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Split off from the other thread, as it's off-topic there anyway.  Please try to avoid the name-calling.

I find this list rather interesting.  You have cited 8 items:

 - 1 of them took place less than two months after Clinton entered office, yet somehow Clinton is Fully Responsible for this bombing while GWB bears no responsibility for an attack over SEVEN months after he entered office

 - 2 of them are perpetrated by non-Islamic terrorists

 - 5 of them occurred in foreign nations

If this is the standard you want to use, fine with me.  But your argument falls to pieces:

 - Since '93 WTC "counts" against Clinton, 9/11 counts against GWB, making him responsible for the single largest terrorist attack on U.S. soil ever

 - Since non-Islamic terrorists count too, here's a quick list of terrorist attacks under Bush (spoiler: it's not zero)

2001 5/21 Center for Urban Horticulture destroyed. ELF members plead guilty.
2001 Tacoma, Washington abortion clinic bombing
2001 - 9/11 attacks on NYC, Pentagon
2001 Richard Reid shoe bombing (failed, like the Underwear bomber)
2001-2002 Anthrax attacks
2002 Attack at LAX against El Al ticket counter
2002 Beltway Snipers
2005 Hughes & Dunahoe firebomb abortion clinic
2005 Abortion clinic in Palm Beach burned
2006 SUV attack at UNC
2006 Seattle Jewish Federation shooting, Egyptian shoots six
2006 McMenemy abortion clinic arson attempt. Not an actual clinic, he was mistaken.
2007 IEDs tossed at Mexican Consulate in NYC.
2007 Altman & Baca arrested for the abortion clinic arson
2007 Planned Parenthood arson in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
2007 IED attacked attempted at women's health clinic in Austin

These are the attacks in the United States..

 - Since attacks on foreign soil count, every single American that has died in Iraq since Bush declared "Mission Accomplished" in May of 2003 goes on Bush's record (officially: 4,089 American citizens)

Sorry, but using your own metrics, Bush is the worst anti-terror president we've ever had.  And it's not even close.

Too bad the other thread got locked after the f bomb as I wanted him to try and show how Obama passed more items that has made his first year in office worse than the eight years under Bush.
It would be even better if he could stay on topic and not throw in references to Clinton and Carter as that was not the original premise.

 - 1 of them took place less than two months after Clinton entered office, yet somehow Clinton is Fully Responsible for this bombing while GWB bears no responsibility for an attack over SEVEN months after he entered office

 --  clinton was not responsible for the attack . he was responsible for not doing anything about it. sweeping it under the rug[/u

 - 2 of them are perpetrated by non-Islamic terrorists

since when does a terorist have to islamic?

 - 5 of them occurred in foreign nations

does this mean it doesnt count? agian... if it was perpetrated against the u.s. are our countrymen across the sea any less american than you and me?

If this is the standard you want to use, fine with me.  But your argument falls to pieces:

 - Since '93 WTC "counts" against Clinton, 9/11 counts against GWB, making him responsible for the single largest terrorist attack on U.S. soil ever

yeah , i forgot . bush was the cause for cancer too. do you  really think it took only seven months to plan this attack? fact is, clinton was thinking more about being cool, and getting blown than about the warning signs.he was a sub-par president(one of the worst in history) that rode the success of the republican wave started by reagan.
do you think the terrorists said to themselves, " hey , lets plan a multiple city air attack , and learn to fly in 7 months"? if you really think it was, then you better take off the clinton blinders, and i have a bridge for sale. interested?

 - Since non-Islamic terrorists count too, here's a quick list of terrorist attacks under Bush (spoiler: it's not zero)

2001 5/21 Center for Urban Horticulture destroyed. ELF members plead guilty.
2001 Tacoma, Washington abortion clinic bombing
2001 - 9/11 attacks on NYC, Pentagon
2001 Richard Reid shoe bombing (failed, like the Underwear bomber)
2001-2002 Anthrax attacks
2002 Attack at LAX against El Al ticket counter
2002 Beltway Snipers
2005 Hughes & Dunahoe firebomb abortion clinic
2005 Abortion clinic in Palm Beach burned
2006 SUV attack at UNC
2006 Seattle Jewish Federation shooting, Egyptian shoots six
2006 McMenemy abortion clinic arson attempt. Not an actual clinic, he was mistaken.
2007 IEDs tossed at Mexican Consulate in NYC.
2007 Altman & Baca arrested for the abortion clinic arson
2007 Planned Parenthood arson in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
2007 IED attacked attempted at women's health clinic in Austin

all i have to say about this is........are you kidding me?? abortion clinics ,and beltway snipers? grasping at straws are we? why dont you go and list the assasination of tupac shakur while youre at it?

this could go back and forth all year.

That's an interesting definition of "not doing anything about it," seeing as how Ramzi Yousef is rotting in a Supermax prison while Osama Bin Laden is still at large...  particularly since GWB actually said that he was "no longer concerned" about Osama Bin Laden.  That sure sounds like "sweeping it under the rug" to me.

Yet you're the one claiming that abortion clinic bombings don't count!

1) There is a HUGE difference between attacks that happen in other countries (where our gov't has no jurisdiction) and attacks that happen here.  Pretending otherwise is asinine.
2) Why do you ignore all of our countrymen that have been killed by terrorists in Iraq?  According to you, the 4,000+ deaths there don't even count as terrorist acts.

Who cares?  Clinton may or may not have been able to stop them from planning an attack (Thought Police?), but Bush definitely could have stopped them from executing it.

You're citing attacks that took place in countries where the U.S. has no jurisdiction... and you're accusing me of grasping at straws?  High comedy.

Anyone who blames a president for not stopping something that isn't within his purview (CIA, FBI, DIA, and ATF, anyone?) is insane.  Just as I don't blame presidents for economic downturns (a president's, and moreso Congress's, effect is limited to mostly tax policy and the appointment of the Chairman of the Fed, among other small factors), I don't blame presidents for not taking up a badge and taking down the baddies.

My only issue with Clinton (and he mentioned regrets about it in an interview once, I think) was not going after Bin Laden once when intel suggested he was in Sudan (I think it was Sudan).  He was already on the "kill him" list so, obviously, it would've been nice if he'd been offed then.    

the other thread is not locked. and to tell you the truth, i dont even remember what the original premise was. >:D  it was interesting though. 

I'd call those acts of warfare, for the most part.  Suicide bombings in crowded places = terrorism.  Gunned down by a combatant with an AK-47 = warfare.  Thin, blurry line... I know.


Both of these statements are right and wrong.  "Clinton" and "Bush", by which I mean policies put in place during their presidencies, could have led to flight schools having to divulge names of students for profiling purposes (GASP!  What would the ACLU have said?); or better sharing of reported suspicious activity (like reports of eventual highjackers taking flight lessons / using simulators for the purpose of learning how to fly planes and not, you know, land them) could have led to pre-attack arrests.  But nobody would have gone for these policies, as they would have been seen as violations of privacy.  It took September 11th for people to realize that, in some cases, security comes at the price of privacy.

the comedy is your inability to see things for what they really are.

how about that bridge? interested?

in a nutshell.....rest my case.therefore eliminating  the whole 9/11 debate. thank you.

What a trenchant and insightful rebuttal you have composed.  Well played, sir.

So if I understand you correctly, Clinton is to be held accountable for not killing Bin Laden before anyone knew 9/11 would happen, but GWB gets a pass for actively letting Bin Laden escape (and I quote: "I truly am not that concerned about him") after 9/11 had been perpetrated?

Some consistency, please.

Tupcac and Biggie's deaths are the reason why we invaded Iraq.

Biggie Biggie Biggie, can't you see...GWB dropped a bomb on me...

Couldn't resist.  Sorry.

Ask dolphantom if the Fort Hood attack is terrorism.  I'm sure he'll be happy to tell you that you're wrong (at least, when a Democrat is president).

But honestly, I don't see it as ambiguous.  I specifically did not include people who died in combat against the Iraqi military.  However, those actions had ceased by the time Bush declared Mission Accomplished.  So every single American that has died in Iraq since then was not killed by an opposing nation's military, but by rogue radicals trying to frighten and demoralize us.  This is the definition of terrorism.

<Wonders what percentage of this thread's readers needed to look up "trenchant" in order to truly appreciate the sophisticated beauty of that elegant bitchslap.>

 :D   i was waitin for that. ha!

yeah , including the author of the post. dont hurt yourself there spider.

Yeah, I don't know what to call that!  I guess it is whatever supports someone's argument.  I certainly wouldn't call it combat, so I would lean terrorism.  However, the larger point I'm trying to make is that laying these things at the feet of sitting presidents is foolhardy, no matter who is in office.  That damned FDR could've prevented Pearl Harbor!!


Well, sure, if "frighten and demoralize" enters into the definition, then all warfare is terrorism.  Fire bombing Dresden wasn't exactly the height of strategic planning.  I don't think Nagasaki was exceptionally important, from a strategic standpoint, either.  That's why I say it's a thin, blurry line.  I also wouldn't put much stock in "Mission Accomplished", as even Bush admitted that was an error (and seriously, when have you ever heard George Bush admit to mistakes?  Not his thing.)

  you can sit here and say this and that.  debate all day long. play the blame game . statistics or not. left or right, it does not matter. the government will always justify thier actions to do whatever they want. to think otherwise is just plain naive. all i'm saying is watch what they do, not what they say. these politicians have us pinned against one another, meanwhile they fulfill thier own agendas at any cost. bush, obama, clinton... are all the same animal.  they all want personal gain. debating politics is like shoveling shit against the tide.  a no- win battle. you'll never completely prove any one event wrong or right no matter the how many facts are presented. because in the end its all how you, the individual, choose to interpret those facts.

Wow, I'm disappointed.  You throw out all these supposed facts and statistics, but with the tiniest pushback you immediately retreat to single line responses devoid of content.  I thought you'd have a little more substance to your argument, or I wouldn't have bothered making this thread.

edit: Oh, I guess there is this:

So we've went from "Obama has been worse in one year than Bush was in 8" and "Clinton caused 9/11 and two wars" to "left vs. right doesn't matter, Clinton/Bush/Obama are all the same animal" that quickly?

I had such high hopes for you.

The difference is that in your cited examples, the United States of America was in a declared state of war against the nation of Germany and the empire of Japan.  While I would be willing to accept that the U.S. was in an actual war against the nation of Iraq, such a war (by any reasonable definition) was ended when we took over their government.  Any attacks after that time were perpetrated by terrorists.

This is terminology I disagree with. They are not terrorists, they are insurgents. Terrorists may make up a percentage of the group but as a whole they are not terrorists.

I can agree with that, I suppose.  But then again, the French Resistance would tell you that they conducted warfare against the Nazis -- who had taken over France and overthrown its government --  not acts of terrorism.  It all lies in the eye of the beholder, I suppose.  From our perspective, I would agree with everything you wrote.  From a global perspective, "guerrilla warfare" and "terrorism" are usually the same act called different things.  

^^^ Labels are often based heavily on perspective, and when it comes to wrong/right, good/bad issues, you should always expect the person to use the label that paints him (or the side he supports) in the most positive light.

From Britain's perspective, the rebellious American colonists might have been terrorists.  But as the saying goes, history is written by the victors.

I will say that I do see a definite distinction between persons who attack the U.S. (or U.S. interests) in foreign lands with the goal of driving the U.S. out, and people who attack targets inside the U.S. with the hope of breaking our will to participate in global politics.  I'm not saying that they are the same thing, but one of the original premises of this thread was the claim that overseas attacks in foreign nations "count" as terrorist attacks.  If those are the rules of engagement, then everything that has happened in Iraq since we deposed their gov't must also count.

I prefer the following definitions.....

Targeting a military force by a uniformed force - war
Targeting of civilians by a non-uniformed force --- terrorism
Targeting of a military force by a non uniformed force - asymmetrical warfare
Targeting of civilians by a uniformed force - genocide. 

By these definitions the attack on the Cole, the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon and almost all of the attacks in Iraq, the minutemen at bunker hill, the french resistance in wwii and the bombing of an ROTC center are asymmetrical warfare.

The WTC, the abortion clinics, Oklahoma city, and the olympics bombing are terrorism. 

Hiroshima, the German rocket attacks on London, Dresden and the firing on protestors at Kent State are all genocide.

Instead of looking at whose politics you agree with look at who is attacking who.   

I am not sure where I fall in this debate.  But I will say this - the level on convential warfare deaths versus death via IED on the side of the road is severely tilted.  While there are certainly a lot of lives lost in gun fire battle, I believe a large majority of deaths in either war are not due to a convential "we know who we're fighting" manner.

In other words...there are no real "front lines" here.  Both situations, Iraq and Afghanistan, are unlike any combat situation we've ever faced.

And seeing that both countries are "goverened" by friendly to us units, and the enemy is (more or less) one of a guerrilla force, I would lean towards agreement with Spider on how to classify the war dead.

When the invasion started, no.  Now?  Yes.

My two cents, anyway.

How would you classify the ass whippin' the Ravens laid down on the Pats? 
;)

I would classify it as pale in comparison to the intellective ass whipping Spider laid on Dolphantom. 

Nice  :)

War.  Both sides were in uniform.   ;)

Word.

I think we all have been on the wrong side of a Spider-Dan bitch slap from time to time.  It ain't fun!  I know.

If you get into it with S-D you better damn well have your facts straight.  If you don't, he'll chew you up and spit you out.  That said, I've seen him admit when he's not right.  He won't stick to a point just for giggles.  If you get him, he'll admit it.  Always classy, always on target, never personal.

Hands down one of the most articulate and intelligent posters in the history of TDMMC.

I am quite sure the Spider's inner thesaurus is far greater than the average person educated in this country.

I am rather enjoying this. ;-)

I think the last definition is too vague.  Hiroshima, London, Dresden, and Kent State are not even remotely comparable (and I'm not talking about scale).

When you are at war, is it "genocide" to bomb your enemy's power plants, or telecommunications hubs, or oil refineries, or railroad stations... even when they are occupied exclusively by non-military citizens?  Of course not.  All of those things (among many, many others) are factors in your opponent's ability to make war.

If your nation is at a declared state of open war with another nation, you don't really have much room to complain about what they are bombing.  There are agreed-upon rules of war, and "only attack military equipment and personnel" is not one of them.  So Hiroshima, London, and Dresden should all be excluded.

Now, when you are talking about a uniformed force eliminating their own subjects (be they natural citizens or a conquered population in a foreign land), then the term genocide becomes more accurate.  Kent State, Rwanda, and Serbia would be better examples of this (though I think that might be overstating Kent State in terms of scale).

^^^ I would not a have a problem with limiting genocide to attack your own civilians and having a different term for attacking an enemies civilians.

My point was more that terrorism needs to be define by the conduct not using Dolphantom's flaky definitions which would exclude abortion clinic bombings because abortion doctors are evil. 

Both the firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo were specifically aimed at the civilian populations to try and inflict massive fear and demoralize support for the leaders to continue the war.
When you specifically firebomb a city that the majority of the city is wooden structures is hardly an attack against military infrastructure.
The same could be said about the London Blitz as the Germans changed from bombing the RAF and their airfields into submission to attacks against the heart of the largest metropolitan in England.
The difference between assymetrical/guerilla warfare and terrorist acts can be a very fine line that is not acurately addressed in the Geneva Conventions, which need a serious upgrade as warfare has changed a lot since 1947.

Again, when you are in a declared state of open war, I don't have a problem with this.  When you get right down to it, the Germans would have had every right to start bombing British farms into rubble.  The food that feeds the British citizenry is the same food that fills the stomachs of its soldiers.

And I also agree with the tactic of bombing cities to demoralize the population.  If you look at the history of the Civil War, one of the major strategic changes that General Sherman brought to his campaigns is the idea of making the South feel the war.  It's one thing to sit on your farm, read a bunch of newspapers that talk about how the Yanks are getting whipped at every turn, and insist that the South should fight for its independence, no matter the cost, while war is being waged hundreds of miles away.  It's quite another to see your fields on fire and your livestock slaughtered.  You quickly begin to understand exactly what being at war entails, and most people don't have the stomach for it.

Not coincidentally, I think this is why many of the chickenhawk politicians today are so quick to jump into foreign wars; it's not their brothers, sisters, sons, or daughters that are being sent off to die.  To them, it's just pieces being shuffled around on a gameboard.  This is why there was extreme isolationist sentiment after World War I; most of the population knew people that died in the Great War, and very few of them cared to repeat the experience.

Just to be clear you are all for the deliberate targeting of civilians even though this is considered a war crime by all sides?

Please show me any treaty that forbids the attacking of non-military property in time of war.

I'm not talking about gunning down people in a subway station.  I'm talking about destroying subway stations; if there are people in the station, then they are unfortunate casualties.

To the best of my knowledge, in a time of war, any piece of property (save maybe a hospital?  not sure) is a legitimate target (or, more precisely, is not an illegitimate target) according to international law.  I am certainly open to correction.

Here is the problem with that definition, Hitler's attempts to exterminate Jews wasn't just limited to Germany. If that wasn't genocide, I don't know what was.

It would still be genocide.  Most of Polish Jews he killed were done after Poland was under German control (same deal with every other country), the Jews killed by a V2 rocket in London would fall outside the definition. 

I'm really glad we're getting all this straightened out...I'd hate for there to be a corpse filing issue later because some of them were mislabeled.

While I understand your point and agree the loss of any human life is tragic. 

I do have a problem with people who claim that the CIA working covertly in Iraq is "okay" even though they are not in uniform, but the attack on the USS Cole was terrorism and no different than the attack on the world trade center.  The USS Cole is a WAR ship, the WTC was an office building.  It is not the same thing. 

As long as CIA agents working covertly in Iraq aren't planting bombs in mosques and restaurants, I have no problem.  Being clandestine is not being a terrorist.

As for your other point, I refer you back to my "guerrilla warfare and terrorism are the same act with a different name" statement.  It just depends on whose side you're on.  In the end, it's all labeling.  

I will agree with you that acting clandestine is not being a terrorist, so long as the target is military.  If the target is military it is guerrilla warfare. (or asymmetrical warfare)

I disagree guerilla warfare and terrorism is the same thing.  The attack on the Cole was guerilla warfare, the attack on the WTC was terrorism. 

^^^From the perspective of most U.S. citizens (Westerners, really), the Cole was a terrorist attack.  This is why I say it's the same thing.  You call it this, I call it that.  Same act.

^^^ other than the fact that the USS Cole was on our side, what is the difference between the Cole and the French resistance in WW2?

We like to label anything done by US forces as justifiable acts of war and anything done to US forces as terrorism.  That is just BS.  IIEDs aimed at soldiers or attacks on warships is not the same thing as blowing up an office building or a women's health clinic. 

One: the Germans had occupied France by force.  The USS Cole was crossing the Suez Canal.
Two: Germany was at war with France and the rest of the Western world.  The Cole bombing happened during a time of "peace".  No active wars were being fought.

On your second point, you must realize I'm not disagreeing with you.  I'm pointing out that what you call an act of guerrilla warfare will be called an act of terrorism by your opponent, and vice versa.  I can tell you with certainty that German propaganda painted the French freedom fighters as terrorists.  As for me, I'm conflicted on what to call attackes on military units, and have said as much.

Germany was not at war with France.  France had surrendered.

This is a rather important detail.

When you carpet bomb an entire city with firebombs with multiple waves of bombers for hours, you are not targeting military and/or civilians buildings that may be used. You are trying to burn every living thing into ash.
Even military experts have said that what we did to Dresden would be considered a war crime by the standards of the 1947 Geneva Conventions. Thar raid gained nothing militarily for the Allies, and due to secrecy it was never widely shown to the civilians of either side to either   increase or decrease morale. It did nothing to speed the end of the war.
Also this was not a spur of the moment decision while engaged in heated combat. This was a precise and meticuliously planned air operation from the higher levels based on current intellegence and weather conditions.
even for you, you are having to dig to try and justify the horrors the Allies inflicted on the civilian populace of Dresden.

Point taken, though I don't consider the detail important in the context of whether the French Resistance should be defined as a terrorist unit or a guerrilla unit / fighting force.  Though you may draw parallells between Nazi Germany and the U.S. being "occupying forces" and French and Iraqi fighters trying to fight off the occupiers (if that's what you're thinking), I think (quite strongly) that history will view the U.S. occupation differently (critically, but differently) than the German occupation of Europe.

I'd justify it just as I've justified Hiroshima and Nagasaki:  it was necessary to bring the war to a halt sooner and avoid a long, drawn-out urban battle in the heart of the enemy's land.  Germany had engaged in a war that had consumed most of Europe, all the while remaining largely untouched.  Nazi propaganda told the populace that all was going swimmingly even as Hitler's forces were beaten back from the Soviet Union and Africa.  Once the Allies had a foothold in Europe, it was necessary to show the people of Germany that they were, indeed, going to lose this war.  What better way than to inflict upon them the same pain that German forces had inflicted on, say, London?  It is told that people could see the glow in the night sky (Dresden burning) from hundreds of miles away.  No amount of propaganda could hide that.  Then and there, Germans knew it wasn't going as well as Hitler would tell them.  There is definite strategic value to that.

Now, would that be a war crime today?  Abso-friggin'-lute-ly.

There are some southerns who feel that the Confederacy is being occupied by Union forces, even though the confederacy surrendered.  If one of those nut jobs blows up a building is it terrorism or the same as the french resistance? 

What is terrorism and what is not can not be defined simply by if you agree with the person's political agenda or not.

Me?  I say terrorism.  The confederacy was never a recognized nation-state under rule by another nation-state.  France was.  The resistance was carrying on the fight that the French government refused to continue. 


By me?  Or in the dictionary?  We get called terrorists because we use planes and guided missiles to attack targets rather than using people with guns.  I'm sure that you disagree with that.  That makes it an eye-of-the-beholder thing, right?  Just between you, me, Spider-Dan, and BSmooth, we seem to have 4 different views (some more aligned than others) on what falls or does not fall in the "terrorist" bucket.  "Terrorist" is a catch-all term, like "conservative" and "liberal" and "religious" and "righteous", and "evil", and "good", and...well, you get the point.  Its meaning changes depending on who uses it and for what purposes.  It's a word misused to afflict the target with a particular stench - "don't deal with him, he's a terrorist" - a label that immediately strikes at your gut and invokes a particularly loathsome feeling.  It's a charged word, which is why I keep sayin' it's in the eyes of the beholder.

I am pretty sure England had diplomatic relations with the Confederacy. 

Yeah, I deleted the part that said "maybe England did, to piss off the North" because I didn't fact check it and I know Spider could be lurking...then I added a bunch more crap...

No onefrom Europe  recognized the Confedreacy as a nation. They did have unofficial meetings though.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were different as Truman had a choice between dropping this horrific new weapon and hoping the Japanese would capitulate, or go ahead with the massive invasion of Japan that was conservatively estimated to possibly cause one million US casualties.
We had already succesfully landed on the mainland and were pushing the Germans back and had air supremacy when they decision to bomb a city that was not a major military industrial complex.The reports of the glow from the fires was reported by the succesive waves of bombers as at their altitudes they could see it from a great distance and did not need to use navigation to find it. The majority of the German people did not discover about the attack and its results until after the war when there was more open communication.
So all in all these two have nothing in common except for the staggering amount of deaths inflicted upon the civilan populace.
But here is a question to ponder. We had no problem firebombing Tokyo, but when presented with the same opportunity to do it to Germany we did not. I am curious as to why it was okay to do it to one and not the other?

^^^I'd have to read up to comment on what you've stated (world history was a long time ago).  I did quickly find this, though:

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/bombing_of_dresden.htm (http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/bombing_of_dresden.htm)

Which includes the following from an RAF memo:

“Dresden, the seventh largest city in Germany and not much smaller than Manchester, is also far the largest unbombed built-up the enemy has got. In the midst of winter with refugees pouring westwards and troops to be rested, roofs are at a premium. The intentions of the attack are to hit the enemy where he will feel it most, behind an already partially collapsed front, to prevent the use of the city in the way of further advance, and incidentally to show the Russians when they arrive what Bomber Command can do.”

RAF January 1945

Take it as you may.  Apparently, part of the deal was a show of force to the Russians, as we were, um, uneasy allies.  (Patton even stated that his preference would be to continue East and take down the Russians, too).

As for nuking (yes, I know they were atomic bombs, not thermonuclear bombs!) Japan and not Germany, I always thought it was because we were already marching on Germany, nearing the end. 
I'm also not sure that atomic bombs were ready for deployment by then.  Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945, and the first atomic bomb explosion was July 16. (Information provided by Wikipedia - yell at them if there's an error here)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Manhattan_Project (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Manhattan_Project)

With Japan, all we had accomplished was to push them back; there was still an invasion to mount.  As badly as Europe was decimated, the United States would've fought that battle alone.  Though a racial motive would never shock me, I don't think there was one in this case, just because of the timeline.

...aren't you, at this very moment, complaining about the firebombing of Dresden?  I'm not sure I understand the question.

As for Japan, we would not have had to invade them alone.  The Soviets were already starting to mount an offensive from the west; the a-bombs ended the war before Japan's two-front war really got underway.  Without the a-bombs, there likely would have been a resolution in Japan that looked more like the resolution in Germany, with the East and the West having separate zones.  Instead, the U.S. pretty much took over Japan straight up.

I'm surprised to read that, given that (I believe) the USSR didn't really develop into a naval power until the 50's, at the earliest.

you know what spider, debating people like you, is a waste of time, because no matter how many facts are thrown at you , its never enough. you'll never turn me, i'll never turn you. lets leave it at that. its pointless to revolve around the same argument spoken in different words. at some point, the argument becomes stale. like now. time to move on.  besides who really gives a shit. this political nonsense is good for a  short conversation , but arguing back and forth over this with anyone (with nothing at stake , no less) is not worth my effort. this is entertainment to me. why get so riled up over this nonsense . its fun to see the reactions out of some of you. you get so serious.

kinda like the asswhippin you take in everyday life?

kind of like spider dans posts.         i had such high hopes for him! LOL

It seemed to me like it was quite the opposite.  Right or wrong, Spider make concise arguments supported by factual examples, that you seemed to ignore.

tell me dave, what did i ignore? and where are his so called facts? all i see is conjecture , and opinion.  no hard fact. and how could  he be "right or wrong "with  concise arguments supported by facts? isnt that a contradictory statement? its safe to say that, if his arguments were so consice, and fact supported , he would always be right.

It would have been questionable if and when the Soviets would have been able to mount a large scale invasion similiar to our ability. They got into Manchuria and declared war.

My question why was simply why was it easy to decide to firebomb the largest city of one member of the Axis, but not the largest of another. It was actually to carpet bomb targets in Europe than Japan.

Dresden was chosen for firebombing because it was determined to be both an easier target to reach and more helpful in spreading out the German forces (to better facilitate the Soviet ground invasion).

It just seems like you're making statements -- like attributing certain attacks to Clinton, but not using the same rules under Bush.  When confronted with that by Spider, with examples (or facts of things that happen), you didn't adequately explain why certain ones "counted" and others didn't.

GWB had "zero" terrorist attacks after 9/11?
Terrorist attacks in foreign nations count against Clinton, but not against Bush?
Clinton "swept terrorism under the rug" (by capturing and convicting Ramzi Yousef) but Bush bravely fought terrorism (by abandoning the hunt for Osama Bin Laden and declaring him no longer a concern)?

You have brought zero facts or supporting evidence in rebuttal; only lame jokes about selling bridges and childish "no, YOU got whipped!" playground comebacks.  That is, when you aren't bailing out by claiming that the discussion is now a waste of your time (but apparently, not so much of a waste that you can refrain from posting back-to-back-to-back responses).

Personally, I'm just waiting for you to decide to copy-paste another mindless wingnut chain e-mail (http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/krauthammer.asp) as if it's your own writing, like you did in the other thread.  I mean, it was hardly noticeable last time; the grammar, capitalization, and punctuation were totally consistent with your normal posts, right?