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MichaeltheGreat
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Apolyton Grand Executioner
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mooning the house that Ruth built.
Oct 1999
time: 21:37
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quote:
Originally posted by GePap
Well, in theory then nuclear war would be banned outright, given that such weapons are utterly non-discriminating- one wonders then how anyone could get away with having them?
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Actually, nuke doctrine is/can be pretty discriminating. There's a reason we keep our land based missiles in the boonies, and not in the middle of major cities, and even the Godless CommiesTM did the same.
In the 50's, the Zel'dovich / Sakharov team and Wheeler / Colgate teams worked on arbitrarily powerful "superbombs," but that work fell aside for more accurate delivery systems and smaller warhead packages to allow for MIRVs. You could still target population centers, but the goal was to constantly counter the other guy's deterrent, seeking to make sure the other guy couldn't gain an advantage in a potential first strike.
Even though there's no law banning nuclear conflict, such a law would be meaningless with a regime like the DPRK, and equally meaningless with relatively mature, responsible governments who have overriding strategic reasons for not escalating to nuclear conflict.
quote:
I don't think this type of indescriminate bombing is now banned- certainly at least those from the powerful players get to do what they want. I mean, the Russians levelled Grozny wihout consequence. |
It's not banned, but the popular acceptance of taking the war to the civilian means of production is now long since superseded. We don't have or need tens of thousands of aircraft and tanks and a million riflemen to do damage to the enemy, so disruption of manufacturing capability is meaningless. As far as Grozny goes, that's just one more act of global gutlessness. We don't want to piss off the Russkies, so we let them commit mass murder. No "law" would have any meaning if no party has any desire to apply or enforce it.
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MichaeltheGreat
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Apolyton Grand Executioner
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mooning the house that Ruth built.
Oct 1999
time: 21:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Last Conformist
MichaeltheGreat:
quote:
Yes, by all means, let's all put on pimply lima delta pedant mode, and ignore the fact that military and civilian targets were inseparable in Japan, or that prolongation of the war over winter would have resulted in mass starvation and epidemics (due to critical shortage of medical supplies) that would have killed millions, or that many of the military leaders of Japan seriously considered complete ethnic and national suicide as a response to invasion. |
I don't see what anything of that has to do with the question whether it was terrorism or not.
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It depends on the definition the pimply pedants want to use for "terrorism." It's ok to cause millions of people to starve, if you don't do anything active, but bombing military targets (and there were plenty in Hiroshima) is "terrorism" if you happen to kill a bunch of civilians, or don't happen to like the method, whether or not there is any feasible way to minimize those casualties.
Terrorism would have been to drop the bomb over the densest population centerd remaining after the April firebombing of Tokyo. If you want an act of terrorism, pick that - the civilian casualties were entirely disproportionate to any military result, and the results of incendiary usage were well known.
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GePap
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of the Big Apple
Nov 2001
time: 23:37
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quote:
Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Actually, nuke doctrine is/can be pretty discriminating. There's a reason we keep our land based missiles in the boonies, and not in the middle of major cities, and even the Godless CommiesTM did the same.
In the 50's, the Zel'dovich / Sakharov team and Wheeler / Colgate teams worked on arbitrarily powerful "superbombs," but that work fell aside for more accurate delivery systems and smaller warhead packages to allow for MIRVs. You could still target population centers, but the goal was to constantly counter the other guy's deterrent, seeking to make sure the other guy couldn't gain an advantage in a potential first strike. |
Yes, I know about nuclear theory and the notion of winning a nuclear war- but the point is that even a full strike at just the other military capabilities would lead to millions killed- after all, while nuclear silos are off nowhere, airbases and the bases for nuke subs are still in cities and they need to be taken out as well, not only land silos. There is no way to make a nuke war that does not cost lots of lives.
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It's not banned, but the popular acceptance of taking the war to the civilian means of production is now long since superseded. We don't have or need tens of thousands of aircraft and tanks and a million riflemen to do damage to the enemy, so disruption of manufacturing capability is meaningless. As far as Grozny goes, that's just one more act of global gutlessness. We don't want to piss off the Russkies, so we let them commit mass murder. No "law" would have any meaning if no party has any desire to apply or enforce it. |
Well, yes, western powers don't need lots of bombs to destroy the enemy. Which is why then we get to criticize other for not having our toys and their accuracy.
At the same time, I don;t think the US or any of the powers capable of laying such a law down have any interest in such a law anyways, so I doubt such a law exists.
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Ramo
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Austin, Texas, USA
Oct 1999
time: 23:37
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quote:
Yes, by all means, let's all put on pimply lima delta pedant mode, and ignore the fact that military and civilian targets were inseparable in Japan, or that prolongation of the war over winter would have resulted in mass starvation and epidemics (due to critical shortage of medical supplies) that would have killed millions, or that many of the military leaders of Japan seriously considered complete ethnic and national suicide as a response to invasion.
If ten times more people starve and die of disease due to prolonging a war, it's ok, because it's passive and we can all satisfy our neo-leftist limp dicked sense of "morals" rather than taking the only feasible action to immediately and decisively end the war. |
I didn't address whether it was moral, merely whether it was an act of terrorism.
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MosesPresley
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Nuking them was the humanitarian thing to do. Yeah right.
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30-06-2004 22:06
), but it does not mean it is always true.
Personally, I tend to believe that those who deliberately kill innocent civilians aren't particularly interested freedom and those who trample on human rights aren't the best people to try defending them. The choice of means indicates that they are forerunners of tyranny. 
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