RE: virus: The Rumsfeld wriggle.

From: Jonathan Davis (jonathan.davis@lineone.net)
Date: Sun May 23 2004 - 10:17:07 MDT

  • Next message: Mermaid: "RE: virus: The Rumsfeld wriggle."

     

    -----Original Message-----
    From: owner-virus@lucifer.com [mailto:owner-virus@lucifer.com] On Behalf Of
    rhinoceros
    Sent: 23 May 2004 03:58
    To: virus@lucifer.com
    Subject: RE: virus: The Rumsfeld wriggle.

    [Mermaid]
    Imagine a burglar breaks into your house, steals all your stuff, tries to
    kill you, rape your wife and daughters, passes electricity through your
    penis and screams bloody murder when you hit him with a stick. His
    accomplice mumbles that you are not acting acc to the law.

    [JD 2]
    And the awards for purple prose and false analogy go to....MERMAID!!!!!
    Given what I wrote in the "Rumsfeld Wiggle" thread, is this not plagiarism?

    "Seems to me a bit like saying to a guy obeying Queensbury rules in a boxing
    match "Uh oh, one of your punches landed low, your opponents gloves are
    coming off!" whilst his opponent has been wearing knuckdusters and kicking
    for the groin all along."

    [rhinoceros]
    It does not seem such a bad analogy to me. In fact I think it was a
    charitable one. The key phrase was "into your house" (i.e. Iraq), and we
    haven't heard any claim that the abused Iraqi captives were from
    those"foreign jihadist troublemakers" who behead businessmen.

    [JD 3] The key phrases for me were linking the idea of rape, theft and
    murder with the US liberation of Iraq. This is good propaganda, but
    otherwise bunk. You are welcome to sympathise with the Baathists and urge
    their return or believe that the US GIs in Iraq are worse than the Islamists
    who are trying to kill them or even that the US routinely violates the
    Geneva Conventions whilst it's enemies respect those conventions. The
    problem is that this drives us too far apart on this issue to maintain
    discourse. We cannot appear unable agree on even fundamental facts. I am
    happy to wait for history to show who of us are right and wrong.

    Sometimes I wish that the Geneva Conventions were abandoned completely. We
    do not benefit from them fighting this Islamist enemy only they do. You
    would see that the Islamist enemies of the United States, never having
    obeyed any restraint, will not behave any differently. They are doing their
    worst already. It would however allow the US to finish this fight quickly
    and show what real power is. When we say "Can the US win" we mean can the US
    win with the handicaps of respect for enemy Human Rights (where the enemy
    has no balancing duties), a hostile media elite, cowardly citizens and an
    opportunist political bloc that is more focussed on hatred of Bush that the
    US's long term strategic well being.

    Perhaps some terrible day the US will get to Israel's position: Increasingly
    unable to fight under these constraints, yet forced to fight by those
    attacking it, the US will opt for Caesarean methods and total war.

    I sincerely hope that day never comes. But abusing our system to benefit the
    enemy will force reform. We'll soon see what those reforms entail.

    Regards

    JD

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