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Alan Watts on modern warfare

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waltur
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26 Oct 2010, 4:59 pm

Macbeth wrote:
Fear of getting turned into a glassy plain is what stops Pakistan starting a nuclear war, same as everybody else. All I'm saying is that its a bit daft to simply disregard them as "showing responsibility" because they have had nuclear weapons for quite a while and not used them. Political situations change, often drastically.

Iran would most likely NOT ship nukes to Gaza because they already get enough grief for shipping all the other weapons there. Were a major nuclear power to determine that the nuke that destroyed a sizable chunk of Israel came from Iran, Iran KNOWS that it has no real defence against absolute annihilation.

Besides, the THREAT of the weapon is the true power of the weapon. There is no point actually USING them.



nuclear weapons are (metaphorically) a genie that isn't likely to be put back in the lamp. an alarming number of religious extremists in iran (and elsewhere) believe that we are quickly approaching (sickeningly not metaphorically) the end of the world and that this is a good thing. the implied threat of "you glass them, we glass you" doesn't work when they're ok with that.

not to imply that i have any workable solution to that.

maybe someday, the fate of the world won't rest on the decisions of people who believe in magic.


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26 Oct 2010, 5:31 pm

waltur wrote:
Macbeth wrote:
Fear of getting turned into a glassy plain is what stops Pakistan starting a nuclear war, same as everybody else. All I'm saying is that its a bit daft to simply disregard them as "showing responsibility" because they have had nuclear weapons for quite a while and not used them. Political situations change, often drastically.

Iran would most likely NOT ship nukes to Gaza because they already get enough grief for shipping all the other weapons there. Were a major nuclear power to determine that the nuke that destroyed a sizable chunk of Israel came from Iran, Iran KNOWS that it has no real defence against absolute annihilation.

Besides, the THREAT of the weapon is the true power of the weapon. There is no point actually USING them.



nuclear weapons are (metaphorically) a genie that isn't likely to be put back in the lamp. an alarming number of religious extremists in iran (and elsewhere) believe that we are quickly approaching (sickeningly not metaphorically) the end of the world and that this is a good thing. the implied threat of "you glass them, we glass you" doesn't work when they're ok with that.

not to imply that i have any workable solution to that.

maybe someday, the fate of the world won't rest on the decisions of people who believe in magic.


Extremists themselves may invite the end of the world, but its a fair bet that their suppliers and paymasters in Tehran and Islamabad are slightly less inclined to see their worldly domains made as dust. It seems unlikely that they would support the deployment of a nuclear explosive unless they were very confident they would not be on the receiving end of any retaliation.


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Sand
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26 Oct 2010, 7:01 pm

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Sand wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Sand wrote:
Doubtlessly the US would respond in kind with a much greater nuclear force. The USS Liberty incident is a clear indication that Israel has no qualms about killing Americans if it serves their purposes.


So, during the war with all the other nations around them and accidentally misidentifying an American ship as an enemy target and attacking it, how did the USA respond?


Since you are so hot on research you can easily discover that the Israeli forces not only recognized the Liberty as an American ship with clearly identified marking but the senior Israeli pilot at the attack recognized the ship as a US vessel and refused to attack. He was arrested when he returned to base.

See http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICL ... berty.html


So, the senior pilot was arrested for refusing to follow orders or for refusing to destroy an American ship?

Also, the link you gave did indicate that the ship was thought to be Egyptian and not American. At the altitude of a spy plane the Liberty would look near identical to the Egyptian vessel it was thought to be, although the photograph on the link you provided shows them from a couple hundred yards distance where, even then, they are similar in appearance. The military intelligence was wrong but insisted that they must be right, do you know how often that has happened throughout this era of modern warfare?


A sucker for a 6000 year old universe is quite appropriate for a sucker for Israeli bullshit.



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26 Oct 2010, 7:34 pm

Sand wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Sand wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Sand wrote:
Doubtlessly the US would respond in kind with a much greater nuclear force. The USS Liberty incident is a clear indication that Israel has no qualms about killing Americans if it serves their purposes.


So, during the war with all the other nations around them and accidentally misidentifying an American ship as an enemy target and attacking it, how did the USA respond?


Since you are so hot on research you can easily discover that the Israeli forces not only recognized the Liberty as an American ship with clearly identified marking but the senior Israeli pilot at the attack recognized the ship as a US vessel and refused to attack. He was arrested when he returned to base.

See http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICL ... berty.html


So, the senior pilot was arrested for refusing to follow orders or for refusing to destroy an American ship?

Also, the link you gave did indicate that the ship was thought to be Egyptian and not American. At the altitude of a spy plane the Liberty would look near identical to the Egyptian vessel it was thought to be, although the photograph on the link you provided shows them from a couple hundred yards distance where, even then, they are similar in appearance. The military intelligence was wrong but insisted that they must be right, do you know how often that has happened throughout this era of modern warfare?


A sucker for a 6000 year old universe is quite appropriate for a sucker for Israeli bullshit.


A sucker for abiogenesis is quite appropriate for a sucker for liberal bullcrap.



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26 Oct 2010, 9:49 pm

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Sand wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Sand wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Sand wrote:
Doubtlessly the US would respond in kind with a much greater nuclear force. The USS Liberty incident is a clear indication that Israel has no qualms about killing Americans if it serves their purposes.


So, during the war with all the other nations around them and accidentally misidentifying an American ship as an enemy target and attacking it, how did the USA respond?


Since you are so hot on research you can easily discover that the Israeli forces not only recognized the Liberty as an American ship with clearly identified marking but the senior Israeli pilot at the attack recognized the ship as a US vessel and refused to attack. He was arrested when he returned to base.

See http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICL ... berty.html


So, the senior pilot was arrested for refusing to follow orders or for refusing to destroy an American ship?

Also, the link you gave did indicate that the ship was thought to be Egyptian and not American. At the altitude of a spy plane the Liberty would look near identical to the Egyptian vessel it was thought to be, although the photograph on the link you provided shows them from a couple hundred yards distance where, even then, they are similar in appearance. The military intelligence was wrong but insisted that they must be right, do you know how often that has happened throughout this era of modern warfare?


A sucker for a 6000 year old universe is quite appropriate for a sucker for Israeli bullshit.


A sucker for abiogenesis is quite appropriate for a sucker for liberal bullcrap.


Either abiogenesis or life existed forever. It had to happen and not by magic. By accepting your error you might be able to change it. Otherwise you are condemned forever to arrogance and ignorance.



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27 Oct 2010, 6:47 am

Sand wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Sand wrote:
A sucker for a 6000 year old universe is quite appropriate for a sucker for Israeli bullshit.


A sucker for abiogenesis is quite appropriate for a sucker for liberal bullcrap.


Either abiogenesis or life existed forever. It had to happen and not by magic. By accepting your error you might be able to change it. Otherwise you are condemned forever to arrogance and ignorance.


Arrogance, fine. "Ignorance", fine. Life did not, by any means, have to happen. That life exists at all is not a requirement of chemistry nor ought it to be blindly expected. This particular planet is teeming with life to the degree that everywhere we look there is some form of life, but to consider the plenitude of life at one singular location to be indicative of it to be also ubiquitous is truly ignorance and not merely the form of "ignorance" which ignorant people accuse others of having.



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27 Oct 2010, 6:52 am

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Sand wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Sand wrote:
A sucker for a 6000 year old universe is quite appropriate for a sucker for Israeli bullshit.


A sucker for abiogenesis is quite appropriate for a sucker for liberal bullcrap.


Either abiogenesis or life existed forever. It had to happen and not by magic. By accepting your error you might be able to change it. Otherwise you are condemned forever to arrogance and ignorance.


Arrogance, fine. "Ignorance", fine. Life did not, by any means, have to happen. That life exists at all is not a requirement of chemistry nor ought it to be blindly expected. This particular planet is teeming with life to the degree that everywhere we look there is some form of life, but to consider the plenitude of life at one singular location to be indicative of it to be also ubiquitous is truly ignorance and not merely the form of "ignorance" which ignorant people accuse others of having.


In other words, you are claiming life never come from non-life. That it is impossible for that to happen. That life preceded the big bang. Fascinating.



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27 Oct 2010, 7:09 am

iamnotaparakeet wrote:

Arrogance, fine. "Ignorance", fine. Life did not, by any means, have to happen. That life exists at all is not a requirement of chemistry nor ought it to be blindly expected. This particular planet is teeming with life to the degree that everywhere we look there is some form of life, but to consider the plenitude of life at one singular location to be indicative of it to be also ubiquitous is truly ignorance and not merely the form of "ignorance" which ignorant people accuse others of having.


You are quite right. Life on this planet is a contingent happenstance.

ruveyn



Sand
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27 Oct 2010, 7:44 am

ruveyn wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:

Arrogance, fine. "Ignorance", fine. Life did not, by any means, have to happen. That life exists at all is not a requirement of chemistry nor ought it to be blindly expected. This particular planet is teeming with life to the degree that everywhere we look there is some form of life, but to consider the plenitude of life at one singular location to be indicative of it to be also ubiquitous is truly ignorance and not merely the form of "ignorance" which ignorant people accuse others of having.


You are quite right. Life on this planet is a contingent happenstance.

ruveyn


Perhaps I am mistaken and the word "abiogenesis" does not mean that life originated from non-life. Since the original conditions of the universe did not present life support conditions I doubt it is unreasonable to assume that life, at that time did not exist. I can only conclude that life somehow arose from non-life when favorable conditions arose. I cannot say that that event was inevitable, merely that it occurred since it is quite clear that life, at least on this planet, does exist. I fail to see how that is unreasonable.



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27 Oct 2010, 8:08 am

Sand wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Sand wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Sand wrote:
Doubtlessly the US would respond in kind with a much greater nuclear force. The USS Liberty incident is a clear indication that Israel has no qualms about killing Americans if it serves their purposes.


So, during the war with all the other nations around them and accidentally misidentifying an American ship as an enemy target and attacking it, how did the USA respond?


Since you are so hot on research you can easily discover that the Israeli forces not only recognized the Liberty as an American ship with clearly identified marking but the senior Israeli pilot at the attack recognized the ship as a US vessel and refused to attack. He was arrested when he returned to base.

See http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICL ... berty.html


So, the senior pilot was arrested for refusing to follow orders or for refusing to destroy an American ship?

Also, the link you gave did indicate that the ship was thought to be Egyptian and not American. At the altitude of a spy plane the Liberty would look near identical to the Egyptian vessel it was thought to be, although the photograph on the link you provided shows them from a couple hundred yards distance where, even then, they are similar in appearance. The military intelligence was wrong but insisted that they must be right, do you know how often that has happened throughout this era of modern warfare?


A sucker for a 6000 year old universe is quite appropriate for a sucker for Israeli bullshit.


That's all fine and dandy, but "spy planes" don't engage in low level strafing attacks by machine gun, and at THAT height its substantially more obvious that there is a difference. The similarity in appearance is one that can be described foremost as "they are both ships." To someone (theoretically) trained to recognise the difference between allied and enemy craft, the differences are substantial. Whilst it is to be understood that "friend or foe" recognition programs in the US leave a lot to be desired, I understand that Israel is rather more thorough about training its pilots.

This incident is only really remarkable by the lack of US reaction, and I suspect that comes from their desire to maintain a "western" state in the middle east being more powerful than their need to "revenge" their sailors.

As for the 6000 year thing.. lol. Yeah, OK Gandalf. :roll:


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27 Oct 2010, 8:29 am

Did the government of Israel do nothing to repay for their mistake of attacking the US vessel near El Arish during the Six Day War?



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27 Oct 2010, 8:36 am

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Did the government of Israel do nothing to repay for their mistake of attacking the US vessel near El Arish during the Six Day War?


See http://www.ussliberty.org/supporters.htm



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27 Oct 2010, 8:42 am

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Did the government of Israel do nothing to repay for their mistake of attacking the US vessel near El Arish during the Six Day War?


Israel paid indemnity to the U.S. for damages flowing from that mistake.

It were better if the U.S. did not send their ships into a war zone for a war in which the U.S. was not one of the belligerents. In a war all sorts of nasty things happen.

ruveyn



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27 Oct 2010, 8:47 am

ruveyn wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Did the government of Israel do nothing to repay for their mistake of attacking the US vessel near El Arish during the Six Day War?


Israel paid indemnity to the U.S. for damages flowing from that mistake.

It were better if the U.S. did not send their ships into a war zone for a war in which the U.S. was not one of the belligerents. In a war all sorts of nasty things happen.

ruveyn


Exactly, especially when an ally is fighting half a dozen enemies all at once it is wise to either be there specifically to assist or to not be there at all.



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27 Oct 2010, 9:02 am

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Did the government of Israel do nothing to repay for their mistake of attacking the US vessel near El Arish during the Six Day War?


Israel paid indemnity to the U.S. for damages flowing from that mistake.

It were better if the U.S. did not send their ships into a war zone for a war in which the U.S. was not one of the belligerents. In a war all sorts of nasty things happen.

ruveyn


Exactly, especially when an ally is fighting half a dozen enemies all at once it is wise to either be there specifically to assist or to not be there at all.


My reference See http://www.ussliberty.org/supporters.htm indicates the Israelis clearly understood what they were doing and mercilessly machine gunned US Navy sailors swimming in the water. There is no excuse for that.