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Caledonian, joking in which way?
If you can't make the argument that the invasion is saving lives, and if you can't make the argument that it's costing lives, you don't belong in the argument.
As to the separate "cowardice" debate in this thread--relevant to bias because the label is being rejected because of political bias--let me ask this.
A man loses his job, can't find another, can't support his family, and so kills himself. Bravery?
A woman gets divorced, fears being alone, kills herself. Bravery?
Now, that's "personal" suicide, you'll be saying. Not "political" suicide. As if mass murder of civilians changes it from cowardice to bravery. As if killing yourself in the attack, so that you don't face the consequences of your mass murder, changes it from cowardice to bravery. As if being deluded into thinking you'll be banging virgins later changes it from cowardice to bravery. As if causing the "million civilian deaths" your some people claim came later, changes it from cowardice to bravery. The terrorists, with arms, attacked the unarmed. With intent to war, attacked those with no such intent. With planning, attacked those without notice. If you don't know how incredibly cowardly all that is, be grateful for your prozac prescription.
If 20 Al Quaeda members gave notice they were going to attack, say, a US embassy or marine base, and thereupon did and died trying, as they surely would if they'd given notice, they would've have gotten respect, and their political message would have been heard. People would have to say "Wow, that was a suicidal attack, but, man, it took a lot of heart, so they must really believe in what they were saying...what were they saying?"
A few points.
I also, on 9/11, thought, and in fact could see, that we'd overreact. I was in a bar where the average opinion was expressed as "just bomb'em, just bomb'em to pieces." I was there saying "bomb who?" I would have said "bomb whom" but it wasn't that kind of bar.
But the point of my post is that no one can calculate the ramifications of actions, or inactions. Did Hiroshima/Nagasaki cost lives, or save them? That's one of the clearest examples of "saving by killing" I can imagine, and I mean saving Japanese lives as well as American lives. Yet many auto-condemn the bombings. And they might be right. None of us can ever know.
The Iraq war isn't nearly so clearly correct, and my guess is that it costs more lives than it saves. But I recognize that I'm guessing. This blog is about bias. How many people are willing to say that they can only guess whether the war saves or costs lives, and further admit that their guess might be seriously biased? Even the "facts" are biased. The million civilian deaths, for example. No one short of God knows how many people have died in Iraq since the invasion. No one has the facts, we only have biased guesses labelled, for propaganda purposes, "facts." The same people who would never blindly accept a Bush Admin figure will blindly accept an anti-Bush figure. And, both sides will then forget, or guess on air, how many people whould have died, and it would have to be something of a time value calc, if Iraq had NOT been invaded. And all of this so far is without also weighing the relative value of lives, US vs Iraqi, peaceful vs. warmongering, educated vs ignorant, and so on. IOW, these are impossible calculations.
So, did we overreact to 9/11, or properly react? My point was and is that it isn't possible to know, it's only possible to--with bias--guess, claim, propagandize, lawyer, etc.
Denis Bider: if the response to 9/11 prevents many future deaths, than the original post ISN'T "entirely correct." But to those who can't comprehend the possibility that the so-called overreaction might have saved lives, consider that Al Quaeda was escalating attacks until it got the desired response: war. And what, pray tell, do you think the next level of escalation would be, that would one-up the thousands killed on 9/11? Nuclear terrorism, maybe. Biological terrorism. You're letting your hatred of Bush prejudice your interpretation of events. Personally, I agree that the Iraq invasion was a bad idea, and badly done. But I'm open (non-biased) to the possibility that I'm wrong, and that, in the long run, it's impossible to acknowledge all the ramifications, good and bad, of any action. And one of the possible ramifications of the Iraq invasion is an end to the escalation of terrorist actions. Further, it's possible that, even if the childish and hateful number "one million" Iraqi deaths is accepted, how does anyone here know that there wouldn't have been more deaths if Saddam had remained in power? You can't, you can only be biased about the chances, and refuse to remember how many people died in the Iraq/Iran war he waged, and how many of his own people he starved and tortured during his reign.
And to everyone, please: I would highly recommend that, to your refusal to fall victim to Bush propaganda, you add a refusal to fall victim to anti-Bush propaganda.
Why is the board so determined to think that being anti-bias should only mean being anti conservative bias? All the while so easily duped by liberal bias?
To which, I know--let me save you all the trouble of a response--it isn't POSSIBLE to be a victim of liberal bias, because "our kind of people/thinking can't be/isn't biased, it's just RIGHT! "Bias" is what other kinds of people/thinking suffer!!!
I'd say they were cowards. Suicide isn't an act of bravery. Murdering the defenseless isn't an act of bravery. Even murdering soldiers in peacetime, when they aren't expecting attack, is cowardly. I still remember a kid who hit me from behind on the street once, because he was too much of a pussy to come up to my face about it. The hijackers attacked, during peacetime, civilians and murdered other civilians. That's cowardly in the extreme.
I understand the point of your post, and don't disagree with the basic premise. But just as you blew the Thanksgiving post with your "Native American Genocide Day" comment (even though you did not and can not present evidence that anyone anywhere is sitting around a table giving thanks that Native Americans suffered a (fictional) genocide), now you're claiming brainwashed (if not drug-induced) suicide of defenseless and unsuspecting people isn't the height of cowardice.
Is there a reason you can't work on your OWN biases?
National Native American Genocide Day?
You couldn't have been so ignorant and biased as to actually have written that, could you?
There are no native americans, unless you count me, who was born here. The so-called native americans were Asian immigrants. The so-called genocide was disease, not organized murder. The diseases were suffered first by Europeans themselves, who paid a great price to develop some immunity to them. And where did those diseases initially come from? Asia.
It doesn't sadden me to learn, for the millionth time, that there are people as ignorant and biased as you in this world. It just saddens me that you promote your bigotry on a blog called "overcoming bias."