#41
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Look back at how Europe descended into chaos toward the end of the Western Roman Empire. Why did this happen? Because the legions, the ancient world's WMDs, weren't there to keep the peace and keep all the little warlords in their place. At the same time, the Eastern Empire, which thrived until the 1400s, remained relatively peaceful. Why is that so? Because the legions were still there to "destroy the world" of any little troublemakers. The major difference between the US having nukes and Iran having nukes is that Iran is lead by a genocidal extremist who's bound to use them at the slightest provocation.
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"Everything is impossible until somebody does it - Batman RIP Kevin Conroy, the one true Batman |
#42
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What they're a lot more worried about is how it would affect the regional balance of power and embolden Iran to act more recklessly in Iraq, Lebanon, and Gaza. Also, Israel's possession of nukes is part of what has allowed them to maintain hegemony over the Arab countries, so Iran having nukes might encourage the Arabs to shift away from Israel (though this is not certain, since most Arabs and Persians will always hate each other more than they hate Jews). From the Israeli - and, by extension, the American - point-of-view, this is not acceptable. The Russians and Chinese don't exactly like Iran having nukes, either, but they do like what they can get out of the negotiation process. Last edited by MT2008; 10-01-2009 at 01:35 PM. |
#43
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I can see the deterrance theory, the problem is, we don't know enough about if we finally come to nuclear war. We really don't know if peace using nukes would actually work or if the deterrance would just fail. We really don't know much about either. The only way we will finally know about deterrance and nukes, is when a nuclear war actually starts. It doesn't even need to be a big war, just a small one.
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#44
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BTW, remember when everyone was so worried that North Korea would nuke us at the soonest opportunity? |
#45
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Okay Ace I understand you have aspirations of enlisitng in one of the U.S. military branches in the future. Which is great. When I was in the Army I served with foreign nationals from Switzerland, Canada, Honduras, Mexico, South Korea, Germany, Netherlands, China, Sweden, England, Ireland and Poland. And those are just the ones that I can remember. Many Americans do not realize that foreign nationals have served in our military throughout our nation's exsistence and have made invaluble contributions. Many of them have died in our wars. In some cases wars that their respective nations were not involved with. Something else that is sometimes overlooked by my fellow citizens.
Now soldiers,sailors and airmen swear. Actually they curse all the time. Swear words are basically part of their everyday vocabulary. Here's a tip how to make yourself sound like a native English speaker when cussing. And this is important because your average enlisted member is not politiclly correct and/or enlightened and they'll make fun of you if say "What the motherfuck?" It is actually stated "What the fuck?" or "what are you a fucking asshole?", or my all time favorite "shut the fuck up asshole." Also you can try "Really? You are one stupid asshole. Did you know that?" There are other variations, but I thought you might like a tip. Last edited by Jcordell; 10-02-2009 at 03:25 PM. |
#46
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Thank you, Jcordell . I started saying that after watching Full Metal Jacket. I though that line was so original that i should start using it in my vocabulary. And yes, there's a huge number of immigrants in the US Armed Forces thanks to the accelerated citizenship.
And now for actual content. MT2008, i don't know if nukes would actually work as deterrants. We don't know if they are good or bad. We don't know if Nukes are what made NATO and the Soviet Union not go to war. We don't know enough about Nuclear Weapons. We also don't know if any country would be insane enough to use Nukes. Kim Jong-il seems to be crazy enough to do that. I really don't know. |
#47
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We do know this for sure, and we've known for a very long time now. Eisenhower is the only U.S. President who ever considered the possibility of using nuclear weapons in warfare. That's why he put together Project Solarium in the early-50s to study the possibility that the U.S. could ever deploy its nukes against the USSR in any situations. And the answer basically turned out to be, NEVER, not in a million years, because there was simply no benefit whatsoever. One of the teams involved in the exercise did recommend threatening to use nukes if the USSR acted aggressively outside its sphere of influence (this is what then-Secretary of State Dulles called "massive retaliation"), but in practice, this meant that it was all talk, no walk. This was also a result of ICBMs coming into usage (which made spheres of influence obsolete on the tactical level), but it pretty much clarified what everyone already knew about using nukes. What's more is that we know that the USSR also conducted similar studies at about the same time, and reached the exact same conclusion. And so did the Israelis in the 1960s - during the Yom Kippur War in 1973, they loaded nukes onto their fighter-bombers and intentionally let USSR satellites photograph them. Why? Because they wanted the Russians' Arab allies to think they'd use nukes even though they had no such intention. Right now, Kim Jong Il and the Iranian clerics are doing the exact same thing - they're trying to act as deranged as possible and make idiot American neo-conservatives think that they'll nuke South Korea/Israel (respectively) at the soonest possible opportunity. But they won't. Bush knew this, Obama knows it, and the North Koreans and Iranians know that they know. But they also know that they can scare the shit of civilians around the world so that they demand their governments do something, and then those governments are forced to act in some way, which usually means concessions of various sorts. It's all smoke and mirrors. Do you really think it's just a coincidence that, 64 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there hasn't been a nuclear weapon used in combat yet? That is quite a long time, don't you think? We've seen this question come up time and again with the rise of new nuclear states - first the Chinese, then Israelis, then the Indians, then the South Africans, and then the Pakistanis. Now yet again with the DPRK and Iran. Every time a new state gets nukes, their enemies (and everyone else) wonder if that state is going to be crazy enough to use them, and the answer always turns out to be no. Rant off. Last edited by MT2008; 10-02-2009 at 07:00 PM. |
#48
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Fuck....I guess i'm just scared shitless of nukes.
I'm scared of nukes like a British college student is scared of guns. And don't call me "bro". I hate that word. |
#49
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Jcordell and Checkman are the same person? heh, never knew that.
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#50
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I'm back in uniform now. No I didn't get into trouble. That's something of a movie myth that once you're a detective you never go back to uniform unless you screw up. In many respects life is simpler as a uniform officer and I actually have more opportunites to earn overtime as a uniform. I just choose to go with my actual name for the screencapping. Don't really know why. |
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