Back to my Opprobrium for Plastic Turkey Man.
"Both suffer from the same delusion; their absolute sense of certainty that they are not only right, but righteous, no matter the fact that the bodies are stacking up like cord wood."
Hold that thought. Oh, and that is my creation (even if there are bits and pieces there, like the cord wood reference, that are so old they are stock components of wanna-be homily.)
Anyway, something did come to mind to me today; the topic that I noticed on some particularly vulgar message board (Come for the Freak Show! Stay for the Train Wrecks!) And the topic was based on one of those phony, rhetorically-disingenuous either/or choices; "Bush or bin Laden: Who is More Evil?"
Now at this point I am going to not only restate, by reference, the fallacious framing of the topic, I will reincorporate the first sentence of this post as my basic argument for the proposition and conclusion that it was a Trick Question; both are relatively evil men.
So let us consider the cost of the Iraq War, and I do not mean the $ 500 Billion. But we have lost about 4000 American Service Personnel there so far, and let us not forget the over 27,000 wounded. Additionally, conservative (and I do not mean in the political sense of the word) estimates put the Iraq civilian war dead at 72,596 – 79,187.
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
That figure is supposed to be the real core figure. That figure is the nuts and bolts "military grade" figure. As opposed to the non-military, dead is dead, no matter if by bullet, bomb blast, or lack of access to antibiotics and dying from an infection that even an uninsured American would get over and survive, epidemiologists' figure. That figure is suggested by some to be 655,000.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101001442.html
But honestly, my mission here is not to present the highest death count figure and make Plastic Turkey Man answer for that. I mean, I do have the option to saddle him with the figure he stated himself: "On Dec. 12, 2005, Bush offered his first and only number of Iraqi casualties: "30,000, more or less."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/18/AR2007031801587_2.html
And that 'owned' figure is almost 2 years old. Never mind that. It serves the purpose of showing the callous level of evil in his nasty little ego-driven bloody misadventure.
Now I know that anyone who is still married to the idea of this abomination of a unnecessary war will likely not all a sudden change their minds, but hey. I got time to kill before dinner, and I do love to express myself, so here goes.
Imagine it is January of 2003.
Imagine Plastic Turkey Man was making his case for the war, not based on the bullshit he (claimed to) believed then, but based on what we know now. Imagine how it would sound. I will give you the rough summary of the rough outline of the rough draft.
My fellow Americans. As of today, Saddam Hussein's stock of what can be called Weapons of Mass Destruction is so insignificant that the Presidents or Chancellors of Harvard, Yale, MIT and CalTech all, and individually, have effective control over more dangerous chemical and biological matter than Saddam does. Furthermore, there are absolutely no reasonable grounds at all to connect either Saddam Hussein or Iraqi forces to Al-Qaeda, in a currently minor, limited operational or support level, nor in any way assisting them with the attack against America on 9/11.
But what the hell, he is a bad man, he has killed many people in his country in the past, and I don't like him. His government is oppressive and dictatorial, and he is an evil-doer, so I say we commit American Lives and American Treasure and America's reputation on the line to take him out, to reinvent the government there and make it (more) democratic, and maybe get a nice juicy big American Base there in the Middle East.
Now most of the people who live in the region do not want the USA to have a long term military presence in that region. And despite cultural differences, the only thing that is likely to make a Middle Easterner more willing to risk his life to kill Americans then the presence of American Military in the region is when American Military wounds or kills near about anyone from that region, either intentionally or accidentally as 'collateral damage.'
But still, he bad man let's take him out. Never mind the fact that invading Iraq will take down a functional (even if we do not like them) government and society there. Never mind the fact that the region will become less stable if we do it, and encourage others in the region to cross the border and enter Iraq for the sole purpose of killing Americans. Never mind the fact that after four years we will have a non-functioning government in Baghdad, 4000 dead Americans, nearly 30,000 injured Americans, 30,000 dead Iraqi citizens, killed on account of the invasion and subsequent "deployment." Oh and we will spend $500 Billion Dollars and not only will we the USA be no safer, but honestly as a general matter, most of the country of Iraq will be in clearly worse shape 4 years later than it is now.
But hey, let's do it anyway?
* * * *
Now ya. I said no to it even when they spun it in the best possible light. Now I am asking those of you who supported this horror. If you knew then what you know now would you have supported it? And for the follow up question. If you would not have supported it then if you knew how it was going to be here in September of 2007, why do you still support it now, and I mean at minimum support Bush's Handling of it?
Ok that is all I will say. I have gone long but I have not been too judgmental . . . . except on Plastic Turkey Man. From my pov he is not only as evil as OBL but let's be honest here. Based on his own dead civvy count, his pile of dead innocents is far larger than OBLs.
Hold that thought. Oh, and that is my creation (even if there are bits and pieces there, like the cord wood reference, that are so old they are stock components of wanna-be homily.)
Anyway, something did come to mind to me today; the topic that I noticed on some particularly vulgar message board (Come for the Freak Show! Stay for the Train Wrecks!) And the topic was based on one of those phony, rhetorically-disingenuous either/or choices; "Bush or bin Laden: Who is More Evil?"
Now at this point I am going to not only restate, by reference, the fallacious framing of the topic, I will reincorporate the first sentence of this post as my basic argument for the proposition and conclusion that it was a Trick Question; both are relatively evil men.
So let us consider the cost of the Iraq War, and I do not mean the $ 500 Billion. But we have lost about 4000 American Service Personnel there so far, and let us not forget the over 27,000 wounded. Additionally, conservative (and I do not mean in the political sense of the word) estimates put the Iraq civilian war dead at 72,596 – 79,187.
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
That figure is supposed to be the real core figure. That figure is the nuts and bolts "military grade" figure. As opposed to the non-military, dead is dead, no matter if by bullet, bomb blast, or lack of access to antibiotics and dying from an infection that even an uninsured American would get over and survive, epidemiologists' figure. That figure is suggested by some to be 655,000.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101001442.html
But honestly, my mission here is not to present the highest death count figure and make Plastic Turkey Man answer for that. I mean, I do have the option to saddle him with the figure he stated himself: "On Dec. 12, 2005, Bush offered his first and only number of Iraqi casualties: "30,000, more or less."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/18/AR2007031801587_2.html
And that 'owned' figure is almost 2 years old. Never mind that. It serves the purpose of showing the callous level of evil in his nasty little ego-driven bloody misadventure.
Now I know that anyone who is still married to the idea of this abomination of a unnecessary war will likely not all a sudden change their minds, but hey. I got time to kill before dinner, and I do love to express myself, so here goes.
Imagine it is January of 2003.
Imagine Plastic Turkey Man was making his case for the war, not based on the bullshit he (claimed to) believed then, but based on what we know now. Imagine how it would sound. I will give you the rough summary of the rough outline of the rough draft.
My fellow Americans. As of today, Saddam Hussein's stock of what can be called Weapons of Mass Destruction is so insignificant that the Presidents or Chancellors of Harvard, Yale, MIT and CalTech all, and individually, have effective control over more dangerous chemical and biological matter than Saddam does. Furthermore, there are absolutely no reasonable grounds at all to connect either Saddam Hussein or Iraqi forces to Al-Qaeda, in a currently minor, limited operational or support level, nor in any way assisting them with the attack against America on 9/11.
But what the hell, he is a bad man, he has killed many people in his country in the past, and I don't like him. His government is oppressive and dictatorial, and he is an evil-doer, so I say we commit American Lives and American Treasure and America's reputation on the line to take him out, to reinvent the government there and make it (more) democratic, and maybe get a nice juicy big American Base there in the Middle East.
Now most of the people who live in the region do not want the USA to have a long term military presence in that region. And despite cultural differences, the only thing that is likely to make a Middle Easterner more willing to risk his life to kill Americans then the presence of American Military in the region is when American Military wounds or kills near about anyone from that region, either intentionally or accidentally as 'collateral damage.'
But still, he bad man let's take him out. Never mind the fact that invading Iraq will take down a functional (even if we do not like them) government and society there. Never mind the fact that the region will become less stable if we do it, and encourage others in the region to cross the border and enter Iraq for the sole purpose of killing Americans. Never mind the fact that after four years we will have a non-functioning government in Baghdad, 4000 dead Americans, nearly 30,000 injured Americans, 30,000 dead Iraqi citizens, killed on account of the invasion and subsequent "deployment." Oh and we will spend $500 Billion Dollars and not only will we the USA be no safer, but honestly as a general matter, most of the country of Iraq will be in clearly worse shape 4 years later than it is now.
But hey, let's do it anyway?
* * * *
Now ya. I said no to it even when they spun it in the best possible light. Now I am asking those of you who supported this horror. If you knew then what you know now would you have supported it? And for the follow up question. If you would not have supported it then if you knew how it was going to be here in September of 2007, why do you still support it now, and I mean at minimum support Bush's Handling of it?
Ok that is all I will say. I have gone long but I have not been too judgmental . . . . except on Plastic Turkey Man. From my pov he is not only as evil as OBL but let's be honest here. Based on his own dead civvy count, his pile of dead innocents is far larger than OBLs.
posted by Abstentus at 4:27 PM
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