Heroes = successful traitors/traitors on the winning side.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gawain of Orkeny
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Heroes = successful traitors/traitors on the winning side.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gawain of Orkeny
Uh, I suppose you mean people who've betrayed the losing side?Quote:
Heroes = successful traitors/traitors on the winning side.
The moment that you're betraying your government/country it's irrelevant wether it's right or wrong, since you'll be imprisoned or executed regardless if you're caught. History makes its own judgements though, wich is why we honour those who went against the Nazis but look down upon those who voluntarily aided the Soviet Union.
Since you seem to imply that treason is always good, regardless of the government targeted, I wonder: do you consider yourself an anarchist?
Well, I meant traitors belonging to the winning side, ie. betraying the losing side...Quote:
Originally Posted by Kralizec
And no, I don't consider myself an anarchist. I'm a pretty hard socialist, although I guess I sympathize with anarchists. I feel we need some order, but only some.
BTW, I never said that treason was always a good thing.
This...
...doesn't make any distinction between governments, or between the different motives that traitors have.Quote:
I support anyone who betrays their government.
Do you sympathize with the Rosenbergs, who betrayed the USA with the intention of helping the Soviet Union?
Hell there were so many spies. Some great British ones to be precise. Sides it's not like the Russians wouldn't have made bombs if the Rosenbergs weren't spies.
But it doesn't state it as either good or bad.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kralizec
Yup. And history hasn't shown it to be a bad move either, if anything, they should be proclaimed heroes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kralizec
I think you enjoyed quoting my sentence more than I liked typing it. :clown:Quote:
Originally Posted by Proletariat
Prol hit the nail on the head though. It's very difficult to take exception to the nations that the US helped to develop their own bomb during the Cold War. All of them demonstrated a decidedly defensive posture in the post-WW2 era (Israel excepted, but in its defense its very survival was at stake the moment the nation was founded in '48). Last time I checked it wasn't the French, the British or the Israelis who sent their armies into places like Prague and Bucharest and used their tanks to crush people beneath their treads. People who defend the Soviet Union acquiring the bomb via espionage ought to think about why so central European nations get nervous whenever the subject of Russia and Putin's Soviet pedigree comes up.
Your leaving out one minor detailQuote:
(Israel excepted, but in its defense its very survival was at stake the moment the nation was founded in '48).
It wasnt us.Quote:
France's contribution
Franco-Israeli nuclear cooperation is described in detail in the book "Les Deux Bombes" (1982) by French journalist Pierre Pean, who gained access to the official French files on Dimona. The book revealed that the Dimona's cooling circuits were built two to three times larger than necessary for the 26-megawatt reactor Dimona was supposed to be--proof that it had always been intended to make bomb quantities of plutonium. The book also revealed that French technicians had built a plutonium extraction plant at the same site. According to Pean, French nuclear assistance enabled Israel to produce enough plutonium for one bomb even before the 1967 Six Day War. France also gave Israel nuclear weapon design information.
In 1986, Francis Perrin, high commissioner of the French atomic energy agency from 1951 to 1970, was quoted in the press as saying that France and Israel had worked closely together for two years in the late 1950s to design an atom bomb. Perrin said that the United States had agreed that the French scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project could apply their knowledge at home provided they kept it secret. But then, Perrin said, "We considered we could give the secrets to Israel provided they kept it a secret themselves." He added: "We thought the Israeli bomb was aimed against the Americans, not to launch it against America but to say 'if you don't want to help us in a critical situation we will require you to help us, otherwise we will use our nuclear bombs.'"
U.S. intelligence reports
After the United States discovered the Dimona reactor in 1960, U.S. nuclear specialists inspected Dimona every year from 1965 through 1969, looking for signs of nuclear weapon production. It is not clear what they found, but in 1968 the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reported to President Lyndon Johnson its conclusion that Israel had already made an atomic bomb. In 1969, Israel limited inspection visits by U.S. scientists to such an extent that the Americans complained in writing. Without explanation, the Nixon administration ended the visits the following year.
The CIA continued to report on Israel's nuclear weapon progress during the 1970s. In a September 1974 memorandum, "Prospects for Further Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons," the CIA cited "Israeli acquisition of large quantities of uranium, partly by clandestine means" as further evidence that "Israel already has produced nuclear weapons." The CIA also cited Israeli missile development as evidence that Israel had made nuclear weapons--the CIA said the Jericho made little sense as a conventional missile and was "designed to accommodate nuclear warheads." In a February 1976 report to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, CIA Deputy Director for Science and Technology Carl Duckett reported that Israel was already making bombs with plutonium produced in its Dimona reactor.
You said you support anyone who betrays his government, and that you consider that a right, in other words that anybody should be free to betray his government for whatever reason he likes.Quote:
Originally Posted by HoreTore
:rolleyes:Quote:
Yup. And history hasn't shown it to be a bad move either, if anything, they should be proclaimed heroes.
Yup. But where's the goodness? I support it, but that doesn't mean it's good, does it? Supporting something doesn't equal agreeing with it. And besides, why should I only support good things? Why can't I support bad things?Quote:
Originally Posted by Kralizec
And as for Rosenberg, well, how many nukes have killed people since they spied for the soviet union? Noone, you say? Hmm... So then, their actions haven't hurt anyone, how can that be evil? Further, the fact that both the soviet and the US had nukes is claimed by some to be the reason why there hasn't been a third world war. So, perhaps they should be thought of as the heroes who prevented WW3?
That's an all too convenient answer, especially now that we have 60 years of history and hindsight under our belts. True, the bomb prevented WW3 from happening but in those early years before ICBMs were the primary delivery system for nukes and MAD became a reality the threat of another world war was quite real.Quote:
Originally Posted by HoreTore
It may seem like water under the bridge now but at the time the news that the secret to the bomb was simply handed over the to Soviets must have been an incredibly horrifying experience to anyone with half a brain living in the West. People working for the military and intelligence agencies in the West must have felt like they had the weight of the world on their shoulders. Talk about something that would keep you up at night and make you break into a cold sweat!
Im not supporting what they did but couldnt the claim be made that they actually saved lives? Who can say for sure?Quote:
And as for Rosenberg, well, how many nukes have killed people since they spied for the soviet union? Noone, you say? Hmm... So then, their actions haven't hurt anyone
If their actions avoided a third world war, they've probably saved hundreds of millions, if not billions when including the aftermath(I think a third ww would have killed at least twice as many as ww2). The US could indeed have executed two people responsible for saving much of the world, in the name of fear, patriotism and show of force...Quote:
Originally Posted by Gawain of Orkeny
As one of these 'red traitors' you so happily go on about, i would just like to point out you're getting communists confused with hippies, who we all know are the real problem in our society.Quote:
Originally Posted by Devastatin Dave
Yes the brother ratted them out (tacky), but most sources -- including Soviet material from that era -- confirm their guilt. Note:Quote:
Originally Posted by Tribesman
http://intellit.muskingum.edu/alpha_...r/rad-rah.html
http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page101.html
http://www.mbe.doe.gov/me70/manhattan/espionage.htm
It appears that they ended up getting the chop because they were dedicated enough not to roll over on their sources and contacts -- as had her brother. Give them points for bravery in their chosen cause, but traitors to the USA they were.
I could argue the "unwinnable" and "lie" labels you attach -- but that is not germane here so let's table it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tribesman
However, if you are going to label as "traitors" and execute any politician in a leadership position who makes a dumb mistake/policy/policy-implementation that gets people killed, you will set up a rotating electoral abbatoir of epic proportions.
Since you, Tribesy, (at least seemingly) tend to view anyone in politics as inherently criminal by their choice of profession, you may prefer such a result, but I think it would put a damper on the democratic process.:cheesy:
That makes absolutely no sense. If treason against a legitimate, democratic nation-state is bad, why do you support it?Quote:
Originally Posted by HoreTore
Mutually Assured Destruction prevented the USA and SU from actually lobbing missiles against eachother, but MAD as a garantue for peace didn't exist from the start. I hope someone more knowledgable about the Cold War can elaborate, but it's my understanding that both tried to prepare for nuclear war in the sense, that should it break out, they'd try to completely wipe out their ability to hit back before they had a chance to respond. It's why the Cuban missiles were such a hot point, and could have caused a global war rather than preventing it.Quote:
And as for Rosenberg, well, how many nukes have killed people since they spied for the soviet union? Noone, you say? Hmm... So then, their actions haven't hurt anyone, how can that be evil? Further, the fact that both the soviet and the US had nukes is claimed by some to be the reason why there hasn't been a third world war. So, perhaps they should be thought of as the heroes who prevented WW3?
Hypothetically, if the USA continued to have a monopoly on nuclear weapons they probably would never have felt the need to create strategic nuclear weapons.
Realisticly the SU would have developed them anyway as the Americans had predicted, but it would have taken them considerably longer. That the SU got theirs in less then 5 years time was a considerable shock and added to the "Red Scare" hysteria.
Besides, to argue that the Rosenbergs foresaw any of this is ridiculous. The fact is that what they betrayed their own country and helped a murderous dictatorship get hands on the most destructive weapons in history. They most definitely weren't heroes.
Ill bet they were to the USSR , just like Benedict Arnold was a hero to the British.:yes:Quote:
They most definitely weren't heroes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kralizec
The only logical point I can see in his argument is that you have the right to choose which side you stand on....
just because you were born in one country does that mean you must have unquestionable loyalty for that country?...or are you free to choose to fight for some other country?
of course states have treason laws and enforce those in their own self interest of survival...but that doesn´t make the action itself is inherently "evil"
Hmmm sounds familiarQuote:
ust because you were born in one country does that mean you must have unquestionable loyalty for that country?...or are you free to choose to fight for some other country?
of course states have treason laws and enforce those in their own self interest of survival...but that doesn´t make the action itself is inherently "evil"
Quote:
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
I find it curious how this thread title is in violation of the oft-enforced "You may not celebrate anyone's death at the Org" policy, yet for some reason it gets let off the hook for that whereas other celebrations of deaths would not.
Kind of... we try and not celebrate current events and if a thread is for remembrance &/or condolences it should remain such. Threads that are critical (in a bad light) of a persons life should
a) Wait until the person has had a funeral
b) Not be stated in the remembrance thread even after the funeral so they should form another thread still obeying all the forum rules too.
Funny we didnt have that with Saddam. Not even one RIP if I remember right :laugh4:
Remember Voltaire's famous words: "I don't agree with what you're saying, but I'll defend your right to say with my life"(taken from memory, no need to correct mistakes).Quote:
Originally Posted by Kralizec