You know I was expecting some of the American wars maybe being sort of justified in fighting so long as collateral damage was significantly reduced, but the more evidence we get to the more one-sided it gets.
Makes me wonder why he didn’t make the offer to international community, so that charities could get in on it. I’d totally contribute if someone went door to door with this purpose 
Even if the Japanese had refused to surrender under reasonable conditions, the atomic bombs and, indeed, the whole war was still unjust. Because protecting Nationalist China from Japan was never the goal. Protecting Mao Zedong’s Communist China from Nationalist China and Japan and protecting the Soviet Union from Japan and Germany was the goal. That’s why the only territorial changes in the world between pre-WW2 and post-WW2 were the expansion of the Soviet Union and Communist China.
1) the Iraqi people were far better off with Saddam
You believe that they’re better off being killed by bombs, being kidnapped, or getting shot every other day. I don’t see how the current “leaders” of Iraq are any better than Saddam. Or how you can claim peace only after ensuring that most of the population is dead or are widows, orphans, men without families(who’s the peace for?). Having an election where you get to choose your favorite dictator has nothing to do with freedom, do you honestly believe it does? Do you honestly believe that Iraqi’s are shaping their own destiny and that the United States has little to no influence on any of their politics? Do you KNOW any Iraqi’s? Every Iraqi I know isn’t stupid and says life is much worse now than it ever was. But hey they have elections right, so who cares now they’re good.
It doesn’t matter how bad you think Saddam is, or how much you believe the Iraqi’s need to be “freed” from him- you do not have a right to take ONE Iraqi life for this goal. You are completely incapable of comprehending this fact, because you sit on your throne believing you know better than those people about their own lives.
9) Russia, france, et al sold the Iraqis tens of billions in armanents, yet the US is condemned for selling Iraq a few helicopters and a biological sample from the dept of commerce that was never used to kill anyone. That could have been purchased from other international quarters
Where is your source for a few helicopters and one biological sample? You don’t provide any sources and get all haughty when other people provide SOME type of source. You haven’t made any rebuttals except “NO i dont believe it”, so where do you get off that everyone else’s rebuts are insufficient. The US had provided BILLIONS in support to Iraq during the Iraq-Iran war.
11) the USA is attacked for the oft used “heinous” act of balancing power throughout history. supporting saddam to balance Iranian mullahs.
Your excuses for blood are ridiculous. Why shouldn’t the US be attacked for completely supporting a war that left over a million people dead? How is a million people dying for some stupid and very subjective notion that “There’s a balance of power now!” justified? Why did the Mullahs come to power if NOT for the United states overthrowing their previously democratically elected government. What’s there to be proud of that “higher order democracies don’t wage war against one another(when they do in the case of US and Iran)”, when these democracies wage war against everyone else on earth.
Rettoper,
Some commentary, topic by topic.
- the Iraqi people were far better off with Saddam
In many ways the Iraqi people were better off under Saddam. While a free society will always be better than a tyrannical society, I’m not sure the Iraq situation is quite as white and black. There’s no evidence that Iraqis live in what can be called a free society, today. This is especially true when considering the amount of uncertainty the U.S. occupation has brought, and the reduced level of entrepreneurship in Iraq.
I think that this deserves a lot more analysis than what you and I are going to provide in this thread, but it’s evident that the U.S. occupation of Iraq has not brought the country any closer to a stable democracy. I’ve already highlighted some reasons why in a previous post. Iraq’s economy was damaged during the war, and it is one of the ten most likely governments to default on their debt. This puts the current Iraqi government on very shaky foundations. One can say that the Iraqi government is currently not strong enough to maintain stability, but I want to clarify what how someone should interpret this sentence.
I make this point, to a degree, in my article, “Nation Wrecking in Afghanistan”. I write,
Entrepreneurs, working around restrictions placed by the state, accumulated the wealth necessary for stable central governments to come into existence. These “strong” central governments have either been small in the first place or have necessarily decreased in size in order to allow for economic growth. Their strength and stability, furthermore, does not stem from their size or power, but from the fact that the smaller their role in regulating the actions of an individual, the less an individual is likely to question the legitimacy of the state.
In other words, a government’s stability stems from the general prosperity in a society. Governments, no matter how democratic, that oversee very poor populations are bound to be very unstable. The Iraqi democracy has shown to be very fragile, and I doubt it will survive for long after the U.S. withdraws. I daresay that the Hussein dictatorship was far superior to any other alternatives there are to the current democracy, including a revolutionary Islamic movement. At least, had the West eradicated their trade barriers, there would have been room for an Iraqi middle class to come into existence, and force the Hussein government out of power.
The U.S. invasion has not helped this middle class come into existence. In fact, it has done the exact opposite. The U.S. set themselves up for failure in Iraq.
- nuclear weaponry should never have been used irrespective of its utility in saving lives and protecting sovereignty.
I haven’t read the entire thread, and I know much more about the European Theater of Operations than I do about the Pacific Theater of Operation. It’s true that the nuclear bombs did cost less lives than an invasion of Japan would have; I don’t think this fact can be denied. The question is if an invasion of Japan was even absolutely necessary to force the Japanese to surrender (and whether an unconditional surrender was necessary to end the war and ‘guarantee’ peace in the area).
The general post-war peace between large, powerful countries has been more a product of the development of nuclear weapons than because of any particular rise in wealth, or because of the installment of democratic governments in pro-American countries. Not many countries are willing to risk nuclear war with each other, or risk total war with a country with a nuclear stockpile. This is especially true of countries which much to lose, like Japan (not so much for poorer countries, although I don’t think Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq were looking for total war with the United States; it was forced upon them, instead).
- Despite the Japanese surrendering less than a week after the bombs being dropped, they were not the causal mechanism for the japanese surrender.
This is a lot of debate on this issue, even between historians. Obviously, one of the major factors behind the Japanese surrender was the Soviet entry into the war, and the collapse of the IJA in Manchuria. Furthermore, there is evidence that the Red Army was preparing to invade the Japanese homeland, concurrently with the United States (although this was not a coordinated effort).
It should be remembered that, at the time, the Japanese government was torn between those ready to accept the terms of surrender and those not willing to surrender at all. By that time, those looking to surrender had to sell the idea to those unwilling, and to the people of Japan in general. In fact, the ultimate terms of surrender were conditional. They were conditional so that those interested in peace could garner the support of those willing to fight to the death.
From Sadao Asada’s article, *“*The Shock of the Atomic Bomb and Japan’s Decision to Surrender”,
Togo was resorting to the time-honored device of making the most of “external pressure”-the atomic bomb-to counter the army, which was adamant for a “decisive battle on the homeland” against an American invasion (p. 486).
So, without getting more into it, obviously the subject of whether or not the atomic bombs lead to Japan’s surrender has not reached an agreeable conclusion even amongst serious historians.
The Japanese emperor was already looking to surrender. He emphasized the horrors of the atomic bombs to cajole his people into agreeing to surrender. But, there were several other factors, including the expected Soviet invasion. These should not be ignored.
You put a lot of similar statements, and they all go back to what I just wrote about. There was a fairly large party of politicians within the Japanese government looking to surrender already. This information is pretty mainstream.
- after hundreds of years of despotic rule and violent conflict, europe suddenly decide became peaceful, prosperous, free, and stable irrespective of the contribution of the USA during and after WWII.
I’m surprised at the level of ignorance on the history of Europe. Europe had a rich tradition of liberalism, including Germany. Indeed, liberal thought has its intellectual roots in Europe. Europe was very prosperous before the Second World War. The events which led to the rise of Hitler in Germany were contemporaneous to his rise. In other words, we’re talking about a period of time that ranged between 1919 and 1933.
- europe became free because of the threat of USSR attack, of course the USA had nothing to do with deterring predation from the USSR.
There is no evidence the Soviet Union was interested in invading Western Europe. There is no evidence to suggest that the Red Army could even afford to invade Western Europe after the Second World War, especially as that would have ended Western Allied aid (the same aid which built the Red Army’s logistical network, in terms of being able to support their armies so far from Russia). Years later, and with the development of nuclear weapons, I’m not sure either side would have risked war.
- despite numerous elections, iraq is no more free than under saddam
I covered this before. The issue is not black and white.
I would cover the remainder, but this is getting a bit dull. I think this is sufficient evidence to show you that you don’t know as much as you think you do (even if the other posters are not as correct as they think they are, either). It is at least evidence that you should question your current base of knowledge, and instead opt to research these topics for yourself. I’m not telling you I’m right. I’m telling you that given what I have just written, it’s clear that you could look beyond the surface on each issue.
Uh oh. Rett has lost it. Who’s he talking to?
Where is your source for a few helicopters and one biological sample? You don’t provide any sources and get all haughty when other people provide SOME type of source. You haven’t made any rebuttals except “NO i dont believe it”, so where do you get off that everyone else’s rebuts are insufficient. The US had provided BILLIONS in support to Iraq during the Iraq-Iran war.—auctionguy10
This from NPR (hardly a hotbed of pro-bush or pro-war sentiment):
“the Reagan administration now in the 1980s–did little in the realm of direct arms sales to Saddam Hussein. There were some sales of helicopters and aircraft early in the Iran-Iraq war that were said to be for civilian or agricultural purposes but not much”—Mike Schuster, NPR diplomatic correspondent, 2005
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4859238
Moreover, while the US did contribute a small amount of dual use technologies to Iraq and a biological sample from a non-profit sponsored by the dept. of commerce that could have been purchased from numerous international quarters and that was never used to kill a single human being (hell, saddam bought playstation games to support his missile program – does that make Sony complicit in innocent deaths ?!?!). The primary facilitators of the war were Germany, France, and USSR.
http://www.command-post.org/archives/002978.html
Sure, the US supported Iraq during the 1980-88 war, the alternative was an expanded Iranian presence, indeed an emerging expansionist religious empire hostile to the West in an area possessing over 70% of the most accessible oil reserves on the planet. Moreover, it is GRAND HYPOCRISY for leftists and neo-leftists (Austrians) to criticize this policy and at the same time attack Bush for acting on principle by not covertly enabling dictators – it was bush who destroyed them. You can agree or disagree with this policy, but it appears that many on this thread advocate the insane measure of doing nothing in response to threats. It appears they have never read a history book outlining the nature of mankind to engage in conflict. Their solution is a vague and failed “let the markets protect you”
I got news for you folks, faith-based religious extremists and megalomaniac despots don’t give a rat’s ass about markets, comparative advantage, and private property. They will cut your head off just to see the dumb look on your Austrian faces.
Your excuses for blood are ridiculous. Why shouldn’t the US be attacked for completely supporting a war that left over a million people dead? How is a million people dying for some stupid and very subjective notion that “There’s a balance of power now!”—auctionguy10
It is frustrating trying to debate individuals who refuse to read my posts and continually make arguments that I have previously debunked.
For example, the absurd notion offered by leftwing extremists and parroted by many on this thread that 1 million innocents died as a result of operation iraqi freedom
The following is the latest, most extensive, least bias, and most definitive research regarding Iraqi deaths from the UN - WHO (I know it is an extreme pro-neocon organization, but it was the best I could find) :
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2008/pr02/en/index.html
As for the propaganda posing as “research” from soros, horton, et al – the following link contains sources the debunk this nonsense:
Moreover, the “humanitarians” on this thread are unable to extrapolate the net life saving benefits of a war to remove a heinous, miscalculating, destructive dictator ---- kinda of reminds me of the brainless Leftists who think that the minimum wage actually benefits anyone but politicians trolling for a clueless constituency.
From a moral standpoint, empirical evidence shows that the removal of Saddam has resulted in a net savings of over 250,000 lives:
Citing casualty figures of 95,000 Iraqi deaths during the 5.5 year war that equates to 17,300 deaths per year during the US occupation. Note that these numbers are dropping significantly since the Surge and they are likely to drop to a latent level before the US withdrawal in victory in 2011 provided the Obama/Biden administration does not screw things up (Washington Post, February 2009).
During Saddam’s reign over 1,600,000 Iraqis died violently as a result of his policies over a 24 year period that equates to 67,000 deaths per year! I’ll do the math for you. 67,000 – 17,300 = 49,700 x 5.5 = 273,350 lives saves as a result of the US action to liberate Iraq (http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/hussein.html
Note, you can plug-in the 155k total from the United Nations and the utility of the war as a life safer is supported, albeit slightly less. In addition, note that Iraq now has the real chance of substance improvements in governance (not perfect) and perhaps in time will move closer to elimination all government by following the example of the first practical austrian model, if one ever materializes.
Since my family has been under the Nazi boot on my mothers side and under the Communist boot on my father side I have a hard time understanding the pacisfism of most anarchists/libertarians especially the Chomsky version. We became unvoluntary refugees and had most of our property nationalized/confiscated, my paternal grandfather was named “Enemy of the People” because he was a busines man and because of that not only him but his whole family; wife and 3 children were scheduled for extermimnation. The euphism jused was “taken to the woods”. How would an anacrhist have stopped that, the occupation by Soviet Russia and the subsequnet extermination campaigns of intellectuals and business owners?
So was WWII a necessity? Was it necessary to demand full surender of militarist Japan and fascist Germany and Italy? Was the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombings jusified?
For me Crimes of War and Jus Bellum (the Rightuos War) are to me oxymorons. War is always a crime and always unjust. The only justification is if you win. When it comes to war I’m a pure utilitarian and for me when it came to the question of the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima I personally agree that the cost of Allied lives would have been over 1 million. It saved 1 million Allied soldiers life. It wasn’t just and it was a war crime but it was at that time the least of evils.
I always found the Nurnberg Tribunals a sham, political theatre. How can you convict someone after the fact? By that I mean convict someone of a crime that wasnt law when the deed was done. Furhter how can you convict individuals from the loosing side for crimes that you have given the wiinings sides soldier immunity for i.e. the fire bombings of pure civilian targets in Germany and Dresden in particular as well as the atrocities commited by the Soviet troops, mass rape, summary mass excecutions etc.?
For me the old rules of war should have applied. You excecute the enemies leaders out of whim, without the sham justification of “Crimes against humanity”.
But as i said I’m most interested in hearing anarchist views on how Hitler and Japan should have been stopped? Later Stalins expansion i.e. the cold War. What compromises and sacrifices should we have given up? Should we have let Stalin and Hitler divide Europe between them and let Japan take China and most of Asia? For me personllay the answer is no because I know the terror the civilian population would have had to endure. There would have been Gulags and Concetration camps on a massiv scale as well as massive slave labor.
(Marko, thh unconditional surrender was a multilateral agreement amongs the Allies, the US could not make a separate agreement with Japan without breaking the treaty, contract. I assume Marko that you beleive that contracts should be honored.)
I don’t think dropping the bombs on these population centers were as necessary as the U.S. government would lead us to believe.
As for legitimate… Is there anything a state does that is legitimate?
A nuclear weapon is indeed a weapon of terror. Nothing really new about that.
My opinion is that the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki not to send a message to the Japanese, but to send one to the Soviets.
I also believe it was a tit-for-tat operation in retaliation for Pearl Harbor and Bataan. I don’t think the U.S. hatred toward the Japanese can be overstated. That hatred still lingers to this day in some of the people who lived through this period (fed by the propagandist machines at that time).
“A clerk in office makes his calculation in cool blood. A minister, on the perusal, has seldom any other idea than of the expense, and turns with unconcern to the next leaf for the result of the whole. How can one here refrain from indulging very melancholy sensations? Alas! if by any law of nature unknown to me, mankind deserved so much indifference, I should be very wrong to write, and to be so earnestly solicitous for their welfare. I should be myself but a vile heap of dust, which the wind of life agitates for a moment.”
**
So I think you’re imagining that we would say, that during world war 2, it would have been practical to disband the US government and just deal with it as anarchists. No. Capital and investment was, and still is, structed along the assumption that the state will persist. In order for there to be a smooth transition, you can’t abolish the government overnight completely.
The anarchist “solution” to world war 2 is to say that if the United States had been an anarchist community for 20-30 years, then okay that would be more reasonable. It would have had greater producing power than the price-control-choked governments it was fighting against. If you haven’t read Hoppe’s paper on privatized national defense, you need to read it. The last issue is whether anyone would actually want to fight the war, but I think the issue persists with a state - how do you get your leaders to fight a war?
It seems like we might have been able to enter sooner since the allies would have been able to simply pay our PDAs to join the fight, rather than having to wait for pearl harbor.
It also defeats the point of war if you have to kill more innocent people than you would save. Just sayin.
Quote by RettoperI "It is frustrating trying to debate individuals who refuse to read my posts and continually make arguments that I have previously debunked.
For example, the absurd notion offered by leftwing extremists and parroted by many on this thread that 1 million innocents died as a result of operation iraqi freedom"
I was referring to US involvement in regards to the Iraq-Iran war that definitely lead to over 1 million deaths. You say that those deaths are justified and necessary for the vague and nonsensical goal to lower the influence of the Iranian mullahs. lol at “net life saving benefits”- this is the problem with the way you think and you don’t see it.
“Uh oh. Rett has lost it. Who’s he talking to?”–jonbostwick
It is futile to try to reason with austrians who are hell bent on the notion that force, when applied by a democracy against a brutal despotism, is NOT a net contributor to human rights and moves us closer to a anarchist society.
So my responses are to a general audience, however small on this thread.
Democracy (majoritarianism) is not a means towards a free society. You should read Hoppe’s Democracy: The God that Failed, or Casey’s The Indefensibility of Political Representation, or chapter 4 of the Hoppe fettschrift on democracy.
I don’t think dropping the bombs on these population centers were as necessary as the U.S. government would lead us to believe.
As for legitimate… Is there anything a state does that is legitimate?
A nuclear weapon is indeed a weapon of terror. Nothing really new about that.
My opinion is that the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki not to send a message to the Japanese, but to send one to the Soviets.
I also believe it was a tit-for-tat operation in retaliation for Pearl Harbor and Bataan. I don’t think the U.S. hatred toward the Japanese can be overstated. That hatred still lingers to this day in some of the people who lived through this period (fed by the propagandist machines at that time).–Farmer
No doubt all of these views can be supported, particularily the hatred towards the Japanese and the tit-for-tat response to 30 million tortured and butchered innocents throughout Asia and the Pacific.
However, the primary motive for dropping the bomb was to preserve the lives of the anticipated 1 million dead US servicemen and the 3-4 million dead Japanese.
By any rational, objective, and independent thinking measure, this was the dominant thought among the US people and the US government, period.
No doubt all of these views can be supported, particularily the hatred towards the Japanese and the tit-for-tat response to 30 million tortured and butchered innocents throughout Asia and the Pacific.
No, it really can’t. Learn what methodological individualism is.
By any rational, objective, and independent thinking measure, this was the dominant thought among the US people and the US government, period.
You can’t objectively measure the character and intentions of other human beings. Learn what thymology is.
Democracy (majoritarianism) is not a means towards a free society. You should read Hoppe’s Democracy: The God that Failed, or Casey’s The Indefensibility of Political Representation, or chapter 4 of the Hoppe fettschrift on democracy.–olovetto
I am looking forward to reading Hoppe based on the numerous recommendations I have received. And I agree that democracy is anathema to freedom. For example, it is simply the tyranny of the majority that erodes into absolutism.
However, I have never been an advocate for American democracy, I have repeatedly cited a representative democracy in the form of a Federal constitutional republic as the pathway or framework that austrians should be working through to achieve an anarchists global society. With the the Constitution configured to eliminate government.
For example, if the USA was to eliminate despotism worldwide on the geopolitical front, while reducing government powers on the domestic front – we could more safely and easily justify the last rational role of government, namely national defense. The next step would be the example of the anarchist society of Americans dominating the globe in all human endeavors.
In summary, US “hard power” to reduce and eliminate despotic regimes would eliminate the causes of war, namely despotism. You dont have to be an austrian to understand that despots use war as an excuse to maintain power by manufacture of a state threat to distract and control the masses. While to a far lesser extent, leaders in representative governments exploit this same dynamic to consolidate power, it is a practice that is most often used among autocrats resulting in far greater human costs. I have repeatedly challenged this thread to rebut my assertion that no leader, or political bloc within a democracy could incite the citizenry to attack another democracy. It hasnt happened before and it is not likely to happen ever.
Once democracy reigned supreme through the use of force, primarily directed by government (not a far fetched goal since we have been moving steadily toward that end since 1776), AMericans working within an anarchist society would demonstrate the merits of the austrian model that would convert the world through “soft power”
I dont know what the practical austrian plan for this change since all they appear to believe in is bitchin’ and complaining, chaos and collapse – and blaming george bush.
E. R. Olovetto wrote the following post at 05-11-2010 3:04 PM:
No doubt all of these views can be supported, particularily the hatred towards the Japanese and the tit-for-tat response to 30 million tortured and butchered innocents throughout Asia and the Pacific.–rettoper
No, it really can’t. Learn what methodological individualism is.
By any rational, objective, and independent thinking measure, this was the dominant thought among the US people and the US government, period.–rettoper
You can’t objectively measure the character and intentions of other human beings. Learn what thymology is.
I am not interested in debating sematics, thymology, metaphysics, or other “why is there air?” pondering.
I am interested in practical applications to real problems besetting mankind.
IN the example you cited, it is a historical fact that the overwhelming majority of the USA military leadership believed in August 1945 that, in the absence of the atom bomb, an attack on the Japanese home islands was necessary to force japan to surrender unconditionally. Moreover, the majority of the US public supported the dropping of the bombs then, (85%) and they support it today (57%).
In addition, chinese, Americans, vietnamese, malayans, et al did not hate the Japanese because they ate sushi, they hated them because they had murdered over 30 innocent million people.
you can spin this anyway you want, however austrians have contributed nothing substantive to the preservation and promotion of human life and liberty other than hate America “hot air” and blaming george bush
