Sorry Everybody (POLITICAL)

[The_Darkness]

No, that's the problem, I am thinking clearly.

Yeah, Saddam was keeping the local religious nuts from declaring Jihad to get their message heard and to get some power moving. He was doing it by fear and executions, but he was doing it none-the-less. The problems we have now didn't exist under Saddam because they couldn't.

The un-educated people (which, unfortunately, is a vast majority of Iraq, thanks again, Saddam) view us as a hostile invasion force and a vast majority of the people (educated or not) don't view our troops as a legitimate authority, only occupying force. We tried pulling back in June. There were boat loads of units that came back. Then it was evident that the Iraqi army was a little less than trained (about 118 months under trained) and they couldn't handle the problems, so our troops are still there.

I won't let Donny Rumsfeld and the other spin doctors delude me into thinking that any Iraqi is happy that we're there. I won't believe that everything is going as well as CNN.com tells me it is, and their outlook is pretty damn bleak....I believe that it's worse.

The reason I'd have wiped out Falujah is that there is no way to get rid of all of the extremists who won't bow to any authority except for the clerics without wiping them all out. We'll be taking, returning, and retaking Falujah for years....we've already done it what, 3 times now? It's because of the damn clerics....if we could get them to just knock it off, the whole region would be better off....it may not be stable, but our troops could get to training their troops and we can get the hell out.

Finally, no I wouldn't like the fact that troops were in my country after they deposed my evil government that had no qualms about killing me for any number of reasons at any given second. However, that doesn't mean I'm going to pick up an AK and go to town on the National Guard, either. When people are helping to rebuild the cities that the idiots down the street helped blow up, I'm not going to put landmines under their trucks and load cars full of bombs to crash through check points.

Their fighting a religious war, and our troops just want to get the job done and get the hell home....at least that's the concensus of my friends over there. A lot of the Iraqi's over there just want that to be the case too. It's the 5 or 10 percent of them that's making that harder and harder to do (or 60% in Falujah) and keeping us there longer.

 

[The_Darkness]

Not "brown" folks....just barely industrialized powers. It's the Craddle of Civilization! They have some of the best museums and one of the (formerly, Thanks Saddam) best universities in the world. I think they could rule themselves just fine if the damn insurgents would stop killing all their police and the people who are supposed to be running thier government in another month.

 

[cantdog]

No, you can nuke decisively, strategically... hate or dislike doesn't have to be a part of that equation.

No, you can't, Joe. It's a war crime.

 

[The_Darkness]

And yes, I agree with Joe (that's twice in a week, man!). We have nukes that are the size of a liter bottle that barely take out a city block and have no residual radiation or fallout....left overs from the Reagan legacy....and they can be used quite efficently, set up by a soldier, and then they can get the hell out....no airplanes, no "missed" smart bombs (I have no clue how a satelite guided bomb "misses"...) All short, simple, and to the point.

We have the technology to win the damn thing, we've had it for 20 years....but because of the Geneva convention and laws of war, we can't use them....

And lets not get started on the Geneva convetion tonight.....I could harp and bitch on that for days.

 

[The_Darkness]

No more a war crime than dropping a bomb from an air plane.

 

[cantdog]

Precisely.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Originally posted by cantdog
No, you can't, Joe. It's a war crime.

Neither hate nor dislike are prerequisites for a war crime, by international standards. We support the notion of war crimes for the acts that are done to people, not hate or dislike (which is still legal, internationally). So, how is hate or dislike a necessary condition of tactial nuclear deployment?

 

[The_Darkness]

Right. So since we've established that it's not a war crime......

 

[rgraham666]

Thinking of the end of the story The Mercenary by Jerry Pournelle

"You saved us. You've saved us all."
"Don't say that! Don't ever say that! I haven't saved you. You have to save yourselves. The best a soldier can do is buy time."

And nukes are useful weapons? Only someone who has completely disconnected themselves from empathy could consider such a thing.

 

[thebullet]

Joe W Said:
Neither hate nor dislike are prerequisites for a war crime, by international standards. We support the notion of war crimes for the acts that are done to people, not hate or dislike (which is still legal, internationally). So, how is hate or dislike a necessary condition of tactial nuclear deployment?

Joe, you throw yourself into the middle of these discussions and try to draw people out by being oblique and outrageous.

Even you on your academic ivory tower MUST secretly acknowledge that use of atomic weapons may be a BAD thing.

Even you must think secretly to yourself that we shouldn't use nuclear devices whether we like the enemy, hate him, or are totally indifferent.

Even you must secretly feel that the use of torture may not be in the best interests of anyone, most of the time.

I give you the benefit of the doubt and suspect your are merely a contrarian. If someone stated that the Pope was Catholic you would have a dozen sophistic arguments on why he may not be.

Geez, you should have been employed at the Argument Clinic.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Originally posted by thebullet
Joe, you throw yourself into the middle of these discussions and try to draw people out by being oblique and outrageous.

Even you on your academic ivory tower MUST secretly acknowledge that use of atomic weapons may be a BAD thing.

Even you must think secretly to yourself that we shouldn't use nuclear devices whether we like the enemy, hate him, or are totally indifferent.

Even you must secretly feel that the use of torture may not be in the best interests of anyone, most of the time.

I give you the benefit of the doubt and suspect your are merely a contrarian. If someone stated that the Pope was Catholic you would have a dozen sophistic arguments on why he may not be.

Geez, you should have been employed at the Argument Clinic.

There are a whole bunch of reasons why nuclear weapons are bad... the notion that they're necessarily some kind of hate crime isn't one of them.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Neither hate nor dislike are prerequisites for a war crime, by international standards. We support the notion of war crimes for the acts that are done to people, not hate or dislike (which is still legal, internationally). So, how is hate or dislike a necessary condition of tactial nuclear deployment?

When people argue or discuss something, they really ought to listen to what the other says before they disagree. In this case, the discussion is in writing but the point still stands. Before you express disagreement, read what was said.

Joe suggested:
No, you can nuke decisively, strategically... hate or dislike doesn't have to be a part of that equation.

And Cant responded:
No, you can't, Joe. It's a war crime.

Obviously, this was a reference to using nuclear weapons.

Then Joe responded as above and I agree with what he is saying there, that hate or dislike have nothing to do with war crimes. However, that was not the point that Cant wanred to make.

I don't know if the use of nukes would be a war crime or not. These things are always decided by the victors in a war. If two nations fight and one wins, they may say something like "It is a war crime to use bayonets on rifles," and arrest all those who did so. They would be justified because the winners write the rules and the history books. The fact that people disagree with them means nothing because they would be in charge.

I am inclined to agree with T_D that if it weren't for the terrorists, we could accompish our mission over there and leave the country better off than before the fighting started. I refer to the "insurgents" as terrorists brcause that is the tactic they are using, blowing up mosques and sewage plants and police stations and murdering Iraqis in order to have their way. Since so many of the terrorists are not even Iraqis, I wouldn't even csall them rebels.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

ugh repost

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Originally posted by Boxlicker101
When people argue or discuss something, they really ought to listen to what the other says before they disagree. In this case, the discussion is in writing but the point still stands. Before you express disagreement, read what was said.

Joe suggested:
No, you can nuke decisively, strategically... hate or dislike doesn't have to be a part of that equation.

And Cant responded:
No, you can't, Joe. It's a war crime.

Obviously, this was a reference to using nuclear weapons.

Then Joe responded as above and I agree with what he is saying there, that hate or dislike have nothing to do with war crimes. However, that was not the point that Cant wanred to make.

Independant of that, just because something is a war crime--which I'm not sure that tactical nuclear deployment is--doesn't mean it can't be done. Genocide is a war-crime. We can still commit it.

 

[The_Darkness]

rgraham666....we have small ones, man...just because we have 1 and 5 gigaton bombs with a theoretical (we've never touched one off that big, thank God) blast radius of 100 miles with total destruction, doesn't mean I want to use them....well, not rationally anyway.

We also have Thermo-nukes...no radiation, nothing more than very powerful explosives that create a very tiny sun for a very short passage of time....and are equivalent to a few tons of TNT. It's the portability of the weapons and the practicality of them that makes them beneficial.

Besides, empathy has no place in war. Armies are designed to do two things; kill people and break stuff. Anyone who says different is in for a real shock if they open a history book.

 

[The_Darkness]

Joe is right. Nukes are not specifically outlawed. By using dirty bombs (which is NOT a tactical weapon) we are doing something wrong, but not tribunal worth (if such a circumstance arose). However, tactical nukes are thermonuclear devices. There is NO radiation, or a very small, non-harmful amount. A very small area is completely decimated, but the effect is contained and people can roll back in after a day or so to allow what's left to cool down. Bring some ice-skates, there's gonna be a lot of glass from the heat of the explosion.

Besides, if loosely translated, the use of automatic weapons is a war crime. As is the use of shotguns, claymore mines, hand grenades, and RPG's. Ordinance from air craft is okay because it's considered more or less controlled...in that if someone shoots down an aircraft the odds of getting the weapondry off the plane is astronomically bad; it SHOULD blow up on impact. The other weapons are portable, mass casualty causing, weapons of indiscrimination.

But we don't bitch about them being used, do we? Where do we draw the line? Why should we send soldiers in to face the enemy with bolt-action rifles when they have AK's and RPG's? If the line isn't drawn there, I don't see the difference between removing the building full of terrorists with a very small, very controlled thermo-nuke.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

I think... and this may not be popular here... that the only solution to war, short of its HIGHLY improbably (though not impossible) eradication, is to raise it to its most extreme level--putting it in the same, effective, category as things like nuclear weapons.

That's not a terribly new theory, much of Philosophy of War has been done since Sun Tzu--who is hardly the end all be all of theorists in the field. Its no small part that believe in the evolution of warfare to an entirely inhuman enterprise. Identify the enemy, find the enemy, wholly and totally devestate the enemy, finally eradicate the enemy.

Materiel? Resources? All to be considered a part of the enemy. It makes things like "going in and taking over their stuff" a non-issue. If the matter of war is conducted with total, heartless, compassionless eradication, it becomes a thing so extreme as to be almost a weapon of mass destruction. All avenues prior to that point become so much more compelling (diplomacy, sanctioning, even aquiescence).

Of course, the theory isn't perfect. It has rational flaws in various parts. But, pacifism is riddled with problems as well. Point is, it may be correct. I'm not sure we'd know for certain unless we practiced it.

 

[The_Darkness]

Joe, that's not quite Van Clauswitz, but it's close. Good ol' Van would be proud.

The problem with war is the desensitization to it. It's not video games, it's not Warner Brothers Cartoons from the 60's and 70's, it's not really any form of entertainment that does it. It's the damn media.

Those embedded reporters in Iraq were the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. The news was still filtered to a high degree, still a carefully and cleverly ran program of propoganda both to enemy and ally, but what it did was it brought the war into our homes night after night after night.

Some people became repulsed at the war. Others became repulsed that this wasn't really a war, just a clever propoganda device. I don't want to see what's going on. Hear a news report, sure....but I want the soldiers to do their job of killing the bad guys and breaking their stuff. I don't want to see them helping old women across the street, I want to hear about them securing city blocks. I don't want to see the soldiers running soup kitchens, I want them bombing the piss out of enemy supply lines. Kill people, break stuff....and after enough stuff is broken and the right people are finally killed, the soldiers can come home, the generals can stay to orchestrate rebuilding, and Iraq can have a country back that's not going to be attacked by any of its neighbors because they're weak.

Besides, if this war follows suit, we'll get their country re-built, get the infrastructure up and running, and one of two things will happen...we'll either bug out and say "So long and Thanks for all the oil" or they'll turn on us and kill every American they can find.

Unless we learned our lesson from Russia.....which is doubtful.

 

[The_Darkness]

And no Joe....a pacifist society is a dead society....the people have nothing to strive for. Besides, they fight less when the warmongers move in.

If pacifism worked on a governmental level, world peace would have been achieved by now, and probably 4000 years ago. Just for the record, it wasn't.

People can be pacifists. Organizations can be pacifists, but Governments cannot be. Neither can armies.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Originally posted by The_Darkness
People can be pacifists. Organizations can be pacifists, but Governments cannot be. Neither can armies.

If we add the assumed "...if they plan on surviving", I entirely agree. (I like defining things as clearly as possible, just in case).

 

[The_Darkness]

Good call Joe.

 

[thebullet]

The Darkness said:
rgraham666....we have small ones, man...just because we have 1 and 5 gigaton bombs with a theoretical (we've never touched one off that big, thank God) blast radius of 100 miles with total destruction, doesn't mean I want to use them....well, not rationally anyway.
We also have Thermo-nukes...no radiation, nothing more than very powerful explosives that create a very tiny sun for a very short passage of time....and are equivalent to a few tons of TNT. It's the portability of the weapons and the practicality of them that makes them beneficial.
Besides, empathy has no place in war. Armies are designed to do two things; kill people and break stuff. Anyone who says different is in for a real shock if they open a history book.

Using a little nuclear explosive is similar to being a little bit pregnant. Once the genie is out of the bottle there ain't no putting it back. If we start tossing about nuclear weapons (and please don't give me any argumentitive bullshit that "it's only a little nuclear explosion") we will open the floodgates giving carte blanche for any nuclear power in the world to toss the damn things around.

 

[The_Darkness]

Bullet, you're not neccessarily wrong.

However, low yeild tactical thermonuclear devices have the same effect of a similar yeild of conventional explosives.

What's going to be easier to get into a building, a 55 gallon drum filled with 50 gallons of deisel fuel and 5 gallons of ivory soap with a couple wraps of det-cord, or something the size of a can of soda?

They have the same explosive yeild, and the effects are almost indistinguishable. Modern nuclear weapons (please don't use atomic...atomic equals radiation and radiation is bad bad bad...) don't use atomic bombs to kick start the nuclear reaction; we have common explosives and shape charges that do that all very nicely.

We have a tool that is a very small tool that replaces a larger tool. The small tool is more precise, easier to use, and has the same form and function of the larger tool. Why not use the small tool?

 

[Couture]

And yes, I agree with Joe (that's twice in a week, man!). We have nukes that are the size of a liter bottle that barely take out a city block and have no residual radiation or fallout....

And terrorists can hijack planes and run them into one three targeted buildings....

How you can be so uncaring about dropping nuclear weapons on a people who never declared war attacked the US in any way is fucking unreal. Three will be radiation. Don't kid yourself. The fallout will be felt all over the world when other countries take this as a greenlight for nuclear warfare.

Some of you scare me.

 

[The_Darkness]

Couture...little science lesson here....and I'm not trying to be condescenging, I'm just trying to explain it so people understand.

Atomic Bomb....what was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They are bigger than what conventional explosives can get (each was in the neighborhood of 25K tons of TNT) and what they do is the break apart atoms, sending little atomic particals into other atoms which break apart. The chain reaction continues until the energy dies down (the process is extremely fast) but there are lots of little atomic pieces floating about. That's where the radiation comes from.

This process is called Fission--which means to break apart. This is also (for all intents and purposes) how nuclear power plants work, though there's no explosions....they use the heat (radiation) coming off nuclear materials to heat water and turn a steam turbine...like a coal burning powerplant but with no actual combustion.

Hydrogen bombs--big bastards under go the opposite process. They have shape charges that cause an implosion instead of an explosion. This implosion forces many Hydrogen atoms together and they fuse into Helium atoms. The energy put off by this is huge.

This process is called Fusion. In the pure process, there is no radiation because nothing is being broken up and there aren't loose sub-atomic and atomic particles. However, until about the late 1960's the only explosive we had that was powerful enough to cause this explosion was an atomic bomb. Atomic bombs were used to set off the initial reaction a split second before the Fusion reaction went off. Lots of radiation, very dirty bombs.

Thermonuclear explosions don't use atomic bombs to start off the reaction. Since we have conventional explosive (if you know what you're doing you can actually make the stuff with about 30 dollars in common grocery items), there is no need to use the atomic bomb to start the implosion, and there is, therefore, no radiation in it.

Thermonuclear bombs are fairly simple to make. I won't go into the process here, but there is a shape charge which causes the fusion of Hydrogen into Helium and a rather big boom. The greater the amount of Helium created, the larger the explosion.

There is a provision (in the Geneva Convention, methinks) that actually outlaws the use of thermonuclear hand grenades. That means we have them. Specifically, I believe Russia, France, Germany, and the USA have them. A soldier isn't meant to throw them, but they are launched from grenade launchers instead. There is no radiation from these devices...the soldier can (if they were ever used....and they're not, nor have they been) launch the grenade, duck for something solid, wait for the explosion, and charge boldly forward.

That is the reason I've been very careful to use "Thermo-nuke" instead of atomic. They are as different as night and day in every respect except the initial destructive blast. They are caused differently, they work differently, and there final results...being radiation vs. no radiation...are very different.