At what point...

[alexamenos]

Originally Posted by Usually Lurkin

so the Orwell references are just for frightful color?

The Orwell reference is for the Doublethink that is necessary to imagine that our Department of Defense (formerly called the Department of War), is in the defense business.

Do you ever wonder, for instance, why a company that makes Stealth Bombers, a purely aggressive military weapon, is called a defense contractor?

It's very instructive to recognize that not only do we have a Department of Defense, but we also have a Department of Homeland Security. What (where) exactly is the Department of Defense defending if we need a whole 'nother department to provide security in the homeland?

On 9-11-01, a day which surely we could have used a little defense, what exactly did the Department of Defense do in the way of defending anything? Was it some sort of a rope-a-dope strategy to stand idly by and take a jumbo jet straight to HQ instead of actually doing anything? (I think not)

Let's insert here the rationalization that the best defense is a good offense...that we're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here, etc., etc.... This is the part that makes my analyst pants go crazy, because now we're really getting into the seriousness and depth of Doublethink...

....a little digression....in 1984, The Ministry of Truth (MiniTru) was responsible for re-writing history in accordance with Party interests -- MiniTru's job was to falsify the past. The really interesting thing is that the true believers in the party generally know that the past is falsified and at the same time they believe the falsified past to be the truth. Hence the job of MiniTru wasn't so much to tell lies to the proles (who knew better or didn't care), but instead to construct lies for the Party's own consumption.....

....back to the best offense is a good defense....

There's two matters: 1) The Moral; and 2) The Tactical.

From a moral standpoint, Defense is clearly preferable to Attack. "He started the fight, I finished it" is a very widely and reasonably accepted kind of moral position. Defense -- we're abiding by the non-aggression principle, and that's cool.

At the sametime, it is possible to behave in a manner that is tactically very effective as a defense, but at the same time morally reprehensible....

...Let's suppose that we wish to remove the threat that Kerblackistan, which has not done one thing to us, might do something bad in the future....so we nuke the ever living shit out of it, wiping Kerblackistan from the face of the earth....

This is undeniably an enormously effective TACTICAL means of defending ourselves from Kerblackistan and at the same time an act at complete odds with the aforementioned non-aggression principal. It's an amoral act, or quite reasonably we might say that it is a repudiation of morality.

So....when we say that the "the best defense is a good offense" we're simultaneously laying claim to the morally preferable non-aggression principle even while violating it by initiating force. As Orwell defined Doublethink:

"To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it..."

[Usually Lurkin]

Originally Posted by alexamenos

The Orwell reference is for the Doublethink that is necessary to imagine that our Department of Defense (formerly called the Department of War), is in the defense business.

then the whole part about "finding enemies is easier than blah blah . . ." was just confused into the whole mess.

"To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it..."

I think leaving someone like Saddam Hussein in power is more immoral than removing him from power, so I really don't get all the contortions you went through to reach this punch line. I mean, we didn't nuke a whole country to eliminate the threat of Kerblikistan. We removed a morally reprehensible murdering tyrant in order to eliminate the threat of Kerblekistan. We didn't do a wrong thing for a right end. We did the inarguably right thing of removing a murdering madman from power for an arguably right end of strengthening our presence in a region halfway around the globe.

[alexamenos]

Originally Posted by Usually Lurkin

I think leaving someone like Saddam Hussein in power is more immoral than removing him from power, so I really don't get all the contortions you went through to reach this punch line.

Iraq 3.0 was sold as a preventative war. One of the chief justifications for the war in Iraq was the so-called "flypaper theory". You personally may not have thought this was important, but the idea that we were fighting them over there so as not to fight them over here was very, very prevelant.

(What kind of proof are you waiting for? Do you need to see a mushroom cloud over Manhatten before we act?)

As for the "we removed a mass-murder from power" POV, this is a silly and naive position...it's akin to the uber-Liberal arguing for nationalized healthcare because everybody ought to have free health care and you must be a really evil person if you don't want people to have free health care. The obvious problem with the Liberal's argument is that the free health care is extremely expensive, and likewise we had to murder massive numbers of people in order to remove the mass murderer from power.

[Usually Lurkin]

Originally Posted by alexamenos

Iraq 3.0 was sold as a preventative war. One of the chief justifications ...

There were lots of reasons given at lots of levels, and liberation of Iraq from an Evil Dictatorship was one of them. Its the one that had me convinced that it wasn't a bad idea.
Here's a large graphic: http://bigpicture.typepad.com/photos...ized/21rat.jpg

The obvious problem with the Liberal's argument is that the free health care is extremely expensive, and likewise we had to murder massive numbers of people in order to remove the mass murderer from power.

If you can't see the differences, then you have no business arguing morality of anything. Or would you also suggest that removing Hussein would limit the freedom of choice for Iraqis (another "obvious" problem with forced health care), and that police shouldn't arrest hostage takers (or hey, that we shouldn't have tried to stop Hitler) because someone would likely get hurt as a result.

[alexamenos]

Originally Posted by Usually Lurkin

There were lots of reasons given at lots of levels, and liberation of Iraq from an Evil Dictatorship was one of them.

Yeah, there was an extended marketing campaign to sell the war and that marketing campaign had a variety of components.

One of the components of the marketing campaign was the 'liberate iraq from the tyranny of Saddam' sales pitch -- as silly as it was this pitch was nonetheless effective amongst a gullible crowd who also happened to be quite convinced that Saddam was in cahoots with Al Qaeda.

The problem with this pitch (amongst the less gullible and naive) was that too many people know that the US (like other States) doesn't hesitate to support mass-murdering dictators when it suits US interests, and also of course that the carnage arising from an armed invasion would far exceed the worst paranoid fantasies about what Hussein might do or has done in the past.

(estimates of Iraqi civilian dead since 2003 as a result of our invasion generally run from 100k - 500k with the displaced measuring in the millions....It's quite safe to say that we've killed more Iraqi's than Saddam ever thought about killing)

Or would you also suggest that removing Hussein would limit the freedom of choice for Iraqis?

Like this kid --> link.

Yeah I'd say his options are somewhat limited these days.

[Usually Lurkin]

Originally Posted by alexamenos

Yeah, there was an extended marketing campaign to sell the war and that marketing campaign had a variety of components..

you are still funny (funnier, really) when your emotionalism does such terrible things to your reasoning.