Which means you’re wasting my time.

There’s no use having any sort of debate with you. You were wrong. You were using out of date data. I took you to the woodshed and all you can say in reply was that you were close enough and you don’t care because all you ever intended to do was belittle me?

Wow. Well, there’s the old saying about rolling around in the mud with a pig, Daveon, and you’re about as porcine a commenter as I’ve met on the net in a good long while. Ciao.

# 74 (Harry Connolly)

Fine. Whatever. Sure. You’ve built your moral house of cards and no one is allowed to ask you to step outside and examine it. I am not only wicked, I am an illusionist! A purveyor of parlor tricks and rhetorical flourishes! You will put your hands over your ears and yell “no, no, no! It’s a trick! I have no blind spot! Bush bad, Obama good. The wicked commenter is double plus ungood. He tries to trick me into saying torture is good. I will ignore him. He will go away if I berate him long enough.”

That’s ok. I never held much hope that you’d understand the point I was trying to make.

Btw, your bankruptcy/Haiti analogy is utterly inapposite. Since EIT’s are over, and your side prevailed on this issue, it’s “not still a problem that needs to be addressed” … so feel free to ignore current issues (rendition, Gitmo, drone assasination) and cleave tightly to the battle you won, rather than the battles you wish to avoid.

I was told all those things like rendition -which means outsourcing torture – Gitmo and dropping bombs on AQ were “immoral, illegal and don’t even f****ng work!” back in 07-08. But that was then, and this is now. You’re side is in power, after all. Bully for you.

… pointing elsewhere and saying “[strikethrough]Haiti[/strikethrough] A predator drone is worse!”

The point you don’t seem to understand is that you are linking the two in order to push condemnation away from torture. It’s an illusionist’s trick to wave your hand in a distracting way so no one looks at what’s happening elsewhere.

Is a discussion about predator drones interesting or useful? I would think so, if John wants to host one here.

Is a discussion of predator drones an appropriate change of subject when discussing torture in U.S. prisons? Not if it is just an illusionist’s trick to distract.

It’s a common trick on the web: One person starts to talk about being laid off and struggling with a house payment, and someone chimes in with “Things are worse in Haiti! At least your house isn’t a pile of rubble with all your children inside!”

Which… yeah. Being laid off and going bankrupt isn’t as bad as what’s happened in Haiti, but the former is still a problem that needs to be addressed, and “Haiti is worse!” is avoiding the subject, not addressing it.

That’s the reason no one will discuss the comparison you think is so clever and cogent. Because torture is immoral, illegal and it doesn’t even fucking work, yet some people insist it’s Necessary, giving reasons that are completely discredited (such as “it works!”) or who the hell knows why. And now that every rational justification for torture has collapsed, its defenders are reduced to pointing elsewhere and saying “Haiti A predator drone is worse!”

It’s the least convincing rhetorical game ever, even if you don’t realize that’s the game you’re playing.

But I don’t hold much hope that you’ll understand the point I’m trying to make. You seem to be so wedded to this idea here:

Iny any event, I think most anti-waterboarders are mostly just anti-Bush administration people. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised that if the Obama administration ordered it (in a hypothetical ticking time bomb scenario), that you would find a way to justify it to yourself.

that you aren’t able to see the actual point I’m making. You should try, though.

Point 1: I suspect that if you had bothered to either a) google, or b) follow the working link I GAVE YOU you’d have ended up there without my spelling mistake.

Point 4: Silly point, he’s clear that the data is for the rest of the world, but given the scale, what difference would including a long line of impossible to see data points after Luxemberg?

Point 5: A silly pointless thing to say that is irrelevant in the context. And you call me snide? Gosh!

Point 6: From a money perspective, especially UK, Germany, France, Italy, any calculation for the rest of Europe is going to be a small rounding error purely down to the relative size of the economies.

Point 7: But let’s look at the “important” countries… We’ve established that China is second largest spender, at $85bn… but we can play this game all night and you’ll still not be making a point. Let’s pick a couple, South Korea? $13bn (http://dev.prenhall.com/divisions/hss/worldreference/KR/defense.html), Australasia roughly $8bn, it goes on like that. On any sensible curve most of these are rounding errors on a scale that has to include $743bn, which is what I think your budget is now…

Any, looking at the data, I was basing my numbers of the 2006 SPIRI report where the total was $1.2bn, and I think we can agree that $600bn is about half that?

I’m happy to concede that last year total US military spending is only 42% of the global total of 160+ countries where the CLOSEST next country spent about 12% of the US total.

This year it looks like it’ll get back up to half again. So, I suppose, to be magmanous we’ll say you spend as much as the rest of the planet…

So… now to your snide stuff.

(B) it’s humanitarian capabilities and expenditures are more than partial justification and (C) the US Air Force and Navy are heavily relied on by the Western Allies for logistical support.

These might be “happy” outcomes but you’re coming at this from a completely arse-about-face point. I certainly agree with point b, but it’s an unintended consequence. Point c is a self serving feature that was built in from the start, so to make altruistic claims is fairly amusing.

Yes, I’m being snide and quite rude, and if you feel belittled…. well, result there.

I find you position on this and your other GOP talking points to be perfect examples of what John is talking about. Your moral compass is stuck pointing to wrong and I do feel sorry for you for that. I feel even worse that I can probably guess your position on a dozen other subjects where you think you’re right too.

You’re exactly what John was complaining about.

This is my second request you elucidate which fact I “made up”.

I think you need to go back and read up on what is, and is not, an ad hominem attack. Here’s a little primer for ya, free of charge:

“In reality, ad hominem is unrelated to sarcasm or personal abuse. Argumentum ad hominem is the logical fallacy of attempting to undermine a speaker’s argument by attacking the speaker instead of addressing the argument. The mere presence of a personal attack does not indicate ad hominem: the attack must be used for the purpose of undermining the argument, or otherwise the logical fallacy isn’t there. It is not a logical fallacy to attack someone; the fallacy comes from assuming that a personal attack is also necessarily an attack on that person’s arguments.”

Me arguing progressives are motivated by partisanship is not ad hominem; you attacking me individually (e.g., saying I make things up) in order to avoid my arguments, is. Got it? Good.

# 69 (Harry Connolly).

Thank you for being the first and only so far to even discuss the drones, though I feel you fall short of my challenge to make both a logical and entirely relevant moral analysis.

This is why I think it’s relevant (a) waterboarding is a tool we use (or used to use) against AQ; (b) predator drones are a tool we use against AQ; (c) in that respect, I am comparing apples to apples.

Why is one “outrageous” and the other not even worthy of comment? Why aren’t they linkable?

My explanation is that so many of you have been reflexively trained to consider one (waterboarding) utterly, totally and irrevocably beyond the pale so that anyone who might suggest it has its uses is worthy of scorn, while the entirely logical counter that drone strikes are (at least to my mind) far, far less moral … far creepier … far more disturbing is not worthy of being considered as connected. Why don’t we seek connections? Why silence on a greater horror, and hurling invective on a lesser? If one has a place in our arsenal, though .. .then why not both?

In other words, why the blindspot? That’s been my point all along.

Daveon – thank you for your second condescending and factually inaccurate post, which (again) avoids any debate on the substance of my arguments.

1. First of all, the man’s name is spelled b-u-c-k-n-e-l-l not b-u-c-k-w-e-l-l.

2. Go re-read Mr. Buckell’s analysis which centers on the issue of whether Europe “carries its own weight” in defense spending, contrary to Eddie’s points in # 29 that the U.S. should be ashamed of its spending “more than the rest of the world combined”.

3. Check out the third graph, which I assume is the one you’re relying on (where he says: “Holy crap! The US spends a lot, more than the rest of the world combined”).

4. Carefully note that only 22 nations are included on that graph. Note, in fact, that all the graphs are based on those same 22 nations, though some graphs combine, delete in order to illustrate Mr. Buckell’s analysis.

5. Daveon, I am sure you would agree with me that there are more than 22 nations in the world.

6. Daveon, I assume you would agree that Mr. Buckell’s charts include some important nations to study in terms of military spending (China, Russia, India, Pakistan, the Koreas, etc.) along with almost all the Western European nations – which of course is not a complete set of the EU as a whole.

7. In particular, Daveon, please pay close attention to the regions omitted from the graphs Mr. Buckell relies upon … all of eastern europe; all of the former Soviet “republics”; all of South America; all of Central America; all of Africa (saharan and sub-saharan); all of the Arab nations (assuming you agree with me that Pakistan and Iran are not generally considered Arab nations); all of southeast asia; Indonesia; Australasia, Oceana … and finally, Canada, Mexico, Cuba, etc.

8. In reality, Mr. Buckell’s arguments DO NOT support your thesis. I think Mr. Buckell meant to say “Holy Crap, the US outspends these 21 other nations.

9. Please actually go the Wikipedia link that I included in my # 54 (and note that Mr. Buckell links to Wikipedia – albeit a different article – so spare me an anticipated snide comment about that site. Note that the Wikipedia article cites the Stockholm International Peace Research Center (which doesn’t seem like a wingnut, rethug, neo-con hotbed to me). The SIPRI numbers are estimates, but then so are the Krugman numbers.

10. On the SIPRI graph, only 10 nations are shown (including the KSA omitted from Mr. Buckell’s analysis), but if you add up the % of expenditures, you will see that they add up to less than 75% of the total (1464b). That would, then take into account the balance of the world (as shown in the continuing graphs).

11. I’m putting the SIPRI numbers against Buckell’s numbers (a) because I think Buckell got a bit excited and (b) he was making a different point anyway and (c) you’ve bolloxed your point and managed to be snide about it at the same time.

12. I hate that I’ve had to waste this much time setting you straight Daveon. You’re just plain wrong on your point, and you’ve belittled me twice in your ignorance and relied on your invalid (and easily checkable error) to avoid meaningful debate on the broader issue that (A) even IF it were true that the US outspends the rest of the world (rather than 21 nations) then (B) it’s humanitarian capabilities and expenditures are more than partial justification and (C) the US Air Force and Navy are heavily relied on by the Western Allies for logistical support.

If you were an honorable opponent, you would both apologize and acknowledge that. But I have a strong suspicion you won’t, which pretty much sums up my opinion of you. Cheers.

Soylent G.:

I will concede the point we may never have the true answers.

You’re conceding the wrong point. Quite a few professional interrogators have said that torture of any kind gives bad intel. Period.

Pundits and politicians who wanted to defend the use of waterboarding pointed to that December ’07 CIA analyst’s statements that it worked. Those claims were false.

The point you really ought to concede is that waterboarding is not only immoral, it’s counter-productive.

On the wholly separate issue of predator drones, I think they’re a stupid, wasteful weapon. They kill too many civilians, and we should have learned by now that bombing people’s homes only makes the population pissed off and more determined to fight.

Anyhoo.

The numbers used by the Stockholm analysis were based on market exchange rate values which is a tad problematic, especially for 2008 given the dollar spent most of the year in a dark deep hole in the ground.

And, as such, you aren’t a little shocked that you’re spending over 40% of even that total? Let alone 8 times the nearest one?

Anyway back to your “point” AND you also ignore my additional point that the Western democracies “draft” off US defense spending .. .i.e, they don’t carry their weight.

Except that’s not the case: http://www.tobiasbuckell.com/2010/01/13/that-not-so-much-crumbling-core-of-western-europes-military-might/

Oh and loved the strawman about relief capacity. That’s a lovely piece of post ex facto reasoning there sonny.

(Speaking of ad hominems, insisting that people who disagree with you are simply acting out of ‘partisan hatred’ is just a wordier ad hominem. Don’t bring none, etc.)

If you truly want to discuss the morality of using predator drones, rather than simply using them to try and shore up an argument based on made-up facts, go for it. But to pretend that the use of predator drones justifies or excuses waterboarding is practically a non sequitur.