Civilians or your own?

[Federal Angola]

Me and a friend where discussing Hiroshima at work yesterday. He brought up the point that it wasn't worth the 135,000 civilian casualties, but I believe that any amount of civilian casualties is worth saving the lives of Servicemen and Women.

Now looking at today, would I have dropped a nuke on on Iraq? No. But, I would bombard the hell out of ever insurgent stronghold regardless of civilians.

But what I'm really asking is would you (OOC) drop a nuke to save your people's lives?

[Maurepas]

Not a nuke, especially these days, as MAD tends to mean that you end up saving nobody...

[GetBert]

The point of service people is to protect and save the lives of civilians NOT the other way round.

[Galloism]

It would depend on the circumstance. Due to MAD (and the availability of other weapons that are more effective and precise), today I can't think of a scenario where I would use a nuke.

However, at the time, it would depend on the intelligence I had. Would I kill 135,000 civilians to save a million of my own? Yes. 135,000 civilians to save 135,000 of my own? Well that's tougher, now ain't it?

[Alancar]

...drop a nuke to save your people's lives?

That's kinda of an oxymoron, isn't it?

But really, destroy to cities to shorten a war that was already lost? You would have to be pretty morally bankrupted to pull something like that

[Nadkor]

I believe that any amount of civilian casualties is worth saving the lives of Servicemen and Women.

Wat.

[Cameroi]

Me and a friend where discussing Hiroshima at work yesterday. He brought up the point that it wasn't worth the 135,000 civilian casualties, but I believe that any amount of civilian casualties is worth saving the lives of Servicemen and Women.

and i see this as being just exactly backwards,
domonstrating the lack of a conscience,
and why governments aren't something we're better off because they exist.

[Lunatic Goofballs]

Me and a friend where discussing Hiroshima at work yesterday. He brought up the point that it wasn't worth the 135,000 civilian casualties, but I believe that any amount of civilian casualties is worth saving the lives of Servicemen and Women.

Now looking at today, would I have dropped a nuke on on Iraq? No. But, I would bombard the hell out of ever insurgent stronghold regardless of civilians.

But what I'm really asking is would you (OOC) drop a nuke to save your people's lives?

"If it's morally wrong to kill anyone, then it's morally wrong to kill anyone." -George Carlin.

[Clamparapa]

I would change that statement, personally. If you can save more lives by dropping a nuke than so be it. You're going to lose people either way. It was estimated that millions of Americans would die, not to mention the millions of Japanese. Though terrible, the nuke saved more lives than it killed.

[Leach Islands]

Think of it this way. If yo used the first nuke nowadays you will upset someone right? which means that their nuke finger will get itchy. correct? and then of course USA TO THE RESCUE!! and then russia get involved...then NATO....Then the world. where no-one will survive. is it worth it?

[Gairania]

Not these days... some countries can launch one right back at you... and in Iraq, no. ICBM, yes.

[The Imperial Navy]

That one.

[Allbeama]

Probably a bad idea to lose sight of context. The bomb was dropped on Japan to ensure swift surrender instead of undertaking a long bloody invasion. The Japanese government received an ultimatum from our government and they ignored it. It could have been avoided in the first place.
I would not advocate the use of such weapons today. That would be ignoring what history has taught our generation as well as there are enough countries with that level of weaponry that it might lead to a large scale nuclear throwdown and that would seriously suck for everyone. It is not in our interest as nations to throw nukes at each other.

[The Romulan Republic]

Me and a friend where discussing Hiroshima at work yesterday. He brought up the point that it wasn't worth the 135,000 civilian casualties, but I believe that any amount of civilian casualties is worth saving the lives of Servicemen and Women.

Now looking at today, would I have dropped a nuke on on Iraq? No. But, I would bombard the hell out of ever insurgent stronghold regardless of civilians.

But what I'm really asking is would you (OOC) drop a nuke to save your people's lives?

Soldiers are their to fight. Its their job. One should always try to minimize losses, but the bottom line is that the soldier's job is to expose himself to danger in defense of his country's interests, or those of its allies. That is not the job of a civilian, and one would hope that we have moved past the barbaric notion of innocent, unarmed non-combatants being acceptable military targets. Now, you might say that they are supporting their country, and as such are acceptable targets, but the thing with civilians is that you don't always have a way of knowing which side they support, because they aren't in uniform. Moreover, their are some civilians killed in bombings of urban areas for example who most certainly do not choose to support the enemy: ie children and the severely disabled.

Moreover, to say that any number of civilian casualties is worth it to save the lives of any soldiers is an utterly outrageous and dispicable statement. Would you consider 5 million children an acceptable trade for the lives of a dozen soldiers? If not, at what point is the trade no longer worth it to you? If yes, what makes a soldier's life by default worth so much more than any other human being's?

Finally, their are very obvious practical benefits to one's self in not bombing civilians. In a globalized world where your atrocities may well end up plastered all over the internet, one cannot afford to disregard public opinion. In a globalized economy, one cannot afford to ignore international opinion. And the post-war occupation becomes a lot harder if the public all hate you because your indiscriminant bombing killed their parents and their children. Such atrocities can even be used to justify atrocities against your civilians in kind, as well as mistreatment of your oh-so-precious soldiers when they are captured.

[Ravea]

No. I wouldn't drop a nuke under any circumstances.

[Vetalia]

Yeah, but people seem to forget that fanatical resistance often kills many, many more civilians than soldiers. The hardliners in the Japanese military by the end of the war were willing to sacrifice the entire nation before they'd ever surrender, and if we invaded it would not only kill untold numbers of soldiers on both sides but also civilians and semi-soldier civilians either impressed in to fighting or simply deluded by propaganda to fight against impossible odds.

I mean, just look at the nightmarish violence on Okinawa or Iwo Jima and imagine that magnified far beyond anything experienced, well beyond the ferocious German resistance in the final months of the war.

[New Central Europe]

Only time I'll ever use a nuke is for Interstellar Space Flight.

[Belschaft]

"I do not know whether World War Three will be fought with nuclear weapons, but I know World War Four will be fought with sticks and stone."

Albert Einstein

[Federal Angola]

You guy's missed the part where I said that I wouldn't use nukes. I'm not saying "k, they bombed pearl harbor lets use nukes!!1!" I'm asking at what point in your military do you say we are taking unacceptable losses and just go ahead and start bombing places of military value?

[Federal Angola]

Me and a friend where discussing Hiroshima at work yesterday. He brought up the point that it wasn't worth the 135,000 civilian casualties, but I believe that any amount of civilian casualties is worth saving the lives of Servicemen and Women.

and i see this as being just exactly backwards,
domonstrating the lack of a conscience,
and why governments aren't something we're better off because they exist.

I can only have as much conscience toward the person who lays down IED's everyday where eventually an American HUMVEE will pass and take that young man's life as he did toward them.

[Mad hatters in jeans]

No i wouldn't use Nuclear weapons.

[EternalNight]

The one situation I could see myself doing a first nuclear strike is if there was *RELIABLE* intel that some really putrid biological agent was going to be released, and the whole area needed to get the plasma-sterilization deal.

I am talking about agents on the level of the stuff from Omega Man or The Stand.

Other then that, there are more effective methods of destroying a target that would not require that magnitude of force.

[Fassitude]

But what I'm really asking is would you (OOC) drop a nuke to save your people's lives?

No. A life doesn't become more important to me because it is lived on any arbitrary side of a line on a map.

[Federal Angola]

The one situation I could see myself doing a first nuclear strike is if there was *RELIABLE* intel that some really putrid biological agent was going to be released, and the whole area needed to get the plasma-sterilization deal.

I am talking about agents on the level of the stuff from Omega Man or The Stand.

Other then that, there are more effective methods of destroying a target that would not require that magnitude of force.

It's not suppose to be a first strike.

[EternalNight]

The one situation I could see myself doing a first nuclear strike is if there was *RELIABLE* intel that some really putrid biological agent was going to be released, and the whole area needed to get the plasma-sterilization deal.

I am talking about agents on the level of the stuff from Omega Man or The Stand.

Other then that, there are more effective methods of destroying a target that would not require that magnitude of force.

It's not suppose to be a first strike.

Read carefully what I said. I am talking about a first-strike deployment to sterilize a biological agent that could conceivably depopulate the planet. Specific situation.