Off Topic Political Debate

I am not disagreeing that the suffering - throughout the middle east is terrible - not only in Syria.
However isn't the problem a complicated one? It involves many states such as the US/UK,Turkey and Russia that have different ideas on how best to resolve the problem. Do you have a solution that others are ignoring -that is credible? Just a question as I do not see how that region's problems can be resolved.

 

They are being bombed with bombs that were made in countries like the USA, Germany, the UK. and Russia - as long as the manufacture and export of weapons remains crucial to our economies it is hypocritical for us to proclaim mock alarm about the results.

 

I know - we all know - that the major countries make and sell arms. Are you planning to hold your breath until that stops?
Governments are hypocritical about war - flash news eh? Since when did that come about?
Cologne - you are not going to change things like that. However it is one thing for wars to be fought between conflicting parties but an entirely different thing to target civilians - if I am not mistaken that is a war crime.
I took Yorkie's point to be a genuine call for someone to do something about unnecessary suffering rather than a general diatribe against war and arms.
I speak as a pacifist - in my world weapons would not be made. A start will be the day when churches of all denominations stop justifying war and blessing conflicts while at the same time engaging in hypocrisy that governments might admire.

 

As a planet earth citizen it never ceases to amaze me how any human being can justify this killing......

 

For me

 

There are problems of policy amongst the Western powers Arturo. Basically 3 big ones. The first is that the USA, Russia, Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia diverge on what to do with Assad. The experience of Libya appears to indicate that the Russians and Iranians may be right on this. This leads on to the second point: The question of how to effectively fight groups like ISIS. Airstrikes can only be effective if supported by a military partner on the ground. The USA needs to understand that it is not possible to fight ISIS and the Assad government at the same time. Again the Russians have the sounder policy by working with Assad. The third point is what I was alluding to in the last post - extremist Sunni movements such as Al Qaeda and ISIS draw the majority of their weaponry and financial support from the closest allies of the West in the region. Yet Germany, the USA and the UK. are all sending weapons to Saudi Arabia.

 

I don't disagree with any of that - I think it is fairly well known.
But what do you expect to happen? BIg countries to suddenly decide that selling arms is immoral?
It is not just Syria and ISIS anyway - the whole region is a total and utter political mess.

 

A lot of the problems caused in middle east are caused by the two competing strands of Islam and a few the people within trying to outdo each other in demonstrations of faithfulness to the original message. That and the behaviour of some which is certainly done under the banner of Islam while being horrendously unIslamic and actually bordering on the criminally insane.
You might cite the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920 as one source of contention when trying to slice up the region, but dealing with nomadic peoples who move about as they require is another. Not forgetting the indigenous people who were there before Islam arrived and who are now seen as a problem to both strands of Islam because of the maintenance of their own faiths.

 

If there was no oil in he Middle East, interest in the area from external powers would dwindle. However as it is an area rich in oil that makes it of interest. Add to that the hatred existing in the region for hundreds if not thousands of years - religious yes but tribal really - and there is no solution - at best there could be a cessation of actual hostilities and a wary truce.

 

Your reply reminds me of a communist propaganda booklet I had as a child.
Without the American shipping support and supplies he UK would have fallen to Hitler and Russia would have sued for peace. It is laughable to believe that without the second front the USSR would have defeated Germany. The war was won by the combined power of ALL the Allies. Take America out and we would not have won. You seem to have overlooked in your Kropotkin-anarcho analysis that Japan brought the US into the war. Were they communist? No - sorry, the Americans joined to defeat Japan and Germany. The USSR was laughable to the US in 1940. In your revisionist version you forget it was the division of Europe and the Iron Curtain that preceded the strongest anti communist activity of the US.

I marched in the 1960s against the US activity in Vietnam - I am not going to defend their war now. However I have no dogma to force me to skew my view of history. Without the Vietnam war China had nothing to stop its domination of the whole of South East Asia. Vietnam showed the US would not allow this.

If you believe the world would have been safer if other countries were allowed nuclear weapons then I will not try to open your eyes. If you see no danger from the likes of Sadam Hussain, Colonel Gaddafi and Ayatolla Khomeini and think that if they had nuclear weapons it would be better then welcome to armageddon.
Has America (or any other country) dropped a nuclear bomb since 1945? No? Then perhaps the balance of terror and the non-proliferation treaties work.

 

The war would have taken a lot longer without the USA. and would have been more costly Arturo, but you need to remember some things about lease and lend. The USA. started the war with equipment which was sub par for the European front, when the first batches arrived in Leningrad they were unusable on the main front - after 1943 non combat aid became usefull but this was after the tide had already turned. Although the Red Army began the war with a ration of only 6 bullets each, by 1943 Soviet war production was multiples ahead of Germany and Japan. The lack of supplies like radios and vehicles (from the USA) would have been detrimental but not critical. The war could have been won without the USA. It could not have been won without the USSR. This is not part of a Communist manifesto Arturo - and no Kropotkinist would be friendly enough to the USSR to have written such a thing anyway.

As regards the USA. not having any interest in the USSR - just a reminder that when the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki the US Navy were on minesweeping duties in Tokyo Bay ie. the war was, more or less, over. The bombs were dropped in response to Soviet troop movements in Manchuria and were meant to be, in the words of President Trumann 'Proof that we are the greatest nation on Earth'. The only surprise was that the Soviets took up the gauntlet and the cold war/arms race began - but it was the Americans who started it.

Your analysis of nuclear weapons fails to take into account that there are vast disparities in terms of conventional weapons - it would take a country like Iran 40 odd years to catch up with the USA. in that sphere, and would cripple the country in the process. So, nuclear weapons are the 'short cut to security'.

 

We agree that the war would have been longer and more costly. We disagree about the outcome. Without US support for our convoys the UK would have fallen. With no Western or African front I am sure Germany would have defeated USSR. Still we can never know with "what ifs"

Oh please!!!!
Atom bombs were dropped to save the lives of thousands of troops that an invasion would have required - and to shorten the war.

Oh - that's alright then, I will cancel my support for CND.
Iran could never catch up with the US in conventional or nuclear weapons. All that would happen is the world would be less safe and Israel would become even more aggressive as a means of defence if nothing else.

 

We can never know for sure what would have happened in World War 2 Arturo. Russia's scorched Earth policy would probably have lured the Wehrmacht into a situation without effective supply lines - the Russian winter would have done the rest. As for Hiroshima and Nagasaki you would do well to look at Trumann's comments immediately afterwards, and the actual stage of war proceedings at the time of the droppings. Maybe the solution to the proliferation of nuclear weapons is to begin with controlling conventional ones - that way no short cuts are necessary.

 

Agree - nobody ever knows what did NOT happen. Without the Western front Germany would have had far more resources for a long supply line but as you say we can never know.
Truman was indeed very anti-communist but anyone who thinks a politician's comments are not for the gallery audience is naive. America would have lost thousands of fighting men if they had to invade Japan - instead they took the easy way out and killed tens of thousands of Japanese civilians. Whatever the motive and morality- it worked.
I do not see the logic that says controlling conventional weapons has any bearing on nuclear proliferation. What short cuts?

 

The 'short cut' goes according to the following logic: Conventional weapons ensure that there are massive inbalances in the World - balancing them out would take too long, and so the possession of nuclear weapons, even a few of them, makes a bigger nation take notice. With regard to Hiroshima and Nagasaki - obviously the Americans want you to believe that this was the reason, but, as said previously, the US. Navy was on minesweeping duties in Tokyo Bay at the time. Which implies that the war was already over. We can debate for hours on end about finer points of 'what happened when', but one point is certain - Hollywood won the war, in as much as three quarters of all war films strengthen the idea that the Americans came riding in like John Wayne to save the World from itself. The actual history was different.

 

Disagree again I'm afraid.
Smaller countries possession of a nuclear missile or two would pose little threat to the US as they either would not have the range or would be shot down - the idea that if Iran had a nuclear weapon it would balance the US is as ridiculous as to think India, Pakistan, North Korea or Israel have any sort of balance. Iran knows that if it ever fired a nuke at the US then it would be obliterated. Iran's aim is not to balance the US but to become a bigger middle eastern fish.
Of course the US was minesweeping - ahead of an invasion that would have cost thousands of lives. It does not imply the war was won as not a single US soldier had set foot on Japanese soil - and if you think that had the US led a ground invasion the Japanese would have not fought literally to the last man then you are an optimist.
Hollywood is a silly red herring. Who cares about it? The phrase you use is not one I have ever heard anyone suggest. The US was dragged into a war it was keen to stay out of - but being a large military power then of course it helped its allies. That is the history. Whoever thought of going to Hollywood for a history lesson?

 

Of course Iran cannot go firing missiles at the USA. Arturo, that is not the deterent. The fact is that invading another country is pointless if you cannot occupy it and set up a puppet government there. Invading a country which has nuclear power (even if not weapons) is logistically too risky for an invador. Could Iraq have been bombed and occupied if there had been nuclear power stations there ?

 

I do not think nuclear missiles are about invading another country. They are a weapon of last resort. Do you thnk the major powers have not yet learnt that cyber warfare is now the most important weapon. Do you really not believe Russia interfered in both the US Presidential election and the UK Referendum?
Anyway - you have successfully deflected this topic away from your unjustified attack on all things American - except of course their people.
The USA is no better and no worse than any other major power around these days. The good America has done is considerable and I for one whilst not liking all aspects of America certainly do like many.

 

Have I attacked all things American Arturo ? Have I said anything whatsoever about their literature, their music, the freedom which many religious groups have there to do their own thing ? Don't try to put words into my mouth. My 'problem' with the USA. is confined to their role on the World stage. There have actually been polls done on this Worldwide, asking the question 'Which country in the World is the biggest threat to World peace' ? Not surprisingly the results were different in different countries, with most showing the USA. at the top - in a few such as the USA. Canada and the UK. Iran topped the list. So it appears that I am not alone in my concerns. Many people in the USA. also have concerns about their countries role in the World - and many others there do not know all their countries military activities.

 

Bit touchy eh? I do not need to put words in your mouth. Anybody who cares to read your posts re America will find dozens where you criticise just about everything about it - the politics, environmental policy, economic policy, education and the allegiance pledge, nationalism, capitalism, consumerism, - have I missed anything? Oh yes - the most laughable implication that Hollywood is responsible for teaching the world that America is John Wayne. But we know you like (some of) the people.
As for your poll - I would expect the world's biggest global economy to be the most known and therefore get a disproportionate vote. In any case a poll is only as good as the question asked, the numbers and representative population of those asked and a number of other factors. I have told you before that as a statistician I can smell out dodgy polls easily. Remember there are lies, damned lies and statistics. Polls and statistics are only as valid as the totally unbiased and intelligent organisation conducting them.
In a world of nearly 8 billion you will rarely be alone on anything. Flat earthers number hundreds of thousands and creationists millions, if not billions.
Your last comment that I have highlighted applies to probably every country on earth - and rightly so.
Face it Cologne - you have a bit of a beef against America - why try to cover it up? Others feel the same about Russia and are happy to admit it.