Video Edward Teller: Father of the Hydrogen Bomb 352
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pigrabbitbear writes "Edward Teller, the father of the hydrogen bomb, had a thing for nuclear bombs. He wanted them bigger, smaller, faster, used in ways that no one had thought of before or since, and always more of them. He suffered no fools, and though he would be more vilified than any other American scientist in the 20th century, he always dismissed his critics as lacking in common sense or patriotism. Amid Cold War paranoia and fears of the Soviet nuclear program, the stakes were simply too high: for the free world, building the most powerful weapon in history was a matter of life and horrible death."
Wonder what Mr. Teller thinks of Iran? (Score:5, Interesting)
Now that Iran wants to have nuke, what would the opinion of Mr. Teller be?
Re:Wonder what Mr. Teller thinks of Iran? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Bomb them
Who bombs who ?
Re:Wonder what Mr. Teller thinks of Iran? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wonder what Mr. Teller thinks of Iran? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wonder what Mr. Teller thinks of Iran? (Score:5, Insightful)
If Iran ever dared to use such a weapon against anyone, it would be the last thing it ever did. China and Russia will tolerate the Ayatollahs to a point, but to actually launch an attack against anyone else, that would be intolerable even by their standards. All support would end instantly and Israel and the United States would be given carte blanche to deal with Iran as they chose. The Iranian airforce and navy would be wiped out, most of its military installations of any size would be destroyed, it would be left with an army and a bunch of poorly armed Basij who are only useful as cannon fodder, except the cannons would be bombing from 40,000 feet. I suspect the Ayatollahs' regime wouldn't last a month. The regular army, who has no great love for the Basij or the Revolutionary Guard, would probably arrest or just simply start shooting them, because the very few nuclear weapons that Iran would have would be useless, or worse than useless, once the necessary infrastructure to launch attacks was crippled or turned to slag.
The fact is that as nasty as an attack by a second rate power like Iran would be, it's not something that could be repeated. Places like North Korea and Iran do not have the resources to build vast stockpiles of nukes. Once the oil dries up, they won't even be able to afford to maintain what they've built by that point.
Salami tactics (Score:5, Interesting)
Not necessarily. Suppose Iran used a nuke against North Korea? Would the world approve or disapprove? China would disapprove, but America might not. The UK probably would approve. Who would retaliate against Iran? Who would be allowed to bomb or even nuke Teheran? Overall, the question is difficult to answer, and that means there's a shade of gray.
Now let's say Iran used a nuke on some slightly less evil place, but still evil. Would that turn the *whole* world against Iran, or would the support be divided, with slightly more countries against than if it was North Korea?
At what point would the *whole* world unanimously support wiping Iran off the map? If Iran attacked America? If Iran attacked one of the former Soviet states? What if Iran attacked Zimbabwe?
Re:Salami tactics (Score:5, Insightful)
the rules of MAD are still in place i think. nuke anyone at all, and you're as good as nuked yourself.
countries with nukes are diverse enough that you couldn't bomb one ideology without pissing off some nuclear power. we have communists (China), mafia states (sadly Russia), capitalist states (USA, UK), social democracies (France, sort of), Islamic states (Pakistan), and India which is kinda a bit of everything. then there's Israel... the whole political spectrum in all it's shades of madness and reason have nukes.
Communists != Muslims (Score:3, Interesting)
Rules of MAD don't apply to Islamic regimes the same way that they did to Communists. Sure, the Communists (Soviets & Chinese) were evil, but they were at least rational about it - while they undoubtedly wanted to wipe out their enemies, they themselves wanted to survive. Which is why deterence worked during the Cold War. During that time, there were a lot of espionage & terrorist acts pulled off by the NKVD/KGB, but how many suicide bombings does anybody remember that the Soviets did?
This does
What the fuck? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Surely you're not serious?!
I believe that he is. He lets Fox News shape his "fair and balanced" view of the world. I mean, after all, all Muslim's are potential suicide bombers. Right? So it follows that all "Islamic" states have the same suicidal thoughts.
Re:Communists != Muslims (Score:5, Insightful)
You're being irrational. Suicide bombers are employed as a last resort against a technically superior enemy. I'm sure that if you go back in time, you'll find that all major religions have had suicidal fighters in one way or another. It has nothing to do with religion.
The fact that you conclude that the communists "undoubtedly wanted to wipe out their enemies" just shows how narrow you're thinking about this. The tragedy of an arms race like in the cold war is that both sides are building weapons out of fear of an attack. It's madness.
Re:Communists != Muslims (Score:5, Informative)
I was unaware the Japanese Imperial Navy indoctrinated their kamikaze pilots in Islam.
Nor the Viet Cong with their suicide bombers.
And that's just the conflicts I can think of off the top of my head involving the USA.
Re:Communists != Muslims (Score:4, Informative)
No religion had suicide bombers - except Muslims.
We also ignore nominally secular organizations like the LTTE (the "Tamil Tigers") in Sri Lanka who conducted hundreds of suicide bombings.
but the same mindset that inspires individual suicide bombers to blow themselves up where they can cause the maximum damage also applies to the leadership of countries who are willing to let countless of their own people die if they can wipe out their enemy in the process.
Or doesn't. There's plenty of reason to suspect hypocrisy in the upper ranks of Islamic-themed terrorist organizations.
Re:Communists != Muslims (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The key there in what you said is "confidence that they can destroy their enemies". No one in the leadership of Iran is confident that they can destroy their enemies, not today, not tomorrow, not when they finally break through and get the bomb. Hell, we could even spot them a half-dozen ICBM's and they would not have that kind of confidence. Iran is a second rate power. Hell - Iran is worse than a second rate power. Iran is a third rate power. And all the nuclear weapons in the world are not going to
Re:Communists != Muslims (Score:5, Insightful)
Rules of MAD don't apply to Islamic regimes the same way that they did to Communists. Sure, the Communists (Soviets & Chinese) were evil, but they were at least rational about it - while they undoubtedly wanted to wipe out their enemies, they themselves wanted to survive. Which is why deterence worked during the Cold War. During that time, there were a lot of espionage & terrorist acts pulled off by the NKVD/KGB, but how many suicide bombings does anybody remember that the Soviets did?
...
How short the memories.
During the Cold War the hysteria-mongers routinely argued that the Communists could not be deterred because they cared nothing for human life - arguments trotted out for this view were the tens of millions of deaths in the Stalinist and Maoist purges and engineered famines, the way life was literally thrown away in Gulags, and in WWII how millions of Soviet soldiers were carelessly sacrificed for negligible battlefield effect (and the same with Chinese and North Korean soldiers a few years later, and North Vietnamese and Cambodian soldiers decades after that). Various quotes by Lenin were commonly repeated (some of them fictitious*) to show the utter ruthlessness, and that their messianic belief in the inevitable victory of Communism made them indifferent to the possibility of nuclear war since Communism would survive.**
And most of the statements about Communist behavior were true. But a big difference is it was never the leadership, the state itself that was put at risk. Nuclear weapons change that completely. That alone makes the whole claim completely invalid.
*The favored fake quote, often repeated was this one: "What does it matter if three-fourths of the world perish, if the remaining one fourth are good communists?" attributed to Lenin.
**Counter-evidence, like Stalin's decision not to seize West Berlin, Khruschev's hasty back-down in Cuba, and the striking intolerance to taking casualties in the 1980s after the Afghanistan invasion were ignored.
This "Islamists are insane and are not afraid of nuclear war" is just a retread of the same Cold War tripe.
Re: (Score:3)
Ah, callow youth. Trust me, child, we heard all this about the Commies back in the day.
They were *fanatically*, *suicidally* dedicated to their evil ideology. Or the Top Bosses had deep bunkers and cared nothing for the survival of their zombiefied slaves. Or they were just so insane they actually believed they could simply win a nuclear war, get all our bombs before we could launch them...by smuggling in bombs and planting them on our open society. The same way they supported world-wide terrorism.
The Middle East nuclear arms race in context (Score:3)
Muslims, like Christians, American patriots, Communists, and people with lots of other belief systems, have a notable and vocal subgroup that holds that it is better to die than to live in circumstances where there values are not realiz
Re: (Score:3)
This does not apply to Islamic states... wiping out the Jews.
Wow - just... wow. This is an arrogant, ignorant and xenophobic rant, full of half-baked stereotypes and generalizations, all based on a broad and ignorant stereotype that has led to sporadic wars between Christian and Muslim cultures for over a millenium.
I suggest that you rent the movie Persepolis [imdb.com] and watch it. It may remind you that 99.9% of the people living in Iran are not an "Islamic state". Instead, they're people just like us, with a nut
Re:Salami tactics (Score:5, Insightful)
Not necessarily. Suppose Iran used a nuke against North Korea?
If Israel sees a missile launched from any of the nuclear sites in Iran, I doubt they're going to wait to see where it's aimed before striking with all they've got.
Re: (Score:3)
Not necessarily. Suppose Iran used a nuke against North Korea? Would the world approve or disapprove?
At that point, no one would object to retaliation. The only question would be if anyone wanted to retaliate. But if they did, then no one would stand in their way.
Re:Salami tactics (Score:5, Insightful)
Not necessarily. Suppose Iran used a nuke against North Korea? Would the world approve or disapprove?
You're missing the point.
The point is:
Why in the world would Iran want to nuke anyone? It makes absolutely zero military sense Do you really think Ahmadinejad or the Ayatollahs are that stupid?
Stupid and evil (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, we think Ahmadinejad and the ayatollahs are that stupid. Plainly.
Next question.
Re:Salami tactics (Score:4, Insightful)
Your point is the crux of the debate, yet is not being discussed. They're as likely to use it as NATO/Russia*/Pakistan, etc. So what is this war-mongering and chest-beating all about? The simplest answer is that once a Bomb is acquired, Iran becomes less vulnerable, reducing likelihood of invasion/overt military action. For some, that can't be considered.
The next question is "Why is this reduced vulnerability considered such a seriously bad thing by Israel?", which is what Western commentators should be discussing. Can't be simply all about Middle Eastern hegomonies, but what are the other concerns?
*is it only Russia that have atomic devices or do other former SSRs still have relic weapons? Would Russia have recently knackered Georgia if they had them still?
Re:Salami tactics (Score:4, Insightful)
If Iran launches a nuke
If a nuke carried by a truck blows up suddenly in <insert city> it might be hard to find the "made in Iran" sticker.
Let alone it may have had a "made in Israel" sticker, but they might find a "made in Iran" sticker anyway just for shits and giggle and turn Iran into glass anyway.
This mad principal only applies to super powers. The best way to defeat your enemy is to make the big bully hate you, otherwise known as a false flag, but that would never happen now would it.
G
Re:Radioactive signature (Score:5, Insightful)
No. IAANP and that is hollywood fiction.
Re:Salami tactics (Score:5, Interesting)
I copy and paste without shame:
http://homepage.mac.com/msb/163x/faqs/nuclear_warfare_101.html [mac.com]
The Nuclear Game - An Essay on Nuclear Policy Making
When a country first acquires nuclear weapons it does so out of a very accurate perception that possession of nukes fundamentally changes it relationships with other powers. What nuclear weapons buy for a New Nuclear Power (NNP) is the fact that once the country in question has nuclear weapons, it cannot be beaten. It can be defeated, that is it can be prevented from achieving certain goals or stopped from following certain courses of action, but it cannot be beaten. It will never have enemy tanks moving down the streets of its capital, it will never have its national treasures looted and its citizens forced into servitude. The enemy will be destroyed by nuclear attack first. A potential enemy knows that so will not push the situation to the point where our NNP is on the verge of being beaten. In effect, the effect of acquiring nuclear weapons is that the owning country has set limits on any conflict in which it is involved. This is such an immensely attractive option that states find it irresistible.
Only later do they realize the problem. Nuclear weapons are so immensely destructive that they mean a country can be totally destroyed by their use. Although our NNP cannot be beaten by an enemy it can be destroyed by that enemy. Although a beaten country can pick itself up and recover, the chances of a country devastated by nuclear strikes doing the same are virtually non-existent. [This needs some elaboration. Given the likely scale and effects of a nuclear attack, its most unlikely that the everybody will be killed. There will be survivors and they will rebuild a society but it will have nothing in common with what was there before. So, to all intents and purposes, once a society initiates a nuclear exchange its gone forever]. Once this basic factor has been absorbed, the NNP makes a fundamental realization that will influence every move it makes from this point onwards. If it does nothing, its effectively invincible. If, however, it does something, there is a serious risk that it will initiate a chain of events that will eventually lead to a nuclear holocaust. The result of that terrifying realization is strategic paralysis.
With that appreciation of strategic paralysis comes an even worse problem. A non-nuclear country has a wide range of options for its forces. Although its actions may incur a risk of being beaten they do not court destruction. Thus, a non-nuclear nation can afford to take risks of a calculated nature. However,a nuclear-equipped nation has to consider the risk that actions by its conventional forces will lead to a situation where it may have to use its nuclear forces with the resulting holocaust. Therefore, not only are its strategic nuclear options restricted by its possession of nuclear weapons, so are its tactical and operational options. So we add tactical and operational paralysis to the strategic variety. This is why we see such a tremendous emphasis on the mechanics of decision making in nuclear powers. Every decision has to be thought through, not for one step or the step after but for six, seven or eight steps down the line.
We can see this in the events of the 1960s and 1970s, especially surrounding the Vietnam War. Every so often, the question gets asked "How could the US have won in Vietnam?" with a series of replies that include invading the North,extending the bombing to China and other dramatic escalations of the conflict. Now, it should be obvious why such suggestions could not, in the real world, be contemplated. The risk of ending up in a nuclear war was too great. For another example, note how the presence of nuclear weapons restricted and limited the tactical and operational options available to both sides in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. In effect neither side could push the war to a final conclusion because to do so would bring down nuclear attack on the heads of the "winners". Here, Israel's nuclear arsenal was limiting the conflict before it even started. Egypt and Syria couldn't destroy the country - all they could do was to chew up enough of the Israeli armed forces and put themselves in the correct strategic position to dictate a peace agreement on much more favorable terms than would be the case. But, the Israeli nuclear arsenal also limited the conflict in another way. Because they were a nuclear power they were fair game; if they pushed the Egyptians too hard, they would demand Soviet assistance and who knew where that would lead?
So, the direct effects of nuclear weapons in a nation's hands is to make that nation extremely cautious. They spend much time studying situations, working out the implications of such situations, what the likely results of certain policy options are. One of the immense advantages the US had in the Cold War was that they had a network of Research Institutes and Associations and consulting companies who spent their time doing exactly this sort of work. (Ahh the dear dead days of planning nuclear wars. The glow of satisfaction as piecutters are placed over cities; the warm feeling of fulfillment as the death toll passed the billion mark; the sick feeling of disappointment as the casualties from a given strategy only amounted to some 40 million when preliminary studies had shown a much more productive result. But I digress). This meant that a much wider range of policy options could be studied than was possible if the ideas were left in military hands.These organizations, the famous think tanks had no inhibitions about asking very awkward questions that would end the career of a military officer doing the same. This network became known as The Business. We're still out here.
So. What were nuclear weapons good for? It seems they are more of a liability than an asset. To some extent that's true but the important fact remains,they do limit conflict. As long as they are in place and functional they are an insurance policy against a nation getting beaten. That means that if that country is going to get beaten, its nuclear weapons have to be taken out first. It also means that if it ever uses its nuclear weapons, once they are gone, its invulnerability vanishes with it. Thus, the threat posed by nuclear weapons is a lot more effective and valuable than the likely results of using those weapons. Of course, this concern becomes moot if it appears likely that the NNP is about to lose its nuclear weapons to a pre-emptive strike. Under these circumstances, the country may decide that its in a use-it-or-lose-it situation.The more vulnerable to pre-emption those weapons are the stronger that imperative becomes.
This is why ICBMs are such an attractive option. They are faster-reacting than bombers, they are easier to protect on the ground and they are much more likely to get through to their targets. This is why modern, advanced devices are much more desirable than the older versions. In the 1950s the Soviet Union had a nuclear attack reaction time of six weeks (don't laugh, that of the US was 30 days). The reason was simple, device design in those days meant that the device, once assembled, deteriorated very quickly and, once degraded, had to be sent back to the plant for remanufacture. Device assembly needed specialized teams and took time. This made a first strike very, very attractive - as long as the attacker could be sure of getting all the enemy force. It was this long delay to get forces available that made air defense and ABM such an attractive option. In effect, it could blunt an enemy attack while the assembly crews frantically put their own devices together and got them ready for launch. As advancing device design made it possible to reduce assembly time, this aspect of ABM became less important.
What this also suggests is that large, secure nuclear arsenals are inherently safer than small, vulnerable ones. A large arsenal means that the owner can do appalling damage to an enemy, a secure arsenal means that no matter how the enemy attacks, enough weapons will survive to allow that destruction to take place. Here we have the genesis of the most misunderstood term in modern warfare - MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction. (Another point of elaboration here - MAD is not a policy and has never been instituted as a policy option. It's the effect of policies that have been promulgated. This is a very useful touchstone - if people mention the US Policy of MAD, they don't know what they are talking about). Its widely believed that this suggests that both sides are wide open to unrestricted destruction by the other. This is a gross over-simplification. What the term actually means is that both sides have enough nuclear firepower to destroy the other and that the firepower in question is configured in such ways that no pre-emptive strike can destroy enough of it to take away the fact that the other country will be destroyed. MAD did not preclude the use of defensive systems - in fact it was originally formulated to show how important they are - but its misunderstood version was held to do so - with catastrophic results for us all. One implication of this by the way is that in spite of all the fuss over the Chinese stealing the W88 warhead design, the net beneficiary of that is the United States; it allows the Chinese to build a much more secure deterrent and thus a more stable one. Also, looking at things purely ruthlessly, its better for one's enemy to make small clean bombs than big dirty ones.
Aha, I hear you say what about the mad dictator? Its interesting to note that mad, homicidal aggressive dictators tend to get very tame sane cautious ones as soon as they split atoms. Whatever their motivations and intents, the mechanics of how nuclear weapons work dictate that mad dictators become sane dictators very quickly. After all its not much fun dictating if one's country is a radioactive trash pile and you're one of the ashes. China, India and Pakistan are good examples. One of the best examples of this process at work is Mao Tse Tung. Throughout the 1950s he was extraordinarily bellicose and repeatedly tried to bully, cajole or trick Khruschev and his successors into initiating a nuclear exchange with the US on the grounds that world communism would rise from the ashes. Thats what Quemoy and Matsu were all about in the late 1950s. Then China got nuclear weapons. Have you noticed how reticent they are with them? Its sunk in. They can be totally destroyed; will be totally destroyed; in the event of an exchange. A Chinese Officer here once on exchange (billed as a "look what we can do" session it was really a "look what we can do to you" exercise) produced the standard line about how the Chinese could lose 500 million people in a nuclear war and keep going with the survivors. So his hosts got out a demographic map (one that shows population densities rather than topographical data) and got to work with pie-cutters using a few classified tricks - and got virtually the entire population of China using only a small proportion of the US arsenal. The guest stared at the map for a couple of minutes then went and tossed his cookies into the toilet bowl. The only people who mouth off about using nuclear weapons and threaten others with them are those that do not have keys hanging around their necks. The moment they get keys and realize what they've let themselves in for, they get to be very quiet and very cautious indeed. Another great - and very recent example - look how circumspect the Indians and Pakistani Governments were in the recent confrontation - lots of words but little or no action to back them and both sides worked very hard not to do anything that could be misunderstood. (When the Pakistani's did a missile test they actually invited the Indians over to watch in order to ensure there was no ground for misunderstanding. The test itself was another message from both countries to the rest of the world - basically it read "Don't sweat it, we know the rules")
One anayst from The Business was asked what Saddam Hussein would have done if Iraq had possessed nuclear weapons in 1990. He replied that he didn't know what he would have done but he did know what he would not have done - he would not have invaded Kuwait.
Re:Salami tactics (Score:4, Informative)
I am not the author. There are two follow-ups in the same thread:
http://homepage.mac.com/msb/163x/faqs/nuclear_warfare_102.html [mac.com]
http://homepage.mac.com/msb/163x/faqs/nuclear_warfare_103.html [mac.com]
Re: (Score:2)
If Iran ever dared to use such a weapon against anyone, it would be the last thing it ever did
Iran's regime may be crazy, but they ain't dummies
They will build the bombs and they will use the bombs, no, they won't bomb anyone, but rather, they will use the bombs they have accumulated to blackmail the world
Without physically bombing anyone, the world will have no excuse to retaliate - Iranians know that
Re:Wonder what Mr. Teller thinks of Iran? (Score:5, Insightful)
They will build the bombs and they will use the bombs, no, they won't bomb anyone, but rather, they will use the bombs they have accumulated to blackmail the world
Blackmail the world into... ...not invading them? ...letting them build nuclear bombs? ...letting their politicians be dicks and say outrageous things?
Re: (Score:2)
Blackmail the world into... ...not invading them? ...letting them build nuclear bombs? ...letting their politicians be dicks and say outrageous things?
Oh, I am sure the Iranians have given it a lot of thought
They could blackmail the world to give them other high-tech stuffs that they do not currently enjoy - such as space technology
They could blackmail the world to give them the veto power on the UN security council
They could do much much more than what you and I can ever imagine, if they were to own nukes
Re:Wonder what Mr. Teller thinks of Iran? (Score:5, Insightful)
Fat chance they'd get any of that.
If they started blackmailing, the political position of their remaining allies would quickly become totally untenable. They could give hints, saying "well... we'd like to have more influence on the security council... nudge nudge wink wink"... but that's about it.
As a deterrent to actually invading them when they start shooting dissidents in lots of 10000, now that is quite another matter. It would be very effective in doing exactly that - which is why a nuke is a bad thing mostly for the Iranians themselves, and not so much anyone else.
Re: (Score:3)
Blackmail the world into... ...not invading them? ...letting them build nuclear bombs? ...letting their politicians be dicks and say outrageous things?
Oh, I am sure the Iranians have given it a lot of thought
They could blackmail the world to give them other high-tech stuffs that they do not currently enjoy - such as space technology
They could blackmail the world to give them the veto power on the UN security council
They could do much much more than what you and I can ever imagine, if they were to own nukes
Just like North Korea does, huh?
Re: (Score:3)
That kind of blackmail only works if you're the only country with a nuclear bomb. If they aren't "dummies" as you say then they will also realize that they can't actually use it either. So, back to square one with the normal, everyday brutality of "regular" war that people on this planet seem to love so much.
Re: (Score:3)
Well... if it was an existential threat to their system, their power and even possibly their lives, they might well launch. The Soviets had their empire, there was no need to nuke NATO unless something drastically changed, but be aware, at least some of the Soviet military leaders were known to have believed a nuclear war was winnable.
Now take Iran, which is probably a lot less pragmatic than the Soviets were, and give them a bomb. I agree, their possession would not mean they'd launch at the first opport
Re:Wonder what Mr. Teller thinks of Iran? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well... if it was an existential threat to their system, their power and even possibly their lives, they might well launch.
And wouldn't they have ever right to?
The Soviets had their empire, there was no need to nuke NATO unless something drastically changed, but be aware, at least some of the Soviet military leaders were known to have believed a nuclear war was winnable.
Just as many Americans also believed. Yet a nuclear war never did happen. Why is that?
Now take Iran, which is probably a lot less pragmatic than the Soviets were
Why? Because our government and their friends want you to believe so? Do you really think Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollahs have maintained control for so long by being stupid? Do you really think they want to "end it all" and be nuked into oblivion, which would be the clearly inevitable result of using a nuke against another country?
The problem is, the Iranian people don't have any practical control over their government at all. [...] In Iran, the government doesn't have checks and balances, it has a blank check to do whatever it wants, as long as the Supreme Leader signs it.
Just like the United States!
In the US, the President would likely be obeyed if he ordered a retaliatory launch, but if it was for something other than pure defense, he might well find himself disobeyed
Ever heard of "plausible deniability"? It's a product of U.S. politics! Of course the President can't just launch nukes at will. But if the missile detection system malfunctions, as it is later determined, signalling an incoming attack, and the President orders an all-out retaliatory strike based on this data......well, who can blame him right?
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Wonder what Mr. Teller thinks of Iran? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you want my personal opinion, Iran is a thinly veiled military dictatorship that uses religion as its unifying ideology much as the Soviets and the Chinese use(d) Communism. The Basij are all very swirly eyed, but I don't get the feeling the country is actually run by similar types.
Re: (Score:2)
If you want my personal opinion, Iran is a thinly veiled military dictatorship that uses religion as its unifying ideology much as the Soviets and the Chinese use(d) Communism. The Basij are all very swirly eyed, but I don't get the feeling the country is actually run by similar types.
Leaders who promote suicide bombings rarely wear the vest themselves.
Re: (Score:3)
Leaders who promote suicide bombings rarely wear the vest themselves
To be more precise --- it is the old geezers who were behind the suicide bombing, but it is the young ones who end up blowing themselves to bits
Re:Wonder what Mr. Teller thinks of Iran? (Score:4, Interesting)
If Iran ever dared to use such a weapon against anyone, it would be the last thing it ever did.
Most likely true, but what if we're in a situation where the Iranian regime is already facing its end? For example, I believe they have another election coming up. I expect it will be stolen just like the last one. And perhaps like the last one, there will be widespread protests. So far, pretty reasonable, right?
But let's say that the protestors, inspired by the Arab Spring events, push harder this time, and actually get close to toppling the regime. Given Iran's abuses of its own people last time, I doubt they'd hesitate to employ the same tactics used in Syria and Lebanon - outright war against anyone opposing them.
There could be no help from the international community if they had nukes, because if the regime thought they were really going to fall and that their rulers would end up like Gaddafi, they have no reason not to pull out all the stops. If you're really facing down an angry mob that wants to tear you limb from limb, using a nuke is a GREAT option -- it is the ultimate punishment for those who have done this to you, and it buys you time while your enemies regroup. Time which you can use to try to get out of the country, or at least surrender to the International Criminal Court (which does not employ capital punishment, unlike your former subjects).
All the fear-mongering about them nuking Israel is a ruse. The Middle Eastern dictators need Israel as a bogeyman to scare their citizens, and Israel plays right into their hands by acting the part quite regularly. Tehran wants a nuke to ensure the survival of their regime, nothing more, nothing less. The Iranian people would be wise to oppose such a development, not that their opposition is liable to have any effect.
Sucks to be Russia in that fantasy (Score:2)
You've also ignored pretty well everything that somebody paying a tiny bit of attention to recent history would have noticed, such as the long running horrific war of attrition between Iran and Iraq which has left Iran with the majority of it's population under 25.
What happens in Iraq is pretty well a race between the younger generation taking control and the old men (as in too old to have fought in that war 20 years ago) getting nukes
Re:Wonder what Mr. Teller thinks of Iran? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just to add a point about China and Russia. I don't know what is the stance of China with respect to Iran, but before the Russian elections last week Putin published enormous "letter" outlining his platform and very clearly stating his opinions about all kinds of domestic and international issues. On the subject of Iran the message was clear - Russia will not tolerate Iran with nuclear weapons, period. However Russia will not lightly agree on military intervention as a "solution"; in fact they will oppose it at every turn. "Reasons for this position" - asks Mr. Putin - "look what happened everywhere where there was an intervention".
Hard to argue against, isn't it?
How ? (Score:2)
it is right for us to prevent new powers of such scale from arising
The big question is : How you are to achieve that goal?
In what way you can disarm Iran, with peaceful mean?
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately being the top power on Earth takes money, something the USA no longer has.
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately being the top power on Earth takes money, something the USA no longer has.
Technically money is a construct no country on Earth has (other than China) - and it's only a pretty good approximation of labor to begin with. The USA has (for the moment) the freest civilization on Earth, and thereby the best place for innovative minds to go. Our labor defines us, and we are, by and large, the intellectuals that created the modern technological age. Whether that is a self-defeating system that dies due to the powers granted to a few bad people by new technological innovations, the comp
It's all in how you frame it (Score:4, Insightful)
It does not matter to the Iran Government what happens to its people in the process, including perhaps allies deciding to wipe out Iran if Iran decides to use the bomb.
Right, because it's the Iranian government's fault that the United States and it's pals chose to place unwarranted embargoes on Iran, crippling its economy. If the U.S. attacks Iran, it will be because it was "forced" to (at gunpoint, apparently), not because it purposely decided to against all reasoning.
And depending on the area attacked by allies oil prices will be much much higher, if they could still use the oil.
Yes, high oil prices is totally the first thing I think of when I imagine the negative effects of blowing people's father's and sons limbs off, bombing homes and cities into rubble, and laying waste and death to a peaceful society.
The other problem with anyone who decides to attack Iran using the bomb is the fallout to surrounding countries
Right, because the fallout IN Iran isn't a problem at it.
Iran seems hell bent on building the bomb, and the embargo's do not seem to matter to them.
Right, refusing to capitulate to a bully's demands is the same as "not caring" if someone bullies you.
Attacking there nuclear hideouts, or facilities seems to be the only way to end it now or disrupt there plans..
False dichotomy because who the hell says we need to "end it now" or "disrupt there (sic) plans"?
WE DON'T. WE NEED TO START MINDING OUR OWN FUCKING BUSINESS.
They Saved The World (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact is that without the atomic bomb, WWIII most certainly would have happened between the West and the USSR. The attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki raised the stakes of another general war between the remaining Great Powers so enormously that a war like WWII would no longer be possible.
As horrible as these weapons are, they stopped the most terrible war the world would have ever known.
Re:They Saved The World (Score:4, Informative)
This is quite far from a "fact", in fact, the facts point in the completely opposite direction. By the end of WWII, the USSR was not in a position to fight another world war, or even a local war. It was, in fact, not in a position to fight any wars except proxy skirmishes until about the end of the 1970s. The evilness of the regime towards its people aside, the country was devastated by WWII, its male population decimated or worse, its infrastructure heavily dependent on Western aid, and on top of that the USSR had to support extending communism in half of Europe. If you believe that was free, you're wrong.
By many accounts, the real reason for the huge nuclear buildup on both sides of the iron curtain had, after a while, not so much to do with the threat that was addressed by the nuclear weapons, but more to do with the prestige and the resource allocation benefits that manufacturing nuclear weapons brought. In other words, it was a classical case of a principal-agent problem where the goal of the principal (maximizing safety) was not aligned to the goal of the agents (maximizing power of nuclear arsenal).
I believe this is also known as not allowing a mineshaft gap.
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Do you have a reputable link for that fact, or is it just something you heard once? Negotiating a surrender on terms that make it more like suing for peace doesn't really count if that's what you are referring to.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:They Saved The World (Score:5, Informative)
It's not the same China. The government that we saved in WWII lost control of the mainland in 1949. The government that we saved is now commonly known as Taiwan, and in comparison to the PRC they are quite friendly.
Re:They Saved The World (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but reality is a bit more complicated. China was basically in a civil war at the beginning of WWII. Japan had basically already taken over Manchuria (there was a movie about this "the last emperor"). To help keep Japan in check, first we gave money and supplies to the KMT (basically chiang kai-shek govt) to help them fight the Japanese, but they turned out to be incompetent, so then we gave money to CCP (basically mao and his supporters of the communist party). W/o money from the US, it is likely that both "governments" would have been defeated by the japanese. Of course that's a bit simplification, but when a countries is in a civil war and fighing the Soviet Union & Japan at the same time (ironically, germany was allied with china for a short time, until they flipped sides joined with Japan against the Soviet Union, but I digress), it isn't very simple...
As you mentioned, the KMT is now one of the parties in Taiwan (currently holding power), but the DPP is a taiwan opposition party which breifly held the presidency from 2000-2008. So in many respects, the KMT, DPP and CCP are really sort parties, not "governments", per-se. Nominally, you'd think the DPP would be the most friendly to the US, but since the DPP supports taiwan independence, we are oddly more aligned with the KMT (and the CCP in mainland china) on this issue. Politics makes strange bedfellows...
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Well, that and the fact that Chiang-Kai Shek was a rather nasty bastard and the KMT never was able to really convince the Chinese people that it had their interests at heart. Of course, they were wrong to assume that Mao did, but still if the KMT hadn't been such vicious assholes, maybe people would have felt a little less inclined to join the Reds.
Re:They Saved The World (Score:5, Insightful)
The Chinese admired the Americans quite a lot. Even Mao tried to make overtures, not wanting to be totally reliant on the Soviets, but the Americans had this bizarre fixation on Chiang Kai-Shek and the Kuomintang (Churchill made special note of this unreasonable obsession in his History of WWII), even after the Communists had driven them off the mainland. The strict anti-Communist stance lead the Americans to miss an opportunity at rapprochement and drove Mao completely into the Soviet sphere, and continued support for the Kuomintang, who weren't exactly all that pleasant when they were running China, pissed a lot of Chinese off.
Re:They Saved The World (Score:4, Interesting)
Revisionist crap. The Japanese were hellbent on taking the pacific to a lesser extent, a large chunk of China. They managed to capture its east cost pretty well. Now that I think about it. Diplomatically, I really wonder how the Chinese government thinks of America in this regards. We bloody well saved their ass!
Nationalism keeps people from saying that other countries saved them, and before long no one remembers.
How many people in the USA remember that the French made the American revolution possible? Lafayette St in Durham NC is named after the French general who volunteered to travel from France to Virginia to fight the British at his own expense. In the height of the build-up the Iraq war, I was in a restaurant a few blocks away from that street. People at another table made a big show of ordering "freedom fries".
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Revisionist crap. The Japanese were hellbent on taking the pacific to a lesser extent, a large chunk of China. They managed to capture its east cost pretty well. Now that I think about it. Diplomatically, I really wonder how the Chinese government thinks of America in this regards. We bloody well saved their ass!
Nationalism keeps people from saying that other countries saved them, and before long no one remembers.
How many people in the USA remember that the French made the American revolution possible? Lafayette St in Durham NC is named after the French general who volunteered to travel from France to Virginia to fight the British at his own expense. In the height of the build-up the Iraq war, I was in a restaurant a few blocks away from that street. People at another table made a big show of ordering "freedom fries".
Yeah, people are dicks.
However, I wouldn't assume that French support for the US rebellion was a matter of charity or pre-Revolutionary enlightenment. France and England had been trying to gouge each other's eyes out since... oh, shortly after 1066.
It took the unification of Germany to convince them they could get into the same bed together.
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Yeah, people are dicks.
However, I wouldn't assume that French support for the US rebellion was a matter of charity or pre-Revolutionary enlightenment. France and England had been trying to gouge each other's eyes out since... oh, shortly after 1066.
It took the unification of Germany to convince them they could get into the same bed together.
Completely true. But let's be realistic here, when was the last time a country went to war as a matter of charity or enlightenment again? Wars are waged for territories, resources or influence one way or the other. One party has an aggressive policy of resource gathering or conquest, diplomacy fails, it escalates and eventually provides a casus belli to one or the other party. Of course, to sell it to Joe Sixpack, it is faster to wrap it with religion or moral.
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The French ARISTOS volunteered to help America. Not the assholes who created a machine designed to efficiently lop off heads. Bring the aristos back and we'll talk.
Re:They Saved The World (Score:5, Informative)
It served two purposes:
1. It demonstrated to the Soviets, who had massive forces amassed in Eastern and Central Europe that the West now possessed a weapon deliverable by high altitude bomber that could kill thousands.
2. It prevented the Soviets from seizing large parts of Japan by forcing a quick surrender to the Americans. An invasion of the main islands would most certainly have taken long enough that the Soviets could have moved to occupy Japan themselves. As it was, the Russians seized the northernmost parts of the Empire proper and hold them to this very day.
3. It stopped the war very quickly and forced an unconditional surrender. There was even less game-playing that the fragments of the Third Reich had tried to play.
As to the larger point you try to make, the Japanese leadership's actions even after the first H bomb were hardly singular in wanting to surrender.
Wrong bomb (Score:3, Informative)
As to the larger point you try to make, the Japanese leadership's actions even after the first H bomb were hardly singular in wanting to surrender.
A bomb != H bomb. The U.S. dropped two fission bombs on Japan. Thank heavens we haven't dropped any Tellar-Ulam, a.k.a. fission-fusion, a.k.a. hydrogen bombs on anyone.
Re:They Saved The World (Score:4, Interesting)
As early as 1944 the Japanese began sending out feelers for peace, a conditional surrender were the Japanese terms. The big mistake was sending their envoy's through the Soviet union which wanted no peace between the Allies and the Japanese.
I highly doubt it would have come to a prolonged attack on the Japanese home islands before a conditional surrender was hammered out. Japan had no desire to become part of the greater Soviet Union and would have surrendered to the Americans before that happened and the Americans did not want the casualties from a prolonged fight. Also, the Soviets were very reluctant to get involved in China. The Soviets only began their campaign against parts of Japanese held China and Mongolia on 8 August 1945, a major part of this was that it was a requirement for the Soviets to join the Pacific war in order to keep territories annexed in Eastern Europe (agreed to by Stalin, Churchill and Truman at Yalta, they cut up Europe before the war ended), The Instrument of surrender was signed on 8 September 1945, less then a month after the Soviets joined the war.
Not that I question the decision of the US at the time, The soviets prevented the Americans from even knowing that Japan was talking of surrender but the Soviets would never have been a real part of the Japanese invasion, for no other reason then logistics most of the transports the Soviets had were American Liberty ships and no landing ships to speak of.
Re:They Saved The World (Score:4, Informative)
The problem is you deliberately targeted civilians in both cases. There were plenty of military only options, plenty of sparsely habited areas that would have been equally effective demonstrations.
Those civilians were innocent. Caught up in a war they didn't want. Their slaughter cannot be justified.
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Those civilians were innocent. Caught up in a war they didn't want. Their slaughter cannot be justified.
Tell it to the Japanese about China, especially the Nanking Massacre. Those Japanese civilians were caught up in a war that they LOVED, right up until they started getting bombed on a regular basis.
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"everybody is doing it" is not an acceptable justification.
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No. Japan was losing the war badly, but vowed to fight to the last person rather than surrender. I'm no fan of nuclear weapons but I have to admit that the overwhelming show of force saved millions of lives.
Re:They Saved The World (Score:4, Informative)
No. Japan was losing the war badly, but vowed to fight to the last person rather than surrender. I'm no fan of nuclear weapons but I have to admit that the overwhelming show of force saved millions of lives.
Yeah, after seeing the movies of Japanese civilians on the islands (Saipan?) jump off cliffs with their babies to avoid capture by the Americans, the thought of an invasion of the home islands really makes you shudder.
And the Japanese were reinforcing the area where the landings were planned, bringing a number of divisions back from the mainland, IIRC.
Tradition says the US was expecting to take a million casualties. Heaven knows how many they would have inflicted.
Re:They Saved The World (Score:5, Informative)
Actually the Japanese were trying desperately to negotiate a surrender even before the FIRST use of WMD against them.
The surrender effort didn't have credibility. Sure, some Japanese were trying desperately to negotiate a surrender, but other Japanese with more considerable authority were preparing for a brutal and bloody defense of the Japanese homeland at almost any cost. Those who would surrender not only had to negotiate with the US, they had to do so with their own people who advocated a war of attrition.
The atomic bombs tipped the scale decisively in favor of those who advocated surrender. The US demonstrated a weapon that could kill countless Japanese soldiers and civilians at little cost to the US. No war of attrition could succeed against that.
And one sees a difference in results. Instead of powerless officials making secret and irrelevant appeals through diplomatic back channels, the Emperor of Japan radioed a nationwide order to cease fighting and lay down their arms, and that order was obeyed. That's the difference that the use of those two atomic bombs wrought.
Re:They Saved The World (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, there were no "purely military" targets. The defense for the planned invasion of Kyushu was almost entirely civilian, and any military production facilities were generally located well within city limits, so again, you show you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, but feel it necessary to be self-righteous anyway.
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Speculation.
So what? You have a better approach you want to share?
Had the bombs been used on uninhabited areas or purely military targets first we would know if they would have surrendered. Instead you went straight to nuking innocent civilians and then tried to retroactively justify it.
It's worth noting here that it worked. I don't see the point of discussing "purity" of military targets or the degree of innocence of civilians who are contributing substantially to a war effort. Rebut the arguments actually used rather than projecting bogus morality on a different era.
The bombings were tests on human subjects as much as strategic attacks.
So what, even if it were true? The double standard here is repulsive. The US could have done a lot more tests on human subjects than that in Japan once the islands had bee
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Wow, that's amazing. If Japan wanted to surrender, it wouldn't have taken TWO atom bombs to make them do so.
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Wow, that's amazing. If Japan wanted to surrender, it wouldn't have taken TWO atom bombs to make them do so.
Sure it would... they needed to see the parity bit.
My grandfather was killed by the Japanese (Score:2)
Disclaimer:
My grandfather was killed by the Japanese
He suffered severe torture before he was beheaded
The Japanese killed my grandfather 2 weeks after they have signed the "surrender letter" on board an American warship
And - this is important --- my grandfather was not the only one who was murdered by the Japanese occupation force after they supposed to have surrendered
Your assertion that "Actually the Japanese were trying desperately to negotiate a surrender even before the FIRST use of WMD against them" is
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Actually the Japanese were trying desperately to negotiate a surrender even before the FIRST use of WMD against them. The idea that WMD somehow prevented deaths or suffering is total bullshit. It was a matter of the US asserting itself as the dominant military power, and Japan was a soft enough target to cop 2 WMD attacks. Interesting how the victors frame their attrocities.
Sorry, the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War (SCDW, or the "Big Six") who actually ran the country were not only NOT involved in any way with attempts to negotiate surrender. The official policy, and the only one they ever discussed, was Ketsu-Go, a final apocalyptic battle where (the Army claimed) they would inflict such heavy casualties on the Americans that they Americans would grant Japan favorable terms (no occupation, and continuation of the present government). It was impossible (due to Ar
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No kidding. The Japanese government didn't even surrender after Hiroshima.
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No kidding. The Japanese government didn't even surrender after Hiroshima.
And even after the second bomb, the warlords only surrendered because the Emperor told them to.
And even then they still managed to swing one exception to the Allies' demand for unconditional surrender.
Teller and Oppenheimer (Score:5, Interesting)
Teller destroyed the career of Robert Oppenheimer for no damn good reason, after which his own graduate students shunned him.
I have no interest in anything to do about him.
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Re:Teller and Oppenheimer (Score:5, Informative)
First of all, even if he opposed it that doesn't mean you get to accuse him of being a communist.
But in reality the situation was more complicated than that. Oppenheimer (and others) also opposed Teller's design because they thought it wouldn't work. Teller took it personally and set out to destroy them. But those others were right and in the end the H-bomb that Teller help built was based on a design of Ulam's.
That's a poor reason. (Score:2)
Not understanding why someone did something is a a reason to be interested, since it can bring greater understanding on your part. Being curious is the first step of the scientific method.
I'm sure the man was brilliant (Score:3)
And his work has brought the state of research into nucleur physics forwards by huge leaps and bounds.
OTOH some of his critics were right. We didn't and don't *need* the hydrogen bomb.
But that said, for a given yield a fusion bomb will give you considerably less radioactive nastiness so it does have advantages over fission, and I can empathise with a man who thought huge explosions were pretty cool.
Re:I'm sure the man was brilliant (Score:4, Informative)
actually, you get more fallout. much more.
the fusion part of the design doesn't provide the lion's share of the yield - as proved by Castle Bravo. it was designed as a ~3Mt design, but thanks to the U238 tamper and all the very fast neutrons the fusion stage provided, they ended up with 15Mt that they were quite unprepared for.
most of the yield comes from fissioning the U238 tamper, which gives a ton of fallout. Pu239 fission initiates the fusion stage, which provides craploads of neutrons which will fission the U238.
Re:I'm sure the man was brilliant (Score:4, Informative)
Well, it the hydrogen bomb was a bomb that could be scaled up to as large an explosion as one wanted, as the Soviet Union proved with the Tsar Bomba. They replaced the U-238 tamper with lead, and still got an explosion of 50 megatons or so, the largest man-made explosion in history. Had they kept the uranium, it would have been around 100 megatons. Unlike fission weapons, where the fission of the uranium or plutonium in a chain reaction will cause the supercritical mass to blow apart after only a fraction of the material has fissioned (up to perhaps only 20% fission for implosion-type weapons, as low as 1% for gun-type weapons like the Little Boy bomb used on Hiroshima), limiting the size of the explosion, a hydrogen bomb can become as big as one would like, provided the raw materials are available.
I'd so much like to see one of those explosions (Score:3)
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His son... (Score:5, Interesting)
...Paul Teller taught at UC Davis in the 80's and 90's(maybe still does). When I took his philosophy of science course(PHI 108), on the first meeting with the TA, he said "Don't ask him about his father".
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Ask who?
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sounds like something out of Young Frankenstein.
Fortunately (Score:5, Funny)
Thank goodness, now that the Cold War is over we have the War on Terror, so we can still dismiss critics of more spending for unnecessary weapon systems as "lacking in common sense or patriotism".
Who brooked who (Score:2)
Later years (Score:2)
I met him in his later years, after the bomb-pumped X-ray laser missile defense [wikipedia.org] idea he was touting had fizzled. At the time, he was pitching precision-guided crowbars dropped from orbit.
Um, no he's not a "father" of hydrogen bomb (Score:2)
Andrei Sakharov (of Soviet Union) is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Sakharov#Development_of_thermonuclear_devices [wikipedia.org]
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It was developed in parallel in US and USSR, so both men take credit. But US was the first one to detonate a working device.
Why the Right Wing Progaganda? (Score:3, Insightful)
Is there any other reason to lionize Teller at this moment in time? The text of the link includes the phrase "a matter of life and horrible death". In other words, an existential threat to Western Civilization. The implied parallel is that Islam and international Communism are similar threats to the West. If Teller is a hero for his position, the all the Republican presidential hopefuls are also heroes for calling for an attack against Iran. And Obama, along with anyone else who advocates caution, is a spineless traitor who want to destroy democracy.
Pure right wing propaganda.
Instead of looking back more then 60 years to the late 1940's, let's consider a much more recent and infinitely more relevant event: G. W. Bush's invasion of Iraq. This was a war of choice, and has emerged as the single worst policy mistake in the history of the USA. It cost the US and it's allies hundreds of billions of dollars, tens of thousands of US casualties, and over one hundred thousand civilian causalities in Iraq.
It made Iran much more powerful, and alienated the entire world from the US. All the European leaders who supported the war fell out of favor. Radical Islamic movements, who really do want to destroy the West, have much more influence in Islamic politics. Even with the nominal end of combat, no one knows when it will really end or how much it will cost, in both life and treasure. We still don't know how badly screwed up we are over this.
And now Republicans, who lied their teeth out over Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, are screaming that WE MUST ATTACK IRAN RIGHT NOW!!! So someone decides it's time to raise H-Bomb Teller from his crypt, wrap him up in the stars and stripes, and declare that he saved civilization from the Godless Hoards. Meanwhile, G. W. Bush, who is very much alive and well, is completely missing. He is so off the charts it's like he never existed.
As far as the Republicans and the mainstream media is concerned, Clinton left office, the world hibernated for 8 years, and then Obama took over. Now there is talk of more war in the Middle East, and no one even speaks the name of Bush. It's not like someone asked his opinion and he responded "no comment". No one is even asking. He has been edited out of history, like in 1984.
This topic is a de facto intelligence test. If you looked at it and wondered why anyone would be saying these kinds of things about Teller then you pass. If you saw nothing unusual, you failed. Given the kind of comments I've seen so far, everyone reading Slashdot is politically brain dead. If there was some way I could turn off life support for all the flat-lined Slashdot readers, I'd do it in an instant.
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"If there was some way I could turn off life support for all the flat-lined Slashdot readers, I'd do it in an instant."
Anyone else see the irony of a person ranting about the brutality of George Bush's arbitrary and brutal war, posting in a public forum that he would unhesitatingly MURDER the people that disagree with him?
And that folks, is what passes for public discourse on policy issues in the USA.
Note to the OP:
"...And now Republicans, who lied their teeth out over Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, a
A Limerick (Score:3)
A bellicose feller named Teller
That prominent atom bomb seller
Promotes with aplomb
The hydrogen bomb
And tells the uncertain they're yeller!
-- lifted from the back column of a science mag of my childhood
The Nazis could have kept Teller (Score:3)
The Nazis could have kept Teller and a huge bunch of other excellent Jewish scientists, if only their grotesque racism didn't blind them, and push the Jewish scientists to the West (the USA mostly).
I think we can be all very thankful for the Nazis' idiocy, because their anti-Jewish propaganda might just have saved the world.
Re:Why is HE the most vilified? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because of this:
What separates them is intent. Teller knew full well he was designing the weapons to end industrial civilization. Teller was deliberately designing stuff to kill people.
Thomas Midgley Jr. didn't know when he was developing the things he was developing that they were anything other than helpful to society.