no different from the protesters!” Idiotic.
My whole doubt of the Korean claim about mad cow started with the silly claim about genetic susceptibility and the apparent misuse of the 94% statistic, matching that against the reality that over one million people with the genotype live in the US and have never caught CJD, and continued with matching ludicrous claims against both basic common sense and specific knowledge of reality. And upon seeing the state of Korean beef vs. the US, my conclusion that Korean beef was no safer than American is completely reasonable, and my judgement of the Korean overreaction valid, especially given the fact that the hysterics took place along easily recognizable lines that preceeded the beef scare itself.
In the US case, when the assertions made in the press — from very reliable sources — were not successfully refuted (and were largely, in fact, ignored by those who should have refuted them were they untrue), and confirmed by very reliable government sources. As reported by many more journalists and sources than Vanity Fair. And no, I’m not going to spend all Sunday quoting which they were, and trying to convince an argumentative commenter of the veracity of a conclusion that was obviously not difficult to reach, and which was borne out in actual fact.
One is simply not like the other, and for all your argumentative assertions about my apparent lack of critical reasoning skills, I was still right, wasn’t I?
Something you would never do.
and
Actually, American leftists were opposed to the war as soon as subliminal messages of “9/11…Iraq…terrorism…9/11…Saddam…Al-Qaeda…” started beaming from the White House.
wjk mentioned all of this 2 to 3 weeks before, and on some issues years before.
The Korean issue with beef went past the point of no return. Even the chosun ilbo is saying no 30month should be imported, in its opinion column. Kim Yong Sam saying the same, Hanara saying the same, etc.
Everyone in the world thought there were wmd’s.
Obama and the Iraq War is America’s Michinsoh and America’s Lee Myung Bak issue.
wjk correctly foresees that they’re all relocated in Syria.
Bush saved the economy. The low interest rates and tax cuts bailed out the corps, who hire people, and keep the economy going.
Sadly, Bush made no law to prevent stupid people from borrowing more than their means with the low interest rates.
As soon as interest rates went up, stupid people started defaulting left and right.
China ruined the environment. Go to China to verify at ground zero, the source.
China is using your SUV oil. Same supply, more demand. Price goes up. It’s really from a basic rudimentary plot with 2 curves intersecting up and down.
Obama must lose, because he is bad for Korea, and bad for America.
He outsed Clinton starting and ending with the Iraq War and consistency in voting.
Now people are saying Obama doesn’t really oppose free trade. He’s just after the union votes.
Really? So, he’s lying to get elected, and we read what’s not there and assume he’s a closet Republican? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Just my opinion: this thread will make a better read if Metro bows out and lets Sonagi have Jude747 for lunch.
‘The US military’s apology and offer to the victim’s familles were directed by the ROK’s Commander within 48 hours of the accident. The USFK commander always takes,,,,’
doesn’t contradict what i said. within hours of the girls being crrushed to death, army officials arrogant;y declared the case was closed. the us military brought the ensuing protest on themselves. that’s the way it was. that’s the way it is.
sorry if that don’t fit your patriotic mumbo-jumbo.
#39 It certainly fits your jingoistic mumbo jumbo, doesn’t it? I too was here when the girls died and I distinctly remember the commander of USFK visiting the grieving parents to offer money and apologies.
Also, pawi, while a little off topic, if you are such an uber-patriot, name the sailors who were killed by the North Koreans at around the same time. Where is your anger about that intentional incident?
#39 -
Within 24 hours of the accident, the media was reporting that the Korean National Police and 2nd Infantry Division were jointly investigating. That’s the opposite of declaring the case closed.
So, that flatly contradicts what you said, and it’s documented. Can you cite a source to support your contention that anyone declared the case closed? Or should we just rely on your *cough* credibility?
‘I too was here when the girls died and I distinctly remember the commander of USFK visiting the grieving parents to offer money and apologies.’
within hours of the incident, a spokesman for the military declared the case was closed.
‘Also, pawi, while a little off topic, if you are such an uber-patriot, name the sailors who were killed by the North Koreans at around the same time. Where is your anger about that intentional incident?’
i don’t think so. i don’t have to prove anything to you. sorry.
#42 -
Pawi, once again, the media was reporting within 24 hours that the KNP and 2ID were jointly investigating. If a military spokesman had declared the case closed, don’t you think that would have made the news?
So cite your source. Link to a news article that quotes the military spokesman. Because as of now, I’m calling bullshit, and I’m calling you a liar.
“Because as of now, I’m calling bullshit, and I’m calling you a liar.”
Get in line.
Linkd: As much as I disagree with Michael and Sonagi, I have to admit that they look stellar compared to your thinking and writing abilities. If you want to disagree with me, develop your own line of attack instead of coping out by issuing a simple pejorative. My 2 year old niece can also show disapproval by spitting out “uggggh”, which is at or near the level of sophistication displayed in you #38 entry. Your stupid ass comment remends me of a scene in the movie Commando in which Arnold Schwarzenegger says to a bad guy, “I eat Green Berets for breakfast.” How old are you, 12? The quality of this whole site would go up if you excommunicated yourself from this place, moron!
“Go and conduct some original and primary research by reading the report itself, not what others have written on the report. Not trying to be funny but you sound college educated. Didn’t you have to write a senior thesis to graduate? And didn’t your thesis have to be based on primary sources, as opposed to the typical paper where you can get away with secondary sources?”
Well, first to clear up any confusions, I’m still in college.
Second, the report I’m talking about isn’t a newspaper/journal article… It’s literally the report they (senate investigation) released along with announcements (both I’ve seen from Cspan 1 & 2). I think that’s as primary the source is gonna get, short of interviewing the ones on the committee face-to-face, no?
Unless you want to call Cspan on their… um… journalistic integrity.
“Bush lied”, I think, is too simplistic. I think a better phrasing would be “Bush misled” or “Bush manipulated”
Problem with your analysis, jude747, is that you, like quite a number of people on this earth, are stuck in an either/or, good vs. evil, black vs. white, A vs. B mindset. Just because the democrats in the government didn’t raise the flag doesn’t mean people who are against the War in Iraq didn’t raise the flag. I actually won $20 off of my friend when I correctly guessed (with huge luck, btw) that the ‘Mobile Chemical Weapons lab’ was a weather balloon monitoring station.
Meanwhile, here is my premise
1) No WMD in Iraq that we didn’t know about already from ’91 (aka, the old joke about White House still having the recepit)
2) No one can morally justify a war when there was no self-determination (cost of war = civilian casualty : gains from war = no Saddam. No one can make the decisions for the Iraqis and say ‘X number of civ casualty is okay as long as Y is achieved’). Btw, this concerns the decision itself – results are meaningless at this juncture because the agent of action had no fucking clue how his action was going to play out.
3) The argument that Saddam and Bin Laden were in league is laughable at best. Might as well convince me that Israel and Egypt forged an alliance and invaded Greece in 1960s.
4) War planning was shockingly and awfully horrible, a statement backed up by both sides of the political spectrum as well as current commander on the field.
5) Senate report => manipulation of intel involved.
Therefore, Bush administration is composed of assholes.
However, I do think that Petraus is taking a correct approach to Iraq (read his counter-insurgency manual… pretty smart stuff), and prefer the next president to let Petraus work the stuff out.
Lol, this thread got hijacked rapidly.
Sonagi: Regarding your #36 post, I don’t mean any disrespect but your comments show that you’re out of your depths here. And it is quite obvious to me that you have never been part of any debate clubs while you were in school. Your comments also show that you have not taken any hard core courses in philosophy. Let me explain:
When one caricatures an opponents’ argument, the objective is to set up a straw man. In my #27 post, I never claimed that the French supported invading Iraq. You, however, by interjecting this point attempt to set up a fallacy that can be knocked down easily. Everyone knows that the French opposed the Iraq War. But all you did was knock down a straw man that you yourself created. So for a casual reader or listener, it may seem that I had argued that the French were not opposed to the Iraq War, and if you are able to achieve this effect on third parties, you undermines my credibility and that, in turn, weakens my entire argument. This is an old debating technique that has been around since the invention of the art of forensics.
When I accused Michael of employing simple minded syllogism, I did not use this technique. As such, regardless of how you may feel about my accusation, it is factual to conclude that I did not caricature Michael’s arguments.
And lastly regarding the #36 post, I don’t disagree that there were some in the liberal community that did not buy the thesis that Saddam had WMDs from the very beginning. However, the political liberal elite and the liberal MSM did. So it is incredibly cynical that these same people are now turning around and saying that Bush lied. Michael and you personally may not be guilty of the same sin but, again not trying to be derogatory, to regurgitate what these folks are saying today when you know how they felt back then means that you too are being quite disingenous.
Regarding your #34 post: Field reports based on recovered intelligence files from warehouses in Kuwait and Qatar show that in January 2003, the Chinese Prime Minister told German Chancellor Schroeder that Chinese Intelligence “says that Iraq has moved it weapons of mass destruction to Syria.”
Now, were the Chinese delibertly providing the West with bad intelligence? Possible but not probable since the political calculus at that time gave the Chinese no reason to share this information unless they themselves believed that Saddam had WMDs.
Regarding Michael’s ethnicity: If he is not a Cacausian, I stand corrected. But I have yet to be contradicted from Michael himself.
Whooaaaly fuck, did I just get blasted, eh? A very fine gauntlet throw that was, jude747. Maybe you and I will get into one of those sometime, but I doubt it. Getting into weblink research debates isn’t really why I come here.
To me, there is nothing more droll in all the internet than: “Go back and read what I said again.”
I’ll clarify my position in this thread for you: I was cheering for Sonagi. I’m not going to cruise the internet looking for links about how and why your moron president got your good people into Iraq. But there are people here who will, and one of them happened to be publicly spanking you soundly. And I was cheering.
Linkd: I doubt it too since my 2-year old niece can’t read and type yet. Give her a few more years and then I can introduce you to someone more at your level. Continue to cheer on for now since I have no time for vacuous and frivolous cheerleaders. And if the spanking imagery works for you, hey, I say differnt strokes for different folks. Whatever works for you.
We’re doomed.Sorry.Make peace with your makers, y’all.
I guess we now have an agreeable working relationship. Welcome to the Hole.
PS – if you make your posts a little shorter, people might read them.
If your silly caricature is indeed factual, please provide quotes from Michael to support each premise. A fact is independently verified. A statement isn’t a fact just because one declares it to be so.
One who proports to lecture others on proper argumentation resorts to ad hominems.
sonagi: Put it to rest. It really is dishonest and unfair for you to link two very different posts by ellipses to make it seem that I had made these statements in the same post. As Linkd states himself in #51, he and I now have a working relationship and we have established the tone of that relationship going foward on this board. As you will note, I have taken a very differnt posture towards you and Michael, because we have been making arguments and counter arguments, as opposed to the get-to-know-each-other jostling that went on between Linkd and me.
And I don’t want to lecture you any more but a fact is a fact because it is true, not becasue it is “independently verified”. Now granted, in the scientific world, your assertion may hold some water but in general, it is the wrong definition, simply because so many facts are not only unverifiable by some standard of evaluation but also because your definition presupposes that there is some sense of absolute objectivity in this world. Take something basic as a person’s inner thoughts. If someone forms a particular thought in his head and does not share this with anyone else, it is still a fact that he had this particular thought. Why? Because it is true.
Look, sonagi. I’m sure that there are subject matters that you know more about than I do but this ain’t one of your strenghts, notwithstanding the cheering squad led by Linkd. I’m sure there will be an opportunity for you to show your true mettle but my advice to you here is that you give it a rest. I mean really, using ellipses to manufacture a particular effect? We have now moved beyond debate techniques and entered the realm of manipulation and falsehood. Good grief.
Linkd: Thanks for welcoming to the board. As for the length of my posts, it will really depend on my mood and the topic matter at hand.
Marmot: Sorry for being off topic.
I don’t see any evidence to suggest that Sonagi is out of her depth here, either with respect to the WMD’s or debating (or philosophy for that matter).
If jude747 has any unclassified evidence to show that she is, maybe jude747 would like to share it with us?
Whether or not the statements appeared in the same post or different posts has no bearing on the fact that both statements are ad hominems, hence, there is no dishonesty or unfairness.
Yes, it is true, but without verification, there is no way for others to know whether it is or not. Metro’s ideas about Bush and WMDs can be verified on his website, and apparently, you must have read them if your stated premises are factual.
More unimaginative ad hominems. *Yawn* I will give it a rest.
Eujin: sonagi is a woman? A Korean American female?
as far as I know, I’ve never met her
Yes, but what about Michael’s article . . .
I think we got stuck on the first paragraph.
Does it make a difference if Sonagi is a woman or a KA woman, I wonder? He sounded so surprised to find that out.
Oh, and Michael is not white. Far from it, dude. Anybody that has read his blog, knows that.
Lana, your comment is spot-on. Gratuitous references to ethnicity and nationality make the comment section painful to wade through sometimes. Marmot regulars know that I am an American woman of mixed European ancestry. Not that it matters as Lana put so succinctly.
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deleted (off-topic, wtf?)
damn good thing I didn’t use a sock just then.
Still getting the hang of this thing are we?
@HardyandTiny
““Dude is probably a white 40 year old in a bathrobe somewhere.”
hahaha”
I think the Marmot is only in his middle 30s, and its actually a Hanbok!
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