Coppertop

Yes, we are indeed a country that would never, ever use nuclear weapons to wipe out entire cities, aren't we?

drawerfixer

Not making a judgment of the quote, or even expressing an opinion, but this is a very loaded statement.

pedro padilla

oh yeah, America isn´t run by religious radicals and they sure don´t need any religious clerics around seeing how GW was personally called on by his pal God. He´s got a hotline right to the big guy. Religious clerics might not be privy to the same divine interpretation. Are you for real or just playing the part?

Mojo_PeiPei

I thought we were talking about religious radicals. Now you're changing it to nukes.This comparison is equally wrong to your first religious one. America using nuclear weapons, in the context of a legal and morally justifiable war, to save loss of it's own sovereign pending a major invasion and proloning of a World War, is Extremely different then a country using nukes based on it's radical and racist agenda through terroristic means.

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Mojo_PeiPei

There is no comparison to religious influence in American and political life, to that of a totalitarian theocratic regime. None.

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Coppertop

Using WMD to wipe out civilian populations isn't terrorism?

Coppertop

Po-tay-to, puh-ta-to

pedro padilla

Bullshit. The right wing religious front that supposedly propelled Bush into power for another 4 years of high moral principles are the supposed majority of the country. The president has stated his personal belief that he was chosen directly by god to change the world. Radical religious belief is rapidly becoming a major factor in US politics. The new church of George version will probably become very apparent with the new Supreme court.
Abortion, prayer in schools, marriage laws. Totalitarian theocratic regime. I bet you looked that up.

zen_tom

No, you have failed to understand lebell. Let me try a similar argument to call it quits, and then I'll try again.

-The United States Vowed Iraqi 'Regime Change'
-The United States has Killed More than 444 civillians during it's 'Liberation of Iraq'
-Israel was born out of Zionist terrorism
-Why would American attack Israel? (I really don't understand what you mean by that sentence)

Blah blah, you've soaked up all the nationalistic propaganda. Try and see things objectively. There are no good-guys/bad-guys in this picture, this isn't a movie, it's real life - everyone is out for themselves. Like I said before terrorism is warfare conducted by people with few resources against people with lots of resources. The opposite of terrorism I suppose would be carpet bombing, cruise missiles and other brute displays of technological millitary force.

Now decide whether you would prefer to see dead Arabs or dead people of European origin. If you prefer thousands more of the former, and a good few hundred of the latter, then carry on putting the pressure on a worried and increasingly desparate race of people. If the Arab nations begin to suspect that we really are picking them off one by one, it would make sense for them to leage together and then we'd be in for some real trouble.

If you prefer that the minimum number of people are killed needlessly, then doesn't it make sense to take steps to defuse an explosive situation?

Getting ready to do an Iraq 2 on Iran because of a vague and dimly percieved potential threat is both paranoid and is itself the kind of stance that could be percieved as threatening. Like I said before, this is what the Bin Ladin people want the west to do. Why are you so keen to play into their hands?

The West is more than capable of restoring peace and democracy to the region using the most powerful weapons in her arsenal, diplomacy and capitalist economics. How many people want to become freedom fighters if the alternative is a good job, a wife and a meal at the end of the day washed down with a lovely glass of Coke-a-Cola?

How many governments are liable to launch a nuclear weapon and be assured a swift and mighty response due to an irrational hatred of Jews? (No-one has explained the reasons why these fanatics want to destroy Israel, are they all just crazy people?)

Seriously, explain to me the mindset that would willingly destroy ones own country for the sake of taking out an Israeli city? Nuclear weapons are not offensive weapons, they are deterrant weapons, and it would be an act of extreme and dangerous stupidity for a government to believe otherwise.

Kalibah

Israel was born out of Zionist terrorism.... can you explain??

archer2371

Much of the same tactics used by the PLO, Hamas, Hezbollah, were first used by Israelis to get a Jewish state established, and it worked, which unfortunately created a monster that is now known as today by the Middle East Crisis.

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MSD

Iran's government has stated that if they feel that their nuclear program is threatened, that they are willing to take preemptive action against our forces in the Persian Gulf.

Yes, if I was an Iranian official, I'd be shitting my pants and trying to kiss Bush's ass right now to save my people. Unfortunately, these people are motivated by religious extremism and fanaticism and have more faith in the concept of martyrdom than I do.

First, I don't appreciate your insinuation that I'm prejudiced against Muslims or Arabs. Once again, the leaders are fanatics who believe that the US is the "Great Satan" and that it is the will of God that we should all be killed. Another reiteration: they have threatened a first strike if they feel that their nuclear program is threatened. They also don't see any difference between the US and Israel. They (still talking abuot fanatical leaders) believe that Israel should be destroyed at any cost. Religious fanaticism and the belief that taking the other guy out wtih you will get you 72 virgins in the afterlife can lead people to do some pretty bad stuff. I'm not saying that Israel should not be held accountable for their wrongdoings, but right now I'm concerned with a nation that is run by radicals who hate us and have nukes.

I realise that everyone around the world is worrying about the same things, and I would really like to see us all settle down and worry only about those, but as

No. I don't think there are any sensible, plausible options left. I'm as displeaased with the Iraq situation as anyone. It's hard to describe what it's like to see a news report come on, and see the kid who I sat next to in high school English class (it was actually him, no hyperbole or metaphors here) jump behind a wall as enemy fire sets off an explosion less than 20 feet from him.

Ustwo

Saved around 300,000 US lives and around 1 million Japanese lives.

So I guess you could call it humane.

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Coppertop

Didn't answer the question. Because of course we all know the answer.

Coppertop

Only on the internet could the destruction of 2 cities and the killing of more than half a million lives be called humane.

archer2371

I'll go out on a limb and say, it's not. Doubtless that it saved more lives than it killed. One million Japanese lives in my opinion is a conservative estimate, because the psychological makeup of the Japanese people is highly based on honor and I would say that 70% of them would have fought to the death in the event of an invasion from the south by the U.S. and an invasion from the north by the USSR, rather than live under the rule of "gaijin", so we convinced 'em that we're not shittin around and the leaders caved. The conditions of surrender by the Japanese before the bombs were dropped still allowed Tojo to influence the Emperor and would have left the military intact. After the bomb is a different story, because they finally gave in to total surrender, and now Japan is the major tech center of the world. Go figure. Most of the Japanese don't even talk about WWII, because they see it as their ancestors shaming them, even their textbooks have a very passing reference to WWII, and the Japanese Americans that were interred won't accept any sort of "reparations" for their unfortunate and illegal imprisonment, because they see it as blood money resulting from being shamed by their brethren/ancestors. However, we can debate this time and time again, going back and forth about whether it was the right decision, with you bringing up the quote by Ike about the dropping of the bombs being necessary, etc. etc. When in fact, it's totally pointless to do so, because it's history, I really debated even posting the above. We're not gonna change anything by arguing about something that already happened. These are my final words on the topic of the decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I will say however that the rhetoric being issued by the Iranian officials is despairingly similar to that of Nationalist Japan and its allies. If Israel goes in and destroys all of their nuclear plants and sends Mossad teams in to destroy nuclear weapons, I will be totally fine with it, because the possesion of nukes by Iran is a dangerous precept in the MidEast, and I would prefer it if Israel handled it like the big boys they are, rather than us babying them all the time.

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"Hey Grif, Chupathingy...how bout that? I like it...got a ring to it."

"I have no earthly idea what it is I just saw, or what this place is, or where in the hell O'Malley is! My only choice is to blame Grif for coming up with such a flawed plan. Stupid, stupid Grif."

Coppertop

The whole point of the US being in Iraq right now was the prevention of "terrorists" from obtaining WMD and unleashing them in US cities. This is what the US did in WW2. Talk about the pot and the kettle...

The_Dunedan

CT:
OK. I'm now stepping into this discussion in my capacity as a military historian.
During WW2, all sides used what would be considered WMD; most commonly the carpet-bombing of industrialized cities with incindiary bombs. The Germans torched Coventry, and the British got Dresden. The Japanese burned, raped, sacked, and genocided their way across coastal China and Korea; the US used atomic bombs of H. and N. Seeing that neither side posessed precision-guided weapons, this was the best they could do in a Strateigic sense. You destroy the enemy's ability to make war, and you have destroyed the enemy.

However, pre-invasion casualty estimates were:
Allied Military: 1-1.5 Million.
Japanese Military: 2-2.25 Million.
Japanese CIVILLAIN: 5.5-6.5 MILLION.
The thing was, the plan for the invasion of the Home Islands called for a 14-day CHEMICAL attack in order to soften the islands up and prevent the kind of mass-scale irregular resistance that we WOULD HAVE faced from the Japanese civillians. Look up the "Last Ditch" Arisaka rifles sometime; it should give you a good idea of the scale we're talking about here.
Source: "The Bodygaurd of Lies" by B. H. Liddell Hart.
So as you can see; the use of the A-bombs to force Japan's surrender was actually a lifeSAVING measure, for both sides.

Secondly, Japan posessed nuclear materials and the potential to produce "dirty nukes" and even a low-yeild nuclear bomb. There is even some evidence to suggest that such a weapon was tested in the northern Japanese islands only 72 hours before Hiroshima was bombed.
Source: "World War Two Magazein, August 1999"
The "dirty bomb" was actually a plan to use submarine-launched highspeed airplanes to scatter radioactive material over cities on the US west coast. The carrier submarines were 3/4 completed and test flights of the airplanes were being carried out when Japan surrendered.
Source: "Japanese Submarines of WW2" produced by The History Channel.

Sorry if this is a threadjack, but the ill-informed America-bashing which always surrounds the A-bomb discussion always irritates me.

Lebell

People do like to roam in a thread (see the spurious claim above that the US is a terrorist nation by the use of nukes in WW2), but the only person that even answered me did it by asking his own questions (which) I'll have to get back to later.

Question:

Is anyone going to deny that Iran has vowed to wipe Israel off the face of the earth?

Is anyone going to claim that Israel has vowed to wipe Iran off the face of the earth?

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joeshoe

I don't think the US could handle a simultaneous war with Iran while we still have our hands full with Iraq. We may have the military might, but the public won't tolerate it.

Coppertop

Oh I am quite informed about most of these matters, as I have a particular interest in all military matters particularly those regarding WW2. I stated above that we can argue all day about whether or not killing half a million civilians was necessary. I think that other measures might have proved equally effective. However, that is another thread. I merely pointed out that the US has used WMD on civilian populations in its past. I never said it was the only nation to do so. Merely that it is an act that we today associate with terrorists and any civilized people would condemn. I fully understand that (to some people) when we do perform these acts it is righteous, yet if others do the same it is terrorism.

And please tell me how this is "ill-informed America-bashing." I merely stated fact, if that displeases you, well... think about that.

An interesting side note: on the Hitler (sorry, History) channel right now is a program comparing the movie Tora! Tora! Tora! with the historical attack on Pearl Harbor. During this program they mentioned the fact that Japan preemptively attacked the US (partially) as a result of the US embargo on Japan. I couldn't help but think of the US' preemptive attack on Iraq. I found it rather synchronous with this discussion.

Coppertop

You obviously know little of America's past. This, among other actions, qualifies us.

Not I.

I've never heard of this happening.

joeshoe

To think that Bush's religious influence even compares to the the fanaticism of fundametalist countries is a complete delusion. They aren't even close in scale.

zen_tom

Ok, that's very noble of you, however, you then go on to say:
and:
Both of which are blatantly prejudiced (and largely false) things to say.
The issues over there are not due to religious fanaticism (though religion is a very convenient flag that both sides hold up to identify themselves) but to do with people having their homes bulldozed by a foreign population that arrived against their will 50 years ago, and in return to do with having your friends and families blown up while they sit at a cafe enjoying a sunday afternoon.

They only hate us because we fail to understand their predicament. We so easily fall into the trap of calling them religious fundamentalists and using those terms to explain their actions, but, having met a number of 'religious fanatics', or 'fundamentalist extremists' I know that while some of the things they say do sound a little odd sometimes, they are motivated by exactly the same things that motivate us. They don't hate us, but what they do hate is how events on the world stage are spun in the West's favour - it is a conflict, don't imagine that there is any moral high-ground.

There are of course those who's families have been killed by actions of 'Pre-Emptive Defense' or 'Counter Terrorism', or just driven from their homes by people of European origin, and perhaps it's understandable for them to hate us. If you take away their jobs and their future too, then it doesn't take much of a leap before suggesting they perform an act of grotesque revenge. All that virgin crap is the same sort of thing as the American Army's claim that all the dead soldiers are Great and Noble Heros. The truth of the matter is that soldiers are two a penny, and you have to fill them full of high-falluting psychological bullshit otherwise they wouldn't risk their lives for the crappy pay-packets they get. So Virgins, or Great Heros - Both run into the line of their own death - who's the fanatic?

Finally, imagine for a moment that you grew up in Iran instead of wherever it was that you actually grew up. Now try to imagine how you would see the situation.

Stompy

Ahhh religion... such a wonderful thing, eh?

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Lebell

Your assumption is incorrect.

As to other actions, I am not addressing other actions, I addressed your claim that our use of nuclear weapons to end WW2 qualified us as a terrorist nation.

This I state again is spurious.

This issue has been argued before in this forum, so I shan't go into depth, but at best you can claim that the war was about to end and that the Japanese were suing for peace, which I can refute by saying that the Japanese were arming civilians for a bloody last stand and that they still argued to keep fighting even after Hiroshima.

In any event, yours is the minority opinion among historians.

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MSD

Just FYI: Israel has vowed to not let this nuclear program get to the point at which a nuke is possible.

VTBrian

Bull, one word: Hezbollah. Please tell me noone actualy believes that. Do I think the Irianian government would ever use nukes? No, you would have to be crazy to fire a nuke at another country, and I think they are smarter than that. Do I think that some material might in some mysterious way find itself in the hands of a Hezbollah cell? Yes. Would Hezbollah hesitate to use it? No, and you would have to be kidding yourself to think otherwise. I think Isreal should wait and see how the EU Iran agreement turns out. If Iran does not stop pursuing nukes then it would be in Isreal's best interest to act. Not so much to try and control Iran, but to try and prevent Hezbollah from obtaining weapons grade material.

Jizz-Fritter

I'm guessing that was the whole point of Iran building nuclear weapons--hand's-off diplomacy.

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zen_tom

The thing with any Nuclear industry, everything has to be carefully checked and audited. Exact records of Uranium entering and exiting the plant need to be kept for safety reasons, and these records need to be made available to the outside world. Likewise, and especially for weapons-grade material - in fact it's the sort of information that all nuclear powers should be forced to make public by some international body (if this doesn't already happen)- If it were managed correctly, it would be an added control against misuse and the possibility of a non-governmental organisation getting their hands on dangerous material.

If such a bomb were to go off, it should be quick and straightforward matter to determine from where it came. And the consequences would be severe.

Lebell

That works great so long as that particular country doesn't try to hide it's participation in such an action.

In otherwords, how hard would it be to alter some records and mix in a few different isotopes to cloak such an action with plausible deniability just before a nuke wipes out Tel Aviv?

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zen_tom

If it is done properly, it would be very hard to do just that - every gram of uranium/plutonium needs to be accounted for, for very valid safety reasons, circumventing these checks would need to involve so many people that it would be very hard to do without the truth leaking out.

VTBrian

How about we just uninvent the stuff?

Lebell

I am actually very aware of what the safety reasons are as well as what the potential hazards are of uranium and plutonium production and bomb manufacture

No it would not be hard to do, not when it is state sanctioned.

Hell, I grew up not that terribly far from Rocky Flats (where H-bomb cores were made). There is still a horrible mess there with a lot of material going unaccounted for. (The couple of HUNDRED pounds of plutonium dust in the DUCT WORK is another story...)

This is BY ACCIDENT in the country that invented the bomb.

And you are saying that a state that wanted to purposefully keep 14.4 pounds (less with proper design) of bomb grade plutonium off the books couldn't do it?

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Ustwo

This is assuming an Iranian nuclear reactor was run exactly the same as a western one.

Obviously, as we have seen in the past, playing with safety is not unkown at nuclear plants.

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VTBrian

I agree that there is not much way you could saction it. There have been cases of missing material at US reactor sites, and we probably have the most strict rules regaurding acounting for the stuff. Thats not even concidering Russias problem with losing nuclear material. I just don't think simply regulating it will help. I think you have to make sure that a country like Iran is not capable of making bomb grade material, and if that means shutting down their entire program then so be it.

zen_tom

True, and it's caused the standards of control to rise - If any country were to operate any form of nuclear facility without these sorts of controls, there would be strong international pressure from all sides - not due to fears about bombs or terrorism, but on grounds for safety. The operation of a nuclear facility is by necessity an international operation, I doubt any state would be able to do it entirely on their own.

There is no reason to assume that an Iranian nuclear reactor would be run any differently than one in any other country. To run such a thing requires well educated, knowledgable personel, not, as some people seem to think, fanatical AK47 wielding madmen, intent on the destruction of Infidel usurpers.

Lebell

I wonder how anyone got that idea...

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Ustwo

Nope, no madmen here.

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zen_tom

There's one thing being a politician, quite another being a nuclear scientist. Any freak can become a politician, but in the case of Nuclear power, the scientists have control because without them, the politicians would have noting to polit over.