70 Years Since Hiroshima by Magonsdaughter

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire (Paperback) by Richard B. Frank, page 255, 257, 258

The meeting pursued Oppenheimer’s themes of “psychological factors in target selection” and “use against military objectives.” These tied initially to the expected power of the bombs, which remained uncertain. By this time, estimates projected that the uranium bomb, code-named “Little Boy,” might be equivalent to 5,000 to 15,000 tons; the plutonium bomb, “Fat Man,” was “anybody’s guess: 700, 2,000, 5,000 tons,” as one writer noted. It was agreed that confining use to a purely military objective would diminish the full impact of the weapon and that “it should be located in a much larger area subject to blast damage.” The minutes further show that the desired “psychological objectives” not only concerned Japan but also were hoped to be “sufficiently spectacular for the importance of the weapon to be internationally recognized when publicity on it is released.”

A second point concerns the deliberate decision to target large numbers of noncombatants. The men who unanimously concurred with the description of the target experienced no sensation that their choice vaulted over a great divide. This moment culminated a long policy-making process that had begun with stubby bombs wiggling down from the Kaiser's zeppelins and bombers in World War I, then incubated as a theory between the wars, first tried by Axis nations in Asia and Europe, and then brought to a crescendo by Britain and the United States in Europe and finally against Japan. But its implications were understood and acknowledged in the uneasy cosmetic formulation dutifully recorded for posterity. The target description squared with the evolution of American bombing doctrine that persisted in demanding that the intended aiming point must be a legitimate military objective (“a vital plant”). But while Stimson observed that “we could not concentrate on a civilian area,” these men admitted their deliberate design that the atomic bomb should do more than lay waste to a war production facility. As Barton Bernstein observed, these men ‘‘all knew that families—women, children, and even in the daytime, during the bombing attack, some workers—dwelled in ‘workers' houses.’ ”

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Friday, August 14, 2015 2:11 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Do you see the people of LPR/ DPR shelling civilians in Kiev?

Unlike you, I don't condone killing Kiev Ukrainians en masse. And I don't condone it when they do it to others.

Once more, facts escape you. Apparently, so do ethics.

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Friday, August 14, 2015 3:30 PM

RAHLMACLAREN

"Damn yokels, can't even tell a transport ship ain't got no guns on it." - Jayne Cobb

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Unlike you, I don't condone killing Ukrainians en masse. I just don't condone it when they do it to others.

Sure. Prove that G did.

When. Where.

Cite it. One exact post.

For my curiosity.

En masse? At what number does that start.

Fire bad; tree pretty.

ETA uh... something.

Find here the Serenity you seek. -Tara Maclay

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Friday, August 14, 2015 3:53 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

It's very simple: He refuses to acknowledge its seriousness. A few tsks-tsks, and then goes on to pound on the topic of some phantom Russian invasion (again). As if there's any sort of moral equivalence between killing 6000+ people and destroying 10,000+ civilian structures and displacing millions, versus ... whatever the heck he claims Russia is doing (which so far seems not to have resulted in loss of life).

It's the same lack of rationality which drives KPO to call anything which presents the mass incineration of German civilians as "Nazi propaganda". Because it interferes with his war-lust and his excuses for supporting mass killing.

SAME MORAL YARDSTICK.

Something you, G, THUGR, and KPO refuse to employ. Lack of critical thinking, and absolute lack of ethics. Stop thinking with your hormones. Use your brains once in a while, if at all possible.

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Friday, August 14, 2015 6:07 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Stop thinking with your hormones. Use your brains once in a while, if at all possible.

A little history lesson for you. If Japan had NOT been nuked, Japan was NOT to be invaded by America. You hear over and over again that nukes were the only reason Japan was not invaded. It is the common understanding, but it is NOT true. There were other excellent reasons for America to NOT invade Japan – reasons you have not heard unless you read the book which received the Truman medal – Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire. www.trumanlibrary.org/news/bookawrd.htm

Operation Downfall was the codename for the Allied plan for the invasion of Japan near the end of World War II. The planned operation was abandoned when Japan surrendered following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet declaration of war. The operation had two parts: Operations Olympic and Coronet. Set to begin in October 1945, Operation Olympic was intended to capture the southern third of the southernmost main Japanese island, Kyushu, with the recently captured island of Okinawa to be used as a staging area. Later, in spring 1946, Operation Coronet was the planned invasion of the Kanto Plain, near Tokyo, on the Japanese island of Honshu. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall

This is the part you don't hear about the invasion of Japan, but you should:

Admiral Nimitz had concurred explicitly with Operation Olympic in a message on April 28, but “after further experience in fighting against Japanese forces,” he effectively withdrew his support. In a May 25 message to King, noting the slow progress of fighting on Okinawa against prepared defenses—notwithstanding overwhelming and unprecedentedly heavy air and sea support and artillery firepower—Nimitz stated that “it would be unrealistic to expect that such obvious objectives as southern Kyushu and the Tokyo Plain will not be as well defended as Okinawa." He emphasized the powerful and accelerating effect of the air and sea blockade and concluded:

Quote:
Unless speed is considered so important that we are willing to accept less than the best preparation and more than minimum casualties, I believe that the long range interests of the U.S. will be better served if we continue to isolate Japan & to destroy Jap forces & resources by naval and air attack.

This message had been sent “eyes only" to King, a category reserved for the most sensitive personal communications that would not be seen by anyone but King and Nimitz, save for a handful of discreet communications personnel or trusted staff officers. There does not appear to be any evidence that King shared it with any of his Navy subordinates or the other members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, much less Truman. But King knew that he now possessed the power to halt the invasion by informing the President that he and Nimitz no longer supported it. If the Navy broke the consensus, American strategic planning would at a minimum be tossed into turmoil, and Truman would likely veto the invasion.

Looming over all of these factors that influenced Marshall and King was one other: the profound uncertainties of military operations in the distant future. Thus, while it is clear that Marshall and King molded the presentation to Truman in ways that raise troubling questions, they no doubt believed at the time that they were simply guiding decision making down a path of prudence—a path future developments could change. Starting about two weeks after the June 18 meeting, radio intelligence vindicated this caution by beginning to expose the startling fact that Japanese strength on Kyushu and before Tokyo was burgeoning at a furious pace, kicking over all the assumptions behind the earlier casualty estimates and posing a threat to the viability of the whole Downfall plan. Thus, though the casualty estimates at this meeting were inconclusive, they became obsolete. Truman’s conference with the Joint Chiefs of Staff was by no means the last chapter in American strategic planning on how to end the war with Japan.

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Friday, August 14, 2015 6:37 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
You mean the Holocaust? Where Germans exterminated more of their own citizens than their enemies (they created) did?

Yes, we all know about that: Germans did a great job of exterminating Communists, Roma (gypsies), the feeble-minded, etc in addition to Jews. Many also know that the Germans starved Leningrad, and killed almost a million. Somewhere between 20-30 million Russians were killed in the war.

It was terrible, heinous, and the Holocaust specifically was completely without rational purpose. It was sadism let loose by policy: how to think of new and better ways to kill your victims. Kind of like ISIS today, but much more extensive. I think we can all agree on that.

The question is, in fighting such an enemy, what depths of gratuitous violence are YOU willing to countenance?

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Friday, August 14, 2015 8:13 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

The question is, in fighting such an enemy, what depths of gratuitous violence are YOU willing to countenance?

There were revenge killings of Germans all the way into 1950.

The official positions of the German government and the German Red Cross are that the death toll resulting from expulsions ranged from 2 to 2.5 million civilians.

At least 473,013 are confirmed deaths of Germans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_%281944%
E2%80%9350%29#Research_tracing_individual_fates_by_the_German_Red_Cross

Ordinary people killed German civilians. It was payback.

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Friday, August 14, 2015 11:15 PM

RAHLMACLAREN

"Damn yokels, can't even tell a transport ship ain't got no guns on it." - Jayne Cobb

Quote:
Originally posted by G:
Quote:
Originally posted by RahlMaclaren:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Unlike you, I don't condone killing Ukrainians en masse. I just don't condone it when they do it to others.

Sure. Prove that G did.

When. Where.

Cite it. One exact post.

For my curiosity.

Thanks Rahl! She can't of course site any such thing, she can only keep her lie to herself going by creating another fiction, or even more lame, some flimsy negative: "well he never said he didn't want to kill them..."
Her denial to herself and to the board knows no bounds.

"If you're not with us, you're against us."

If you're not against it, you must be for it. (This twisted logic seems familiar somehow. Like akin to something from 2002.)

Signym almost hit it.

Quote:
"You concede that the USAF bombed and firebombed much of Japan. You concede that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not serve to "shorten the war", but was instead a warning shot across the Russian bow."

Unless people go back and edit their posts, no one specifically mentioned in this thread (as of this time stamp) Operation Meetinghouse, the firebombing of the city of Tokyo, which killed more people than Hiroshima. By that ITL (Insane Troll Logic) we are all for it. Except for me, since I just mentioned it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo

"The Operation Meetinghouse firebombing of Tokyo on the night of 9 March 1945 was the single deadliest air raid of World War II,[2] greater than Dresden,[24] Hiroshima, or Nagasaki as single events.[25][26]"

War in mass generalization is bad!

Frell the Bern!

Find here the Serenity you seek. -Tara Maclay

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Saturday, August 15, 2015 1:51 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by RahlMaclaren:

Unless people go back and edit their posts, no one specifically mentioned in this thread (as of this time stamp) Operation Meetinghouse, the firebombing of the city of Tokyo, which killed more people than Hiroshima. By that ITL (Insane Troll Logic) we are all for it. Except for me, since I just mentioned it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo

Back on page 2, Robert McNamara, a retired Secretary of Defense who also planned the Japanese bombing in his younger days, mentioned Toyko at 2:45 into the video of The Fog of War (2003). He says other useful things in the same video.

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Saturday, August 15, 2015 8:50 AM

RAHLMACLAREN

"Damn yokels, can't even tell a transport ship ain't got no guns on it." - Jayne Cobb

Right you are.

Well, I was Ctrl+F-ing through the pages and the text "firebomb" wasn't in the post.

I suppose I passed on the vid just 'cause it was McNAMara.

Sorry about that.

Also, a hell of a lot more cities than just Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki.

Find here the Serenity you seek. -Tara Maclay

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Saturday, August 15, 2015 10:15 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by RahlMaclaren:

Also, a hell of a lot more cities than just Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki.

Robert McNamara, once Secretary of Defense, did all he could to end the use of land-based strategic bomber aircraft. Being politically minded, McNamara never said it out loud, but he could not trust with nukes General Curtis LeMay, who he worked under when the two of them planned the bombing of Japan. LeMay was in charge of dropping nukes for twenty years and McNamara did not have the political might to fire LeMay and make it permanent. Instead, McNamara made LeMay obsolete.

The Kennedy Administration, under the aegis of McNamara, canceled numerous SAC modernization programs. This included the Mach 3 North American B-70 Valkyrie in 1961, the GAM-87 Skybolt missile in 1962, and the Rocky Mountain Deep Underground Support Center in 1963. Skybolt, an air-launched ballistic missile, was canceled following numerous test failures and the perceived by McNamara greater reliability of land-based and submarine-based ballistic missile systems.

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Saturday, August 15, 2015 10:42 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
"If you're not with us, you're against us."

If you're not against it, you must be for it. (This twisted logic seems familiar somehow. Like akin to something from 2002.)

So, you've said (with a straight face, it seems) that since I don't criticize Russia, I must be for it. I've been called anything from a Russian troll to a commie to a Putin-lover.

At least I didn't call you Nazi-lovers, but apparently I should have. That's pretty much how you guys roll: You're either crazy-ass hypocrites, complete imbeciles, or evil, or maybe "all of the above".

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Saturday, August 15, 2015 11:33 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
The question is, in fighting such an enemy, what depths of gratuitous violence are YOU willing to countenance? -SIGNY

There were revenge killings of Germans all the way into 1950. The official positions of the German government and the German Red Cross are that the death toll resulting from expulsions ranged from 2 to 2.5 million civilians. At least 473,013 are confirmed deaths of Germans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_%281944%
E2%80%9350%29#Research_tracing_individual_fates_by_the_German_Red_Cross

Ordinary people killed German civilians. It was payback.-SECOND

It's funny, I was thinking about KPO's tagline and what it means: "It's not personal, it's just war".

Imagine using that phrase in a realistic situation. It would, of course, have to be during war, and it would have to be in a relatively quiet situation- the person would have to be close enough to hear you, and you would have to have enough time to speak. So not a firefight. You'd have a person in your sights, and instead of taking a prisoner you're about to pull the trigger.

What do you suppose saying something like that is meant to accomplish? To comfort the soon-to-be victim? Hardly likely! I'm fairly certain it would NOT be a great comfort to know that you're about to be blown away by someone who's neither mortally angry or mortally afraid, but is doing his "due diligence" by cold-killing in warfare.

It's a comfort to WHO? Well, the shooter, of course. It's a way of maintaining a sense of distance in the face of doing something evil ... feeling neither guilt nor empathy nor remorse nor fear nor vengeance at the moment of killing.

The fact that KPO would use that as a kind of mantra for his POV has to make me wonder. In some twisted sense, maybe it seems like wisdom. To get back to your link, I can understand people killing from revenge, although I don't condone it. But to promote a sort of disembodied, casual violence is beyond me.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Saturday, August 15, 2015 10:19 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Dr. Strangelove: Major Kong Rides The Bomb 1080p
Major Kong is a rube, a hick, the wrong character to choose for explaining the decision to nuke Hiroshima. The man really making the decisions about what day bombs drop is not Truman. It is General Curtis LeMay. LeMay's trademark cigar is stuck in the mouth of General Jack D. Ripper in Dr Strangelove (1964) http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/DrStrangelove

True that. But not as symbolic as Kubrick having a cowboy ride the bomb on the way down.

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Sunday, August 16, 2015 7:33 AM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
Sure. Prove that G did.

When. Where.

Cite it. One exact post.

For my curiosity.

Of course she can't back up her hysterical lies, except with more lies.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Sunday, August 16, 2015 12:36 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

troll

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

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Tuesday, August 18, 2015 8:50 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Unusual for a politician to suggest that nukes solve foreign policy problems. It was a Texan politician, as expected, but he soon denied all responsibility for his Facebook page.

“Japan has been at peace with the U.S. since August 9, 1945. It’s time we made peace with the Muslim world.”
www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Post-slamming-Muslims-removed-f
rom-state-6449710.php

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Tuesday, August 18, 2015 8:57 AM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
Unusual for a politician to suggest that nukes solve foreign policy problems.

It's hard to argue that it didn't, in 1945.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Tuesday, August 18, 2015 10:26 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:
Quote:
Unusual for a politician to suggest that nukes solve foreign policy problems.

It's hard to argue that it didn't, in 1945.

It's not personal. It's just war.

Germany and Italy have been peaceful longer than Japan. Neither was nuked. Nukes aren't the magical solution to foreign policy problems.

The disadvantages of nuking Japan were that Truman made public the super-secret weapon and launched a very expensive nuclear arms race. Neither were to America's advantage.

You can't truthfully use the excuse of nukes saving American lives from an invasion of Japan (but you can if you want to use demagoguery) because the Navy admirals were opposed to an invasion of Japan since isolating Japan by sea and destroying Jap forces & resources by naval and air attack was working well.
www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=59952&mid=1001648#
1001648

Truman wasn't thinking more than a week ahead. He screwed the next 70 years because he let General Curtis LeMay make the decisions when to drop.

On August 9th, the Nagasaki bomb goes BOOM! On August 10 Truman made a secret request about the next atom bomb: "It is not to be released over Japan without express authority from the President." This modified the previous order that the target cities were to be attacked with atomic bombs "as made ready".

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Tuesday, August 18, 2015 11:52 AM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
Nukes aren't the magical solution to foreign policy problems.

There's no such thing as a magical solution to foreign policy problems, just a series of tools that suit different situations. Nukes worked well in 1945, and many would argue were also a critical deterrent against Soviet aggression in the early years of the Cold War.

Quote:
The disadvantages of nuking Japan were that Truman made public the super-secret weapon and launched a very expensive nuclear arms race. Neither were to America's advantage.

Not super secret at all but in fact infiltrated by Soviet spies, working on behalf of a Soviet nuclear programme that was already underway. And as I've pointed out the expensive arms race helped cripple the stagnant Soviet economy, topple the Soviet regime, freeing half a continent - which seems to me like great value for money.

Quote:
You can't truthfully use the excuse of nukes saving American lives from an invasion of Japan (but you can if you want to use demagoguery) because the Navy admirals were opposed

Admirals don't decide the strategy of the war, that comes from above. US leaders had committed to demanding full surrender of the Japanese government, and a naval blockade wouldn't have been enough. Also I don't think demagoguery means what you think it means. I've corrected half your post but I'm going to leave it there kiddo.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Tuesday, August 18, 2015 5:56 PM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
There was, as far as I can tell, very little (if any) untruth in the video. All of the facts lined up.

How does that make it propaganda??

The fact that it comes from a neo-Nazi website is not enough for you?

Propaganda mixes facts, opinionated and unsubstantiated claims, omission of key details that would contradict the 'message', and outright fiction. So pointing out that the video is to a large extent factual is not enough, you need to say 'the video was impartial' and 'it told all sides of the story'. Not even you can claim that for this video. When the video claims that the Allied bombing campaign's whole strategy was to kill as many German men, women and children as possible that's not a 'fact'. You might enthusiastically agree with it, but it's still not a fact. It's an opinion that has little basis in fact - and this video's whole message rests on it.

As for 'outright lies': Your propaganda video seems to repeat the thoroughly debunked myth about civilians being strafed by fighters during/after the air raids. From Wiki:

Quote:
Historian Götz Bergander, who was himself an eyewitness of the raids, found no reports on strafing for 13–15 February, neither by any of the pilots nor by the German military and police. He asserted in Dresden im Luftkrieg (1977) that only a few tales of civilians being strafed were reliable in details, and all were related to the daylight attack on 14 February. He concluded that some memory of eyewitnesses was real, but that it had misinterpreted the firing in an airfight as being deliberately aimed at people on the ground.[67] In 2000, historian Helmut Schnatz found that there was an explicit order to RAF pilots not to strafe civilians on the way back home from Dresden. He also reconstructed timelines with the result that strafing would have been almost impossible due to lack of time and fuel.[68] Frederick Taylor in Dresden (2004), basing most of his analysis on the work of Bergander and Schnatz, concludes that no strafing took place, although some stray bullets from an aerial dog fight may have hit the ground and been mistaken for strafing by those in the vicinity.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Wednesday, August 19, 2015 1:52 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
The fact that it comes from a neo-Nazi website is not enough for you?

No. I don't judge the content by where it comes from, but by the content. Even evil people had insightful things to say.

Quote:
Propaganda mixes facts, opinionated and unsubstantiated claims, omission of key details that would contradict the 'message', and outright fiction. So pointing out that the video is to a large extent factual is not enough, you need to say 'the video was impartial' and 'it told all sides of the story'

Oh my fucking god.

Can I say that of ANY source of info? Do you really think the USA press doesn't propagandize every war that it tries to start, including some pretty bloody big whoppers about Saddam's so-called WMD and Libya's Qaddafi??? Does BBC tell the Russian side of the story? Show me ONE source that tells ALL sides of ANY story! Can you?

Quote:
When the video claims that the Allied bombing campaign's whole strategy was to kill as many German men, women and children as possible that's not a 'fact'.

Well, I once again quote Churchill "German cities will be subject to an ordeal the like of which has never been experienced by a country in continuity, severity, and magnitude ... to achieve this end there are no lengths of violence to which we will not go". Even the press of the day called it "terror bombing". Maybe they weren't trying to kill "every" civilian, but they were sure trying to terrorize them by mass destruction!

Now, think about that- what is terrorism except the application of violence to terrorize a civilian population to achieve a political goal ... in this case, the fall of the Nazi government? Is it, in its essence, any different that a suicide bomber, except in the number of people killed and the distance from which it's done? Please, tell me- explain the difference.

And while you're thinking about that, what is the difference between terrorism, terror bombing, and "shock and awe" (the first phase of the second invasion of Iraq)? If you can explain it to me, I'd appreciate it.

Quote:
As for 'outright lies': Your propaganda video seems to repeat the thoroughly debunked myth about civilians being strafed by fighters during/after the air raids. From Wiki:

I read WIKI< Civilians said they were strafed. What WIKI said was that they have have mistaken stray bullets from dogfights as deliberate strafing. In the face of roughly 300,000 civilians having been killed in Germany by Allied bombing, Of which Dresden was completely gratuitous and served no military purpose whatsoever, are you going to quibble about strafing as some indication of gross factual distortion?

Well, I could say that the BBC distorts the facts even more, and is even worse propaganda.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Wednesday, August 19, 2015 9:07 AM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
Does BBC tell the Russian side of the story?

Yes, all the time. But you've misunderstood me. I should have been clearer. When I say 'telling all sides of the story' I mean reporting all the relevant facts, without omitting any. Not about giving equal airtime to different narratives and interpretations, some of which may be highly spurious and come from sources with a clear agenda - e.g. the Russian government.

Quote:
KPO: The fact that it comes from a neo-Nazi website is not enough for you?
SIGNY: No. I don't judge the content by where it comes from, but by the content. Even evil people had insightful things to say.

That's incredibly foolish.

Quote:
Well, I once again quote Churchill "German cities will be subject to an ordeal the like of which has never been experienced by a country in continuity, severity, and magnitude ..

You are not quoting Churchill you're quoting the video. And the video is falsely quoting Churchill. The actual quote says:

"German cities, harbours and centres of war production will be subjected to an ordeal the like of which has never been experienced by any country in continuity, severity or magnitude."

This is what I mean by omitting key details that would tell a different story to the message being pushed. And the second bit of the quote "there are no lengths of violence to which we will not go" was said in a completely different speech (over a year later) and in a different context.

Quote:
I read WIKI< Civilians said they were strafed. What WIKI said was that they have have mistaken stray bullets from dogfights as deliberate strafing.

You're lying. You shouted loudly about the strafing outrage earlier in the thread, and you got it from the Nazi video. For example you talk specifically about people fleeing to parks, zoos and 'other open spaces' and then being strafed - this clearly comes from the video (@13:44); nothing is said like this in Wikipedia at all.

This is your video that 'lines up with the facts'.

So. I have shown that the video comes from a neo-Nazi source, and is replete with lies. Are you going to disown it yet?

Quote:
Now, think about that- what is terrorism except the application of violence to terrorize a civilian population to achieve a political goal

I've already told you my problem with your definition of terrorism - it makes every tyrannical ruler, Stalin, Mugabe, Assad, Putin etc. a 'terrorist'.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Wednesday, August 19, 2015 9:40 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

In the first months of the war, British strategic bombing (aerial attacks on the enemy’s industry and infrastructure) were bound by the belief that deliberate attacks on civilians and private property were illegal and unjustifiable. By 1945, RAF Bomber Command was obliterating historic German cities overnight.

When Luftwaffe night-bombers unintentionally (and against orders) attacked London in August 1940, Churchill ordered a retaliatory raid on Berlin. This caused an enraged Hitler to order intensified bombing of targets in and around London.

Both sides thus claimed that their attacks on enemy cities were in retaliation for what had been begun by the enemy.

“In the burning and devastated cities, we daily experienced the direct impact of war. It spurred us to do our utmost . . . the bombing and the hardships that resulted from them did not weaken the morale of the populace.”
Albert Speer - Chief of the German War Economy (Speaking after the War)

The effectiveness of the bombing campaign is still debated. There was terrible destruction of the German economy, although output still rose during the war as the economy was geared more and more towards wartime needs. Public support in Germany for the Nazi regime, and civilian morale, was not obviously affected. The bombing campaign did force Germany to devote huge resources to the defence of the homeland, and the German air force suffered significant losses at the hands of Allied fighter escorts. The US Eighth Air Force and RAF Bomber Command paid a high price. Six in ten British bomber aircrew were killed, one of the highest casualty rates of any service in the war. http://www.history.co.uk/study-topics/history-of-ww2/the-bombing-offen
sive

The Allies realized that the most vulnerable part of the German war economy was oil. Subsequent attacks on German oil production and refinement were far more effective and led to widespread shortages of gasoline. Not only did this affect the ability of the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe to conduct operations, but more importantly, it limited the amount of training time pilots, tank operators, and other fuel-intensive vehicle pilots received before heading into combat. Ultimately, this had a huge impact on the quality of troops fielded by the Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe.

Ultimately, though, the Strategic Bombing efforts were a complete waste of time, money, and resources. Each bombing run was extraordinarily costly in terms of both aircraft lost, but more importantly, in terms of quality pilots killed or taken prisoner. These pilots could have been put to much more effective use flying air superiority missions or interdiction missions against the Luftwaffe. The production of B17s could have gone toward more useful fighter-bombers and interceptors. http://www.quora.com/How-effective-was-allied-strategic-bombing-in-cur
bing-the-war-effort-of-both-Nazi-Germany-and-Imperial-Japan

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Wednesday, August 19, 2015 9:57 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Does BBC tell the Russian side of the story? -SIGNY
Yes, all the time.

No, it doesn't. Do you know how I know? Because I read the BBC AND Russian sources. Something you're too frightened to do.

Quote:
But you've misunderstood me. I should have been clearer. When I say 'telling all sides of the story' I mean reporting all the relevant facts, without omitting any. Not about giving equal airtime to different narratives and interpretations, some of which may be highly spurious and come from sources with a clear agenda - e.g. the Russian government.

The BBC omits MANY facts from its reportage. So many that I can say with confidence that it's reportage is highly biased.

I'm not a "equal time" kind of person. OTOH, if you want to know the other POV my experience is that you have to look at many sources, not just the one you "like".

Quote:
KPO: The fact that it comes from a neo-Nazi website is not enough for you?
SIGNY: No. I don't judge the content by where it comes from, but by the content. Even evil people had insightful things to say.
KPO: That's incredibly foolish.

Not really. Assuming the purity of a source... now that's foolish!

Quote:
Well, I once again quote Churchill "German cities will be subject to an ordeal the like of which has never been experienced by a country in continuity, severity, and magnitude .." -SIGNY
You are not quoting Churchill you're quoting the video. And the video is falsely quoting Churchill. The actual quote says:

"German cities, harbours and centres of war production will be subjected to an ordeal the like of which has never been experienced by any country in continuity, severity or magnitude."

This is what I mean by omitting key details that would tell a different story to the message being pushed. And the second bit of the quote "there are no lengths of violence to which we will not go" was said in a completely different speech (over a year later) and in a different context.

Links please. I looked up that specific phrase, and I found it, word for word, in an earlier article on an entirely different website which referenced a speech before the House of Commons, and I provided a link. Don't like what I found? Let's compare sources.

Quote:
I read WIKI< Civilians said they were strafed. What WIKI said was that they have have mistaken stray bullets from dogfights as deliberate strafing.- SIGNY
You're lying. You shouted loudly about the strafing outrage earlier in the thread, and you got it from the Nazi video. For example you talk specifically about people fleeing to parks, zoos and 'other open spaces' and then being strafed - this clearly comes from the video (@13:44); nothing is said like this in Wikipedia at all.=KPO

You objected to that point, I looked it up across several sources including Wikipedia. There were citizens who claimed that they were strafed. Because of time and fuel, it was judged that strafing wasn't part of the plan, but they may have been subject to stray bullets from a dogfight. I'll provide my links to that thought.

Quote:
This is your video that 'lines up with the facts'.
So. I have shown that the video comes from a neo-Nazi source

So?

Quote:
and is replete with lies. Are you going to disown it yet?

you questioned two items out of .... how many claims? Yes, one of the aircrew really said what he said. Yes, those all of cities were bombed. Yes, bombing were made in multiple runs, some of those runs targeting open spaces like zoos, parks, and banks of rivers. The bombing of Dresden - militarily pointless. The scenes of firestorms, smouldering ruins, and charred victims - are you claiming they're all false?

So, what are you trying to say - that every claim that the video makes is wrong? That Britain always behaved in the most morally correct fashion possible during WWII?

That's an even whackier story than the video! (and more biased, too.)

Quote:
Now, think about that- what is terrorism except the application of violence to terrorize a civilian population to achieve a political goal-SIGNY
I've already told you my problem with your definition of terrorism - it makes every tyrannical ruler, Stalin, Mugabe, Assad, Putin etc. a 'terrorist'.

NO, IT MAKES EVERY RULER WHO KILLS CIVILIANS PURPOSELY TERRORISTS, and that includes GWB, who killed a million Iraqis for no (security) reason, and Obama who is willing to prosecute war in Libya and Syria and Ukraine for no good reason that I can tell, and Kissinger who armed and funded several massacres ... and pretty much every American President since WWII ... all terrorists, in addition to the "usual suspects".

Well, you know what they say: If it looks, walks, and quacks like a duck, it's a duck.

Quote:
It's not personal. It's just war.

Well, that's very Hitlery of you.

-------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Thursday, August 20, 2015 12:36 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

k - It's not personal. It's just war.

s- Well, that's very Hitlery of you.

It is. German Nazis prided themselves on their inhumanity and inability to be personally moved while they were in pursuit of a military or social goal. Being inhuman and indifferent to the suffering and death of their victims was considered a mark of superiority.

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Thursday, August 20, 2015 9:16 AM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
Links please. I looked up that specific phrase, and I found it, word for word, in an earlier article

More lies. The article you linked to was NOT word for word the same as the video, it is clearly different. Your propaganda video edits and combines different authentic quotes into a single, fake quote, which you then faithfully repeated here, linking to a respectable source which I guess you were hoping no one would check.

Here is the full speech that contains the TRUE quote about subjecting German centres of war production to an ordeal:
http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1942/420602b.html

Quote:
Because of time and fuel, it was judged that strafing wasn't part of the plan, but they may have been subject to stray bullets from a dogfight.

So the video lied about intentional strafing of civilians (and zoo animals), and you repeated those lies. Congratulations you've lost the argument.

Quote:
So, what are you trying to say - that every claim that the video makes is wrong? That Britain always behaved in the most morally correct fashion possible during WWII?

Back to putting ludicrous words in my mouth again I see. This is the mark of an authoritarian don't you know?

Quote:
NO, IT MAKES EVERY RULER WHO KILLS CIVILIANS PURPOSELY TERRORISTS

You can't even keep your definition of 'terrorist' the same.

Quote:
Well, that's very Hitlery of you

You're the one who frequents neo-Nazi websites, so I'll take your word for it.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Thursday, August 20, 2015 9:50 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:

More lies.

It's not personal. It's just war.

The seven million tons of bombs dropped on Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia - more than twice the amount of bombs dropped on Europe and Asia in World War II – decisively won the Vietnam War.

Does anybody see what is mistaken with the above statement?

There is a verified fact that bombs kill. Look it up on Wikipedia. It is not verified that bombs win wars. It is a faith with the same level of physical “proof” as reincarnation, which billions believe with absolute certainty. www.google.com/search?q=proof+of+reincarnation

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Thursday, August 20, 2015 12:37 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

It is clear, in the source that I linked (which unfortunately can't be copied here because of formatting) that Churchill, across many statements, approved of saturation bombing. It's ALSO clear FROM THE RESULTS, that saturation (area, terror, carpet) bombing WAS THE POLICY. Strafing of civilians WAS COMMON. Survivors - I knew several- said that you didn't dare move on the roadway during the day, because British and Americans would shoot at anything ... people, dogs, cows, carts. My MIL had to take shelter from strafing behind a horse-drawn cart (the horse was killed).

Terrible things were done, by all sides.

Quote:
So the video lied about intentional strafing of civilians (and zoo animals), and you repeated those lies. Congratulations you've lost the argument.

Bullshit. YOUR point was that a source had to be more than substantially factually correct.

You're admitting, right there, that the video is substantially correct.

You've also said that any source had to mention all relevant facts in order to be unbiased. Are you willing to put your own statements to that test, or the BBC?

I guarantee that you'll both fail.

I've said this many times, in many ways: ALL sources are biased. Every single one. There is not a single source that explains every single relevant fact about any particular event. ALL information presented to us, by anyone, is subject to selection. Even your vaunted BBC. The history that we're taught in school? Biased. The articles that we read online? Biased. The documentaries that we view? Biased.

If you want to know the other POV, you have to READ the other POV. In fact, you have to read a LOT of other POVs, because everybody .... everybody... has a different story to tell. To run screaming from other POVs, with your fingers in your ears, is plain fucking childish.

Furthermore .... YOU are a propagandist. You're trying to tell everyone what to read and not to read. You're trying to limit what people see and what they think to a specific POV. Isn't the the essence of propaganda? Not sure how successful you are with others, but you're doing a great propaganda job ... on yourself.

AND FURTHERMORE, by your own tagline you support pointless wartime killing. Experiencing any sort of sadness or horror at mass death ... well, that's for the faint of heart, and you are clearly above all that.

What a tool.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Thursday, August 20, 2015 5:48 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

AND FURTHERMORE, by your own tagline you support pointless wartime killing. Experiencing any sort of sadness or horror at mass death ... well, that's for the faint of heart, and you are clearly above all that.

If ten percent of all Germans of all ages were killed at random during WWII, decimated based upon the last digit in their Social Security number ( or the German equivalent to that ) some of those deaths would have actually hastened by luck alone the end of the war. The Strategic Bombing was very close to that kind of random killing by lottery number. The supporters of bombing declared it essential. They feel better about themselves by rationalizing away the waste and randomness, trying to claim certainty that does not exist. Their faith is in a big enough pile of humans as a burnt sacrifice to God guarantees that heaven will grant them victory. It's a religion for savages. www.businessinsider.com/percentage-of-countries-who-died-during-wwii-2
014-5

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Friday, August 21, 2015 7:03 AM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
I've said this many times, in many ways: ALL sources are biased. Every single one.

That's not saying very much. Of course all journalism, history etc. contains bias. It's written by humans, duh. But bias is one thing, journalistic standards and integrity are another thing, and deliberate misinformation and propaganda from dictatorial regimes is yet another thing.

When talking about media, no wells of information are 100% pure. But some are better than others. And some are deliberately laced with hallucinogenic drugs. Your propensity to gulp from the wells of Kremlin propaganda and other extreme internet propaganda, like this Nazi video, leads to you parroting falsehoods from dubious sources, and embarrassing yourself.

Quote:
AND FURTHERMORE, by your own tagline you support pointless wartime killing. Experiencing any sort of sadness or horror at mass death ... well, that's for the faint of heart, and you are clearly above all that.

Watching you having this conversation with yourself about my tagline is faintly entertaining.

Quote:
My MIL had to take shelter from strafing behind a horse-drawn cart (the horse was killed).

In what geographic location was this?

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Friday, August 21, 2015 8:54 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:

Watching you having this conversation with yourself about my tagline is faintly entertaining.

Then change the comments to anything other than journalistic sources, please. I'll give you two examples. Pick one or both:

Do you find praiseworthy the tactics used against Germany by the forces under command of Air Chief Marshal Arthur Harris? I don't. If you do, isn't now a good time to use those tactics, again? Pick a country that needs peace and begin firebombing.

Do you believe atom bombs brought 70 years of peace to Japan? I don't. If you do, isn't now the best time to use A-bombs? Pick a country that needs peace and drop a bomb on it.

This is all hypothetical. My intention is to discover what you would do if you ruled the world, to the same extent that the USA does today. 1944-1945 is very interesting, but what did you learn that you can apply in 2015? Remember, this is hypothetical and you rule the world. I really want to know. You're not allowed to weasel out by claiming Putin will retaliate against you with his not hypothetical, totally real, A-bombs. Why should he? You were smart and didn't drop the bomb within the old Soviet Union, did you? Putin might very well do nothing since your one or two atom bombs will bring 70 years of peace to a country of your choice. It did in Japan, did it not? I think not, but you think different. Putin might even nominate you for a Nobel Peace prize, assuming that Putin believes Japan surrendered because of Nagasaki and not because the Soviet Union invaded Japan.

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Friday, August 21, 2015 12:08 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
I've said this many times, in many ways: ALL sources are biased. Every single one.-SIGNY

That's not saying very much. Of course all journalism, history etc. contains bias. It's written by humans, duh. But bias is one thing, journalistic standards and integrity are another thing, and deliberate misinformation and propaganda from dictatorial regimes is yet another thing.

When talking about media, no wells of information are 100% pure. But some are better than others. And some are deliberately laced with hallucinogenic drugs. Your propensity to gulp from the wells of Kremlin propaganda and other extreme internet propaganda, like this Nazi video

Which you have already agreed is substantially factually correct. And then you moved the goalposts and said that it had to be MORE than substantially factually correct, it had to explain all relevant facts equally ...

Quote:
But some are better than others

I noticed that you moved the goalposts AGAIN. Instead of being "substantially factually correct" or "explaining all relevant facts" you have now decided that a source has to be "better than others". Apparently, you don't know WHAT makes one source believable, because you keep shifting your rationalizations for why you trust one source over another. And it has nothing to do with being substantially correct or being complete, now it's all relative (Compared on what grounds?)

OOC, which sources do YOU think are "better than others"? Let's get to specifics, and see which ones have spread deliberate falsehoods and drunk deep from well of propaganda.

Quote:
AND FURTHERMORE, by your own tagline you support pointless wartime killing. Experiencing any sort of sadness or horror at mass death ... well, that's for the faint of heart, and you are clearly above all that. -SIGNY
Watching you having this conversation with yourself about my tagline is faintly entertaining.

I agree with SEOND- then change the nature of the conversation.

Quote:
My MIL had to take shelter from strafing behind a horse-drawn cart (the horse was killed).- SIGNY
In what geographic location was this?

Hungary. Two (of four) wartime Hungarian-born in-laws were strafed by American planes. The other was my FIL, who was strafed while chained (by the Germans) to a munitions cart. But in that case, you could say that the Allies were targeting the munitions.

Quote:
It's not personal. It's just war.=KPO

And you're still an ass, and you apparently don't realize what awful things this says about your ethics.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Friday, August 21, 2015 1:04 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Straight from the horse's mouth, today's BBC "analysis" of Putin v Merkel

Quote:
On Monday German Chancellor Angela Merkel will host a summit in Berlin about the conflict in eastern Ukraine. French President Francois Hollande and Ukraine leader Petro Poroshenko are due to attend, but not Russian President Vladimir Putin. So how is the relationship between Mrs Merkel and Mr Putin?

They are the leaders of two of the most powerful countries in the world, they both grew up in communist states and they both had their careers transformed by its collapse.

But that's where the similarity ends.

One leader is a submarine-faring, bare-chested action-man, whose show-off, tough-guy image is intended to compensate for Russia's stalling economy, the head of a country accused of throwing its weight around and meddling militarily abroad. The daredevil antics go down well with many Russian voters, traditionally partial to a strong leader.
Short on charisma

But the televised wrestling and horse-back riding is seen as comic by Western journalists, who sniggered at the Austen Powers baddie images of Mr Putin emerging from the waters of Crimea in a mini-submarine. More "mid-life crisis red sports car" than "superpower leader", was the verdict internationally.

The other spends her summer holidays hiking in an anorak, and leads a country terrified of showing just how powerful it has become - usually dragging France along to crisis summits so that no one can accuse Berlin of getting pushy. Unlike Russia, Germany in the past has often been accused of not doing enough with its power militarily - although, given how quickly the Nazi clichés have re-emerged during the Greek debt crisis, German reticence could now be seen as not entirely unjustified.

Let's go looking for fact selection and emotive language in this piece together! Here is the whole article:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34009581

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Saturday, August 22, 2015 7:38 PM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
And then you moved the goalposts and said that it had to be MORE than substantially factually correct

Ha, I moved your goalposts. Boasting that your propaganda film has facts in it is pointless; all propaganda blends facts with lies - including this one.

Quote:
you have now decided that a source has to be "better than others"

I have stated that some sources are better than others. You disagree? Maybe that's why you think it's fine to post videos from neo-Nazi websites.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Saturday, August 22, 2015 10:08 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

kpo particularly highlights this as reason to label something a 'bad' source - deliberate misinformation and propaganda from dictatorial regimes . Or, since it seems to be a single, indivisible thought, more like - deliberate-misinformation-and-propaganda-from-dictatorial-regimes.

It looks like this is the glitch in kpo's thinking. There are a few ways to interpret this, but all of them reveal a falseness in the original statement.

Here are three examples:

He may think that ONLY 'dictatorial regimes' engage in propaganda. So, like rappy, despite factual examples of propaganda by western governments, aided and abetted by western media, he's unable to, or resistant of, understanding facts that he disagrees with. In this case, that western governments, western media, and western governments and western media in cooperation, propagandize us on a daily basis.

Or he may have the usual right-wing double standard. When THEY do it, it's BAD. When WE do it it HAS TO BE GOOD! So if a source carries western propaganda from a western government, it's ok because it;s not a 'dictatorial regime' doing it.

And then there's his circular logic which goes round and round - if he thinks it's propaganda then there is no truth in it, and because there's no truth in it by definition, it's propaganda. Nowhere does he seem able to stack up claims against evidence to test them for veracity. Nowhere does he use the measure of factuality to judge a source. Instead he judges sources by some other criteria to determine their factuality.

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Sunday, August 23, 2015 10:27 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

KPO

Quote:
I have stated that some sources are better than others. You disagree? Maybe that's why you think it's fine to post videos from neo-Nazi websites.

And you think it's OK to post propaganda from the BBC. By the way, let's look at that BBC article together, for emotive language and fact selection, shall we? And then we can compare whether the video is more factual than the article.

Quote:
Ha, I moved your goalposts. Boasting that your propaganda film has facts in it is pointless; all propaganda blends facts with lies - including this one.

No the video doesn't have facts in it", it substantially factually correct.

You're as goofy as rappy, and that's saying something.

KIKI

Quote:
And then there's his circular logic which goes round and round - if he thinks it's propaganda then there is no truth in it, and because there's no truth in it by definition, it's propaganda. Nowhere does he seem able to stack up claims against evidence to test them for veracity. Nowhere does he use the measure of factuality to judge a source. Instead he judges sources by some other criteria to determine their factuality.

Nowhere.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Sunday, August 23, 2015 1:16 PM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
Do you find praiseworthy the tactics used against Germany by the forces under command of Air Chief Marshal Arthur Harris? I don't. If you do, isn't now a good time to use those tactics, again? Pick a country that needs peace and begin firebombing.

I have opined quite a lot in this thread, giving my thoughts on this matter (and others)
. You have not paid attention even when I've responded directly to your questions, so I don't see the point in doing so again.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Sunday, August 23, 2015 4:53 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

kpo
I have opined quite a lot in this thread, giving my thoughts on this matter (and others).

As always, I like to review posts to see how far the poster pegs the bullshit meter. Starting from the beginning:

The point of the allied bombing campaigns was generally to degrade the enemy's ability to wage war. Destroy its factories, munitions stores, transport hubs, military facilities etc. Bombing targets were ALWAYS chosen with these things in mind.
But the facts have shown, that wasn't true.

Here is a passage from the Wiki page on the bombing of Hamburg (1943), which describes the destructiveness, but also the effectiveness ... there is some indication from later Allied interrogations of Nazi officials that Hitler stated that further raids of SIMILAR WEIGHT would force Germany out of the war.
But right at the top of the very page kpo linked, WIKI CLEARY identifies Hamburg as a militarily strategic target: The Allied bombing of Hamburg ... a large port and industrial centre, Hamburg's shipyards, U-boat pens, and the Hamburg-Harburg area oil refineries ... Which means, presumably having read the page, kpo chose to leave out extremely salient facts in discussing Dresden, by deflecting the discussion to Hamburg, which clearly was not an equivalent target. And he never mentions Dresden by name, or relates it to the discussion.

Though he CLAIMS to have talked about it here:
there was a discussion on Dresden, Hamburg etc. that was more sensible

In fact, kpo NEVER addresses Dresden by name, and when pressed to address it specifically, prefers instead to derail the discussion away from relevant historical facts and on to 'sources', trolling, and snark.

Which makes the next claim a patent lie, and which BTW pegs the bullshit meter off-scale:
I've already commented and spoke my mind on various things including the Allied air campaign in general, the Dresden bombings specifically
Ahhh ... that would be a NO.

Gets out popcorn and waits for kpo to post-edit ...

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Sunday, August 23, 2015 5:01 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

To sum up: Kiki has no fucking clue.

YAY for you! Showing off yet again what a troll you are! Keep ignoring content and context in order to do absolutely fucking nothing but snark!

Fly that troll flag proudly like the bitchy little troll you are!

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Monday, August 24, 2015 1:59 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

KPO is a sick person who justifies firebombing of Dresden with the idea that

1) It served an overall military objective, and therefore the firebombing of a civilian city center was collateral damage, and

2) It wasn't personal, it was "just" war.

I think KPO has pretty much eliminated himself as a moral person who has anything of importance to say on ANY ethical matters, especially on the matters of war, terrorism, and civilian deaths. Whatever he might say about Russian invasion of anywhere, we should all bear in mind that his ethics are extremely bendable, especially when it comes to justifying the actions of "his" side.

Also, KPO is a propagandist who want to control what people read and hear, because if they stray from KPO_approved "pure" sources they (in KPO's mind) are exposing themselves to unacceptable propaganda (as opposed to acceptable propaganda, I suppose).

Just my $0.02.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Monday, August 24, 2015 6:46 AM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

It's funny that the only reason Signy and kiki haven't called me a Nazi yet is because they've both been caught out being devoted fangirls to a neo-Nazi website.

Here it is, for posterity: http://www.hellstormdocumentary.com/

"Kyle Hunt is an American broadcaster and founder of Renegade Broadcasting, a documentary filmmaker, and a White advocacy activist. His newly-released documentary, Hellstorm (based on historian Thomas Goodrich’s book, Hellstorm: The Death of Nazi Germany, 1944-1947) presents in graphic detail the many heretofore rarely mentioned horrors inflicted upon the German people during and after the Second World War."

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Monday, August 24, 2015 7:26 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:
It's funny that the only reason Signy and kiki haven't called me a Nazi yet is because they've both been caught out being devoted fangirls to a neo-Nazi website.

It's not personal. It's just war.

Maybe they are looking for a different slur to call kpo. Maybe "Neocon" fits better than Nazi.

I saw a little article that was describing what is wrong with Neocon thinking. Do any of these shortcomings fit kpo thinking?
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/08/21/neoconservatives-so-wrong-for-so-l
ong-iraq-war-iran-deal/

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So Wrong for So Long - Why neoconservatives are never right.

. . . The neoconservative worldview also exaggerates the efficacy of military force and downplays the value of diplomacy. Military force is an essential component of national power, of course, but neocons tend to see it as a magical tool that can accomplish all sorts of wonderful things (such as the creation of workable democracies) for which it is not really designed. In reality, military force is a crude instrument whose effects are hard to foresee and one which almost always produces unintended consequences (see under: Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, etc.). So it was in Iraq, and the results of a direct military conflict with Iran would be equally unpredictable.

Moreover, neocons believe military force is a supple tool that can be turned on and off like a spigot. If the United States uses force and things go badly, they seem to think the nation can just pull out quickly and live to fight another day. But that’s not how things work in the real world of politics: Once forces are committed, the military brass will demand the chance to win a clear victory, and politicians will worry about the nation’s prestige and their own political fortunes. The conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, and Somalia should remind us that it’s a lot easier to get into wars than it is to get out of them, but that lesson has been lost on most neoconservatives.

Third, the neoconservatives have a simplistic and ahistorical view of democracy itself. They claim their main goal is spreading freedom and democracy (except for Palestinians, of course), but they have no theory to explain how this will happen or how toppling a foreign government with military force will magically cause democracy to emerge. Instead, they believe the desire to live in freedom is hardwired into human DNA, and all one has to do is remove the bad guys at the top. Once they are gone, the now-liberated population will forget past grievances, form political parties, embrace tolerance, line up for orderly elections, accept the resulting outcomes willingly, and offer grateful thanks to Uncle Sam.

It would be nice if that Pollyannaish scenario were accurate, but such views betray near-total ignorance of the prerequisites for meaningful democracy and the actual history of democratic growth in the West itself. In fact, the development of liberal democracy was a long, contentious, imperfect, and often violent process in Western Europe and North America, and anyone familiar with that history would have known the neocons’ formula for democratic change was doomed from the start.

Fourth, as befits a group of armchair ideologues whose primary goal has been winning power inside the Beltway, neoconservatives are often surprisingly ignorant about the actual conditions of the countries whose politics and society they want to transform. Hardly any neoconservatives knew very much about Iraq before the United States invaded — if they had, they might have reconsidered the whole scheme — and their characterizations of Iran today consist of scary caricatures bearing little resemblance to Iran’s complicated political and social reality. In addition to flawed theories, in short, the neoconservative worldview also depends on an inaccurate reading of the facts on the ground.

Last but not least, the neoconservatives’ prescriptions for U.S. foreign policy are perennially distorted by a strong attachment to Israel, which Max Boot (and others) have described as a “key tenet” of the entire movement. There’s nothing wrong with such attachments per se, of course, but it has crippled their ability to give sensible policy advice to U.S. politicians. In particular, neoconservatives tend to believe that what’s good for Israel is good for the United States — and vice versa — which is why they see no conflict between their attachment to Israel and their loyalty to the United States. But no two states have identical interests all the time, and when the interests of two countries conflict, people who feel strongly about both are forced to decide which of these feelings is going to take priority.

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Monday, August 24, 2015 12:52 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

That applies to you too.

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Monday, August 24, 2015 2:00 PM