OK. THis is long, but it's just a historical perspective on why I don't think we'll be using NUKES anytime soon.
Check out this Link:
Harry Truman Speech in June 1945
Read the first lines or so, and then search for this string:
"Our military policy for the defeat of Japan calls for: " and read the 4 points below the text you find.
When the Truman administration finally dropped the bombs on Japan, it was for the sole purpose of ending the war and saving american lives. Everyone knows the Japaneese reputation then for suicide bombing, and never surrendering. To Japaneese, suicide in battle was a great honor. Dive-Bombing, or on the ground. Fire bombs to clear the city, and NUKES to send a message and to send pain. Purely Machievellian. Japaneese civilians were sacrificed to save American Lives, and to end the war to end all wars.
Just do a search for "atomic decision" or something along that lines, and you should get plenty of hits. The reasoning for Truman's final decision is generally fairly well accepted, but the arguments the administration went through are much more debated. I'm attempting to make a tangent to the Truman Decision to drop the bombs on 8/5/45 and 8/9/45 and compare it with what we have facing us today.
However, before the comparison can be made, you have to read this:
1996 Nuclear Bombing Law--International Court of Justice
An excerpt:
Court found that the threat or use of nuclear weapons "would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict." However, the Court was unable to make a determination "in an extreme circumstance of self-defence, in which the very survival of a State would be at stake."
Now for the comparison:
I'm no expert but it would seem to me that the opinion of the International Court is in direct conflict with the logic that Truman used. That being speed, lives, and (ulterior motives).
Like Truman, All of you whom I've read talk about advocating Nuclear weapons use a tone either synonomous with Truman, or indirectly Trumanian. Basically, your argument is save lives, make an example, kill them all..... ETC. No one has the argument that it is our only defense to save our country and our way of life. I do believe that we have to kill the terrorists to get our old security back. But we have the power to do that by conventional methods.
That being the case, I don't see how the UN, or the US will justify the use of Nuclear weapons as a viable military engagement. It conflicts directly with a UN related international law, and I definitely think we want the UN and NATO on our sides. So for all of you thinking or hoping we use nuclear bombs, I hope you read this. There doesn't appear to be a LEGAL argument at least, for it.
But, I would also like to point out, that as has been said before, this is a differnt era. It needs differnt rules. It's a different war. Maybe the differnt scope of the enemy we're facing would case that 1996 resolution to be null and void. But, much like the first atomic bomb dropped on a city sparking the COLD War and ARMS Race, I firmly believe that our nuking would only result in our getting nuked eventually. Realistically I think the example we'll send will be the death of the terrorist regimes and governments. Afghans aren't the only ones living under soon to be deposed rulers. We just won't use the NUKES unless we get hit by one.
Check out this Link:
Harry Truman Speech in June 1945
Read the first lines or so, and then search for this string:
"Our military policy for the defeat of Japan calls for: " and read the 4 points below the text you find.
When the Truman administration finally dropped the bombs on Japan, it was for the sole purpose of ending the war and saving american lives. Everyone knows the Japaneese reputation then for suicide bombing, and never surrendering. To Japaneese, suicide in battle was a great honor. Dive-Bombing, or on the ground. Fire bombs to clear the city, and NUKES to send a message and to send pain. Purely Machievellian. Japaneese civilians were sacrificed to save American Lives, and to end the war to end all wars.
Just do a search for "atomic decision" or something along that lines, and you should get plenty of hits. The reasoning for Truman's final decision is generally fairly well accepted, but the arguments the administration went through are much more debated. I'm attempting to make a tangent to the Truman Decision to drop the bombs on 8/5/45 and 8/9/45 and compare it with what we have facing us today.
However, before the comparison can be made, you have to read this:
1996 Nuclear Bombing Law--International Court of Justice
An excerpt:
Court found that the threat or use of nuclear weapons "would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict." However, the Court was unable to make a determination "in an extreme circumstance of self-defence, in which the very survival of a State would be at stake."
Now for the comparison:
I'm no expert but it would seem to me that the opinion of the International Court is in direct conflict with the logic that Truman used. That being speed, lives, and (ulterior motives).
Like Truman, All of you whom I've read talk about advocating Nuclear weapons use a tone either synonomous with Truman, or indirectly Trumanian. Basically, your argument is save lives, make an example, kill them all..... ETC. No one has the argument that it is our only defense to save our country and our way of life. I do believe that we have to kill the terrorists to get our old security back. But we have the power to do that by conventional methods.
That being the case, I don't see how the UN, or the US will justify the use of Nuclear weapons as a viable military engagement. It conflicts directly with a UN related international law, and I definitely think we want the UN and NATO on our sides. So for all of you thinking or hoping we use nuclear bombs, I hope you read this. There doesn't appear to be a LEGAL argument at least, for it.
But, I would also like to point out, that as has been said before, this is a differnt era. It needs differnt rules. It's a different war. Maybe the differnt scope of the enemy we're facing would case that 1996 resolution to be null and void. But, much like the first atomic bomb dropped on a city sparking the COLD War and ARMS Race, I firmly believe that our nuking would only result in our getting nuked eventually. Realistically I think the example we'll send will be the death of the terrorist regimes and governments. Afghans aren't the only ones living under soon to be deposed rulers. We just won't use the NUKES unless we get hit by one.
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