Fallacy Detection: Analyzing a Speech from a Presidential Candidate

Read the following text by 3rd party presidential candidate Ralph Nader regarding the war in Iraq, foreign policy, and the “war on terrorism.” Identify any fallacies you believe are committed within it.

The Bush Administration and the Democratic Party, in varying extremes, are putting the interests of their corporate paymasters before the interests of the people . By Ralph Nader

Concerning the invasion and occupation of Iraq

The quagmire of the Iraq war and occupation could have been averted and needs to be ended expeditiously, replacing US forces with a UN peacekeeping force, prompt supervised elections and humanitarian assistance before we sink deeper into this occupation, with more U.S. casualties, huge financial costs, and diminished US security around and from the Islamic world. The faulty and fabricated rationale for war has the US in a quagmire. Already more than $155 billion has been spent, adding to huge Bush deficits, when critical needs are not being met at home. We should not be mired in the occupation of Iraq risking further upheavals when our infrastructure, schools and health care are deteriorating. Four years of free public college and university tuition for all students could be paid for by $155 billion.

Withdraw US Troops Presence of military hinders progress in Iraq, drains U.S. economy.

44 Foul Ways to Win an Argument

Accuse Your Opponent of Doing

What He is Accusing You of

Accuse Him of Sliding Down A Slippery

Slope

Appeal to Authority

Appeal to Experience

Appeal to Fear

Appeal to Pity (or sympathy)

Appeal to Popular Passions

Appeal to Tradition or Faith

Assume a Posture of Righteousness

Attack the person

Beg the Question

Call For Perfection

Create a False Dilemma

Devise Analogies (and Metaphors) That Support Your View

Question Your Opponent’s Conclusions

Create Misgivings:

Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire

Create A Straw Man

Deny or Defend Your Inconsistencies

Demonize His Side Sanitize Yours

Evade Questions, Gracefully

Flatter Your Audience

Hedge What You Say

Ignore the Evidence

Ignore the Main Point

Attack Evidence

Insist Loudly on a Minor Point

Use the Hard-Cruel-World Argument

Make Sweeping Glittering

Generalizations

Make Much of Any Inconsistencies in Your Opponent’s Position

Make Your Opponent Look Ridiculous

Oversimplify the Issue

Raise Nothing But Objections

Rewrite History

Seek Your Vested Interests

Shift the Ground.

Shift the Burden of Proof

Spin, Spin, Spin

Talk in Vague Generalities

Talk Double Talk

Tell Big Lies

Treat Abstract Words and Symbols As If They Were Real Things

Throw In A Red Herring (or two)

Throw in Some Statistics

Use Double Standards

Every day our exposed military remains in war-torn Iraq we imperil US security, drain our economy, ignore urgent domestic needs and prevent Iraqi democratic self-rule. We need to announce a withdrawal of our troops, not increase them. Calls by the major presidential candidates to indefinitely “stay the course” spur the spiral of violence. U.S. presence serves as a magnet for insurrection, kidnapping, terrorism and anarchy. Announcing a definite withdrawal and ending the U.S. corporate takeover of the Iraqi economy and oil will separate mainstream Iraqis from the insurgents and give the vast majority of people there a stake in replacing occupation with independence.

Three-steps to an announced withdrawal:

1. Develop an appropriate peace-keeping force under United Nations auspices from neutral nations with such experience and from Islamic countries. This force should begin to promptly replace all U.S. troops and civilian contractors. Former general Wesley Clark described Bush foreign policy as cowboy unilateralism that goes against everything the U.S. is supposed to represent to the world. It is time for the U.S. to return to the family of nations. The U.S. will have to underwrite a portion of this less expensive short-term force.
2. Free and fair elections should be held as soon as possible under international supervision so democratic self-rule can be put in place in Iraq and allowing Iraq to provide for its own security. Iraq is a country long controlled by a brutal dictator, devastated by economic sanctions and torn apart by war. Some autonomy for Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds makes a new government more workable. Iraq will sort out these issues more easily without the presence of a US occupying force and the projected 14 US military bases that Iraqis see as installing a puppet government fronting for an indefinite military and oil industry occupation.
3. The U.S. and others should provide interim humanitarian aid to Iraq. Economic sanctions and war have resulted in tremendous damage to people, their children and the Iraqi infrastructure. Until the 1991 Gulf War, Hussein was a US anti-communist ally also used to keep Iran at bay. During the 1980s under Reagan and Bush I US corporations were licensed to export materials to Iraq for chemical and biological weapons. US oil and other corporations should not profit from the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq. Control over Iraqi oil and other assets should be exercised by Iraqis.

Concerning the effect of the “war on terrorism” on civil liberties and constitutional rights

Civil liberties and due process of law are eroding due to the “war on terrorism” and new technology that allows easy invasion of privacy. Americans of Arab descent and Muslim-Americans are feeling the brunt of these dragnet, arbitrary practices. [I support] the restoration of civil liberties, repeal of the Patriot Act, and an end to secret detentions, arrests without charges, no access to attorneys and the use of secret “evidence,” military tribunals for civilians, non-combatant status and the shredding of “probable cause” determinations. They represent a perilous diminishment of judicial authority in favor of concentrated power in the executive branch. Sloppy law enforcement, dragnet practices are wasteful and reduce the likelihood of apprehending violent criminals. [I seek] to expand civil liberties to include basic human rights in employment and truly equal rights regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race or religion.

Concerning foreign policy

Our foreign policy must redefine the elements of global security, peace, arms control, an end to nuclear weapons and expand the many assets of our country to launch, with other nations, major initiatives against global infections diseases (such as AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and virulent flu epidemics) which have and are coming to our country in increasingly drug resistant strains. Other low cost-high yield (compared to massive costs of redundant weapons) that extend the best of our country abroad include public health measures for drinking water safety abroad, tobacco control, stemming soil erosion, deforestation and misuse of chemicals, international labor standards, stimulating democratic institutions, agrarian cooperatives and demonstrating appropriate technologies dealing with agriculture, transportation, housing and efficient, renewable energy. The UN Development Program and many NGO’s working abroad provide essential experience and directions in this regard including ending the specter of hunger, malnutrition and resultant diseases with known and proven remedies and practices. With this foreign policy orientation overhauls we will discover and facilitate the indigenous genius of the Third World, recalling Brazilian Paulo Freire (literacy), Egyptian Hasan Fathi (agrarian housing) and Bangladeshi Mohammed Yunis (microcredit).