"I don't know with what weapons World War Three will be fought...

[tjwash]

...but World War Four will be fought with sticks and stones."----Albert Einstein

Why?

Why does the White House thinks it's A-OK, in the first place to dictate to the rest of the world who can have nukes, even if that country is at least 10 years away from developing them? And why do a substantial amount of people here here in US of A just seems to be just fine with that? Why is Bush still in office? Why are people collectively sticking their heads in the sand over the idiotic repercussions of the actions of the recent years?

WHY?

It seems that throughout history, the countries that are the ripest for a fascist takeover, are the ones in which the people think that "it could never happen here." Have we as a nation grown so damn fat and complacent over the years that it has come to this? That a sitting President, with an approval rating lower than Nixon during the height of his impeachment, can talk with absolute impunity, about using nuclear weapons against an independent sovereign nation?

I honestly don't know. What I DO know, is that we, as a people, are one of the few nations, that hasn't had to face armed conflicts and oppression in our own backyards. It does appear, that we as a nation have grown so ignorant, so COMPLACENT, that we think this is some kind of a game. That we are just going to close the curtains, change to another of our 200 satellite channels make another cappuccino, and ignore the shots in the street.

And don't pull the 9-11 crap. That was not armed conflict. I'm talking about Chinese and Russian tanks rolling over Mr. Smiths new garage extension, and reducing the local Walmart to rubble. I'm talking about other countries soldiers lining up a hundred Americans in a ditch, wiping out the lot of them, and bulldozing a huge pile of dirt on top of the bodies. Events that we have never had happen on our own soil, and events that we think that we are immune to. Events that we are used to causing, not being the recipient of.

Events that are going to happen if we move one step further in nuking Iran. We at DU have provided hundreds of links, articles, and news stories in the past six months or so, of the ties that bind Iran, China, and Russia. If you don't know anything those ties already, don't bother asking for them now, because you are most likely what is wrong with our country at the moment.

I'm shocked, I'm sad, and it's palm sunday. I am going to church this morning, and I feel as if I am going there to mourn the death of the country I grew up in.

And if any lurking freepers feel like crawling out from under their rocks wants to flame me for this, please try to be creative. Don't try and justify the fact that we are the only country in the world that has blood on it's hands for using nukes on another nation. Try to be a little smarter than using the generic canned excuses that were spun to make us feel better for murdering people in the first place, such as:

1) They would have done it to us. Yes, and the "they would have done it to us" crap has kids coming home daily in body bags from Iraq right now. Meanwhile the real terrorists, that was used to justify placing troops in the Middle East to begin with, are running around the world with the same impunity, if not more than they had BEFORE 9-11.

2)It would have dragged out WWII longer. Sure, if that steaming pile of cow manure makes you feel better about it, so be it, but it does not change the fact that we did it, and bypassed every bit of diplomacy, and world support that we had at the time to try out our new toys on some real live people.

3)It only happened once in history, and it was to end it before more bloodshed. See 1 and 2, plus the holocaust only happened once as well. So did the U.S. Civil War. Shall we put Germany in charge of Relations with Israel, because they feel really really bad about it and learned from the experience?

[tjwash]

1. Edited for spelling mistakes.

And a big thank you to those who voted for GP by the way...

[freeplurker14]

2. just my $.02 on this

To answer a few of your specific points about WWII 

1 - while the Japanese had no nuclear program to speak of,
they had a very extensive biological weapons program that they
tested on Chinese in Manchuria, in fact people still come down
with strong strains of the various diseases they developed. In
the closing year of the war there was a detailed plan to
release some of these biological agents on the west coast of
the United States.

2 – the “drag out world war II longer” argument is a bit more
complex but I think there are two very specific rationales
(whether you feel they are justified or not is another matter)


First is the battle for Okinawa, a small island, about 400
square miles was of course the first land battle of
consequence on the Japanese home islands

American losses were 12,000 killed, 30,000 wounded, 34 ships
sunk, 368 ships damaged and a loss of 763 aircraft.

Japanese losses were 107,000 dead soldiers and as many as
100,000 dead civilians!

This is after the fighting strength of the Japanese navy and
air force and industry in general were heavily diminished by
heavy allied bombing.

I think any military or civilian leader looking at these kind
of losses would think that the invasion of Japan would require
a very high price indeed.

The other factor is much more “realpolitik” if you will, but
never the less I think it would be extremely foolish to doubt
that had he been given the opportunity Stalin would have taken
a nice big chunk of Japan and the rest of Asia had he been
given more of an opportunity by the expiration of his non
aggression pact with Japan .

(in fact in the closing months of the war Japanese diplomats
were in Moscow trying to broker a deal, but Stalin thought
time was on his side)

In fact the USSR did in fact take de-facto control of
Manchuria giving an invaluable boost to Mao’s forces.

And as a follow-up point, I think the threat of these terrible
weapons certainly helped keep the people of West Berlin free
of soviet occupation (and the terrible precident that would
have set)


Snippet from a recent article about Iran:

Ever since September 11, the subtext of this war could be
summed up as something like, “Suburban Jason, with his iPod,
godlessness, and earring, loves to live too much to die, while
Ali, raised as the 11th son of an impoverished but devout
street-sweeper in Damascus, loves death too much to live.” The
Iranians, like bin Laden, promulgate this mythical antithesis,
which, like all caricatures, has elements of truth in it. But
what the Iranians, like the al Qaedists, do not fully fathom,
is that Jason, upon concluding that he would lose not only his
iPod and earring, but his entire family and suburb as well, is
capable of conjuring up things far more frightening than
anything in the 8th-century brain of Mr. Ahmadinejad.
Unfortunately, the barbarity of the nightmares at Antietam,
Verdun, Dresden, and Hiroshima prove that well enough.

[Crayson]

3. very good reading

I specially like the last snippet.

[IntravenousDemilo]

4. Well, now, you're saying:

"And as a follow-up point, I think the threat of these terrible weapons certainly helped keep the people of West Berlin free of soviet occupation (and the terrible precident that would have set)."

To which I say that non-racist, pure-as-the-driven-snow America would never think of dropping the Bomb on the Soviets, or even on the Nazis (though it was ready before VE Day). Wouldn't want to destroy a lot of people's ancestral homeland. The "little yellow monkeys" of Japan, sure, it's OK to nuke them, but not white people.

Unfortunately for the people of Iran, to the government of the United States they look more like "little yellow monkeys" than they do like white people. If Iranians all had blond hair and blue eyes and pale skin, bunker buster bombs wouldn't even be remotely considered. But it's OK with brown people; nuke away...

[freeplurker14]

6. RE: Well, now, you're saying

I guess Stalin certainly thought we would, his simple minded view of the US and the western democracies in general was that Americans would never go to war over germany after just fighting them a few years earlier. I suppose you could say that this is the same simple minded attitude towards the Japanese that lead to their internment here. Our view was that a Japanese person could not have any kind of loyalty except to die for his emperor.

Unfortunately the barbaric and stupid actions of the Japanese military on Okinawa proved their point exactly.

While I think that (among many other incidents) the attempted coup against Hitler proved something else entirely in the mind of American strategists.

I suppose your augment might hold water if the bomb was ready say before D-Day for full testing.

and regardless I think this view is relatively simplistic simply based on what I think was our relativly decent and just occupation by MacArthur

oh and one other side note:

Kyoto, the top choice of Major General Groves' Target Committee, was never bombed. On May 30, 1945, Groves met Secretary of War Stimson, who asked for the target list. Stimson vetoed Kyoto because it "was he ancient capital of Japan, a historical city, and one that was of great religious significance to the Japanese." He had visited the city several times and was "very much impressed by its ancient culture." Stimson was concerned that the destroying Kyoto would permanently embitter the Japanese against the United States and increase Soviet influence in Japan. Groves argued that Kyoto had a population of over a million, did much war work and had a highly suitable geography for the bomb.

[tjwash]

7. Thank you.

Let me preface this, by saying that I normally do not respond to posts that are obvious cut and paste garbage off of poorly written right wing blogs.

I do need to thank you, however, for proving every single point I was trying to make for me, and volunteering yourself as an example of the 31 or 32 percent of the people in this country that still will follow, in lockstep, to this corrupt administration and what ever disastrous decision that they care to force on the true majority of our beloved country.

You happily rationalize away every single atrocity that our country commits, as necessary and good for the world, and in the case, with the 50000 plus Japanese being exterminated, you actually have the audacity, to say that they had it coming. You actually cherry picked some history that was written by the victors, and try to pass off the myth, that a country that was utterly defeated, had it's last allie go down to defeat, had an entirely devastated infrastructure and economy because of the war, and literally had the entire world against it at the time, was prepared to drag the war on for years to come. For shame. Try and reading a little Japanese history. Try to see it from the point of view that WASN'T written by the victors of the war, and last try doing a little traveling of the world and go to some of these places that you are obviously so insulated from.

You are what is wrong with our country, and I really want to thank you for showing the world what you really are. You are every bit as despicable a human being, as the rapist who sits in court, and tries to blame his victim for being raped.

The last paragraph you present is is the real laugher. You actually are still using that same, tired, GOP tactic of using "Iran" and "Al-Queda" in the same sentence. Yes, You are actually have yourself convinced that Iran, and Al-Queda are one in the same and that is absolutely pathetic. You don't even attempt to answer the basic questions of WHY a country would seek war with the US when it would be a tremendous detriment fiscally, and infra-structurally. You don't even acknowledge how Iran was 100 percent on our side after 9-11, the outpouring of sympathy from the Iranian people after-wards, and how your heroes in this administration pissed all of that goodwill away.

So once again, my final response ever to you....thank you.

[toymachines]

5. I love that quote

I like the thoughts you have written on. I especially like the metaphor of Germany and Isreal. This made me think in ways I hadn't really before. Perhaps you should make this into an op ed and send it in to your local newspaper, inform some of the masses, who are in dire need of information. I too could seen cognitive dissonance work its magic as Americans "close the curtains... and ignore the shots in the street." Couldn't happen here... :eyes: