Both 'political intercourse' and 'two or more militaries' imply struggle between governments, not governments versus loosely confederated extremist religious zealots.
You don't know what you are talking about. You are just blowing smoke. Hamas, a bunch of extremist religious zealots, was said to have a military wing long before they assumed control of a quasi-country ... long before 9/11. And the military wing is associated with terrorism by country after country. <snip>
Irrelevant. The U.S. is not at war with Hamas. You can keep trying to shoe horn terrorism into the term 'war' all you want, but it accomplishes nothing for your cause. This sort of deliberate misuse of language in order to score cheap political points with the lowest common denominator is a right-wing specialty, and it's great for raising money or energizing your political base, but extraordinarily counterproductive when trying to solve real problems in the real world.
Like I said: You've got nothing.
Like I said, I've decided you no longer worth the effort.
No need for the words 'no longer' since you don't seem to have put any effort in in the first place.
I'm not the one making up new meanings as I go along.
Sure you are, as I just proved above.
Now you're re-defining 'proved' as well.
The situation you described ... snip ... cannot possibly exist.
If you say so.
I do say so. Feel free to prove me wrong. I'll happily admit as much if you come up with any real evidence.
Do you really think they would be morally correct in allowing hundreds of thousands of people to die rather than inflict temporary, non-lethal physical and mental stress on a single prisoner? If so, I think your moral compass is broken.
No I do not. I also do not think that they would be morally correct if they chose to eat babies while waltzing atop a rainbow. Since both propositions are equally likely, I fail to see the relevance.
You'll say anything to avoid addressing the issue of moral equivalence, won't you. The question I asked must really be giving you trouble.
I've already answered the question, and you even accepted my answer, so now you're radically re-defining 'trouble'.
You might as well add 'Ad Hominem' to the list of definitions you need to check before trying to play with them any further. It doesn't matter how I feel about the term 'liberal'. It only matters that you attempt to associate me with the term in order to fallaciously undermine my position.
You must think the label undermines your position, else why would you complain? I'd not object if you called me a conservative.
Read up on what an
Ad Hominem actually is, then get back to me. You can call me Liberal or Conservative or Anarchist or Communist or whatever else you imagine describes my politics, I don't care. Just don't imply that such a label holds any sway at all over the merits of my arguments.
Ahh, the old, "I know you are but what am I," defense--almost caught me by surprise; I haven't heard that since about 3rd grade or so.
Ah, you must be one of those internet posters who likes to claim intellectual superiority and intelligence. Since you apparently think I'm still in the 3rd grade.
I didn't say you're still in the 3rd grade. I pointed out that you used a debate tactic which I've not heard since I was in the 3rd grade. How would you estimate the comprehension of someone who can't tell the difference between the two?
But it doesn't matter what I, or anyone else would do. What matters is what the law should allow.
Not according to Thomas Jefferson, who I quoted earlier in this thread.
Okay, so you don't understand what the phrase 'Rule of Law' means. This is also yet another fallacy,
Argument from Authority. If you're trying to commit every logical fallacy in the book, you're off to a pretty good start.
You are conflating moral justification with legal permission.
Not I. I'm simply responding to the linking of morality and legality by others. One of them being Obama.
The two are certainly linked, just not equivalent.
Oh, come on! You can't possibly actually believe that the reason Saddam's forces lost is because they were using outdated methods.
You don't? All the military analysts I've read seem to think the tactics used in Iraq and Afghanistan by the US were something the world hadn't really seen before. Rapid victory was much more dependent on communication, information, mobility and precision guided weapons than any previous conflict. Whereas, conventionally, Iraq geared up to fight the last war. And lost spectacularly fast.
Iraq would have lost if we had used older tactics, and they would have lost if they'd attempted to use the same new tactics which we used. They were simply outmatched. Our use of radically different tactics was motivated by a desire to test the effectiveness of those tactics, not by necessity.
There are ignorant fools at all points on the political spectrum, and in all walks of life. Anyone who thought Saddam's forces would have been capable of such a feat certainly fell into that category.
Those fools got a lot of media attention and certainly affected expectations in the press and public as to how fast Iraq would be defeated and how bloody the cost would be.
Yes, they did. So what?
What I am concerned with is that, although you recognize that using methods from the last 'war' is certainly a mistake, you seem to think that skipping back to to the methods of a thousand years ago is somehow better.
I've done nothing of the sort on this thread. To even suggest that is to lie.
I'm sorry, you're right; torture is a lot more than a thousand years old.
BeAChooser - So you equate the sort of torture we know that al-qaeda uses to our waterboarding? Is this not just another example of you believing in a moral equivalence that is ludicrous?
I do no such thing, and there's no possible way to rationally infer that from anything I've posted.
Really? When I ask why the other side in this war doesn't respect the rule outlawing torture and you respond that they are unAmerican and ask if that's what I aspire to be, aren't you accusing me of promoting the same tactics that al-Qaeda uses ... i.e., drawing a moral equivalence between what I recommend (temporary pain and discomfort to elicit information in cases where thousands of lives are at stake in a time urgent situation) and al-Qaeda's undeniably horrific treatment of prisoners? In which case, aren't you suggesting there is a moral equivalence between the two?
No. I'm not
equating various forms of torture I'm placing them all into a similar category. If I say that a Rolls Royce and a Yugo are both passenger cars do you think I'm equating them? Some methods of torture are far worse than others, but they're all Un-American.
