It's disgusting to see what an uproar there is over Senator Fritzwater's proposal
that the U.S. drop a nuclear bomb on the city of Mosul in Iraq. There have been all
sorts of arguments referring to the Geneva Conventions and international law. But
the people who make these arguments are almost always Democrats who are looking
ahead to the 2008 election and just want to see President Bush fail in Iraq.
The author is arguing here that all of the Democrats arguments are invalid because they
only care about seeing President Bush fail in Iraq so they can win back seats in the 2008
election. He is using the Ad Hominem Circumstantial fallacy by attacking their claims
because of bias, when in actuality, it doesn’t matter whether or not they are biased, only
whether or not their arguments are valid.
Nothing in the rules of war forbids soldiers to act in self-defense. We know that
Mosul is a terrorist stronghold, and it's from there that most of the deadly attacks
on our forces are planned. If you were out walking on your property with your
shotgun on your arm and saw a rattlesnake two feet away, coiled and ready to
strike, would you stand there and do nothing? Critics of Sen. Fritzwater insist we
should politely ask the snake not to attack us.
At the beginning of this paragraph, the author implies that there is evidence that Mosul is
a terrorist stronghold and most of the deadly attacks on our forces are planned from there,
however, the author fails to enlighten the reader about why “we know” this. This is a
proof surrogate fallacy because evidence is implied but not actually given to us. After
this, the author gives us a straw man argument when he says that “Critics of Sen.
Fritzwater insist we should politely ask the snake not to attack us.” This is a distortion of
the claims made by Sen. Fritzwater’s critics who are simply arguing against bombing
Mosul.
True, some civilians, maybe twenty or thirty thousand, would die in a nuclear strike.
Nobody wants to see innocent people harmed, but we can't expect our soldiers to
stand by and do nothing as they're about to be ambushed. Those who fret over the
death of a few civilians should just remember the type of enemy we're fighting:
those terrorists think nothing of kidnapping innocent people and beheading them on
TV. If fighting a war according to "gentlemen's rules" would cause the insurgents to
lay down their arms and surrender quietly, then using nuclear weapons would be
wrong. But only fools living in a fantasy world believe that the terrorists will give up
so easily. The al-Qaeda attacks against us in New York and Washington, as well as
the terrorist attacks in Indonesia and Madrid, have taught us that Arabs have a
different mind-set when it comes to fighting wars. If we are going to defeat them in
Iraq, the gloves have to come off.
The author’s remarks that “we can’t expect our soldiers to stand by and do nothing as
they’re about to be ambushed” implies that bombing Mosul would be the right thing to
do. However, this is a false dilemma fallacy because there are other options than either
bombing Mosul or having the soldiers do nothing and get ambushed. Also in this
paragraph, the author attempts to validate using nuclear weapons by saying if fighting the
war according to “gentlemen’s rules” would cause the insurgents to surrender, then using
nuclear weapons would be wrong. Then he goes on to say “only fools living in a fantasy
world believe the terrorists will give up so easily,” thus implying that it is only right to
use nuclear weapons. This is called denying the antecedent and is a fallacy because the
conclusion does not follow necessarily from the premises.
It's as though the critics haven't learned from history about the necessity of
protecting the U.S. against the next terrorist attack. Have we already forgotten the
3,000 innocent Americans who died on September 11, 2001? When will the pacifists
wake up and realize that everything has changed since that fateful day?
The author goes on to claim that “the critics haven’t learned anything from history about
the necessity of protecting the U.S. against the next terrorist attack.” This straw man
argument is distorting what the critics were really saying. Giving arguments against why
we shouldn’t bomb Mosul in no way implies that they don’t know the necessity of
protecting the U.S. from terrorist attacks, only that they don’t support the bombing of
Mosul.
History will judge us unkindly if we do nothing while al-Qaeda takes over the entire
planet. We must do whatever it takes to win. It's time for the critics either to be
quiet or to let the suspicion of treason fall upon them.
In the final paragraph, the author gives us a slippery slope statement where he claims that
“if we do nothing” (meaning we don’t bomb Mosul), then al-Qaeda will take over the
entire planet. There is no reason to believe that if we don’t bomb Mosul, al-Qaeda will
take over the whole planet, it’s a highly improbable claim. The argument is then finished
with a false dilemma statement in which he claims critics either need to be quiet or let the
suspicion of treason fall upon them, while there are obviously other possibilities (such as
speaking out and not being suspected of treason).