Sandefur and the War
Jason Kuznicki on Sep 1st 2007
Sandefur, who has left the blog over this post, now wants an apology. He writes,
…for Kuznicki to say that I am “endors[ing] bringing up al Qaeda as a way of dodging the subject of prisoner mistreatment in American-run facilities” is intolerable, absurd, and offensive. I have never done any such thing, and I expect Kuznicki to apologize for that allegation immediately.
I regret to see him go, particularly since we agree on so much, but no apology will be forthcoming. A red herring remains a red herring, even if it happens superficially to support the position you agree with. It doesn’t help to add a strawman, either:
Yet because I don’t lace my posts with slavering hostility to the Dark Imperial American War Machine, which is out there on a mission to tear the toenails out of tribes of Innocent Muslims, who would otherwise spend their days in pastoral piety, wishing the blessings of Allah upon us all—why, then I must be a monster like some character in Dr. Strangelove.
Since the above does not represent my own beliefs, I don’t feel I need to reply. Sandefur also doesn’t advance the debate very much when he writes this:
What I have refused to do is to play it Kuznicki’s way—what I see as the easy way—and to remain silent about the vastly worse abuses that go on at the hands of our enemies.
In fact I have repeatedly posted about the abuses committed by Muslim fundamentalists (here and here, and here, for example).
So why do I criticize my own society more often? Because I identify with it. Because I think I understand it a lot better. Because it interests me more. And because there is far more chance that Americans complaining about problems with America will actually have an effect. For a wide variety of reasons, mostly too obvious to mention, Americans complaining about Islamic militancy on English-language blogs aren’t even likely to be heard. (It hasn’t stopped me, as I noted, but my hopes are a lot lower, and the amount of energy I will devote to the project will likewise be lower.)
And then there is this:
We all remember how reluctant Kuznicki was to applaud, grudgingly, the downfall of the bloodthirsty dictator of Iraq. To me, that reluctance is far worse than my alleged softness on torture.
…which leaves me a little speechless — particularly since this is the first time Sandefur (or anyone else, for that matter) has seen fit to bring it up.
I wasn’t blogging at the time that Saddam Hussein’s government fell, so I’m not really sure what to say about that. Perhaps though Sandefur means his execution?
If so, I should say first of all that I think it’s generally in poor taste to applaud the death of anyone. It stinks of what our enemies do, and it doesn’t make things much better that the accused deserved it. If capital punishment must exist, I think it should take place in a solemn manner. There is simply nothing joyful about it.
Second, I am personally uneasy about the very existence of the death penalty, and I tend to think it should not be used at all. While few were so deserving as was Saddam Hussein, and while only a handful in the last century could test my beliefs as strongly as he did, I’m still not going to be unequivocally cheerful about executing anyone.
And third, I was on vacation at the time Saddam Hussein was executed. Specifically I was spending the Christmas season with my family, whom I had not seen in years. What’s more, they were finally willing to meet my partner, and I spent every moment I had with him, with my parents, and with members of my extended family. I returned home five days after the execution, and by then it had already been noted both in this space and elsewhere. I had thought the applause was already sufficient. Apparently I misjudged, and I guess “all” of you noticed. Can you please please clue me in on these things? “Psst — Jason, you’re not applauding loudly enough at a practice you think is probably barbaric!”
Finally, because I’d like to address something substantive, let’s consider the following:
My point in the post was that it is outrageous that a large portion of the American populace has come to accept the outrages that go on in Iraq as though they are the regular turn of events, or as if we are not entitled to expect anything better of the people of the Middle East, or as if they are somehow the rightful response to American occupation. And that outrageous outcome can be laid entirely at the feet of the Bush Administration, which has failed to focus the legitimate indignation of the western world on those who are responsible for these attacks (and which has so often focused indignation on its mere domestic partisan opponents). Whatever else can be said of Iraq right now, it has a unique opportunity to prove that the Middle Eastern, Arab, and Muslim peoples can come together to create a free, democratic society for the betterment of all.
Given the ubiquity of terrorism and other kinds of fanaticism in the Middle East, I think it’s accurate to see the outrages in Iraq as a regular, though no less lamentable, turn of events. This stuff happens all the time, and it indicates a very serious problem with the society in which it takes place.
I certainly expect better of all people, regardless of their religion or race, and I do believe that Arabs and Muslims are able to do better. This was, I thought, obvious, particularly given the fact that one of my duties at the Cato Institute is to arrange translations of important works in classical liberal thought into Arabic. I wouldn’t be doing this stuff if I thought it was totally hopeless. The truth is, I’m not certain it will work, but I do think that getting good ideas out (in Arabic, rather than on some English-language blog) is actually quite enough to defend me against the above charges.
I don’t think, however, that the real problem is a lack of focused indignation from the Bush administration. They have been nothing if not indignant. But they (and not bin Laden!) have given far too much intellectual ammunition to our enemies. About this it is perfectly legitimate to complain. It’s also legitimate to complain that nothing they have done has replaced the bloodthirsty dictator with a noticeably better social order. Iraq has been a bad bargain all around, and the doves have been proven right.
Lastly, I don’t think that the supposed opportunity in Iraq was at all unique. Any group of people, in any place or in any time, can work for liberty. It doesn’t require an invasion. Indeed, the invasion complicates matters tremendously, because the legitimate freedom fighters will then stand accused of working for a foreign power. Revolutions tend to work best when they can channel patriotic or nationalist feelings as well as the desire for liberty. Neither the starting conditions nor our strategy in Iraq do much to help this process along.
Filed in The Barracks
I don’t know, Jason. If the only content of this discussion between you and Sandefur is what’s on the front page of PL, I don’t see how there’s any red herring. I was hoping in your post that you would quote the relevant passages from him showing the red herring, especially when Tim specifically denies this charge, but you did not.
“Declaring al Qaeda atrocities to be worse than our own is a classic logical fallacy — the red herring”
No, not unless it’s provided in the middle of a debate specifically about America’s prisoner mis-treatment; otherwise it’s an observation. (I’m not a NYT subscriber so I couldn’t read Friedman’s full article and whether his entire point was to discuss prisoner mis-treatment and whether he was using a red herring). And neither Friedman or Sandefur seem to make any attempt to forgive or explain away the US’s mistreatment; as a matter of fact they specifically say the opposite. I do think they have a salient point as far as the press and attention that Abu Ghraib receives when al Qaeda is many times worse as far as it’s disregard for Muslims, and how it’s regretable that the US does not do a better job of pointing that out. That ‘the thesis at hand’ was the issue of the US’s mistreatment of prisoners was not obvious, at least from the quote of Friedman’s provided on Sandefur’s post, and I don’t see any comments of his on that post that would indicate that he thought it was.
I read with great interest the posts where you and Sandefur locked horns on the war, and I definitely disagree with him on that point. But I’d be seriously surprised if Tim would not realize that he is committing probably the most basic logical fallacy, and it’s pretty insulting to say he is especially without spelling out why you believe that to be so. It seems to me that you’ve taken an argument pointing out one thing and plopped it unwarranted into a discussion about your ‘thesis at hand’, which does not seem to be what the agreed thesis actually is. My less than 2 cents of course, but unless there’s more to it, I fear your accusation of a red herring is bogus, in both senses of the word.
Wow, in his second update, Sandefur quotes this passage from an old post of yours, and claims you and he are making the same argument:
Apparently he has missed your point entirely, or in his original post (and his post to which this was an update), worded his argument very poorly. If I’m not mistaken, you’re making the claim that we “did a far better job back then of insisting that there was a moral difference between us and them” through our own actions, and that “the panicky response to 9/11″ has led us to act in ways that make that moral difference less clear in our current situation. This interpretation is bolstered by your listing of a couple of our immoral acts as examples of how we haven’t done as well this time around.
I interpreted Sandefur as saying what is pretty much the exact opposite of this. He (and Friedman) seem to be saying that, sure, we’ve done some nasty things, perhaps even a bunch of them, but what we’ve done doesn’t compare in either number or severity to the nasty things that our enemies have done. Therefore, we should be doing a better job of insisting that there is a moral difference between us and them with words, in spite of our actions.
I’m not sure this is a red herring. One could argue that, while they don’t render our immoral acts legitimate, the immoral acts of our enemies help to make our overall participation in Iraq legitimate. Friedman and Sandefur seem to be arguing something like this, and arguing that supporters of the war should be arguing something like this more often, by highlighting the atrocities of our enemies as much or more than our own atrocities have been highlighted.
I think that argument’s invalid, of course, and not just because it elides the necessary premise stating that it is our participation in Iraq that created an environment in which just about anyone with a grudge or need for a terrorist training ground can do really nasty things and get away with it, and perhaps even look good to members of their in-group. There are several dozen reasons unrelated to torture, murder, etc., by our government or our troops, for which our invasion and occupation of Iraq can be considered illegitimate and immoral. But no matter how stupid and self-deceiving it ultimately is, Friedman and Sandefur’s argument doesn’t rely on a red herring.
Chris –
Your reading of the quoted passage is correct. A couple of further responses:
supporters of the war should be arguing something like this more often, by highlighting the atrocities of our enemies as much or more than our own atrocities have been highlighted.
You mean that he’s trying to say that what we read every single day in every major newspaper is not enough? Why not just say this, and not even bother to bring up any of the American detainee issues?
I’ll tell you why — because if you just said “we need to hear even more about the insurgency and the fanatics,” you’d raise immediate questions:
–What do you mean, it’s not enough already? We hear about this stuff continuously.
–To what end? Are you really saying that the failure of U.S. policy so far is from want of pep talks? Is this a tenable proposition?
–Aren’t you being kind of a defeatist, focusing on all this bad news?
The purpose here is clear enough: Quit complaining about America, because America is right. Or, well, at least we’re less bad than the other guys.
I have no intention of letting “less bad” off the hook, simply because “more bad” is out there doing bad things.
I have no intention of letting “less bad” off the hook, simply because “more bad” is out there doing bad things.
That is an appropriate sentiment for a blog like this one that focuses on American domestic politics.* Calling attention to the crimes of foreigners on foreign soil simply isn’t the raison d’etre of Positive Liberty, at least as far as I’ve noticed.
I think the problem here (and the disconnect between Kuznicki and Sandefur) is that our domestic fights are shading into the media of other countries, shorn of a lot of context. This is inevitable given our hyperpower status, but still makes me sad. I don’t want the U.S. to be the biggest topic of conversation on the Guardian message board (h/t Meryl Yourish). I don’t want to our elections to be enormously influential world-wide events. I think it’s corrosive to our democracy for all kinds of reasons. But that’s what is, and there’s no use wishing otherwise.
Let’s take Abu Ghraib as an example of this. The U.S. soldiers there behaved atrociously, and their behavior damaged our reputation in Iraq. I don’t think anyone here will challenge the former assertion, and I can find ample support from Michael Totten and Michael Yon for the latter. American media jumped on these reports and tore into the government and military. The world quickly learned (directly, since CNN is international, or indirectly), and condemned.
So the U.S. pulled out of Abu Ghraib and handed it back to the Iraqis. Those prisoners are now in the Jadriyah facility or a similar one, and they beg for the Americans to return on the few occasions they have anyone from the outside to talk to.
(Sources: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/09/10/wirq10.xml
and http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1669466,00.html )
Those prisoners were treated terribly in our custody, but things got vastly worse after we left. And that brings us to the difference between Kuznicki and Sandefur. Kuznicki notes, correctly, that our behavior at Abu Ghraib was indefensible and takes the government to task for it. Sandefur notes, also correctly, that our human rights abuses pale in comparison to those committed by Al Qaeda or even by the Iraqi government.
These points are not in tension–hence Kuznicki’s “red herring” argument. The fact that Al Qaeda is composed of murderous thugs is
perfectly compatible with the presence of such thugs in our armed forces.** The problem is that Kuznicki and Sandefur are arguing about two mostly different things. Kuznicki is arguing that we have done evil and must try to avoid doing more. Sandefur is arguing that an excessive focus on our evil creates the impression that our opponents and even our allies are less so.
Why should Kuznicki not focus on our evil, though? Like I noted above, this is a blog that focuses on American domestic politics. The current dictator of Belarus is nasty, too, but I’m not going to complain that we don’t hear enough criticism of him here. I’ll go to Gateway Pundit or something if I want to hear that.
I think Sandefur would answer the question I posed above by saying that the focus on America causes people around the world “to tune out the murders going on routinely in Iraq.” This brings us back to the media problem I noted above. We are, for a variety of reasons, a major (if not _the_ major) hub of the world news media. Everything our domestic media focuses on reverberates around the world. It’s kind of like having a family argument with the neighbors at all the windows doing a running commentary and occasionally offering advice to one side or the other. That’s a heck of a way to run a war. (See http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/games/wargames.html ).
In the end, I think both Kuznicki and Sandefur have valid points, but would benefit from a dialogue about them rather than acrimony. If reading Michael Totten and Michael Yon’s dispatches has taught me anything, it’s that we need to both be and appear to be better than Al Qaeda if we’re going to create a culture of law in Iraq. Without people like Kuznicki calling us to account for our crimes, we can’t be better than they are. And without people like Sandefur trying to hash out a way to deal with the media portrayal of America and its enemies, we can’t effectively appear to be better than them.
I know the war inside us is important, but even Sun Tzu (who repeatedly emphasized the value of self-knowledge) wouldn’t have said it ended there. We have to grok the enemy just as we grok ourselves…only then can we be both good and recognized as such by others.
*I’m not saying y’all don’t care about foreign politics, just that most posts are on the U.S.
**Of _course_ there are. Not many, but there are. Our army isn’t composed of “plaster saints,” after all.
“I think it’s generally in poor taste to applaud the death of anyone.”
I think if you were given enough reason, you would applaud also.
To some it is not found to be generally acceptable to wish the death of someone that is in all generalities, a mass murder, unless this creature of pure evil was to get a hold of you and yours!
Jason, don’t get me wrong, I agree with you. My position has been and will always be that we should expect more from a liberal, democratic nation than we do from local terrorist groups in terms of ethical behavior, and because we should expect more, and can be heard by people who can have an effect on the behavior of liberal democracies, we should be more vocal when liberal democracies do bad things. Sandefur wants to focus on the really nasty things that our enemies do, because he wants to score rhetorical points. You and I want to focus on us, because we want to make the U.S. behave better. I think it’s clear which strategy is more noble.
This is not a liberal, democratic nation, it is a federal republic.
JMB, seriously? That’s your response to what I said. I recommend a dictionary, or an encyclopedia, or something.
Thanks for the advice Cris, after I applied myself to reassessing what I had thought you were saying, I realized that I might have assumed wrongly. However, this slight indiscretion dose not cause me as much regret as might otherwise be noticed upon the creativity of your words, for they can without any doubt be applied applicably amiss of what you might have actually been saying, regardless of my personal access to any known dictionary or any known encyclopedia.
# JMBon 02 Sep 2007 at 8:39 pm wrote “This is not a liberal, democratic nation, it is a federal republic.”
Well, what this actually is or is not is an empirical question, but at least in theory I don’t see a conflict between the two types of nations because democratic is not a synonym for majority rule. Majority rule can disenfranchise minorities whereas in a democracy there are anti-majoritarian safeguards to try to prevent that.
I think that in many ways we now depend to much on these governments to protect us, then upon that, which we should be demanding, they not take from us.
The point is that a federal republic is, in fact, a type of liberal democracy. That’s what a dictionary, encyclopedia, or poli sci textbook would have told you (you can start with Wikipedia, and move from there to more authoritative sources). It wasn’t that you misinterpreted me. It’s that you were wrong. We do live in a liberal democracy, and regardless of the specific type of democracy (in our case, a federal republic), the points I was making stand. Hence my wondering at the fact that you offered a false correction as a response to my comment.
Wikipedia is not a reliable source of definitions, for it is fraught with more personal opinions then you have, so far neglected to announce. And liberal democracy is no more then a phrase used by many to defer further explanations of personal thought, and can be used in all its actualities, as a personally vain description, or as a vague metaphor of a nation, lacking not in its many imaginative comparisons, to things not necessarily akin to that of other nations, as if to suggest similarities left personally and purposely undefined in a figure of speech.
Whose majoritarian safeguards, yours, or theirs
JMB, this is stupid, but I’ll indulge you one more time. Wikipedia is, indeed, not an authoritative source. Hence my suggestion that you check it out and then move on to more authoritative sources which will tell you the same thing.
And since “liberal democracy” refers to a constellation of civil institutions which share the characteristics relevant to the sorts of moral evaluations I was highlighting, including democratically-elected representatives, I continue to be amazed that your response to my comments is devoid of anything that might be considered relevant or substantive. And with that, I bid you adieu, unless you decide to actually contribute.
I agree with the above A Steve analysis. Kuznicki and Sandefur are talking about two different aspects of the question. I didn’t get the sense that Sandefur in the Friedman post was denying any of the wrongdoing that the U.S. has engaged in. At the same time I didn’t find Kuznicki’s post to be terribly insulting of Sandefur and indeed he spends most of the time countering Freidman.
Perhaps there is some history between the two and their Iraq War viewpoints that I am not aware of (but can infer) that caused the rapid escalation in emotions.
Nevertheless, I would welcome a continued reasoned discussion of the topic on this blog I think disagreement when presented in a civil manner is a great thing for the readers of any blog.
As I have said before, I think this is one of the best blogs going. I sincerely hope Sandefur will reconsider and stay.
First off, you cannot interpret someone if you are not actually sure of what he is saying, this I admitted to from the very beginning of our conversation, not that I misinterpreted you, for you cannot misinterpret someone that dose not explain what he thinks his own words mean, and you cannot proclaim that your words mean only what you claim everybody else thinks they mean.
I think you depend to much on singular words that you can find to throw together, thereby covering up the very fact that you have self assumed there is no need for further explanation. In this way I agree with you, that was stupid. The term liberal democracy and the very act of its true infusion into our society, still means to many people that our national constitution must be rewritten, and that our nations amendments can only reflect the meanings of these terms as is in accordance with their own interpretations of these two words so connectively reflective upon what they claim they are to mean. If your claim is that the universal understandings of these connected words must be of our understandings. Then Cris, I beg to place this one example before you, so that I may further understand from were your orientations are coming from.
What is the universal understanding of this word, public, and what is the universal understanding of this word, use, now put these two words together and tell me what the universal meanings of these two words connected is, without explaining any historical struggles for freedom that any nation my have endured against the liberties of others.
Timothy Sandefur isn’t much of a “blogger.” He’s a pundit and I see no significant loss in his flight. He misses the fundamental points you made, and instead has responded in an “irrational” and “emotional” response, because his “feelings” are hurt.
In his “arguments” and “debates” in the past, he rarely concedes anything other than his own ramblings and usually can’t get past his own “feelings” on a matter to get to the fact that his decisions are made before he ever even approaches or sees any facts that might support him. He shows up to every argument with an opinion, and then tries to cobble together a defense of that position from what he comes across–digging deep is not a term appropriate to one Timothy Sandefur. I’ve never seen him step back and recant one line on those “stubbornly held” positions once he’s embraced them and find his post about you ironic and comical.
You can’t argue with a brick wall, you can either walk/work around it or knock it down and build something else in its place. Timothy Sandefur’s voluntary absence saved you the trouble of having to eventually make that decision.
Good riddance,
Jason
This is really a shame. I think that Jason and Tim are just talking past each other. Admittedly, I only read the except of the Friedman article that was posted (not being an NYT subscriber), but my understanding of it was similar in impression to the excellent essay by Hilary Bok (recently reposted on andrewsullivan.com) in which she argued that our leaders could not have really cared about winning in Iraq. The point I took was that although we have an important battle for minds to be waged in the Muslim world, and we have considerable P.R. skill on hand, it’s a travesty that this skill hasn’t been brought to bear where it is really needed.
I think by Jason’s own definition, the red herring charge may itself be a red herring. Wasn’t Friedman’s topic a call for a PR campaign in/re Iraq, rather than a defense of abu Ghraib?
On the other hand, Tim’s reaction seems completely disproportionate and unhinged. There’s the bizarre Saddam charge, followed by a refusal to concede much of anything even after he’s admitted he has mixed up someone else’s blogging history with Jason’s.
Let me give you an analogy that explains why I think this really is a red herring.
Suppose I wrote a post about farm subsidies. In it, I argue that it’s a crime that the federal government keeps food prices artificially high. It hurts the American consumer and especially the poor.
Then someone leaves a comment to that post saying “Well, you’re really losing all perspective here. After all, a nuclear war could come and destroy all life on earth. In fact, I don’t think you have been talking enough about nuclear war. From this I conclude that you simply hate all life on earth and want it all to die.”
Same. Exact. Story. If you think that there has not been enough documentation of al Qaeda atrocities, then write about them yourself. Personally, I think that there has been plenty. Everyone in the entire world knows that al Qaeda is out there. They know what the group stands for, what it has done, and what it has (usually) failed to do. I think there’s enough attention here, so I am generally more interested in other things. If you disagree, then fine. But don’t take it as a moral failing on my part.
Jason, I don’t think your analogy is very analogous. Writing a post about something and then to have someone leave a comment on that specific post is significantly different, from what I see, than the exchange between you and Sandefur. You accused him of dodging the subject of prisoner mistreatment in the US, yet I see zero evidence that his post on Friedman in any way was a response to anything specific you’ve written on that topic. I’m willing to be corrected if you can show the context that you two were in the middle of some debate about that specific topic, but you just say ‘a red herring is a red herring’ and don’t back it up. The analogy would be to accuse your post on the Spoils of War of being a red herring to an argument that we went into Iraq to eliminate WMDs (nonexistent though they were), when that subject has nothing to do with why you wrote that post. You’ve got to show the context in order to have a red herring, and you refuse to spell it out (Jason said this, Tim responded with that, etc). As Tom and others have noted, the Friedman post to me seemed to also be about the PR aspect, or lack thereof, and in no way is dodging anything, especially when they explicitly do not defend prisoner mistreatment by the US.
Sure everyone in the world knows al Qaeda is out there, and everyone in the world also knows about Gitmo and Abu Ghraib. I don’t think everyone knows how many Muslims are being killed by al Qaeda in Iraq; I’d be willing to bet that some less-informed people think al Qaeda is just trying to combat the US presence there. I think Tim’s leaving is a ridiculous overreaction and I agree with you on most things, but the burden is on you to show specifically the red herring when it’s contested.
It does not matter that I did not bring the point up first. What matters is that an unrelated fact is being used to dismiss or belittle an otherwise legitimate argument. A red herring most certainly can be preemptive.
What I don’t understand is why Friedman would even bring up U.S. abuses in this context, except for the fact that — here, at least — they seem by contrast not so bad, and therefore presumptively they are excusable. Friedman knows perfectly well that even if he is not making this point explicitly, others certainly have. And he is playing to exactly that crowd.
Consider this: If he is only saying that some issues have gotten too much attention, and this particular issue has gotten too little, he could certainly have chosen a better example. Paris Hilton, maybe? That I’d understand. And so would everyone else. Some things really are trivial.
But why this issue, and why in this context? The only reason I can find is that he wants to deny the importance of American misdeeds.
Now Sandefur has explicitly denied this motive. Fair enough. But if I’m going to pick an issue out of the air as an example of something unimportant, Guantanamo isn’t going to be that issue.
Friedman is talking about the PR/propaganda component when comparing American abuses to al Qaeda. From Sandefur’s post, quoting the main gist of Friedman:
“Dive into a conversation about America in the Arab world today, or even in Europe and Africa, and it won’t take 30 seconds before the words “Abu Ghraib” and “Guantanamo Bay” are thrown at you. Yes, both are shameful, but Abu Ghraib was a day at the beach compared to what Al Qaeda and its Sunni jihadist supporters have been doing in Iraq, yet none of their acts have become one-punch global insults like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. ”
What specifically do you disagree with in that statement? Where is the statement that asserts that “they seem by contrast not so bad, and therefore presumptively they are excusable”? That’s quite a presumption on which to base an accusation. I can see how you may be able to somehow interpret the whole posting as an argument belittling the US abuses, but that is most certainly not the only interpretation, especially when Sandefur’s own contribution to the post talks about the lack of heroes in this war, which just strengthens that he is talking specifically about the PR war overall. I question, as I’d guess you do, whether such a PR campaign against al Qaeda would be effective, but that’s a separate argument.
I’ll have to take your word that a preemptive red herring is valid; it seems that any post can be construed as a red herring to many other tangential arguments. A preemptive red herring, if there is such a thing, is also notably different than the analogy you just provided as the ‘Same. Exact. Story.’. If I’m reading you right with your farm subsidies analogy, Sandefur’s Friedman post is analogous to the post about, “Well, you’re really losing all perspective here. After all, a nuclear war could come and destroy all life on earth. In fact, I don’t think you have been talking enough about nuclear war.”. My only question is where is your original post about farm subsidies (American misdeeds) that you think Sandefur is replying to and that makes this analogy valid? If it’s an offline communication or I missed it in the post archives, I apologize for belaboring the point.
What specifically do you disagree with in that statement? Where is the statement that asserts that “they seem by contrast not so bad, and therefore presumptively they are excusable”?
Did you miss the whole “day at the beach” part?
Would you describe Abu Ghraib as a day at the beach?
Didn’t think so. See, a day at the beach is fun and enjoyable and morally blameless. And Abu Ghraib is none of these things. Except maybe fun for the sadists who ran it.
There is no question of comparison here, and the one still doesn’t make the other okay.
Sandefur and I have a long history of arguing about the justifications for the Iraq invasion. He has generally (at least until now) supported the administration on just about everything. I thought maybe he was changing, given recent events, but I’m not really sure where he stands. He seems to want to support this war, even though it’s not the war he imagines (hint: we’re not fighting for freedom anymore, but only for whichever thug takes over).
But he goes right on supporting it anyway.
Oh, and as to a preemptive red herring: Suppose, on any issue I argued about, I prefaced my comments with the following:
“If in the past you have cared about [some unrelated issue], you are harming my cause.”
That would make me rather a bully, wouldn’t it?
“Did you miss the whole “day at the beach” part?”
No, but did you miss the two words, “compared to” immediately after those? It doesn’t say Gitmo or Abu Ghraib is a “day at the beach” period, and again Friedman acknowledges explicitly that those are shameful. Even if you find the choice of words objectionable, the terror and abuses caused by al Qaeda is categorically worse. Just the one attack mentioned in Friedman’s article where 500 were killed is worse than all the abuse at Guantanamo IMO. You seem to think that the only point to be made by the Friedman article concerning the PR war is to make some statement that the US abuses are not so bad, but that is pure inference on your part and I see zero in the post that clearly implies that. I see as an equally likely reading that Friedman is saying that, *regardless* of whether you think US abuses have received too much attention or even too little, based on what al Qaeda has done they should suffer a proportionately greater negative impact propaganda-wise. A war supporter could make the argument that if our media gave a proportionate amount of attention to what al Qaeda is doing, it may increase support for the war; that argument, right or wrong, has nothing at all to do with our abuses.
Again, I agree with almost everything you say concerning the war, and I’ve read Sandefur’s justification for it and thought it lame and weak. Your last post about the preemptive red herring and bullying I think is in reference to later posts after the split; I’m only looking at two posts: Friedman on the PR war, and your red herring accusation. I don’t know how you can separate the idea of a red herring from it’s context, and how it can be preemptive. You’re right, if you are debating US abuses, to argue that al Qaeda’s abuses are worse is a red herring. To argue, if there is any argument at all, that al Qaeda’s abuses are worse than our own is not a red herring by itself. That statement is in the exact same way a red herring to the argument that the detainment of Japanese-American’s in WWII wasn’t so bad; if no one is making that argument in that context, so what? From your own definition:
“A “red herring” argument is one which distracts the audience from the *issue in question* through the introduction of some irrelevancy”
Where has Friedman or Sandefur accepted or acknowledged that the ‘issue in question’ is US abuses? They sure talk a lot about the PR/propaganda aspect and Friedman’s the only one who brings up US abuses at all. I just don’t know how you then leapt from that to making the accusation that Sandefur is ‘dodging the subject’ of US abuses, especially when he didn’t even acknowledge that he was responding to any argument at all made by you.
It’s evident though that this isn’t the only reason he left PL, so I suppose it’s not that important. I visit here mostly for you and Rowe anyway, so no skin off my back.
“Did you miss the whole “day at the beach” part?”
No, but did you miss the two words, “compared to” immediately after those?
So let me see if I understand you correctly.
Next to strychnine, lead is not poisonous. On the contrary, it’s downright healthy. So long as kids occasionally ingest strychnine, I shouldn’t complain about lead paint in my house.
Next to murder, rape is pretty nice, actually. Because of this, I ought not to work to stop rape, nor even to talk about rape, because murderers still exist.
Am I getting it now? Sorry, but I have absolutely no intention of letting anyone off the hook who makes comparisons like this. Evil is evil.
You seem to think that the only point to be made by the Friedman article concerning the PR war is to make some statement that the US abuses are not so bad, but that is pure inference on your part and I see zero in the post that clearly implies that.
His statements about the PR war amount to wishing that we would shut up about our mistakes. This is both dangerous and immoral. Now that the evils have been done, public accountability and judgment are the only proper actions left.
Where has Friedman or Sandefur accepted or acknowledged that the ‘issue in question’ is US abuses?
They don’t need to. As I wrote above, your relative interest in one set of facts does not give you license to dismiss the concerns of others.
“So let me see if I understand you correctly.
Next to strychnine, lead is not poisonous. On the contrary, it’s downright healthy. So long as kids occasionally ingest strychnine, I shouldn’t complain about lead paint in my house.”
Jason, I don’t know why you automatically presume that is what is being said. Maybe this whole thing is just a quibble you have with the phrase ‘day at the beach’; how about if we substitute the phrase “not as violent and abusive as’ for that, does that change anything? It’s exactly the misinterpretation or inferences you’ve made from what’s been said that I’m afraid you’ve done with Sandefur’s post. The correct analogy is ’strychnine is *more* poisonous than lead. Neither is healthy’. Quote me anything that explicitly says or even clearly suggests anything like ‘it’s downright healthy’ or that America’s abuses are okay. Apparently one cannot note the fact that al Qaeda’s abuses are worse than the US’s (which you haven’t acknowledged or contested, but I suspect you know is obvious) even if that fact is used to make a comment about the PR war which is something only tangentially related to the topic of American abuses, for to do so is to ‘dismiss the concern of others’ or ‘letting someone off the hook’. The article does not clearly imply that too much attention/PR has been given to the US abuses; it says not enough has been given to al Qaeda’s in a relative sense.
“His statements about the PR war amount to wishing that we would shut up about our mistakes.”
I disagree entirely; where are you getting that? I ask you to quote where that was said. Friedman’s original article I believe asks something to the effect why since Bush was so effective in ’swift-boating’ Kerry that he isn’t as effective PR-wise in using al Qaeda’s actual actions more effectively against them. Another summation of the article I have even cracks, “it’s too bad bin Laden wasn’t running against Bush for president”. Friedman says nothing about whether there has been too much or too little attention or propaganda concerning American abuses. You’ve taken one line about the US abuses and ignored not only the four subsequent paragraphs of Friedman’s discussing Bush’s inability to use al Qaeda’s crime against them PR-wise, but you’ve also ignored Sandefur’s paragraph concerning the lack of war heroes; *nowhere* are the US’s abuses mentioned or alluded to throughout the rest of the post from that first paragraph.
“They don’t need to. As I wrote above, your relative interest in one set of facts does not give you license to dismiss the concerns of others. ”
Well, they do need to if it’s going to be a red herring. The problem with your second sentence is that I don’t see where anyone else’s concerns are dismissed. Every statement of fact is a potential red herring, if you get to presuppose that the statement was said in response to another argument. The sun is 93 million miles away, is a red herring to the argument that relative to the earth, the moon is far away.
The only way I can see that you can construe what Sandefur/Friedman wrote as a red herring is if you somehow provide some evidence that that post is in response to an argument about American abuses (although I find it curious that it was not prefaced that way), or show that the only possible interpretation and point of what’s been written is to make some vague (you must admit it’s not very explicit) statement that the US abuses weren’t so bad so shut up about them. I think you are assuming the latter, and I’ll just say that I don’t know how you see that as the only interpretation.
Maybe this whole thing is just a quibble you have with the phrase ‘day at the beach’; how about if we substitute the phrase “not as violent and abusive as’ for that, does that change anything?
Yes. It changes everything.
Apparently one cannot note the fact that al Qaeda’s abuses are worse than the US’s (which you haven’t acknowledged or contested, but I suspect you know is obvious) even if that fact is used to make a comment about the PR war which is something only tangentially related to the topic of American abuses, for to do so is to ‘dismiss the concern of others’ or ‘letting someone off the hook’.
Not at all. What I mean is just the above — this phrasing was at best clumsy and at worst an endorsement of evil.
“this phrasing was at best clumsy”
We’re in agreement about that, although on my first reading that figure of speech did not faze me at all. Thanks for the explanation.