Today on DU I learned that the bombing of Pearl Harbor was not an act of war

[elehhhhna]

Because bombing is NOT WAR.

Got it!

[LAGC]

1. The mental gymnastics around here is getting to be too much.

War=Peace, "we have to bomb them to save them," "its only diplomacy taken to the next level", etc. etc. ad naseum.

Its hard to maintain hope for this country some days...

[Supersedeas]

29. so is the politics of personality and personal identity

[former9thward]

2. You are never too old to learn something.

Next they will tell us the book 1984 is a manual not a warning.

[In_The_Wind]

16. Right

[Pholus]

3. I learned the bombing didn't start the war, it was the declaration which followed it.

I guess if we hadn't gotten a declaration it would have been just fine or something.

[David__77]

4. "Pinpoint strikes."

68 civilian casualties and 2,402 military casualties.

[Scootaloo]

5. But that's okay, since the japanese were going after "non-human targets"

Or so tells me another poster, who insists that slaughtering and maiming people is okay, so long as you were aiming at the equipment

[Reiyuki]

6. Pearl Harbor was simply Manned Drone strikes (nt)

[Eko]

7. Yeah!!

because destroying the pacific fleet and doing a few limited engagements are the same thing. You can make your case intelligently and I would probably agree with you, but to equate two totally different things to prove your point is just plain wrong.

[frylock]

17. i'm sure your attitude would change tout de suite if you were on the business end..

of "a few limited engagements."

[Eko]

20. my attitude would be

that we are under attack. If the engagements continued then I would start to think the we are at war. If ground troops landed then I would think we are at war.

[frylock]

21. you're just as cool as a cucumber there, stud.

[Eko]

24. Nope,

I would be freaking out. Nice ad hominem attack there buddy.

[NuclearDem]

22. And we're planning on bombing runways.

So how is destroying one part of a country's armed forces not analogous to destroying one part of a country's armed forces?

[Eko]

23. Good point,

I would argue that destroying the entire pacific fleet and the huge loss of life from that attack and destroying a couple of runways with its resultant loss of life are not the same thing. At pearl harbor 188 U.S. aircraft were destroyed; 2,402 Americans were killed and 1,282 wounded. All eight U.S. Navy battleships were damaged, with four being sunk and the Japanese also sank or damaged three cruisers, three destroyers, an anti-aircraft training ship, and one minelayer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor

Are you arguing that we are going to do that much damage?

[NuclearDem]

25. Arguably, it doesn't matter how much damage in terms of equipment and people

Whether it's because they have no usable runways or because they're completely destroyed, the Syrian Air Force would be out of the equation.

If the Japanese had simply sunk one or two ships at the mouth of the harbor (which, incidentally, they nearly succeeded at with the Nevada), it would largely have had the same effect as physically destroying the actual ships (at least for quite a while).

The only real difference is in the optics and the effect on morale. Greater overall damage and loss of life is more devastating to the rest of the armed forces that way.

So basically, removed from the conflict is removed from the conflict, no matter how it's done.

[Eko]

31. So there is no difference

between a limited attack and a war?.

[bvar22]

28. How much "damage" makes it OK with you?

Suppose the Japanese only cause half that much?
Then its OK?

How many bombs and missiles,
and how many Syrians can we kill before its not OK with you?

[Eko]

30. I never

said any of this was OK. I don't think attacking anyone for any reason is OK. Violence is never OK. There may be times where we as a country have to resort to violence, but that still does not make it OK.

[Jenoch]

8. Even though I am ambivalent about the possible cruise missile strikes

into Syeria, I am sick of the comparisons to WWII. They are not comparable, yet.

[OnyxCollie]

9. It's Neo-Neo-DU.

(Paraphrasing a pejorative term used by some of the President's most ardent defenders against complaints about policies.)

[gordianot]

10. If oil is disrupted in any way then it will become a real war, strange how that works.

[Eko]

12. not strange at all

war over resources is a common thing, sad, but not strange at all. History is full of it.

[gordianot]

15. At least no one goes to War over salt deposits anymore.

[Recursion]

11. The simultaneous invasions of Wake, Guam, and the Philippines had something to do with it

Just sayin'

[Savannahmann]

13. But that wasn't on the recruiting posters.

It was Remember Pearl Harbor. And Bombing isn't an act of war. So why remember that event when it didn't mean anything?

[Pholus]

14. They called it the "Day of Infamy" for some reason...

The invasions of Wake, Guam and the Philippines took longer than a day.

[Posteritatis]

33. And the accompanying declaration of war that same day.

Is there some kind of "batshit stupid OP" competition on DU today or something? God.

[MNBrewer]

18. I think they also used torpedoes... does that count as war?

[Hell Hath No Fury]

19. Nope. Not war.

[indepat]

34. Yeah, what's a little degradation of the military when compared to the horrors of war?

[bunnies]

26. Yep. Thats what John Kerry says.

Therefore, it must be true.

[Le Taz Hot]

27. And I just learned today that if we bomb Syria

we're not gonna kill anyone. I mean, what he hell do you say to something like that?

[Uncle Joe]

32. This idea meshes well with the lesson that water torture isn't a war crime if the U.S. does it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2840089

After World War II, Japanese soldiers were hanged for the war crime of waterboarding US soldiers.

If the Japanese had been smart they would've claimed that it was only "enhanced interrogation."

Thanks for the thread, elehhhhna.