5 female captives released regarding Jill Carroll

[CrAz3D]

I <3 Invert for putting what I feel/think into writing.

This should be in the Fun Forum as well as here.

However, I still believe the coincedence of the 5 released women has a HELL of a lot to do w/this random journalist chick. 

[dxoigmn]

It does not necessarily follow that the US has had no attacks on their soil because the US attacked Afghanistan. That is really bad logic. A better argument might be: we have had no attacks on our own soil because of the war in Iraq, which has distracted terrorists.

Unfortunately, terrorists are not discouraged by you killing them or their comrades; America, of course, would like to believe that. If anything, it just makes their cause stronger. Their beliefs of the after-life seem quite lucrative especially when one dies for such a cause. There may not be an unlimited amount of terrorists, but I'm sure many more people have been converted to terrorists as a result of this war (speculative, but there seems to be plenty of evidence).

Invert is a victim of using feeling as fact as well, "To me it's not pointless and it works," so I very much doubt it is something liberals only do.

[CrAz3D]

I agree that more people convert to terrorism, but it is still possible that if you remove their leaders in a quick enough manner some people might wake up to the fact that terrorism isn't a good choice.
They'd also have to be eduated in some manner

[Arta]

We have Arta screaming that "the war on terrorism is pointless" when in fact since the United States declared the war on terrorism the United Stated has not had another terror attack. To me it's not pointless and it works.

For someone purporting to be applying logic, that's a pretty silly thing to say.

First, it's simply wrong:

2002
    June 14, Karachi, Pakistan: bomb exploded outside American consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, killing 12. Linked to al-Qaeda.

2003
    May 12, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: suicide bombers killed 34, including 8 Americans, at housing compounds for Westerners. Al-Qaeda suspected.

2004
    May 29–31, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: terrorists attack the offices of a Saudi oil company in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, take foreign oil workers hostage in a nearby residential compound, leaving 22 people dead including one American.
    June 11–19, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: terrorists kidnap and execute Paul Johnson Jr., an American, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. 2 other Americans and BBC cameraman killed by gun attacks.
    Dec. 6, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia: terrorists storm the U.S. consulate killing 5 consulate employees. 4 terrorists were killed by Saudi security.

2005
    Nov. 9, Amman, Jordan: Suicide bombers hit 3 American hotels, Radisson, Grand Hyatt and Days Inn, in Amman Jordan, killing 57. Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility.

See: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001454.html.

So, in the 4ish years since 9/11, the US has suffered 7 terrorist attacks. In the previous 4 years, you only had 3! So, since the beginning of the war on terrorism, there have been more terrorist attacks against US targets than before. Wow, that was predictable, wasn't it?

Second, your logic is flawed. See post hoc. "After the war on terrorism started, there have been no terrorist attacks. Therefore the war on terrorism prevents terrorist attacks." Well, no, not really.

[Invert]

It does not necessarily follow that the US has had no attacks on their soil because the US attacked Afghanistan. That is really bad logic. A better argument might be: we have had no attacks on our own soil because of the war in Iraq, which has distracted terrorists.

Unfortunately, terrorists are not discouraged by you killing them or their comrades; America, of course, would like to believe that. If anything, it just makes their cause stronger. Their beliefs of the after-life seem quite lucrative especially when one dies for such a cause. There may not be an unlimited amount of terrorists, but I'm sure many more people have been converted to terrorists as a result of this war (speculative, but there seems to be plenty of evidence).

Invert is a victim of using feeling as fact as well, "To me it's not pointless and it works," so I very much doubt it is something liberals only do.

It makes perfect logical sense. The United States stopped all the terror training camps in Afghanistan, the United States eliminated the terrorist government that was running the place that supported terrorist acts in the United States. Are you telling me that attacking those elements in Afghanistan did not help the United States prevent more terror attacks?

You say "I'm sure many more people have been converted to terrorists as a result of this war". I say I'm sure you can't prove that so you can not possibly be sure.

How can something be speculative and the same time have plenty of evidence? This is prime example of liberal garbage.

I'm not using feelings. I'm telling you that it's a fact that for me the war on terrorism is working because neither I nor my country have not been attacked by terrorists since the declaration of the war on terror.

[iago]

Thank you for taking so much time to respond.  The first thing I should say is that I'm using the words "force" and "violence" interchangably, which was a mistake on my part, and I apologize. 

iago also wrote "I didn't say 'violence won't stop a terrorist', obviously it will.  I said it won't stop terrorism, which is completely different." According to him "force" will not stop terror attacks but "violence" will. According to iago he believes that there is no relation between a terrorist and terrorism.

You're correct, I believe that killing a single terrorist isn't going to make any difference to terrorism.

I'll draw this out a little, just so you understand:

Let's say you have a town with a whole bunch of people driving cars poorly.  There are constantly more people entering the city, driving their own cars poorly. 

Now, let's say that a car is driving directly towards you, and it's about to kill you.  Luckily, you manager to get out of the way just in time, and avoid getting killed.  In the process, the driver hits a wall and dies.  Yes, that stops a bad driver, but it doesn't stop bad drivers. 

Now, another similar example.  There's a city with lots of drivers, and more are entering.  One of the cars breaks down and is no longer usable.  That stopped a driver, but it didn't stop the drivers.

Does that help you understand the difference between parts and a whole?

iago uses the argument that if you kill one more will come. You are right more will come, but there is not an unlimited amount of terrorists so in that case you kill more that come. It's called discouraging the enemy.

This is probably the main issue, then.  The more you attack terrorists, the more they know that they're getting their point across.  Because they know they're pissing you off, they'll be able to encourage more people to help them. 

Pay attention to the things iago writes; "If you decided to nuke the Middle East, I'd make it my goal in life to get nuclear technology and set it off in the USA." Should we take him and his arguments seriously?

If you commit genocide, should I be happy to accept it?

This sort of non-logical liberal thinking is why I consider it to be a mental disability.
[.....]
It seems that logic is the liberal's worst enemy so they do not support it.

It's a good thing that I'm not a Liberal, then.  But because you are attacking me as a person, rather than the argument in question, let's let this get more off-topic while I explain a little about myself. 

There are liberal policies that I agree with, and there are conservative policies that I agree with.  I like to commit something called, "free thinking," where I either consider all possibilities, or I consider the weaker possibility. 

Generally, I'll take the obviously weak side of arguments.  Around here, a lot of people take the side of Conservatives, so I take the side of Liberals.  Does that say anything about me?  No.  I don't believe that terrorism is a good thing, far from it.  I'd be happy if you guys could successfully kill every terrorist.  But what's the fun in arguing that?  There isn't any. 


On a sidenote, I looked up the definition of Liberal:

# Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.
# Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded.

Is it such a bad thing being free from bigotry, open for reform, and broad-minded?  Are you actually supporting bigotry and close-mindedness?  It sure sounds like you are, by being against Liberals.  I guess being open-minded in a country like the US is a bad thing, though. 

[Invert]

We have Arta screaming that "the war on terrorism is pointless" when in fact since the United States declared the war on terrorism the United Stated has not had another terror attack. To me it's not pointless and it works.

For someone purporting to be applying logic, that's a pretty silly thing to say.

First, it's simply wrong:

2002
    June 14, Karachi, Pakistan: bomb exploded outside American consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, killing 12. Linked to al-Qaeda.

2003
    May 12, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: suicide bombers killed 34, including 8 Americans, at housing compounds for Westerners. Al-Qaeda suspected.

2004
    May 29–31, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: terrorists attack the offices of a Saudi oil company in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, take foreign oil workers hostage in a nearby residential compound, leaving 22 people dead including one American.
    June 11–19, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: terrorists kidnap and execute Paul Johnson Jr., an American, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. 2 other Americans and BBC cameraman killed by gun attacks.
    Dec. 6, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia: terrorists storm the U.S. consulate killing 5 consulate employees. 4 terrorists were killed by Saudi security.

2005
    Nov. 9, Amman, Jordan: Suicide bombers hit 3 American hotels, Radisson, Grand Hyatt and Days Inn, in Amman Jordan, killing 57. Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility.

See: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001454.html.

So, in the 4ish years since 9/11, the US has suffered 7 terrorist attacks. In the previous 4 years, you only had 3! So, since the beginning of the war on terrorism, there have been more terrorist attacks against US targets than before. Wow, that was predictable, wasn't it?

Second, your logic is flawed. See post hoc. "After the war on terrorism started, there have been no terrorist attacks. Therefore the war on terrorism prevents terrorist attacks." Well, no, not really.

There has not been an attack in the United States is what I was talking about. You can say that every U.S. soldier shot at in Iraq or all over the world is an attack on the United States, but that's not what I was talking about.

Post hoc is coincidental correlation, since you cannot prove what I said is not a coincidental correlation you can't say that my logic is flawed.

You said "Well, no, not really." and your proof of that is where?

[Invert]

Thank you for taking so much time to respond.  The first thing I should say is that I'm using the words "force" and "violence" interchangably, which was a mistake on my part, and I apologize. 

iago also wrote "I didn't say 'violence won't stop a terrorist', obviously it will.  I said it won't stop terrorism, which is completely different." According to him "force" will not stop terror attacks but "violence" will. According to iago he believes that there is no relation between a terrorist and terrorism.

You're correct, I believe that killing a single terrorist isn't going to make any difference to terrorism.

I'll draw this out a little, just so you understand:

Let's say you have a town with a whole bunch of people driving cars poorly.  There are constantly more people entering the city, driving their own cars poorly. 

Now, let's say that a car is driving directly towards you, and it's about to kill you.  Luckily, you manager to get out of the way just in time, and avoid getting killed.  In the process, the driver hits a wall and dies.  Yes, that stops a bad driver, but it doesn't stop bad drivers. 

Now, another similar example.  There's a city with lots of drivers, and more are entering.  One of the cars breaks down and is no longer usable.  That stopped a driver, but it didn't stop the drivers.

Does that help you understand the difference between parts and a whole?

iago uses the argument that if you kill one more will come. You are right more will come, but there is not an unlimited amount of terrorists so in that case you kill more that come. It's called discouraging the enemy.

This is probably the main issue, then.  The more you attack terrorists, the more they know that they're getting their point across.  Because they know they're pissing you off, they'll be able to encourage more people to help them. 

Pay attention to the things iago writes; "If you decided to nuke the Middle East, I'd make it my goal in life to get nuclear technology and set it off in the USA." Should we take him and his arguments seriously?

If you commit genocide, should I be happy to accept it?

This sort of non-logical liberal thinking is why I consider it to be a mental disability.
[.....]
It seems that logic is the liberal's worst enemy so they do not support it.

It's a good thing that I'm not a Liberal, then.  But because you are attacking me as a person, rather than the argument in question, let's let this get more off-topic while I explain a little about myself. 

There are liberal policies that I agree with, and there are conservative policies that I agree with.  I like to commit something called, "free thinking," where I either consider all possibilities, or I consider the weaker possibility. 

Generally, I'll take the obviously weak side of arguments.  Around here, a lot of people take the side of Conservatives, so I take the side of Liberals.  Does that say anything about me?  No.  I don't believe that terrorism is a good thing, far from it.  I'd be happy if you guys could successfully kill every terrorist.  But what's the fun in arguing that?  There isn't any. 


On a sidenote, I looked up the definition of Liberal:

# Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.
# Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded.

Is it such a bad thing being free from bigotry, open for reform, and broad-minded?  Are you actually supporting bigotry and close-mindedness?  It sure sounds like you are, by being against Liberals.  I guess being open-minded in a country like the US is a bad thing, though. 

The 1st part of your post is absolutely garbage to me and I am not going to take time to explain to you how that example is flawed. It is just not worth my time.

The 2nd part I will reply to.
You need to read my post more carefully than you will notice that I attack the liberal thinking and not you as a person.

Liberalism is not practiced the way it is written. Take a look at the definition of Communism, it looks amazing on paper.
But this whole thing is an entirely separate topic that I am not going to get into.

[Arta]

There has not been an attack in the United States is what I was talking about. You can say that every U.S. soldier shot at in Iraq or all over the world is an attack on the United States, but that's not what I was talking about.

That's just even more ridiculous than your last argument. Prior to 9/11, there hadn't been a terrorist attack in the US perpetrated by a foreign national for 25 years... is the war on terrorism retroactive?

Post hoc is coincidental correlation, since you cannot prove what I said is not a coincidental correlation you can't say that my logic is flawed.

No, it's not. Cum hoc is correlation, post hoc is causation. You are saying that the war on terrorism caused a lack of terrorism. I'm saying that, since in the 25 years prior to 9/11, there was also a lack of acts of terrorism purpetrated by foreign nationals. Therefore it's not sensible to say that the war on terrorism has prevented anything.

I'm discounting Timothy McVeigh here, because after after the Oklahoma City bombing, the federal government did not declare war on New York State.

Additionally, since you are a supporter of the war on terrorism, I feel that the burden of proof lies on you to prove the efficacy of your solution.

[iago]

The 1st part of your post is absolutely garbage to me and I am not going to take time to explain to you how that example is flawed. It is just not worth my time.

Fair enough, and I'm not going to bother reading the rest of your posts because I don't agree with your example.  I'm glad we're both happy. 

Liberalism is not practiced the way it is written. Take a look at the definition of Communism, it looks amazing on paper.
But this whole thing is an entirely separate topic that I am not going to get into.

I have to admit, I practice liberalism exactly how that definition is written.  I'm not a political Liberal, because I don't like the ones I've seen, but I have to say that I think in way that the liberal definition says. 

[Invert]

There has not been an attack in the United States is what I was talking about. You can say that every U.S. soldier shot at in Iraq or all over the world is an attack on the United States, but that's not what I was talking about.

That's just even more ridiculous than your last argument. Prior to 9/11, there hadn't been a terrorist attack in the US perpetrated by a foreign national for 25 years... is the war on terrorism retroactive?

Post hoc is coincidental correlation, since you cannot prove what I said is not a coincidental correlation you can't say that my logic is flawed.

No, it's not. Cum hoc is correlation, post hoc is causation. You are saying that the war on terrorism caused a lack of terrorism. I'm saying that, since in the 25 years prior to 9/11, there was also a lack of acts of terrorism purpetrated by foreign nationals. Therefore it's not sensible to say that the war on terrorism has prevented anything.

I'm discounting Timothy McVeigh here, because after after the Oklahoma City bombing, the federal government did not declare war on New York State.

Additionally, since you are a supporter of the war on terrorism, I feel that the burden of proof lies on you to prove the efficacy of your solution.

Arta can you be any more wrong about everything?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Center_bombing

Post hoc, also known as "coincidental correlation"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc

Correlation implies causation, also known as cum hoc ergo propter hoc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cum_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc

I don't care how you feel. If you bring up that "the war on terrorism is pointless" you should grace us with some proof.

[dxoigmn]

I agree that more people convert to terrorism, but it is still possible that if you remove their leaders in a quick enough manner some people might wake up to the fact that terrorism isn't a good choice.
They'd also have to be eduated in some manner

I agree, but the key is removing their leaders quickly--which the US has not done. Education might work as well.

It makes perfect logical sense. The United States stopped all the terror training camps in Afghanistan, the United States eliminated the terrorist government that was running the place that supported terrorist acts in the United States. Are you telling me that attacking those elements in Afghanistan did not help the United States prevent more terror attacks?

No I'm not saying the United States prevented more terror attacks by attacking Afghanistan, because that is just speculation (and bad logic). I'm taking a conservative approach that the United States probably hasn't really stopped terrorist attacks from happening on their soil because they attacked Afghanistan. You are taking a liberal approach. If anything, there has been a surge of terrorist activity, just not on US soil but certainly targeted at the US and its allies.

You say "I'm sure many more people have been converted to terrorists as a result of this war". I say I'm sure you can't prove that so you can not possibly be sure.

Yes, I mention that is speculation (notice the parentheses after the sentence), but say there is evidence that supports that assertion from people who have more knowledge of this than you and I.

How can something be speculative and the same time have plenty of evidence? This is prime example of liberal garbage.

I don't know what you're talking about, but when I say speculative, I mean that it is something you take to be true but don't have enough or the right evidence to prove it. So perhaps what ever you're talking about does not have enough evidence (which you should provide).

I'm not using feelings. I'm telling you that it's a fact that for me the war on terrorism is working because neither I nor my country have not been attacked by terrorists since the declaration of the war on terror.

Notice that you use the phrase "for me." That means there must exist some person that it is NOT a fact for them the war on terrorism is working because neither them nor you nor their country/your country have not been attacked by terrorists since the declaration of war on terror. "For me" is your feeling that you take for fact. I don't believe this because it is horrible logic.

[Arta]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Center_bombing

You're right, I didn't remember that - but I think my point still applies. I don't accept your arbitrary distinction between terrorist acts off or on US soil. Since the war on terror started, more acts of terror have be purpetrated against US citizens, and I think that speaks for itself.

Post hoc, also known as "coincidental correlation"

Sure, ok, my bad - but you conviniently overlook the alternative that most aptly names the fallacy in your logic that I'm trying to point out: false cause.

I don't care how you feel. If you bring up that "the war on terrorism is pointless" you should grace us with some proof.

And again... you're asserting that this solution is effective. You should demonstrate that. I'm saying that this solution is worse than doing nothing, and I consider the difference in the numbers of terrorist attacks before and during to be good evidence to support my point.

[CrAz3D]

If you commit genocide, should I be happy to accept it?

What did you do to stop Saddam?  Did you just accept it & turn away?  Georege W. Bush & the USA didn't.


Also, you know we've been discussing liberal in the political sense.

[iago]

You're right, I didn't remember that - but I think my point still applies. I don't accept your arbitrary distinction between terrorist acts off or on US soil. Since the war on terror started, more acts of terror have be purpetrated against US citizens, and I think that speaks for itself.

Hmm, it's hard to expect the US's war on terrorism to stop terrorism all over the world, at least, not in the short-term.  They're doing a lot more to protect US soil than they are doing to protect their citizens abroad.  I'm not sure how that's going to turn out, but it should be interesting. 

What did you do to stop Saddam?  Did you just accept it & turn away?  Georege W. Bush & the USA didn't.

Sure they did.  For over 20 years while the US was allied with Saddam, they stood by and did nothing even though they knew Saddam was killing massive amounts of people.  It wasn't until GWB came into power that he lied about an excuse to take Saddam out of power.  I still don't really understand what changed..