"Obama has now fired more cruise missiles than all other Nobel Peace Prize winners combined."

[One Brow]

If you choose to take the argument in another direction, feel free to come up with a standard of your own and argue that.

You mean, like intent to commit genocide, the use to which the deaths occur, etc.

If you can come up with an objective way to differentiate blood-thirstiness then lay it out there. If not, then it is all purely speculation on your part.

I fully acknowledge you can't objectify blood-thirstiness, much like you can't objectify tallness. That doesn't blood-thirstiness or tallness a matter of speculation.

Also the only reason it went there anyway is I was pointing out that the reason given by another poster for attacking Lybia was to oust Ghadaffi due to bloodshed he is causing. That is used as a reason to support this military action. But the poster also made it clear he did NOT support the war in Iraq, ignoring the fact that Saddam was a far bloodier dictator than Ghadaffi ever hoped to be.

We were already far more involved in Iraq before the 2003 overthrow than we have been in Libya at any time up until this point. You have a valid claim of differential body-counts, the counter-point is the different levels of responses. Creating false equivalences between the Iraqi and Libyan situations has been your stock-in-trade in this thread, so this is nothing new.

So can you argue the original post? Is Ghadaffi so much more ruthless than Saddam that he needs to be ousted for no other reason as he has broken no UN resolutions, and has not developed and used chemical and biological weapons against his own people, etc. Since the acceptable reason is his volume of bloodshed it is valid to compare his ousting to that of Saddam.

Who has called for the ouster of Ghadaffi, besides the rebels? You can't even argue honestly, so you rely on hypothetical ouster calls to condemn real-word activities. There are certainly various scenarios in which NATO could withdraw without Ghadaffi being ousted, not all of them being a failure on NATOs part to protect civilians.

But don't insinuate things about Franklin claiming he is ignoring or misreading other posts when you misread and/or ignored the qualifying statement in the original argument you butted into.

Why not? franklin enjoys having things beign insinuated about him, he's pratically squealing in delight over it. It's very kind of you to play Miss Manners, but since you overlooked the fact that I did not accuse franklin of misreading or ignoring anything, perhaps the mirror is the best direction for your advice here.

 

[One Brow]

Saying The Pearl would give a Pearling is an endorsement of what again?

In context, the incorrectnes of the poster's position.

You sure know how to read things that are there.

Yes, I do.

Your assumptions are continually the cause of your own misunderstanding and resulting board clutter.

Feel free to clutter up more with an example of an actual misunderstanding, if you have one in mind.

I have fun playing off of that.

No, really?

Yeah, but just to act like an arrogant prick and get you off my back about it.

I thought you were having fun with the clutter?

You keep pestering and pestering and pestering based on your faulty insinuations.

That's the fun, isn't it?

Anyway, my only goal was to keep your attention inside this thread so you wouldn't pollute the rest of the board as much. I think I succeeded.

Really? What other threads would I normally post in that you think you distracted me from? Which threads did you preserve for your sucess?

Now check my signature.

Did that last time you said so.

Ooh, and thank you for taking up a bunch of stale time I had. I really mean this, Big Fundy, thank you.

My pleasure. Do hang around and let me entertain you so more, so you can get me off your back while you're having all this fun.

 

[One Brow]

Libya

What military units do we have in Libya?

 

[PearlWatson]

What military units do we have in Libya?

The Air Force for one.

 

[PearlWatson]

Who has called for the ouster of Ghadaffi, besides the rebels? You can't even argue honestly, so you rely on hypothetical ouster calls to condemn real-word activities. There are certainly various scenarios in which NATO could withdraw without Ghadaffi being ousted, not all of them being a failure on NATOs part to protect civilians.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x1e30_wyLk

 

[One Brow]

An ouster is removing someone against their volition, but you can leave of your own volition. I'm not surprised you provided evidence of a call for the second as a call for the first, but it is not proof of the first. Where is the call to oust Ghadaffi, is he refuses to recognize what Obama says he must do?

 

[One Brow]

What airfield in Libya are they stationed at?

 

[TheItinerantSon]

when was the draft again?

oh thats right its a volunteer army.

 

[PearlWatson]

An ouster is removing someone against their volition, but you can leave of your own volition. I'm not surprised you provided evidence of a call for the second as a call for the first, but it is not proof of the first. Where is the call to oust Ghadaffi, is he refuses to recognize what Obama says he must do?

ummm....what?

 

[Agoxlea]

ummm....what?

Yeah, that wasn't the clearest thing, but... I think the main point of what he just said is that Obama never called for Ghadaffi to be ousted. He was very careful to use words like "sanctions" etc. OneBrow isn't surprised that you would assume Obama's call for air support or sanctions against the Libyan government meant that we intend to oust Ghadaffi. We still have an opportunity to withdraw from Libya, and this doesn't fall into the category of "indefinite war that we have no real way out of" like Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm not too surprised you made that assumption either. I originally thought you were often joking when I first began to read the general discussion section, because you take things so out of context that it seems as if you are trying to argue just for the sake of arguing.

Onebrow: If that isn't what you meant, I apologize for putting words in your mouth (even more figuratively than that statement is usually used). If that isn't what you meant, it is definitely what I mean.

 

[Agoxlea]

Also in addition to that, when Obama says Ghadaffi "must leave" that is different than him saying the United States should militarily force him to leave.

 

[One Brow]

Outside of the missing space in my name, I found your explanation to be quite precise. Thank you.

 

[PearlWatson]

Also in addition to that, when Obama says Ghadaffi "must leave" that is different than him saying the United States should militarily force him to leave.

Okay so when Obama says Ghadaffi "must leave" that doesn't equal "calling for an ouster?"

 

[Agoxlea]

Okay so when Obama says Ghadaffi "must leave" that doesn't equal "calling for an ouster?"

That equals saying he's a bad guy, we want him gone, we will impose sanctions if he doesn't leave, and be very happy if he is ousted by the rebels. It does not equal calling for our allies of another military force for oust him. It doesn't equal stating our intentions to oust him ourself. I believe it was already clear that the rebels intended to oust Ghadaffi, so it isn't like he is calling for anything new or radical he is just stating our support for the rebels and democracy. Soo... I don't really see what the problem is.

 

[Surely]

It is too bad that we waited so long to jump in to help the rebels (if we were going to get involved at all). It really looked like they had Ghadaffi on the ropes for a little bit there.

 

[LogGrad98]

OK let's see what ousting really is:

Definition of OUST
transitive verb
1a : to remove from or dispossess of property or position by legal action, by force, or by the compulsion of necessity b : to take away (as a right or authority) : bar, remove
2: to take the place of : supplant
See oust defined for English-language learners »
Examples of OUST
The rebels ousted the dictator from power.
Large national banks are ousting local banks in many communities.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/oust

"The rebels ousted the dictator from power." Sounds like what is going on in Lybia to me.

Add to that what Obama said above and what the French president said:

The international community was intervening to stop the "murderous madness" of Col Gaddafi, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said.

"In Libya, the civilian population, which is demanding nothing more than the right to choose their own destiny, is in mortal danger," he warned. "It is our duty to respond to their anguished appeal."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12796972

So I supposed there are three ways they can accomplish this: kill Ghadaffi, force him out of office and the country (either one of which would fit the term "oust") and lastly "convince" him that he should play nice and step down as the leader and let them all vote from now on. Of course this convincing is being handled through violence, and as we see from the definition above, this still fits the definition of "oust" (by legal action, by force, or by the compulsion of necessity).

So just out of curiosity, which of these does the coalition expect?



So next do you want to argue what the meaning of "is" is?

 

[Agoxlea]

Yes, we are using force, but not in a way that will remove him from power. If there is any removal from power by force it will be by the rebels, and not us. I think the coalition hopes that he is ousted, but will not be the ones to do the ousting. I don't have a problem with that, and if you do I would love to hear why. We aren't overly committed to this conflict, and I am fairly certain the United States has stopped flying air missions in Libya entirely (I'll admit I'm not positive on that one). I think this is the right way to handle international affairs. With support from the civilians in the country itself, support of their regional and cultural allies, and support of/partnership with the international community.

 

[Agoxlea]

I actually think the word depose is a better word, and has the meaning that was intended by oust. I used (over used) oust, because that was what was being discussed, but I'm going to say it is safe to assume that depose is a good substitute in this situation.

Depose: to remove from a throne or other high position.

I don't think there will be any of that going on by coalition forces.

 

[franklin]

Yes, we are using force, but not in a way that will remove him from power. If there is any removal from power by force it will be by the rebels, and not us. I think the coalition hopes that he is ousted, but will not be the ones to do the ousting. I don't have a problem with that, and if you do I would love to hear why. We aren't overly committed to this conflict, and I am fairly certain the United States has stopped flying air missions in Libya entirely (I'll admit I'm not positive on that one). I think this is the right way to handle international affairs. With support from the civilians in the country itself, support of their regional and cultural allies, and support of/partnership with the international community.

I agree with you in principal and in this situation specifically. However, I don't think we can use this ideal as dogmatic justification for across the board application as is being insinuated in the pro-Libyan/anti-Iraq stance herein.

Also, jaw-boning hasn't exactly proved to be best policy (which is where I see Millsapa headed with all this). Jaw-boning is the unfortunate position Bush II has left us with on foreign policy. We can't exactly threaten war at a UN Security Council, and Iran etc. knows it (and no, Big Fundy, this is not to be turned into a "let's go invade Iran proposition, so please spare us your assumptive rhetoric for once).

 

[PearlWatson]

What airfield in Libya are they stationed at?

It doesn't matter where they are flying in from. The point is that Obama is putting their lives on the line...a couple of them already had to be rescued after ejecting.