2008-11-10, 23:45 | Link #41 | |
Observer/Bookman wannabe
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Singapore
Age: 38
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The way I see it, the world just has to live with nuclear weapons. The possibility of unlearning this subset of human knowledge is close to zero.
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2008-11-11, 09:33 | Link #42 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Banned
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Germany
Age: 44
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the second is a media creation. even in Germany, if you ask people around, the majority is rather indifferent to US elections. the people who are interested were obviously mostly pro-Obama, since McCain is regarded as a continuation of Bush - who is in the world's opinion the worst US president ever. in Russia or China, the large majority doesn't care at all. partially the "Obama-mania" is also due to his charisma. he's certainly a good speaker and has a good PR team, much better than any recent president or presidential candidate. coincidentally, Hitler also was a good speaker and had a good PR team Quote:
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and no Israel will not do a preemptive nuclear strike. it's suicide. what they would do if they had "information" on Iran "planning" a strike would be an air raid with conventional weapons, perhaps also cruise missiles. Quote:
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http://www.newyorker.com/archive/200.../060821fa_fact http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects...?itemNo=744043 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/739976.html Quote:
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http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/...ael050602.html Quote:
also, the speed with which a country can be punished for disobedience is much higher today than it was back then, for obvious technical reasons. which is also one of the reasons why the US has made so many military interventions since WWII - a lot more than the British Empire in any similarly long period. overall it is really a simple case for any historian to prove that US influence today is unprecedented, way higher than that of the British or Roman Empire. just read a bit on that, you'll easily find sources. Quote:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/...08/7708893.stm there are also some polls with different numbers, more favorable for the US, like http://pewglobal.org/commentary/disp...nalysisID=1019 (coincidentally, with figures by teh US Department of State). i dont think those are realistic though. Quote:
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what you probably didnt learn is that the US killed far more civilians in Vietnam than Japan did in Nanjing - a number overall comparable to all of Japan's war crime victims. Quote:
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a big difference is that Japan apologized for its crimes and paid reparations. the US never did. Quote:
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regarding the software question - yes that industry is one of the few remaining US strengths. although to be accurate i'm typing this in a German X terminal on my Linux server box also.. it's easy to reverse this argument. for example i'll randomly guess that most of your electronics are Japanese, most of the stuff in your house is made in China, if you drive a good car its German, etc. Quote:
thats an unprecedented figure and more than the rest of the world combined. its over 100 billion more than at the peak times of the Cold War even if you factor in inflation. Quote:
Thats just the tip of the iceberg, i'm too lazy to type it all off. Go inform yourself, it's all publicly available information. Basically the US circumvents the treaty wherever possible to keep and build up a large nuclear arsenal and a possibly advantageous situation for using it. Obviously you dont read all that in the NY Times though... Quote:
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Last edited by Mumitroll; 2008-11-11 at 10:47. |
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2008-11-11, 15:05 | Link #44 |
Bittersweet Distractor
Join Date: Nov 2007
Age: 32
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The only comment I have to make about Iran and North Korea specifically is that the governments (Not going to say the people) are definitely not solely aiming for nuclear energy. They want the bomb. Whether or not we should let them have it is a different question, but people who try to have this argument of establishing nuclear power by foreign sources in these countries are not realizing that they would never agree to such things.
Eventually though, nuclear weapons will fall into the hands of many, those who will probably use them. That will certainly be a dark day. Maybe we need to reinitialize Ronald Reagan's idea of Star Wars .
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2008-11-11, 16:24 | Link #45 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Banned
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Germany
Age: 44
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http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/.../octwar-17.pdf basically they thought it wasnt worth the trouble the problem was that if the US engaged in direct military action supporting Israel, the USSR would have been free to do the same in favor of the Arab states - a path which the US had already painfully experienced just a few years before in Vietnam and previously in Korea as well. coincidentally the USSR military strategists thought the same. Quote:
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i think a nuclear bomb exploding in NYC would probably change the "neocon psyche" somewhat. Quote:
the well-known problem is that terrorists are not an enemy you can take revenge on. the correct way to fight terrorism is to undermine the basis from which it recruits its people - by running a more balanced and sane foreign policy. they dont do just for fun - their outspoken goal (quote bin Laden) is "to topple the corrupt US-installed regimes in Arab states". it's a banality, and really obvious to any bright fifth-grader, but i think it would take a nuke in the US to make neocons up there understand that. Quote:
obviously everybody sane saw it was all a pretext. thats why there were many millions of people protesting worldwide. but the US just spat on that. Quote:
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the US isnt original with this idea. the Brits had the same ideas before them. they just lacked the longterm power to control the area. Quote:
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so yeah, the Russians were killing their own civilians, right? Quote:
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Vietnam is - by far - the most heavily bombed country in human history. so that wasnt a total war, you said? Quote:
the small more extremist parties do run a more independent course, but those usually dont get more than 10-15% and are at best a weak member of a coalition. theres a similar picture in the UK, with both Tories and Laborists being rather US-subservient. France is probably the old EU country which is closest to running its own course. still, it is largely in line with US interests apart from a few issues where France's own interests conflict with them. the fun thing is that the large majorities of the populations of all those countries dont like the US foreign policy. but they mostly dont have much of a choice to pick from in terms of their own government. its a rather static system. Quote:
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i think you should look at this chart for a while: even taking US history only, in terms of absolute spending, even inflation-corrected, its at a maximum today. Quote:
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just sit down and think about it all for a while. and then write your conclusion Last edited by Mumitroll; 2008-11-11 at 18:14. |
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2008-11-12, 09:57 | Link #47 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Banned
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Germany
Age: 44
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http://www.debatepolitics.com/bias-m...t-your-tv.html the absolutely overwhelming picture, in all major newspapers and all TV channels, was "Russia invades Georgia". Quote:
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1138009.stm Quote:
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the firebombing of Tokyo (and obviously the nuclear bombs) was US work exclusively. Quote:
http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/mac...etnamBombs.pdf a random quote: "only 11 of 3,500 Quang Tri villages were left unbombed by the end of the war" Quote:
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http://programtree.com/pro.gif as you can see the Polish/Czech Republic ABM system covers the Kozelsk (westernmost) base almost completely, and the trick is in particular, that (different from the existing base in Norway) intercepting BMs in the initial acceleration phase of the flight is FAR more reliable than in the end phase - and the missiles that are to be stationed in Poland are close enough, have a sufficient launch speed and a much better thrust/weight ratio than the BMs themselves, so they could do that with the BMs launched from the Western Russia bases. they cant do that with either Iranian or North Korean missiles since their launch sites are simply too far. another interesting fact that is not known to non-experts is that the ABM system in Poland/Czech Republic/Norway is useless for defending Europe itself - it is ineffective against modern BMs in mid- and late flight phase, and especially against MIRVed ones. so the only theoretical chance that it could intercept something from Iran or North Korea is if it would be a very lowtech BM with no separable warhead, no evasive capability, and no false targets. while in reality both already have more advanced BMs already now - Iran just recently tested one yesterday - and could rather easily get to the level of making them immune to the Poland ABM. it's a few minor technical steps. if the US wanted a reliable ABM system against Iran, it would have to be located near the Persian Gulf, to be able to intercept Iranian BMs in the acceleration phase. in fact Russia has previously offered the US to establish a joint ABM base in Azerbaidjan - which would be able to do exactly that. yet the US refused with vague reasoning... so, to summarize, for anyone well-informed, its clear that its only real purpose is as a first-strike backup (as well as a method of political/military pressure) against Russia. Quote:
its a long story, but in a nutshell the US media are corporate controlled, and the corporations main interest is not actually the viewers. its the advertisers. who are in turn mostly also large companies. who want a certain picture of the world, and not something different. it's all very funny when seen from the outside - while many Americans have the illusion that they have a very wide spectrum of liberal media, in reality their major media span from their "ultra-left" to "ultra-right" is quite narrow, and waaay to the right (pro-corporate-interest, pro-national-interest) as compared to reality. it looks rather outlandish to most educated people visiting the US for the first time. a similar effect exists in most EU countries, but to a lesser extent. the ones who report on this stuff much more objectively are interestingly mostly Asian papers and journals, since they sit outside and their advertisers/owners dont ahve such a major interest in drawing a pro-US picture of events. anyhow, its a big subject, and others have written on it much better than i could do here. just read something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent for starters. its rather dry, and already a bit dated, but extremely convincing. nothing much has changed since the time it was written, too. |
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2008-11-12, 17:52 | Link #49 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Banned
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Germany
Age: 44
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also, at that point they couldnt really afford it. the Soviet army in Europe was far stronger than the US-UK forces at the time, and nuclear bombs were not (yet) readily available - although available to the US in a longer term. Still, Truman's quote was "It is too risky to engage in this [a suggested armed convoy to West Berlin] due to the consequence of war." Quote:
we all have to thank whatever gods we believe in that Kennedy himself didnt authorize the armed invasion of Cuba - which was strongly proposed by the US military lead. what they didnt know at the time was that the Soviet missile division in Cuba under Generals Pliev and Gribkov had already deployed short-range tactical Luna missiles with nuclear warheads aimed at Florida, and had a command to retaliate in case of a US invasion. that would've been the end for Florida, and for many other places as well. Quote:
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regarding F-22s, they arent for export at the moment, but it's clear that Israel will get them first ultimately (in a few years when they get older probably). Quote:
why do you think the mere fact that there are some official Western observers who were, in fact, there at the time of the Georgian attack, and who, in fact say that it was the Georgians who attacked first, is treated as a big surprise and revelation and deserves a cover page headline in the NY Times - 3 months later? their reporting is a complete joke. Quote:
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anyhow, i dont want to comment the rest, its a waste of time, since its largely just direct quotes of Georgian "information" garbage. as you can see, no, this article does not at all report the initial Georgian attack on Tskhinvali as the start of the war. and nobody read it that way, either, except for people who knew about it from other, better, sources. Quote:
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that's a joke. it takes years of brainwash to believe in that. seen from a cold and objective outsider standpoint, the US foreign policy in the post-WWII time has been basically 1) increasing its geopolitical sphere of influence, by any means (including very dirty ones and killing millions of people in process) and 2) exploiting places it controlled to an appropriate extent (some places more than others). freedom? democracy? dont make me laugh. the US has supported and continues to support numerous tyrants who have taken any freedom away from their nations, and has continuously attacked and terrorized democracies and popular governments which did not comply with the US-prescribed course of action. Quote:
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what stops them is other, far more pragmatic issues. first, the US military is already stretched rather thin, with enormous costs and effort for the war in Iraq (and lesser ones - but still existent - for Afghanistan, which is btw why they're trying to push it off to the UN). also, Iran is a considerably more difficult terrain than Iraq, far more populated, and much more unified in terms of religious dogmatism. very high losses would be likely in case of any ground invasion. a couple of airstrikes are possible though, but it is clear that those, different from Serbia, would not be enough to tumble the government or do anything major at all. so the only real question is whether they'll perhaps do some airstrikes targeting Iranian nuclear and related facilities. Israel has been pressuring for this for months, but didnt get US approval yet. but it may yet come, dont know. there is a certain chance it's still going to happen during the Bush term. less likely it will happen anytime soon in the Obama term. Quote:
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the conclusion you should come to is - nothing meaningful. they just had more troops and more aviation in 1944, so they could perform the landing with somewhat smaller losses. had they really wanted it, it would have been possible in 1942 as well. it just wasnt necessary from their standpoint - a thesis Churchill had expressed was to let Hitler and Stalin "fight it out" and then intervene. Quote:
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the only speculation you'll find in my article is section 4 - motives. those are unknown to anyone with certainty even today, except maybe the Georgian leadership and their immediate allies. it's possible to make educated guesses though, and I think my guesses are as good as anyone else's. at least i've not seen anything better so far. Quote:
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Last edited by Mumitroll; 2008-11-12 at 19:35. |
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2008-11-12, 22:01 | Link #51 | |
♪♫ Maya Iincho ♩♬
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ps: god... thats one long post kamui...
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2008-11-12, 22:10 | Link #52 | |
Love Yourself
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Northeast USA
Age: 38
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We always hear about how a terrorist might get control of these things as though it's a valid concern, but I'm skeptical. I'm not a physicist so I don't know for certain, but I'm pretty sure it isn't as easy as uranium + webpage on how to make a bomb = nuclear bomb. We often hear about fears of bioterrorism, which is something I think would be much easier to make a reality, but when is the last time you heard of a successful bioterrorist attack? Occasionally you hear about how anthrax is mailed to people, but that's pretty rare, half the time it seems to be a hoax, and the other half the time it isn't from a "traditional terrorist" but from some scientist who cracked. Which isn't to say that it will never happen, but in reality the chances seem to be pretty slim. Are we to cut back progress and development simply because there's a chance that something bad might happen?
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2008-11-12, 22:38 | Link #53 | |
♪♫ Maya Iincho ♩♬
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...scrolling down takes me time >.< (lol ^^)
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2008-11-12, 22:56 | Link #55 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Land of the rising sun
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Just obtain high energy reactor waste, and a pestle to achieve maximum toxicity. You don't even need to blow anything up, just pour it in to the water system and/or have the powder carried by wind. Terroists somehow developing a termo nuclear bomb by obtaining raw ingredients is complete rubbish. |
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2008-11-13, 00:14 | Link #56 | ||
Bittersweet Distractor
Join Date: Nov 2007
Age: 32
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Granted these countries cannot stay like this forever, but the countries like Iran and North Korea have not expressed that nuclear energy is their priority in bringing this technology to their countries, but rather the bomb. Unless you have nothing against them having the bomb, but I personally would like to keep any further countries from obtaining such weapons as long as possible. Though it may be inevitable that they manage to obtain such weapons, we can improve our technologies in defending against such attacks with more time perhaps.
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2008-11-13, 01:04 | Link #57 | |
♪♫ Maya Iincho ♩♬
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Those 3 words are always spat out in the same sentences together, so everyone is afraid. Keep the public in fear, they are doing good so far.
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2008-11-13, 08:35 | Link #59 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Banned
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Germany
Age: 44
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"Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated. " or the opinion of a certain General Dwight D. Eisenhower: "In 1945 Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives." a certain Albert Einstein - who is commonly regarded as a pretty bright person - was very much against it as well. etc. basically the only people you'll find supporting it are pro-American rightwing historians. Quote:
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still, they ran free PM elections, and in 1949 gave almost full freedom to the new JP government. however, in both places, all that freedom and aid had nothing to do with pure good will or any similar altruistic motives. West Germany had the crucial role of being the barrier against the USSR in Europe, and it was more useful in a strong and industrialized state than as a starving wasteland. a similar reason is valid for Japan - already in 1949 the Korean war, a direct confrontation with the USSR, made it important to build up Japan as an outpost against evil Communism in the Far East. most other US-controlled places, since they did not have such major importance, did not end up so lucky, and were just exploited. Quote:
or when an evil Milosevic oppresses poor Albanians - even although they are a former minority in a Serbian province who are now a majority because of the demographic crisis, and their militarized wing KLA terrorizing Serbs living there in order to obtain independence as an Albanian province - oh then we must bomb him. Quote:
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Q: How many gears does a French tank have? A: 4 reverse and 1 forward, in case the enemy attacks from the rear. the Russians had all kinds of logistics problems as well. for example supplying blockaded Leningrad for 900 days over the ice of the Ladoga lake was an immense logistic task - but it was ultimately done, and the city was defended - albeit with an extreme number of victims. in war, if you want to win, there is no such thing as "logistically cant do". if you dont want to win, and rather prefer to have others fight it out - then yeah you can find all kinds of excuses. Quote:
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Last edited by Mumitroll; 2008-11-15 at 05:03. |
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2008-11-13, 15:25 | Link #60 |
♪♫ Maya Iincho ♩♬
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No, I doubt any nation would allow nuclear waste to be just simply tossed into land fills. But for the United States, they are simply placing them underground, since other than waiting for the nuclear isotopes to degrade themselves, there aren't many other solutions.
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