The European Tribune is a forum for thoughtful dialogue of European and international issues. You are invited to post comments and your own articles.
Please REGISTER to post.
It most certainly was a proof: Assumption: B lies. Fact: B claims H has nukes Conclusion: B's claim is not true
Uh, no. This only follows logically if B lies all the time. In 2003 that was looking likely, but not certain, and certainly not proof of anything.
It turned out in retrospect that he lied maybe 95% of the time. But that fact wasn't available in 2003.
A rational person can still disagree with you by disagreeing with some of your unstated underlying assumptions, such as e.g. that H had actually had them built fully rather than only partially say, or that he had them smuggled in, or that a workable program is much less expensive than you believe etc.
But there was no absolutely evidence to support any of those claims.
You're sounding like the people who said that Saddam really did have WMDs but... they were smuggled to Syria, which is why they were never found.
There's a vast uncrossable gulf between that kind of narrative logic, in which anything goes as long as it sounds vaguely plausible, and evidence-based argument, which requires a decent data set to argue implications from.
Unless you happen to be a WMD scientist, all of your assumptions about H and his country were derived from interpreting media reports available to you, together with the meta-assumption that these reports were not all outright lies and misinformation.
That and reading books and comments by the UN weapons inspectors, who might reasonably be expected to have a more accurate picture than the media.
In fact the media were spectacularly wrong and generally supportive of the party line, so there was no meta-assumption needed.
I assumed the primary sources - which were freely available to anyone - were more accurate than the media reporting.
by Frank Schnittger - Sep 24 2 comments
by Oui - Sep 19 19 comments
by Oui - Sep 13 35 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Sep 11 5 comments
by Cat - Sep 13 9 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Sep 2 2 comments
by Oui - Sep 29
by Oui - Sep 28
by Oui - Sep 274 comments
by Oui - Sep 2618 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Sep 242 comments
by Oui - Sep 1919 comments
by gmoke - Sep 173 comments
by Oui - Sep 153 comments
by Oui - Sep 15
by Oui - Sep 1411 comments
by Oui - Sep 1335 comments
by Cat - Sep 139 comments
by Oui - Sep 127 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Sep 115 comments
by Oui - Sep 929 comments
by Oui - Sep 713 comments
by Oui - Sep 61 comment
by Frank Schnittger - Sep 22 comments
by gmoke - Sep 2
by Oui - Sep 1197 comments