That an interesting claim. "More Gruesome Than Anything in History". More gruesome than the Holocaust? More gruesome than the firebombings of Dresden or Tokyo? More gruesome than the genocides and ethnic cleansings that marked warfare for millennia? The Aztec temples reached an industrial rate of human sacrifice that outpaced Auschwitz, ripping the beating hearts from their screaming victims while their families looked on in helpless, terrified horror at what was about to happen to them - now that's gruesome. A flash of light that instantly incinerates you before you even know what has happened? That's less gruesome. Being tied between two boats and painted with honey so that you could be eaten alive by insects? More gruesome. Being executed by bullet or electric chair? Less gruesome.
Genghis Khan would be laugh at your claim that the U.S. or the a-bombs were uniquely gruesome. Then he would kill everyone in a hundred miles and have his lieutenants built a pyramid from the skulls. Hell - we dropped leaflets warning the Japanese civilians what was about to happen and warning them to leave the cities. In the annals of military bastardlyness, we're weak sauce.
You name the Neo Cons as you claim to be the only one on this board who knows who they are. Wolfowotz, Perle, Cheney, Bushes, and all the signatories to the PNAC document, among others.
How is NATO a threat to Russia?Are you really trying to put forward the notion that the breakup of the Soviet Union means that NATO is no longer a threat to Russia?
How was NATO a threat to Libya? Another front group to paper a trail of credibility to initiate WAR. You know, death, chaos, destruction, mayhem, standard USA policy in Iraq Libya, Syria, Venezuela, Vietnam, etc. Very profitable, however. Energy Control. WorldWide Energy Control.
What was the purpose of including this obviously doctored photo?Since it does not appear to be clear, let me clarify so that you don't obfuscate due to misunderstanding. First of all let's compare the number of weapons, there was one in the case of Hiroshima. Then let's compare the time range over which the weapon was actually welded against it's target, in this case a matter of seconds. Then yes, like I said killing over the third of the population of Hiroshima with one weapon, destroying two thirds of Hiroshima with one weapon, was more gruesome than anything in western recorded history.
In addition to the deaths and physical destruction that were inflicted with just one weapon, there were other effects. The effects of radiation poisoning, caused individuals to get cancer due to the freakish mutation of DNA of living cells. Not only that but the unborn in the womb also suffered freakish effects such as increased head size and other birth defects such as this. When you consider that all of that and more was inflicted with one weapon in a matter of seconds, yes it is indeed the most gruesome thing in recorded western history. Dropping some leaflets does not whitewash the atrocity
What was the purpose of including this obviously doctored photo?
How is NATO a threat to Russia?
A better question would be, how could a military alliance that was formed to contain Russia not be a threat to Russia?
In reality, the technological advances that have brought us greater weapons have coincided with an increase in human empathy that have demanded - over time - more conscientious rules governing their use. Today, for example, we talk about "collateral damage" and try to avoid it. For most of human history, raping massacring civilians was just what you did to blow off steam after winning the battle. The ancient stories in the Bible that horrify us now about killing every man, woman, child, and animal of an entire enemy tribe or ethnicity was just how you made a statement. The Romans were masters of that sort of public statement - we don't get the phrase sow the earth with salt because that was their fertilizer technique, after all.
As for talking to people including those in Japan about actual warfare - I have. I lived in Japan for three years, and served alongside their military.
I have actually experienced the modern face of warfare (having fought it, and advised others in the fighting of it), and professionally studied warfare of the past. So I wouldn't claim to be John Keegan, but I come to this debate actually having an idea what I am talking about.
Because it's never been tested in combat and has rarely been used at all since it's inception.
Let's suppose someone has manufactured a gun that has not been tested. Is that gun not a threat?
If it's never used, no, it's not a threat.
And I'd love to hear what, exactly, the conservatives think should be done instead of economic sanctions.
So a gun is not a threat until the trigger has been pulled for the first time?
McCain wants to bring Ukraine into NATO so that we will have to go to war with Russia over Ukraine.
In reality the technological advances have created an insensitivity to killing that is exemplified by the current President of the United States getting a daily list of people who are to be killed by remote control. In the process many innocent people have been killed and are casually written off as collateral damage. The collateral damage designation itself legitimizes the killing because it implies that what was done was humane.
Did you talk to someone dying from cancer due to radiation poisoning from Hiroshima or Nagasaki? Did they say, thanks for the humane death?
Since you are profess to know so much about warfare and it's history, can you point to references that state that Chandragupta, who founded the Maurya empire, engaged in raping and killing innocent civilians? Or more recently, did Jai Singh who founded Jaipur engage in such atrocities? The people you were referring to were barbarians, similar to the present day savages.
McCain wants to bring Ukraine into NATO so that we will have to go to war with Russia over Ukraine.
Purpose? Assuming that it is doctored, there was no purpose because OBVIOUSLY I didn't know the photo was doctored. Why was it so OBVIOUS to you that I would post an OBVIOUSLY doctored photo in the discussion? What would be my OBVIOUS purpose in doing so?
Do you have anything substantial to add to the discussion? Do you dispute that there were birth defects that were the result of a single nuclear bomb being dropped on Hiroshima? Or is this the limit of your contribution?
Assuming that it is indeed a doctored photo, how do you know for a fact that it is so? Is it a famous photo? What is it about the photo that let's you know that it is doctored?
A guns not a threat at all - the person using the gun is the threat. However, in your example you stated an un-tested gun. An un-tested gun is only a threat to the person doing the testing... if it's never tested an inanimate object is not a threat. NATO is an untested inanimate object. Do you really think that NATO is feared in the world?
In response, I will simply state that a gun that has been properly manufactured is that threat if it is loaded and aimed at someone else with the intent to kill, regardless to whether it has ever been fired or not.
:lol: dude, killing people by drone reduces civilian casualties.
That's right. And if you did, they would not likely agree with your biased assessment that war is less gruesome and more clean.Nope.
Are you suggesting that your emotional hyperventilation should trump actual historical data, given that the latter disagrees with you?
The initial Islamic conquest of Egypt, too, was (at the time) considered to have occurred with a minimum of rapine.
Barbarians? Heck, it was the 4th Century BC.
Again, the actual data is against you on this[/url].
The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages.
The threat is not the gun - the threat is the intelligence pointing the gun.
I didn't realize you'd get so excited over a rather straightforward question. Maybe it's time to switch to decaffeinated.
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