The USA was pretty uncivilized toward Japan as well.
Please put down the crack pipe.
Of the 19,000 Japanese on Iwo Jima, only 216 were taken prisoner. The official line was "hey, they all committed suicide", but if you talk to the people that were there, they will tell you that is not true. We regularly shot Japanese soldiers attempting to surrender.
Yes, we did shoot a lot of them pretending to surrender. Way too many times prior, starting on Guadalcanal and moving on to Tarawa, Japanese soldiers would pretend to surrender, waiving the white flag, then when they got close they would pull the pin on a grenade and take an American soldier with him.
When things like that happen as often as not, it becomes very hard to take prisoners. In addition, Japanese soldiers would often, once they had run out of ammo, put on their bayonets and charge into the US line, directly into machine gun fire.
Off Okinawa, 32 warships were lost to Kamikaze pilots and many more were damaged. About 5,000 US sailors lost their lives at sea from suicide pilots in 92 days of fighting off Okinawa.
The intentional white phosphorus firebombing of Japanese civilians wasn't so civilized either.
It was an effort to end the war, other options were not working. In truth, the idea was sound but for some reason, people don't respond to 200,000 people being killed over 2 days via 1,000 bombers dropping a million tons of bombs, yet they DO respond to 200,000 people being killed in 5 minutes via 2 bombers and 2 bombs.
Don't ask me why, but it seems to make a difference.
---
Oh, and lest you think that we started all of it, keep in mind that Japan started that war and they considered surrender dishonorable. If you don't know that, then you don't understand the war and really shouldn't comment on it:
Geneva only applies when fighting civilized nations.
Germany in WWII was largely civilized re: US and British captured soldiers. Yes, a few times the SS would execute prisoners, but those events are rare. Against Russia? It was brutal and almost no quarter was given or expected on either side.
Japan in WWII was largely uncivilized, which is why at the end of the day we nuked them, and this brought them into civilization when their emperor bought a clue and figured out that they could be exterminated like the animals they were behaving as.
Even though I think the likelihood of them ever needing to use physical fighting skills is virtually nil, I think the more important point is the sense of camaraderie in both directions. Not only would other soldiers respect them more, but they would respect and understand other solders better, having a sense of brotherhood which would lead them to know who they are really protecting and fighting alongside.
If that is the case, then if you send computer people to boot camp, you should send infantry soldiers to computer camp.
Yes, but the Medical Corps (MC) is a staff corps (non-combat branch) of the US Army.
We perhaps could create something similar for computer specialists in "games and theory".:)
Then again, doctors enter at a minimum rank of second lieutenant, but frankly the pay is terrible compared to much of the civilian world.
The Army will have the same problem, to get the very best computer specialists they have to compete with Google and Apple to hire them. Is the US Army really prepared to pay six figures to 22 year old kids? If not, and they pay $40K, then they'll get that level of knowledge.
And yes, there really are 22 year olds making that kind of money. Not many, but the ones who are, are the ones you want...
It is also why the "I was just following orders" spiel is not a defense in court should you commit an atrocity and get hauled before a tribunal for it.
Maybe not in the US Army, but we also seem to hold that standard to other nations.
Example, Germany in WWII, we tried many soldiers for things they did "under orders". But the difference was, they may well have been shot for not doing it, more likely towards the end of the war.
An extreme example was in Berlin, near the end. Even the very young and the very old men were expected to fight. Even just trying to leave the city, the penalty was death.
In such a situation, "I was just following orders, under pain of death", strikes me as a very reasonable defense.
I would normally never, ever kill a thousand innocent people. Stick a gun to my head, or worse, to my child's head, and I'll likely do anything you tell me to. Most people have "something" that will move them to do almost anything. Finding that "something" is the trick.
What moral grounds? That is nonsense and anyone who stands on that doesn't understand the situation.
Would it not have been moral to kill to workers and scientists who developed the V1 and V2 flying bombs that killed thousands of civilians?
Of course it would have been, so if those same people are making weapons that will kill us, then killing them first is perfectly moral.
These are the same idiots who claim the nuclear weapons used against Japan were immoral. Anyone who claims that simply doesn't understand the situation as it existed at the time. It is like trying to argue that 2+2=5.
Yeah, I did mention that we are the best that Africa has to offer, right? Good luck to any company trying to set up manufacturing or processing facilities here - the population is so lazy, that even though we have a 25% unemployment rate (in practice it is higher, this low number is due to the way they count "unemployed") the only people who are willing to work as gardeners are from a neighbouring country.
A friend of mine offered me a job flying for Shell out of Nigeria...
They figured out a long time ago that they have to provide their own security, which is why they employ PMCs to provide their own security.
My kids got a PS4 for Christmas, they are 4, 6, and 9 years old, they just want to play some fun games like LEGO Batman 3 and Little Big Planet 3 (we got the Black Friday bundle with those games)
Yea, they'll live, they did other stuff instead, but this is really a dick thing to do.
A lot of us do, but when both NK and China have nukes, it's a tricky proposition to effect change.
China of course has them, and they are deliverable... NK might have a few, but are they actually usable? There is a mile of difference between a bad underground test and a deliverable weapon.
Would China happily leave NK out to dry, or would they send their tanks in? If their backs were up against a wall, would NK retaliate by sending over a nuke in a shipping container to one of our port cities?
China isn't the same nation as they were during the Korean war, they have as much to lose with a war with the US as we do, they own too many US dollars to actually want war with us.
As for NK, the whole thing would be over very quickly, their government wouldn't be around long enough to do what you suggest.
Also, with a recent look at our history, freeing up the Iraqi people hasn't gone all that swimmingly, what with the Islamic State forming their own little territory and chopping off every westerner's head they can.
That is because Iraq shouldn't even exist, read up on its history and how it was formed by the British and why that was such a mistake. The people who live there don't want to be 1 country, it should have been cut up into three countries.
I don't like the world police mentality, and nor do I care for preemptive warfare. They're a sovereign country and we have no pressing reason to invade unless they physically attack us.
I don't like it either, but it is the right thing to do.
How about Rwanda in the 90s, when the world stood by while hundreds of thousands of people were murdered in genocide?
Had America been left to decide its own fate, we would still be British citizens. France stepped in and funded our war, a fact that a lot of Americans like to forget when bashing the French. France also sent their navy to help, without which we probably also wouldn't have won.
Very few nations really throw off the current government in power without outside help. It is a romantic idea, but without help, it is very hard to do.
The people of North Korea can try all they like, but they lack the means to actually do it, they need someone to help.
And frankly, we're all human beings, lines on a map are just drawn to divide up stuff, shouldn't we all care that millions have starved to death there?
"The Iraq war will pay for itself." Dick Cheney, is that you?
We all know the Iraq war was nonsense, which is why we were well supported going into Afghanistan but not into Iraq.
And as far as your quote, it would have made sense if we had actually taken the oil for ourselves as payment, as so many nations have done in the past. Why we didn't actually is a bit beyond me.
Since everyone assumed that is why we went in, we might as well have done it. As it stands, I don't think we took a single barrel, unless you know otherwise.
That pretty much sums up the problem with America. Always wanting to go in and topple governments in other countries and set up their own sock puppets.
Someone has to be the adult in the room, if nations want to act like children, then they need a spanking.
And we don't have to setup ANY government, South Korea is easily wealthy enough to be able to absorb North Korea and make a unified nation, they get the land, they get that job.
Even if China didn't intervene, the fact that millions of South Koreans live within artillery range of the border with North Korea means that in a shooting war with North Korea we'd probably be looking at tens to hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties just for the South alone
A deal would of course have to be done with China to make them ok with this, there are many things in this world more important to China than North Korea, the objective of the President is to find something more important to China than North Korea that can be given to them in return for them being ok with it.
As for the artillery within range of the border, that is indeed an issue. However with China's help that may not even be needed.
It is worth noting that if we had 6-12 months to prepare for this in secret, we could gear up and be ready to take most of it out on the first day, and South Korea could be ready for it as well.
Only a fool would do this with a few weeks planning, such as the way we went into Afghanistan and Iraq. Look at the first Iraq war... we had 6 months of build up and crushed the 4th largest army in the world in weeks.
Who wins wars is often not who has the biggest military, it is who can show up on the battlefield the first with the most and apply it properly. Tactics are fun, but wars are really won via logistics and supply.
and that's leaving out the North's ballistic missles, nukes/etc
I of course don't have access to secret intel on that, but I suspect none of their nukes are actually deliverable. There is a mile of difference between an underground test and putting a warhead on a missile.
the minimum expected result is already horrific enough that no sane person would want to pursue it.
Why not? Would you rather have 50,000 or 100,000 deaths in a week, or a million over 20 years?
It is the same nonsense behind the complaints over nuking Japan in WWII... Yea, that killed hundreds of thousands of people, but so did the firebombing of Tokyo...
Would Japan have surrendered within 6 months anyway? Yes, most likely, but people would have kept dying... it isn't like the other option was to not use them and everyone would sit and wait 6 months... most likely MORE people would have died had we not used them.
Note that I'm not saying use them again North Korea, totally different situation where the people aren't fighting as much as the leadership is. I consider most of the civilians there to be held against their will, so clearly nuking them is not going to happen.
I don't think setting up puppet governments works either, look at Iraq, Iran, and a hundred other countries.
Frankly, Iraq should have just been cut up after 2004 and split between the various nations around it, remove it completely from the list of countries.
Likewise, North Korea... don't setup a new one, just make it merge with South Korea, everyone will be better off.
As to why we should do this? Sometimes the adults in the room have to do what is best for everyone, even if the kids don't like it. North Korea is acting like a child and should be treated like one.
And yes, I do have 3 kids, so the issue of them going to war is real, I would send them if we would do it properly.
Slashdot Mirror
The USA was pretty uncivilized toward Japan as well.
Please put down the crack pipe.
Of the 19,000 Japanese on Iwo Jima, only 216 were taken prisoner. The official line was "hey, they all committed suicide", but if you talk to the people that were there, they will tell you that is not true. We regularly shot Japanese soldiers attempting to surrender.
Yes, we did shoot a lot of them pretending to surrender. Way too many times prior, starting on Guadalcanal and moving on to Tarawa, Japanese soldiers would pretend to surrender, waiving the white flag, then when they got close they would pull the pin on a grenade and take an American soldier with him.
When things like that happen as often as not, it becomes very hard to take prisoners. In addition, Japanese soldiers would often, once they had run out of ammo, put on their bayonets and charge into the US line, directly into machine gun fire.
Off Okinawa, 32 warships were lost to Kamikaze pilots and many more were damaged. About 5,000 US sailors lost their lives at sea from suicide pilots in 92 days of fighting off Okinawa.
The intentional white phosphorus firebombing of Japanese civilians wasn't so civilized either.
It was an effort to end the war, other options were not working. In truth, the idea was sound but for some reason, people don't respond to 200,000 people being killed over 2 days via 1,000 bombers dropping a million tons of bombs, yet they DO respond to 200,000 people being killed in 5 minutes via 2 bombers and 2 bombs.
Don't ask me why, but it seems to make a difference.
---
Oh, and lest you think that we started all of it, keep in mind that Japan started that war and they considered surrender dishonorable. If you don't know that, then you don't understand the war and really shouldn't comment on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...
Geneva only applies when fighting civilized nations.
Germany in WWII was largely civilized re: US and British captured soldiers. Yes, a few times the SS would execute prisoners, but those events are rare. Against Russia? It was brutal and almost no quarter was given or expected on either side.
Japan in WWII was largely uncivilized, which is why at the end of the day we nuked them, and this brought them into civilization when their emperor bought a clue and figured out that they could be exterminated like the animals they were behaving as.
Against ISIS? Geneva is worthless...
Even though I think the likelihood of them ever needing to use physical fighting skills is virtually nil, I think the more important point is the sense of camaraderie in both directions. Not only would other soldiers respect them more, but they would respect and understand other solders better, having a sense of brotherhood which would lead them to know who they are really protecting and fighting alongside.
If that is the case, then if you send computer people to boot camp, you should send infantry soldiers to computer camp.
The door swings both ways...
Yes, but the Medical Corps (MC) is a staff corps (non-combat branch) of the US Army.
We perhaps could create something similar for computer specialists in "games and theory". :)
Then again, doctors enter at a minimum rank of second lieutenant, but frankly the pay is terrible compared to much of the civilian world.
The Army will have the same problem, to get the very best computer specialists they have to compete with Google and Apple to hire them. Is the US Army really prepared to pay six figures to 22 year old kids? If not, and they pay $40K, then they'll get that level of knowledge.
And yes, there really are 22 year olds making that kind of money. Not many, but the ones who are, are the ones you want...
It is also why the "I was just following orders" spiel is not a defense in court should you commit an atrocity and get hauled before a tribunal for it.
Maybe not in the US Army, but we also seem to hold that standard to other nations.
Example, Germany in WWII, we tried many soldiers for things they did "under orders". But the difference was, they may well have been shot for not doing it, more likely towards the end of the war.
An extreme example was in Berlin, near the end. Even the very young and the very old men were expected to fight. Even just trying to leave the city, the penalty was death.
In such a situation, "I was just following orders, under pain of death", strikes me as a very reasonable defense.
I would normally never, ever kill a thousand innocent people. Stick a gun to my head, or worse, to my child's head, and I'll likely do anything you tell me to. Most people have "something" that will move them to do almost anything. Finding that "something" is the trick.
What moral grounds? That is nonsense and anyone who stands on that doesn't understand the situation.
Would it not have been moral to kill to workers and scientists who developed the V1 and V2 flying bombs that killed thousands of civilians?
Of course it would have been, so if those same people are making weapons that will kill us, then killing them first is perfectly moral.
These are the same idiots who claim the nuclear weapons used against Japan were immoral. Anyone who claims that simply doesn't understand the situation as it existed at the time. It is like trying to argue that 2+2=5.
Yeah, I did mention that we are the best that Africa has to offer, right? Good luck to any company trying to set up manufacturing or processing facilities here - the population is so lazy, that even though we have a 25% unemployment rate (in practice it is higher, this low number is due to the way they count "unemployed") the only people who are willing to work as gardeners are from a neighbouring country.
A friend of mine offered me a job flying for Shell out of Nigeria...
They figured out a long time ago that they have to provide their own security, which is why they employ PMCs to provide their own security.
http://www.mercenaryjobs.org/p...
http://www.theguardian.com/bus...
Not only does Shell pay the Nigerian Military millions of dollars (which is really just bribe money), they also employ 1,200 private security.
Shell is spending over a third of a billion dollars a year on security just in Nigeria alone.
I like smart people.
I do not like dumb people.
I do not care what color they are.
If you owe the bank a thousand dollars and can't pay, you have a problem. If you owe the bank a billion dollars and can't pay, the bank has a problem.
I've updated this...
If you owe the bank a hundred billion dollars and can't pay, the government has a problem...
^ Played with real money, not casino money...
Show up with $100,000 of YOUR real cash and play against experts and tell me that it doesn't require a ton of skill...
Little Big Planet 3, yes... since it is just a code in the box to redeem a digital copy of it...
LEGO Batman 3 they probably can play, I'll have them try it today, since it is on a disc...
Amen...
My kids got a PS4 for Christmas, they are 4, 6, and 9 years old, they just want to play some fun games like LEGO Batman 3 and Little Big Planet 3 (we got the Black Friday bundle with those games)
Yea, they'll live, they did other stuff instead, but this is really a dick thing to do.
You must be joking...
Huge and dangerous? Really?
Millions would die within 30 minutes? Really?
Go back to your internet, you don't know what you're talking about.
A lot of us do, but when both NK and China have nukes, it's a tricky proposition to effect change.
China of course has them, and they are deliverable... NK might have a few, but are they actually usable? There is a mile of difference between a bad underground test and a deliverable weapon.
Would China happily leave NK out to dry, or would they send their tanks in? If their backs were up against a wall, would NK retaliate by sending over a nuke in a shipping container to one of our port cities?
China isn't the same nation as they were during the Korean war, they have as much to lose with a war with the US as we do, they own too many US dollars to actually want war with us.
As for NK, the whole thing would be over very quickly, their government wouldn't be around long enough to do what you suggest.
Also, with a recent look at our history, freeing up the Iraqi people hasn't gone all that swimmingly, what with the Islamic State forming their own little territory and chopping off every westerner's head they can.
That is because Iraq shouldn't even exist, read up on its history and how it was formed by the British and why that was such a mistake. The people who live there don't want to be 1 country, it should have been cut up into three countries.
I would rather do nothing.
Fair enough... perhaps no one will do anything when you're the subject of such treatment...
Interesting point of view...
All I can say is that I simply disagree with you, but we won't convince each other of anything here, so fair enough...
I don't like the world police mentality, and nor do I care for preemptive warfare. They're a sovereign country and we have no pressing reason to invade unless they physically attack us.
I don't like it either, but it is the right thing to do.
How about Rwanda in the 90s, when the world stood by while hundreds of thousands of people were murdered in genocide?
Was that ok?
Had America been left to decide its own fate, we would still be British citizens. France stepped in and funded our war, a fact that a lot of Americans like to forget when bashing the French. France also sent their navy to help, without which we probably also wouldn't have won.
Very few nations really throw off the current government in power without outside help. It is a romantic idea, but without help, it is very hard to do.
The people of North Korea can try all they like, but they lack the means to actually do it, they need someone to help.
And frankly, we're all human beings, lines on a map are just drawn to divide up stuff, shouldn't we all care that millions have starved to death there?
"The Iraq war will pay for itself." Dick Cheney, is that you?
We all know the Iraq war was nonsense, which is why we were well supported going into Afghanistan but not into Iraq.
And as far as your quote, it would have made sense if we had actually taken the oil for ourselves as payment, as so many nations have done in the past. Why we didn't actually is a bit beyond me.
Since everyone assumed that is why we went in, we might as well have done it. As it stands, I don't think we took a single barrel, unless you know otherwise.
It would take longer than 5 minutes for the guns to be properly manned and for the orders to fire to come.
Within an hour we should be able to destroy most of them.
No, but I do believe that the DPNK will cause a million deaths over 20 years to its own people.
And that is a crime against humanity and all humans should feel responsible to do something about it.
That pretty much sums up the problem with America. Always wanting to go in and topple governments in other countries and set up their own sock puppets.
Someone has to be the adult in the room, if nations want to act like children, then they need a spanking.
And we don't have to setup ANY government, South Korea is easily wealthy enough to be able to absorb North Korea and make a unified nation, they get the land, they get that job.
install a puppet government
Why does everything think that we should be setting up puppet governments?
History shows that is generally a bad idea.
We might run things for a few years, the way we did in Japan and Germany after WWII, but then it needs to be turned over to them.
In this case, "them" is South Korea, simply give them North Korea and it simply becomes "Korea".
Even if China didn't intervene, the fact that millions of South Koreans live within artillery range of the border with North Korea means that in a shooting war with North Korea we'd probably be looking at tens to hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties just for the South alone
A deal would of course have to be done with China to make them ok with this, there are many things in this world more important to China than North Korea, the objective of the President is to find something more important to China than North Korea that can be given to them in return for them being ok with it.
As for the artillery within range of the border, that is indeed an issue. However with China's help that may not even be needed.
It is worth noting that if we had 6-12 months to prepare for this in secret, we could gear up and be ready to take most of it out on the first day, and South Korea could be ready for it as well.
Only a fool would do this with a few weeks planning, such as the way we went into Afghanistan and Iraq. Look at the first Iraq war... we had 6 months of build up and crushed the 4th largest army in the world in weeks.
Who wins wars is often not who has the biggest military, it is who can show up on the battlefield the first with the most and apply it properly. Tactics are fun, but wars are really won via logistics and supply.
and that's leaving out the North's ballistic missles, nukes/etc
I of course don't have access to secret intel on that, but I suspect none of their nukes are actually deliverable. There is a mile of difference between an underground test and putting a warhead on a missile.
the minimum expected result is already horrific enough that no sane person would want to pursue it.
Why not? Would you rather have 50,000 or 100,000 deaths in a week, or a million over 20 years?
It is the same nonsense behind the complaints over nuking Japan in WWII... Yea, that killed hundreds of thousands of people, but so did the firebombing of Tokyo...
Would Japan have surrendered within 6 months anyway? Yes, most likely, but people would have kept dying... it isn't like the other option was to not use them and everyone would sit and wait 6 months... most likely MORE people would have died had we not used them.
Note that I'm not saying use them again North Korea, totally different situation where the people aren't fighting as much as the leadership is. I consider most of the civilians there to be held against their will, so clearly nuking them is not going to happen.
I don't think setting up puppet governments works either, look at Iraq, Iran, and a hundred other countries.
Frankly, Iraq should have just been cut up after 2004 and split between the various nations around it, remove it completely from the list of countries.
Likewise, North Korea... don't setup a new one, just make it merge with South Korea, everyone will be better off.
As to why we should do this? Sometimes the adults in the room have to do what is best for everyone, even if the kids don't like it. North Korea is acting like a child and should be treated like one.
And yes, I do have 3 kids, so the issue of them going to war is real, I would send them if we would do it properly.