Anyway, I was perusing the other trackbacks to that post and came across one for this post at Blogumentary. The subject intrigued me as it seemed at odds with the general views of the Captain's readership so I decided to click through and read the whole thing. My initial impression was correct and I've decided to address some of what the author of that post has written.
First of all, let's start with a few definitions. The following definitions are from dictionary.com. In each case, several are offered; I've chosen the one or ones which apply to this topic.
War: A state of open, armed, often prolonged conflict carried on between nations, states, or parties.
Peace:
1. The absence of war or other hostilities.
2. An agreement or a treaty to end hostilities.
Success: A person with a record of successes
Failure: A person with a record of failing; someone who loses consistently
Now for the first excerpt from the post that I wish to address:
Bush is a failure by any measure. He's given us war instead of peace....
A failure by any measure: It seems to me that the author is equating "a failure" with "a person who does not do everything I think he should be doing." Bush has succeeded in accomplishing many of the things he set out to do. He signed No Child Left Behind. He signed the Medicare drug benefit. He toppled two tyrannical regimes. No further terror attacks on US soil have occurred. The list goes on. Now, I will say that he has failed to conform to a truly conservative agenda, however that would make me guilty of the same equation as Chuck, the post's author. Unless he set out to do so, he has not failed in his own goals.
He has given us war: Well, for that to be true, he would have had to be the one to order the start of this war. In reality, this war was declared upon us first. We have actually been in a state of war since the Clinton administration, some would argue even earlier. We have not declared this war formally, but our situation with respect to fundamentalist Islam has satisfied the definition presented above for some time.
What he has not given us, so far, is peace. However, we have to take a look at what would be the possible options that would result in peace.
Option one: We win this war, and make it so that our enemies can no longer wage war against us, or become unwilling to do so. This means they are either all dead, alive but unable to mount attacks, or realize that continued aggression is no longer in their best interest and they willingly stop.
Option two: We surrender to our enemies. They subjugate us and we either convert to their brand of Islam, or accept the status of dhimmi.
Option three: We all die.
Why do I not include a fourth option which deals with negotiating peace between ourselves and those we are fighting? Because, by their words and actions, they will not accept that option. Their goal is to force us to accept option two or three, neither of which is acceptable to us. Therefore, the only option that we will accept and that is actually possible is option one. And that is what we are currently attempting to accomplish.
Let us take a look at some other points that Chuck raises in his post.
(T)his "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" business is, without a doubt, dirty politics.
This is, of course, a personal and subjective opinion. One man's dirty politics are another man's reasonable scrutiny. The Democrats' attempts to denigrate Bush's National Guard service are of a kind but, would Chuck refer to them as "dirty politics?" He makes a reference to Bush's service but, to be fair, it looks like a simple reference for completeness rather than an attack so I can't use it as a basis to answer that question.
Continuing on:
The Swifties are a vicious partisan group trying to shoot holes in John Kerry's credibility.
"Vicious" is again a personal and subjective opinion. I personally don't see the group as vicious. The ad shows them stating their views in a calm manner, not frothing at the mouth and yelling. They're partisan in the sense that that all believe Kerry is lying and therefore unfit. Not all of them are Republicans. And as for the allegation that they're "trying to shoot holes in John Kerry's credibility," well I'm certainly not going to argue with that characterization except to say that the language appears to be intentionally inflammatory.
But at their core, these flip-floppers are still bitter that Kerry spoke out against America's most painfully misguided war.
This is followed by an excerpt from a USA Today article which says, in part:
Many of Kerry's critics commanded boats that went out on missions with Kerry. Others never met him. Most are still angry about Kerry's leadership of Vietnam Veterans Against the War after he returned home.
This is an example of an ad hominem attack, a logical fallacy. In other words, Chuck is attacking the credibility of the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth by making an assumption about their motives and then implying that those motives are not valid. I could do the same thing and say that Chuck wrote his post because he is an ardent Kerry supporter and his motivation is to try to discredit anyone who disagrees with him regardless of the merit of their arguments; therefore his argument has no merit. Ultimately, if what the SBVT are saying is true, their motive is irrelevant.
At the end of his post, he links to several articles. The first one is this article at Factcheck.org. I will not address it here as McQ has already done a superlative job over at QandO. Read also the original post at Captain's Quarters linked above.
Another one is this article at the New York Times. (Registration required, check bugmenot.com if you don't want to register.)
Retired Gen. Tommy Franks, producer of the early military successes in Afghanistan and Iraq, said Sunday that criticism of John Kerry's war record is political hyperbole and Kerry is ``absolutely'' qualified to be commander in chief.
This is the opinion of one man. It is also an example of another logical fallacy, the appeal to authority. It qualifies under the definition given on the linked page a fallacy because, "there is general disagreement among the experts in the field on this point." On one side, the experts are General Franks and, although not mentioned in the article, Jim Rassmann, the man Kerry rescued and who supports him. On the other are all the members of SBVT. I daresay that those members of SBVT that served with John Kerry are as much experts on the events in question, if not moreso, than General Franks. Even if only one served under Kerry, many of the rest still served with him.
Ultimately, what it comes down to is who you believe. In my opinion, Swiftboat Veterans for Truth has made its case and I give their arguments the greater weight. I plan on sending a trackback ping to the article on Blogumentary and I invite the author to read what I have written here and respond if he desires to do so.
One more thing before I close. In this post I have referred to a couple of logical fallacies. In my writing, I try to avoid them but it would not surprise me if some have slipped through and it would also not surprise me if I were to let more slip through in the future. It's only fair, then, that I should be called on them when I do just as I call others on them. If anyone sees any of them in my writing, feel free to lay the virtual smack down on me.
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