I think it's also quite prudent to note that the "wipe them off the face of the earth" comment was... mistranslated.
Actually that's a severe understatement. It's more like a fansub from a first-year Farsi student.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...jun/14/post155
A more accurate translation would have been "the current regime of Israel shall vanish from the pages of time."
What I get from that is that he may disagree with Israel's politics (I do too) but not that he has an intention to erase the country.
As I've said before, he's a very smart man. He's got a damn good reason to hate the US, though.
While leaders and people may have changed, I don't believe that the USA has so fundamentally changed in the same way that others like Germany, Russia, Japan, China, Iran, Iraq, or any number of other countries have done so to be able to say the USA is not still responsible for those actions.
Germany is not responsible for the action of the Nazi party, their nation, their people, their government has fundamentally changed. Japan is not responsible for their actions in WWII because of the same reasons.
Those same changes did not take place in the USA, so I do not clear them of responsibility for the nuking of Japan.
Human progress isn't measured by industry. It's measured by the value you place on a life.
Just, be kind.
And it's important to note that the rules of war were different back then too. It was perfectly normal in that time period to bomb entire cities indiscriminately. We have the luxury in the modern age of having precision smartbombs so we can minimize civilian casualties, but it's a bit silly to judge the 1945 actions of a country by 2012 standards.
---------- Post added 2012-11-16 at 10:43 PM ----------
The US stopped carpet bombing places an awful long time ago.
'Twas a cutlass swipe or an ounce of lead
Or a yawing hole in a battered head
And the scuppers clogged with rotting red
And there they lay I damn me eyes
All lookouts clapped on Paradise
All souls bound just contrarywise, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
I don't know if Globalfirepower.com is a credible source, but I'm gonna reference it anyway, according to them Israel is number 10th and Iran is number 12th, so if there was a conventional war between the two of us the chances that Israel could defeat Iran would be pretty slim, they either have to involve other countries or use nukes. Iran would need that nuclear deterrent against Israel, but will they use nukes on Israel? Highly unlikely, because our power hungry leaders are religious nut-jobs (much like the zealots in power in Israel) and consider those lands to be holy.
How will the military might of a tiny country with a little over 7 million in population fair against a country of considerable size and over 75 million in population? That's easy they will use Samson option as an excuse to nuke the shit out of my country. We are talking about a country that very recently and with disregard to civilian population launched a strike on a city, without warning, they just felt they should level some buildings to cause chaos and terror.
Speaking of Iran and nuclear stuff, does anyone remember (or still watch him on Conan sometimes) Billy Eichner? There is a hilarious video which the topic of Iran is his first question to someone on the street. check it out:
MY X/Y POKEMON FRIEND CODE: 1418-7279-9541 In Game Name: Michael__
I beg to differ. We could have carpet bombed Afghanistan and Iraq and turned them in to rubble if we wanted to, which is something that was done in the past. The forests(and anything in them) in Vietnam I'm sure would agree. To say nothing has changed in 70 years in one country that you probably don't like is an out right lie. You say the Germans aren't responsible for the action of the Nazi party, but we are somehow responsible for what our military does is ironic. The general public is made aware of so little of what our government does it's sad, and yet we are responsible for their actions.
The only country in the world that used nukes against civilians, TWICE, is complaining that someone else makes nukes because OMG they gonna nuke someone.
Really?
Either no one can make them or everyone can make them, then we are on even footing.
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
I'd prefer no one can make them, but unfortunately Pandora's box is open.
'Twas a cutlass swipe or an ounce of lead
Or a yawing hole in a battered head
And the scuppers clogged with rotting red
And there they lay I damn me eyes
All lookouts clapped on Paradise
All souls bound just contrarywise, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
israel having nukes scares me more than Iran tbh.
What most people fail to understand is that it doesnt really matter if they get weapon grade uranium, they still need to make the ((((((((weapon))))))))) which is even more difficult to do, korea hasnt even had a successful launch to this day, and you expect iran to succeed where a country far more technologically advanced has failed? People need to get their heads out of their asses and think logically. Not to mention our NDS would shoot a nuke out of the sky before it even reached our pacific or atlantic boarders.
Please don't say they could just fly it here like we did with the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, our radar would pick an aircraft up and shoot it down before it even reached us aswell, unless they decided to pull the bullshit they did on 9/11. which i dont doubt
None of you know Jack.
This was the most ridiculous response i've ever seen in my whole life.
1) Tell that to the big amount of people that died later without being noticed due to radiation dammage, not to mention the ones dead on the impact zone, the number is incalculable, the same goes for how big was the dammage done by the Chernobyl leak.
2) Chernobyl demonstrated that much better and without the need of blowing up entire cities.
Japan surrendered after the bombs, so you are also saying that japan alone would have done much more dammage than what germany did at that time? Oh, you must be american and still cry about Pearl Harbor, so, Let's save LOTS of lifes by killing 100000x on the "enemy" side.
In my point of view, USA is the biggest terrorist country ever to exist, no other country in the world kills so many ppl directly or indirectly than USA.