Atheist Heroes?

[Reforged]

It worked, didn't it?  When you think "shock and awe" you think bombers.  Our military has a history of using the media in it's middle eastern wars.  It's ridiculous that you think you have a point.  The first priority of any military commander is to win, to achieve the objective, the second is to preserve his forces, and then we think about the civvies and all of the rest of it.  They're on our minds, because we're people...and we'll be doing the shooting, or commanding the shooters.

You think someone should have to explain that?  Why should Hitchens, or anyone, have to specifically address something you feel is "always the reality"?  Doesn't that sound a bit silly to you?  Do you think we killed more civilians in this war, than in, say WW2?  If you had to rate our performance, by reference to the fire bombing of Dresden, for example....where would you place the bombing of Bagdad?  War is shitty, people die.  Honestly, what is it that you want me to say, or for Hitchens to have said?  What would make you feel better?

Why should he have to explain that Rhythm? He was an orator trying to drum up support for the war. That was his job.
He was meant to explain the facts and why they support his point. Hes meant to explain the subtleties that would elude the average person around contentious issues. One of those arguably contentious issues was the level of civilian casualties and whether or not there could have been another approach. It was something on everyones minds.
He didn't reason why there couldn't have been another approach and he didn't attempt to reason why it was the best approach. He didn't want to touch those casualties with a 12 foot barge pole and as a result left a gulf of confusion where people would just make their own minds up. Some would say the casualties weren't justified, some would say they were, some would shrug their shoulders. In no way did he contribute to their decision making process despite that being his job.
He was supposed to clearly illustrate the pros and cons in a way that support his position. His job was not to sweep one obvious, massive con under the rug and sidle away from it. I am not making the case for or against the war or the approach we took. I am arguing what he did was intellectually dishonest. 
It would be the equivalent of Sam Harris running away from the subject of "enhanced interrorgation", among other things hes talked about. Hes taken alot of hits over that but he makes the attempt anyway. He is very thorough in illustrating the pros and cons of his position whether its likely to make him popular or not. I don't know if I agree with him on everything but the fact hes willing to do what it takes to get his position across is worthy of respect.

[The Grand Nudger]

The level of civilian casualties, due to shock and awe, is and was lower than would be expected of many other possible plans we could have went with.  There simply is no con to winning a war decisively and quickly.  It's good for -everybody-, even the enemy.  Do you see what happens when it gets drug out?  He advocated for war to free Iraqis from a failed state, and a tyrannical despot.  He advocated for shock and awe because it could end conflict quickly, and yes...with reduced civilian casualties.  He -did not- advocate for our mishandling of the occupation...which accounts for those phenomenally high casualties, he was highly critical of it.

Shock and awe is not what you think it is, it didn't do what you think it did.  How could a person be remiss in not explaining something that you are mistaken about?  There was nothing for him to sweep under the rug, do you understand?

Did you ever see how Hitchens handled "enhanced interrogation" btw?  The guy you think was being intellectually dishonest, about something you have a slight factual problem regarding, subjected himself to waterboarding and completely changed his mind, publicly, on the subject that he'd been previously very glib about.

[Reforged]

The level of civilian casualties, due to shock and awe, is and was lower than would be expected of many other possible plans we could have went with.  There simply is no con to winning a war decisively and quickly.  It's good for -everybody-, even the enemy.  Do you see what happens when it gets drug out?  He advocated for war to free Iraqis from a failed state, and a tyrannical despot.  He advocated for shock and awe because it could end conflict quickly, and yes...with reduced civilian casualties.  He -did not- advocate for our mishandling of the occupation...which accounts for those phenomenally high casualties, he was highly critical of it.

The war was anything but decisive and quick and anyone who knew strategy knew not to believe that "home before Christmas" nonsense. It was never explained why a more covert strategy was not available. It seems insane one wasn't given the amount of funding and liberty the covert sector receives. I'm open to the idea there is an explanation, its just Hitchens never actually gave it which seems a gross oversight for someone who had spent decades of his life researching foreign and political affairs. Even if we were to accept time was a factor the fact is we were concerned about nuclear materials. Wouldn't that be something you would want to take care of quietly? Given the history with the region the resources to do so should have already been available. None of this was ever approached and these aren't unreasonable questions. If I was an orator who had great knowledge of the issues at hand tasked with explaining my pro-war position I would of thought that would be one of the major things I would attempt to explain. The US government and military prides itself on having a number of advanced economical, covert and military solutions available to it yet in this case the only option was a botched occupation that put an absurd amount of civilians in body bags? Again, I would take alot of time explaining why that was if my job was to orate pro-war sentiment. He didn't. The fact of the matter is neither you and I actually know why there apparently weren't any options other than the one that resulted in the termination of countless non-combatants. 
Part of his job was to clear that up. Why despite all the investment, time and planning we dedicate to such scenarios the only possible outcome was what occurred.

[The Grand Nudger]

Yes, I know it was anything but quick and decisive, but that isn't because the shock and awe phase failed.  That went entirely according to plan and yeilded only a small fraction of the civilian casualties produced by the conflict.  I could explain to you, right now, why the US doesn't want to be seen assassinating the Heads of State of foreign countries, if you need to have that explained.  

Yes, we botched the occupation, but again, Hitchens wasn't advocating for a botched occupation, and never missed an opportunity to opine upon how badly botched that occupation was. You keep saying things like "it was his job" and "he should have known". Was it his job, and why should he have known? Do you think anyone was sharing state secrets with him? Did they invite him to the pentagon for a planning session? Do you think he could have predicted how the occupation would go, was that his area of expertise? He -did- lay out his pro-war position, both before and after the realization that we had been lied into the war. You're criticizing the man for something that wasn't a part of his position. Your criticizing him for failing to see how things would turn out when we -didn't- follow the plan he advocated for. We went some other, weird way with it, and then got our asses handed to us by insurgents, another enemy, we didn't expect and were not prepared for. It was embarrassing, and frustrating. We got a handle on that, then fucked it up a little more, just for good measure......or maybe just because we missed the feeling of fucking things up, idk.

(The US military and government, btw, publicly pride themselves on alot of things that they can't actually do, it's called propaganda - controlling information and building an image, lol.)

[Reforged]

Yes, I know it was anything but quick and decisive, but that isn't because the shock and awe phase failed.  That went entirely according to plan and yeilded only a small fraction of the civilian casualties produced by the conflict.  I could explain to you, right now, why the US doesn't want to be seen assassinating the Heads of State of foreign countries, if you need to have that explained.  

Yes, we botched the occupation, but again, Hitchens wasn't advocating for a botched occupation, and never missed an opportunity to opine upon how badly botched that occupation was.  You keep saying things like "it was his job" and "he should have known".  Was it his job, and why should he have known?  Do you think anyone was sharing state secrets with him?  Did they invite him to the pentagon for a planning session?  Do you think he could have predicted how the occupation would go, was that his area of expertise?  He -did- lay out his pro-war position, both before and after the realization that we had been lied into the war.  You're criticizing the man for something that wasn't a part of his position.  Your criticizing him for failing to see how things would turn out when we -didn't- follow the plan he advocated for.  We went some other, weird way with it, and then got our asses handed to us by insurgents, another enemy, we didn't expect and were not prepared for.  It was embarrassing, and frustrating.  We got a handle on that, then fucked it up a little more, just for good measure......or maybe just because we missed the feeling of fucking things up, idk.  

(The US military and government, btw, publicly pride themselves on alot of things that they can't actually do, it's called propaganda - controlling information and building an image, lol.)

I think I do. I think I need that explained. Assassination compared to occupation is a smaller shit in the bed. Yes its still quite a big shit with a litany of political consequences but its not the horrific explosion of feces that occupation is. Occupation rarely goes smoothly even under the best circumstances. These were not the best circumstances, it wasn't that huge of a surprise when it was botched. There are so many other options before you get to that one and noone ever really went down a checklist to explain why none of them would work, including Hitchens.

Hitchens didn't alter his opinion to account for the fact we had been lied to. He doubled down. If he didn't have a handle on all the facts he shouldn't of entered a horse into the race instead of dancing around the gaps in his knowledge. The fact of the matter is he launched directly into a pro-war position immediately after 9/11.
I am not saying there isn't a fantastic case to be made for war or even the way it was waged. I'm simply saying he is not the one who made it. In almost all cases he referred statistically to the evils perpetrated under the regimes in an emotional appeal which in no way attempted to explain why an all out war was the best way to deal with the situation. Thats missing a pretty important stepping stone.
Compared to the arguments he made for most other subjects it was entirely sub-par and made an inordinate amount of appeals to emotion. Prime example; his debate with George Galloway was just a mud-slinging match and frankly it was sad to watch. George Galloway is not a clever man, it was not a debate befitting of the subject. The person on the other side to present the anti-war case should not have starred on Big Brother in an attempt to appeal to the youthful demographic and it should not be necessary to fill time with a ad-hominem backstory of your opponent. It certainly shouldn't be required to give people defaming leaflets before the debate regardless or not whether they're true. 
The points should of spoken for themselves but they didn't. They either couldn't or weren't allowed to. I found that frequently in his war debates.

[The Grand Nudger]

I think I do. I think I need that explained. Assassination compared to occupation is a smaller shit in the bed. Yes its still quite a big shit with a litany of political consequences but its not the horrific explosion of feces that occupation is. Occupation rarely goes smoothly even under the best circumstances. These were not the best circumstances, it wasn't that huge of a surprise when it was botched. There are so many other options before you get to that one and noone ever really went down a checklist to explain why none of them would work, including Hitchens.

Doesn't sound like you need that explained at all, you understand why we don't wan't to be seen assassinating foreign leaders.  For whatever reason, though, a formal declaration of war is seen as more acceptable and legitimate than assassination.  We did try other things, in case you have a short memory.  Decades of sanctions, ultimatums, demands, threats......we even invaded once before.

Hitchens didn't alter his opinion to account for the fact we had been lied to. He doubled down. If he didn't have a handle on all the facts he shouldn't of entered a horse into the race instead of dancing around the gaps in his knowledge. The fact of the matter is he launched directly into a pro-war position immediately after 9/11.
I am not saying there isn't a fantastic case to be made for war or even the way it was waged. I'm simply saying he is not the one who made it. In almost all cases he referred statistically to the evils perpetrated under the regimes in an emotional appeal which in no way attempted to explain why an all out war was the best way to deal with the situation. Thats missing a pretty important stepping stone.

He did, perhaps you should read his articles rather than op eds written by other authors about his articles?  If you mean, that he still felt that Saddam needed to be removed, yeah, that stayed the same, and he explained why he held this opinion.  Obviously, I agree with him on that count.  We got lied into a war for the wrong reasons, and what makes that even more unfortunate is that we had plenty of reasons to do what we did without that lie.  We'd been threatening to do it for a long time, and the credibility of a nation is important, just for starters.

Compared to the arguments he made for most other subjects it was entirely sub-par and made an inordinate amount of appeals to emotion. Prime example; his debate with George Galloway was just a mud-slinging match and frankly it was sad to watch. George Galloway is not a clever man, it was not a debate befitting of the subject. The person on the other side to present the anti-war case should not have starred on Big Brother in an attempt to appeal to the youthful demographic and it should not be necessary to fill time with a ad-hominem backstory of your opponent. It certainly shouldn't be required to give people defaming leaflets before the debate regardless or not whether they're true. 
The points should of spoken for themselves but they didn't. They either couldn't or weren't allowed to. I found that frequently in his war debates.

Debates are theatre Raph..... Again, perhaps you should have read his articles?  We gave our word, we made threats, we tried many things over the span of decades.  We invaded once, and nothing improved or changed.  Iraq was a failed state, and we'd already committed to resolving that situation, or, if you prefer, attempting to.   We failed horribly, but doing nothing would have been failure all the same. If we, as a country, only used our military to depose tyrants - that's not exactly the worst use of our forces, agreed? That;s what we were supposed to be doing, and that's what Hitchens was advocating for. The single, longest running current in his literary life, was a seething hatred of despots. His position on iraq was most likely informed by that, and probably more than a -little- bit emotional on account of it. I'm not sure what's going on here, though. You're telling me how you didn't like some debate he had, but what does that have to do with any intellectual dishonesty in his stated positions, and when will you be referring to his stated positions, any deficiency in his explanations for those positions?

Iraq was a failed state. We had an obligation, we had the means. This was his position. Do you disagree with -this-? Is there some dishonesty or deficiency, here, that you'd like to point out? Mind you, I'm not trying to sway you into agreeing with his position, you don't have to. I'm just wondering where you're getting your ideas about his position from, the man was a prolific author, he reiterated this over and over again, in his typical style, really driving the nail, as it were. Yet, for some reason, you seem to be under the impression that he was advocating for the death of civilians, or that there was no number of civilians which he would have felt was too many, as a sacrifice in service of regime change. The very reason he advocated for regime change, was the well being of those same citizens....... Is it somehow his fault that we fucked that up? Do our military blunders lesson or demean his position, or the reasons he assumed it?

[Reforged]

I think I do. I think I need that explained. Assassination compared to occupation is a smaller shit in the bed. Yes its still quite a big shit with a litany of political consequences but its not the horrific explosion of feces that occupation is. Occupation rarely goes smoothly even under the best circumstances. These were not the best circumstances, it wasn't that huge of a surprise when it was botched. There are so many other options before you get to that one and noone ever really went down a checklist to explain why none of them would work, including Hitchens.

Doesn't sound like you need that explained at all, you understand why we don't wan't to be seen assassinating foreign leaders.  For whatever reason, though, a formal declaration of war is seen as more acceptable and legitimate than assassination.  We did try other things, in case you have a short memory.  Decades of sanctions, ultimatums, demands, threats......we even invaded once before.

Hitchens didn't alter his opinion to account for the fact we had been lied to. He doubled down. If he didn't have a handle on all the facts he shouldn't of entered a horse into the race instead of dancing around the gaps in his knowledge. The fact of the matter is he launched directly into a pro-war position immediately after 9/11.
I am not saying there isn't a fantastic case to be made for war or even the way it was waged. I'm simply saying he is not the one who made it. In almost all cases he referred statistically to the evils perpetrated under the regimes in an emotional appeal which in no way attempted to explain why an all out war was the best way to deal with the situation. Thats missing a pretty important stepping stone.

He did, perhaps you should read his articles rather than op eds written by other authors about his articles?  If you mean, that he still felt that Saddam needed to be removed, yeah, that stayed the same, and he explained why he held this opinion.  Obviously, I agree with him on that count.  We got lied into a war for the wrong reasons, and what makes that even more unfortunate is that we had plenty of reasons to do what we did without that lie.  We'd been threatening to do it for a long time, and the credibility of a nation is important, just for starters.  

Compared to the arguments he made for most other subjects it was entirely sub-par and made an inordinate amount of appeals to emotion. Prime example; his debate with George Galloway was just a mud-slinging match and frankly it was sad to watch. George Galloway is not a clever man, it was not a debate befitting of the subject. The person on the other side to present the anti-war case should not have starred on Big Brother in an attempt to appeal to the youthful demographic and it should not be necessary to fill time with a ad-hominem backstory of your opponent. It certainly shouldn't be required to give people defaming leaflets before the debate regardless or not whether they're true. 
The points should of spoken for themselves but they didn't. They either couldn't or weren't allowed to. I found that frequently in his war debates.

Debates are theatre Raph.....  Again, perhaps you should have read his articles?  We gave our word, we made threats, we tried many things over the span of decades.  We invaded once, and nothing improved or changed.  Iraq was a failed state, and we'd already committed to resolving that situation, or, if you prefer, attempting to.   We failed horribly, but doing nothing would have been failure all the same.  If we, as a country, only used our military to depose tyrants - that's not exactly the worst use of our forces, agreed?  That;s what we were supposed to be doing, and that's what Hitchens was advocating for.  The single, longest running current in his literary life, was a seething hatred of despots.  His position on iraq was most likely informed by that, and probably more than a -little- bit emotional on account of it.  I'm not sure what's going on here, though.  You're telling me how you didn't like some debate he had, but what does that have to do with any intellectual dishonesty in his stated positions, and when will you be referring to his stated positions, any deficiency in his explanations for those positions?

Iraq was a failed state.  We had an obligation, we had the means.  This was his position.  Do you disagree with -this-?  Is there some dishonesty or deficiency, here, that you'd like to point out?  Mind you, I'm not trying to sway you into agreeing with his position, you don't have to.  I'm just wondering where you're getting your ideas about his position from, the man was a prolific author, he reiterated this over and over again, in his typical style, really driving the nail, as it were.  Yet, for some reason, you seem to be under the impression that he was advocating for the death of civilians, or that there was no number of civilians which he would have felt was too many, as a sacrifice in service of regime change.  The very reason he advocated for regime change, was the well being of those same citizens.......  Is it somehow his fault that we fucked that up?  Do our military blunders lesson or demean his position, or the reasons he assumed it?

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. 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.
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 thats 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. 
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 chance to help get rid of a despot.

[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?

[Reforged]

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.  

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 thats 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.

 

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.  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?

If you're referring to the 1953 coup of Iran then yes. Basically like that. Turning a country against itself is the best way to win wars before they've even begun and given how much practice we've had we should be masters at it. 
Saying all out war is the most practical and achievable method is only a statement you can make with any degree of certainty if someone has illustrated why the other methods are comparatively impractical and unachievable. Noone bothered.
Yes. That they were evil was the one and only reason. We're like power rangers except with the added bonus that we get to choose who the next Lord Zed will be.
Its obvious the facts I'm referring to are things like why alternate methods that would have comparatively negligible collateral damage were not available. If he had access to such facts he did not make it apparent. I've gone to great lengths to convey that and I feel this discussion is getting stale and old.

[The Grand Nudger]

Do you see what happened, in Iran.  Why would we do that again?  Not only did the whole thing blow up in our faces, our image was irreparably damaged because of it, particularly so in the opinions of the Iranians themselves.  We didn't win there, we lost, and look at the what we wrought in doing so.  

You think no one bothered, but again I ask you how short your memory is.  We tried -alot- of things...they weren't working.  We had other reasons aplenty, but, is true and inarguable evil not a good enough reason to intervene?  What is, then?  

It's stale and old because you refuse to come down from the cloud you've planted your feet in, and you cannot accept that you were more than just a little bit misinformed about the things we've been discussing.  I can only repeat myself until you do, or until you lose interest. Looks like the latter is going to happen before the former ever materializes. Bit like our invasion of Iraq.