I agree with that.
There is endless documentation on this, most of it readily accessible on the Internet. Here is one example from Human Rights Watch: Genocide in Iraq. Note that in my OP, I cited both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. There are many others as well, from the US State Department to the United Nations. It ain’t hard to find.
See the sources cited just above. Regarding hardships during the UN sanctions, note that during those sanctions, Saddam spent billions on his palaces according the the US State Department. See documentation by satellite photography of his palace building ventures and oil wealth pilferage throughout the 1990s.
I certainly agree, Hawthorne. In fact, in His Thread, Collounsbury responded to my paraphrase of what he was teaching me with “Bingo”. Sometimes, people adopt an aggressively contrary position, for whatever reason, even when one is not indicated. See, for example, the comment by Desmo in this thread: “Libertarian, the OP, has apparently chickened out of this thread.” As you can see, I am here.
Lib: Just to pick up on something Twisty and Apos have both said; The Jordanian woman doesn’t appear to be making any arguement. She states that she doesn’t understand why the war is happening and appears saddened that people are dying.
It seems slightly wrong, to me anyway, to take her statements and claim she’s saying “the war is wrong because innocent Iraqis are dying”.
Yeah I’m being pedantic, but it’s not fair to put words into the woman’s mouth.
Just saying.
bolding mine
I had to quote just this part for emphasis, as it seems no one wants to address directly the issue I think Libertarian has raised. It is not only this particular Jordanian woman (and I agree that the implication is clear) but many others voicing this overly simplistic thought, that war is wrong because the innocent suffer. Or perhaps it’s that we see the innocent suffer in war. We certainly haven’t been privy to the inner workings of Saddam’s torture chambers via CNN Special Alerts, have we? So is this woman and others like her, only concerned with the atrocities of war and not the atrocities committed under the cover of peace?
Don’t for one minute try to persuade yourselves that people aren’t doing exactly that. We’ve already descended to number-crunching human lives in this very thread to justify our positions. I can’t decide whether this depresses or disgusts me more.
It seems that NaSultainne doesn’t like to read threads.
I count London_Calling basically agreeing with the idea.
I see pennylane also agreeing with the basic idea that people dying in war is not a good argument against war, and then explaining what she sees as a more sophisticated take on the idea.
I count Collounsbury and Lib in an exchange I don’t really understand, as I seem to be missing some context other than obvious general emnity.
I count Aro asking for a cite (certainly a good thing: Lib has provided conclusive cites in other threads, but some might be unfamiliar with them here) and then echoing pennylane’s points a little while expanding on them.
I count myself agreeing that the position is stupid, arguing that attacking this particular woman’s quote seems over-the-top, and suggesting one valid way to criticize killing in war without criticizing the purpose and acheivements of it.
CyberPundit agrees with the basic premise, but argues that we don’t know the real outcome in terms of violence.
smiling bandit argues that the underlying assumption is solid: no other force could have stopped Saddam and potentially brought the sort of vast change of political order we’re seeing.
and so on. Almost all points here, even by those who think the war is wrong, that AGREE with the OP’s premise that the “people are dying” argument is by itself weak. Some of which also argue that Lib’s take on the view is limited: ignoring other varying premises, or assuming certain outcomes. All arguable points (and, to be sure, I’m not sure I buy any of them, basically being of the mind of s_b), but they sure don’t look like attempts to avoid the issue: at worst they ask for further discussion of the underlying assumptions.
You seem eager to draw the “implication” out of the woman’s statements. I think there are a multitude of ways to read this statement (and even the nod of the reporter). So, no, I don’t think it’s a great example: especially not when 1) there are much clearer and better examples out there and 2) your style of rhetoric is to imagine vividly raping and torturing the woman and her family into agreement with the OP.
Sure I do. I even read your post.
If you’re keeping tabs, please keep it accurate. Collounsbury also said “I hardly see the interview of one random Jordanian woman as something to debate…”
Add in Sotally Tober looking for facts and data.
Add in even sven “What else is she supposed to think?”, Zorro describing the OP as taking her comments “out of context”, Sentient Meat agreeing with Zorro. Then we have Desmostylus equating saving people with killing people. TwistofFate admits to basically being puzzled, choosing the relative safety of Switzerland.
So, we have five posters disagreeing with the interpretation of the OP, two choosing accounting methods to determine which side is up, one puzzled and one unable to make any moral distinction between killing for fun and war to end such. Note I’m only listing those posters who contradicted the OP, as that was my point to begin with
If you had read my post thoroughly, you would have understood that I quoted part of the OP as a demonstration that the central point being missed, for the third time, by more than a few of the posters was that the OP merely used this particular woman’s statement as the basis for contesting the underlying premise;
Libertarian said:
But of all the arguments I have heard, far and away the weakest in my opinion is the one offered by the Jordanian woman and shared by many others: the war is wrong because innocent Iraqis are dying.
I am hardly eager to do anything of the kind. This was a quote chosen to address a specific line of reasoning that, as you have already pointed out, at least some of the posters were sufficiently perceptive enough to engage in crafting intelligent responses.
It may or may not have been the ideal quote, and frankly you once again miss the point. For the fourth time.
Your final comment is contemptible.
Your point was stated as this:
That was what I replied to, and why your reply doesn’t make much sense. I was merely pointing out that several people had discussed the OP directly, not trying to do a comprehensive account of every Tom Dick and Harry that popped in to express their frustration that Lib wasn’t personally acknowledging their brilliant contributions within the hour. (not to mention: what is “inaccurate” about saying I don’t understand what Collon and Lib are sniping about, given I don’t know the other thread? How can not understanding something be “inaccurate”?).
I read it to begin with, and and now you’ve restated it again. Still doesn’t make any sense to me. Maybe I’m still not reading thoroughly enough, but the OP says that the woman is making an arguement. You say the implication of her statements is clear, and now you say that there’s an “underlying premise” to her statements. My point (and others as well) is that I don’t think any of those claims are well taken. And especially given that the key suspect premise of the OP has been stated out loud by others, I didn’t see why this woman had to be so nastily taken to task on such limited information about her views.
There are several points here, actually. I’m not always making every point in each and every sentance, and what you think is the point, I’ve already discussed elsewhere. Now we’re talking about my point. Whether it was the “ideal quote” IS important, precisely because of the attacks directed at the quoted subject.
I think there is a serious problem with suggesting that a woman needs to be taught a lesson in violence before she’d have compassion Saddam’s victims, or appreciation for the OP’s “obvious” point, especially given the lack of any presentation of evidence that this woman is all buddy buddy with Saddam in the first place.
I agree that the opinion of many Arabs on the street, putting some sort of regional pride (he may be an evil murderer, put he’s the home team!) above any concern for the suffering of Iraqi citizens, has been Neanderthal. But this quote doesn’t convince me at all that this woman can be rightly singled out as holding this opinion, or the opinion that the OP is against.
If the OP were simply saying “here is a statement. And here is one way that some people often take such statements and THEN turn it into an illegitimate case against war” that would be one thing. But the OP instead lays into the woman directly, as if she had done so:
I put it to you that you cannot conclude from the statement quoted in the OP anything about this woman’s views on Saddam’s oppression, her knowledge of them, her ability to concieve them, or her condoning them. Her statement contains two things: she doesn’t know what the war is really about, and she knows that people are dying. What we don’t know is if:
-she opposes the war
-what she means when she says she doesn’t know what it is about. that could mean she’s ignorant of world politics in general, or it could mean that she’s not sure what the U.S. is ultimately fighting the war to acheive (since many people are rightly skeptical of its motives, be they uninformed or not)
For all we know reading this thread, this could be some random woman off the street who spends her life without television or news, who really doesn’t know much about Iraq or politics. Even if she was ignorant, I don’t see the justification for the amount of bile being directed her way. You could even accuse CNN of exploiting her to make a cheap point if you wanted, but not her.
And even if it were demonstrably the case that she opposed the war, the OP ITSELF says that there are reasons for opposing the war that aren’t based on a lack of appreciation for the suffering of Iraqis. As peppergirl pointed out, given that one might think that the war was illegitimate for other reasons than a utilitarian accounting of lives, one might also think that the deaths caused in it added to the wrongness of it, not the rightness of it.
But none of that can excuse the woman, apparently. Because, based on a single statement far more ambiguous than anything said by pennylane or even Desmostylus here, she is not allowed to hold any other position than what you and the OP demand she must hold. And it seems that, because of that, arguments must fail, and imagined lessons in violence must ensue:
That is what I think goes too far. Nope, it doesn’t in the least invalidate the point the OP made about the argument. That arguement IS bunk. Indeed, no one has been able to raise any sort of serious challenge to the idea that the deaths of innocent Iraqi civilians is itself any sort of simple reason to oppose a war that will take out the person causing those deaths.
But that’s not the only point made in the OP. Another point is to go after this woman for supposedly making this argument: on what, at least to me, seem to be illegitimate grounds.
Where the hell do you get that from?
The innocent civialians that were killed haven’t been saved, they’ve been killed.
I think your use of the word “equating” says a lot more about you than it does about me.
Your wish is my command. A whole new can of worms is available for your pleasure here: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=176547
Did she actually say “innocent iraqis are dying” or did she say “people are dying”.
A dead soldier is just as dead a a dead civillian.
She said, “I do know that people are dying.”
It is impossible to know the true context of the interview since such interviews are notoriously edited for content and sequence by the interviewers and their producers. Who knows what all the woman might have said that wasn’t shown, or what she might have said that was shown in a context different from her intent? However, the report as a whole, including other interviews, was introduced as something to help us understand why so many Arabs oppose the war despite that Saddam is a villain almost everywhere. So, it was the reporter who was framing the Jordanian woman’s statement as a tacit argument against the war. As I explained in the OP, I thought other arguments were better. And I think the libertarian argument is superior.
I do want to make clear that it is in this instance — the War in Iraq and wars like it — that I believe the “people are dying” argument is weak. I do not believe that such an argument is always weak. If, for example, the US attacked Canada to depose the government, a “people are dying” argument would be quite strong since the Canadian government is not committing wholesale genocide already. But when a government has slaughtered 8% of its population, and does not appear to be changing its trend, the “people are dying” argument is so weak that it is irrelevant.
Lib, out of curousity:
1: Would you kill your 10 closest friends if it meant saving 1000 innocent Iraqis?
2: If you were an Iraqi, would you be content to die now knowing your death may save hundreds of people in the future?
I can’t agree with you that innocent people dying is ever " irrelevant ", regardless of the situation or the following consequences down the line.
I fully understand your point that, in the bigger picture, it may be better to allow some innocent deaths now than to let the continuation of a greater number of deaths later.
But it is all too easy to make that decision when it is from your armchair, not when it actually affects the lives of real people.
Hard to say. The question is so broad that I’ll have to give you a broad answer. I oppose the use of force in every instance except when it is responsive; i.e., I am a libertarian.
Hard to say again. If my five-year-old son were in prison, my wife had been raped and fed to Uday’s dobermans, and I had just escaped from Qusay’s torture chamber in Basrah, I certainly might.
If you don’t actually know what her intent was, why are you trying to mould her comments into an anti-war arguement? you can’t use the “editing” excuse to leave ambiguity over her intent. Judge her on what she said, not what you think she might have said in a different situation.
It’s good to see that you’re still here, Libertarian. Please accept my apology for accusing you of chickening out.
Once again, I must express my utter disgust for this sentiment. Kill them to save them just doesn’t cut it.
P.S. Libertarian, I can’t see that your version of Christianity is any different from Joe_Cool’s. Hatred, killing and retribution.
That is a different debate. Her comments were already molded by the reporter. This debate is not about her, but about the soundness of the “people are dying” argument as opposition to the War in Iraq. If you care to participate in the debate, please explain why you think the argument is weak or sound.
As you wish.
That’s not my sentiment.
Garbage.
Message boards…
