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View Poll Results: Should we Contiinue to have nuclear submarines

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  • Yes

    42 60.87%
  • Yes but no nuclear weapons

    2 2.90%
  • No

    24 34.78%
  • I don't care not Scotlands problem

    1 1.45%
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Thread: Should the UK have Nuclear Submarines

  1. #41
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    Quote Originally Posted by Manxman View Post
    Has anyone considered the implication of all the jobs that will be lost by removing these boats
    Having been stationed at faslane whilst in the RN I know firsthand just how much depends on its continued use
    The infrustructor for suppling this base stretches down to glasgow and beyond
    Helensburgh relies on it being there and has anyone consulted the workforce with regards to their future
    Will it have any effect on Coulport there are at least 4 married quarter estates that may be left empty because I cant see the government leaving any thing else at this base
    I bet that the workforce in portsmouth plymouth etc are rubbing their hands with glee with all the work that may be coming their way also the suppliers
    Right now, nobody is seriously considering the submarines will be removed, however much we would wish that to be the case. That is an outcome which will need a vote for independence first.....after which the Clyde Naval Base would have a future in the non-nuclear Scottish Defence force.

    The UK is a country which has seen a six fold increase in foodbanks since 2010, as well as the deaths and suicides of people left penniless due to spurious sanctioning of the disabled, by a corporation to meet their profit targets, and equally spurious sanctioning by the DWP to cut the levels of benefits paid out and the numbers of people on the employment register, not to mention one which has seen the numbers and incomes of the wealthy continue to rise at the same time as our incompetent and ideologically fixated Governments, whatever their colour, have been reducing the lives of even many of those in work back to the very Victorian age and ethos Mrs Thatcher used to talk about with approval, though to be fair to Mrs Thatcher, she did at least draw the line at playing about with the NHS to achieve that. How then can the UK Government, in all conscience, be advocating not just the future renewal, at enormous taxpayer cost post 2016, but paying out millions annually now, before any final decision as to whether, or with what, they will be replaced, to design the new submarines, to purchase new reactors for them, to ready the base to receive them and to contract for long lead-time items in preparation for the first submarine entering service in the late 2020s?

    Regarding the benefits to Helensburgh......the view of a Helensburgh resident or two (all linked articles were written during the referendum campaign, and while those making the points may not have been NO voters, closed shops, a preponderance of charity shops and the fall in house prices etc are ascertainable facts which are chiels that winna ding)
    http://misssymartin.blogspot.co.uk/2...e-baillie.html , http://sputniknews.com/world/20140825/192337478.html ,

    In his memoirs, Tony Blair gave the truth of the matter of Trident and its continuation......he said "the expense is huge, and the utility in a post-cold war world is less in terms of deterrence, and non-existent in terms of military use" and he also said........and this is where imo, the real benefit of Trident comes, not to our safety, but as the UK's sticky-on hairy chest........so "In the final analysis, I thought giving it up too big a downgrading of our status as a nation, and in an uncertain world, too big a risk for our defence."

    I'm sure you will forgive me if I think the world is uncertain because, out there in it, are nine states with nuclear weapons and 180+ without them, and the paranoia, arrogance and UN veto of five of the nine states with them are why the world is uncertain.....because those states consider only the cost and benefit to their own country of any action and do not consider the international law they were instrumental in compiling, or the wider picture of the effects of their decisions on the rest of the world......the growth in terrorism being an example. I would be more sanguine if I was not aware that the USA have already used nuclear weapons, not for any good reason, against a country ready and willing to surrender, but to send a message to Russia. The USA started and exacerbated the arms race, and took steps to ensure that the big stick numbers were limited to their advantage.

    I'd be interested if you, or anyone, could give me some idea of just what circumstances would ever warrant the use of Trident against either one of the 180+ countries without nuclear weapons.......or the other eight which have them........many of which will undoubtedly have much bigger and better ones than we do...and also what use they are in the "War on Terrorism" or "The War on Drugs" or the There may have been some small benefit in having it parked near the most densely populated part of Scotland if, because of its presence, it actually stopped wars......but all it does do is permit the Governments of those countries with nuclear weapons to pretty much ride roughshod over the Governments and populations of countries without any to abstract resources and make money......the playground bullies of the nuclear age.

  2. #42
    BetterTogether is offline Banned (Sock Puppet of previously banned user)
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    The reality of having Nuclear Weapons is if you have them then no one is going to push things too far so you use them. The proliferation of nuclear weapons in the USA and USSR was just a big show of force by both of them and a complete waste of money there has never been a requirement to have that many. The reality is the devastation caused by just a handful of nuclear weapons is sufficient to deter their usage. The worlds problems aren't solved by nuclear weapons just held in abeyance for now. Alas the genie is out of the bottle.Americas usage of them in WW2 wasn't anything to do with showing Russia anything it was because they feared the amount of casualties an invasion of mainland Japan would cause. Japan was neither ready nor willing to surrender until those bombs had been dropped.

  3. #43
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    The UK has signed up to the Non nuclear proliferation Treaty. Sometimes it just takes an initial token of Goodwill to defuse a nasty situation.
    God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
    Courage to change the things I can,
    And wisdom to know the difference.

  4. #44
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    Quote Originally Posted by BetterTogether View Post
    The reality of having Nuclear Weapons is if you have them then no one is going to push things too far so you use them. The proliferation of nuclear weapons in the USA and USSR was just a big show of force by both of them and a complete waste of money there has never been a requirement to have that many. The reality is the devastation caused by just a handful of nuclear weapons is sufficient to deter their usage. The worlds problems aren't solved by nuclear weapons just held in abeyance for now. Alas the genie is out of the bottle.Americas usage of them in WW2 wasn't anything to do with showing Russia anything it was because they feared the amount of casualties an invasion of mainland Japan would cause. Japan was neither ready nor willing to surrender until those bombs had been dropped.
    You really think so re bombing Japan? http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n3p-4_Weber.html

    In an article that finally appeared August 19, 1945, on the front pages of the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Times-Herald, Trohan revealed that on January 20, 1945, two days prior to his departure for the Yalta meeting with Stalin and Churchill, President Roosevelt received a 40-page memorandum from General Douglas MacArthur outlining five separate surrender overtures from high-level Japanese officials. (The complete text of Trohan's article is in the Winter 1985-86 Journal, pp. 508-512.)

    This memo showed that the Japanese were offering surrender terms virtually identical to the ones ultimately accepted by the Americans at the formal surrender ceremony on September 2 -- that is, complete surrender of everything but the person of the Emperor. Specifically, the terms of these peace overtures included:

    Complete surrender of all Japanese forces and arms, at home, on island possessions, and in occupied countries.
    Occupation of Japan and its possessions by Allied troops under American direction.
    Japanese relinquishment of all territory seized during the war, as well as Manchuria, Korea and Taiwan.
    Regulation of Japanese industry to halt production of any weapons and other tools of war.
    Release of all prisoners of war and internees.
    Surrender of designated war criminals.

    Is this memorandum authentic? It was supposedly leaked to Trohan by Admiral William D. Leahy, presidential Chief of Staff. (See: M. Rothbard in A. Goddard, ed., Harry Elmer Barnes: Learned Crusader [1968], pp. 327f.) Historian Harry Elmer Barnes has related (in "Hiroshima: Assault on a Beaten Foe," National Review, May 10, 1958):

    The authenticity of the Trohan article was never challenged by the White House or the State Department, and for very good reason. After General MacArthur returned from Korea in 1951, his neighbor in the Waldorf Towers, former President Herbert Hoover, took the Trohan article to General MacArthur and the latter confirmed its accuracy in every detail and without qualification.

    and

    In April and May 1945, Japan made three attempts through neutral Sweden and Portugal to bring the war to a peaceful end. On April 7, acting Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu met with Swedish ambassador Widon Bagge in Tokyo, asking him "to ascertain what peace terms the United States and Britain had in mind." But he emphasized that unconditional surrender was unacceptable, and that "the Emperor must not be touched." Bagge relayed the message to the United States, but Secretary of State Stettinius told the US Ambassador in Sweden to "show no interest or take any initiative in pursuit of the matter." Similar Japanese peace signals through Portugal, on May 7, and again through Sweden, on the 10th, proved similarly fruitless.

    andPresident Truman steadfastly defended his use of the atomic bomb, claiming that it "saved millions of lives" by bringing the war to a quick end. Justifying his decision, he went so far as to declare: "The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians."
    This was a preposterous statement. In fact, almost all of the victims were civilians, and the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (issued in 1946) stated in its official report: "Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen as targets because of their concentration of activities and population."

  5. #45
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    Quote Originally Posted by Oddquine View Post
    On April 7, acting Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu met with Swedish ambassador Widon Bagge in Tokyo, asking him "to ascertain what peace terms the United States and Britain had in mind." But he emphasized that unconditional surrender was unacceptable, and that "the Emperor must not be touched."
    So, you say the Japanese were not offering unconditional surrender.

    Kind of knocks a hole in your argument, although I may be misunderstanding your argument.

  6. #46
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    Aye oddquine Devils always in the detail !

    Unconditional surrender is just what it says Unconditional no ifs no buts no maybes no emperor !

    We should also remember it took the dropping of not one but two nuclear weapons to bring them to heel with a reasonable time frame between each bomb.

    Let's not feel overly sorry for the Japanese how about we remember the unprovoked attack on pearl harbour, the way they treated POWS, the way the treated the people of the Philippines China Burma and the fanatical way they defended each island as the USA progressed across the Pacific.

    Revisionist Hisotry is all well and good but does no justice to the horrors perpetrated by Japanese Troops and the fanatical cult like way the emperor was followed and obeyed.
    Last edited by BetterTogether; 15-Apr-15 at 08:21.

  7. #47
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    Quote Originally Posted by sids View Post
    So, you say the Japanese were not offering unconditional surrender.

    Kind of knocks a hole in your argument, although I may be misunderstanding your argument.
    If unconditional surrender would have meant that the Queen or our PM was handed over and tried for War Crimes, would we have worn that? Really?

    It would have been so simple to have clarified the meaning of unconditional.....but then there would have been no excuse to continue the war until the bombs were ready to be used.....would there? In the end, the emperor was not removed, or tried for war crimes....so what other reason for not saying that unconditional surrender would not require him to be more punished than losing his authority, as opposed to his freedom or his life could there have been.

    Re "making a point to Russia", Better Together..........can you think of any other reason why, when he knew Russia intended to declare war on Japan on 9th August, Trueman decided to bomb Nagasaki on the same day. Whether bombing Hiroshima was justified or not, and I don't believe for a second it was, bombing Nagasaki most definitely was not...... unless the purpose of it was to intimidate Russia....and that really worked well, didn't it?

    If "unconditional surrender" had been defined, in January 1945, when the first try at surrendering took place, or at any other time between then and August, when the Japanese made repeated overtures as to terms, as what it actually turned out to mean after the bombing, the American lives lost between January and August, including the lives of the American POWs who died in the bombings would have been saved, as well as the exaggerated estimate of a million plus who didn't die when they didn't have to invade. After all, the Americans knew that all the Japanese wanted was to ensure the safety and continuance of the Royal Family.

    It appears American lives are only important to US Governments if they can give an excuse for American retaliation and muscle-flexing......and the lives of civilians in the countries against which they act, for their own spurious reasons, are of no consequence whatsoever.....and that is the country we allow to lord it over the world..the western part of it, at least.
    Last edited by Oddquine; 15-Apr-15 at 13:28.

  8. #48
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    Nice attempt at obfuscation there oddquine but the reality is unconditional surrender has always meant the same thing.

    Absolutely no terms or conditions by the party surrendering.

    I get the anti American rant I do and they have questions to answer but trying to redefine a word doesn't help your cause.

    Distrust of Stalin was quite rightly placed as well under him the people of the Eastern Block suffered more unnecessary pain. Communism in itself has bought no peace and joy to its people both Russia and China have human rights records that make the USA look positively angelic.
    Yes there have been defacto wars fought between the superpowers during the course of the twentieth century and that just shows the tight reign Politicians of all beliefs should be kept under.

    I think the moral to be learnt from this is not against the people of any one country but more

    Never Ever Trust a Politician despite whatever they tell you.

    They all have one major fault they crave power and think they know what's best for everyone.
    Last edited by BetterTogether; 15-Apr-15 at 17:28.

  9. #49
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    OQ- you are banging on about a personal hobby horse, that has some truth. But life is not simple.

    Hostile Japanese could have our PM and Queen right now, for all I care. They might not go quietly though and being fairly influential people, it would be hard to make them go.

    It would be hard to persuade the God-Emperor and the military rulers of Japan to hand themselves over to the USA in 1945, too. In fact, any Japanese citizen who suggested it, would be killed.

    The USSR fighting Japanese forces in China in 1945 was an agreement with the other Allies.

    To what extent the bombing was rushed through before a Japanese surrender, I'll never know, but Japan appeared game for a land invasion.
    Japan did not surrender after the first A-bomb. That was maybe tactical and cynical. They may have hoped the USA did not have more bombs ready for use. Japan had scientists too and they would have some idea how painstaking and slow bomb production was.

    You're right about a couple of things:
    I expect many American polititians and military hawks were very pleased at the way Hiroshima and Nagasaki showed Russia, Britain, etc., who was top dog.

    Dropping nuclear weapons on people is not very humane.
    Last edited by sids; 15-Apr-15 at 18:05.

  10. #50
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    From what I read just recently, Harry S Truman said some awful racist things about the Japanese even prior to WW2 and wanted to teach them a lesson rather than using the atomic bomb as a tactical weapon.
    God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
    Courage to change the things I can,
    And wisdom to know the difference.

  11. #51
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rheghead View Post
    From what I read just recently, Harry S Truman said some awful racist things about the Japanese even prior to WW2 and wanted to teach them a lesson rather than using the atomic bomb as a tactical weapon.
    Saying bad stuff about foreign people who present a threat is a game they all played and still play.

    I've read that he knew nothing about the bomb until he became president. He probably approved use of the bomb for both of your reasons and other reasons, in what proportions we'll never know.

  12. #52
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rheghead View Post
    From what I read just recently, Harry S Truman said some awful racist things about the Japanese even prior to WW2 and wanted to teach them a lesson rather than using the atomic bomb as a tactical weapon.
    Aren't we lucky that we live in far more enlightened times than the 30s and 40s when racism and nationalism were common place.

    Although you will always have to watch out for those xenophobic types who like to play those very old worn out cards to create division in civilised countries to gain power.

    Thankfully in the enlightened 21st century I'm sure anyone who tried to play that game would be laughed off into obscurity as apparently we learnt all the lessons we needed from back in the 20th century or did we !

  13. #53

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    Quote Originally Posted by Oddquine View Post
    You really think so re bombing Japan? http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n3p-4_Weber.html

    In an article that finally appeared August 19, 1945, on the front pages of the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Times-Herald, Trohan revealed that on January 20, 1945, two days prior to his departure for the Yalta meeting with Stalin and Churchill, President Roosevelt received a 40-page memorandum from General Douglas MacArthur outlining five separate surrender overtures from high-level Japanese officials. (The complete text of Trohan's article is in the Winter 1985-86 Journal, pp. 508-512.)

    This memo showed that the Japanese were offering surrender terms virtually identical to the ones ultimately accepted by the Americans at the formal surrender ceremony on September 2 -- that is, complete surrender of everything but the person of the Emperor. Specifically, the terms of these peace overtures included:

    Complete surrender of all Japanese forces and arms, at home, on island possessions, and in occupied countries.
    Occupation of Japan and its possessions by Allied troops under American direction.
    Japanese relinquishment of all territory seized during the war, as well as Manchuria, Korea and Taiwan.
    Regulation of Japanese industry to halt production of any weapons and other tools of war.
    Release of all prisoners of war and internees.
    Surrender of designated war criminals.

    Is this memorandum authentic? It was supposedly leaked to Trohan by Admiral William D. Leahy, presidential Chief of Staff. (See: M. Rothbard in A. Goddard, ed., Harry Elmer Barnes: Learned Crusader [1968], pp. 327f.) Historian Harry Elmer Barnes has related (in "Hiroshima: Assault on a Beaten Foe," National Review, May 10, 1958):

    The authenticity of the Trohan article was never challenged by the White House or the State Department, and for very good reason. After General MacArthur returned from Korea in 1951, his neighbor in the Waldorf Towers, former President Herbert Hoover, took the Trohan article to General MacArthur and the latter confirmed its accuracy in every detail and without qualification.

    and

    In April and May 1945, Japan made three attempts through neutral Sweden and Portugal to bring the war to a peaceful end. On April 7, acting Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu met with Swedish ambassador Widon Bagge in Tokyo, asking him "to ascertain what peace terms the United States and Britain had in mind." But he emphasized that unconditional surrender was unacceptable, and that "the Emperor must not be touched." Bagge relayed the message to the United States, but Secretary of State Stettinius told the US Ambassador in Sweden to "show no interest or take any initiative in pursuit of the matter." Similar Japanese peace signals through Portugal, on May 7, and again through Sweden, on the 10th, proved similarly fruitless.

    andPresident Truman steadfastly defended his use of the atomic bomb, claiming that it "saved millions of lives" by bringing the war to a quick end. Justifying his decision, he went so far as to declare: "The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians."
    This was a preposterous statement. In fact, almost all of the victims were civilians, and the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (issued in 1946) stated in its official report: "Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen as targets because of their concentration of activities and population."
    Reading your url it would seem that there was no case to use nuclear weapons on Japan, however the great thing about google is the amonut of contradictory information out there, ie there are no "filters" so people believe what suits their take on the world...heres something I grabbed from a google search : The U.S. was convinced the Japanese had ALREADY resolved to do that very thing ( fight a war of attrition ). The experience of the military commanders in trying to dislodge the Japanese from the islands they had captured was all the evidence they had. The Battle of Okinawa brought home the point even more. As bad as Okinawa was, the U.S. was convinced Kyuushu would be twice as bad, and the Japanese mainland would be hell on Earth. With that in mind, the option to drop the bombs was a no-brainer. Japan was preparing to fight a war of attrition on the mainland with the idea of making the U.S. pay dearly for every kilometer they advanced. But they had no answer to a single plane taking out a city with one pass. Their hopes for a war of attrition were dashed when they realized the U.S. could attack any city from the air, wreak total devastation, and fly away with no casualties. There are as many sites defending the bomb dropping dare I say than sites condemning it. I mean who killed JFK / consipiracy sites exist in their thousands !

    So..who do you believe ? ACtually, Nuclear weapon "research" was started by the Nazis in the 1939..the US didnt get into this game until the early 40's, but key point is that you cannot put the genie back in the bottle surely, unless we all do it.
    Last edited by rob murray; 16-Apr-15 at 16:53.

  14. #54
    BetterTogether is offline Banned (Sock Puppet of previously banned user)
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    Much is made of the cost of Trident with people bandying around the £100 billion price tag but very few of those opposed to its renewal are honest enough to quote that those figures are spread over 30 yrs which makes the annual cost of having Nuclear Protection £3.33 billion a year.

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