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RichLP -> RE: Bush pays price for 'Mission Accomplished' sign (5/14/2008 10:05:02 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Leon_Figg3
I quess my point, my arguement about one's "perceived truth" deals with the fact that if you see issues from only one point of view, to the point of ignoring and poo-pooing any information from the opposite point of view, you are not telling the complete story, hence, you do not have the whole stpry, or the whole "truth"
As a consequence, if you can not prove beyond a shadow of a doubt your claims about something, then you do not have the "the truth" you just have your perception (or someone else's perception) of a given situation.
I will venture to say that unless you are writing from everywhere (Iraq. Washington DC, Iran, Syria, Pakistan,etc) and have direct knowledge about everything concerning Iraq, you do not have the complete story/ the complete "truth".
Truth can be elusive especially in politics and foreign affairs when and where everything is not always what it seems to be.
People complain and complain about the how we-the Bush administration-have botched this conflict and our "occupation" of Iraq. Look at some history. Mistakes are always being made in war, and hardly anyone is prepared for it, and it's aftermath, except the one that sets the stage that makes conflict unavoidable. The fact that mistakes were made, and the situation becomes and is difficult (uncomfortabale for us and our people) does not just justify abandoning the people caught in the middle.
Now, abandoning the people of Viet Nam may have been an acceptable trade off in the 1970's for getting out of an unpopular conflict. That act did not come without a cost, a cost we and the rest of the world our still paying. Abandoning the people of Iraq may very well have an equally high, or higher price tag for years to come.
Then by your reasoning and logic, all those pro-war folks who talked about how bad and mean and oh so evil Saddam Hussein was did not have the whole “truth” because Saddam did not oppress ALL Iraqis, because many enjoyed decent standards of living (amongst the finest in the Middle East until the war with Iran and the 1991 Gulf War).
Then by this line of argument, all those people who talked about how Iraq and 9/11 were somehow linked are certainly guilty of not knowing the entire story since they never wrote from Iraq or Afghanistan.
This is such a cop-out, Leon. You are creating an impossible standard – who can write from Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Pakistan?
And oftentimes we in America mock and deride those who ARE writing from those countries. “Riverbend,” the Baghdad girl blogger whose online writings depicting occupied Baghdad became two best-selling books, wrote that she received hateful emails from Americans who refused to believe she was Iraqi because she wrote good English. Yet, would these Americans, many of whom may never even have ventured outside the USA, been in a better position to know about life in occupied Baghdad than her?
Or yet, how about the Al-Jazeera network which employs Australians and interviews westerners, yet because of its name and because it also broadcasts recordings by terrorists, it is summarily dismissed – despite the fact that many within Al-Jazeera are educated, moneyed, moderate Muslims who actually LIVE in those countries, KNOW the culture and history, SPEAK the local languages, and understand the mindsets in ways that you and I may never be able to? Oh, they aren’t privy to what George and Dick and Douglas (Feith) and Paul (Wolfowitz) talked about, so theirs are pointless opinions? I mean, they don’t know the whole truth, do they?
As for “As a consequence, if you can not prove beyond a shadow of a doubt your claims about something, then you do not have the "the truth" you just have your perception (or someone else's perception) of a given situation,” my claims have gone unchallenged and unrefuted here by several pro-war Crosswalkers because THEY ARE FACT-BASED. I put up evidence for the following claims, which certain pro-Bush/pro-war Crosswalkers were not very pleased with:
- the rates of violence in Baghdad and other parts of Iraq shot up after the fall of the Baath
- utilities are being provided, and have been provided, at far lower rates than they were before the invasion
- kidnappings and rapes are happening much more now than they were before the war
- 4 million out of 25 million Iraqis have been displaced – equivalent to 48 million Americans leaving their homes to escape deadly violence
- terrible miscalculations by certain elements within the US government (L. Paul Bremer III) led to what became tantamount to a betrayal of the former Iraqi army and security elements, which directly caused the insurgency
- Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 or with Al-Qaeda (would you like to see a link about how the US occupation reviewed a mere 600 thousand Baath documents?)
- Iraq has become a training ground for Islamist jihadis, when under Hussein it was a secular state hostile to such radicals
No one here proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Iraq had any involvement w/ 9/11. no one here proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Iraq had WMDs.
Mistakes are made. Yes, they are; sometimes these are mistakes not made out of ineptness, irresponsibility, or incompetence. But in this war, mistakes borne out of these 3 (and more) reasons abound. And plenty of Iraqis and Americans are dead as a result.
I’ll debate you anytime, Leon, about “truths” of this war.
And to close: I know I’m aggressive sometimes on these boards, but it’s what I’ve written before… I’m mad as hell at our leaders for getting our soldiers and the people of Iraq into this endless, bloody tragicomedy of plunder, destruction, and grief.
May God punish all those responsible.
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