Sorry for the long quotes everyone, but I think the documentation might help
clear up misunderstandings.
----- Original Message -----
From: "J. van Baardwijk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Brin-L" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, August 24, 2001 5:12 PM
Subject: Re: Landmines RE: US Foreign Policy Re: *DO* we share a civilizat
ion?
> At 11:08 24-8-01 -0500, Dan Minette wrote:
> >Yet, it was over four days later that you finally said that debunking was
a
> >stronger word than you meant. If it was, and you were worried about me
> >misinterpreting you, why didn't you clarify it in your next reply to me?
>
> Has it occured to you that there may have been other posts that were given
> a higher priority on my "reply to this message" list? And has it occured
to
> you that there are other things that require my time and attention? You
> know, things like Wife & Child & Full-time job?
>
> And if you think four days is long: I've asked questions longer ago than
> four days, that still haven't been answered.
>
Well, that's interesting. Let me quote a bit more of the post. Including
the quote of you, we have:
----------------------------------
> At 22:55 13-8-01 -0500, Dan Minette wrote:
>
> > > >Another site calls a war game model of the US Army flawed, without
going
> > > >into details as to why.
>
> <snip>
>
> >On the net, you usually provide links. If it were a non-refereed
source,
> >then I would attach next to no weight to the reference.
>
> What is your opinion on the credibility of the war game models of the US
> military?
>
Well, lets look at the data. The record of war games vs. actual war
outcomes have been mixed. But, the Gulf war, the last one with significant
US ground troops has shown that the tactics were fairly successful. So, on
the whole, their claims would probably be given decent weight.
Now, if you were to tell me that you thought that the US military was
overcautious. That you realized that they had a tremendous responsibility
in Korea, but that the plus of the US taking the lead in eliminating land
mines and thus actually cutting their irresponsible use world wide would
outweigh the risks, then you might have a reasonable argument.
But, instead you use phrases like "crimes against humanity" and words like
"debunk." These words brook no contradictions. A moral person does not
commit a crime against humanity. A rational person does not accept
something that has been debunked as true.
So, you have set yourself a very high standard of proof, since you hold that
a reasonable moral person must come to the conclusion that you come to. An
example of a crime against humanity is ethnic cleansing. Do you really
think that the US and the elected South Korean government agreeing that the
risks of deaths in a North Korean invasion outweighs the risks of death due
to someone breaking through the barbed wire into mine fields?
Remember, the people voting for the South Korean government who agreed to
keep the mine fields are the same people who are at risk. Why is their
decision to take one risk instead of another a crime against humanity?
And, quotes of facts are more likely to be believable than untrained
projections. For example, if you use "North Korean Army" in a hotbot search
you will find sites like
http://www.iht.com/IHT/DK/00/dk090800.html
which quote the US army as saying that N. Korea is running constant
maneuvers and that they have moved their forces south so that 70% of N.
Korea's forces are within 100 km of the border.
Now, you can claim that this is a biased source. But, they would be
absolutely stupid to claim that if it were patently false. All North Korea
would have to do is show where the tanks are and prove the US to be a liar.
-----------------------------------
Your reply to part of that post quickly followed:
---------------------------------
At 23:52 15-8-01 -0500, Dan Minette wrote:
> > > > >Another site calls a war game model of the US Army flawed, without
> > > > >going into details as to why.
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> > >On the net, you usually provide links. If it were a non-refereed
> > >source, then I would attach next to no weight to the reference.
> >
> > What is your opinion on the credibility of the war game models of the US
> > military?
> >
>
>Well, lets look at the data. The record of war games vs. actual war
>outcomes have been mixed. But, the Gulf war, the last one with significant
>US ground troops has shown that the tactics were fairly successful. So, on
>the whole, their claims would probably be given decent weight.
I find this rather surprising. You always claim that reports must be
peer-reviewed, and you want a link to them so you can examine them in
detail. Yet, the contents of these wargames are not publicly available (the
Pentagon conveniently uses the argument "that information is classified")
so the validity can not be determined, but you nevertheless seem to believe
that those wargames are accurate.
----------------------------------
Yes, there is a discrepency of a few minutes in the posting times for my
post , but I attribute that to the times our servers see the posts. Indeed,
I can verfiy that my post is 73988 in egroups listing of brin-l. I looked
for posts in that thread around then by me with that paragraph, and could
not find them.
So, you responded to the paragraph just above the section of my post that I
presented earlier today. You responded within a day I assumed you read but
decided to not respond to my definition of debunking. As I wrote this
response I thought it might have been possible that you had simply gotten
the bug to write then and there and didn't finish reading my post.
But later in your response you quoted a latter section of that same post:
-----------------------------------
>And, quotes of facts are more likely to be believable than untrained
>projections. For example, if you use "North Korean Army" in a hotbot
search
>you will find sites like
>
>http://www.iht.com/IHT/DK/00/dk090800.html
>
>which quote the US army as saying that N. Korea is running constant
>maneuvers and that they have moved their forces south so that 70% of N.
>Korea's forces are within 100 km of the border.
Let me apply your standards to that article. The article cites "an
intelligence report prepared by the U.S. military command", but it does not
provide a link to that report. Is that report available to the general
public (preferably on-line), or has the US military command conveniently
labeled the report "classified"? If that report is not available to the
public, its validity is questionable at best.
The article also cites a document titled "North Korean Threat", compiled by
the intelligence section of the U.S. command. Again, no link to that
document was given, and again: if it's not publicly available, its
credibility is virtually non-existant.
------------------------------------
So, you responded to parts of the post that contained the definition of
debunking before and after said definitions. I think that I was being very
reasonable in assuming that you had read my definition of debunk, even if
you had not responded to it. Do you consider that unreasonable?
Dan M.
