65th anniversary of VJ day
 

Let us not forget this often forgotten, important front.

"They fought and suffered around the world in ferocious conditions. They witnessed incomprehensible horrors."

psst

VJ not JV

VJ is Victory over Japan
JV is Junior Varsity.

:D

Of course, you're an educated man!
 

:ping:

*edit Fixed the title - whoops

Yes this is important to remember,
 

:yep:

http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/526/victoryab.jpg
http://photos.codlib.com/wp-content/.../07/vj-day.jpg

So I guess this means I can't play SH4 any more? :wah:

Seriously, it is good to celebrate the ending of a terrible war. May we never see the likes of this war again.

We must be doing something right for it seems that we are allies with almost everyone who was involved in this terrible war. :yep:

They are called existential weapons and they are nuclear. Nuclear weapons have kept major wars at bay for the longest period sinse almost forever.

Or, you could argue that nuclear weapons have been an underlying reason for almost every major conflict since 1945.

I guess our definition of major conflict is different. If one looks at history the deaths in conflicts since the advent of nuclear tech., has always been on a much smaller scale with fewer powers involved, and by consequence less people dead.

There is the world many wish to live in, and the world that we do live in, and nuclear weapons have done much to save lives.

Actually because of nuclear weapons we endured a 45 year period known as the Cold War. As a result several accidents almost wiped mankind from the face of the Earth.

Almost perhaps. But without them it would have certainly meant war. I give you WWI as an example. An arch-duke assasinated by an anarchistic Serbian gave us WWI. If Nukes existed do you think one man would cause a world war? As counter point JFK was assasinated by one Soviet expatriot. No war.

I'm pretty sure that anyone who served in Korea and Vietnam, as well as their families, would consider them to be major conflicts. Personally, I think that 2.8 million deaths in Korea and 5.2 million deaths in Vietnam speak for themselves.

Regarding fewer deaths from war since 1945, you should consider reading this. It may change your mind:

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm

As ETR already said, the Cold War was, at it's core, a series of wars and conflicts over who was going to put their nukes where. We had ours in western Europe. The Soviets would spend the next 40 years trying to achieve a reciprocal standing, resulting in the majority of the conflicts listed on the above website. Of course, we not even need to mention the Arab-Israeli conflicts, the invasion of Iraq, and issues with Pakistan, India, China, North Korea and Iran, all of which are directly rooted in the possession or manufacture of nuclear weapons.

In short, the use of the Fat Man and Little Boy bombs did indeed prevent a horrendous and bloody invasion of the Japanese homeland that would likely have made D-Day look miniscule by comparison, but claiming that nuclear weapons have reduced the need for nations to engage in warfare is fallacy.

I better liked the watchmen (movie) version of this photo, when another woman kisses the nurse:salute:

What are you really worried about when it comes to nuclear weapons? The cold war left no dead from nuclear blast. But the deterence it represents has allowed us to live some what fruitful and productive lives. Until recently.

The idea that the cold war was bad is bad in the purely empirical standard of logic. No one has used nukes in anger since 1945.

I disagree. If those same accidents had happened in a world without nuclear weapons, nobody would be clamoring to launch a retaliatory strike. Cooler heads would have prevailed.


If the offended party is so determined, than yes, nukes be damned. If JFK or Khrushchev had been assassinated by a KGB or CIA agent, respectively, than the possibility of an ensuing nuclear war is very likely. As a counter counter point, Lincoln was assassinated after the end of the Civil War. No war.

I'm not worried about nuclear weapons at all. Are you worried about them? I simply stated that nuclear weapons have not mitigated the need for war; rather, they have exaserbated it. People lived productive lives before nuclear weapons, as they live them today, but stating that nuclear weapons are responsible for the standard of living may be a case of viewing history through rose-colored glasses.

War against an already defeated enemy. please. My example is much more pertainant and on point. You are just a poor cold warrior without the knowledge to make the correct decisions. Perhaps that is why you rose to that high rank of ETR3.

Nukes are good, in the right hands. Not in the hands of those who openly advocate the destruction of other nations.

Which is exactly why wars will continue to be fought over them. Nukes are here; you can't put the genie back in the bottle, but that does not make them 'good'.

A nuke is neither good nor evil, it is a metal object with radioactive materials inside. Whoever uses the nuke, that's where the good or evil lies.

As the saying goes: "Guns don't kill people, people kill people."