RE: Britain's nuclear deterrent (Rant No. 1)
Perhaps it should be compulsory that the children of politicians serve in their parents armed forces. It might make a difference.?
Good point;)& alsoif they where toserve on the front line, (or otherwise referred to as cannon fodder[:'(]) it more then likely will make a difference...how very very sad
xxxx
RE: Britain's nuclear deterrent (Rant No. 1)
Hi Sheringham,
There's no danger of a WW3 these days, such as up to 1990, as there's no potential enemy with the power to make much of a war of it. So WW3 per se isn't on the cards any more. However (to all), Iran and North Korea to name just two nations are trying to get the bomb as quickly as possible and may just be a couple of years away. If we didn't have some deterrent, we'd be totally at their mercy. They'd either use the bombs or threaten us and we'd be in a real position of weakness.
Slightly different subject:
There's some big psychological bug-a-boo about nuclear weapons which isn't perhaps deserved. For example, Japan was simply never going to surrender in WW2, and the alternative to demonstrating the bomb - terrible though that was - is that far, far more people woulld have died. The Allies would have had to have conventionally invaded, WW2 would have carried on another year or two, there would have been fighting all over Japan (everyone was prepared to fight) and there would have been a far larger loss of life - American, and Japanese troops and civilians.
I know this is controversial! And it was a terrible decision to have had to make, but it saved many lives. Of course, one might ask: could the bomb have been droped somewhere uninhabited? The mood Japan was in, with its God-Emperor, I just don't think it would have had any effect. Whether the second bomb - Nagasaki - was necessary I honestly don't know, but Japan didn't surrender until after it.
You know, nukes today can be quite small, with almost zero fallout and merely tactical BTW.
Venetian
RE: Britain's nuclear deterrent (Rant No. 1)
ORIGINAL: sunanda
I think it's a specious argument, that if we don't have them we'll be attacked. I also think it the height of arrogance for us and the Americans to be able to dictate to the rest of the world who should and shouldn't be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.
I respect your PoV very much of course, but my own is that in the Cold War days the USSR would definitely have attacked on a number of occasions - Cuba in 1962, probably even before then, and in late 1989 according to the Russian forerign minister, Shevardarze (sp?) all three Russian forces pressed to attack the West - the Air Force, Army and Navy - to prevent the unification of Germany. Shevadnarze and Gorbachov used the KGB to prevent it (as they infiltrated the armed forces). In Shevadnarze's words, on the front pages of our papers in late 1990, "We stopped WW3".
I'd rather have us with the power than other nations, though it may at times be misused.
Why do you think N. Korea and Iran want the bomb? To let it off in a desert on the 5th of November as a kind of big fun firework? They clearly have serious intent.
V xxx
RE: Britain's nuclear deterrent (Rant No. 1)
Venetian,
I think 61 years on History has confirmed that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the right approach, also the world was at war, and ending itwas a reasonable choice , after all 'All is fair in love and war'
But , and a big but Iraq came about firstly through WMD and only finally after the start of the mass bombings was removal of a tyrant mooted, a different story entirely.
Iran and North Korea? strangely a lot of what is manufactured in Korea is sold here, but I still feel a lot could be sorted by jawjaw first, unless our esteemed leaders are just not being as truthful to us as they should be and the situation has deteriorated more than we have been led to believe?
But I think for World peace, perhaps Bush and Blair could step aside and let others who do have that interest at heart be allowed to speak.
But perhaps tactical nukes may attract something far more serious?
Blair has great natural intelligence and ability, Bush does appear to be someones??? puppet, and I think these two need seperating.
RE: Britain's nuclear deterrent (Rant No. 1)
Jawjaw ;)has been tried with Iran and North Korea for a couple of years now. They're either going to have to step down, or someone - America, or Israel in the M. East - is certainly going to do something about it.
BTW, Sunanda,it's not the West 'bullying' other nations in this case, but the whole of the UN.
Let's hope talk or economic sanctions work. It looks as if sanctions and talk from the West have already stopped Pakistan and India holding their second nuclear Mahabharata three times now over the years. So we have done some good!
V
RE: Britain's nuclear deterrent (Rant No. 1)
Sunanda,
trying again
Do you recall the song the 'Melting Pot'?
Well I do, and don't think the idyll of it could happen, too large a genetic pool for we humans to cope with.
You say I am being jingoistic, believe me Hilter's Aryan descent and the BNP spin off do not interest me as any legitimate contribution to furthering Humanity. If I seeemed jingoistic? 2 reasons,I think the UK could bond better together than 4 individual nations (the footie is a thing apart eeek and can't wait for Wimbledon) The second reason , so many people seem so despondent with the way we seem to be heading, it was just pep talk!
I understand your 'detachment' to be the opposite of 'attachment', or an antidote at least?
I'm a Witch, the future of our Earth bothers me the most, what will be the gain to Her if she is soiled by nuclear fallout?
ButI do feel we are on the threshold of what may be a very scary part of Humanity's 'contribution'?
RE: Britain's nuclear deterrent (Rant No. 1)
Hi Sherringham
No, I don't think you're BNP or anywhere near it. And I'm the one who's cheering England on in the football thread, so I do respect where you're coming from. I'm just aware that all over the world people are rooting for their own little square mile when I really think the time has come (in an ideal world, which of course is far far away) for us all to be part of the global brotherhood. Of course, this is naive rubbish ('You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one' thank you John!) but I do find it unbelievable that we have reached the 21st century and we're still killing each other...like I said, it's just sad.
Venetian - I just don't know what to say to your points, except that I just can't see Iran and North Korea raining nuclear warheads down on us. It just doesn't compute. But I'm not an avid follower of any of this nonsense - I'm just speaking from the heart rather than from an informed point of view. I'm glad I've learned to live in the present, because the future surely looks pretty bleak to me - better not to look IMV.
Love
Sunanda xxx
RE: Britain's nuclear deterrent (Rant No. 1)
Being against nuclear weapons actually links in to the larger subject of whether to be pacifist or not. I always point out that if we'd been pacifist, Adolph Hitler would have been walking down our streets, and the SS rounding people up. So I'm afraid I've never been pacifist, though only believe in warfare for the sake of self-defence. All through history folk, peaceful folk, have found it necssary to defend themselves from tyrants.
So nukes just happen to be larger weapons, but the whole pacifist subject seems involved here. IMHO while people were demonstrating at Greenham Common, those very missiles were quite possibly preserving our lives and freedom. The Soviets had thousands of them (some now missing which is scary) and a European land-army about five times the size of the Allies' -why??why the need to outnumber us at least5 to 1 if the intent was only defence? - and who there was free to demonstrate? At least we had the liberty to do so, whereas one hint of such in the USSR had people carted to Siberia for 30 years ...
It was a dangerous few decades, now seemingly over - because the Soviets couldn't economically keep up their weapon production, which led to their economic downfall and de facto surrender, when they came asking the West for loans.
V
RE: Britain's nuclear deterrent (Rant No. 1)
Venetian,
think there HAS to be a happy medium between anti nukes and 'conchies'. Even the conchies in WW11 drove ambulances and risked their own necks and skin to aid and protect our frontline soldiers of all arms of the services.
The uprising against Hilter on these shores was admirable, and the only reason he would have overwhelmed people was through starvation and other real physical seiges.
Sunanda
I honestly don't know how much of a real threat Iran and N Korea are to us, but hey weren't they equipped with military hardware just like Iraq by who was it, no let methink,?? oh that's it the UK and the US......
(so, just what did we sell them? beggars belief)
RE: Britain's nuclear deterrent (Rant No. 1)
I just don't buy the idea ofworld insecurity justifying the worst means: the theory of Fear.
this is what has made so many americans vote twice for Bush: not rednecks: lawyers telling journalists they felt Bush was "strong" against all the dangers looming over the US. Naivity at its best.
I cannot help feeling outraged to read those comments on the fate of Japan' s nuclear bombings: so it was ok, it was a "necessary evil" to protect us? So it is ok to drop a nuclear bomb on innocent civilians to force a governement to give in...? my god, no wonders Irak is in that mess today, if that represents many people's opinions.
I believe, like many oters, that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were crimes against humanity and the perpetrors have still not faced the justice.
maybe we should think again what is a Crime against Humanity?
If Hitler had done that on Manchester and Birmingham, people here would not have the same opinion about punishing the "ennemy" with nuclear bombs...
Some Japanese survivors are touring schools to tell what they believe to be the truth: they were experimented on, that was it.
Big boy makes a big weapon, big boy has to try it.
RE: Britain's nuclear deterrent (Rant No. 1)
Some Japanese survivors are touring schools to tell what they believe to be the truth: they were experimented on, that was it.
Thats what my thoughts are too, that & plus a very strong "Don't mess with us" message to the rest of the world[&o]...what a backward race we are
xxxx
RE: Britain's nuclear deterrent (Rant No. 1)
Amyand Fadette
The actions against Hiroshima and Nagasaki did bring about the end of WW11.
Would it have been moral to let that continue, bearing in mind several million had been killed in Europe and N Africa alone.
The Japanese nation were wreaking havoc in the Far East and Australia.
Would it have been 'better' to let that continue?
RE: Britain's nuclear deterrent (Rant No. 1)
ORIGINAL: Sherringham
Amyand Fadette
The actions against Hiroshima and Nagasaki did bring about the end of WW11.
Would it have been moral to let that continue, bearing in mind several million had been killed in Europe and N Africa alone.The Japanese nation were wreaking havoc in the Far East and Australia.
Would it have been 'better' to let that continue?
You're asking fora right & wrong, there isn't one, it's all wrong, for me to base an opinion on wether or not Hiroshima and Nagasaki where right to end a war I can't....was it really the only option to end the war..was it really??? (thats not meant as a smug question...my knowledge of the full facts are limited;))
xxx
RE: Britain's nuclear deterrent (Rant No. 1)
Oh no, I'm not asking for a right and wrong, hopefully we have learned from past experience (but it seems not).
But WW11 was the bloodiest bitterest war ever, it SHOULD have ended war forever.
What happens? they build even worse weapons.
Not the people who endured and suffered and died, and those who also lived, but the politicians.
A lotof the protestors against the Iraq invasion were my age and older.
There are many websites showing the horrors of the Holocaust, of D- Day and all the other atrocities.
My grandfathers both served in WW1, both were badly injured, my father served in WW11 also badly injured.
WhenI wasabout 5 yrs old in 1953 I was awoken one night by my father's screaming, he had been in a Japanese POW camp.
RE: Britain's nuclear deterrent (Rant No. 1)
Sherringham,
conchies? are what, sorry?
It's a strange fact and a strange world we live in, but in the Cold War over 95 percent of Soviet weaponry was supplied by the West too! The motive being profit by private companies.
All,
Sorry as the Japan subject is a red herring and a thread in itself. But it's (to me) a tough one but sheerly a numbers game. Without ending the war that way a long invasion of Japan would have been necessary, civilians killed just the same, but maybe as many as 20 times as many deaths. Looking at it that way, it was a terrible decision to have to make, but it saved a huge number of lives on both sides.
That's just plain historical fact. Japan were not going to surrender but were going to fight to the last, over every inch of land.
All the same, glad it wasn't me who had to make such a decision ...
Venetian