A human shield changes his mind

[epicstruggle]

Ghandi succeded with nonviolence, because at its heart the british government was not evil. What do you think would happen to Ghandi in Iraq. Saddam would have no problem in killing anyone even closely related to Ghandi. Pacifism only works when the government is not evil. Saddam and his regime is as close to pure evil as we have seen in the last 20 years.

In North Korea, pacifism would also not work, since most everyone is starving to death, except the military. The government itself and its leader are more mentally unstable than evil.

In Iran, thats where pacifism would work. The people with powerbehind the scene, the religious (cant remember the right word) priests, are not evil, they just have an interpretation of islam that is very strict. The people in Iran could through pacifism, and elections, and civil disobedience change how they live there. Its happening now, its just taking time.

Back to the point I was making. Pacifism works as long as the other side wont slaughter you for disaggreing with you.

later,

 

[Nathan]

Evil in real life is not the same as Hollywood evil. The US sees Osama Bin Laden as evil and Bin Laden sees the US as being evil. Who is right? Don't get me wrong, I was horrified by 9/11. But I can see why Islamic fundamentalists feel that the western world, and the US in particular, are evil.

Calling Saddam evil is simply a statement of which side you have chosen to support. I think Saddam is evil too, but I also think that Britain Empire and America screwed most of the Middle East a long time ago. So who was evil first?

Pacifism is not the be all and end all, as you showed with some very good examples. It's slow and all the pacifists tend to get crucified, but tit-for-tat is no solution either. Your country has the ability to crush Iraq quite easily, and history always shows the winner as being right. In 50 years time we'll all be thanking America and England for defeating Saddam's fascist regime, but I can't help but wonder what we would be thinking if the roles were reversed. I'll stick with pacifism because I don't like the alternative of picking from two sides that both display dubious morality.

 

[RM. Andersson]

Nathan, what you are saying sounds more like nihilism to me.

" Ethical nihilism or moral nihilism rejects the possibility of absolute moral or ethical values. Instead, good and evil are nebulous, and values addressing such are the product of nothing more than social and emotive pressures."

http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/n/nihilism.htm

We all must be able to tell the difference between right and wrong.
Dictators that kill their own people are plain evil.[/quote]

 

[chavvdarrr]

I dont know if you ever watched the movie Starship Troopers. In it the human race is battling space aliens bugs that are trying to annahialate all living things on earth. In one scene they show the aftermath of a group of pacifists who are trying to live in peace with the bugs. Let me just say that they were slaughtered.

LOL.
One of the worst hollywood's movies as argument! Let me guess, you also believe that CNN says the truth only the truth and whole truth, Bush is God's prophet and USA won WW2 by themselves, with a little help from Britain.......

What im saying is that, whats the point of being a pacifist when there are weapons that can completly destroy a cities population in a matter of moments(seconds to days). What will your pacifism get you then.

I don't know. Ask peoples in Hiroshima what war and USA gave them.

 

[epicstruggle]

Sigh, chavvdarr, you make fun of my analogy but not the point I was making. BTW, cnn does tell the truth (most of the time, with some errors,omissions, and half-lies), Bush is not God's prophet(im a hindu, i dont believe in a single God, but gods, maybe he is a prophet to one of them ), and the USA contributed more than any country to winning WW2.

What was the casualties of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, several hundred thousand. There were estimates that for the allies to go from island to island to take tokyo and end the war would kill at least 1 million people (civilians and military). The US had to break the back of the japanese people who were know as very nationalists. This succeded and the war ended soon after. I wish they would have choosen a more military target, but the point was to break the will of the japanese civilians and military. Let me state it again. IT WORKED. THE WAR ENDED and more people lived because of it.

later,

 

[DemoCoder]

I don't know. Ask peoples in Hiroshima what war and USA gave them.

You mean the peoples in Hiroshima and elsewhere who invaded Korea, Mongolia, China, Vietnam, and many other pacfic rim countries, and raped and pillaged their way through, like Nanking?

The peoples who attacked the US and killed 2500 sailors?

The peoples who, on Okinawa, killed themselves and their families rather than surrender?

The peoples whos forces sustained 90% casualities in battles before surrender, compared to 30% other armies?

The peoples who died more from conventional weapons than any nuclear weapon, and would have suffered far more from a conventional invasion, and prolonged war had they not surrendered?

You mean the peoples, had they not surrendered, would have been colonized by Stalin after the USSR entered the pacific war?


My wife is Chinese and still harbors anger towards the Japanese for Nanking. If you're never been to the museum in China, I encourage you to visit. I hope you like Japanese photographs of head chopping competitions and women impaled on katanas through their vagina.

 

[RussSchultz]

So, did anybody watch the Barbara Walters' piece?

Any comments?

 

[chavvdarrr]

You mean the peoples in Hiroshima and elsewhere who invaded Korea, Mongolia, China, Vietnam, and many other pacfic rim countries, and raped and pillaged their way through, like Nanking?
My wife is Chinese and still harbors anger towards the Japanese for Nanking. If you're never been to the museum in China, I encourage you to visit. I hope you like Japanese photographs of head chopping competitions and women impaled on katanas through their vagina.

Yes, same people. Still droping a nuke on a town seems a bit above the measure. At least first one.
I can see your point and understand it, yet justifying nuclear weapon usage on civilian is too close to barbarism. IMHO.
Same with using 'agent orange' in Vietnam and U238 shards in Serbia. You wanna go , live and have children in these regions?

 

[RussSchultz]

Depleted uranium is about as radio-active as common rocks.

It is poisonous, however.

 

[pascal]

Some people say US used more than 350 tons of depleted uraniun during the first gulf war. See what they call the long term result: http://www.irak.be/ned/archief/irak.htm

 

[chavvdarrr]

Depleted uranium is about as radio-active as common rocks.
It is poisonous, however.

As rocks? Are you aware what is the effect of this "only poisonous" element when it goes to human's lungs when breathing U238 dust?
Still you did not answer the question: Would like to rise children in such region?

 

[epicstruggle]

Yes, same people. Still droping a nuke on a town seems a bit above the measure. At least first one.
I can see your point and understand it, yet justifying nuclear weapon usage on civilian is too close to barbarism. IMHO.

So you would rather have soldier fighting street for street until the japanese government surrendered. That type of death is better in your opinion. It seems to me you take the option that gets less people killed, whatever that is. BTW thats the same thing that the Coalition is doing. Almost 2 weeks of attack and about 300 iraqi civilian deaths (source iraq, so may be a lot lower). The coalition could have gone with days of only air attack, but that would have raised the civilian deaths. They choose the option with less casualties.

anyways it seems to me that you brought up the point of Hiroshima, but cant see that the end result actually saved many millions of lives in the end.

later,

 

[RussSchultz]

let me revise my statement. Its not 'highly' radioactive. Its slightly radioactive.

Its still poisonous and not good to eat or breath.

 

[Silent_One]

chavvdarrr wrote:

Still you did not answer the question: Would like to rise children in such region?

http://www.xs4all.nl/~stgvisie/VISIE/du-briefing-15-3-2003.html

Q: Can you tell me what is the likelihood that depleted uranium weaponry would
be used in an urban environment? And the reason I'm wondering is what the
likelihood might be that children could be exposed to this after the fact, no
matter how much care you take in the targeting, a child being exposed to this.
And are the levels of exposure for children, the danger levels of exposure for
children the same as for adults?

COL. NAUGHTON: That's a two-part question. Why don't I take the first part,
which is likelihood. You use this kind of ammunition against tanks. So the only
reason we would be using it in an urban environment is if our opponents take
their tanks into an urban environment and we have to kill them. So that's the
scenario. So is it likely? That depends upon how the enemy reacts. Tanks are
open-country vehicles. They don't do well generally in built-up areas. But they
can be used in built-up areas. That's a tactical choice, and if our opponents
take that tactical choice you could see that activity. And I think the rest of
it is --

MR. KILPATRICK: I think as far as health effects on children we do know that,
as I said before, if the depleted uranium is external to the body there is no
health effect. What we worry about like lead in paint in housing areas --
children picking it up and eating it or licking it -- getting it on their hands
and ingesting it. And there really is no data on how much it takes to cause an
issue or a problem in children. If you are taking it in orally, most of that is
going to go right through the gut. I mean, they've done studies of this -- of
all heavy metals -- and there's very little absorption of that. And you'd
really have to have a very large internalized dose.

Dr. Naomi Harley, when she took a look at inhalation of oxide, said with a
concentration that's created even while the DU is penetrating armor you would
have to inhale enough to almost suffocate to get an effective dose. So it's --

Q: -- issue in the past -- children being exposed.

MR. KILPATRICK: It has not been an issue in the past. We really have no data.
When we take a look at how much you would have to internalize, you are not
going to get that with casual exposure.

chavvdarrr wrote:

.......andU238 shards in Serbia.....

Recent environmental assessments done outside the Department of
Defense. The United Nations Environmental Programme has put out this book,
called "Depleted Uranium in Kosovo," where they went and did soil samples. They
went and looked for the penetrators. Again, these are the A-10 airplanes
shooting. They found some seven penetrators or the sabot, what you saw coming
off the round on the ground. These had either hit rocks, cement, and
ricocheted. Normally when an A-10 fires if it hits ground it buries anywhere
from one to ten meters deep. But they found seven on the ground, some 13 tons
of depleted uranium had been shot from the airplane in the Kosovo area. And
they have not been able to find any environmental effect of depleted uranium --
not residual other than finding those penetrators lying on the ground. They've
checked water. There have been other countries -- the Belgians came in and
looked at food, water, milk, fruits, vegetables, meat, and essentially were not
able to find any evidence of any increased uranium or depleted uranium in any
of those samples.

The World Health Organization has done a similar study in the Balkans. The
European Commission, the European Parliament and the United Kingdom Society for
World Society has also published a report on looking at all that data. So we
have outside of DOD, outside the United States, organizations taking a look at
what are the environmental effects, and they are consistent in their finding
that there is no environmental effect in an area where depleted uranium has
been shot

pascal wrote:

See what they call the long term result: http://www.irak.be/ned/archief/irak.htm

Interesting to note that the link provided by pascal is from Iraqi scietific research. In responce to that link I offer the following quotes: http://www.xs4all.nl/~stgvisie/VISIE/du-briefing-15-3-2003.html

COL. NAUGHTON: Well, you need to look at the environment of the context where
people are asking us questions -- who's asking the question? The Iraqis tell us
terrible things happened to our people because you used it last time. Why do
they want it to go away? They want it to go away because we kicked the crap out
of them -- okay? I mean, there's no doubt that DU gave us a huge advantage over
their tanks. They lost a lot of tanks. Their soldiers can't be really amused at
the idea of going out in basically the same tanks with some slight improvements
and taking on Abrams again. That has got to be a huge morale -- so wouldn't it
be great if we could convince the world to make the U.S. give up DU?

Q: So it's basically you're saying the Iraqis are behind any sort of effort --

COL. NAUGHTON: And other countries that are not friendly to the United States

MR. KILPATRICK: Let me just address the ill people in Basra. It's been in the
media a great deal, and reporters have gone and seen children with birth
defects, children with cancer, adults with cancer, with other ills. The World
Health Organization went into that area and took a look at what it would take
to do the appropriate epidemiological medical studies to understand why are
people ill in this area of the world. They laid out that requirement of that
kind of study and said the World Health Organization is capable and willing to
do this. And the government of Iraq said no. Unless that study is done, it is
going to be very difficult to try to understand what is behind the large number
of people being ill. If you go to the MD Anderson Hospital in Houston and say
are people in Houston ill with cancers based on people coming into a cancer
treatment center, you would get a skewed impression of the rates of cancer in
Houston. And so I think when you take a look at Basra it is the kind of medical
center in that part of Iraq that anybody who is ill would gravitate toward that
area.

When we take a look at where were the tank battles in the Gulf War, there were
no tank battles near population areas. And, as we said before, this oxide
doesn't blow around. It is very heavy, and when it falls to ground it stays
there, and the fact that it moves on down into the sand. So from a perspective
of could depleted uranium be playing a role from a medical standpoint, no. But
there clearly are ill people there.

 

[pascal]

Interresting. There are many more links here with many positions: http://www.xs4all.nl/~stgvisie/VISIE/ud_main.html

 

[Silent_One]

Interresting. There are many more links here with many positions:

Yes, I saw that too.

 

[kyleb]

lol Silent_One, you just don't give any credit to the ones that are anything but rosy eh?

Nathan, what you are saying sounds more like nihilism to me.

nihilism would be to say that none of it mattered at all, what Nathan presented sounded a lot more like rationalism to me, and i think you are suffering from an over emphases on dualism RM. Andersson. there is much between nihilism and asceticism, and plenty a reason to try and keep close to middle ground.

 

[Silent_One]

kyleb wrote:

lol Silent_One, you just don't give any credit to the ones that are anything but rosy eh?

Why don't you say that about pascal? (Not that I'd ever expect you too) All I did was offer a counter point of view to his link....and if you noticed where I got the information from, that he's refering to in his last post, that there are many links with differing positions.

 

[Sabastian]

lol Silent_One, you just don't give any credit to the ones that are anything but rosy eh?

Nathan, what you are saying sounds more like nihilism to me.

nihilism would be to say that none of it mattered at all, what Nathan presented sounded a lot more like rationalism to me, and i think you are suffering from an over emphases on dualism RM. Andersson. there is much between nihilism and asceticism, and plenty a reason to try and keep close to middle ground.

People whom take up this train of thought are more often called moral relativist. The problem with such thinking is that it is purely used from a critical point of view. But... when such thinkers suggest another solution is better they quickly begin to look hypocritical. Pacifism is not a solution in fact it is an anti solution that simply amounts to wishful thinking. Whatever the philosophy is in the end Pacifist do nothing and expect that doing nothing will somehow magically get them their desired outcome.

I would suggest to you though that behind Pacifism are other political agendas. Consider the massive slaughter that Russia conducted in Chechnia.... where were the throngs of ignorant pacifist declaring "NO WAR" add nausium? Simply put this is a result of anti democratic/capitalist movement in the world. It has little or nothing to do with the people of Iraq and everything to do with whom is conducting the effort.

When the left gets a chance to demonize the US they do at every turn even if it means supporting the Islamic religion of which makes Christianity look like childes play. Never mind the massive human rights issues going on in Iraq or for that matter all over the Middle East. The left has their sights on the US, capitalism and democracy. They view the US the same way the Islamic fundamentalist do it seems, as the head of a snake. Needless to say their perspective is greatly exaggerated and both could be said to be blinded by their bias. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

The left ought to be more critical of Islam as opposed to Christianity. They ought to be more critical of Middle Eastern countries then the US. If given the chance these fundamentalist and modern liberals would be at each others throats withing minutes of leaving them in a room together alone. I guess then we would find out how pacifist the left is. Democrats, Modern liberals and leftist in general are being completely hypocritical in supporting Saddam and his regime... pathetic.

 

[RussSchultz]

Edit...never mind. Anybody know when its supposed to air?