North Korea supplies the fireworks for Obama’s no-nukes pledge
posted at 12:20 pm on April 5, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
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Joe Biden warned us that the world would test the inexperienced rookie President if we elected Barack Obama to the White House. He expected one international crisis in the first six months, but North Korea had a different timetable. They launched a missile yesterday just as Obama demanded an end to nuclear weapons, highlighting the rather Utopian thinking of such a proposal, as The Hill’s Bridget Johnson reports:
President Obama’s Sunday speech against nuclear proliferation got a dramatic backdrop when North Korea fired a rocket through Japanese airspace just a few hours earlier.
North Korea’s official news agency had been warning about the launch from the moment that Obama had been wrapping up his business at the NATO meetings on Saturday. “Preparations for launching ‘Kwangmyongsong-2,’ an experimental communications satellite, by carrier rocket ‘Unha-2′ have been completed at the satellite launching ground in the east coastal area of the DPRK,” the Korean Central News Agency reported.
But few believed that North Korea’s long-range, multi-stage rocket test had anything to do with communications, other than sending a warning to its neighbors. While North Korea claimed Sunday that their satellite was successfully deployed to launch its space program, U.S. and South Korean watchers said no satellite or other object went into orbit as a result of the launch.
Meanwhile, Obama pretended that we can put the genie back in the bottle:
“I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons,” Obama said to a crowd of about 20,000 packed into the historic square in the Czech Republic’s capital city. “This goal will not be reached quickly — perhaps not in my lifetime. It will take patience and persistence. But now we, too, must ignore the voices who tell us that the world cannot change.”
People will react by saying, “Well, what’s wrong with wishing away nuclear weapons?” Nothing, up until we base American foreign policy on wishful thinking. We’ve been fully committed to non-proliferation for decades, and we can see how well that worked with the North Korea launch. We’re now almost two full decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the MAD standoff, and nuclear weapons haven’t disappeared — they’ve spread despite supposed commitments from Russia, China, and other nuclear nations to stop proliferation.
Unfortunately, the science won’t disappear. Nations that put enough effort into R&D will eventually figure out a design for nuclear weapons. Networks like the AQ Khan ring will sell the designs to dictators desperate enough to want them to cement their power. Lunatics, such at the Iranian mullahcracy, will pursue nuclear weapons to arrange their personal Armageddons. Quite literally, the only way to stamp out the danger of nuclear weapons is to depose every potential lunatic who might use them — which the nations of the West absolutely refuse to do, and which would actually underscore the security nukes bring to dictators. No one would depose an already-nuclear despot and risk all-out nuclear war, especially one with medium- and long-range missiles, like North Korea and Kim Jong-Il.
There has never been a weapon in human history that all people simply decided to stop using, unless a bigger weapon superceded it. Science does not go backward. Nuclear weapons will not simply disappear, and it’s childish to believe they will. What we need is better leadership on how to live in a nuclear world, better commitment to non-proliferation, including the will to force rogue nations into compliance. Sitting around wishing for the world to forget established science will only make those tasks harder.
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You are so confident! What makes you so sure that Iran would not drop nuclear weapons on Iran? Or provide Hezbollah and/or Hamas with the material to make dirty bombs? By what miraculous ability can you claim to KNOW what Iran would or would not do?
ProfessorMiao on April 5, 2009 at 1:16 PM
If DTMH and get-a-clue are “partners” …
… where’s the sex tape ???
gh on April 5, 2009 at 1:16 PM
If it were a threat, they would have taken it out in the launching pad.
getalife on April 5, 2009 at 1:16 PM
So these nations are wrong for seeing multiple American military bases surrounding their country and thinking “maybe they don’t like us and we should defend ourselves?” What should their reaction be a big weclome mat? Please, station thousands of troops, tanks, warplanes and naval ships around our borders and in our airspace, it’s what we’ve always wanted.
I’m not engaging in a tortured logic here, if the situation were reversed you’d be scared poopless.
DeathToMediaHacks on April 5, 2009 at 1:16 PM
How did I know you would not come up with a number??
You know you were busted for being an idiot.
As your lover Getalife would say: man up asshole
Jamson64 on April 5, 2009 at 1:16 PM
You claim that knowledge as well don’t you?
DeathToMediaHacks on April 5, 2009 at 1:17 PM
I will post it on you tube……. :) God the thought of those two entities creating? That would be the most scariest thought!
sheebe on April 5, 2009 at 1:17 PM
ZING!
scalleywag on April 5, 2009 at 1:18 PM
Why are those bases there in the first place? Did we just decide one day to set up some bases just so we could threaten those poor unsuspecting countries?
Talk about tortured logic.
Otis B on April 5, 2009 at 1:19 PM
DeathToMediaHacks on April 5, 2009 at 1:02 PM
Yeah, no difference there, no ginormous equation at work with how the governments of North Korea and Iran are chosen and structured.
By that token, Canada and Mexico should be arming to the teeth, what with the mighty American military literally on their doorsteps.
Bishop on April 5, 2009 at 1:19 PM
Those Countries wanted our Military in their Countries. Don’t you know any truth about history? If our Military pulled out it would be a catastrophe.
sheebe on April 5, 2009 at 1:19 PM
Great logic. We should just get rid of our entire military while we are at it and then we can all live in peace and sing koombya with the rest of the world who will also destroy all their guns and disband their military when they see us doing it.
Riiigghhhtttt.
Joe Caps on April 5, 2009 at 1:20 PM
I don’t get the impression this administration takes threats seriously. Speeches? Yea. Actions. Not so much.
scalleywag on April 5, 2009 at 1:20 PM
Military intervenionism wouldn’t have worked there, it didn’t work in Somalia and it was a bad idea in Bosnia. Democrats are war mongers, we all know that. One of the reasons I supported Obama this year is that he seemed to be the least war mongery candidate the Dems have put forward pretty much…ever.
But this is what you’re side always does. When someone makes an argument against U.S. foreign policy you assume its an argument agaisnt REPUBLICANS so you point to a war mongery Dem and say “see they did it too.” That just is another example that the parties are the SAME. It’s NOT an argument that this type of foreign policy is good or increases peace.
DeathToMediaHacks on April 5, 2009 at 1:20 PM
I hope he fails.
SouthernGent on April 5, 2009 at 1:20 PM
Richard Roemer (retired Can. AF general) wrote a novel about the US invading Canada … IIRC, we won … was a fantasy novel.
gh on April 5, 2009 at 1:20 PM
thats right…it would be as crazy as someone blowing themselves up and killing others for islam…we all KNOW that never happens…
pathetically stupid.
right4life on April 5, 2009 at 1:20 PM
From the AP:
Heh. You just can’t make that stuff up. Child.
Weight of Glory on April 5, 2009 at 1:21 PM
It was called the Cold War…it’s now over.
DeathToMediaHacks on April 5, 2009 at 1:21 PM
That equals significant? Laughable. I guess the fact that there are many posts on leftwing sites stating that we ourselves took down the WTC makes leftwingers sick. Right asshole?
Jamson64 on April 5, 2009 at 1:21 PM
What are you calling mass genocide? Since when does having any weapon as a deterrent constitute genocide?
Can you kindly stop putting words into peoples mouths and then condemning the straw dog of your creation? I realize that is an Obamism but, really, people are not so stupid they don’t see through you.
ProfessorMiao on April 5, 2009 at 1:22 PM
yeah we’ve seen your kind of ‘peace in our time’ it kills tens of millions…by peace shall he destroy many…
right4life on April 5, 2009 at 1:22 PM
Let’s just hope and pray that Uhhhhbama doesn’t disarm us first to set a good example for North Korea, Iran, etc. The fridiot probably thinks that if we disarm and show what a great country we are, every other country will say “okay, now we can finally get rid of ours, too”.
But he thinks we can run America on sunshine and breezes,too, so there you go.
darwin-t on April 5, 2009 at 1:23 PM
Peace through superior firepower and lack of fear to use it when necessary. It ended WW2 and saved millions of lives.
Or
We could bomb countries for years and years, Resolve nothing, and still end up with the same body count if not greater. Only that body count will include a great number of dead on our side. Not to mention the loss of vast amounts of money and resources.
So which is better? Which option is most efficient?
You think I’m sick? I think you are a ignorant child who hasn’t a clue how the world works.
Guardian on April 5, 2009 at 1:23 PM
Maybe your middle initial is S.
Simplisitic and shortsighted.
Jamson64 on April 5, 2009 at 1:23 PM
You guys are jut feeling guilty and defensive about the fact we dropped two nukes on two cities and kills tens of thousands of people and gave a generation radiation poisoning.
DeathToMediaHacks on April 5, 2009 at 12:51 PM
Actually I feel more guilty that we destroyed Tokyo and killed more people in one night than were killed at Hiroshima, and we did so not with nukes but with simple 100lb incendiary bombs.
Oh wait, no I’m not. Reaping, sowing, you know the rest.
Bishop on April 5, 2009 at 1:23 PM
DeathtoMediaHacks:
Of for Chrisake are we actually going to start yammering about how the CIA got rid of the socalled democratic regime that just happened to be aligned with the Soviet Union in the middle of the cold war and which nationalized the British Petroleum interests?
The reason that so many people think the Iranians might actually nuke Israel might have something to do with the repeated threats of the Iranians to destroy Israel.
BTW, that socalled regime change was over 50 years ago and the left who is so ready to defend Iran has in that period of time also defended, the Soviets, the Khmer Rouge, The Viet Cong, the Communist Chinese and myriads of other mass murderers.
So considering the track record of people such as yourself why should we listen to you now?
Terrye on April 5, 2009 at 1:23 PM
depends what you think his goal is…if you think his goal is protect the contry and make us prosperous again, thing again…and he will fail spectacularly at that..
his real goal is to turn us into a socialist/fascist state, and he is succeeding brilliantly at that…and to help usher in global governance…
right4life on April 5, 2009 at 1:24 PM
Go back and read Guardian’s posts about the solution to the problem. Then go to the headlines thread on the missle and read Sven’s threads on the solution to North Korea. Both advocated dropping the bomb on the following countries, NK, Afghanistan, Iran etc. Now “wiping those countries off the map” would constitue teh deaths of hundreds of thousands if not millions of people i.e. acts of genocide.
DeathToMediaHacks on April 5, 2009 at 1:24 PM
Peace to lefties is the USA not being involved in atrocities nor preventing them. If millions die it is still peace to them.
Jamson64 on April 5, 2009 at 1:25 PM
It was called the Cold War…it’s now over.
DeathToMediaHacks on April 5, 2009 at 1:21 PM
Talk to the Poles or the Czechs, ask them if they think that it’s over.
I suppose we could also talk to the Georgians, but I’m not sure if their Russian occupiers would allow that.
Bishop on April 5, 2009 at 1:25 PM
I’ve offered to help both move to China as an interim step. I think that would probably be enough to broaden their childish perspectives, but if not I’m even willing to personally escort them to the NK border. So far no takers. DTMH would like to live in dreamy Italy, but his relationships make that difficult. Getalife apparently never leaves her basement for any reason.
DarkCurrent on April 5, 2009 at 1:26 PM
thank God we nuked them…the alternative, the invasion of japan, probably would have ended the japanese as a race…see iwo jima…
right4life on April 5, 2009 at 1:26 PM
I’m still waiting for the leftist Toad’s come back to this:
BigWyo on April 5, 2009 at 1:26 PM
Notice how these jokes GAL and DTMH believe everything else our enemies say?
Jamson64 on April 5, 2009 at 1:27 PM
And DeathToMediaHacks:
My father was in the US Navy, he would have been in the first wave to invade Japan and they were expecting casualties for that first wave in the area of 90%. As it was my Dad was in Nagasaki within a week of the bombing. 35 years later he died of cancer, the doctors said that kind of cancer was often radium induced and took decades to manifest.
So kiss my behind with your self rigteous moralizing 60 million people died in that war and if there had not been a surrender in August 1945, there would have been millions more.
Terrye on April 5, 2009 at 1:27 PM
hope you live in NYC or DC…then when you get nuked by the iranians, you can have the ‘peace’ of islam…..
right4life on April 5, 2009 at 1:27 PM
We all know that’s what he wants. I hope he fails.
SouthernGent on April 5, 2009 at 1:28 PM
I know, how DARE those Iranians demand that the lionshare of the profits from THEIR oil resource go to their country. I mean those guys are horrible. By demanding that they are just the same as the genocidal regimes in south east Asia (*cough* Kissinger *cough*).
And yes I know that it was 50 years ago, the Coldwar started SIXTY years ago and yet we still adhere to many cold war “truths” in our foreign policy philosophy. Why should the Iranians forget, we haven’t.
DeathToMediaHacks on April 5, 2009 at 1:28 PM
…….. there’s that “change” thingy again.
What the hell kinda of “pie in the sky” world did this fool grow up in………?
Seven Percent Solution on April 5, 2009 at 1:28 PM
Nice attempt to hijack the thread. What does a North Korean missile launch have to do with Iraq and WMDs?
I’ll humor you, though-first of all, the intel that convinced Congress to sign off on the Iraq War was primarily generated by the previous Administration. Were they all lying too?
Our new “Secretary of State”, in justifying her yes vote for “Bush’s War”, said at the time that she based her vote not on what the evil Bush told her. Instead she based it on what Bill’s intel people told her.
There are plenty of places where Saddam could have stashed stuff in the one year Bush’s haters spent foot-dragging-many reports have them being shipped to Syria, for example. Or he could have stashed them in Iraq someplace. It’s impossible to successfully search a country the size of California in a 6 year period. In fact, it would probably take 60 years. There are still small planes that went down in the California wilderness 60 or more years ago that have never been found.
And you’ve obviously not read the Resolution Congress signed off on. WMDS is only one of more than a dozen reasons the use of force was authorized.
Del Dolemonte on April 5, 2009 at 1:29 PM
Yeah… most every historian writing in the last decade has acknowledged that Japan was pretty much already military defeated and would have surrendered without the bomb. But do keep finding ways to justify this crime of humanity that was committed for “humanitarian reasons.” LOL
DeathToMediaHacks on April 5, 2009 at 1:30 PM
And I do not know if the cold war is over. After all Obama wrote the Russians a letter promising to stab the Poles in the back if only they would help with the Iranians. They responded by publishing the letter.
You see this the thing with guys like Deathtomediahacks, they basically hate their country and assume that if we have an enemy, he is their friend. Forced to choose between a North Korean dictator and America, they choose the North Korean dictator. Forced to choose between a regime that lynches homosexuals and beheads unwed mothers and their own country and needless to say, they sidle up to the lynchers and the beheaders.
Terrye on April 5, 2009 at 1:30 PM
You know, DMH, it is very poor debating practice to rip a single sentence out of an argument and go to town on that.
But I’ll play for a minute to two. Korea is “surrounded” by US military bases? Korea shares borders with China and South Korea. Japan is the only other country that is even close. I gather you are saying that the US should leave South Korea to North Korea, and let Japan fend for itself?
Pakistan? Pakistan has long borders with Afghanistan and India and smaller ones with Iran and China. Pakistan sought and obtained nuclear weapons after India had obtained, after Russia had invaded Afghanistan, and after Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution. There were no US bases in Afghanistan, China, or Iran. India I can’t say for sure; have there ever been US military bases in India? How do you see its interest in nuclear weapons as primarily a response to American actions?
I’m tired. I don’t want to play any more.
ProfessorMiao on April 5, 2009 at 1:31 PM
“I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons,”
What a childish dream….
Isn’t this what your demi-god Reagan wanted? I think I read it somewhere……
Blueneck on April 5, 2009 at 1:31 PM
When the liberals are out in force at Hot Air, it is a sign that Obama has demonstrated either his incompetence, or his fecklessness, or his naive, dangerous, and extreme ideology.
Regarding his response to North Korea and his proposal for nuclear disarmament, he’s done a trifecta.
Now, it’s time for this old man to take a nap. Have a good afternoon.
Loxodonta on April 5, 2009 at 1:31 PM
thank God we nuked them…the alternative, the invasion of japan, probably would have ended the japanese as a race…see iwo jima…
right4life on April 5, 2009 at 1:26 PM
It’s interesting to research the Army’s invasion plans for the Japanese islands (some are still classified believe it or not) and what they expected to encounter.
The imagined fight for the Kwanto Plains were so terrifying that the military expected to need over 5,000 tanks, lined up shoulder to shoulder, just to blunt a counter-attack much less advance.
Bishop on April 5, 2009 at 1:32 PM
Its sad that more Americans fear their president than enemies of America fear him.
Change? You had better believe it! Hope given to terrorists and tyrannts worldwide!
dhunter on April 5, 2009 at 1:32 PM
you’re pathetically stupid. what ‘historian’ some left-wing wacko like you. please. you weren’t there, and it was a good democRAT who ordered the bombing. and he was right in doing so.
right4life on April 5, 2009 at 1:32 PM
Let me see if I’ve got this correct:
1) a despot has the ability to hit the West Coast of America with a missile.
so Obama’s response is to:
2) “…. plans to eliminate elements of the decades-old missile defense effort ….”
.
Oh, that makes alot of sense!
JeffVader on April 5, 2009 at 1:33 PM
DeathToMediaHacks:
Most every historian that a revisionist such as yourself would care to acknowledge. The US made it plain, they wanted unconditional surrender. Not just the US, but all the allies and the Japanese were not interested in that.
The point is you little moron, you were not there. You did not have to make the choices or decisions. You do not even begin to know what you are talking about. You just sit back and trash the men who risk their lives and in many cases gave their lives some little ass wipe like you could come along a half century later and lecture the rest of us.
Terrye on April 5, 2009 at 1:33 PM
absolutely, it would have been a bloodbath. the japanese would have fought to the last man, just like at iwo, it would have been a tragedy.
Thank God we nuked them. oh and Thank God for Charles Martel, the Crusades, and the monks of St. John…without them, we’d all be muslim.
(just to hack off the lefties) ;-)
right4life on April 5, 2009 at 1:34 PM
Isn’t this what your demi-god Reagan wanted? I think I read it somewhere……
Blueneck on April 5, 2009 at 1:31 PM
You might have also read (and I lived it) where Reagan decided to outspend the Soviets in an effort to achieve that goal. He wasn’t about to disarm in the face of savages.
Reagan understood what you apparently don’t.
Bishop on April 5, 2009 at 1:35 PM
Tu quoque isn’t an answer. Answer the question.
No, I don’t. But Israel has demonstrated that she is not trigger happy on the nukes. If I were in the driver’s seat, I would not be willing to give Iran the same benefit of the doubt. Why? Because Iran has repeatedly threatened Israel with destruction. You think the Iranian mullocracy are liars. I am willing to take them at their word. That makes you the bigot, doesn’t it.
ProfessorMiao on April 5, 2009 at 1:35 PM
Read the Deuelfer report on WMD. Saddam had several months’ notice of an invasion and moved them to Syria – his fellow Baathist Assad was happy to oblige. The WMD sit somewhere in the Bekaa Valley. No doubt Israel’s Mossad knows exactly where.
Wethal on April 5, 2009 at 1:35 PM
They can be used for both, the two are not mutually exclusive. But, you are too blinded by your excessive need to score points by reducing a complex subject into something simple. I understand that though, it’s what people like you, do.
You are a very brave person when hiding behind the anonymity of the Internet. I doubt very seriously that you would call most “neo-cons” idiots to their face, so why not exercise a little bit of the civility that you guys claim to be so great at? The entire WMD debate is easily winnable, and not by your side, it’s been done again and again. By your standards I suppose the former Democrat administration that stated Iraq had WMD are “idiot neo-cons”. Oh, in addition to pretty much every Intelligence agency in the world.
I can’t quite figure out if you are disingenuous or willfully ignorant. Either way, you are of low character.
ManInBlack on April 5, 2009 at 1:35 PM
The Zero goes to Europe, licks their Arsches and balls, tells them that we suck and the N. Koreans show him a big finger, while his teensy ping-pong-balls try to display ‘confidence’.
He spoke of a “nuclear free world in Spain today” while concurrently the N. Koreans time a big rod up his fine ars, to absolute perfection. He can go to hell, while our land is becoming as mediocre as all the others. They ‘love’ us for it.
Clue is indignant.
He’s all fluff and no substance. Mrs. Thatcher had steelier balls than this prima donna of a feather we’ve got prancing around. Was, is, and always will be a pathological narcissistic cipher, at our cost. We are the fools, most of all the Republicans/conservatives who put him over the top.
What he said in Europe against his countrymen was not only disgusting, but was a first for a sitting CiC on foreign soil.
Bill Clinton is a mensch compared to this Arschloch.
Entelechy on April 5, 2009 at 1:35 PM
You know what? George W. Bush saved the lives of 11 million Africans. And you will never hear some idiot like deathtomediahacks or getalife say a word about that.
Because they do not care about people. They only care about their side being on top. Those millions of saved lives only count if they can help make an argument. So decades after the fact we will hear pompous nonsense about the bomb, but we will never hear that was a good thing about the saved lives. No sir.
Terrye on April 5, 2009 at 1:36 PM
Yes, Obama goes to Europe and insults the US military and feeds into their antiAmericanism and craps all over Bush. Say what you will about Bush, he never criticized or blamed Clinton or any other previous American president. Obama has no class.
Terrye on April 5, 2009 at 1:38 PM
If you ignore the trolls you will have a better, more intelligent, on topic discourse than if you reward them by giving them your attention.
Kind of like not feeding the dog from the table.
dhunter on April 5, 2009 at 1:38 PM
Yeah, but you know… Reagan decided to turn a blind eye to Pakistan’s nuclear program in return for Pakistani cooperation in funnelling support to the anti-Soviet forces in Afghanistan.
ProfessorMiao on April 5, 2009 at 1:39 PM
right4life on April 5, 2009 at 1:34 PM
That “hacking” is honest truth: If we didn’t have strong men and women in our past who were willing to deal with the primitives assailing their people, we would be a far different world today.
Hacks and the other morons will trot out their “Yeah but we used nukes so we have no right to complain” without having an ounce of contextual knowledge of the realities which led to the decision to use the bombs. None. No tears for Tokyo or Nagashima or Sapporo or Nagano or Kwantoshima or the myriad other Japanese cities pounded to dust by conventional bombs.
Bishop on April 5, 2009 at 1:39 PM
I don’t know…They’re pretty much getting their asses handed to them so far….
BigWyo on April 5, 2009 at 1:40 PM
On Fox News this morning they kept playing a scene from “Team America” where Hans Blix tells Kim Jong Il that if he doesn’t let him (Hans) look in the palace for nukes, the U.N. will send him a stern letter.
I doubt if the U.N. will even do that. They’ll find some way to use the situation to denounce America and Israel.
darwin-t on April 5, 2009 at 1:41 PM
And btw, if there were no wmd in Iraq, which is not true, you need to be yelling at Clinton and his gang. I realize that since hack and his kind are not smart enough to know the facts, but the whole issue of Saddam and his weapons was well established by both the UN and the Clinton administration. But then you would have to know what you talking about to know that.
In fact one of the best cases made about Saddam and his weapons was made by that famous neo con Bill Clinton himself, as well Bill Richardson and Sandy Berger..famous neo cons all.
Terrye on April 5, 2009 at 1:41 PM
Clinton also believed Saddam worked with al-qaeda, its why he bombed the sudan…
right4life on April 5, 2009 at 1:43 PM
Military and Defense discussions with Leftistsis is always so informative and enlightening.
thomasaur on April 5, 2009 at 1:43 PM
You’re a professor of history, right? Ever read about the Battle of Okinawa?
When I lived in Japan my former boss told me about how he and the other kids had been trained to fight off US invaders with bamboo spears. He told me he was glad the US dropped nukes, otherwise he would have been dead at 10 or 11.
Maybe I could be a professor of history. It doesn’t seem to require much actual knowledge of history.
DarkCurrent on April 5, 2009 at 1:43 PM
Bishop:
The raid of Tokyo lead by Jimmy Doolittle killed tens of thousands. No doubt. And those pilots were on a mission that might well have been suicide.
Terrye on April 5, 2009 at 1:43 PM
I think he was referring to the b-29 attacks of march 9-10 1945 where about 135,000 people were killed in a firestorm…a nuke is much quicker…I don’t think the dolittle raids did much damage, they were more a psychological boost..
right4life on April 5, 2009 at 1:46 PM
…without having an ounce of contextual knowledge of the realities which led to the decision to use the bombs.
Bishop on April 5, 2009 at 1:39 PM
Well considering there is still much controversy about Truman and his motives and, of course we will never know the complete truth, maybe you should take your “contextual knowledge” and STFU!
Blueneck on April 5, 2009 at 1:46 PM
DarkCurrent:
Something like a third of the population of Okinawa was killed in that war. The problem is that people like deathtomediahacks are not capable of understanding the kind of destruction the world saw in that war.
Terrye on April 5, 2009 at 1:47 PM
Yeah… most every historian writing in the last decade has acknowledged that Japan was pretty much already military defeated and would have surrendered without the bomb. But do keep finding ways to justify this crime of humanity that was committed for “humanitarian reasons.” LOL
DeathToMediaHacks on April 5, 2009 at 1:30 PM
Must be why the Japanese Army of Manchukuo (Manchuria) was still fighting even after the surrender, that Russia was invited to enter the war by America, that Japanese cities were being leveled by conventional bombs even after Nagasaki, that Japan refused to surrender after Hiroshima, that American ships were being sunk daily by kamikazes, that American B-29’s and their crews were being destroyed by the dozens in nightly raids, etc. etc. etc.
And dropping those bombs did have a humanitarian effect: It kept more American soldiers, sailors and airmen from being killed in a war they didn’t start.
Bishop on April 5, 2009 at 1:48 PM
right4life:
I read that the Doolittle raids killed a lot people in fact they said that by the time all the bombers were over target the Americans could smell the burning. The Japanese put their military targets right alongside the civilian population. They had no problem sacrificing people.
Terrye on April 5, 2009 at 1:49 PM
Terrye on April 5, 2009 at 1:36 PM
fify … sheebe on April 5, 2009 at 1:17 PM is getting us the tape.
gh on April 5, 2009 at 1:49 PM
right4life:
I remember seeing Bill Richardson in some interview back then explaining that the indictment against the men who bombed the African embassies mentioned Saddam, because his people were training the terrorists in Africa in bombmaking etc. He also swore that the kind of VX used by Saddam was being made in that aspirin factory in the Sudan the US bombed.
That was then.
Terrye on April 5, 2009 at 1:51 PM
Kindergarten:
- in the White House
- in Europe
- in the media, around the world
- at HA
- from morning ’til eve
Grow up, deal with it, get mature – for sure, adults are not in charge.
p.s. gnats have more blood than brains – squish them.
Entelechy on April 5, 2009 at 1:51 PM
Saw this fascinating post on another board-this guy seems to know what he’s talking about, as he has a PhD in nuclear physics. He correctly notes that for a “communications satellite launch”, a rocket needs 4 stages. The NK rocket only had 3.
http://yedda.com/questions/Handling_North_Korea_8629575391010/answer4956191175611
Del Dolemonte on April 5, 2009 at 1:51 PM
gh:
What tape? Did I miss something?
Terrye on April 5, 2009 at 1:52 PM
Terrye, there were only 16 planes in doolittle’s raid, they were b-25 medium bombers..twin engine, they couldn’t hold many bombs nor do a lot of damage, the impact was mostly psychological….
right4life on April 5, 2009 at 1:53 PM
Well considering there is still much controversy about Truman and his motives and, of course we will never know the complete truth, maybe you should take your “contextual knowledge” and STFU!
Blueneck on April 5, 2009 at 1:46 PM
Hehehehe, nice rejoinder, make that up yourself?
The only controversy is whether or not you can read and understand history. Tokyo was leveled, destroyed, burned out to the point of being a dessicated husk on the night of March 10, 1945 by B-29’s carrying dinky incendiary bombs.
Estimates put the death toll at 100,000, though the city was packed with refugees from other parts of Japan so even that toll is considered conservative.
Now I know you are trying your pitiful best to explain how dying from a nuclear blast is somehow worse than dying in a a firestorm created by conventional weapons, but saying “STFU” probably isn’t the best way to go about it.
Bishop on April 5, 2009 at 1:54 PM
very true, that was all ‘forgotten’ by the dems and the media after BOOOOSSSSHHHH came to power…
right4life on April 5, 2009 at 1:54 PM
Blueneck:
Truman’s motive was to end the war. And it did end. So why don’t you stfu yourself instead of telling other people to?
Terrye on April 5, 2009 at 1:56 PM
Including many civilians who killed themselves and their families because they believed it better than to surrender or be captured.
DarkCurrent on April 5, 2009 at 1:57 PM
LOL! That’s your problem, kid. You’re letting Leftist “historians” do your thinking for you.
Remember, the Dean of American “historians” until his death in 2007 was Arthur Schlesinger, who equated the invasion of Iraq (which Congress signed off on) with the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The current generation of “historians’ are primarily Leftist college professors or leftover Democrats from the Kennedy, Johnson and Carter Administrations who are still trying to cover their boss’ rears decades after they left office. They have successfully whiteashed JFK and LBJ’s failures for decades, and arer doing their best with Peanut.
Del Dolemonte on April 5, 2009 at 1:58 PM
And lets not forget the rape of Nanking in China. Or for that matter the millions of other Chinese who were slaughtered by the Japanese. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese villagers were killed just because some Chinese helped American pilots if they crashed in China. Not to mention the fact that the Japanese used biological weapons on the Chinese by poisoning the water.
Terrye on April 5, 2009 at 1:58 PM
DarkCurrent:
No doubt. One time I saw this film of a child sitting in the mud trembling. American soldiers were marching nearby and one of them came over and picked the little girl up and walked away with her. She was the saddest sight.
Terrye on April 5, 2009 at 2:01 PM
Bullshit. Saturn V is a 3-stage rocket. QED.
But Project Mercury used the Redstone, which, IIRC was one or two stage (just a glorified V2).
Your “nuclear physicist” is well outside his area of expertise. Staging is used to reduce the total amount of fuel required per size of payload and has very little to do with what orbit you wish to reach. It may be more efficient to employ a 4th stage but it isn’t required.
From wikipedia on Redstone:
I suspect he is confusing “stage” with steps to reach orbit.
gh on April 5, 2009 at 2:02 PM
the bataan death march, the way they experimented on our POWs…the nazis treated our prisoners better….
right4life on April 5, 2009 at 2:03 PM
DTMH himself is a leftist “historian”. Some foolish people are actually paying money for their kids to be educated by our own Professor DTMH. Too bad they don’t know they could get all the benefit here for free.
DarkCurrent on April 5, 2009 at 2:03 PM
Terrye on April 5, 2009 at 1:52 PM
Follow the references back to page one ;-)
gh on April 5, 2009 at 2:04 PM
right4life:
You are right, the primary purpose of the Doolittle raid was the strike back for Pearl Harbor. The casualties were not anywhere near so high as the casualties in later bombing raids.
Terrye on April 5, 2009 at 2:05 PM
The Doolittle raid didn’t kill that many people-only 50 or so. It was primarily a US propaganda victory.
You’re thinking of the later raids using B-29s, which took place in 1945. In fact, one of those raids, on March 10, killed as many people as either hiroshima or Nagasaki. Over 100,000 civilians died.
How come we never hear any whining from the Left about that raid? Probably because their brainwashers in college never told them about it.
Del Dolemonte on April 5, 2009 at 2:06 PM
gh:
I went back to page 1 and I think I know what you are talking about.
Terrye on April 5, 2009 at 2:07 PM
DelDolemonte:
Yes, you and right4life are both correct.
Terrye on April 5, 2009 at 2:08 PM
Yes, I mis-read that. He never said four rocket stages.
Del Dolemonte on April 5, 2009 at 2:10 PM
right4life:
I had a client who survived 3 and a half years in a Japanes POW camp in the Philippines. He was one of a few hundred men who did survive. He said the worst part was what the Japanese did to the nurses who stayed behind with the wounded.
Terrye on April 5, 2009 at 2:11 PM
the ignorance is truly mind numbing, ever hear the term “JIHAD”? It is what the radical Islamofascist LIVES for.
NY Conservative on April 5, 2009 at 2:11 PM
North Korea has been giving the world the finger for half a century with the help of other half-wit nations. It will not change anytime soon. This is no test of Obama this is just the same old crap that has been going on for 50 years. Same players on the same sides every time an incident comes up and the same arguments for who is good and who is bad are rehashed. 911 showed us all to what extent the evil of the world will take if the means and opportunity exists. But the world showed in the next eight years it approves of letting evil exist rather than give up their half-wit ideas that produce dependent communities that can’t feed themselves or compete. The world would rather obstruct successful systems that have helped the community and enabled their citizens to work for their own success and betterment than accept that successful system.
rsl775 on April 5, 2009 at 2:13 PM
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