US has Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Weapons! (and has used them all!)

[Bonobo]

And has shown they are willing to use them pre-emptively...

Also our elected representatives have lost their grip on even the one-third of the reins of power...

AND our military spending is larger than the rest of the world COMBINED.

So how are we NOT the scariest, most-dangerous nation on Earth? Someone remind me... please?

[Eric J in MN]

1. The Bush Administration also wants to build new nuclear weapons.

The hypocrisy level was a bit less when the US supported worldwide nuclear non-proliferation, and was letting our nuclear stockpile age.

In 2004, John Kerry said we can't tell the rest of the world that they can't build nuclear weapons as we're making more.

[Bonobo]

2. We were the only ones to ever drop a nuke. I wouldn't trust us. Would you?

Not a great track record.

[PDJane]

3. No. I don't trust you.

I especially don't trust the full spectrum dominance crowd.

Moreover, you're the only nation in the world who is using nukes at this moment........along with land mines and flechettes/cluster bombs. It is time for the US to be put under the embargoes and financial restructuring that you impose on the rest of the world.

I have been involved in trying to spread the word that the current non-military punishments are collective punishments against a civilian population, and are, therefore, illegal. The current trade embargoes against Iran were pushed through by the US under various dire threats to the nations that would have supported Iran....and there enough black ops going around that one cannot trust one damn word out of the middle east at the moment.

It's like watching a train wreck.

[Bonobo]

4. We need to be liberated.

America is a country gone mad. Only the interests of multi-national corporations and a tiny, select elite run this country.

The rest is a dog and pony show designed to make us feel that we are in a democracy.

If US Citizens really knew how shitty they are being treated compared to other industrialized nations, the ridiculous notion that we are "the greatest nation" would be shown for the lie it is.

And as for how we treat the rest of the world, no further comment is needed.

We need to be liberated.

Thanks for the righteously pissed off post. We need more anger. Lots, lots more.

[DivinBreuvage]

5. Bonobo, you have to be careful with your rhetoric

I understand the point you're trying to make and don't entirely disagree with you, but you have to be smart about the way you argue.

To get your nuclear war example you have to go back 62 years. The Germans, Japanese, and Soviets were all behaving much more monstrously than the United States at that time. If we meet on your playing field I could argue that the US wasn't starving millions of people and working millions more to death like the Soviets did, or using gas chambers and death camps like the Germans did, or doing all the sickening things with torture and mass murder that the Japanese were doing in China or Korea in those days. You weaken your case when you start dragging in the actions of generations who have long since been dead.

On edit, if you want to play that game, just about every nation on the planet comes off looking worse than the US, since we become exempt from everything after you go back a little past 200 years. Compare our crimes with those of Italy, for example, or Iraq. Remember Tiberius and Hammurabi?

By the way, when has the US used biological weapons?

[Bonobo]

6. I hear what you're saying but I'm trying to balance complacency...

>To get your nuclear war example you have to go back 62 years. The Germans, Japanese, and Soviets were all behaving much more monstrously than the United States at that time. If we meet on your playing field I could argue that the US wasn't starving millions of people and working millions more to death like the Soviets did, or using gas chambers and death camps like the Germans did, or doing all the sickening things with torture and mass murder that the Japanese were doing in China or Korea in those days. You weaken your case when you start dragging in the actions of generations who have long since been dead.

First of all, I don' think I weaken any case by pointing out that we used nuclear weapons. We did, and 62 years is not ancient history. We have demonstrated that we are ready to make preemptive strikes and have not ruled out nukes which we continue to make and improve. In fact, we have specifically made it a point to create nukes that we claim are small enough and specific enough (bunker busters) to use in a strategic way.

<On edit, if you want to play that game, just about every nation on the planet comes off looking worse than the US, since we become exempt from everything after you go back a little past 200 years. Compare our crimes with those of Italy, for example, or Iraq. Remember Tiberius and Hammurabi?

It's not a game. It's an issue of how we are viewed by the rest of the world. And if your bring up Tiberius and Hammurabi, I think it is you are playing a game. And a disingenuous one at that.

By the way, when has the US used biological weapons?

WIKIPEDIA: "China and North Korea, who accused the United States of large-scale field testing of biological weapons, including the use of disease-carrying insects<3>, against them during the Korean War (1950-1953). Their accusation is substantiated by Stephen Endicott and Edward Hagerman in 'The United States and Biological Warfare: secrets of the early Cold War and Korea' (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1998)."

ALSO: http://www.kimsoft.com/2000/mbc.htm

ALSO: Gen. Amherst against Native Americans with blankets infected with disease (More games, if you wanna call it that)

[DivinBreuvage]

7. Congratulations for being one of the few DUers to realize

that 62 years is not ancient history. But I don't think any intelligent person in the US or elsewhere who is not being disingenuous or paranoid looks seriously at the decisions of the Truman administration as any kind of indicator of contemporary American policy. In fact your argument is sadly ironic, since our continued refinement of nuclear weapons which you so deplore is urged in part by old cold warriors who point to what the Soviets were doing 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 years ago and conclude that the Russians are still aggressive and expansionist and that we still have to be ready for whatever dirty tricks they're liable to pull in pursuit of their avowed intention to bury us (which by the way was made well after we had dropped the bomb).

> It's not a game. It's an issue of how we are viewed by the rest of the world.

And yet I suspect it's a game for you too. If you're being candid with yourself I doubt you truly believe that you've uttered some startling new idea that hasn't already been expressed a hundred million times. I doubt you seriously believe you're going to change anything with your posts here, preaching to the choir in the DU echo chamber. So why did you bother to post this at all? To make yourself feel good? (I realize you can turn this question back at me too, and I'll answer it candidly: the reason I posted is because I'm a cranky old miserable bitch, and I read your post and it just happened to rub me the wrong way, even though I understand what you're trying to say and essentially agree with you).

But I would like to know, in all seriousness, how far back you think it is appropriate to draw the line when judging nations. Do we stop at the US dropping the bomb? Can we go back to the Great Depression? The Roaring Twenties? World War I? The French Revolution? I am not being flippant. When do you think we get far enough back into the past that a nation ceases to be liable for the sins of its government?

Thank you for the information on the biological weapons during the Korean war. I was not aware of it and I will investigate it further. Again, though, the example is almost 60 years old.

And, shame on you -- Amherst was a British officer operating during the Seven Years' War. The United States didn't even exist when he pulled that stunt.

[Bonobo]

8. Hee hee, you got me and I loved your post!

"Cranky old bitch" indeed! Ha!

>And yet I suspect it's a game for you too. If you're being candid with yourself I doubt you truly believe that you've uttered some startling new idea that hasn't already been expressed a hundred million times. I doubt you seriously believe you're going to change anything with your posts here, preaching to the choir in the DU echo chamber. So why did you bother to post this at all? To make yourself feel good? (I realize you can turn this question back at me too, and I'll answer it candidly: the reason I posted is because I'm a cranky old miserable bitch, and I read your post and it just happened to rub me the wrong way, even though I understand what you're trying to say and essentially agree with you).

Your post brings up so many issues I don't know where to start! Echo Chamber? Yes, indeed! Game for me? I plead guilty! Why did I post? Cause I need a break in between working my fingers to the bone! Boy, you ARE cantankerous!

>But I would like to know, in all seriousness, how far back you think it is appropriate to draw the line when judging nations. Do we stop at the US dropping the bomb? Can we go back to the Great Depression? The Roaring Twenties? World War I? The French Revolution? I am not being flippant. When do you think we get far enough back into the past that a nation ceases to be liable for the sins of its government?

My honest answer is that it is case by case. If you can draw a straight line between our foreign policy for the last 60 years since the end of WW2 (and I think in many ways you can), then I think it is fair game to bring it up. But when history is stopped and a society takes such a radical swing in a different direction, then I think it is not fair. For example, Germany and Japan lost the war and I think in most ways have shifted so dramatically in the other direction, that it is no longer fair to blame them for their WW2 sins. Perhaps losers, if they make reparations and are forced to examine their own guilt are the only ones that deserve to be exhonerated? What do YOU think?

As for Amherst... Well, it was off the top of my head and I plead forgiveness.

[DivinBreuvage]

9. You are one of the classiest people I've ever come across

And I'm embarrassed at acting like such a hag! Each one of your responses to me has been more thoughtful than the one before. I genuinely admire your ability to argue your point calmly and effectively while refusing to be baited. Clearly you have a strength of character which I lack!

Your answer on where to draw the historical line in judging nations is probably the most intelligent and articulate explanation of that question it is possible to give. I agree with you 100%, although I could never have expressed myself so well.

And now, that being said, I have to crawl back into my cave and get back to gnawing on the bitterness of my own soul :)

[Bonobo]

10. If you're a cave-dwelling hag, may the world become filled with them!

[bananarepublican]

12. Why not start with the near complete genocide of Native Americans?

If one is to believe the right-wing-freak-show (currently running the country) America has never done anything wrong. The kool-aid has been in the water supply for a heck of a long time.

[The Straight Story]

11. does how the rest of the world view us really mean a lot (in some ways)?

"It's an issue of how we are viewed by the rest of the world."

If their view is skewed by false history (or biased as it were) I don't see how it matters much what we do.

We DID use nukes in WW2 - and many could argue that was best for things. We did NOT use them in Korea or Vietnam or Iraq, which shows restraint (and compared to others in the world, I trust us with them more than others).

WIKIPEDIA: "China and North Korea, who accused the United States of large-scale field testing of biological weapons, including the use of disease-carrying insects<3>, against them during the Korean War (1950-1953). Their accusation is substantiated by Stephen Endicott and Edward Hagerman in 'The United States and Biological Warfare: secrets of the early Cold War and Korea' (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1998)."

Does this prove we did, or that countries that don't really like us want others to believe we did? Who we gonna believe? I don't put a lot of stock into what China or NK say. Or WikiPedia :)

[leftchick]

13. because americans believe that America is "good"

and that if America uses those weapons it is only for "good" reasons. It is hard to reason with people who believe the 'America is the greatest nation on earth' crap.