• Drusas@kbin.run
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    1 year ago

    “So when we were faced with destruction as a nation after Pearl Harbor…"

    The US was never faced with destruction during World War II.

    • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      People like Graham are oblivious to the huge opportunity WWII gave us to dominate markets because Europe and Asia had been destroyed. They think it was American Exceptionalism all the way. Their inability to grasp this is why they are ineffective at leading now that other nations have caught up.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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      1 year ago

      It’s very hard for people (well, neurotypical people) to understand what real destruction means when that contests their system of considering themselves (and their friends, their country etc) very cool.

      Most of those advocating for bombing cities and big wars would turn into whining piss-smelling sacks of shaking meat the moment they meet one person not weaker than them angry at them in a back alley.

    • gramie@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Obviously you haven’t seen that fine documentary The Man in the High Castle.

    • SoylentBlake@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I mean, yes and no. Pearl harbor wasn’t the only place hit 12/7. Philipines, Guam and Wake were all hit as well

      Hong Kong and Singapore were also attacked and the empire invaded Malaysia.

      America took a sharp hit square in the face, but Britain got sent home in a body bag at the end of 1941. By Feb 1942 the UK had lost all of Malaysia, lost Hong Kong and lost Singapore. They lost 12,000 troops, the rest surrendering. Zero soldiers made it home. America had never been pit against such an enemy. You have to take all of WW2 into that context. Fuck in WW1 they played soccer across no-man’s-land on Christmas. The next year the Canadians had arrived and…well…I’m not saying shit about canuckistani military just that over half of the geneva convention exists because of Canada.

        • SoylentBlake@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          The us was very much in an existential threat at the time. We had just lost almost our entire navy, which compared globally, not a single branch of our military held any high esteem. Our equipment was run down and I’ll maintained and our factories were not set. We weren’t mobilized. We didn’t even know if Japan was gonna stop. The emporers men invaded the aluetians too, taking two islands (and digging in hard on one).

          So we effectively lost our Navy, then the UK and the Dutch lost the rest of South Asia. The UK lost 60x more men between 12/41 and 2/42 then we did. Can you even wrap your head around the amount of pain that causes a nation? Can you even imagine 120,000 ANYTHING? McCarthy was dug in in Manila and they are expected to fight down to the last man, as we didm’t have the means to get them reinforcements, if we even had the men we could somehow spare. If Japan has focused on us and not China then it’s doubtful we’d exist today. China only lost what…20million people in those 8 years? Chinas lost an estimated 100,000,000 people in the 20th century.

          Man if that’s not under threat, idk what is. The fear is on full display, look up the Battle of Los Angeles.

          It’s easy with hindsight to pass judgement from your current position with absolute knowledge. It’s also immature, foolhardy and you discredit yourself displaying your unawareness towards empathy, let alone forgiveness, compassion or understanding, to say such things. I was 17 once too and thought I knew everything. We all were, that’s the thing.

          I’m not trying to hate on ya guy, it sounds like you’re being consciously reductive and overly critical, which implies you’re arguing in bad faith or, as I’m assuming, you are young and just don’t know what you don’t know because you can’t know. Wisdom takes time to develop, no way around it.

          • Tryptaminev@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            How is loosing territories some 5.000-10.000 km away an “existential threat”? Even if they wanted to, Japan had no means of successfully invading main land US.

            The US justifies dropping the Nukes with it preventing an extraordinary loss of life if they had to stage an amphibious invasion of main land Japan. But at least the US could stage much closer to Japan, than Japan could to the US.

            In the same wake the Britains loosing their empire was not an existential threat to the US just as much as the genocide against China was not an existential threat for the US just as the Holocaust and the genocides in eastern Europe weren’t an existential threat to the US.

          • NoneOfUrBusiness@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Okay good point about the threat WWII Japan posed but you’re going too far in the other direction. When asked about going to war with America admiral Yamamoto said what amounts to “this is a bad idea don’t”. Now part of their failure definitely lies in poor leadership, and I can see the idea that if they’d concentrated on America instead of opening a war on three (two and a half?) fronts they might’ve made significant gains until America’s industry caught up, but they simply didn’t have the industrial base to keep the US down. The US also has very good natural defenses that you forgot to take into account. Remember: Their ships and airplanes were all handmade.

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Hey now. The threat of destruction was just as bad as the actual destruction across Europe and Asia.

  • blazera@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    “I want you to use my words against me. If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination."

    Only thing this guy deserves to hear for the rest of his life.

  • acargitz@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Casually arguing for breaking the taboo on using nuclear weapons.

    Forget Gaza, this is how human civilization ends.

    • Tryptaminev@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      We have been saying that Israel is a moral and legal hazard to the entire world as it rallied its allies to throw out all resemblance of a rule based international order recognizing such basic human rights like not being slaughtered and having access to basic food, water and medicine.

      • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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        1 year ago

        So is Turkey.

        But the guilt for colonialism and belligerent Christianity apparently lies so heavy on Westerners, that they are ready to absolve it with the blood of Christians never involved in those.

        It’s an especially disgusting kind of virtue signalling to combine being against Israel, but for Turkey and Azerbaijan.

        • Tryptaminev@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          What are you talking about? Israel and Azerbaijan are allies. Azerbaijan sells its oil and gas to Israel and Israel granted it the “right” to exploit the gas fields in front of Gaza they want to steal. Israel supplied Azerbaijan with drones so it can slaughter Armenians.

          And Turkey did not put the UN Charta through a shredder or demanded the world to attack UN institutions. Also Turkey does not demand its allies to cheer it on for its crimes.

          • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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            1 year ago

            I know they are allied, Israel and Turkey are not really that hostile between themselves too.

            It’s about how optics of all this work on general Western audiences.

            I agree Turkey relies less on such corruption. Azerbaijan is pretty similar to Israel in that regard, though. They just don’t need loud approval when silent approval does the job.

  • SoylentBlake@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Lindsey Graham will say whatever his sponsors want him to say. He shares like 2 of his opinions a year, and you can tell which ones they are because a week after saying it he’s already backtracking acting like he never said otherwise. He’ll dance any dance to suppress video of him and his prostitutes dick in his mouth. It’s a corner he’s painted himself in by courting the homegrown hate vote.

    My gut tells me that he’s a decent guy and I bet he’s quite capable at the state level, but he’s been in over his head in DC ever since he got there.

  • notannpc@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I’m shocked! Who could have guessed this slimy invertebrate would have zero regard for anyone but himself!?

    It’s wild that if anyone were to suggest killing Lindsey Graham they would probably be arrested and called a terrorist. But he can just casually advocate for nuking a densely populated area that is inhabited mostly by civilians and a bunch of brain dead morons will still vote for him.