THIS is why we're intervening in Libya

[sandinista]

Even all that is nothing compared to what the Japanese did under Hirohito. Not even close.

oh I see...because one government did horrible things, well...that makes it OK for the US to do the same. Really good reasoning there coito.

http://www.zcommunications.org/michael- ... ard-herman

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_v._United_States

[Aos Si]

I think we should start a thread on the military necessity of Hiroshima and Nagasaki it's clear to me that none of the military leaders of the times deemed it a military necessity, just a political one. That would be fun.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were war crime so heinous that it beggers belief that apologetics is still being offered for what was amongst the most brutal bombing campaigns in the war Tokyo and Dresden included. Anyone who thinks it wasn't is as far as I am concerned an immoral scumbag. Clearly there were war crimes on all sides, we apologised for ours. You can't you are unable to apologise for your mistakes. Which is another reason why the world dislikes the US atm, it seems to everyone it has no integrity or honour. And the more right wing douchebags who stand up and defend its errors the more of a douchebag nation it seems and the more people learn to hate it. Whether 90% of people in the US agree with these sadly delusional individuals or not, they are loud mouthed apologist douchebags who drown out reason.

Back to the thread and topic and to Hiroshima: two wrongs do not make a right 300,000 dead innocent men women and children is not conscionable ever in war, no matter who the enemy, Hitler or some nice guy everyone likes, it just isn't it's despicable, cowardly and an act of evil the equal of George Bernard Shaws supposed defence of Hitler. It is an act per se of such moral repugnance and so reviled that even during our long history of brutality no one has ever tried to justify it, until now. America the nation that does wrong constantly, just like any other country, but can never do any wrong.

Why don't you apologist soap boxers all go live on another planet since you clearly don't belong to this one. Hehe, I'm kidding.

By the way that's one appaling act of great moral egregiousness you have tried to put up apologetics for, what about the others? There are a substantial number in that link. Are you going to excuse them all or what? Probably, patriotism can be an ugly and seedy little sower of evil. If those who forget history are doomed to repeat it, how much more terrified should we be of those who are so profligate with their moral standards that they refuse to accept it at all?

[Thumpalumpacus]

I disagree. Neither the United States nor the Allies were "bad" or "barbaric" in WWII.

I never said that the Allies were "bad". Tell me, is this strawman motif a regular part of your repertoire of discussion, or are you simply not thinking before you post? What I did say, and what you should limit yourself to addressing, is that in war, soldiers from all parties act in a barbaric manner; Americans included:

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/bo ... resden.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dachau_massacre
http://www.codoh.com/atro/atrusa4.html

Of course, I need not mention the firebombing of Tokyo in March of 1945; surely one so wise as yourself has already deemed those 85,000 civilian deaths justified.

[Aos Si]

That was an act so morally troubling to the UK that we felt the need to make reparations and to apologise 50 years later with great ceremony and sincerity. Never going to happen with Hiroshima or anything the US ever does. It doesn't do honour or apologies. Why should it it can never do wrong?

[Thumpalumpacus]

That was an act so morally troubling to the UK that we felt the need to make reparations and to apologise 50 years later with great ceremony and sincerity. Never going to happen with Hiroshima or anything the US ever does. It doesn't do honour or apologies. Why should it it can never do wrong?

There is a deep equivalence in those two atrocities; the fact that one used HE and incendiary while the other used fission is irrelevant when you boil it down; in both cases tens of thousands of civilians died.

I had accidentally pressed "submit" instead of bringing up my other window. I had no intention of tarring RAF aviators with a brush without mentioning the USAAF's part in that stuff, and apologize if that was the impression given by my mistake.

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, in war all nations commit atrocities to one scale or another.

However, your fixation on the evils of America is funny. Don't let me stop you with any small bit of grace.

[Aos Si]

That was an act so morally troubling to the UK that we felt the need to make reparations and to apologise 50 years later with great ceremony and sincerity. Never going to happen with Hiroshima or anything the US ever does. It doesn't do honour or apologies. Why should it it can never do wrong?

There is a deep equivalence in those two atrocities; the fact that one used HE and incendiary while the other used fission is irrelevant when you boil it down; in both cases tens of thousands of civilians died.

I had accidentally pressed "submit" instead of bringing up my other window. I had no intention of tarring RAF aviators with a brush without mentioning the USAAF's part in that stuff, and apologize if that was the impression given by my mistake.

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, in war all nations commit atrocities to one scale or another.

However, your fixation on the evils of America is funny. Don't let me stop you with any small bit of grace.

Ok lets have a go at my country then I'll start. Imperialist wankers and their egregious human rights violations.

Ffs shut up, these are plain died in the wool apologists, my nations crimes are well known and I don't seek to defend them. These people would excuse Hitler if he was from the US. I find that tragically comical. This has nothing to do with my nation specifically. But if you want to list all our crimes then go for it. I am not a person who stands or falls on the sins of my forefathers or my government. You missed the whole point while you were reading my posts just like CES did.

I think fission was worse because they knew full well no one within a certain radius was going to live and yet they dropped it in the centre of a high population civilian area anyway, they also knew they were dooming people to terribly painful deaths and or cancers in future. At least with the bombs of Dresden the primary target was military. Although whether you buy that or not is another matter of apologetics by Bomber Harris. Sounds about as hollow as the fact that Hiroshima had a naval port or a military base though doesn't it really, was it militarily necessary to crush German resistance, also questionable. Looked more like an act of cold blooded revenge to me. Most major cities generally do have military bases so what? Tokyo bombing achieved a much greater casualty toll but Hiroshima was an unnecessary act of political pragmatism, there is no reason to assume it either foreshortened the war or saved American lives. In fact the Bombing report of 1946 came to the exact opposite conclusion, but then Intelligence at Bomber command are liars and what the hell do they know?

[Thumpalumpacus]

I am actually agreeing with you.

The fact of the matter is that perhaps the most brutal thing we Americans perpetrated was the starvation of the Japanese mainland; I'm pretty sure that more died as a result of our "unrestricted submarine warfare" than were killed in the two nuclear attacks.

As far as whether fission is worse than incineration appears to me to be of academic interest to those being killed. Had Britain possessed a nuclear weapon in July 1944, at the height of the V-1 blitz, when Churchill was arguing with Lord Alanbrooke over using mustard gas in RAF bombs, it is certainly plausible that they would have used the Bomb had it been available; after all, it did not yet have attached the opprobrium of chemical weapons.

If you wish to parse morality have at it; myself, I simply understand that all war is brutal, and dying sucks. Anywhere between 15,000 (USAF) and 35,000 (Neillands), not to mention higher and less credible figures, died in Dresden. Of course, none of this counts the firestorms in Hamburg or Lubeck or Darmstadt. Acting as if Dresden was the only brutal act of the RAF is like acting as if Hiroshima was the only brutal act of the USAAF.

As to Hiroshima and Nagasaki foreshortening the war, they did so politically, not militarily or logistically. No one here is so stupid as to argue the latter. In that sense, they were more effective than the raids on Hamburg or Dresden. What Harris could not do in 3 years over Germany we did over Japan in less than one year: we quite literally bombed the Japanese to the table.

[Aos Si]

Actually you could argue that the only reason they were used was to scare the Bjesus out of Russia and that Japan had already asked for terms of surrender equivalent to Germany (which is a matter of record in war archives) and hence Truman was repeatedly asked by his subordinates to ammend the treaty so that immunity to the emperor (in case he was tried for war crimes- rather ironic considering he was merely a puppet figure really in the theatre of war and had always been since the age of the Shogunate) and political sovereignty was maintained ie the right to chose how to be governed. We even have copies of letters from Winston Churchill advising Truman to accept the Japanese terms, so that the war could be brought to a speedy end. Inf act it's rather odd that Truman proceeded to drop the bombs anyway given the great political wrangling that was going on in the cabinet and out, given the recent information we have from diaries and war records. I would argue that it wasn't even a political necessity, at least not for the reasons Truman gave. In fact almost the entire war cabinet in the US stated on the record that Japan was on its knees and the bombs were completely unnecessary at the time or some years later in diaries and or on the record programs/media.

I personally believe the only real motivation was to scare the living shit out of Russia and prevent it moving into Europe too far, and indeed Japan, as it was set to invade now that its German frontiers were down and it could return its vast armies to Kamchatka and other regions that could move on Japan from military bases. But that's meat for another thread. I do genuinely believe it was a political game solely and that Truman probably acted as an apologist about his real motivations, to spare America the trauma of his decision. The fact that Japan waited days after Hiroshima and all records say the bomb caused little political concern in the Japanese war cabinet, also tends to lend credence to this. The fact that the emperor surrendered as soon as it found out Russia had entered the war, neither after Nagasaki or Hiroshima, is also telling coming as it did several days after the first bomb. What was said off the record shows that there was a great deal of concern for Russia's movement into Japan in both Japan and the US. Japan was terrified not of more bombings, Tokyo had killed far far more people and done far far more damage, Japan was resolved to resist an already prodigious bombing campaign. There real concern was occupation by a communist state I think, and the honour of a small minority of people who wanted to fight on. Americas concern was probably likewise, a vassal communist state was an anathema to them.

I agree there were probably hundreds of human rights violations and war crimes in WWII only some of which we know about on all sides.

[T]he use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender. . . .

n being the first to use it, we . . . adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.

Admiral William D. Leahy, the President's Chief of Staff--and the top official who presided over meetings of both the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Combined U.S.-U.K. Chiefs of Staff, excerpt from his memoires.

LEMAY: The war would have been over in two weeks without the Russians entering and without the atomic bomb.

THE PRESS: You mean that, sir? Without the Russians and the atomic bomb?
. . .
LEMAY: The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all.

Twenty-First Bomber Command, Major General Curtis E. LeMay (as reported in THE NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE): On September 20, 1945

The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace before the atomic age was announced to the world with the destruction of Hiroshima and before the Russian entry into the war. . . .The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military standpoint, in the defeat of Japan.

Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet.

THE NEW YORK TIMES report on a public address at the Washington war monument, October 6, 1945.

very vivid in my mind. . . . I can recall as if it were yesterday, [Marshall's] insistence to me that whether we should drop an atomic bomb on Japan was a matter for the President to decide, not the Chief of Staff since it was not a military question . . . the question of whether we should drop this new bomb on Japan, in his judgment, involved such imponderable considerations as to remove it from the field of a military decision.

Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall in a discussion with former Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy.

During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives

Dwight Eisenhower: personal memoirs.

The President in giving his approval for these [atomic] attacks appeared to believe that many thousands of American troops would be killed in invading Japan, and in this he was entirely correct; but King felt, as he had pointed out many times, that the dilemma was an unnecessary one, for had we been willing to wait, the effective naval blockade would, in the course of time, have starved the Japanese into submission through lack of oil, rice, medicines, and other essential materials.

Autobiography of commander in chief of the U.S. Fleet and chief of Naval Operations, Ernest J. King.

Also a matter of record is Joint Chiefs of Staff felt so strongly about the matter that at Potsdam (the treaty Germany signed) they went so far as to ask the British Chiefs of Staff to try to get Prime Minister Churchill to persuade President Truman to clarify assurances for the Emperor. (The British Chiefs did do this and Churchill did approach Truman) the U.S. Chiefs also made a direct approach to the President themselves on the same matter before the bomb was used.

War is such a murky business. But I doubt the US is ready to admit the political realities of the situation in either its history books or to itself.

[egbert]

GW Bush reaction to 9/11 news...



Sumthin fishy about all this...

LOL - yes, it was a grand conspiracy of which GWBush knew in advance what was going to happen. All went perfectly as planned....except....they were too stupid to just have him be sitting in the West Wing that morning, not on camera.

Oh, and right after the 9/11 attack, Bush halted all air traffic in the USA, EXCEPT FOR THE BIN LADEN FAMILY! EVERYONE ELSE was a "security risk"!

[Thumpalumpacus]

Actually you could argue that the only reason they were used was to scare the Bjesus out of Russia and that Japan had already asked for terms of surrender equivalent to Germany (which is a matter of record in war archives) and hence Truman was repeatedly asked by his subordinates to ammend the treaty so that immunity to the emperor (in case he was tried for war crimes- rather ironic considering he was merely a puppet figure really in the theatre of war and had always been since the age of the Shogunate) and political sovereignty was maintained ie the right to chose how to be governed. We even have copies of letters from Winston Churchill advising Truman to accept the Japanese terms, so that the war could be brought to a speedy end. Inf act it's rather odd that Truman proceeded to drop the bombs anyway given the great political wrangling that was going on in the cabinet and out, given the recent information we have from diaries and war records. I would argue that it wasn't even a political necessity, at least not for the reasons Truman gave. In fact almost the entire war cabinet in the US stated on the record that Japan was on its knees and the bombs were completely unnecessary at the time or some years later in diaries and or on the record programs/media.

Absolutely. Truman had already taken his measure of Stalin at Potsdam and knew he was dealing with a first-class sonofabitch. I'm pretty sure that Stalin's lukewarm response to the news from White Sands during Potsdam only made Truman more determined to drop the bomb, as a means of intimidation.

Of course, Truman's domestic political situation probably had an input as well. Had the war dragged on, his numbers would've fallen even faster than they actually did in autumn 1945.

I personally believe the only real motivation was to scare the living shit out of Russia and prevent it moving into Europe too far, and indeed Japan, as it was set to invade now that its German frontiers were down and it could return its vast armies to Kamchatka and other regions that could move on Japan from military bases. But that's meat for another thread. I do genuinely believe it was a political game solely and that Truman probably acted as an apologist about his real motivations, to spare America the trauma of his decision. The fact that Japan waited days after Hiroshima and all records say the bomb caused little political concern in the Japanese war cabinet, also tends to lend credence to this. The fact that the emperor surrendered as soon as it found out Russia had entered the war, neither after Nagasaki or Hiroshima, is also telling coming as it did several days after the first bomb. What was said off the record shows that there was a great deal of concern for Russia's movement into Japan in both Japan and the US. Japan was terrified not of more bombings, Tokyo had killed far far more people and done far far more damage, Japan was resolved to resist an already prodigious bombing campaign. There real concern was occupation by a communist state I think, and the honour of a small minority of people who wanted to fight on. Americas concern was probably likewise, a vassal communist state was an anathema to them.

The bombings certainly worried a significant portion of the Konoye Cabinet, but you're right in asserting that Communism terrified them, I think. That strand can be followed through their history back to at least 1915, if not earlier.

Given the back-channel negotiations between the Japanese and the Russians in the summer of 45, coupled with the Russian penetration of the Manhattan Project, I'd be willing to bet the Japanese knew we'd shot our wad with Nagasaki.

I agree there were probably hundreds of human rights violations and war crimes in WWII only some of which we know about on all sides.

It's nice to be able to agree, isn't it, even if the subject matter is so odious?

[egbert]

But it is well known and documented that Saddam set up literally thousands of bank accounts into which he placed money stolen from the Iraqi people.

One month after the invasion of Iraq, the United States began airlifting planeloads of cash to Baghdad. Between April 2003 and June 2004, a total of $12 billion dollars of US currency was shipped to Iraq where it was to be dispensed by the Coalition Provisional Authority for reconstruction. To date, at least $9 billion dollars cannot be accounted for.

http://www.infowars.com/articles/iraq/c ... issing.htm

Who did the US steal that money from?

[Coito ergo sum]

[

Oh, and right after the 9/11 attack, Bush halted all air traffic in the USA, EXCEPT FOR THE BIN LADEN FAMILY! EVERYONE ELSE was a "security risk"!

Retarded conspiracy theory.

Let's assume that such a flight occurred: Yes, it was all part of the master plan. Bush knew the hit was coming. He had prior knowledge. So, rather than get the Saudi Royal family out of the country before the events of 9/11, and avoid all suspicion, the grand conspirators forgot about them. They happened to remember right after the towers came down, and said "hey! We gotta get the bin Laden family out of the country, quick!" They could orchestrate the grand conspiracy in secret, but it was too much for them to get a few people out of the country without being noticed. Right.

But, let's quickly address the truth, rather than conspiracy nutter claptrap: One, "all" air traffic in the US was NOT halted. On 9/11 and 9/12, MOST air traffic was halted - the military and specially FAA-authorized flights that delivered life-saving medical necessities were in the air. Air traffic was allowed to resume at 11am 9/13.

There is no evidence that any flights of any Saudi nationals occurred before private flying restarted on 9/13. National airspace was reopened. And, about 160 Saudi nationals left on multiple flights between 9/14 and 9/24. All the flights were screened by the FBI. There is no evidence that the President knew anything about the flights at all.

[Coito ergo sum]

Even all that is nothing compared to what the Japanese did under Hirohito. Not even close.

oh I see...because one government did horrible things, well...that makes it OK for the US to do the same. Really good reasoning there coito.

Who said it was "o.k?" My assertion was clear to everyone except a fucking idiot. One is worse than the other. That doesn't make either one "o.k." Christ on bicycle... and we were talking about WW2, and specifically WW2.

[egbert]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wa ... ted_crimes

As of late January, 2011, Exxon/Mobile has resumed explorationary drilling in Libya after

Hmmm...wonder if that has any effect on the current situation

Nah, when has Big Oil ever influenced politics....

exchange of the Lockerbie bombing terrorist(genocide charge pending in new prosecution)was returned to Libya and Libya was taken off terrorist list by the Bush administration with the legal stipulation that Libya could never be prosecuted for past war crimes(regardless of guilt)in the future.

Well, I guess that lets Qaddafi off the hook for anything...

[Thumpalumpacus]

AFRICOM released a vaguely worded statement on April 7 indicating that they might send in ground troops if given the command. “The Command is prepared to respond in a variety of ways pending National decisions. We will maintain our steady focus on security cooperation with our African partners, and stand ready to protect American lives and interests,” AFRICOM’s “Posture Statement” stipulated. The posture statement failed to elaborate on what “national decisions” it was awaiting or what “variety of ways” that it was considering.

Ham’s remarks appear to contradict statements last month by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. “There will be no American boots on the ground in Libya,” Gates promised in congressional hearings March 31. He even added, responding to a question about whether there could be ground troops in the future: “Not as long as I’m in this job.” Gates claimed that coalition military operations in Libya are not directly aimed at ending the regime of Moammar Gadhafi, though he conceded that U.S. efforts would help toward that end. “In my view,” Gates said, “the removal of Colonel Qaddafi will likely be achieved over time through political and economic measures and by his own people.”

Ham’s remarks prompted an April 8 Washington Times editorial that predicts ground troops in Libya:

The siege of Libya’s third largest city of Misrata threatens to become a catastrophe. Food, water and medical supplies for the city’s 300,000 people are running short. Qaddafi forces are fighting a bloody unconventional urban battle for the city that cannot effectively be stopped by air strikes alone. Hundreds have been killed or wounded. The North Atlantic Council is looking into ways to lift the siege, but absent ground forces, it’s unclear what can be done.

http://patdollard.com/2011/04/general-s ... -in-libya/

Fucking Christ, exactly how stupid is the military brass?