Would YOU sacrifice New York City …?
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ursapater — 18 years ago(November 24, 2007 08:38 AM)
I can think of only one way to do it. As the only way to advert a nuclear holocaust. I would have to order the destruction of Washington, not NYC. Though I would tape a message to the people explaining the situation and urging them to remain calm, to be played posthumously.
Ursa the ghost bear -
Charles-31 — 18 years ago(December 05, 2007 08:19 AM)
That was what I always thought strange of this film. Why New York? I would have liked to have seen a justification of the city choice. One argument would be similar populations and largest city for largest city. I would have thought capital for capital.
I think the president dying in the attack would be unreasonable. It's the easy way out for sure, but the country will have a mess to clean up and it doesn't make sense that he would not be trying to deal with the mess he made (seeing as how he's a responsible president, as opposed to the current office holder). -
ursapater — 18 years ago(December 06, 2007 11:30 AM)
My thought was more that as President I wouldn't think it right to order the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Americans while sitting safe in my bunker.
Still, I see your point. (though sometimes I think that the country would run BETTER without the government. Certainly we'd be better off without this administranion)
Ursa the ghost bear -
theBlueGray — 16 years ago(October 25, 2009 04:15 PM)
I think the reason that NYC was valid is because that's where the Russian ambassador was. That way, when his phone disintegrated too, the Soviet Premier would be able to hear it and know that Pres Fonda had carried through on his side of the bargain (we're supposing someone doesn't put some dry ice in a tin can, which also makes a horrid noise like the one of the phone melting, to trick the premier).
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Alek_Hidell — 16 years ago(April 15, 2009 10:31 PM)
Doc I'm sure that if that situation were real, and time waa as big of a factor as it was, how a president perceives his place in history would be the farthest thing from his mind. After all, the alternative was for the entire country to be destroyed in a counterstrike launched by the USSR. Then we would have to do the same to them. No one would have been left to write any history.
I'm just a patsy! -
cliffdeford — 16 years ago(May 09, 2009 09:43 AM)
First off I love this film.
Secondly, bomarl1969, what on earth gives a US President the right to give Berlin and Western Europe as compensation?
You can't sacrifice something that is not yours He has no choice, he has to give up something that belongs to the US.
And one other thing, people that say how could he bomb NY and not somewhere else like Boise, Idaho WTF. Moscow, like New York, is the business and cultural (and obviously political) centre of Russia you have to sacrifice like for like.
If Fonda said we'll bomb Des Moines, the Russians would have told him to p*ss off and picked a target of their own. -
graham-167 — 14 years ago(December 18, 2011 07:30 AM)
Um, this is just stupid. For one, the answer would be a simple "no".
For another, it would have meant the end of the US as an influential power in the world. What country would ever have allied itself with the US again, knowing that the US would simply screw them over at any opportunity? In the superpower age the very least that would have happened would be the entire world aligning itself with the Russians.
Not to mention that both France and the UK had nuclear weapons of their own, both tactical and strategic. If they saw Russia rolling towards them, that could easily have provoked World War III. No more US anyway.
There really was nothing else to be done but what happened. -
seanspotatobusiness — 12 years ago(December 20, 2013 02:21 PM)
That doesn't work; the offer had to be something
immediate
, not a promise of what you will do over the next couple of months. Again, it was relevant that the Russian ambassador to the US was in New York. -
jgroub — 10 years ago(January 22, 2016 02:34 PM)
Not quite; the Russian ambassador to the UN was in NYC. The Russian ambassador to the US is in Washington. But Washington isn't as big of a target as NYC is.
I want the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well. -
Poizen_Prince — 15 years ago(August 13, 2010 05:28 PM)
If I were the President I would maybe offer Berlin and Western Europe as compensation to the Soviets, no way would I ever order the deliberate killing of American lives.
And that is why America, for all its power, is fundamentally weak.
I doubt a single real American president in history
would
have the courage to commit such an unthinkable act so as to prevent all-out war.
Despite people's insistence that there had to be another way of dealing with the destruction of Moscow (financial remuneration, etc.) the sad fact of the matter is that the Russians are just as petty & blood-thirsty in culture as you Americans.
They would want an eye for an eye. Even offering them all of Western Europe (which America would have no right to do & would simply lead to a situation where - with no other option available - the rest of Europe would ally itself with Russia & assimilate into the Soviet Union, rather than be overrun; pitting the majority of Eurasia & much of the rest of the world against America) would not be enough to quench their blood-lust. Five million Russians died, they would want five million American lives in return.
At this point I offer this quote from the American author "Mark Twain":
The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that's what an army isa mob; they don't fight with courage that's born in them, but with courage that's borrowed from their mass, and from their officers. But a mob without any man at the head of it, is beneath pitifulness.Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
And that is exactly what America is. A mob chanting the mantra of "We are America", over & over again.
American lives are not special, they are not unique, they are not more valuable than any other human life.
It is the inability of the American mind-set to comprehend this fact, and to appreciate the reality of the no-win scenario (requiring a simple cutting of losses, if possible), that makes America so weak.
Even after the horrific atrocities of "9/11", as you insist on calling it, America always swings back around to the fundamental belief that you're basically indestructible, that you were created by God with a "Manifest Destiny" to dominate the rest of the world, and that - viewing, as you seem to, life on Earth as a competition for said dominance - you will "win" the battle one day.
A full-scale nuclear exchange would destroy
all
humanity, America included - but no American president would have the courage or humility to do what
had
to be done to prevent it.
The fact that you would happily sacrifice
hundreds
of millions of "foreigners" (allies, at that) to save a few million of your fellow countrymen just exemplifies America's pathetically cowardly & selfish outlook.
Of course, not
all
Americans think this way - but the vast majority seem to, and a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
To hate another simply for proving you to be in the wrong is the lowest form of cowardice -
liscarkat-2 — 14 years ago(April 25, 2011 03:08 PM)
Dear Poizen Prince,
Just as we did in the past (twice), the next time your morally righteous, intellectually superior little country is in danger of being plowed under, we weak, cowardly Americans will come on over and save your magnificent asses from destruction, at the price of thousands of our own lives, so you can go on living free and calling us names. Then we'll give you billions of dollars of our hard-earned tax money so you can rebuild (we'll do the same for those who attacked you). We are so selfish!