August 6 and August 9.

Post Reply New Topic

Greenblue speaks truely.

Ruveyn, if you could view your values and your nations actions from outside - you would be outraged, just as so many of us are.

You seriously think nuking people is good?

Your nuts! someone dings your car in the carpark so you burn them and their wife and kids with the family pets and home and call that a fair and reasonable response?

Lets do a deal, the rest of the world, the one that strives to be free of war and killing and destruction? well we'll give you guys all the small arms in exchange for all your big ones, we'll leave you to it, with values like yours and the fall from dominance you are experiencing you'll turn on each other and be extinct as a problem by 2050, how's that sound?

You know I fear terrorism but you know what? it's US terrorism I fear, your chickenshit smash the lot from out of range, screw the cost! Your bump my car I'll burn your house down homicidal outbursts, a nation that loads of the planets other citizens view as little more than a bully and BS artist.

Go Venezuela! Go Iran! Go Cuba! Go Bolivia and Brazil! Africa step up! China this is your century...

Ah and maybe it will make such change for the good?

peace j

Just our enemies. Collateral damage can not be avoided in modern wars.

What would be best is not having enemies and not having to make war.

ruveyn

While I don't agree with bombing civilians, I, and I'm sure many others, partially owe my life to the bombs dropped on Japan. My Grandpa was all set to invade Japan, in an area that was so heavily fortified that there was very little chance of survival. When the bombs were dropped, the invasion was understandably called off. Had he gone in, he would most likely have been killed on the spot.

Days later, he and his fellow soldiers went on a tour of post-bomb Hiroshima, and he finally died of the long term effects of Leukemia in 2006, likely from that trip into Hiroshima back in 1945. The bomb giveth, and the bomb taketh away, I guess.

Had the bombs not been dropped, even more lives would have been lost; both Japanese and American. My opinion is that the bombs were the proper decision at the time, albeit an awful hell to inflict on innocent people. This demonstration of instant horror has also helped to prevent the use of them since, as everyone is now aware of the grave aftermath of a nuclear attack with weapons that are surprisingly weak by today's standards. One can only imagine the result of a several megaton bomb detonating over a modern city.

I believe that we owe some degree of respect to the people whose lives were taken in this world-changing experiment.

And that's exactly what the terrorists believe because we espoused that idea first and it's a horrific idea that has no place in realistic discussions and only has its place amongst dictators and tyrants.

I am not humane. I believe in payback. I forget nothing and I forgive little. Given a choice between being just and being merciful, just wins each and every time.

Had we had the cojones to eliminate half the Japanese population (say), we would have become the Terror of the Earth. We would have become the New Rome. Recall that Rome with all her cruelty maintained the peace for two hundred years. The Romans had a fairly straight forward approach. When ever there was trouble they sent in the Legions to squash it.

Our historical development was different. Instead of transitioning from a Republic to a mighty Empire, we went from adolescence to senility in the space of two generations. The U.S. never as an effective Imperium as were the Romans and the British.

ruveyn

That's an understatement.

"Mankind is kept alive by bestial acts"

Anyone agree?

Is this the basis of progress?

It's topics like this that make me loose all faith in humanity. I guess when it comes down to it, humans as a whole are selfish hypocritical sociopaths who have no problem with torturing and mass murder as long as they benefit from it in some way. Oh but you bet they'll play the "We just want world peace!" card when trying to save their own asses.

I say let humans kill each other off, that way the animals we haven't already killed off by ecocide will inherit the earth until it gets swallowed up by the sun.

Not at all.


Such statements just strike me as the rationalizations of sadists, sociopaths and social darwinists.

Not bestial acts. But war often advances technology. Without war we would not have had radar or fission reactors.

ruveyn

You actually do make a point there. Despite what people think, war is not without its perks. It does help speed up technology and money, and of course whatever country wins gets a big victory to brag about to their grandchildren and the country that looses, well they get to pick up the peices and rebuild. Usually they rebuild for the better.

War truely is a nessecary evil and something that will probably never go away. But I still think we should try to find more humane ways of doing war rather then torturing and raping POWs for fun and attacking civilians.

The reason war advances technology is that it frees up money for speculative concepts. To assume that government(which is the source of intensive technological research money during war) must kill people to invest in research is vicious idiocy. There are better ways to stimulate technology.

Like global warming or oil shortages.

Or the entertainment business, like movies, TV, music, and video games.

I disagree with you, but I respect the honesty with which you assert your point of view.



The security and prosperity of the United States would not have been assured by the destruction of Japan. The analogy to Rome is flawed, because Rome faced no power comparable to the Stalin's Soviet Union.

If we assume that the Soviets developed their nuclear technology primarily through espionage activities conducted through the mid-40's, I think we can safely assume that those efforts would have been redoubled in the face of an ascendent imperial power of the type you suggest.

Furthermore, given a demonstrable willingness on the part of the United States to use its nuclear force to excess, there would have been no strategic reason for the Soviets to hold back on using theirs. The shaky peace of the Cold War would likely have been blown wide open with the first shots in Korea, and few of us would have been here to have this conversation.

Confronted by a policeman who shoots only when required, bystanders will seek to ensure that they do not provoke a lethal reaction. Confronted by a madman who shoots at anyone he perceives to oppose his will, the bystanders may feel that their safest course is to take the madman down.