Seems to me that was already the case before the invasion. Obviously nobody like Saddam Hussein's methods but the country was stable and independent. So ... victory means returning the place to a state similar to what it was pre-invasion, plus regime change?

Who is he not respected by, other than people who by default have no respect for anyone that disagrees with their position? (In other words anyone with an even vaguely open mind, which would count you out obviously Rasczak)

As far as I am concerned, it is impossible to read or listen to any amount of his words, without at the least thinking "this is a very intelligent, thoughtful and educated guy".

Please feel free to provide examples of people of note who do not at least respect Chomsky, even if they disagree with him. Raving right-wing loonies need not apply.

You didn't respond to the entirety of my definition, therefor you didn't respond to my definition at all. Yet you still needed to resort to a flagrant non sequitur in a failed effort to make whatever point you're trying to make.

Boggling.

In other words, "he's respected by all respectable people, and anyone who doesn't respect him isn't respectable and doesn't matter. Appeal to authority followed by circular reasoning.

Then put a dunce hat on my head and make me sit in a corner like a little boy, because STILL don't respect him, I'm not respectable to him and I don't matter!!

How much longer does he have to go? Oh. It just can't get here fast enough!!

I'm afraid I can't make head or tail of this post.

Presumably you mean the single word democracy, which in this context means imposing one's own political ideals on another sovereign nation. If that was truly *openly* the intention of the invasion, let's get that out in the open, and finally do away with all the dogma about self-defence, WMD's, terrorists, and so on. I would very much like to hear the justification for deciding to spontaneously start invading other nations because you don't like their choice of political system.

It's looking like, as often is the case with you, we need to go back to definitions of words because are all over the place.

Define 'respect'.

Anyone who doesn't like him, he doesn't give a damn about.

You were dismissing kevmartin's post because he quoted Chomsky. Hardly a good rout to take imo, it's always better to argue against the contents of a post, not on circumstantial qualities of it.Sadly this would appear to have dictated US foreign policy for much of the 20th century. This last invasion however was more of a scare tactic. Bush convinced everyone that we need to be afraid of the invisible terrorists/WMDs and that the only way to fix this was to invade Iraq. Let me point out that this is authoritarianism tactics... used by Luis Nepolean 3, Stalin, Hitler, etc.

So much of what Bush has done flies in the face of anyone who has ever studied history. Earlier I think I was pointing out that you cant defeat guerrillas *cough* insurgence. Anyone who thinks we can doesn't know much about this kind of warfare. You can defeat the largest organized armies on the planet but your forces will crumble in the face of guerillas.

I suggest you review the speech our president gave when he laid out the reasonS for the invasion in the first place. You could also go back to the previous administration's reasoning - the former Clinton administration established the policy of regime change in Iraq. You appear to be stuck at the misconception there was only one. You also appear to be stuck at not being able to distinguish between the need to effect regime change (then) and the need to remain there (now) to deal with the current situation.

I guess when you used the term, you didn't mean he's respected for his fact checking ability. You appealed to Chompsky's supposed authority after making the point that Al Qaeda is not demanding conversion to Islam. Obviously you and Chomsky are unaware of Al Qaeda's own statements where they've said just the opposite.

For example:

From the New York Times - Al Qaeda, in a video posted Saturday on the Internet, called for President Bush and non-Muslims, especially those in the United States, to convert to Islam and abandon their “misguided” ways, or else suffer the consequences.

From USA Today - CAIRO (AP) — Al-Qaeda in Iraq warned Pope Benedict XVI on Monday that its war against Christianity and the West will go on until Islam takes over the world...


From Al Jazeera - Last month, bin Laden issued three messages, including a video marking the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington in which about 3,000 people were killed.

Bin Laden said in the video that the United States was vulnerable despite its power and insisted only conversion to Islam would end the conflict.

We don't negotiate with terrorists.

No, I dismissed it because he had the facts wrong and used false arguments.

I still don't see how on either score. Anyway, to quote myself from that post:
Seeing as how you are definitely not a person of any note and most certainly do qualify as a raving right-wing loony ...

Anyway, I strongly suspect you are up to your usual tricks of arguing for the sake of argument, to the point of pretense. In other words I believe you take up contrary positions to a degree beyond what you personally do understand, purely because you like to (in your own words) 'stir the shit'. So, I'm not going to bother further with you in this one.

I'll help you out. You can scroll up to post #33 where I show how you had the facts wrong. Your false argument (among several others in this thread alone) was the appeal to authority - in this case, paraphrasing: "Chomsky said it so it must be true."

When you can't get away with false arguments, resort to more false arguments - ad hominem...

What I've been up to is showing you are wrong. Your facts are wrong. Your argumentation is wrong. I've shown you are wrong without resorting to ad hominem attacks and the like. You've failed to make any supportable position in this thread, and somehow you needed to resort to personal attacks and other false arguments in order to fail at it. Amusing.

I'll see if you can keep your word and not "bother further with me on this one." I suggest you don't, for your own sake - best to stop digging when you've dug yourself into a hole you can't get out of anyway.

... a perfect example of your typical behaviour. Your post is clearly designed to try and tempt me into responding - which I will one last time to mention a few things. To paraphrase you, 'I suggest you don't respond, but .....

1. I don't speak Latin (and don't care to learn) so no idea what ad hominem means

2. My whole mention of Chomsky in the first place was ... "(I'm sure there is plenty of other reading available too - but Chomsky is very well respected and who I'd recommend to start with)." So you dragging the argument on and on about him in particular is avoiding the point.

3. You never did define 'respect' and I bet you can't (without looking it up - no cheating now!)

4. As far as I am concerned there were no personal attacks, just stating the facts. Everything I said personally about you has been clearly demonstrated over and over and over (by you) in these forums. As usual, you like to use your pet names for those you disagree with, but someone calls you the Raving Right-Wing Loony that you are, and you get all whiny and carry on about 'personal attacks'. (For the record, though it should be obvious, I am not saying that anyone with right-wing views is thereby insane - I'm speaking quite singularly about one person based on their track record)

5. Don't bother with any requests for me to quote the posts from you that has shown this - I don't have the time to waste. You know they exist, I know they do, anyone else who's been around here for more than a couple of months probably would too - if anyone wants to see the posts they can do the searching and reading.

6. Don't bother with any further attempts to engage me on this topic in this thread. Knock yourself out and have all the final words you want.

Seems like you two have been going at it tooth & nail for the better part of a week now.

You can respond or not. Its not all about you, I post here for everyone to read. That said, my typical behavior can be described as engaging on the issue or topic at hand.

No problem, I can help you out with this one too:

The M-W definition:
1 : appealing to feelings or prejudices rather than intellect 2 : marked by or being an attack on an opponent's character rather than by an answer to the contentions made

Basically, it means talking about your debate opponent rather than engaging the issue you are debating.

Your mention of Chomsky was to back up your position that Al Qaeda is not seeking worldwide conversion to Islam by non Muslims as a goal in waging their war against us. I showed how you were wrong.

I derailed a little with asking you who he's respected by to elicit the predictable response, which I got, but you seem to be the one who keeps wanting to talk about him. In post #33 above, I brought the discussion back to the point you were making when you first mentioned Chomsky, yet you haven't addressed that yet.

Its really not that important to me that we agree on who respects Chomsky. I already refuted what you claim he said - how about you address that?

I have yet to call you any names in this thread. Nothing is standing in the way of you engaging me on my points about the actual issues that have been raised.

Ok, I won't request that you cite examples, I'll just request that you respond to post #33. Or you could respond to anything else related to the topic. I'm guessing you like talking about me more.

Do you want me to believe what you say or what you do? You already said once you were done "bothering with me" in this thread, and here I am responding to a subsequent post by you. Again, you're free to respond or not.

You expect a politician to admit he has made a mistake?