Nuclear weapons

[neoplacebo]

That's what I call calling for backup. Those Air Force boys seem to be playing fast and loose up in there. Maybe they need a new drug.

[Wneglia]

Another by-product of America's nuclear arms race- a missed opportunity for clean nuclear energy.

[neoplacebo]

I once went to the Nagasaki Peace Park; it was a sobering experience. An open air venue with artifacts and visual displays and narratives. Being there sort of made me feel bad in some way. Plus, I believe I was getting some dirty looks from some of the older citizens. I paid homage and left.

[O Really]

Look, I find it really uncomfortable to even appear to be defending the killing of thousands of civilians in a really horrible way. But looking at it from a broader perspective of 60 years of history, one must admit that the bomb ended the war and Japanese aggression. It created circumstances where Japan had to change, and those changes led to a better life for all Japanese - as well as their former enemies.

[neoplacebo]

I'm not sure but I think it was Oppenheimer who said "what hath God wrought?" after the first nuclear blast. I think more appropriately it is like David Byrne of Talking Heads said....."my God, what have I done?" same as it ever was.

[rstrong]

Japan's aggression was already ended, it was already defeated and it was going to change, regardless.

Even Japanese historians don't buy this. The military was in control, and they were always going to fight on, and fight to the death.

The two nukes allowed the emperor to convince them that the rules had changed.

Plus, it wasn't just about ending the war rapidly. It was also about exacting blood revenge and frightening the USSR.

Oh, bullshit. Frightening the USSR may have been a bonus, but only a tiny one. It was about ending the war rapidly.

A decade or so ago I read an article where military historians were asked how the war might have ended without nukes. The estimate was half a million additional Allied dead, and two million Japanese dead.

Instead it was ended for NO additional Allied dead, and a number of Japanese dead - from both atomic bombs combined - less than the number of civilians killed by the Japanese in the Rape of Nanking alone. AFTER the city surrendered. A scene repeated all over China and the rest of Asia.

If the Allies wanted "blood revenge" they would handed Japan over to China, Korea and the rest at the end of the war. Japan got off lightly.

The debate is over whether it was necessary to use nuclear weapons or whether we needed to twice target civilians killing 200,000 in order to finalize things,

Again, the alternative was something like half a million allied killed, and two million Japanese.

That "civilian" target of Hiroshima was a major military port, with the bomb dropped between two munitions factories. Run largely by civilian workers. Even school children were being taught to fight off an invasion.

As for the Allied soldiers, consider this: Yesterday you were a civilian. Overnight the Japanese attacked, and you've been drafted into the military. Is your life worth any less than it was worth yesterday?

Now imagine that you're the President, facing the parents of the kids you ordered drafted into the military. Are you willing to tell them - having signed the order that turned their kids into soldiers - that their kids' lives aren't worth as much because they were soldiers?

Total war is ugly. The line between civilian and soldier disappears. It's all the more ugly because lives lost can be broken down on a balance sheet. But O Really is correct; The bomb ended the war and Japanese aggression. At a much lower cost than any realistic alternative.

[neoplacebo]

If the Allies wanted "blood revenge" they would handed Japan over to China, Korea and the rest at the end of the war. Japan got off lightly.

Japan got off better than lightly. They were prohibited from having any military other than a "self defense force" so to this day we have American military assets based in Japan. They then turned their militarism into fierce industrialism; first into making toys and other goods that Americans thought of as Japanese "junk" but it only took about thirty years before they damn near put Detroit out of business, and most certainly forced Detroit to change its ways with regard to the type of cars being made. They DID put all the American television and electronic (stereo and radio) companies out of business. These days Japanese machine tools and heavy construction equipment are among the best in the world. And Japanese companies and individuals own quite a lot of the US. The best way to get rich is to lose a war with the US.

[O Really]

Let me make sure I have this straight - in a war, only those in the military are participants. If you're in the military, you can only shoot those on the other side who are also in the military. Civilians aren't fair targets. But what if in the course of an invasion, a civilian sees an invading military guy headed his way. Is he allowed to shoot or otherwise injure/kill the military guy? And if he does shoot at the military guy, does that make him a fair game participant even if he's not in the military? Or is the military guy allowed only to try to escape?

I think through much of history, at times of war, civilians have also been participants.

[neoplacebo]

Let me make sure I have this straight - in a war, only those in the military are participants. If you're in the military, you can only shoot those on the other side who are also in the military. Civilians aren't fair targets. But what if in the course of an invasion, a civilian sees an invading military guy headed his way. Is he allowed to shoot or otherwise injure/kill the military guy? And if he does shoot at the military guy, does that make him a fair game participant even if he's not in the military? Or is the military guy allowed only to try to escape?

I think through much of history, at times of war, civilians have also been participants.

Well, if we were at war here at home facing an invading force, cops and firemen would not be soldiers. But I can guarantee you that folks like Roland would be participating in the conflict any time the occasion presented itself. That makes him a combatant and fair game for the invaders. As for Japan in WWII, I don't advocate the use of nuclear weapons, but to be fair, at the time, not much was known about the aftereffects of it. Hell, they didn't really know what would happen (if it would initiate an uncontrolled chain reaction, destroying the world) prior to the first nuclear test blast. and if you're bombing Japan, there's very few sparsely inhabited areas, even in those times. These days it's even more population dense....they have roughly a third of the US population and roughly one hundredth the land mass. It's crowded over there. No way to avoid unintentional damage by aerial bombing. And if you're on the ground, you're just as dead from a high explosive incendiary bomb as you would be from a nuclear one; the quantity of HEI bombs versus nuclear ones would tend to even out the eventual damage in any case. The moral aspect of the nuclear bombing is the enduring legacy as you view it through the looking glass.

[Mr.B]

"Let me make sure I have this straight - in a war, only those in the military are participants."

That's a strange part of military conflict that I have never really understood.

A set of "rules" were drawn up, called The Geneva Convention, that dictated who were combatants, who you could or could not shoot, what targets you could or could hit, and how POW's were to be treated, etc. Of course, none of these "rules" have ever been followed, even by combatants of so-called "civilized" countries.

Today, people are imprisoned indefinitely, tortured, starved, beheaded, burned alive, sexually abused, and God only knows what all......and it's not all terrorists who commit these heinous acts.

Who determines who is a combatant any more?

I haven't seen the movie, but in the sniper movie, a scene shows the sniper beading down on a woman and a child who are picking up military hardware dropped by terrorist fighters....does that automatically make them combatants? God have mercy.....

[O Really]

Let me make sure I have this straight - in a war, only those in the military are participants. If you're in the military, you can only shoot those on the other side who are also in the military. Civilians aren't fair targets.

Take it up with the people who drafted and signed the international law that we're party to, with the Constitution that makes such treaties "the supreme law of the land" (Article Six, Clause 2), and with virtually every religious and ethical system. It's not like I invented the concept.

But what if in the course of an invasion, a civilian sees an invading military guy headed his way. Is he allowed to shoot or otherwise injure/kill the military guy? And if he does shoot at the military guy, does that make him a fair game participant even if he's not in the military? Or is the military guy allowed only to try to escape?

That's a silly comparison to leveling entire cities and frying hundreds of thousands.

I think through much of history, at times of war, civilians have also been participants.

We and others have turned it into an art form. Now, we threaten the entire planet.

It may be somewhat frivolous, but not a silly comparison at all. You object to killing civilians. Whether it's one guy or 200,000, it's either killing civilians or not. I don't necessarily support wanton killing of civilians, but I think the line between military and non-military participants is not bright and clear. For example, wouldn't civilians such as heads of state and ministers of war be fair game? How about CIA operatives? How about civilians who manufacture bombs and artillery?

[O Really]

"Let me make sure I have this straight - in a war, only those in the military are participants."

That's a strange part of military conflict that I have never really understood.

A set of "rules" were drawn up, called The Geneva Convention, that dictated who were combatants, who you could or could not shoot, what targets you could or could hit, and how POW's were to be treated, etc. Of course, none of these "rules" have ever been followed, even by combatants of so-called "civilized" countries.

Today, people are imprisoned indefinitely, tortured, starved, beheaded, burned alive, sexually abused, and God only knows what all......and it's not all terrorists who commit these heinous acts.

Who determines who is a combatant any more?

I haven't seen the movie, but in the sniper movie, a scene shows the sniper beading down on a woman and a child who are picking up military hardware dropped by terrorist fighters....does that automatically make them combatants? God have mercy.....

A big part of the problem is that agreements like the Geneva Convention are intended for and applicable to countries, not to rogue organizations, not matter how large or small they might be. Al Qaeda, for example, is a band of international criminals, not a country. Why would they go along with conventions of civilized countries, and why would we expect them to? And why would we follow an agreement to which they aren't a party? I know...we're the "good guys." Right.

[Vrede too]

Nuclear Heartland: Revised
A guide to the 450 land-based missiles of the United States

One of the missiles was given my name by the authors when the original edition came out as an honor for my anti-nuclear weapons work in the 1980s. I gave a copy to my niece for the holidays, signed "my" missile and wrote, "Not every teen can say that her uncle has an intercontinental ballistic thermonuclear missile named after him. She told me that she read the book in one sitting.

Tell world leaders at the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit: 15,000 nuclear weapons ≠ security!

[Vrede too]

Turkey coup attempt raises fears over safety of US nuclear stockpile
About 50 nuclear bombs are stored at Incirlik airbase, which was closed after Turkey claimed coup plotters used it

[Seth Milner]

Here's another deadly evil. It's amazing how many ways mankind can devise ways to kill others . . .

"This approach should be rejected as barbaric in the 21st century" --- So I ask: what types of killing methods are considered "humane"?

'Vaccum (sic) bombs' in Syria --- the latest in a long history of aerial atrocities

[Vrede too]

Nuclear Know-Nothings on Campaign Trail
Wild Turkey with H-Bomb: Failed Coup Raise Calls for Denuclearization

[Vrede too]

Website:
Don’t Bank on the Bomb

Report
One of the Principal Authors, Susi Snyder, is an old friend from my years working to shut down the Nevada (nuclear weapons) Test Site (NTS).

United States
226 Financial Institutions made an estimated USD$ 344 billion available to 27 nuclear weapon producing companies since January 2013.

Almost all of my banked money is in a credit union that doesn't appear on the list. However, I do still have an old, small account at NC's BB&T (#33, page 32). I'll close it and tell them why.

[Boatrocker]

. . . Almost all of my banked money is in a credit union that doesn't appear on the list. However, I do still have an old, small account at NC's BB&T (#33, page 32). I'll close it and tell them why.

WTF? Don't you love Murka? Don't you want Murka to be stong?

[Vrede too]

I want the money to be invested in expanding Gitmo, instead.

Trump's potential Homeland Security chief wants to ship a million American citizens to Gitmo

If I'm going to be in prison it might as well be on a socialist tropical island. I can work on my tan and my Spanish.

[Vrede too]

PBS/American Experience: COMMAND AND CONTROL

A chilling nightmare plays out at a Titan II missile complex in Arkansas in September, 1980. A worker accidentally drops a socket, puncturing the fuel tank of an intercontinental ballistic missile carrying the most powerful nuclear warhead in our arsenal, an incident which ignites a series of feverish efforts to avoid a deadly disaster. Directed by Robert Kenner (FOOD, INC.) and based on the critically acclaimed book by Eric Schlosser (FAST FOOD NATION), COMMAND AND CONTROL is a minute-by-minute account of this long-hidden story. Putting a camera where there was no camera that night, Kenner brings this nonfiction thriller to life with stunning original footage shot in a decommissioned Titan II missile silo. Eyewitness accounts — from the man who dropped the socket, to the man who designed the warhead, to the Secretary of Defense— chronicle nine hours of terror that prevented an explosion 600 times more powerful than Hiroshima.

Whoa, I was full time anti-nuclear activist at the time and there's tons about this that I didn't even suspect.

Watch online