How many lies?

He or she said that people were misquoted.

He or she seems to be equating the act of misrepresenting a person's intended statements as lying; not stating that if someone disagrees with him they are lying. Both are forms of deception and could be seen as the same.

I can't state whether or not he or she is correct in this accusation, but you said that you didn't understand where he or she was coming from and what made them liars.

I certainly don't think that he or she was saying that "because human rights should be thrown out the window..." they are liars. It would be ridiculous for one to believe that some other person is a liar, not based on what they have said or done, but based on what one believes (not to imply that this is what that person truly believes).

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM6q-Pi5jwA&mode=related&search=

At about time 2:26, the author states that purported installations of Taliban or Al Qaeda never panned out. After having watched this video again, it's clear that the author they are interviewing is just spewing *beep* I apologize, before I had thought he had a coherent viewpoint.

I would like to point out a few flaws in your own statements however, namely that following the cessation of major hostilities in Afghanistan, the Taliban was indeed a hidden organization on the run and hiding to survive, and the caves in question (which were in fact never found) were believed to have been established by the Mujaheden during the Soviet occupation, of which bin Laden was indisputably a participant. Furthermore, up to that point Al Qaeda (or whatever bin Laden was calling his group at that time) was itself NOT a secret organization, they were guests of the Taliban and operated full scale training camps in Afghanistan with tacit government approval, a fact that is acknowledged repeatedly in the film. The film's claim that Al Qaeda did not exist referred firstly to the claim of a hierarchical worldwide sleeper cell organization (disregarding that a hierarchical sleeper cell is an oxymoron) and secondly, specifically regarding the elaborate tunnel networks in Tora Bora they supposedly occupied.

This is what I had a problem with, namely that if what he said was true, that the Taliban had effectively been wiped out, then a few years later we could not have had to the dramatic resurgence of the Taliban that did in fact occur. Where were they organizing and where did they get their weapons? These were the questions being asked at the time. I wonder what his answer would be?

I initially had watched the video pretty early in the morning on PBS, so I missed some nuances, namely that I can't really criticise what that guy said as "wrong" because strictly speaking what he said made no sense in the context of the overall discussion. He conflated Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and talked about not finding any Taliban or Al Qaeda at all when the topic was the secret underground bases.

However, my first point remains valid, that the justification for terrorism prevention rather than punishment was the position of the "pro" side in this movie, and that position was misrepresented as Bush's doctrine of pre-emptive war. The first is logical and appropriate; the second is morally wrong and probably ineffective.


"A naked American man stole my balloons."