Tiger, I don't think the decision is a matter of fallacies but of risk analysis. Government and other studies have given estimates of the deaths and economic damage from use of a WMD by terrorists in the US. It varies according to the weapon with biological the worst. But you are talking 10,000 to 1 mill deaths and costs of hundreds of billions to our economy. So lets use 100,000 deaths and 250 bill. The presidents job is to protect us and our security. Already, the capital, whitehouse, WTC and pentagon have been attacked. War has been declared by video tapes, writings and spoken word by BinLaden and his group. Labs forr WMD have been found in Afgan. So how much of evidence should we need to act against anyone who has WMD and is or may cooperate,assist,give safe haven etc? A scintilla, some, enough for a reasonable issue of fact, preponderance, clear-cogent-convincing, enough so to be not clearly erroneous, or beyond a reasonable doubt. These are different legal standards of evidence. With these kind of death and damages possible, I would submit that only some evidence is required before we must act. These acts are to prevent possibilities not probabilities. Preemption is part of warfare. We are already at war. So if we act and stop Iraq's WMD and any possible cooperation with terrorits and also start a democratization of the mideast to try and change the area, a breeding ground for terrorists to a democractic area, then we are doing a lot to protect the US from these horrible possibilities. A risk work taking IMO. But many other's feel the consequences will be the opposite and the risk is to great regardless of the risks of inaction and potential American deaths and economic loss from use of WMD here and in fact many believe that attacking Iraq will just speed up and make for a greater chance of WMD in US. All fair opinions and debatable. But fallacies have nothing to do with it.
Rich |
