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Improvement in debating techniques

This short portion of the earlier post spurred me to comment here today:

"The reality is that there is a right and a wrong; a good and an evil; a fair and unfair. THEY are a part of terrorism (wrong, evil, and unfair)."

What a leap! Firstly, I think a major problem in this debate is the failure in defining terms axiomatically - that is, in such a way that there is little or no subjectivity left in understanding them.

For example Fred can say "Boy, that tree is tall", leaving all kinds of debate. Is it truly tall? Perhaps it's actually short compared to other trees in the region. Who is Fred to decide what is and isn't tall? If Fred chose his words axiomatically, however, it leaves no such ambiguity. For example, rephrasing it as "That tree is eighteen feet tall".

Looking at politics, or this specific Iraq war discussion this way, we might see that if we were to take the time to present our thoughts more axiomatically, it would not only be clearer to readers but less prone to criticism. This style of writing or speaking can also quickly expose those that are not well informed, well reasoned or attempting to be deceptive. but perhaps the best part of doing this is the by-product in which it forces the writer to come to terms much more specifically with his/her own arguments.

Tom12's post above uses a big capital THEY to describe someone. But does he mean the 9-11 plotters, the insurgents attacking our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, any Iraqi/Afghani, any Arab, and Muslim? I'm completely unable to follow his post.

Exactly how we define "the enemy" is at the heart of our problem today. This is why they are accomplishing their goals - to kill a few of us in order to scare us, divide us, make us spend money and make us change our lives for the worse.

I think we all support the idea of a "war on terror" after 9-11, only differ on how to fight it and more importantly, how to define our enemy. For me, our enemy in this conflict is anyone we can connect to a political act (or plot) of violence using standards of investigation and evidence that comply with pre-Patriot Act laws and our longstanding international treaties.

I think Tom12 demonstrates a panicky xenophobia that increases, not reduces anti-American sentiment, such as his encouraging us to unapologetically disagree with Islam. How about affording Islam the same respect and tolerance you do any other religion? The ignorance of broad-brushing ALL Muslims as our enemy is a self-fulfilling prophecy used early on by Bush and which has backfired.

Finding the real enemy is much harder then rounding up anyone who looks like our enemy or falls into some of the same categories that our enemy does. But our rush for results and failure to do the hard work necessary to find only proven enemies has caused us to make our job even harder going forward and has led to many instances of us breaking our own laws and treaties.

About a week after 9-11, the prevailing analysis was that a small faction of extremists attacked us to lure us into greater Arab/Western conflict, polarizing the MidEast and helping their recruitment and spread of their ideology. Spurred on by the defense lobbies and with the trust of all Americans, Bush did it anyway. Instead of looking for Osama and a small network of political extremists, we went after control of oil rich regions, killing hundreds of thousands directly or collaterally and stuck our grandkids with the bill.

After 9-11 we wanted revenge so badly and we were so unprepared as to how to findi al Qaeda, we adopted an arrogant, ham-handed approach just like a baby going after a swarm of bees with a hammer. Now our troubles are worse then they were then.

Oscar Wilde said "The truth is rarely pure and never simple". Now that 9-11 is a few years in the past and we are looking past Bush, we may see more reflectively that we were victims of our own violent natures and paranoia, refusing to be as patient or creative as our enemy, or gracious enough to our foreign allies and Arab friends to receive their needed help. One thing I can say is that Bush had sufficient chance to hatch his plans and was given every benefit of the doubt despite loud opposition in the media and the public. His failure is changing the tide more effectively then all the warnings from the public and media did before - we simply don't have enough troops to continue, even if Congress approves the next Iraq appropriation. This is why Iraq's most valuable citizens, the educated and affluent, are fleeing their country at the rate of 1000 per day, fearful of another bloodbath.