US linked to terrorism

[Chris Alger]

Let me be clear about what I meant.

One of the most common "arguments" seen on this forum, by both sides but especially the right, is that some source of evidence is "biased" or left or right or whatever, implying that this is some kind of refutation. The problem is that they are using the fact of mere disagreement as evidence of unreliability. If one could show that a particular source routinely lies, gets the facts wrong, ignores contrary evidence, etc., that could be some kind of refutation of the souce's evidence.

What we often see, however, is someone saying nothing more than a source is "biased" or not objective, meaning nothing more than it disagrees with or challenges the poster's worldview or understanding. I've seen several cases wehre a poster has searched out some ideological disagreement with a source and then use this as evidence of unreliability. This is no different than saying "some disagree with me" or "I prefer not to accept this claim" and, therefore, it's wrong. What could be more pointless and foolish?

[Chris Alger]

[ QUOTE ]
THE VIETNAMESE SUPPORTED THE KHMER ROUGE

[/ QUOTE ]
Not quite. Recall that Vietnam invaded Cambodia and fought the Khmer Rouge, resulting in the Chinese invasion of Vietnam, a war which Vietnam ostensibly won. Not exact in accord with the domino theory. The history of the relationship between the Vietnamese and Cambodian communists is unbelievably complicated, but mostly dominated by hostility between the two. See D. Mosyakov, "The Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese Communists: A History of Their Relations as Told in the Soviet Archives,"
under the "Chapters" link on this page.

[ QUOTE ]
Laos was also overthrown by a domestic communist movement supported by Vietnam

[/ QUOTE ]
The royalist faction of the coalition government mostly fled to France in 1975 when Saigon fell and indigenous Loatian communists seized power peacefully. I've never seen anyone suggest that subsequent events in Laos justified any war, much less the widespread devastation of Laos caused by U.S. bombing.

[Chris Alger]

[ QUOTE ]
he stated there were "no post war massacres", not "no post war massacres in Viet Nam"

[/ QUOTE ]
Maybe I should have been clear that in my discussion of the Vietnam that asserted "no post war massacres" referred, like the rest of the paragraph, to Vietnam. I didn't mean for you to get the impression that I thought there have been no massacres in the world during the last 30 years.

[Chris Alger]

[ QUOTE ]
Bruce pointed out the case of Cambodia, where the NV ousted a US-friendly government and supported a group that committed mass murders.

[/ QUOTE ]
Another case of someone getting creamed in an argument reverts to fantasy about 10 posts into a thread.

I don't recall seeing any evidence that "North Vietnam ousted a US-friendly government" in Cambodia or even anything about North Vietnamese "support" for the Khmer Rouge after their atrocities became known. Contrast this with U.S. support for the Khmer Rouge and even Saddam after the worst of their atrocities were public knowledge. Yet you haven't even begun to address the fact that Sihanouk was comfortably ensconced in power until the U.S. started bombing Cambodia and destabilizing him, leading to the power vacuum that led to the ascendency of the Khmer Rouge. Since the U.S. bears considerable responsibility for the Cambodian killing fields, what happened in Cambodia cannot possibly justify U.S. intervention in SE Asia.

[Roybert]

[ QUOTE ]
" The Times has in its report said that an ear of the dead cow, was sent to an English laboratory, where scientists discovered anthrax spores later used for developing Britain's biological warfare programme during WWII.

The report said that the culture was sent to the US, which sent them to Iraq in the 1980s to help the latter fight Iran. The Anthrax spores were reportedly Saddam Hussien's preferred choice for developing Iraq's biological arsenal. "

If the NY times said it...it must be true....

[/ QUOTE ]

Didn't you quote a stat from the Media Research Center just yesterday? I find it funny that you would use their information and then call any other source's credibility into question.

[ptmusic]

Ummmmmm, MMMMMM, there have been at least two harsh name-calling posts in this thread, and one of them was by a moderator! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

I'm not saying I don't enjoy reading them, because I do... but you've got to be consistent. (Or do you?)

-ptmusic

[MMMMMM]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not saying I don't enjoy reading them, because I do... but you've got to be consistent. (Or do you?)

[/ QUOTE ]

Ummm...didn't the great Ralph Waldo Emerson once state that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds?

[FishHooks]

The only reason I used it was this guy demanded I give him stats and I did, I knew he would reject it though.

[ptmusic]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'm not saying I don't enjoy reading them, because I do... but you've got to be consistent. (Or do you?)

[/ QUOTE ]

Ummm...didn't the great Ralph Waldo Emerson once state that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm telling daddy on you.

-ptmusic

[Roybert]

[ QUOTE ]
The only reason I used it was this guy demanded I give him stats and I did, I knew he would reject it though.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not real sure I can add anything at all to this.