The Official Former President Trump thread

[D Angelo Barksdale]

Well this escalated quickly.

1 hour ago, dorlomin said:

Dont worry about details, you are a Marxist, and anyone who disputes details can be executed when you come to power. 

Could you please point out where in Marx's works he advocates executing those who dispute details. Or indeed, how many people were executed by Marx and his regime.

[JamieThomas]

HC hitting the patter home run today:

 

[D Angelo Barksdale]

Clinton needs kicked in the pie and chucked in the sea tbh.

[JamieThomas]

I didn't say she wasn't an arsehole, she's an American politician after all.

[DrewDon]

This will forever be the GOAT Hillary Tweet, though: 

 

[RiG]

Trump being interviewed on Fox claimed that one of the best concessions the US got from North Korea was that they agreed to send back the remains of US soldiers killed in the Korean war. Trump claims that "thousands and thousands" of people asked him to bring their sons remains home.

A truly bizarre claim given that the Koren war ended in 1953 so an 18 year old parent of an 18 year old soldier would be almost 100 in 2016  And yet Trump claims he had thousands of these people coming up to him on the campaign trail to bring their sons remains home. What a deluded, pathological liar.

[Granny Danger]

I despise Clinton and the Democratic Party machine that bulldozed her candidacy, however I would take her before Trump any day of the week and it should be acknowledged the role that Comey played in the run up to the election.

 

[topcat(The most tip top)]

I have always felt the closest exemplar from modern history is Kaiser Wilhelm. 

You mean Trump supports Hibs as well

[Fullerene]

It is easy to regard the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as barbaric but that is to judge it by today's standards.

Looking back the key question is: why would America have the bomb and then decide not to use it on Japan?
The obvious answer would be to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Japanese men, women and children.
However, that is to assume the Americans placed any value on Japanese lives.

For a lot of Americans, it seemed like this:

Japan attacked America in 1941 and started a war it could never win.
Japan had demonstrated tremendous cruelty throughout the war (as did other countries)
By the start of 1945, it was obvious that Japan was going to lose the war.
Conventional bombing was already killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese.
Several times in battle, the Japanese would not surrender - even when it was obvious they could not win.
When defeated, Japanese civilians committed suicide rather than be captured by the Americans.
American propaganda portrayed the Japanese as subhuman - the Pacific War was far more racist than the war in Europe.
The Japanese resorted to Kamikaze pilots and other suicide fighters - suggesting they did not value their own lives that highly.

There was every suggestion the Japanese were prepared to fight to the last man to protect the home islands.

Under these circumstances, it is difficult to see how an American President could risk the lives of any American soldiers simply to save the lives of some Japanese.

Yes, the Americans were aware that the next battle would be with the Soviets but they was primarily concerned with ending the current war first.

Had the Japanese been offered the chance to keep the Emperor sooner, then the bombs could have been avoided - but that was not to be.

[renton]

10 hours ago, NotThePars said:

 

You seem to think an overwhelmingly destructive response is completely justified if someone else was the initial aggressor. A North Korean launched offensive deserves the total obliteration of their entire country, I assume? That’s the natural endpoint of your snide reply there but it doesn’t surprise me that you probably believe that.

 

“The world was a basket case” doesn’t excuse the single minded determination to launch an A-Bomb on two separate civilian targets. That you constantly claim the US were on the verge of war with the Soviets despite them still being war allies is just pure revisionism and your petty snipes and baseless conjecture doesn’t detract from that.

 

Also I’ve literally quoted a Stanford Professor and Harvard graduate’s opinion on American nuclear policy. Those noted hot beds of far left/ right ideology.

His stated alternatives to dropping the bomb though, aren't really persuasive.

1. Modify the unconditional surrender doctrine to allow a more palatable armistice for the Japanese. That's not going to fly for the following reasons: Domestic political opinion would be outraged - thousands of servicemen dead and wounded, millions of dollars sunk into a war that in the pacific had a very personal dimension for the Americans thanks to Pearl Harbor - would not allow for a surrender that left US desire for appropriate retribution without satisfaction. Internationally it would cause a diplomatic incident as the Unconditional Surrender doctrine was very personally bound up with Roosevelt (and again with domestic opinion, how could Truman so brazenly abandon his venerated predecessors policy without causing himself problems?) and almost forced onto the British who, would probably have quite liked the option of letting the Germans surrender before the UK was left broken by it's own war effort and before Germany was too broken to aid the British in defending against the Russians who's intentions in Europe were already stirring up dread; and while the UK's influence was waning they could still use such a U-turn by the US to renege on any number of deals in the post war administration. 

2. Await the impact of Russia on the Pacific war. I've already stated that public opinion in the US was very much willed towards a demonstrably American revenge on Japan. The US service chiefs, particularly Ernest King, the Anglo-phobic Chief of the Navy, were doing their level best to prevent significant British participation in the final defeat of Japan (with particularly bad grace they accepted the presence of a relatively large British Pacific Fleet, the RAF Tiger force of 40 squadrons from Bomber command and a Commonwealth Army Corps that Macarthur, the US General in charge of the final invasion, was doing his best to whittle down in size) so the idea that major Soviet participation in the final invasion would be welcomed seems a stretch at best. Beyond that the Soviets would probably have satisfied themselves with taking Manchuria, Korea and some Northern islands that increased their own strategic benefits without getting caught up in a bloody fight for Japan itself. So Soviet participation would only have aided themselves, and really not hastened the defeat, or lightened the US butcher's bill one bit. The US was beginning to share the UK's point of view regarding Soviet intentions to "liberated" territory as well. If anything the dropping of the bombs was designed in some aspect firstly to forestall any significant Soviet influence by ending the war before they could, and demonstrate to the Soviets that the US possessed the firepower required to quell them as well: It was not simply a demonstration for the Japanese benefit only.

3. Continue firebombing instead. This is where it really falls apart for me. That's not a difference in policy, just in execution. Contemporary knowledge did not include the after effects of radioactivity, so to them the A-Bomb looked like nothing other than a really efficient way of delivering a huge equivalent TNT load. The destructive ability of Nuclear weapons en-masse is orders of magnitude higher than could be practically delivered conventionally, but at the time the ability to drop one or two did not significantly increase the deadly force available to the USAAF and RAF bomber forces. At their peak, and with the mass of industrial capability behind them the strategic airforces were capable of delivering body counts and devastated cities in excess of what was wrought at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Morally, the difference in obliterating civilians by firestorm of by Nuclear blast should not really be any different.

Edited June 15, 2018 by renton

[Fullerene]

There is also the point that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki only killed people in these two cities.

None of the American air crew came to any harm.

For the Japanese, the question was how do you fight a war to the death when suddenly it is only your side that is dying.

[dorlomin]

11 hours ago, NotThePars said:

A North Korean launched offensive deserves the total obliteration of their entire country, I assume?

The Leninist DPRK launched a war of aggression against its neighbour. It executed pro democracy people in the ROK when it came across them. 

 

Quote

The Seoul National University Hospital massacre (Korean: 서울대학교 부속병원 학살 사건 Hanja: 서울國立大學校附属病院虐殺事件) was a massacre committed by the North Korea's Korean People's Army on 28 June 1950 of 700 to 900 doctors, nurses, inpatient civilians and wounded soldiers at the Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul district of South Korea.[1][2][3] During the First Battle of Seoul, the KPA wiped out one platoon which guarded Seoul National University Hospital on 28 June 1950.[1][2] They massacred medical personnel, inpatients and wounded soldiers.[1][2] The Korean People's Army shot or buried the people alive.[1][2] The civilian victims alone numbered 900.[1][2] According to South Korean Ministry of National Defense, the victims included 100 wounded South Korean soldiers.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seoul_National_University_Hospital_massacre

Burying doctors alive. 

Leninism praxis

Edited June 15, 2018 by dorlomin

[welshbairn]

10 minutes ago, dorlomin said:

The Leninist DPRK launched a war of aggression against its neighbour. It executed pro democracy people in the ROK when it came across them. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seoul_National_University_Hospital_massacre

Burying doctors alive. 

Leninism praxis

The South weren't too cuddly either.

Bodo League massacre

[dorlomin]

Approximately between 20 and 33 million Chinese people were killed by the Sino Japanese war. That war lasted about 3270 days so taking the high estimate about 10 000 Chinese people were killed by the Japanese war per day. Taking the high estimate of 120 0000 dead Hiroshima was about 12 days of the 8 year long Japanese war of aggression against the then US ally China. 

 

Yet the Leninist is weeping for the Japanese here. 

 

So on a purely human scale if the bombing shortened the war by 12 days it was a net gain for human lives. And that does not take into account the possibility of Japanese massacres had the war dragged on to an invasion. 

[dorlomin]

1 minute ago, welshbairn said:

The South weren't too cuddly either.

Bodo League massacre

Who said they were. The left will always wallow in whataboutery when you move away from relentless attacks on the US for even one post . 

Nice friends they have mind. 

 

[NotThePars]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seoul_National_University_Hospital_massacre
Burying doctors alive. 
Leninism praxis

So it deserved the total obliteration of its country and it’s people?

[dorlomin]

14 minutes ago, NotThePars said:

So it deserved the total obliteration of its country and it’s people?

 

Whataboutery. The Leninist used the US's use of a new weapon against the Japanese imperialism as a proof that it was more dangerous than the aggressive DPRK, they have also completely forgotten about the scale of murder and use of chemical and biological weapons by the Japanese in that war.

More over the subsequent decades has shown the ROK to have grown into a hugely prosperous democracy* while the Leninists in the DPRK remeain barely capable of feeding and clothing their own people instead spending money on palaces for the party and new military toys that help the infants in charge feel like real men. 

 

*This likely irks the left on this thread. 

Edited June 15, 2018 by dorlomin

[NotThePars]

It is easy to regard the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as barbaric but that is to judge it by today's standards.
Looking back the key question is: why would America have the bomb and then decide not to use it on Japan?
The obvious answer would be to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Japanese men, women and children.
However, that is to assume the Americans placed any value on Japanese lives.
For a lot of Americans, it seemed like this:
Japan attacked America in 1941 and started a war it could never win.
Japan had demonstrated tremendous cruelty throughout the war (as did other countries)
By the start of 1945, it was obvious that Japan was going to lose the war.
Conventional bombing was already killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese.
Several times in battle, the Japanese would not surrender - even when it was obvious they could not win.
When defeated, Japanese civilians committed suicide rather than be captured by the Americans.
American propaganda portrayed the Japanese as subhuman - the Pacific War was far more racist than the war in Europe.
The Japanese resorted to Kamikaze pilots and other suicide fighters - suggesting they did not value their own lives that highly.
There was every suggestion the Japanese were prepared to fight to the last man to protect the home islands.
Under these circumstances, it is difficult to see how an American President could risk the lives of any American soldiers simply to save the lives of some Japanese.
Yes, the Americans were aware that the next battle would be with the Soviets but they was primarily concerned with ending the current war first.
Had the Japanese been offered the chance to keep the Emperor sooner, then the bombs could have been avoided - but that was not to be.

I’m about to go to work so don’t have time to respond completely to all these posts but the thrust of my point is that any aggression that’s met with a US response is always met with overwhelming and arguably indiscriminate force. The Japanese were undoubtedly one of the most, if not the most, destructive and bloodthirsty combatants the Allies fought against (matched only by Germany) but does that justify deliberate targeting of Japanese citizens through excessive fire bombing and the dropping of the atom bombs alongside the internment of Japanese Americans and the seizing of their businesses and properties? You could maybe make an argument for that type of excessive response being the standard of the time (and the Eastern Front and firebombing of German cities would support your point) but America responding with that level of indiscriminate bombing and subjugation isn’t limited to World War Two. They’ve deployed it in Korea, they’ve deployed it in Vietnam and the surrounding countries, they’ve deployed it in Iraq through bombings and crippling economic sanctions and they continue to maintain a significant drone presence that’s anything but precise in multiple sovereign states. Those aren’t the standards of the time and the criticisms of many of those policies aren’t limited to “Leninists” either. Worldwide opposition to Vietnam was fairly substantial, France and Yeltsin’s Russia were opposed to America’s total blockade of Iraq and majority opinion across the globe is opposed to the US drone policy. If it makes me a Leninist far left lunatic to think that an ultimately limited act of aggression doesn’t deserve the wholesale destruction of a country and everyone who lives in it then I’m happy to be that rather than the imperial apologist that dorlomin blatantly is.

[welshbairn]

53 minutes ago, dorlomin said:

The Leninist DPRK launched a war of aggression against its neighbour. It executed pro democracy people in the ROK when it came across them. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seoul_National_University_Hospital_massacre

Burying doctors alive. 

Leninism praxis

 

41 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

The South weren't too cuddly either.

Bodo League massacre

 

37 minutes ago, dorlomin said:

 whataboutery 

 

Quote

 It has been estimated that the number of victims killed is between 100,000 and 200,000.

Under the leadership of Kim Il-sung, the Korean People's Army attacked from the north on 25 June 1950, starting the Korean War.[15] According to Kim Mansik, who was a military police superior officer, President Syngman Rhee ordered the execution of people related to either the Bodo League or the South Korean Workers Party on 27 June 1950.[16][17] The first massacre was started one day later in Hoengseong, Gangwon-do on 28 June.[17][18] Retreating South Korean forces and anti-communist groups[19] executed the alleged communist prisoners, along with many of the Bodo League members.[5] The executions were performed without any trials or sentencing.[20] Kim Tae Sun, the chief of the Seoul Metropolitan Police, admitted to personally executing at least 12 "communists and suspected communists" after the outbreak of the war.[21] When Seoul was recaptured in late September 1950, an estimated 30,000 South Koreans were summarily deemed collaborators with the North Koreans and shot by ROK forces.[22] At least one US lieutenant colonel is known to have approved the executions, when he told a South Korean colonel that he could kill a large number of prisoners in Busan if the North Korean troops approached. A mass execution of 3,400 South Koreans did indeed take place near Busan that summer.[23]

United States official documents show that American officers witnessed and photographed the massacre.[20] In one case a US officer is known to have sanctioned the killing of political prisoners so that they would not fall into enemy hands.[5][24] In another, United States official documents show that John J. Muccio, then United States Ambassador to South Korea, made recommendations to South Korean President Rhee Syngman and Defense Minister Shin Sung-mo that the executions be stopped.[20] American witnesses also reported the scene of the execution of a girl who appeared to be 12 or 13 years old.[9][20] The massacre was also reported to both Washington and Gen. Douglas MacArthur,[5] who described it as an "internal matter".[22][25] According to one witness, 40 victims had their backs broken with rifle butts and were shot later. Victims in seaside villages were tied together and thrown into the sea to drown.[23] Retired South Korean Adm. Nam Sang-hui confessed that he authorized 200 victims' bodies to be thrown into the sea, saying, "There was no time for trials for them."[20]

There were also British and Australian witnesses.[5][26] Great Britain raised this issue with the U.S. at a diplomatic level, causing Dean Rusk, Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs, to inform the British that U.S. commanders were doing "everything they can to curb such atrocities".[9] During the massacre, the British protected their allies and saved some citizens.[27][28]

 

It must be nice to live in a world where one side is moral perfection  and the other is so evil all their citizens deserve everything thrown at them.

Edited June 15, 2018 by welshbairn

[NotThePars]

His stated alternatives to dropping the bomb though, aren't really persuasive.

To save quoting the wall of text you’re acknowledging however that the goal of dropping the bomb wasn’t wholly some benevolent desire to end the bloodshed but was motivated by the expenditure on the bomb, domestic opinion in not using it and tactical considerations against the Soviets? The states alternatives may not be convincing to you but the argument that the US didn’t seriously pursue these alternatives once Truman was in office still ring true.