WMD’s and chocolate chip cookies
I can't believe people are still crying that "Bush lied! Iraq didn't have WMD's!"
I’ve heard this specious argument so many times I feel like puking. Here is why the argument is specious:
(The following is a pretty stupid analogy, but try to follow me…)
Let’s pretend you came over to my house and I offered you some delicious homemade chocolate chip cookies. Let’s also pretend that I’m morbidly obese. As my friend, you tell me that I have to stop eating crap like cookies if I want to be healthy, but you know I have an uncontrollable sweet tooth coupled with absolutely no self-control. Still, you ask me, one friend to another, to stop gorging myself on cookies. I promise you that I’ll get rid of all of my existing cookies and will never make any more.
The next day you come over to see if I got rid of the cookies. The cookies are no where to be found, although for some suspicious reason when you ask to look in certain cupboards, I complain that you’re invading my privacy. After a little arguing, I agree to let you inspect the mystery cupboards—but not until the next day.
You return the next day suspicious about me and my cookie promises, but since you can find no sign of cookies—although you did find some cookie crumbs on my kitchen table that were not there yesterday—you warily accept that I am cookie-free.
In the following months you notice that I am still morbidly obese. You ask me about my diet, if I’ve been eating cookies, but I deny any consumption of cookies, although you swear you spotted a chocolate chip smudge in the corner of my fleshy mouth.
For years the same situation continues. I do not get any thinner, and I constantly make jokes about how good cookies taste, and how I wish I had some cookies, and that it was my right to eat cookies. Frustrated, you ask once again if you could inspect my home for cookies. I reluctantly agree.
When you enter you immediately notice that I have flour, baking soda, a two year-old package of Toll House Chocolate Chips, brown sugar, white sugar, vanilla extract, and eggs. A closer inspection uncovers a mixer and cookie trays—one of which is newly greased. You are rightly suspicious, but I counter that all of those ingredients were meant for different foods. In any event, I argue, if you and some of our friends can have cookies, why can’t I?
Eventually you come to the conclusion that you’ll never be able to prove that I’m eating cookies. You also realize that, even if I am not eating cookies now, I could easily cobble together all of the requisite ingredients to make cookies within a very short period of time in the near future. I have almost everything I need to make cookies, and the few ingredients I might be missing can be easily obtained through some of my fat friends.
In the real world
In my mind, the above analogy is very apropos to the cat-and-mouse game that Saddam played with the international community. Of course, WMD’s are much more dangerous than delectable chocolate chip cookies.
A lot of people still gleefully point our that because we didn’t find WMD’s in Iraq, it proves that George Bush “lied.” Where do these people get off thinking that Saddam’s regime was on trial in a US court of law? In international relations—especially when dealing with a fascist regime like Saddam’s—we are not obliged to prove “guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” Saddam Hussein’s regime was “innocent” of not having WMD’s (or being able to produce them in a jiffy) in the same way that O.J. Simpson was “innocent” of double homicide; i.e. any rational person knows both are definitely NOT innocent.
Iraq LAUDED the attacks on 9/11 when even our archenemy Iran condemned them. There was (and is) evidence that shows links between Iraq and al-Qaeda, although perhaps not the type of evidence that would hold up on in US court of law. Additionally, for more than a decade Iraq flaunted scores of UN Security Council Resolutions.
George Bush is "guilty" of taking all that into consideration and deciding that we, as a country, were no longer going to keep our head stuck in the sand. Bush decided to move the burden of proof about whether Iraq was free of WMD’s away from us, the civilized world, and to focus it where it should be, on Iraq, the worst of the worst.
That's what the argument is all about and that's why I think that most people who claim Iraq was free of WMD's either don't know any better or are full of shi... um, cookie dough.
I’ve heard this specious argument so many times I feel like puking. Here is why the argument is specious:
(The following is a pretty stupid analogy, but try to follow me…)
Let’s pretend you came over to my house and I offered you some delicious homemade chocolate chip cookies. Let’s also pretend that I’m morbidly obese. As my friend, you tell me that I have to stop eating crap like cookies if I want to be healthy, but you know I have an uncontrollable sweet tooth coupled with absolutely no self-control. Still, you ask me, one friend to another, to stop gorging myself on cookies. I promise you that I’ll get rid of all of my existing cookies and will never make any more.
The next day you come over to see if I got rid of the cookies. The cookies are no where to be found, although for some suspicious reason when you ask to look in certain cupboards, I complain that you’re invading my privacy. After a little arguing, I agree to let you inspect the mystery cupboards—but not until the next day.
You return the next day suspicious about me and my cookie promises, but since you can find no sign of cookies—although you did find some cookie crumbs on my kitchen table that were not there yesterday—you warily accept that I am cookie-free.
In the following months you notice that I am still morbidly obese. You ask me about my diet, if I’ve been eating cookies, but I deny any consumption of cookies, although you swear you spotted a chocolate chip smudge in the corner of my fleshy mouth.
For years the same situation continues. I do not get any thinner, and I constantly make jokes about how good cookies taste, and how I wish I had some cookies, and that it was my right to eat cookies. Frustrated, you ask once again if you could inspect my home for cookies. I reluctantly agree.
When you enter you immediately notice that I have flour, baking soda, a two year-old package of Toll House Chocolate Chips, brown sugar, white sugar, vanilla extract, and eggs. A closer inspection uncovers a mixer and cookie trays—one of which is newly greased. You are rightly suspicious, but I counter that all of those ingredients were meant for different foods. In any event, I argue, if you and some of our friends can have cookies, why can’t I?
Eventually you come to the conclusion that you’ll never be able to prove that I’m eating cookies. You also realize that, even if I am not eating cookies now, I could easily cobble together all of the requisite ingredients to make cookies within a very short period of time in the near future. I have almost everything I need to make cookies, and the few ingredients I might be missing can be easily obtained through some of my fat friends.
In the real world
In my mind, the above analogy is very apropos to the cat-and-mouse game that Saddam played with the international community. Of course, WMD’s are much more dangerous than delectable chocolate chip cookies.
A lot of people still gleefully point our that because we didn’t find WMD’s in Iraq, it proves that George Bush “lied.” Where do these people get off thinking that Saddam’s regime was on trial in a US court of law? In international relations—especially when dealing with a fascist regime like Saddam’s—we are not obliged to prove “guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” Saddam Hussein’s regime was “innocent” of not having WMD’s (or being able to produce them in a jiffy) in the same way that O.J. Simpson was “innocent” of double homicide; i.e. any rational person knows both are definitely NOT innocent.
Iraq LAUDED the attacks on 9/11 when even our archenemy Iran condemned them. There was (and is) evidence that shows links between Iraq and al-Qaeda, although perhaps not the type of evidence that would hold up on in US court of law. Additionally, for more than a decade Iraq flaunted scores of UN Security Council Resolutions.
George Bush is "guilty" of taking all that into consideration and deciding that we, as a country, were no longer going to keep our head stuck in the sand. Bush decided to move the burden of proof about whether Iraq was free of WMD’s away from us, the civilized world, and to focus it where it should be, on Iraq, the worst of the worst.
That's what the argument is all about and that's why I think that most people who claim Iraq was free of WMD's either don't know any better or are full of shi... um, cookie dough.
posted by semite1973 at 8:12 PM
3 Comments:
Suddenly I'm craving chocolate chip cookies.
With a side of Sarin.
Nothing like a salami sandwich with some MUSTARD gas on it.
Hi semite1973, Out surfing for information on obese & happened upon your site. While this post wasn't exactly spot on, it did strike a note with me. Thank you for the really good read.
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