Irans Nukes.Follow

Stop with the "Revisionists" ********* Most historians (you know, people who actually spend their lives studying History, as opposed to repeating what they read somewhere) can't agree on how many lives were saved/spent by nuking Japan. Just cos you read one guy that strongly argued one way or the other, doesn't mean it's right and you can call the other "revisionist". No one knows how long Japan would've lasted if they hadn't used nukes. So get off your high horse cos, you just don't know.

Second. The problem with Totem and, to a much greater extent, Moe's way of looking at things, is that if everyone thought that way there would be no one left to think.

Every nation/race/terrorist group teaches its memebers that "nothing is more important than the lives of *whatevernation's* soldier". Every war was started by a "victim" who only took up arms to defend themselves. Your cute little theories about a gun being equal to a nuke are not only dangerous, they are ridiculously stupid. Ask the the people of Hiroshima if both are "the same". When the West is a victim of a nuke, ask again if they are "the same". Of course the only difference is one of "scale" but THAT'S THE WAY IT ALWAYS IS. FUck, how old are you Totem?! It's always a question of scale, of effects, of relativism. A butter knife can kill too, so is it the same a nuke?! Of course not.

Seriously, you guys are good when it comes to spouting off some testoteroned-fulled nationalistic crap, but it obviously gets a bit trickier when it comes to thinking things through.

We all know where the "might is right" philosphy takes us. History is filled with self-righteous groups of people for whom the means justified the ends, and for whom the colour of the uniform meant a justified death sentence.

Red, the only reason to think that nukes are somehow more heinous than a butter knife, as you say, is because you are conditioned to think so from a lifetime of being taught that nukes are behind a glass with the label that says, "Do not use except in case of an emergency." I submit that it was this was in part due to the shocking nature of a single bomb doing what otherwise took dozens of planes possibly multiple times to accomplish. From that it was not difficult to imagine using those very same tactics with every plane loaded with an atomic bomb leveling an entire country instead of just a city.

However, as it is with most everything else, the imagination makes everything seem far more frightening than reality. Visions of Bear bombers crossing the sky, darkening out the sun, sent hundreds of thousands of schoolkids scurrying under their desks during the '50s leading to a lifetime as an adult forever fearing nuclear fire raining down on their heads.

Purely psychological conditioning. Again, dying by radiation is just as dead by bayonet or sarin.

Totem

I'm leaving the ridiculous butter-knife comparison alone because it wasn't mine. However, I'd question the ability of Iran to carpet-bomb a city. Certainly they're not about to carpet-bomb any American cities any time soon and, even within their range, their air wing isn't much to speak of these days and wouldn't last long against NATO or Israeli air defense. Apparently they're negotiating a large Russian purchase and I assure you that it won't go unquestioned because any time your 'opponent' increases their military abilities, it's cause for concern. Will it raise as much concern as nuclear development? No, because aircraft have conventional counters.

Which is the real problem with nuclear weapons over carpet-bombing or whatever -- it's viewed as 'unfair' because it's very hard to counter nuclear weapons except through the threat of nuclear retaliation. Which you can't do without nuclear weapons. For that matter, it's difficult to fight someone with nuclear weapons conventionally (at least as the aggressor). So it's obviously in any nuclear power's best interests to try their damnedest to make sure that other nations don't gain nuclear weapon capacity because it diminishes the value of your own stockpile. And it's in a nation's best interests, from a defensive standpoint, to gain nuclear capacity (or have very close nuclear allies) because even if you don't have an ******* like America's or Russia's, it still raises your standing considerably.

So, no, I don't blame Iran for wanting the technology. And I don't blame the US (and others) for wanting to stop them. It's just common sense that you'd want to prevent a potential enemy from having a counter to your best weapon. I don't imagine we'll ever bottle the nuclear genie though. Which is a pity but that's the reality of it -- weapons development doesn't work backwards. The Pope tried to ban the use of the crossbow against Christians. Look at how well that turned out

Edited, Dec 11th 2007 10:06am by Jophiel

Anyway......all that aside......

I'm afraid that I don't believe for a moment that the whole 'Iran must not be allowed to acquire nukes, or the knowledge to acquire nukes' is anything more than a convenient excuse (similar to the Sadaam has WMD's pointed at us) to propagate fear and distrust of the Iranians, amongst the citizens of the countries that are expected to line up 'shoulder to shoulder' with BushCo when they do attack Iran.

There is a plan to attack Iran. The Israelis (some of them) and the US (some of them) have been agitating for it for some time now.

But because the whole Iraq thing has been so unpopular (and not just with all the dead injured and displaced iraqis), for even a modicum of public support for a pre-emptive strike on Iran, they are going to have to demonize the Iranians to an even greater extent than the Iraqis.

WMD's of the chemical and biological variety are scary enough, but nuclear weapons are the motherlode when it comes to fill-you-pants terrifying. As has been said, we all grew up with advice on what to do in case of sonic nuclear attack. Paint yourself white to deflect the blast, sit under the kitchen table for 6 weeks etc and that has had an effect. For sure more people are killed every year by hand guns (or smoking) but nukes are what scare people the most. What better way to make your citizens supportive, eager even, for attacking a country, than telling them that its a country full of nuclear wielding muzzie crazies intent on giving suitcases full of enriched uranium to wichever terrorist organisation that asks for one.

No matter how innacurate the information is, Say it often enough, and more importantly authoritatively enough, mix it up with a bit of 'look! they execute rape victims and children' and before you know it vast swathes of the population are demanding that action be taken, even tho they personally have never met an Iranian, much less been threatened by one. Facts dont matter. Emotions do. Politicians know this, and they use these methods all the time to allow the gullible amongst their populations to come to the conclusions that the manipulators want them to. Same story in advertising and marketing. For a whole swathe of a countries' citizenry to allow themselves to be manipulated into believing that Iran (or Iraq or Syria) is a direct and imminent threat to the US, with its immense military capacity and nuclear retaliation capacity, is an indication of how susceptible those people are to the forces of repetative suggestion irregardless of 'facts'. (Look at the fast food industry as a prime example)

At least the intelligence organisations in the US have now come clean and said in effect, "if you are daft enough to go and attack Iran, you are not doing it on any reccomendation of ours".

I hope it will make enough people wake up and see what is happening (again), but after reading some of the things being said (not just here) I have my doubts.....

Glad I live in a place that doesn't matter :)

Paulsol, yes, there is absolutely a plan to attack Iran. There is also a plan to attack New Zealand. And South Africa. And Denmark.

The Pentagon has plans for attacking/defending any place there are resources, people, endangered species, 36-25-36 Nordic goddesses, oil-- anything. Why? Because while most of those plans likely have collected dust it makes sense to have at the very least some idea what to do and how to get there if a crisis ever brews in Nwahangaland, the principle supplier of purple McTashilots. It's just common sense.

I'm equally certain that London, Bonn, Beijing, Moscow, and yes, probably Wellington have similar plans.

What I don't get is how you Bush haters have gotten the idea that Dubya is this 10 foot tall demon with glowing red eyes, a forked tail, and breathes fire intent on destroying the planet by hook or crook. I can imagine that each of you sees in your mind a demented George with horns on his head trying with all his might to push the Big Red Button down. He's being aided by his evil imp Cheney who is grabbing Dubya's wrist and adding his weight to his finger. The only thing that has foiled these nefarious two is that they haven't figured out how to removed the plastic cover over the Button of Nuclear Death.

C'mon, be realistic here. He's only 9 1/2 feet tall, ok? And his eyes have a slight violet hue.

Seriously, do you think that Bush is itching to blow Iran up but is only being thwarted by such things as an NIE report? You guys have made him out to be this all-consumed warmonger intent on making the world glow green. You are convinced that except for an Iraq war that is supposedly going poorly he would have already given the go-ahead to invade Iran. You've begun to believe your own rhetoric!

Allow me to calm your fears, paul. In a little more than a year that mean ol' 9' 1/2" demon Bush with his glowing violet eyes will be gone from office and you'll be able to breathe a sigh of relief knowing Hillary or Obama will make everything alllll-right. She'll tuck you into bed at night, softly croon sweet nothings into your yearning ears, and proceed to behave as every other American president has before her/him: act unilaterally to the consternation and butthurt surprise of everyone but the Brits (who understand these things).

Get a grip, Chicken Little, I promise the sky is not falling and Iran won't be invaded a day before Bush leaves office. Rest easy with your sheep, all is well.

Totem

Edited, Dec 11th 2007 5:48pm by Totem

I'm afraid that I don't believe for a moment that the whole 'Iran must not be allowed to acquire nukes, or the knowledge to acquire nukes' is anything more than a convenient excuse (similar to the Sadaam has WMD's pointed at us) to propagate fear and distrust of the Iranians, amongst the citizens of the countries that are expected to line up 'shoulder to shoulder' with BushCo when they do attack Iran.

Attack Iran with what? The North Carolina Eagle Scout Corps? There's no possible way this country could prosecute another large scale military action effectively. None.

No. As I think i already mentioned,



In the same way that you believe that somehow Bush has been re-born into a fluffy guardian angel to all the 'free' peoples of the world. (Nevermind that evreything he has laid his self-serving hand to in the past has ended in abject failure). Suddenly, Lo! the very moment he is awarded the presidency of the US (by a judge iirc),his only concern is for the downtrodden peoples of the world, and his only purpose in life was to show how the US would be a champion of civilised behaviour and free speech. A champion of human rights and equality. A heat seeking missile whose sole mission was to pursue injustice and cruelty and destroy it before it reached the shores of the God blessed US of A and interupts even for a moment, the life of its citizens and their endless acquisition of more 'stuff' to replace last years 'stuff, their single minded pursuit of spiritual enlightenment at the twin altars of consumerism and evangelism.

Never mind that he's so busy fucking you up the ***** with his Patriot acts, his decimation of the economy, his pissing on the constitution that you pretend to hold so dear, his cynical use of the armed forces to attack other peoples of the world under false pretences, and confirming the rest of the worlds suspicions that you get the leader that you deserve (TWICE!).

No, never mind all that.

Just as you will continue to believe that Bush is only in the job because, after God, and pretzels, he loves YOU the best, you can also believe that the folk in charge were doing it to end the war with as little loss of life to the US military as possible.


I just happen to think you're wrong.


And just while I'm here, No, I don't think the Dems will be any better either. They are as much to blame for the US actions of late as the Whitehouse itself. If anything they are worse. They have the information and knowledge to have put the brakes on, to have restrained the neo-cons, but in their pusillanimity/self serving interests and their own tacit agreement with what the WH has been up to they have behaved in a reprehensibly cowardly way, while at the same time trying to appear to be actually opposing the policies of the WH for their own selfish political gain.

You get the leaders you deserve.

The one you've got now is an utter ****.
The next ones lining up for the job are of equal quality as far as I can see.
I really don't envy you at the moment.

Edited, Dec 11th 2007 7:10pm by paulsol

First of all Totem,I used McNamara as one of many people who were actually there and part of the decision making at the time to counter gbaji's argument that,by ALL historical account,Japan was still in shape to pose a threat to the U.S even after the bomb.That McNamara went on being an incompetent secretary of defense some 15 years later is irrelevant.If he was so incompetent,being the architect of the saturation bombing strategy,would you say that firebombing every major Japanese city was bad decision making? But fair enough, you don't like McNamara and neither do I.



Funny how you say that while in every other of your post on the subject you clearly make distinction between American lives and any others.That's the difference between me and you. You value an American life more than any other while I just see people. 100 000 dead Americans or 100 000 dead Japanese is the same to me, that's 100 000 dead people.




Yea we call that victor's justice.Too bad you missed the point.The question in itself was the answer.From an absolute point of view it is immoral win or lose.

Necessity doesn't legitimize an immoral act also.And since you didn't like McNamara on the subject, allow me to quote someone far more intelligent who spent years studying the question.


" the Allies' World War policy of "strategic" or "area" bombing: the leveling of first German and then Japanese cities in attacks specifically aimed at civilian populations. This American and British policy was by no means simply an imitation of **** tactics, as is sometimes claimed. The ***** had indeed bombed civilians in Guernica, Warsaw, Rotterdam, London, and Coventry, but these attacks were on a more limited scale. The British and American military had prepared well prior to World War II to wage an air war specifically aimed at "the enemy civil population, and, in particular ... the industrial workers." But the British, in initiating the bombings, and the Americans in later joining and expanding them, justified the enterprise with the sense that they were combating an unparalleled evil. In that way, **** war-making and mass killing brought about a response that was itself violent in the extreme and a form of global salvation through the flames of destruction.

Americans offered a similar justification for the even more extreme devastation caused by their policy of "saturation bombing"-the massive, carefully planned firebombings of virtually all of Japan's highly flammable cities. By that time, a military strategy of attacks on civilian populations had become almost routine. To be sure, civilians had been targeted in modern warfare since at least the time of the American Civil War, but the firestorms that engulfed cities like Dresden and Tokyo and killed many of thousands of civilians in single days could be said to have rendered such policies apocalyptic. The Tokyo raid on the night of 9/10 killed more people, at least initially, than the atomic bombings of either Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Leon Blum, the French Socialist leader, once said that he was certain the Allies would triumph over the ***** but feared that, in doing so, we would become like them. The sad truth is that in the realm of strategic bombing we went further than they did. We were all too susceptible to escalating twentieth-century technological slaughter in the name of world redemption."

"Most historians, pointing to Japan's desperate state in early August 1945 and its series of surrender overtures, have concluded that use of the bomb was in no sense necessary. There were many factors that nonetheless went into the decision to use it-including technological and bureaucratic momentum, domestic political considerations, the doctrine of unconditional surrender we had proclaimed, and the possibility that we would be combating the Soviet Union, our then-ally, in a postwar world. But from the beginning the stated American reason, which certainly had its importance for decision-makers, was that of ending the war quickly and of "saving lives"

"It is fair to say that simply building and possessing nuclear weapons creates the potential for an atrocity-producing situation: any assumption of a dangerous threat to American security could initiate a strong technological and psychological momentum toward use. This is likely to be true of any nuclear-weapons-possessing nation or group, and one can never assume that a wise statesman will appear to prevent an apocalyptic act. For nuclear weapons are inherently apocalyptic, and with them America took over a form of the ownership of death, believing it could now be operated in the service of good. That ownership was demonstrated, awesomely and tragically, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, by means of a revolutionary equation: one plane, one bomb, one city. This was an apotheosis of apocalyptic warfare."

-Robert J. Lifton

The last paragraph kinda sums up my reasoning as of why nobody should have nuclear weapons.Even the most rational person on earth if put in truman's shoes would probably do the same thing he did.

"the indefinite combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will destroy nations. Is it right and proper that today there are 7500 strategic offensive nuclear warheads, of which 2500 are on 15 minute alert, to be launched by the decision of one human being?"

"...about something you know absolutely nothing about." --Smash

Sez you. Aside from my field of study, for what it's worth I'm quite probably the only one here who has actually visited both cities in Japan.

You and I have gone a few rounds on this very subject before and as I recall the outcome was we both were arguing the same point but from different perspectives. Yes, the use of atomic weapons was a combination of cultural circumstances understandings/misunderstandings, political and military influences, and desire for hard information on a device about which little was known.

The cities were selected for both their topography and what importance they had in the war effort. With a limited availability of atomic weapons, a prioritized target list had to be drawn up that best satisfied that confluence of pressures I just described.

Ultimately, however, the overarching umbrella for their use was the quick end to the war and the protection of what was believed to be an extraordinarily costly invasion in American human life.

But hey, what do I know? I'm hardly qualified to even broach this subject with you, boy-genius.

Totem

No, as I said in my previous post, there were many concerns: military, political, scientific, cultural, and finacial. One of them was the Soviet Union. However, the ultimate overarching issue was the human cost in American lives. These same politicians had to answer to the voting public and had it come out that their government had shied away from using a weapon that could quite possibly end the war immediately and they neglected to do so, there'd be hell to pay. Again, it was a cultural/political/military/financial issue. Not one single thing pushed us to drop atomic weapons; it was a combination of many issues. But the primary issue was saving American lives by obliterating Japan's will to fight.

Is there any other way I can this to make it clearer? In the secret language of sheep, perhaps?

Totem

So, it was to save lives. Ok.




So, it was to save votes. Ok.




So, it was a bunch of stuff. Ok.

You lost me.


Your total trust in the people in politics to have had the interests of the common man at heart in their decision making is so sweet.

But hey, what do I know? I'm hardly qualified to even broach this subject with you, boy-genius.

You're not qualified. "Hardly" implies you meet some sort of standard.

I wouldn't argue with you about how helicopters work after watching a Discovery Chanel special, but I realize most people find themselves to be experts on absolutely everything after the vaguest of research.

Alas.