DallasBear9902 said:EatMoreSalmon said:DallasBear9902 said:EatMoreSalmon said:DallasBear9902 said:EatMoreSalmon said:DallasBear9902 said:Tempus Edax Rerum said:DallasBear9902 said:Mothra said:DallasBear9902 said:Mothra said:DallasBear9902 said:Mothra said:DallasBear9902 said:Mothra said:DallasBear9902 said:Mothra said:
If you want to see a masterclass in completely dismantling another person's positions and arguments, watch bowtie's "interview" of Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg. And don't be fooled by the title. It's spin designed at obscuring the total ass-kicking Tucker took at the hands of Rees-Mogg. It was incredible.
Ummm, do you still think we can control Iran and its nuclear ambitions without boots on the ground?
I humbly suggest your worldview should've recalibrated over the past year.
Ummm, what does that have to do with the interview? That answer for those who watched it is: nothing.
Their conversation instead focused on World War II revisionism, Winston Churchill, Russia, and British politics. Iran wasn't discussed.
Odd question. Really odd. I humbly suggest you watch the video that is the subject of the thread before commenting. That way you won't look foolish for bringing up inane and irrelevant points.
You are judging that Carlson was owned based on your worldview. Within that paradigm, your views make sense. I understand your views, simplified, as some sort of Boomer interventionism.
Carlson's views, simplified, in their essence are for nonintervention.
Given you were so adamant on these pages that (a) we could control Iran's nuclear ambitions without boots on the ground, (b) our total failure to do so after implementing your preferred military strategy, and (c) Democrats are about to win races that it would have been unthinkable for them to win at the beginning of this year in large part due to what the Iran conflict has done to oil prices and diesel, in particular…
Perhaps you have reconsidered your worldview about interventionism around the world.
That you think this Brit dude owned Carlson tells us you haven't reconsidered your views and that you seem to still academically not understand what Carlson is saying (even if you disagree with Carlson).
LOL. This is quite a retreat.
I posted about Tucker Carlson's interview with Jacob Rees-Mogg and said Rees-Mogg dismantled him. You responded by asking me about Iran, a subject that wasn't even discussed in the interview, as I pointed out.
And your response is to write several more paragraphs about Iran? LOL. That's called changing the subject and attacking a straw man.
If I've actually said that air strikes can permanently prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, quote me saying it. Otherwise stop inventing arguments for me because they're easier to attack than the one I actually made.
Now, back to Tucker.
Tucker confidently told Rees-Mogg that Russia has a "much larger economy" than Britain. Rees-Mogg corrected him. The IMF has Britain at about $4.26 trillion and Russia at $2.66 trillion in projected 2026 nominal GDP. Tucker was wrong.
Rees-Mogg cited Russian hostile activity in Britain, including Salisbury. The OPCW independently confirmed Britain's identification of the nerve agent, and Britain subsequently conducted an independent public inquiry into the Novichok death.
Tucker then asked why Britain fought World War II, minimized Hitler's invasion of Poland as essentially a territorial dispute arising from Versailles, questioned whether defeating Nazi Germany benefited Britain, and answered "Who cares?" when confronted with German domination as the alternative. Rees-Mogg finally told him he was "verging on defending Hitler."
That's why I said Tucker got owned. Because I actually watched the interview. It was brutal. Apparently, you didn't even watch the interview and ignorantly believe it's about Iran.
You are free to disagree. But try to stick to the subject. Defend Tucker's statements in the interview. Telling me what you imagine my position is on Iran, diesel prices, Democrats and "interventionism" doesn't rehabilitate a single thing he said.
So let's try this again:
What specifically did I say about the Carlson/Rees-Mogg interview that was wrong?
I'll wait.
A lot of words to avoid answering a simple question: Do you still believe we can control Iran's nuclear ambitions without boots on the ground?
Hint: you don't need to understand the relevance or coherence of this rather simple question to answer it. You clearly know that your understanding of relevance is not a prerequisite to answering the question when discussing ideas.
To get to your specifics.
Yes, Carlson looked bad on some facts, but SRM looked bad in his own ways. TC's fundamental issue goes unanswered: the British empire crumbled after the world wars, and despite some decent ups (Thatcher and Blair and others), it has mostly been a down trend line for the British standard of living post-WWII. Most recently demonstrated by how their politics have been absolutely paralyzed for about a decade driven by the simple fact that GILT investors (foreigners!) constrain what their government can do.
So what exactly did the British people gain for sacrificing tens of thousands of their young sons? TC is essentially correct that they are not a sovereign in any meaningful sense: they cannot defend themselves and instead rely on the presence of American troops on their land to deter aggression from others. This is a fair and salient point. SRM completely avoids responding to it other than to say they'd otherwise be speaking German right now.
TC backed SRM into explicitly defending the killing of women and innocent children at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, SRM even went so far as to claim that the atomic bombings fall within the parameters of Just War Theory . A view widely rejected by the overwhelming vast majority of ethicists and the same Catholic Church out which Just War Theory came out of (Sidenote, I am not condemning dropping the atomic weapons, I would justify it as realpolitik, but only a maniac would make the argument that SRM made regarding women and innocent children in Japan being legitimate military targets. Really shows a lack of respect for life by SRM).
SRM doesn't actually address TCs points, instead resorting to accusing TC of being a nazi-sympathizer. (Sidenote, I get the difficulty in actually discerning what could have otherwise happened in history).
Anyways, if you actually listen to the ideas and worldview that TC and SRM are actually getting at, they go something like this:
TC: entanglement in foreign wars is bad and a nation's young sons and daughters should not be sent off to fight except for the strictest of standards that meet a direct benefit to the people of the country.
SRM: foreign entanglement may be necessary, including for the direct benefit of other nation states as it may prevent our need to fight that enemy at a later date. Our sons and daughters may need to die under this construct.
Here is the rub, the historical evidence is really complicated on the core points both of them are making:
Presumably we agree that:
The following foreign entanglements were unnecessary for the direct benefit of the American people and that Americans needlessly died there:
WWI
Vietnam
Iraq II (as part of the GWOT)
We presumably agree that the following entanglements directly benefitted the USA:
European theater of WWII
Iraq I
Reasonable people can disagree on the following foreign entanglements (for me at least):
Arming of the mujahadeen in Afghanistan (led to the Taliban)
Korea (though I really lean to the unnecessary side of the ledger on this one).
Afghanistan (at least to the extent we were there for nearly 20 years and engaged and tried to nation build).
Looking at that list, I don't think a reasonable person could say that either TC or SRM are absolutely correct here and own the other side. For the good of fighting WWII there is the waste of human life in WWI and Vietnam.
Question number 2 for you: do you actually believe that the women and innocent children of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were legitimate military targets under Just War Theory as SRM asserts. I concede you may not understand the relevance of this question, but please humor me. I'm trying to understand where you are coming from.
LOL. This is getting ridiculous.
I started a thread about Tucker Carlson's interview with Jacob Rees-Mogg and said Tucker got his ass kicked.
You responded by asking me about Iran.
I pointed out that Iran had absolutely nothing to do with the interview.
Your response was to ask me about Iran again.
And now, after complaining about my "lot of words," you've written a small dissertation on Iran, WWI, Vietnam, Iraq I, Iraq II, Afghanistan, Korea, the Mujahideen, American interventionism, oil prices, Just War Theory, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I guess the irony of your response is lost on you.
I have an idea. Start your own thread.
Seriously. If you want to debate Iran or American interventionism, start a thread about it. I'll happily participate.
But none of that changes what happened in the interview I actually posted.
And after all these words, you finally concede my point:Quote:
"Yes, Carlson looked bad on some facts."
There we go. That wasn't so hard.
I'll get to the rest of your drivel later.
Are you being obtuse? Do you really not see what these two are really arguing about? Can you not generalize coherent theories or principles from specifics?
The fundamental issues they are grappling with are:
When is it appropriate for the state to call upon its young to risk life and limb? What causes are worthy of that sacrifice? And to a lesser extent, they are debating whether increasing the risk of war is appropriate if there is a chance that the risk will ultimately prevent war.
I'm convinced you haven't watched the interview because you can't possibly be missing the points they are making.
So, let me spell it out for you:
Do you believe that SRM is putting on a "masterclass in dismantling [TCs] positions and arguments" when SRM argues to TC that the women and innocent children of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were legitimate military targets under Just War Theory? Did you catch that part of the interview?
Now you're just making stuff up. Rees-Mogg did not say women and innocent children were "legitimate military targets." Those words never came out of his mouth. Those are your words, not his.
What Rees-Mogg argued was that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were justified under Just War principles. Bowtie pressed him about the innocent civilians killed, including children, and Rees-Mogg continued to defend the bombings. Yet, like the intellectually-dishonest clown you are, you have converted a legitimate and reasonable argument that "the bombing was justified despite civilian deaths" into "women and innocent children were legitimate military targets." Those are very different propositions.
And spare me the "you must not have watched the interview" bull***** I've discussed what they actually said. You're the poster who keeps trying to turn it into something else.
First it was Iran, which wasn't discussed. Then it became my supposed "worldview." Now you're pretending the entire interview was really a philosophical seminar about when governments may send young people to war.
It wasn't for any intellectually honest person who watched.
They argued about Russia, Ukraine, NATO, Salisbury, Britain's defenses, WWII, Hitler, Poland, Hiroshima, and British politics. And on numerous factual and historical points, Tucker got corrected. A bunch. You've already admitted that yourself when you conceded that Tucker "looked bad on some facts." Indeed, we are in agreement.
That's what I called a dismantling.
But for the fourth time, if you want to defend Bowtie's performance in this interview, then defend it.
So far, you've done everything but that.
It is clear you haven't watched it for actual information or with an open mind. Someone told you TC got owned or whatever and you've watched it only to affirm your preconception. My paraphrase of SMR was done in charity because what he said was actually much worse and I believe he would walk it back if given the time to reflect on what he said. Here you go:
TUCKER CARLSON (00:29:03 00:29:08): We also killed tens of thousands of children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And you're saying that's okay?
SIR JACOB REES-MOGG (00:29:08 00:29:12): I think it was justified. I think the use of nuclear weapons at the end of the Second World War
TUCKER CARLSON (00:29:12 00:29:18): So what you're saying as a Christian is, yes, it is okay to kill children who did nothing wrong.
SIR JACOB REES-MOGG (00:29:18 00:29:19): It was a proportionate response.
TUCKER CARLSON (00:29:19 00:29:21): Do you feel that that is a Christian position?
SIR JACOB REES-MOGG (00:29:21 00:29:24): Yes. I think it meets Aquinas's conditions of a just war.
The killing of women and innocent children in H and N was NOT collateral damage, but rather deliberate targeting. This was not the bombing of some arms factory or military base and some kids playing outside got caught in the damage. There is simply no legitimate worldview in which that act can be characterized as consistent with Christian ethics. I simply do not believe that Jesus would ever sign off on the deliberate, targeted killing AT SCALE of women and innocent children in war, even within the context of ending WWII. If you believe that is consistent with Christianity, by all means, please tell all of us.
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I honestly don't know how you could have sat through the entire hour of their conversation and not realized the principles they were discussing. If it really went over your head, or if you really allowed the specifics of what they were discussing to distract you from the real points they were making, then you just aren't good at this. You just aren't. If you want to really simplify it, the principle was intervention v. isolationism. TC takes a practical approach and sort of reverse engineers to his principle: from TC's position, given that he as a matter of (justifiable) opinion believes that the British people have been worse off since the great world wars, he comes to the conclusion that interventionism is for the worse. SRM comes at it differently in which he imagines the worst alternative case possible scenario (or at least one worse than what actually happened) and then stakes out the position that intervention was clearly for the best, no matter the ultimate costs. We know from examples of history that they are both right ... and both wrong.
Like seriously, if you really missed this, don't take my word for it. I encourage you to take the transcript of the interview, feed it into your preferred AI, with a simple prompt asking for a summary of the themes and principles discussed in the interview and I guarantee you that the AI will conclude something like isolationism v interventionism, classical liberalism/security conservative v strong isolationist. You'll get bonus points for integrity when you report back that I am right.
You probably also didn't notice that they aren't all that far apart from each other, especially after SRM went to great pains at the end to elaborate on his positions of deterrence through muscular posturing. They are on the same end of the ideological spectrum, they just disagree on how to achieve peace and security. To put this in terms you can understand, one is a Bush 41 Republican and the other is a Pat Buchanan Republican. Sure, there are differences, but they reside in the same zip code.
Given that you missed the point of their conversation (perhaps TC Derangement Syndrome overwhelmed you?), I understand how you would miss that the clear modern day analogue to what they are discussing is Iran and what the west should do there.
Regardless, even if you disagree with everything I have said, this really is an easy and simple question for you to answer. Given what has happened this year, do you still believe that we can contain Iran's nuclear ambitions without putting boots on the ground?
I'm glad we dropped the bomb. Saved a ton of lives, both American and Japanese. To suggest otherwise shows a complete lack of understanding who we were fighting.
Who has suggested that the bombs didn't end the war or save lives?
That is a different argument from suggesting that deliberate targeting of women and children is justified under Christian ethics or Just War Theory. Note, I'm not suggesting your position is invalid or immoral (essentially you are making a tribal argument). I think your position is a defensible position to take.
But do you think Jesus would say it was a good thing that women and children were deliberately killed at scale in order to preserve American troops? Do you really think it was proportionate to what Japan had done?
It is a real fallacy to suggest that the bombs only saved the lives of American troops. The battle at Okinawa was a prelude to an invasion of the Japanese mainland. The high cost to the civilian population there - they were taught a lot of poor propaganda about the US troops, and were told by Japanese authorities they were part of the island defense - was one of the driving factors to drop the bombs. The estimates of civilian casualties in an invasion of Kyushu island was harrowing and made the estimated numbers from the bombs look like the preferred of two terrible options to end the war.
https://www.dhj.davidsonlocal.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Caught-in-the-Crossfire.pdf
Yeah, I don't dispute this analysis insofar as it goes. But it sort of assumes its own correctness.
I note that the analysis is correct only if the goal is the total and compete surrender of imperial Japan. Perhaps a worthy goal. I mean that sincerely, though it may come across as flippant in this format.
By the time we used atomic weapons, Japan had no industrial capacity. They could barely feed themselves. They posed no threat to the USA. A blockade of mainland Japan could have driven a surrender. Destruction of what little remaining industrial capacity and infrastructure existed were also an option.
I prefer not to second guess the decisions made at that time, or perhaps I grant a wide berth on the issue. I care insomuch as it should never happen again.
That said, to suggest the women and children of H and N were merely collateral damage or to flat out state that use of those weapons that killed tens of thousands of civilian women and innocent children was proportionate and consistent with Christian ethics is lunacy.
Is anybody in these boards willing to explicitly defend SRM's position here? Does anybody here really believe Christ would look at that situation and context and be fine with it?
What do you believe Christ would have had the US do in response to Pearl Harbor and Nanking? Not to mention in response to the terrible treatment of the people of the rest of China, Manchuria, Indochina, Burma, Indonesia (Dutch East Indies), Singapore, and the Philippines? Plus the treatment of POWs including Americans?
And an "I don't know but He wouldn't..." type of answer is not acceptable. What do you think would have been the right things to do?
You're throwing a lot of events into the discussion, so for brevity's sake I'll focus on Pearl Harbor and Nanking (two drastically different events).
Pearl Harbor - I think Christ, a committed pacifist, would understand the need for use of defensive weapons and attacks on Japanese military and military adjacent targets. I don't know that he would explicitly endorse it or be happy about it.
Nanking - perhaps singularly the worst atrocity in the past 126 years. Given who was being attacked and the debased behavior of Japanese forces I think Christ would support doing whatever necessary to stop the offending forces at Nanking in order to stop the attacks on civilians and especially children (babies). I don't believe Christ would judge harshly wiping out the Japanese forces at Nanking.
But if you're suggesting that Christ would approve dropping dropping the bombs on civilian women and innocent children at H and N to get things like Nanking to stop, I can't get there with you. That is, in some sense collective guilt, and antithetical to Christian values. Not to mention that by the time we get to H & N those things had stopped.
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Edit to add:
I guess what I'm really getting at is that I think people and nations have agency every step along the way.
I don't see Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor as granting the USA automated justification all the way through to the unconditional surrender of imperial Japan. I think we judge acts and choices based on the moment they are made within the specific context of those operations. Japan in August of 1945 poses different threats and risks from Japan in December of 1941. We still had free will and agency for the choices we made.
This stuff is also incredibly hard to tease out. We know the allied powers were already thinking strategically about how to carve up the world before WWII ended. Is the unconditional surrender of Japan absolutely necessary in a vacuum? I think not. Does it come in really handy if you're thinking about positioning military bases in Japan to contain communism? Yes, or course.
The problem with arguments such as yours is that they require something of a vacuum to validate themselves. Lots of moving parts led to unconditional surrender. The major reason for the Allies pushing for unconditional surrender against the Axis was the failure of the peace after the war to end all wars. They determined by experience that accepting a peace with a regime that precipitated war** would just lead to a rebuilding for another attempt. The devastation wrought by WW2 so close to WW1 seems to validate that. The progression of discovery of Japanese atrocities as the Allies advanced into Japanese controlled areas, plus the open policy of placing civilians in harm's way as a policy was another factor for unconditional surrender. Leaving a population under such a regime would be a recipe for greater suffering in the long term.
It can be argued that the US and allies were somewhat flexible on unconditional surrender as Hirohito was retained as a figurehead emperor by Japan's request. It is not like the Allies were not negotiating at all. Japanese leaders could not decide what to do.***
There are times when a terrible decision is put before us that has no good answers. I cannot fault the decision to drop the bombs looking at the terrible alternatives.
**(arguments can be made about what precipitated WW1, though German diplomatic moves, blunders, and later treaty with Russia led to it spreading from a regional conflict to one of control of Continental Europe and territorial gain.)
*** https://www.pacificwarmuseum.org/learn/articles/jewel-voice
"The Declaration laid out the terms under which Japan would surrender, but these were terms decided by the Allies, not determined by the Japanese. Japan's leaders still saw this as unacceptable. Rather than reject the declaration outright, Prime Minister Suzuki announced to the people that Japan's stance was mokusatsu, meaning "to kill with silence." The Japanese saw the Declaration as proof that the resolve of the American people was weakening, and all they had to do was persevere until the Allies had no more fight left and sued for peace. Instead, Suzuki's words were taken by the Allies as a rejection of the Potsdam Declaration, and the Americans made their next move; unleashing the "prompt and utter destruction" they had promised."
So we are both sort of talking about two parallel things here.
First, I don't disagree with anything you have said. I only point out that Japan has never domestically produced coking coal or oil. I'm not sure how a Japan with no steel or diesel and no military or commercial fleet with which to import those rebuilds. I am not saying that blockade is *the* answer. Only that there clearly were viable alternatives.
We agree that these hypotheticals are hard to prove because of the quantity of variables involved. But hopefully you can acknowledge that for every decent motive to get Japan to unconditionally surrender to the USA there were also less than noble motives (e.g., we know the soviets were mobilizing toward Japan and we were also racing against the Soviets for that surrender).
Second, that is separate and apart from the idea that at that moment in time under those circumstances, targeting and killing civilian women and innocent children at scale was consistent with a Christian ethic.
I understand the American need to make sure Japan satisfied its debt. I understand the math on trading the lives of those children for the survival of our young men's lives. I understand the realpolitik of the moment. I understand leaders are sometimes faced with nearly impossible decisions to make. But we face hard decisions and say things like "May God forgive our sins." I hope we mean it.
SRM is saying there is nothing to ask forgiveness for and killing those children was completely consistent with the Christian faith. I think that's insane.
You cannot duck the terrible loss of civilian life from an invasion or a blockade for that matter. You are advocating for the option of a forever war with a blockade. The Japanese civilians would suffer the most from that. The death toll from either in civilian lives dwarfs any bomb on an industrial city. Starvation is a terrible option. And without oil and steel, Japan could not have fed its people. It couldn't have traded enough goods for food it couldn't grow. The people would have for the foreseeable future hated us for their suffering with radicals longing for vengeance. That is a recipe for a Japanese Hitler with the political foment that would have followed - like the Germans after WW2.
And allowing even more millions of people to go under the thumb of the USSR would not have been a very Christian thing to do either.
A war is fought on the terms of the chosen battlefields. How would you work against an adversary who choses to use civilians for defense? You know that there will be more civilian casualties in a military operation than you want your forces and the common people of the enemy to endure. Unless you believe Christ would expect you to be an absolute pacifist because war does not offer clean and clear battle by combatants only, then how could you possibly believe that choosing the lesser civilian deaths option was more wrong?
War is absolutely terrible. That is why it should be the last option against any adversary. But when it is executed, it should be as fast and targeted as possible to lessen the destruction of life. By its very nature, it will never be deathless, which, again, is why it really sucks.
