N. Korea has nuclear ICBMs. Threatened to launch US premptive strike for UN sanctions

Other countries feel the same way about us. How can you trust the country with the highest prison rate in the world? A country who not only imprisons its own people at an astronomical rate but also imprisons people around the world indirectly.

 

To put it quite bluntly? Because we're not those other countries. And however much you may want to moralize over everything, that's not how it works when you're playing with nukes.

I understand why Iran is pursuing a nuclear program, for example. I think they have legitimate concerns, and would probably support it if I was Iranian. I will observe, however, that it's not stupid **** like you're talking about - only an utter moron could think that the American prison system or Hiroshima are why Iran is pursuing nukes.

But I'm not Iranian and outside of an academic sense, I care more about Americans than Iranians. And the fact that Iran may have legitimate reasons to pursue nukes does not mean the US should sit around and let its power and the entire nuclear appartus be threatened.

 

I must've misunderstood your post, I thought you were defending it. Sorry.

Everyone trusts the US in discretion with the weapons over the mullahs in Iran, even most Iranians. But to say the United States is certainly not alone on the world landscape in working to make sure those countries don't develop nuclear weapons does misrepresent the reality of the situation even if technically factual. The reality of the situation is that the mullahs holding a single nuke at some point in the future is far less important in the big picture than the fact that there are countries who have enough nukes presently to destroy the world I don't know how many times over and those countries have a culture of violence and a disregard for sovereignty, moreso than Iran.

Those mullahs have only ever gone to war once in their 34 years, and that was in response to an openly declared invasion attempt by its neighbour (could even argued that their existance is thanks to the nuclear superpower, and that war was at least supported by the nuclear superpower). They are terrible terrible thieves, crooks, anti-semites, fraudsters, oppressors, and dictators - but in the game of "who is the bigger risk to everyone in the world?" and "who is likely to cause more chaos by relying on the threat of nuclear weapons?" those mullahs have a ways to go before coming up to the level of risk and existing level of disregard for sovereignty that a a number of other countries pose.

Those mullahs are sick, but they are not stupid. They know the hand that feeds them. They know that the use of a single nuke will eliminate them + shiite political significance from the face of the earth. They know they are up against total anihilation. They are fully aware that talking a lot of ****, doing nothing, and generating pressure from the US is the strategy most likely to keep them in power. N Korea is very similar I assume, but I know far far less about the internal politics of that country.

Now if hypothetically the US and everyone else disarmed completely, then your statement would represent the situation extremely well. Everyone would be on Iran and specifically Iran because that is specifically unacceptable to the rest of the world. As it is though, Iran has plenty of support, and its opposition is divided on the bigger picture even if their views overlap on Iran.

 

No, I think you misread my posts. I am criticizing the excuse being used for the atomic bomb - that excuse is centered around Japanese imperialistic aspirations at that time. I am simply saying that this excuse is as foolish as all the other people who sanction indiscriminate violence to challenge imperialism.

Agree with first paragraph.

I don't agree with the second, and I don't think you do either. I don't think that's worse than an atom bomb. But for argument's sake, please tell us why you find the notion of two foreign powers splitting country X in half is such a terrible outcome that their people should wish atomic bombs would be dropped on them instead? Should atom bombs have been dropped in Northern Korea in order to avoid the country being split in half? lol

I love this thought process which is oblivious to the notion that spilling the blood of Japanese people is the cowardly solution to keeping the Soviets out of Japan. It is the murder of Japanese people for the benefit of America's own imperialistic ambitions vs Soviet's imperialistic ambitions.

 

Because Japan is one country. Has always been, even when the daimyos ruled. The thought about that country, always independent and seeking its own path being torn in two, under rival powers, neither of whom liked Japan and would pit Japanese against each other? And heck, maybe that's if we're lucky, as it wouldn't have surprised me for the Soviets to take Hokkaido for themselves like they did Chishima and Sakhalin.

For better or for worse, Japan has largely recovered from the bombs - I've never been to Nagasaki, ( or Kyushuu, for that matter), but Hiroshima is a normal city. Can you look at the DMZ, or Seoul which lives in fear of utter destruction, and say the same? Korea, an unified true Korea? It won't occur for another fifty years from today. Even if tomorrow Kim Jong Un decided to surrender, the sheer work necessary to bring the North Koreans up to our standards would be insane and almost impossible.

There was no other way to keep the Soviets out of Japan. They had already begun to invade Japan proper in the areas I mentioned. Heck, they had plans to invade Hokkaido by September.

 

I strongly suggest you study WWII in Asia and the Pacific in more detail. The dropping of the bombs wasn't to counter Japanese Imperialistic aspirations but was to end the war as soon as possible. There were certainly a lot of other geopolitical reasons also, such as showing the Soviets that the US had that power, but the primary reason was to end the war. If you study what happened in Okinawa and even that the Japanese Imperial government wasn't unanimous in surrender even after the second bomb it is very clear that the Japanese were not going to end the war without a huge loss of life and it is very likely that the bombs might've saved more Japanese civilian lives than an all out invasion of the Home Islands.

As far as the use of indiscriminate violence to counter the Japanese I suggest you read up about what the Japanese did in Korea, China (particularly the Rape of Nanking and Unit 731), the Philippines and almost everywhere else where the Imperial Army ruled to understand what exactly Japanese Imperial occupation meant.

Honestly I find the direction of your argument here both ignorant and disturbing that you are essentially excusing the Empire of Japan to criticize the US.

 

This. It's just basic foreign policy sense that we don't want the Iranians to build nukes and that they want to. Neither side is some cartoony villia.

 

To add some more to this discussion. If the contention is the use of the atomic bombs against Japan was to advance a imperialistic ambitions consider that the end of WWII hastened the downfall of foreign empires in Asia. If you look at the map of Asia in 1930 and in 1960 by 1960 virtually all of the foreign imperial holdings are gone with only tiny remnants in Hong Kong, Macau and a handful of small islands. Independence in most of these places was a direct or indirect result from the end of the war as either foreign empires realized they had few resources to maintain far flung colonies and / or independence movements were led by people who had fought the Japanese.

Now there is an argument that US intervention greatly increased following WWII and while the US didn't have a true empire they had propped up regimes like Marcos and Suharto. At the same time you have to consider that the USSR was also providing aid to regimes in China, North Vietnam and North Korea along with groups in Thailand, Burma, Malaysia and Indonesia. The US wasn't alone in intervention in East and Southeast Asia and any US hegemony was matched by Soviet. Given the isolationist strain in the US it is questionable how much of a hegemony the US would've maintained in that region without the Soviet threat.

Keep in mind I am not excusing any of the harm that the US did from propping up brutal regimes but it is a very simplistic and misinformed argument that the dropping of the atomic bombs was primarily driven by imperial ambitions.

 

Have you considered that the reason that they are smart enough to know not to use a nuke is that their enemies have more nukes/military and would be the ones to eliminate them?

 

History is kind to the winner. Dropping the bomb was cowardly. America is the only country to nuke innocent civilians. Not once but twice. Deal with it.

 

Very good point. My father who served in WW2 had no fear against Germany. Those soldiers while highly effective/trained were often at odds with what Hitler desired and operated a certain way similar to Americans in combat...the Japanese. Different story. Those warriors were in lock step with the leaders direction and would rush with a katana sword at a group of soldiers equipped with machine guns fully expecting and accepting no alternatives...the cost of lives by both sides would have been so much more without dropping the bombs.

Today of course they are a real political ally, and the way the Japanese go about work and values is very admirable.

 

Cowardice, courage, whatever. At the end of a war, the important thing is who comes back alive.

It is impossible to eliminate battles and killing is a necessary evil. Hence, it is best to end them in the maximum efficiency and at the least cost, least time. If you want to slander that as foul and demean that as nasty, then do as you wish. Justice cannot save the world. I have no interest in things like that.

Japan's still crazy, and I'm not even talking about the traditional Western stuff about how they denied everything ( which really isn't that true anymore). Japan, to put it simply, has no ideals, nothing to live up and unite the people around. It's a problem it's had ever since the end of the War, though it's become much more apparent since the collapse in the 90s. How Japan deals with it will be key for its future, though I don't know if the current system can really handle it.

 

I don't have blind faith in our government in the least....

but yes, I think N. Korea and/or Iran would need far less to start lobbing nuclear missiles than being bombed by Japan and a two-front war.

 

I also wonder how much you know about the history of WWII. Dropping the atomic bombs was a horrible thing but that killed a lot of civilians but you have to put it in context with a war where both Allies and Axis indiscriminately killed civilians through fire bombings. A Japanese soldier leading a Banzai charge was certainly brave but that same soldier would also not think twice about butchering women and children after raping them.

The atomic bombs was brutal but you have to put it in context with a time where Dachau, Nanking, Dresden, Coventry, Stalingrad and on on and on things were happening. WWII was the most brutal dehumanizing conflict ever fought, and hopefully ever will be fought, by humanity and the sooner it ended the better it was for everyone.

 

What do you mean?

 

Nations need ideals. A nation isn't just people, it needs something to keep them together, something to rally them around, whether it's European unification, American commitment to democracy, Chinese desire to catch up, etc. etc. Countries need purpose as badly as humans do, and more often than not if they don't have one, it leads to really bad things - Imperial Germany is pretty much the ur-example.

Japan has no ideals. For a long time, it was simply a combination of catching up with others while also resisting them, whether the West or China or whomever - while it hardly excuses it, a lot of Imperial Japan's action in China can be explained if you basically view it as a "MUAHAHAHAHAHA WHO'S LAUGHING NOW CHINA IT'S OUR TURN TO RULE MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA." After the war, it simply focused on recovering and catching up with the West economically, which it never really accomplished at the height of the Empire. But now they're there. So what next?

It's a question which really hasn't been answered for the last twenty years, which is further compounded by the fact that the Japanese are by far the least political people I know. There will be no East Asia unification project within my lifetime, not least because China has dominated East Asia for the last 5000 years in a way which no European state could have ever dreamed of, meaning the countries on China's periphery will always be wary of them. Japanese nationalism is obviously problematic, though I believe that it's the best route. So, while I generally roll my eyes at people who whine about moral decay, I think there really is the threat of something like that Japan, an increasing trend of philosophical and civic problems.

What will happen? I really don't know. I may defend Japan, and sometimes wonder about returning, but then there are moments when I look back and think what the hell I'm doing considering that.

 

I think George Washington had a better boat in 1776 than Kim Jung Un has in 2013.

 

It's an interesting concept, I never looked at nationhood that way before.

Couldn't you argue that Japan is united by its homogenity and, because of that, they will continue to exist as a nation?

 

This is an interesting argument but a national ideal isn't always a good thing and can often lead to disaster. You cite Germany and there is a good argument that Weimer Germany was a country that had lost it's philosophical underpinnings but once they adopted the ideals of the Nazis we can see the result. In the same way Japan since the Meiji Restoration ideal was divinity in the Emperor and Japan as a unique divine people. That view fueled both the fanatical militarism and expansionism but also encouraged Japanese to devalue the lives of conquered people and POW's. Even for the US the ideal of Manifest Destiny sped up the genocide of Native Americans.

 

Mutually assured destruction does have its logic. See the Cold War. That is an argument for Iran to get a couple of nukes so that the Israelis and even their partners the USA will come to their senses, start trying actual negotiations with Iran and not be threatening Iran with an attack.