The US is fast becoming a totalitarian state

Looks up totalitarian in the dictionary, goes online to watch some US comedians laying into Trump, checks that friends and relatives over there are not living in camps, checks to see if Disney World is still open….decides that maybe some people need to lookup the word hyperbole first.

Dance off, best of five.

Paper, scissors, stone or a round of California Games oh the Sega Master System are the only ways to settle this

The US is fast becoming a totalitarian state

Utter codswallop. It is a democracy, where people utterly take the piss out of Trump and are free to vote for whomever they want without consequence.

Trump might not be your choice for President, but claiming that it is a totalitarian state in, of all things, a discussion about North Korea shows a great lack of judgement.

North Korea needs sorting out,

This is why Iraq and Libya are such beacons of democracy and freedom

Frankie Goes to Hollywood “2 tribes” or a dance off are the best solutions.

North Korea needs sorting out, there simply is no “do nothing” option.

You going to go over there and fight Jamba? Prepared to send a member of your family to fight in North Korea?

Grow up!

NK won’t do anything because it would be suicide and they know it.

If the US does anything (which is unlikely), it will be pretty small scale because it will piss China off immensely and the US can’t afford to do that. China doesn’t like what NK is doing, but I imagine they like the idea of the US on their doorstep even less.

Economic sanctions will continue. Tough words will continue.

NK can drop half a million high explosive shells on Seoul in an hour – the border is only 35 miles away. South Korea has been living with, and managing this situation for 65 years, it’s only the nukes that make it new for the rest of us.

There is no good solution. Killing millions of people in a first strike obviously isn’t it, I’m amazed that even has to be said.

NK can drop half a million high explosive shells on Seoul in an hour – the border is only 35 miles away.

I read an article today (I can’t find the link now) that said that very little of their artillery could hit Seoul without entering SK and the stuff that can is not particularly mobile so wouldn’t be firing for long. They did say that isn’t much consolation for those on the ground.

What “very little” means in numbers and how long “wouldn’t be firing for long” is wasn’t defined.

North Korea is not Iraq and this wouldnt be a few days of a CNN show.

The last Korean war cost the lives of almost a million people mostly civilians but also US UK troops who spent lots of time retreating.

I cant help but think left to their own devices the people of Korea would probably get along fine.

Sometimes a regime is so wicked that it needs to be stopped, even when the price is high:

Unit 731

Nothing to add other than that’s seriously **** up. Never heard of it before.

NK can drop half a million high explosive shells on Seoul in an hour

There was a good programme on the World Service – ”What Would War With North Korea Look Like” – that the more hawkish STWers would benefit from listening to. I’ll save you the 23 minutes, it’d be horrendous, and mainly for the civilians. And there’d be no better way to guarantee NK use of nuclear weapons than defeating them.

China intervened during the last war to push UN forces back to the current border because it didn’t want a border with an American client state. It’d be no more keen now, and neither would it want an unstable wrecked state there.

Lets not perpetuate the myth that the A bombs on Japan were about saving lives.

Japan was about to surrender – it was a show of power to the Soviet Union.

The US has never, and will never, made/make military decisions based on humanitarian benefit. Only the perpetuation of US military power. The US never intervenes anywhere unless there is a direct benefit to the US.

You can say ‘that’s fine’ if you like btw.

Sometimes a regime is so wicked that it needs to be stopped, even when the price is high:
Unit 731

I did not know this either, thanks for sharing. Hideous.

But then this… Yes, the defenders of truth and justice, the US of A hangs up its principles…

Instead of being tried for war crimes, the researchers involved in Unit 731 were secretly given immunity by the U.S. in exchange for the data they gathered through human experimentation.[10] Others that Soviet forces managed to arrest first were tried at the Khabarovsk War Crime Trials in 1949. Americans did not try the researchers so that the information and experience gained in bio-weapons could be co-opted into the U.S. biological warfare program, as had happened with Nazi researchers in Operation Paperclip.[11]

Let’s not forget we killed 30,000 French Civilians bombing France in the run up to D-Day!

Source?

Lets not perpetuate the myth that the A bombs on Japan were about saving lives.

Japan was about to surrender – it was a show of power to the Soviet Union.

Yes, this is in part true. A number of Axis cities were deliberately not attacked during the latter part of the war so that the allies could test the theories of area bombing. If you’ve ever read Slaughterhouse Five then you’ll know about the bombing of Dresden by the RAF, a war crime if ever there was one.

We need to learn the moral lessons from these events and learn them well enough to ensure that history never repeats.

Japan was about to surrender

There is no evidence that I know of to back that up. Yes they put out feelers for peace negotiations, where they had unrealistic demands of holding on to the empire that they had created by mass murder, but IIRC the preconditions could never be acceptable to the allied nations.

Indeed, once the emperor had decided, after the 2nd atomic attack, to surrender there was an attempted coup by the army because they wanted to go on fighting.

Check out the casualties on both sides and the civilians on Okinawa, scale them up to the Home Islands and then you get to see that the atomic attacks saved a huge number of lives, brutal though they were.

bombing of Dresden by the RAF, a war crime if ever there was one.

There was a lady recounting her memories of this on the radio recently.

She told of holding her sister whilst her molten face slid of her skull and how she stayed alive for several hours afterwards in agony.

I think war was more civilised when a couple of thousand blokes squared up in a field.
Yes there was civilian casualties, raping and pillaging etc ( see the Black Prince in Leeds) but whole populations werent melted in their sleep.

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/proof/2017/08/fire-fury-hiroshima-nagasaki-anniversary-nuclear-atomic-bomb-pictures

Japanese soldier prepares to murder hospital patient, Nanking, 1937.

Using bayonets for mass killings, Nanking, 1937.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-37606356

By any rational perspective the nuclear weapons weren’t “neccessary” lets not forget that the USAAF were already conducting raids over Tokyo. In March 1945 a 300 bomber raid killed over 10,000 people, dropping nearly 1700 tonnes of bombs, then in May another raid with 4500 incendiary bombs dropped by 500 Superforttresses and another in late May that dropped 4000 incendiary bombs which flattened what was left of the city.

Curtis LeMay public stated that his aim was to “Bomb them back to the stone age, and in is memoirs Hap Arnold said: “It always appeared to us, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse.” and the then Japanese PM said that the B29 raids were the element that “fundamentally drove the decision to make peace”

There is no evidence that I know of to back that up. Yes they put out feelers for peace negotiations,

The Japanese knew by as early as 42/43 that they couldn’t win, and the US had already broken their codes and knew that the Japanese couldn’t carry on. They made 3 attempts in late spring of ’45 alone to contact the US through Sweeden and Portugal, and tried to find out what terms the US would agree to. The Japanese wouldn’t commit to unconditional surrender, and insisted that the the Emperor was not to be touched. The documented US response to was to tell it’s ambassadors to neutral countries to “show no interest or take any initiative in pursuit of the matter.”

So far from “putting out feelers” and “no evidence” there is plenty to show the Japanese were actively trying to bring the war to an end, and the US rebuffed those efforts.

It’s up to Historians to decide whether the US were right or wrong “at the time” to peruse the war as they did, but there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that they could have also made peace, should they have chosen to.

seosamh77 – Member
cranberry – Member
even when the price is high:
What price is acceptable to stop NK?

?

The atrocities of the Japanese military in China during the late 30s/early 40s were swept under the carpet of history. My own uncle was a Japanese POW, captured in Singapore.

However, I can’t see how the atomic bombing of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki atoned for that, it merely perpetuated a cycle of violence. I know that view is a tad idealistic and I agree that in retrospect, dropping atomic bombs saved the allies and Japanese civilians from a huge number of deaths in event of an invasion of the Japanese mainland, but surely there would have been a way of demonstrating the destructive power of the A bomb without killing so many people?

Also, the reforms to Japanese society and the economy overseen by General MacArthur after September 1945 make for very interesting reading.

Still probably the go-to book for the history of the US A bomb program:

850 pages, a weighty tome, but a full, and pretty unbiased account of the politics, science and social pressures that resulting in the birth of the atomic age

Cranberry, pretty awful details there, assume you have read about Nanking massacre?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre
Not sure how this relates back to the current Trump inflamed situation with NK though.

jimjam – Member 
Hardly. You can theorize all you want about how Trump might be more dangerous than Kim Jong Un, but the reality is Kim Jong Un is a mass murderer, part of a brutal regime that kills, imprisons and enslaves millions of North Koreans. The people under him are living in a brutal, tyrannical, paranoid military dictatorship.

People living under Trump, well they live in America.

The danger from Trump is in triggering a response that will see all the North Koreans wiped out and some of the South and a long drawn out war, plus the potential for others to be drawn in and generate a world war. It doesn’t take much for old issues to surface and kick off. Trump is a dangerous trigger.

Do nothing? Works only if NK also do nothing. While we sit around thinking “it’ll never happen”, you never can tell what a crazy loon like Kim will do. More so in response to just words from the likes of Trump.

Not that I think the west should go in to NK as it will be a horrible mess, but sitting back and doing nothing will prolong suffering in NK, allow them to grow as a nuclear power until the likes of China decide it’s better to side with their on and off friend to consolidate power. Trump’s approach however isn’t the answer. Sanctions, infiltration, weaken the power, try to allow the people to rise up and overthrow. Though a bloody civil war perhaps, and then what?

There was a lady recounting her memories of this on the radio recently.

She told of holding her sister whilst her molten face slid of her skull and how she stayed alive for several hours afterwards in agony.

yeah, but, yeah, but, we were the goodies. And they were the baddies. And, and, I want my country back. And… We need to go at ‘sort ’em out. etc etc.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFqLnmTuhB4[/video]

http://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/obituaries/14793723.Obituary___Alistair_Urquhart__POW_who_told_his_story_in_The_Forgotten_Highlander/

Atomic bombs ending WWII is nothing more than a convenient narrative.

It was a demonstration of US force to potential enemies pure and simple.

Japan was already isolated and facing imminent defeat. The Soviet invasion in Manchuria and Sahkalin island had sealed their fate.

richmtb – Member

Atomic bombs ending WWII is nothing more than a convenient narrative.

It was a demonstration of US force to potential enemies pure and simple.

There will always be two opposing narratives and without a what if machine we just can’t say for certain. People will pick the narrative that best suits their world view.

Japan was already isolated and facing imminent defeat.

….and they would never have surrendered until Allies had suffered collossal loses fighting street by street, town by town, island by island against every man woman and child in Japan.

So what if no one invaded? We’ll ignore for now the fact that the Soviets already had invaded. What was Japan going to do?

They are already destroyed, they have no expeditionary force to speak of, almost all of their Navy is at the bottom of various bits of the Pacific and their 10 largest cities are burnt out ruins.

Why do anything?

…and they would never have surrendered until Allies had suffered collossal loses fighting street by street, town by town, island by island against every man woman and child in Japan.

People will pick the narrative that best suits their world view.

During his [Stimson’s] recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of “face.”

General Dwight Eisenhower: The White House Years: Mandate for Change, 1953-1956

“Neither the atomic bombing nor the entry of the Soviet Union into the war forced Japan’s unconditional surrender. She was defeated before either these events took place.”

Brig. General Bonnie Fellers

It is my opinion that the use of the barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan … The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons …

Admiral Leahy, Chief of Staff to president Truman

The people fighting with Japan at the time knew full well that they wouldn’t have to fight street by street, town by town.

The people fighting with Japan at the time knew full well that they wouldn’t have to fight street by street, town by town.

‘[It] is now widely held (or at least it has been widely stated) that the dropping of atomic bombs was unnecessary because the Japanese were ready to give in . I shall say only that I wish those that hold that view had been present to explain the position to the little bastard who came howling out of the thicket near the Sittang, full of spite and fury, in that first week of August. He was half-starved and near naked, and his only weapon was a bamboo stake, but he was in no mood to surrender’

George Macdonald-Faser

without wishing to disparage the memory of Fraser (or my own Great Uncle for that matter)

Little-Boy: 15 kilotons of TNT (equivalent)

vs

He was half-starved and near naked, and his only weapon was a bamboo stake.

Read the book i posted on the last page for all the arguments and options on the validity of the US nuclear strike on Japan!

Most people know about the Atomic Weapons killing around 100K people, few know that a single conventional bombing raid using incendiaries killed more people than that in a single night in Tokyo…..

http://nation.time.com/2012/03/27/a-forgotten-horror-the-great-tokyo-air-raid/

So what if no one invaded? We’ll ignore for now the fact that the Soviets already had invaded. What was Japan going to do?

The Russians did not declare war until after the first bombing, they did not invade Japan at all* – simply attacked Japanese held Manchuria.

* apart from some minor northern islands some time later.

That’s true but:

So what if no one invaded? We’ll ignore for now the fact that the Soviets already had invaded. What was Japan going to do?

Still stands

but who can really say what would have happened – the Japanese had a different mentality to us westerners.

They had suicide bombers where the pilots weren’t doing it thinking they were going to get a shed load of virgins to play with in the afterlife, just giving up their lives for the Emperor.

And my father, fighting in Burma, would release captives after a few days safe in the knowledge that their own side would execute them for the shame of being captured and suspicion over how they had been released.

They were brutal to POWs because they had been shamed by being captured.

Seems a different mindset to ours and difficult to reason about.

And my father, fighting in Burma, would release captives after a few days safe in the knowledge that their own side would execute them for the shame of being captured and suspicion over how they had been released.

Seems a different mindset to ours and difficult to reason about.Seems not that different…