Another Shock: Self-Righteous and Naive President Wrong on British WWII Torture

As Michael Shuerer called him -- a Jacobin, someone whose imaginary reality is so totalitarian as to hedge out uncomfortable facts.

"I was struck by an article that I was reading the other day talking about the fact that the British during World War II, when London was being bombed to smithereens, had 200 or so detainees," said Obama, who's evidently reading Andrew Sullivan. "And Churchill said, 'We don't torture,' when the entire British -- all of the British people were being subjected to unimaginable risk and threat."

But reports (at the link) do suggest the Brits used some enhanced interrogation techniques against SS officers.

More links at Just One Minute.

The whole idea of a premise in argumentation is that it supposedly supports the conclusion urged.

The premise here is that the Brits didn't resort to harsh interrogation techniques in WWII, despite the fact they were fighting the darkest army in the history of the world, which was, incidentally, buzz-bombing England's biggest city, attacking purely civilian targets.

The conclusion urged is, of course, Therefore, we must not, and need not, resort to such techniques in fighting Al Qaeda.

But if the premise relied upon fails -- as it seems to here -- doesn't that weaken the conclusion? It may not destroy it (if a then b does not imply if not a then not b, of course), but if it was relied upon as probative, then surely it is weakened by subtraction of one supporting proof.

That's how it works in the real world, of course. Not so much in the Jacobin fantasias of Barack Obama and Andrew Sullivan. Whose minds are, admirably, wholly immune to the contagions of nuance and doubt.

Thanks to someone.

He Lives in an Enchanted World of Fairy-Tale and Fancy: Barack Obama, starring in Enchanted.

posted by Ace at 02:36 PM

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