Comments on: War is Peace. Ignorance is Strength.

By: Nabakov

Nabakov — Thu, 30 Oct 2003 05:40:28 +0000

“just because a hostile group (terrorists or mice) can expand in numbers doesn’t mean it will inevitably win.” So how do you define terrorists “winning”. The only clear goals they seem have articulated so far are to get US Forces out of Saudi Arabia (they went) and to turn the Islamic world against the west and things do appear to be a hell of a lot more polarised than they were two years ago.

By: Dr. Weevil

Dr. Weevil — Thu, 30 Oct 2003 05:12:03 +0000

I don’t believe that “desperate”, meaning “hopeless”, has “different spellings in different countries”. Perhaps ‘a different chris’ could name the countries in which “desparate” is considered correct, and quote a dictionary or two to prove it? No need to check http://www.dictionary.com: a search on ‘desparate’ gives this result: “No entry found for desparate. / Did you mean desperate?”. Perhaps he is thinking of “disparate”, an unrelated word that means something like “different, various”. Of course, PNAC has never offered a mouse trapping strategy for Iraq, nor have I. I was only trying to offer a very simple analogy to make a single point: just because a hostile group (terrorists or mice) can expand in numbers doesn’t mean it will inevitably win. Apparently my analogy was not quite simple enough for ‘a disparate chris’ to grasp. He might also wonder how Bush can be a coward if he has voluntarily chosen a career in which roughly 9% of the previous incumbents (4/42) were murdered on the job. Just in the last 40 years, we’ve had one successful assassination (Kennedy), one that came within an inch or so of succeeding(Reagan), and at least three more that were way too close for comfort (two different women shot at Ford and the Iraqis attempted to blow up Bush I in Kuwait). Have I forgotten any? The job of president of the U.S. is certainly more dangerous than being a policeman, fireman, cab driver, night clerk at the 7-11, or most kinds of soldiers. Special forces and bomb-disposal experts may be more dangerous. Of course, I am not saying it’s the most dangerous job in the world, just that a coward would not have taken it. Nor would an ordinary coward have flown jets in the Air National Guard when he could have gotten a crooked doctor to write him a fake medical excuse to avoid service entirely, like some other politicians we know.

By: David W.

David W. — Thu, 30 Oct 2003 04:48:37 +0000

Dr. Weevil, your analogy would work better if your solution to your mouse problem was to attack your neighbor on the mistaken assumption that he was harboring mice.

By: Gil

Gil — Wed, 29 Oct 2003 22:55:20 +0000

A Different Chris, You suggest that I should:

Think about why the Iraqis aren’t turning any of these “desparate people” in, gil.

Ok. Think about why they are. From here, according to General Richard Myers:

In terms of intelligence or valuable tips, Iraqi citizens are turning in former regime loyalists who are working against the future of Iraq. And there is a definite rise in those willing to come forward with information on subversive activities.

By: a different chris

a different chris — Wed, 29 Oct 2003 22:31:32 +0000

I’ve heard about the famous Dr. Weevil, but have never seen him in action before. I wasn’t disappointed. I hereby nominate his “mice trapping strategy” as most bizarre comment ever. I mean, who the heck tries to work out a major bloody conflict involving almost uncountable viewpoints and individual histories (real and imagined) using the example of trapping mice in an apartment? Um, besides the PNAC crowd, that is. Gil gets honorable mention for claiming to know the thoughts of the Iraqi people. I’m guessing that he is right to believe they don’t think much of the Red Cross/Crescent bombings, but an old civilization knows that “the enemy of my enemy is NOT necessarily my friend” and the US has given them at least as much reason, both bloody (lots of pictures of dismembered children from US “precision weapons” if you go look for them) and political (Chalabi is the first to come to mind.) Think about why the Iraqis aren’t turning any of these “desparate people” in, gil. Bush is an blithering, cowardly idiot. And empty flight suit. Stop trying to defend him. PS: Nick, desparate/desperate has different spellings in different countries. I know Dr. Weevil to be clueless about anything outside the US borders, but I expect better from you. ;>

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 29 Oct 2003 14:12:45 +0000

How galling – to have defeated Communism in the Soviet Union while it triumphed among the state-paid university elite at home. As a member of the state-paid, left-wing elite, I just want to say, “Hi, Charlie!” But they’ll soon be terrorist targets, just like the Red Cross. THEN we will get a real intellectual treat. Wouldn’t you rather have ice cream?

By: Dr. Weevil

Dr. Weevil — Wed, 29 Oct 2003 11:59:35 +0000

Learn to read: I am no longer besieged by mice. (And note the spelling of ‘besiege’: we wouldn’t want you to upset Nick.) It’s a good general rule that those who refer to others as “wingnuts” are pretty far out on the extremes themselves. All I did was object to the idea that there is an infinite supply of terrorists and the struggle against them is therefore hopeless. That hardly makes me an extremist, and if you think it does you are likely to be some kind of extremist yourself.

By: Russell L. Carter

Russell L. Carter — Wed, 29 Oct 2003 06:12:58 +0000

Woa! The wingnuts are beseiged by mice. Surely that should make the rest of us think twice about associating with them. Is that fellow piggybacking on my healthplan? He’s unclean!

By: Dr. Weevil

Dr. Weevil — Wed, 29 Oct 2003 05:30:45 +0000

Sorry: make that “Nick”, not “Nate”, in the second paragraph.

By: Dr. Weevil

Dr. Weevil — Wed, 29 Oct 2003 05:29:12 +0000

gil: I’ve been wondering that myself. He seems to imply that I did: at least he shifted from criticizing me by name (or pseudonym) for something else to criticizing some unnamed person’s bad spelling. A self-described snob who makes a point of correcting other people’s spelling might want to be more careful about clarifying his references. Bad spelling isn’t the only kind of bad writing. As for the more substantial argument, no one has said that the total number of terrorists is absolutely fixed, and I find it odd that Nate should insist that I am the one making a straw man argument. Both william and nate-dogg insist that the number is not “finite”. Either they don’t know the meaning of the word ‘finite’ or they think there could be an infinite number of terrorists, which is absurd. Here’s an analogy: I’ve lived in a new apartment for five weeks now. In the first two weeks, I caught 21 mice. Those captured in the second week were generally smaller and (I assume) younger than those captured in the first. Mice reproduce quite rapidly, and it’s not hard to show that two mice could theoretically produce millions in very few years. Is the struggle to keep my apartment rodent-free therefore doomed? A pedant could argue that it is: there’s obviously nothing I can do (on my finite salary) that would make it ABSOLUTELY impossible for any mouse ever to get in. But in the more important sense, it is not doomed. An aggressive mouse-trapping policy has in fact led to the capture of only two mice in the last 3 weeks, and the food in the traps has been undisturbed for several days now. Though I plan to keep the traps baited and cocked, I think the tide has turned. The idea that guerrillas or terrorists inevitably win is just as absurd as the idea that I shouldn’t have bothered trying to keep the mice out because failure was inevitable.

By: Gil

Gil — Wed, 29 Oct 2003 04:59:17 +0000

Nick, Who misspelled desperation besides you?

By: nick

nick — Wed, 29 Oct 2003 02:40:09 +0000

I don’t know anyone who says it cannot be expanded I think you do, dear Weevil: they’re the advocates of the ‘flypaper’ strategy (or was that last season’s Bush justification?). The point is not that terrorists are an ‘infinite’ resource, but that they are a non-discrete resource. Meaning that the ‘one terrorist in Iraq = one less terrorist in the US’ line of reasoning doesn’t come close to being justified. Nice strawman, though. Also: call me a snob, but I’ll only consider arguments that the attacks signify ‘desparation’ when those making them spell the word correctly. And will then point out that the IRA must have been pretty bloody desparate to keep sending ‘dead-enders’ out for 20 years or so.

By: Sparta

Sparta — Wed, 29 Oct 2003 02:39:20 +0000

Bush’s comments on terrorism should be taken in the context of his other remarks. In the alternative Bush universe it was the sailors aboard the US Lincoln’s idea to put up the now infamous and inconvenient ‘mission acomplished’ banner. I guess it must also have been their idea to get an expensive banner made onshore and flown to the ship rather than use a traditional home made one. It must also have been their idea and not the Whitehouse to position it exactly so that it would appear in the same shot as Bush while he gave his speech. As the war in Iraq continues to drag on the polls we can no doubt look forward to new Bush type revisionism, next we will be told that Bush did not even know he was going to the carrier, he was just minding his business in the cockpit of a fighter jet when a pilot happened to hop in and fly it to the Lincoln. One always has to be suspicious of cant-lose logic and that is what Bush is practicing. If things are quiet in Iraq the occupation is a success, if things get hot then it demonstrates that the occupation is a success. heads I win, tails you loose. The question that should be asked is would the country have supported the decision to invade if they had known beforehand what the definition of success was going to be?

By: Charlie B

Charlie B — Tue, 28 Oct 2003 22:26:03 +0000

Now I know what I haven’t been missing these past few months. And I know why the Cold War has passed into another and sickening phase. How galling – to have defeated Communism in the Soviet Union while it triumphed among the state-paid university elite at home. But they’ll soon be terrorist targets, just like the Red Cross. THEN we will get a real intellectual treat.

By: infamouse

infamouse — Tue, 28 Oct 2003 22:18:20 +0000

You are one wacky kind of guy. Did Japan know it was making great progress in WWII when we dropped the big one at Hiroshima? After all, we were demonstrating a desperate attack against a soft target. On what planet does this make sense?