We agree!

 

P.S. Though some will surely point out that while the hurricane itself was nature's doing, the situation was made much worse than it needed to eb due to mad emade mistakes, inaction, and sloppiness.

That is covered by George W. being re-elected as being tragic.

The casualties from Iraq are tragic as well.

So were the casualties of WW2. Your point?

World War II was too long ago to be considered more tragic than Iraq to most of us.

History is full of tragedies, Eddo. No single tragedy is more important than another, even if one is more recent.

Is too. If it's more relevant to me, I'm going to think it's more important.

Acts of nature I don't count as tragedies. They just happen and you deal with it. Certainly there was death, destruction, and pain on a massive scale but I wouldn't call it tragic. Its just how the natural world works. If you live in an area that is below sea level, expect to get wet.

 

Convenient.

 

 

If it's more relevant to me, I'm going to think it's more important.

 

Agreed.

Yeah, but the most recent ones generally tend to have more impact on people than ones that happen long before they were born. Not that it's a bad thing.

 

I could care less about stories passed on by my great grandma about how the Chinese were massacred by the Japanese or other stuff she would probably tell me if I had ever met her while she was still alive if that b-word hadn't sold my grandpa to some other family.

 

No. I really could care less what the Japanese did to the Chinese or what the Chinese did to each other etc. History is filled with all sorts of messed up crap like that. All I care about is what is happening now in the present. Not WWII or Vietnam but Iraq and whatever country that idiot for a president wants to pick a fight with next. You wanna know why? Because that stuff is actually affecting me.

 

You think I would care in the way distant future if our great grandkids get wiped out by a tsunami caused by melting polar icecaps due to global warming? Well, hmm... actually yes I would care. Because I wouldn't wanna see humanity wiped out and that all our efforts on progress become all gone.

 

But I don't expect them to care about us since all we did was pollute their environment at this period. But still the future is something that can be changed. The past can't. So: present > future > past

the death of one is a tragedy... the death of a million is a statistic. -Josef Stalin

How is that convenient, Alanschu?

 

Eddo, I guess I take a more wholistic approach on these matters. For me 9/11 is no more a tragedy than the Trail of Tears, the atrocities of war in Europe in the 40's, and so forth. They are pretty much effected me equally.

How is that convenient, Alanschu?

 

Because yet again you have just decided to apply whatever definition you like to a word.

If a president can go to war knowingly the intelligence was faulty then I can make up my own definitions.

coughcoughPearlHarbourcoughcough

I think the US and Japan are even on that one. They attacked Pearl harbor, we ended their military and empire with atomic weaponry.

Somehow, that doesn't seem too even...

 

And just 'cause...

Probably not, but they did attack the US first. Don't start nothing there won't be nothing, as the saying goes.

There's the popular conspiracy theory that Roosevelt, sympathetic to the plight in Europe (and probably Asia to an extent as well), had information about the planned attack, and subsequently made sure that the flagships of the navy (i.e. the Carriers) were out of port.

Wouldn't surprise me any.

If true (I am skeptical), what do you think about FDR's decision?

In the long run...well, we know how it turned out. In the short...he basically let thousands of U.S. sailors die.

 

That's a no-no.

Interesting perspective.

As the old vulcan proverb goes, the needs of the many out weighs the needs of the few.

There's the popular conspiracy theory that Roosevelt, sympathetic to the plight in Europe (and probably Asia to an extent as well), had information about the planned attack, and subsequently made sure that the flagships of the navy (i.e. the Carriers) were out of port.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I understand that US intelligence probably had information hinting at an attack on Pearl Harbor, which they probably ignored as false lead. The theory that Roosevelt delibrately hid that information to sacrifice a huge bulk of the Pacific fleet sounds like bs to me. Remember that US's Pacific fleet was davastated after the attack and ended up on the losing side of the war until many months later at the Battle of Midway. If FDR really played this trick on his own troops, then he almost lost us the war in Pacific.

Not with the Atomic Bomb being developed. If the war continued to go badly when they were ready to deploy I am sure he would have targeted Tokyo.