“So when we were faced with destruction as a nation after Pearl Harbor…"
The US was never faced with destruction during World War II.
People like Graham are oblivious to the huge opportunity WWII gave us to dominate markets because Europe and Asia had been destroyed. They think it was American Exceptionalism all the way. Their inability to grasp this is why they are ineffective at leading now that other nations have caught up.
Obviously you haven’t seen that fine documentary The Man in the High Castle.
Or the one about a post-Trump presidency, The Handmaiden’s Tale
Hey now. The threat of destruction was just as bad as the actual destruction across Europe and Asia.
Americans and clutching at pearls name a better duo lol
Americans and shooting people, both at home and abroad
Americans and clutching at Pearl Harbor
Amerikans and genocide collaboration
It’s very hard for people (well, neurotypical people) to understand what real destruction means when that contests their system of considering themselves (and their friends, their country etc) very cool.
Most of those advocating for bombing cities and big wars would turn into whining piss-smelling sacks of shaking meat the moment they meet one person not weaker than them angry at them in a back alley.
I mean, yes and no. Pearl harbor wasn’t the only place hit 12/7. Philipines, Guam and Wake were all hit as well
Hong Kong and Singapore were also attacked and the empire invaded Malaysia.
America took a sharp hit square in the face, but Britain got sent home in a body bag at the end of 1941. By Feb 1942 the UK had lost all of Malaysia, lost Hong Kong and lost Singapore. They lost 12,000 troops, the rest surrendering. Zero soldiers made it home. America had never been pit against such an enemy. You have to take all of WW2 into that context. Fuck in WW1 they played soccer across no-man’s-land on Christmas. The next year the Canadians had arrived and…well…I’m not saying shit about canuckistani military just that over half of the geneva convention exists because of Canada.
None of those put the US at existential threat.
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How is loosing territories some 5.000-10.000 km away an “existential threat”? Even if they wanted to, Japan had no means of successfully invading main land US.
The US justifies dropping the Nukes with it preventing an extraordinary loss of life if they had to stage an amphibious invasion of main land Japan. But at least the US could stage much closer to Japan, than Japan could to the US.
In the same wake the Britains loosing their empire was not an existential threat to the US just as much as the genocide against China was not an existential threat for the US just as the Holocaust and the genocides in eastern Europe weren’t an existential threat to the US.
Okay good point about the threat WWII Japan posed but you’re going too far in the other direction. When asked about going to war with America admiral Yamamoto said what amounts to “this is a bad idea don’t”. Now part of their failure definitely lies in poor leadership, and I can see the idea that if they’d concentrated on America instead of opening a war on three (two and a half?) fronts they might’ve made significant gains until America’s industry caught up, but they simply didn’t have the industrial base to keep the US down. The US also has very good natural defenses that you forgot to take into account. Remember: Their ships and airplanes were all handmade.
He can make both those statements. He should absolutely not be comparing them.
The decision to nuke japan was based on factors entirely different than any possible factor to nuke gaza.
In any sane world, senators suggesting dropping war crimes all over another country would be immediately removed
The decision to nuke japan was based on factors entirely different than any possible factor to nuke gaza.
Pretty sure we’re still handing out the purple hearts that were made in case a ground invasion was necessary.
Like, those stories about Japanese soldiers hiding for decades and never believing Japan surrendered? That was the common sentiment.
And loads more civilians were killed in traditional bombings.
It was the fact that one atomic bomb could do so much damage, and the Japanese had no idea how many we had. You could rebuild buildings destroyed conventionally. But atomic bombs could literally make land uninhabitable for generations.
That’s what it took to make Japan surrender.
It was brutal and I hope it never happens again, but it was the best hand we could have played.
This is an interpretation of what happened. It’s the one that paints America in the most favourable light, for sure.
Another one is that the “no surrender” mentality was a direct result of the terms of the Potsdam Declaration which demanded “unconditional surrender” from Japan. Japan knew they had lost, they were just hoping to fight for the SPECIFIC surrender condition of the preservation of the Imperial line (aka, let the Emporer still be the Emporer, preserve the family).
Had the Potsdam Declaration permitted that concession, it very well may have been the case that no nukes would have been necessary.
Anyways: tough to understand the exact truth of any hypothetical situation. I just think it’s unfortunate that the “The USA HAD to, though” argument is so often repeated without a very full context of the surrounding political realities. It’s a very bite sized explanation, and it paints the USA in a fantastic light. It’s perhaps not a coincidence that it was AT Potsdam that the west hinted to Stalin of the existence of the nuclear bomb.
What’s the point of building the thing if you can’t prove to the world you have it, and are willing to use it?
Another one is that the “no surrender” mentality was a direct result of the terms of the Potsdam Declaration which demanded “unconditional surrender” from Japan. Japan knew they had lost, they were just hoping to fight for the SPECIFIC surrender condition of the preservation of the Imperial line (aka, let the Emporer still be the Emporer, preserve the family).
It should be pointed out that this is what ended up happening anyway. The emperor stayed in power and lived until like the 90s. So whoopsie daisy on the whole nuke thing
You are leaving out the historical context of hyper violent insane independent action for honor mindset of the soldiers within the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy (IJA/IJN).
This culture of insubordination included a widespread belief that they did not to have obey civilian commands, and is largely responsible for ground level soldiers deciding on their own to kick off the war in Manchuria.
It’s entirely reasonable to envision a counterfactual version where either one of, or both the IJA and IJN refuse to surrender, or even just large contingents within either.
I’m not saying this to invalidate anything you’ve said, but I do think it’s highly relevant context when considering any alternative ways that could have gone.
The nukes were not thrown because of Japan but as a message to the USSR.
Well no, the best hand you could have played would have been to drop them on military targets instead of civilian targets.
Those bombs were war crimes too; we don’t need to invoke some kind of American exceptionalism for a war crime that happened 80 years ago.
Internment camps are also war crime AFAIK. So it seems like the situation is just that the US government did not believe Japanese people were human and decided to do war crimes and human rights violations.
Yes, I agree. WWII had a bunch of war crimes in it. I would rather we learned from them than we tried to justify them.
McNamara says of the firebombing of Japan that LeMay knew it was a war crime.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
McNamara says of the firebombing of Japan that LeMay knew it was a war crime.
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Hey mods, if you really want to be against history cool, you can have a safe space.
In case you legitimately don’t know:
https://www.britannica.com/event/Bombing-of-Tokyo
Bombing of Tokyo, (March 9–10, 1945), firebombing raid (codenamed “Operation Meetinghouse”) by the United States on the capital of Japan during the final stages of World War II, often cited as one of the most destructive acts of war in history, more destructive than the bombing of Dresden, Hiroshima, or Nagasaki.
That wasn’t the worst part about WW2 in the Pacific theater.
And here’s a source for how we expected so many casualties we still use the purple hearts made in case of invasion.
Https://www.historynewsnetwork.org/article/75-years-later-purple-hearts-made-for-an-invasion-
But honestly, everytime I post here not noticing the .ml, you all remind me.
So if you really just don’t like facts around here, I’ll leave you to your safe space and block this place.
Edit:
Actually fuck it, this sub isn’t getting any better.
Not sure why you chose my comment to reply to. I made no statement on any justification, or otherwise, for attacks on japan.
The fact we are even still having that debate in our modern day surely shows do not fucking nuke gaza
They replied to you with something else, and that was removed. So they are really responding to that.
I’m honestly amazed that account has found a way to get every sub to hate some of their comments
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Let’s drop Lindsey Graham on Gaza instead of a nuke.
Haven’t Palestinians been through enough? You’d make them clean up Lyndsey Graham, too?
Cannabalism is against Islam, otherwise I’d say that at least they’d finally get some food in Gaza.
Good thing Lindsey is pork…oh wait…
Although, technically, even pork is allowed when the alternative is death by starvation.
Whether one would rather die than eat Graham Cracker is another thing.
Imagine how much better the world would be if there was just a simple process of psychological screening for would-be politicians, and psychopaths were barred from holding office.
There should also be a limit on how stupid they’re allowed to be.
Smart people put political proxies in power so they can get on with living their life.
There are only two reasons to become a politician and STAY a politician, and Graham is no Sanders.
At this rate we’d have no politicians!
Sure sounds better than what we currently have
There is already, it’s the electoral process. But it selects for these people to hold office rather than bars them. It bars normal people.
Better screen for sociopaths too.
Casually arguing for breaking the taboo on using nuclear weapons.
Forget Gaza, this is how human civilization ends.
We have been saying that Israel is a moral and legal hazard to the entire world as it rallied its allies to throw out all resemblance of a rule based international order recognizing such basic human rights like not being slaughtered and having access to basic food, water and medicine.
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So is Turkey.
But the guilt for colonialism and belligerent Christianity apparently lies so heavy on Westerners, that they are ready to absolve it with the blood of Christians never involved in those.
It’s an especially disgusting kind of virtue signalling to combine being against Israel, but for Turkey and Azerbaijan.
What are you talking about? Israel and Azerbaijan are allies. Azerbaijan sells its oil and gas to Israel and Israel granted it the “right” to exploit the gas fields in front of Gaza they want to steal. Israel supplied Azerbaijan with drones so it can slaughter Armenians.
And Turkey did not put the UN Charta through a shredder or demanded the world to attack UN institutions. Also Turkey does not demand its allies to cheer it on for its crimes.
I know they are allied, Israel and Turkey are not really that hostile between themselves too.
It’s about how optics of all this work on general Western audiences.
I agree Turkey relies less on such corruption. Azerbaijan is pretty similar to Israel in that regard, though. They just don’t need loud approval when silent approval does the job.
This should disqualify him from ever holding office again. I know it won’t, but it should.
You mean it should lock him behind bars for life.
This should disqualify him from ever drawing another breath again.
“I want you to use my words against me. If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination."
Only thing this guy deserves to hear for the rest of his life.
How is it even legal to call for the murder of so many people using one of the most atrocious weapons humanity has invented…but if one were to suggest to apply a guillotine to this person for doing so, they would be in severe legal trouble?
Same way you can say guillotine the rich but not kill Jeffy Bezos
One is seen as more direct, even though the other includes more people
You can suggest he deserves a lot of things - like you can a pedo. What you can’t do is say you’re going to do it yourself.
I’m from in Belgium, and have colleagues from countries from both sides of the second world war. The carpet bombing of cities is still talked about every now and then. It’s still remembered as one of the worst tragedies during that war (apart from the obvious), and the scars it left in many family trees still pain the people to this day.
Hearing stories from Gaza and the Donbas always remind me of the stories I used to hear from my grandfather, and I believed we left those war tactics behind in the last century. It’s absolutely insane hearing an allied country to ours debating using those tactics again.
Israel wouldn’t do that. They want to give the beachfront property to American politicians as a “gift that’s totally not a bribe”
Would be such a shame if a stray rocket hit Ted Cruz’s beachfront house while he’s on vacation 🙈
Nuking anything is never the right decision unless you’re heating up some leftovers. There is no such thing as a justified mass destruction weapon.
That’s not true. Terraforming Mars with nukes could be pretty cool, too.
What would that accomplish other than blowing the dust around?
It’ll maybe make Mars inhabitable eventually™. It’d be really cool to watch, though.
Edit: reference to shitpost (2011, before Elon could take credit for it)
Achieve disarmament by launching all nuclear weapons on Earth to detonate on mars. Then wait a few thousand years for radiation to dissipate.
Ahh yes, dropping nuclear weapons right next door, risking fallout in your own territory and pissing off every country around you, as well as all your allies. Why not?
How dare you question the blinding brilliance that is Lindsey? I’m sure his masterplan accounts for things like inciting a global nuclear war with some clever solution that isn’t just waiting it out in a congressional bunker with all his cowardly friends while we all die horribly, right?
indeed, the bunker has been upgraded to a SpaceX satellite mesh hotel.
The only thing Lindsey likes more then male prostitutes is killing POC. 🐞🐞🐞
Who votes for this monster?
More than half of the people who voted, since he ended up getting elected to the Senate.
On another site I saw someone argue that some Republicans intentionally say outrageous things or introduce inflammatory bills on purpose just to get opposing parties and such to rage over it and then they turn around and use that to their advantage somehow.
Ya know, if post Civil War reconstruction had actually happened and we’d de-confederated the South like we de-nazi’d Germany and Japan the GOP wouldnt exist today.
Well, kinda, since the parties swapped roles in the Southern Strategy as a response to the civil rights movements, back then the democrats were the overtly racist ones. So we could assume the GOP would still exist but it would look nothing like the “modern” (hah) version.
Yes, the nuance of the party swap in the 60s is lost on most people.
Thats how my ultra-maga relatives get to prpudly post on FB how theyre the party of Lincoln and in the very next post proclaim their hatred anything farther left than the taliban.
“We’re the party of Lincoln, that’s why everything needs to be named after a Confederate general. State’s rights.”
“Modern” -> “current”
Spelling errors in titles really grind my goat.
Seeing how there aren’t any, that seems to be a non sequitur.
“Discretely” should be “discreetly”. One means “separately” and the other “unobtrusively”.
You could argue that using the wrong homophone transcends mere misspelling and becomes a different category of error…
That’s true. Ten points for Ravenclaw.
And we’d probably have actual human rights laws in America, instead of means-tested, drug-tested government aid.
Probably not. The North didn’t see enslaved people through some sort of egalitarian lens. They made their money financializing the slave trade.
Fair point. I wonder what would have happened if they’d have amended the constitution so that states could actually secede, instead of having a war. I guess eventually international war instead of civil war?
It would have immediately created conflict over natural resources. There was no alternative. They had to unify and they had to get the capitalists on both sides into an alliance in order to proceed.
So, given that global society has advanced 150 years or so, what lessons can we take away from Brexit, USSR, Chechoslovakia, etc. on how to safely split a country or governmental organization?
Give a nation of people their own state on their native land. That’s what the USSR did when it was founded. They worked to give every nation of people’s their own government and self-determination, they gave them all the right to secede, they elevated their national heritages
The USA, however, is a colony that went rogue. It’s people are not a nation - there are many nations present. The nations that were here before the Europeans arrived need to be given full sovereignty, the American descendants of slaves are a nation unto themselves and they need the right to self-determination. The many persons of the various European nations need to lose their sovereignty in this place. That national self-determination is how it becomes sustainable and effective. Letting colonists run their little fascist fiefdoms is not and will never be a solution.
True social justice would be to send everyone packing, then?
We didn’t de-nazify Germany. We put Nazi officers in charge of NATO and we joined the Catholic Church in protecting Nazis and distributing them all over the world.
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