Word: argumentative
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Charles Krauthammer's argument for invading Iraq in "The Terrible Logic of Nukes" [Essay, Sept. 2] is just that: terrible logic. Iraq wants nuclear weapons to balance Israel's, which built them to balance Arab conventional superiority. Pakistan wanted to balance India, which had to balance China, which had to balance Russia, which had to balance the U.S. and its allies, which had to balance Russia's presumed European-theater superiority. Throughout this balancing act, the world has been no more than 30 minutes away from Armageddon. The only logical way to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands...
...appalled that the president of Harvard tried to dismiss a political argument by branding its proponents as racists—without justification. Furthermore, calling their position “anti-Semitic” corrupts the meaning of that term...
However, to say that the actions of Israelis toward Palestinians over half a century have led to the violent, unresolvable conflict that country finds itself in today is an opinion with which one may agree or disagree—but it was outrageous to dismiss the argument as “anti-Semitic.” Financial support from the American government, private Americans both Jewish and Christian, the American armaments industry and American Jewish “settlers” of the West Bank have all enabled Israel’s defiant persistence with policies such as the bulldozing...
...pleased that Summers has spoken his mind on this issue, and hope he continues to use Harvard’s bully pulpit to speak on issues relevant our community. His argument that actions against Israel may be anti-Semitic in effect deserves close scrutiny, as the Staff perceives. The problem of anti-Semitism should not be excluded from the debate over the war between Israel and the Palestinians...
...attitude puts Hutchinson in a bind. Pryor notes, for instance, that the Republican has repeatedly voted against raising the minimum wage. Hutchinson counters that expanding the earned-income tax credit would be a better way to help the working poor, but he acknowledges that it's a complex argument: "Voters don't want to hear an economics lesson." If he can't find a better way to explain why he's the model for economic change, Hutchinson, the first g.o.p. Senator from Arkansas in more than 100 years, may be the last for some time...