Steve wrote:
> --uhmmm...luke seemed to believe it or he wouldn't have snidely demanded
> proof that the toy bombs story was a hoax.
No. What I was snidely demanding was some evidence to believe by that the 1.3 million death figure was propoganda of the sort epitomized by the toy bomb story.
-- Luke
> And by focusing solely on the lies, Steve seems to skate over the
> larger truth of the given topic, i.e., the Kuwaiti incubator story was a
> hoax, therefore any critique of Saddam should be viewed in that light
>
> --absolutely not, what should be focused on is why the state has to lie to
> the american people to convince them to go to war. we should want to know
> the answer to that question.
>
>
> I just reached for the handy Nazi analogy to show how limited and
> ultimately
> ridiculous this line of attack really is.
>
> --not at all, there is much empirical evidence that we can deal with in the
> Nazi case...little in the case of Iraq's baby killing episodes or
> comparisons of sadam to hitler, or that the US gov't is genuinely concerned
> about human rights in Iraq...then again, that seems to be the point, we can
> say anything we want to about the 'enemy' when we are going to war...then we
> can avoid harder questions like, 'what are the alternatives?'...
> you dennis can provide us with all the horror stories you want from the
> soviet occupation, i would still want to know why Zbigniew felt it was
> better to provoke the soviets into a vietnam war of their own...or why we
> felt it was better to support rightwing islamic fundamentalists instead of
> moderates...those are questions worth answering...
> assuming that our involvement in afghanistan and they way we involved
> ourselves had something to do with genuine outrage at atrocities that
> resulted from the occupation is naive at best...
> No less naive than believing hoaxes like the incubator babies, satellite
> photos, or 'toy shaped bombs'....
>
>
> And it seems that Steve never responded to the Afghan death toll that he
> laughed off earlier. Or if he did I missed it.
>
>
> --not at all, i do laugh off the idea that we don't have to question the
> transparent motives of a Bush or Clinton when they start rambling on about
> their concerns for human rights....and i certainly don't believe that
> numbers don't matter or verifiability is moot...
>