You might also apply a little common sense.

I do. I never use anything else.

This would involve thinking about how likely it is that Ondelette is so completely wrong as you think.

Of course he is completely bloody wrong. As is everyone else who thought that ANY war dreamed up by the neo cons and launched by Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld for gods sake could ever be a right as well as a sane idea. They have been there nearly eight frigging years! And its not only not sorted its getting worse...for them.

Were I to come out with a factual error I'd be only to grateful to be corrected and indeed thank the poster for putting me straight.

Theorem The"o*rem, n.

1. That which is considered and established as a principle; hence, sometimes, a rule.

2. (Math.) A statement of a principle to be demonstrated.

You may have been confusing that word with this similar-sounding, but entirely different, word:

Theory The"o*ry, n.

1. A doctrine, or scheme of things, which terminates in speculation or contemplation, without a view to practice; hypothesis; speculation.

2. An exposition of the general or abstract principles of any science; as, the theory of music.

3. The science, as distinguished from the art; as, the theory and practice of medicine.

4. The philosophical explanation of phenomena, either physical or moral; as, Lavoisier's theory of combustion; Adam Smith's theory of moral sentiments.

You're welcome.

And I don't care if you come up with a billion hits. 350 people, plus, after the treaties were signed, another couple hundred to help take Kandahar.

It wasn't an invasion. Everybody calls it an invasion now, but that isn't what happened. It's just another case of what Amity was talking about. The newspapers faithfully reported what happened at the time, only unlike what Amity described in the 1990's, Americans read or watched every bit of it. And then somehow, over time, people remembered it wrong. They remembered it wrong. oaechief knows, he read the blow by blow in Ahmed Rashid's book. The U.S. aided one side of an already in progress civil war and toppled the side which had been the government in Afghanistan for several years.

It wasn't an invasion. And that's important. Because, like I said, the ICRC disputed the right of the U.S. to take prisoners under the Geneva Conventions. The U.S. invoked the Martens Clause, and lex specialis arguments, and then President Bush announced that the enemy was not entitled to Geneva Conventions protections. It's the history of the establishment of places beyond the law for incommunicado detention. It's the power grab for the president to commit to war without any approval from Congress. And it's why the Bagram prisoners should have a right to habeas corpus review. And it means that people are being apprehended on the battlefield of one conflict, and held for the duration of another, which is probably a grave breach. And it means that the indefinite detention powers that President Obama is invoking do.not.exist. And didn't since the beginning. And that fact should be screamed from the mountaintops. You can do the screaming, once you people have finished trying to trash me.

The reason for all the legal legerdemain was that the U.S. was trying to say it was party to a war not of international character, and those had been defined, for better or for worse, as wars internal to the country that's fighting them. They first called it an 'armed conflict' and the ICRC disputed whether a country could declare armed conflict the way a country declares war. Then they pulled the Martens Clause thing. They used it for the opposite of what it was supposed to be used for. It was all about creating places beyond the law.

There was no invasion.

With the possibility of further correction from Ondelette, I consider the mathematical part of the definition of theorem that you gave to be a bit brief. A theorem is a result logically demonstrated from a set of "givens". It is thus as true as the givens since it follows from them (and not necessarily in a trivial way!)

Theorem The"o*rem, n.

1. That which is considered and established as a principle; hence, sometimes, a rule.

2. (Math.) A statement of a principle to be demonstrated.

I of course have no argument at all with the above. I've already clearly stated that a theorem is a working principle.
I also have never expressed any disagreement that such working principles as is what a theorem actually is should not be used as a rule for the duration until such time might arise where one might be otherwise better and more newly advised.

What do you think I'm stupid or something?

What I have said before and will now have to repeat for all those that live in Telly Tubby land is that a theorem is not nor ever will be an irrefutable fact. Were one to be be shown to be an irrefutable fact it would forthwith cease to be a fucking theorem.

If you have any more difficulties with this I would advise you to look up what happened to Newton's theorems about the movement of heavenly bodies when Jimi Einstein with Lord Eddington on bass turned up with his début album, "The Theory of Are You Experienced...Cos I am!" and changed the world of Rock & Roll forever.

(Tip for rock music geeks. Whilst Einstein over turned one of Newton's theories he didn't replace it with fact only newer theories of his own, which remained standing until the emergence of the techno rave scene and Moby's first album)

Lord Strewth, please give me strength!

A theorem is not a working principle. Nobody but you said it was.

a theorem is not nor ever will be an irrefutable fact.

Really? Unless you can point me to a refutation of the Pythagorean Theorem, I'd say you talked yourself into a corner there.

Again, you are most welcome.

You didn't read my post or the excerpt very carefully, which is a bit insulting:

As per Zalmay Khalizad, he screwed things up in Afghanistan in 2003-2004 by insisting that everything should be dependent on what would look good for George W. Bush in the U.S. presidential election. People there, other Afghans, were doing just fine until he showed up.

This was my point. The US is installing its own unelected President in a position created specifically to end-run the electoral process. The fact that the US has any involvement there at all is exactly what's making this whole thing into a shit-storm. Whatever your level of academic achievement, the reality seems only to be eluding YOU; the least accomplished observer seems to get that when looking at the news coming out of that country.