What nukes are good for?

Discussion in 'Politics' started by extrasense, Apr 16, 2006.

  1. artistmosi Registered Senior Member

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    You are completely missing my point. It has been 50 years since the bomb was dropped. What are you? An expert. Obviously, the effects of the nuclear bomb are still there - its in the evironment and in the people. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean its not there. Show me something saying that all of the environmental and genetic effects of the nuclear bomb have disappeared after only 50 years and I'll shut up. My intuition tells me there are still deformed babies being born and other effects on the environment.

    The point I was making is a philosophical one. When one is about to lose a war or does not want to fight one, is it okay to drop weapons of mass destructions on their countries cities, killing civilians and obliterating our planet? Are you saying its okay since in 50 years or perhaps a century we won't notice the effects?

    Of course, I'm glad the US won the war. But I'm sure you've heard the saying that history is written by whoever wins the war. Powerful countries seek world conquest. It's a fact of history. This is precisely what the US is doing now, but in a very smart, deceptive, and saavy way. At the time, Germany and Japan were the super powers and the US worked hard to become one. The US won.

    Just think. A nuclear weapon destoys the air, the water, kills every living bird, plant, and thing and puts radiation in the air that causes cancer and genetic deformations. All in a matter of minutes. That not nature. That's human stupidity. These weapons should not be in the hands of warmongers such as us. Just think... would our supreme being (if you believe in one) allow us to have such weapons if we were not meant to use them again?

    This is the philosophy of people, in my opinion. If you are about to lose, nuke your advisary. This is why the US must be at constant alert of what every other country is doing.
     
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  3. artistmosi Registered Senior Member

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    No. As a rule, two countries possessing nuclear weapons of mass destruction cannot fight. If Iran had even 2 nuclear weapons in which to attack the US, we could not go to war with them. To do so would be equivalent to suicide.
     
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  5. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

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    24,066
    On the topic of after effects of the hiroshima nuclear bomb:
    http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext96/abomb10.txt
    some contradictory stuff:
    http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/hiroshima.htm
    Some more:
    http://www.solarstorms.org/Hiroshima.html

    An actual reference book on the matter for those who are interested.
     
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  7. artistmosi Registered Senior Member

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    Thanks for the info spurious! I'm confused now. One says

    And the other says

    If it is true that 80,000 people were killed instantly in 1945 and by 1950 200,000 people died as a result of the bomb, the clearly the second one is true. That means that 120,000 people died after the initial bombing (from injuries, radiation poisoning, and probably cancer). Also, if between 1950 and 1980 a further 97,000 people died then clearly the first one is wrong. How many more people died between 1980 and 2006? I'm inclined to believe the 2nd one. People had to have died from the radiation and environmental effects.
     
  8. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

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    24,066
    Isn't that a coincidence. Nature has a Chernobyl special.
    http://www.nature.com/index.html
    And there I found the "radiation effects research foundation". They research the effects of the nuclear bombs on nagasaki and Hiroshima. That must be the ultimate source for your question?
    http://www.rerf.or.jp/
    They have all kinds of info there, for instance a simple FAQ:
    http://www.rerf.or.jp/top/qae.htm

    For instance:
     
  9. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

    Messages:
    24,066
    On Chernobyl:

    Nature 440, 982-983 (20 April 2006) | doi:10.1038/440982a
    Special Report: Counting the dead

    On a psychological level the problem however seems much much worse:
    Although much less casualties than in nagasaki and hiroshima the contamination problem is much larger in chernobyl:
    As we have seen in the previous post Nagasaki and Hiroshima are not radioactive anymore (above background level).
     
  10. Buffalo Roam Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,931
    Artistmosi, I wouldn't say a expert but I have been through the U.S, Army C.B.R. (Chemical, Biological, and Radiological,) schools and Nagasaki and Heroshima are used as real life examples, and the fact is that the levals of contamination have been no higher than back ground levals since the late 1960, The Chernobyl reactor is a totally different situation than Japan, there you had a exposed pile that remained exposed for most of a week, this allowed many time the radiation levals and particulate matter to be realeased than both bomb dropped on Japan. Most of a bombs radiation is realesed with the flash and unless you have a ground leval burst you do not get a lot of particulate raised into the atmospher. I could get really detailed if you want but most ot the details would be extreamly boreing.
     
  11. artistmosi Registered Senior Member

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    75
    Really man. What is your point? Are you saying because not much radiation is released into the air level that it is okay to use these weapons on people? It is not okay. Radiation will get in the air. It doesn't matter how much, it is going to kill people and pretty much every living plant and animal. Look at the facts that spurious posted. People died from cancer and radiation poisoning.
     
  12. Naat Scientia potestas est. Registered Senior Member

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    211
    What are nukes good for?

    Well, you can decorate your garden with those.
    I think they were one of the most important inventions in the 20th century.
     
  13. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

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    24,066
    And not just a few people. And these were small nuclear bombs.
     
  14. Tom2 Registered Senior Member

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    726
    Actually both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were important to Japan's war effort, in addition to being population centers.

    The arms race between the USA and USSR changed all that. The reason the two countries built so many nukes was that the nuclear silos themselves became primary targets. It became a strategic priority on both sides to be able to withstand a first strike on our respective nuclear arsenals, and still have enough with which to strike back. That is exactly the doctrine of "Mutually Assured Destruction" that was adopted during the cold war.

    Well, we could use them to annihilate conventional military targets, but that would be like cracking a walnut with a sledgehammer. I think it would be morally unconscionable, but I wouldn't put it past our Commander in Chief.

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  15. Dreamwalker Whatever Valued Senior Member

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    I surely won't question that it is amoral to posses or even use nukes, also, I did not say that I support countries having nukes, I merely pointed out their use.
    Furthermore, I would not say that nukes lose their value even when other countries aquire them, if that was the case, the USA, european states and Russia might have engaged in a war instead of just building more weapons, both sides did not want t obe targeted with nukes, it still worked as a deterrent. But of course, that is not something that will be true for ever, Israel for example has many enemies, some showing that quite freely, even though Israel does posses nuclear weapons.
    Alas, for some countries they still work as deterrent.

    The value of nukes...well, I would simply say destruction, like with all other weapons, but after some time, everything loses its menacing appeal I assume.


    Of course I had never had a tactical nuke used against me, would make it a bit difficult to post here, no? Still they have a pragmatic value, as I said, a conventional warhead with the same power would have to be much bigger, making it problematic to transport the nuke to its target. I would say it has the same use as shells made from depleted uranium, it enables you to destroy things that are armored/fortified much easier than with conventional weaponry.
     
  16. Buffalo Roam Registered Senior Member

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    16,931
    I don't know, Japan was already defeated, the question was how many more lives would it take to convince them of the facts, remember their Code Of Bushido, they would rather die than loose face, to them if they died in combat it was a honorable way to go as long as you took some enemies with you, we had to show them that they would die and we wern't going to loose any more men to defeat them, the Emperor finally step in when he realised that the military was willing to suicide the whole country not to lose face. He never mentioned defeat, but informed the people to welcome the allies as you would friends.
     
  17. artistmosi Registered Senior Member

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    75
    During the cold war, I was a kid and my family sat glued to the television in anticipation. Both countries were ready to use they weapons. They weren't deterred!! They were fully prepared to break the rule that I mentioned before about attacking another country that possesses nuclear weapons. These men were warriors; warmongers even. Do you think god (if you beleive in god, otherwise call it fate) would allow use to build this weapons without planning for use them. Come on! It's the same fate that allowed a meteor to crash into the Earth and obliterate the dinosaurs. If you were a dinosaur of that time, you would've said, those meteors are just deterring other things from hitting us. It's fine. That's okay though. It's not like you could stop a meteor anyway. It's not like we can stop the nuclear bombs from falling down on us. I don't quesiton that they will be used. On the worlds current path, I don't quesiton whether or not they will be used. It,s a question of when, how much damage will be done, and why.

    That's the thing about these weapons. They don't go away. As long as there are evil hearts in the world, they will have menacing appeal.

    Honestly, I'm glad that they weren't used against you. If they had been used against you, you wouldn't consider them practical any longer. The most practical weapon: a knife, because then you only kill the people that you mean to kill.
     
  18. crazy151drinker Registered Senior Member

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    1,156
    "The use of nukes against Japan was hardly meaningful or good. In fact, that was the worst attack of man on man in the history of civilization."

    Hardly, the fire bombing of Tokyo and other Japanese cities killed more people. Pol Pot killed 1,000,000 of his own people- surely that is far more dreadfull. 800,000 Rwandans died recently, 6 Million Jews in WWII, the 25+Million people Stalin killed, Mao's cultural revolution, native americans (granted it took awhile but most of them were killed)..etc..etc...
    Hiroshima was hardly the worst.

    They work wonders for the Military. Instead of having to invade a city you just destroy it completely. It is true total war. Lets not forget that Stalingrad and Berlin looked much like Hiroshima- it just took longer using conventional weapons.

    "Both countries were ready to use they weapons. They weren't deterred!!"
    if that was the case they would have used them

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    MAD is a crazy concept but it worked. Now with these crazies in Iran who like to die it wont work. So we might as well kill them.
     

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