Yeah, I’d love to go back in time about 8 years or so and pose the following question:
“Why are the workers cleaning up the 9/11 site better or more deserving of special treatment than the ones cleaning up some building that’s been imploded to make way for a new one?”
Just to see how many heads would explode.
Posed yesterday? Eh, what’s the big whoop?
No disagreement there. Then again, I remember people asking why soldiers killed in battle in Afghanistan were getting a pittance compared to those who died on 9/11. American sympathy goes in waves, and chases the popular victim of the day. This is nothing new.
Donilon’s opinion doesn’t contradict what I said.
He says that not all the issues and assumptions were discussed.
I say that the benefit of regime change in Iraq and protection of ourselves and our allies from potential attack was given great weight, and the cost to accomplish this task seemed acceptable. That’s a far cry from all the key issues and assumptions. In fact, the great weight given to those factors would probably have been discounted by a full discussion of all the issues and assumptions.
I haven’t had a headache in at least thirty years, Bricker, but if I get one, I suspect it will be the result of your semantic skills, as I try to catch earthworms swimming in motor oil with chopsticks.
So the WMD thing was bullshit. But the defense you offer is that it was not the only consideration, other things were given great weight however “the great weight given to those factors would probably have been discounted by a full discussion of all the issues and assumptions.”
Discounted why? How? Because the length of time needed to discuss them at sufficient length would tire them out? Or because the underlying facts needed to reach such a drastic goal were puny and meagre?
So we are wrong to place too much emphasis on the bullshit case for WMD, there are other, equally bullshit, concerns and claims which we unfairly ignore? That if we consider these other dubious claims, a more favorable light on their actions is shed?
Uh-oh, throbbing temples. Cup of chamomile tea, ten pages of P.G. Wodehouse, stat!
We were wrong to only go along with a war based on a WMD lie, when there were other equally bad lies we could have fallen for.
Or something.
Pass the damn aspriin over here.
Aside: when did this happen, I wonder? When I was but a lad, studying for admission to the penitentiary, every other TV commercial was touting a remedy for headaches, usually aspirin, in one form or another. The exact same chemical, in each instance, sold for hundreds of times the cost of production, and each entirely superior to the exact same thing made by the other guy.
So what happened to headaches? Pot? Sex? Rock and roll? Hmm. What did the hippies do for America? Well, we cured your headaches. You’re welcome.
[/aside]
Arguing about compassion is a semantic trick. I don’t care what you feel, just do the right thing.
Taking care of those who volunteered in this extraordinary case is a mitzvah. You can grumble under your breath if you want, just do it.
Now, I think we should take care of all US citizens sickened on the job; if you mean to support that, fine. But certainly many of us consider responding to the WTC collapse a distinctive case, where we should at least take care of these people. Compassion is beside the point.