Atheist Heroes?

[The Grand Nudger]

The purpose of a debate is not to convince your opponent but to convince your audience. If someone thinks their audience can be swayed by appealing to their emotions then I would consider that somewhat contemptible. Theater is used where substance is absent. He did it in all of his war debates, what I gave you was a prime example. 
Again; there are many ways to change a regime. We've done it in the past without war.

You mean, like we did in Iran?  Is that the kind of covert thing you had in mind, earlier?  Because that's the kind of covert thing we do.  

If someones attempting to convince people to go to war they first need to demonstrate why there is no other way but war to achieve the objective. He didn't.

That's your requirement, not -a- requirement.  I'm satisfied when someone shows it to be the most practical and achievable method.  There's no sense, to me, in having the military that we have, if we fail to take advantange of opportunities to do good with it. We don't need it to defend ourselves, it's bloated to all hell if that's the goal. What we have, and what the world has variously been enjoying and dreading, is a force of intervention and occupation. People come to us for help, and sometimes we take the help to them, whether they ask for it or not. We could argue the validity of our military entanglements all day long, ofc.

I honestly don't think I need to point out I never said he advocated for the death of civilians. You know I didn't. He just neatly skipped past that part which was very convenient for him. No need to go "Right, these are the potential consequences, here is why the risk is justified and here is why its the best option.". No, just go "Look how evil they are, aren't you just seething right now? You know what would make you feel better? War." and that's the debate wrapped up. Infact, even when the inevitable blunder happens don't for one second consider that a different approach might of been better. No, just keep pointing at how evil the enemy were.

They were evil, that's no joke, that -is- why we committed ourselves for all those years to begin with, at least in part. You didn't call me a racist murderer either, you only implied it very strongly, lol.

 

I don't actually know if we should of gone to war or not, even given the consequences. Over a decade from the initial event and its still never been made clear what the reasons were for not trying something else. There isn't a checklist formed by experts illustrating how one by one the other options were eliminated based on a cost to benefit ratio. No minutes from the meeting where options were discussed by generals and the president. The thing is; I wouldn't make an outright decision about such an important thing without making sure I have all the available facts first. Hitchens approach on this subject seemed to be "Well, I've got some of them. I'll just debate total morons so I can wing it." I imagine he saw this as his big chances to help get rid of a despot.

"Given the consequences".  Hindsight is 20/20.  As I said earlier, had we closed it directly after the shock and awe campaign, like we did with the first invasion, it would have been a fantastic success, like the first invasion.   We didn't.  You're bitching that Hitchens didn't have access to facts he had no way of availing himself of, really?  We work with what we have man. Hitchens was not a part of our government, or that decision making process. You kept refering to this as his job, but it wasn't, and as such he didn't have the kind of information you're talking about, no moreso than you do now. You're probably spot on with that last sentence, though. It was his chance to be the kind of person he was always writing about, to live up to his own mythos. Were you not entertained, lol? IMO, you've misread the man...that's all. He wasn;t hiding anything for convenience, or sweeping something under a rug, he just didn;t have access to the info you're talking about, he didn;t have access to the info then, that you have access to now, those casualties had not yet mounted. What he did have suggested very strongly that this was a good plan, with a desired outcome...a good outcome, even. In the beginning, not counting the whole WMD thing, the information still looked solid. Our campaign did cause the enemy to lose his will to fight quickly, and because of this casualties were minimized, on all sides. It could have been a hell of alot nastier. We dropped the ball, and even though we defeated the conventional forces just as we planned, the insurgents were made of tougher stock. Perhaps it was naive of us to think we would be welcomed as liberators, I won't argue that......but I don't mind being that kind of naive. I'd do it all again. That those same insurgents mired us down and turned the whole place into a bloodbath for soldier and civilian alike is no condemnation -of us-. We fought the battles the enemy chose, and the enemy had a real hardon for putting civilians in the line of fire. That's not something that filled anyone I knew and served alongside with joy and anticipation. It became the reason we were there, to us, even if our owners sent us in for other, shadier reasons. To get rid of people who would do that. I'm guessing that you, like me, feel disgusted by that sort of person. That if you had the training, the gear, and the opportunity, you'd do something about them. I'm appealing to your emotion, right now. Is there some problem with that, with working up your empathy for the oppressed and your disgust for the oppressor. Is this, to you, distasteful? Do you think that a better case for intervention can be made by math, than can be made by empathy, and why would you trust the numbers I gave you, or our administration gave you, in hindsight, anyway?