Bushbots, since I can't ask for your brains, get yer asses in here...

The BBQ Pit
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peri, I’ve been puzzling over how to answer your question. Your post was very tactfully worded and polite and I didn’t want you to feel I was ignoring you by not replying, but at the same time please try to understand that I’ve literally spent days explaining myself on this subject and I’m sick and tired of talking about it. I didn’t come into this thread in order to argue over whether or not the things I’m optimistic about are provable; I posted to it in order to describe what I perceive as the basic difference between those who oppose the war and those who are in favor of it. Most of the people who are posting here demanding and/or trying to cajole me into specifics are the same ones I’ve argued with in the past.

Much of the reason they do this is so they can come scurrying at me with so-called “facts,” statistics they use to try to prove others wrong. This is because it’s easy to say this many people were killed yesterday or that many people were tortured last month in this or that prison, but it can’t be proven how many more people would have died or been tortured in this same period of time were Hussein still in power.

It can’t be proven with statistics how many people would have died in the coming decades, both within and without Iraq, had Hussein (and even worse, his sons) remained in power. It can’t be proven how many more people would have been tortured yesterday were Hussein still in power, nor can it be proven how many more would have been tortured in the decades to come.

It’s easy to say this or that isn’t working, or this or that is in chaos, or these or those people are pissed off that we are there. It can’t be proven exactly how long it will take or to what degree these things will become only be a distant memory even among the people of Iraq themselves (such as was the case with regard to Germany and Japan after WWII).

It can’t be proven how many Israelis won’t be killed because Hussein’s Iraq isn’t paying to support the families left without support when their bread-winner blew himself up killing Israelis.

It can’t be proven that the day would have come when Hussein or his sons eventually did obtain WMD, and it can’t be proven what would have happened if they had.

It can’t be proven with statistics that due to the overwhelmingly likely synergy between al-Qaeda and various elements inside Iraq, that future Iraqi WMD would fall into the hands of al-Qaeda (or some other group of terrorists).

It can’t be proven with statistics that millions and millions of human beings (read Iraqi citizens) will be free to live their lives without fear and oppression and deprivation inflicted by Hussein and his sons, provided they are able to organize and implement a government that is truly democratic.

It can’t be proven with statistics that the deaths and abuse and chaos going on now are a drop in the bucket compared with what would have resulted from future acts of Hussein and his sons. (For that matter, they’re a drop in the bucket compared with what happened in the Iraqi war with Iran.)

These things can’t be proven, but they are what I believe will be the result of our action in Iraq. I focus on these things and think that every death today saves tens or even hundreds of lives tomorrow…and that whatever abuse occurs today will be both temporary and much less than would have been occuring had we done nothing…and that whatever disorganization, ineptitude and chaos that is occurring today is but a normal part of war and its aftermath and that it will be relatively short-lived – i.e., a few years, as was the case after WWII.

And I think that a successfully functioning democracy in Iraq, provided that such can indeed be the result, will serve as a powerful example to the populations of neighboring countries in the Middle East that they don’t have to live under dictatorships and oppression, and that they, too, will eventually move toward more democratic forms of government, which will bode well for all of us in the future and greatly serve to lessen the unrest and volitility that has been a hallmark of the Middle East for centuries.

These are just some of the things that I believe will be the likely result of our action in Iraq. They can’t be proven, but they are what I believe and they are what I focus on.

My opponents focus on the statistics for today and declare the sky is falling.

And therein lies my view that the pro-war faction focuses on the positives while the anti-war faction focuses on the negatives.

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It’s a faith based world view, in opposition to the evidence based view.

Before you knock it consider it commands a majority in the US.

(hence the SDMB BTW)

Oh SA I think you often weasel.

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Let’s try a little experiment with search-and-replace:

[Might be posted by an Iraqi equivalent of gobear:]

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[Might be posted by an Iraqi equivalent of gobear:]

I know you think you’rre being clever, but I agree with your parody–we shouldn’t be telling the Iraqis how to run their country. Hell, we shouldn’t even be in there in the first place.

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What you have outlined, SA, is a faith-based political belief system. You wave away opposing views statistics and evidence like a creationist insisting that evolution is only a “theory”. This sort of behavior is more typical of a person who insists on believing in defiance of fact.

If I were to insist on believing in nuclear-armed invisible pink unicorns, you might well be derisive, and such derision would be well founded. You might well draw on biological sciences (taxonomy, cladistics, etc.) to offer well founded reasons why I am probably wrong. As long as my argument rests solely on your incapacity to prove beyond any doubt the non-existence of NAIPU, my argument is shabby but impregnable, like Superman standing by the road with a “Will Work For Food” sign. It is an irrefutable argument, but it is not a reasonable argument. Point of fact, it is irrefutable because it is not reasonable.

Democracy is not magical, it has no metaphysical force beyond the simple aggregate power of its participants. There were elections before our misbegotten adventure, Saddam won handily, some 99.9% (now, theres a friggin’ mandate!). Whats that you say? Saddam was a total tyrant, the elections were entirely fraudulent, you have statistics that prove…

Yoiu cannot prove beyond any doubt that the people of Iraq voted precisely as they would have if otherwise unencumbered. It is certainly unreasonable to believe so, and I do not. But if my evil twin Obscurator were to insist that I could not prove it beyond all doubt, he would be correct.

These are the ground rules of reasonable debate: that no absolute proof exists, nor will it, outside of Divine Will. We are left to respect the preponderance of evidence. In a droll bit of irony, you outline the great mass of evidence that you reject: I don’t believe A, or B, or C, and so on down the line. Yet you do believe that despite all this, some mechanism not in evidence will transform a quagmire into Eden. Is it God, SA? The irresistable force of dialectical materialism? Wherein does our salvation lie? Virgin sacrifice to Og? Might we strap the Bush Twins to the Altar of Og and… wait a tick. U of Tex girls, IIRC. Hmmmm, never mind…

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Indeed it was. For it made you finally stop weaseling and provide us with your faith-based bullshit reasons as to why you “believe” we’re wrong…against all reasonable evidence.

Won’t get into your following post much as it’s been taken care of already. Suffice it to say that after reading it, I fully understand your prior reluctance to place such a steaming and fetid pile in the public domain. OTOH, I do want to thank you for doing so, as it neatly ties back right into my OP.

You are, indeed, precisely one of those Bush Drones I was alluding to.

QED.

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I’ve been against the war from the start. Now, we have the tiger by the tail and don’t dare to let go. If U.S. troops are removed now, Iraq will plunge into total chaos and civil war. We will be leaving it worse off than we found it. However, we must not become the very things we claim to be against - conquest, suppression, wholesale arrest without trial, torture, and all the rest. We need to be putting money into the country to rebuild, not into the coffers of corporations. We need to be demonstrating that we do indeed believe in the dignity of people, not arguing whether thet have any rights (Gitmo anyone?). Right now we are showing ourselves to be the biggest hypocrites on the planet. It has to stop. We need to become the people we always CLAIM to be, the “good guys”.

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SA, thank you.

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Starving Artist, I don’t promise a good e-mail exchange, but I would like to read what you’re willing to send. My e-mail is in my profile.

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You say “faith-based.” I say a pragmatic, common-sense evaluation of the situation.

I wave away nothing…the difference is that I don’t view the statistics and evidence of today as the end all and be all of the situation the way many of you on the other side do. I don’t dispute the statistics that exist, but I believe that much more good than ill will be their result.

Well, we’ll just have to agree to disagree on this.

But you see, luci, debate is not the subject at hand. The OP wanted to know why we who approve of the war do indeed approve of it. I offered an explanation insofar as it pertains to my assessment of the situation.

In the course of everyday life, we make many decisions that could be said to be “faith-based,” if one were inclined to do so. When you sign a loan agreement on your car, or lease or purchase a home, you are making a “faith-based” assessment that you will both be around long enough to make the payments and that you will have sufficient income to handle them. But when you go to take out the loan, does the bank ask why you are asking them to turn money over to you when your belief that you’ll be able to pay it back is only “faith-based”? Of course not. They, and you, make the pragmatic, common-sense assessment that based on what you each know about how things go in the world (in this case, actuarial tables), the great liklihood of your being able make your payments is accepted as fact.

It is quite possible to make assessments as to future events based on common-sense and life experience, and it is in making these assessments that the difference between those of us who support the war versus those who oppose it lies.

And, as I said at the beginning of this thread, those of you who oppose it are looking at the immediate negatives and predicting disaster; we who feel it’s the right thing to do look at these same things and predict success…success which will (and already is) resulting in much less loss of life, much less torture, and much greater overall happiness in life for millions and millions of people.

Again, you say the glass is half-empty, I say it’s half-full. The difference lies in outlook and political inclination; not in statistics and current-day happenings.

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Nah…I’ve already said pretty much what I would have said to you by email. The difference is that the back-and-forth between us that you seemed to want is excluded here in this thread. However, if you don’t feel the exchange would be good, and since I don’t really want to go through again that much anyway, what would be the point?

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You’re welcome. :slight_smile:

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SA: When you sign a loan agreement on your car, or lease or purchase a home, you are making a “faith-based” assessment that you will both be around long enough to make the payments and that you will have sufficient income to handle them. But when you go to take out the loan, does the bank ask why you are asking them to turn money over to you when your belief that you’ll be able to pay it back is only “faith-based”? Of course not. They, and you, make the pragmatic, common-sense assessment that based on what you each know about how things go in the world (in this case, actuarial tables), the great liklihood of your being able make your payments is accepted as fact.

But when there isn’t a great likelihood of your being able to make your payments (e.g., you have terrible credit, or you have no job, or whatever), then the bank doesn’t accept your “faith-based assessment”. Trustworthy assessments don’t just require faith; they also require support from realistic probabilities.

I think that’s the deficiency you’re catching so much flak for on this subject. Nobody disagrees with you that it can be well worth suffering through a difficult time temporarily in order to achieve greater improvements in the future. What we don’t get is why you think that the current evidence supports such an optimistic view of the future in the case of Iraq.

After all, from the very start of the invasion, Administration officials have been making optimistic predictions that weren’t supported by the existing evidence and weren’t borne out by subsequent events. What are your grounds for thinking that the optimistic predictions you have such faith in will prove any more reliable?

SA: The difference lies in outlook and political inclination; not in statistics and current-day happenings.

What worries me is that you seem to be trusting your “outlook and political inclination” to the extent of ignoring “statistics and current-day happenings”. You claim your assessment is “pragmatic” and “common-sense”, but when it comes to supporting its likelihood from actual events, you say it’s about “outlook”.

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Well, I wouldn’t say I’m “ignoring” statistics and current-day happenings, but I will say that I don’t take them much into account when assessing the outcome of the war.

But you may be interested to know that I don’t take into account much of what the administration says in regard to it either, as much of what the administration says is vetted or spun (as would be the case with any administration) to put the best possible face on the situation, given that they can’t talk long-range like we’re doing here without opening up an endless can of worms for debate (also much like what’s going on here). Administrations, although they have to deal with complex long-term issues, have to deal in sound-bites and easily grasped ideas. They can’t engage in the type of long-term analyzations and explanations that we are able to engage in here.

But let’s take a look at some of the things that make me optimistic about the results of the war that have nothing to do with current-day torture, death and disorganization statistics…

  • Although some would quibble with the figures, there really is very little doubt that thousands of people a week were dying in Iraq as a result of Hussein’s policies, corruption, and to a lesser extent, his direct order. And these deaths have been occurring year after year after year.

These deaths have been stopped.

As a result, many fewer Iraqi lives are being lost now than were under Hussein’s rule, and many, many more lives will be saved with each passing year.

  • The danger of eventual Iraqi WMD falling into terrorist hands has been eliminated.

Many people here do not recognize the probable synergistic relationship between Hussein’s Iraq and al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. I do, however, and there is no doubt in my mind that the world in general – and the U.S. in particular – are safer as a result of Hussein’s having been removed from power.

  • Under Hussein’s rule, the Iraqi people were treated well or badly according to how Hussein and his henchmen happened to regard them as a group. They were brutalized, terrorized and made to live in constant fear of incurring his wrath.

They are now free from having to live in fear of his regime and they have the opportunity to pursue self-determination.

  • Uday and Qusay will not be governing Iraq in the future.

Need I say more?

  • The opportunity exists now for a free and democratic Iraq that will not only free its own people from brutality and oppression, and which could serve as an example to other countries in the Middle East that they don’t have to live under dictatorships and oppression, and hopefully they, too, will eventually move toward more democratic forms of government. To me, this bodes well for all of us in the future and it would greatly serve to lessen the unrest and volitility that has been a hallmark of the Middle East for centuries.

These are only some of the things that I view as positive occurrances in Iraq, and they are some of the reasons I’m optimistic and positive about the eventual outcome of the war. Note that none of these things are the direct outgrowth of yesterday’s death total, the number of people mistreated by our soldiers, or the number of people who don’t have water, electricity or other amenities today because of inadequate U.S. planning.

Again, this is what I mean about the war’s opponents focusing on the day-to-day problems as they exist now and extrapolating from them that the war is a disaster, while I look at the situation in Iraq as it exists right now as being only temporary and not that significant in terms of the overall results of the war, which I believe are overwhelmingly positive and good.

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SA: Although some would quibble with the figures, there really is very little doubt that thousands of people a week were dying in Iraq as a result of Hussein’s policies, corruption, and to a lesser extent, his direct order. And these deaths have been occurring year after year after year. These deaths have been stopped.
As a result, many fewer Iraqi lives are being lost now than were under Hussein’s rule, and many, many more lives will be saved with each passing year.

Actually, you can only conclude that by lumping all the deaths under Hussein together—including the hundreds of thousands from the attacks on the Kurds and the Iran-Iraq war, conducted with the US’s backing—and trying to extrapolate some kind of perpetual ongoing pattern from them. This isn’t very realistic.

The fact is, the vast majority of Iraqi deaths under Saddam Hussein took place in actions where the US was either supporting him or refraining from condemning him. The death rate for the last few years of his regime, when there were no wars or mass genocidal attacks going on, was nowhere near “thousands of people a week”, nor is there any reason to believe that it would have attained such a level in future years. You’re trying to argue, by extrapolation, for the existence of a trend that the facts just don’t support.

None of this is to defend Hussein’s policies in any way (indeed, many of us on the left who oppose the Iraq war were severely criticizing Hussein back when many of those who now support the war accepted him as a tolerable ally). It’s just to point out how flimsy the premises are from which you’re trying to draw support from your optimism.

If your optimism about the future of Iraq is based on this kind of misleading interpretation of statistics, then you can see why the rest of us are worried about a disconnect between your faith and the facts.

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Additionally, you seem to have a weird kind of double standard for bad stuff happening to Iraqi people. According to you, bad stuff caused by Saddam Hussein—even when it was supported or tolerated by the US—is simply bad, permanently bad, bound to go on being bad or getting worse.

Bad stuff caused by the invasion, occupation, and insurgency, however, is merely a minor and temporary hardship which doesn’t count for anything against the possibility that the Iraqis “could” have the “opportunity” to “pursue” a more democratic form of government.

Using your logic, I might argue that leaving Hussein in power would have provided the Iraqis with the “opportunity” to “pursue” an overthrow of his regime and a better future, without all this invasion and destruction and cluster bombs.

I don’t think you can convincingly argue that a potential future benefit automatically outweighs an actual current hardship. The question is, what are the most realistically likely outcomes, given the situation that exists?

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No doubt, there is some distinction between “ignoring” and “not taking into account”. That distinction escapes me.

If you aren’t taking the Admins “information” and disregard opposing viewpoint’s statistical underpinning, tell me, pray, from whence do you get the information you rely upon? Scrying with entrails?

Yes, lets!

Those deaths have been stopped. They have been replaced by different deaths. You may take some comfort in this, but I imagine the corpses in question are indifferent to such niceties.

As well, “some would quibble with the figures” is a thermonuclear understatement. The admin has shoveled astonishing numbers upon us, numbers that are intended to be swallowed whole and cannot be verified. The truth is, we have no idea. (As witness a poster to these very boards, who opined with a straight keyboard that “millions” of Iraqis were murdered by Hussein. But even a tyranny is not a death camp.)

Doesn’t it strike you as odd that, given such a ghastly state of deadly oppression, the streets of Baghdad were not lined with happy, happy people throwing bouquets and offering their daughters? Given that, as you say, they lived in constant and deadly fear? How does your premise account for this?

Sez you. Without so much as a whisper of foundation, documentation, or support.

Just so. As well, the dreaded threat of intercontinental drone aircraft spreading death and carnage across the Eastern seaboard is now, thankfully, in abeyance. In your haste to present your happy optimism, you neglected to mention that no one in any position to know still suggests that such a prospect ever existed in the first place.

While we were eagerly defending ourselves against the horrifying prospect, our true blue ally Pakistan was conducting a nuclear Amway sale. Why should they have negotiated with a secular enemy for what they could buy on the open market? And why would a secular cynic like Hussein placed deadly weapons in the hands of religious fanatics who regard him as an enemy? That would be like Stalin given a nuclear bomb to Rasputin.

This is true. Many people do not. Because no such relationship existed. A lot of people also fail to recognize the importance of the Tooth Fairy on our dental hygiene program. For much the same reason: lack of existence. That is why they failed to recognize it. Outside of your firm assertion that it is so, have you a shred of evidence? The shadow of a shred of evidence? Anything at all?

They are no longer afraid of Hussein. Now they are afraid of each other. Why you are determined to regard this as an improvement is a point that invites clarification.

Indeed. We are also free of the worry that Saddam’s grandson will be governing Iraq, or even that he might have reached an age to acquire a driver’s liscence. Nor will he roll up a pack of cigarettes in his T-shirt and play Eminem on a boom box. What luck, huh?

You need to say something!

Thank you, Doctor Pangloss.

Duly noted. One did not expect otherwise, and one is confused as to why you wish to be credited with not suggesting a baldly ridiculous connection. But I will, its only fair: Let it be stated, for the record, that at no time has SA implied or suggested that the day to day misery and death inflicted upon the Iraqi citizenry will directly lead to a free and democratic Iraq.

Slight difficulty in tense. The day to day problems “as they exist now” are the substance of the claim of disaster, they are its embodiment. Just as you say, they are temporary. But they are also a matter of trajectory and momentum. A ten pound lump of crap fired at 1000 ft per second on a path to intersect the fan will almost certainly hit the fan. The conjecture that it will transmorgify in mid-flight into a ten pound bouquet of roses that will settle gently down upon the upturned faces of happy Iraqi people is a conjecture that requires….well, a bit more substantiation that you appear willing to offer. Quite a bit more. A lot more.

These overall results of the war, of which you so glowingly approve, do not exist. You offer no evidence to believe that they will, beyond a faith that surpasseth all understanding. You are not arguing, you are witnessing.

As a statement of faith, it is impressive. As an argument, it is a vacuum.

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While I can (and do) disagree with your overall assessment of my point of view, I would like to point out that I do not indeed necessarily believe that a potential furture benefit “automatically” outweighs an actual current hardship. The particulars of this specific case, however, do lead me to that belief.

Exactly! And I’ve outlined my opinion as to what would realistically be the likely outcome. We disagree, however, and neither of us can prove the other wrong. So only time will tell. Yes, no?

In the meantime, I hold with my original assessment that even though we look at the same situation statistically, those of us who favor the action in Iraq have positive expectations of the result…and that those of you who oppose the war have negative expectations of the result.

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In point of fact it is neither, my most amusing friend. It is what the OP requested…insight into the thinking of some of us who support the war.

I haven’t addressed the rest of your post for the reason I stated last night. I don’t want to spend the next three days arguing about it. I’m content to let those who may read what we’ve had to say arrive at their own conclusions about it.

Cheers. :slight_smile:

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SA: And I’ve outlined my opinion as to what would realistically be the likely outcome.

Yup. What worries me about that, as I said, is that the reasons you’ve offered in support of that opinion seem so shaky when it comes to facts.

You are quite right that reasonable people can disagree about the predictions they draw from a given set of current data. What scares me, though, is that your predictions seem to be drawn more from wilfully ignoring and misinterpreting the data.

Believe me, I hope your optimism turns out to be justified. But I don’t understand how you can rationally consider your optimism to be realistic, given the facts on the ground.