Sovereign nation. Ok, so it would be ok for China or Russia to bomb us if they warned first and asked for surrender. Got it. What if you were threatening no one? Btw, the little thing you posted in quotes, sounds like something a communist or suicide terrorist would say. Not a free American. After all, I doubt you would be willing to give up your parent or child, brother or sister to save 1,000 others. Or would you? Actually, I am consistently antiwar. I believe in self-defense, not wars of aggression. I don't believe I have a right to kill people who think differently than me, or people who have resources I want. The ends justifies the means indicates that you believe murder is acceptable. Is this correct? 9/11 was mass murder. But you're ok with that, because you claim that the end, always justifies the means. Right? As for the rest, this post is starting to get very thick with Ad Hominem. I was employing a rhetorical tool. Inferring that you are a hypocrite. Like I said, you might want to start reading or sumfin. I don't believe Alex writes books. Let's start with Rudy's Reading List. The 9/11 Commission Report Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire by Chalmers Johnson Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror by Michael Scheuer (the former Chief of the CIA’s bin Laden Unit, Alec Station) Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism by Professor Robert A. Pape of the University of Chicago No, I don't get your drift. You thought you would take a personal shot at me, indicating that I was in 9th grade and working at a burger joint. Apparently you thought that was funny. Meanwhile, you owe a big chunk of your life to your time at Hardees. And I'm not just talking about the employee of the month awards, get my drift? Next time, think before you make an Ad Hominem attack on someone for being what you are. You got caught out, in a big way. lmao. I'm not feeling mocked. I'm not insecure like some. I don't start my life in a burger joint, flipping fries like *some people* in this thread, and then turn around and try to insult someone by saying they work in a burget joint. What next, you gunna accuse me of being in a band called TREASON? I so desperately need to get a blog on blog spot, and just blog all of your daily attacks on me. I'm drunk, I'm under the influence of drugs, I feel guilty about 9/11, I work in a burger joint, you support me with your taxes lol It's really funny stuff. You're either a really cool guy with a wild sense of humour, or someone who thinks after posting to me for nearly a year, that talking tough will get me to back down. It's pretty good. I'm actually hoping you're a cool guy.
Ok. Is it ok to go with "sometimes" as an answer? No. However, there are limits to that logic. For example, I could say that taxpaying civilians fund the army I am fighting, so I have to kill the taxpayers, because they are not really non-combatants. Silly things like that. I think bombing a city, across the Pacific ocean, with a mostly civilian population, is not acceptable. It is clearly an attack on civilians, and as such, is terrorism. If you don't mind carrying on with this, I'd like to know what your definition of terror is. Well, the "ends justifies the means" is a good step towards this sort of future. Nah, that's just the anti-intellectualism talking.
I posted this before. PROMINENT PEOPLE WHO DISAGREED WITH THE ATOMIC BOMBING The idea that it ended the war & saved 500 thousand lives is propaganda, fed to the masses to quiet their guilt.
1. Ended the war 2. Saved X number of lives. There is no question it accomplished the first since Japan did surrender after the attack and before it they refused. You don't really dispute that fact do you? As to the second, I am not going to bicker over numbers but clearly America would have lost more lives by continuing fighting with Japan. The net savings of US lives cannot be known with any certainty.
yeah, I believe so, of course they would say something like this, but I do not think its to quiet the masses feel of guilt, who in USA ever felt guilty about it? the people did not do it, the Governments repeated it (wars and killing) elsewhere.
Right. And I'm still confused about the moral authority behind killing 200,000 Japanese, so that an unspecified number of Americans don't die in the future. By that rationale, we should exterminate everyone, so that no foreign power can ever kill another American.
This is a fantastic post. And Mia said the people who agreed with me were all banned. Seems like this forum gets a little more "fair and balanced" each day! Nice to be on your side of this issue.
No because we are not war with everybody else. We were at war with Japan. They would of done the same thing. Kill others to save their own lives. That is generally how a war works. Nobody will deny war is a bad thing but for the situation we as Americans did what was right. When we are in a war of that magnitude with another country we are not going to look for ways to beat them and get more of our soldiers killed. We are going to beat them and save as many of our troops as possible. You can try to say its a bad thing but the fact of the matter is we did what was right for our country. War sucks.
Your theory is flawed. We would not tolerate ANY attack on our citizenry, non-combatant civilians, regardless of whether we were at war or not. It would be called terrorism, an atrocity etc. But when we do it to others, it's "just the way war goes". That's hypocritical. I think it was Ferret who recently asked Will.Spencer, if someone could attack Texas because they kill people by way of capital punishment. Maybe a more enlightened people, like say the New Zealanders should be able to bring freedom and justice to Texas by invading. A similar rationale to what was used to go into Iraq. Would we tolerate that? Would we tolerate SHOCK AND AWE over San Antonio and Houston? Of course not. So please spare your explanations, they aren't rationally consistent at all. You seem to think you are better than an Iraqi. Or a Chinaman. Or an Afghani. Or a Palestinian.
If I recall we went to war because we were attacked. Even if we knew about a possible attack and let it happen that still does not mean we were not attacked first. So no we would not tolerate that. But at the same time you are flawed because you are forgetting the fact that we were at war. You talk as if we dropped nukes on them just for the hell of it. Because it is during wars that we do so. That is a complete different situation. We do not go to war because nations have executions. And Iraq was nothing close to that. Do not be absurd. Your explanations are flawed. You take one example and compare it to something entirely unrelated and out of proportion. And please quote where I have ever said anything close to the extent of thinking I am better then any of those groups.
I've often wondered if there would be this much controversy if the A-bomb had been dropped on Berlin instead of Hiroshima. (Yes I know, Germany had already surrendered before the bomb was fully operational. But just suppose that were not the case). We all know the atrocities that the Nazia committed which as far as I'm concerned would have been justification enough for dropping the bomb on them had the it been ready before April, 1945. I don't know to the extent that Americans are familiar with the horrors committed by the Japanese against China, Korea, and the Philippines, but IMHO from those war crimes alone, Japan also had it coming, especially if it ended the war sooner. When it comes to casualties including civilians, the firebombing Tokyo, Hamburg, and Dresden took a lot more lives than the A-bomb. So why is there relatively less breast-beating about those raids by opponents of the Hiroshima and Nakasaki attacks?
Everyone who has anything to do with, or studies Foreign policy, knows that sanctions are an act of war. The US put oil sanctions on Japan first. The Japanese did not decide to arbitrarily sail to PH and attack. I don't care what horrors the Japanese government committed, that doesn't justify killing civilians. To think otherwise, shows a level of moral depravity that sickens me. Because I found new photos posted to the web and started a thread. Are you concerned that we're not discussing all of the atrocities? The folks arguing that killing civilians is justified, would be pretty big hypocrites to condemn 9/11, if they think that civilians are fair game.
Lots of atrocities over the history of mankind's existence. We could fight all day over them. Hope the coming generations are more tolerant and intelligent. Prevention is better than cure. What is funny to me is that some people seem to think that US did japan a favour by nuking them There was one guy around here like that, forgot his name, maybe it's better that way.
Problem: Have war. Evade: Diplomacy. Give him 1/5th of JD and a large joint, make sure diplomacy is drunk/subdued for the process. Solution: Drop large bomb upon unsuspecting populace. End-Result: Hopefully no more war, at expense of innocent lives.