If Iran can’t be trusted with nukes, can the U.S. be trusted either?

[Anonymous]

"Our conduct as a nation has been disastrous, even if we consider only our wars of choice, as we continued a pattern of picking on lesser countries for reasons that ranged from specious to pure, utter bullshit. We consistently justified our insane military adventurism with lies even when we had truth on our side. We wasted years and treasure and the lives of thousands of our own people, and the lives of tens of thousands more of the people we warred against. We fought our wars with weapons that were technological marvels costing tens of millions of dollars against people wielding weapons that cost a few hundred dollars, and when all our technology and money did not win us victories, we rewarded ourselves by buying ever more expensive weapons in greater numbers even as our own people suffered illnesses they couldn’t pay for, went hungry, and in increasing numbers lost their homes and lived on the streets."

Is this the description of a trustworthy nation?

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1 mo

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[Chewy_______]

Here is a short list of countries I trust more than the U. S.:

Iran

Russia

China

North Korea

None of these countries has ever threatened my country. On the other hand, the U. S. has threatened my country at least 10 times in the last year. The United States is now a menace to the world.

[beefcakebradybatson]

Ask elderly Japanese if America can be trusted with nukes !!!

[MrOracle]

The US has had 80 years to nuke its enemies. It had 8 years to nuke Russia before they had nukes. It has had that power and has not used it. Instead, the US has spent countless billions to develop weapons that can target military/government (leadership especially) and minimize civilian casualties. No other country has done a fraction of what the US has done to minimize civilian casualties.

Most people don't have any understanding of how war was conducted prior to the Cold War. During WWII, both sides (representing many different countries) just indiscriminately bombed cities with thousand bomber raids, often not even hitting the factory in the middle of town but killing thousands of civilians. The Japanese had invaded China and much of southeast Asia and they rapes, killed, or enslaved the civilian population on an industrial scale, plus they stole every bit of food and usable materials they encountered, leaving the population to starve. The Germans did much the same in eastern Europe.

How many people understand that we killed far fewer Japanese with the two nukes than we had already killed with fire bombing raids, and less than 20%. of the projections if we didn't use nukes and invaded Japan with conventional forces (which would have included more cities fire bombed)? And that's not including any of the Allied casualties that we'd have suffered.

I'm under no illusion that the US has been perfect, but it's hard to imagine anyone else doing better, and plenty of countries would have done much worse.

[katiesmuff]

I would agree with much of what you just posted, however that is not what we are doing now under the command of this fucking lunatic sick insane narcissistic pile of shit trump. I so hope he is impeached and then publically hung.

[Asker]

So, having the power and not using it means you're trustworthy, or does it mean you're scared and careful?

[Asker]

Also, as an aside, the United States used the excuse of we would have had to kill more Japanese as a way of justifying the use of two nuclear weapons, neither one of which was actually needed for any military purpose.

[captain_voidwalker]

Our conduct as a nation little boy you need to open a history book, we're not perfect by any stretch but my god the shit Europe and Asia have done over the centuries.
As for our track record with nukes we used only 2 in war and despite what you might think that was to force a decisive and immediate end to WW2. It actualy saved more lives in the long run. We haven't used any against another nation since. Id say thats a good track record There aren't many other super powers in history that got a powerful weapon and then said... maybe we dont use this. As for Iran more specifically the irgc they have outright stated they would nuke Israel so far as I'm concerned no nukes for them.

[Asker]

These are nothing but ridiculous excuses for bad behavior.

[Spencer10]

Here are some questions to ponder... Only one country has used Nukes. Not once but twice.

Why is it the countries with Nukes get to decide who can have them?

[Asker]

Now, it's not just the countries with nukes. The one country that decided to use them now gives itself the privilege of deciding who can have them. Why the hell is that?

[Spencer10]

Exactly. If the USA was serious about making the world safe from Nukes its policy would be to try to illuminate all nukes. Thus i conclude the USA's policy is more about power than safety.

[Anonymous]

Do I trust the ONLY country that has ever used weapons on that level? Also, when they are run by a crazy narcissist who has the impulse control of a toddler? There is no country I trust less with nukes.

[Asker]

That actually would be you tied up in a locked room with a four-year-old toddler wandering around with a loaded pistol.

[lightbulb27]

no-one can be trusted.

trust and security is the issue.

but how is that going to work out?

[Asker]

One way to mitigate, if not completely solve, the problem is to make everyone, including the United States, dispose of their nuclear weapons altogether. We would then also need to implement an inspection program to make sure somebody didn't cheat. I think that some countries would be willing to agree to this, but I know the United States certainly would not under any circumstances because we are too addicted to war and to threatening people to agree to something like this.

[lightbulb27]

Ain't no way in hell... they trid that, it worked to some extent.

Jesus was right about this world... definitely have a "out". The world is emotionally corrupted... at minimum. You cannot fix the broken human soul so that everyone loves and is secure. Survival trumps all emotions, which means selfishness, which rolls up to national level of security, so we get into these fights. Not to mention all the other problems.

[katiesmuff]

Under leadership like we have we are no better than the worst of the worlds governments

[Asker]

Yes and unfortunately that observation extends backward in time. In the past we have been no better than any government in this world and perhaps worse. We continue now to be almost the worst of the worst with the current leadership such as it is.

[genericname85]

of course the usa can't be trusted with nukes but nobody has the power to take them away from them.

[Asker]

That is unfortunately true.

[genericname85]

After all they're the only ones yet who recklessly used them.

[KostasKouvalis]

I think so, considering we have the most and we only used 2 and those were different times

[Asker]

How does this make us better than people who either have non-nukes or, if they have them, have never used them and have never threatened anyone like we have?

[ammar12343]

It’s a legitimate question, but I trust our checks and balances a lot more so than Iran or any other country. Trump will be out soon and enough.

[Asker]

Y'all, the thing is, we don't have any checks and balances anymore.

[ammar12343]

Factually untrue.

[Asker]

Really, what functioning checks and balances do you think we have at this point?

[ammar12343]

It’s not a thought. It’s the basic structure of US government. You can YouTube these things to have them explained. It’s common knowledge. I know you don’t like the state of our country, nor do I, but we still have checks and balances. They’re durable too.

[Asker]

Well, it appears that nobody has any checks over the executive branch to speak of, except perhaps the courts, but even with the courts, it's below the level of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is essentially beholden to Trump for the most part. The Congress appears to have no power over Trump either, inasmuch as they simply let him get away with all kinds of illegal actions, like starting a war without getting congressional approval, which he actually legally needed. Moreover, the Congress would be completely justified in taking an impeachment action against Trump that it has not done so. Not even the Democrats have bothered to do so. So we have an executive branch that's completely out of control, a congressional branch that does nothing, and a Supreme Court that has been bribed to the extent that their decisions cannot be counted on to be anything close to fair. Trump threatened to use nuclear weapons against Iran, and the Congress made no response to that whatsoever. I will remind you that Trump actually has control of the nuclear weapons of this country, all 5,000 of them.

Given all this, do you really think there are any effective checks and balances at this point?

[ammar12343]

Yes I do. Our system is being stress tested right now. If we didn’t have effective checks and balances, then Trump would having us live under a fascist regime. A lot of people like to be melodramatic and say that we do, but we don’t. Not yet at least objectively speaking. We have mid terms approaching in November. America has gone through worse. For example, notice how Trump pulled Bovino and Noem with the ICE situation? He still needed to calm down those efforts despite not wanting to. America has so much rich history when it comes to resilience. American can handle a couple more years with this dumbass in office.

[Asker]

Trump is steadily working toward a fascist regime I believe and even though he has taken some steps backward, I believe he has done so in the service of preserving his own political existence to the extent that he can continue his illegal activities. It is the fact that we are not stopping his illegal activities either via impeachment or invocation of the 25th amendment. That concerns me. Literally nobody is stopping him and that includes both the Congress and the supreme Court. The lower divisions of the federal court appear to be functioning to the extent they can in the service of upholding the law, but I don't think that's going to be enough. The Congress does absolutely nothing.

[Asker]

Trump is also working steadily to corrupt the midterm elections to the extent that they can be corrupted given the fact that the states will be running them hopefully rather than the feds. If he can find a way to rig these elections, he's going to do that. If he couldn't find a way to cancel these elections, he's going to do that. If he can do both things he will do that. Nobody is doing anything to stop any of us so don't count on being able to vote in the midterms because they may not even happen.

[Iron_Man]

of course, because we are the chosen policeman of the world we represent law and order and we do good things the right way and we care about the people we won’t hurt innocent people or bomb innocent countries

[Asker]

Who chose us to be the policemen?

[Asker]

The U. S. is in the process of hurting innocent people and bombing an innocent country even now as we speak. I'm not sure how you can maintain that this is not the case.

[Iron_Man]

Maybe God

[Iron_Man]

Because we are good, we won’t allow bullies to bully each other

[Asker]

Why would God do such a disastrous thing? Even if God didn't know it was a disaster in the beginning, which seems unlikely, I'm certain he knows it now and yet he lets it continue. Why is that? Is it possible that God had nothing to do with any of this?

[Asker]

Well, if we are so good, why do we bully other people, both bullies and the innocent?

[Iron_Man]

If we didn’t police the world, everybody would kill each other probably and overthrow other countries God gives us free will he doesn’t do everything. He wants us to do things to

[Asker]

So it's better that we kill innocent people?

[Iron_Man]

No, I don’t believe in killing. I think we should take away their nuclear technology

[Asker]

I think we should take away everyone's nuclear technology at least in so far as it's possible to make a weapon out of it. I think it's really difficult to honestly argue that somehow the U. S. should have nuclear weapons and everybody else should not. There's nothing about the U. S. that suggests that it's more trustworthy than any other country, not really. If anything, the U. S. has demonstrated, particularly lately, that it is less trustworthy, unfortunately. Do you really think it is safe to let Trump have a nuclear weapon, even though that's exactly what we're doing right now?

[Iron_Man]

I can understand that

[Asker]

I know you are a good man with clear beliefs and a clear mind. Given that, I know that you understand the situation as well as anybody possibly could. I am sorry for the discomfort you must be experiencing.

[Asker]

I used to admire Obama for his intellect and his great speaking ability and what seemed to be his humanistic values, right? I admired him right up to the point that I found out that he was killing people with drones illegally. It made me incredibly uncomfortable because this man who I placed faith in turned out to be just another criminal and a murderer. I had to revise my thinking about him, and it made me exceedingly unhappy and uncomfortable for a while, but I learned to understand what had happened. I learned that we all have our foibles and we all have our downfalls, and perhaps this was his, but he lost standing in my mind. I had to rethink my blind admiration for him.

[Iron_Man]

You don’t have to apologize that’s fine

[Asker]

I am not really apologizing so much as trying to illustrate my understanding of what it's like to have cognitive dissonance. It is one of the most incredibly uncomfortable things I have ever experienced. I suspect you may be having the same experience now. I hope not, but...

[Anonymous]

The world wants the US to have nukes. No one wants Iran to have nukes.

[Miristheiss]

Is someone going to take them away?

[Asker]

That's a good point, and the answer is, of course, not, at least not at this point.

[Jeff51]

Usa are not scum bags like middle east

[Asker]

Oh, sure. Hiroshima, Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and countless other small wars, but we're not the scumbags, right?

[Jeff51]

at least I got balls to say it and not ask a question anonymous. All these anonymous clowns are the same way. Grow the f up. Usa is the leader. We dont follow other countries, they follow us.

[Anonymous]

No, of course not.

[Opinion Owner]

I trust North Korea more than any of the western countries.

[TonyMetal___86]

Yes the U. S can be trusted

[Asker]

Why have we been the people that have used those things on civilian populations?

[TonyMetal___86]

It was a war and without it, the U. S could of lost...

[Dargil]

Yes, we can

[Asker]

What's the big difference here?

[Dargil]

Every difference. Research it and decide for yourself.

[Asker]

No, there is nothing to research that supports what you're saying, but you apparently believe it. So perhaps you could tell us why the US is more trustworthy.

[Dargil]

All of you are this moron.