I bet he won't do that again.

[Sooty Stoo]

Originally Posted by dublinbay

First casualty of war is the truth.

I always though the first casualty of war is those poor little conscripts haircuts

[dublinbay]

Originally Posted by Sooty Stoo

I always though the first casualty of war is those poor little conscripts haircuts

They`re generally dished out either
a. before the war kicks off
or
b. before they send you to join the war.
In the meantime, truth is long buried and the young enlisted men/women and civilians pay the debt for the suits/dollars/religion/pound/president/euro/oil etc

[BJ]

Do you think the Israelis, with their huge nuclear capability, will stand by and let the Iranians develop one nuclear bomb?
The Iranians have simply got their own version of George Bush!

[Richard Mason]

Originally Posted by BJ

Do you think the Israelis, with their huge nuclear capability, will stand by and let the Iranians develop one nuclear bomb?

One would hope not.

Originally Posted by BJ

The Iranians have simply got their own version of George Bush!

Except George W will probably die of old age.

[BJ]

Lets not forget the nation that dropped two nuclear devices on soft civilian targets (wooden-built cities with no strategic importance) rather than military or military-production targets because "they were too well defended".

[Richard Mason]

Originally Posted by BJ

Lets not forget the nation that dropped two nuclear devices on soft civilian targets (wooden-built cities with no strategic importance) rather than military or military-production targets because "they were too well defended".

All very well for us to be smug and dismissive John, some others who were closer to the action had somewhat different views.

My Grandfather, who having fought his way across North Africa, Italy and finally Germany, was then put on a boat to India preparatory to taking part in the invasion of Japan, proposed for 1946 and expected to result in a million allied casualties, (based on the experiences at Okinawa and Iwo Jima) was pretty relieved when they got the news - a couple of hundred thousand people seemed a light price to pay in the context of what they were expecting....and, had an allied invasion of the Home Islands taken place, light civilian casualties too.

The A-bombs were spectacular and devastating for a single weapon but the fact is that similar levels of damage and casualties were inflicted on Japanese and German cities by the area bombing offensives conducted at that time, yet you hear very little of them - the Tokyo raids cleared more ground & killed more people.

We focus on the devastation of a nuclear weapon but the reality is that a 12 Kt nuke going off 500 metres away isn't a great deal different, in the eye of the beholder to a 1000lb HE bomb hitting the next door neighbour's back yard or an incendiary crashing through your roof.

Similarly, Japan was not averse to inflicting mass casualties, such as the Nanking Massacre, involving 300,000 deaths according to the Chinese, 100,000 - 200,000 according to Japanese historians, and apparently, for no other reason than bloodlust.

If we are going to pile guilt on the USA for this action, then you have to look at it through the prism of the times and the devastating war, no surrender-take no prisoners that was still in progress.

[dublinbay]

Originally Posted by BJ

Lets not forget the nation that dropped two nuclear devices on soft civilian targets..............

While the country was ablaze from fire bombing. And said same country has been at war in various guises since 1945. Was`nt it the USSR that were the bad guys? Or was it the Koreans? Maybe the Vietnamese? Salvadorians? Grenadians? Cubans? Bolivians? French? Taliban? Iraq? Iran? Syria? Hamas? Canadians? etc etc etc. Sooner or later, we will be added to the list. The Crusades are over. Israel needs to wind in its neck. Palestinians need their own land. USA needs to keep its beak out of the oil business. How about someone (USA,Israel.....) giving Robert Mugabe 2 warning shots behind the left ear? Sorting out the civil wars in Africa? Israel could put that billions of dollars worth of new military hardware to good use there, courtesy of the USofA.

[Richard Mason]

Originally Posted by dublinbay

While the country was ablaze from fire bombing. And said same country has been at war in various guises since 1945. Was`nt it the USSR that were the bad guys? Or was it the Koreans? Maybe the Vietnamese? Salvadorians? Grenadians? Cubans? Bolivians? French? Taliban? Iraq? Iran? Syria? Hamas? Canadians? etc etc etc. Sooner or later, we will be added to the list. The Crusades are over. Israel needs to wind in its neck. Palestinians need their own land. USA needs to keep its beak out of the oil business. How about someone (USA,Israel.....) giving Robert Mugabe 2 warning shots behind the left ear? Sorting out the civil wars in Africa? Israel could put that billions of dollars worth of new military hardware to good use there, courtesy of the USofA.

It was a war against Nazism & Japanese militarism, dog eat dog, live or die, them or us against vicious beastly regimes who had already shown what, if left to their own devices, they were capable of against people who offered no threat to them.

Whilst I certainly don't support the notion of 2 x wrong = 1 x right, in the overall conflict (starting in the mid 1930s), Germany & Japan certainly did more wrong than was done against them and prior to Pearl Harbor, everyone bar none was straining to get the Americans involved.

That was the context and that's certainly the thinking of the most of the people who were at the sharp end at the time.

Soviet Union? Ask my father in law's wife, who grew up in East Germany, ask the Poles, the Czechs etc, they certainly voted with their feet when push came to shove. And they had to build a fence to keep them all in.

Taliban? great guys...love em. North Koreans - wonderful enlightened junta there too, South Korea, forging ahead, North Korea, in the Iron Age, heading to the Stone Age, can't feed their people, can't even keep em warm. Iran - running desperately short of fossil fuels, so they need a nuclear programme to keep the lights on...yeah right and while they're about it, hang the puffdahs and any woman who is suspected of dancing the extra marital horizontal polka, sounds fair to me.

It's alright sitting in a place like Ireland that even the Germans couldn't be arsed with, criticizing the Israelis but if the people around you speak only of pushing you into the sea, perhaps you'd have a different view.

The USA is not perfect, but I'd throw my lot in with them a long time before either of the other major powers.

How about the Irish going and giving Mugabe 2 shots behind the ear then? It's no good spending the whole of the century as a neutral irrelevance, being carried by NATO, and before that the Allies through WW2, (although granted that a huge number of Irish individually served and continue to serve in British, US Army etc), then whingeing about what the rest of the world does or doesn't do.

[BJ]

It's a question of imbalance in foreign policy. Jimmy Carter reveals in his new book that the USA subsidies Israel to the tune of a BILLION dollars per day!

(I am not anti-semitic. My maternal grandmother was Jewish.)

[dublinbay]

Originally Posted by Richard Mason

It was a war against Nazism & Japanese militarism, dog eat dog, live or die, them or us against vicious beastly regimes who had already shown what, if left to their own devices, they were capable of against people who offered no threat to them.

Whilst I certainly don't support the notion of 2 x wrong = 1 x right, in the overall conflict (starting in the mid 1930s), Germany & Japan certainly did more wrong than was done against them and prior to Pearl Harbor, everyone bar none was straining to get the Americans involved.

That was the context and that's certainly the thinking of the most of the people who were at the sharp end at the time.

Soviet Union? Ask my father in law's wife, who grew up in East Germany, ask the Poles, the Czechs etc, they certainly voted with their feet when push came to shove. And they had to build a fence to keep them all in.

Taliban? great guys...love em. North Koreans - wonderful enlightened junta there too, South Korea, forging ahead, North Korea, in the Iron Age, heading to the Stone Age, can't feed their people, can't even keep em warm. Iran - running desperately short of fossil fuels, so they need a nuclear programme to keep the lights on...yeah right and while they're about it, hang the puffdahs and any woman who is suspected of dancing the extra marital horizontal polka, sounds fair to me.

It's alright sitting in a place like Ireland that even the Germans couldn't be arsed with, criticizing the Israelis but if the people around you speak only of pushing you into the sea, perhaps you'd have a different view.

The USA is not perfect, but I'd throw my lot in with them a long time before either of the other major powers.

How about the Irish going and giving Mugabe 2 shots behind the ear then? It's no good spending the whole of the century as a neutral irrelevance, being carried by NATO, and before that the Allies through WW2, (although granted that a huge number of Irish individually served and continue to serve in British, US Army etc), then whingeing about what the rest of the world does or doesn't do.

Robert S Mcnamara was quoted after Big and Little Boy drops, that if they lost the war, he and others would be prosecuted as war criminals. Dont know why you are making it personal with your references to Ireland, but the Irish won more VC`s and medals per capita of servicemen than anyone else. We generally have a sense of right and wrong because of our history. Queen Victoria exported our greatest minds to Australia, be grateful for that. This is speakers corner. You put the original post up for comment. Now accept the comments without snide remarks about my country. If you accept that the USA are guilt free in this latest event in world history, so be it. Just pray that the Chiefs of Staff know where Australia is, unlike some Americans who think its Iran.
Neutrality is not the issue here. The Iranians were sucker punched before the debate. Whether they are good or bad depends on your perspective. The Israelis say they will destroy any nuclear developement. Thats ok. The Arabs say they will push the Israelis into the sea. Thats not ok. The Israelis are not goverened by international law,same as the USA. Thats ok. The Arab states must comply with international law . Thats ok.
Open your eyes Richard. There are 2 sets of rules being employed in the geo politic by the USA for the last 62 years. Rule of thumb is, if it makes a dollar, keep it. If it threatens making a dollar, kill it.
Irrevelance. Never. NATO, not in it. 700 years of war will change your perspective Richard. Torture ok in your book? Killing gays or women is not ok with me. Neither is torture or lying. You missed the point totally. While the US was pointing everyones attention towards the Eastern bloc, who was watching them? There is their side of the story, there is the other siode of the story and then there is the truth of the story, and no one has heard the truth.