Look, we run the numbers and most likely God willing the Earth won't be totally destroyed. Can we all just stop wasting time talking about this and get the science done?
I think it goes back to the Jefferson quote. Liberty sometimes requires a blood sacrifice, and Bomber Command style tactics can make sure most of the blood comes from the enemy. Also, if you have a reputation for Churchillian ruthlessness when attacked, future attacks are less likely.
Flame grilled Germans today means no need to flame grill Russians or Chinese later. Even if Israel killed far more civillians than they did in the last war, given the nature of their opponents I wouldn't have a problem with it. The rest of the world has developed a rather naive view that war can be surgical when in fact it's the sheer brutality that makes war effective.
If we'd been surgical with the Germans the Nazi Party would have survived, and would have been able to run an insurgency that would have ended the occupation. Massive collateral damage was necessary to batter the German population into submission to avoid this. If the Israelis were allowed to do what the US and UK did, they would probably end up solving the problem.
Collateral damage is in fact a vital part of winning a war.
Well I think you Godwinned yourself with this comment
the strategy I would have employed would have been to seek out a peaceful resolution to the war which my nation had declared (to 'cut my loses', if you will). If that failed, I would have petitioned my allies for further assistance. If that failed, I would have accepted defeat, realizing that like Rome (the previous Reich), Germany would have eventually tired itself out, and that it was probably easier at that juncture to defeat them from the inside; once the zeal of having defeated my inherently inferior aggressive island nation had waned.
Letting the Nazis win and hoping they "tire themselves out" = EPIC FOREIGN POLICY FAIL.
Face it, it was time to break out the white phosphorus and napalm and mass barbecue those bastards and in doing so make the world safe for freedom and democracy.
It reminds me of the Jefferson quote about the tree of liberty needing to be refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants. Thanks to the RAF's night area bombing strategy by far the majority of those patriots were German and Japanese.
If that hadn't have been enough we had anthrax and nuclear weapons on the way too. Aggressive, you betcha. Inherently inferior? Who ended up surrendering with all their cities burned to the ground. Not us, that's for sure.
To answer your original question: Had I been the Prime Minister of Britain when it became evident that Germany would completely crush my pathetic little island nation (who, incidentally, declared war on Germany), then I would NOT show such a complete disregard for civilian lives for the reasons stated above (reprisal, global political backlash, etc). Rather, the strategy I would have employed would have been to seek out a peaceful resolution to the war which my nation had declared (to 'cut my loses', if you will). If that failed, I would have petitioned my allies for further assistance. If that failed, I would have accepted defeat, realizing that like Rome (the previous Reich), Germany would have eventually tired itself out, and that it was probably easier at that juncture to defeat them from the inside; once the zeal of having defeated my inherently inferior aggressive island nation had waned.
Bwahaha. You limp wristed faggot. I think I prefer Churchill's crispy critters plan to yours.
When the RAF burned cities in World War II the target was the whole city. The idea being if the weather forecast for your city next week is 1500 degrees C all night and every night it would mess with your morale.
The biggest issue, it seems to me, is that people who spend a lot of time playing video games generally lack social skills. While everyone else was learning how to relate to the world, video game players were learning how to relate to video games.
Those who play games don't realize that they are socially backward because they are socially backward.
If only I had the chaingun I could win this argument.
Governments do have the choice of being moral and ethical. There is NO CIRMCUMSTANCE AT ALL I would want or expect the British government to shell civilian buildings using white phosphorous, against the terms of the Geneva conventions. Proportionate response is the key.
(Not that I'm saying Hamas is any better - they are deliberately targetting Israeli civilians, just with less effective weapons.)
Bullshit. When it looked like there was a possibility the Germans would win in WWII the British government incinerated whole cities of German civilians with incendiary bombs e.g. Dresden. And they were 100% justified in doing so, IMO. They had to destroy the German war economy and the only way they could do that was by bombing. Technology being what it was, that pretty much implied levelling German cities.
Of course, as my sig says, the Islamists deserve to lose because they place killing Jews over preserving the lives of their own people and building a civilization of their own. To use a sci-fi analogy, their behavior is that of Daleks.
That's not fair. The Daleks clearly had a first rate scientific and technological civilisation. That's because the Daleks are based on the Nazis, not on Hamas.
It worked for Gandhi because the British were insufficiently ruthless to just kill everyone who turned up for a non violent protest and keep doing that until people stopped protesting.
It doesn't work for the Tibetans becuase the Chinese are that ruthless. So were the Germans and Japanese in WWII, or the Russians in the Cold War.
You're completely naive. If Iran wanted nuclear power they could buy fuel from Russia. That would be cheap and it would work. In fact that's what they're doing in Bushehr.
If they want their own weapons they'd have to spend a fortune building centrifuges, which is what they're doing at Natanz.
If they didn't want nuclear weapons they wouldn't need the Natanz plant. And it would save them a pile of money.
The problem with the NPT is that it doesn't stop countries building their own enrichment plants for a civillian program and then quitting the NPT and nuclearizing. North Korea has managed it, and it looks like Iran will do the same thing.
I actually think in the medium term terrorism will be one of those things like road accidents or being killed by lightning that people just accept as being a fact of life.
My assumption is that MI6 can catch most of the terrorists, and the few they don't catch will be as incompetent as the post 9/11 terrorists in the UK, i.e. very.
Of course in the long run this makes it hard for the terrorists to recruit people. It's one thing if your death is likely to make your enemies run panicking around like headless chickens, that presumably makes it worthwhile. If they ignore you, or worse laugh at you like they did with the Glasgow Airport attackers, my guess is that makes it seem less appealing.
It seems like they need to have a few terror attacks that actually terrorise people per year to keep the momentum going. Right now, they aren't managing that in the UK.
Words like Plutonium tend to attract hawks and repell hippies. If you'd said "Weapons grade Phish" or "Weapons grade Marijuana" you'd get the opposite.
That depends where you detonated it. In the UK, I think a dirty bomb attack would definitely be a good time for a nice cup of tea, and for smokers a cigarette. The BBC would show people looking a bit stressed out in interviews. Experts would explain that the danger was very low outside some small evacuated area, and that the terrorists had got the bomb design wrong in some way that made it rather low risk inside that area. After a few days everyone would go back to work. The stock market, parliament and so on have contingency plans to keep them running in this sort of situation.
I reckon a few people would die from large radiation doses, and a few more would be ill but recover. In a couple of years, it would be one of those memorable events certainly but not the end of the world.
In fact electrocution from kettles whilst making the tea and lung cancer from the cigarettes would be more of an issue (and take up more time on the news) than the deaths from the dirty bomb.
Of course if you were a terrorist you could target a more skittish nation. Still I think it wouldn't have much effect.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, my choice of stylish, premium priced consumer electronics proves I am better than the hoi polloi too.
I'm guessing brother.
Look, we run the numbers and most likely God willing the Earth won't be totally destroyed. Can we all just stop wasting time talking about this and get the science done?
I think it goes back to the Jefferson quote. Liberty sometimes requires a blood sacrifice, and Bomber Command style tactics can make sure most of the blood comes from the enemy. Also, if you have a reputation for Churchillian ruthlessness when attacked, future attacks are less likely.
Flame grilled Germans today means no need to flame grill Russians or Chinese later. Even if Israel killed far more civillians than they did in the last war, given the nature of their opponents I wouldn't have a problem with it. The rest of the world has developed a rather naive view that war can be surgical when in fact it's the sheer brutality that makes war effective.
If we'd been surgical with the Germans the Nazi Party would have survived, and would have been able to run an insurgency that would have ended the occupation. Massive collateral damage was necessary to batter the German population into submission to avoid this. If the Israelis were allowed to do what the US and UK did, they would probably end up solving the problem.
Collateral damage is in fact a vital part of winning a war.
Well I think you Godwinned yourself with this comment
the strategy I would have employed would have been to seek out a peaceful resolution to the war which my nation had declared (to 'cut my loses', if you will). If that failed, I would have petitioned my allies for further assistance. If that failed, I would have accepted defeat, realizing that like Rome (the previous Reich), Germany would have eventually tired itself out, and that it was probably easier at that juncture to defeat them from the inside; once the zeal of having defeated my inherently inferior aggressive island nation had waned.
Letting the Nazis win and hoping they "tire themselves out" = EPIC FOREIGN POLICY FAIL.
Face it, it was time to break out the white phosphorus and napalm and mass barbecue those bastards and in doing so make the world safe for freedom and democracy.
It reminds me of the Jefferson quote about the tree of liberty needing to be refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants. Thanks to the RAF's night area bombing strategy by far the majority of those patriots were German and Japanese.
If that hadn't have been enough we had anthrax and nuclear weapons on the way too. Aggressive, you betcha. Inherently inferior? Who ended up surrendering with all their cities burned to the ground. Not us, that's for sure.
To answer your original question: Had I been the Prime Minister of Britain when it became evident that Germany would completely crush my pathetic little island nation (who, incidentally, declared war on Germany), then I would NOT show such a complete disregard for civilian lives for the reasons stated above (reprisal, global political backlash, etc). Rather, the strategy I would have employed would have been to seek out a peaceful resolution to the war which my nation had declared (to 'cut my loses', if you will). If that failed, I would have petitioned my allies for further assistance. If that failed, I would have accepted defeat, realizing that like Rome (the previous Reich), Germany would have eventually tired itself out, and that it was probably easier at that juncture to defeat them from the inside; once the zeal of having defeated my inherently inferior aggressive island nation had waned.
Bwahaha. You limp wristed faggot. I think I prefer Churchill's crispy critters plan to yours.
When the RAF burned cities in World War II the target was the whole city. The idea being if the weather forecast for your city next week is 1500 degrees C all night and every night it would mess with your morale.
How do you feel about that?
So you're saying the you had been PM in WWII the British whould have avoided any actions that would have killed German civillians?
I.e. chosen to spare German civillians at the cost of allowing the Nazis to win? Doesn't seem like much of a choice to me.
Face it, turning those krauts into crispy critters was the only choice they had.
You'd be better off putting them into some sort of Running Man type TV show.
The biggest issue, it seems to me, is that people who spend a lot of time playing video games generally lack social skills. While everyone else was learning how to relate to the world, video game players were learning how to relate to video games.
Those who play games don't realize that they are socially backward because they are socially backward.
If only I had the chaingun I could win this argument.
Japanese already prepared to sign the treaty. What the fuck else could Americans want?
Anime, ramen, pocky and cat girls. They were right to hold out for those.
Governments do have the choice of being moral and ethical. There is NO CIRMCUMSTANCE AT ALL I would want or expect the British government to shell civilian buildings using white phosphorous, against the terms of the Geneva conventions. Proportionate response is the key.
(Not that I'm saying Hamas is any better - they are deliberately targetting Israeli civilians, just with less effective weapons.)
Bullshit. When it looked like there was a possibility the Germans would win in WWII the British government incinerated whole cities of German civilians with incendiary bombs e.g. Dresden. And they were 100% justified in doing so, IMO. They had to destroy the German war economy and the only way they could do that was by bombing. Technology being what it was, that pretty much implied levelling German cities.
Of course, as my sig says, the Islamists deserve to lose because they place killing Jews over preserving the lives of their own people and building a civilization of their own. To use a sci-fi analogy, their behavior is that of Daleks.
That's not fair. The Daleks clearly had a first rate scientific and technological civilisation. That's because the Daleks are based on the Nazis, not on Hamas.
It worked for Gandhi because the British were insufficiently ruthless to just kill everyone who turned up for a non violent protest and keep doing that until people stopped protesting.
It doesn't work for the Tibetans becuase the Chinese are that ruthless. So were the Germans and Japanese in WWII, or the Russians in the Cold War.
You know the monsters have to wait too, and it annoys they just as much.
[Walks away from well.]
Madness.
Fixed that for you.
You're completely naive. If Iran wanted nuclear power they could buy fuel from Russia. That would be cheap and it would work. In fact that's what they're doing in Bushehr.
If they want their own weapons they'd have to spend a fortune building centrifuges, which is what they're doing at Natanz.
If they didn't want nuclear weapons they wouldn't need the Natanz plant. And it would save them a pile of money.
The problem with the NPT is that it doesn't stop countries building their own enrichment plants for a civillian program and then quitting the NPT and nuclearizing. North Korea has managed it, and it looks like Iran will do the same thing.
I actually think in the medium term terrorism will be one of those things like road accidents or being killed by lightning that people just accept as being a fact of life.
My assumption is that MI6 can catch most of the terrorists, and the few they don't catch will be as incompetent as the post 9/11 terrorists in the UK, i.e. very.
Of course in the long run this makes it hard for the terrorists to recruit people. It's one thing if your death is likely to make your enemies run panicking around like headless chickens, that presumably makes it worthwhile. If they ignore you, or worse laugh at you like they did with the Glasgow Airport attackers, my guess is that makes it seem less appealing.
It seems like they need to have a few terror attacks that actually terrorise people per year to keep the momentum going. Right now, they aren't managing that in the UK.
I think the microbe would hear a loud WHOOSH! sound travelling at that speed.
Words like Plutonium tend to attract hawks and repell hippies. If you'd said "Weapons grade Phish" or "Weapons grade Marijuana" you'd get the opposite.
SHARK! SHARK!
See nothing happened.
That depends where you detonated it. In the UK, I think a dirty bomb attack would definitely be a good time for a nice cup of tea, and for smokers a cigarette. The BBC would show people looking a bit stressed out in interviews. Experts would explain that the danger was very low outside some small evacuated area, and that the terrorists had got the bomb design wrong in some way that made it rather low risk inside that area. After a few days everyone would go back to work. The stock market, parliament and so on have contingency plans to keep them running in this sort of situation.
I reckon a few people would die from large radiation doses, and a few more would be ill but recover. In a couple of years, it would be one of those memorable events certainly but not the end of the world.
In fact electrocution from kettles whilst making the tea and lung cancer from the cigarettes would be more of an issue (and take up more time on the news) than the deaths from the dirty bomb.
Of course if you were a terrorist you could target a more skittish nation. Still I think it wouldn't have much effect.
I have a bridge to sell. Very high quality.
Excellent price for you, my friend.
2mm per second for a microbe is the equivalent of 100mph for a full grown man. Or 86.53 mph for a stumpy underdeveloped dwarf.
In America they have the imperial system. They wouldn't know what fuck a millimeter is. They call them "Eight hairs".