Comments on the arguments right now about the war

[machievelli]

All right, I'll admit it. Having some half baked history student lecture me, someone almost twice his age on war really burns me. So instead of just screaming at him, I gave all of you this...

 

If you look at the borders in 1953, only two borders, the one with Russia and North Korean were Communist. There was 7,000+ miles of borders with those horrible nasty capitalists so that argument doesn't hold water.

 

 

Well, increasing those borders would not be good, no? Soviets wanted buffer states, you know, to protect it.

 

Reply: Except for their own claims, and the brief (1918-1920 invasion of Communist Russia, then the refusal to accept the legal existence of Communist china whch did not include actual attacks on their territory) the US had done nothing but ignore them. Why did they need buffer states? It was Russia’s attempts to reoccupy lands now claimed by Poland and hina’s own attempts at subjugating ‘historically Chinese territory in Indiaand what is now Bangladesh that caused that problem.

Whether you admit it or not it was them trying to grab everyone else’s real estate that caused the need for ‘buffer states.

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On top of that, the US could deliver Nuclear weapons into over half of Russia and all of China from our forward bases, but except for Alaska and Washington Staes, the US was safe. What do you think Uncle Joe was going to do; Mail it to us? The US had already told Communist China through the Swiss that you leave Taiwan Hong Kong and Macao alone, and we will let you do what you want in 1948 so don't give us this crap that the US would have immediately attacked them. We could have leveled all of Communiist controlled China and Russian could not have stopped us!

 

 

...Oh? I bolded that part for emphasis.

 

You know what would happen if there would be a war between USSR and USA in this era? No? Well then, stop making bold predictions. Stop thinking, "Oh, America can destroy everyone!" Because you don't know.

 

That sort of nationalistic arrogance is what led the National Socialists to lose WWII. And it could easily cause America to be nuked into obilvion. Not to mention that we could easily overreach and LOSE. Who would have guessed that maybe, had we followed your advice, we'd be speaking Russian and talking of the joys of the Communist society?

 

Be careful of what you wish for.

Reply: If we moved up to 1948, you might remotely be correct. But Patton was not the only advocate of destroying the Communist way of life, only the most vocal. I looked at historical records and noticed the following.

The entire premise of the argument from my side is that the Russians in 1945 did not have the capability to really stop us if Truman had accepted Patton’s argument that we go to war with Russia in later 1945 early 1946. There were planes on all sides that could have carried the original A bombs. The smaller of the two, the bomb named Little boy weighed in at 8900 pounds and Fat Man 10,300.

 

When the mushroom cloud dissipated over Nagasaki, exactly six physics packages (The nickname for the atomic bomb’s internal workings) had been built. One had been expended at Trinity site in July of 1945 to test the capability of the plutonium bomb design of Fat Man. No such test was made of Little Boy, because they had already verified that it would work; there was one bomb enroute Marianas, (Little boy design) and two in production (One of each) that would have been sent less than a month later. That works out to a production rate of one bomb every six weeks. We’re not talking mass production yet.

 

Russia had zip.

 

America had the B29 and B24 already in Wing strength (72 aircraft per wing) service, with the B32, which saw little service capable of carrying those massive bombs. The British had the Avro Lancaster and the Handley Page Halifax, in fact the Lancaster had already proven she could handle it by dropping 40,000 lb bombs to sink the Tirpitz. Modifying the other would not have been that difficult.

 

You will notice that all of these planes were already there. There were three squadrons that had planes already modified to carry such a massive bomb, one in the US, the others English.

 

Russia had only one plane capable of carrying such a bomb if they had it in 1945. Since all of my books are packed, I cannot give you specs on that aircraft. I do know less than 500 were built, it was an open cockpit design and poorly defended (About nine machine guns covering her, and none of them firing directly forward) and that the German’s nicknamed them ‘cooked sausage’ because the ME109 went through them like men at dinner. They didn’t have either superchargers or compressed oxygen in large enough quantity to operate them. They could reach American continental target (Barring Alaska) but only on a one way ‘suicide’ mission. One trip per plane is not cost effective.

 

The B29 was the largest bomber of her age. She was also the fastest heavy bomber. Since she is also the only bomber to drop a nuclear weapon in anger, let’s look at her specifically. Look at the specs of this plane from the position of a fighter pilot who has to take her down;

 

Max Speed: 358 miles per hour.

 

Any fighter built before 1942 would have not been able to keep up. She would have run away from the Zero Spitfires or Messerschmitt of Pearl Harbor and the battle of Britain. The German FW190 and TA 152 (The superior model of that venerated plane built by Kurt Tank in early 1945 that could outrun the P51) the Messerschmitt Me262 and the P51 would have been the only aircraft flying at the time that had a chance of combating them efficiently.

The Japanese had only two planes in 1944 that had a chance chasing them down. They had five by the end of the war, but not in sufficient numbers. The Russians would have had only three types, the Yak 9U, and the Lavochkin models 9 and 11.

 

Ceiling 31,850 feet.

 

Without supercharging the engine there was no fighter capable of getting high enough. Again those later planes could, but Saburo Sakai, the highest ranked surviving Japanese Ace of WWII compared trying to fight a bomber at that altitude as trying to guide a car skidding on ice. Before the advent of the Jet, there was nothing that could guarantee blasting every B29 out of a formation. In fact, the American pilots had to go in 10,000 feet lower than this because the Norden Bomb sight wasn’t accurate enough from such a height. Bomb load (according to the site great planes of WWII http://www.tgplanes.com/planfile.asp?idplane=12 it carried 4100 kg, 9020 for the rest of us, though the original A bombs were much bigger. In fact the Americans created a project code named Silverplate to upgrade that aircraft. According to [url http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/EnolaGay/EnolaGay.html[/url] the Enola Gay and the other 14 upgraded aircraft could carry a 20,000 pound bomb load, twice that of any other B29 at the cost of 782,000 1945 dollars. Try 8,767,088.89in modern day dollars each. Of course the original planes cost 638, 188 each or 7,154,796.58 each, so it wasn’t that big a jump in cost.

 

A total of 3,967 were built by Boeing.

 

Range: 5333 miles, 3550 with a full nuclear payload or 10,000 lbs of bombs. That means that from bases in Europe (England, France, Greece and Turkey) from India (Which would not be a free nation until 1948) Japan Okinawa and Iwo Jima, the US could have hit any target in both Russia and China easily. I’m not saying it would have been a cakewalk. But we would have been able to devastate the entire military capability of Russia in a few months, and slaughter an estimate 70 Million Russians if we had wanted to. If it had been China instead, it would have taken a few weeks less, but cost more like 200 million lives.

 

Pound for pound, nothing made by man before has the capability these little monsters have. In fact if one side has such a weapon and the other does not, there is no way they can win. The nuclear power can destroy five thousand years of effort in one massive orgiastic blast. And accept the piddling little million plus casualties they would take in the process.

 

Now since you think money is the driving force behind everything, let’s look at the cost, which according to you is the be all and end all of why someone fights. According to http://www.brook.edu/FP/PROJECTS/NUCWCOST/MANHATTN.HTM the Manhattan project cost more that 20 Billion dollars in 1996 dollars from original studies to the first bombs being dropped on Japan. But as I pointed out in the first paragraph above, this was literally hand made piecework. All of that 21.5 billion was research and development. A lot of money I will admit. when you figure as their findings go on, that each of those first two bombs cost an estimated 5 billion dollars apiece in addition to it..

 

But as anyone will tell you, building anything on an assembly line means the cost plummets. Compare the cost between a Bentley or a VW. Bentleys are rare, right?

As an example, the first protoytpe of the A36 which later became the P51 cost just under 200,000 dollars (2.24 Million each in modern dollar) while the P51D built at the end of the war cost 50985(571598.50) each. But that was after a production run of over 15 thousand planes. Assuming a corresponding drop in cost, we could have gone to mass production and by the 15,000th bomb been paying less than half a billion dollars each. Not that we would have had to use more than say 50. Assuming the costs I have mentioned above, that comes to world domination at less than 20 Billion dollars.

 

Before you scream about the planes; 7377 Lancasters had already been built, more than half of them still flying in 1945. 6,176 Halifaxs had been built slightly less than half remaining, 18,000 B24s had been built with about 8,000 still capable of operations and over 3,000 B29s not only still flying, but capable of carrying the smaller bomb without alteration. In fact all but the B24s could carry the Little Boy design already, and modification would only be needed for the larger Fat Man design. We had all the planes we need even assuming ruinous losses, because if the one plane with the nuke gets through, you can write off the squadron as a successful attack.

 

Modern bombs, even with the massive difference in the costs caused by inflation since WWII costs less than the brand new fighter (assuming an F16 at just over 22 million each) that would carry them. In fact you paid more for the fighter than you did for all four of those B61 ‘dial a yield’ bombs.

 

In comparison we spent 50 Billion dollars keeping the Allies afloat during WWII, (1994 dollars) none of which was ever repaid. According to the State Department’s green book http://qesdb.usaid.gov/cgi-bin/broker.exe which lists aid given to foreign countries in the years between 1946 and the present we have given away over 1.093 trillion dollars helping just about every one get their industries running properly (95.8 billion of it rebuilding the European and Asian economies) then arming them against the Russians and the Chinese. We gave away every necessary weapon to our allies, and even added three old enemies to that list thanks to Korea, Germany and Japan and Italy.

 

But while you’re screaming about us ‘surrounding and attacking them’ remember this verifiable fact:

 

After the UN finally sat down in full sessions in 1946, Truman offered to turn over every scrap of the research and the technology of the bomb to the UN. The plan called for every country (At the time seven) with the capability would turn over all research and the people who could make them to UN care.

 

Americans would NOT have the bomb. No one would. Oddly enough, these ‘peace loving’ Russians you tout so vehemently were the ones who refused. They claimed not to even be working on them.

 

Yeah right, that was a natural gas explosion in January of 1948, right?

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Truman in fact had to deal with Curtis Le May's new 'strategic' combat initiative, which would have started the Korean War from the Airforce side with 'blow every North Korean city off the map, and if China complains, take out their rail hubs too.He wasn;t worried about russian bombs. He was worried about his own idjits.

 

 

Idiots, maybe? Of course, said plan would have made the Soviets mad, and that could lead up to WWII. And maybe those "idiots" were afraid of Russian bombs, and was afraid of WWIII, because had WWIII occured, civilization can be destroyed.

 

My reply: Thanks to two things, the Russians did later have the bomber necessary. Four American B29s either crash landed or made emergency landings in Russia before January of 1945. But they did not have the technical capability at that time to build them. When the first reports were mentioned in 1946 that the Russians were building a ‘bolt for bolt copy’ of the B29, no one believed it. Later records (With 60 years of 20/20 hind sight) show that Truman in his bid to get Boeing into the airline business rather than the bomber business helped them convert the basic B29 bomber design into the Boeing ‘Stratocruiser’.

 

The landing gear and flight controls for those two planes were identical. The Russians, who were at that time still on relatively good terms with us bought the landing gear plans legally, the only part of the plane they couldn’t make for themselves yet.

 

Then at the May Day celebration of 1947, the Russians revealed that they had built the plane. In fact photos taken later by agents of several of the Tu4s showed that the Russians had so slavishly copied the design that there were areas of the Russian aircraft that were marked as if they had been patched up corresponding to the battle damage reported by the crew of the Hap Arnold Express, one of those lost planes.

 

The Tu-4 was assigned the code name "Bull" in the NATO code naming system. The entrance into service of the Tu-4 threw the USAF into a virtual panic, since the Tu-4 possessed sufficient range to attack Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York with a worthwhile load on a one-way "suicide" mission. From seized airfields in Iceland, Soviet Tu-4s were even capable of hitting targets in New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, and from bases in Greenland they could hit targets as far away as New Orleans or Denver.

 

Approximately 1200 Tu-4s are believed to have been built in the Soviet Union, with some going to China during the later 1950s.

 

However things had changed. The massive bomber that was able to carry through regardless in WWII was no more. The advent of the Jet fighter had doomed it.

In one battle during Korea, 30 Russian Made MiG 15s had not only sidestepped the P84 escorts, but were able to not only decimate but totally destroy 19 out of 20 B29s on one strike. The TU4s we had been so terrified by less than three years previously would not have gotten within a thousand miles of their targets.

 

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China and Russia backed Kim Il Sung for only one reason. They couldn't admit that he had slipped his leash without denying 'communist solidarity

 

 

Still, it's a pretty good reason. You don't go and abandon an ally to get destroyed, it makes you weaker on the prestige. And it acts as a way to defend them. Besides, we would defend our allies if they were attacked...And we HAD. So why are you not calling on America's 'only reason' for defending Kuwait is for "solidatry"?

 

Soviets and Chinese had good reason to attack the Americans.

 

Reply: No, except for sheer bloody they had no reason beyond their belief (Proven true) that the US would never admit what had happened. If the truth as known in December of 1950 had been broadcast; that two nations claiming to be neutral had actively assisted in thwarting us, we would have gone into a 3rd world war which the US (With more nuclear weapons) would have won. As much as you disagree, think of it this way; In a naval war, who wins, the guy with ten battleships, or the guy with 2?

 

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Remember as you are spouting all this crap, we were the only nation with nuclear weapons until 1948. We were the only ones that could deliver them until 1955. If those horrible nasty Americans had wanted to take over any nation on the planet, before 1958 we could have done it. And before you squawk about money, it would have cost us less in the long run to Nuke half of Russia ane all of the communist controlled Chinese territory rather than spend money on supporting the French in Indochina, the Dutch in Indonesia, the Nationalist Chinese in China, Korea, Vietnam, and every little tin pot war we have assisted in my entire lifetime!

 

 

Your commetn: Prove it.

 

Rebuttal: the ability to wage a major war is based on three things: Resouces on hand this very minute, resources that can be directed toward such a war, and the willingness of the people to fight that war. I have already directed one and two in my dissrertation above.

 

 

 

Your comments: Here is the thing. Think about the possiblity of what would happen HAD Americans launched WWIII, tried to attack Russia...

 

I do not believe America would have won such a conflict. It seems foolhardy to think such a thing, so arrogant to think we are so...soo mighty. America is a superpower, not an omnipower. Russia also is able to defend itself, and with China as well, they can manage to put up a good fight, and win. Or at least have humanity get wiped out.

 

Not to mention, what would happen if America defeats the Soviets? Haven't predicted that sort of thing, had you?

 

Frankly, I understand why people are anti-war. They're tired of killing, murdering, defending, attacking...basically prpearing for pertupal war and fighting it...and NEVER actually enjoying "freedom". Do I agree with them? I do not care nor do I agree with them, no. But I understand why they fear war.

 

Reply: With both sides throwing less than five megatons of bombs, the Human race would have survived though in the words of Ensign Checkov from Star Trek they ‘wouldn’t have enjoyed it’. While the Russians had the Atomic bomb thee US had already fielded and deployed the Hydrogen bomb (1948). Not 20 measley kilotons, we're talking a megaton. A bomb you can drop five miles away from your target city and still kill it! Plus by June of 1951 those horrible Nasty Warlike Americans field Hiroshima and larger style bombs that weighed less than a metric ton. The B61 'Dial a vield' bomb used by the navy, which can be preset on the aircraft carrier can be set from ten kilotons to one megaton, and are small enough that an A6 (Considered modern in 1954) could carry eighteen of them!

 

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Every 'threat' has been them 'claiming' that we had threatened them. primarily for the world press. Where I come from, they call that paranoia and there is medication you use to correct it. And a rogue state with nuclear weapons that was screaming 'death to Israel BEFORE they admitted they were developing them, or Korea saying that we were still threatening them after 50 years of peace by an armstice does not make me think either leader is stable.And as for a couple of cities. Assume Iran attacks Israel and the US in Iraq;Baghdad 5.8 millionTel Aviv 388,000Jerusalem 743,000In return, before the US can even think about striking Israel hits;Tehran 7.18 millionTabriz 1.5 millionqom 1.1 millionEsfahan 1.6 million.You are talking more people killed in a six hour period than all of the military combat losses of every nation in wwIIDon't just thorw off 'acouple of cities to me!

 

 

Your comment: You assume Iran would nuke Baghdad. Why would Iran do such a thing?

 

Reply: The reason Baghdad is part of that list is because the Iranians as of the time I am writing this cannot deliver a nuclear weapon to the US without hiring a shipping container and having a ship deliver it. All of the cities named are withing the range of the missiles or aircraft they are known and verified to have

 

Comments: Also, Iran may be thinking of doing MAD, to protect itself from a USA invasion. Basically, nuclear weapons would deter an American invasion, preventing people from "wiping Iran off the face of the Earth". Not to mention that Iran is very fearful of Israel who, according to them, is pretty likely to have nukes.

 

Reply: Mad works only if you can guarantee Mutual annihilation. But having Iran which has yet to prove even one bomb claim MAD as their reason is like the Crips in LA claiming parity in firepower with the California National Guard. They can pop off several .22 shots at the local police, but if it is even LAPD, they will get a firestorm of hurt. If I used the National Guard with tanks anti tank weapons and artillery instead, it is like Zimbabwe challenging the US.

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Look up the term before you use it then, Scope. The term came from an epic battle of the period ruight after Alexander died when one side lost something like 95% and the 'winning side lost only 90. The Leader of the nation said, 'It was a great victory' and the man who had to lead the troops snapped back 'May the gods save us from such victories'.

 

 

Your comment:Let me explain how I learnt of that term. Phyrrus sent an invasion force to attack the fledging Roman Republic and take that over, because he was fearful of the Romans. The Romans lost a ton of battles, but Phyrrus also lost a lot of troops. It was Phyrrus who said, "Another victory and we would be destroyed utterly."

 

Reply: Very good! As Shakespeare said in Hamlet, a touch I do confess! But the term actually came from much earlier. The battle was fought near a city named Pyrris by two of the factions created by the death of Alexander the great almost 200 years earlier.

 

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Scope, to quote Chappey Sinclair from Iron Eagle I, and every man who has ever put his life on the line; when men die I Give A SH-T. That goes for every person on BOTH sides. If all you care about is the money you have no business complaining about any war ever fought. We spend so many billions on smart weapons that can kill without a man's hand on the trigger primarily to save lives.It was all of the whining by the anti-war movement in the public press (Where the enemy could use it to judge our resolve) that has caused over two years of bloodshed in Iraq alone.I'll have you know, during Iraqi freedom, even if you figure in civilian casualties. fewer people have died that even the worst doomsayer would have claimed.

 

 

Your comment: Listen, claim all you want about the anti-war movement, but HAD America won the war, nobody would care about the anti-war movement. The Anti-War Movement was made stronger by America's losses, America's losses were not caused by the Anti-War movement.

 

Reply: Your could never be more wrong. A war is not only fought on the physucal (equipment on hand) and monetary (What you can replace) but also on the Morale (Is that man willing to fight) level.

As a veteran of the Vietnam era, I caught a lot of flak during that war. People calling me names, spitting on me, calling me a baby burner. All of it very up close and my clothes that had to be cleaned personal. Why do they bother me?

Because I had joined the Coast guard, which sent less than 1,000 personnel to Vietnam during the entire bloody war. The closest I ever was to Vietnam was San Francisco. To be accused of atrocities as Kerry did in 1975 (Yes I am proud to count myself among the ones he accused. All because I voluntarily put on a uniform) when all I had done was risk my own life to save others hurt more than any peacenik can imagine.

 

Your comments:

Money is far more important than you understand. Far more important. Tell me, how much money we have to pay to arm troops? How much money we have to pay to deploy them? To fight? To use bombs?

 

My rebuttal: Can I give you a list? Unlike you I have actually figured it out. The US supplies 109 pounds of supplies per man per day as of 1991 for combat operations. That is not only food clothing ammunition POL he uses himself, etc. It is bombs for the planes that fly support missions for that guy on the ground. The fuel and weapons used by the Naval ships that fire support, the repairs of every piece of equipment they use from the 9mm pistol on his hip to the B2 flying interdiction missions, the fighters that fly air superiority, the Harriers that fly ground attack, and everything in between.

 

Oh yes my little friend, I know exactly what it costs.

 

Your complaint:

We have an infinite amount of money, but a national debt is BAD. It increases intrest rates, it decreases economic growth. This is what I fear, because this is far more important than you understand.

 

Oh really. Did you realize that the national debt retired by President Clinton included debts from as far back as 1941? That WWII in modern day dollars cost us more than we would spend if the Iraq War lasted until 2030? That the Surplus the Democratcs whined about in 2001 after Buash took office had been made because they hadn't lowered the tax burden even though those debts had bee paid five years earlier

 

If one Democrat had stood up and said 'But we'll need that when the baby boomers reach Social security' I think Bush's tax cuts that year would have failed. Instead they whined like a kid who had been told his allowance had been cut.

 

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The statement isd BS through and through. less than a week into the present conflict, the Anti-war movement was emoting about how the Iraqis were merely sucking us in so they could smash us. When they held the strategic pause two weeks in they screamed 'see we've already lost!'. So don't tell me no one listened.

 

 

Your comment: Then, I'll tell you: Nobody listened.

 

Nobody listened when America marched into Baghdad. Nobody listened when America was winning. When America is losing, then people listen.

 

Reply: someone else has already addressed this. Obviously the only person that was not paying attention when Peter Arnette went on the Iraqi Television News and said we had failed 2 weeks in was you.

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A ceremonial feast among certain Native American peoples of the northwest Pacific coast, as in celebration of a marriage or an accession, at which the host distributes gifts according to each guest's rank or status.Between rival groups the potlach could involve extravagant or competitive giving and destruction by the host of valued items as a display of superior wealth.As i said: War is potlach played with people. Wars don't end because you ran out of money. Just ask the Nazis or the Russians in WWII. It ends when you can no longer maintain your army in the field, with material and personnelafter almost 40 million combined civilian and and military casualties, theRussians were still going. The Germans had to stop after a lousy 8.5.Oh, but wait a minute According to you 49 million people don't count, it was who could afford the monetary cost, isn't it?

 

 

Your comment: Because the monetray cost is far more important than you give. War takes a toll on the economy, making it weaker, and a weak economy can contribute to Russia and Germany losing the war.

 

Reply: How much did it cost to put the 300 Spartans on the plains of Thermoplae? But like those men, money does not matter when you must do something. Facing what is now estimated as 800,000 men, that three hundred and the 2700 other Greeks there stood and died for three days for only one reason. They thought it was important and their lives meant nothing in comparison. The Russians who later stood at Stalingrad, the Germans who faced the Russians outside of Berlin, the few who stood at Agincourt against five times their number, even (As a Texan I must mention them) the 200 odd who said ‘we aren’t retreating’ at the Alamo. All will tell you that money doesn’t mean crap when you have to stand.

[machievelli]

You assume Iran would nuke Baghdad. Why would Iran do such a thing?

 

Also, Iran may be thinking of doing MAD, to protect itself from a USA invasion. Basically, nuclear weapons would deter an American invasion, preventing people from "wiping Iran off the face of the Earth". Not to mention that Iran is very fearful of Israel who, according to them, is pretty likely to have nukes.

 

I had forgotten to answer this: why would Iran nuke Baghdad?

 

Because the missiles and aircraft they have on hand at this very moment are short ranged the SCUD D they have will reach Israel or Northern Saudi, but do not have the range to hit Qatar which is just about 150 miles too far away. But Baghdad is the showpiece of American controlled Iraq and has the largets concentration of US troops out of Qatar. And if liberal conspriacy theorists want to claim that the US was so irritated and stupid as to actively supply Iraq with everything up to and including bio and chemical weapons, why should Iran be exempted from it if they blew up Baghdad to punish the Iraqis for the war?

 

As I joked about Stalin, the only way Iran could deliver a nuclear weapon to the US is by putting it in the mail, amd marking it ex[ress delivery.

[Ctrl Alt Del]

I had forgotten to answer this: why would Iran nuke Baghdad?

 

Because the missiles and aircraft they have on hand at this very moment are short ranged the SCUD D they have will reach Israel or Northern Saudi, but do not have the range to hit Qatar which is just about 150 miles too far away. But Baghdad is the showpiece of American controlled Iraq and has the largets concentration of US troops out of Qatar. And if liberal conspriacy theorists want to claim that the US was so irritated and stupid as to actively supply Iraq with everything up to and including bio and chemical weapons, why should Iran be exempted from it if they blew up Baghdad to punish the Iraqis for the war?

 

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but... Isnt' the vast majority of Iraq's population the exact contrary of Saddam's religion? Xihit (Or whatever you call them on english), the same official religion of Iran. Thing is that they're "brother's", they wouldnt dare to nuke each other.

[TK-8252]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but... Isnt' the vast majority of Iraq's population the exact contrary of Saddam's religion? Xihit (Or whatever you call them on english), the same official religion of Iran. Thing is that they're "brother's", they wouldnt dare to nuke each other.

 

You're right, but I'm not sure where you get "Xihit" from. It's Shi'a Islam that is the majority in Iraq and Iran. Saddam was a Sunni Muslim, which is a minority in Iraq, but is a majority around the world.

 

Confusing, eh?

[machievelli]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but... Isnt' the vast majority of Iraq's population the exact contrary of Saddam's religion? Xihit (Or whatever you call them on english), the same official religion of Iran. Thing is that they're "brother's", they wouldnt dare to nuke each other.

 

A brief history lesson: The Shi'a what we call Shiite Moslems are a sect that broke away from the basic faith around the time of the 4th Caliph on the grounds that you had to be a descendant of Mohamed to be caliph. The one who had just taken the title was the Nephew of Mohamed, instead of his son.

 

The Shi'a supplied the Hashashim (The basis of the word Assassin) of the 10th to 13th century. The Best description would be to compare the Basic Sunnis majority as the Anglican church and the Shi'a as the Baptists.

 

Not accurate, but it gives you an idea of how far apart their ends are.

 

As for nuking someone some religions on this planet (Including different sects of Christianity) have accept mass slaughter of those not of that faith. Dumping nevre and mustard gas on the Kurd (Who are also the same religion) comes to mind.

[SilentScope001]

A brief history lesson: The Shi'a what we call Shiite Moslems are a sect that broke away from the basic faith around the time of the 4th Caliph on the grounds that you had to be a descendant of Mohamed to be caliph. The one who had just taken the title was the Nephew of Mohamed, instead of his son.

 

Seeing that I am part of the Muslim faith, I should make a tiny bit of a correction, as to elborate on what happened and how the Sunni and Shia faiths cam eto be:

 

The Shia broke away because they believe you have to be connected to Mohammed to be a caliph. The Nephew of Mohammed, Ali, is connected to Mohammed, and therefore, the Shias actually are the supporters of Ali (just like the Sunnis). [Mohammed had no living sons, all his sons died in infancy.]

 

Of course, the Shias claimed that Ali should have been the first Caliph, and not the fourth. Shias are pretty upset that Abu Bakr, Umar, and Uthman all claimed the title of Caliph, and not allowed Ali, the true successor. Ali did not contest their claims, not wanting to cause a civil war (at least according to the Shias). Sunnis are fans of Abu Bakr, Umar, and Uthaman, because they were elected by the "Shrua", but they also like Ali as well, and are okay with him being a Caliph.

 

The problem is that after Uthaman, the third Caliph, was murdered, Muwayiah, a person who is aligned to the same clan as Uthamn was pretty worried that Ali has cancelled investigation into the murder, and I speculate Muwayiah feared that Ali may have secretly plotted the assianation to gain the title of Caliph. Muwayiah therefore led a rebellion against Ali, with the main goal of overthrowing Ali and claiming the title for himself.

 

Ali and Muwaiyah fought each other at the Battle of Siffn (I think it's in Syria), and then decided to enter into a cease-fire agreement. Bsaically, they started up an investigation committie to figure out who really did kill Uthaman. The investigation committie failed to sastify both parties, and war started up again. Meanwhile, a group of people who were allied with Ali decided to break that alliance. These people, known as the Kharjarites, were angry that Ali would talk to Muwaiyah, who they see as a sinful person for rebelling against Ali. Because of this, the Kharjaites saw Ali himself as sinful, since if Ali really was a Caliph chosen by God, he wouldn't talk to Muwaiyah, he would send his army and annihlate him. Therefore, the Kharjaites decided to try and murder off both Ali and Muwayiah and then send their army to take over the Muslim world.

 

The Kharjaites succeded in murdering off Ali but only wounded Muwaiyah. Ali's son, Husyan, worried of being attacked by Muwaiyah's forces, signed a peace treaty and given up his claim to the title of Caliph. The current crisis in Islam is over, and Muwayiah declares himself Caliph.

 

Today, the Khajarites are an almost non-existant sect in Islam, and most of them are very peaceful, which is why you don't hear of them very much. The thing you should know is that after Muwayiah's death, his son Yazid became Caliph, and Husyan decided that he should attack Yazid and take back the title of Caliph. Husyan and Yazid fought in Iraq, and Yazid killed off Husyan. This is the real begining of the Sunni-Shia divided, as the Shias are the backers of Ali, Husyan, and his descendants, and the Sunnis are backers of Yazid, the Ummayad, and later the Abbasid dynasties. Many of today's [moderate] Sunnis actually said that they support Husyan's crusade against Yazid and see Yazid as a bad person, but their hatred of Shias styimes from what they see as the Shias "worshipping" Ali and Husyan, and by talking bad about the other Caliphs (Abu Bakr, Umar, and Uthman).

 

I think a more apt description would be that the Shia are the Catholic Church and that the Sunnis are the Protestants. This is because the Shias have codified rules, guidelines, and laws concering their religion, while the Sunnis basically can read the Quran and interpret it however they so desire. The Khajarites are likely to be considered Militant Anabapitsts.

 

As for nuking someone some religions on this planet (Including different sects of Christianity) have accept mass slaughter of those not of that faith. Dumping nevre and mustard gas on the Kurd (Who are also the same religion) comes to mind.

 

But, well, I think the reason that it is unlikely Iran would nuke Iraq is because the Shias and the government of Iraq are very friendly to Iran. After all, a political party that was exiled from Iran, SCIRI, calls for an Islamic Revolution and is pro-Iranian, as well as most of the Shias in Iraq. I think some could argue that Iran is forming a puppet government in Iraq, helping out the US. Regardless of wheter the allegations are true or not, I think that Iran nuking Iraq would be tantamount to the USA nuking United Kingdom.

[machievelli]

Thank you, Scope. I stand corrected.

 

In the thread about constructing your arguments, you already understand the basics of it. Find something beyond conjecture to stand on, and you will not fail.