You seem to have a rather stark view of the world.
I'd suggest possibly broadening it to include the possibility that people can be evil in some ways, good in others, stupid and smart, and capable and incapable.
Donald Rumsfeld is responsible for the deaths of one million innocent Iraqi civilians at the cost of 3 trillion American dollars for nothing except the enrichment of a few. I agree that every person is complicated, but any possible nuance here is completely overwhelmed by the amount of destruction. Donald Rumsfeld is absolutely evil.
You might think you are smart for hedging, but if you think killing one million innocent lives just makes a person "complicated", you've lost the plot.
On what basis are you holding Donald Rumsfeld responsible for the invasion?
If it's all on him, then wouldn't that absolve a lot of other powerful people around him, who were also pushing for it, and at least one of whom was his superior in the chain of command?
Nothing about that has anything to do with whether something he said was insightful or not. It’s possible for evil people to say smart things and for good people to say bullshit things.
It wasn't insightful (and nowhere did I say that Dondald Rumsfeld was incapable of saying something insightful). We knew then what he was trying to claim we didn't know. Even Dick Cheney said on the record (during the first Iraq War) that a full invasion would be a Vietnam style quagmire.
Rumsfeld said a smart-sounding thing he got from somewhere else, but it was just a lie. He knew the WMD claim was made up because he helped manufacture it. Iraq's non-involvement in 9/11 and our inability to accomplish regime change were "known knowns" prior to the invasion.
I have to wager that the Iraqi people probably prefer the current order of things. I would guess that they would keep things the way they are rather than bring back Saddam.
I guess that depends on what makes evilBastard evil. I don't care if evilBastard is a "great" dad. When you mastermind to commit what any rational person would call war crimes does not get white washed because they played ball with their kids on the weekends or donated a bunch of money to charity in an attempt to assuage guilt (if any were felt to begin with).
In my list of people that to me qualify as evilBastard, the Bush Admin is way worse than theZuck.
This is just frothing at the mouth. I also think Rumsfeld was a war criminal, but that has nothing to do with the epistemology of this remark. I doesn't become less true just because someone you dislike says it, that's a genetic fallacy.
who's saying the quote is less true because of the person quoting it? i claimed that the speaker is an evilBastard while stating that just because evilBastard is not any less reprehensible because they quoted a smart person.
