Political Posts

[73 Reds]

Just now, cubsfan said:

 

Of course it was the right thing to do. The Japanese Military killed 8 civilians for every 1 soldier they lost.

Japan killed 16 million civilians.. 

 

They earned the bomb. Why would the US risk 1 million casualties to invade Japan when we could end the war is 3 days with 2 bombs?

Cubs, the issue is always proportionality and whether it was necessary.  Again, hindsight is much more clear than present day.  We didn't start or provoke WWII but we ended it.  The issue is how we ended it and whether we would do the same thing again.  We did learn how destructive a nuclear bomb can be, which hopefully is the reason it will remain a useful deterrent for those who have it and who value human life.

[cubsfan]

1 minute ago, 73 Reds said:

Cubs, the issue is always proportionality and whether it was necessary.  Again, hindsight is much more clear than present day.  We didn't start or provoke WWII but we ended it.  The issue is how we ended it and whether we would do the same thing again.  We did learn how destructive a nuclear bomb can be, which hopefully is the reason it will remain a useful deterrent for those who have it and who value human life.

 

The whole notion of "proportionality" in war is total bullshit. You end wars with disproportional responses - not 1 for 1, but 10 for 1.

 

Why do you think the USA has not invaded Iran?

 

We could never end it with "proportional" responses. Therefore, we obliterate what we can without any losses to the US.

 

Israel would be stupid to play this game with Hamas or Hezbollah.  Both terrorist organizations are getting exactly what they deserve - where Gaza is a pile of ruble and Southern Lebanon may end up.

For every Israeli death - Israelis are responding "disproportionately"

 

Proportionality is nonsense when you are in war.

[73 Reds]

8 minutes ago, cubsfan said:

 

The whole notion of "proportionality" in war is total bullshit. You end wars with disproportional responses - not 1 for 1, but 10 for 1.

 

Why do you think the USA has not invaded Iran?

 

We could never end it with "proportional" responses. Therefore, we obliterate what we can without any losses to the US.

 

Israel would be stupid to play this game with Hamas or Hezbollah.  Both terrorist organizations are getting exactly what they deserve - where Gaza is a pile of ruble and Southern Lebanon may end up.

For every Israeli death - Israelis are responding "disproportionately"

 

Proportionality is nonsense when you are in war.

Sorry, meant disproportional loss of innocent human life.  And of course no one can explain or justify Hezbollah presence in Southern Lebanon as just one example.  Lebanon doesn't want them there and neither does Israel yet when Israel responds to their terrorist attacks, it gets blamed and used as a pawn and/or excuse for jeopardizing a peace deal with Iran.  Informed people know better.

[changegonnacome]

31 minutes ago, cubsfan said:

The whole notion of "proportionality" in war is total bullshit. You end wars with disproportional responses - not 1 for 1, but 10 for 1.

 

Remind me never to get into a bust up with you in real life @cubsfan 

[cubsfan]

17 minutes ago, changegonnacome said:

 

Remind me never to get into a bust up with you in real life @cubsfan 

 

Don't worry change - I would never mess with you!

[cubsfan]

38 minutes ago, 73 Reds said:

Sorry, meant disproportional loss of innocent human life.  And of course no one can explain or justify Hezbollah presence in Southern Lebanon as just one example.  Lebanon doesn't want them there and neither does Israel yet when Israel responds to their terrorist attacks, it gets blamed and used as a pawn and/or excuse for jeopardizing a peace deal with Iran.  Informed people know better.

 

And now Israel will hit Beirut until Hezbollah stops, just like they did with Gaza.  At least Hamas is mostly killing their own Palestinians now. 

[cwericb]

1 hour ago, cubsfan said:

 

Of course it was the right thing to do. The Japanese Military killed 8 civilians for every 1 soldier they lost.

Japan killed 16 million civilians.. 

 

They earned the bomb. Why would the US risk 1 million casualties to invade Japan when we could end the war is 3 days with 2 bombs?

 

Cubs we don't often agree but I am with you 100% on this.

 

Those in charge of Japan at the time were completely ruthless and life was relatively worthless. Death and torture by the Japanese was commonplace and quite acceptable. To end the war with an invasion would have taken as many as 1,000,000 lives. On the other hand the two A bombs killed approximately 200,000 people and ended the war.

 

Further, and what many tend to forget, the nightly B-29 raids in 1945 were fire bombing Japanese cities and were burning to death as many as 100,000 Japanese people per NIGHT.

 

Personally, I would much rather be vaporized than burned to death. But those critical of dropping the bombs seem to overlook the hard truths of the situation.

 

I knew a guy who was in the Canadian army and posted in Singapore when the Japanese took the city in early 1942. He was captured and spent the balance of the war in prison camps. People today have no concept of the situation in 1940's Japan. And those who who like to apply present day morals to decisions made 80 years ago do a great disservice to those who fought and died for our present day lives and society.

 

Here is a small example for those who don't know.

 

The Sandakan Death Marches (1945)

 

The Sandakan Death Marches directly involved Allied prisoners of war (POWs) who were captured during the fall of Singapore in 1942. 

 

The Background: Thousands of Australian and British POWs captured at Singapore were shipped to labor camps in Sandakan, North Borneo (now Malaysia).

 

The Marches: As the war neared its end in 1945, Japanese forces, fearing an Allied rescue, forced emaciated and sick POWs to march hundreds of kilometers through the dense Bornean jungle into the interior.

 

The Outcome: Of the roughly 2,500 Allied prisoners (1,787 Australians and 641 British) forced to march, only six Australians survived by escaping into the jungle. The rest died from starvation, disease, exhaustion, or execution

 

The number of prisoners who died in Japanese POW camps was 7-8 times higher than those who failed to survive German POW camps in WWII.

 

 

 

[cubsfan]

27 minutes ago, cwericb said:

 

Cubs we don't often agree but I am with you 100% on this.

 

Those in charge of Japan at the time were completely ruthless and life was relatively worthless. Death and torture by the Japanese was commonplace and quite acceptable. To end the war with an invasion would have taken as many as 1,000,000 lives. On the other hand the two A bombs killed approximately 200,000 people and ended the war.

 

Further, and what many tend to forget, the nightly B-29 raids in 1945 were fire bombing Japanese cities and were burning to death as many as 100,000 Japanese people per NIGHT.

 

Personally, I would much rather be vaporized than burned to death. But those critical of dropping the bombs seem to overlook the hard truths of the situation.

 

I knew a guy who was in the Canadian army and posted in Singapore when the Japanese took the city in early 1942. He was captured and spent the balance of the war in prison camps. People today have no concept of the situation in 1940's Japan. And those who who like to apply present day morals to decisions made 80 years ago do a great disservice to those who fought and died for our present day lives and society.

 

Here is a small example for those who don't know.

 

The Sandakan Death Marches (1945)

 

The Sandakan Death Marches directly involved Allied prisoners of war (POWs) who were captured during the fall of Singapore in 1942. 

 

The Background: Thousands of Australian and British POWs captured at Singapore were shipped to labor camps in Sandakan, North Borneo (now Malaysia).

 

The Marches: As the war neared its end in 1945, Japanese forces, fearing an Allied rescue, forced emaciated and sick POWs to march hundreds of kilometers through the dense Bornean jungle into the interior.

 

The Outcome: Of the roughly 2,500 Allied prisoners (1,787 Australians and 641 British) forced to march, only six Australians survived by escaping into the jungle. The rest died from starvation, disease, exhaustion, or execution

 

The number of prisoners who died in Japanese POW camps was 7-8 times higher than those who failed to survive German POW camps in WWII.

 

Yup, good to hear from you CW.  The Japanese have no sympathy from me. Hell, it took them 50 years before they ever apologized for the millions of Chinese they murdered, let alone Allied POW's.

[RichardGibbons]

6 hours ago, cubsfan said:

 

Of course it was the right thing to do. The Japanese Military killed 8 civilians for every 1 soldier they lost.

Japan killed 16 million civilians.. 

 

They earned the bomb. Why would the US risk 1 million casualties to invade Japan when we could end the war is 3 days with 2 bombs?

 

Yeah, at the time, I think it was a no-brainer.  Why wouldn't you use a massive bomb you recently developed in a war that already lasted four years?  It also was pretty tiny relative to nukes today.

 

My impression is that the controversy only arose decades later, when the moment was long past and people had the prosperity necessary to develop luxury beliefs.

[Blake Hampton]

Trump and the American people are trapped in a dangerous, negative feedback loop with one another. Throughout his life, Trump's entire mission has been to put his name and likeness wherever possible, through any means available. We are talking about a man who, now as president, receives a yearly document detailing how many times his name has been used on TikTok. He must be talked about, shown on TV, and embedded in the brains of everyone around the world incessantly. It is his drive.

How does he accomplish this? Through increasing amounts of chaos of course.

And at the same time, the American people are increasingly tuning out as the chaos Trump generates begins to scare them. They tune out more and more, which, in turn, causes Trump to push ever harder in his never-ending mission of capturing the minds and thoughts of everyone. This feedback loop will not end until Trump is either out of office or dead, and will likely only increase in its ferocity.

I would also like to say that I do not respect the views, opinions, or logic of Trump supporters. It's always funny for me seeing your input because it only ever reminds me of how worthless it is. You are the ones who enabled the dangerous feedback loop I described up above, after all. But this is not to say that you are bad people outside of those beliefs. My dad is one of the biggest Trumpers there ever was. I love that man so much it is indescribable. But I also realize that he is a racist who is highly ignorant when it comes to policy, markets, economics, anything really of macro substance. He is a tribal-thinking ideologue who has fallen in line behind a mass manipulator, as I believe many on this board have as well.

[Blake Hampton]

Change, you must be the fastest typer in the world.

[cubsfan]

20 minutes ago, Blake Hampton said:

Trump and the American people are trapped in a dangerous, negative feedback loop with one another. Throughout his life, Trump's entire mission has been to put his name and likeness wherever possible, through any means available. We are talking about a man who, now as president, receives a yearly document detailing how many times his name has been used on TikTok. He must be talked about, shown on TV, and embedded in the brains of everyone around the world incessantly. It is his drive.

How does he accomplish this? Through increasing amounts of chaos of course.

And at the same time, the American people are increasingly tuning out as the chaos Trump generates begins to scare them. They tune out more and more, which, in turn, causes Trump to push ever harder in his never-ending mission of capturing the minds and thoughts of everyone. This feedback loop will not end until Trump is either out of office or dead, and will likely only increase in its ferocity.

I would also like to say that I do not respect the views, opinions, or logic of Trump supporters. It's always funny for me seeing your input because it only ever reminds me of how worthless it is. You are the ones who enabled the dangerous feedback loop I described up above, after all. But this is not to say that you are bad people outside of those beliefs. My dad is one of the biggest Trumpers there ever was. I love that man so much it is indescribable. But I also realize that he is a racist who is highly ignorant when it comes to policy, markets, economics, anything really of macro substance. He is a tribal-thinking ideologue who has fallen in line behind a mass manipulator, as I believe many on this board have as well.

 

Pretty harsh Blake.  You definitely sound like an arrogant little shit!

[cubsfan]

1 hour ago, RichardGibbons said:

 

Yeah, at the time, I think it was a no-brainer.  Why wouldn't you use a massive bomb you recently developed in a war that already lasted four years?  It also was pretty tiny relative to nukes today.

 

My impression is that the controversy only arose decades later, when the moment was long past and people had the prosperity necessary to develop luxury beliefs.

 

100%. I think the same thinking has overcome our younger generation when it comes to 9/11 as well.

[Blake Hampton]

1 minute ago, cubsfan said:

Pretty harsh Blake.  You definitely sound like an arrogant little shit!

You don't even know the half of it

[cubsfan]

2 minutes ago, Blake Hampton said:

You don't even know the half of it

 

Hey, at least your old man loves you!