This week, US diverted an Alitalia plane

[earthman]

Actually, Asia is taking steps to make sure the next tsunami will not cost so many lives. I think you picked the wrong example.

[B744skipper]

Hey your country didn't have it towers bombed by terrorist who had nothing better to do than kill innocent people that day. You don't see Americans doing that.

Sure! Oh, can you remember me the only one country who used the nuclear bomb (against a civilian target) whereas the war was already virtually won?

I love it when people are putting worths that have been used by others in my mouth. I give you the advantage of believing that you did not do that on purpose. But nevertheless I would like to respond to this remark, it seems that someone has misunderstood history.

You said the war was virtually won, but the Japanese where preparing the home country for defense, and as everyone who has some in-dept sight into the Pacific war he will know that the Japanese doctrice was based on dying for the country in combat as being honour. The last Japanese defence was far from over, look at how many US soldiers got killed in the battle of Okinawa. Estimates (independent, done after the war) have shown that the an invasion of Japan could have cost about half a million US soldiers their lives. And then not even thinking about the Japanese casualties. The Japanese would not have given up their homeland like nothing, they would have fought furiously trying to defend it. And the A-bomb (yeah, on civilian targets) helped to make a mind-change in the Japanese heads that the war no mather what could not be won anymore, and that the US was a mighty opponent and that fighting on would have meant total destruction.

And since the US populations grow war-tired every day that the war continued, there was a possibility that the support for the war on Japan would fade away, which would not ensure victory and when the same Japanese goverment would be still in place one could never know if they did not start a war again. How would you have felt if the US kicked the Nazi's out of your beloved France but stopped at the German border and would have gone home.........

And besides the high casualty rate that a invasion would have had, and a war that could have dragged one for quite some time, the people where did not know about the dangers that an A-bom had, only that it made a big "kaboom". Hell, radiation was a not known danger back then. Why do you think that the researchers itself would drive through the test site where a bomb just exploded or where looking at a test with only some sunglasses on.

So that A-bom argument of yours is just utter BS!

The facts do prove that since September 11th 2001 there was no other terrorist attack on United States soil.

Sorry, you are wrong...

I love it when people try to fight my arguments by telling me that I'm wrong. But the problem is that people never tell me what exactly I'm wrong about, so I can't get a change to improve the mistakes I made. Please tell me what has happened, I seem to have missed something.
(don't come with the antrax story, to my knowledge they never discovered who sent those letters).

[Squalo]

Actually, Asia is taking steps to make sure the next tsunami will not cost so many lives. I think you picked the wrong example

Hardly the wrong example, My example was to state they get on with it The sea is there it could happen again but that is life Things happen. They will rebuild their life next to the sea that killed so many.

The Usa was attacked 4 years ago the number of dead wasnt even a fraction of the tsunami yet they will dwell on it for all of time. Using it as an excuse to make demands and pour hypocrisy on the rest of the world. Eg (Europe you cant dell weaposn to China but we can sell them to Taiwan) Eg Saddam you must be gone because you have weapons of mass destruction Oh wait you have none Then we will oust you on behalf of freedom, Just like we have ousted Mugabe in Zimbabwe oh wait NO? didnt happen. I realise this is an aviation forum and not a political one so I wont go on and on but you get my point.

I will say no more.

[SN30952]

I received a message from 'Homeland' (that's not a DIY-supermarket) that the winner of the poll gets a free ticket to Bangor... (joke).
B744skipper we know the Dutch had a big trauma from the 'Japs' caused by the WW II, I have seen dutch cemeteries in the Far East, and probably are you're history books a little bit biased by that, but why did someone have to invade Japan, a group of islands? imho, it would have been possible to divide them with a blockade, and one after the other the islands would have surrendered, but of course I never have seen such Hollywood movies... There are bad winners and bad loosers... And some powers do not believe in blockades nor sanctions decades after WW II. They know only the brutal force, and eventually hit first and talk later. (Which is by the way the attitude of many criminals: they hit first, and when they get caught, imprisoned =blockade, they surrender and say, they regret what they did. The worst criminals have no regrets...)

[chunk]

The facts do prove that since September 11th 2001 there was no other terrorist attack on United States soil.

And there were how many before Sept 11th? A fat zero that couldn;t happen now. If some Michigan Militia nutjob wanted to blow up a state building with a car load of explosives, there is nothing to stop it happening.

[Squalo]

Exactly chunk.

http://www.airliners.net/discussions/ge ... n/2116995/

They are having a good laugh over it on A.NET ... Seems the majority of them find this pathetic too.

[B744skipper]

And one after the other the islands would have surrendered

And that is where you make a mistake, the islands would never have surrendered. That word did not even exist in the vocabulary of the Japanese military. A Japanese soldiers doesn't surrender, he fights until he is death. An example could be the Kamikaze pilots. And your proposed blockade, maybe the US did not have enough naval forces to control all the islands. Do you have any idea how long it would have taken until al Japanese soldiers would have surrendered? Even in the '60 the Soviets where rounding up the last Japanese soldiers that surrendered back then. And not even talking about the casualties that the US could have taken, and take that into account with a lengthy duration of the war and the finances getting scarcer every day, how long do you think that the US population would have supported the war? Not long, and what then? Just piss of and leave Japan with it's dictatorship? Again I present you the example of Germany, how would you have felt if the Nazi-goverment was kept in place after peace-negotiations? Without the Allies entering German soil?

There were plenty of estimates which confidently asserted that strategic bombing, blockade, or both, even the invasion of Kyushu alone, would bring Japan to its senses, but no one was able to provide General Marshall with a convincing explanation of just how long that would take.

I guess you should read this site, maybe that can help a bit:

http://www.mikekemble.com/ww2/downfall.html

and probably are you're history books a little bit biased by that

No, they are not. I read the series "Toen en nu", the Dutch translation of "After the battle", which is made by a group of English and French (specialist) authors. And they are not biased in any way, they only provice basic facts.

[chunk]

Exactly chunk.

http://www.airliners.net/discussions/ge ... n/2116995/

They are having a good laugh over it on A.NET ... Seems the majority of them find this pathetic too.

I stopped reading a-net a while ago. There are way to many uninformed / nationalistic / jingoistic idiots posting on that forum - I guess that is a consequence of its size. The inability of people to see the wood for the trees is pretty stunning over there - just read the debates on Airbus subsidies they constantly have....and I mean every day. Search for a post on Boeing and 'not paying taxes' or 'tax breaks' and you find that that is ok. Unreal.

[Squalo]

I too get sick of reading those Airbus v Boeing wars they have on there. They actually have teams of Airbus and Boeing supporters like it is some sort of sport. Cant believe how many A380 will fail threads, 787 is far superior to the failed airbus a350 no order joke aircraft blah blah threads.

That being said I still read it because there are far more international users and it lets me scope news on aviation from around the world on a regular basis.

Not alot you can say about it really . . . Some people will act blind to the truth no matter how blatantly obvious it is. What a world we live in.

[SN30952]

I stopped reading a-net a while ago.

Yes before you get infected.
When you read things as: 'Admittedly AZ's FLIFO is a bit primative', you exactly have the quality of their content. (Don't spell check this)

[HorsePower]

...it seems that someone has misunderstood history.

Of course, you know WWII better than anyone .

that the Japanese doctrice was based on dying for the country in combat as being honour.

We are talking about civilians here. Most of them were women, children and old people. They weren't concerned by such a doctrine.

Estimates (independent, done after the war) have shown that the an invasion of Japan could have cost about half a million US soldiers their lives.

This number has been overestimate, to explain that the use of the atomic bombs was the only alternative.

the people where did not know about the dangers that an A-bom had, only that it made a big "kaboom".
So that A-bom argument of yours is just utter BS!

Sure, almost nobody died due to the impacts of the 2 bombs ...


Damages caused by "Little boy" over Hiroshima.


Damages caused by "Fat man" over Nagasaki.

The main reason why the US used the A-bomb was because the cold war already started:

USSR and Japan signed a pact of non-agression. USSR had invaded Manchouko (Manchourie) in 1945 and USSR was about to denounce their pact with japanese. What does it means? It means that if USSR declare war to Japan (and win, of course) They will gain more territories and money from the loser, and that, the US didn't want at any costs. This is the main reason why US used the A-bomb.

An other (small) was to test theirs new toys. As you know (?), 3 bombs were build. 2 of them (Fat boy type) were Plutonium bombs, the last one (Little boy) was an Uranium bomb. US army tested one of the two Plutonium bombs on July 16th 1945 (Trinity site - New Mexico USA).


Little boy (uranium bomb)


Fat man (plutonium bomb)

I'm not saying there was no reason to use the A-bomb, I'm saying these reasons were bad.

Regards

Seb.

[regi]

from a diverted airplane to pictures of the first atomic bombs.
In fact , the natural way this discussion lead shows what has happened. The USA is the only country in the world that used the atomic bomb. And now they are afraid it would be used against them.
Box of Pandora.

[HorsePower]

I love it when people try to fight my arguments by telling me that I'm wrong. But the problem is that people never tell me what exactly I'm wrong about, so I can't get a change to improve the mistakes I made. Please tell me what has happened, I seem to have missed something.
(don't come with the antrax story, to my knowledge they never discovered who sent those letters).

I was reffering to the AA587 flight who crashed over NY suburbs on monday November 12th 2001. Officially (NTSB conclusions), the crash is due to a failure of the rudder. Off the record, it could be a shoe bomber who make the job. Officially doesn't mean necessary truth.

You want some light? Here it is:
http://usread.com/flight587/Al_Qaeda_Claim/default.html

Regards

Seb.

[SN30952]

Remember the Q was:
Place your bets, the next one is
Now you're showing me this?
This the latest news forum, not about what happened 60years ago....... Stop your safaris in military history, please and come to the point.
'Homeland" seems not to have caught any flying terrorist yet, nor did their predecesors 4 years ago, not now, not then.....
According to them, terrorist fly exclusively on european airlines. Why is it that no european aircraft crashed on Big Ben, the Vatican, the Acropolis or Billund's Ikea, but FOUR american airliners did crash on their Big Apple?
My Q was hinting to an answer to that. Please.

[chunk]

On a side note....

A note was made about how you can;t carry lighters on US flights anymore. I got through security on the way to the States with one - fair enough - maybe they aren;t looking at Schiphol?

However - the TSA must be looking really hard 'cos I got through security in Houston and Minneapolis with one in my bag? Either they aren't following the rules or they aren;t looking very hard. You can carry matches of course - obviously a match is less flammable than a lighter???

Makes you wonder what random security regulation is next - no laces on your shoes in case you try and strangle someone?

[Squalo]

Eat with your hands because knifes and forks are ready made available weapons

[LX-LGX]

1.- 11th September wasn't a U.S. only matter: many European countries also lost citizens. Specially we, the luchtzak.be guys, were shocked by the way the attacks happened.
2.- The "war against terrorism" is only a political statement that was used in the last elections in the U.S.
3.- If the U.S. really don't trust the European airport security systems, they have to forbit all international flights to the U.S.
4.- Holland, Italy and France are members of the WEU (Western European Union) and NATO, and therefore are allied partners of the U.S. The U.S. security services thus should regard their airlines as belonging to a friendly nation. This means: in case of doubt, allow the flight to continue under strong military surveillance.
5.- The terrorists of 11th September didn't learn to fly at the Sabena Flight Academy, but at a U.S. school. So don't blame Europe that the U.S. is under attack.
6.- To all U.S. citizens: trust you've heard about the Madrid railway bomb blasts? You've indeed exported terrorism to us.
7.- There are some 70.000 names on the no-fly-list. This is ridiculous and errors thus are unavoidable.
8.- As far as I know, none of the no-fly would-be-terrorists have been arrested by the U.S.
9.- If a suspected person is on a flight to the U.S., why can't the flight marshall then arrest him and hand over him tot the U.S. ground marshalls?

My conclusion: many political and military U.S. leaders (and some U.S. citizens) became paranoia after 11th September, and see enemies all over now. Just look what they're doing in Vietnam II (Iraq) after the latest elections.

Although every terrorist so far has been identified as a muslim, not every muslim is a terrorist. It's about time the U.S. start to realize this, or the war against terrorism (haha) will never be won. I want a real fork and knife to eat my business class meal, while sitting on the jump seat.

Now, back to the topic: most intercontinental flights towards the U.S. are British, so I bet on B.A. (again).


(if I had a U.S. passport, I would have voted for Bush and Cheney, not for Kerry).

[Squalo]

[A318]

This topic is really really off topic now imho.
When people start comparing a natural disaster with a terrorist attack somebody really missed a part in social education.
Dragging in war history into a discussion about a diverted EU jet is also very strange to me but hey......anything to make a good negative US topic right?
I don't even know why I even react again, it should be my genes I guess.

Erwin