It means that the surahs of the Q'ran (which is essentially the central body of Islam) exhorted those people to do precisely those kinds of acts; that the Muslim religious leaders got behind those surahs and pushed; that the religious rich in SA got behind those leaders and funded this; that Islam, like all religions, but particularly this one at the moment, is dangerous and corrosive in and of itself. So -- IMHO -- the correct response would have been to attack the heart of the religion.
This is a Muslim problem. Anyone who thinks it isn't is in blatant denial. Americans are so PC about religion they can't even face up to it when it bites them right on the ass. As it did on 9/11, and as it no doubt will again.
remember some of the things some middle-easterners and Islamists feel is interference and culturally corrupting is things like music. Not just skimpy outfits, but because it is music in general. They oppose that.
It's up to them to manage their own society. I'm not saying if you leave others alone they'll do a great job, I'm just saying it's important not to go in there and insist on anything, or sanction them, or blockade them, or tell them they *can't* do this or *must* do that. That kind of behavior needs to be reserved for actors within your own borders.
it's not convincing to me that we can practice non-interference to a degree that other countries will not attack us.
More to the point - we won't. We won't even try. Because our leaders are idiots.
Are you saying the Saudi regime supported Al Qaeda?
I'm saying the problem emerged from within the country of Saudi Arabia; not that it was necessarily state-sponsored. It was, however, religion-sponsored. If we wanted to actually do anything about it at the source, something would have had to be done there. It wasn't; the problem still exists.
When congress creates law that violates the bill of rights and when SCOTUS supports such law, they are (a) in violation of the highest law in the land, (b) in violation of their oaths, (c) in violation of the public trust.
However, that said, we have no mechanism to deal with this kind of pervasive malfeasance. Also FYI
So you really believe that if we leave other people alone, they will leave us alone?
I have reasonable confidence that if we don't screw with them, they won't attack us. I don't think we should "leave them alone", I think we should trade with them and decline any opportunity, real or perceived, to preach, proselytize, promote or criticize within their borders.
Further, if we behaved that way, and someone messed with us -- we'd actually have a solid reason to respond, and we wouldn't have to pussyfoot around when we did so, which I think would be a good thing. Non-interference, open trade, and a strong defense strike me as the best combination of extra-national policies.
I used to think that too for a long time, then I realized, the next time some middle-east wannabe caliphate decides to try to conquer the region, he won't start by attacking America. That is worth something. Maybe not worth the cost, but it is something.
Well, all the evidence -- ALL of it -- points to Saudi Arabia. The 9/11 attackers: 15 of the 19 were Saudi. They were backed by Saudi money. They adhered to a religion with its cultural and historical center in Saudi Arabia (Mecca.) They trained some in Afghanistan, but attacking the country for that was like someone who was pissed at Fox News attacking England because Gretchen Carlson went to school at Oxford. It was just stupid -- but then again, we had Bush II running things at the time, and he certainly wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer.
So the Saudis completely got away with it. I really don't see the deterrence here. The message turned out to be, "Attack us, and we will attack some other random party(s), possibly vaguely associated with the problem (Afghanistan), but maybe not (Iraq.). Also we will shoot ourselves in the foot, (Patriot act, TSA, etc.) seriously, we will. So be careful!"
If you're asking about how WWII started WRT the USA, I blame both (all three) sides.
I blame the US for pushing Japan further than it could go; we showed very little comprehension of what we were doing, despite warnings from diplomats in place.
I blame Japan for taking entirely the wrong course of action to try and resolve their (very real) problems. I understand it... somewhat... but they still did all the wrong things. Militarily, they almost managed to knock us right out of the war, it was a very close thing after Pearl. But they bit off more than they could chew in their overall intent (not just the US) and they were too wound up in nationalism to see it. Bad choices, one after another.
I blame Germany right up front for being a bunch of idiot followers, people who would obey their leadership while they were led into an absolute perversion of any realistic vision of what their nation was supposed to be.
Kind of like I blame US citizens today for letting congress and the judiciary pervert the constitution into a parody of its original meaning.
Germany was stupid to declare war on us, though I suppose if you're a mental case like Hitler, it might have seemed like a good idea. It wasn't, though, for reasons -- at the point when Germany declared war on us -- that seem quite obvious to me. Hindsight and all that, but still. If you look at the treaty of Versailles, you'll see that post WWI, Germany was well and truly stepped upon as far as its national right to do this and that (like build a navy) went. This was a VERY bad idea; because (a) it was utterly unenforceable, as Hitler demonstrated, and (b) it just made them angry, which, well, you know what happened next. And Hitler... Hitler was like a catalyst, truly psychotic, plugged into the German zeitgeist at just the right (wrong) time. And he had some truly awful people managing things underneath him, too. As a society, Germany seems to be very prone to rather profound fails -- they screw up a *lot* if you look at them over time.
If you really want to know, I kind of blame everyone in sight at the time. Some more than others, some earlier than others, but basically, it appears to me to have been a policy clusterfuck of Brobdingnagian proportions on everyone's part. If someone in the leadership of Germany, Japan or the USA did the right thing when they had a realistic choice at any point in the early years of that war and in the lead up to it, I sure I don't know what it might have been.
What I will say is that it definitely isn't a simple case of "oooo, Japan made a surprise attack on the USA, we were just sitting there smelling the flowers and the Bad Men Came!"
And as far as nukes go -- since that's what sort of launched all this -- I'm perfectly comfortable with having dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; I'm not particularly intimidated by nukes as opposed to death by any other type of violence, nor do I think we should be thinking about getting rid of them. They're an excellent deterrent, IF you're willing to use them. The latter is a problem, though. We're not willing, so they're kind of pointless right now. There is a huge swath of the ignorant public that waves their hands and craps themselves over the very idea of using them.
Unfortunately, those 16 Saudi Arabians (and the few other guys, none from Afghanistan or Iraq, BTW) dropped our pants in public: they really hit us hard, and then Bush and crew took a shit and fell in it instead of actually dealing with the problem -- and in the process, they ate our freedoms and liberties for breakfast, while attacking entirely the wrong targets with entirely the wrong military tools. We wasted ten years, thousands of our soldiers lives, unbelievable amounts of equipment, fuel and money... and accomplished NOTHING except turn a secular state (Iraq) into a hotbed of Muslim superstition... when all we really needed to do was close our borders to Muslims, armor up our cockpit doors, load up a couple stealthy air marshals per flight, and spend a few million bucks nuking
Repeat after me: "The patriot act allows searches without a warrant within 100 miles of any US border." By which I mean legal in the sense that the law says so, though the constitution obviously forbids this outright, not that the constitution matters any longer. According to 2007 figures from the US Census Bureau, 197.4 million people, 2/3 of the United States' population, including the entire state of Florida, live within this adjacent-border strip.
Nuclear testing is done far away from where people live or intend to live.
Myth. Wrong. The primary US nuclear testing facilities (NTS) were (are) located 65 miles from Las Vegas.
Also it is contained underground most of the time, *that* is why the radiation from testing has not been a big problem.
Myth: Still wrong. here's a graph of aboveground test yields. Here is data that breaks out aboveground tests from belowground tests. If you're too lazy to read, then I'll just tell you: The vast majority of tests prior to 1962 were aboveground, and there were a shitload of them.
At least half of the casualties of the bombing of Hiroshima were from the effects of radiation long after the war ended
Yes, of course, we dropped a nuclear weapon on them! Good grief, it's like shooting a rabbit for dinner and then complaining because you found a hole in it! How many soldiers and civilians died during and after the war because they had only one lung, or spinal injuries, or brain damage, or whatever? Get this through your head: When you fire off a weapon at someone and you don't miss, you're going to hurt them. They may die immediately, they may be severely injured and die some amount of time later, or they may linger on, or they may heal. That's what weapons do. That's the point!
What you're talking about here isn't about "fallout", it's a primary weapons effect. You haven't just moved the goalposts, you changed fields entirely here. I am perfectly ready to stipulate that if you drop a nuke on someone, there will be deleterious effects. lol!
But I'm the "cluetard", whatever.
No, I think that was far too kind, actually. You're clearly an idiot.
The rest of your post is either equally ignorant or sociophathic(sic), so I won't bother to continue.
lol. Yeah, well, given your success rate - zero - maybe it's time to hang up your debating hat anyway. Calling me ignorant for pushing the facts in your face is pretty funny too. But you get on with your bad self. On the Internet, you're a superhero. A legend in your own lunchtime.
As a student of WWII, I can tell you that the Japanese turned on us because we were fucking with them, specifically we froze all Japanese assets, stopped shipping oil to them, and told them that *our* interests in China overrode theirs (in other words, more fucking with them); and the Germans declared war on us because we were obviously and thoroughly still fucking with *them* (see the Treaty of Versailles) , not to mention supplying arms to the other side. In other words, the axis powers didn't "draw us in" - we did it ourselves.
If we leave other nations alone, generally speaking, they'll leave us alone. Furthermore if we trade with them openly and fairly, they're unlikely to want to mess with us at all, quite the opposite. If they *don't* leave us alone... when they come into our country and do something we don't approve of -- they've lost all right to breathe air. The only way that really works, though, is if we observe the same honorable behavior. And we never, ever do.
Ah, another completely uninformed cluetard speaks out. Ok, here we go.
Do you know that the US has, so far, detonated over a thousand nuclear weapons? Do you know that the soviets have detonated over 700? France several hundred (maybe they won't surrender after all, eh?), Britain almost 50? And that China, India, Pakistan and others add still more to the total in sets of ten and more? Plus tests we don't even know about!
Now, just look around you. Do you see the devastation, the throngs of people dying in the street, sores on their bodies, etc.? No. You don't. What you *do* see is people living longer, better lives. Pretty much worldwide, too. After literally thousands of nuclear weapons detonations. Hmm. How do you reconcile that with your nuclear terrors at night? Oh, you haven't actually thought it through. Well, THERE is a surprise, eh?
Fallout is, in fact, not much of a problem, *especially* as compared to the actual detonation and *intended* results on-target: fireball, thermal pulse, shockwave, shrapnel, etc. And mind you, if those people are hammered, well, that was the point: They wouldn't be any happier if you'd dropped a conventional weapon on them and burned them to death in a conventional firestorm. Or burned them half to death, or shot them with a 50 caliber machine gun, etc. Look up the firestorms from WWII; Germany and Japan experienced many. Conventional weapons only. Conventional weapons are no better, in point of fact -- war is hell, and it doesn't matter if you're fighting with pikes or nukes. Nukes are just more efficient. Which brings us to their benefits. You attack a nuclear armed country that will actually respond (not us, obviously), and you are in some very deep shit, very quickly. So, obviously, best not to do that. And THAT is why nukes are a great idea.
Now that you should understand that fallout isn't the problem you thought it was, consider: if we drop one, or two, or hell, even ten more nukes, there isn't going to be any huge non-local fallout problem or any other kind of weapons-related problem, either. But the message will be clear: you fuck with us, and we will turn around and stomp you flat. And this, in turn, will tend to reduce those incidents. Just the way you are unlikely to attack some big bruiser, you are unlikely to attack a nuclear weapons holder - IF, and here's they key, they have the will to use them. That would not be us -- we would rather pump our war machine and kill thousands of our own soldiers than actually solve the problem, because we like our economy to spin along pretty well. However, if the Muslims decide to attack Israel... I think you can expect some serious fireworks.
Are you ok with other countries justifying nuclear weapon use because if we can do it so can they?
lol... that cat is long out of the bag. But yeah, if they want to use 'em, that's fine with me. They aggress, they're responsible for the response. The more nations have them, the less of that there will be, though. Consequently, I'm all for every nation having a nuclear arsenal ASAP. I would suspect that would lead to a lot fewer wars once things shook out a bit.
One last point: modern nukes make considerably less fallout than the old ones did -- we know just how to do that now. So blowing a few off would cause even less trouble than in the old days, fallout-wise.
Some problems need to be nipped in the bud. That you claim to be a student of history (WWII) and don't recognize this is especially disconcerting.
Oh, I recognize it, all right -- but I also recognize whose responsibility it is to nip them, as you put it. When you start to think that it is your job to be the world's cop, when you do NOT have the same social outlooks as the rest of the world, you're asking to have your ass handed to you. I am not in the least interested in telling some Muslim how many wives he can take, or how much oil we expect, or at what price. I am not interested in defending Israel (if they had any sense at all, they'd move out -- they are literally asking to have their asses kicked, and if that happens, I will eat popcorn and watch. OTOH if they win, I'll *still* eat popcorn. I wouldn't support sending one soldier or one bullet in their general direction. Not that anyone pays any attention to what I think is right, of course.)
The world is too interconnected now to just let events proceed and pretend that they won't affect you
Nonsense. There are tons of (major) things that can happen without our intervention that won't affect me, or my country, in any significant way. And there are many more that might affect us in beneficial ways. And of the remaining ones that would have a negative effect -- for instance, if the mideast decided en masse to no longer sell us oil -- I have no doubt that we could make the best of the situation and come out smelling like roses, as it were. You're just engaging in hyperbole here. Nations are, in fact, independent entities at the root. To the extent that they are not, they do not somehow magically gain the right to police other nations.
it's better to try and stop a big problem at our border than to stomp a small problem on the other side of the globe
We don't have any "big problems" at our borders, nor have we ever had such a problem in modern times, nor do I expect we will any time soon (meaning, at least the next hundred years or so.) And by then, things will have changed further, and attitudes will too, so I don't worry about my policies today as they might or might not apply to tomorrow. Most of our real problems are domestic; the "world" level problems we have are almost universally of our own making.
The only reason to develop better conventional explosives is because we want to avoid actually using nuclear weapons
Be careful with that "we" there, pardner, you'll find yourself describing a situation that doesn't actually exist. I support the use of nuclear weapons under circumstances that some other people do not. But then again, I actually understand them and don't run around pretending death by nuke is somehow worse than death by firestorm, MOAB, landmine or a 50 caliber round, or that "da fawlout will killz us allz!", or that the death of thousands of American soldiers is somehow of greater value to us than dropping a nuke or two and keeping the soldiers alive.
For instance, would have been just fine with me if, in response to 9/11, we had dropped a nuke each on Riyadh, Mecca and the most significant Taliban headquarters would could identify in response to the 16 Muslim Arabs and 2...3 other Muslim state actors supported by Saudi money and the Saudi state religion. Not to worry, though, I'll never be president, we'll never stop meddling with other nations, and the Muslims will continue to hound us endlessly. Endless war for everyone, but no nukes. Those guys with the cigars are in 7th heaven.
So, what you're saying is that it's none of your business if every nation on the globe were to develop nuclear weapons?
Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. I'm an American; my legitimate control ends where the country's borders and maritime boundaries lie. If you're inside them, or use weapons against the population or the infrastructure inside them, you're my problem, and I support a workmanlike mechanism to wholly terminate your ass. I might, depending on the nature of your incursion, support going further and eliminating your ability to do it again. I would not, by the way, support paying for medical care or rebuilding your infrastructure. You aggress, in my opinion, the consequences are entirely your responsibility.
You stay out, or behave within, you're not my problem. Someone comes inside your borders, assuming you're from some other country, that's *your* problem, and *you* need to deal with it. If you can't, then you may go the way of history. You can, *they* may go the way of history. Either way, my legitimate role is to have breakfast and read about it in the paper. I might feel regret, I might feel enthusiasm, but I would *not* feel the urge to intervene.
What you seem to forget is the United States originally developed nuclear weapons for a very specific purpose: to stop the Axis powers
I have not in any way forgotten it, in fact I'm somewhat of a student of WWII, which means I know a considerable bit more about it than most people. However... yes, so? What's your point?
The first and last time we used nukes were on a ruthless, active enemy that attacked us first.
Well, other than over a thousand US nuclear weapons detonations, most of which dropped various amounts of fallout on the entire planet, yes. So?
Say what you want about America, we have shown incredible restraint in the use of unconventional weapons after 1945, and even then it wasn't a decision that was taken lightly.
Yes, so? Has Iran used nuclear weapons? No. Has Israel used nuclear weapons? No. Has France? No. Has England? No. Has the USSR? No. They all have them; yet no one has used them (well, except us, and I'm not saying that was a mistake, either.) So what's your point?
Can you say the same about Iran?
I don't say anything about Iran. I'm not an Iranian citizen. I don't concern myself with things they say about us, and I don't expect them to concern themselves with things we say about them. Also, what you're trying to do here is an exercise in "what if", which is bullshit. Iran has done nothing to make me think they are a threat to my country; ergo, I don't worry about them. I worry more about the loonies here that want to go in, and based on events that only exist in their imagination, do some terrible damage to some other sovereign country, thus setting a legitimate stage for other countries to come and do the same to us. National borders are what they are for a reason; violating them is a VERY bad idea.
How about Somalia? The Congo? Do you really feel it's necessary to allow any country to develop weapons of mass destruction, completely unchecked, because it's "none of our business"?
Yes, absolutely.
In a perfect world, we'd dismantle every warhead in existence and burn the schematics.
No, we wouldn't. We'd use them as excavation tools, space drives, anti-asteroid devices, and so on. And there is no such thing as a perfect world anyway.
Allowing yet another nation to obtain the power to obliterate entire cities is moving in the complete opposite direction of where we need to go.
Buddy, wherever you got the idea that *you* know what direction *we* need to g
Are there any people that think "energy weapons" will ever even approach.0001% of what's possible with chemical warheads?
Sure. We call these particular energy weapons "fusion devices." You let me know when a human-caused chemical reaction gets to 100 MT, lol. (reference is to the Soviet's Tsar Bomba, which was tested at a low (!) yield of ~50 Mt but was designed for 100Mt in actual use.)
The Chinese have nuclear weapons and you don't see the Western World freaking the fuck out about that. Why is that?
Because (a) it's too late, and (b) there isn't a damn thing we can do about it because (c) they would fry us where we stand, just as the USSR would, or, come to that, just like we would, if attacked.
They don't sponsor terrorism
Oh. You mean like when the USA sponsors attacks within other countries without the sanction of those governments.
they don't threaten freedom of navigation on the high seas
Oh. You mean like when the USA "blockades" other countries and boards other nation's ships by force.
they don't have an openly racist high level politician that denies the right of one of his neighbors to exist.
No? What about Taiwan / Formosa?
If Iran wants to be treated like a grown up perhaps it should start acting like one.
Actually, I think Iran is doing exactly the right thing -- from their perspective. They've hardened their nuclear program so as to make it very difficult for anyone to shut it down. If -- essentially because of that hardening -- they succeed in developing nuclear weapons, that'll be the end of any chance of the US attacking them, because the consequences are politically untenable; and it'll settle Israel down, too -- they're not into proactive suicide. As for them attacking Israel with nukes... Israel is already a significant nuclear power. So I doubt it. But if they do, a lot of people in Israel will die, but all of populated Iran will be a sea of molten glass, and the "Iran problem" is solved.
Do I want to see a nuclear armed Iran? No, not particularly. But then again, it's none of my business, just as our armaments are none of Iran's business. We have no more right to step into Iran's internal affairs than they do ours. And if we DO step in there and attack them for developing a credible nuclear deterrent, then when someone does it to us... we won't have a leg to stand on. Not that this will penetrate into the dim bulbs of the "rah rah" crowd, but there it is.
You've made a cognitive error here. In order for that kind of economic thinking to work, you have to *know* who is going to get sick and experience costs they cannot meet. But we can't know that.
Consequently, pooling a relatively small amount of money (as compared to actual healthcare costs) in such a way as to address the randomly distributed risk is an excellent choice both economically and practically.
You can sit there all smug because you saved a few hundred a month one moment, and then realize you're now facing, unassisted, a six-figure bill for some healthcare event that caught you unaware. Now *that* is just stupid.
The new health care insurance provisions, while certainly not optimum (insurance companies are a very inefficient way to pool risk), will serve to bring up the level of wellness in the country; that in turn will bring up productivity and make the public spaces safer. It's as needed, and for very similar reasons, as are educational standards and mechanisms that are available to all.
it's called considering how somebody's [minimum wage] policy would apply
No. It's not. Because the president can't set that policy, so it's completely irrelevant. Consider what the president actually CAN do (which is basically foreign policy), then decide if the way the candidate wants to do it aligns with what you WANT done. Then vote accordingly.
That's a terrible way to decide. What you just said was "imagine a situation that doesn't apply, and then make your decision based on that." I can hardly think of a less reality-based methodology.
You want to make a rational decision, then first, see what the prospective candidate's powers will be if elected to the proposed position; then see what their views are WRT those powers; then make your decision based on that. Not on some imaginary situation that doesn't even remotely apply. Good grief.
So you really are borderline between the libertarian, mini-Federal government, personal liberty, no Federal healthcare mandate, uber-Constitutionalist Dr. Paul or the liberal, make big government bigger, bureaucrats know best, grow the mandates, President Obama? Really?
I hold a mix of views on a wide variety of things, which I usually find sufficient to frustrate any democrat, republican, or libertarian. I don't hew to any platform; I simply support the ideas that I think are good ideas. For instance, I generally support the idea that we should follow the constitution as written. Having said that, there are some areas I think the constitution is in need of change, and consequently should be amended per article 5. I'd generally prefer it if we could get those needed changes done instead of acting extra-constitutionally. But I recognize that in reality, we presently pay very little attention to the constitution unless it is to the government's benefit these days, and so what we're actually dealing with is a marketplace of ideas. One that is, unfortunately, mostly controlled by lobbyists. So while I feel strongly about the constitution, I still tend to look at reality and actually react to that, rather than an idealized view of how things should work.
My interest in Paul is (a) he can get done, as commander in chief, something I think is important to do: pull our troops and bases out of everywhere but here. I do not think that we have a valid role as the world's policeman, nor do I think we can afford it, validity of the role aside. He is pro-trade, but anti-military intervention. I think that's a workable stance. (b) Most everything else Paul wants to do, he has to convince congress of, and I don't think he can do that, so those things become effectively irrelevant. (c) I think the constitutionality of things should be important, and I'd like to get back to that, and I think Paul would cause a national conversation about the constitution to rise above the level of the background noise. Perhaps we can actually decide, as a people, if we want to follow the constitution, or if we want more of this "absolute rule by the 545." Taken together, this is why I would vote for Paul. Nothing else.
Obama: I think Obama has done some very good things to date. I think he's very intelligent (like Paul and unlike anyone else in the republican field.) I rather suspect that some of the other things he promised to try to do in his original campaign have been put off because if done, they might unacceptably compromise his second term chances in the view of his political strategists. If he has a second term, where he doesn't have to be concerned about being re-elected, we'll get to see if that's so.
In lieu of Ron Paul, do you truly believe that any Republican now running would move the country that far to the left?
I don't think presidents "move the country" left or right. I think they set foreign policy and cause it to be executed, while congress and the judiciary move the country left or right. Consequently, it's not a consideration for me when I vote for president. If you listen to the rhetoric of a presidential campaign, then think about presidential powers, you'll realize that most of it is simply posturing. It is my opinion that when you vote for president, you should vote with foreign policy first and foremost in your mind -- because that's an essentially unchecked presidential power.
At first I wasn't sure what to think about you. Are you bipolar? A troll? Simply unreflective? Now it looks like a Democrat playing a game.
Frankly, I don't see how anyone who declares a preference for Ron Paul could vote for Obama - their ideas tend to be opposite. It's like a vegetarian going out for a big steak dinner... every Friday and Saturday night.
Clearly, I don't fit into your preconceived box. Why that is, I leave as an exercise for you.
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It means that the surahs of the Q'ran (which is essentially the central body of Islam) exhorted those people to do precisely those kinds of acts; that the Muslim religious leaders got behind those surahs and pushed; that the religious rich in SA got behind those leaders and funded this; that Islam, like all religions, but particularly this one at the moment, is dangerous and corrosive in and of itself. So -- IMHO -- the correct response would have been to attack the heart of the religion.
This is a Muslim problem. Anyone who thinks it isn't is in blatant denial. Americans are so PC about religion they can't even face up to it when it bites them right on the ass. As it did on 9/11, and as it no doubt will again.
It's up to them to manage their own society. I'm not saying if you leave others alone they'll do a great job, I'm just saying it's important not to go in there and insist on anything, or sanction them, or blockade them, or tell them they *can't* do this or *must* do that. That kind of behavior needs to be reserved for actors within your own borders.
More to the point - we won't. We won't even try. Because our leaders are idiots.
I'm saying the problem emerged from within the country of Saudi Arabia; not that it was necessarily state-sponsored. It was, however, religion-sponsored. If we wanted to actually do anything about it at the source, something would have had to be done there. It wasn't; the problem still exists.
When congress creates law that violates the bill of rights and when SCOTUS supports such law, they are (a) in violation of the highest law in the land, (b) in violation of their oaths, (c) in violation of the public trust.
However, that said, we have no mechanism to deal with this kind of pervasive malfeasance. Also FYI
I have reasonable confidence that if we don't screw with them, they won't attack us. I don't think we should "leave them alone", I think we should trade with them and decline any opportunity, real or perceived, to preach, proselytize, promote or criticize within their borders.
Further, if we behaved that way, and someone messed with us -- we'd actually have a solid reason to respond, and we wouldn't have to pussyfoot around when we did so, which I think would be a good thing. Non-interference, open trade, and a strong defense strike me as the best combination of extra-national policies.
Well, all the evidence -- ALL of it -- points to Saudi Arabia. The 9/11 attackers: 15 of the 19 were Saudi. They were backed by Saudi money. They adhered to a religion with its cultural and historical center in Saudi Arabia (Mecca.) They trained some in Afghanistan, but attacking the country for that was like someone who was pissed at Fox News attacking England because Gretchen Carlson went to school at Oxford. It was just stupid -- but then again, we had Bush II running things at the time, and he certainly wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer.
So the Saudis completely got away with it. I really don't see the deterrence here. The message turned out to be, "Attack us, and we will attack some other random party(s), possibly vaguely associated with the problem (Afghanistan), but maybe not (Iraq.). Also we will shoot ourselves in the foot, (Patriot act, TSA, etc.) seriously, we will. So be careful!"
Yes... that would be "they", not "we."
Exactly. If you want to be nice, "not using nukes" doesn't manage to cover it.
If you're asking about how WWII started WRT the USA, I blame both (all three) sides.
I blame the US for pushing Japan further than it could go; we showed very little comprehension of what we were doing, despite warnings from diplomats in place.
I blame Japan for taking entirely the wrong course of action to try and resolve their (very real) problems. I understand it... somewhat... but they still did all the wrong things. Militarily, they almost managed to knock us right out of the war, it was a very close thing after Pearl. But they bit off more than they could chew in their overall intent (not just the US) and they were too wound up in nationalism to see it. Bad choices, one after another.
I blame Germany right up front for being a bunch of idiot followers, people who would obey their leadership while they were led into an absolute perversion of any realistic vision of what their nation was supposed to be.
Kind of like I blame US citizens today for letting congress and the judiciary pervert the constitution into a parody of its original meaning.
Germany was stupid to declare war on us, though I suppose if you're a mental case like Hitler, it might have seemed like a good idea. It wasn't, though, for reasons -- at the point when Germany declared war on us -- that seem quite obvious to me. Hindsight and all that, but still. If you look at the treaty of Versailles, you'll see that post WWI, Germany was well and truly stepped upon as far as its national right to do this and that (like build a navy) went. This was a VERY bad idea; because (a) it was utterly unenforceable, as Hitler demonstrated, and (b) it just made them angry, which, well, you know what happened next. And Hitler... Hitler was like a catalyst, truly psychotic, plugged into the German zeitgeist at just the right (wrong) time. And he had some truly awful people managing things underneath him, too. As a society, Germany seems to be very prone to rather profound fails -- they screw up a *lot* if you look at them over time.
If you really want to know, I kind of blame everyone in sight at the time. Some more than others, some earlier than others, but basically, it appears to me to have been a policy clusterfuck of Brobdingnagian proportions on everyone's part. If someone in the leadership of Germany, Japan or the USA did the right thing when they had a realistic choice at any point in the early years of that war and in the lead up to it, I sure I don't know what it might have been.
What I will say is that it definitely isn't a simple case of "oooo, Japan made a surprise attack on the USA, we were just sitting there smelling the flowers and the Bad Men Came!"
And as far as nukes go -- since that's what sort of launched all this -- I'm perfectly comfortable with having dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; I'm not particularly intimidated by nukes as opposed to death by any other type of violence, nor do I think we should be thinking about getting rid of them. They're an excellent deterrent, IF you're willing to use them. The latter is a problem, though. We're not willing, so they're kind of pointless right now. There is a huge swath of the ignorant public that waves their hands and craps themselves over the very idea of using them.
Unfortunately, those 16 Saudi Arabians (and the few other guys, none from Afghanistan or Iraq, BTW) dropped our pants in public: they really hit us hard, and then Bush and crew took a shit and fell in it instead of actually dealing with the problem -- and in the process, they ate our freedoms and liberties for breakfast, while attacking entirely the wrong targets with entirely the wrong military tools. We wasted ten years, thousands of our soldiers lives, unbelievable amounts of equipment, fuel and money... and accomplished NOTHING except turn a secular state (Iraq) into a hotbed of Muslim superstition... when all we really needed to do was close our borders to Muslims, armor up our cockpit doors, load up a couple stealthy air marshals per flight, and spend a few million bucks nuking
Replied, meant to reply to you, but aimed wrong. Sorry. Please see comment here.
Repeat after me: "The patriot act allows searches without a warrant within 100 miles of any US border." By which I mean legal in the sense that the law says so, though the constitution obviously forbids this outright, not that the constitution matters any longer. According to 2007 figures from the US Census Bureau, 197.4 million people, 2/3 of the United States' population, including the entire state of Florida, live within this adjacent-border strip.
You might want to start reading here, then Google further.
Myth. Wrong. The primary US nuclear testing facilities (NTS) were (are) located 65 miles from Las Vegas.
Myth: Still wrong. here's a graph of aboveground test yields. Here is data that breaks out aboveground tests from belowground tests. If you're too lazy to read, then I'll just tell you: The vast majority of tests prior to 1962 were aboveground, and there were a shitload of them.
Yes, of course, we dropped a nuclear weapon on them! Good grief, it's like shooting a rabbit for dinner and then complaining because you found a hole in it! How many soldiers and civilians died during and after the war because they had only one lung, or spinal injuries, or brain damage, or whatever? Get this through your head: When you fire off a weapon at someone and you don't miss, you're going to hurt them. They may die immediately, they may be severely injured and die some amount of time later, or they may linger on, or they may heal. That's what weapons do. That's the point!
What you're talking about here isn't about "fallout", it's a primary weapons effect. You haven't just moved the goalposts, you changed fields entirely here. I am perfectly ready to stipulate that if you drop a nuke on someone, there will be deleterious effects. lol!
No, I think that was far too kind, actually. You're clearly an idiot.
lol. Yeah, well, given your success rate - zero - maybe it's time to hang up your debating hat anyway. Calling me ignorant for pushing the facts in your face is pretty funny too. But you get on with your bad self. On the Internet, you're a superhero. A legend in your own lunchtime.
Doesn't count. Just like when we nuked Nevada. Over and over again.
As a student of WWII, I can tell you that the Japanese turned on us because we were fucking with them, specifically we froze all Japanese assets, stopped shipping oil to them, and told them that *our* interests in China overrode theirs (in other words, more fucking with them); and the Germans declared war on us because we were obviously and thoroughly still fucking with *them* (see the Treaty of Versailles) , not to mention supplying arms to the other side. In other words, the axis powers didn't "draw us in" - we did it ourselves.
If we leave other nations alone, generally speaking, they'll leave us alone. Furthermore if we trade with them openly and fairly, they're unlikely to want to mess with us at all, quite the opposite. If they *don't* leave us alone... when they come into our country and do something we don't approve of -- they've lost all right to breathe air. The only way that really works, though, is if we observe the same honorable behavior. And we never, ever do.
But hey -- nice try.
Ah, another completely uninformed cluetard speaks out. Ok, here we go.
Do you know that the US has, so far, detonated over a thousand nuclear weapons? Do you know that the soviets have detonated over 700? France several hundred (maybe they won't surrender after all, eh?), Britain almost 50? And that China, India, Pakistan and others add still more to the total in sets of ten and more? Plus tests we don't even know about!
Now, just look around you. Do you see the devastation, the throngs of people dying in the street, sores on their bodies, etc.? No. You don't. What you *do* see is people living longer, better lives. Pretty much worldwide, too. After literally thousands of nuclear weapons detonations. Hmm. How do you reconcile that with your nuclear terrors at night? Oh, you haven't actually thought it through. Well, THERE is a surprise, eh?
Fallout is, in fact, not much of a problem, *especially* as compared to the actual detonation and *intended* results on-target: fireball, thermal pulse, shockwave, shrapnel, etc. And mind you, if those people are hammered, well, that was the point: They wouldn't be any happier if you'd dropped a conventional weapon on them and burned them to death in a conventional firestorm. Or burned them half to death, or shot them with a 50 caliber machine gun, etc. Look up the firestorms from WWII; Germany and Japan experienced many. Conventional weapons only. Conventional weapons are no better, in point of fact -- war is hell, and it doesn't matter if you're fighting with pikes or nukes. Nukes are just more efficient. Which brings us to their benefits. You attack a nuclear armed country that will actually respond (not us, obviously), and you are in some very deep shit, very quickly. So, obviously, best not to do that. And THAT is why nukes are a great idea.
Now that you should understand that fallout isn't the problem you thought it was, consider: if we drop one, or two, or hell, even ten more nukes, there isn't going to be any huge non-local fallout problem or any other kind of weapons-related problem, either. But the message will be clear: you fuck with us, and we will turn around and stomp you flat. And this, in turn, will tend to reduce those incidents. Just the way you are unlikely to attack some big bruiser, you are unlikely to attack a nuclear weapons holder - IF, and here's they key, they have the will to use them. That would not be us -- we would rather pump our war machine and kill thousands of our own soldiers than actually solve the problem, because we like our economy to spin along pretty well. However, if the Muslims decide to attack Israel... I think you can expect some serious fireworks.
lol... that cat is long out of the bag. But yeah, if they want to use 'em, that's fine with me. They aggress, they're responsible for the response. The more nations have them, the less of that there will be, though. Consequently, I'm all for every nation having a nuclear arsenal ASAP. I would suspect that would lead to a lot fewer wars once things shook out a bit.
One last point: modern nukes make considerably less fallout than the old ones did -- we know just how to do that now. So blowing a few off would cause even less trouble than in the old days, fallout-wise.
Oh, I recognize it, all right -- but I also recognize whose responsibility it is to nip them, as you put it. When you start to think that it is your job to be the world's cop, when you do NOT have the same social outlooks as the rest of the world, you're asking to have your ass handed to you. I am not in the least interested in telling some Muslim how many wives he can take, or how much oil we expect, or at what price. I am not interested in defending Israel (if they had any sense at all, they'd move out -- they are literally asking to have their asses kicked, and if that happens, I will eat popcorn and watch. OTOH if they win, I'll *still* eat popcorn. I wouldn't support sending one soldier or one bullet in their general direction. Not that anyone pays any attention to what I think is right, of course.)
Nonsense. There are tons of (major) things that can happen without our intervention that won't affect me, or my country, in any significant way. And there are many more that might affect us in beneficial ways. And of the remaining ones that would have a negative effect -- for instance, if the mideast decided en masse to no longer sell us oil -- I have no doubt that we could make the best of the situation and come out smelling like roses, as it were. You're just engaging in hyperbole here. Nations are, in fact, independent entities at the root. To the extent that they are not, they do not somehow magically gain the right to police other nations.
We don't have any "big problems" at our borders, nor have we ever had such a problem in modern times, nor do I expect we will any time soon (meaning, at least the next hundred years or so.) And by then, things will have changed further, and attitudes will too, so I don't worry about my policies today as they might or might not apply to tomorrow. Most of our real problems are domestic; the "world" level problems we have are almost universally of our own making.
No? Magic, then? lol
Be careful with that "we" there, pardner, you'll find yourself describing a situation that doesn't actually exist. I support the use of nuclear weapons under circumstances that some other people do not. But then again, I actually understand them and don't run around pretending death by nuke is somehow worse than death by firestorm, MOAB, landmine or a 50 caliber round, or that "da fawlout will killz us allz!", or that the death of thousands of American soldiers is somehow of greater value to us than dropping a nuke or two and keeping the soldiers alive.
For instance, would have been just fine with me if, in response to 9/11, we had dropped a nuke each on Riyadh, Mecca and the most significant Taliban headquarters would could identify in response to the 16 Muslim Arabs and 2...3 other Muslim state actors supported by Saudi money and the Saudi state religion. Not to worry, though, I'll never be president, we'll never stop meddling with other nations, and the Muslims will continue to hound us endlessly. Endless war for everyone, but no nukes. Those guys with the cigars are in 7th heaven.
Yep, fouled up the editing there, thank you for the correction. Well aware, just got tangled up in the editing. Sorry.
Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. I'm an American; my legitimate control ends where the country's borders and maritime boundaries lie. If you're inside them, or use weapons against the population or the infrastructure inside them, you're my problem, and I support a workmanlike mechanism to wholly terminate your ass. I might, depending on the nature of your incursion, support going further and eliminating your ability to do it again. I would not, by the way, support paying for medical care or rebuilding your infrastructure. You aggress, in my opinion, the consequences are entirely your responsibility.
You stay out, or behave within, you're not my problem. Someone comes inside your borders, assuming you're from some other country, that's *your* problem, and *you* need to deal with it. If you can't, then you may go the way of history. You can, *they* may go the way of history. Either way, my legitimate role is to have breakfast and read about it in the paper. I might feel regret, I might feel enthusiasm, but I would *not* feel the urge to intervene.
I have not in any way forgotten it, in fact I'm somewhat of a student of WWII, which means I know a considerable bit more about it than most people. However... yes, so? What's your point?
Well, other than over a thousand US nuclear weapons detonations, most of which dropped various amounts of fallout on the entire planet, yes. So?
Yes, so? Has Iran used nuclear weapons? No. Has Israel used nuclear weapons? No. Has France? No. Has England? No. Has the USSR? No. They all have them; yet no one has used them (well, except us, and I'm not saying that was a mistake, either.) So what's your point?
I don't say anything about Iran. I'm not an Iranian citizen. I don't concern myself with things they say about us, and I don't expect them to concern themselves with things we say about them. Also, what you're trying to do here is an exercise in "what if", which is bullshit. Iran has done nothing to make me think they are a threat to my country; ergo, I don't worry about them. I worry more about the loonies here that want to go in, and based on events that only exist in their imagination, do some terrible damage to some other sovereign country, thus setting a legitimate stage for other countries to come and do the same to us. National borders are what they are for a reason; violating them is a VERY bad idea.
Yes, absolutely.
No, we wouldn't. We'd use them as excavation tools, space drives, anti-asteroid devices, and so on. And there is no such thing as a perfect world anyway.
Buddy, wherever you got the idea that *you* know what direction *we* need to g
How about they drop one to make a hole, and then put a 20 Mt fusion weapon into the hole?
That'll break some eggs.
Sure. We call these particular energy weapons "fusion devices." You let me know when a human-caused chemical reaction gets to 100 MT, lol. (reference is to the Soviet's Tsar Bomba, which was tested at a low (!) yield of ~50 Mt but was designed for 100Mt in actual use.)
Because (a) it's too late, and (b) there isn't a damn thing we can do about it because (c) they would fry us where we stand, just as the USSR would, or, come to that, just like we would, if attacked.
Oh. You mean like when the USA sponsors attacks within other countries without the sanction of those governments.
Oh. You mean like when the USA "blockades" other countries and boards other nation's ships by force.
No? What about Taiwan / Formosa?
Actually, I think Iran is doing exactly the right thing -- from their perspective. They've hardened their nuclear program so as to make it very difficult for anyone to shut it down. If -- essentially because of that hardening -- they succeed in developing nuclear weapons, that'll be the end of any chance of the US attacking them, because the consequences are politically untenable; and it'll settle Israel down, too -- they're not into proactive suicide. As for them attacking Israel with nukes... Israel is already a significant nuclear power. So I doubt it. But if they do, a lot of people in Israel will die, but all of populated Iran will be a sea of molten glass, and the "Iran problem" is solved.
Do I want to see a nuclear armed Iran? No, not particularly. But then again, it's none of my business, just as our armaments are none of Iran's business. We have no more right to step into Iran's internal affairs than they do ours. And if we DO step in there and attack them for developing a credible nuclear deterrent, then when someone does it to us... we won't have a leg to stand on. Not that this will penetrate into the dim bulbs of the "rah rah" crowd, but there it is.
You've made a cognitive error here. In order for that kind of economic thinking to work, you have to *know* who is going to get sick and experience costs they cannot meet. But we can't know that.
Consequently, pooling a relatively small amount of money (as compared to actual healthcare costs) in such a way as to address the randomly distributed risk is an excellent choice both economically and practically.
You can sit there all smug because you saved a few hundred a month one moment, and then realize you're now facing, unassisted, a six-figure bill for some healthcare event that caught you unaware. Now *that* is just stupid.
The new health care insurance provisions, while certainly not optimum (insurance companies are a very inefficient way to pool risk), will serve to bring up the level of wellness in the country; that in turn will bring up productivity and make the public spaces safer. It's as needed, and for very similar reasons, as are educational standards and mechanisms that are available to all.
No. It's not. Because the president can't set that policy, so it's completely irrelevant. Consider what the president actually CAN do (which is basically foreign policy), then decide if the way the candidate wants to do it aligns with what you WANT done. Then vote accordingly.
I think they should receive a short sentence.
That's a terrible way to decide. What you just said was "imagine a situation that doesn't apply, and then make your decision based on that." I can hardly think of a less reality-based methodology.
You want to make a rational decision, then first, see what the prospective candidate's powers will be if elected to the proposed position; then see what their views are WRT those powers; then make your decision based on that. Not on some imaginary situation that doesn't even remotely apply. Good grief.
I hold a mix of views on a wide variety of things, which I usually find sufficient to frustrate any democrat, republican, or libertarian. I don't hew to any platform; I simply support the ideas that I think are good ideas. For instance, I generally support the idea that we should follow the constitution as written. Having said that, there are some areas I think the constitution is in need of change, and consequently should be amended per article 5. I'd generally prefer it if we could get those needed changes done instead of acting extra-constitutionally. But I recognize that in reality, we presently pay very little attention to the constitution unless it is to the government's benefit these days, and so what we're actually dealing with is a marketplace of ideas. One that is, unfortunately, mostly controlled by lobbyists. So while I feel strongly about the constitution, I still tend to look at reality and actually react to that, rather than an idealized view of how things should work.
My interest in Paul is (a) he can get done, as commander in chief, something I think is important to do: pull our troops and bases out of everywhere but here. I do not think that we have a valid role as the world's policeman, nor do I think we can afford it, validity of the role aside. He is pro-trade, but anti-military intervention. I think that's a workable stance. (b) Most everything else Paul wants to do, he has to convince congress of, and I don't think he can do that, so those things become effectively irrelevant. (c) I think the constitutionality of things should be important, and I'd like to get back to that, and I think Paul would cause a national conversation about the constitution to rise above the level of the background noise. Perhaps we can actually decide, as a people, if we want to follow the constitution, or if we want more of this "absolute rule by the 545." Taken together, this is why I would vote for Paul. Nothing else.
Obama: I think Obama has done some very good things to date. I think he's very intelligent (like Paul and unlike anyone else in the republican field.) I rather suspect that some of the other things he promised to try to do in his original campaign have been put off because if done, they might unacceptably compromise his second term chances in the view of his political strategists. If he has a second term, where he doesn't have to be concerned about being re-elected, we'll get to see if that's so.
I don't think presidents "move the country" left or right. I think they set foreign policy and cause it to be executed, while congress and the judiciary move the country left or right. Consequently, it's not a consideration for me when I vote for president. If you listen to the rhetoric of a presidential campaign, then think about presidential powers, you'll realize that most of it is simply posturing. It is my opinion that when you vote for president, you should vote with foreign policy first and foremost in your mind -- because that's an essentially unchecked presidential power.
Clearly, I don't fit into your preconceived box. Why that is, I leave as an exercise for you.