You know our lefty friends. They have ZERO historical perspective. They scream about the Patriot Act, or Ashcroft, or Cheyney, or the oil companies...or God knows what other "issues" might be outraging them this day, or that day, as the prevailing hysterical new winds blow. But then, you know, some step back and see the BIG picture. As in the big picture of Communism. . .which, in case you havent' heard, killed 100 MILLION PEOPLE. http://news.monstersandcritics.com/...BACKGROUND_100_million_deaths_under_communism Yep, that Gitmo with a couple hundred prisoners, who are being fed daily. That's REALLY bad, yessiree!!!
When I went to Poland a few years back for my dad's funeral, I met some of his 'family' he grew up with--mostly close friends not really blood relatives. One of them after the war was arrested by the Soviets and sent to the camps for two years before being released. He was beaten about the head so bad and for so long that fluid was leaking from his brain through his ears. It took close to thirty years before an American surgeon traveling through the village fixed the damage. We asked our host (my dad's 'cousin' meaning just close childhood friends) if he would like to come to America one day. At first, he said no. He's getting too old. Then after further thought he said 'Yes. Just to piss on Truman's grave.'
My, are you quibbling over the number 100 million dead? And the few hundred in Gitmo? Knowing your intellectually ability, I bet you can't count either way.
Communism is a ideal or a form of government, it can not kill people. The Soviet Government, The Polish government and the Chinese government killed people while practicing a perverted and corrupted form of communism. Benito Mussolini was anti-communism and he killed people too. There are pro-capitalist death squads in C. and S. America, should capitalism be blamed for their murderous actions? However, I will agree that anything resembling communism is unfeasible and unrealistic, anti-human and even the purest and most noble form of communism would have left people in Poland and the Soviet Union starving and impovershed. The capitalism/socialism hybrid has definatey improved Poland, er I mean Polska.
Did you enjoy Poland? Sorry to hear about your fathers passing? The only thing I can add here is that I consider Truman to be a terrorist and the US was wrong to use nuclear weapons on Japan.
Shalom! communism is not super awesome! Israel is super awesome! They said something on TV that got me so mad today I almost threw up my Ashkenazic food. I look awesome - NO - super awesome with my Talmud today. I get all the bitches! Oh and also לאישה קשה או גסה
Communism was one of the world's great tragedies, and the persons who claim that "true" communism has never been attempted, who insist that Marx was a historian more than a theorist, or who believe that attempts at communism occurred "too soon" need to revisit The Communist Manifesto. That said, I'm having a tough time with the 1 million number for Eastern Europe (the others, not so much). The regimes in Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary were terrible, but as far as muderousness goes, they were small potatoes. Many deaths happened in Tito's Yugoslavia, but those can't all be laid at the doorstep of communism (not to mention that Tito's brand of communism bore little resemblence to that practiced elsewhere). Did Hoxha and the Romanian leaders really kill that many people? I mean, I suppose it's possible or even likely, but it's not like those countries had huge populations to begin with.
You're glossing over the Soviet purges of the intelligentsia class in these countries after the war. They imprisoned/killed/'disappeared' the professors, lawyers, politicians, clergy and officers in the military that did not join the party. That's how my dad applied for and received political asylum after the war.
The lack of a sense of history from folks on here is beyond appalling. Truman was commander in chief fighting a war against a nation state. To finally get it to surrender required one of two things: --either an invasion that would cause 1 million dead or --a weapon so terrible that the Japanese would have no choice but to give up So, Truman traded 200,000 casualties form the Atom Bomb (about 100,000 dead, less than the casualties for conventional bombing on Tokyo alone) for a million lives -- many of whom WOULD have been Japanese. With that tradeoff, Truman would say that he never lost a minute of sleep over his decision. Nor should he have. Now, go back into your shell of ignorance.
Maybe you shouldn't be putting sugar on your Frosted Flakes, Karl. What was your point here - that Gitmo isn't all that bad because it hasn't killed 100 million people? That we shouldn't be upset at the systematic dismantling of our judicial system and the suspension of habeus corpus because commies had neither? Of course not. Your only point, as is the case with most threads you start, is that liberals=bad, neocons=good, and that you'll twist any event to fit that construct.
It was either one plane one bomb, or more of this: A lot of Japanese were going to die. In this case, Truman made the right decision.
When you target civillians (as opposed to military targets) it is an act of terrorism. Period. As for your assertion that it saved lives, prove it, as most historians I've read think that argument is B.S. So let's see what some other people who are ignorant to history have to say Dwight Eisernhower http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm "the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing." Pat Buchanan http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/buchanan1.html "As for Truman, he dropped two atom bombs on defenseless cities, sent back 2 million Russian dissidents and POWs to his "Uncle Joe," death and the Gulag, offered to send the USS Missouri to Russia to bring Stalin over to give him equal time to answer Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech, lost China to communism, fired Gen. MacArthur for demanding victory in Korea, presided over a corrupt administration, left us mired down in a "no-win war" and left office with 23 percent approval. " Albert Einstein http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7406337/ “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” More on Einstein and the bomb http://www.ppu.org.uk/learn/infodocs/people/pp-einstein4.html Herbet Hoover http://thinkexist.com/quotation/the_use_of_the_atomic_bomb-with_its/159709.html “The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul” Martin Luther King http://www.erace.com/action/ "We have genuflected before the god of science only to find that it has given us the atomic bomb, producing fears and anxieties that science can never mitigate.” Admiral William Leahy http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm "It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons. "
Have you read Michael Hogans book about Hiroshima? it's funny that so many people in Truman's administration admitted it was a mistake yet people still defend targeting over 100,000 civillians. There is also Frederick Taylor, British historian who called it the worst terror attack in history. Here is some more info on the issue: http://www.tamilnation.org/humanrights/hiroshima.htm More from Buchanan: http://www.tamilnation.org/humanrights/hiroshima.htm#Christian_Morality "If terrorism is the massacre of innocents to break the will of rulers, were not Hiroshima and Nagasaki terrorism on a colossal scale?... Churchill did not deny what the Allied air war was about. Before departing for Yalta, he ordered Operation Thunderclap, a campaign to "de-house" civilians to clog roads so German soldiers could not move to stop the offensive of the Red Army. British Air Marshal "Bomber" Harris put Dresden, a jewel of a city and haven for hundreds of thousands of terrified refugees, on the target list." Read the entire article, I fail to see how he is wrong
My point, Claybrain, is that you are not very smart. My point, Claybrain, is that you have no historical perspective. My point, Claybrain, that in the history of warfare -- and we're at war with these Islamic jihadist fascists -- no country has ever treated its enemies in captivity any better than we have. My point, Claybrain, is that many of these folks who you are oh-so-concerned about wouldn't have a minutes hesitation to fry you in a nuclear fireball, if they could get their hands on such weapons. My point, Claybrain, is that those who are in Gitmo, or who are held as enemy combatants, ARE NOT US CITIZENS and therefore don't really have the particular niceities of law on their side. My point, Claybrain, is that there are so few of them -- so very very very few of them -- that if there are occasionally a few unjustifiable incarcerations, well, it's not like we're throwing SIX or TWENTY MIllion into a camp, like the communists did. And my final point, Claybrain, is that you have NO perspective, NO intelliegence, NO understanding, and that while I will defend your right to say whatever you want, I have THE right to tell you that your ideas are astonishingly naive, iditoic, and moronic.
And so was Curtis Le May who firebombed Tokyo. And so was Hap Arnold and Arthur Tedder. Liberals are idiots.
What do communism and Gitmo have to do with each other? Furthermore, does Karl's logic mean that if we kill 50 million in Gitmo it would still be OK because communism killed 100M? Finally, how does the betrayal of America's principles (a betrayal comparable to the internment of Japanese citizens during WWII) somehow justified because governments under the sway of a now nearly universally discredited ideology once murdered a lot of people?
I stand by what I said, I don't think communism killed people and I don't remember the parts of Marx's manifesto that justifies murder, but I havn't read it in over 10 years. I think communism is disgusting for other reasons. I also disagree that it's a nearly universally discredited idealogy. Well in real life it is, on bigsoccer it has a cult following....Shurik (Russian), Mel, Ratdog and at least 5 others on bigsoccer insist it's the best form of government. Michael Moore went to Cuba to film part of sicko.
I wonder if he went to this hospital? Probably not. Castro has special hospitals for people like Moore to visit. Has Moore been indicted yet?