My paper on Iraq, America, Bush, etc...

[Malachi151]

I have written a ~200 paper on the war in Iraq and how it relates to American society and the Bush administration.

All feedback is welcome.

My paper can be found here:

www.rationalrevolution.net

Thanks

[Aoidoi]

Whether this war be right or wrong, and whether its immediate consequences be good or bad... An idle question (before getting into anything of actual substance), is this a stylistic move or just incorrect grammar? It reads in a somewhat interesting way, I'm just curious if it's intentional.

There are three basic ways to see this, none of them good:It rarely convinces me of anything when the author tries to tell me the only acceptable positions to take prior to even starting his arguments. But anyway, on to the case (and I don't think I'm gonna make it all the way through, my attention span isn't up for that amount of politics :))

The motivation for war that was given to the public by the Bush administration centered on protecting Americans from direct harm.Was this the Bush admin's public stance? A link to a press release or something would help this point out.

Given this fact it is important to note that HE DID NOT CAMPAIGN ON THIS FACT! In fact both he and Gore stated that they were against "Nation Building" during the presidential debates. Might want to mention that flip flop of policy. (not that campaign promises are ever worth much)

These comments were never satisfactorily supported prior to entering into war with Iraq.And haven't been substantiated after the fact, either (regarding WMD).

These facts make it clear that there was a plan to go to war with Iraq regardless of what happened on September 11th 2001. George Bush and Dick Cheney were dishonest from the very start about the most serious subject in the world, war. Whether you agree with the war or not there is no way to deny that fact. Did they ever deny there was a plan? I don't recall them specifically saying that, though they may have. It seems to me more of a lie of omission than anything... and there is a difference between there being a plan and that plan getting implemented. Without 9/11 I doubt Bush would have had the political or public support to go adventuring in the ME.

The plan was to invade even if Saddam did leave. Er, really? Where did that come from? It's kind of hard to argue someone lied about a hypothetical without evidence to back it up. Was it in the plan linked above (didn't read it, sorry).

For point 2, do you have any sites for that? First I've heard of it.

Point 3, well, the government has indeed been wrong on it's US terror warnings so far, but they did issue a correct warning about the recent attacks in Saudi Arabia. While I don't necessarily agree with them pulling out "Code Orange" every time some suspected terrorists says something threatening, it seems reasonable that after Sept 11 they don't want to get caught unaware again. Not that this really directly relates to the war.

4 - I thought the claim was that they'd sneak unmanned planes to the US and then use them to spread chemical weapons... this was a somewhat silly claim from the beginning, and I'm not even sure who originated it. They (the weapons inspectors, I think) did find unmanned planes in Iraq, which could have lead to the speculation... I don't even know if the US govt came up with this one.

5. Interesting, if accurate.

Desert Storm lies, I'm really surprised the press didn't harp on this stuff more. It does make you wonder on why Bush I got a much easier ride than Bush II on the war... lots of countries went along the first time.

Then you get into the CIA/drugs bit, which I can sort of see as a historical pattern of lies to support clandestine activities, but I'm not quite sure how this relates to Iraq. Just suggesting a bit more focus. I wasn't going to comment until you started going into Reagan's economic policies, which are even more off topic (and I'm not even going to get into). :)

50+ years of deception... at what point do you just throw up your hands and say "governments always lie for their agendas?"

... okay, I've got some other things to do. Might come back if some discussion pops up.

[RandFan,Jr.]

Malachi151,

I am not trying to be patronizing or condescending. I have re-written my response several times and am just not able to make it any more palpable.

I hope that you can avoid getting angry with me. My intention is to challenge your argument and not attack you personally. If I have failed at this I ask your forgiveness. I often get into heated debates and would like to avoid them.

I was intrigued but I did not get very far. You argue that the nation was "moved to war with lies". Fair enough, I think an argument can be made. However your next thesis starts with a fallacious premise "There are three basic ways to see this, none of them good." This is actually a false dichotomy. Yes, according to you there are "three" ways but they leave us ultimately with two basic options. Bush lies vs. Bush doesn't lie.

To exasperate the fallacy each of the three "basic ways" is composed of a straw man.

[list=1]
"If you believe that he lied then you are un-American. If you call the president a liar then you should leave the country; you should be ashamed. If you believe that the president is a liar then you are a horribly misinformed and misguided person that has no morals. We should all trust the president and have faith in him and our nation’s leaders."

If this is true then we have a lot of misguided Americans, and a world that is against the rest. In addition, we aren’t a democracy; we are a country that elects kings.

Note how you construct a set of beliefs in the first paragraph and then attack those beliefs in the second.

It is possible to believe that Bush did not lie but respect the fact that others believe that Bush lied (I and many people I know of fit such a description). It also doesn't follow that just because some people believe in the alleged lies of Bush reduces our system to a monarchy. To avoid the non-sequiter you have to build the straw man. It still doesn't work but it redirects the focus from the main fallacy.

Yes, he lied. On top of that, the entire American system supported the lies; we have all been lied to for years by the American government, but that’s just the reality of life in the modern world. It’s not possible for the government to be honest and open with American citizens for a variety of reasons including national security. We all have to just put our trust in leadership in order to be safe and to be happy because the issues are too complex for the average citizen. National, and world, security depends on secrecy.

If this is true then democracy is dead, as uninformed puppets cannot govern themselves.

Again, deft use of the straw man. The problem is that life, truth and politics are not always so black and white. No one that I know of supports the notion that an administration always lies or always tells the truth. No one that I know of supports the idea that lies are always "ok" or the notion that Democracies cease to exist and Monarchies spring to life because of the ignorance of some of the population. Such a proposition is silly on its face.[/list=1]

The thesis is so fatally flawed that it would serve little purpose to read any more of your paper. I can see that you have put a lot of work into the paper. Perhaps you could re-work it some to avoid the specious reasoning. At which time I would be happy to read it and make additional comments.

RandFan.

[Malachi151]

Interesting feedback, and I myself consider the first part of this paper its weakest point. It was the first thing I wrote and I have not gone back to retouch it since. I'd like to though because I don't like it as an introduction myself.

RandFan,Jr.

"There are three basic ways to see this, none of them good." This is actually a false dichotomy.

Hence the reason I included the word "BASIC" ;)

two basic options. Bush lies vs. Bush doesn't lie.

Are you proposing that there is s third option? Statements are either lies or not lies correct? I see lying as a boolean issue and thus there are only two possibilities.

Note how you construct a set of beliefs in the first paragraph and then attack those beliefs in the second.

Yes, and that is the point. The hope being to hopefully pull the patriotic establishment loving reader in just a little bit before they decide to give up on reading the paper :D

It is possible to believe that Bush did not lie but respect the fact that others believe that Bush lied (I and many people I know of fit such a description). It also doesn't follow that just because some people believe in the alleged lies of Bush reduces our system to a monarchy. To avoid the non-sequiter you have to build the straw man. It still doesn't work but it redirects the focus from the main fallacy.

Is it really?

If you believe that the president is a liar then you are a horribly misinformed and misguided person that has no morals. We should all trust the president and have faith in him and our nation’s leaders."

The statement really applies to all presidents, not just Bush, but anyway, if a person takes the view that they cannot question the President then that means that once a President is in office he becomes King. The point of our system is not to go to the polls and put a dictator into office, its to put someone in who can lead, and once they are in they stay subject to the will of the people and subject to question.

If you take the view that the President is always right and we should always do what the President says, then yes, we are electing Kings. If you take that view to its extreme then if Bush got on TV and said, okay everyone jump off a cliff, then people holding the view that the president is always to be trusted and followed would go jump off a cliff. An extreme example obviously.

Again, deft use of the straw man. The problem is that life, truth and politics are not always so black and white. No one that I know of supports the notion that an administration always lies or always tells the truth. No one that I know of supports the idea that lies are always "ok" or the notion that Democracies cease to exist and Monarchies spring to life because of the ignorance of some of the population. Such a proposition is silly on its face.

Agreed, but its an attempt at a quick introduction without getting into a complex philosophical discussion. The point is to get the reader to question, even if the questioning is of my own statements. Ultimately the issue is, many people have taken the position today that our government lies, but that's just the way it is, its become acceptable. My point is to challenge that attitude.

The thesis is so fatally flawed that it would serve little purpose to read any more of your paper. I can see that you have put a lot of work into the paper. Perhaps you could re-work it some to avoid the specious reasoning. At which time I would be happy to read it and make additional comments.

The point of the intro is to be quick and not too complicated.

If you have any suggestions I'd love to hear them. I agree that the intro is weak and problematic, but I also don't know what to do with it. My main focus has been on the real content of the paper.

The thesis is so fatally flawed that it would serve little purpose to read any more of your paper.

Well, that makes little sense, and I would not call the thesis fatally flawed, just simplistic.

Aoidoi

stylistic move

It rarely convinces me of anything when the author tries to tell me the only acceptable positions to take prior to even starting his arguments.

Again, the word "basic" is there for a reason.

Was this the Bush admin's public stance? A link to a press release or something would help this point out.

Valid point. I figured that most Americans knew that from watching the news, but its a valid point anyway because the paper will not always be seen in the light of current events.

In fact both he and Gore stated that they were against "Nation Building" during the presidential debates. Might want to mention that flip flop of policy. (not that campaign promises are ever worth much)

Another good point.

And haven't been substantiated after the fact, either (regarding WMD).

I have purposefully not been maintaining the paper. The last I wrote anything for the paper that was related to current events was in April shortly after the fall of the Saddam Statue. I've made several claims in the paper that I want to be able to stand on their own without it looking like I just went back and wrote stuff after the fact. Unfortunately things progressed so fast several of my predictions came true before I had finished the paper because the war was so short.

Did they ever deny there was a plan?

Yes, but again I should probably link that information.

I doubt Bush would have had the political or public support to go adventuring in the ME

They were already funding the Taliban prior to 9/11 as part of the ME involvement strategy. A reason would have been cooked up to deal with Saddam I believe because so many members of the administration had voiced for 2 or 3 years that invading Iraq because of Saddam was something that America should do.

Most likely they would have done the same thing they did, 9/11 just helped some. They still would have claimed that Saddam had WOMD that had to be dealt with.

Er, really? Where did that come from? It's kind of hard to argue someone lied about a hypothetical without evidence to back it up. Was it in the plan linked above (didn't read it, sorry).

Yes, I also thought about linking stories for each of the items, I may go back and do that. I provided the one link at the bottom of the list that continues information on all of those items though.

After Bush made the ultimatum about Saddam leaving Iraq hey threw in a caveat that if he did leave Iraq the US would need to go in to search for WOMD.

50+ years of deception... at what point do you just throw up your hands and say "governments always lie for their agendas?"

The entire point of the paper is demonstration how the lies have shaped modern society, and how that shaping of modern society through lies has gotten us to a point were a President can come on TV can tell huge lies to the world and still applauded by millions of Americans. That's the point.

Thanks

[RandFan,Jr.]

Hi Malachi,

I appreciate the tone of your response.

Originally posted by Malachi151
Interesting feedback, and I myself consider the first part of this paper its weakest point. It was the first thing I wrote and I have not gone back to retouch it since. I'd like to though because I don't like it as an introduction myself. I think that is good. Let's consider a few things.

RandFan,Jr.

"There are three basic ways to see this, none of them good." This is actually a false dichotomy.

Hence the reason I included the word "BASIC" ;)

two basic options. Bush lies vs. Bush doesn't lie.

Are you proposing that there is s third option? Statements are either lies or not lies correct? I see lying as a boolean issue and thus there are only two possibilities. Perhaps on a case by case basis, but let's consider a few points and I will let you decide.

According to The Onion (http://www.theonion.com/onion3845/report_presidents_lied.html) there is evidence that every president since Washington has lied to the American people.

WASHINGTON, DC—In allegations likely to further erode Americans' faith in the office of the presidency, presidents George Washington through George W. Bush may have lied about key matters of national import during their tenures as chief executive, an independent-counsel investigation asserted Monday.

The report states that the integrity of the presidency "may have been compromised by criminal misdirection, obstruction of justice, and deliberate clouding of the truth for political advantage and/or personal gain by as many as every president since the nation's inception." So by your logic there are only two options a president lies or he doesn't.

"You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time."

Would you agree that there has always been people who believed that the lies told by past presidents were truths?

Would you also agree that some of those people would meet the description of those in your paragraph #1?

No, he didn’t lie. If you believe that he lied then you are un-American. If you call the president a liar then you should leave the country; you should be ashamed. If you believe that the president is a liar then you are a horribly misinformed and misguided person that has no morals. We should all trust the president and have faith in him and our nation’s leaders. If you answer yes to the above 2 questions then you must consider your next paragraph.

If this is true then we have a lot of misguided Americans, and a world that is against the rest. In addition, we aren’t a democracy; we are a country that elects kings. Based on your logic and the evidence gathered by the independent council (http://www.theonion.com/onion3845/report_presidents_lied.html) we can conclude that we have never been a democracy but have been led by kings.

It is not a simple matter of whether a president lies but when and how much and what is the nature of those lies and how does that affect the nation?

If I were to make your argument I would avoid the dichotomy all together and I would change the wording of your opening salvo.

Consider this,

that George W. Bush Jr. has lied to get us into this war with Iraq. Whether this war be right or wrong, and whether its immediate consequences be good or bad, there can be no denial that the nation was moved to war with lies.

[The democratic process is dependent on an informed society. Lying can significantly weaken our democracy and take away our freedoms. When we let a President get away with such lies we abdicate our responsibilities and make our democracy appear more like a monarchy.]

People typically have 3 responses when presented with the evidence that the President lied.

[list=1]
No he didn't lie. [They will often say] "If you believe that he lied then you are un-American. If you call the president a liar then you should leave the country; you should be ashamed. If you believe that the president is a liar then you are a horribly misinformed and misguided person that has no morals. We should all trust the president and have faith in him and our nation’s leaders."

[Those who take such a position are behaving more like the subjects of a dictator than members of a democracy. Opposition is the evidence of a healthy republic.]

Yes, he lied but that’s just the reality of life in the modern world. It’s not possible for the government to be honest and open with American citizens for a variety of reasons including national security.

[Again, those who accept this as inevitable make for poor citizens. Our democracy functions best when all of the citizens demand that our leaders be honest with us and are vigilant to ensure that we are not being lied to.

Such an apathetic attitude is antithetical to Democracy.]

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing." --Edmund Burke
[/list=1]

I'm not sure if I would have a #3 but I can see how you could have one.

Note how you construct a set of beliefs in the first paragraph and then attack those beliefs in the second.

Yes, and that is the point. The hope being to hopefully pull the patriotic establishment loving reader in just a little bit before they decide to give up on reading the paper It might be the point but it is a fallacy. You premise is macro your argument is micro. You seek to make your argment by attacking a view that is not represented by all that believe that Bush is telling the truth.

It is possible to believe that Bush did not lie but respect the fact that others believe that Bush lied (I and many people I know of fit such a description). It also doesn't follow that just because some people believe in the alleged lies of Bush reduces our system to a monarchy. To avoid the non-sequiter you have to build the straw man. It still doesn't work but it redirects the focus from the main fallacy.

Is it really? Absolutely, reasonable people can disagree. Is there a reason why you reject such a proposition?

The statement really applies to all presidents, not just Bush, but anyway, if a person takes the view that they cannot question the President then that means that once a President is in office he becomes King. The point of our system is not to go to the polls and put a dictator into office, its to put someone in who can lead, and once they are in they stay subject to the will of the people and subject to question. If that is the point of your argument then you originally failed to make it. The problem with this argument is not everyone takes that view. There is always an opposition to confront the propaganda and spin of any administration.

If you take the view that the President is always right and we should always do what the President says, then yes, we are electing Kings. Again, this would only be true if nearly everyone took this view. Not everyone does and there are Democratic Presidential candidates who are at this very moment questioning Bush's policies and decisions. If you remember Clinton questioned Bush Sr. and defeated him. If it were as you say then Bush Sr. would have been reelected.


If you take that view to its extreme then if Bush got on TV and said, okay everyone jump off a cliff, then people holding the view that the president is always to be trusted and followed would go jump off a cliff. An extreme example obviously. Yes, and a poor one. Your point is lost with such extremes.

Look, if a jingoism and public pressure silences the opposition then we [I]are truly in danger of losing our freedoms.

Isn't that your point? Nationalism is something that we should be wary of regardless of which party is in power. There are plenty of historical examples to demonstrate the danger of not questioning our leaders.

Again, deft use of the straw man. The problem is that life, truth and politics are not always so black and white. No one that I know of supports the notion that an administration always lies or always tells the truth. No one that I know of supports the idea that lies are always "ok" or the notion that Democracies cease to exist and Monarchies spring to life because of the ignorance of some of the population. Such a proposition is silly on its face.

Agreed, but its an attempt at a quick introduction without getting into a complex philosophical discussion. The point is to get the reader to question, even if the questioning is of my own statements. Ultimately the issue is, many people have taken the position today that our government lies, but that's just the way it is, its become acceptable. My point is to challenge that attitude. I think such tactics loses your argument. Avoid the fallacies and think of a better way to engage the reader.

The point of the intro is to be quick and not too complicated. I understand, but such a desire cannot justify fallacy. You have a valid point, don't veer off of it by going too far in directions that are not supported by your argument. Stick with the facts and logic. If you haven't already done so google "logic", "fallacy" and argument. My favorite page is Logic & Fallacies (http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/logic.html). It has an excellent discussion of what is and isn't argument.

If you have any suggestions I'd love to hear them. See above.

I agree that the intro is weak and problematic, but I also don't know what to do with it. My main focus has been on the real content of the paper. Yes, but the opening is critical. It will be hard for people to accept your premises if your opening is fallacious.

...I would not call the thesis fatally flawed, just simplistic. That is fine, but it does contain fallacies. You can't make a blanket conclusion about a group based upon a subset of that group.

All Democracies require an informed populace.
Some Americans are not informed
America is not a democracy.

This syllogism is invalid. If you can re-write it so that it is valid or provide another that represents your view then I will reconsider my position that it is fatally flawed.

Thank you for listening and I am not as presumptuous as to expect you to agree with me or adopt my changes. I appreciate your response.

Thanks,

RandFan

[Malachi151]

Again, this would only be true if nearly everyone took this view. Not everyone does and there are Democratic Presidential candidates who are at this very moment questioning Bush's policies and decisions. If you remember Clinton questioned Bush Sr. and defeated him. If it were as you say then Bush Sr. would have been reelected.

I think this will also clear up all the comments you made prior to this as well.

I added the "electing Kings" statement after the fact, and perhaps it does nto fit the ways it sworded, actually it should more probably be a part fo the 2nd option, if any.

The point of the 3 options is to access the readers view, not for the reader to try and make a blanket judgement of societies view. So, I probably have it worded wrong, but its suposed to mean, if you believe that the President is honest and should not be questioned then... It does not mean that everyone else has to agree, hence the statement: "If this is true then we have a lot of misguided Americans, and a world that is against the rest."

Which is also really not accurate either, but more to the real point.

I think such tactics loses your argument. Avoid the fallacies and think of a better way to engage the reader.

True, I'm probably going to rewrite the whole intro and also re-order the "lies", putting the small list before the larger discussion of the PNAC.

Any opinion on that? Or should that stay in the same order it is now?

One of the goals of the early part of the paper is to keep it simple, and not overly "heady" or intellectual. I try to maintian that for at least the first section on lies, stating everything as directly and simply as possible, well, maybe some of my sentace structure is complex though, but anyway... :p

Also, keep in mind that I just sat down and wrote this because on the day the war started it pissed me off, so I just started writing and this is what came out. My degree is in Biology and I'm a software developer, so this isn't really "what I do".

I know I have many grammar mistakes in the paper, but for one I'm no grammer king, and for the other editing takes time and I'm trying to do other things now :p

However, I think this paper may be good enough to publish in a revised format. I know that the information contained in it is not ground breaking, but I think it developes a unique perspective, at least its unique to me. The goal is to support the perspective, which would be considered a radical liberal perspective, with facts, layed out in a simple and logical manner.

The intended audiance is people who are not historians and who are not into keeping up with politics. I think that "conservatives (can be democrats or republicans or independants for that matter)" in America have created such a vast framework of lies that it has become difficult to have any real poltical discussion in the media today, becuase first in order to really get aywhere you have to debunk 50 years of propiganda to do it, which is why liberalism in America is in a pathetic state.

Bush can get up on TV and say a few things like "Americans have always fought to give people freedom" and in order to counter that statement first you have to give a history lesson, and by that time the poltician has moved on to the next lie, like talking about welfare mothers and drugs or something, then to address that you have to give more facts and figures, and boom, then the politician is on the next lie.

So, its an attempt to take several of what I consider to be the "big lies" and shed light on them all in one document and interpret how they have shaped our culture into a culture that presents a rip environment for politicians to tell more lies like Bush is doing now.

The paper's goal is to show that getting rid of Bush will not solve anything, the lies are the problem. The lies have to be dispelled or else new leaders will just keep coming to power using the same lies.

Which is why I call American society (probably every society is to a degree) a framework of lies within which we all live, and show how leaders have created the framework, and how they use it, and ultimately how we all use it.

So, I'm also looking for help on how to publish this too.

[RandFan,Jr.]

Originally posted by Malachi151
The paper's goal is to show that getting rid of Bush will not solve anything, the lies are the problem. The lies have to be dispelled or else new leaders will just keep coming to power using the same lies.

Which is why I call American society (probably every society is to a degree) a framework of lies within which we all live, and show how leaders have created the framework, and how they use it, and ultimately how we all use it. There is a certain Henny Penny quality to your assertions. I don't quite agree with it. However I do respect your opinion. I do think that there are lies. There has always been. Did you read the link?

It is the responsibility of the citizens to educate themselves so that they will be inoculated at least to some degree against the lies of government. In any event it is not as worrysome to me.

I will take the time to read your paper and offer you any ideas that I have.

RandFan.

[Malachi151]

Asside from an attack on my intro, which was helpful, I was hoping for a little more insight on the facts and their interpretation in teh rest of the paper.

So far, having looked for help on this in several areas I have not been able to find anyone that can dispute any significant elements of this paper. I'm looking into self publishing this now and I'm having to do all the fact and logic checking on it myself, which is tedious. :(

[RandFan,Jr.]

Originally posted by Malachi151
Asside from an attack on my intro, which was helpful, I was hoping for a little more insight on the facts and their interpretation in teh rest of the paper. There is so much that I could say that I could spend 40 hours easily. I just don't have the time. I read the entire paper (site) and then skimmed back through it for the items that most caught my eye.

First of, much of your information is present on other websites. Google PNAC and you get "Results 5,630."

www.dangerouscitizen.com/Articles/539.aspx
www.prisonplanet.com/analysis_louise_010603_pnac.html
www.liberaloasis.com/archives/022303.htm

It goes on and on.

Your page has a definite "biased" feel to it and is heavy on the rhetoric. "Given this fact it is important to note that HE DID NOT CAMPAIGN ON THIS FACT!"

Caps and italicized? Now I do that from time to time but I can assure you it is really not good form. It might be good for flaming but not for style.

"He committed a lie to the American people of the gravest magnitude. It was a lie of omission, but quite possibly the biggest lie of omission I have ever witnessed in my lifetime."

The two biggest credibility killers in my opinion are superlatives and extremes. While you don't have any superlatives you do have a lot of extremes of a rhetorical nature. Great for preaching to the choir and milking ones ego but worthless when it comes to convincing others of your position.

By the way, what is your goal for the paper? If you say to expose the truth then I would have to say that you are going about it the wrong way. IMO. Along with the bias there is a heavy "conspiracy theory" to it.

"The CIA aided in cocaine and crack distribution in America to fund wars under the Reagan administration."

Perhaps, and perhaps it was all part of the Jewish conspiracy and the Trilateral Commission.

Reagan’s policies did more then simply cut income taxes. A large number of tax loopholes were written into the tax code that catered to special corporate interests. This is really quite funny since I owned and operated my own business that was profitable until the tax reform under Reagan. After that write offs were much harder and I could no longer justify staying in business. The truth is that my business relied heavily on tax loopholes as did many businesses.
Your singular and derisive use of "trickle down" to describe Reagan's economic plan make it plain that you only have one agenda and that is a political one. And that is fine. It's just that I don't personally care for web sites or papers that are so heavy handed or one sided. I also make a point to warn people to be wary of any such site.

I see allot of work but nothing new or earth shaking. Much of it can be argued against. The economic stuff is mediocre to poor. The retailing of the S&L scandal glaringly leaves out the many democrats who were embroiled in it most notably Alan Cranston.

I think you go to far afield and try to tie everything into a neat and tidy thesis. Unfortunately the more variables the more chaos and the more the thesis breaks down and starts to look like the mirror of the storm front sites.

I can't really judge your "paper" because I am so against these types of sites. I like objectivity and critical thinking. Some people think that since they take an opposing position to an administration that they are using critical thinking. Opposition is not critical thinking.

Best of luck and I hope you can find someone to offer you better advise than myself.

RandFan

[davefoc]

Malachi151.
I did not read your paper in any where the detail that several of the responders seem to have, but RandFan did a pretty good job of expressing some of my opinions.

The biggest problem I saw was that the paper seemed to have no purpose other than to convince people that you really didn't like Republican administrations. Because you attempted to cover so much territory, you covered nothing well. Because of the unrelentingly biased tone your paper would not have been remotely convincing to somebody that didn't agree with your premises in the first place.

I followed up on one of your quotes because it struck me as not quite right.

you quoted the plan as saying
"blueprint for maintaining global US pre-eminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests."

The quote from the document that you referenced didn't contain the word, global, a minor nitpit perhaps.

More substantively, the quote was not part of a "Bush plan". You did not include the first part of the sentence in your quote. It says, "The Defense Policy Guidance (DPG) drafted in the early months of 1992 provided a .....". The article goes on to say that the document was leaked before it had been approved and was subsequently buried by the new administration.

You might think these minor variations from the actual facts are insignificant. I don't. I don't believe any respected publication would see as a matter of policy a factual misrepresentation like this as acceptable.

I do not wish to be discouraging to your efforts. First, my criticism is not based on any professional experience and as such it is certainly reasonable to be particularly skeptical of it. Secondly, you did occasionaly succeed in putting forth some well written and documented views and if you can find your way to work a harder to understand the positions of those who you disagree with you may be more successful in writing opinion pieces that can actually inform people and help shape their views.

[Malachi151]

good points.

As I already stated, I think the first part of the paper is the weakest part. I guess I need to go ahead and rewrite that part.

I also agree that the section on trick down needs work.

I think the paper got better as it progressed and I got less angery and more "unbaised".

I'll probably re-word the first part of it this week.

[Malachi151]

I updated my paper with some of these suggestions, The new version is up now. It still has a lot of editing that needs to be done though. I revised the section on the CIA and cocaine too.