Practical Penumbra

Mountain Girl appears to be the product of an inferior education system - one that did not teach her how to reason. She has memorized a few "facts" that she has seen/heard others use and now tries to tie them together into a coherent train of thought. It doesn't work, but she is not aware of that. Her frustration will persist as long as she remains mired in her 'denial of logic' system. Kinda like a 'denial of service' error, but not as easy to correct.

Allow me to explain my logic. Never did I say our troops are "behaving suprisingly like Saddam Hussein's forces". I merely posted a letter I found disturbing. I don't believe our troops are killing innocent bystanders for shits and giggles. When a war is raging, innocent civilians are killed. Now before you jump to conclusions (since you can so obviously read my mind) let me just state that I am not necessarily anti-war. My president lied to me, made me feel justified for this war, and the terror has not abated. If anything this letter makes me feel as if civilian Iraqi's who were not part of any terror group are now seeing terrorist tactics as their only way of survival against the Forces invading their country. When civilians feel this way we must be doing something wrong. Thanks for the discussion.

Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism by Robert Page

Robert Page did a study of suicide bombing from 1995-2004 here are some interesting points our administration should consider:

* The data show that there is far less of a connection between suicide terrorism and religious fundamentalism than most people think
* What nearly all suicide terrorist attacks actually have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland
* Three general patterns in the data support these conclusions
1. First, nearly all suicide terrorist attacks - 301 of the 315 in the period I studied - took place as part of organized political or military campaigns
2. Second, democracies are uniquely vulnerable to suicide terrorists; America, France, India, Israel, Russia, Sri Lanka and Turkey have been the targets of almost every suicide attack of the past two decades
3. Third, suicide terrorist campaigns are directed toward a strategic objective: from Lebanon to Israel to Sri Lanka to Kashmir to Chechnya, the sponsors of every campaign - 18 organizations in all - are seeking to establish or maintain political self-determination
* Before Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982, there was no Hezbollah suicide terrorist campaign against Israel; indeed, Hezbollah came into existence only after this event.
* Before the Sri Lankan military began moving into the Tamil homelands of the island in 1987, the Tamil Tigers did not use suicide attacks
* Before the huge increase in Jewish settlers on the West Bank in the 1980's, Palestinian groups did not use suicide terrorism
* There had never been a documented suicide attack in Iraq until after the American invasion in 2003

So how is it again my logic is flawed?

No, Mountain Girl--I am the one who compared what the letter writer accuses our troops of to the documented behavior of the Iraq military under Saddam. Furthermore, I suggest you read this and then provide some facts to back up your allegation that the President lied to you. I also dispute your assertion that the author of that letter is just an ordinary Iraqi civilian. MY suspicion is that he is either a Baathist who lost a cushy job or a Muslim extermist--why else would he try to justify the London bombing?

MG--you just proved your logic is flawed! Terrorists have used bombs to create havoc in society since their invention. Anarchists attempted the overthrow of governments with assassination bombs at the turn of the century. It is only the attachment of Islamic religion to politics (Muslim martyrs go straight to heaven) that created the suicide bomber.

"My president lied to me, made me feel justified for this war, and the terror has not abated."

He.
Did.
Not.
He believed poor intel, yes - but so did pretty much everybody else.

Also, I would wager that Israel has been the target of a vast majority of those suicide attacks. Not because they're a democracy, but because the rest of the Arab world has hated them for thousands of years. It's disgusting how many concessions Israel has made to Palestine, with nothing but more dead Jews in return.

Yes.
He.
Did.

The president goes to war based on poor intelligence and that makes him a'okay? What kind of flawed logic is that? A president IS president because the American people put faith in him to cull out the "poor intelligence". That's his job! You are right about one thing, there is definitely some poor intelligence in our administration.

Actually, culling and sorting intelligence isn't the President's job.

Try again.

HTH. HAND.

Mountain Girl--you have just contradicted yourself: If the president believe the intelligence, whether it was poor or not, he DID NOT LIE to you....

Ok, yes, nobody here is disputing that it was poor intelligence concerning the WMD's. However, what even you seem to be saying is that the President, like EVERYONE ELSE INCLUDING THE DEMOCRATS, believed it. Lying is when you know something to be X, and then intentionally tell somebody Y.

Secondly, the part that none of you seem to get is that even without the WMD's, there was still valid reason to go to war with Iraq.

The administration did the right thing then, they're doing the right thing now, and they'll continue to do in the future (concerning the war), despite how much you liberals try to sabotage it.

The only logical reason I can think of for why some folks use the "I support the troops" along with the "Our troops eat babies" ideologies is because they know somebody using "babies" by itself is immediately disqualified from rational discourse.

In Bush's 2003 SOTU address he made the case Iraq having WMD's as follows:

He'd cite the source of the intelligence (UN, CIA, UK, whatever) say what Iraq had, and end with something like:
“He hasn't accounted for that material. He's given no evidence that he has destroyed it.”

Here's a link to the SOTU:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html

Pay special attention to the last quarter. WMD's weren't the only reasons cited. He also mentions the torturing of civilians, and numerous violations of UN treaties.