So, does the US have nukes as well?

Originally posted by Eastern_Diamondback

Originally posted by stumason
So what if your "constitution" forbids it!!! I'm sure other countries forbid it also, but international law supercedes domestic law, so if a resolution was passed (i know it wont as you have the right of veto, but as an example) the US would be expected to abide by that decision, regardless of what their constitution said.

There is no such thing as international law. It's a catchy buzz phrase, but it has no meaning. "International law" is nothing more than a series of tentative agreements between nations, almost always by unelected, self-indulgent bureaucrats. There is no superpowerful international body fairly elected by the people of all countries to impose any dictates on individual soveriegn nations. There is no representative world government; there can't be as long as dictatorships and theocracies exist. Government can only legitimately exist by the consent of the people, the electorate. Can anyone tell me who their international legistlator is? Which world executive officer signed all the legistlation into international law? Are any of the world politicians accountable to the populace?

there's plenty of international law. take the EU for example. it has an independent legislative body. also a judiciary and an executive. i think what you mean is that there's no *global* enforcement body stronger than any of the constituent members of an agreement or treaty.

-koji K.

Originally posted by koji_K
there's plenty of international law. take the EU for example. it has an independent legislative body. also a judiciary and an executive.

I don't deny the existence of the EU. But Europe is not the entire world. And The EU doesn't even include all of Europe. But the EU does have representatives from the constituent countries. It's a step towards an international government, but it's not there. Already, though, you can hear gripes among citizens of the constituent countries being governed by a corrupt bureaucracy in Brussels. My opinion is that it will either suffocate and destroy individual European cultures, or be destroyed itself.

i think what you mean is that there's no *global* enforcement body stronger than any of the constituent members of an agreement or treaty.

Yes, I mean that too.

This discussion is pointless gentlemen, pandoras box has been opened, nukes are here to stay. Yes we were the first to use them, am I proud of that, no. And you know that Great Brittain wouldve dropped one on Berlin had they had the technology early on. Say what you like, but any governments interests come before the wishes of the people, even if the majority of Brittons were against it. Its not like the government announced to the American people we have developed a new weapon that will exact horrifying destruction on alot of people, no, it was kinda a secret. And it worked, it terrified them into immediate surrender. Now, in a way, they work to deter major world wars, the large powerful countries that do have sizeable nuke arsenals, are more stable than the smaller, poorer countries that we are trying to prevent from getting nukes. The big players keep each other in check, China wouldnt dare attack the US, and we wouldnt dare attack them, because we both know the weapons now make Hiroshima look like an M-80, but the smaller truly religiously controlled countries (including Israel) that are unstable, should not have them. And by unstable I mean the entire government itself, Bush while an idiot, is not unstable, and he is not truly a religious fanatic, he just manipulates gullible bible-belt citizens to vote for him as a mandate of God. But he only truly represents big corporations and $$$, he would not wildly initiate nuclear war, theres no money in a nuclear wasteland. Since the genie will never go back in the bottle, we must work together to see to it unstable countries dont get them, kinda like not letting children get ahold of daddies gun.

[edit on 24-7-2004 by jd27]

Originally posted by jd27
And by unstable I mean the entire government itself, Bush while an idiot, is not unstable, and he is not truly a religious fanatic, he just manipulates gullible bible-belt citizens to vote for him as a mandate of God. [edit on 24-7-2004 by jd27]

You make a very good point there. If its true he manipulates others then it must be true he manipulates the very people that support him, and I did not think of that before. Thanks!

There is a solution to getting a solid answer on a lot of unknowns on this subject. For one nation to use just one nuclear weapon, somewhere on the globe. Why? The first atom bomb used, no one really knew what exactly they would be getting into. We now know how we feel about the atom bomb, thus we have an strong gut feeling tempered with logic concerning the hydrogen bomb/missle. Do we really know the consequences with hydrogen weapons? I say not until one is used, until then it is speculation based on what we know about the atom bomb.
The only thing that is solid that we know balls to bone, is that it will be one of mankinds greatest mistakes. Someone posted earlier that it is not a matter of if, but rather a matter of when. In spite of positivity, I have no choice but to begrudgingly agree.

[edit on 24-7-2004 by Crysstaafur]

Originally posted by Murcielago
You can't possibly compare the US to a terrorost group, yes they both have their own agenda's but a US soldier doesn't strap a bomb on his chest and blow them selves up in a crowd of inoccent people. All they want to do is interfere with the economy. They can praise Allah all they want but there fighting a up hill battle that they can't possibly win.

I can absolutely compare us to a terrorist group. No a US soldier doesnt strap a bomb to his chest and blow him/herself up in a crowd of innocent people. We do one better. We just nuke the whole city killing EVERY innocent civilian. That is far worse than the guy who straps a bomb to himself. At least he had the balls to put his life on the line instead of dropping a nuke from a safe distance to kill the civilians.

The main thing I worry about in this world today, is the fact that the big GunHo MoFo America has these things, because, their bombs might be bigger, but their brains sure as hell are not, and anyone can see this by taking a look into their academic structure.

Leader = Bush (the boy who cant even talk and does not like to read)
2nd in Command = Cheney (the real leader in the background type person, who�s lies feed a nation)

I have friends in America right now that are totally embarrassed to be an American at this time, The only thing that keeps them going is the fact they might get the country back before things get worse.

Stop the messing around America, take your country back, and less of the BS statements, such as.

�OMG, how dense are you?
I'm also curious how old are you? You sound like a 12 year old.�

When in fact your very answer was reminiscent of a 12 year old, (12 year old American kid that is, for if it was UK standard the kid would be 4)

Not laughing with you America, and you do well to remember that when the ----- does hit the fan.

Indy, these are two different subjects. You are right that it is a terrible thing to use nuclear weapons, and when you said "us" you meant the US government at that time, right? Because "we" the people did not have any say in the use of those weapons. And we were in the middle of a major war, in which Japan initiated by an underhanded sneak attack on unprepared soldiers at Pearl Harbor, no war had been declared, so that in itself was also an act of terrorism by your standards I hope. And if you dig a little you'll find that we chose the method that would cause the least amount of casualties, the a-bomb, over the original plan which was to launch a chemical weapon attack that wouldve resulted in several million Japanese casualties, not thousands, which method if given the choice do you think the terrorists would use on us? I hope you dont truly believe that the US aims to purposely kill large numbers of civilians, war is messy and civilians get caught up in it sometimes, but we avoid it to the best of our ability. That is why you cannot compare us to terrorists, because they sit around trying to think of ways to kill the most civilians possible, we try and come up with ways to kill the enemy with the least civilian casualties possible, which is why we chose the a-bomb over the chemical attack.

When I say us I do mean the US government. The Japanese did launch a sneak attack but it was directly against a military facility and only against a military facility. That iin itself disqualifies it as an act of terrorism. That is simply an unprovoked act of war. And remember we did go out of our way to deliberately inflict mass casualties on civilians. We couldn't stomach the war so we launched the biggest terrorist attack in history. We had a new toy and we wanted to use it. We would have found one excuse or another to drop the bomb on someone. This is what happens when you have a bunch of highly inflated egos unchecked.

SiCkBoY, stop lumping us Americans in the same category as Bush, how many Bush supporters post on these threads? The majority of us despise the man. But I will not sit around while some Guinness swilling irishman berates my country, that so many of his ancestors worked so hard to immigrate to. And the current idiotic administration aside, we are still THE superpower of the world so our inferior intelligence must have gotten us somewhere, and we are "GunHo MoFos" as you put it, and its perfectly natural for those who are weaker to grumble behind the back of the strongest guy on the block, so if it makes you feel better go for it.


[edit on 24-7-2004 by jd27]

Indy, you missed my point that we chose the lesser of two evils, the chemical attack they had planned wouldve been far worse, millions of casualties. If the US were terrorists, we would nuke everybody who disagrees with us, France, Germany, Iran, etc., but we are a civilized nation and if given a choice we will avoid killing innocent people no matter what they believe, terrorists want to kill as many of us as possible because we believe differently from them. Im not saying it was a good thing that we used the bomb, but it wasnt a decision that was made because the Japanese were non-believers of Islam, and they chose a lesser populated city, terrorists wouldve bombed Tokyo.

Things are different now. First off a number of nations have the ability to hit us back to nuking just isn't as simple as it was back then. And yes we did avoid certain cities to be "nice" but we still went out of our way to kill a hundred thousand civilians. So which city we hit really doesn't matter. Would you think it was ok if someone nuked Oklahoma City instead of NY City because Oklahoma City doesn't have the significance of NY? You'd be just as outraged. Maybe I'm missing the point. But to me there is absolutely no excuse to target civilians. I don't care what someone hopes to accomplish. Its no better than the guy that blows himself up on a bus.

Of course we wouldnt be happy if Oklahoma City was bombed, but if the enemy deliberately chose to hit a city with less people to gain their objective with the least amount of casualties they could, I would rest a litttle easier knowing the soon-to-be occupying force has some regard for human life. And we did, we helped Japan rebuild, and now its one of the most prosperous nations in the world, if terrorists were to gain control of our country do you think they would help us rebuild and leave once weve become a thriving country again? That is why you cannot compare the US to terrorists. We took no joy in dropping the bomb, the pilots felt terrible after they learned what they dropped. We did not celebrate the deaths of those people in the streets as the will of god. The only joy was that the war was over, and the death could finally stop.

Originally posted by Indy
Maybe I'm missing the point. But to me there is absolutely no excuse to target civilians. I don't care what someone hopes to accomplish. Its no better than the guy that blows himself up on a bus.

Hiroshima was selected because it was a military city, and it hadn't been touched by other bombing attacks. It was the headquarters of the 5th Army Division and a major point of travel for military personnel.

English translation of flyers dropped over Japan:

TO JAPANESE PEOPLE:
America asks that you take immediate heed of what we say on this leaflet. We are in possession of the most destructive explosive ever devised by man. A single one of our newly developed atomic bombs is actually the equivalent in explosive power to what 2,000 of our giant B-29's can carry on a single mission. This awful fact is one for you to ponder and we solemnly assure you it is grimly accurate. We have just begun to use this weapon against your homeland. If you still have any doubt, make inquiry as to what happened to Hiroshima when just one atomic bomb fell on that city. Before using this bomb to destroy every resource of the military by which they are prolonging this useless war, we ask that you now petition the Emperor to end the war. Our President has outlined for you the thirteen consequences of an honorable surrender: We urge that you accept these consequences and begin the work of building a new, better, and peace loving Japan. You should take steps now to cease military resistance. Other-wise, we shall resolutely employ this bomb and all our other superior weapons to promptly and forcefully end the war.

EVACUATE YOUR CITIES
Because of the almost inconceivable expense of each individual Atomic Bomb, it is obvious that no live, i. e., "bomb smashing" munitions could be used for practice or training. One of the initial problems of the tactical application of the Atomic Bomb was the necessity for using an air burst to derive the most advantage from the terrific blast effect of the bomb. To get the greatest possible accuracy (using visual instead of radar bombing) with such an expensive weapon it would be necessary to accomplish daylight visual attacks. Because of the wide destructive area of the bomb it would be necessary for only a single bomb to be dropped during any one attack on any one target.

There is no real thing as a "military city". Alot of cities have something of military significance in them. My city here has a plant that builds jet engines for fighter jets. Does that make it a military city? We also have many highways that pass through here that military convoys could use. Does that justify nuking it? What we basically told the Japanese is that if you do not surrender we will target your civilians. There is no more of a perfect example of terrorism than that. We could have flown over and bombed their military facilities but we didn't. We wanted to kill their civilians. And while the pilots may have been upset there was obvious excitement within our government for what we had done. We went after the civilians to influence the government. Any way you slice it.. thats terrorism.

Originally posted by Indy
We could have flown over and bombed their military facilities but we didn't. We wanted to kill their civilians. And while the pilots may have been upset there was obvious excitement within our government for what we had done. We went after the civilians to influence the government. Any way you slice it.. thats terrorism.

What do you mean we could have bombed their military facilities? The technology in 1945 did not allow for accurate air bombing of targets. Such attempts always failed and inevitably killed more civilians anyway. In some instances it took over 150 B-24 and B-29 sorties to destroy a single factory. There was no way around the fact that lots of people were gonna die, no matter what course of action we took (Blockade, Invasion, or the Bomb). I urge you to read a book on military history called Battle by John Lynn.

Originally posted by Indy
There is no real thing as a "military city". Does that justify nuking it? What we basically told the Japanese is that if you do not surrender we will target your civilians. There is no more of a perfect example of terrorism than that.

The justifications for using the atomic bomb were both numerous and complex. However, lest you forget, the principal warfare tactic of this era was to completely destroy infrastructure. Because the tagreting systems of the time were simply not accurate, you put up alot of planes and you burned cities into the ground. Remeber that Curtis LeMay was doing just that and had enough planes and bombs to basically target every Japanese city. Conventional total destruction Vs. Nuclear? You are both dead. You could not chose to hit one building and leave the other standing. It simply was not possible. The Nazi's did the same thing with Brittan during the Blitz. The V-1 and V-2 were indesriminate terror weapons that were designed for this purpose. How close was Hesienburg to developing the Nazi bomb? Would Hitler have failed to use it? How big would the cemetaries at Arlington be if we had chosen to simply invade the mainland of Japan and take it by force? Based on the resistence seen in the outer islands during the Pacific campagin, each city would have had to been burned to the ground in order to clear it.

Its nice to sit back and have these theroetical discussions about if it was right or wrong to use the bomb in WWII. We could go on and on about the ethical and moral imperitives with this type of decison. But the bottom line was this: We were in a state of war with Japan. By your definition, the Troops who stormed Point Du Hoc on D Day were terrorist, My grandfather who jumped into normandy the night before the invasion was a terrorist, etc etc.

Originally posted by FredT
How big would the cemetaries at Arlington be if we had chosen to simply invade the mainland of Japan and take it by force? Based on the resistence seen in the outer islands during the Pacific campagin, each city would have had to been burned to the ground in order to clear it.

Exactly. Much consideration was put into an invasion, and one of the principle motivations for the atomic bomb was Okinawa. It showed how willing the Japanese were to fight to the death. And on top of all that, unlike Normandy, where Hitler anticipated an invasion by Allied forces in Pas de Calais, as opposed to Normandy where it actually occurred, the Japanese knew exactly where the Allied invasion would have taken place, Kyushu Island. They fortified their positions there and had countless kamikaze pilots ready to attack. Japanese generals estimated that based on the rates exhibited at Okinawa, the Japanese could expect 1 in 4 kamikazes to reach their targets. Add that to the nearly 1 million soldiers prepared to defend the island to the death and the potential for slaughter on both sides, military and civilian, would make the results of the atomic bomb look almost meaningless in comparison.

The reason i wanted to know how old INDY is because the way he rambals on and on about how we shouldn't of drop the bomb, and doesn't understand anything makes me think hes just a kid who doesn't know his history.

Now, I'm done talking to this complete idiot of a person. Whats done is done. and no, you can't compare the US to being a terrorost, thats just stupid.

Not to mention Indy danced around my earlier point that the bomb was the least destructive of the two plans to end the war with Japan, the other being a major chemical attack that wouldve been much more deadly and horrible. The japanese were lucky, we were concerned with civilian casualties and chose based on that, Al Queda would use the deadliest most horrible methods possible, they strive for that, we do not. There is no comparison, absolutely none.

P.S. Please, further clarify how you say there was obvious excitement in our government over having to drop them bomb. I would like to know what leads you to make such a beligerant statement.

[edit on 24-7-2004 by jd27]