Spot the logical fallacy
The Wednesday (Sep. 27) edition of the Chicago Tribune had the following headline:
Bush denies war incites terrorists: Says militants would still target U.S.
Bush was making an argument against the findings of the National Intelligence Estimate report released last week that concluded the invasion and subsequent invasion of Iraq has created resentment against the U.S. that has made the U.S. less safe. Bush's argument is equivalent to saying: Tobacco company denies cigarettes cause cancer; people would still die of cancer. In the Wikipedia entry for this type of fallacy, it says, "The fallacy is often used to exploit paranoia."
posted by Mark M @ 10/03/2006 09:28:00 PM
1 Comments:
Antonio... I thought I had made my point perfectly clear, but it still seems to have gone over your head.
You write: "But to think they weren't targeting the U.S. beforehand is ignorant, in my mind." You are like the master of the red herring and of the straw man. I bow down to you. Let us take the probability of a terrorist attack before the invasion of Iraq as P(X). Let us take the probability of a terrorist attack after the invasion as P(X'). The NIE asserts that P(X') > P(X) > 0. It does not assert that P(X) = 0. And it contradicts Bush's argument that P(X') = P(X).
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