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Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?[W:296, 650]

Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?


  • Total voters
    118
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

The weapons were essential to win the war, and both Eisenhower and LeMay had their own reasons for their statements. Giangreco's account is definitive.

As you clearly have your reasons for your statements. Eisenhower and LeMay were both involved, you and your buddy weren't even born.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

The use of nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was essential to Allied victory.

And the day that a nuke is dropped on DC, the victors will be arguing the same thing.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

Yes, that is obvious, despite the fact that such indiscriminate weapons have no legitimacy.

Weapons are neither legitimate nor illegitimate. They are effective or ineffective. Necessary or unnecessary. Cheap or expensive. Etc., etc. etc.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

As you clearly have your reasons for your statements. Eisenhower and LeMay were both involved, you and your buddy weren't even born.

Giangreco was the first to make use of documents and records previously unavailable or overlooked.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

Weapons are neither legitimate nor illegitimate. They are effective or ineffective. Necessary or unnecessary. Cheap or expensive. Etc., etc. etc.

Defensive weapons are very legitimate. Only to freaks can killing women and children have legitimacy.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

Defensive weapons are very legitimate. Only to freaks can killing women and children have legitimacy.

The weapons per se are outside that discussion. The decision on use may involve legitimacy. All weapons are both offensive and defensive.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

They may indeed, if they are the victors.

Well that's what victors do. They legitimize war crimes and escape its prosecution.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

Interesting, thanks for sharing that insight (about how things are) and also for the perspective on the WWII aspect of this issue

You're welcome.

Why the Atomic Bombings Could Have Been Avoided
INSTITUTE FOR HISTORICAL REVIEW
Was Hiroshima Necessary?

The Colonel: The Life and Wars of Henry Stimson 1867-1950
Godfrey Hodgson
Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1992 402 pages, paperbound

There never was, and never will be any conceivable military justification for the August 1945 U.S. nuclear-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Among all the evidence available on this matter, the documentary record compiled by several among the relevant primary sources, including the signed confessions of U.S. Secretary of War Henry Stimson himself, is more than sufficient to justify this conclusion. Nonetheless, the witless litany, the lie that that bombing "saved the lives of a million Americans," has widespread credulity to this day.
 
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Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

Well that's what victors do. They legitimize war crimes and escape its prosecution.

It was ever thus.

"You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it . . . ."

--W.T.Sherman
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

Who is "them?"

The other country (Iran) in this case, just as we "allowed" Israel to have nuclear weapons and have "allowed" N Korea to do so
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

The other country (Iran) in this case, just as we "allowed" Israel to have nuclear weapons and have "allowed" N Korea to do so

Fair enough. Others will do as they will do. I'm not sure why you think I'm opposed to that.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

I heard someone make the argument that Obama doesn't believe the US has any rightful role in preventing or hindering Iran from developing and maintaining nuclear weapons. I don't know that that's true, and nobody but the President can answer to what he believes, so I'll ask what you believe. If Iran has the ability, does it have the "right" to nuclear weapons? (By "right", I mean the U.S. and other nations would not be unjustified in trying to prevent it.)

working on the poll

Legally the answer is, as far as I know, simple. They presently are not allowed to have or develop nuclear weapons.

Do they have the right outside the law? Well, that depends. If they take it and the International community allows it to happen?

In any case they would have them and the world would be a somewhat more dangerous place.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

The other country (Iran) in this case, just as we "allowed" Israel to have nuclear weapons and have "allowed" N Korea to do so

and you think it is therefore a good reason to condone proliferation?
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

Legally the answer is, as far as I know, simple. They presently are not allowed to have or develop nuclear weapons.

Do they have the right outside the law? Well, that depends. If they take it and the International community allows it to happen?

In any case they would have them and the world would be a somewhat more dangerous place.

And if they were to withdraw their ratification of the NPT, they would no longer be subject to its restrictions and the current regime could argue that ratification of that treaty was by a prior rogue regime not in the best interests of the country. Changing things that prior administrations have done is how progress is made in politics after all (at least in the eyes of those in power at the time)
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

and you think it is therefore a good reason to condone proliferation?

Not all and if you read my comments on the thread you would understand that my position is simply that it is not the U.S.'s responsibility or right to dictate to the rest of the world about how things should be done in sovereign countries. That is colonialism and we fought a revolution to get out from under the domination of an established world power.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

I suggest you study the research and get back to me.

You've been proven wrong more times than once in this topic that you're utterly ill schooled in. Thanks for playing, again Jack.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

You've been proven wrong more times than once in this topic that you're utterly ill schooled in. Thanks for playing, again Jack.

Book Reviews
Hell to Pay: Operation DOWNFALL and the Invasion of Japan, 1945-1947, by D. M. Giangreco
Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2009. Pp. xxiii, 416. Illus., maps, notes, biblio., index. $36.95. ISBN: 1591143160.

Central to any discussion of the necessity for the use of the atomic bomb to help bring about an end to the Second World War in the Pacific is the issue of the projected cost in blood of an Allied invasion of the Japanese home islands. Nevertheless, with the exception of John Skates' 1994 book Invasion of Japan: Alternative to the Bomb, this critical question has been largely unexamined. As a result both sides of in the debate have passionately argued their positions with a shocking level of ignorance. Building on his earlier work on the subject, in Hell to Pay: Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan, 1945-1947, military historian D.M. Giangreco, author of The Soldier from Independence: A Military Biography of Harry Truman and many other works, provides a welcome investigation of the costs of an invasion of the Japanese home islands based on a careful examination of the invasion plans and defense preparations. This work succeeds because it provides a detailed understanding of the military calculations of both sides during the final days of the war, which leads to an evaluation of the likely course of an Allied invasion.​
Giangreco argues cogently that the Japanese armed forces were relatively confident in their ability to resist an Allied invasion. The Japanese had accumulated thousands of kamikaze aircraft, far more than the Allies had estimated, many of which were older models that were nearly invisible to radar, plus a wide variety of suicide naval craft, an army of approximately three million men, and a rapidly expanding home defense force. What Japan lacked in quality and power projection, it made up for in numbers and a fierce dedication to the defense of the homeland. Although most Japanese planners anticipated heavy losses, some estimating as many as 20 million dead, they believed that they could extract so high a price in blood from the Allies that they would be able to secure an acceptable end to the war.
Alternatively, Giangreco depicts the Allies as confident in their ability to win, but deeply concerned regarding the costs of their victory, citing, for example, Marine Major General Graves B. Erskine, who remarked, "[V]ictory was never in doubt. Its cost was. What was in doubt, in all our minds, was whether there would be any of us left to dedicate our cemetery at the end, or whether the last Marine would die knocking out the last Japanese gun and gunner." This fatalism was underscored by American defense planners who ordered an additional 500,000 Purple Heart decorations made in anticipation of massive losses, a stockpile so large it proved sufficient to cover American casualties in wars over the next 50 years.
According to Giangreco, the atomic bombs were a clear blessing because they ended the "mutual suicide pact" and almost certainly saved lives on both sides. Although this claim will offend and shock some readers, the wealth of primary source evidence provided by Giangreco clearly supports this assertion. While this work is very detailed and technical in places, it is well written and will keep readers engaged with its sense of impending disaster. This book is a must read for any student of World War II, whether scholar or interested citizen, and will likely remain the standard work on the subject for years to come.
Reviewer: J. Furman Daniel, III -- jfdaniel@gmail.com
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

You've been proven wrong more times than once in this topic that you're utterly ill schooled in. Thanks for playing, again Jack.

Just another in your string of unsupported claims.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

You've been proven wrong more times than once in this topic that you're utterly ill schooled in. Thanks for playing, again Jack.

I think it's quite reasonable to conclude that someone who ends up referring to others as freaks and pigs lost the debate long ago.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

and you think it is therefore a good reason to condone proliferation?[

No, it's not, although the CFR has presented an argument for Iranian nuclear weapons. The point is picking and choosing who does and who doesn't. Pakistan is no stable country, but they are a nuclear power.
 
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