Richard Jernigan -> RE: American Freedom? (Dec. 14 2012 3:55:41)
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ORIGINAL: Deniz quote:
ORIGINAL: BarkellWH Regarding the idea of a demonstration blast, what if one were announced and it was a dud and failed? Wow, that would have been horrible... i cant even imagine. Killing off millions of civilians was definitely the right decision there! To close this topic for me, i hope that people learn to what silly statements nationalism can lead. Because the loyalty to the nation has to have priority over everything, reason is the first thing that dies to that. If neccessary you can always invent a pretext afterwards for what you did. In any case, it is always the enemy (state) that makes you do bad things. I also want to mention that i find it depressing to see, that the only people who seem to care about political matters, are discussing things like altruism vs egoism, meanwhile we have states with heavy weaponry and no sign whatsoever that they would refrain to use them anytime they want. Sorry, but such discussions are way unwordly!! Umm...it was less than 200,000 civilians, Not that it alters any conclusions to be drawn, but just for the sake of accuracy. As for using heavy weaponry any time it was wanted, when the People's Army crossed the Yalu River, bringing China into the Korean War, Curtis LeMay, the WW II hero commander of the Strategic Air Command publicly proposed to "nuke them back to the stone age." China had no means whatsoever of strategic retaliation. Would The Soviet Union, then China's ally, come to their assistance? The Soviets were still weak and reeling from WW II, with all its military resources engaged in Eastern Europe. They had just a handful of long range bombers. LeMay, and more importantly MacArthur thought the suggestion was ridiculous. The U.N. (mostly American) and South Korean forces were driven into a small enclave at the south end of the peninsula. If it weren't for MacArthur's masterful bisection of the Chinese by his invasion at Inchon, China and North Korea would have won the war. MacArthur, the supreme egotist and exemplar of vanity, a general for 31 years at the time, having borne half the burden of defeating Japan, stood on the deck of his ship watching the first wave go ashore at Inchon. He turned to the aide at his side and said, "This had better work." Truman kept his finger off the nuclear trigger. After turning the tables in Korea, MacArthur proposed pursuing the Chinese into their home country. Truman said "No." MacArthur, through various subterfuges, tried to provoke a pretext for war with China. MacArthur was one of the two greatest Army heroes of WW II. He had been the military ruler of Japan, and carried out America's policy there with great efficiency and skill. Truman fired him for insubordination. MacArthur came home for the first time in decades, made a speech to Congress, made another speech at the Military Academy, and retired to what my father called "his throne room at the Waldorf Astoria [fanciest hotel in New York]." And he never meddled in military or state affairs again--except for a vain hope for the Republican presidential nomination, that went to the other great Army hero of WW ii, Eisenhower. Later in the cold war, America was effectively constrained in its use of weapons by the strategic capabilities of the Soviet Union, so there was no test of self restraint. Resort to nuclear weapons by either country would have been suicidal. People are deeply angered at the U.S. use of atomic weapons. Let me tell you, you are not one-tenth so pissed off as a great many Japanese still are. But let's not let anger cloud our vision of the facts, whatever your judgment of American morality. The second American invasion of Iraq was planned as a pincers movement, with the Iraqis caught between forces invading from Kuwait in the south, and a force transiting Turkey from the north. The force from the north was to be the 4th Infantry Division, the U.S. Army's heaviest mechanized infantry unit. At the last minute Turkey refused permission for the 4th to cross their territory. I was in the 4th Infantry Division when i was drafted into the Army in 1961. The 4th Division i was in could have driven across Turkey as though it were a stroll in the park. The 4th of the Iraq war was stronger, better equipped, better trained and had higher morale. When Turkey demurred, the movement from the north was cancelled. The 4th was brought around to the south and entered iraq from Kuwait months after it was scheduled, after the major combat was done. They came in handy in the insurgency that immediately followed. What? I thought the Iraqis were all supposed to shower us in rose petals and thank us for ousting their dictator. Why are these guys blowing up stuff and shooting at us? Umm, about that intelligence info, saying we didn't need much of an occupation force.... Personally, I was very dubious of the decision to invade Iraq at the time the decision was made. I had been involved in intelligence work part time for several years. The publicly presented intelligence indicating Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was very thin. You don't want to turn over any more cards in public than you have to, but Rumsfeld had set up a special intelligence unit to find evidence of WMD. I ask you, if your job is to find evidence of WMD, how are you going to get ahead in life? I don't think the Bush administration lied about Iraq having WMD. I think they started from the firm belief that they did have WMD, and piled up every tiny straw of "evidence" they could find that supported their belief, until they thought they convince the world it was true. I have seen it happen, working in the intelligence business. They were wrong to start from a biased assumption and interpret tiny bits of information as proof of their preconceptions. It's the wrong way to do intelligence. It resulted in the fiasco at the Bay of Pigs. It contributed significantly to the fall of the Shah of Iran....I could go on. In retrospect, I think invading Iraq was as bad an idea as I feared it might be. I was in good company. Colin Powell, despite being a good soldier and making his speech to the U.N. Security Council, firmly advised against it in his official capacity as Secretary of State, and as an experienced military man. George W. clearly implied that his father, who had pushed Saddam out of Kuwait, counseled against it. But the point is, the 4th Division could have crossed Turkey according to plan, hardly getting dust on their boots. Turkey would have been powerless to stop them, and foolish to try. But the 4th Division went the other way around. Turkey is too valuable an ally to treat with contempt. Anger has clouded judgment and led to slaughter. We have to guard against it clouding our vision, whether the anger is justified or not. RNJ
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