Jun 22 2006, 9:56 am
In response to Mellifluous
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CaptFalcon33035
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They can hit Alaska? How do those people know the extent of what it can hit?
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Jp wrote:
Mr. Senior Defence Official thinks that these aren't the sort of weapons you went to war with Iraq over. Given that he's a senior defence official, I think he'd know. And you beleive everything you hear? People make mistakes, and even though he's probably right, there is a chance he is wrong. He's only a defense official, not a scientist or inspecter. He knows weapons, but does he know chemistry and physics? | |
But not both the hydrogen and atomic bomb. We used both. I beleive one was uranium-based and the other plutonium based. Besides, the one in the desert was only a very small test. =D
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Man, those Koreans are insane. They would've done it. I'll be on the lookout.
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CaptFalcon33035 wrote:
But not both the hydrogen and atomic bomb. We used both. Not in the war, we didn't. I'm fairly certain they were both nuclear fission weapons, as nuclear fusion weapons weren't created by then. And there wasn't just one test. We've tested multiple nuclear weapons, and so have other countries. Russia didn't just test one or two nuclear weapons off the shore near their country; they tested quite a few, including tests within their country. In fact, they tried an underwater test in one of their lakes to test the effects of sub-marine use, and they contaminated tons of water that flows into a nearby town in doing so. There have been tests all over, not just a couple over the ocean. So far, however, nuclear fusion weapons have not been used on the battlefield. | |
Not exactly. Not all Gitmo inmates were foreign combatants. In 2003 news broke that prisoners included those with no meaningful connection with the Taliban or Al Qaeda. According to the report, army officers who were frustrated that their recommendations were being ignored decided to circulate a list of 49 Afghans and 10 Pakistani prisoners they wanted released or repatriated. The list included street vendors, taxi drivers, farmers and several men suffering severe mental health problems. While no names were provided, many of the men were kidnapped by bounty-hunting Pakistani soldiers near the Afghan border. One young detainee was captured in a border town where he had lived and worked for 20 years. He had no connection with the Al Qaeda or the Taliban.
The article also said that many Afghans now in Guantanamo Bay were forcibly conscripted into the Taliban army because they could not afford the bribes demanded to avoid military service. One example cited was of a 30-year-old farmer who was picked up by Northern Alliance forces because they were “interested in stealing his car and money”. The prisoners have been deemed “unlawful combatants” by the US authorities in order to deny them official prisoner-of-war status and the most rudimentary human rights. They have no access to their families or lawyers and the US government has given no indication when or if the prisoners, some of whom are only 16 years of age, will ever be charged or brought to trial. Under their current status, the prisoners can be held as long as the US government decrees. Several released prisoners (which means they have commited not terrorists or criminals and were, hence, released) have alleged ongoing torture, sexual degradation, forced drugging and religious persecution being committed by U.S. forces at Guantánamo Bay. The administration tries to argue they are enemy combatants and so should not receive legal protections but also argues that Geneva Conventions do not apply because they were not uniformed soldiers of a recognized government. The US soldiers accused of murder have been allowed contact. Plus they weren't shocked, harassed with dogs, sexually assaulted, etc. | |
Crispy wrote:
As I understand it, the Chernobyl disaster [...] So you're both partially correct (if not on specifics). =) Thanks for the clearup non the less, Crispy. Although like I mentioned in a previous post to Jp, I know parts of what went on, not everything and not nothing :) --Lee | |
Vito Stolidus wrote:
If we found a nuclear bomb you'd have said "oh, the paint's chipped... the arming device was disabled... it doesn't count." Yay! Baseless hypothetical statements are fun! I'll make one too! If you found a nuclear bomb you'd have blown it up inside an iraqi city for some giggles. | |
Loduwijk wrote:
I'm saying that even if you disagree about the results of the war, that has no bearing on the decision to go to it in the first place. Bush said everyone had to attack Iraq because it had WMDs. It didn't have WMDs. They knew it didn't have WMDs, yet they made it appear as though there very likely were, and attacked anyways. Ousting Saddam was a noble goal, but that wasn't the goal stated to the world and the american public for the invasion. Even if you agree about the results of the war, that has no bearing on the decision to go to it in the first place. Hindsight is 20/20. | |
This topic is about them finding WMDs. How did they not have it when their is proof that they did have WMDs? Of course, we didn't know it at the time. We guessed.
And y'know, that still wasn't a good enough reason. No one else beleived us. They all wanted proof, and that's why we have no UN support (although American forces do make up the most powerful part). | |
Vito Stolidus wrote:
3 people have died at Guantanimo. They committed suicide to become martyrs. That's your claim. I can make those kinds of claims too: Three people have died at Guantanamo. They committed suicide because their situation (being prisoners held without charge for years by a country which refused to recognise their human rights) had robbed them of all their will to live. Remember, we're talking about people captured on the battlefield fighting the US. These aren't random innocents. Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Jmurph has covered this one nicely so I needn't elaborate. Anyway, they're still treated an order of magnitudes better than the approximately 20 soldiers Ah, yes. The soldiers being held by their own people. I'm sure the oppressive government that ordered their imprisonment is torturing them daily. With hot irons. accused by a radical antiwar journalist of massacring civilians at Haditha and at a second such incedent. These troops, by all sides' admissions, followed standard operating procedure at Haditha - and they're jailed, in chains, in solitary confinement for it. 1. You'd call anyone radical if they were anti-war. 2. "All sides' admissions"? Hardly! You admit yourself that the accusations were made. 3. Last time I checked, gunning down civilians and planting AK47s on their bodies wasn't standard operating procedure. Then again, this is the US army we're talking about, so maybe it is. | |
Scuds hit less then half the time. That isn't effective. And how does
"They were effective, that is obvious by the way they were deployed all over the northern US during the Cold War." make any sense, at all? | |
Yes.
(Well, I kid. Actually, what you've presented there is a false dilemma. There were other ways. I think showing the Japanese a nuclear test, for example, would have been just as effective. Additionally, why nuke two cities, if you have to nuke them?) | |
Jp wrote:
I think showing the Japanese a nuclear test, for example, would have been just as effective. Additionally, why nuke two cities, if you have to nuke them? Your last sentence there answers the one before it. The Japanese would not have backed down if we just showed them the power it was capable of, and we know this for a fact because they refused to stand down even after we used the first one. The president waited until the Japanese showed that they would not surrender before he let the mission for the second bomb proceed. | |
Crispy wrote:
3. Last time I checked, gunning down civilians and planting AK47s on their bodies wasn't standard operating procedure. Then again, this is the US army we're talking about, so maybe it is. Hold on just a minute there! I'll agree there is bad stuff going on, but we don't need to degrade everyone over there. Most of them are just trying to do their job; don't drag them all through the mud for the actions of a minor group. Just hold that group accountable if they do something wrong. I know people in the military who are over in Iraq, and at least the ones I know are decent people. | |