David Burress hates George W. Bush. In fact, in January 2003 he helped the far-left Lawrence Coalition for Peace and Justice raise funds by hosting a "Sorry-Ass State of the Union" house party. Sadly, Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS) appears to be a long-term affliction with some. Burress presents an example of this phenomenon.
To the editor:
In his Sunday column, Leonard Pitts writes the following: “…the wheels began to come off the Bush administration’s argument for invading Iraq, i.e., to find the weapons of mass destruction. But of course, there were no such weapons, an inconvenient truth to which Team Bush responded with a new, after-the-fact rationale. Now, the argument for war was and always had been the need to free the poor, suffering Iraqi people.”
First, as noted by the New York Times last October, WMDs were found in Iraq. Of course, Pitts would argue that these were “old” WMDs. That may be the case. However, in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions, Saddam Hussein was required to destroy ALL of his WMDs. If he failed to do that, isn’t it likely that he failed to destroy newer WMDs as well? There is a great deal of evidence suggesting that Saddam sent WMDs to Syria prior to the invasion.* There is precedent for this since Saddam sent most of his air force to Iran prior to Operation Desert Storm in 1991.
As far as the after-the-fact rationale, the Bush administration cited several rationales before the invasion. WMDs was one. However, freeing the Iraqi people was also a major rationale cited prior to the invasion. Pitts may have forgotten that the operation to remove Saddam from power was called Operation Iraqi Freedom.The point of my letter was to point out that Leonard Pitts, the Pulitzer-prize-winning prevaricator, was not truthful when he wrote that no WMDs were found in Iraq and that the Bush administration then cam up with an after-the-fact rationale, i.e., freeing the Iraqi people. Note that I did not express an opinion regarding whether or not I believed it was a good thing to invade Iraq. I believe I merely presented the facts in a dispassionate manner.
Well, Burress, a retired KU professor and current president of the Ad Astra Institute of Kansas, took issue with my letter and offered what I suppose he considered a rebuttal:
To the editor:
Connecting the dots in his evasive letter of Feb. 26, Kevin Groenhagen appears to be claiming that:
1. President Bush could have persuaded us to go to war against Iraq even if he had admitted that any WMDs left in Iraq were useless rusted hulks; and
2. The invasion of Iraq was a good idea because Bush had a secondary goal of “freedom for Iraq” — even though the actual result was instead a combination of chaos, anarchy, and warlordism.
If that’s what Groenhagen means, his judgment is just plain wacko. If that’s not what he means, his letter makes no sense.Of course, there was nothing evasive about my letter. It addressed facts that Burress could not refute. Regarding his two points, note that the first ignores the "dot" regarding the fact that there is a great deal of evidence suggesting that Saddam's newer WMDs went to Syria. Ignoring that "dot" is an actual example of evasiveness. Burress also implies that Bush knew beforehand that "any WMDs left in Iraq were useless rusted hulks," but didn't admit that. What Burress and others with BDS fail to acknowledge is that, just a few short months before the invasion, the Clinton administration argued that Saddam had WMDs and, thus, was "a clear and present danger at all times." In other words, if those on the left believe it was a lie to say Saddam had WMDs, then they must acknowledge that that lie originated with Bush's predecessor. Those with BDS also seem to forget that even those who opposed the invasion of Iraq, including Joe Wilson, believed Saddam had more than just WMDs that were "useless rusted hulks."
On Burress' second point, again, I never expressed an opinion regarding whether the invasion of Iraq was a good or bad idea. In other words, contrary to his claim in his final paragraph, I offered no judgment, wacko or otherwise.
Unfortunately, BDS can cause many, even those with Ph.D.'s, to lose their senses and ability to offer cogent arguments.
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* Being limited to 250 words, I was unable to go into the evidence suggesting that Saddam's newer WMDs went to Syria prior to the invasion. Iraqi General Georges Sada has claimed that
According
to Sada, “On June 4, 2002, a three-mile-long irrigation dam, which had been
drawing water from the Orontes River in the
northwestern district of Zeyzoun, Syria, collapsed,
inundating three small villages and destroying scores of homes…. As soon as
word of the disaster was broadcast on television, help began arriving from all
over the Middle East .”
Indeed,
according to Agence France Presse (AFP) on June 9, 2002, “Iraq said Sunday it has sent 20 planeloads of
humanitarian assistance to Syria to help victims of Tuesday’s
Zeyzoun dam collapse in the north of the neighbouring country.” AFP noted that Iraq would send foodstuffs, pharmaceutical products, and “teams
of specialised doctors, surgeons and chemists to Syria .”[2]
Satellite
imagery also picked up unusual activity on the Iraq-Syria border before and during the
invasion. James R. Clapper, who headed the National Imagery
and Mapping Agency in 2003, has said U.S. intelligence tracked a large number of vehicles,
mostly civilian trucks, moving from Iraq into Syria . Clapper suggested the trucks may have contained
materiel related to Iraq ’s WMD programs.[3]
In
a January 5, 2004 letter to Dutch newspaper, De Telegraaf Nizar Nayuf, a Syrian journalist who had
defected from Syria to Western Europe, said he knew of
three sites in Syria where Iraq ’s
WMDs were kept. One of those sites was a series on tunnels under the town of
al-Baida near the city of Hama in northern Syria .
Reportedly, the tunnels were part of an underground factory built by North Korea for producing a Syrian version of
the Scud missile.[4]
Interestingly, al-Baida is located near the Zeyzoun dam.
That
same month, David Kay, who had recently resigned as the
head of the Iraqi Survey Group, said, “[W]e know from some of the
interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some
components of Saddam’s WMD program. Precisely what went to Syria ,
and what has happened to it, is a major issue that needs to be resolved.”[5]
[1] Georges Sada, Saddam’s Secrets: How an Iraqi
General Defied and Survived Saddam Hussein, p. 259.
[5]
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/01/25/wirq25.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/01/25/ixnewstop.html
I have a long-standing interest in persuasive and rational logic—especially figures of speech, rhetoric, and polemics—applied especially but not only to movement conservatism. I appreciate the opportunity Mr. Groenhagen has provided for me to pursue those interests.
ReplyDeleteAlthough an immense amount has been written on persuasion, there seem to be no good taxonomies, classification schemes, or general theories. For example, I have collected lists including over 1500 phrases describing figures of speech, and lists of over 100 fallacies—but there is a lot of overlap in concepts and not much is known about their overall logical structure. (I don’t claim to have mastered all of these lists.) Groenhagen’s argument given above uses a trope that is very interesting because it widespread among right-wing polemicists, and yet I haven’t located a precise and accepted name for it.
Groenhagen’s trope is related to apophasis (“I won’t mention the fact that...”). However, it is most similar to innuendo (making a case against someone’s character without ever saying what your real point is), except that Groenhagen is making a positive argument rather than a negative slur. The essence of this trope is to list reasons for a conclusion without ever actually stating the conclusion. The real point of the trope is plausible deniability. Groenhagen is using the trope to attack an opponent’s credibility, supposedly without risking a counterattack on his own credibility.
Hence Groenhagen’s yelp of outrage when I attacked his credibility.
In particular, Groenhagen wants to list reasons why the invasion of Iraq of a good idea without ever actually stating it was a good idea. That way his opponents are expected to get bogged down in responding to a bunch of arguments (really dumb arguments, by the way, in this and most such cases). Responding to those arguments would leave the false impression that the issue was seriously debatable, while not responding would let Groenhagen claim to have carried the argument.
Which is why Groenhagen now states he had no intent of ever claiming that the invasion was a good idea. But note the following:
1. Groenhagen carefully avoids either saying that invasion was a good idea (which would be wacky) or saying it was a bad idea (which would validate the Bush critics). Hence in simple fact he is being evasive. Groenhagen should either tell us where stands or withdraw his denial of evasiveness.
2. Groenhagen accumulates a bunch of contrived evidence favoring the invasion–why? Normal political discussion does not consist in random facts. It has a point. Groenhagen apparently wants to make the point that Bush’s critics are unreliable—presumably part of Groenhagen’s overall project of showing that anyone to his left is unreliable (or rather “deranged,” as he says I am). But he can’t complete that argument without actually defending Bush. Hence his real argument depends on a conclusion he refuses to take responsibility for. That constitutes bad faith with the reader.
As to the rest of his piece, Groenhagen makes the usual number of really bad arguments. For example:
∙ Probably most egregious is his lead-off example of “evidence” that Iraq sent WMDs to Syria—a reference to Georges Sada, who actually claimed only that he had heard unnamed pilots claiming there were WMDs. This is not even hearsay—it is mere rumor. Moreover it comes from a highly partisan, self-justifying source who had been part of Ahmed Chalabi’s claque of expat Iraqis who opportunistically pushed phoney evidence about WMDs before the invasion.
∙ His second example depends on a lying misquote (check it out): Richard Holbrooke never said that WMDs existed and were dangerous, only that Iraq had a dangerous potential to build them (which no has ever denied).
∙ His third example is that Joseph C. Wilson still believed there were WMDs as of the eve of the invasion of Iraq—but Wilson’s views are completely irrelevant. He was not an expert or a Bush confidant and had been out of government for 5 years.
–David Burress
Lawrence KS
Before responding to Mr. Burress's comments, I'd like to note that he criticized my letter to the editor on his Facebook page. When I asked for the opportunity to respond there, he declined my request. Nevertheless, I have allowed him to respond to my blog item.
ReplyDeleteMr. Burress crows about his research on logical fallacies, yet he obviously does not eschew the use of them. First, there is the red herring. My letter to the editor had one purpose, i.e., to point out that Leonard Pitts was wrong when he claimed that no WMDs were found in Iraq and that, given that failure, the Bush administration "responded with a new, after-the-fact rationale. Now, the argument for war was and always had been the need to free the poor, suffering Iraqi people."
News reports during the past several months from mainstream media sources have noted that WMDs were indeed found in Iraq. In addition, the Department of Defense noted in 2006, "The 500 munitions discovered throughout Iraq since 2003 and discussed in a National Ground Intelligence Center report meet the criteria of weapons of mass destruction." Pitts, Burress, and other Bush critics can debate about the effectiveness of those WMDs. However, what is not debatable is the fact that Iraq had WMDs, WMDs that, in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions, were supposed to have been destroyed during the 1990s.
Regarding Pitts' claim that the Bush administration made up a new, after-the-fact rationale concerning freeing the Iraqi people, as I noted in my letter, the operation to remove Saddam from power was called Operation Iraqi FREEDOM. It was not Operation Find Saddam's WMDs. One of Burress's friends on his Facebook page claims that he didn't hear the "freedom" rationale prior to the invasion. However, Bush clearly stated that rationale when he announced the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom in March 2002: "And our mission is clear, to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people." He also cited that rationale in October 2002: "America believes that all people are entitled to hope and human rights, to the non-negotiable demands of human dignity. People everywhere prefer freedom to slavery; prosperity to squalor; self-government to the rule of terror and torture. America is a friend to the people of Iraq. Our demands are directed only at the regime that enslaves them and threatens us. When these demands are met, the first and greatest benefit will come to Iraqi men, women and children. The oppression of Kurds, Assyrians, Turkomans, Shi'a, Sunnis and others will be lifted. The long captivity of Iraq will end, and an era of new hope will begin."
Part 2:
ReplyDeleteBurress was unable to counter the facts I presented in my letter, so in his letter he introduced the red herring concerning whether or not the invasion of Iraq was a good or bad thing. Contrary to common belief, hindsight is not 20/20. Historians still debate whether or not dropping atomic bombs on Japan during World War II was a good or bad thing. There is still a debate concerning Iraq in 2015. However, the conditions in Iraq in 2015 cannot have any bearing on the debate concerning the invasion of Iraq in 2002 and 2003 since no one had a crystal ball at that time. (And who in 2002 and 2003 could have foreseen American citizens such as Burress, who became objectively pro-terrorist after the invasion?)
Then, in his response to my blog item, Burress engaged in cherry picking. He responded to the four points of evidence I presented that suggest that Saddam sent his newer WMDs to Syria prior to the invasion by taking on just one of those points, i.e., Iraqi General Georges Sada's claim (Burress engages in yet another logical fallacy, i.e., poisoning the well when dismissing Sada). However, Burress completely ignored that James R. Clapper, who headed the National Imagery and Mapping Agency in 2003, has said U.S. intelligence tracked a large number of vehicles, mostly civilian trucks, moving from Iraq into Syria. Clapper suggested the trucks may have contained materiel related to Iraq’s WMD programs. He also ignored that David Kay, who served as the head of the Iraqi Survey Group, said, “[W]e know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam’s WMD program. Precisely what went to Syria, and what has happened to it, is a major issue that needs to be resolved.”
Part 3:
ReplyDeleteBurress also cherry picked the information I shared concerning the Clinton administration's view on Saddam's WMDs during January 2001, which was during the transition period between the Clinton and Bush 43 administrations. Burress points only to the Holbrooke's statement and, oddly, claims that I offered a "lying misquote." According to Burress, "Richard Holbrooke never said that WMDs existed and were dangerous, only that Iraq had a dangerous potential to build them (which no has ever denied)." However, Burress ignored the second Clinton administration State Department press release that I shared. According to that one, "The United States will continue to press Iraq to destroy all its weapons of mass destruction as a condition of lifting economic sanctions, even after the end of the Clinton administration January 20, current U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said." That's an unequivocal statement.
Burress is actually being quite silly in suggesting that the Clinton administration didn't believe Saddam had WMDs. Clinton and Gore are both on record saying that they believed Saddam had WMDs between January 2001 and March 2003. Hillary Clinton, who voted to authorize the use of force against Iraq as a U.S. senator, is on record at least twice after the invasion saying that the intelligence regarding Saddam's WMDs was consistent from the Clinton administration to the Bush 43 administration. And, finally, the person outside of the Bush administration who made the strongest case for invading Iraq was undoubtedly Kenneth Pollack, who argued in his 2002 book, "The Threatening Storm," that Saddam had WMDs. Pollack was Bill Clinton's top expert on Iraq during Clinton's second term.
Finally, Burress writes the following: "His third example is that Joseph C. Wilson still believed there were WMDs as of the eve of the invasion of Iraq—but Wilson’s views are completely irrelevant. He was not an expert or a Bush confidant and had been out of government for 5 years."
First, I believe that is the first time I have seen a Bush hater dismiss Joe Wilson's views as irrelevant. Second, while Wilson may not have been an expert on WMDs, his wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA official who monitored the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Now, perhaps she couldn't divulge confidential information to her husband, but if she knew Iraq did not have WMDs, she might have advised her husband to leave out the part about Saddam using WMDs on our troops.
Take heart, conservatives. Among progressives in Lawrence, Burress is considered an intellectual. Apparently, that's a bit like saying Moe was the smart Stooge.