[geeks] Re: [SunHELP] Re: Terrorism

[Nicholas Dronen]

On Sun, Sep 16, 2001 at 02:25:31PM -0400, Kurt Huhn wrote:
> Oh fuck.......MOVE IT TO GEEKS!!!!!
> 
> I stand by my statement BTW.  Planes ramrodding the WTC won't change
> politics.
> 
> > You state that the "Citizens" (sic) of the U.S. have been more critical
> > of our policies in Middle East than any other people.  In which cases
> > have we been so?  What were the criticisms and thir effects?  Did policies
> > change?  If so, how?  URLs or book citations are welcome, on- or off-list.

That indeed was your statement.  What I'm calling into question
is the argument you use to justify it.  The argument is supposed
to distinguish your statement from bald, willful assertion.
In other words, you can "stand by" it, but that doesn't make
the way you purported to convince others more or less true.

If you can cite instances where Americans have been more critical
of U.S. policies in the Middle East than any other people, I'd
be genuinely happy to hear of them in as much detail as you can
or or care to provide.  Really, it should not be difficult to
back this up.  You said it . . . you must have had some context
for believing it to be true . . . so what did you have in mind?
Surely you're not scoffing at my request for clarification of
a claim you made in public?

Also, you're free to challenge the information I provided about
infant mortality rates in Iraq.  To challenge Faisal's numbers
in such a way (viz., " . . . check your facts before") while not
providing any data of your own seems like a bait-and-switch tactic.
That is, to warn your interlocutor to check his facts, as though
you have the correct numbers, and then not to provide those numbers
leaves many readers only with the impression that you know better
than Faisal (e.g., the paternalistic tone of " . . . check your
facts before") and therefore he's just an uninformed Arab.  The
irony of this element of your resonse to Faisal's email is, of
course, that is was Faisal who went out on a limb with data (30,000
children dead in Iraq); and, on most intelligent planets, providing
data is an essential component of well-reasoned arguments about
political matters.  So where are the numbers in which you put faith?

As for myself, I would think the UNICEF numbers are a good starting
point for discussion.  Do you disagree?  I don't have any experience
in the field in Iraq, so I can only rely on what I would expect to be
reliable data.  UNICEF + WHO isn't an unreliable pair of groups, is it?

Regards,

Nicholas Dronen

P.S.  I've CC'ed Faisal: I don't know if he's on geeks at sunhelp.org.