I was agreeing with your original position, which was that if he claimed (even post invasion) going to Iraq was to stop terrorist attacks in Britain, then he failed already because they were already there. You set the criteria and made your statement which was my position.
It wasn't my position, I was characterizing yours, and I did follow it up with a 'heh' and a 'But seriously'.
But when a leader decides to risk something big, and throws into the pot that that risk is to stop or hinder a specific murderer from killing, and after the great risk has been taken the specific murderer kills again in a massive way... the jig is up.
This is the integral point. Did Blair risk something big? Yes, he made a risk by going to war in Iraq, wars are risky. Parliament agreed that the risk was worth it. However, if we going to continue with this analogy then you are wrong. We were attempting to hinder a specific murderer (Saddam/Iraq) from killing (acquiring or using WMDs). We have successfully hindered this 'murderer' and this has the advantage of demonstrating that murdering people will not be tolerated and that the governing body will take actions against it. And now someone else (al-Qaeda) murders (murders) somebody the attempt to hinder isn't necessarily a failure, its just not 100%...especially given that the hindering attempt has not been completed.
How far are you planning on shifting those goal posts? You wanted me to meet criteria and they have been met. How hard is it for you to admit you are flat out wrong?
Huh? You said that Blair claimed that fighting in Iraq guaranteed no attacks on Britain, there was one in Britain therefore Blair's tactic has failed. That is a brief of your position isn't it? I've yet to see any evidence that Blair said, or agreed with someone else who said this.
But let me explain ENGLISH to you. When you say you have GENUINELY created a FRONT LINE in a WAR, that means the battle is at that place. He even suggested that that is where the real security situation is now.
One battle, the main battle. Not the only battle, just the front line. There are other lines. I think we both can agree there is more terrorist action going on in Iraq than there is in Britain.
Now we both know that he really didn't mean any of this BS, he knows there is no such thing as a "front line" in a war with terrorists, and that is my point.
Indeed and one cannot go to war against terrorism, drugs, drink driving, poverty or anything else. Its metaphorical. Discussing a front line, is just extending that metaphor.
He is a BS artist, spinning his policies and evidence, rather than adequately confronting the problem.
Agreed, politics stinks.
Was the risk that Britains took with their lives and the lives of Iraqis paying off for protecting Britain against attacks, which is what Blair said and I just pointed out to you that he did say?
But you didn't. You just said that Blair said Iraq was the front line in the war on terror. He didn't say that by fighting in Iraq Britain was protected against terrorist attacks.
Oh come on! You said that he hadn't shifted rationale.
Perhaps I did, I don't know. I'm sure I kept an open mind about it. You presented evidence that some rationale shifting occurred. Is it bad that I accept that?
You said he never backed Bush's claims of a front line which would divert attacks to Iraq and so increase security.
I'm fairly sure I didn't say that. I believe I said I would be amazed if he backed Bush's claims of 100% security by remaining in Iraq.
If I did say that (it seems uncharacteristic of me to make such absolute statements), it seems I've changed my mind in light of evidence. I do that sometimes.
I did not say he guaranteed dick. I said what he said, and it has its own connotations.
And I said I'd be amazed if he guaranteed anything, you said prepare to be amazed. Anyway, if he didn't guarantee anything then where is the failure. (Un)fortunately we'll never know if more attacks would have occurred in Britain had we not been in Iraq, especially given this hasn't come to a conclusion yet. So whether or not it security has increased in Britain due to all the terrorists being somewhere else in the long run, or otherwise we'll never know.
You said he did not. I showed you he did. You want to keep moving the goal posts, you can play all alone.
I'm quite offended by your accusation of goal post moving. Please back this up.
Great, who cares when you can't even stick to your own criteria of what you mean?
Please show your working. There is no need to be so antagonistic, I was trying to keep this friendly.
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Abe
Here are the things you have been saying:
Remember after the WMD threat was shone up as garbage, the remaining self-defense rationale was that by going there AQ terrorists would be forced to go there to fight instead of attacking people in the US and Britain.
You haven't shown this has been said. Nevertheless, it hasn't been claimed that
all AQ and associated terrorists would go to Iraq. Perhaps it was claimed that much of AQ's resources and planning would be concentrated in Iraq, but I doubt it was claimed that all of their resources would be.
Indeed Blair has openly stated that there are AQ terrorists in Britain, not that they are all, or would all go to Iraq.
The point of the very quote which you did not deal with, is that Britain was at risk, the leader proposed a mechanism to alleviate that risk, and it has been shown quite clearly not to have worked.
Perhaps it has, in the long run, alleviated the risk of attacks. Was it claimed that it would irradicate the risk? No, so how has this mechanism not worked? How many attacks would there have been, past present and future had Iraq not been made into some perfect shining beacon?
I said once the WMD pretext had been removed, one of the remaining pretexts for THE INVASION was that it would create a front line and so protect nations from AQ attacks.
And what evidence is there that this has not protected us against AQ attacks? How many attacks were there in the parrallel universe where we didn't do the Iraq thing?
So that's my position. It is impossible to know how many attacks AQ would have mustered had we not been in Iraq. Perhaps none, perhaps 10. Since we do not know, we cannot say for certain either way that the 'whilst we're in Iraq, we're tying up the majority of terrorist's resources, protecting everyone from terrorists' line is bullshit or actually right.
Blair has never said "We won't get attacked whilst we're in Iraq", so the fact that we did, doesn't demonstrate any failing of any tactic of Blair's.
This message has been edited by Modulous, Mon, 11-July-2005 12:00 AM
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