Argument (1) - Preview

Bush compares Iraq, terror wars to World War II

I excerpted some contents from the website :

"Like the Second World War, our present conflict began with a ruthless surprise attack on the United States," Bush said "We will not forget that treachery, and we will accept nothing less than victory over the enemy."

"Like the murderous ideologies of the 20th century, the ideology of terrorism reaches across borders and seeks recruits in every country. So we're fighting these enemies wherever they hide across the Earth."

Now, you may start use what we called " Argument by Analogy " to think about this issue,
and then you would try to find some " Analogy Fallacy " in this argument.

Germany : Hitler :: Iraq : Saddam Hussein. Is it right or logical ?

Not Left, Not Right, Just Right.
From this website, we can easily understand the principle of the argument. 

His goal, obviously, is to say people shouldn’t mind all the soldiers we are losing and Iraqis we are killing in his stupid, unnecessary, fraud of a war since we endured much more during previous, similar wars, such as World War II.

To make the comparison, he says things such as, "Like the Second World War, our present conflict began with a ruthless surprise attack on the United States." (from the above article)

He is nice enough not to point out that back then we actually retaliated against the people who attacked us. Yes, a little different.

"We will not forget that treachery, and we will accept nothing less than victory over the enemy."

Good, so how about we get back to actually fighting the people who perpetrated that treachery. In effect it is like if FDR gave a speech saying, "We will not forget Pearl Harbor, and therefore we must eliminate Uganda from the face of the Earth."

He so realizes he is full of it that he felt obligated to then throw in an absurd cover-all.

"…the ideology of terrorism reaches across borders and seeks recruits in every country. So we're fighting these enemies wherever they hide across the Earth."

Ah, nicely done. Now we can justify attacking "every country."

The President is actually right, however. The Iraq War is just like World War II.

Well, let me correct that a bit. The Iraq War would be just like WWII if:

1. FDR had told us the Germans and Japanese would surrender upon our arrival and greet us with flowers.
   He didn’t quite say that, did he?
2. If FDR had thrown a party declaring, "Mission Accomplished," in May of 1942 after the battle of Coral Sea.
   No, wait, that wouldn’t even be as stupid since in that case we were actually fighting against the people who had attacked us. But cut us some slack, finding comparisons ridiculous enough to parallel George W. Bush’s asininity is as difficult as finding parallels between the Iraq War and WWII.
3. If we had been led to war to counter Hitler’s invasion of Poland, France, and the rest of Europe only to show up on the Champs-Elysee to find the French sipping coffee, asking us which invasion we were talking about.
4. If during WWII we had responded to the attack of Pearl Harbor by invading Chile.
   They had as much to do with Pearl Harbor as Saddam did with 9/11. Of course FDR probably would have had to invade Thailand instead just be sure he was sticking with the, "guilty by being of the same race," test Bush used for Saddam.
5. If FDR had told the nation in 1942, "I’ll have your kids home by fall."
   Quick little trip, kiddies, a few flower, no casualties. Germany is really quite pleasant in Summertime actually. Buy a 3-month Eurail pass, it’s all you’ll need. A few of you might want to stay to enjoy Octoberfest.
   And now, dear M/I readers, for the real kickers.
6. If we had supplied the Japanese with their Zeroes and trained them in the art of being Kamikazes, fully funded by US taxpayer dollars – as we did with Osama.
   Real nice of the non-Moderate Independent press to continue to ignore the most basic, inescapable reality of 9/11 and how the whole "War on Terrorism" in no way relates to WWII or any other legitimate war – i.e The "War on Terror is just blowback, caused directly by specific, stupid actions by the Reagan/Bush I admins, not in any way resembling the entirely unprovoked aggression of Germany or Japan.
   Most fully and accurately, the Iraq War would be similar to WWII if…
7. …we had given Chile U-boats and then said we were invading Chile because they possessed U-boats and, of course, because Japan attacked us.

Now, if all (or any) of these had been the case, a comparison between WWII and the current Iraq war would be a useful thing.

But, as luck would have it, these things never happened. And so, lo and behold, there is no legitimate comparison between the bait-and-switch invasion of Iraq and the great battle for humanity, World War II.

In a nutshell, two things have one or two in common doesn't mean they are the same in other ways.

1.Non-causal Relationship
2.The Fallacy of Analogy and Comparison
3.Statistic Fallacy
4.Sufficient and Necessary Conditions
5.Composition and Division
6.Assuming all things remain unchanged over time.
7.False Dilemma
8.