Irans Nukes.Follow

Well, we accidentally moved them. It's not as though we didn't know where they were.

It's nothing comparable to, say, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the loss of nuclear material in the satellite states.

Besides, it's not as though we hadn't killed bunches of civilians before in WWII.

Edited, Dec 10th 2007 10:46am by Jophiel

Well, I'd argue that they're much, much less likely to collapse or lose weapons. It's obviously unprovable that stuff will never happen.

Any review of the state of japans 'war machine', its industry, the populations morale, the japanese navy, army, air-force, in short, its will and ability to fight on....will reveal that japan was already on its knees and looking for ways out of the conflict. The US already had air superiority and was using it for devestating attacks on Tokyo and other large Japanese cities. In effect they were already beaten a month or so before the bombs were dropped.

You can justify those bombings to yourself by believing that it saved the lives of americans, but I don't believe that that was what it was about.

Japan was nuked more to let the russians know that the US had nuclear capability, than to end the war in the Pacific. The Allies already knew that the Russians were going to be the next big thing. They needeed to be 'educated'. What beeter than letting them know that the Allies had 'city destroying' weapons at their disposal.

A more cynical person would say that there was an element of curiosity too. After all, you couldn't drop them on Germany, they had already surrendered, but after Pearl Harbour and the barbarity of the war in the Pacific and SE Asia, there wern't going to be too many people objecting to such an attack on the Japanese homeland. All that work that had gone into the production of a nuclear weapon, it needed to be used on real people to see what happened......

If there is any truth in that theory (not so far-fetched in my mind) then the use of nuclear weapons on a country that was already on its knees and looking for an end to the war, is even more repellant than using one on a country that is still in a position to threaten the user.

To be threatening, in the 21st century, to use nuclear munitions on a country that doesn't have nuclear weapons, doesn't appear to have an on-going nuclear programme, hasn't threatened anyone with invasion (and don't come back with that bollox about "wiping Isreal off the map". that is utter rubbish), and in fact hasn't invaded anyone at all in over 100 years, is downright terrorist behaviour, and for anyone to be defending such threats is about as indoctrinated/ brainwashed/ incapable of rational thought as it is possible to be.

True dat, Jo. 'Nuff said.

Totem

I think that wars are usually fought over land and resorces, and as you say are about the elimination of the enemies ability to resist (wich is different than their destruction.

I think that no-one really wanted to invade japan at that point. As you say it would have been far too costly for all involved. But, to use the nuclear option so enthusiasticaly, when a less destructive method ie. a negotiated surrender wich was what the Japanese were activly seeking, shows that there was more to the bombings of hiroshima and nagasaki than intent to win the war in the Pacific. It was already won. The bombings were for effect, a great big demonstration to the russians that the Allies already had this capability and more importantly were not afraid to use it.

The point is tho, that to try and justify the use of nuclear weapons, wether they are bombs as in Japan or whatever the Pentagon has planned for Iran, is less about 'winning', and more about waving a giant ***** in your enemies face.

To be threatening Iran with a pre-emptive attack using conventional weapons as well as the new generation of nuclear munitions, because the Iranians might one day acquire nukes themselves is utterly crass.

The Russians have nukes, so do the chinese and many others, including pakistan. The excuse to single out Iran (because they might let AQ have some bits and pieces to make a dirty bomb), when the situation in Pakistan is as it is, is daft.

Its as daft as the plan to go into Iraq on the pretense of chasing down WMD's that anyone with half a brain knew wer'n't there, thus allowing the whole debacle in Afghanistan to develop.

Why isn't OBL in US hands? 'Cos he wasn't important. Thats not what it was all about.

Why is Iran being threatened with military action? Its nothing to do with a 'potential for acquiring the knowledge and capabilities to build a nuclear bomb', thats for sure. As Red said, the true threat these days comes from small un-affiliated groups, not nation states. To stop these people requires 'police' type action, not full scale military ops.

So why Iran?

Thats maybe a question that the supporters of military action against the Iranians should be asking themselves. but i dont suppose they will. Why should they. Most of them couldn't find Iran on a map. Why would they give a toss about the people who live there? If Bush and Fox say their bad people it must be true! After all they've never been wrong before......

And that wasn't even the worst (and was only one of many such bombings).

There were 83,000 confirmed killed (mostly civilians) in Tokyo when we firebombed that city in March of 1945. Despite revisionism to the contrary, the Japanese government showed no signs that it was looking to surrender after that attack. The atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a full 6 months later (in August of 1945). They collectively killed around 200,000 people, about half immediately and the other half over time from radiation poisoning.

While the atomic bombing deathtolls were higher, they were still in the same ballpark. What prompted the Japanese to surrender at that point was not the deathtoll, but the apparent ease with which these bombs could destroy cities. It took 300 B-29s to firebomb tokyo. It took just *one* to destroy each of the other two cities. Remember, that WW2 was largely a war of industrial attrition. Faced with that degree of imbalance the Japanese knew they couldn't hold out. If it had taken the resources of 300 planes to make each attack, they might very well have continued to fight.


Um... And there's also strong evidence that elements of Japans military *still* wanted to continue despite the atomic bombs. There was a narrowly avoided coup attempt to capture the Emperor and hold him in his palace while the military continued fighting (essentially preventing him from signing any peace agreement). So to argue that the atomic bombings were unnecessary overkill and that the Japanese were waiting and ready to surrender if we just asked? Absurd. By all historical accounts, the atomic bombs were barely sufficient force to bring about a surrender.


Oh. And the earlier comment about sand causing gulf war syndrome (and the cancers being seen in Iraq and Afghanistan)? It's funny that was mentioned, because that's entirely possible. That region of the world does use a lot of sand-brick construction. When you apply heat and pressure to sand some of it turns into silicate (think that's what it's called), which is a very fine crystal that is quite carcinogenic. There's a reason why OSHA regulations label "sand" as a hazardous material. It's not at all out of the realm of possibility that at least some of the health problems we've been seeing have nothing at all to do with the use of depleted uranium shells, but the fact that we've been hitting largely sand targets with high energy/heat rounds in an environment where the targets aren't being cleaned up by hazmat units and civilians are living in close proximity. The same rounds hitting a target field in say the clay of Southern California would not produce the same effect.

Just a thought. Could be anything. However, without some explanation as to why our military target fields aren't causing massive and widespread cancer epidemics (at least among those living in close proximity), I can't really accept the simplistic (OMG! It must be the DU shells! Afterall, they're made of "uranium"...) argument.

I still think its kind of funny how worked up paulsol gets considering he's from an island in the middle of f'ucking nowhere and has, like, a 0% likelihood that his country will ever be materially involved in any global scenario where anyone in his country's opinion regarding the policy at stake matters remotely.

Talk about not being zen. Why work yourself up over things you can't change?

Aquinas was only popular in the last few decades?

I don't mean that such ideas were pervasive in some golden age of just war, but it's still been there for a long time.

Because you normally end up schooling other people in terms of catholic history I'd enjoy hearing what you have to say about the just war theory.

You keep hammering on this. I think you're talking (down) to the wrong group of Americans.

Some people who were actually there and part of the decision making at the time would disagree with you.

"Why was it necessary to drop the nuclear bomb if LeMay was burning up Japan? And he went on from Tokyo to firebomb other cities. 58% of Yokohama. Yokohama is roughly the size of Cleveland. 58% of Cleveland destroyed. Tokyo is roughly the size of New York. 51% percent of New York destroyed. 99% of the equivalent of Chattanooga, which was Toyama. 40% of the equivalent of Los Angeles, which was Nagoya. This was all done before the dropping of the nuclear bomb, which by the way was dropped by LeMay's command.

Proportionality should be a guideline in war. Killing 50% to 90% of the people of 67 Japanese cities and then bombing them with two nuclear bombs is not proportional, in the minds of some people, to the objectives we were trying to achieve.

I don't fault Truman for dropping the nuclear bomb. The U.S.—Japanese War was one of the most brutal wars in all of human history ? kamikaze pilots, suicide, unbelievable. What one can criticize is that the human race prior to that time ? and today ? has not really grappled with what are, I'll call it, "the rules of war." Was there a rule then that said you shouldn't bomb, shouldn't kill, shouldn't burn to death 100,000 civilians in one night?

LeMay said, "If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals." And I think he's right. He, and I'd say I, were behaving as war criminals. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?"

-Robert S. McNamara


So by all historical account you mean all except this one and all the others that says exactly the same thing?

Here's a link to the transcript of the interview for "The fog of war" a documentary that you should probably watch instead of watching Fox lolnews.

What makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win? Simple. The victor gets to write history. WGARA if you kill 100,000 people in one night or over five years? 100,000 people is 100,000 people. The time frame is immaterial to the discussion. Our civil war cost us 40,000 to 50,000 lives a day on multiple occasions. Why? Because it was the methodology of that day to line up across open ground and blast each other to smithereens until someone retired from the field of battle. Machts nichts, dead is dead no matter how long it took to get that way.

Three points:

1) Quoting Robert McNamara as a guide to "just" warfare is about as silly as using Stalin as a measure for restraint on civil disobedience. The man was utterly and completely incompetant in his job. For you Bush haters, he makes Dubya look like a freaking genius by way of comparison. Could you have picked a more worthless example of someone who is qualified to be used as a quotable source on warfare? What, did you run out of Baghdad Bob statements?

2) Using percentages of what portion of cities was burned in Japan during the bombings does not equate to how many were killed in the process. While there were enormous numbers of civilian casualties due to the fires, saying 51% of all people in Tokyo were killed from the fire bombings is horribly wrong at best, and purposefully deceiving the reader to bolster a weak argument at worst. None of those percentages are anywhere close to being accurate in terms of lives lost from the ordinance detonating or the resulting fires that followed.

And 3) Proportionality is a nebulous term that losers of wars use to rationalize their inability or unwillingness to successfully engage the enemy using whatever means are at your disposal to effectively destroy their will and ability to fight back. The truth is, General Giap himself said there was no reason the US should have lost the Vietnam War except we lost our will to fight. And why was that? Because McNamara and those that followed him weren't willing to use utterly crushing, devastating force in disproportionate measures to kill our enemies. Incrementalism ended up killing us.
/spit

The whole idea that the Japanese were going to lay down their arms is just so much complete and utter bullsh1t. Iwo Jima and every other island before that on boldly demonstrated that the Japanese were willing to die to the last man to defend Japanese soil. Invading the homeland- despite the ridiculous revisonist history you are attempting to spew -was going to cost us hundreds of thousands to upwards of one million men-- and this after we had just finished a brutal fight defeating Germany. Your smug Monday morning quarterbacking blithely attacking the use of atomic weapons just points to the fact you aren't of that generation. Most likely you're French.
/spits again

Let's take your argument to its logical end, shall we? Nuclear weapons are unethical says you. Yet what is the difference between a nuke and a machine gun? Both kill equally effectively. An argument could even be put forward that the machine gun does more lasting damage due to the lead it puts in the environment, as opposed to a clean atomic weapon such as a neutron bomb that leaves no significant permanent effects beyond the small blast radius. After all, dead is dead. And if the sheer totality of numbers is at issue here, then a good argument could be made to outlaw projectile weapons in general. More people in history have died from gunshot/tank and artillery rounds/mines than swords, radiation, and chemicals combined.

So what is it about nuclear weapons which is most abhorrent to you? The ability to kill so many at once? You yourself said that 51% of Tokyo was killed using simple firebombs. Isn't that a travesty worthy of disallowing fire in war? How about gasoline or diesel fuel? It takes fuel to get those soldiers and tanks and planes and ships to where they can kill people, so why not ban its use too?

That's the whole idiocy of claiming one weapon is more inhumane than another. Dead is dead whether it took a club, your fists and teeth, or a nuclear or chemical reaction. It boils down to sentimentality. Technically firing a .50 cal at a soldier is against Geneva Conventions, so what do we do? We supposedly aim at the soldier's belt-- his equipment. Using shotguns is illegal. So what do we do? We breach doors with them and then breach skulls and abdominal walls afterwards "by accident."

Your weak sentimnetality about nuclear weapons just shows you're a pu55y about winning a war, feelz.

Totem

Edited, Dec 11th 2007 2:30am by Totem

Not to mention they got a lot of sheep and lonely, quiet, out-of-the-way spaces there in NZ, eh, paulsol?

;)

Totem