Glenn E. Meyer
New member
Let's keep this a touch realistic. I sense evil politics, soon.
Justice Stevens announces he will retire in late June or early July
- Thread starter Bartholomew Roberts
- Start date
Glenn E. Meyer
New member
What are you talking about? The justices are appointed by the President with Congressional approval. These folks are elected and their choices for justices contribute to their election chances.
Look, we don't need apocalyptic, doom and gloom, tabloid posts, that are ill-informed.
Look, we don't need apocalyptic, doom and gloom, tabloid posts, that are ill-informed.
I can understand Stevens questioning in his own mind the action of seeking out Yamamoto and downing his plane. That seems to be a death sentence without any due process. However, I believe Yamamoto gave up his rights to a fair trial when he commanded the attack on Pearl Harbor. We were not at war with Japan at the time, at least to our understanding. It was an unprovoked attack, an act of war, and it probably sealed his own fate, unbeknownst as it may have been to him at the time. How many US officers were killed without any due process at Pearl Harbor? I can also understand our military and political leaders giving the orders to down his plane as an act of war, rather than as an act of justice.
What type of US plane ended up shooting down Yamamoto? Did they use guns or rockets? (I want to keep this "gun" related if at all possible)
What type of US plane ended up shooting down Yamamoto? Did they use guns or rockets? (I want to keep this "gun" related if at all possible)
Tennessee Gentleman
New member
USAFNoDak said:
P-38 Lightning. Guns.
Stevens saw Yamamoto as a special person (which he was) and knew he opposed war with the US. In fact He feared assasination by the young zealots of the IJN. In the end he did his duty and was legally killed according to the rules of war but Stevens I think and I as well saw it as a real waste of a good moral leader. However, it was not illegal or immoral to have shot him down.
Tennessee Gentleman
New member
publius42 said:
Twasn't luck but you knew that
Coincidentally, I'm in the middle of reading Cryptonomicon, which has quasi-historical bits of Yamamoto's life involved in the story, including the Admiral's realization, as the plane went in, that his codes must have been broken and he must get the word out. Then smack and fade to black...
rwilson452
New member
To my way of thinking the only luck involved was finding him. You need to consider they were navigating by dead reckoning. As the old saying goes, "with dead reckoning, you reckon right or your dead". It was a long flight.
Uncle Billy
New member
I understand Stevens' qualms about targeting Yamamoto directly- it smacks of assassination which in some fashion or other we're supposed to be against and eschew.
But I think that some of the history of the Japanese army when outside of Japan precluded regarding them as worthy of such "rules of war" or foreign policy constraints on our part.
First, Japan wasn't a signatory to the Geneva Convention until after 1945, which was a tacit admission of intent to violate its provisions (rules internal to the Japanese Imperial army notwithstanding, and not followed off the home islands anyway).
The behavior of the Japanese army, beginning in 1910- the wholesale rape and murder of civilians in Asian countries they attacked, invaded and occupied, such as the rape of Nanking in 1937, the Bataan Death March, Panjiayu tragedy, the war crimes in Manchukuo that began in 1931 (where all the bestial acts of the Nazis in their concentration camps were committed by the Japanese occupiers) and elsewhere in Japanese-occupied parts of China, and a long list of crimes against civilians wherein mass murder and rampant rape of women and children were committed by the Imperial Japanese army, and the attack on Pearl Harbor by creeping up in the dark with a military force with no prior declaration of hostilities, pretty much led Americans and our military leadership to conclude that they weren't worthy of a break. It was thought that blowing up Yamamoto had tactical benefits in the Japanese army's morale, but as it turned out they were clearly going to fight to the death in any case, along with their civilian counterparts, which engendered the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Why were they so inhumane and behaved in such despicable, unjustified and bestial ways? Some who have studied it believe the military assumed for itself the prerogatives (but not the honor or discipline) of the ancient Samuri; others believe it was that the Japanese society was so completely non-individualistic that no one had or needed a personal code of ethics or individual sense of morality, the culture dictated these in detail to every citizen, who were obedient to those dictates and is what kept order and structure in the society. Once apart from that environment (that is, off the home islands), the absence of any personal ethics left the army uncontrolled because the individual soldiers had no personal sense of honorable behavior and outside their country there was no externally applied code, the internal rules of the army notwithstanding. So killing Yamamoto to some took on the nature of killing the lead dog in a rabid pack, and the P-38's were dispatched to do so.
But I think that some of the history of the Japanese army when outside of Japan precluded regarding them as worthy of such "rules of war" or foreign policy constraints on our part.
First, Japan wasn't a signatory to the Geneva Convention until after 1945, which was a tacit admission of intent to violate its provisions (rules internal to the Japanese Imperial army notwithstanding, and not followed off the home islands anyway).
The behavior of the Japanese army, beginning in 1910- the wholesale rape and murder of civilians in Asian countries they attacked, invaded and occupied, such as the rape of Nanking in 1937, the Bataan Death March, Panjiayu tragedy, the war crimes in Manchukuo that began in 1931 (where all the bestial acts of the Nazis in their concentration camps were committed by the Japanese occupiers) and elsewhere in Japanese-occupied parts of China, and a long list of crimes against civilians wherein mass murder and rampant rape of women and children were committed by the Imperial Japanese army, and the attack on Pearl Harbor by creeping up in the dark with a military force with no prior declaration of hostilities, pretty much led Americans and our military leadership to conclude that they weren't worthy of a break. It was thought that blowing up Yamamoto had tactical benefits in the Japanese army's morale, but as it turned out they were clearly going to fight to the death in any case, along with their civilian counterparts, which engendered the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Why were they so inhumane and behaved in such despicable, unjustified and bestial ways? Some who have studied it believe the military assumed for itself the prerogatives (but not the honor or discipline) of the ancient Samuri; others believe it was that the Japanese society was so completely non-individualistic that no one had or needed a personal code of ethics or individual sense of morality, the culture dictated these in detail to every citizen, who were obedient to those dictates and is what kept order and structure in the society. Once apart from that environment (that is, off the home islands), the absence of any personal ethics left the army uncontrolled because the individual soldiers had no personal sense of honorable behavior and outside their country there was no externally applied code, the internal rules of the army notwithstanding. So killing Yamamoto to some took on the nature of killing the lead dog in a rabid pack, and the P-38's were dispatched to do so.
<i>I read that too. I don't know that any of the possible replacements have a very good Pro-Gun Stance. Unclear or shaky at best.</i>
You're not going to get any appointment who is going to strike down the right to private gun ownership. While some may support restrictions that I don't agree with, no attorney is going to get on that court and outright ban guns.
You're not going to get any appointment who is going to strike down the right to private gun ownership. While some may support restrictions that I don't agree with, no attorney is going to get on that court and outright ban guns.
Bartholomew Roberts
Moderator
Four Justices just said that the D.C. ban on handguns (even in your own home) was constitutional just over a year ago. If that isn't an outright ban on guns then what is?
vranasaurus
New member
The name Sidney Thomas was thrown out as a possibility to replace Stevens. Anyone know where he might stand on the 2nd amendment?
I believe the president would like to choose a woman or minority just to appease his base but a candidate like Merrick Garland or Sidney Thomas may have a much easier time getting confirmed when compared to some of the other possibilities.
I believe the president would like to choose a woman or minority just to appease his base but a candidate like Merrick Garland or Sidney Thomas may have a much easier time getting confirmed when compared to some of the other possibilities.
yamamoto
true, he was taken by a group of p-38's and it could be if not albeit assassination, consider for a moment what he did and planned to do.
Pearl Harbor, a muderous assault which killed many officers, NCOs and soldiers, although not his doing, the vicious way in which they retaliated when Dolittle struck his tiny blow against his homeland (reciprocation of Pearl) killing all that did not make it to China, the brutalities of Bataan death march, these were his people and ideologies, his were the same with one exception, he concluded that prior to Pearl that Japan would be waking a sleeping giant. He was right. But he continued nonetheless because that was what Japan wanted as a part of the AXIS powers, was he right, no, did he do his duty, yes per Hirohito, so this makes him no more then an implement of war no less then the foot soldier who shouldered the weapon for freedom from tyranny. Just as Hiroshima and Nagasaki his destruction was indeed neccessary to save American lives. It is therefore my belief that sometimes the ROE (rules of engagement) should at times though risky should be ignored. Stevens if he believed this was unfair tactics, I conclude he was wrong in this belief and did not consider the long reaching benefits that Yamamotos demise would bring to his troops. Remember Harry had a tough decision to make in dropping the bomb. How many officers did that puppy kill?
true, he was taken by a group of p-38's and it could be if not albeit assassination, consider for a moment what he did and planned to do.
Pearl Harbor, a muderous assault which killed many officers, NCOs and soldiers, although not his doing, the vicious way in which they retaliated when Dolittle struck his tiny blow against his homeland (reciprocation of Pearl) killing all that did not make it to China, the brutalities of Bataan death march, these were his people and ideologies, his were the same with one exception, he concluded that prior to Pearl that Japan would be waking a sleeping giant. He was right. But he continued nonetheless because that was what Japan wanted as a part of the AXIS powers, was he right, no, did he do his duty, yes per Hirohito, so this makes him no more then an implement of war no less then the foot soldier who shouldered the weapon for freedom from tyranny. Just as Hiroshima and Nagasaki his destruction was indeed neccessary to save American lives. It is therefore my belief that sometimes the ROE (rules of engagement) should at times though risky should be ignored. Stevens if he believed this was unfair tactics, I conclude he was wrong in this belief and did not consider the long reaching benefits that Yamamotos demise would bring to his troops. Remember Harry had a tough decision to make in dropping the bomb. How many officers did that puppy kill?
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