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womzillaI'm listening to the overnight rerun of the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC, and the guest is paleocon John Podhoretz.
He's talked about how it's amazing that we've gone 26 months since Sept. 11th without a major terrorist attack in the US.
(Which, I agree, is pretty remarkable, unless you count Richard Reed the shoe-bomber, or Malvo & Muhammed. But Reed didn't succeed, and M&M weren't connected to al-Qaeda, so they don't, evidently, count as "terrorists" any more than the people who are torching holocaust memorials and slashing tires in Jewish neighborhoods. And then there are the attacks on US properties and allies outside the US. But I digress.)
So he uses that absence as evidence that the current administration is doing all the right things against terrorism.
He then went on to say--and here I'm paraphrasing--"There are people who think that the war in Iraq has made us less safe, but I don't see how. There's a theory that it makes our enemies come together, but that seems like a really weak argument."
Well, yes, that is a really weak argument. But it's not one of the main arguments. The main arguments for the position that the war on Iraq makes us less safe are this:
The rhetorical ploy on display here is argument from ignorance. It is far easier to dismiss an opponent's position by claiming "I don't know why anyone would say X", or by presenting only the weakest argument in support of X as if it were the only argument for it, than it is to actually engage the opposing position. (There's also an element of straw man in Podhoretz's statement, since it's a weakened version of the real arguments.)
I notice this ploy a lot more coming from the American right wing than from the American left, but that might just be selection bias. It's a cheap-ass way to hold an argument, though. I've seen people literally say, "I can't understand why anyone would think that asking children to pray in school is a bad idea.", which means that the person saying that is either stupid, ignorant, or disingenuous, since if you have any interest in the issue, there is no shortage of ways to find out what the other side actually believes.
He's talked about how it's amazing that we've gone 26 months since Sept. 11th without a major terrorist attack in the US.
(Which, I agree, is pretty remarkable, unless you count Richard Reed the shoe-bomber, or Malvo & Muhammed. But Reed didn't succeed, and M&M weren't connected to al-Qaeda, so they don't, evidently, count as "terrorists" any more than the people who are torching holocaust memorials and slashing tires in Jewish neighborhoods. And then there are the attacks on US properties and allies outside the US. But I digress.)
So he uses that absence as evidence that the current administration is doing all the right things against terrorism.
He then went on to say--and here I'm paraphrasing--"There are people who think that the war in Iraq has made us less safe, but I don't see how. There's a theory that it makes our enemies come together, but that seems like a really weak argument."
Well, yes, that is a really weak argument. But it's not one of the main arguments. The main arguments for the position that the war on Iraq makes us less safe are this:
- If Iraq had actually had weapons of mass destruction, the war made it more likely that they would fall into the hands of terrorists. (In fact, it made it more likely that highly radioactive material would fall into terrorist hands. Purely by luck, that seems not to have happened.)
- The war on Iraq makes more people hate us for being murderous bullies.
- The war on Iraq makes it harder to conduct counter-terrorism, both by alienating possible allies in counter-terrorist efforts like Pakistan and by diverting scarce resourses like American speakers of Arabic from counter-terrorism efforts.
The rhetorical ploy on display here is argument from ignorance. It is far easier to dismiss an opponent's position by claiming "I don't know why anyone would say X", or by presenting only the weakest argument in support of X as if it were the only argument for it, than it is to actually engage the opposing position. (There's also an element of straw man in Podhoretz's statement, since it's a weakened version of the real arguments.)
I notice this ploy a lot more coming from the American right wing than from the American left, but that might just be selection bias. It's a cheap-ass way to hold an argument, though. I've seen people literally say, "I can't understand why anyone would think that asking children to pray in school is a bad idea.", which means that the person saying that is either stupid, ignorant, or disingenuous, since if you have any interest in the issue, there is no shortage of ways to find out what the other side actually believes.
