1

Joe it's simply incomprehensible to many of us moderates how you can post such material.
You seem like a thoughtful individual based on your words here-mostly. But something goes awry in your brain when it comes to criticizing this WH.

Irrespective of the 'truth' in Iraq, the consensus among a wide range of experts is that Iraq was a blunder of the first order. No WMD's, no links to 9-11, no links to OBL. End of story.
This has been stated by such flaming liberals as Bill O'Reilly and Colin Powell. It's shared by numerous military experts, historians, our allies, and even many Republicans.

They didn't have a plan for the post war scenario, a scenario which many military planners explicitly warned them of-many of whom were repaid by being fired. And now we're paying for it.
And the truth is the situation is totally FUBAR. We're bogged down. We crouch in tiny safe areas, which get attacked damn near everyday. And the whole show is being run out of the WH for political purposes which are often in head-on collision with military experience. You'd think after the PR nightmare of Vietnam these guys would have been more careful, but they've screwed the pooch anyway.

They have bloggers in Iraq. You can read their entries as they degenerate from hope and provisional support for the US just after the invasion, to bewilderment at our tactics, to criticism, to despair, to anger, to out and out hatred, and finally to encouraging the insurgency.

And geez Louis...I thought you had an inkling of military knowledge and some basic geography skills yourself?
Many of those 'friendly' provinces you show on your color coded Map of deception (EG) are wastelands of desert with a population of zero! Did you honestly not realize that? ROFLMAO! Man oh man you have to have wings to stay above the BS around here sometimes.

A large portion of our armed forces are stuck in Iraq and thus cannot respond to other threats. Fact. Real threats Joe. Like Al Qaeda, the guys who attacked us. You remember them yes? Three thousand people dead in one morning? If a democrat had turned his back on catching OBL you would have howled for his head, and rightly so. But when Bush does it, it's freaking ok? That's whacked man. How about restoring my faith in your reasoning skills and name a few things George Bush has done wrong which the democrats were right about?

Yes, Bush would have us believe everything is great. But you can support Bush without parroting that crap and the benefit to you is that you retain yuor integrity and don't make an utter fool out of yourself..
Bush is not your pastor buddy. Nor is he your football game watching pal or your next door neighbor. He's a politician trying to get your vote and politicians are simply untrustworthy. All of them. They have to be watched like hawks and held to account constantly lest they take advantage of their position. Even those who start out with good intentions have ended up in many cases doing enormous harm. To think anything else is to ignore history and bury your head in the sand.

2

DS,

Irrespective of the 'truth' in Iraq, the consensus among a wide range of experts is that Iraq was a blunder of the first order.

No WMD's, no links to 9-11, no links to OBL. End of story.

No links to OBL? Perhaps you need to read the 9-11 commission report.

This has been stated by such flaming liberals as Bill O'Reilly and Colin Powell.

When did Colin Powell call the Iraq war a “blunder?”

It's shared by numerous military experts, historians, our allies, and even many Republicans.

And there are an equal number who disagree with that viewpoint.

They didn't have a plan for the post war scenario, a scenario which many military planners explicitly warned them of-many of whom were repaid by being fired. And now we're paying for it.

Who was fired for pointing this out?

And the truth is the situation is totally FUBAR. We're bogged down.

Did you even look at the maps I posted? There were no deaths caused by the insurgency in 14 out of the 18 provinces. We control the entire country and could destroy the insurgency at will. The reason we don’t do so is because we do not want to kill innocent civilians in the process.

We crouch in tiny safe areas, which get attacked damn near everyday.

DS, you are showing that you have no clue what you’re talking about. Maybe you should have a few conversations with someone who has actually been to Iraq.

And the whole show is being run out of the WH for political purposes which are often in head-on collision with military experience. You'd think after the PR nightmare of Vietnam these guys would have been more careful, but they've screwed the pooch anyway.

When you first started commenting on this blog I had some respect for your opinions. Lately, though, you’ve shown a complete lack of thought and ability to look at the evidence. You simply parrot what you read on lefty blogs as if it were fact.

They have bloggers in Iraq. You can read their entries as they degenerate from hope and provisional support for the US just after the invasion, to bewilderment at our tactics, to criticism, to despair, to anger, to out and out hatred, and finally to encouraging the insurgency.

You mean blogs like these:

http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/

http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/

http://hammorabi.blogspot.com/

http://iraqataglance.blogspot.com/

What Iraqi blogs are you reading?

And geez Louis...I thought you had an inkling of military knowledge and some basic geography skills yourself? Many of those 'friendly' provinces you show on your color coded Map of deception (EG) are wastelands of desert with a population of zero! Did you honestly not realize that? ROFLMAO! Man oh man you have to have wings to stay above the BS around here sometimes.

Um, DS, you’ll notice that most of the deaths occurred in the Al Anbar, a “wasteland of desert with a population of zero”. Did you honestly not realize that. No, I guess you didn’t because you would have know that this was the area where the major military bases are located.

A large portion of our armed forces are stuck in Iraq and thus cannot respond to other threats. Fact. Real threats Joe. Like Al Qaeda, the guys who attacked us. You remember them yes? Three thousand people dead in one morning?

What percentage of our military is in Iraq, DS? What percentage was diverted from “real threats” to focus on these threats? You say this is a fact so let’s see some numbers.

If a democrat had turned his back on catching OBL you would have howled for his head, and rightly so. But when Bush does it, it's freaking ok?

Let’s see the evidence that Bush has pulled any troops off the hunt for OBL. You are showing that you are completely clueless about military affairs.

Listen, DS, you’ve slipped off into Looneyville. Start backing up your ludicrous assertions with some facts and we’ll continue the discussion. But if all you want to do is get in a Bush-bashing spat with one of W’s true believers than you have the wrong guy.

3

Joe there's no point in arguing with a 'true believer' using facts. Retract that one statement and indicate to me that it would be worthwhile to research those items you listed and I'll see what I can do. If your mind can be changed I'll work with you. If it can't you're not worth my time.

4

Joe,
IMHO - you're usually too patient with your commenters. I'm glad you got a little more pointed with DS. I'm sick of hearing that kind of crap going unchallenged.
-jdm

5

DS,

Joe there's no point in arguing with a 'true believer' using facts. Retract that one statement and indicate to me that it would be worthwhile to research those items you listed and I'll see what I can do. If your mind can be changed I'll work with you. If it can't you're not worth my time.

Whatever you want to do. After all, It's your credibility at stake. If you don't feel like it is worth your time to show that you can back up your claims with evidence that's your choice.

6

As far as credibility ...

I believe currently there are about 500,000 active army troops which are supported by roughly 700,000 National Guard and Army Reservists. We have about 130,000 troops in Iraq at this time representing well over ten percent of our TOTAL Army and equating to about 25 % of our active full timers ....We're planning on pulling some troops out of South Korea for 'redeployment' elsehwere.

We have about 9,000 troops in Afghanistan....

So we have 15 times as many in Iraq as Afghanistan...?

The regime in Iraq which had no WMD's and among the lowest level of middle eastern countries as far as links to Al QaedaIraq is considered to be what ... fifteen times more deserving or our resources than the nation in which OBL and AQ are currently operating?

What was your point again Joe?

7

Here's a breakdown of some by combat units

"Of the 35 combat brigades and Armored Cavalry Regiments in the US Army's active component, some 16 are currently deployed (including the two from the 2nd Infantry Division in South Korea), in the process of rotating to and from deployments or having just returned from deployment. Of the two Armored Cavalry Regiments both are also deployed (it should be noted that press and Army officials tend to lump the ACR's in with the Brigades when counting total combat brigades).

Deployed Active Combat Brigades/ACRs

TOTAL 33 35 43 / 48
Location
pre 9-11 [As of 15 Aug 04] Planned
2007 Pre-911 Current
SWA/Iraq 1 14
South Korea 2 1
Afghanistan - 1
Kosovo 1 - -
Bosnia 1 - -
TOTAL 5 16
Bosnia [SFOR] became a National Guard Deployment
in October 2001

8

That last table is confusing. Best I can make out of it, out of 35 active combat ACR's/Brigades, about a dozen are tied up in Iraq or very close by ...

For some odd reason the WH wouldn't answer me whan I asked them how many units they've pulled out of Afghanistian or couldn't send there because of Iraq...strange eh? it does stand to reason that those 130,000 ain't there doesn't it?

So in short, I feel my credibility is well served by the fact we 9,000 troops in Afghanistan and we have 130,000 in Iraq. Those figures I'm confident of. Unless we have an magnitude of order more than I've indicated, we're giving Iraq a great deal more emphasis than Al Qaeda and OBL in Afghanistan.
Your credibility however is hanging by a thread. You are afterall the one who implied some kind of military expertise. And you're a Marine right?

(Just out of curiousity, why aren't you in Iraq if you feel so strongly about this? Have you already been and returned?)

9

DS,

I believe currently there are about 500,000 active army troops which are supported by roughly 700,000 National Guard and Army Reservists.

Which gives us a total of 1.2 million soldiers in the U.S. Army.

We have about 130,000 troops in Iraq at this time representing well over ten percent of our TOTAL Army and equating to about 25 % of our active full timers ....

Actually, we have roughly 140,000 which includes 25,000 Marines. Assuming that the rest are all Army that gives us 115,000 soldiers in Iraq. As you point out, that is roughly 10% or about double the number of soldiers that are stationed in Germany (56,000) waiting for the Soviet tanks to roll across the border.

We have about 9,000 troops in Afghanistan....

We have about 20,000 when you include the Air Force and Marines.

So we have 15 times as many in Iraq as Afghanistan...?

Yes. And we have 2 times as many in Japan and Korea, 3 times as many in Germany, half as many in the UK, 1.5 times as many in Hawaii…

The point is that there is plenty of troops that could be sent to Afghanistan were they needed. But the fact is that the war was won with less than 20,000 troops. It might surprise you but the DOD has a pretty good handle on the situation.

The regime in Iraq which had no WMD's and among the lowest level of middle eastern countries as far as links to Al QaedaIraq is considered to be what ... fifteen times more deserving or our resources than the nation in which OBL and AQ are currently operating?

Obviously you seem to know more than the military planners at the Pentagon so please enlighten us on how many troops are needed to go against OBL and AQ. Maybe you can also show us where these troop requests were made but were “diverted” to Iraq.

What was your point again Joe?

My point? Um…what was my point? Oh, yeah, that you don’t really know what you are talking about when you claim that Iraq was a diversion from the other aspects of the GWOT.

For some odd reason the WH wouldn't answer me whan I asked them how many units they've pulled out of Afghanistian or couldn't send there because of Iraq...strange eh?

Yes it is strange that the WH doesn’t divulge troop movements to everyone that makes an inquiry. That is the strangest thing I’ve heard all week.

It does stand to reason that those 130,000 ain't there doesn't it?

Tell me again which General requested more troops in Afghanistan but was denied because they were being sent to Afghanistan.

So in short, I feel my credibility is well served by the fact we 9,000 troops in Afghanistan and we have 130,000 in Iraq.

I have to politely disagree. I think you’ve shown that you really have no clue what you are talking about on this one.

Those figures I'm confident of. Unless we have an magnitude of order more than I've indicated, we're giving Iraq a great deal more emphasis than Al Qaeda and OBL in Afghanistan.

How many troops are needed in Afghanistan? Why does your number differ from the Pentagon’s assessment?

Your credibility however is hanging by a thread. You are afterall the one who implied some kind of military expertise.

I’m willing to let the audience decide who won this round.

And you're a Marine right?

Yep.

(Just out of curiousity, why aren't you in Iraq if you feel so strongly about this? Have you already been and returned?)

Well, first of all, we don’t have a lot of say about when we get to deploy. I was scheduled to go with my unit this fall (they just left two weeks ago) but I have to fill a specific billet and the guy whose place I was supposed to take didn’t want to leave (with the tax breaks and extra money he makes roughly 15K more by staying in Iraq).

10

Joe says;

"The violence shown on TV seems intense but remember that it would take only a few hundred individuals to carry out these attacks. 9/11 was carried out by 19 individuals with a supporting group of another 40 or so. It takes a team of only 2 or 3 individuals to assemble, deploy and detonate a roadside bomb of the kind that has killed the majority of U.S. personnel. Terrorism does not have to involve a large section of the population in order to create a mediaphillic event."

Joe, if it were just a few hundred people the insurgency would have been stamped out months ago. Try adding up the numbers of insurgents that the Pentagon claims it has killed on a daily basis even just from the beginning of the year. It would be past the hundreds and into the thousands.

The snafu of post-war Iraq can be fairly blamed on in-house competition between the Pentagon and the State Depts. The fact is that there was a plan that spelled out pretty much every problem that has occurred in post-war Iraq. It had been thought out a least a year in advance before the war started. The problem is that it was put together by the State Dept. That didn't fit Rumsfield's scenario for his own private little war on the State Dept. so he convinced the President to let the Pentagon fully run the show in post-war Iraq. And so a year of planning got tossed into the rubbish heap for the sake of a few egos. And now we have a lot more mess and a lot more American and Iraqi deaths that we perhaps could have had. And remember when Iraqi oil was going to pay for the reconstruction instead of American funds?

President Bush also deserves a helping of the blame. It's the job of a leader to lead. It's one thing to promote an competitive environment in order to stimulate creativity in problem-solving. But when the competition gets out of hand to the detriment of the country, then it's the big guy's job to step in and make the children play nice. That Bush failed to do so, and in fact is continuing to fail to do so, reflects poorly on his leadership abilities.

Y'all keep telling me what a wonderful leader Bush is supposed to be. Well try providing some evidence of that for a change instead of just mouthing off the party line. Sometimes I think y'all want Bush to be the next Jesus.

If you want to read the whole pitiful story of what happened with the post-war Iraq planning you can start with this article at The Atlantic.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200401/fallows

And you don't have to take their word for it. You can also look at the Army College's post-war analysis. There are also plenty of documents on-line from the State Dept., NSA, etc. that back this up.

And try drinking a little more cynicism with your Bush-Beer. It's not Bush that is going to save you and America from terrorists anyway. It's Americans themselves, as proved by those passengers who tried to take back their plane from the 9-11 hijackers.

PS. And no, I'm not a Kerry campaign party plant and I'm not voting for him either.
Its just ticking me off that my fellow Americans so easily want to turn to a man on horseback instead of thinking and working out solutions on their own.

Why don't we just get rid of the Presidency altogether and crown Bush King instead? Then no-one but Bush will have to worry about the War on Terror and we can all go back to stuffing our faces at McDonald's.

Bah!

11

Actually, Joe, the fact that you're not in Iraq, along with over a million others in the uniformed services, tells me that we're not overcommitted anywhere.

Gee. About 25% of our active force, and approximately 10% of our total, committed to the war in Iraq.

No wonder Kerry wanted to send more troops before he wanted to pull them out before he wanted to win the war before he decided to withdraw them before the end of his first term before he decided to withdraw them in his first year to be replaced by French and Germans before today when the French and Germans said they wouldn't go regardless.

12

Patrick,

Joe says;

Actually, that quote comes from Love.

Joe, if it were just a few hundred people the insurgency would have been stamped out months ago. Try adding up the numbers of insurgents that the Pentagon claims it has killed on a daily basis even just from the beginning of the year. It would be past the hundreds and into the thousands.

Hmm...good point. So using this logic we can conclude that there are no more criminals in America since only a small percentage commit crimes and that number is already locked up. Would that be a fair assessment?

The snafu of post-war Iraq can be fairly blamed on in-house competition between the Pentagon and the State Depts. The fact is that there was a plan that spelled out pretty much every problem that has occurred in post-war Iraq. It had been thought out a least a year in advance before the war started. The problem is that it was put together by the State Dept.

I’d be interested in seeing this plan. Where can it be found?

And try drinking a little more cynicism with your Bush-Beer. It's not Bush that is going to save you and America from terrorists anyway.

Here is one area where the Right and Left seem to differ, Patrick. I rarely mention Bush in regards to the war in Iraq. The Left, on the other hand, can’t complete a sentence without mentioning both. I think it is becoming increasingly clear that the Left has an interest in seeing Iraq fail. That is why they continue to ignore any evidence that disputes that fact.

Is everything going perfectly? No. You know why? Because we just went through a war. I’m growing rather tired of the naysayers who think this is some sort of disaster. Imagine if we were told in the ‘70’s that within a four year span we would be involved in land wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and lose less than 2000 servicemembers in the process. You would be mocked for being a Pollyanna since such an idea would have been inconceivable. Yet it happened and the Left considers it a disaster. We go through a reconstruction that is has many of the same problems we faced rebuilding Germany and Japan and the Left screams “quagmire!”

It’s not about Bush. It’s not about the next election. It’s about a safer world.

13

From DR:
"A large portion of our armed forces are stuck in Iraq and thus cannot respond to other threats. Fact. Real threats Joe. Like Al Qaeda, the guys who attacked us. You remember them yes? Three thousand people dead in one morning?"

From JF Kerry: "Iraq has become a haven for terrorists since the war."

DR, Where, then, would you prefer us to fight those terrorists that Kerry mentions?

Also, what do you suppose the strategic benefit to the US would be to have a democracy in Iraq (as well as the democracy in Afghanistan). It's not about winning a battle in the war on the terrorists, or taking out bin Laden, or even Al Qaeda, it's about wining the war against all of them. Winning wars takes strategic vision.

Mark
www.sidesspot.blogspot.com

14

My point? Um…what was my point? Oh, yeah, that you don’t really know what you are talking about when you claim that Iraq was a diversion from the other aspects of the GWOT.

ROFL. And I was under the insane idea that 140,000 ground troops in the Al Qaeda strongholds of Afghanistan might be able to wage a more effective war on AQ than 9,000 moslty around Kabul. Thanks for setting me straight Joe!

I also had this crazy notion that spending 200 billion in Iraq might mean there's 200 billion we can't spend protecting ourselves from Al Qaeda, (Or on poor kids here in America) but again, I'm no match for a master of logistics like yourself. ::EG::

I'll spend some time tomorrow running down the exact make up of those units in Hawaii and elsewhere, and we'll see how they stack up against the types we have in Iraq. Any body wanna place their bets that Joe hasn't given us the whole story?

Now can we get back to reality? We've seen stop loss orders, we've seen the guard called up in large numbers in many cases. I find it a bit odd, that if we have so many other resources just waiting around for deployment to Iraq as you claim, we would need to take those actions.
That doesn't make any sense. It's simply not plausible. And a number of military planners, most of them retired and thus out from under the thumb of Bush, disagree with you completely over Iraq in general and the effect it's having on the readiness overall (EG Col David Hackworth, Wesley Clarke, more available if you wish).

I hope you fare well in Iraq. No one wants to be the last grunt to die for a mistake.

15

It's DS Mark. And if you somehow think turning a secular dictatorship like the former Iraq into recruiting hotbed for AQ jihadist is supposed to make us safer, I think I'd like to see the reasoning behind that.

In the meantime let's apply that same logic everywhere. Any secular arab country which has no connection to AQ should be invaded because then we will create more AQ recruits...hmmm..doesn't really add up huh?

16

DS
"Irrespective of the 'truth' in Iraq, the consensus among a wide range of experts is that Iraq was a blunder of the first order. No WMD's, no links to 9-11, no links to OBL. End of story."

I know of no major presentation of the case the war that rested its justification on only these things.

Many factors were listed...including banned weapons and delivery devices. Support of terrorism. The plight of the iraqi people. WMD
programmes. All these things have been found. Cherry picking that only a few WMD have been found and not large stockpiles is fairly lame.

Many of us supported the war simply because it was the best chance that the iraqi people would have at a better life, free of the brutal repression of saddam and his sons. Are you saying that this justification is not valid at all? That you would have preferred if Saddam was left in power? That is what you seem to be implying...

"A large portion of our armed forces are stuck in Iraq and thus cannot respond to other threats. Fact. Real threats Joe. Like Al Qaeda, the guys who attacked us."
The ones who had training camps in iraq?

Of course, this is also fairly disingenuous.
On the one hand is the cries of those claiming we should be more multilateral in our approach. Then, we things are not done by our troops, instead using a more multilateral approach, there is complaints of inappropriate allocation of resources.

FYI, the pakistani's appear to be doing quite well in rooting out major Al queda people.

17

Alan the war was sold as critically necessary to prevent Saddam Hussien from making his WMD's available to his AQ contacts. The liberation propaganda was not stressed very much until it became clear that neither the WMD's nor the contacts existed.

Now that Bush has lost credibility among a number of nations and some of his own constinuencie we see the new tactics.
And even still we have many here arguing the War in Iraq is a valid component of the war on terrorism even though the best anyone can do to make that case is to point out that terrorism in Iraq has increased since we went in and thus we were right to do so ...

It's interesting and always amusing to observe the delusional mind in operation. We have on this Blog a large number of regs who don't accept evolution, some of whom believe the universe is 6,000 years old, many of them are convinced an invisble sky wizard watches over them and has chosen them exclusively to reside in Nirvana. Most fervently accept the existence of a man-God Hybrid and have a personal relationship with this mythical creature; and claim the hybrid will return to earth and take of business..

While many of the believers in this mythology are relatively sane, a number of them are full blown wingnuts who decry the press as liberal and whine that everything in Iraq is going fine and according to some mysterious plan they cannot articulate. They heartily endorse codifying the constitution to enforce their religously based bigotry on the entire nation, and even though the theists at large make up a majority of the population, they cry incessantly that they're being persecuted and victimized. They cannot criticize their leader because for some odd reason in their minds to do so would be to admit imperfection ... I guess?

But when I or someone else points out that many of these forms of dementia are utter rubbish and not supported well, if at all, they demand evidence for our view. The old 'prove it's not so' routine. Often followed by accusations of treason and denounciations of all kinds. Accuse the critic of being a traitor...ahh yes a well oiled response in the play book of any fascist.
Even when given evidence they then go on to strenously avoid confronting it, denying it exists, or often constructing absurd fantasies and mind twisting apologetics to dismiss it.

Consider that on this this thread alone Joe-one of the more rational-called me a "Looney" for pointing out the map he used had some shortcomings and stating that by blowing 200 billion in Iraq and keeping 130,000 troops stationed there, it affacts our ability to effectively fight any current or future enemies.

Most rational people simply don't have the stomach to confront this bizarre mix of religion and politics, of denial and hubris, and they'll leave the ingorant alone to waddle in your mythos and ignorance, but fortuantely many of us do and as the ranks of nationalism grow that becomes ever more important.

The best weapon against the Big Lie has always been the Big Ugly Truth.

18

DS,

Alan the war was sold as critically necessary to prevent Saddam Hussien from making his WMD's available to his AQ contacts. The liberation propaganda was not stressed very much until it became clear that neither the WMD's nor the contacts existed.

How many times are the links going to have to be pointed out?

Now that Bush has lost credibility among a number of nations and some of his own constinuencie we see the new tactics.

What nations are you referring to? Germany and France? The nations that were caught in the Oil-for-Food scandal?

And even still we have many here arguing the War in Iraq is a valid component of the war on terrorism even though the best anyone can do to make that case is to point out that terrorism in Iraq has increased since we went in and thus we were right to do so ...

The problem, DS, is that you think AQ is the only component in the GWOT. Iraq was a primary supporter of Palestinian terrorist and you’ll notice that since the invasion terrorist activity in Israel has gone down significantly.

It's interesting and always amusing to observe the delusional mind in operation.

Yes, it is and you’re providing a fascinating case study.

We have on this Blog a large number of regs who don't accept evolution, some of whom believe the universe is 6,000 years old, many of them are convinced an invisble sky wizard watches over them and has chosen them exclusively to reside in Nirvana

Oh yeah, that reminds me. When are you going to explain how evolution can produce the human mind. In fact, when are you going to explain how a naturalistic account of evolution can explain anything at all? Before you go down that road, DS, you might want to be able to back up your own silly worldview.

Most fervently accept the existence of a man-God Hybrid and have a personal relationship with this mythical creature; and claim the hybrid will return to earth and take of business.

Yes, we do. And your point is…?

While many of the believers in this mythology are relatively sane, a number of them are full blown wingnuts who decry the press as liberal and whine that everything in Iraq is going fine and according to some mysterious plan they cannot articulate.

The problem is that you have not presented a single shred of evidence to prove that the Iraq occupation is going badly. What should be happening now anyway?

They heartily endorse codifying the constitution to enforce their religously based bigotry on the entire nation, and even though the theists at large make up a majority of the population, they cry incessantly that they're being persecuted and victimized.

Should we be accepting ethics based on neo-Darwinism? If not, then where do you get the objective standard to make such claims?

They cannot criticize their leader because for some odd reason in their minds to do so would be to admit imperfection ... I guess?

Once again you are providing an example of what I was talking about. For liberals, the war in Iraq is simply about Bush. Nothing more. Since they hate Bush they must find some reason to criticize the war.

But when I or someone else points out that many of these forms of dementia are utter rubbish and not supported well, if at all, they demand evidence for our view.

Um, yes, we do. Probably because you can’t back your claims up with facts.

The old 'prove it's not so' routine. Often followed by accusations of treason and denounciations of all kinds. Accuse the critic of being a traitor...ahh yes a well oiled response in the play book of any fascist.

And you wonder why people are starting to think you’re a wingnut? You make claims that you can’t back up and then when you get called on it you start braying that fascists are persecuting you.

Even when given evidence they then go on to strenously avoid confronting it, denying it exists, or often constructing absurd fantasies and mind twisting apologetics to dismiss it.

What evidence are you talking about?

Consider that on this this thread alone Joe-one of the more rational-called me a "Looney" for pointing out the map he used had some shortcomings and stating that by blowing 200 billion in Iraq and keeping 130,000 troops stationed there, it affacts our ability to effectively fight any current or future enemies.

Have you proven that it has hindered our ability to fight? No. When you do that then you can whine that we are being irrational.

Most rational people simply don't have the stomach to confront this bizarre mix of religion and politics, of denial and hubris, and they'll leave the ingorant alone to waddle in your mythos and ignorance, but fortuantely many of us do and as the ranks of nationalism grow that becomes ever more important.

Why did I ever bother to take you seriously? After you admitted that you used to misrepresent yourself on other forums I began to have my suspicions that you weren’t quite the thoughtful, honest guy you claimed to be. And now you are just going off the deep end.

The best weapon against the Big Lie has always been the Big Ugly Truth.

You know what the Big Ugly Truth is? That you have no idea what you are talking about. You know it, I know it, and everyone on this blog knows it. If you have evidence to back up your claims then provide it. Otherwise why don’t you wait until we start talking about evolution again before you chime in.

19

DS, Sorry for getting your initials wrong.

A few thoughts: First, many of those who we are now fighting in Iraq were members of al Qaeda before the invasion. Do I suspect that some have gone over to al Qaeda since the invasion? Yes, but that doesn't change the fact that we are fighting al Qaeda members there now. Again, the organization that is supporting these current terrorists existed pre-invasion.

Second, I don't think anybody is saying that the war in Iraq is going peachy. That would be foolish. Wars are ugly and the law of unintended consequences reigns. However, the point you are missing is that it's not some Vietnam-like quagmire. Progress is being made. Would everybody like it to go faster? Certainly. Would we like to have zero Coalition deaths? Certainly. Would we have rather 9/11 not happened? Certainly. Unfortunately, it's not going completely according to plan. Neither did the American Revolution, neither did the American Civil War. I think they turned out ok, so will this battle in the war on the terrorists.

Finally, I am a bit surprised by your quick move over to ad hominem attacks. Perhaps you are frustrated that your argument isn't convincing people who read this site. That's ok. However, you don't prove your point by making personal attacks. Indeed, you tend to call your own credibility into question. You run a website that purports to offer reason in response to myths. You have not done that here.

Mark

20

Joe I have no need to back up what you comically refer to as my 'world view' on evolution.

It is based on the world view you yourself use everyday, one composed of reality. You're a materialist AKA a realist Joe. You can prove me wrong by pointing out a single testable supernatural event...or you can put your money where your mouth and start using supernatural alternatives...
Hey I know ... Maybe when you're in Iraq in the middle of a fire fight, you'll renounce materialism, drop that SAW, and trust in the supernaturul alternative? EVIL GRIN

As for your 'world view', your understanding of science and mathematics is pretty shaky but I think I can work with it.
So let's educate you.. let’s apply some elementary analysis.

Joe’s Prior Premise: Anything which cannot be proven to not exist does exist. Or: Failure to prove nonexistence is evidence of existence.
Was that your premise?

“No”-You have answered your own challenge and undercut your own position. And believe me this is your best outcome.

“Yes”-Winston the Giant and Divine Turtle cannot be proven to not exist.
Thus, Winston exists. Winston decrees that no other Gods exist (and that only by accepting the refuge of Winston’s Mighty Shell can you live after death-WINK)
Thus, Jehovah does not exist. Since the ANE deity does not exist, and Winston does, I hope to shortly see you change the name of the Blog to something honoring Winston and start apreading the good news about The Mighty Turtle. A bit tongue and cheek, but that’s an example of applying faulty logic. You get nonsensical results, GIGO.

The false negative request was a bit underhanded Joe, as was the implication that your mythology holds a candle to the science you yourself prefer over that mythos when it counts, everyday. (I let you off the hook then.)

And as we’ve now seen; such an apporach is useless for your purposes as it leads to nonsense. If you denounce reality and advocate supernatural methods instead, you end up choosing prayer over a weapon, or teleportation over transportation.

Now really ... the burden of providing evidence has always lain squarely with the individual making the extra-ordinary claims of supernatural magic. And I believe you’ve been informed of this before, by me, and by others in detail, replete with examples ranging from the Tooth Fairy to Santa Claus.

Failure to provide solid evidence for your mythology while demanding exquisitely precise evidence of your own choosing to prove a concept accepted by the consensus of science is a little weird. In your own words, I think you just stpped into Looneyville. Hope you have a pleasent trip.

I can only assume you've lost your normally pleasant disposition along with your temper. I'll give you a small pass. Take the time to settle down. I suggest using materialist methods such as exercise to calm your blood pressure.

But continued use of such behavior detracts from your integrity and sets you up for a number of easy take downs on the soft underbelly of your mythos.

Joe, your behavior sets the standard on this Blog. It may seem unfair to you, this means you have to be a cut above your readers in terms of honesty and so forth. But as you’ve probably experienced, setting a poor standard opens a door you probably do not want opened; and once opened the dishonesty snowballs into name calling and shouting. Very quickly you’ve left the field of rational dialogue(Unfortauntely we may be past that with you at this time).

Not to mention that two can play by duplicitous rules if you cannot maintian an orderly set of criteria and consistent standards of evidence.

A hypothetical example:
Joe, I’m so sure your sky pixie is a myth I’ll bet my life against your faith in said pixie. I will also give everyone on the board excellent odds. Say 10:1? Winner takes all. I lose, I lose my life and you are vindicated-plus I’m not here anymore to irritate the theists with doses of skepticism. I win, you renounce your faith, or pay me. let's line our 'world views' up for side-by-side comparison.

I challenge the sky pixie to kill me. Repeat: I dare your deity to kill me dead. I double dare it. Any form of death will suffice. Otherwise, I scoff. I call you out. Is your deity shy? No excuses now ...

... I feel fine… Maybe you guys can help Joe out? Pray your brains out, burn candles, cast spells; do whatever magic it is you do, although clearly an omniscient being wouldn’t need to be informed of the challenge.
If you feel the challenge is unfair, how about a BIG meteor across South East US? That way we call can see the evidence or lack thereof.

I still feel pretty good…I see no meteors … how about we give the deity some time to work its magic? For a being that created the cosmos in 6 days and made humans out of dust in one, I feel a one hour time limit is adequate. That should be more than enough time to knock me off or shoot a chunk of rock across the sky here in the Southeast. It’s currently 9: 50 AM.

Does anyone else here want to show their faith by accepting my wager? Or will there be yet another long winded apologetic about why the mythological creature refuses to show itself or give any signs it exists, and leaves its devout followers hung out to dry on a public Blog looking like superstitious savages?
Will there be another attack on my character to try and shift focus away from your irrational logic and dishonest tactics? Or would you prefer to simply ignore the challenge while continuing to demand proof of absence?

Who among you is willing to be the first to step up to the plate here? Kevin Wyou seem mighty willing to label anyone who disagrees with you as a pussy. How about giving me an example of your courage? Rob L? Sep? Joe Carter?

I’m fairly sure this is not the kind of silliness you want to have shot across your Blog every day for the next year Joe. Hopefully I’ve made my point and you will refrain from pitching logical fallacies as claims of your superior supernatural worldview as legitimate arguments.

Folks who accept supernatural claims of magic should be very careful in their application of ridicule or demands for empirical evidence.

21

Mark we're not making progress according to most non WH mouthpiece eports. We're unable to move freely in areas we could more freely in recently.

But all that is irrelvent. the point is the primary reason to inavde Iraq tuend out to be wrong. It was a mistake. OUtside of a few diehards who can never admit an error, most people aknowledge this. I don't know if it was an honest mistake or what exactly happened. But that's the kind of error that get's you fired.
If you guys have a case for where the WMD's and AQ contacts are-and remember we need both for the initial premise to be validated-then make it. Don't forget to include the evidence you ask of others.

22

~DS~,
That last post came across as a little odd. Shannon Love (on her blog) proposed that she had come across conflicting information about Iraq, on one hand she read that things were a quagmire and on another that things were peachy. Well, she found a population density map and then plotted last months casulties in Iraq. She posted her results.

This leads down the merry path to a rant in which you postulate/decide that Christians are (or believe themselves to be) something like of evil wizards ..... Geepers, you have issues that go *way* beyond the scope of a blog. I think you're confusing Christianity with something else.

23

Joe I have no need to back up what you comically refer to as my 'world
view' on evolution. It is based on the world view you yourself use everyday, one composed of
reality.

You’re confusing a worldview that believes that evolution can occur with a materialist worldview.

You're a materialist AKA a realist Joe. You can prove me wrong by
pointing out a single testable supernatural event...or you can put your money
where your mouth and start using supernatural alternatives...

The opposite of materialist is not necessarily supernatural, just non-material. And yes I can provide a testable event. Here it is: imagine a cat. Got that image in your head? Is the image made of matter? No. Then materialism is not all there is.

?No?-You have answered your own challenge and undercut your own position. And
believe me this is your best outcome.

Your not too good at this logic stuff are you, DS? The fact that you not down a stawman does not undercut my position. My premise is that materialism is insufficient to explain everything that we find in the world.

The false negative request was a bit underhanded Joe, as was the implication that your mythology holds a candle to the science you yourself prefer over that mythos when it counts, everyday. (I let you off the hook then.)

What is science rooted in? What basis in ontology and epistemology does it have? You are way out of your element on this one. Materialism cannot provide a sufficient basis for science. That’s a simple irrefutable fact.

Now really ... the burden of providing evidence has always lain squarely with the individual making the extra-ordinary claims of supernatural magic.

So when can we expect you to support the extraordinary claim that the laws of nature were created by matter/energy and chance. I’m interested in seeing that one.

I can only assume you've lost your normally pleasant disposition along with your temper. I'll give you a small pass. Take the time to settle down. I suggest using materialist methods such as exercise to calm your blood pressure.

It’s just that your routine is growing tiresome. You start off by making unsubstantiated claims about the war in Iraq. When you are asked to support them with evidence you start whining that we are acting like fascists and that we are irrational for believing in supernatural beings. You’ve clearly lost the ability to present a reasonable argument and are falling back on this grade school nonsense about God being equivalent to the tooth fairy. Forgive me for not taking you seriously when you resort to such nonsense.

But continued use of such behavior detracts from your integrity and sets you up for a number of easy take downs on the soft underbelly of your mythos.

Please. You’ve read the TalkOrigins Faq and became convinced that theism is an indefensible position. That kind of nonsense might impress the people in the third-rate forums your used to chatting in but more sophisticated arguments will be required of you here.

Joe, your behavior sets the standard on this Blog. It may seem unfair to you,
this means you have to be a cut above your readers in terms of honesty and so
forth.

I agree. That is why I’ve attempted to be as honest as possible in all my arguments. If you have evidence that I have not been please allow me to respond to it.

But as you?ve probably experienced, setting a poor standard opens a door you probably do not want opened; and once opened the dishonesty snowballs into name calling and shouting. Very quickly you?ve left the field of rational dialogue(Unfortauntely we may be past that with you at this time).

Let me explain once more. You presented a fallacious argument that you are unable to back up with evidence. When called on it you resort to a tu quoque that I am unable to defend theism. Besides being patently silly, it also ignore the fact that I have dealt with this issue before (see my post on the Tooth Fairy and Atheism).

Not to mention that two can play by duplicitous rules if you cannot maintian an orderly set of criteria and consistent standards of evidence.

I?m fairly sure this is not the kind of silliness you want to have shot across
your Blog every day for the next year Joe. Hopefully I?ve made my point and you
will refrain from pitching logical fallacies as claims of your superior
supernatural worldview as legitimate arguments.

Good grief. I’ve tolerated some real dumb remarks on this blog but your wearing out my patience. You’re going to give trolls a bad name with this type of goofy behavior. If you want to stick around here then stay on topic and defend your argument. If not then please go bother someone else.

24

Mark I don't think we're in the kind of mess we were in Vietnam. Not by a long shot.
But as you say, things aren't not peachy. The WH was wrong about a lot of stuff in Iraq.

WMD's and AQ contacts-wrong
Greeted as liberators-mostly wrong
Trusting Chalabi-wrong
Iraqi oil will pay the cost-wrong

It seems to make sense to me that we've given OBL an enormous recrutiing tool with no direct benefit to ouselves at great cost to our treasury.
We've certainly made people safer from Saddam; In Iran. I don't see how disarming a dictator who was already disarmed and boxed in more effectively than anyone else in the region has made us safer.

As far as Christians, wiccans, or any other set of superntaurlists, believers of magic, worshippers of deities, whatever you want to call them, I find it useful to divide them into two arbitrary classes.

1. Those who accept the information of their own senses and the reasoning power of their own brain over the claims of magic.

2. Those who do not.

I can deal with the first group. They're pretty normal people, I even have friends who are all kinds of religious. I think they're dead wrong about the existence of magic creatures with supernatural powers, but there's not much I can do about that and I don't think I would intervene in their faith if I could. Not without something at least as comforting to replace it with, and I don't have such replacement.

The second ... well the second is frankly a cross between hilarious and depressing. I don't really want to openly ridicule them, but when someone who believes in ancient superstition and medival magic calls me a "looney" ... geez what else can you do but succintly point out that they're not exactly a paragon of rationality?

Speaking of which...10:34 EST and no sign of impending death or large meteors ...YVWH's cutting it kind of close.
I'm not surprised the defenders of supernaturalism haven't jumped at the chance to demonstrate their conviction. They're full of crap and they know it.

I figure they're furiously reviewing apolgetics to excuse their deities failure. Don'tbother. Excuse are like ...well you know the rest.

25

Joe ... Yawn.

26

Try again Joe. Obviously a bullet through my head destroys my 'vision of cat' pretty dang quick. I'd say that's pretty solid evidence that that vision is based on the material in my brain.

Active MRI's can show the precise areas of the brain that are active in given mental tasks such as the one you just tried to pitch by me.

Now stop playng word games. Give me a single example of a supernatural testable event. It is afterall the supernatural alternative you feel sciences such as evoluitionary biology are over looking...or do you renounce such a view and take the courageous stance that no supernatural events have been over looked or under weighed by same?

Science cannot adequetely explain why I like Pink Floyd over Lawrence Welk. Buig deal. That doesn't advance magic or the supernatural as an alternative explanation.

I'm sorry if you don't like the reality of science and I honestly feel empathy for you if you think you have a handle on any kind of formal analysis. I won't embaress you further on that topic.

Wow .. 10:52. EG

27

DS,

When you first started commenting on this blog I thought you made some interesting points. Now you've just become a boring little troll. I realize that the Internet provides a cushion of anonymity but aren't you even the slightest bit embarrassed by your behavior?

Your rants about “supernaturalism”, for example, exhibit all of the philosophical insight of a third-grader. “I don’t believe in magic. You can’t prove it exists! Ergo, God doesn’t exist!” And then you strut around triumphantly like this is some sort of damning argument.

Perhaps your time would be better spent with a basic textbook on philosophy. You keep going on an on about “reason” but yet you’ve never explained (a) what ontological status it has in a purely materialistic universe and (b) how it provides a sufficient basis for epistemology. Once you get those basic points down then you might be worth taking seriously.

Your not only embarrassing yourself, your bringing shame upon atheists who at least attempt to make reasonable defenses of their beliefs. Your last few comments have been a train wreck of whining and juvenile behavior. Heck, you’re annoying me and I’m exceedingly tolerant. I can just imagine what the other readers are thinking.

28

Isn't it funny how the Liberal Left doesn't believe in God, because they can't see him or hear him. And they don't believe Iraq ever had any WMD's, because they haven't been found yet.

But they all, universally, agree that Osama bin Laden is still alive, even though he hasn't been seen in over two years? Kerry's meal ticket wife believes that he will reappear just in time to save Bush's re-election. The second coming of Osama bin Laden? Better still, his resurrection--since he was flattened in the percussion bombing at Tora Bora?

See? Just when you thought the liberals on this site had no faith, they believe in Osama. Osama lives!!

29

I challenge the sky pixie to kill me. Repeat: I dare your deity to kill me dead. I double dare it. Any form of death will suffice. Otherwise, I scoff. I call you out. Is your deity shy? No excuses now ...

How lame, I've heard better arguments from 6-year olds debating the existance of Santa Claus or Larry Lord. There was a time when you would occasionally make an interesting point, but this kind of stuff is just embarassing and really not worthy of serious thought.

30

Whoops I meant, I've heard better arguments from 6-year olds debating the existance of Santa Clause or from Larry Lord. I doubt that very many 6-year olds debate the existance of Larry Lord. Grammar can be a harsh mistress.

31

Joe I'm not swayed by arguments that reality doesn't count because it cannot be reduced to your satisfaction.

The science I've learned is not built on philosophical abstractions or contingent on metaphysical assumptions. It's built on observation and testing and advances via the same venue.
The entire field of philosophy could fall into the sun and science would still be valid. It's quite simple really.
I can understand why, if you disagree with many of the findings of science, you're drawn to follow those who cook up various apologetics for why facts don't count. Facts count regardless of such objections. At least they do in science.

If you're so convinced that science and materialism don't give the whole story, and that supernaturalism has been over looked, then take your own challenge and cough up some evidence.
Pray your comments onto the Blog or something, or give me an example of supernatural phenomena we can test.

I agree we’ve gotten way off here. My original concern was that we’ve taken our eye off the ball in Afghanistan and Pakistan. That Iraq has been a drain on resources and and a net loss for our efforts to go after the guys who attacked on us on 9-11.

You asked for my reasoning and evidence. I apologize for pointing out that that’s an odd request coming from someone who routinely dismisses empirical evidence in favor of solipsisms and supernatural events when it disagrees with their mythology.

It’s surely a piece of cake to dismiss subjective evidence of any kind if you can blow off observed facts, but here goes:

From the WSJ “The spate of arrests of terrorist suspects from Pakistan to Britain, while trumpeted as a sign of the progress in the war on terror, has set off a debate within the intelligence community about whether the al Qaeda command structure, thought to have been crippled, still is strong. Despite three years of war, the extremist network created by Osama bin Laden is operating both within a traditional company, top-down command structure, as well as with free-lance franchisees, experts say, making it all the more difficult for the Bush administration to claim victory. "Whatever hits al Qaeda has taken we can now see that the organization was conducting business as usual," says Bruce Hoffman, the acting director for Middle East policy at research organization Rand Corp. and an expert in terrorism and counterintelligence. "This points to a movement with much deeper benches than we imagined, that can build and replenish its leadership as it needs."

Source http://www.pakistan-facts.com/article.php/20040817194537322

This seems to indicate that our efforts in limiting Al Qaeda have been moderately successful; But they’re still operating. We started out pretty good but then just kind of let up.
The inference is that more resources would produce more success and not letting up would have kept the heat on. And I have to wonder why we aren’t going after these guys with everything we’ve got.

From MSNBC source http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6090598/ :
Brokaw: Do you think the American war against Iraq was a mistake?
Musharraf: Well, I wouldn't comment on that. But I will certainly say that it has complicated the issue.
Brokaw: In your part of the world.
Musharraf: In the Islamic world. In the Iraqi region. In the Middle East.
Brokaw: Made it worse for America?
Musharraf: Yes.

This is an ally in the region who is saying the Iraq War is making our job tougher, not easier, just a couple of days ago.

Military leaders and writers who criticize the war in Iraq: Col David Hackworth, Gen Wesley Clark, Joseph Galloway, many others.

That’s a fair representative sample of what’s out there.
Total ground troop strength in Iraq: ~140,000 (are we counting AF and Navy forces stationed off shore?)
Total ground troop strength in Afghanistan: ~10,000
Cost of Iraq so far: 100 billion? Perhaps as much as 200 Billion over the next few years?
Cost of Afghanistan: 12-18 billion? Perhaps as much as 40 billion if we follow through?
Number of Al Qaeda and Taliban 9-11 conspirators captured in Iraq-0,
Afghanistan and Pakistan-at least dozens if not hundreds

It also happens to make sense that whacking Iraq pissed off a bunch of arab citizens thus hindering the cooperation they would be likely to give us in any endeavor. It also makes sense that by alienating the EU and the asian nations we've again limited the cooperation of those nations.

That might be worth it if we had something to show for it. But as yet no WMD's and no high level links to AQ or 9-11.

Thus we have measurable assets being spent on iraq, money and lives and blood, which could be spent elsewhere. We have the testimony of a number of allies that iraq is making our fight tougher, Musharaf being the most recent and devastating, we have Intel that AQ was crippled being reassesed, we have OBL and others not accounted for, and to top it off the whole thing makes sense...It is plausible.

This is not my 'world view'. This is a sentiment voiced by many who know a great deal more than you or I. It's freely available, easy to find, even on talk shows every night.

32

Yes Robb I'm well aware of the need to apologize for your deities mysterious insistance on imitating one which does not exist. We see that every day from all kinds of religious folks.
And of course the obligatory ad hom after another demonstration of failure on the part of said sky pixie to act.

You guys sure seem big lately on asking for evidence and claiming science lacks some kind of 'basis' in philosophy.

And yet you cannot demonstrate the being which forms the basis of your own lifestyle even makes sense, much less exists. Wow!

Maybe you should take a heaping helping of your own advice? Where's the beef?

33

This is an interesting debate. Funny the subject was changed to young earth creationism from Iraq. Might it be because DS is citing BS while others are posting actual content? Time to change the battlefield to a subject he thinks he can win. Except all this isn't winning him any points because he doesn't know his audience...

34

Funny the subject was changed to young earth creationism from Iraq. Might it be because DS is citing BS while others are posting actual content?

It might be Jeff, except you were a little slow on the draw there Ace. See my last post.

Look folks I'm bored out of my mind sitting here in a virtually abandonded office in the wake of Hurricane Jeanne. The phones aren't working well, we have no bosses here, most of the local community is still coming out of Hurricane fatigue and there's not a heck of a lot for me to do but argue with several fundies at once online. It's really not persanal, I don't expect I'm going to change anyone's mind, this is just entertainment for me.

Yes, it's kinda pathetic that that's all I have to do for the next day or so, but I didn't choose these circumstances and that's why I'm so prolific right now.
I'll probably get bored with trying to discuss facts with right wing religiouos fundamentalists, I always burn out of that hopeless self imposed task sooner or later, and go looking elsewhere.

35

Here's an article by a fellow named Mike Turner, described as a former military planner. Don't know anything about him but the material addresses the topic:

Hat Tip- Ed Brayton "Dispatches from the Culture Wars"
Source and full article http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6091356/site/newsweek/

Excerpt: "To discern the truth about Iraq, Americans must simply look beyond the spin. This war is not some noble endeavor, some great struggle of good against evil as the Bush administration would have us believe. We in the military have heard these grand pronouncements many times before by men who have neither served nor sacrificed. This war is an exercise in colossal stupidity and hubris which has now cost more than 1,000 American military lives, which has empowered Al Qaeda beyond anything those butchers might have engineered on their own and which has diverted America's attention and precious resources from the real threat at the worst possible time."

36

Yes Robb I'm well aware of the need to apologize for your deities mysterious insistance on imitating one which does not exist.

So, because God chooses not to kill you when challenged is proof of His non-existance? That's rather amusing, that the Almighty does not act like a teenage gangbanger when challenged is proof that he doesn't exist, and you expect a serious response to that bit of tripe? Does that mean that if you issued the same challenge to me, and I chose not to answer it, it is proof that I don't exist? I mean, I am (assuming I exist) a pretty fair pistol and rifle shot and am proficient in several forms of both armed and unarmed combat, so I am probably capable of killing you, assuming of course you really exist. Wow DS, you get more "trollish" (is that a word?) with each post.

37

So, because God chooses not to kill you when challenged is proof of His non-existance?

No Robb, because your specific version of God hasn't chosen to act in any testable way for anybody since the invention of the phonograph is one primary shortcoming of the deity in question.

Not to mention the whole concept of YVWH desends from a group of bronzed goat herders who knew even less about how the universe works than the most bone headed fundie on ... well anyway. There are other problems but I'll lay off and hopefully we can get back around to the topic.

That challenge was very basic I freely admit. And I couched it in a hypothetical, as a demonstration of silliness.

It's not my fault you took it seriously. I don't think anyone truly expects miracles from deities to happen anymore except for some pretty deranged people, despite the lip srvice some pay to the idea.

How about the articles, figures, and reasoning I presented arguing the War in Iraq is a drain on our resources?

38

Rob PS, I'm sure you quite proficient in the deadly skills you profess. Naturally no one would, or ever has, exaggerated that kind of thing on the Internet…

But I never doubted you existed. So I wouldn't issue demands or criteria under which you could prove to me you exist [shrug].

39

Regarding the Saddam/Al Qaeda link... the 9/11 Commission said there was no "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and al Qaeda.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47812-2004Jun16.html

This doesn't mean there were never any *contacts,* but contacts do not a collaborative relationship make. Saddam certainly supported Palestinian terror against Israel, but that's hardly a reason for America to take over Iraq. We've got enough of our *own* problems with terrorists, don't we?

40

I come here frequently, haven't commented yet. I appreciate your effort Joe, but DS isn't reasonable, or even capable of dealing with facts, primary sources, or military know-how. Just let him go quietly into that good night and save yourself the trouble. Let's get back to dealing with people who actually inhabit the real world and can have a decent conversation.

41

Yes, it's kinda pathetic that that's all I have to do for the next day or so, but I didn't choose these circumstances and that's why I'm so prolific right now.
I'll probably get bored with trying to discuss facts with right wing religiouos fundamentalists, I always burn out of that hopeless self imposed task sooner or later, and go looking elsewhere.

This does help me understand your motivation better, because generally I have never understood why an atheist cares about a war that doesn't personally effect them anyway...

Jack

42

It's not my fault you took it seriously.

I thought I was pretty clear that I didn't take your challenge seriously, I was amazed that you would spend so much time on it. You certainly appeared to take it much more seriously than is worthy.

I don't think anyone truly expects miracles from deities to happen anymore except for some pretty deranged people, despite the lip srvice some pay to the idea.

That is really your main problem, you can't imagine that any reasonable person could disagree with you or your worldview and actually believe in miracles or in God. We either don't really mean it (pay lip service) or we are deranged lunatics.

BTW--I may have exagerated my pistol marksmanship a bit. My wife is a much better shot than I; which is one of the reasons (in addition to that whole wedding vow thing) I would never consider cheating on her.

43

~DS~
You misquoted me. I didn't say, "But as you say, things aren't not peachy."

Re-read my post. I said that Shannon had, as have we all, seen *reports* that conflicted. Some said things were "not peachy" some said things were going ok. That's not the same as me saying "things are not peachy". Again, (which you must have missed) she produced analysis, which you continue to ignore, demonstrating the limited geographical scope of the insurgency and noting that this is *NOT REPORTED IN THE MSM*. In fact, her methods in analysis seem to be a better way of getting at what is going on than trying to decide a priori which/whose reports of the situation on the ground that you wish to believe.

You first response to Joe's presentation of this was .... to quote you, (it is) "incomprehensible to many of us moderates how you can post such material". I think you mis-represent yourself as a moderate and it is not clear how you draw your conclusion from the initial post. You certainly have not addressed the analysis/arguments in the original post.

Oh, I'll pose one other question. Do you categories all Christians as "fundies" or do you have other categories? It seems to me any Christian who actually believes in his faith by your lights is a fundamentalist. Just so you know, that isn't the standard terminalogy for "fundamentalist". You might want to use the term "Christian" and "non-Christian" in the future.

44

DS- "this is just entertainment for me."

I have no interest in entertaining this bigot. Moving on.

45

Kevin writes

"Actually, Joe, the fact that you're not in Iraq, along with over a million others in the uniformed services, tells me that we're not overcommitted anywhere."

Typically, our own military disagrees with the so-called "experts" here on the Evangelical Outpost.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=676&e=2&u=/usatoday/20040928/ts_usatoday/formersoldiersslowtoreport

Of the 1,662 ready reservists ordered to report to Fort Jackson, S.C., by Sept. 22, only 1,038 had done so, the Army said Monday. About 500 of those who failed to report have requested exemptions on health or personal grounds.

"The numbers did not look good," said Lt. Col. Burton Masters, a spokesman for the Army's Human Resources Command. "We are tightening the system, reaching the people and bringing them in."

Masters said most of the requests for exemptions are likely to be denied: "To get an exemption, it has to be a very compelling case, such as a severe medical condition."

The figures are the first on the IRR call-up. They reflect the challenges the Pentagon (news - web sites) faces in trying to find enough troops for ongoing operations and show resistance among some servicemembers who returned to civilian life.

The ready reserve is an infrequently used pool of former soldiers who can be called to duty in a national emergency or war. On June 29, the Army announced it would call 5,674 members of its IRR back to active duty this year and next.

Several of those who received recall notices have already been declared AWOL (absent without official leave) and technically are considered deserters. "We are not in a rush to put someone in the AWOL category," Masters said. "We contact them and convince them it is in their best interests to show up. If you are a deserter, it can affect you the rest of your life."

Fourteen people were listed as AWOL last week; six subsequently told the Army they would report. Punishment for being AWOL is up to the unit commander and can include prison time and dishonorable discharge, said Col. Joseph Curtin, an Army spokesman.

With a force that generals say is stretched thin, the Army is considering $1,000-a-month bonuses to ex-soldiers who volunteer to return for overseas duty.

Ready reservists are soldiers who were honorably discharged after finishing their active-duty tours, usually four to six years, but remain part of the IRR for the rest of their original eight-year commitment. The IRR call-up is the first major one in 13 years, since 20,277 troops were ordered back for the Persian Gulf War

46

Joe says:

I’d be interested in seeing this plan. Where can it be found?

This was in response to what I wrote earlier:

"The snafu of post-war Iraq can be fairly blamed on in-house competition between the Pentagon and the State Depts. The fact is that there was a plan that spelled out pretty much every problem that has occurred in post-war Iraq...."

Joe,
I have been unable to find an on-line resource for the plan itself, but I have found other references to it. The plan itself was apparently 2500 pages in length so it is not too surprising it's not on-line. It was however a 5 million project funded by Congress, so it's existence is pretty well documented.

There were actually several post-war plans made that were ignored. One even by your Marine Corps. You can find descriptions of them in the post-war analysis at the Army War College at the link below.

http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usacsl/publications/S04-02.pdf

The original article I referred to in the Atlantic was for subscribers only, so I'll post it on my website a little later today.

47

Jack writes

"I have never understood why an atheist cares about a war that doesn't personally effect them anyway..."

Huh?????????????

Just bizarre. Sometimes I think I've seen it all here and then someone like Jack proves that human ignorance has no limits.

48

Evidence that God exists. Or that the word “God” has meaning beyond the marks on this screen. Written evidence? The Bible. Don’t like that evidence? What about the evidence that “Bush was lying.” Written somewhere by someone. No WMDs? Who says so? Oh, written evidence. Have you seen, other than by photographs (Photoshop, anyone?), the fact that people are dying in Iraq? Or even that the World Trade Towers were destroyed by planes? Oh, the TV images…like, Hollywood?

A flood, and Noah believed.

Bloody water, frogs, gnats, dead livestock, boils, hail, locusts, darkness, and dead first-born. Pharaoh still didn’t believe. Of course, we only have written proof these things happened.

Do I only believe my on senses? Another age, LSD enabled me to converse with a magic man who wasn’t there. But I thought I was taking with him.

Are terrorists evil? Should they be stopped? Where? Should the US be a moral force in the world today? When I stand before the Creator of the universe, and His Son recognizes me as I have recognized Him, will the silly thought, “I told you so!” even for one second pass through my mind? I think not.

49

DS, you are ranting, not discussing. And you apparently don't really know how to do either, very well. Plus, you go on and on and on and on ............and on. Grow up!

Your POV is obvious but not shared by too many readers of this blog. If you want others to join your way of thinking, then get your own blog, and see how many hits it receives.

I don't know why Joe sees any value in responding to your ill-conceived and immature opinions. You sound a lot like C3PO, but I don't really mean to be mean.

It's just that this blog is actually bigger than you. If you could just listen, you might wise up!

50

Ok sorry Mark. I saw peachy in their somewhere.

I'm getting hit pretty good with plenty of requests for evidence, sources, sites, and so forth. I'm sure my e-mail box back home is loaded down :)

Mostly what Joe has asked of me is what I've been surfing around for. He mainly seemed focused on asking me to justify my implication/statements that the War in Iraq is acting as a distraction, pulling resources away from AQ, screwing up our morale, undermining our moderate Arab allies and making it tougher for them to openly support us, and generally hindering the GWoT.

Statements along the lines of [paraphrasing] "You've presented no evidence for yada yada yada...and don't know what you're talking about ... yada yada yada you're a looney, yada yada yada" are what gave me that idea.

Now, when someone who worships invisible supernatural creatures and who decries the absense of supernaturalism in the scientific method, calls others a "Looney" and demands evidence, naturally I'm going to have a bit of fun with that and make things difficult for them. So I couldn't resist tweaking him. But I'm not going to ignore the request.

So I've also supplied much of what was requested, have at it.

51

Just bizarre. Sometimes I think I've seen it all here and then someone like Jack proves that human ignorance has no limits.

Seriously, why would they?

Jack

52

Mark,

Just saw your follow-up question. Oh, I'll pose one other question. Do you categories all Christians as "fundies" or do you have other categories?

Most definately no. There are fundies who are not Christians. Al Qaeda for example is chock full of them.

And there are Christians I would not consider fundies. There are fundies I would not consider as members of the religious right.
There are members of the religous right I would not consider fundies.
And just because someone is a fundie doesn't mean I dislike them. I know a couple of definite evangelical fundies in Austin who believe in YEC and are a blast to hang out with and very interesting to talk about all kinds of stuff with.

53

I missed this from Joe the first time around:

"Here is one area where the Right and Left seem to differ, Patrick. I rarely mention Bush in regards to the war in Iraq. The Left, on the other hand, can’t complete a sentence without mentioning both. I think it is becoming increasingly clear that the Left has an interest in seeing Iraq fail. That is why they continue to ignore any evidence that disputes that fact."

I do not believe that I have said Iraq was a failure. I described it as a mess. Like Florida is a mess. However I do not believe willful ignorance is helpful, no matter who's administration it falls under. And the term "Liberal" is probably misapplied in regards to myself.

As far as the "Left" having an interest in Iraq failing, .I think that has been evident even before the war started. But that behavior is not limited to the Left by any means. I recall when Clinton bombed the terrorist camps in Afganistan that the "Right" claimed he was trying to divert attention from his own troubles. And when it turned out that the attack had failed to get Bin Laden, they were positively gleeful about it.

In my original post I described the willful ignorance that has helped to make post-Iraq more difficult than it needed to be. I referenced an article in the Atlantic. That article is now posted on my site in full. (it's 30 pages long so I thought it would be rude to post it here).-not to mention I didn't want Joe to get into copyright trouble.

54

"As far as the "Left" having an interest in Iraq failing, .I think that has been evident even before the war started."

Um, I guess the "Left" has an interest in Iraq failing in the same way they have an interest in increasing numbers of elderly dying because they can't afford health care: it's more evidence that Bush is an incompetent idiot. Unfortunately, this alleged "interest" is dubious because no additional evidence is needed at this point.

Seriously, the suggestion that "the Left" is somehow cheering for our soldiers to die, for terrorism to spread more rapidly so that America can get attacked again, and for tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of Iraqis to die in a civil war which we started ... that is simply repugnant, not to mention absurd.

55

DS. How's this for an ad hominem attack? You're an idiot, ergo your posts are irrelevant.
Empirical materialism CANNOT explain, and CANNOT HOPE to explain, much less VALIDATE the evolution of the human brain or eye. They are too irreducibly complex to be explained by purely materialistic origins. Now, I am not arguing that by this simple statement Supernaturalism is vindicated. I am arguing that you and all your vaunted Empirical Materialist ilk haven't one shred of the humility which the Catholic Church has displayed by their eventual disavowal of pre-Copernican cosmology. It would never occur to you arrogant b***ards to examine your own assumptions.
You are as arrogant as the Catholic Church was during Galileo's day. You just won't f***ing admit it. A pox on your house. And don't think that God hasn't known your arrogant thoughts.That He doesn't take you up on your dare is only evidence of His Mercy, and not a little acknowledgment of your triviality.

56

DS. How's this for an ad hominem attack? You're an idiot, ergo your posts are irrelevant.

SV, I give it a score of 6 on a scale of 1 to 10. It's not terribly original, but it is at least spoken from the heart and plus you threw in a pox curse! And it made me chuckle so thanks for that.

Here's how I would bump up the originality portion; make it into a joke with me as the butt. I'll demonstrate using you as the butt of a joke.

Top Ten Signs You Might Be Using The Bankrupt Philosophy of Materialism or Methodological Naturalism:

Number 10: You enter and exit buildings through doorways instead of teleporting in, and if you open a closed door instead of trying to walk through it you're a super-duper double-duped materialist.

Number 9: You rely on sex to produce biological offspring

Number 8: You think round objects roll better than cubical ones AND that that has always been the case

Number 7: You're afraid of heights primarily because the idea of falling long distances frightens you.

Number 6: If you go to the ER for a perforated bowel or a ruptured spleen instead of visiting the local psychic faith healer, you might be succumbing to materialism. Shame on you.

Number 5: Your mind and your body tend to go most places together

Number 4: You might be under the dogmatic spell of the materialist lobby if you're going to physically vote in the Presidential election instead of employing a super natural alternative.

Number 3: You infer drinking water will quench your thirst based on past experience. Be strong in your beliefs! Don't make egregious materialist speculations like this.

Number 2: If you're reading this online instead of using remote viewing, you're probably a hopeless materialist.

And the number reason sign you might be a materialist: You count on a device called a throttle to make your car speed up and a brake to make your car slow down; AND you use the steering wheel a lot.

You do any of those things and thousands more like them on a regular basis and you're a habitual materialist. For shame!

57

DS
"Alan the war was sold as critically necessary to prevent Saddam Hussien from making his WMD's available to his AQ contacts. The liberation propaganda was not stressed very much until it became clear that neither the WMD's nor the contacts existed."
Really? Funny, i thought it was, in reference Saddam's WMD, that he might give them to Terrorists, not AQ.
And as to being stressed. It was there in every major presentation. The UN, Congress, SOTUA, etc etc etc. Perhaps you should stop listening to the ravings of the lunatic fringe of the left and look into it yourself.

Sticking your fingers in your ears when the Government talked about ALL the reasons before the war and then claiming they didn't is lame.

For a while, I thought that Saddam didn't have WMD, and that he was merely deluded by his military that he had it. Yet, in seeing this quote by saddam yesterday, I gotta say, it sounds like he did have it....
From wikipedia...

"On December 14 Saddam Hussein was captured by U.S. forces. Time Online Edition reports that in his first interrogation he was asked whether Iraq had any WMD's. According to an official, his reply was: "'No, of course not, the U.S. dreamed them up itself to have a reason to go to war with us.' The interrogator continued along this line, said the official, asking: 'if you had no weapons of mass destruction then why not let the U.N. inspectors into your facilities?' Saddam’s reply: 'We didn’t want them to go into the presidential areas and intrude on our privacy.'” "

Nice of you to ignore the other questions...

58

Alan you're making a mistake. I was initially all for the war and spent any number of frustrating evenings in chat rooms and on the message boards defending it. I don't claim to be the most well informed person on every nuance, but I think I had a decent handle on the basic arguments made for why preemptive action was justified.

None of them had anything to do with freeing Iraqi's. That was merely a pleasant fuzzy feel good possible side benefit.
As the war progressed a number of glaring problems soon arose in the post war environment. Most of the problems we have now in fact arise from the poor postwar planning. Poor is saying it nicely, non existent would be perhaps more accurate.
And as the WMD's failed to materialize and the situation entered a spiraling cycle of insurgent violence I did what anyone who's interested in accuracy does; I reevaluated my position.

I looked to see if this had been predicted and sure enough, right there for everyone to see, Shinseki, Zinni, a host of others who were poo-poo'ed, marginlaized, and ultimately the victim[s] of whisper campaigns and intense pressure from the DoD to retire, were easy to find predicting exactly what happened after the fall of organized Ba'athist resistance and warning the WH they were going in too light.
As other problems surfaced, I came to realize I was wrong and have since become more and more critical of the entire action.

59

Joe:

Why are you still pounding on the "links" between Hussein's regime and al-Qaeda? Links which everyone not married to the administration acknowledges are insignificant. Have you forgotten that I linked Kevin Bacon with Al-Qaeda with equal ease?

Whether you acknowledge it or not, fewer and fewer people, even on your side of the aisle, are clinging to the myth that things in Iraq are going anywhere near as well as planned, and some are starting to express doubt that there even was a cogent plan.

No substantial weapons finds. No substantial links to al-Qaeda. Iraq has been a distraction of the first order, and no amount of sugar-coating and post-hoc justification will change any of that.

You and Alan and others can claim that there were other justifications for going into Iraq besides weapons, significant links to 9-11, and significant links to al-Qaeda, but I triple dog dare you to try to tell me, with a straight face, that the American public would ever have supported the war without at least two of those three primary justifications.

And for my evidence that those were, in fact, the primary justifications, see here, and better yet, :

The issue facing our nation and the world is the extension of the war on terror to places like Iraq. Prior to September the 11th, there was apparently no connection between a place like Iraq and terror. Oh, sure, he had run some terrorist networks out of his country, and that was of concern to us. But it was very difficult to link a terrorist network and Saddam Hussein to the American soil. As a matter of fact, it was very difficult to link any attack on the American soil, because prior to September the 11th, we were confident that two oceans could protect us from harm.

The world changed on September the 11th. Obviously, it changed for thousands of people's lives for whom we still mourn. But it changed for America, and it's very important that the American people understand the change. We are now a battle ground. We are vulnerable. Therefore, we cannot ignore gathering threats across the ocean. It used to be that we could pick or choose whether or not we would become involved. If we saw a threat, it may be a threat to a friend, in which case we would be involved, but never did we realize the threat could be directed at the American people.

And that changed. And therefore, when we hear of stories about weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a brutal dictator, who hates America, we need to take that seriously, and we are. And when we find out there's links between Baghdad and a killer who actually ordered the killing of one of our fellow citizens, we've got to realize the -- what that means to our future.

And that's why this administration and this country is holding the U.N. Security Council and the world to its demands that Saddam Hussein disarm. It is important for the country to realize that Saddam Hussein has fooled the world for 12 years, is used to fooling the world, is confident he can fool the world. He is -- wants the world to think that hide and seek is a game that we should play. And it's over.

Yeah, I'm sure the American people would gladly have rushed to war to "free Iraq" if they knew Iraq wasn't a legitimate threat. Sorry, but that's just wishful thinking.

Sorry for the long rant, but this sort of excuse-making for this administration's foul-ups really makes me angry. Joe, you get frustrated when people refuse to acknowledge what you see as obvious flaws in Kerry's character and Kerry's proposed policy. Think about that, and you can start to imagine how some of us view your seemingly blindly loyal defense of Bush.

60

tgirsch,

You and Alan and others can claim that there were other justifications for going into Iraq besides weapons, significant links to 9-11, and significant links to al-Qaeda, but I triple dog dare you to try to tell me, with a straight face, that the American public would ever have supported the war without at least two of those three primary justifications.

Iraq refused to allow inspections so no one knew before the invasion that we would not find stockpiles of WMDs. That point is still justified. And contrary to the way you choose to spin it, the 9-11 commission found there were links to al-Qaeda that went back decades. So that point is still justified. When you look at the justifications that Bush actually gave (rather than the strawman that has been built since) the reasons appear to have been solid based on the information we had at the time.

No, I have no idea why anyone would think that terror links and weapons were the primary justifications the president was using. I guess we're a bunch of idiots for, oh, taking him at his word. We should have been paying attention to the fine print instead of listening to what he said over, and over, and over, and over again. 9/11. Al-Qaeda. Iraq. 9/11. Al-Qaeda. Iraq. Sill