War on Iraq?

[Spike]

Heh. Dubya trying to follow in daddy's footsteps.

[SyntherAugustus]

Spike said:

Heh. Dubya trying to follow in daddy's footsteps.

DUH

[gatewatcher]

m0l0t0v said:

Where the fuck did they get that information from and where the fuck did they get the morons from who believed it!? Sounds like propaganda-BS to me, even you can`t take this seriously! What better way to excuse a holocaust than claiming "they were going to die anyway!" or "Now they are just innocent children but they`ll grow up to be killers; lets kill them now when the can`t defend themselfs!"

How can you say that's bs?! If some army invaded america, I highly doubt the population would just lay down and let them walk in. Instead, I'd put money on pretty much everyone picking up a brick and hurling it at the nearest soldier. I also think it would take nuke to put an end to any resistance. The same goes for the Japenese. They were planning on doing whatever they could to keep the allies out, as they should.

I don't care what the emperor or whoever said to anyone else about ending the war. The emperor was preparing the remander of the japenese population for war, on their own soil.

In the end the nukes saved more lives than they took away. And we were at war, and that's what it took to end it. End of story.

[Naked Snake]

RailGunner said:

DUH

STOP FUCKING MAKING ONE WORD REPLIES

[Sharessa]

I doubt that every last citizen would fight to the death. That sounds just silly and pointless. I mean, the country was on the edge of surrender so why would they be so resistant? Its not like they are a bunch of bloody savages. This is just typical American racist propaganda.

[gatewatcher]

Well, i don't mean to the point of it beeing pointless. I'm talking about during the initial invasions and when cities are being taken. Anyway, i was just trying to prove a point.

[Wobbo]

Excactly, its anti-democracy to think of an entire "race" of human beings so amazingly dogmatic that they would fight to the death for a flag.

"War is Health of the State" - Economy's actually DO do better on average after war... for the CEOs politicians and lucky stock traders STILL ALIVE

[Lobo]

As stated in an earlier post, I believe that Japan was nuked simply as a sort of "Live test" of the A-bomb. They simply had a new toy and were itching to try it out.

As for Mister shrub, I agree with Fodders that the whole thing smells like a war for petrol more than anything else.

Looks to me like your president is letting the whole power thing go to his head, which is extremely dangerous for the rest of us (and possible even the americans themselves)

[Wobbo]

"If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged. By violation of the Nuremberg laws I mean the same kind of crimes for which people were hanged in Nuremberg. And Nuremberg means Nuremberg and Tokyo. So first of all you've got to think back as to what people were hanged for at Nuremberg and Tokyo. And once you think back, the question doesn't even require a moment's waste of time. For example, one general at the Tokyo trials, which were the worst, General Yamashita, was hanged on the grounds that troops in the Philippines, which were technically under his command (though it was so late in the war that he had no contact with them -- it was the very end of the war and there were some troops running around the Philippines who he had no contact with), had carried out atrocities, so he was hanged. Well, try that one out and you've already wiped out everybody.

But getting closer to the sort of core of the Nuremberg-Tokyo tribunals, in Truman's case at the Tokyo tribunal, there was one authentic, independent Asian justice, an Indian, who was also the one person in the court who had any background in international law [Radhabinod Pal], and he dissented from the whole judgment, dissented from the whole thing. He wrote a very interesting and important dissent, seven hundred pages -- you can find it in the Harvard Law Library, that's where I found it, maybe somewhere else, and it's interesting reading. He goes through the trial record and shows, I think pretty convincingly, it was pretty farcical. He ends up by saying something like this: if there is any crime in the Pacific theater that compares with the crimes of the Nazis, for which they're being hanged at Nuremberg, it was the dropping of the two atom bombs. And he says nothing of that sort can be attributed to the present accused. Well, that's a plausible argument, I think, if you look at the background. Truman proceeded to organize a major counter-insurgency campaign in Greece which killed off about one hundred and sixty thousand people, sixty thousand refugees, another sixty thousand or so people tortured, political system dismantled, right-wing regime. American corporations came in and took it over. I think that's a crime under Nuremberg.

Well, what about Eisenhower? You could argue over whether his overthrow of the government of Guatemala was a crime. There was a CIA-backed army, which went in under U.S. threats and bombing and so on to undermine that capitalist democracy. I think that's a crime. The invasion of Lebanon in 1958, I don't know, you could argue. A lot of people were killed. The overthrow of the government of Iran is another one -- through a CIA-backed coup. But Guatemala suffices for Eisenhower and there's plenty more.

Kennedy is easy. The invasion of Cuba was outright aggression. Eisenhower planned it, incidentally, so he was involved in a conspiracy to invade another country, which we can add to his score. After the invasion of Cuba, Kennedy launched a huge terrorist campaign against Cuba, which was very serious. No joke. Bombardment of industrial installations with killing of plenty of people, bombing hotels, sinking fishing boats, sabotage. Later, under Nixon, it even went as far as poisoning livestock and so on. Big affair. And then came Vietnam; he invaded Vietnam. He invaded South Vietnam in 1962. He sent the U.S. Air Force to start bombing. Okay. We took care of Kennedy.

Johnson is trivial. The Indochina war alone, forget the invasion of the Dominican Republic, was a major war crime.

Nixon the same. Nixon invaded Cambodia. The Nixon-Kissinger bombing of Cambodia in the early '70's was not all that different from the Khmer Rouge atrocities, in scale somewhat less, but not much less. Same was true in Laos. I could go on case after case with them, that's easy.

Ford was only there for a very short time so he didn't have time for a lot of crimes, but he managed one major one. He supported the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, which was near genocidal. I mean, it makes Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait look like a tea party. That was supported decisively by the United States, both the diplmatic and the necessary military support came primarily from the United States. This was picked up under Carter.

Carter was the least violent of American presidents but he did things which I think would certainly fall under Nuremberg provisions. As the Indonesian atrocities increased to a level of really near-genocide, the U.S. aid under Carter increased. It reached a peak in 1978 as the atrocities peaked. So we took care of Carter, even forgetting other things.

Reagan. It's not a question. I mean, the stuff in Central America alone suffices. Support for the Israeli invasion of Lebanon also makes Saddam Hussein look pretty mild in terms of casualties and destruction. That suffices.

Bush. Well, need we talk on? In fact, in the Reagan period there's even an International Court of Justice decision on what they call the "unlawful use of force" for which Reagan and Bush were condemned. I mean, you could argue about some of these people, but I think you could make a pretty strong case if you look at the Nuremberg decisions, Nuremberg and Tokyo, and you ask what people were condemned for. I think American presidents are well within the range.

Also, bear in mind, people ought to be pretty critical about the Nuremberg principles. I don't mean to suggest they're some kind of model of probity or anything. For one thing, they were ex post facto. These were determined to be crimes by the victors after they had won. Now, that already raises questions. In the case of the American presidents, they weren't ex post facto. Furthermore, you have to ask yourself what was called a "war crime"? How did they decide what was a war crime at Nuremberg and Tokyo? And the answer is pretty simple. and not very pleasant. There was a criterion. Kind of like an operational criterion. If the enemy had done it and couldn't show that we had done it, then it was a war crime. So like bombing of urban concentrations was not considered a war crime because we had done more of it than the Germans and the Japanese. So that wasn't a war crime. You want to turn Tokyo into rubble? So much rubble you can't even drop an atom bomb there because nobody will see anything if you do, which is the real reason they didn't bomb Tokyo. That's not a war crime because we did it. Bombing Dresden is not a war crime. We did it. German Admiral Gernetz -- when he was brought to trial (he was a submarine commander or something) for sinking merchant vessels or whatever he did -- he called as a defense witness American Admiral Nimitz who testified that the U.S. had done pretty much the same thing, so he was off, he didn't get tried. And in fact if you run through the whole record, it turns out a war crime is any war crime that you can condemn them for but they can't condemn us for. Well, you know, that raises some questions.

I should say, actually, that this, interestingly, is said pretty openly by the people involved and it's regarded as a moral position. The chief prosecutor at Nuremberg was Telford Taylor. You know, a decent man. He wrote a book called Nuremberg and Vietnam. And in it he tries to consider whether there are crimes in Vietnam that fall under the Nuremberg principles. Predictably, he says not. But it's interesting to see how he spells out the Nuremberg principles.

They're just the way I said. In fact, I'm taking it from him, but he doesn't regard that as a criticism. He says, well, that's the way we did it, and should have done it that way. There's an article on this in The Yale Law Journal ["Review Symposium: War Crimes, the Rule of Force in International Affairs," The Yale Law Journal, Vol. 80, #7, June 1971] which is reprinted in a book [Chapter 3 of Chomsky's For Reasons of State (Pantheon, 1973)] if you're interested.

I think one ought to raise many questions about the Nuremberg tribunal, and especially the Tokyo tribunal. The Tokyo tribunal was in many ways farcical. The people condemned at Tokyo had done things for which plenty of people on the other side could be condemned. Furthermore, just as in the case of Saddam Hussein, many of their worst atrocities the U.S. didn't care about. Like some of the worst atrocities of the Japanese were in the late '30s, but the U.S. didn't especially care about that. What the U.S. cared about was that Japan was moving to close off the China market. That was no good. But not the slaughter of a couple of hundred thousand people or whatever they did in Nanking. That's not a big deal."

Noam Chomsky (before CLinton was president of course)

[Wobbo]

gatewatcher said:

I don't care what the emperor or whoever said to anyone else about ending the war. The emperor was preparing the remander of the japenese population for war, on their own soil.

In the end the nukes saved more lives than they took away. And we were at war, and that's what it took to end it. End of story.

Wow. Gatewatcher - Historian, Psychic, and Ethical judge. It all makes sense now... terrorism saves lives in the long run because we will end up in more war no matter what.

[Sephiroth]

one word my firend for all these middle east troubles, oil. oil is the drug of the world and america is totally addicted. this all kind of reminds me of the book dune and the spice, except in our world the oil must flow. Are country is more or less becoming imperial. we only care about the oil, not the people. the US does NO humanitary work at all unless it is in their intrest. look at africa, massive genocides and long time wars. yet we did almost nothing to stop it becuaces there is nothing for us there. When the oil runs dry then so will our country. i dont like to think of the US like this but it is the truth. the US like other countries does not care about others. infact are so called war on terrorism is a joke, if we really were fighing terrorist we would be all over the world and even fighting in columbia. the war on drugs is a joke too, because as long as south american countries fight drug lords then it is a profitablle busness to sell weapons to them. we trained many of the terrorists, drug lords and other baddies to fight people that we did not like 10 years ago. the people we train now will be our enemies in another 10 years.

something eles interesting too. technology in the US is controlled by oil. in the past 50 years technology that would give us more effecient and powerful energy has been surpressed. the governement does not want new technology distroying the profit of oil and fossil fuels. this country is like other powers in the world, we are far from clean and innocent

[Wobbo]

Its not so much the government profiting off of oil as the corporations that control the government- of which many like Bush have large stock in. It should be illegal to have stock in corporations if you an elected leader because it is obviously currupting.

[gatewatcher]

Xian said:

Wow. Gatewatcher - Historian, Psychic, and Ethical judge. It all makes sense now... terrorism saves lives in the long run because we will end up in more war no matter what.

So Xian, What you're saying is that, if you were a soldier of course, you would have rather died taking Japan rather than use the bomb. Interesting.

[pritch]

Xian dude you need to get laid.

[S|aVe.3rN.]

- if it takes out the bastards and gives our side less casualties , we WILL do it, its the fact that they do it for THEIR side, and if THEIR enemys will take the most damage then they will take that course of action , civlian or not, if it stabs the enemmy right threw the heart then they will do it, and they will not care about cost unless it effects their side, thats the way it is, its war, its choices ppl will make , and that dosnt mean they are happy with the choices either, but if it saves our sides #'s then they will do it. and as for the bomb being dropped on japan, ppl need to get over it , who cares if they were right or wrong , guess what , it happend , we dropped it we fried alota god damn ppl, nothing will change the fact that it happend, no matter how much we bitch about it, america will go to war with iraq if they do not permit the weapons inspections, yes we are known to be the ones who police the world, yes it pisses alota ppl off that we do, but look at it this way, what if we didnt do it? what if we didnt take action against these contries that house nuclear and chemical weapons, and we jus let the hog up as much as they wanted, could you imagine what the hell could have happend if they got pushed far enough to use them , or even in a worse case , all along they would plane to use them on another country? i can understand ppl being pissed about this, saying how we dont have a right to go into every contry and control them, wich we dont,we go in to inspect their weaposn to make sure they are not holding nuclear/biological weapons for offensive means.

[GooberMan]

gatewatcher said:

What you're saying is that, if you were a soldier of course, you would have rather died taking Japan rather than use the bomb.

That's one of the risks/responsibilities you accept when you sign up to the military - serve your country till your death. The point of organised military is to put forth people who are willing to accept those risks/responsibilities to fight wars instead of civillians. If you don't like those responsibilites, don't join the military, and see how you like having an A-Bomb dropped on your head one day.

[gatewatcher]

Yes I know that. All I am saying is that as a soldier, would you prefer to live if that option is available? I sure as hell would.

[GooberMan]

Commit genocide or fight fairly... hmmmmz, I wonder....

[gatewatcher]

GooberMan said:

Commit genocide or fight fairly... hmmmmz, I wonder....

That's not genocide. And war isn't fair.

[GooberMan]

Mass-murdering of civillians isn't genocide? WTF?
EDIT: the military is there in an attempt to make war fair. Fight against people who are trained to kill and willing to give their lives for the cause, or just go around killing everyone in sight whether they're soldiers or not?

[NiGHTMARE]

Things I'm looking forward too seeing happen, because they'll make the world a better place:

1 a) George W. Bush being put on trial for taking backhanders from various companies. Just one look at his policies and it's obvious that he does.

b) Bush (and others) being put on trial for possessing illegal biological and chemical weapons (which they undoubtedly do have).

c) Some other extremely bad thing happening to Bush, preferably involving extreme hypocrisy, that forces him to step down as President, although I won't go so far as to say assassination.


2) The world's oil finally running out. Okay, so it'll be bad at first (except for countries that are actually preparing for it - Britain is AFAIK, so I'll be okay ;) ), but it'll force many more people to start thinking about the environment than do at the moment.

[gatewatcher]

Mass-murdering of civillians isn't genocide? WTF?
EDIT: the military is there in an attempt to make war fair. Fight against people who are trained to kill and willing to give their lives for the cause, or just go around killing everyone in sight whether they're soldiers or not?

No, it's war, and they are the enemy. Yes those so called civilians would kill allied soldiers if given the chance. Genocide would be rounding up all of Japan after the war and killing them, instead of rebuilding their country.

[GooberMan]

So according to that logic, Hitler and co. didn't commit genocide because it happened during the war...
And are you speaking for yourself with the civillian killers thing? Sure, some civillians would try to kill soldiers, but at that point they stop becoming civillians and become militia. I'm not in the field of looking to get myself killed, and as a result if presented with the chance to kill an enemy soldier I wouldn't do it, because at that point I would cease to be a civillian and become a part of the war.
EDIT: militia was a bit of a bad choice of words, as that is an organised thing. can someone supply me with a word for that?

[gatewatcher]

Well let me make this more clear. We couldn't round up japanese people during the war because we couldn't get to them. That's why i said after the war. Obviously hitler killing off the jewish population is genocide, wartime or not. We had no intention, ever, of killing off the entire japenese population. We dropped the bomb to end the war and save allied lives. If you want to say "Yes Sir!" and walk into a machinegun even though it can be avoided, that's your buisness. But, most people would disagree with you.

Edit: Oh yeah, and like i said before, the japanese emperor told his people to prepare for war against the allies. So the civilian population can be considered combatants. And you know as well as I do that women and children do have the ability to kill soldiers.

[Wobbo]

gatewatcher said:

So Xian, What you're saying is that, if you were a soldier of course, you would have rather died taking Japan rather than use the bomb. Interesting.

murder is murder. I oppose war but i oppose mass murder more

[NiGHTMARE]

GooberMan: I'm not entirely sure, but is the word 'vigilante' what you're looking for?

[GooberMan]

America were going to keep dropping bombs until they surrendered. Planned extermination by the sounds of things. If they didn't surrender, there wouldn't be a Japan left today.

[GooberMan]

NiGHTMARE: nope, not quite

[Wobbo]

pritch said:

Xian dude you need to get laid.

Beleive it or not sex DOES NOT solve all the worlds problems.

and gate watcher, i would obviously NOT ever sign up to be a professional state-sponsored hitman err soldier, so your arguments dont apply to me

[gatewatcher]

GooberMan said:

America were going to keep dropping bombs until they surrendered. Planned extermination by the sounds of things. If they didn't surrender, there wouldn't be a Japan left today.

Oh sure there would. I'm sure that after maybe a 3rd bomb, the generals would have decided to go on with more conventional actions, IE invade. This wasn't a genocide, just get over that fact.