Are Americans Capable of Forgiveness without Vengence?

Right after the 9/11 there was a diplomatic offer made to Al Qaeda and the Taliban to avoid war. The Taliban would have to give up Osama Bin Ladin and other top Al Qaeda commanders while Al Qaeda in addition to giving up those leaders would have to publicly disarm and disband. Its questionable how serious this offer was considering that we went ahead and bombed Saddam ahead of the deadline for a similar offer.

 

Keep in mind the use of the nukes wasn't so much about exacting vengeance on the Japanese but about ending the war faster and saving more lives than an invasion of the home islands.

Also to add that the rebuilding of Japan and Germany after WWII wasn't so much about compassion but containing the spread of Communism.

 

lrn2rd.

Besides, it's not like nukes are that special. At the end of the day, they're just a big bomb, and Hiroshima today if you ignore the psychological perspective is just an ordinary city, fairly boring compared to other Japanese cities.

Regulations between individuals and regulations between states are not the same thing - and it's the fact that people keep acting like they are that has led to so much blood and destruction over human history.
In foreign policy, there is no such thing as peace in general - conflict just takes on a different tack between times of war. Ruling the world through moral force is impossible - to rule by its very nature requires law, and law without a sword is just empty words, as Hobbes observes.

And yes, if someone punches me in the face, I'm going after them.

 

Only if he's a born again ex-homo Conservative politician/demagogue.

 

I guess losing 600K in WWII doesn't count?

 

stop crying. Its your enemies, or its you. You don't know how the game of thrones is played ned stark, there is no in between.

 

You want to forgive someone who hasn't asked for forgiveness and is still trying to kill you?

 

Yeah, I don't think im understanding the OP. After 4 airliners, full of innocent civilians, are hijacked and flown into the ground/building, we should look at one another, shrug our shoulders and asked Al-Queda for forgiveness. That just doesn't add up. Foreign policy does not equate to dealing with a playground bully.

 

Huh? I thought we're talking about vengeance here. That's why I mentioned attacks on our soil, which were Pearl Harbor and 9/11. I don't count wars because claiming "vengeance" against the likes of Vietnam or Korea who never tried to bother us makes no sense.

Anyway, let's look at our war in the Pacific just to see how "forgiving" we were. Wikipedia has our WWII death toll at 410K. Civilian toll at about 1700. Although let's just take your number at 600k, of which certainly most caused in the Pacific. Japan OTOH lost at least 2.5 mil. I think we've killed enough Japanese people, including 500k-1 mil civilians, to more than make up for their actions against us.

As I said, we generally kill enough of others to make "forgiving them" easy.

 

Jap killed 30 million Chinese during the war. China forgive them all and had no vengeance or anything. Ironically, Japs do not even want to say sorry for the invasion.

Thats how bad and weak forgiveness can be.

while you can, vengeance all the way and as much as you can. Forgiveness is for the weak minds.

 

ask the Germans in WWII who begged to be captured by US soldiers instead of Russians. no nation owns moral superiority, though. every nation is home to individuals capable of mercy and ruthlessness all at once.

 

sometime it does not.

for example the Korean War. that number varies from 30k to 200k. Nobody wants to count it. nobody wants to remember it. That's forgiveness, I guess.

 

War on terrorism cant end unless you rename it. You cant wage war on a tool. Such a poorly named concept....

Its about as useful as war on drugs.
Is pot going to show up at the front door of the police and sign a treaty?

 

The way to win is you kill enough of the enemy until it takes away their will to fight.

We are beating al-queda, we are just doing it wrong by using the armed forces when there is no army opposing or a battlefield in which to engage them.

DD

 

I am not going to go over this again, but the idea that you guys have forgiven us is crazy. I don't care whether we deserve to be forgiven for it or not, as Japan's shown itself to currently be a reliable and good country, far from the Empire. But don't act like the Chinese have bestowed it on us, when they are the ones always complaining about our own internal affairs.

 

Us or them. You choose.

 

The Chinese have not forgiven the Japanese for WWII. The PRC has normalized relations with Japan but that is the same as forgiving.

 

BTW - this is a question for a country, but an individual choice.

DD

 

Wow, capitalizing the "Empire" with all that emphasis eh. Are you one of those crazy japanese right wingers that make American equivalents look sane and tame in comparison?

Putting that aside though, I don't think pretending to your kids ww2 never happened is the mark of a "reliable and good country", and no, it's not okay to do it just because some other countries do it too.

Ok. Pause.

Let's get something straight here: US will always be the playground bully of the world.

 

I'm not saying the way American fought was wrong. I approve every decision that Truman made towards the end of the War in the Pacific. I'm only stating that in relationship to RR's original post.

As I said, America's normal policy is akin to a guy who gets punched, and then beat the other guy senseless, stomp him onto the ground, kick him in the nuts, and beat on his head until he gets internal bleeding, then forgive him by sending him to the ER. Yes, it's forgiveness. It's also pretty violent forgiveness IMO.