aceventura3

President's are accountable regardless of what you suggest here.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

ratbastid

This is the equivalent of saying "Nuh-unh." You can do better.

host

dc dux, I read this http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwa...06/17/company/ ....and if it's an accurate .description of the moves and intent of our democratic leaders in congress, I can't see your objections of my characterization of the democrats as the other major right wing political party in the US. They aren't even able or interested in giving us crumbs in negotiating this surveillance authority and accountability..... you want me to support this party? Isn't it correct to work against Hoyer, Pelosi, Rockefeller, Reid and house and senate members who support them and vote with them, as if they were republican thugs like Kit Bond? It's only are rights they are ceding to Bush & Cheney.....

dc_dux

host....the party of Hoyer, Pelosi, Rockefeller, Reid stopped Bush's illegal "terrorist surveillance program" that wiretapped American citizens w/o a warrant.

I dont agree with the compromise proposal on telecomm immunity in the current that would leave it to the FISA courts to determine immunity.

But the bill does reinforce, and some might say strengthen, the basic underpinning of the FISA program that prohibits warrantless wiretaps of citizens.

I accept that I wont likely agree with the Democratic party on every provision of every bill but I wont disavow the party based on those relatively few disagreements (at least for me).

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

Willravel

The reason I never joined the Democrats was my unwillingness to compromise on things like this. Tellecom immunity, continuing to fund the war... I don't know why I'd want to compromise on such important votes.

Can you imagine if the Democratic Congress voted down everything to do with wiretapping and the war?

dc_dux

Will...I judge on the totality of the Democrats policies and actions.

On the issue of wiretapping American citizens w/o a warrant for 4+ years...they STOPPED IT from continuing unabated!

Its very likely that would not have happened if the majority party in Congress had not changed in 2006.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

aceventura3

I simply don't understand where you want to take this.

I certainly accept the fact that a President has power and can act on his own initiative without consulting others. However, in our form of government his acts are validated or invalidated by the actions (or inactions) of the other branches. Therefore I do not accept the broad concept of the President being able to act unilaterally, especially when it comes to matters like war, torture, habeas corpus, etc.. Certainly, I can accept the flaws in our system relative to timing. My question to you was was regarding the timing issue. The President can ask others to execute a decision based on his sole judgment. However, even that requires complicity on the part of others for execution of his decision and is therefore not unilateral. If the President fails to uphold the law of the land, our other branches have an immediate obligation to address that situation in my opinion. Again, in my view that is not "unilateral".

I don't know how to express my view on this any different. If what I have presented is saying "Nuh-unh", so be it. I think some of you just want to be able to say the "unpleasant" things are all about Bush and not take any responsibility for our current situation. In my view that is simply disingenuous.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

dc_dux

I expect Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba to be vilified by the right...and they cant use th excuse that he is profiting by writing a book...he just told the truth, as he believed it to be:

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

Yakk

By that standard, is the failure of Russia to nuke the USA in response to US action a condoning of US action?

In order for the Judicial branch to say "no" to the executive branch, they need a case brought before them. And, to quote the asshole on your 20$ bill, "the supreme court has made it's decision. Now let them enforce it" in response to Andrew Jackson's plans to commit genocide on the Native Americans living on land the Andrew Jackson wanted for white people.

Similarly, in order for the Congress to censure the President, they have to impeach the president. This is a long, drawn-out process that requires a large amount of resources and time. Can the President not be guilty of being an idiot, an asshole, or a fuck up without the implicit consent of congress unless congress impeaches the president every time the President does something wrong?

Under that kind of logic, I hold you personally responsible for every act I do. You could come up here and prevent my action (sure, you don't know where I live -- but you could spend lots of money finding it out, I'm not untrackable).

It's a complete abdication of any responsibility for any action whatsoever, as far as I can tell.

Similarly, guess what happens if the President says "go and do X", and you don't do X? You, personally, are pretty much fucked. The President has made it clear that if you obstruct his choices, he'll fire you and ruin your career. So when the President tells you to do something that seems merely questionable, and doesn't want to here "but, that's dumb", you can either quit your job, ruin your life, or do the merely questionable act.

Under your standard, the fact that 1000s of people are willing to do what the President tells them to do, even if the act seems questionable to them, means that they collectively are responsible for the President's decisions?

Remember: the President doesn't say "here is what is going on. Here is what I think will happen. Thus, I think you should do X. Do you concur?" The President is expected to have access to information that you don't have -- in theory, that information might be sufficiently sensitive that you _shouldn't_ know it, even if things are working fine. So sure, it might be a bad idea to invade Iraq without a good reconstruction plan -- but you are the General in charge of the invasion, and you don't have the time to make sure that the President is doing the job. Barring your invasion orders being utterly idiotic on their face, with no possible way to make them not-stupid, you presume the President has delt with the other problems outside of your domain.

And that holds for lots of people. Maybe a handful know the entire plan -- and they have raised their objections asto why it is wrong, but their job is to advise the President, not override the President. Even if they quit, they aren't legally allowed to go off and tell other people that the President is being an idiot.

I don't get it. Do I just misunderstand your position?

__________________
Last edited by JHVH : 10-29-4004 BC at 09:00 PM. Reason: Time for a rest.

aceventura3

Not correct. We don't have a legal relationship with each other as the President and the other branches have a constitutionally defined relationship. Abetter way to look at it is - if you had authority to do stuff, but I had authority of the money you needed to do it, you would not be able to do anything that involved real money without my involvement. If you lie or engage in defrauding others to be able to do stuff, then you should be held accountable for that. So, in that regard, if a President does act "unilaterally", I would expect that he would be held accountable by the other branches of government. I understand the problem of timing in our system, however, unless the President is actually doing the torture, launching a nuclear bomb, etc, he has to have complicity in his decision. If I were a general and the President asked me to launch a nuclear bomb and I felt it was the wrong thing to do, I would not do it. Congress is involved in selecting people who would be in position to execute those kinds of orders.

I disagree. The people who stood up against Nixon were not "fucked". There are many other examples of heroic Americans who stand strong for what they think is right. Sometimes you have to accept the consequences for your views. Regarding the Iraq, war I think Collen Powell paid a price for disagreeing with the Administration, agree or disagree with him I don't perceive Powell as being "fucked".

Quiting a job does not equate to ruining your life. You present a false choice.

Also, the thing about Bush is everyone knew his views. You can not realistically suggest that anyone was surprised by anything Bush has done. For example the guy said he was going to do everything in his power to go after terrorists. What did people think that was going to mean? What it meant to me was that he was going to tap phones, he was going employ extreme investigation techniques (i.e. - water boarding, which was not defined as torture when it was being employed), etc, etc, he was going to push the limits do things that the average person might feel uncomfortable about. So, if you were in the CIA or a guy like Gonzales and you hear the Presidents words, what are you going to do? If you are in Congress and you hear those words, what are you going to do? Well we know. Congress did nothing initially but give Bush the authority and money to execute his war. When the politics of it got uncomfortable some in Congress said - oh that was all Bush - we did not know he would...- Bush acted "unilaterally"-etc., etc. I say that was and is BS.

If you have a responsibility and you don't act that is being complicit in my view. If you don't have a responsibility and you don't act, then you are a bystander, or a potential victim.

I would not risk being a victim and I would act, what would you do? If I felt a President was going to execute an illegal war, I would put a lot of effort into organizing people to protest, stand-up against it, use whatever power/influence I had to stop it. I had respect for the people who did that with the Iraq war, even though I disagreed with them. That is what makes this country great. On the other hand, we have people like John Kerry, who was for the war and against it at the same time. Gee, give me a break.

I would not presume anything. I would question the President until I was satisfied that the decision was correct. I don't think I am unique in that regard.

I just think we see issues in a totally different way. I am often amazed by how different two people can see an issue. I believe you are very sincere in how you see this, and I find it very interesting. I doubt we could ever reconcile our different points of view on this. I understand your words and I think you understand mine, your reaction to my words is like "you must be kidding?" My reaction to your words are the same.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

Yakk

He sure isn't the Republican Nominee for president.

Clearly you don't have a career-dominated life. :-)

I was somewhat surprised when a "we will not engage in nation-building" isolationist turned out to be planning of an invasion of Iraq from before he was elected president, yes. I was actually +shocked+ that the US President would put forward bald-faced lies in order to attempt to convince the world that Iraq was worth invading.

I mean, I didn't think someone would be that destructive of US interests.

Until the amount of raw destructiveness of the administration was revealed, I figured that it meant that he would do everything that the US president has the legal power to do. You know, "in his Power".

What the fuck? Are you joking?

Water Boarding was called torture when Japanese military members where tried on War Crimes charges after World War II. By the US fucking government. 50 fucking years ago.

Or are you saying they tortured people, while saying "This is totally not torture, right guys? Right?"

I actually vaguely recall that the US President stated that he had evidence and knowledge that Iraq had stockpiles of chemical weapons, and possibly nuclear weapons. And that this information came from confidential sources that the US President couldn't share, because it would endanger them.

Can the US President have sources that aren't safe to share? Yes, the US President can.

If the US President actually had that knowledge, would the war have been illegal? No, it probably wouldn't have.

Now, let's suppose the US President then goes and engages in the war, and the pretenses under which he engages in war are false. There is no such evidence has any real reliability, and the statements made by the US President do not align with reality.

Does my believing the lies of the US President mean that he didn't unliaterally lie and bring the country into an illegal war?

I'm just checking if I have to be psychic or not.

You don't have the power to ask questions of the President. You probably get next to zero face time with the President. You get orders from the President, not justifications.

The President does not have time to get into a philosophical argument over the rightness or wrongness of every action. The US President has too much to do, too many responsibilities.

As an exmaple, the US military is based around that idea. You don't ask your superiors to justify every order to your satisfaction. If you find the order to be illegal, you are expected to disobey it. If you find it stupid, depending on your relationship with the source of the order, you might have the privledge of saying "sir, what about X, sir".

Because it is better that you obey a somewhat stupid order, than the commander have to spend 30 minutes justifying each order to each of her subordinates, find that 25% of them disagree anyhow, and only have 75% of the force to actually carry out the mission.

Under which, the Judges interpet the law, the Congress writes the law, and the President executes the law. The Congress can Impeach the President if they think the President has engaged in high crimes.

But what if the President just is incompetent? Or the President engages in crimes that aren't high crimes? Or the President fucks up his job?

What is worse -- what if the cost exceeds the benefit? At this point, Bush is less than a year from getting kicked out, and an impeachment trial would take most of that time, might not even win, and Cheney could proceed to pardon Bush for it after he was sacked (see: Nixon). Do you hold your nose for a year, or not?

And what if you think Bush might be pulling a fast one, but are not sure?

And what if you think that, if push comes to shove, Bush might do something extremely destructive if you attempted to impeach him? (Say, a unilateral invasion of Iran, which under current law the military has to obey the orders for 30 days without Congressional approval... go go cold war!)

I suppose the first step would be to try to pass a law preventing Bush from engaging in military aggression without the consent of congress?

__________________
Last edited by JHVH : 10-29-4004 BC at 09:00 PM. Reason: Time for a rest.

aceventura3

First, my comment about water boarding was wrong. It is not a questioning technique I would use or want to be subjected to.

Your take on the career issue I find interesting. I ran up the corporate career ladder before going into my own business. Early on in my corporate career I adopted an approach to business from a speech I heard from Lou Holtz (former college football coach) summed up: Do the best you can, Treat others the way you want to be treated, and do what you think is right. This has always served me well and I have never had to struggle with decisions. It is a falicy that you have to "sell-out" to accomplish your career goals. In fact, I truly believe the opposite is true, good leaders want to be surrounded by principled people. If I felt you were a "kiss-up", you would not work for me for very long. If I felt you did not have the strength of your convictions, you would not work for me for long. I never had a problem with disagreement. I don't think Bush does either. But take a guy like McClellan, you have a coward who does not speak-up we he could have, and then shows disloyalty by truly "selling-out". His 15 minutes of fame is going to be fleeting. Powell on the other hand has the respect of conservatives and liberals. Who would you rather be like?

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

LoganSnake

Monstrous or not, it ended the war, didn't it?

__________________
Maturity is knowing you were an idiot in the past. Wisdom is knowing that you'll be an idiot in the future. Common sense is knowing that you should try not to be an idiot now. - J. Jacques

roachboy

meanwhile, as time goes on the notion of "terrorist" means less and less:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/wa...combatant.html

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Baraka_Guru

So has attempts at genocide and other forms of mass killing. There are other ways of ending wars.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

LoganSnake

This one is faster and at a cost of less lives.

How soon would the WWII be over if instead of Hiroshima, Berlin was bombed? And not in 1945 but in 1940? Well, we wouldn't know, but I doubt it would last 5 years.

__________________
Maturity is knowing you were an idiot in the past. Wisdom is knowing that you'll be an idiot in the future. Common sense is knowing that you should try not to be an idiot now. - J. Jacques

Willravel

I'm afraid you're working off incorrect information, Logan. The war was over long before the use of nuclear weapons. Any history book will verify that Japan was in ruin and was planning surrender months before Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan's military was beaten completely in June of 1945, 2 months before the dropping of the bombs. Japan had effectively run out of oil in April. We'd carped bombed them into the stone age on March 10, killing over 100,000 Japanese with a huge bombing campaign, one of the largest in human history. The largest in history came when, on May 23, 520 B-29s dropped over 4,550 tons of incendiary bombs into Tokyo. By the time everything was said and done, 56 square miles of the capital were leveled.

The worst part, though, was that the new Japanese government made several attempts at peace in April and May.

The bombs dropped saved no American or allied lives.

LoganSnake

Right, because they were dropped late.

__________________
Maturity is knowing you were an idiot in the past. Wisdom is knowing that you'll be an idiot in the future. Common sense is knowing that you should try not to be an idiot now. - J. Jacques

Baraka_Guru

Early? Late? Either way would still be an atrocity. There is still no excuse, just as there is no excuse for approving torture. Again, there are other ways—ways of conducting ourselves in tune to the values we hold and protect, instead of against them.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Willravel

Go back to school.

Cynthetiq

Sorry, I'm more of the speak softly but carry a big stick.

Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do. Sometimes I still don't want to do them but I still need to get that thing done, so I hire people how can do them.

I'm happy to live with approving torture. War isn't about ettiquette and doing things right. It's about being the last man standing.

War isn't civil. It's not meant to be, trying to make it so is stupid by itself.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

LoganSnake

I don't know, I find the "be human to the people bent on killing you" train of thought a bit out there.

Of course, I also understand that the people aren't always there willingly and are just fighting because they have to. Nonetheless, unless you have a surefire way of attacking the source (government or organization) without mass murder, killing morale is the next best thing.

__________________
Maturity is knowing you were an idiot in the past. Wisdom is knowing that you'll be an idiot in the future. Common sense is knowing that you should try not to be an idiot now. - J. Jacques

Willravel

Japan had lost and was seeking to surrender for months, and we dropped nuclear bombs. Explain how that was in any way necessary.

LoganSnake

Do I look like Truman to you? He dropped it because Japan rejected the Potsdam terms. Why their surrender wasn't considered before, I don't know.

__________________
Maturity is knowing you were an idiot in the past. Wisdom is knowing that you'll be an idiot in the future. Common sense is knowing that you should try not to be an idiot now. - J. Jacques

Willravel

I'll explain, briefly. Japan was prepared to surrender with the only condition being that the Emperor went unharmed. This was back in April of 1945. The US knew this and rejected it because, well, we wanted to punish them for Pearl and such. The horrible thing is that after Japan was allowed to surrender, the US actually left the Emperor unharmed and used him to help stablize and rebuild the nation.

The point I was making above? Dropping the bombs saved no lives and was done after months of Japan attempting to surrender. It was not for some greater good at all. "Monsterous or not, it ended the war didn't it?" No, it didn't.

The_Jazz

IMO, Hiroshima and Nagasaki most likely prevented WW3 by revealing to the Soviets that any invasion of Western Europe would be a foolhardy exercise, even for armies used to horrific losses. Stalin was seriously contemplating resuming hostilities in Europe and seizing as much of Germany and France as he could. Without atomic weapons, the Allies most likely would have been overrun by a more experienced and brutal Soviet foe.

There's a whole subgenre of science fiction dedicated to an Allied invasion of Japan, most of which ends with eventual US victory but with horrific losses on both sides, but the majority of historians believe that the bomb was dropped as much for Soviet observation as Japanese losses.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

LoganSnake

War is about power. Jazz beat me to it in saying that at the very least it was a message of "don't fuck with us".

__________________
Maturity is knowing you were an idiot in the past. Wisdom is knowing that you'll be an idiot in the future. Common sense is knowing that you should try not to be an idiot now. - J. Jacques

Willravel

I know that murdering a lot of people is more dramatic than a press release, but if the soviets were invited to the testing of a nuclear weapon on some island somewhere wouldn't they have gotten the point? Without us having to blow up two cities in a country that we had already beaten?

The_Jazz

That's a question for novelists, not historians. It was an option that was considered, but there were still military issues left with Japan, and no one wanted to invade the Home Islands. There's rarely no one single answer to things like this.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Baraka_Guru

Wow, are we okay with raping and killing women and children too? That's a war tactic. Quite demoralizing, and it asserts your military's superiority.

The idea isn't just to win in war; it is to win while maintaining your humanity. The U.S. is still recovering from the fallout. It is as much apparent today as it was all those decades ago. (At least I'd like to think there is a recovery process.)

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Willravel

Oh, comon. We wax hypothetical all the time on TFP.

Cynthetiq

Please don't disrespect all the Filipinos that died in the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. The Japanese brutality that ensued was legendary which included the beheading of my grandfather's oldest brother. To add insult to injury before beheading him and several others, they bled them so that they could use their blood for transfusions to injured Japanese soldiers.

My family lived in caves for a period of time hiding from the Japanese.

War is war. It's not meant to be pretty, but to cast off this ideology that the Japanese were trying to surrender and that they deserved better treatment. Please give me a freaking break.

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I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

The_Jazz

I couldn't disagree more. The idea in war is to win. Period. If you've gone to war, the alternative is not acceptable.

I cannot think of a modern war - with the possible exceptions of the Franco/Prussian War and WWI - that did not simulateously prosecute at least a modicum of violence on civilian populations. If nothing else, infrastucture to feed armies of soldiers did not exist until the late 19th Century. Prior to that armies lived off the land, which meant the local population. The ramifications of that live on in the US Bill of Rights, namely the Third Amendment.

I know of no country that would prefer defeat to victory without the preservation of humanity.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Willravel

Don't be so melodramatic. My grandfather's brother was literally cut in half by machine gun fire at Pearl Harbor right in front of my grandfather, who retold the story to me only once because it was so painful to him. That doesn't excuse nuking a country after ignoring their wish to surrender for months.
My family (on my father's side) was enslaved by Romans, but that also has nothing to do with this.
Surrender is surrender. "Cast off" this idea that somehow because they did bad things they deserved to be wiped out after they gave up. Justice is reached in a court room, not on the receiving end of a bomb.

host

Do you have any limits, or would you advocate exempting the US from the provisions of the Geneva conventions....?
Who do you cede the authority to, to determine when it is appropriate "to torture", and to what degree. When they do it, they say they do it in your name.

What are your principles, what do you stand for, if you can use "happy" associated with the practice of torture ? Do you really believe they would only use it on "the bad people"? Who determines who the bad people are, and by what standard of evidence or collection of evidence?

Baraka_Guru

What about the ideas outside of war? Wars usually end eventually. There are many more paragraphs to be written after your bold "period" there.

I'm sure they're out there. I know of no country, thankfully, that would prefer a global scorched-earth victory to a conditional surrender. I think you're speaking from the point-of-view of the military apparatus. I would be more inclined to agree with you if I saw it purely from that perspective, but I don't. I see it from the perspective of the nation and its society. I would like to think my own nation would sooner prolong suffering and struggle in a conventional war than opt for the wholesale slaughter of "enemy" civilians on a grand scale.

An atrocity is an atrocity, and this one is a dark shadow over U.S. history. And now there is this industrial military complex that is capable of much more than that.

If winning were the only object, where are the American nukes in Iraq?

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Cynthetiq

Will, read a bit more about the brutality of the Filipinos in the hands of the Japanese. One person being ripped in two by machine gun fire who is an enlisted serviceman is hardly equal to whole civilian villages being raped and maimed.

As far as the enslaved Roman tale, that's a great tale. I'm sure you have some sort of telling of it in some fashion, book or manuscript? I have living members of the family and books authored and published by family members.

My family already gave thanks, they gave up the entire cattle farm they had to feed the US Army. When the accountants showed up to pay for the head of cattle, my great grandfather said,"We're even."

You may want to find justice in a courtroom. Other members of my family wanted more than just war reparations for the atrocities from the Japanese.

I don't know host, apparently some members of my family were considered the bad people of the Japanese for helping the resisteance fighters in the Philippines.

I don't like to clean the toilets, but they need to be cleaned. I don't like picking up the garbage, but it needs to be done. I'm glad that there are people in the world that are willing to do the things that I'm not able to stomach for myself to do.

Again, I'll say it loud and proud, I'm happy to have such people that are willing to torture people in order to get information that is not going to come out otherwise.

host, I stand for fairness and equality. If someone is brutal towards community members, then someone should unleash that same brutality towards them in return. You may not believe in retribution, but it fits in my view of the world.

re: geneva conventions...

tell me did the guys (ETA, Hamas, IRA, Abu Sayaf, Al Qaeda, Iraqi Insurgents) who blow up market places, restaurants, and malls follow the Geneva Convention?

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

Willravel

So? The Nazis surrendered and guess what? We stopped bombing them. Then we had Nuremberg to punish war criminals. Japan tries to surrender and we bomb them for months and then nuke them for good measure.
There's verified evidence from several sources, actually. But that has nothing to do with anything.
Vengeance is natural, but that doesn't make it right. And this still has absolutely nothing to do with anything. The discussion is about the use of nuclear weapons being necessary or not, and it clearly wasn't.

The_Jazz

Baraka, interesting points. I have always believed that war is simply politics prosecuted by other means. One does not enter into war lightly, in my opinion (the Bush administration notwithstanding), but should a country make the decision to go to war they must do so with the intention to win. If they do not, then there is no point. Please note that I did not say "win but keep their morals intact". People die in war - it is a truism. Sometimes innocent people die in war - again another truism. It is unavoidable since they do not happen in a vacuum.

Wars end and then people must deal with what had to be done to win or deal with the fact that they lost. War is a very scary proposition for governments since a defeat can topple them or end in occupation. A government not willing to compromise on moral integrity at a time of war is a government that faces being voted out at best or being removed by force.

This caught me, though:

Realizing that no Western nation is currently "suffering" because of the Iraq or Afganistan Wars - there are no shortages or battles being fought there - I think that you have a higher opinion of humanity than I do. If you asked anyone with family members getting ready to invade Japan about Hiroshima and Nagasaki which was preferable, I will bet that the response would be in the high 90's for the atomic option. If dropping firebombs on Kabul, for instance, would bring Canadian troops home sooner and with a lower casualty rate, do you really think that Canadians would chose to keep troops in the field over the opportunity to bring them home?

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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Cynthetiq

yep ahhh. Justice is served... All those Japanese war criminals that were sought after and tried...

your point of view is that it clearly wasn't necessary. I don't agree with you.

Seeing as the Russians also didn't agree since the whole eastern European set of countries they decided to keep for themselves as they marched toward the Allies. Yes, they willfully gave up those territories they marched through... I don't believe for a minute that they would have stopped if it weren't for the demonstrations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

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