Iggy

If you're going to wage a war against SSRIs then don't call yourself "Popcorn Sutton". I mean, just from irony's perspective: seritonin reuptake inhibitors are antidepressants and Popcorn Sutton killed himself. Bullets to the head are the more dangerous outcome of the two. That said... I have a limited sympathy. I assume you recently lost somebody who was forced to take an antidepressant. My mother didn't die, but she did recently have a heart attack 30 minutes after taking a similar type of drug with vasoconstricting properties (an anti-migraine thing) without being warned it could have that effect. Serotonin acts as a vasoconstrictor and when you limit it's reuptake guess what therefore happens? Well, you have to guess because they won't tell you. No doctor in their right mind would say that the antidepressant they are giving you might cause blood vessels to constrict and therefore cause a stroke. Their employers don't like those kinds of lawsuits. No drug company would dare publish that linkage. They would, at best, lower the maximum dosage. No... if a loved one were forced to take an SSRI and then had a stroke I could imagine some outrage. I could imagine wanting to get the word out.

Well... ok... "paraphrased". I guess that marks me a little differently than "you said" and "you did". No... I guess I don't accept your paraphrase, but I think that is probably to be expected. I think we are entirely failing to communicate. No, again... anyone who doesn't know that islam is a theism is unable to process the plain meaning of english words. I have trouble telling with you if that is the case or if you are being deliberately biased. I mean... you obviously can't quote anything like what I said with anything like what you said, but what is the reason for that? I don't know. You are obfuscating, dissembling, or deceiving. Whatever the case. We can't communicate. No, I didn't expect it, and I did go back and read your post. It was prescient of me... I expected to sooner or later find the FOX comment. The accusation that it was my worldview. I tried to head that off so hard early on. I tried to tell you that interventionism and nation building were liberal ideas. But... I get it. I understand your bias better than you understand your own worldview. There is so much I could say, but I really don't want to be cruel. I'm positive we can't successfully communicate. I'd appreciate anything you have to say about that and fair enough and all that...

Yep. Quote it or apologize. I'll read the rest of your post if you can do one of those and I have time.

I said all that? Well... no... I guess that's a good point. The day I actually say "Islamic theocratic" is the day I'll worry about my argument. When I string those redundant adjectives together I'll admit that I don't know what I'm talking about in this thread. The day I use the words "AQ type" is the day I resign from this conversation. Very good point. I couldn't get inebriated enough to spit out the string of words you just accused me of saying. The PLF had many offices in Iraq. They were terrorists. I gave you the leader's name. He wasn't the only guy. You could look this stuff up rather than relying on me to correct you. That is getting tedious. Well... the anti-Israeli terrorists certainly were not the wrong kind of terrorist for Saddam. They are wrong by me. Are they you? Can you say what you are thinking? What level of Freudian slip are you aiming at here? My god... these stupid talking points. Conquest and occupation? You think? "most important oil field on the planet"? As if that isn't a *reason* to fight! What nonsense! You have one question to ask yourself. When Saddam's army comes over the horizon and chokes your uncle with gas and strangles your sister and rapes her while you are made to watch, while his secret police amputates you and your manhood, what do you say? Do you say that we couldn't oppose him without "borrowed money"? Do you make a point that we had to borrow money to oppose him? Well... Apparently you do. Good for you, and Saddam, and your genocidal ways.

Indeed. One has to feel bad for Pakistan as they do for Afghanistan. An extreme form of lunatic ideology has taken root and just strangled those countries. One's heart can't help but go out to them. "Jingoistic" Good word Let's see. I said Saddam was housing terrorists. I gave the example Muhammad Zaidan. I'll quote wiki: I've supported what I said. If you'd like to disagree, you'll be disagreeing with a fact. Saddam was a fantastically evil bastard, and supporting terrorists was no high water mark on the list of atrocities for which he needed the ultimate form of justice. Genocide would probably be the high water mark. We're talking about a genocidal madman, and I've said nothing insulting to you.

Indeed the army flew itself through Pakistan. I think you'll find the army a critical element of that equation.

I gave you a name. I suggest you look it up before digging your hole deeper.

You do understand that an army killed bin Laden? We didn't send the girl scouts.

I mind who wins. Al Qaeda is an enemy of civilization and only the dismantling of civilization could appease it. If you don't consider al Qaeda an enemy then you don't know an enemy when you see or hear one. And, I'm sorry, but Americans aren't willing to surrender their country to make nice. They have every reason to be afraid. I'm not sure they hung out.

What? Saddam wasn't fighting terrorists. He was housing them. I don't know what you're talking about. He was paying Muhammad Zaidan's room and board. We didn't need that to continue. I don't understand what you're trying to say.

Tell them they can't throw acid in their daughter's unveiled face and give them a sandwich. See how far that gets you with the vocal minority. Tell them they don't have a right to murder and give them an apple. If that doesn't do it then I don't know what will. They want the complete surrender of you and your culture. You are welcome to do it, but I think civilization is worth fighting for.

Well done, that. You are crafty I see. Convert to Islam. Surrender to their faith in body and mind and submit yourself fully to their Mullahs. Then you might just have a chance at appeasing these people. No amount of food would do it. Only a bullet could stop Bin Laden. No amount of food would persuade him against his murderous intentions. That is why it is a war. They say "we love death more than you love life". There is exactly one way to prove them right about that. It takes a bullet. It is a war. They are 100% unpersuaded by your compassion. Only your complete surrender will do. And hope you do better than Daniel Pearl.

I apologize for my tone. I know it isn't useful. I respected you before, but that level of respect just went up immeasurably. I thought for sure you'd argue with the source. We've managed to make an American war legal. This is progress. By that reasoning no person could ever declare war. War cannot therefore be declared. That's nice. There is far too much euphemism about war already. In the US we have a tendency to call things "police actions" or "armed conflict". For one thing, it is something presidents do to avoid having to go to congress to get approval for "war". It isn't healthy. Calling something a war doesn't elevate it. War is dirty and nasty and ugly, and when the enemy is even more dirty, nasty, and ugly then you can't avoid using the term -- and one shouldn't avoid it. We are fighting a war against theocratic fascism. It is a war we absolutely must win. It's a war alright. I'm having a hard time responding to this civilly. If you honestly believe al Qaeda was based in Saudi Arabia then there's nothing I can say. Piffle. Indeed you do support the terrorists by saying it. Death at the hands of a terrorist flying a plane into a building should never be compared to anything like a uniformed soldier fighting to liberate a country. To directly compare the two avoids all common decency.... and I have to censor myself from saying anything further...

Yeah, you would be on his side. That is what you are. On your best day... at your most noble... you are a supporter of a terrorist. You do your honest best at supporting the murder of thousands of civilians. That is who you are and what you do. Good luck with that.

No. It only took 10. Security Council resolution 1386 (2001): You ask for reference to "military force". The portion that I quoted above has the word "force" 9 times. But, I know already that you won't accept it. I can warn now... there's no point in asking me to find anything else if you ignore everything I've yet found. No point at all. You're wrong about that, but even if you were right... if there were a UN authorization to destroy the Taliban -- where do you think they'd be found? We're back to South Vietnam are we? That isn't necessarily true, either. The UN is not the only entity capable of declaring war. Bin Laden declared war on September 11, 2001 and self-defense is a widely recognized legal reason to respond.

"When the security council approves" you say? It took me 20 seconds to find a link disproving your proposition... United Nations Security Council resolution 1378, adopted unanimously on 14 November 2001, after reaffirming all resolutions on the situation in Afghanistan, including resolutions 1267 (1999), 1333 (2000) and 1363 (2001), the Council affirmed that the United Nations would play an important role in the country and called for the establishment of a transitional administration leading to the formation of a new government.[1] The Security Council recognised the urgency of the situation in Afghanistan, particularly in Kabul, and supported efforts to combat terrorism according to resolutions 1368 (2001) and 1373 (2001). It condemned the Taliban for allowing Afghanistan to be used as a base and safe haven for Al-Qaeda, other groups and Osama bin Laden and violations of international law.[2] The preamble of the resolution welcomed the declaration by the Six plus Two group and the intention of convening a meeting involving all Afghan processes.[3] United Nations Security Council Resolution 1378 You have to wonder where your bias has left you when 20 seconds dismantles your whole philosophy on a situation.

If the equipment is observed then it exists, but reality doesn't? You'll have to explain how reality contains no equipment. By the way, we cannot draw reasonable conclusions from non-existent equipment.

That is correct. If someone finances a terrorist residing in New York and that terrorist commits an act of terror then the money came from New York. That's how "giving" works. When you give something to someone it no longer belongs to the giver. Children know this. I was clearly talking about the planners and the muscle hijackers when I said "the bulk of the training for most of the hijackers happened in Afghan training camps". They constituted the bulk of the hijackers so you should have known that's what I meant. To support my point (you clearly need each minute point supported) I'll quote the following: Most of the muscle hijackers first underwent basic training similar to that given to other al Qaeda recruits. This included training in firearms, heavy weapons, explosives, and topography. Recruits learned discipline and military life. They were subjected to artificial stress to measure their psychological fitness and commitment to jihad. At least seven of the Saudi muscle hijackers took this basic training regime at the al Faruq camp near Kandahar. This particular camp appears to have been the preferred location for vetting and training the potential muscle hijackers because of its proximity to Bin Ladin and senior al Qaeda leadership. The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report Another quote concerning your Saudis (because I can't help citing how wrong you are): Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi were both experienced and respected jihadists in the eyes of al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden. Mihdhar and Hazmi both had prior experience fighting in Bosnia, and had trained during the 1990s at camps in Afghanistan.[4] Hijackers in the September 11 attacks -- selection Afghanistan was al Qaeda's base for planning and carrying out 9/11. If you don't consider that a connection then you're retarded. The exact thing I said was "Bin Laden was the principal of 9/11, and his organization enjoyed a state all of their own in Afghanistan". If you want to disagree with what I said then I suggest you disagree with what I said. To support my comment, From 1996 to 2001 the al-Qaeda terrorist network of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri became a state within Afghanistan.[132] wikipedia -- Taliban Emirate and the United Front By 2001 al Qaeda was a terrorist group with its own state. Understanding War in Afghanistan You were so entirely mistaken in the first half of your comments that I'm not going to bother reading the second half. You would have to ask yourself (if you knew better)... "should I really have to make things up if my argument were that strong"?

Excellent idea. Castaway corn (and other fruit) that hits the ground is good pickings for ground birds. Chickens can make good use of that when rodents would otherwise gobble 'em up. On a horse ranch too -- chickens eat the seed leftover by horses, cutting down the population of mice, opossums, and other herbivores. Fantastic creatures chickens are! The only two concerns I'd have is chicken poo which attracts flies (and whatever eats fly larva) causing, rather than alleviating, an insect problem. The other insects introduced by chickens are chicken fleas. You'd have to be careful not to cultivate them. However, controlled burns are more effective at removing evasive species, cheaper, they accomplish more than just pest control, and they do nothing to moderate migratory species. So, your point does nothing to curtail Essay's point. I liked your post though. I liked the recommendation and the idea.

Indeed. In the Quran the word pagan meant "polytheist" (as it does now in English, in fact). The position in the Quran (outlined in chapter 9) is that pagans should be converted or killed. That was the tolerance shown to them... "convert or die". Anyone who knows anything about Islam knows the first of the 5 pillars: "there is only one God and Muhammad is his messanger". Anyone saying that this is a message of tolerance or a message of polytheism is diluted beyond plain words. More than diluted... delusional. One wonders why orthodox Muslims today believe that non-Muslim lands should be converted and apostates should be killed. Actually, one doesn't have to wonder -- it's because they take the word of an epileptic schizophrenic madman seriously.

I think the attackers of 9/11 were Saudi Arabian mostly (some UAR and Lebanon, no Afghans or anyone from Afghanistan), and so was their financing, and so was their organization and much of their training That's wrong as far as financing, organization, and training. Financing routed through Afghanistan came from Afghanistan. Organization arranged in Afghanistan (which took place while KSM frequently met Bin Laden there) happened in Afghanistan, and the bulk of the training for most of the hijackers happened in Afghan training camps. As for the attackers holding a different passport, my analogy holds: most of the people paid by the CIA and most of the people gathering their intelligence for the CIA are foreign nationals. The CIA is nonetheless an American entity. Bin Laden was the principal of 9/11, and his organization enjoyed a state all of their own in Afghanistan. Your implications otherwise are sincerely and honestly laughable. Did I say that Australia's reserves are easier to get at? No. I said they had more of them. Your larger argument is cut down by a simple fact that I already gave you: the US is not the recipient of Iraqi oil wealth. China is. Did China support the war? Did China fight it? Is anti-China the form of secreted bile your conspiracy theories take? No, of course not. The US and UK liberated Iraq and as a result Iraq uses their oil reserves however they wish (because Iraq is now a federalized democracy). That is "liberation", by the strictest sense of the word. History has done very little to educate you. The US did not put Saddam's Ba'ath party in power. We were indifferent to it which is something you should appreciate. A xenophobic America that takes no part in the rise of a totalitarian regime appears to be something you positively adore. Mullah Omar's leadership of the Taliban... the US is responsible for his installation is it? What a perfect anti-American conspiracy theory you espouse. It rivals anti-Semitism for how the hated hold the strings making them responsible for everything. The Northern Alliance was a neighbor to the Taliban, and they were threatened with annihilation. As for the "delicacy of *my* choice of targets, with violent fascism all over the planet, much of it opposable without bloodshed... ". Three points illustrate your addled thinking: 1) you have no idea where I'm willing to support the use of arms to oppose flourishing fascism as a US citizen. 2) You contradicted the first part of that sentence with the second half. If Saddam and al Qaeda were the only two of your many that couldn't be successfully opposed by non-violent means then where does that leave your point? 3) Your point amounts to saying that there is a lot of evil, therefore none of it should be opposed. Bullocks. That entire list is of consequences of preventable US behavior, including direct responses to the military assault you find so liberating. If you honestly believe the US is responsible for Saddam setting Kuwait's oil fields aflame, and applying UN sanctions to Iraq preventing them from profiting from oil, then there is no point in carrying on with the discussion. Very well done. "It has been stated by me" contains no weasel words and would have been much better wording in the OP. You didn't read my post (or you didn't understand it). The exact thing I said to which you're responding was "The Afghan intervention was supported by UN security council resolutions, so it was easily legal. The decision regarding Iraq is more complicated." I addressed both Afghanistan and Iraq because the quote I was responding to addressed both. Let me repeat it: "The Afghan intervention was supported by UN security council resolutions, so it was easily legal. The decision regarding Iraq is more complicated." Your response to this is to tell me that the decision regarding Iraq was not supported by the UN, as if to disagree with me? Had I misrepresented you so badly I would not feel right until I apologized. Your second point is just as bad a misrepresentation. My point was that the weasel words in, "It has been stated by many that...", could be referring to anyone. It could refer to the UN (which it doesn't by the way -- you're wrong about that), or it could refer to a bingo club. It could refer to such drastically different entities. Now you accuse me of calling the UN a bingo club when my point was that they are drastically different. There is probably enough in my posts with which to honestly disagree without having to resort to misrepresenting me.

Indeed, they got very good at 'oil for food'. Their intervention, which made Saddam rich and the rest of the nation poor, worked about as a well as a transplanted heart. I'm going to assume you mean as late as the 2001 intervention, Afghanistan had attacked nobody. I'm also going to take that as a deep personal offense and move on. ...Oh, wait... I get it... You don't think al Qaeda was part of Afghanistan! HA!!!! You were thinking they were south-Vietnamese, perhaps. Priceless! No, Al Qaeda was (as far as the third world equivalent could make it) the Taliban equivalent of the US's CIA. Al Qaeda was removed from Afghanistan in the same way that the CIA is not a US institution. Bias is no substitute for knowledge. The latter always kicks the former's ass. What territory did the US annex? What trade imports did we blackmail? We were rebuilding and spending billions while Iraq's chief oil production and profit is now done for China. That isn't an invasion, any more than the Allied liberation of Germany was an invasion. The US arrived finding a fascist dictatorship and left a federalized democracy. The person who can't call that a liberation has murdered the English language. I started supporting Iraqi liberation in 1991 just like all liberals and most conservatives did (I did so as a staunch liberal). Liberals changed their minds on that for no apparent reason besides political expediency. Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson were all staunch interventionists. It's a tradition that is thrown away so easily and so unintelligibly by today's left. They lost the ability to do otherwise, and therefore threatened only their own people? They raped only their own women, and hanged only their own students for public viewing? You support letting Saddam get on with that, but my liberal sensitivities, which have always been trained to fight violent fascism, can't. I can't let the crimes against tortured victims go unanswered. It's just something about my makeup I guess. Good point: the 1991 and 2003 hostilities were not two wars, but one conflict seperated by a long and overdrawn truce, and also good for the 2 and 1/2 countries that decided to enforce the no fly zone. When Iraq initiated genocide in the north and south after 1991, at least somebody decided to stop them. If it were left up to the UN, it never would have been stopped. It would have been Rwanda, and we all would have whined, "why couldn't we at least have used a few planes to put an easy end to it?" It's easy to see why the secretary general of the UN -- Boutris -- called the action "illegal". He needed oil for food to take traction so that his family could profit from funding Saddam's palaces. But, why any thinking person could say anything like this now is beyond me. Protecting Kurds and shi'ites from mass graves and genocide, and calling it "bombardment from the air" (when US and British planes targeted only AAA and SAM sites that continually targeted and fired on them) is the worst kind of morally corrupt intellectual dishonesty. Bullshit. Australia to rival Saudi Arabia in oil reserves? And that isn't a good reason to fight for the Iraqi people? You prefer the Saudi royal family to have a monopoly on the world's oil supply? You'd rather have the Iraqi people, and the world, denied the benefits of their natural resource? You'd rather have Saddam burn oil fields wholesale? You'd rather let Iraq wither and stultify from sanctions, than intervene and open the markets? Talking points. Dumbed down talking points fit for mass consumption. This topic needs thought. The "war hawk" was originally a liberal idea and stance. Nation building was originally and principally a US democratic platform. You've all strayed so far from your water source that I wonder how you'll ever get back. The next time a Rwanda, or Pol Pot, happens it will take a force of nature to blow you back on the right course. Otherwise, the left wing will be like the UN, predictably failing to stop genocide from happening, and supporting the Rwandans and the Pol Pots as they commit the worst tragedies humanity has ever envisioned. I couldn't have said it any better -- you all needed political cover when Bush and America turned your views on you so you ran to Pat Buchanan's corner. You'd rather have rape, torture, and genocide than American intervention. It must be some kind of anti-Americanism. I can't, by any other means, explain such a thing. Absolutely correct it was a matter of time and not 'if'. Wrong that "realpolitik" was the reason. For one, the US dollar has lost value by extension of the war. Also, realpolitik very much means that the motives are non-ideological. On the contrary, the reason why Afghanistan and Iraq were a matter of time was the ideology of their rulers. They couldn't hep but be violent tyrants. Had the Taliban and the Ba'ath party been subverted by some democratic movement then there wouldn't have needed to be a war. It was their persistence in criminal barbarism that made intervention necessary, and only a matter of time. The sooner, as well, the better.

Yes. Had the international community intervened earlier I feel like war could have been prevented. Had Afghanistan and Iraq decided not to threaten and attack other countries and oppress its own people then war could have been avoided. The Afghan intervention was supported by UN security council resolutions, so it was easily legal. The decision regarding Iraq is more complicated. By the way: "it has been stated" is what wikipedia calls "weasel words". It's to be avoided at all costs because it may create the impression of holding meaning when it really doesn't mean a thing. Did your grandma and her tuesday night bingo club state it? You could have done everything in your power to influence the fascist Iraqi and Afghan regimes to soften their genocidal ways, or abdicate. All factors, but the largest contributor by far was Iraq and Afghanistan's extreme right-wing fascist and theocratic antics. I mean... Australia has oil reserves rivaling any country in the middle east, but could you imagine a war cry on that front? Youtube videos can confirm anything. They confirm UFOs. Iraq has a Kurdish president (which is just as significant as having a black president in America) and Afghanistan is running a female candidate in their current election. Perhaps you think these are big mistakes. The former rulers of Afghanistan certainly do. The Taliban tried to murder our fair female candidate before her rise. Maybe that was better. Better not to have overthrown the despots who murdered scores of thousands because it upsets our anti-American sentiments. It used to be that liberals were the only ones brave enough to support nation building. I remember it was a favorite talking point of Bush to bash the idea on his first campaign trail. And now look how far liberals have run into the camps of right-wing crackpots like Pat Buchanan just because they couldn't help but hate Bush.

Oh, don't get me wrong -- I get off on it, hence my overly nuanced objection to your fairly nuanced objection. Alltheless, nothing stops a fallacy from being both argument from authority and non sequitur. I'd be disappointed in Immortal's arguments were contained to one type of fallacy

EDIT: Scratch that. Recognition is sufficient but not necessary. Gotcha Although I would disagree with your sentence "an appeal to authority is only fallacious if the authority is not actually an authority." while the first paragraph of your link says: "the appeal to authority is often applied fallaciously: either the authority is not a subject-matter expert, or there is no consensus among experts in the subject matter, or both."