.
The Pax/Lileks/Reynolds/Not-Really-Drezner-Because-He's-Sort-of-Right Mess
Or:
See, now this is the kind of b#!!$%!t I'm talkin' about

Oh, crap. Go look at the whole depressing mess over at Drezner's page if you must.

Left as an exercise for the reader:

Re-write Pax's letter with 75% less sarcasm. How might this have altered the dispute? Discuss.



Oh and:
Pax's letter was in the Guardian, so here's a vicious dispute that started outside the web. But, of course, I didn't mean to deny that that happens all the time. But the Guardian prints some pretty intemperate stuff. Check out some of the letters they published. I, to say the least, do not think very highly of George W. Bush. But Harold Pinter can go to...ah...oh... heh heh...almost slipped off the wagon there. What I meant to say was: Pinter's letter is way over the top.

Oh and:
In all the shouting, nobody even tried to seriously consider the following assertion by Pax:

"You have spilled a glass full of tomato juice on an already dirty carpet and now you have to clean up the whole room. Not all of the mess is your fault but you volunteered to clean it up."

Ugh. I guess this wasn't meant to be taken seriously (so why'd he say it then?), but:
No, if you spill a glass of tomato juice on an already dirty rug, you aren't thereby obligated to clean the whole thing up.
No, the U.S. didn't volunteer to clean it all up (Iraq, see? There's not really any rug. It's like one a them 'nalogies)

So what ARE we obligated to do in Iraq? Maybe: make them at least as well off as they were before the war?

(No, that's got to be wrong. More than that. Some of this might actually depend on what we promised them in those B-52 leafletts... We also have to make ameds for supporting Saddam in the past. And for abandoning them after we encouraged them to rise up against him.)