Don’t Assume that I Assume
Jason Kuznicki on Feb 1st 2006
All I will say about this is that it is entirely mistaken to claim that I “automatically assume that our military is guilty of wrongdoing.” (To the readers: I’m sorry to drag this on in the main forum, but the comments are closed in the post I am discussing.)
Here is what I said just previous to Sandefur’s accusation:
“It seems the plain meaning of the phrase — and hence the presumption we ought to have — is in favor of the kidnapping hypothesis.”
I favor one hypothesis. That’s all.
Now, I worded things a good deal more strongly in my first post, yes, and I corrected myself. If anything, my willingness to reconsider the context of the documents once more facts are known should be a testimony to my unbiased approach to the subject. If being willing to revise and qualify one’s conclusions is a “childish, knee-jerk reaction,” then I’m all for childish, knee-jerk reactions.
Oh, and one more thing: Didn’t Sandefur charge me with making ad hominem attacks not long ago — based solely on the fact that I’d called certain of his opinions “unlibertarian?” Am I to conclude that “unlibertarian” is ad hominem, and that “childish” is not? How the standards have fallen around here! Positive Liberty, it’s getting so I hardly recognize you anymore.
Filed in The Barracks
I was also a bit bewildered by Mr. Sandefur’s response to you, because it is not childish to critize the military or the government. After all, aren’t libertarian very wary of the government, because we know that it tends to secretly acting authoritarian or totalitarian. Therefore, I also can’t understand why the term “childish” fits into this, if it is spoken from a libertarian point of view.
But we still need a lot more information, as Sandefur has already said, but this is almost impossible when it comes to national security and the military. So, we have to go with Reuters and hope they at least gasp half of it…
After reading the article in question, I have to say that when dealing with any news fragments on the military, one must take them with a grain of salt. On the other hand, there was a recent attack in the search for Al-Zaharwi (sp?) that killed many innocent people and not him. I have yet to find out what happens to ‘detained insurgents’ in the years we’ve been in Iraq, besides being sent off to camps. Are they incarcerated? tried? shot? what? Not a good record to begin with, eh?
Kuznicki says “Kidnap”. I agree. They say “Detain”. Detained at a military base? Did they lock up the children as well, in facilities meant for adult insurgents? By the reactions from the infomation that was released in the story, some other higher military people were against this type of operation, indicating that those women were not suspects and should not have been held - or at least one of them. Should we start doing that in the US? If my brother or fiancee were arrested or suspected of something, should I be too? or vice-versa? Where is the line drawn? Of COURSE the women fought back. I sure as hell would if I were the innocent mother in my own country being controlled (excuse me, ‘protected’)by a foreign military.
One thing that bugs me is the idea that we have to wait ‘for more facts’ before commenting on an article. Either you comment on the article or you don’t. Obviously, the news source felt they had enough facts for a story- I’m not saying that every news article out there is always right either. In a whirlwind news world, you can’t wait a week for story updates, or to let it run its’ full course before commenting. Imagine if we waited until the Iraq war was over to make any comments at all…