Iran Authorizes 10 New Nuclear Plants

[CavLancer]

Iran wants nukes and we have plenty, extra even! We should send them some.

 

[RedRalph]

I'm beginning to wonder if some morning soon we aren't going to wake up to news of an Israeli attack...

 

[CavLancer]

Yeah, and everyone will cry but secretly they'll be thankful the threat is put off once again.

 

[Eretz Yisrael]

Are you guys actually supporting mass murder of innocent civilians? Are you completely without any moral standards?

What? Christian Anglo-American moral ethics in the ME? That's imperialism plus heresy for them, you know.

 

[Seashore]

The bombs on japan were not merciful. America had already won when they dropped the nukes.

 

[Eretz Yisrael]

The bombs on japan were not merciful. America had already won when they dropped the nukes.

You underestimate Bushido. Those guys could live for weeks in caves while chanting '天皇陛下にご奉仕するぞ'; remember Okinawa?
There was also enough manpower left in the IJA (as least on paper)to hold a denfense of the islands. So nukes were more merciful.

 

[Winner]

I'm beginning to wonder if some morning soon we aren't going to wake up to news of an Israeli attack...

December or January, if we are to trust the French press.

 

[Winner]

Are you guys actually supporting mass murder of innocent civilians? Are you completely without any moral standards?

Do us all a favor - before you quote someone, at least read his post in context, mkay? I was clearly joking in response to another post, Mr. Moralist.

 

[Formaldehyde]

You underestimate Bushido. Those guys could live for weeks in caves while chanting '天皇陛下にご奉仕するぞ'; remember Okinawa?
There was also enough manpower left in the IJA (as least on paper)to hold a denfense of the islands. So nukes were more merciful.

Bushido? More merciful? I think you are ignoring the facts while apparently buying into the fanatical propaganda generated before and after the these atrocities to try to rationalize these clear acts of terrorism.

First, from a Catholic chaplain's perspective who blessed the bombers and their crew before they left, and who actually watched the second B-29 drop its bomb on Nagasaki:

http://www.tshofner.net/?q=node/71

Blessing the Bombs

by George Zabelka

Father George Zabelka, a Catholic chaplain with the U.S. Air Force, served as a priest for the airmen who dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and gave them his blessing. Over the next twenty years, he gradually came to believe that he had been terribly wrong, that he had denied the very foundations of his faith by lending moral and religious support to the bombing. Zabelka, who died in 1992, gave this speech on the 40th anniversary of the bombings.

The destruction of civilians in war was always forbidden by the Church, and if a soldier came to me and asked if he could put a bullet through a child’s head, I would have told him, absolutely not. That would be mortally sinful. But in 1945 Tinian Island was the largest airfield in the world. Three planes a minute could take off from it around the clock. Many of these planes went to Japan with the express purpose of killing not one child or one civilian but of slaughtering hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands of children and civilians – and I said nothing. As a Catholic chaplain I watched as the Boxcar, piloted by a good Irish Catholic pilot, dropped the bomb on Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki, the center of Catholicism in Japan.

I never preached a single sermon against killing civilians to the men who were doing it. I was brainwashed! It never entered my mind to protest publicly the consequences of these massive air raids. I was told it was necessary – told openly by the military and told implicitly by my Church’s leadership. (To the best of my knowledge no American cardinals or bishops were opposing these mass air raids. Silence in such matters is a stamp of approval.) I worked with Martin Luther King, Jr., during the Civil Rights struggle in Flint, Michigan. His example and his words of nonviolent action, choosing love instead of hate, truth instead of lies, and nonviolence instead of violence stirred me deeply. This brought me face to face with pacifism – active nonviolent resistance to evil. I recall his words after he was jailed in Montgomery, and this blew my mind. He said, “Blood may flow in the streets of Montgomery before we gain our freedom, but it must be our blood that flows, and not that of the white man. We must not harm a single hair on the head of our white brothers.” I struggled. I argued. But yes, there it was in the Sermon on the Mount, very clear: “Love your enemies. Return good for evil.” I went through a crisis of faith. Either accept what Christ said, as unpassable and silly as it may seem, or deny him completely.

For the last 1700 years the Church has not only been making war respectable: it has been inducing people to believe it is an honorable profession, an honorable Christian profession. This is not true. We have been brainwashed. This is a lie. War is now, always has been, and always will be bad, bad news. I was there. I saw real war. Those who have seen real war will bear me out. I assure you, it is not of Christ. It is not Christ’s way. There is no way to conduct real war in conformity with the teachings of Jesus. There is no way to train people for real war in conformity with the teachings of Jesus. The morality of the balance of terrorism is a morality that Christ never taught. The ethics of mass butchery cannot be found in the teachings of Jesus. In Just War ethics, Jesus Christ, who is supposed to be all in the Christian life, is irrelevant. He might as well never have existed. In Just War ethics, no appeal is made to him or his teaching, because no appeal can be made to him or his teaching, for neither he nor his teaching gives standards for Christians to follow in order to determine what level of slaughter is acceptable.

So the world is watching today. Ethical hairsplitting over the morality of various types of instruments and structures of mass slaughter is not what the world needs from the Church, although it is what the world has come to expect from the followers of Christ. What the world needs is a grouping of Christians that will stand up and pay up with Jesus Christ. What the world needs is Christians who, in language that the simplest soul could understand, will proclaim: the follower of Christ cannot participate in mass slaughter. He or she must love as Christ loved, live as Christ lived, and, if necessary, die as Christ died, loving ones enemies.

For the 300 years immediately following Jesus’ resurrection, the Church universally saw Christ and his teaching as nonviolent. Remember that the Church taught this ethic in the face of at least three serious attempts by the state to liquidate her. It was subject to horrendous and ongoing torture and death. If ever there was an occasion for justified retaliation and defensive slaughter, whether in form of a just war or a just revolution, this was it. The economic and political elite of the Roman state and their military had turned the citizens of the state against Christians and were embarked on a murderous public policy of exterminating the Christian community. Yet the Church, in the face of the heinous crimes committed against her members, insisted without reservation that when Christ disarmed Peter he disarmed all Christians.

Christians continued to believe that Christ was, to use the words of an ancient liturgy, their fortress, their refuge, and their strength, and that if Christ was all they needed for security and defense, then Christ was all they should have. Indeed, this was a new security ethic. Christians understood that if they would only follow Christ and his teaching, they couldn’t fail. When opportunities were given for Christians to appease the state by joining the fighting Roman army, these opportunities were rejected, because the early Church saw a complete and an obvious incompatibility between loving as Christ loved and killing. It was Christ, not Mars, who gave security and peace.

Today the world is on the brink of ruin because the Church refuses to be the Church, because we Christians have been deceiving ourselves and the non-Christian world about the truth of Christ. There is no way to follow Christ, to love as Christ loved, and simultaneously to kill other people. It is a lie to say that the spirit that moves the trigger of a flamethrower is the Holy Spirit. It is a lie to say that learning to kill is learning to be Christ-like. It is a lie to say that learning
to drive a bayonet into the heart of another is motivated from having put on the mind of Christ. Militarized Christianity is a lie. It is radically out of conformity with the teaching, life, and spirit of Jesus.[

Now, brothers and sisters, on the anniversary of this terrible atrocity carried out by Christians, I must be the first to say that I made a terrible mistake. I was had by the father of lies. I participated in the big ecumenical lie of the Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox churches. I wore the uniform. I was part of the system. When I said Mass over there I put on those beautiful vestments over my uniform. (When Father Dave Becker left the Trident submarine base in 1982 and resigned as Catholic chaplain there, he said, “Every time I went to Mass in my uniform and put the vestments on over my uniform, I couldn’t help but think of the words of Christ applying to me: Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing.&#8221

As an Air Force chaplain I painted a machine gun in the loving hands of the nonviolent Jesus, and then handed this perverse picture to the world as truth. I sang “Praise the Lord” and passed the ammunition. As Catholic chaplain for the 509th Composite Group, I was the final channel that communicated this fraudulent image of Christ to the crews of the Enola Gay and the Boxcar.

All I can say today is that I was wrong. Christ would not be the instrument to unleash such horror on his people. Therefore no follower of Christ can legitimately unleash the horror of war on God’s people. Excuses and self-justifying explanations are without merit. All I can say is: I was wrong! But, if this is all I can say, this I must do, feeble as it is. For to do otherwise would be to bypass the first and absolutely essential step in the process of repentance and reconciliation: admission of error, admission of guilt. There is no way to conduct real war in conformity with the teachings of Jesus. I was there, and I was wrong.

Yes, war is Hell, and Christ did not come to justify the creation of Hell on earth by his disciples. The justification of war may be compatible with some religions and philosophies, but it is not compatible with the nonviolent teaching of Jesus. I was wrong. And to those of whatever nationality or religion who have been hurt because I fell under the influence of the father of lies, I say with my whole heart and soul I am sorry. I beg forgiveness. I asked forgiveness from the Hibakushas (the Japanese survivors of the atomic bombings) in Japan last year, in a pilgrimage that I made with a group from Tokyo to Hiroshima. I fell on my face there at the peace shrine after offering flowers, and I prayed for forgiveness – for myself, for my country, for my Church. Both Nagasaki and Hiroshima. This year in Toronto, I again asked forgiveness from the Hibakushas present. I asked forgiveness, and they asked
forgiveness for Pearl Harbor and some of the horrible deeds of the Japanese military, and there were some, and I knew of them. We embraced. We cried. Tears flowed. That is the first step of reconciliation – admission of guilt and forgiveness. Pray to God that others will find this way to peace.

All religions have taught brotherhood. All people want peace. It is only the governments and war departments that promote war and slaughter. So today again I call upon people to make their voices heard. We can no longer just leave this to our leaders, both political and religious. They will move when we make them move. They represent us. Let us tell them that they must think and act for the safety and security of all the people in our world, not just for the safety and security of one country. All countries are interdependent. We all need one another. It is no longer possible for individual countries to think only of themselves. We can all live together as brothers and sisters or we are doomed to die together as fools in a world holocaust.

Each one of us becomes responsible for the crime of war by cooperating in its preparation and in its execution. This includes the military. This includes the making of weapons. And it includes paying for the weapons. There’s no question about that. We’ve got to realize we all become responsible. Silence, doing nothing, can be one of the greatest sins.

The bombing of Nagasaki means even more to me than the bombing of Hiroshima. By August 9, 1945, we knew what that bomb would do, but we still dropped it. We knew that agonies and sufferings would ensue, and we also knew – at least our leaders knew – that it was not necessary. The Japanese were already defeated. They were already suing for peace. But we insisted on unconditional surrender, and this is even against the Just War theory. Once the enemy is defeated, once the enemy is not able to hurt you, you must make peace.

Militarized Christianity is a lie. It is radically out of conformity with the teaching, life, and spirit of Jesus. As a Catholic chaplain I watched as the Boxcar, piloted by a good Irish Catholic pilot, dropped the bomb on Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki, the center of Catholicism in Japan. I knew that St. Francis Xavier, centuries before, had brought the Catholic faith to Japan. I knew that schools, churches, and religious orders were annihilated. And yet I said nothing. Thank God that I’m able to stand here today and speak out against war, all war. The prophets of the Old Testament spoke out against all false gods of gold, silver, and metal. Today we are worshipping the gods of metal, the bomb. We are putting our trust in physical power, militarism, and nationalism. The bomb, not God, is our security and our strength. The prophets of the Old Testament said simply: Do not put your trust in chariots and weapons, but put your trust in God. Their message was simple, and so is mine.

We must all become prophets. I really mean that. We must all do something for peace. We must stop this insanity of worshipping the gods of metal. We must take a stand against evil and idolatry. This is our destiny at the most critical time of human history. But it’s also the greatest opportunity ever offered to any group of people in the history of our world – to save our world from complete annihilation.

This article was originally published by Bruderhof.com. It is an excerpt of a speech Fr. Zabelka gave at a Pax Christi conference in August 1985.

And now from the perspective of many of the ranking WWII generals and admirals at the time:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/white/white46.html

I sent along to them, too, this introductory statement made on the site, which I agreed with: "Most of the top US brass were against use of the bomb and did not regard it as militarily necessary [See quotes below]. Truman and Byrnes [then Secretary of State] delayed the end of the war and cost American and Asian lives by deliberately refusing to clarify the surrender terms, by deliberately stalling Sino-Soviet talks, by deliberately postponing the Potsdam conference, and by deliberately ignoring the many Japanese peace feelers."

Admiral William D. Leahy. 5-star admiral, president of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff and the combined American-British Chiefs of Staff, and chief of staff to the commander-in-chief of the army and navy from 1942–1945 (Roosevelt) and 1945–1949 (Truman):

"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. . . . My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted the ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."

Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet, quoted by his widow:

". . . I felt that it was an unnecessary loss of civilian life. . . . We had them beaten. They hadn't enough food, they couldn't do anything." And – E. B. Potter, naval historian wrote: "Nimitz considered the atomic bomb somehow indecent, certainly not a legitimate form of warfare."

Admiral William "Bull" Halsey, commander of the Third Fleet:

"The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment. . . . It was a mistake ever to drop it . . . (the scientists) had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it. . . . It killed a lot of Japs, but the Japs had put out a lot of peace feelers through Russia long before."

Rear Admiral Richard Byrd:

"Especially it is good to see the truth told about the last days of the war with Japan. . . . I was with the Fleet during that period; and every officer in the Fleet knew that Japan would eventually capitulate from . . . the tight blockade."

Rear Admiral Lewis L. Strauss, special assistant to the Secretary of the Navy:

"I, too, felt strongly that it was a mistake to drop the atom bombs, especially without warning." [The atomic bomb] "was not necessary to bring the war to a successful conclusion . . . it was clear to a number of people . . . that the war was very nearly over. The Japanese were nearly ready to capitulate . . . it was a sin – to use a good word – [a word that] should be used more often – to kill non-combatants. . . ."

Major General Curtis E. LeMay, US Army Air Forces (at a press conference, September 1945):

"The war would have been over in two weeks without the Russians entering and without the atomic bomb . . . the atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all."

Major General Claire Chennault, founder of the Flying Tigers, and former US Army Air Forces commander in China:

"Russia's entry into the Japanese war was the decisive factor in speeding its end and would have been so even if no atomic bombs had been dropped..."

Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, Commanding General of the US Army Air Forces.

". . . [F]rom the Japanese standpoint the atomic bomb was really a way out. The Japanese position was hopeless even before the first atomic bomb fell. . . ."

Lieutenant General Ira C. Eaker, Arnold's deputy.

"Arnold's view was that it (dropping the atomic bomb) was unnecessary. He said that he knew that the Japanese wanted peace. There were political implications in the decision and Arnold did not feel it was the military's job to question it. . . . I knew nobody in the high echelons of the Army Air Force who had any question about having to invade Japan."

Arnold, quoted by Eaker:

"When the question comes up of whether we use the atomic bomb or not, my view is that the Air Force will not oppose the use of the bomb, and they will deliver it effectively if the Commander in Chief decides to use it. But it is not necessary to use it in order to conquer the Japanese without the necessity of a land invasion."

General George C. Kenney, commander of Army Air Force units in the Southwest Pacific, when asked whether using the atomic bomb had been a wise decision.

"No! I think we had the Japs licked anyhow. I think they would have quit probably within a week or so of when they did quit."

W. Averill Harriman, in private notes after a dinner with General Carl "Tooey" Spaatz (commander in July 1945 of the Pacific-based US Army Strategic Air Forces), and Spaatz's one-time deputy commanding general in Europe, Frederick L. Anderson:

"...Both felt Japan would surrender without use of the bomb, and neither knew why a second bomb was used."

General Dwight D. Eisenhower:

"I voiced to him [Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson] my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was at that very moment seeking some way to surrender with a minimum of loss of 'face'. . . . It wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing."

former President Herbert Hoover:

"I told MacArthur of my memorandum of mid-May 1945 to Truman, that peace could be had with Japan by which our major objectives would be accomplished. MacArthur said that was correct and that we would have avoided all of the losses, the Atomic bomb, and the entry of Russia into Manchuria."

Richard M. Nixon:

"MacArthur once spoke to me very eloquently about it. . . . He thought it a tragedy that the Bomb was ever exploded. MacArthur believed that the same restrictions ought to apply to atomic weapons as to conventional weapons, that the military objective should always be to limit damage to noncombatants. . . . MacArthur, you see, was a soldier. He believed in using force only against military targets, and that is why the nuclear thing turned him off, which I think speaks well of him

When the top brass in the military is claiming such acts have no military purpose it likely means something is dreadfully wrong...

 

[Quackers]

Are you under the impression there is some evidence?



Write a plausible scenario for me where Iran drops nuclear weapons on London.

Iran gets nuclear weapons + rocket capability have a global reach. The ayatallah tells Admidinjead to nuke the infidels. He nukes London. There you go.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Iran gets nuclear weapons + rocket capability have a global reach. The ayatallah tells Admidinjead to nuke the infidels. He nukes London. There you go.

You missed a word in RRW's question.

"Write a plausible scenario for me where Iran drops nuclear weapons on London."

 

[Fuzzz]

what your forgiting is that iranians is terrorist muslin arabs who can not think rationaly and who only live to destroy america and freedom and fuzzy bunnies .

I hope you were drunk or stoned when you wrote this 'cus your arguments are senseless.

 

[Quackers]

You missed a word in RRW's question.

"Write a plausible scenario for me where Iran drops nuclear weapons on London."

Well Iran's intent is to make nuclear weapons and to fit them on warheads to have the capability to hit any nation they please - anything else is wishful thinking judging by the hidden enrichment plants and Iran's continuous rebuff of outside help to make domestic nuclear energy.

The leader of Iran is a theocratic Muslim dictator, part of a extreme Islamist identity. Do you think that with Nuclear weapons at his disposal he would not use them? To obliterate the infidel and the hated Jew would get him a great place in heaven, 72 virgins? He'll get infinite virgins. His name would go down in Muslim history as a hero like Muhammed, who annihilated the infidels.

 

[Winner]

Plausible scenarios involving an Iranian WMD attack against the West can surely be construed.

But let's not forget which country is the really really threatened one.

 

[RedRalph]

December or January, if we are to trust the French press.

you dont post stuff liuke that without giving a link or at least details

Iran gets nuclear weapons + rocket capability have a global reach. The ayatallah tells Admidinjead to nuke the infidels. He nukes London. There you go.

snigger

You missed a word in RRW's question.

"Write a plausible scenario for me where Iran drops nuclear weapons on London."

ayethangyew

Well Iran's intent is to make nuclear weapons and to fit them on warheads to have the capability to hit any nation they please - anything else is wishful thinking judging by the hidden enrichment plants and Iran's continuous rebuff of outside help to make domestic nuclear energy.

The leader of Iran is a theocratic Muslim dictator, part of a extreme Islamist identity. Do you think that with Nuclear weapons at his disposal he would not use them? To obliterate the infidel and the hated Jew would get him a great place in heaven, 72 virgins? He'll get infinite virgins. His name would go down in Muslim history as a hero like Muhammed, who annihilated the infidels.

you have no understanding whatsoever of Iran, Britain, international relations or nuclear weapons.

 

[Quackers]

If your so smug to bash my foreign policy analysis why don't you present your own? What is going on with Iran and the West?

 

[Winner]

you dont post stuff liuke that without giving a link or at least details

I've mentioned it before, won't look for the link again. Learn to use Google.

 

[RedRalph]

If your so smug to bash my foreign policy analysis why don't you present your own? What is going on with Iran and the West?

There was no analysis whatsoever in that post. Simply put, the Iranian government is not interested in having the US, UK, France and in all likelyhood Russia and China nuking it to glass, thus the idea that they would initiate a nuclear attack on the UK is laughable. It's just not going to happen.

I've mentioned it before, won't look for the link again. Learn to use Google.

Temper temper Victor. It was a pretty simple polite request.

 

[Formaldehyde]

If your so smug to bash my foreign policy analysis why don't you present your own? What is going on with Iran and the West?

You mean besides the obvious reactionary fearmongering?


Link to video.

 

[Eretz Yisrael]

Well Iran's intent is to make nuclear weapons and to fit them on warheads to have the capability to hit any nation they please - anything else is wishful thinking judging by the hidden enrichment plants and Iran's continuous rebuff of outside help to make domestic nuclear energy.

The leader of Iran is a theocratic Muslim dictator, part of a extreme Islamist identity. Do you think that with Nuclear weapons at his disposal he would not use them? To obliterate the infidel and the hated Jew would get him a great place in heaven, 72 virgins? He'll get infinite virgins. His name would go down in Muslim history as a hero like Muhammed, who annihilated the infidels.

Not really; Ayatollah Khamenei, back during Khomeini's reign, tried to covince the leader to stop the Iran-Iraq War and accept a truce, Khomeini didnt listen, resulting in 6 more years of meatgrinding trench warfare that should have ended in 1982.

Khamenei is at best a theologically conservative Shia who believes in the advantages of a theocratic government as opposed to a democratic goverment for the Iranian people; definitely not the fanatical leader you portray him to be. Maybe Khomeini was (the man seriously wanted to dominate the ME), but not Khamenei.

And the Houri isnt some sexual fantasy like you portrayed above, rather more of a mystical description of paradise. Its not like Muslims become matyrs just to have orgies with 72 virgins.