Most of you know about the unrest and protests happening in Iran. The question that people have been asking is what should we, as a nation, do about it? Here is what Senator John McCain has said here.
Basically, McCain is saying we should publicly side with the protesters because they are fighting for freedom and that is what America is all about. We should side with history because we’re right and we should publicly support people who fight for their freedoms.
While I do think that the protesters do have the right to fight against their regime, it would be a bad idea if the President actively supported the protesters. This would inflame the regime in Iran, which would put tighter restrictions on the protesters. Obama is doing the right thing by simply saying that the regime should not oppress the protesters. Let’s look at the argument McCain gives:
We have a moral responsibility to publicly condemn any regime that represses people.
Iran is a regime that represses people.
Therefore, we have a moral responsibility to publicly condemn Iran. (Modus Ponens from 2, 3)
That’s a fair argument, but number one is questionable when it comes to politics. Publicly condemning regimes could actually make things worse for the people which would just make the regime even more oppressive. By saying these words, it’s similar to what Bush called Iran part of the “Axis of Evil”: it just inflames them and makes them even more furious toward us. Imagine if Spain called us the Great Satan of the World, you can get the the relations between us and Spain would be strained.
The brilliant Fareed Zakaria explains the situation in Iran in a recent article. He has made good predictions in the past and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s right again when he says:
We are watching the fall of Islamic theocracy in Iran. I don’t mean by this that the Iranian regime is about to collapse. It may—I certainly hope it will—but repressive regimes can stick around for a long time. We are watching the failure of the ideology that lay at the basis of the Iranian government.
We need to not get involved, if we do, things will get worse. Yes, this may be a human rights issue, and I understand that principles and ideals matter, but we need to be practical here. There is a difference between the ideal world, and the real world. Let us deal with the real world, and then maybe we can work our way to the ideal. Starting with the ideal just makes things worse.
He goes even further and says we should be actual participants with the protesters. This is just dead wrong. This will inflame the Iranian regime even more. He even says we might as well meddling because they’re going to accuse us anyways. That’s a horrible argument. By analogy, that’s like saying:
She is accusing me of rape.
Therefore, I might as well rape her because she’s just going to accuse me anyways.
Mr. Bennett, that is a horrible argument. Again, when it comes to international politics, the key action is practicalities, not principles.
One more from John Bolton.
His argument basically follows thus:
We need to side with the reformer and get involved.
The way to do this is to overthrow the regime.
To Mr. Bolton, Mr. Bennett, and Senator McCain, you are dead wrong. Apparently, you have not learned the lessons of history. We did meddle in Iranian affairs ever since the 1950s. They had a democracy in the 1950’s and then we staged a coup in 1953 and replaced it with the Shah. The Shah was seen as an American puppet and the Iranian people couldn’t stand him. Finaly, the Iranian people got so fed up that they overthrew the Shah and replaced him with Sharia law and an Islamic theocracy. If we intervene again, they will think that it’s 1953 all over again. Indeed, they thought that was what was happening in 1979 and that created the Iranian Hostage Crisis. If we meddle in their affairs, it will be 1979 all over again. We must stay out of it. Through this, neoconservativism is seen as a defunct political philosophy. It’s time to get practical. I will end it with a message from Reza Aslan, an Iranian-American, who sums up nicely of our proper reaction to Iran.
The title itself should immediately grab your eyes. But first, let me give you some info on Bugliosi.
As a state prosecutor in Los Angeles, Bugliosi prosecuted Charles Manson and members of his “family” for the 1969 murders of Sharon Tate and six others. Bugliosi says he lost only one of the 106 felony cases he tried as a prosecutor. He says he won 21 out of 21 murder cases. He is also the author of Helter Skelter – the best-selling book on the Manson trial.
As you can obviously tell, this book is by a lawyer (a really good one at that) who builds a case on why President George W. Bush should be prosecuted for murder by sending our troops to Iraq. What makes him different? After all, many presidents in the past have sent our troops to war, how come they don’t get prosecuted? Bugliosi’s case is that Bush purposely lied to get the American people involved in the war in Iraq. It’s a bold statement. When it came down to information, I saw it as three things:
Bush purposely lied.
Bush was ignorant about the costs of the war, or
Bush received bad information.
All of them could be justified, but I’ve always thought that the first one was harder. After all, if you want to find out if someone is truly lying, it seems the only way to do that was to get inside his head and see if he really knew that information, but the liar purposely got the people away from the truth. The second seems easier, but it may come down to a psychological thing as well (although easier to figure out if someone’s ignorant rather than someone purposely lying). Thus, if someone was going to make a case, it seems that the third one is the best one to go for. Not Bugliosi. He’s going straight for the throat and aims to show that number one is true.
To start, Bugliosi says that because Americans were affected throughout the country, any state (not just the US attorney general) can bring murder charges against Bush.
As we go through the evidence, Bugliosi brings up some interesting facts about Saddam Hussein’s trial. Here’s the first question: what were the charges against Saddam Hussein? Your first answer might be something like genocide or the killings of Kurds and Shiites in the 1980’s. Nope. The prosecutor charges Saddam Hussein of killing his assassinators. But that seems weird. If someone was trying to kill the President (in any country) and the President orders those people to be put on trial or even killed, no one would blink. In fact, most people would consider that proper. But Saddam Hussein is charged because he’s trying to get rid of his assassinators. Odd.
Back to the evidence. Bugliosi uses Bush’s speech to Congress on October 11, 2002 as evidence on why Bush should be prosecuted. The speech basically said that the war was for the purposes of national security, nothing else. Again, before the war started, Bush spoke about how Hussein had WMDs and that he was a threat to our national security. That was all that was mentioned.
However, the message changed. We couldn’t find the WMDs, and links between Hussein and al-Qaeda showed to be false. Thus, the message changed from national security to a real purpose: giving birth to democracy in the Middle East which would spread throughout. Bugliosi brings his first point: if that was the real reason, then Bush has no right to keep this reason a secret from the American people. But with this, many conservatives agree that the real reason was to spread democracy and not to find WMDs or that it was a national security issue. Ok. But if that’s the case, isn’t that an implicit admission that Bush lied to the country initially? Also, even if the point was to bring democracy, a major problem with this is that democracy isn’t just having elections. Bugliosi brings up something that I believe is a good argument but everyone seems to miss: before you can have a political democracy, you must first have a democratic culture. If you don’t have that first, you cannot have a democracy. What’s a democratic culture? Bugliosi says that it’s “a tradition of voluntary associations, a tolerance for nonconformism and pluralism, a shared belief in the dignity of the individual, separation of political power from religious authority and a belief in the legitimacy of the dissent” (p. 265). Now a democracy has a hidden corollary that the majority usually wins. Well, the Shiites are the majority. If a democracy holds out, wouldn’t this mean that the Shiites would be the ruling power? They are extremely religious, much like Iran. Wouldn’t this suggest that this would eventually turn into a theocracy? Indeed, many analysts predict that Iraq is going to be even more hostile to us and become friendly with Iran. Wouldn’t Islamic extremists much more likely to go to a state like this instead of a secular Islamic nation like Saddam Hussein’s was? And shouldn’t the Bush administration known about this?
Now this is just the first chapter. Next, the US was ready to fight Iraq (for whatever reason), but Bush wanted the rest of the world to get involved. Bush knew (notice that italic there) that he couldn’t get the world involved if it was a national threat to the US, thus Bush brought in the motivation of bringing in WMDs so that the world could see that it was a worldly threat, not just a US threat. (Whether this motivation was a lie or not is another thing, however. If it turns out to be a lie, then it seems that Bush could be tried in an international tribunal rather than just a national one, but that’s a tangent.) With that, Bush didn’t use WMDs primarily to get the US motivated for war, he used the WMDs to get the world involved. In other words, Bush is being (or at least trying to be) a realist. Not a good one at that, but mainly it’s because I find neoconservativism a bad strategy, both pragmatically and ideologically.
Next, there’s a huge assumption that Bugliosi points wants to bring out that no one has mentioned. The assumption is that Saddam Hussein was a treat to the security of the US. Even liberals would say that Hussein was a threat. But Bugliosi says “show me the evidence.” Indeed, Bugliosi notices that all major newspapers agreed that Hussein was a threat to the country when in reality he wasn’t. This is because Bugliosi makes an argument: Saddam Husseain was not really an enemy of this country. Even though many people, including Bush, said that Hussein was hostile toward us, Bugliosi against points out: “show me the evidence.” Instead, Hussein is hostile to Bush (both of them) and not to America. Indeed, if we were really enemies, then we couldn’t have bought so much oil from him.
In the next part, Bugliosi makes a prologue about the prosecution. It’s kind of like the opening remarks in a trial. What does he say? There were many statements that the Bush administration have said that makes one wonder about their preparedness or their seriousness about the war. For example, when Rumsfeld went to Iraq to visit the troops, a lot of the military personal complained that there wasn’t enough armor or protection. Rumsfeld reply was “you go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time.” This seems odd. That reply only works if you’re caught off-guard and you have to fight with whatever resources you scrounge up. In the case of Iraq, they had a lot of time to prepare. Thus, Rumsfeld is mistaken. You should not go to war with the Army you have, you should go to war with what is needed and you better prepare yourself for that need. Now this is the argument that Bugliosi is presenting:
If you go to war, the administration must prepare the Army with protection that it deserves.
If the administration does not prepare the Army for war, then that is a criminal offense.
The Bush administration did not prepare the Army for war.
Therefore, they committed a criminal offense. (Modes Ponens from 2 and 3)
The argument is valid, but is it sound? I’m afraid not. I question premise number two. I think Bugliosi makes a big leap and assumes that the Bush administration were rational. Now if they were rational, then number two holds. However, I don’t consider the Bush administration rational. I would rephrase number two as:
2.’ If the administration does not prepare the Army for war, then the administration is either stupid and ignorant, or if they are rational, then it is a criminal offense.
Thus, with this new premise, the best we can say is that the Bush administration is either ignorant and criminals. Frankly, I think the former is more believable and true. To back this up, Bugliosi points out that Bush has been the only president that was “happy” during the war. All previous presidents have had a terrible time or a grievous time during war. Bush, however, doesn’t wince about the war or even 9/11. Thus, Bugliosi concludes, Bush is irresponsible and lazy. Indeed, Bush’s decisions are usually based on instinct and Rice’s job was to “intellectualize his instincts.” That is her quote. With the war going on and with terrorism a huge priority, Bush decides to spend about 30 percent of his presidency on vacation. He considers working at the White House an inconvenience which seems that being President was interfering with what he really wanted to do.
But Bugliosi makes another interesting claim: Bush wanted war. The previous presidents resent or doubt whether the war they were involved in was the right thing to do. Bush never had any doubts. His concern is that America will win this war. But Bugliosi notes that in previous wars, allof the presidents have asked its citizens to make some sacrifice. Bush never asked. With this, “the president can say we’re a country at war all he wants. We’re not. The military is at war. And the military families are at war. Everybody else is shopping, or watching American Idol.” No one else is sacrificing. And sorry, donations and putting that lame yellow magnetic ribbon on the back of your car doesn’t count. Remember in WWII, everyone contributed to the war cause. No one is contributing to this war except the military. The citizens don’t do anything.
Here’s my problem: is this fair to Bush? I mean, suppose that Bush did tell the citizens to sacrifice but the citizens don’t. Is Bush, then, off the hook? It seems odd that the metaphysical criminality of Bush rests on whether the citizens sacrifice or not. If the blame falls somewhere on sacrifice, it falls on the citizens, not on the president. This is just the prologue. The meat of the argument is next. The evidence hasn’t been presented, but I’m not convinced yet. To me, this only shows that Bush is stupid or ignorant, which I can go for.
The Prosecution:
Impeachment won’t do it. It’s not enough. The murder of 4,000 Americans is too much just to allow impeachment. Even if Bush somehow apologized or realized that he made a mistake, that’s not enough. He must be prosecuted for murder. So how can Bugliosi do this?
First, the prosecution must show that Bush did have an intent to kill Americans (having a criminal state of mind). Perhaps one of the first things that Bush could do is claim self-defense. However, Bugliosi shows in the previous chapter that Saddam Hussein was not a threat to this country, therefore self-defense won’t work.
MY PROBLEM: Bugliosi specifically states: “Therefore, Bush did not act in self-defense and hence, did have a criminal state of mind” (p. 96). This is too much of a jump. At best, I think the proper result should be that Bush did not act in self-defense, and hence he acted dumbly. This is, again, ignorance and not having intent.
But Bugliosi realizes this and states that intent in a legalistic framework means some foreseen knowledge. What this means is that if the president goes to war under false pretenses, he intended to fight. With the intention to go to war, he knew that American soldiers would die. Thus, the intention holds. But hold on here, does this follow? Again, it falls to ignorance. Bush did not know that this was a false war. His intention was that this was a proper war. Because of his intentions, this isn’t murder.
At best, Bugliosi could probably go for second-degree murder, but that’s pushing it. Bugliosi doesn’t think so:
Bush’s taking the nation to war would constitute implied malice, that is, an intent to do a highly dangerous act with reckless disregard and indifference to human life, and hence, at least second degree murder in every state, as well as under federal law. (p. 97)
The best we could go for is manslaughter if it comes down to ignorance. But that’s something I never thought before. Ignorance still implies negligence and under the law, you could prosecute someone for manslaughter.
However, Bugliosi does say that even though we can’t really see into someone’s mind and find his or her intent, in a criminal case, we don’t need to. We have to look at the conduct and statement to infer what was on his mind. That’s all that’s needed in a prosecution. (He sites various cases where this is true.) So what is the evidence that Bugliosi provides that not only Bush lead this country to war, but mislead us to war?
First Evidence: The White Paper
In October 15, 2001, Sec. of State, Colin Powell told the press that “Iraq is Iraq, a wasted society for 10 years. They’re sad. They’re contained.” Indeed, at the Gulf War, we could see that they were a weak military. We defeated their army on the ground in about 100 hours. Only 128 Americans died, and 44 of those were by accident or friendly fire.
Here’s the thing: no idiot is going to fight the US head-on. So you do one of two things: you can use propaganda (which is what the Taliban and al-Qaeda does) or you just don’t fight at all (which is what Hussein did). Hussein wanted to live and attacking the US or helping someone to attack the US won’t help Hussein’s survival. Bush knew this, but he went ahead and came up with the idea that Hussein was still an imminent threat to the nation. Thus forms the lie.
Another piece: we went after bin Laden, the person responsible for 9/11, but then we went to Iraq and diverted our country’s military and resources to go after Hussein. In the words of my realist professor on Radical Islam: “Big Strategical Error.” Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11 (and we officially knew this in 2007 after a study from the Pentagon) and this just shows circumstantial evidence that Bush wanted to go after Hussein all along and 9/11 was the excuse to do so. Indeed, many neoconservatives before Bush came into office have commented that the Bush administration had been dreaming of invading Iraq for years. About a month after 9/11, the CIA concluded that Saddam Hussein was not an imminent threat to the US and wouldn’t use any weapons against us unless we attacked him first; that is for self-defense. (On another note, I found it odd that Bush claimed that Saddam Hussein has WMD, but he wasn’t worried that he’d use them against us if we fought him.) Bush had to have known this since the CIA briefs him on important matters such as this. But Bush also said that he’ll be deciding based on the latest intelligence. Well, in Oct. 2002, the latest intelligence at the time was Hussein was not an imminent threat. Phrasing Bugliosi:
So when Bush told the nation on the evening of October 7 that Hussein was an imminent threat to the security of this country, he was telling millions of Americans the exact opposite of what his own CIA was telling him.
Bush, it seems, was pushing his own agenda and the media gave him the pass to go to war under false pretenses. With this, this was not an attack based on self-defense.
The hard evidence that Bugliosi provides is what is known as the “White Paper.” In the original classified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), there were major differences when it became declassified (which is known as the White Paper): deletions, insertions, and manipulations of words to make it look like Iraq was more menacing that it actually was. Things like:
Hussein was purchasing aluminum tubes. (Turns out that based on the length, strength, and width, these were more suited for rockets rather than nuclear weapons.)
A source from Niger telling us information. (Turns out the information wasn’t true.)
Iraq could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year. (Turns out that if left unchecked, Iraq could have gotten one in about five years.)
A British official who was the chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service (their equivalent of our CIA) told Prime Minister Tony Blair that the Bush Administration “wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around policy.” The Bush Administration had already decided to go to war with Iraq, now they just needed the justification to do so. To see a good summation of this section, check this out: and also go here.
When the weapons inspectors went to Iraq and Saddam complied, Bush got worried. Bush originally said that he won’t go to war unless there was a regime change. But now that the inspectors were in and they were saying that there no WMD, Bush changed his words and said (two days before the war) that there’s no need to go to war unless Saddam and his sons leave the country, something that the Bush Administration knew that Hussein wouldn’t comply to do so.
Of course, a reply could be that Hussein didn’t allow the inspectors into everything. The answer is simple: in Arabian culture, you have to look tough. If not, you’re seen weak and you can easily be taken over. He wasn’t trying to look tough to the Americans (because we could easily defeat him). He was trying to look tough to Iran. At the same time, there were Shiites in Iraq and if they knew that Hussein didn’t have weapons, there would surely be an uprising. In the end of this segment, Bugliosi is concluding that Hussein did not have WMDs. I’m not so sure about that as you can see here. (You’ll probably have to right click and “save link as. . .”. Admittedly, Sada does say that Hussein did have chemical and biological but was not making nuclear, which may help Bugliosi’s case, but ironically will hinder him as well.)
Second Evidence: No Link Between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda
In this next section, Bush admits on Sept. 17, 2003 that there was no link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. But the damage was too late. As of June 2006, 90% of American soldiers believed that there was a link and in Sept. 2006, 43% of Americans still believed there was a link. With the knowledge that Bush received from the CIA and the NIE, he had knowledge that there was no link, but he still went to to the American people and said that “we’re taking the fight to those that attacked us.” There’s no other way to interpret that.
Next, when we captured Saddam Hussein, we turned him back to the Iraqi government. That was odd. Granted, we couldn’t give him an international tribunal because it wasn’t a UN fight. However, if the Bush Administration stated that Hussein was responsible for 3000 deaths on 9/11, then legally speaking you can bring him to America for murder charges. After all, we had the 20th highjacker (he’s not American) and we still tried him on American soil. I can guarantee you that if we capture bin Laden, we will bring him back to America to try him. It would seem odd that if we capture bin Laden, we turn him to Afghanistan for a trial. So why would Bush let Hussein go to Iraq for a trial? It would seem that letting him be tried in Iraq is an implicit admission that the Bush administration knew that Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. When Hussein was captured, there was a document on him that told his supporters to not join other foreign Arab forces in Iraq. This was because he wanted to Ba’ath Party to be powerful again (wishful thinking, I know), but this document implies that he wants nothing to do with al-Qaeda or bin Laden. Al-Qaeda wanted a holy war against the West whereas Saddam and the Ba’ath Party only wanted political power in Iraq. CIA reports also indicate that al-Qaeda had the opportunity to work with Iraq, but bin Laden immediately turned down the proposal. Bluntly speaking, Hussein and bin Laden hate each other.
The 9/11 Commission and Richard Clark (the counter-terrorism adviser from Regan through Bush Jr.) have both stated that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Clark even told Bush this the day after 9/11 but Bush still told Clark to go find a link.
Bush supporters might say that Zarqawi was in Iraq seven months before the war. That should indicate some link between Hussein and al-Qaeda. While it’s true that Zarqawi was in Iraq (and even in Baghdad), Hussein was unaware of his presence. As soon as Hussein was aware of it, he ordered his intelligence service to capture Zarqawi.
Bugliosi asserts that the Manning Memo shows that, far from making serious efforts to avoid war, Bush considered the possibility of provoking Saddam into starting a war by sending U2 reconnaissance aircraft, falsely painted in UN colors, on flights over Iraq along with fighter escorts, and if Saddam ordered them shot down, it would constitute war. With this, if Bush is serious about Hussein being an imminent threat, why would you go to the enemy and provoke the enemy to fight?
Now who else would be a coconspirator in this? The circumstantial evidence points to Cheney and Rice. Bugliosi believes that if they go down, he would be able to convince them of a plea bargain. With this, the truth will fully come out against Bush. Rumsfeld is a maybe, same with Rove. Powell is probably innocent.
As soon as the prosecutor asks Bush what intelligence agency gave him the information that Hussein was an imminent threat to the US, Bush couldn’t respond because the intelligence was a lie.
Finally, Bugliosi ends the book commenting that Bush was horrible at the war on terror. How so?
On Aug. 6, 2001, there was a memo and the title of it was “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US.” What did the Bush Administration do about it? NOTHING! As the Clinton Administration left the White House, they even recommended to the Bush Administration that Al Qaeda should be their top priority. The CIA and the FBI kept giving out warnings throughout August. But Bush and Rice commented that they did nothing to add new additional steps even to counter that. There wasn’t even a meeting on what to do about it. Indeed, when Bush came into office, Rumsfeld didn’t relaunch the Predator drone that was used by the CIA to track bin Laden, and Wolfowitz shut down the disinformation program to create dissent within the Taliban. Under the Clinton Administration, the counterterrorism budget went up since 1999. It went up from 22.7% in 2001 (and Clinton was only in office for 21 days in 2001!). Ashcroft immediately cut the budget. This shows that the Bush Administration did not take terrorism seriously.
Amazingly, he was considered a hero after 9/11. Why? He did nothing! Why should he be considered a hero? No one even blamed him when people should’ve been. He was the guy to stop this, and instead, people were praising him. Here’s the thing: if there was another huge terrorism plot under Obama’s watch, I can guarantee you that people would blame him for it. If counterintelligence showed there was a terrorist attack but Obama did nothing, you can bet that I’d be mad too. But amazingly, no one blamed Bush for 9/11. Even with the information coming out that Bush knew beforehand. Sounds inconsistent to me.
When Bush was told that the nation was under attack, he was in a Florida classroom in the second grade. He sat there for five minutes. Any rational person would immediately excuse himself and asked to be briefed. Bush, however, didn’t do that. Indeed, he didn’t make a public announcement about 9/11 until Sept. 20th, 11 days later! Even FDR made the attack on Pearl Harbor two days after that.
Bush had the audacity to tell the American public that the reason why bin Laden hates us is because of our freedoms. That’s not actually true. Bin Laden announced on Nov. 24, 2002 on why he hates America: it’s because we support Israel, we were stationed in Saudi Arabia near the holiest places to the Muslim world, and because we put economic sanctions on Iraq where it starved 1.5 million children but left Hussein unharmed. With this rhetoric, Bush just uses his speech to get people on his side. MY QUESTION: that’s politics though. As I hate to admit it, politicians are very good are rhetoric. It’s just that the masses are dumb enough to fall for it. So why blame Bush on his rhetoric when the population at large are also to blame for believing such nonsense? I guess Bugliosi could reply that it is the President’s job to explain to the American people what is really the case, not some rhetoric to get the people inflamed for a cause.
Bush was considered a hero because he went out to fight the terrorists. Most people (including liberals) said that he was very “ballsy” and bold for doing such a thing. Bugliosi’s reply: but that isn’t heroic. Any rational person would do that. President Bush was doing his duty to go after the bad guys. It’s not as if he really wanted to stay home and not fight them. Anyone would automatically do the same thing. When the Democrats said no to fighting the war in Iraq, many people equated that as the Democrats are weak on terror. They’re not weak on terror, after all they were all for fighting in Afghanistan. Bugliosi got it right: to say that they didn’t want to fight is simply a non sequitur. However, Bush still came out on top because he was seen as a hero. But why? He should’ve been seen as a failure for not protecting us. It was his duty to protect us. MY QUESTION: but wouldn’t this logically imply that the firefighters and policemen at NY were not heroes? After all, they were just doing their duty.
There was a bipartisan commission to investigate 9/11 and Bush wanted to prevent it from happening. I guess the investigation would look into the lies that Bush and his Administration was doing. However, the commission went through. . . from the widows of 9/11 victims pushing for the commission to happen!
In Afghanistan, we thought we went there in Nov. and Dec. 2001 to fight al-Qaeda. It actually turns out that Bush didn’t send out one single soldier. He only sent out forty American Special Forces to coordinate the bombing. The job of finding and capturing bin Laden was given to three anti-Taliban Afghan warlords and their men. They were even frustrated. They told the American press: “If America wants to capture Osama, why aren’t they trying?” They even told the Bush Administration where he was, but the Bush Administration ignored the advice. Rumsfeld later said that they’ll rely on Pakistani military to take care of it. Thus, Afghanistan and Pakistan: it’s now your problem. But these people–who are mostly Muslim and somewhat sympathetic to bin Laden and the Taliban, and whose people were not murdered by bin Laden–were supposed to go after him. Where’s the logic in that? In 2005, Germany confirmed that bin Laden had paid off the Afghan warlords, the same Afghans who were helping us capture bin Laden. So we’re not willing to invade Pakistan, but we’ll invade Iraq? When the real fighting occurred, it was mainly the Northern Alliance that did it. Our military was only there in an advisory and support capacity. Indeed, many newspapers across the country around March 2002 (six months after 9/11) that American forces took the lead in Afghanistan for the first time.
Bush, in an interview, was asked about bin Laden in March 13, 2002. Bush’s reply: “I don’t know where he is. You know, I just don’t spend that much time on him, to be honest with you. . . I truly am not that concerned about him.” Bush didn’t know nor did he care about the guy who murdered 3000 Americans?
The invasion in Iraq has actually made al Qaeda stronger but making Iraq the center of anti-American terrorists for years to come. With this, Bush had no plans for a postwar Iraq. The only terrorist we knew of in Iraq was Zarqawi. But his ties with bin Laden were shaky, if they even existed. More importantly, Zarqawi had no ties or relationship with Hussein. Zarqawi even operated in Kurdish territory, which was outside of Hussein’s control anyway resulting from the Gulf War.
Finally, the book ends in a bad way. It’s basically Bush bashing in the last chapter. Actually, it bashes Bush, Michael Moore, Hollywood, and the “ignorant masses” of America. He says what happened to America? We simply got dumber. This book is supposed to appeal to the general population but I would suspect most people would be turned off by this last chapter.
In the end, the result is startling: either postmodernism is route to go for, or Bush is a liar. Bugliosi goes for the latter.
Overall, it’s an interesting paradigm shift on the thinking of how Bush handeled 9/11 and the War in Iraq. I don’t think any prosecution will come out, however, but I still think that Bugliosi does a fine job of building up a case. It’s worth a read, but be prepared to add in marginal notes like I did. Also, do not read with any political bias. Read it simply as a case and see where reason (and not your emotions) take you.
Lately, everyone has been up in arms about how we shouldn’t trust the government on X. X could be health care, school programs, subsidiaries, etc. The biggest critics are usually the politicians themselves. There are two problems with this:
It seems odd that you don’t trust the government on X, yet you trust the government to do Y. For example, you don’t trust the government for universal health care, yet you trust them for national defense. Why? Why trust them on one thing but not the other? I could imagine two replies to this: (a) the attributes of X aren’t the same as Y. X has qualities where the government cannot (should not?) be trusted with, whereas Y is something where you can (should?) trust the government with. But my reply is if that’s so, what qualities would that be? and (b) government shouldn’t interfere with the private interests of the citizens. Ok, that’s fine and a respectable philosophy. However, there’s a difference between the government is not to be trusted, and the government shouldn’t interfere.
The second reply is more forceful. If the government isn’t to be trusted, then why are you in government? Aren’t you government to make government better? Aren’t you in government so that the people can trust it? That’s like saying company Z isn’t to be trusted, but I still work there. Imagine if Martin Luther King, Jr. said the government is not to be trusted with treating black people with respect, therefore I’m not going to do something about it. That’s preposterous. If you don’t trust something, yet you’re involved in it, then it seems to me that you have no right to complain. If you work for X and you don’t trust it, then (a) DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT, or (b) quit!
It makes no sense to say that the government cannot be trusted to do X if you, yourself, work for it.
This past week, I had the good fortune of seeing too good friends of mine. I won’t give their names, but I’ll say where they’re from: Seattle and LA. I first visited Seattle in a coffee shop. She was friendly and approachable. I missed her a lot; we haven’t talked to each other for five years. I wish I could say that we picked up where we left off, but after five years, things change and move on. I’ve been friends with her since high school and some of my favorite experiences have been with her. I could always philosophize with her and she would teach me about relationships in general and some new avenues about emotions.
That’s one thing I miss about keeping up with old friends, the moment where you “pick up where you left off” sometimes doesn’t work. There was a sense of awkwardness between my friend and I, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. If there any awkward silences, we simply laughed them off and moved on to the next topic. Eventually, we had “caught up” more or less and I would like to keep the friendship. Of course, distance makes things harder, but after seeing each other, there’s a hope (at least on my side) that I would like to stay in touch with her. In terms of personality, goals, ambitions, and memories, she hasn’t changed. She was the same Seattle as ever. I miss her already.
A few days later, I met LA at a diner in Salt Lake. She was a friend I made while I was in college and I was also very close to her. I also haven’t talked to her for about five or six years. The experience with LA, however, was different. LA seemed like a new person. I remember when she introduced me to new forms of music, new things to do in the Ogden/Salt Lake area, and we could talk about anything. However, when I met LA, I felt like I was talking to a new person. During this conversation, she asked me, “Shaun, why did we lose touch through all this time?” I just shrugged my shoulders and we kept talking.
Her sense of style has changed, her music is totally different, and what she considers fun, I consider lame. For example, she said that I should go clubbing with her that night. I hate going to clubs, and she did also when I met her. But now, she is way into the club scene along with other activities that I really don’t care for. By talking to her, she seemed not as deep or thoughtful as she was. To be honest, she seemed superficial and not really reflective. For example, I asked her of her opinion of a certain topic, and her reply was: “who cares?” It seemed shallow to me that this thoughtful person would give that reply. She only cared about superficial things. She was never like this. She cared about the situation of the world, but now she doesn’t. Who was this person and what have you done with LA? There was a sense of awkwardness, but went against the grain with who I was. With Seattle, it was only awkward when there were silences. With LA, it felt awkward throughout the whole conversation. I actually wanted to leave. Thankfully, the meeting ended. The goodbye was even more awkward. She did the double-kiss thing which threw me off guard. With Seattle, we simply gave each other a hug goodbye. As I drove home from away from LA, I felt like I had dinner with a stranger instead of an old friend. We said that we should keep in touch, but I seriously doubt we will. I don’t know if she meant it (you know how people are, they always say to stay in touch, but that phrase “stay in touch” is just a nice way of ending a conversation). I remember all those good times that we had together, but I also remember how she had changed when she went to college. I’m sure she could sense the awkwardness between us. This friendship, I’m sad to say, will probably be dissolved.
So what’s going on here?
After this, I wanted to know why my friends and I lost touch. Obviously, it was because I moved to Texas for two years and we couldn’t hang out. With Seattle, the visit was friendly and I felt like we could keep the friendship alive.
But with LA, this wasn’t the usual type of “losing touch”. I made friends with this person and we did pretty much everything together: we worked together, we always hung out, we watched movies, I even went to one of her dances. But when she entered college, she changed big time. Her personality shifted to someone that I really didn’t care for and she turned into someone that I wouldn’t want to be friends with. So in this instance, we didn’t “grow apart,” but I felt like I lost one of my good best friends and this new person took her place.
I wanted to know the aspects of this relationship and it made me do some research on friendship. After a little investigating, I noticed that the philosophers talk about gaining friends and keeping them. No one that I know of talks about getting rid of friends. And I don’t mean getting rid of them in the sense of “growing apart,” I mean getting rid of them by actively dissolving the friendship.
At any rate, I’m now writing a paper about friendship and I had some questions and see what anyone thinks about friendship.
At what point should the friendship dissolve? What are the reasons for it? Couldn’t one stay with that friend but superficially? If so, is it worth it? If not, why not?
We only have one word for “love” in English. The Greeks had many words and they would say that my love for my friends is philia. It’s a sort of love that you have for your fellow friends. In fact, the world “Philadelphia” is called “the city of brotherly love.” I never really understood philia or this “friendly-love.” I can understand romantic love (or what the Greeks calls eros), but what is friendly love? Is it like romantic love but not as intense? Is it a totally different kind of love altogether, much like familial love is different from romantic love? What are the features of philia? It can’t be just “caring” because romantic and familial love have those features also.
So far, some books that deal with friendship from a philosophical point of view have been Aristotle, Montaigne, and Cicero. Can you think of anyone else?
Usually, however, most friends just simply “grow apart.” I understand that friends sometimes grow apart as they grow up. I think out of all the friends in high school, I only keep in touch with about 4 or 5% of them. In college, it’s much lower. I even remember that when I moved to Texas, I lost touch with my Utah friends. But now that I’m back in Utah, I’ve pretty much lost a lot of contact with my Texas friends. It’s an unfortunate thing, but it happens. I’m sure that when I go to grad school again, I’ll lose touch with my Utah friends again. Perhaps I’m overanalyzing things, or maybe I’m nostalgic. Either way, I miss my friends and I will miss them when I leave.
There’s an interesting article about the Tiller murder. More precisely, it’s about how the legal team is going to defend Scott Roeder, the murderer of the abortionist George Tiller.
From the article:
“It’s a variation of a Twinkie Defense,” said legal expert Jonathan Turley. “They will attempt to connect Mr. Roeder’s heavy intake of Bill O’Reilly combined with a talk-radio hate-speak rush to prove that Roeder did not have the capacity to make a rational decision when he shot Dr. Tiller. “The deluge of ‘Tiller is a Nazi, mass murderer, baby killer’ verbiage by Mr. O’Reilly surely can drive one into a state of what we in the legal profession call ‘righteous assassination.'”
Those in the psychology community support the defense.
So the idea is that Mr. O’Reilly’s comments caused Mr. Roeder’s rational decision-making to be skewed. As wacky as this is, the next part gets crazier:
O’Reilly refused comment but sent his producer Jesse Waters out to ambush Tiller’s widow.
What intrigues me is that O’Reilly refused to comment. Why didn’t he comment? If I wrote a book or an article on something philosophical and some crazed fantatic goes on a rampage and claims that it came from me, I would immeidatley denounce that person. However, O’Reilly refuses to comment. Why would he do that? It seems that he loses nothing if he commented that Roeder is crazy and had nothing to do with O’Reilly’s comments.
I can only guess based on these alternatives:
If O’Reilly refuses to comment, then it’s synonymous with not condemning what Roeder did. Of course, it’s also not condoning it either. But the refusal to speak seems odd since it would clear up O’Reilly’s name. If his words did bring about harm, then surely he’d want to clear up the air. But he didn’t. It seems that he had no problem with Roeder’s actions. In this case, O’Reilly knew what he was doing and was basically egging people like Roeder on. In which case, O’Reilly is guilty.
If O’Reilly comments, then all he can say is that his words didn’t cause Roeder to act as he did. But the legal defense could easily reply that his words have incited violence as stated in the article: “It stands to reason that in repeating incessantly that Dr. Tiller is a mass murderer, someone would step up to stop the killings. Rather than an assassin, the defendant might see himself as a hero.” Thus, if O’Reilly commented, he would be lying.
These are the alternatives: O’Reilly is guilty or lying. Anything that I’m missing?
Yes, it’s the same author who did Charlotte’s Web. However, I was expecting something completely different from this book. It turns out that this book is a parody.
Imagine 1929. In the field of sexuality, Freud was the man. Ellis was gaining a reputation, and Kinsey is about to begin his sexual experiments. Many people don’t think of the 1920’s as a sexual time in history. But I guess people were eventually getting out of their Victorian slumbers.
At any rate, Freud and others made sexuality into a science. Thurber and White take advantage of this and write a book that mocks the whole scientific outlook on sex. At some moments, it’s humorous. But both of the authors wrote for The New Yorker and so their humor is very dry.
Just to give you a sampling, they mention that when a woman makes fudge, it’s a good way to entice a man. They made up a condition called “Recession Knee” for the man. “Recession Knee” is when the man pulls his knee away from the woman in order to get away from her. It’s kind of like his own version of frigidity.
If you’re in the mood for some New Yorker humor, that deals with sex, and mocks the science of sex, then this book is for you.
Answer: NEITHER OF THEM! Although Obama seems to be more practical, he’s still holding on to an ideology and we can see this through the whole torture debates. Here is their philosophical positions as I can see it:
OBAMA: Since we are a democracy and a nation of law, torture is inherently wrong. We are a nation that does not torture and we will not torture. Along with this, I would think that Obama’s philosophy is that if there comes to a “ticking-time bomb scenario” (which is hardly likely), then torture might be the exception. However, in a situation like this, everyone needs to know about it. Previous presidents have taken away rights of people and declared it publicly (Lincoln and FDR, for example). With everyone knowing about it, there’s no need for secrecy and everyone can understand what the situation is. Thus, if there comes to a situation where rights of man are to be taken away, not only will people know about it, but everyone should know about it. If not, then the world (and our own citizens) will look at the US with distrust, contempt, and the problem.
CHENEY: We are a nation of law, but there are cases where to protect the safety of everyone, you have to sacrifice the liberties of the few. Thus, torture is instrumentally (or perhaps primae facie) wrong. Yes, we don’t torture and we shouldn’t torture, unless. . . These torture techniques (actually, Cheney calls them “interrogation techniques”) has helped saved lives and it keeps America safe. Now with this, no one should know about this. If this gets released to the public, then it will just embolden the enemy. Our enemies will know about these techniques and they’ll train to get used to them or the information will be a great recruitment tool for more al-Qaeda members. Thus, if there comes to a situation where rights of man are to be taken away, no only will we not tell the world, but we shouldn’t tell the world. The less people know about it, the better.
This, I take it, is their philosophical positions. Now, Obama has somewhat gone back on his philosophical consistency by not releasing the photos. His justification is similar to Cheney’s: our enemies will know about it and it will just embolden them.
For me, I lean heavily toward Obama’s position. With this, I wish he did release the photos so that the world would know what we did and then we can move on. As for prosecuting the people who legitimated the torturing, I’m still up in the air about it.
I usually don’t read books by politicians, mainly because it’s usually a book displaying why the other side is wrong or putting forth some ideology. But when I was Gore’s book and the title, I told myself, “this book is going to be different.” After all, he isn’t a politician anymore and I thought, just based on the title, that this book would be talking about society instead of politics. I was mistaken. At times, Gore seems to show off his erudite knowledge. However, these little tangents suggest that it helps his case.
I don’t want to sound stereotypical, but Gore’s book was kind of boring. (Insert Al Gore joke here.) I eventually got turned off because his intro says that he isn’t talking about the Bush administration, but in every subsequent chapter, it was basically stating why the Bush administration has made things worse for the country. While I agree that the Bush administration has been disastrous for our country, it seems disingenuous to say that the book isn’t about the Bush administration, but it turns out that it is.
In chapter one, Gore talks about how after 9/11, the Bush administration took advantage of the situation to get the country geared for the War in Iraq. The Bush administration played on the fear of the country and if there’s fear, you can play into the American public and convince people to do whatever is needed. Something to add here, it turns out that the British were “dragged” into the war as well. While I agree that the Bush administration took advantage of the situation and played on the American’s fear, I’m wondering if other politicians have done this. Hobbes has suggested that what moves and drives politics is fear.
Chapter two. Gore talks about how Bush took advantage of the religious particularities to suggest that invading Iraq was a religious “crusade.” Indeed, Bush has said that being a Christian is part of his foreign policy. By playing into this, he appealed to the dogmas of society so that it bypasses the debates and arguments about whether the War in Iraq was needed. Gore does admit that the Iraq War is debatable, but a debate is better than bypassing one.
Chapter Three. Gore talks about wealth. With TV, radio, and the internet without having a sovereign, it has no regulations. People can take advantage of this and the media can play into people’s predilections to buy and purchase things that they didn’t realize they needed. Capitalism, by its very nature, makes things unequal. But in a democracy, it calls for the equality of people. I’m not an expert on economics, but I can’t help but see a correlation between democracies and capitalism. It seems impossible to have a capitalistic society without democracy (even with the converse being false). Gore doesn’t talk much about Bush, but without regulations, the Bush administration let everything go chaotic to the point where it leads to an economic mess that we’re in today.
Chapter four. In this chapter, Gore points out the both Bush and Cheney either purposely ignored information about the War in Iraq, or else they didn’t care. Either way, they aren’t capable of leadership. Constantly, information about the War in Iraq suggested that the war would be time consuming and troublesome. However, Bush and Cheney convinced the American people that it would be a swift war. However, with them purposely ignoring evidence, this has lead us into a disastrous state of affairs.
Chapter five. Gore talks about how this War on Terror has made the prisoners into a different kind of prisoner. These prisoners aren’t POWs, but they aren’t your common criminals. They are “unlawful enemy combatants.” But with these words, anyone can be an “unlawful enemy combatant” just by the President declaring these magic words. Strictly speaking, I could be one if the President decided that I was a threat to the country. With this, the rights of the individual are downgraded because security is at the most highest priority. Indeed, 90 percent of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib did not have any information. I’m sure the same is at Guantanamo. Also, anyone can be detained without knowing why one is detained.
Chapter six. Gore talks about how the Bush Administration’s actions have actually hindered our national security. Because of Iraq, al-Qaeda has gained more members, Iraq has diverted our attention away from the real enemy (in Afghanistan), and America has had a tarnished reputation around the world. Ironically, the War in Iraq is the best recruitment tool for al-Qaeda gaining about 18,000 more members since the wake of the war in Iraq. Retired generals have displayed that this was a strategical error, but the Bush Administration dismissed them simply because they are retired. What does Gore recommend? He states that after we pushed the Taliban out, we should have stayed to gain a more secure force in Afghanistan. Our military was in favor of it. But we diverted our attention to Iraq and now the Taliban came back with the same strength in 2006. (Now it’s 2009 and they’re even stronger than they were in 2001.)
Chapter seven. Gore talks about how Bush and ExxonMobile are together in “solving” the pollution crisis. Lobbyists come to Bush supporting the oil industry and they convince Bush there is no need to pay attention to any of the global climate situation.
Chapter eight. Gore talks about how our Founders wanted to have three branches of government to keep each other in check. But Congress doesn’t question the Bush Administration or follows him dogmatically, and the Supreme Court has lobbyists who take the judges out in order to educate them in an ideological point of view. To me, this was the strongest chapter. This chapter actually talks about how reason is being ignored because the government appeals to the emotions or some dogmatic idealogy. Everything is subservient to the Executive branch of power.
Chapter nine. The solution is to bring reason back into politics. I was amazed at some of the studies that Gore presented. When college students were presented with the First Amendment, that was the first time they’d heard of it! Indeed, after they heard it, these students thought that the First Amendment “went too far.” I couldn’t believe that. But also, Gore’s solution is to let the little people’s voices be heard. Part of this means that technology and the Internet will have to play a big role.
So what do I think of this? All in all, I think it was a typical response from someone like Gore. Mainly, I wasn’t surprised by what he said. However, there was something in there that he constantly brought up that made me cringe. Gore kept on saying that we need to bring reason back into democracy. I hate to tell you this, Gore, but democracy and reason are antithetical to each other. Democracy is about the “tyranny of the majority,” the huddled masses, and the herd mentality. We see this in Plato, Mill, and Dewey. Of course, each of them had various solutions but I can’t believe that democracy and reason go together. It seems that democracy, by its very nature, is unrational. That’s why we have politicans. We trust them to be rational and to look out for us. Of course, the whole idea is that we’re supposed to be watching the government, but sorry to say this, a democracy doesn’t work that way. People in a democracy are fickle, lousy, and just plain dumb. Sure there are smart people, but those are rare indeed. Given a group of Americans, I can guarentee you that less than 50% will not know much about politics. Gore even admits that. So while Gore’s solution is predictable, I can’t help but think that the problems of democracy has been around since Plato. Gore’s solution of “bring reason back to democracy” seems weak. How, do I ask, can we bring reason “back to democracy” if democracy was never rational to begin with? Gore brings some insight in the background of politics. Unfortunately, his solution, I find, is weak at best, and utopian at worst.
Compared with males, females tend to be more in favour of higher taxes to fund provision such as the NHS. Higher taxation also affects them less since they tend to be in a lower income bracket. “As men acquire female children,” said Oswald, “those men gradually shift their political stance and become more sympathetic to the ‘female’ desire for a … larger amount for the public good. They become more leftwing. Similarly, a mother with sons becomes sympathetic to the ‘male’ case for lower taxes and a smaller supply of public goods. Political feelings are much less independently chosen than people realise,” he added. “Children mould their parents. It’s so scientifically attractive because it’s out of the parents’ control – whether they have a boy or a girl.”
The children has a bigger influence on the parents political ideology than we thought. However, it isn’t without it’s critics that you’ll see at the end of the article:
But Arthur Mayne, a biologist who has three sons aged from 18 to 12 years, disagrees. “This is a simplistic scientific that could be accused of gender stereotyping, especially the idea that women are more likely to be softer politically than men,” he said. “While it is true that men biologically determine the sex of their children, recent studies seem to prove that women with higher levels of testosterone – who are more likely to display dominant, positive behaviours – seem to produce more sons than daughters.
“Women with lower levels of testosterone, who are more likely to be empathetic and better listeners, tend to produce more daughters. It could be that the women who are most likely to produce daughters pick a partner who is closer to her more empathetic attitude to life. Hence people who are already more liberal may produce more daughters and those who are already conservative may produce more sons.”
So the reply is which came first: the liberal-minded father and the children who just reinforced his ideals, or the children who made the father shift his political views? Either way, it’s an interesting study.
I previously posted a blog about Being vs. Doing. It was dealing with how people looked at the world and weather a “being” philosophy has a higher status than a “doing” philosophy, or vice-versa. I think this would also apply to the realm of ethics. I’ll talk about abortion, capital punishment, and gay marriage.
With abortion: Pro-lifers point out that the being involved is important because of what it is (namely, “human”). The biological entity isn’t just any being but a special kind of being and because this being has special status, we should give it consideration (rather than other types of beings like rocks, chairs, pens, etc.). Pro-choicers will argue back that the being doesn’t matter; it’s the traits that matters morally. In other words, what is it doing? Rocks, chairs, and pens don’t matter morally because they aren’t doing anything that qualifies them to have a special moral status. The same applies to a fetus: it doesn’t have any traits (in other words, it isn’t doing anything morally) that we would consider having moral status. So the question comes back: is being or doing more important?
With capital punishment: People who are for capital punishment focus on the doing. This person did something that we must consider morally. It’s an atrocious act, a capital crime and that person must be punished accordingly. People against capital punishment have used a being argument. For example: The convicted rapist Matias Reye had a horrible childhood. When he was 2 years old, his mother sold him to his father for $400. At age 7, two older boys sexually abused him and threw him in a river. By age 17, he was living alone on the street of New York, scratching for money as an East Harlem delicatessen clerk and sleeping in a van outside of the store. People who use a being argument suggest that it really wasn’t his fault for being like this. His upbringing made him into this type of being and he shouldn’t be blamed for this. (I know that there are those arguments that argue against capital punishment based on traits rather than being, but most anti-capital punishment arguments do focus on being rather than doing.)
Finally, gay marriage: People against gay marriage say that the relationship isn’t the proper kind. In other words, the being of the relationship isn’t the right kind of being and so they cannot get the full sanctity of a marriage. People for gay marriage say that the being doesn’t matter. It’s the doings of the relationship. The argument is that their marriage isn’t harming anyone, thus they should be allowed to get married.
I’m sure many more applications could be used here but I’m wondering if all ethics could be reduced to a “being” vs. “doing” dichotomy.
Yes, it’s the same author who did Charlotte’s Web. However, I was expecting something completely different from this book. It turns out that this book is a parody.
Shaun Miller's Ideas 