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2/06/2004 03:13:00 AM | Justin

A Bush Brainteaser

Everyone brace yourselves for a little Bush brainteaser. The goal is to decipher the logic behind one of Bush's latest statements on Iraqi WMD:

"We know Saddam Hussein had the intent to arm his regime with weapons of mass destruction, because he hid all those activities from the world until the last day of his regime," Mr. Bush said.

Maybe it's a pointless pursuit to go looking for the tail of a circular argument, but I haven't blogged in a while, and thought it might be a good way to get the mental juices flowing again. So here goes:

Doesn't the statement that he "hid all those activities" that would reveal his "intent" assume his conclusion that activities revealing intent had existed in the first place? Furthermore, why is the word "hid" even mentioned? If activities revealing intent did exist, how does his having "hid" them increase our certainty of their existence, as the Bush statement seems to suggest?

As far as I can tell, the only conceivable function of the "hid" part of this argument is to provide explanation as to why said "activities" have not yet materialized. According to this line of logic, the apparent non-existence forms the bedrock of proof behind the actual existence. (Could there be a parallel to religious faith here?)

It's bad enough to argue that something's been intentionally hidden before you've proven it exists. But to go the extra mile and conclude that something exists based on the assumption that it has been hidden is the sort of genius of which only a 43rd president could be capable.




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