Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: deep_eyes on August 06, 2005, 12:00:19 am
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Albeit nuclear weapons related topics tend to get tainted or watered down by childish dogma, hopefully id like to establish a concesus about the issue below regarding the decision to use the two atomic bombs on Japan in WW2.... lets all remember that during the circumstances of the era, and the thinking as well as politically, how we would have responded if we were in there shoes (theres as in our forefathers who decided this route), and compare how we think now regarding the use of such weapons....
my one thing im tryin really to tinker with is the idea of a neccessary evil. such as, for example, roughly 350,000 people at most died from the use of these weapons, which also spared the lives of the remaining Japanese Populace from invasion by the allied forces of the US, Russia, China, and so forth, and you know dang straight if the other 2 got involved, there'd probrably be a north and south japan right now... or a situation similair to that of the east and west berlins/germany.
Now i read from a source that if we did invade Japan, almost double as many lives could be lost, if not more if we attempted an invasion of mainland Japan, and even if we did succeed, which would have been an inevetability, the civilian populace would have suffered grately from the invaders. Collateral would have made the collateral damage in europe or in GERMANY for that matter seem like a sand castle that has been stepped on lightly.
millions would have died. think about it, 300,000 people (who i say didnt prob deserve that fate) was the cost of saving maybe 3-200 million and or more japanese and thousands of US, chinese, russian, and any other allied forces that would have been involved. It sucks to think of it in this matter, as a numbers game, because 300,000 IS ALOT OF PEOPLE, but at the same token, just as many and more chinese, philopino, pan-asian civilians that are never going to be accounted for suffered just as horible a fate as those civilians did during the bombings.... (sucky perspective, but these are sucky times, gladly we all live in an era now where we can look back and accept the crap for what it is, and make sense out of it.)
300,000 lives apposed to 200million people from various nations being involved in a nation whom would have defended itself to the last man and woman... what do you think?
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Link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8837468/
Article Here:
HIROSHIMA, Japan - Tens of thousands of people gathered in Hiroshima Saturday to mark the 60th anniversary of the world’s first atomic bomb attack with a moment of silence and offerings of flowers and water.
More than 55,000 people joined in the austere ceremony in Peace Memorial Park, a sprawling, tree-covered expanse that for one day each year becomes the spiritual epicenter of the global anti-nuclear movement.
A moment of silence was observed at 8:15 a.m., the instant of the blast. Flowers and water — symbolizing the suffering of those who died in the atomic inferno — were offered at a simple, arch-shaped stone monument at the center of the park.
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About 140,000 people were killed instantly or died within a few months after the Enola Gay dropped its deadly payload over the city, which then had a population of about 350,000.
Three days later, another U.S. bomber, Bock’s Car, dropped a plutonium bomb on the city of Nagasaki, killing about 80,000 people. Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, 1945, bringing World War II to a close.
The true toll on Hiroshima is hard to gauge, however.
Still no closure
Including those initially listed as missing or who died afterward from a loosely defined set of bomb-related ailments, including cancers, Hiroshima officials now put the total number of the dead in this city alone at 237,062.
This year, about 5,000 names are being added to the list.
“For the people of Hiroshima, this is a day of prayer,” said Takaomi Tahara, who lost several relatives, including his grandfather, in the bombing. To this day, he said, the remains of his dead relatives have not been found. “For us, there isn’t any closure.”
Along with being a time to remember those who died, Hiroshima’s anniversary has become the focus of the international peace movement.
In the biggest pre-anniversary event, about 8,000 people attended the annual World Conference Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs. The conference organizers, mainly leftist and labor groups, have collected more than 8.5 million signatures calling for a global nuclear ban.
Global peace gathering
On the eve of the anniversary, fundamentalist Christians held a prayer circle in Hiroshima, while members of the International Communist League handed out leaflets nearby.
Some people came on their own, offering a purely personal message.
“Our goal is to apologize to those who suffered and are still suffering the horrible, unspeakable atrocity of the atomic bomb,” said John Schuchardt of Ipswich, Mass., who came to Hiroshima with his wife. He said he was on a nine-day fast.
The United States has plans to keep 5,000 warheads — each far more efficient than the one that devastated this city. Russia, China, Britain, France, India and Pakistan, the confirmed nuclear powers, have no plans to give up their arsenals, either, and more countries are looking to join the club.
“I think everybody agrees that the world would be a better place without nuclear weapons,” said Helen Barlin, a 19-year-old tourist from Sachsenheim, Germany. “But with the politicians it’s all just words, words, words.”
A necessary evil?
Was a Hiroshima — and by extension today’s nuclear-armed world — a necessary evil?
Dr. Charles Waldren, a native of Colorado, is an expert on the medical legacy of the atomic bomb.
He is 71 and has spent his adult life studying the effects of radiation on humans and animals. For the past four years he has served as vice chairman and chief of research for the Radiation Effects Research Foundation, headquartered on a quiet hill within walking distance of Hiroshima’s ground zero.
Click for related story
NBC: Navigator of Enola Gay feels no remorse
Since 1948, the foundation has tracked the lives of 100,000 people who survived the bombing. Roughly 40,000 are still alive, and their average age is 71.
“It was a horrible, horrible event,” Waldren said. “But it could have been worse.”
He said research indicates those exposed to the bomb’s radiation have only a 5 percent higher likelihood of developing cancer than the general population. “It’s smaller than people expected, which I think is an extraordinarily good thing.”
He added that there is also no clear link to hereditary mutations.
“Only one in 20 who develops cancer does so because of irradiation,” he said. “The risk from radiation is quite small compared with smoking.”
Waldren said he believes bombing Hiroshima was justified.
“My brother was in the Battle of the Bulge,” he said. “He was badly wounded, but they planned to ship him off to the Pacific. There was no doubt in my family that (dropping the bomb) was the right thing to do.
“I think it ended the war,” he said. “And I think it was a good thing.”
© 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Why should we suddenly forget our own morality and use the time period's morality to justify things? The circumstances shouldn't make horrible actions any less horrible. That's stupidly watering down events that will just lead to perpetuation of whatever action.
Perhaps you would justify being a Nazi in Germany because you'd be killed if you liked Jews? Were the Japanese troops in China justified in killing thousands of Chinese because they were following orders and had to? Were USA actions in Vietnam okay because they thought they had to do it to stop communism? Was the USA justified in dropping a horrific bomb on Japan because they had to?
Seems rather silly to me.
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It indeed ended the war....if a conventional war had taken place, the numbers would have climbed far, far higher. The Germans and the Italians readily surrendered when the allies came knocking at their doors - but the Japanese? It's easy to say that that the Allies would not only have to fight every inch of land upto Tokyo, but for every inch of Tokyo itself, not to mention the concept of Suicide Bombers and Guerilla warfare would be realised far, far sooner than it actually was....
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I wouldn't be here if the bombs weren't droped on japan.
My grandfather was selected for the first wave.
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The Germans and the Italians readily surrendered when the allies came knocking at their doors
Germany was completely flattened by the time they surrendered. The Russians invaded Berlin, and US/British/Free French were accross the Rhine. They didn't exactly "readily surrender".
The Japanese were originally planning on defending the home islands with sharpened bamboo poles. I can't remember where I heard that, I think it was the History Channel.
I think that the use of the A-Bombs was important, mostly because it showed why nuclear weapons must never be used again.
I really don't understand what the US or the Russians have to gain by keeping thousands of nuclear warheads. Most of them are just kept in stockpiles anyway.
Were the Japanese troops in China justified in killing thousands of Chinese because they were following orders and had to?
No. They viewed the chinese as "inferior". Most of them didn't massacre chinese civilians because they were told to, they did it because they wanted to. Ever hear of the "Rape of Nanjing"? The reason the Japanese soldiers did that was because the Chinese actually put up a fight in the Battle of Shanghai. The Japanese won that battle, but it cost them greatly.
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Originally posted by Kamikaze
Why should we suddenly forget our own morality and use the time period's morality to justify things? The circumstances shouldn't make horrible actions any less horrible. That's stupidly watering down events that will just lead to perpetuation of whatever action.
Perhaps you would justify being a Nazi in Germany because you'd be killed if you liked Jews? Were the Japanese troops in China justified in killing thousands of Chinese because they were following orders and had to? Were USA actions in Vietnam okay because they thought they had to do it to stop communism? Was the USA justified in dropping a horrific bomb on Japan because they had to?
Seems rather silly to me.
So what would your alternative have been? There were only two options, diplomacy was not one of them: use the bombs or use a land invasion.
I, for one, say that using the bombs was a good idea - it ended the war quickly and with as little bloodshed as possible. Of course, none of those civilians in those two cities deserved to die, however, who's to say that a land invsasion wouldn't have massacred them anyway? Dropping the bombs saved countless American and Japanese lives.
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Atleast all of those who dies in the intial blasts died instantly... (not counting those who died of radiation poisoning afterwards)...
I think I have to agree that this was the easiest, quickest, and possibly life sparing-est way to end the war.
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I'm not saying the nuclear bombs weren't possibly the most effective thing for the USA to do. I'm saying that bringing up "The nuclear bombs saved so many lives" is silly. Nobody can know for sure. What you can know for sure is that many lives were killed by that bomb.
Plus the attitude of "You have to consider it from their shoes" is a nasty conversation tactic that's used to excuse all sorts of nastiness.
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i'm not in the 'it had to be done' camp, but, the war in the pacific woulda lasted much longer if it hadn't been for the bombing of hiroshima.. consequentually, my grandfather was only a fortnight out, and thus participated in the cleanup, he took some photos of the area, but they're somewhere in the house, and we don't know where.. prolly in the safe we forgot the combo of..
anywho, no matter which side you look at it, hiroshima was a turning point in human history, a point that heralded a new age of mankind.
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If it was my choice, I don't think I'd have any hesitance. 300k, or 200mil? Not a question.
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Originally posted by Singh
It indeed ended the war....if a conventional war had taken place, the numbers would have climbed far, far higher. The Germans and the Italians readily surrendered when the allies came knocking at their doors - but the Japanese? It's easy to say that that the Allies would not only have to fight every inch of land upto Tokyo, but for every inch of Tokyo itself, not to mention the concept of Suicide Bombers and Guerilla warfare would be realised far, far sooner than it actually was....
Quite true. The japanese had a very high sense of nationalism that very much overrode their sense of individuality (the Kamikaze are but a small example of this). The biggest fear of the japanese was that any victory by the West would destroy their culture, especially since the Allies called for an "unconditional surrender."
In fact, towards the end of the war when their resources were drained to almost nothing, the sole cause for their refusal to surrender was that the Allies gave no assurances that they would be able to keep thier Emperor upon surrender.
Now I wish I saved my research papers so I could have the links and such to back myself up.:blah:
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One shouldn't be using stuff that can kill tens of thousands of people in a matter of seconds (unless attacked with such things). This is clear.
But the whole thing really is a statement: war is a game of madman; if one want's do something about it, it must be done beforehand.
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yay, its nuke the earth day! :D
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The cost of the atomic bombs was, IIRC 250,000 in Hiroshima and 100,000 in Nagasaki.
The costs of an invasion are obviously debatable, but the US IIRC estimated at least -based on the fighting in Okinawa - 20-110,000 (US casualties) during an initial invasion, and probably more if a 2nd invasion was required at Tokyo in 1946 (as planned). A 'worst case' of 1,000,000 casualties was considered.
This number would obviously increase far more accounting for Japanese troops and civillian casualites. The Japanese had also issued orders for the execution of 100,000 Allied POWs in the event of an invasion. Finally, the (hastened) end of the war also resulted in the end of war crimes being commited by Japanese troops in places such as China. (also, approximately hundreds of thousands were being held in concentration camps up till the end of the war, including 200,000 Dutch and 400,000 Inodnesians)
I believe most of the peace seeking Japanese officials credited the atomic blasts with giving them the leverage they needed to force a peace; AFAIK up till that point they had no power to do so (IIRC the head of the Japanese army was confident of their defenses holding against invasion).
(to be fair, the whole atomic bomb situation is different from modern day warfare; they didn't have any form of precision targeting for bombers as we now have, so destroying civillian infrastructure was an accepted tactic by both sides)
So I think it was justified in terms of the numbers of likely casualties given alternate actions. Yes, there probably was some other factors - the risk of the russians gaining Japanese territory, for example. (IMO I'd agree with the arguement to have given a 'demonstration' of the bomb in an uninhabited area as a threat rather than direct attack)
But IMO, there's one (other) very simple& very valid reason to justify it - what sort of President (or indeed leader) could justify having a weapon able to end the war in one fell swoop, and not using it?
Originally posted by Kamikaze
I'm not saying the nuclear bombs weren't possibly the most effective thing for the USA to do. I'm saying that bringing up "The nuclear bombs saved so many lives" is silly. Nobody can know for sure. What you can know for sure is that many lives were killed by that bomb.
Well, when the bomb was deployed they had to make exactly that decision based on guesswork. Otherwise, any decision is wrong simply because it was the one taken and the only proven consequence - i.e. nothing can be 'right' because to prove it so you need to perform both actions, simultaneously, to compare.
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Plain and simple, the situation in japan would have been just like the Korean War. A bloody stalemate IMO.
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Originally posted by aldo_14
The cost of the atomic bombs was, IIRC 250,000 in Hiroshima and 100,000 in Nagasaki.
The costs of an invasion are obviously debatable, but the US IIRC estimated at least -based on the fighting in Okinawa - 20-110,000 (US casualties) during an initial invasion, and probably more if a 2nd invasion was required at Tokyo in 1946 (as planned). A 'worst case' of 1,000,000 casualties was considered.
This number would obviously increase far more accounting for Japanese troops and civillian casualites. The Japanese had also issued orders for the execution of 100,000 Allied POWs in the event of an invasion. Finally, the (hastened) end of the war also resulted in the end of war crimes being commited by Japanese troops in places such as China. (also, approximately hundreds of thousands were being held in concentration camps up till the end of the war, including 200,000 Dutch and 400,000 Inodnesians)
I believe most of the peace seeking Japanese officials credited the atomic blasts with giving them the leverage they needed to force a peace; AFAIK up till that point they had no power to do so (IIRC the head of the Japanese army was confident of their defenses holding against invasion).
(to be fair, the whole atomic bomb situation is different from modern day warfare; they didn't have any form of precision targeting for bombers as we now have, so destroying civillian infrastructure was an accepted tactic by both sides)
So I think it was justified in terms of the numbers of likely casualties given alternate actions. Yes, there probably was some other factors - the risk of the russians gaining Japanese territory, for example. (IMO I'd agree with the arguement to have given a 'demonstration' of the bomb in an uninhabited area as a threat rather than direct attack)
But IMO, there's one (other) very simple& very valid reason to justify it - what sort of President (or indeed leader) could justify having a weapon able to end the war in one fell swoop, and not using it?
Well, when the bomb was deployed they had to make exactly that decision based on guesswork. Otherwise, any decision is wrong simply because it was the one taken and the only proven consequence - i.e. nothing can be 'right' because to prove it so you need to perform both actions, simultaneously, to compare.
I agree, the closest thing you can compare an invasion of japan with is DDay, barely. And it is a proven fact that the soldiers were more fanatical than German Troops. German troops were technically supirior to Japanese troops however they werent as fanatical (except the SS). Japanese troops would have done old school Charges and gotten laid out until there was no one left. Such as they did during the initial american invasions on japanese controlled islands in the south pacific.
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This is a very difficult and very sensitive issue. I'll say my bit but I also implore all forum members to post with sensitivity and consideration so as not to stir up any flamewars.
My bit:
Having read quite a bit about WWII history and the use of the atomic bomb and having sat and leaned on the fence in both directions since the time when I learned of what happened I find it difficult to come to a personal consensus.
There are plenty of questions. We're the actions justified? Did the sacrifice of lives at Nagasaki and Hiroshima ultimately save lives? Was the war over anyways and did President Truman rush to send the atomic bombs in so that he could send a message to the Soviets? These are all valid questions and I don't think I have all the information necessary to sustain a credible answer.
There are conflicting bits of information regarding the internal power struggles in Japan during 1945. There was quite a few that had seen enough war. But you also had very powerful people operating within the Navy and Army (who were also very competitive with each other) that were committed to the war they had planned and started from the beginning.
Some of what I have read indicates that the war was already drawing to a close. The movement towards surrender with the Allies was gaining steam based purely on the firebombings of several major Japanese cities. We are always told about the atomic bombs but the firebombing of Tokyo was just as devastating (if not felt for as long). The only reason firebombing was stopped during the latter half of 1945 was because General Le May ran out of incendiaries.
Nonetheless, some information contradicts that the war would have been stopped without the atomic bombs and that they were the straw that broke the camels back. I ask if these cities were firebombed instead if the effects would have been ultimately the same on a political level. Its hard to say.
I feel really quite divided but I think that if I were the one that had to make the decision I wouldn't be nearly as steadfast or decisive as the decision makers of the time were. But then I haven't lived through several years of total war...
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If the cities were firebombed, it would have made no difference - that was already being done elswhere in other Japanese cities. The big thing about the A-Bombs were that you could drop just one and level an entire city, rather then sending in thousands of bombers with millions of bombs to do the same job.
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I'm not even american and I fully support the use of the atomic bomb on those events. If it was me who'd have to decide between the bomb and a land invasion, I'd have gone for the bomb without a second thought.
First, it would save a lot of my soldiers. On a war like that one, it's very hard to have any sympathy for your enemy. Second, if they didn't want to get hit hard, they shouldn't have started it. Now, you may say that the civilians in those cities didn't have anything to do with the war, but you can bet anything that they would have cheered for days if the situation was reversed. Third, as everyone mentioned, it's very possible that the use of the bombs actually saved lives in comparison to a full scale land invasion.
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[color=66ff00]It's war and useless to try to make sense of IMHO.
Thinking of people as numbers just solidifies my view.
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Why hasn't anyone mentioned the fact that the Japanese were considering to surrender before the bomb was dropped? Dropping atomic bombs would only kick in a door that wasn't even locked in the first place.
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because trying to use minimal force in a war gets you concored.
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Are you suggesting that Japan posed a threat to the Allied powers, after the defeat of Germany and Italy?
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Originally posted by General Freak
Why hasn't anyone mentioned the fact that the Japanese were considering to surrender before the bomb was dropped? Dropping atomic bombs would only kick in a door that wasn't even locked in the first place.
Some did, but not the ones in charge of the army. They were commited to fighting a battle in Kyushu (what would be the first part of Operation downfall) in order to inflict losses that would lead to a favourable armistace.
This sort of arguement risks falling into the 'could've' category, though - same as dropping the bombs 'could've' saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
Originally posted by Rictor
Are you suggesting that Japan posed a threat to the Allied powers, after the defeat of Germany and Italy?
A fanatical, imperial (wannabe) nation which still held 100,000 prisoners of war and over 600,000 people in concentration camps (not to mention millions of Chinese)? One that'd commited numerous war One whose soldiers had chosen suicide over surrender in numerous occasions, and as a tactic of war?
I'd say it'd be dangerous to let that sort of nation retire and rebuild.
EDIT; put it this way, if Hitler had offered to end hostilities (but remain in power) after the liberation of France, Holland, etc, would you have expected it to be accepted?
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Originally posted by General Freak
Why hasn't anyone mentioned the fact that the Japanese were considering to surrender before the bomb was dropped? Dropping atomic bombs would only kick in a door that wasn't even locked in the first place.
I did...
But you have to understand that its not just "the Japanese as a whole". There was movements within the government from 1944 and on (maybe earlier) that was considering the possibilities of peace with the Allied powers. The war that they had started and were so successful at in the beginning had turned against them and they knew it was a matter of time before Japan felt the full brunt of the Allied attack.
There were many powerful militants who wanted to fight on. There were a few who wanted to stop. Eventually the militants were silenced and the Emperor spoke out...but these events did happen after the bombs were dropped. The question is if the firebombings of Tokyo and several other major cities were just as effective at swaying the balance of power between the militants and those who wanted peace. There's no definitive answer that I'm aware of.
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From what I've been reading, the Emporer wanted to stop before the first A-bomb was dropped, but his generals said no.
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Disobeying the emperor? Hmm...I'd like to see some sources on them arguing over surrender. I never heard of this before.
There is no answer to the question of the bomb. There are many good arguments for and against each side. We all now know the consequences of dropping it. Let us just hope the world learns from this and make sure history does not repeat itself. Oh wait, apparently, no one has.
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Yeah, how silly of them to disobey their emperor when they're willing to die for him. It doesn't make sense.
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Well, in a way, it makes perfect sense. There is a code of honor, and surrendering in this mindset would not be the "honorable" thing to do. Fighting to the last man, woman, and child however, would be. Hari kari, which quite a few officers committed near the end, is also dishonorable. However, there comes a time when you must swallow your pride. Pride is the crutch of the insecure.
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The emperor did not interfere in the affairs of the generals, if I remember correctly. He made his opinion known to them but didn't actually outright tell them to end the war until after the second bomb was dropped. In fact, it was the first time such a thing had ever happened. Like EtherShock was saying, there was a sort of honor code in place that usually kept such affairs from happening at all. But the atom bomb brought the possibility that the nation of Japan could be destroyed completely even without a full blown invasion, and the loss of the nation was, as I mentioned earlier, a (if not the) primary driving force towards maintaining the war.
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yea the emperor really had no say in that time period of japanese politics, especially during war time. The prime minister at the time however wanted to stop a week before the bombs drop, but his generals attempted a coup (history chanel, forgot exact details). they failed etc etc., but the war went on.
but yes the emperor was ignored.
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I say that nuclear weapons have actually prevented more wars than they has started (no new world wars so far....) Think about what would have happened if Russia/China went against the Allies shortly after WWII. The world would have faced total holocaust as far as economic and loss of life goes. Instead the newly invented nuclear weapons held everyone in checkmate and therefore we never saw WWIII. The deterrent factor is undeniable, and YES I am aware of their potential destructive powers. In my opinion the risk is worth the reward.
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Originally posted by MatthewPapa
I say that nuclear weapons have actually prevented more wars than they has started (no new world wars so far....) Think about what would have happened if Russia/China went against the Allies shortly after WWII. The world would have faced total holocaust as far as economic and loss of life goes. Instead the newly invented nuclear weapons held everyone in checkmate and therefore we never saw WWIII. The deterrent factor is undeniable, and YES I am aware of their potential destructive powers. In my opinion the risk is worth the reward.
This is a good point but we also have to thank an unknown person for (supposedly) poisoning Stalin to ensure that he didn't start a war with the West. Apparently he wanted to.
Everyone after that felt that nuclear war was suicide.
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Originally posted by MatthewPapa
I say that nuclear weapons have actually prevented more wars than they has started (no new world wars so far....) Think about what would have happened if Russia/China went against the Allies shortly after WWII. The world would have faced total holocaust as far as economic and loss of life goes. Instead the newly invented nuclear weapons held everyone in checkmate and therefore we never saw WWIII. The deterrent factor is undeniable, and YES I am aware of their potential destructive powers. In my opinion the risk is worth the reward.
Let's not forget the number of false alarms (http://skeptically.org/onwars/id7.html), though; we lived under the sword of damocles during the Cold War and the situation is arguably worse now than then (more developing nuclear powers, especially Pakistan and India).
I think the risk is too much, particularly with respect to modern day munitions technology - simply because a single false alarm can start an automated sequence of actions that would kill all mankind, and even the worst possible conventional war cannot do so, so quickly.
Unfortunately, we can't shut Pandoras Box.
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Originally posted by aldo_14
Unfortunately, we can't shut Pandoras Box.
[color=66ff00]It's very easy actually, all we have to do is nuke each other into extinction and that'll remove all of the pesky evil.
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What I am having a hard time understanding is why does the US and the Russians still have hundreds of nukes pointed at eachother even though the cold war has been over for almost 15 years.........
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Because, no one trusts one another still. I suppose it also keeps those targeted in check? We have an old cold war missile base right here in town, but it's been long abandoned.
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[pointlessuncareingstatement] yay celebrate the blowing up into bits, of those jap punks (except the good ones like nientendo who create the Legend of Zelda series games)[/pointlessuncareingstatement]
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[angry]I think we should have blown over their whole country, nation, with atomic bombs. Massive slaughter. They killed our men and ships at peral harbor, they deserved to die. [/angry]
i dont like our military or our nation or goverment myself, but il stick with them on this. For some reason im now kind of angry at the japs for peral harbor. bastards..
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I'm sorry, but that was retarded. :sigh:
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Originally posted by Charismatic
[pointlessuncareingstatement] yay celebrate the blowing up into bits, of those jap punks (except the good ones like nientendo who create the Legend of Zelda series games)[/pointlessuncareingstatement]
EDIT:
[angry]I think we should have blown over their whole country, nation, with atomic bombs. Massive slaughter. They killed our men and ships at peral harbor, they deserved to die. [/angry]
i dont like our military or our nation or goverment myself, but il stick with them on this. For some reason im now kind of angry at the japs for peral harbor. bastards..
I'd point you towards my initial post about keeping the topics as calm and least offensive as possible.
The Japanese people do not deserve to die for the actions of a few select military leaders. Furthermore, you have no reason to feel anger for an event that took place over 60 years ago. Its ancient history. Read about it, understand it, perhaps stand in awe at hte magnitude of the event and move on. The world has changed many times since that event took place.
Also try and remember the events that were set in motion following the Pearl Harbor attack. The America of today was, in some ways, forged in the attack at Pearl Harbor (for better and worse).
My personal interest is in WWII history. Particularly aviation. Pear Harbor is of particular interest as it sets in motion so many things. Having read books like A Man Called Intrepid (which I HIGHLY recommend you read for the REAL story of WWII) and innumerable history articles, I feel like I have a very real and somewhat complete sense of what was going on militarily, technologically, and politically during the late 1930s and through to the end of 1947.
As always, its a complex history with many faucets, elements, and events that are contingent on each other existing. In a what-if world, the possibilities are endless when it comes to WWII as so many events were decided in a large complex sequence that could have easily swayed one way or the other.
I encourage you to read, investigate, and learn for youself many of these things.
In the meantime, the use of a potentially offensive racial slur and gross insensitivity has not gone unnoticed. Consider yourself warned. Further behavior will not be tolerated.
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You certainly don't live up to your name there Charismatic. That was an incredibly ignorant thing to say. It's that kind of thinking that causes racism, discrimination, and hate. IceFire has already said most of the things I would've said, so I'll just add this...
This more of a day of observation and remembrance than celebration now. The same goes for December 7, D-Day, and most wartime historical events. Have you been to Pearl Harbor? I suggest you visit if you ever have the opportunity. It's quite an experience, even though you'd only getting one side of the story. History is taught so that we learn from the mistakes of our ancestors and not repeat them. It's over, get over it. The same will be said of the events that happen in our time in the future.
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You certainly don't live up to your name there Charismatic. That was an incredibly ignorant thing to say. It's that kind of thinking that causes racism, discrimination, and hate.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
I am not going to say anything more about that. I will not flame him for it.
As tempting as that is......
History is taught so that we learn from the mistakes of our ancestors and not repeat them.
Unfortunatly, that isn't entirely true. History is taught from a very one sided perspective. For example, in the south, after their defeat in the Civil War, The north was always villified for a long time (maybe it still is, don't know about that part, but it certainly explains why they are still pissed about it). In the north, it is taught that they were doing the right thing, and freeing the slaves, etc. The point is, history is often distorted towards one side or another, depending on who is retelling it.
People rarely listen to history, and as such history repeats itself over and over again.
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Originally posted by Charismatic
[pointlessuncareingstatement] yay celebrate the blowing up into bits, of those jap punks (except the good ones like nientendo who create the Legend of Zelda series games)[/pointlessuncareingstatement]
EDIT:
[angry]I think we should have blown over their whole country, nation, with atomic bombs. Massive slaughter. They killed our men and ships at peral harbor, they deserved to die. [/angry]
i dont like our military or our nation or goverment myself, but il stick with them on this. For some reason im now kind of angry at the japs for peral harbor. bastards..
I can't believe you actually edited in something even more offensive..... from a military standpoint IMO Hiroshima made sense, but like all war it was a horrible, ****ty thing, a punishment inflicted upon innocents for the acts of others. War is not something you should ever celebrate, but something you mourn.
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It's not the issue of weather the use o A-bombs was warranted or not (It's a terrible weapon that I personally would never choose to use) - it's the question of a target.
If they dropped it on aone of the pcific islands where the japs were dug in deep or a ISOLATED naval/air/ base I wouldn't say a thing. But they dropped it on a CITY, on CIVILIANS!
That's unforgivable.
the ends doesn't justify the means, remember? And to think some even now think Japanese FORCED the americans to drop the bombs on their cities! Utter crap. You can't FORCE someone into something like that. that's called guild projection - trying to make the other guy look guilty for your actions. It doesn't work by smart people.
A fanatical, imperial (wannabe) nation which still held 100,000 prisoners of war and over 600,000 people in concentration camps (not to mention millions of Chinese)? One that'd commited numerous war One whose soldiers had chosen suicide over surrender in numerous occasions, and as a tactic of war?
I'd say it'd be dangerous to let that sort of nation retire and rebuild.
For my point of view America is more dangerous than Japan ever was... Should we nuke it?
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Originally posted by TrashMan
It's not the issue of weather the use o A-bombs was warranted or not (It's a terrible weapon that I personally would never choose to use) - it's the question of a target.
If they dropped it on aone of the pcific islands where the japs were dug in deep or a ISOLATED naval/air/ base I wouldn't say a thing. But they dropped it on a CITY, on CIVILIANS!
That's unforgivable.
the ends doesn't justify the means, remember? And to think some even now think Japanese FORCED the americans to drop the bombs on their cities! Utter crap. You can't FORCE someone into something like that. that's called guild projection - trying to make the other guy look guilty for your actions. It doesn't work by smart people.
What are you on about? No-ones suggested the US were 'forced' into dropping the bombs, just whether it was the most sensible military action to take within the context of the ongoing war.
I'd point out that both Hiroshima and Nagasaki did have military significance; Hiroshima included the HQ for the 5th field division and the 2nd general army HQ, was a communications and logistics centre, an assmebly point for troops, and had thousands of conscripted women, children and Koreans working in military offices and factories, as well as the women and children training as resistance fighters in the event of US invasion.
Nagasaki was one of the largest sea ports in Japan and had a large number of factories building munitions, war equipment, etc, such as the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works.
Remember WW2 was fought in an era of total war - every side mobilized their entire society to fight or support the war effort, and as such it was accepted tactics to attack civillian populations to degrade the war-fighting ability of that society as whole. Just look at the Blitz, Dresden, the V-attacks, the firebombing of Japan, etc. Within that context the use of a nuclear weapon is scarcely exceptional or odd; it's just a bigger bang. If you wish to condemn attacking civillians then be fair and condemn pretty much every large scale Allied and Axis bombing raid launched.
Originally posted by TrashMan
For my point of view America is more dangerous than Japan ever was... Should we nuke it?
Incorrect analogy;
Firstly the US is not attacking 'us' in a direct sense, regardless of the negative effect of US foreign policy it's not a case of vis-a-vis military action (except in the event of Iraq), any attack would be an escalation of any current hostility into actual war. In the event of said war, the military tactics used would have to be 'best effect'; it's highly unlikely a nuclear attack would fit in that category (i.e. see below).
Also, the position has changed in that a nuclear attack would pre-empt a similarly scaled retaliation; a nuke is no longer a war-ender as seen in WW2, but is more of a war starter. In WW2 it was clearly used as method to force Japanese surrender.
Finally, targeting precision has improved in the modern era to the extent carpet bombing is no longer essential in targeting key infrastructure; it can be done using (for example) laser or satellite guided cruise missiles, thus requiring less munitions to ensure a hit.
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Originally posted by aldo_14
What are you on about? No-ones suggested the US were 'forced' into dropping the bombs, just whether it was the most sensible military action to take within the context of the ongoing war.
I'd point out that both Hiroshima and Nagasaki did have military significance; Hiroshima included the HQ for the 5th field division and the 2nd general army HQ, was a communications and logistics centre, an assmebly point for troops, and had thousands of conscripted women, children and Koreans working in military offices and factories, as well as the women and children training as resistance fighters in the event of US invasion.
Nagasaki was one of the largest sea ports in Japan and had a large number of factories building munitions, war equipment, etc, such as the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works.
Remember WW2 was fought in an era of total war - every side mobilized their entire society to fight or support the war effort, and as such it was accepted tactics to attack civillian populations to degrade the war-fighting ability of that society as whole. Just look at the Blitz, Dresden, the V-attacks, the firebombing of Japan, etc. Within that context the use of a nuclear weapon is scarcely exceptional or odd; it's just a bigger bang. If you wish to condemn attacking civillians then be fair and condemn pretty much every large scale Allied and Axis bombing raid launched.
What part of "ends doesn't justify the means" don't you undersand?
Teh children were conscripted and were working on the rice fields to feed teh army. or in the assembly lines. So therefore, it's OK to burn them to a crisp?
There wasa HQ in the centre of the city? Fine, why didn't you use a block buster to take ONLY IT out, and not all the men, women and CHILDREN in a 3km radius?
By your logic, a suicide bomber can justify it's actions by saing: "Hey look. I was targeting a solder that stood in the middle of those 100 people when I detonated the bomb. The civilians were not my target, so it's OK?"
And yes, I'm condoning EVERY attak on civilian populace in any fropm whatsoever!
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Originally posted by TrashMan
There wasa HQ in the centre of the city? Fine, why didn't you use a block buster to take ONLY IT out, and not all the men, women and CHILDREN in a 3km radius?
Perhaps cause no such weapon existed at the time? :rolleyes:
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what part of "condemn pretty much every large scale Allied and Axis bombing raid launched" don't you understand, the bombings that ended the war were just like every other bombing in that war exept they only used one bomb a peice.
here, you want to feel sorry for the Japaneese, here let's put it into context, this is what the japaneese thought of civilian centers
(http://www.centurychina.com/wiihist/njmassac/nmphoto/rapecut.gif)
(http://www.centurychina.com/wiihist/njmassac/nmphoto/rapebody.gif)
(http://www.centurychina.com/wiihist/njmassac/nmphoto/womencld.gif)
(http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41019000/jpg/_41019723_nanjingditch203b.jpg)
(http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41019000/jpg/_41019725_nanjingjapanese203b.jpg)
yes, it was a war.
have you seen what happened to Germany? why doesn't anyone ***** about that, it was the same level of damage, similar levels of indecriminant killing, but because we took longer to do it, for some reason that was fine but nukeing Japan, oh, no that was 'just another example of American imperinalism'. it was a war, a war of survival, and you don't stop, you don't let up at all in a war like that untill your enemy had been beaten, totaly, or you die.
try to think about the situation, try to forget your sheltered little safe life for one second, and try to visualise the world 50 years ago, we didn't have 50 billion nukes then so our survival wasn't assured, it was quite posable that some army could come rolling over the country side at any moment. it was well within posability that any nation could fall and be enslaved by another, we were trying to win the WAR so we (and by we I mean me and you(and by you I mean anyone reading this, unless your german, italian or japaneese)) wouldn't _DIE_.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
What part of "ends doesn't justify the means" don't you undersand?
Teh children were conscripted and were working on the rice fields to feed teh army. or in the assembly lines. So therefore, it's OK to burn them to a crisp?
There wasa HQ in the centre of the city? Fine, why didn't you use a block buster to take ONLY IT out, and not all the men, women and CHILDREN in a 3km radius?
As kara pointed out - and as I pointed out in that post - no such weapons existed. In fact, I think I said 3 or 4 times that the conditions of bombing campaigns have changed with new technology and particularly accuracy.
All bombs were dropped using more or less visual only indicators. The alternative to a nuclear bomb - as used in Tokyo and Dresden, for example - was firebombing or carpet bombing.
(In fact, the firebombing campaign carried out against Japan killed more people than the blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki; estimates for those killed at Dresden range up to 300,000).
You also fail to understand the concept of 'total war'. Put simply, it means that every part of a country becomes a viable target as the civillian infrastructure is an essential part of fuelling a war effort. In WW2, that meant carpet bombing cities.
It doesn't matter whether or not these people were conscripts or volunteers - that distinction isn't made on the battlefield when shooting enemy soldiers, and it can't be made when targeting an infrastructure. Nowadays surgical strikes are possible - but not 60 years ago.
Originally posted by TrashMan
By your logic, a suicide bomber can justify it's actions by saing: "Hey look. I was targeting a solder that stood in the middle of those 100 people when I detonated the bomb. The civilians were not my target, so it's OK?"
And yes, I'm condoning EVERY attak on civilian populace in any fropm whatsoever!
Again, you miss the fundemental principle of total warfare in 1945; every part of a country that supports the war effort is considered a valid, military target. Even in modern day warfare, when we can use precision strikes against key targets with relatively little (to WW2) collateral damage, the people working in those logistical targets are still in 'the line of fire'.
War is ****. We already know this.
But that's not the issue. The issue is, and always has been, within the context of World War 2 and the viable alternatives, was the dropping of the bombs the most effective (in terms of lives) way of ending the war? I would say the evidence supports that it was.
And the difference between a suicide bomber and this sort of campaign is that the individual civillians were involved within a war effort, whereas the civillians tackled by a terrorist act are almost certainly not and are proxies for political attacks. A terrorist act is probably more akin to bombing a neutral country to place pressure on another government.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
What part of "ends doesn't justify the means" don't you undersand?
Teh children were conscripted and were working on the rice fields to feed teh army. or in the assembly lines. So therefore, it's OK to burn them to a crisp?
There wasa HQ in the centre of the city? Fine, why didn't you use a block buster to take ONLY IT out, and not all the men, women and CHILDREN in a 3km radius?
By your logic, a suicide bomber can justify it's actions by saing: "Hey look. I was targeting a solder that stood in the middle of those 100 people when I detonated the bomb. The civilians were not my target, so it's OK?"
And yes, I'm condoning EVERY attak on civilian populace in any fropm whatsoever!
They didn't have block busters. There were almost no guided weapons of any kind (the Germans experimented with ship killing guided rockets but that was another story). The accepted and conventional method of attacking enemy industry was to bomb the city they were in with intention of hitting the industry but with no guarantee that it would actually happen.
This is true of all airforces on all sides. Everyone did it. Nobodys hands are clean. As aldo mentions, this was the age of total war where all elements of society were mobilized to fight the war and all elements of society were also subjected to the harsh realities of it.
The decision to drop the atomic bomb is questionable and definately objectional due to the massive loss of life - but lets remember that the bombing of London, Dresden, Tokyo, Berlin, various Chinese cities, Stalingrad, Leningrad and a host of others were just as costly in human lives.
And lets remember what the sort of technology was involved. You had incendiary and general purpose dumb bombs (as we now call them). You fly 100 or 200 or 300 (200-300 if your the 8th AF) multiengine bombers over the target at 25 or 30,000 feet, you have a bombadier in a lead plane that spots the target, estimates all the variables (indicated airspeed, ground speed, altitude, wind drift, etc.), makes a calculation and signals the other bombers to drop their loads. All the while being shot at by indescriminate flak bursts. The margin of error was significant. Its not like today where you can desginate a building and destroy it from 100km away.
As to the dropping of the weapon...all other things aside...the choice is between continuing to fight (i.e. engaging in Operation Olympic - the invasion of Japan) or ending the war quickly. Had the war gone into 1946 and the invasion was started....there quite possibly would have been even more casualties (more civilians too as they were instructed to form a human wall when the Americans landed on the beaches). So its a really really difficult thing to go back and say that what happened was the wrong thing to do. There appears to be no easy decision and no right way to go about things. Thousands and millions of civilians were going to die either way.
This is why war is a terrible thing and we need to study our past mistakes in order to understand them and hope that we never have to make the same decisions again. Too few remember or understand their history lessons.
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Originally posted by aldo_14
And the difference between a suicide bomber and this sort of campaign is that the individual civillians were involved within a war effort, whereas the civillians tackled by a terrorist act are almost certainly not and are proxies for political attacks. A terrorist act is probably more akin to bombing a neutral country to place pressure on another government.
Yes, I see. Childern playing in the park are part of hte war effort. Kil lthem..
Oh wait! I just rememebr what Osama said. Any American citizen pay taxes that in turn pay for tha ameriacn army that they are at war with! there you go - civilians involved in the war effort, therefore a viable target!
You see? a human being can allways find a way to rationalize and justify their action no matter what those actions are. So don't give me none of that crap.
X doing Y doesn't give you the universal right to bomb cities and civilains. And maby they didn't have blockbusters but they had big bombs -* lot's of them. How many you need to take out a HQ anyway?
And like I said before - It's not the question of droping hte A-bonmb, iot's where they dropped it. They could have chosen other target to demonstrate the new and terrible weapon. Heck, they could have bombed a mountain!
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Originally posted by TrashMan
And maby they didn't have blockbusters but they had big bombs -* lot's of them. How many you need to take out a HQ anyway?
Weren't you paying attention? The only way to be certain of destroying the HQ would have been to carpet bomb the city. That would have probably caused as many casualties as the A-bomb anyway.
Originally posted by TrashMan
And like I said before - It's not the question of droping hte A-bonmb, iot's where they dropped it. They could have chosen other target to demonstrate the new and terrible weapon. Heck, they could have bombed a mountain!
Remember that America only had 2 atomic bombs in the first place. The use of the atomic bomb and Truman's threat that followed were something of a bluff. Had the Japanese decided not to surrender after the 2nd bomb was used the Americans would have had to wait till later that month for the 3rd to be completed and even longer for the 4th.
Who's to say that dropping an A-bomb on a mountain would have achieved anything? Hell it might have even convinced the Japanese leadership that the Americans lacked the will to drop the A-Bomb.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
Yes, I see. Childern playing in the park are part of hte war effort. Kil lthem..
Oh wait! I just rememebr what Osama said. Any American citizen pay taxes that in turn pay for tha ameriacn army that they are at war with! there you go - civilians involved in the war effort, therefore a viable target!
You don't get it, do you?
Hiroshima was geared up as a war city; it was devoted to manufacturing arms, munitions, assembling troops and logistics. It had been undergoing a systemic evacuation, with troops and workers being shipped in; some of those children who were in the city were being trained to fight the expected invasion.
It wasn't picked as A Random City, it was picked as a key enemy tactical position. The only reason it hadn't been bombed into the ground already was because they planned to use the nuclear bomb on it, and because - being next to a river - firebombing would not be as effective.
This was mid-20th century Total Warfare. All society was geared up for war on both sides; if you want to condemn Hiroshima and Nagasaki as targets then you need to go ahead and condemn every other city bombing raid by the allies, because World War 2 was not fought by militaries but by nations.
(Incidentally, the original target for the second bomb was Kokura arsenal, Japans largest. Nagasaki was bombed due to cloud cover over Kokura on the day).
EDIT; yes, it's ****ing horrible that civillians were killed. But this is the nature of war, and certainly was the nature of WW2. It's not exactly an uncommon thing in that conflict, y'know. You want to argue war is horrible - fine, I agree. But this is about a single tactical action within context, not the inherent ****tiness of any war.
Originally posted by TrashMan
You see? a human being can allways find a way to rationalize and justify their action no matter what those actions are. So don't give me none of that crap.
X doing Y doesn't give you the universal right to bomb cities and civilains. And maby they didn't have blockbusters but they had big bombs -* lot's of them. How many you need to take out a HQ anyway?
It's not the size of the bomb, it's aiming it. This has been said multiple times by plenty of people.
To quote directly from the Target Committee that selected Hiroshima for the bombing;
A. It was agreed that for the initial use of the weapon any small and strictly military objective should be located in a much larger area subject to blast damage in order to avoid undue risks of the weapon being lost due to bad placing of the bomb.
Which illustrates the difficulties of precise bombing raids.
EDIT; and what the **** is a nuke except a 'big bomb'? Are you saying unlimited civvie casualities are ok from conventional bombing runs (I mention again every other raid in WW2)
Originally posted by TrashMan
And like I said before - It's not the question of droping hte A-bonmb, iot's where they dropped it. They could have chosen other target to demonstrate the new and terrible weapon. Heck, they could have bombed a mountain!
There's no strategic military value in bombing a mountain. The military only had, what, 2 of these weapons and no guarantee it would lead to surrender - so why would they piss one away on a 'demonstration' when they were still fighting a war?
In fact, that's the exact reason they rejected a symbolic attack on the Emperors Palace; The Emperor's palace in Tokyo has a greater fame than any other target but is of least strategic value.
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It's also worth pointing out that the US avoided bombing Kyoto because of it's cultural importance.
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Well atleast with conventional bombing there is no such thing as radiation fallout,while it would have taken more to flatten the city, many more people would not have suffered for months slowely dieing and could have escaped.
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it wasn't as well known about then, and if it was they didn't care, you see we were involved in this thing called a war with them.
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So as to avoid the wrath of Aldo pointing out things, i shall simply educate the occular senses:
This is an excellent video of Atomic Testing in 1946 at the Bikini Atoll:
http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0508/feature6/multimedia.html
And if you enjoyed that, here's some stunning footage of the Largest Nuclear Detonation ever conducted, care of the famous Tsar Bomba (As seen below):
(http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/4130/tsarbomb2wq.jpg)
And a samply of the collossal explosion:
(http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/57/tzarbo14nb.jpg)
You can find the Video here; http://rapidshare.de/files/3100388/Tsar_Bomba.avi.html
And a rather informative Wiki article here;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba
Enjoy! :D
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Originally posted by karajorma
Weren't you paying attention? The only way to be certain of destroying the HQ would have been to carpet bomb the city. That would have probably caused as many casualties as the A-bomb anyway.
This is rich! I got to write it down! Destroying a single (or a couple) of structues by conventional bombs would be as devastating as an atom bomb! Oh, is my friend at work gonna get a kick out of this! :D
You don't get it, do you?
Hiroshima was geared up as a war city; it was devoted to manufacturing arms, munitions, assembling troops and logistics. It had been undergoing a systemic evacuation, with troops and workers being shipped in; some of those children who were in the city were being trained to fight the expected invasion.
Oh, I get it, but apparently you don't.
As soon as you start making excaption and approving bombing of civlilains you are practicly inviting the other side to do the same.
Bombing civlians is a NO. NEVER.
As far as the invasion and Japanese surrender go - tehy were defeated and they knew it. The didn't have enough oil left to sustain their war effort. Their biggest battleship Yamato was sunk at the entrace to a harbor to be used as a static defense becouse of that. they had to srape every last drop of oil from miles around just to assemble a smal lorce. Thier plane industry was slow and they lost allmsot all of their planes - half of their tanks were without gas.
By the end of the war, the US has built a massive fleet and fitted thier ships with tons of AA guns. They even had specilized ships covered in AA guns who's only purpose was to tag fighters. Jap air attacks became allmost useless.
Half hte world decalred war on theim - they lost nrealy all pacific islands, the US fleet was knicing at the door and the russians were aproaching from the back.
All the US needed to do was park their fleet outside Jap harbors and wait. They would have surendered before the russians arrived. The A-bomb wasn't needed at all.
Why they dropped it on a city? I don't think it has nothing to do with precision - it was more of a test, as they didn't realyl know exactly how powerfull the weapon is or how devastating hte radiation would be.
And spare me "the normal bombs were inprecise speech". My hobby is warfare and military technology. The bombing targeting mechanisms were rather perfected by hte end of a war andon a clear day and with a good gunner, you could have scored a direct hit. and guess what - it was a clear day.
Even if normal bombs were uber-inprecise, carpet bombing a single structure is a better solution than a A-bomb.
As far as I'm concerned, anyone who supports the droping of that bomb deserves to be placed in Hiroshima a few seconds before th bomb blows. And not close to the center either. No quick death - a slow, agonizing one. I wonder how supporting they would be then.
I condemn totaly ANY killing of ANY civilians(especialyl childeren)
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Originally posted by TrashMan
This is rich! I got to write it down! Destroying a single (or a couple) of structues by conventional bombs would be as devastating as an atom bomb! Oh, is my friend at work gonna get a kick out of this! :D
Actually, that's not entirely accurate, by which i mean Conventional Bombings COULD and WERE about as effective as the Atom Bomb; I'm speaking, of course, of the insane technique of Firebombing that the Allies had used in Europe, and the US had conducted in Japan towards the closure of the War.
Now, before you flame me, i realise that a Firebombing may not be completely conventional, but this technique of unbridled destruction was used many times during the war, and was a hell of a lot more conventional than your friend and mine, Mr Atom Bomb.
Now, as you've stated that Warfare and Military Technology is your hobby, i won't bore you with the details, but just remember that - in an extremely short time - the Firebombing of Tokyo killed more than 80,000 people (some sources cite over 100,000, but that's not the point) which is approximately how many perished at Hiroshima. Now, i must concede that many more Civilians were indeed killed in the dastardly bombing of Hiroshima, one must consider ALL the facts when flaming someone :p
And for the record; personally, I don't really loath American leadership at the time for allowing the Atomic Blasts, but for actually embracing it. I recall hearing a broadcast of one of Truman's speechs, in which he effectively states; "We will continue to use the Bomb on their cities until they concede and surrender!" While i agree that the bombs were quite unwarrented, it was the attitude towards their use, this idea that Truman was prepared to launch an all out Atomic Assault against Japan (although considering they only had two at the time leaves this open to consideration), not to mention the fact that there are many here who support this notion, really makes me sick...
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Originally posted by TrashMan
This is rich! I got to write it down! Destroying a single (or a couple) of structues by conventional bombs would be as devastating as an atom bomb! Oh, is my friend at work gonna get a kick out of this! :D
More than a couple. Think more along the lines of the entire industrial section of the city.
Originally posted by TrashMan
Oh, I get it, but apparently you don't.
As soon as you start making excaption and approving bombing of civlilains you are practicly inviting the other side to do the same.
Bombing civlians is a NO. NEVER.
What the **** do you think the axis were spending their time doing?
you're not seriously painting Japan of all nations in that war as being the epitome of avoiding civillian casualties? Ever heard of Chongqing? Or Nanking?
Originally posted by TrashMan
As far as the invasion and Japanese surrender go - tehy were defeated and they knew it. The didn't have enough oil left to sustain their war effort. Their biggest battleship Yamato was sunk at the entrace to a harbor to be used as a static defense becouse of that. they had to srape every last drop of oil from miles around just to assemble a smal lorce. Thier plane industry was slow and they lost allmsot all of their planes - half of their tanks were without gas.
By the end of the war, the US has built a massive fleet and fitted thier ships with tons of AA guns. They even had specilized ships covered in AA guns who's only purpose was to tag fighters. Jap air attacks became allmost useless.
Half hte world decalred war on theim - they lost nrealy all pacific islands, the US fleet was knicing at the door and the russians were aproaching from the back.
All the US needed to do was park their fleet outside Jap harbors and wait. They would have surendered before the russians arrived. The A-bomb wasn't needed at all.
Why they dropped it on a city? I don't think it has nothing to do with precision - it was more of a test, as they didn't realyl know exactly how powerfull the weapon is or how devastating hte radiation would be.
They dropped it on a tactical target, simple as that.
If the Japanese were so eager to surrender, why did they wait for the second bomb in Nagasaki?
Why did Hisatsune Sakomizu, the chief Cabinet secretary in 1945, call the bombing "a golden opportunity given by heaven for Japan to end the war"?
Why did Koichi Kido, one of emperor Hirohito's closest advisors, state that "We of the peace party were assisted by the atomic bomb in our endeavor to end the war"?
Where is any evidence that the military of Japan wanted to surrender, given that Major General Masakazu Amanu, chief of the operations section at Japanese Imperial Headquarters,was absolutely convinced his defensive perparations (started in 1944) could repeal any invasion? And bearing in mind as a constitutional monarchy the cabinet had to unanimously (including the militarists dominating it) agree to any offer of surrender.
The Japanese would have considered surrender, yes - but only after repulsing an invasion, in order to broker better terms.
(oh, and the US was blockading Japanese ports with submarines and mines under Operation Starvation, which was due to have been followed up by attacks on railway stations. It has been estimated that, had the war continued into 1946 as expected under invasion, around 7 million would have starved to death)
And spare me "the normal bombs were inprecise speech". My hobby is warfare and military technology. The bombing targeting mechanisms were rather perfected by hte end of a war andon a clear day and with a good gunner, you could have scored a direct hit. and guess what - it was a clear day.
Even if normal bombs were uber-inprecise, carpet bombing a single structure is a better solution than a A-bomb.
Then why did the B-29 raids on Tokyo using conventional weapons feel the necessity to destroy 16 square miles and kill 100,000 people? (flying at 7,000 feet due to the inability to aim at previous 28,000ft limits because of crosswind - a height usually prohibited due to the AAAf at that level*).
*the raid succeeded because the AAAf simply was equipped and aiming for a high-altitude raid
As far as I'm concerned, anyone who supports the droping of that bomb deserves to be placed in Hiroshima a few seconds before th bomb blows. And not close to the center either. No quick death - a slow, agonizing one. I wonder how supporting they would be then.
I condemn totaly ANY killing of ANY civilians(especialyl childeren)
What is your alternative then? Invasion of Japan?
You're in command, what would you do?
On the one hand you can invade and extend the war well into 1946, with estimations of as much as 1 million casualties on your side alone (excluding the 100,000 Allied POWs ordered to be executed in the event of an invasion). Against a fanatical enemy training schoolgirls to fight with sharpened bamboo sticks, form a human shield on the landing zones and who is training medical orderlies to strap explosives onto themselves and jump under tanks.
In a situation where offensives across asia - excluding those of the Russians - were killing an estimated 20,000 civillians per month.
On the other you have a bomb that could, if used in the correct way, convince the Japanese they had no choice but to surrender and end the war in one fell swoop.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
This is rich! I got to write it down! Destroying a single (or a couple) of structues by conventional bombs would be as devastating as an atom bomb! Oh, is my friend at work gonna get a kick out of this! :D
Tell that to the people of Dresden where hundreds of thousands died in the allied campaign. :rolleyes:
The firebombing of Tokyo (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0310-01.htm) for instance resulted in more casualties than the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki did.
You seem to be persisting in this delusion that bombing in WWII had similar pecision to the bombing campaigns that can be achieved now.
Destroying the infastucture of a militarised city involved carpet bombing the entire city. We've told you that time and time again and provided proof of that yet you still continue to dispute it while providing no proof of the fact.
Find me a WWII laser guided bomb and I'll shut up but until you can prove that the Allied powers had pecision guided weapons that didn't involve trained pigeons pecking at a screen you need shut the hell up about precision guided weaponary and realise that the only way the allies could have taken out that HQ and all the other buildings that they needed to take down was to carpet bomb the area.
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What the **** do you think the axis were spending their time doing?
you're not seriously painting Japan of all nations in that war as being the epitome of avoiding civillian casualties? Ever heard of Chongqing? Or Nanking?
Or Harbin for that matter (it's in Manchuria). The Japanese did horrific medical experinments on the Chinese there.
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Originally posted by aldo_14
What the **** do you think the axis were spending their time doing?
you're not seriously painting Japan of all nations in that war as being the epitome of avoiding civillian casualties? Ever heard of Chongqing? Or Nanking?
/// Ah... I see.. the Jap soldiers were vicious murderes. That gives us the right to be even worse than them! Kill! Kill!
It doesn't matter what the other side was doing (I condem the Japs too). If X is a ****tard that doesn't give you a universal OK to be a even bigger one.
They dropped it on a tactical target, simple as that.
//// I'm marking your hous and the kindergarte next door as a tactic target now. Those kids might be future soldiers you know. tacical target.
What is your alternative then? Invasion of Japan?
You're in command, what would you do?
On the one hand you can invade and extend the war well into 1946, with estimations of as much as 1 million casualties on your side alone (excluding the 100,000 Allied POWs ordered to be executed in the event of an invasion). Against a fanatical enemy training schoolgirls to fight with sharpened bamboo sticks, form a human shield on the landing zones and who is training medical orderlies to strap explosives onto themselves and jump under tanks.
In a situation where offensives across asia - excluding those of the Russians - were killing an estimated 20,000 civillians per month.
On the other you have a bomb that could, if used in the correct way, convince the Japanese they had no choice but to surrender and end the war in one fell swoop.
/// You don't know if the Japs would have surrendered or not. Would waiting a few days really kill anyone? (note that during those few days you don't even have to push forward )
You don't even need to invade, the Us could have jsut sorounded them and the russins coming in from the other side would force them into surrender. the war was effectivly over - everyone knew that.
And like I sad a 10000 times before (which you seem to miss), it's not the use of the bomb, it's the target. Tehy could have droped it anywhere on Japanese soil - to show off their power and show the Japs jsut how futile it would be.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
You don't know if the Japs would have surrendered or not. Would waiting a few days really kill anyone?
Roughly 10,000 noncombatants a day in south Asia. So prolong the war for a month and you've killed as many people as died in the initial bomb blast at Hiroshima.
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[q]/// Ah... I see.. the Jap soldiers were vicious murderes. That gives us the right to be even worse than them! Kill! Kill!
[/q]
I didn't say that atall; you're trying to misquote and create a strawman (http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=strawman), I presume. What I did point out is that you can't criticise the nuclear bombings without also criticising every other major military action perpetrated by either side. You're equating these bombings to some sort of direct attack on civillians, yet I've cited multiple instances where conventional weapons were used to devastate entire cities.
You implied that the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks were the first attacks on civillians. That's patently false.
[q]
//// I'm marking your hous and the kindergarte next door as a tactic target now. Those kids might be future soldiers you know. tacical target.[/q]
Again, a very poor attempt at starting a strawman. Hiroshima was chosen as a major military target; again it's been cited several times that it was a significant tactical target which was a key part of the Japanese war effort.
[q]/// You don't know if the Japs would have surrendered or not. Would waiting a few days really kill anyone? (note that during those few days you don't even have to push forward )
You don't even need to invade, the Us could have jsut sorounded them and the russins coming in from the other side would force them into surrender. the war was effectivly over - everyone knew that.
And like I sad a 10000 times before (which you seem to miss), it's not the use of the bomb, it's the target. Tehy could have droped it anywhere on Japanese soil - to show off their power and show the Japs jsut how futile it would be.[/q]
And we have a pretty good idea that the Japanese wouldn't surrender; why do you think I added those quotes from the pro-surrender members of the cabinet/government?
Your suggested blockade was being carried out; again I mentioned that it was expected to kill (literally) millions if the Japanese didn't surrender. 'Operation Starvation', indeed.
And, again, as has been pointed out multiple times, it was not militarily or strategically worthwhile to deploy one of 2 existing nuclear weapons in a non-significant zone. AFAIK the Allies didn't do a few bombing runs on the Black Forest before commencing attacks on German cities, just to see if it'd convince them to surrender. The Allies had no idea that the nuclear bomb would convince Japan to surrender; the only pragmatic tactic to use the bomb was to use it militarily.
You've so far failed to suggest a realistic alternative to using the bomb. Historical documents show that the Japanese military would not accept surrender, simple common sense indicates that you cannot waste a critical tactical weapon (especially when you don't even know if it will work 100% of the time anyways).
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Originally posted by Kamikaze
I'm saying that bringing up "The nuclear bombs saved so many lives" is silly. Nobody can know for sure. What you can know for sure is that many lives were killed by that bomb.
I refer you to Minority Report; specifically, the scene where the guy rolls the ball along the table, and the other guy catches it before it hits the floor.
Now, let's get it straight: Dropping the Bomb(s) killed people - thousands of people. But it was the knockout blow right after the first barrage of punches thrown at you, as opposed to slowly battering down the enemy's strength in a protracted engagement.
T'was the right decision, IMO.
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Fair enough. I'm not against the actual bombing per se. It's the attitude of downplaying the unfortunate event with "could've"s. I suppose I could have been clearer.
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Originally posted by aldo_14
[q]/// Ah... I see.. the Jap soldiers were vicious murderes. That gives us the right to be even worse than them! Kill! Kill!
[/q]
What I did point out is that you can't criticise the nuclear bombings without also criticising every other major military action perpetrated by either side. You're equating these bombings to some sort of direct attack on civillians, yet I've cited multiple instances where conventional weapons were used to devastate entire cities.
/// And I condemned every single one of them.
You implied that the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks were the first attacks on civillians. That's patently false.
// You say they weren't, I say they were. I don't give a damn if there were factories out there. Lot's and lot's of civilians got killed. Period!
[q]
//// I'm marking your hous and the kindergarte next door as a tactic target now. Those kids might be future soldiers you know. tacical target.[/q]
Again, a very poor attempt at starting a strawman. Hiroshima was chosen as a major military target; again it's been cited several times that it was a significant tactical target which was a key part of the Japanese war effort.
/// The Japanese war effort was over. You think a few bombs, tanks and planes they can produce there can change anythoing now? They had no oil! The had no navy left. They were sorounded!
And we have a pretty good idea that the Japanese wouldn't surrender; why do you think I added those quotes from the pro-surrender members of the cabinet/government?
/// And I can fin many other spources that will say the opposite. Even back thenmany people had different oppinions.
Moral was low, very low.
Your suggested blockade was being carried out; again I mentioned that it was expected to kill (literally) millions if the Japanese didn't surrender. 'Operation Starvation', indeed.
/// IF they didn't surrender. Wouldn't droping of A-bombs (Trumanns threat) untill Jap surenders allso kill people?
I don't deal with IF's. With starvation & droping a bomb somewhere else for show a war might have ended maby a bit later, but with less caualties (people dont starve that fast)
A million hungry people would sure put pressue on the emperor!
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Originally posted by TrashMan
You implied that the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks were the first attacks on civillians. That's patently false.
// You say they weren't, I say they were. I don't give a damn if there were factories out there. Lot's and lot's of civilians got killed. Period!
Pictures say more than words:
London Blitz in September 1940:
(http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/images/blitz1.jpg)
(http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/images/blitz2.jpg)
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/blitz.htm
Firebombing of Tokyo in 1945:
(http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/images/tokyo2.jpg)
The bombers' primary target was the neighboring industrial district of the city that housed factories, docks and the homes of the workers who supplied the manpower for Japan's war industry. The district hugged Tokyo Bay and was densely-packed with wooden homes lining winding streets that followed random paths - all the ingredients necessary for creating a perfect fire storm.
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/tokyo.htm
The firebombing of Tokyo and Dresden and the continual bombing of London throughout the war starting in 1940 and continuing until maybe the end of 1944 or early 1945 were far more devastating than either blast of Atomic Bombs.
Ever heard of the V1 or V2 weapons employed by German in 1944 and 1945? These weapons killed thousands of Londoners. Ever heard of the Battle of Britain? Luftwaffe bombers carpet bombed the city in the Summer of 1940 during the day and the night with thousands of bombers. Ever hear of Dresden? Allied bombers firebombed the city and it was nearly completely destroyed. Ever heard of the Coventry blitz? The city was bombed non-stop for 11 hours until there was nothing left.
Civilians were attacked during WWII in massive quantities by all sides. This was total war. The thinking at the time, on all sides, considered this a military technique...to destroy industry you had to destroy industrial districts no matter what else was there and usually peopled lived in the large industrial districts. There was no precision guided ordinance.
The devastation wrought by the Atomic bombs frankly pales in comparison to many of the other bombing raids of WWII. There were all terrible to be sure...but you need to open your eyes a bit. Yes its terrible that civilians were targeted, yes I think it was horrible, and yes I hope it never happens again. I think most or all of us agree on it...BUT...stop singling one event out.
Personally, I think the firebombing of a few more cities would also have brought the war to an end. But perhaps with more casualties.
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Just a note of interest to everyone:
http://www.theclydebankstory.com/story_TCSB01.php
The Clydebank Blitz. My grandfather was a young lad when it happened - climbed up the rubble to get his musical instruments out actually. Welcome to the wonderful world of precision bombing.
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Originally posted by IceFire
here was no precision guided ordinance
Apart from the aforementioned pigeon guided bombs. I wasn't joking about that you know :D
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/// And I condemned every single one of them.
Right. so you condem every allied bombing raid (and axis, of course) of the war. (you never actually mentioned them before AFAIK and patently ignored the precedent of Dresden and Tokyo, but I'll skip that)
Fine. War's ****, I agree there.
So, you think they should have firebombed Hiroshima instead? Killed the same amount of people, like in Tokyo or Dresden?
AFAIK you've still not suggested a reasonable and likely alternative.
// You say they weren't, I say they were. I don't give a damn if there were factories out there. Lot's and lot's of civilians got killed. Period!
You have heard of the Blitz, Dresden, for example? Firebombing of Tokyo? Rape of Nanking?
Strange, I'm sure I mentioned them........
I'd like to suggest a way of defeating the Germans, for example, without any civillian casualties when they oh-so-inconveniently happened to put munitions factories in cities. And - oh! - had civillians employed making their tanks and bombs. The dastards, eh?
Of course, they had conscripts in their army too, so best not shoot them either. Don't want to be there either, poor blighters. And best not use artillery; might hit a house with someone in it.
Yet again the concept of 'total war' as was being and had to be fought by both sides in the war seems to fly right over your head. Whether that is wilfully or not, I'm unsure.
/// The Japanese war effort was over. You think a few bombs, tanks and planes they can produce there can change anythoing now? They had no oil! The had no navy left. They were sorounded!
So what? The Allies just retreat and let the Japanese rebuild? Go home and let them keep all those people held in POW or concentration camps, all the still occupied territory in the likes of China?
Would the same have been done with Hitler?
I mean, I'm sure you understand the concept of war; to defeat the enemy. And when that enemy is still active (), then doesn't it kind of make sense to finish the war? Certainly did on the Western front.
Oh, and why did they reject the Postdamm declaration in that case?
/// And I can fin many other spources that will say the opposite.
Do so. Find me evidence of unanimous support within the government for surrender, because that is the only conditions under which it would have been considered.
Prove that the military members of that cabinet had suddenly changed their minds to not fight to the last man (and then explain why some of them attempted a coup upon surrender)
I don't deal with IF's.
You are dealing with massive IFs; every presupposition you made is an if; if they'd wanted to surrender, if a demonstration was tactically viable, etc. This is entirely about the ifs, and the maybes, and the likelys. Just as it was when they made the decisions to drop the bombs.
In fact, AFAIK you've not cited a single historical fact or precedent, and ignored those of, well, pretty much every other person.
With starvation & droping a bomb somewhere else for show a war might have ended maby a bit later, but with less caualties (people dont starve that fast)
A million hungry people would sure put pressue on the emperor!
The emperor didn't have a say, the military did. Also, it's not certain when (or even if) starvation would force a surrender (it was ongoing, after all, when the bombs were dropped). And all the time there are people - civillians - dying each day in the rest of Asia, and being held in concentration camps.
Also, haven't you contradicted yourself with 'people don't starve that fast'? If they don't, then there's not going to be as much pressure, is there? Is the more humanitarian option in your opinion to try and starve the entire population to death?
(NB: some estimates have put the average deaths per month by October due to the effects of Operation Starvation as 1,000,000)
And... 'maybe'. I thought we weren't dealing in 'ifs'?
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Aldo, suffice to say I can't convince you of my views and you can't convince me of yours.
the whole point is that everyone has a choice. It's not simply a "drop A-bomb" or "don't drop it". There wer many other paths that could have been taken.
If you cornered an enemy into his own 4 walls, if he's unable to fight back, sorrounded, if he's starving and on the verge of collapse - you practicly have defeated him! You don't have to storm in and beat him to a pulp. You don't have to bomb cities or factories for that matter.
Military tactics has little to do with humanity. And there is more than one way to win a war.
Meh...
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You've still not specified an alternative not already disproven by history. Are you going to condemn the allies invading Germany as well?
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I don't think there was a better alternetive at that time to stop the Japanese.
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One further question for you Trashman. If the allies had decided to use the bomb in a demonstration and the Japanese still hadn't surrendered would it have been okay to drop the bomb then?
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You know. I've got one other point to make. Aldo, you've stated several times that it would have taken a unanimous decision for Japan's leadership to surrender. In fact, it only took a simple majority of the top cabinent members. The vote, after Nagasaki, was 3-3 for surrender, with the emporer (normally a figurehead) casting the deciding vote.
However, TrashMan, and really anyone else who drags out the woulda, coulda, shoulda routine, you really need to get that straight. After two cities were obliterated the vote was still only barely in favor of ending the war. That doesn't sound to me like leadership on the verge of surrender anyway.
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I don't think just dropping the bomb somewhere would have scared them. I point to Asian culture again about this. They might've thought we didn't have the balls to do it. Plus, it would be a "waste" from a military standpoint.
I have a question. Who was actually in charge? Was it the emperor? Because it seems like he was just a figure-head to me. Was it the PM or just strictly the generals?
Oops, I guess StratComm answered that question.
Originally posted by Fenrir
The biggest fear of the japanese was that any victory by the West would destroy their culture, especially since the Allies called for an "unconditional surrender."
And they had a right to fear that. Japan has become the West of the East pretty much. :nod: I'm not familiar with the culture much before the war, but that's what it seems like. I'm only familiar with feudal Japan way back when.
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Not to mention the fact that there was a military coup following that vote by members of the military intent on continuing the war.
It was put down fairly easily but still.....
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Originally posted by StratComm
You know. I've got one other point to make. Aldo, you've stated several times that it would have taken a unanimous decision for Japan's leadership to surrender. In fact, it only took a simple majority of the top cabinent members. The vote, after Nagasaki, was 3-3 for surrender, with the emporer (normally a figurehead) casting the deciding vote.
The wikipedia entry said unanimous support was required for surrender (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombing_of_Hiroshima#Support_for_use_of_atomic_bombs, 2nd paragraph)
It's quite hard to find some form of further info to contradict / confirm this, best I've come up with so far is; http://www.warbirdforum.com/end.htm
[q]Japan in the summer of 1945 was governed, in the name of the emperor, by the Supreme War Council or Big Six. The SWC consisted of representives of the Army, the Navy and the civilian government. This body ruled by consensus. That is the six would debate amoung themselves until they all agreed on a course of action which could be presented to Hirohito. The most powerful person on the SWC was the Army Minister. It had become a rule of Japanese politics that the Army Minister was chosen by the Army and no cabinet could exist without an Army Minister. This meant that the Army could veto any decision by having its Minister resign.
The issue on the table in late summer of 1945 was the surrender of Japan. The SWC could not, did not achieve consensus.
It is a remarkable fact about the crisis which overtook the SWC in August 1945 that no one changed their opinion. The SWC members who advocated immediate acceptance of the Potsdam declaration stayed pro-peace throughout. More amazingly, the SWC members who opposed surrender before Hiroshima, continued to oppose it right up till August 14. [/q]
From what I can tell, there was an effective reliance upon either a unanimous decision, or the direct intervention of Emperor Hirohito. Until the bombs were dropped (indicating the likely complete destruction of Japan without invasion and thus an opportunity to improve their bargaining position), the Emperor could have intervened but couldn't be sure whether or not the army would obey.
Of course, another source - http://www.doug-long.com/hiroshim.htm - gives a slightly different account, but again one which emphasises a need for unanimous decisions
[q]
No Surrender
Japan had received what would seem to have been overwhelming shocks. Yet, after two atomic bombings, massive conventional bombings, and the Soviet invasion, the Japanese government still refused to surrender.
The Potsdam Proclamation had called for "Japan to decide whether she will continue to be controlled by those self-willed militaristic advisers" (U.S. Dept. of State, Potsdam 2, pg. 1475). On the 13th, the Supreme Council For the Direction of the War (known as the "Big 6") met to address the Potsdam Proclamation's call for surrender. Three members of the Big 6 favored immediate surrender; but the other three - (War Minister Anami, Army Chief of Staff Umezu, and Navy Chief of Staff Toyoda - adamantly refused. The meeting adjourned in a deadlock, with no decision to surrender (Butow, pg. 200-202).
Later that day the Japanese Cabinet met. It was only this body - not the Big 6, not even the Emperor - that could rule as to whether Japan would surrender. And a unanimous decision was required (Butow, pg. 176-177, 208(43n)). But again War Minister Anami led the opponents of surrender, resulting in a vote of 12 in favor of surrender, 3 against, and 1 undecided. The key concern for the Japanese military was loss of honor, not Japan's destruction. Having failed to reach a decision to surrender, the Cabinet adjourned (Sigal, pg. 265-267). [/q]
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I'll give you all a litle example of war.
The war in my own country - when our neighbour Serbia invaded. it moved in quickly, wihout warning, took large parts of our territory. We were unprepared and very badly equipped, but in the end we broke the back of their army and drove them out of our territory.
But we stopped at the border. We now had a better and larger army and more tanks and artilery then they did. We could have continued into their territory and shel ltheir capital to force them into a surrender. But we didn't. We didn't need to.
Their army was broken and they had no more strength to attack again. Even if they did they would be repeeled quickly now.
The was in the pacific was in esence the same. With the differnece that the japanese defeat was FAR more bitter (serbs still had a good sized army and supplies)
If the enemy can't touch you anymore, then why go after him?
Like we did, let time and political pressure do their work. Serbia in the end gave in. Japan was under far more pressue and in worse condition than serbia was.
THERE WAS NO NEED FOR BOMBING OF ANY KIND!
Especialyl not for a A-bomb. The only reason US dropped it was to test it and the effects of radiation.:hopping:
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20 years from now after Serbia has rebuilt is't military and you are liveing under it's dominion, I'll remember to ask you if it was such a good idea to leave them with the idea that they had a right to your land.
or that's what I would be saying if we hadn't finished what you couldn't, I know some Albanians who sure do wish you would have.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
Especialyl not for a A-bomb. The only reason US dropped it was to test it and the effects of radiation.:hopping:
[color=66ff00]Actually the technology was rigorously tested. The effects of radiation poisoning on humans was well documented at the time from the myriad experiments in particle physics, x-ray photograpy etc.
There's loads to read on this in the wikipedia Trashman. :nod:
[/color]
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Originally posted by TrashMan
I'll give you all a litle example of war.
The war in my own country - when our neighbour Serbia invaded. it moved in quickly, wihout warning, took large parts of our territory. We were unprepared and very badly equipped, but in the end we broke the back of their army and drove them out of our territory.
But we stopped at the border. We now had a better and larger army and more tanks and artilery then they did. We could have continued into their territory and shel ltheir capital to force them into a surrender. But we didn't. We didn't need to.
Their army was broken and they had no more strength to attack again. Even if they did they would be repeeled quickly now.
The was in the pacific was in esence the same. With the differnece that the japanese defeat was FAR more bitter (serbs still had a good sized army and supplies)
If the enemy can't touch you anymore, then why go after him?
Like we did, let time and political pressure do their work. Serbia in the end gave in. Japan was under far more pressue and in worse condition than serbia was.
THERE WAS NO NEED FOR BOMBING OF ANY KIND!
Especialyl not for a A-bomb. The only reason US dropped it was to test it and the effects of radiation.:hopping:
Oh dear.
Firstly, the Yugoslav civil war was pretty much a minor conflict in the annals of history. ****ty affair as all wars are, but on an entirely smaller scale. World War 2 was on a much, much larger scale, and with a different scale of enemy and threat. Immediately the external pressures change; far from being an external threat of possible intervention from the major powers on warring parties, the major powers had already picked sides and started fighting (let's not also forget there was no United Nations in 1945 to try and mediate).
(lets just gloss over the allegations of war crimes committed during attacks on/ forced expulsion of serbians in Operation Storm when going into the 'holier than thous', shall we?)
Croatia was also fighting a war of independence, so the tactical objective would have been to remove Serbian forces. In contrast, World War 2 was effectively a war of survival; I'll mention again (for the what, 3rd or 3th time?) that there were still people being held in concentration camps by the Japanese. The Japanese posed a continuing threat, same as Hitler would have if Germany was left alone (I notice you avoided addressing that question, too).
Now, AFAIK the Serbians don't believe in the Samuri code of honour as the Japanese did; y'know, the whole death before surrender thing. It's pretty much historically known. Japan was also an island nation, intrinsically making it more secure against invasion (see Okinawa as an examplar).
Worth noting also that there was an implicit threat of intervention from the major world powers if the Dayton accord hadn't been signed, too; in the case of Japan there wasn't really any further intervention possible, any more pressure to be brought to bear militarily or politically (well, except the hitherto secret nuclear bomb); and despite all that, historical documents show the government was determined to fight on.
Now, had Japan simply been left alone (remember, they were not going to surrender; it took a direct intervention from the emperor and 2 nuclear bombs to get that), do you really think they'd have went 'sorry, old chaps, won't do that again. Here, have your territory back'?
You see, there's this little thing about modern, militaristic, expansionistic nations. They can build new weapons.
(helpfully ignoring the hundreds of thousands - millions including Chinese IIRC - of POWs and civillians held in concentration camps; after all, Japan didn't recognise the Geneva convention)
Again I ask - would you have pulled back Allied troops from Germany in the knowledge that Hitler was defeated?
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Originally posted by Bobboau
20 years from now after Serbia has rebuilt is't military and you are liveing under it's dominion, I'll remember to ask you if it was such a good idea to leave them with the idea that they had a right to your land.
A lot of things can happen in 20 years. The world might end too you know?
And an idea is not something you can destroy/kill by bombing cities.
Japan was done for. It had no way whatsoever of attacking the US. it's economy was in ruins too. US had the largets naval forces and the mighties army in the world.
If the Japanese were evr to try to build up a sizable force and attack the US (not bloddy likely) the US would notice that in the early stages and stop it cold in the roots... Or do you think you can hide a naval fleet?
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Originally posted by aldo_14
Oh dear.
Oh dear ^2
Firstly, the Yugoslav civil war was pretty much a minor conflict in the annals of history. ****ty affair as all wars are, but on an entirely smaller scale. World War 2 was on a much, much larger scale, and with a different scale of enemy and threat. Immediately the external pressures change; far from being an external threat of possible intervention from the major powers on warring parties, the major powers had already picked sides and started fighting (let's not also forget there was no United Nations in 1945 to try and mediate).
Size of the conflict is irreleveant.
(lets just gloss over the allegations of war crimes committed during attacks on/ forced expulsion of serbians in Operation Storm when going into the 'holier than thous', shall we?)
ALLEGED.. tehre were a FEW isolated incidents but they were blown way out of proportions. It's becouse of Croatia stepping out that Yugoslavia broke up. Europe wanted a singel large state in that region. Suffice to say we're not beloved right now becouse of that.
Croatia was also fighting a war of independence, so the tactical objective would have been to remove Serbian forces. In contrast, World War 2 was effectively a war of survival; I'll mention again (for the what, 3rd or 3th time?) that there were still people being held in concentration camps by the Japanese. The Japanese posed a continuing threat, same as Hitler would have if Germany was left alone (I notice you avoided addressing that question, too).
Continuing threat? With what would japan attakc the US? Stones?
They had no more seaworthy ship and only a handfull of plains and their economy and industry were drained becouse of the war effort.
Hitler was allso on the deathbed by the end of the war anway. Most generals wanted to surrender...
Now, AFAIK the Serbians don't believe in the Samuri code of honour as the Japanese did; y'know, the whole death before surrender thing. It's pretty much historically known. Japan was also an island nation, intrinsically making it more secure against invasion (see Okinawa as an examplar).
If you lived areound these part then you should know just how fanatical some of their generals/soldier are. Thhy still havn't given up on the idea of Greater Serbia...
Now, had Japan simply been left alone (remember, they were not going to surrender; it took a direct intervention from the emperor and 2 nuclear bombs to get that), do you really think they'd have went 'sorry, old chaps, won't do that again. Here, have your territory back'?
Given the bombing was done and the other approach was never tried, we're never gonna now, now won't we?
You see, there's this little thing about modern, militaristic, expansionistic nations. They can build new weapons.
You really belive Japan posed any threat to the US? What weapons can they build within a year or two to challenge the US?
[/B][/quote]
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do you even remember what happened between WW1 and WW2?
"Thhy still havn't given up on the idea of Greater Serbia.."
my point exactly.
Japan no longer has designs on the rest of Asia.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
Japan was done for. It had no way whatsoever of attacking the US. it's economy was in ruins too. US had the largets naval forces and the mighties army in the world.
Substitute Japan with Germany, US with UK and wind the clock back to 10 years before WWII. See?
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Originally posted by TrashMan
Size of the conflict is irreleveant.
Of course it's relevant. It impacts the interventionism possible from the international community, impacts the strategic necessity for continuing the war, impacts the continuing fighting in other areas.
Don't throw out this 'irrelevant' rubbish when you can't address the facts. I doubt you'd find a single person here - or indeed a historian outside - who'd view the Yugoslav civil war as a paradigm for the Pacific campaign of World War 2.
[q]
ALLEGED.. tehre were a FEW isolated incidents but they were blown way out of proportions. It's becouse of Croatia stepping out that Yugoslavia broke up. Europe wanted a singel large state in that region. Suffice to say we're not beloved right now becouse of that. [/q]
Well, all I said was 'alleged'. But if you really want to claim rightousness, you have to address the existance these claims, not blame them on europe, the media, etc. Particularly when going your high horse about civillian casualties to bombing (did Croatia even have a functioning air force capable of bombing?), I would think it's worth mentioning in your exemplar the allegation of forced expulsion of 200,000 civvies.
(Clearly the ICTY feels it's more than a few isolated incidents if it's indicting Gotovina (and the now-late Bobetko) over war crimes)
[q]
Continuing threat? With what would japan attakc the US? Stones?
They had no more seaworthy ship and only a handfull of plains and their economy and industry were drained becouse of the war effort.
Hitler was allso on the deathbed by the end of the war anway. Most generals wanted to surrender...[/q]
So you'd have an even better reason to condemn continuing to attack Germany - because Hitler wouldn't be a long term threat. And yet you haven't. Why?
Countries rebuild. Look at Germany post WW1, for example. And that was under a really harsh peace settlement. Or look at Russias rapid mobilisation in WW2 itself.
And, for time number 4, what about the thousands of POWS? Having established through historical fact Japan was not willing to surrender, what of them? AFAIK you've simply suggested the US and Allies bugger off down the road.
[q]
If you lived areound these part then you should know just how fanatical some of their generals/soldier are. Thhy still havn't given up on the idea of Greater Serbia...[/q]
How many kamikazes were in the Serbian army? Did they ring their territory with women and children as a human shield or train medical orderlies as suicide bombers?
i.e. did they show a willingness as a society to kill themselves rather than surrender?
How many Serbian generals killed themselves rather than accept surrender?
Given the bombing was done and the other approach was never tried, we're never gonna now, now won't we?
So your best alternative is to leave the Japanese alone with 100,000 allied POWS and over 600,000 in concentration camps? Because we know they wouldn't surrender, it's been proven historically time and time again.
You really belive Japan posed any threat to the US? What weapons can they build within a year or two to challenge the US?
Who said a year or 2? Who said the US? Not me. 'Threat' constitutes any threat to regional security; perhaps the Japanese might have decided to move on Singapore or Hong Kong again, having learnt tactical lessons of the last war?
Again, would you have been happy to leave Hitler in charge of Nazi Germany once their occupied territories had been liberated?
NB: arguably the effect of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings has been the most complete reversal of ideology in history. From an expansionist aggressive nation, ruled by divine right, with a military code of 'death before dishonour' (nee surrender), Japan is now a pacifist democratic nation which follows a constitution preventing it from starting a war.
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Now correct me if I'm wrong, but do we now have three simultaneous TrashMan vs. HLP arguments going on at once?
Oh, yeah. This is general, but I'm saying it anyway. Please stop second guessing events of a half-century ago from a modern perspective. Technology, values, our needs, and our understanding of particle physics have changed with the times, and the decisions we as people and as nations make are a direct result of those things. The world has seen nothing approaching the scale of the second world war since its closure, thank God, and despite all the people who died in the process I wholeheartedly believe that the way in which it was concluded, not the bomb but the lasting peace between former enemies (less the whole iron curtain thing) has made the world a better place.
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AGREED!
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Let me get a few thigs straight about the war in Croatia.
1. Firstly, I asay alleged crimes becose the accusasons made by hte prosecution are laughable, insubsstantial, and stretched. In any normal court they would never hold out. one would never accuse US of something like thins and get away with it, since it's a powerfull country. We are small, so things like this happen.
2. In theri accusation they are using the term "command responsibility2. that means that if a soldier under your command commited a crime, you are responsilbe, regardless if you kew of what he was ding or not. and hten they go further up the chain of command. and tehy accused EVERY signle general of ours that planned and exectured operation Strom..even our presiefnt.
In theis redicolous way you can accuse Bush and his generals of war crimes if a single american solder coimmited it.
3. There was no firded expulsion. Everyone knew a Croatian offensive was coming. We even dropeed flyers and arned civilians about it. Teh serbsian popuatio that left the area left for 2 resons: - they either fears repreisals or were told by the serbian government/army to move.
You have to know that a large number of serbian population in Croatian territory when the war started formed a so called state "Srpska Krajina" - armed civilains had their own "governemnt" and they attacked croat policeman and drovethe civilinas outr of hte villages. it isthe very governemt of Krajina that ordered a evacuation. Tehre are more then enough document to confirm that.
4. in the bigining we had no air force to speak of nad little to no artillery - serbs held practicly every noteworthy position in hte Yugoslav army so they had practicly all tanks, planes, equipment when the war started. By the end of the war we caputed/aquired more then enough of everything (especiayll artillery). We could have shelled their cities if we wanted to...we didn't.
5. Croats have been around for more than 1300 years. Our army never attacked another, and never crossed our borders not even in retaliation. And during all that time we fought off countless invasions. Without even bombing other cities or killing civilians. and we are still here.
So the simple fact remains - killign of civilians is inherenly, in it's roots evil! Moraly wrong!
It can NEVER, EVER, under no circumstances be justified. Never.
And Aldo, it's not proven that they wouldn't have surrendered. you keep stating that as a fact behind your every word, but it simply isn't.
Unless of course you have complete and total knowledge of thoguhts or everyone in Japan at that time who was making decisions.... and I sencirely doubt that.
As far as POW's go, ever heard of negotiating?
As amatter of fact, do you think it's OK to kill 300000 "enemy" civilians to save 100000 of your soldiers?
@StratComm - me vs. HLP? Since when do you take the right to speak in behalf of all other forums members? Most have not expressed their oppinions in theis thread.
This is allso a cheap way to try to get more support by suggestion I'm a against all.
Oh, and I will second guess whatever I want. Universal moral laws don't change.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
Let me get a few thigs straight about the war in Croatia.
1. Firstly, I asay alleged crimes becose the accusasons made by hte prosecution are laughable, insubsstantial, and stretched. In any normal court they would never hold out. one would never accuse US of something like thins and get away with it, since it's a powerfull country. We are small, so things like this happen.
2. In theri accusation they are using the term "command responsibility2. that means that if a soldier under your command commited a crime, you are responsilbe, regardless if you kew of what he was ding or not. and hten they go further up the chain of command. and tehy accused EVERY signle general of ours that planned and exectured operation Strom..even our presiefnt.
In theis redicolous way you can accuse Bush and his generals of war crimes if a single american solder coimmited it.
3. There was no firded expulsion. Everyone knew a Croatian offensive was coming. We even dropeed flyers and arned civilians about it. Teh serbsian popuatio that left the area left for 2 resons: - they either fears repreisals or were told by the serbian government/army to move.
You have to know that a large number of serbian population in Croatian territory when the war started formed a so called state "Srpska Krajina" - armed civilains had their own "governemnt" and they attacked croat policeman and drovethe civilinas outr of hte villages. it isthe very governemt of Krajina that ordered a evacuation. Tehre are more then enough document to confirm that.
4. in the bigining we had no air force to speak of nad little to no artillery - serbs held practicly every noteworthy position in hte Yugoslav army so they had practicly all tanks, planes, equipment when the war started. By the end of the war we caputed/aquired more then enough of everything (especiayll artillery). We could have shelled their cities if we wanted to...we didn't.
5. Croats have been around for more than 1300 years. Our army never attacked another, and never crossed our borders not even in retaliation. And during all that time we fought off countless invasions. Without even bombing other cities or killing civilians. and we are still here.
So the simple fact remains - killign of civilians is inherenly, in it's roots evil! Moraly wrong!
It can NEVER, EVER, under no circumstances be justified. Never.
Then why haven't you condemned invading Germany yet?
(you obviously have no concept of total war, despite how blatantly simple it is, so I'll assume you're just wilfully ignoring the way that WW2 was and had to be fought; when you come up with a better way to destroy an enemy infrastructure that involves vast industrial areas making munitions without bombing, let me know)
RE: 1-5 That's an issue for the courts. I'm just pointing out using the Yugoslav wars (and Croatia) as an example of 'goodliness' is somewhat flawed when there's these allegations going on. I understand your perspective will be not to wish to believe in these allegations, but the allegations are there and will be examined by international courts.
However, specifically RE: 4. I'd guess that Croatia didn't have the realistic capability to launch bombing raids in particular against Serbia during the time prior to fulfilling their strategic objectives.
Oh, and you're wilfully ignoring the meaning of 'command responsibility'; by your opinion, Hitler should be freed of any responsibility for the Holocaust because he wasn't one of the soldiers pulling the chain on the gas chambers. The purpose of having a definition of command responsibility is firstly to hold the issuer of illegal orders responsible for those orders, and secondly to ensure that a nation (i.e. the command structure) takes responsibility for ensuring its soldiers follow the general rules of warfare (such as the Geneva convention) and are under control.
[q]
And Aldo, it's not proven that they wouldn't have surrendered. you keep stating that as a fact behind your every word, but it simply isn't.
Unless of course you have complete and total knowledge of thoguhts or everyone in Japan at that time who was making decisions.... and I sencirely doubt that.
[/q]
History has a very clear record of the voting taken place in the highest levels of the Japanese cabinet and war council - the men who were making the decisions. It's been quoted multiple times here.
We have the quotations and testimonies of those in the peace camp - at the highest level of government - who thanked the bomb for forcing surrender.
I'd say that's pretty damn close to conclusive (as close as you can get within the context of history), regardless of how much you want to ignore it. Go on, find a single piece of evidence that the cabinet had reached a surrender consensus prior to the nuclear bombs.
[q]
As far as POW's go, ever heard of negotiating?[/q]
With what? You're not willing to prosecute the war, after all, what can you offer them?
As amatter of fact, do you think it's OK to kill 300000 "enemy" civilians to save 100000 of your soldiers?
To save 600,000 civillians in concentration camps, 100,000 POWs, the tens of thousands of civvies dying weekly in the rest of Asia, and to prevent the likely death of hundreds of thousands or even millions (referencing Okinawa as an example) of both friendly and enemy troops and civillians in the event of an invasion?
Yes. Absolutely.
Oh, and I will second guess whatever I want. Universal moral laws don't change.
Ever considered that war is inherently immoral anways? All war? And any action that is and can be partaken in a war is inherently dangerous?
If war was about morals, they'd never be fought. War is about tactics, and what is necessary to win. you're making blind assumptions about things - that the Japanese would have surrendered, that precision bombing was possible, that Hiroshima wasn't a military city, etc - all of which are proven by history to be wrong.
The best suggestion you've offered is to run away and let the Japanese be, under the assumption they won't want to fight again.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
And Aldo, it's not proven that they wouldn't have surrendered. you keep stating that as a fact behind your every word, but it simply isn't.
It's not proven that they would have either.
All evidence however points to the fact that they wouldn't. Lets face it people who won't surrender after you drop 2 nukes on them are unlikely to surrender for anything else. That's just common sense.
But the issue of whether they were going to surrender or not is moot anyway. All that matters is whether Truman believed that they would have. I can't see any evidence of that.
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AFAIK there were probably 5 options available to Truman (italics why IMO they wouldn't have worked 'as well');
(NB: US equates to allies, really)
1/ hope for a Japanese surrender under the status quo, despite their rejection of the Potsdamm declaration
Historical evidence supports the belief that the Japanese were not willing to surrender under the conditions of 1945 pre-bombing, and in fact wanted the anticipated US invasion in order to inflict heavy casualties which would allow them at the very least a better bargaining position.
The Us had no reason to believe the Japanese wanted to surrender.
2/ use the newly developed nuclear bomb to threaten the Japanese by dropping it on an uninhabited, tactically insiginificant area.
This would have been a waste of a weapon - of which only 2 existed - which was intended as a 'war-ender'. The US had to work on the assumption that the Japanese wouldn't surrender anyways and continue to target tactical areas.
This option is probably the most viable of all 4 alternatives IMO, but was militarily /tactically unwise. For one thing, the Japanese might have assumed the US didn't have the guts to use the bomb on populated areas, or perhaps even chose to increase their AAF cover in defense instead. It's worth noting the use of the bombs was followed up by extensive US propaganda campaigns; I'm not sure such a campaign would be as effective if the bomb had been deployed in a remote region where the damage would be less visible (and, sadly, as horrific).
It is true that the US wanted to evaluate the effect of a nuclear weapon, however that was not their reason for selecting targets (it's also why they decided against Kyoto). IMO the decision criteria for using atomic weapons was not as a 'test', but for tactical military purposes. I believe this is backed up by the documents created by the targeting committee.
3/the US could have invaded Japan under Operation Downfall
US military estimates put casualty rates anywhere from the hundred thousand to million rate. There would be at least 100,000 POWs executed on event of invasion.
For an exemplar, the battle of Okinawa had an estimated 18-19,000 US troops dead, 76,000 Japanese dead and 107,000 civillians dead or captured.
4/ The US could have opted for a blockade, continuing Operation Starvation and also commencing strikes on the Japanese railway infrastructure
All indications are that this would have killed more people than the nuclear bombings; I've seen estimates of 5-10 million by the likely end of the war, depending on when that war is calculated as. It would have worked, but only killing a vast amount of people
5/ Only using conventional bombing (presumably on targets beyond those hit by atomic blasts, and continuing bombing across a prolonged war)
Firstly, this is less likely to lead to surrender as quickly as the atomic bombs; the Japanese had after all endured raids for a fair while come 1945. Whilst they would probably have been forced to surrender eventually, the atomic bombs provided a demonstration of the US' ability to completely annihilate Japan from the air; conventional bombing can be seen as a natural tactic of weakening before invasion, and thus is less likely to pose the immediate dire threat of nuclear weapons.
I think it's hard to estimate the psychological effect of a single nuclear bomb which can be carried by one aircraft compared to concentrated conventional bombing raids.
Secondly, this is by no means a less destructive or damaging alternative. Allied bombing raids in both fronts were capable of killing similar numbers to the casualties attributed to the atomic bomb blasts. Dresden and the firebombing of Tokyo being an example.
And the odd option 6;
6/ Retreating and leaving the Japanese alone
Japan still held territory and prisoners; there was no guarentee they would not rearm and attack surrounding nations - in fact, given the code of honour followed by the military, it was very likely they would. Perhaps in decades rather than years, but there was no reason to believe Japan would suddenly become pacifist with the same men in charge as that started the war and committed countless war crimes in waging it.
EDIT; added some bold tags for clarity. Maybe I need to set my monitor at a lower res....
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Originally posted by aldo_14
RE: 1-5 That's an issue for the courts. I'm just pointing out using the Yugoslav wars (and Croatia) as an example of 'goodliness' is somewhat flawed when there's these allegations going on. I understand your perspective will be not to wish to believe in these allegations, but the allegations are there and will be examined by international courts.
Assuming you were involved in that war and know exactly what was going on, and you know the accuations are false - then if ANY accusation are made (no matter how redicolous) you are not supposed to feel you were doing the right thnig and that ther were no crimes? You were not supposed to say that then?
However, specifically RE: 4. I'd guess that Croatia didn't have the realistic capability to launch bombing raids in particular against Serbia during the time prior to fulfilling their strategic objectives.
nope..we ammased lot'sa artillery and planes long before operation storm ever started.
Oh, and you're wilfully ignoring the meaning of 'command responsibility'; by your opinion, Hitler should be freed of any responsibility for the Holocaust because he wasn't one of the soldiers pulling the chain on the gas chambers. The purpose of having a definition of command responsibility is firstly to hold the issuer of illegal orders responsible for those orders, and secondly to ensure that a nation (i.e. the command structure) takes responsibility for ensuring its soldiers follow the general rules of warfare (such as the Geneva convention) and are under control.
No, you don't undersand what I ment. tehy imply the one in charge is guilty REGARDLESS if any order was issued or not.
you're a general and one of you men (very low in the food chain, you haven't seen the guy in your life) commits a crime. You didn't order himto do so, in fact, you ordered him not to. And you had no idea he was killign people.
you are accused and sent to Haag. And even convicted. Like general Blaškiæ. They sentenced him to 45 years and after 9 years the accusations finally were chrushed by the weight of their own stupidity. tehy didn't say they were wrong - nooo. They found another crime to accuse him and convict him of, and sentanced him to - exactly 9 years (which he allready served) to pretend justice has been done...
To make the long stroy short - as I said before, I condemn ANY killing of civilians - especialyl the droping of the A-bomb, since it was a weapon of mass destruction and it was not needed.
You can't convince me otherwise.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
Assuming you were involved in that war and know exactly what was going on, and you know the accuations are false - then if ANY accusation are made (no matter how redicolous) you are not supposed to feel you were doing the right thnig and that ther were no crimes? You were not supposed to say that then?
How do you know they're false if they haven't been investigated by an independent 3rd party? Were you a general in the Croatian army during Operation Storm?
How can you know there were no crimes? By your own statements, if you were a general (i.e. a high ranking officer expected to have knowledge of the entire war) there could be crimes committed you had no knowledge of.
Originally posted by TrashMan
nope..we ammased lot'sa artillery and planes long before operation storm ever started.
I was referring to the war with Serbia (not the seperatists).
Originally posted by TrashMan
No, you don't undersand what I ment. tehy imply the one in charge is guilty REGARDLESS if any order was issued or not.
you're a general and one of you men (very low in the food chain, you haven't seen the guy in your life) commits a crime. You didn't order himto do so, in fact, you ordered him not to. And you had no idea he was killign people.
you are accused and sent to Haag. And even convicted. Like general Blaškiæ. They sentenced him to 45 years and after 9 years the accusations finally were chrushed by the weight of their own stupidity. tehy didn't say they were wrong - nooo. They found another crime to accuse him and convict him of, and sentanced him to - exactly 9 years (which he allready served) to pretend justice has been done...
That's your personal opinion of what happened RE: Blaskic. The official legal ruling - which I'm more inclined to believe than your likely biased opinion (perfectly understandable - what with national pride and all that) was that a double chain of command existed. However, it was not new allegations that the 9 year sentence was given for; the appeals panel upheld decisions relating to (lesser responsibility charges) inhumane treatment of POWs, etc.
This all, however, does not detract from my initial point; that breaches of the Geneva convention had occured in that said war (specifically relating to the destruction of Bosnia Muslim property, wilfull killing or use of human shields). If you wish to compare the 'ethical' aspects of the Yugoslav civil war (specifically Croatias role) vis-a-vis the Pacific front of WW2, I think it's only worth considering these when claiming the moral high ground.
With reference to Gotovina - and this is a complete divergence from the thread topic, may I add - the charges made are based on the presumption of innocent until proven guilty. The specificies of the charges will relate to whether Gotovina had knowledge of war crimes committed (as well as whether they were war crimes or not); it's not just about giving orders to commit war crimes, but whether adequate measures were made to prevent or prosecute crimes committed by troops under his command. Again, as it's an ongoing court case I'm not speculating on guilt or otherwise; just pointing out the allegations made to put your example of the Croatian army in context.
Again, all this is beside the (my) point. That point being that your example of the Croatian army in said war as being more 'moral' is debatable and possibly illustrates the very nature of war - any war - to be inhuman.
Originally posted by TrashMan
To make the long stroy short - as I said before, I condemn ANY killing of civilians - especialyl the droping of the A-bomb, since it was a weapon of mass destruction and it was not needed.
You can't convince me otherwise.
Perhaps not, but I believe I've (with other peoples posts as well) got sufficient factual evidence to prove my point/s correct, particularly the questions you've avoided, such as the invasion of Germany and exactly how you'd negotiate back POWs and captured territories (where the civillians were being oppressed and subject to atrocities) without being willing to apply any sort of military pressure.
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I still don't see what the difference between destroying a city piece by piece with fire, and destroying it all at once.
If we're going to say that the killing of civilians is wrong, period (and I believe that is so), how is it any different whether it was achieved in 1 minute in the blastwave of nuclear fire or over 48 hours in the heat of incendiary inferno?
There isn't any ambiguity in this. Obviously what was done was wrong and horrible. That was World War II. The very definition of how horrible humans can become.
But within the context of the war, I don't see how it was different from all the other actions. I only see that it was both a strategically and tactically sound decision.
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SIGH..
suffice to say I know more about the war in Croatia then you will ever know.. I live here.
Serbian separatist and te seriban army were working together. Tehre was no separate war.
About Blaškiæ - new accusation or just a reduced sentance - they still don't want to admit they were wrong.
And about that chain of command thing - I was not talking about Blaškiæ but in general. And don't get me wrong - I never said there were no crimes commited. Tehre were too many people involved and many of them lost way too much for anyone to belive that.
But those were isolated incidents - there were no orders from high up to cleans area, expell population or kill.
And while the nature of war might be inhuman, the governemtns themselves, ther pople involved should be human.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
SIGH..
suffice to say I know more about the war in Croatia then you will ever know.. I live here.
Serbian separatist and te seriban army were working together. Tehre was no separate war.
About Blaškiæ - new accusation or just a reduced sentance - they still don't want to admit they were wrong.
And about that chain of command thing - I was not talking about Blaškiæ but in general. And don't get me wrong - I never said there were no crimes commited. Tehre were too many people involved and many of them lost way too much for anyone to belive that.
But those were isolated incidents - there were no orders from high up to cleans area, expell population or kill.
And while the nature of war might be inhuman, the governemtns themselves, ther pople involved should be human.
Not wishing to get caught up in a debate about the rights & wrongs of that particular war, but don't you think living in Croatia might slant your perspective somewhat? After all, a lot of Germans weren't aware of the Holocaust during WW2 (in the sense of the extermination camps), and that was one of the worst incidences of war crimes in history. It's very easy to be blinkered by national pride, especially in a fairly newly formed country; it's not like your media would want to acknowledge Operation Storm as criminal even if it was (as this debate is part of the ongoing ICTY prosecutions), would it?
Certainly Amensty international found issues; http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engeur640022005
I'd regard Operation Storm as a seperate 'war' due to the lack of significant Serbian intervention (they were overstretched in Bosnia IIRC; AFAIK the only material support was one general and 400 retired volunteers) on the behalf of the seperatist Krajina Serbs, bearing in mind Krajina borders Serbia; as it turns out the Croats only had 20 aircraft available for Storm anyways with regards to bombing. As it turns out I was wrong in assuming there was no use of shelling, anwyays.......
AArtillery was used; 2 Canadian generals (UN observers) have alleged that 2 on-trial Croat generals boasted of their artillery accuracy whilst systematically shelling Knin. (related red cross report; http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/iwpList197/B53458D66A1912D4C1256B66005F370E)
(There is also an allegation of the deliberate shelling of a refugee convoy in Glina-Dvor road at the end of August 1995, and also reports of systematic destruction of Serbian houses in Knin from the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights and a US diplomatic official. A UN official also alleged that houses in Knin had been systematically burned and looted)
I think Knin was also shelled when the Serbians first took over in 1992, as well.
The purpose of chain of command is to bring responsibility to individual commanders for failure to control their troops as well as ordering the commission of war-crimes. I'd suggest your 'there were no orders' statement to be a matter of assumption, though - that's exactly the sort of thing the ICTY and similar organizations investigate, and which are tested in court.
As for the inhumanity of war; you can't fight a war without getting your hands 'dirty'. That's why it's inhumane by nature. Unless you care to suggest some alternative (re: Japan & the territories/civillians under their 'control' in 1945) not involving military action?
I'd also suggest that a bombing raid - even one with a nuclear weapon, as carpet bombing was an accepted practice of war in the 40s - on an enemy logistical and supply centre is different from the forced execution of enemy civillians in this comparison.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
suffice to say I know more about the war in Croatia then you will ever know.. I live here.
I doubt that means anything of the sort. In fact it means that you're more likely to have heard a biased view of the war from your own media. The fact that Aldo has provided links proving what you say is wrong repeatedly means that I doubt you do actually know more about the war than he is able to find out by doing some simple research.
Maybe if you get down out of your ivory tower and did some research then you could make the same claim. After all you've got the same net access that Aldo has plus the fact you live there should give you an edge.
But at the moment your attempts to win the argument based on what you remember seeing on TV or hearing from friends are proving woefully inaccurate and as a result I don't think that's a valid claim in the slightest.
Besides Aldo supplied the quotes by several Japanese politicians "who lived there" which means that they must know more about WWII than you ever will. So since those people all regarded the dropping of the bomb as necessary to end the war you've just voided half of your entire argument with that statement.
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I haven't been following this discussion, but I'd just like to point out one thing, based on the post above this.
I don't know what stance is being argued over, but I do know that what karajorma quotes TrashMan as saying is pretty much correct. Remote people relying on the media as their sole source of information can never know about a situation as accurately as people in the middle of a situation, as long as those people also read/listen to media reports.
You see, the media could be lying through their teeth about something or another - or just plain mistaken - and remote people would never know about it. Locals can measure what they see and hear in the media against what they observe with their own eyes.
I'll give you a simple example that's cropped up both here in HLP and in various media sources, something uninflammatory, and something that I can and have verified with my own eyes/ears.
The narrow security corridor between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, controlled by Israel, is called the Philadelphi corridor/route/whatever - NOT Philadelphia. I know this as a fact, I served along that corridor for a month - heck, I even saw my first dead person on there (traffic accident). Although the situation has improved lately, it used to be that most media would call it "Philadelphia". A simple mistake, yes, but something that NOBODY remote - unless they had personal knowledge of the place - would know is wrong.
Now, that is a very inconsequential example. But imagine such an error happening with something a bit more critical? How would YOU, the remote observer, know that what you were being told was wrong? Yet you'd make decisions, pass judgements, and help decide world opinion, based on a simple error passed on by (unknowing) media sources.
This is why TrashMan is correct. Not because he has access to local media sources (which are most likely accessible online as well), but because he can verify with his own eyes and ears if something is right or wrong.
Again, I remind you that I haven't been following the discussion, and I don't know what exactly you're debating. But concerning the point I've tried to make here, it's irrelevant.
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Originally posted by Sandwich
I haven't been following this discussion, but I'd just like to point out one thing, based on the post above this.
I don't know what stance is being argued over, but I do know that what karajorma quotes TrashMan as saying is pretty much correct. Remote people relying on the media as their sole source of information can never know about a situation as accurately as people in the middle of a situation, as long as those people also read/listen to media reports.
You see, the media could be lying through their teeth about something or another - or just plain mistaken - and remote people would never know about it. Locals can measure what they see and hear in the media against what they observe with their own eyes.
I'll give you a simple example that's cropped up both here in HLP and in various media sources, something uninflammatory, and something that I can and have verified with my own eyes/ears.
The narrow security corridor between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, controlled by Israel, is called the Philadelphi corridor/route/whatever - NOT Philadelphia. I know this as a fact, I served along that corridor for a month - heck, I even saw my first dead person on there (traffic accident). Although the situation has improved lately, it used to be that most media would call it "Philadelphia". A simple mistake, yes, but something that NOBODY remote - unless they had personal knowledge of the place - would know is wrong.
Now, that is a very inconsequential example. But imagine such an error happening with something a bit more critical? How would YOU, the remote observer, know that what you were being told was wrong? Yet you'd make decisions, pass judgements, and help decide world opinion, based on a simple error passed on by (unknowing) media sources.
This is why TrashMan is correct. Not because he has access to local media sources (which are most likely accessible online as well), but because he can verify with his own eyes and ears if something is right or wrong.
Again, I remind you that I haven't been following the discussion, and I don't know what exactly you're debating. But concerning the point I've tried to make here, it's irrelevant.
Are you suggesting that, being an Israeli, you're in a position to refute any report from any independent reporter/media person (which is subsequently carried on international media) in the Palestinian territories, simply by dint of being in the same country?
I have no doubt that it's possible for inacurracies to creep into reporting; but I would say it's false to suggest living in a country automatically makes a person able to invalidate any 3rd party report simply by dint of being in that country.
How can one person - any person - claim to have an in-depth knowledge than the collated knowledge of people whose very job is identify news stories? Especially over a war zone, when freedom of information to the public is by dint restricted, and where reporting by the domestic media will by nature be biased for reasons of simple national pride and economic necessity (how many - say - Croats would buy a popular newspaper if it ran reports alleging war crimes in Knin?)
My whole point is that TM can't personally verify all these claims - documented by multiple neutral observers from the UN, Helsinki Human Rights Federation (forget exact name), US embassy, etc because there is no way he could physically observe all of them. If anything war clouds the flow of free information, not clarifies it.
Althought I'd note your cited example of the Phildelphi route could be the result of a miscalculated automatic spellchecking. The BBC uses Philadelphi, though, which is where I get most information from. I'd suggest that a place name in a foreign country being misspelled by a single letter is somewhat different from multiple eyewitness reports from named (and testifying in court) indivuals.
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Originally posted by Sandwich
I don't know what stance is being argued over, but I do know that what karajorma quotes TrashMan as saying is pretty much correct. Remote people relying on the media as their sole source of information can never know about a situation as accurately as people in the middle of a situation, as long as those people also read/listen to media reports.
SNIP
This is why TrashMan is correct. Not because he has access to local media sources (which are most likely accessible online as well), but because he can verify with his own eyes and ears if something is right or wrong.
Again, I remind you that I haven't been following the discussion, and I don't know what exactly you're debating. But concerning the point I've tried to make here, it's irrelevant.
Actually you've completely missed the point I was making. I said that Trashman is wrong precisely because he only listens to the local opinion, doesn't do any research and assumes that his proximity to the situation means that he knows everything about it.
That's about as different from what you're saying as it can be.
My point is that local information can give you a perspective on the view that can't be gained via the mass media. If you can stay objective and use that in addition to the knowledge you gain from the media that means that you should be able claim greater knowledge.
That's a big gamble however. Proximity to events can also give you a biased point of view and few people can remain objective about events they witnessed. If you want to be able to demonstrate greater knowledge you have to prove that neutral observers with less bias are also expressing the same thing. Trashman failed to do that on every single count and that's why his local knowledge is can be pretty much dismissed as bias.
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In the case of Croatia, we're not talking about events unfolding on a day to day basis - we're talking about documented history that has been examined by more than one side of the media's political spectrum.
An important thing to remember is that it's easier for a fervent patriot to dismiss the concept of his nation commiting sin, than it is for an outsider. Never forget how the German people explained to themselves the defeat of 1918 - the "Stab in the back" myth. That way of thinking irrevocably weakened internal military resistance during the later days of WW2. No one would dare risk repeating those events, whether the history was real or otherwise - it would still convince the population to back the Nazi party even in it's darkest hour (although eventually reality/apathy began to set in by mid 1944). In fact, when the Krisau (ack damnit I can't remember the spelling) Circle did fail in the coup attempt, massive popular support for Hitler was rekindled at a time when the first cracks in public support had just started to appear.
My point is, that just because one is not inside an organisation, nation, or group does not mean one cannot reasonably argue for a viewpoint that is different from an insider - as that insider is often unabashedly biased - either by history (real or deluded) or by patriotic fervor.
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Actually, in case you were wondering, I had acess to internet, to foreign media and to my countries media. I even watched serbian news broadcasts and those from BBc, CNN, etc, etc..
I allso talked to some of hte UN forces (UNPROFOR, Blue Helemets) that passed trough my time.
The things they said were grousome - they were ordered not to interfere. one soldier told me they were looking from a hil las serbian forces entered a village and started killing the people there...and they were ordered to stay put. The man was really shaken up by that so I kinda doubt he was lying...
And kajorama - isthe glass half empty or half full?
If you wanted to rate a book/painting, would you call someone who finished the art academy biased?
After all, they are mostly wierd, spending half of their life jsut reading book or proclaming a bathtub full of barbie headz a work of art???? (Ok - find that one crap too, but I hope you get my point. no matter who you listen to you can accuse EVERYONE to be biased on one ground or another)
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And the differnece betwn 100 normal bombs and an A-bomb?
Normal bombs are normal weapons. Depending on their size and way of delivery they can be used to destry ships, tanks, stragetic installation, or they can even be used for good purposes (like blasting rocks or containinga raging river)
They are contained and controled weapons - their area of effect and damage are suitable for many things, but are localized.
An A-bomb is a weapon of mass destruction, designed soley for dealing as much damage as possible, to blast cirties to dust. If hte blast shockwave doesn't kill you, the tech will. if it doesn't do the job the radiaton will.
Let's face it - using it against an enemy base of ship it's way overkill. tehy were esigned to level cities and kill population.
The very nature of the weapon is different. they dropped it to show they could, to test it.
Someone said it was rigorously tested.
if it was, why did the scientis later say that the destructive power surprised even them, or that they had no idea the effect of radiation would be so widespread and dire. If they tested it properly they would have known that.
and like I sad a 1000000 times befor.
Killing of any innocent for whatever reason is simply wrong. in any case, under any circumastances.
Sarficing X innocents to save Y innocents is wrong, regardless of how high/low X and Y are. If you want ot sacriice yourself that OK, but you don't have the right to sacrifice another.
Not ever.
And no, iIdon't see it as a tacticly sound & needed decision. Japan couldn't hurt the US anymore....
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Originally posted by TrashMan
Actually, in case you were wondering, I had acess to internet, to foreign media and to my countries media. I even watched serbian news broadcasts and those from BBc, CNN, etc, etc..
And judging from the contents of this thread denounced them as vicious lies any time they said anything bad about Croatia.
Originally posted by TrashMan
I allso talked to some of hte UN forces (UNPROFOR, Blue Helemets) that passed trough my time.
The things they said were grousome - they were ordered not to interfere. one soldier told me they were looking from a hil las serbian forces entered a village and started killing the people there...and they were ordered to stay put. The man was really shaken up by that so I kinda doubt he was lying...
Who says that the Serbs didn't commit attrocities? Certainly no one I've seen on this thread. What we're arguing about is your claims that the Croats didn't commit attrocities too or that if they did they were isloated incidents from soldiers not under the control of their general.
Notice the difference?
Besides try doing you "Some guy said this to me" crap in court and see how far it got you. It would be thrown out as hearsay. Your personal opinions and views on what happened mean little unless you can back them up, something you've completely failed to do on every single occassion.
Originally posted by TrashMan
And kajorama - isthe glass half empty or half full?
If you wanted to rate a book/painting, would you call someone who finished the art academy biased?
After all, they are mostly wierd, spending half of their life jsut reading book or proclaming a bathtub full of barbie headz a work of art???? (Ok - find that one crap too, but I hope you get my point. no matter who you listen to you can accuse EVERYONE to be biased on one ground or another)
My issue isn't one of bias. My issue is with your claim that just cause you're close you have a more correct view of the matter.
To borrow your analogy would you ask for a rating of the book/painting from the author/painter and take that as the only rating you got? Or would you ask for the opinion of other people unconnected to the work and see if they agreed before trusting the author's opinon?
Cause you're only asking the author. You've provided no independant corroboration for any of your assertions (unlike Aldo). Find some unbiased reports that support your local knowledge and I'll believe otherwise but at the moment I've only got the word of on single (possibly biased) Croat saying it didn't happen and several internet links from reputed news agencies saying that it did. I'm going to believe them until you can get a similar weight of evidence to prove otherwise. Especially if you're claiming that the charges are without foundation!
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Originally posted by TrashMan
Actually, in case you were wondering, I had acess to internet, to foreign media and to my countries media. I even watched serbian news broadcasts and those from BBc, CNN, etc, etc..
I allso talked to some of hte UN forces (UNPROFOR, Blue Helemets) that passed trough my time.
The things they said were grousome - they were ordered not to interfere. one soldier told me they were looking from a hil las serbian forces entered a village and started killing the people there...and they were ordered to stay put. The man was really shaken up by that so I kinda doubt he was lying...
I'm well aware of Serbian atrocities such as Sebrenica; the Yugoslav civil war is internationally regarded as one of the worst in history for ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. I've never suggested for a second that Croatia was the only nation accussed of such crimes, nor have i even attempted to suggest Serbia had some sort of moral high ground in this regard.
So why are denying reports from the same authorities and people alleging war crimes committed in Operation Storm?
You were the one, after all, who said the illegal actions of the other side don't justify an similar response. So the crimes that may have been committed by the Serbs surely have no relevance in upholding - or otherwise - the morality of Croatian army actions in Operation Storm or elsewhere during that tragic war.
And your contact with UN peacekeepers hardly equates to knowing the situation in Knin if your talking about Serbian atrocities; not only is a UN peacekeeper hardly likely to accuse Croatia (or Serbia) of warcrimes in front of one of it's citizens, I'd guess that you're talking about an individual in an entirely distant area from Kralija.
All I've done is point out allegations made by independent observers within a specific operation. All I have done this for, is to illustrate that your claim that Croatia fought the war in a 'clean' manner, not targeting civillians or shelling towns for example, may very well be false. I think the documentary accounts and ICTY declarations support that contention, but you will (or should note) I have left the issue of guilt open as an allegation due to the ongoing legalities at the ICTY (prosecution/extradition of Gotovina in particular).
I would also point out that a lot of information also only becomes evident after the event; if the military was engaged in a war crime (even if on a very small level), it would actively work to secure the flow of information and preventing reporting of it in order to preserve international support (NATO was at the time supporting Croat forces by attacking Serbian anti-air equipment within Serbia itself). As the evidence of war crimes will only become evident during the aftermath.
In other words, if the media does not report atrocities within a (closed) war zone at the time, it does not imply they did not happen, simply that the media did not know. An example could perhaps be Abu-Ghraib and how long it took for that story to break.
Originally posted by TrashMan
And kajorama - isthe glass half empty or half full?
If you wanted to rate a book/painting, would you call someone who finished the art academy biased?
After all, they are mostly wierd, spending half of their life jsut reading book or proclaming a bathtub full of barbie headz a work of art???? (Ok - find that one crap too, but I hope you get my point. no matter who you listen to you can accuse EVERYONE to be biased on one ground or another)
What the hell are you on about? The point being made is that national pride biases us - all of us - to our countries actions in war (or indeed in peace), partially because as citizens of our country, we are reflected upon by its actions.
In order to show your objectivity, it's usually de-riguer to acknowledge the concerns against your country raised. Instead, you decided to ignore the evidence and concerns raised by the international community and media, and decided to label the ICTY as persecuting your country.
Presumably you accept ICTY / Hague prosecutions of Serbian war criminals, so why not at least consider the evidence against your own?
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Originally posted by Sandwich
Remote people relying on the media as their sole source of information can never know about a situation as accurately as people in the middle of a situation, as long as those people also read/listen to media reports.
Indeed, but inherent bias makes their opinions somewhat less reputable, doesn't it? I've seen you supporting some truly retarded plans for the palestineans in the past (the "export them all to Jordan" one comes to mind) that very few people without the natural bias that comes with living in the area would accept as reasonable. In this case, Trashman is supporting a country that just happens to be his own, and a man who has been convicted of war crimes who just happens to be one of his countrymen. Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with that - hell, I do it all the time with Aussies - but it does demonstrate the unavoidable bias that people on the inside have, which people who're seeing the events dispassionately, from the outside, can avoid.
As for the bomb argument, it's pretty pointless arguing with him.. He doesn't know his stuff well enough to accept reasonable answers, and the rest of the thread is more or less him sticking his fingers in his ears and shouting "No Nukes! No Nukes!"
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Originally posted by TrashMan
and like I sad a 1000000 times befor.
Killing of any innocent for whatever reason is simply wrong. in any case, under any circumastances.
Sarficing X innocents to save Y innocents is wrong, regardless of how high/low X and Y are. If you want ot sacriice yourself that OK, but you don't have the right to sacrifice another.
Not ever.
Oh?
I guess Croatians should have just laid down their weapons and surrendered the Medak Pocket (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Medak_pocket) then right? Whether you view that as a war crime or not the fact is that 29 local Serb civilians died in an offensive to stop the Serbian guns firing on Croatian towns.
By your own comments should that not be viewed as immoral too then?
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Incidentally, Orešković and Grandić were the 2 generals that 2 Canadian generals testified against at the ICTY regarding the shelling of Knin (which I mentioned on the previous page IIRC).
I wasn't aware they'd been indicted by their own country for war crimes, though.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
And the differnece betwn 100 normal bombs and an A-bomb?
Normal bombs are normal weapons. Depending on their size and way of delivery they can be used to destry ships, tanks, stragetic installation, or they can even be used for good purposes (like blasting rocks or containinga raging river)
They are contained and controled weapons - their area of effect and damage are suitable for many things, but are localized.
An A-bomb is a weapon of mass destruction, designed soley for dealing as much damage as possible, to blast cirties to dust. If hte blast shockwave doesn't kill you, the tech will. if it doesn't do the job the radiaton will.
Let's face it - using it against an enemy base of ship it's way overkill. tehy were esigned to level cities and kill population.
Yes, there is a difference between one bomb and one nuke. Yes, one is several orders of magnitude more powerful and destructive than the other. But that's where your analogy ends from the perspective of this argument. One Nuke really isn't all that different from 10,000 bombs, if they are used on equivalent targets. The only difference is the radiation, which takes much longer to figure out than the window offered for development of a weapon from a new technology. If you're going to argue the potential applications for an individual weapon, that's fine. But you're still completely neglecting the concept of "total war", which we've been over a hundred times in this thread. You wouldn't use one nuke to sink one ship, that's not a practical use of the weapon. But you would use thousands of bombs to flatten a city and so substituting those thousands of bombs with one nuke, using the WWII delivery systems and the fact that those cities were going to be destroyed anyway pretty much eliminates the "different purpose" argument. Period. During the Cold War, yes, the distinction was made. But we're not getting into that, simply because for me to go over the military doctrine involved there. No doubt you have your own interpretation of it anyway and it's not a debate we need to start.
Originally posted by TrashMan
The very nature of the weapon is different. they dropped it to show they could, to test it.
Someone said it was rigorously tested.
if it was, why did the scientis later say that the destructive power surprised even them, or that they had no idea the effect of radiation would be so widespread and dire. If they tested it properly they would have known that.
The destruction caused suprised them simply because they didn't expect the cities to crumble under the shockwave like it did. The A-bomb was tested, detonated in the middle of the desert. A similar explosion caused by a HUGE pile of TNT was used to rate the destructive power of the weapon. No one had ever blown up that much stuff simultaneously before. But since it was the middle of the desert there was a distinct lack of things to knock down, things to catch fire, and things to show immediate signs of radiation poisoning. It took the US until the mid-50's to realize the dangers of gamma radiation to observers, as evidenced by how close we put people to nuke tests around Bikini atol and in the Nevada desert. We didn't know because it's not something readily apparent.
Originally posted by TrashMan
and like I sad a 1000000 times befor.
Killing of any innocent for whatever reason is simply wrong. in any case, under any circumastances.
Sarficing X innocents to save Y innocents is wrong, regardless of how high/low X and Y are. If you want ot sacriice yourself that OK, but you don't have the right to sacrifice another.
Not ever.
You're right. Killing civilians is pretty much universally wrong. But sometimes it's a matter of choosing which civilians you have to kill, as repeatedly pointed out in the hundreds of thousands of civilians and POW's under threat of life and limb from the occupying Japanese in Aisa bombing two cities with devesating firepower was a necessary evil. If you can't see that, then you are turning a blind eye to a lot but we really can't do anything else to convince you and you have no ground to stand on when using this attack, so we may as well drop it.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
And the differnece betwn 100 normal bombs and an A-bomb?
Normal bombs are normal weapons. Depending on their size and way of delivery they can be used to destry ships, tanks, stragetic installation, or they can even be used for good purposes (like blasting rocks or containinga raging river)
They are contained and controled weapons - their area of effect and damage are suitable for many things, but are localized.
Or they can be used to level cities to the ground as per WW2 bombing raids. An individual bomb damage is localized (actually, any weapon has a localized effect, even nukes, it's just the size of that local area of affect that changes), bombing raids aren't. Are you suggesting the allies should only have launched bombing raids with a single plane carrying a single bomb?
How often are bombs used to clear rocks or contain rivers, anyways? Isn't that normally reserved for explosives rather than weapons? Isn't the very definition of a weapon that it causes damage and death?
An A-bomb is a weapon of mass destruction, designed soley for dealing as much damage as possible, to blast cirties to dust. If hte blast shockwave doesn't kill you, the tech will. if it doesn't do the job the radiaton will.
Let's face it - using it against an enemy base of ship it's way overkill. tehy were esigned to level cities and kill population.
Are you implying a bomb isn't designed to inflict as much damage as possible? That carpet bombing as used in WW2 (or firebombing) didn't serve the exact purpose of turning cities into dust.
The atomic bomb is a weapon, same as any other. It's a particularly nasty one, but no more different in effect to burning people to death ala Tokyo and Dresen.
Bombing raids in World War 2, due to the nature of the war, were directed against the infrastructure of the nation. That meant cities, and factories. It's not as if allied conventional bombs were reserved for use on enemy tanks or ships on the battlefields.
The very nature of the weapon is different. they dropped it to show they could, to test it.
Someone said it was rigorously tested.
if it was, why did the scientis later say that the destructive power surprised even them, or that they had no idea the effect of radiation would be so widespread and dire. If they tested it properly they would have known that.
Yes, they did. But even the most exhaustive testing - and they only had a few of these things with a war going on - can't predict the effects of a real deployment. Things like the effect of fallout due to vapourised debris or air currents. Or the simple fact they didn't have a spare empty city to test the effects upon.
Had they dropped it solely for a test, I'd condemn it. But I don't believe so; I think it had a valid military and tactical purpose in being used.
They dropped it to show Japan they had no choice but to surrender or be destroyed from the air, and prove to the Japanese they couldn't save face by waiting for invasion.
They dropped it to show they could end the war. And it worked.
and like I sad a 1000000 times befor.
Killing of any innocent for whatever reason is simply wrong. in any case, under any circumastances.
Sarficing X innocents to save Y innocents is wrong, regardless of how high/low X and Y are. If you want ot sacriice yourself that OK, but you don't have the right to sacrifice another.
Not ever.
So you're happy to endorse a tactic that kills millions (stavarvation or invasion tactics - probably also the 'bugger off' tactic), but condemn one that kills hundreds of thousands. Because going with the alternatives - even one of inaction and retreat - still carries a high civillian cost.
Why do you think I support the decision to use the bomb? Because it made a nice flash and bang?
Apparently you can't actually decide on a course of action, then, but simply choose to condemn someone else for having the guts to actually make a decision (any decision).
And no, iIdon't see it as a tacticly sound & needed decision. Japan couldn't hurt the US anymore....
...except for all the innocent civvies being held or occupied by their troops. Keep forgetting that, don't we?
Or if Japan had rearmed 10 or 20 years down the roal ala Germany under Hitler.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
And the differnece betwn 100 normal bombs and an A-bomb?
Normal bombs are normal weapons. Depending on their size and way of delivery they can be used to destry ships, tanks, stragetic installation, or they can even be used for good purposes (like blasting rocks or containinga raging river)
They are contained and controled weapons - their area of effect and damage are suitable for many things, but are localized.
An A-bomb is a weapon of mass destruction, designed soley for dealing as much damage as possible, to blast cirties to dust. If hte blast shockwave doesn't kill you, the tech will. if it doesn't do the job the radiaton will.
Let's face it - using it against an enemy base of ship it's way overkill. tehy were esigned to level cities and kill population.
The very nature of the weapon is different. they dropped it to show they could, to test it.
Someone said it was rigorously tested.
if it was, why did the scientis later say that the destructive power surprised even them, or that they had no idea the effect of radiation would be so widespread and dire. If they tested it properly they would have known that.
and like I sad a 1000000 times befor.
Killing of any innocent for whatever reason is simply wrong. in any case, under any circumastances.
Sarficing X innocents to save Y innocents is wrong, regardless of how high/low X and Y are. If you want ot sacriice yourself that OK, but you don't have the right to sacrifice another.
Not ever.
And no, iIdon't see it as a tacticly sound & needed decision. Japan couldn't hurt the US anymore....
One small thing: the bombs we're talking about here are WW2 era stuff. As far as I know (do correct me if im wrong) the only force with some semblence of guided bombs were the German V2s, and even they were notoriously inaccurate I think.
Although what you say is right regarding the localized effect, the bombs were used in massive numbers (and hence spreading out over a large area) to be really effective (remember carpet bombing?) to destroy any target. And even then, they were used to level cities and force them to grind to a halt in many cases. Although you're not looking at as much damage as an A-bomb in each city, realize that with carpet bombing and such going on, you're going to see a significant amount of damage, in every single Japanese city upto Tokyo itself since hte Allies would have to pretty much carpet bomb everything into dust to allow a safe and quick passage through each city.
As for the A-bombs, I think they did do much testing, just not on a city. Testing out in the field and deserted villages shows only a big explosion and some damage - the earth is pretty damn tough, and hills aren't easy to flatten. There would have been no way to predict - to see just how devastating it would be to somepalce with a lot more destroyable structures like Hiroshima and Nagasaki - places where hte buildings themselves can act like a medium for damage and shockwaves much like the air itself.
And the Japanese could hurt hte allies a lot, lot more than you think, especially in the form of attrition of the invasion. It would have cost a lot more lives just to invade and take hold of the islands - plus, if hte Russians had made it there...lets not think about it. One berlin is bad enough - but having one in the east? The end if civilization itself.
I'd normally agree about sacrificing X innocents for Y, but then, what if there is no other option? You just expect me to let the majority just die for a pitifull minority that might just die anyway?
Face it, when it comes down to numbers, in the end we all have to make the decision of - as cruel and sadistic as it sounds - (in a sense at least) quantity vs quality. The decision was already made, it saved a lot of lives, and hell, probably the only reason we're sitting here and posting all this. Fretting about it or how it should have been something else isn't going to change it - and even if it does, you'll most likely will be worse off than before.
We're all here because someone or the other sacrificed someone's lives for the greater good, wheter we like it or not. Such decisions will be made, regardless of whether it is with our consent or not...
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Originally posted by Singh
One small thing: the bombs we're talking about here are WW2 era stuff. As far as I know (do correct me if im wrong) the only force with some semblence of guided bombs were the German V2s, and even they were notoriously inaccurate I think.
I do keep mentioning the allied pigeon guided bombs (http://historywired.si.edu/object.cfm?ID=353) you know :D
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Originally posted by aldo_14
Are you suggesting that, being an Israeli, you're in a position to refute any report from any independent reporter/media person (which is subsequently carried on international media) in the Palestinian territories, simply by dint of being in the same country?
I have no doubt that it's possible for inacurracies to creep into reporting; but I would say it's false to suggest living in a country automatically makes a person able to invalidate any 3rd party report simply by dint of being in that country.
Nope, that's not what I'm saying, and frankly, I'm disappointed that you either innocently think that's what I was saying, or even worse, are putting words in my mouth. You're generally much sharper than that, dude. :)
Read what I said. I never even mentioned being in the same country. I said "people in the middle of a situation" once, and referred to a local as being someone able to verify things with his own eyes and ears three times. Direct, personal observation. Not relying on the media reports of whatever country is in question; those can be (and usually are) just as biased as the more "international" level of media.
Originally posted by aldo_14
How can one person - any person - claim to have an in-depth knowledge than the collated knowledge of people whose very job is identify news stories?
News stories, you might want to clarify, that bring in the highest ratings. Which include death, destruction, atrocitites, and general mayhem, unusual acts of kindness, abnormal events (usually to do with nature), etc. They don't report on all the shootings and mortar attacks that go on here, for example. Understandably, in a way, since they would not be left with any time or room to report on anything else if they did. But it never even gets mentioned; why? Because in 95% of those incidents, nobody gets hurt, only property damage. And that kind of story is boring.
So you get a seeming lack of incidents reported on, a seeming "peace", during the recent "hudna/ceasefire" - entirely misleading, an impression that can be easily verified as erraneous, yet the general public worldwide doesn't bother, since they have no reason to believe that they're missing anything.
Originally posted by aldo_14
My whole point is that TM can't personally verify all these claims - documented by multiple neutral observers from the UN, Helsinki Human Rights Federation (forget exact name), US embassy, etc because there is no way he could physically observe all of them. If anything war clouds the flow of free information, not clarifies it.
Now see, here you're getting into a realm I said repeatedly I am not specifically referring to, and know nothing about: the specific whatevers you guys were debating. You really disappoint me here, man - it's the first AND last thing I said. :doubt: I did not read the previous X amount of pages of this thread, only the post I referred to, and my response was reflecting ONLY the contents of that post.
Originally posted by aldo_14
Althought I'd note your cited example of the Phildelphi route could be the result of a miscalculated automatic spellchecking. The BBC uses Philadelphi, though, which is where I get most information from. I'd suggest that a place name in a foreign country being misspelled by a single letter is somewhat different from multiple eyewitness reports from named (and testifying in court) indivuals.
Quite true; I hadn't even thought of the spellchecking angle. I did say that "the situation has improved lately", however, so it no longer surprises me that news sources get it right.
However, this brings up an interesting point. I never saw any news sources issue a correction regarding the Philadelphi/a spelling thing. Not that I was looking for such things 24/7, mind you, but still, did any of you? It's not a big deal at all, certainly, but it makes you wonder, if they never issued a correction, how many other "inconsequential" mistakes have gone uncorrected.
Originally posted by karajorma
My point is that local information can give you a perspective on the view that can't be gained via the mass media. If you can stay objective and use that in addition to the knowledge you gain from the media that means that you should be able claim greater knowledge.
I see you missed my point as well - the one I (hope) I clarified above, addressed to aldo.
Originally posted by karajorma
That's a big gamble however. Proximity to events can also give you a biased point of view and few people can remain objective about events they witnessed. If you want to be able to demonstrate greater knowledge you have to prove that neutral observers with less bias are also expressing the same thing. Trashman failed to do that on every single count and that's why his local knowledge is can be pretty much dismissed as bias.
Again, I have no idea what you were arguing about, nor do I particularly care - it's irrelevant to the point I was making.
And pardon my French (and mark the time and date - Sandwich is gonna swear!), but it's for DAMN sure that direct personal observation of an event is gonna be more accurate than a condensed, 7 second soundbyte shoved in between reports on the Worlds Largest Chocolate Chip Cookie baked in Nowheresville, AZ, and the latest tsunami scare due to an earthquake on Jupiter's moon, Io.
It's how one conveys the events one was witness to that's crucial to differentiating between accurate, unbiased reports and exciting, biased ratings inflaters.
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Maybe you shouldn't have started your post with the words "TrashMan.....is pretty much correct" That's always a recipe for disaster :p Especially in a thread where he's been wrong time after time and was wrong in the quote that you were talking about.
Of course you can form a better opinion on a subject if you were there than from a five second sound bite but what gives you the idea that either myself or Aldo are forming opinions based simply on TV news?
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Originally posted by Singh
I'd normally agree about sacrificing X innocents for Y, but then, what if there is no other option? You just expect me to let the majority just die for a pitifull minority that might just die anyway?
A: "The right thing to do"
B: "The only thing to do"
A => Pat yourself on the back for a job well done, celebrate.
B => Try to make sure you'll never find yourself in the same position again.
We go to great efforts in attempt to make B's appear as A's. But how wise is that, when both A and B involve killing people?
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So what was A then?
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I think the point here was that there was no A.
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Ah. Fair enough then :)
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Originally posted by Sandwich
Nope, that's not what I'm saying, and frankly, I'm disappointed that you either innocently think that's what I was saying, or even worse, are putting words in my mouth. You're generally much sharper than that, dude. :)
Read what I said. I never even mentioned being in the same country. I said "people in the middle of a situation" once, and referred to a local as being someone able to verify things with his own eyes and ears three times. Direct, personal observation. Not relying on the media reports of whatever country is in question; those can be (and usually are) just as biased as the more "international" level of media.
That's true, except your reply was made within the context of Trashmans reply, which stated that being within the country made him a better judge of the whole situation - i.e. the entire war. Even if he was within a frontline situation, that does not mean he would have complete knowledge of the entire war (or operation).
[q]
News stories, you might want to clarify, that bring in the highest ratings. Which include death, destruction, atrocitites, and general mayhem, unusual acts of kindness, abnormal events (usually to do with nature), etc. They don't report on all the shootings and mortar attacks that go on here, for example. Understandably, in a way, since they would not be left with any time or room to report on anything else if they did. But it never even gets mentioned; why? Because in 95% of those incidents, nobody gets hurt, only property damage. And that kind of story is boring.
So you get a seeming lack of incidents reported on, a seeming "peace", during the recent "hudna/ceasefire" - entirely misleading, an impression that can be easily verified as erraneous, yet the general public worldwide doesn't bother, since they have no reason to believe that they're missing anything.[/q]
Yes, but this is with reference to specific reported incidences, not the general situation. In an earlier post the statement was made that Croatia fought - to paraphrase - a totally ethical war with no civillian casualties. I simply brought up incidences of contention with that, which due to public opinion reasons may not have been reported by the domestic Croatian media or given credibility (due to simple national pride) by Croats in Croatia at the time.
EDIT; i.e. the issue is not whether or not there were humanitarian acts committed by the Croat army, or how frequent these were, etc; my whole point was that, reagrdless of other situations in the warzone, there is evidence/allegations of war crimes.
Additionally, one of the main areas of contention - war crime allegations - is not derived from direct reporting but a statement by the Hague that the aformentioned operation was a criminal act.
My use of reporters is simply to clarify the source of evidence from eyewitnesses.
[q]
Now see, here you're getting into a realm I said repeatedly I am not specifically referring to, and know nothing about: the specific whatevers you guys were debating. You really disappoint me here, man - it's the first AND last thing I said. :doubt: I did not read the previous X amount of pages of this thread, only the post I referred to, and my response was reflecting ONLY the contents of that post.
[/q]
I feel it's entirely appropriate I mention it, as the conflict between these independent observers in the area are IMO of relevance in comparison.
[q]
Quite true; I hadn't even thought of the spellchecking angle. I did say that "the situation has improved lately", however, so it no longer surprises me that news sources get it right.
However, this brings up an interesting point. I never saw any news sources issue a correction regarding the Philadelphi/a spelling thing. Not that I was looking for such things 24/7, mind you, but still, did any of you? It's not a big deal at all, certainly, but it makes you wonder, if they never issued a correction, how many other "inconsequential" mistakes have gone uncorrected.
[/q]
Well, whilst the misspelling of Phildelphi is an inaccuracy, IMO it's not a significant inaccuracy; in the sense that it's main relevance is as a location, not the factual details of an event, and also in the sense that AFAIK it's not been mistaken for an alternative event. If a news station refers to Mombai as Bombay (which is admittedly a different type of mistake but IMO can be considered similar), it doesn't add inaccuracy to the event that happened in Mombai and which is being reported.
I'm not sure if there may be cultural differences that make 'Philadelphia' a legitimate spelling, of course. Apparently 'Philadelphia' comes from the Greek for 'city of brotherly love' (not the most appropriate name in the world if that is the entymology of Philadelphi), and was the (former) name of several cities in the Middle East & Egpyt (in Jordan, Egypt and Turkey).
EDIT; except that Philadelphi was a randomly assigned name, I've also read, so I could be talking out my arse. anyways, I can see the room for the confusion...... I left the above in because it's quite interesting IMO. :D
And the Palestinians also use a completely different name for it, which is probably going to make the situation worse.
This is not to dismiss the possibility of journalistic inaccuracy, but that is why I try to only find information from neutral and reliable sources. When looking up information on the specifics of Operation Storm, there were a lot of far worse allegations made, but by sites which I didn't feel were fair or balanced; thus I omitted them. I feel I'm able to make a good judgement on that, and as such that my methods of gathering this information are less likely to suffer from bias or inaccuracy. Using multiple sources also helps, of course.
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Originally posted by aldo_14
Incidentally, Orešković and Grandić were the 2 generals that 2 Canadian generals testified against at the ICTY regarding the shelling of Knin (which I mentioned on the previous page IIRC).
I wasn't aware they'd been indicted by their own country for war crimes, though.
If they were responsible they desirve the punishemnt, the asshioles they are!
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Again you both miss the whole point of my post, and what I was and was not addressing. Lemme say it as clear as can be:
I was NOT addressing your argument with TrashMan in any way.
I WAS addressing TrashMan's statement, taken completely out of context, that was quoted in karajorma's post at the top of this page, the one that read, "suffice to say I know more about the war in Croatia then you will ever know.. I live here."
I was NOT talking about the war in Croatia at all.
I WAS referring to TrashMan's - or ANYone's - potential to be far more better (grammar?) informed as someone in the middle of things than an outside observer, due to the potential of him confirming any given report with his own eyes and ears.
I was NOT stating that TrashMan could or did verify any or all reported events of the war with his own eyes and ears.
I do NOT care if anything TrashMan said previously in this thread was right or wrong, accurate or insanity. I was referring to the equivalent of his situation, not to his specific case.
Finally, the Philadelphi thing IS an insignificant inaccuracy in and of itself, however, assuming for a moment that the inaccuracy did not originate with something as innocent as a spellchecker, it SIGNIFIES a potential for many unchecked inaccuracies to slip in to otherwise valid news reports, inaccuracies which could likely be far more significant.
Kapische? ;)
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@KaJORAMA -
Well you proclaim coratian news and my own views as biased and at the same time take for granted that what CNN, NBC or others saiud? Isn't that allso biased?
for your information I listend to it all, and took everything into consideration (well..excpet seribian broadcasts after the NATO bombing started... I laughed at their reports that 4 ameriacn choppers were shot down, 2 planes and 10 tanks destroyed anda marine devision captured :D)
As far as ICTY goes, as an institution it sucks. It's not financially independent for once. It's workings are ..bizzare.. half of the evidence gathred by the defense got dropped out on various grounds (mostly some biroucratic crap). Tehre was even a tape when Gotovina assmebled his sub-commanders after Knin was taken and gavce them instructions on how to procced next. He yelled at them for not establishing normal functions in the city (such as water supply, c.risys centers, hospitals) and told them to wathc for civilians and behave, as the world is watching. Of course, it wasn't accepted.
Now Carla Del Ponte even accused Croatia of hiding gotovian (and stil constantly does) and demend profo of the opposite!! She demans profo that he is NOT inCroatia? This is redicolous! the only way to prove it would be to find him in another country. It is HAAG that should find evidence of him being in CRO before accusing.
But let's face it, the easiest way to discredit someone (and get him off your back) is to burry him under acusations. He will be so busy defending himself that he won't have time to do anytihhng else. Besides once you accuse someone of something he is allready practicly guilty in the eyes of the masses. Heh..try to get a job after it's public knowledge you got accused of murder (even if you get aquitted).
and let me ask you something - you asked me to find an uniased report. Tell me, how do you know which one is biased and which one isn't? Everyone has his own agenda you know. and as for your "evidence" that "it did happen" as you pointed out - I see none. Accusations aren't proof. 2 convictted generals and several accused aren't proof that a ethnic cleansing was ordered from the upper echelons.
@Aldo - i never even suggested that you were accusing only Croats. I put that NATO officer stroy in tehre jsut as an example that I used as many sources I could find.
I never said that crimes were never commited - just that they were not orchestrated and that they were independant. Or at least I belive so.
But ICTY is a peice of garabge. Hell, I would like a international crimes court, but one that works.. and when larger superpowers and politics are in play, that usually doesn't wokr (arrengment to not extradite US citizens nayone?)...
As for the bomb argument, it's pretty pointless arguing with him.. He doesn't know his stuff well enough to accept reasonable answers, and the rest of the thread is more or less him sticking his fingers in his ears and shouting "No Nukes! No Nukes!"
Well, I know my stuff better then you apparently. You seem to think that dropping the A-bomb was the needed and only reasonable thing to do. I say ti's not. and you can't prove otherwise simply becosue otehr options were allso open.
@Kajorama - about Medak Pocket. Yes it was immoral and wrong. If you noticed, ther report states that the commander of that croatian detachment had no contact with the commanding officers and moved withut orderes.
Still, I can say that the UN was more in they way than anything else. The war only lasted longer since they slowed down our progress..
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Originally posted by karajorma
Maybe you shouldn't have started your post with the words "TrashMan.....is pretty much correct" That's always a recipe for disaster :p Especially in a thread where he's been wrong time after time and was wrong in the quote that you were talking about.
And I noramlly though that anytihng that starts with your name ends in disaster...
Oh..guess what..I'm not wrong. :D
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Originally posted by TrashMan
Well, I know my stuff better then you apparently. You seem to think that dropping the A-bomb was the needed and only reasonable thing to do. I say ti's not. and you can't prove otherwise simply becosue otehr options were allso open.
Now see, this is why we end up having these little debates. "I know my stuff better than you..." followed IMMEDIATELY by [because] "I say". Inherently, you don't know. So stop insisting you're opinion is the only one that counts. And besides, we've given you more reasons than I'd even try to count in support of the necessity of dropping the bomb. You look back from an "omnicient" POV (which is, knowingly or not, ignoring a lot of factors) and fail to consider what "other options" would have led to 5, 10, 20 years down the road. I KNOW that given the ability to quickly bring an end to the war, there was NO other option than using the available weapon. You KNOW otherwise. Therefore your opinion is no more valid than mine.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
@KaJORAMA -
Well you proclaim coratian news and my own views as biased and at the same time take for granted that what CNN, NBC or others saiud? Isn't that allso biased?
I'm claiming that you haven't cited any sources at all. For all I know you could be making it all up. If you want to prove a point post a source beyond "A bloke down the pub told me".
Besides I'm not saying that the BBC are unbiased. I'm saying that they're likely to be less biased than someone from one of the countries involved in the war. Especially someone who doesn't provide sources and expects his word to be treated as gospel even when he's already been proved wrong several times already.
Furthermore who says I'm even paying attention to only news outlets?
Originally posted by TrashMan
@Kajorama - about Medak Pocket. Yes it was immoral and wrong. If you noticed, ther report states that the commander of that croatian detachment had no contact with the commanding officers and moved withut orderes.
So he should face a war crimes trial then right? Actually though the report only says that the commander who decided to attack the Canadians was out of contact. Not that the decision to set fire to the villages were taken by someone out of contact with commanding officers.
Who was in charge of the decision to set fire to the villages is ambiguous.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
@Aldo - i never even suggested that you were accusing only Croats. I put that NATO officer stroy in tehre jsut as an example that I used as many sources I could find.
I never said that crimes were never commited - just that they were not orchestrated and that they were independant. Or at least I belive so.
But ICTY is a peice of garabge. Hell, I would like a international crimes court, but one that works.. and when larger superpowers and politics are in play, that usually doesn't wokr (arrengment to not extradite US citizens nayone?)...
You claimed that the Croatian armies actions in the Yugoslav civil war were without fault. I simply countered that by bringing up the allegations made of war crimes, as I feel these are valid when using a 'holier than thou' type arguement.
Specifically as your claim the Croatian army never shelled civillians has been proven wrong by your countries very own prosecutions..
Well, I know my stuff better then you apparently. You seem to think that dropping the A-bomb was the needed and only reasonable thing to do. I say ti's not. and you can't prove otherwise simply becosue otehr options were allso open.
We can prove (or rather, demonstrate with a high degree of certainty) it was the only reasonable option open by examining the other options open and the information available at the time upon making the decision (information which is in many cases supported by archival evidence not available to the Allies when making the decision).
Strangely enough, I only thought about the rights and wrongs of the atomic bombing a few weeks ago. Up until that point I had no real opinion on the legitimacy or not of them.
If you can find a viable alternative to bombing which a) works and b) doesn't have a high chance of killing more people (bearing in mind both the known intellgence then and that known now), then feel free to propose it.
There's no point saying you know your stuff better if you can't prove it, and no sense in justifying it by setting a standard where any decision made has to be wrong because it was the decision made.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
Oh..guess what..I'm not wrong. :D
I guess you're going to tell me you spelt my name correctly in the previous post too? :p
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Originally posted by Sandwich
I WAS referring to TrashMan's - or ANYone's - potential to be far more better (grammar?) informed as someone in the middle of things than an outside observer, due to the potential of him confirming any given report with his own eyes and ears.
Then maybe you should have actually read my post before commenting on it. I missed your point because I made the mistake of assuming you'd read the post you were actually replying to.
Maybe if you get down out of your ivory tower and did some research then you could make the same claim. After all you've got the same net access that Aldo has plus the fact you live there should give you an edge.
See? I'd already made your point for you.
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Originally posted by aldo_14
You claimed that the Croatian armies actions in the Yugoslav civil war were without fault. I simply countered that by bringing up the allegations made of war crimes, as I feel these are valid when using a 'holier than thou' type arguement.
Specifically as your claim the Croatian army never shelled civillians has been proven wrong by your countries very own prosecutions..
I never claimed that. I said that our contry never attacked another and our troopn never corrsed out borders to shell cities in enemy terrotiry.
Now and again civilian die in war as a result of a misplaced granade/proximity to target. Even somtimes when a whacko commander full of vengance orders somethig like that.
But it was never a ordered tactic (fomr high up) to shell the enemy into surrender.
Oh -allmost forgot - I think you said that Japansese were fnatical and redy to fight to the death due to the samurai code of honour?
Well, for your inforamtion samurais were allways few. In WW2 mostly highranking generals and some soldiers followed that code. It ment nothing to the normal populace, but you're makinmg it sound like they were all fanaticl loons.
Yes, they were proably ready to fight to the death during an invasion but that would be couse an enemy way invading THEIR country. If someone would to attck our country you would defend it till the end too.
And you allso said US had nothing to offer for the POW's?
What about japanese POw's? (as a trade). Or some of Japans territory back? Or falling back of it's troops?
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Originally posted by TrashMan
And you allso said US had nothing to offer for the POW's?
What about japanese POw's? (as a trade). Or some of Japans territory back? Or falling back of it's troops?
Some of the territory that they took in the war? Are you suggesting that territorial appeasement, which was Japan's goal in the first place in getting involved in WWII, would have made them stop being aggressive?!? Are you seriously suggesting something like that?
EDIT:
Originally posted by TrashMan
Oh -allmost forgot - I think you said that Japansese were fnatical and redy to fight to the death due to the samurai code of honour?
Well, for your inforamtion samurais were allways few. In WW2 mostly highranking generals and some soldiers followed that code. It ment nothing to the normal populace, but you're makinmg it sound like they were all fanaticl loons.
Yes, they were proably ready to fight to the death during an invasion but that would be couse an enemy way invading THEIR country. If someone would to attck our country you would defend it till the end too.
Um, Kamakazis? I doubt those pilots all followed the Samurai code to the letter either, but they were more than willing to freely throw their lives away on suicide attacks. They were young, inexperienced pilots, and they certainly didn't represent the interests of Japanese high command in their sacrafice, and yet they did it anyway. Remind me again what indication the Allies could possibly have had that the rest of the Japanese population was not similarly ready to lay down their lives rather than accept defeat?
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Originally posted by TrashMan
I never claimed that. I said that our contry never attacked another and our troopn never corrsed out borders to shell cities in enemy terrotiry.
Now and again civilian die in war as a result of a misplaced granade/proximity to target. Even somtimes when a whacko commander full of vengance orders somethig like that.
But it was never a ordered tactic (fomr high up) to shell the enemy into surrender.
That (intention or chain of command responsibility) is a matter of current legal dispute. Evidence is that there was some form of intentional, systematic destruction of Serbian held property. I would say it's not any better (morally) to destroy houses because they were lived in by a different ethnicity, than it is to attack an enemy nation. Certainly bombing during WW2 had the pretext of destruction infrastructure of enemy nations; what pretext can destroying houses in your own country have beyond deliberate expulsion?
Oh -allmost forgot - I think you said that Japansese were fnatical and redy to fight to the death due to the samurai code of honour?
Well, for your inforamtion samurais were allways few. In WW2 mostly highranking generals and some soldiers followed that code. It ment nothing to the normal populace, but you're makinmg it sound like they were all fanaticl loons.
Yes, they were proably ready to fight to the death during an invasion but that would be couse an enemy way invading THEIR country. If someone would to attck our country you would defend it till the end too.
Firstly, I never implied the Japanese were fanatical loons.
I didn't say they were Samurais, I said they followed the Samurai or warrior code of Bushido. This was also widespread throughout the military as a code of indoctrination and loyalty to inspire them to fight and sacrifice themselves, culminating in the Kamikaze of course.
The leadership of the military in particular followed this code; this led to defense plans involving the use of human shields, medical orderlys acting as suicide bombers and schoolgirls armed with sharpened bamboo poles.
In 1890 the Japanese education code was adapted to teach only a single sect of the Shinto religion (the state sect; 13 others were driven out). This explicitly stated the Emperor was a god and that there was a duty to spread this belief across the world (marking the beginning of militarism). The military used the cult of Hachiman - the diety of war - to indoctrinate soliders and their families.
(there are, incidentally documented instances of Japanese soldiers in Lubang fighting - with local police - until the mid 1970s)
The education system included indoctrination through government written 'cultural' textbooks, and also included classes in survival (against invasion) training and warfare. Children and school students received military drilling (hand to hand combat, first aid, use of weapons and survival training), and some were entered into the Imperial Japanese Young Federation (a Hitler Youth like organization). Some were also conscripted into the army. Children worked in arms factories.
Censorship and surveillance was intense; citizens were encouraged to take interest in Japanese history and were noted by foreign journalists pre-war for being increasingly xenophobic.
It's worth noting that the Japanese government held - and would have held if not defeated and then reorganzied - the expressed position that Japan was responsible for the 'peace' of all Asia.
And you allso said US had nothing to offer for the POW's?
What about japanese POw's? (as a trade). Or some of Japans territory back? Or falling back of it's troops?
For one thing, the Japanese viewed suicide as preferable to capture; a captured Japanese POW would be effectively worthless to such a militaristic society.
The Field Service Code issued by General Tojo in 1941 gave the following;
" Do not live in shame as a prisoner. Die, and leave no ignominious crime behind you."
For example, at the end of the battle for Okinawa (which saw heavy civillian resistance against the US) the 2 Japanese generals committed suicide by disembowelling themselves, and their lower officers killed themselves using hand-grenades. Another example is Iwo Jima; of 21,800 Japanese troops, only 200 were taken prisoner.
This did not just extend to soldiers; US troops in Saipan observed civillians (including a mother and her baby) hurling themselves off of cliffs when the US captured the island, rather than be occupied. Similar scenes were seen in, for example, Okinawa. Japanese propaganda painted the Americans as barbarians who had committed terrible atrocities and would rape and kill the women and children, etc.
(this also relates to the previous quoted section)
Also, it's already been pointed out that thousands were still dying in conflicts in Japanese held territory outside the Pacific; by pulling back troops it would be handing the Japanese that territory;by continuing it was leading to civillian deaths as collateral damage.
Furthermore, by surrendering captured territory and withdrawing troops, it would risk handing back the impetus to Japan, as they still held territory in China/Manchuria (and I think also the Phillipines and Polynesia). Japan probably at that point held more territory than pre-war.
If Japan felt no need to surrender under intense carpet / fire bombing and under blockade, why would concessions make it more likely to surrender? Especially pulling back military pressure.
Oh, I made one mistake RE: POWs. Apparently Japan held 300,000 (not 100,000) white slave labourers.
At a slight tangent;
Japanese plans for an invasion including the conscription of a further 2 million men. Defenses at Kyushu included;
200,000 men
Approx 5,000 kamikaze fighters
Baku - suicide missile carried by a bomber.
500 minsubs under construction
57 remaining fleet submarines
Suicide motorboats (17 and 22 foot)
Surviving destroyers prepped for sucide attacks on convoys
Suicide bombers to dive under tanks; these included (as an example) medical orderlies
Well dug in positions on the beach with overlapping fields of far, and supporting bases in caves
(NB: the primary tactic was to attack the ships landing US troops)
Another tangent;
Apparently launching a complete blockade ('ring of steel') around Japan was infeasible due to the logistical requirements of supplying all those ships and aircraft
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OT
Does anyone else find it sad that in schools these days kids are taught about the atrocities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (without bg info to explain why such an action in all probability saved more lives) and yet ignore things like the Rape of Nanking, Pearl Harbor, and more?
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Example of such a thing happening?
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Originally posted by Deepblue
OT
Does anyone else find it sad that in schools these days kids are taught about the atrocities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (without bg info to explain why such an action in all probability saved more lives) and yet ignore things like the Rape of Nanking, Pearl Harbor, and more?
:wtf: Pearl Harbor? So you're saying that they would ignore the event that dragged the US into the war? That is utter BS.
When I took history, when we got to World War 2 my teacher went over Pearl Harbor, Nanjing, and Hiroshima.
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Originally posted by karajorma
Then maybe you should have actually read my post before commenting on it. I missed your point because I made the mistake of assuming you'd read the post you were actually replying to.
That may have been a good idea, had I actually been replying to your post. As it was, I wasn't replying to your post, but to the excerpt of TrashMan's post quoted in yours. As I said here: "...what karajorma quotes TrashMan as saying..."
And FYI, I did read your post, in it's entirety. It's just not that that I was repying to. However, I can understand you making that assumption, especially since most of us just speed-read or even skim posts we reply to. It could have been easy to miss. *shrugs* Not gonna crucify ya for missing it. :)
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i see the thread celebrating nuclear war has degraded into a stupid political debate. you should have just got drunk like i did. :D
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Originally posted by Deepblue
OT
Does anyone else find it sad that in schools these days kids are taught about the atrocities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (without bg info to explain why such an action in all probability saved more lives) and yet ignore things like the Rape of Nanking, Pearl Harbor, and more?
I do remember briefly going over Pearl Harbor and the bombings, but we stuck to Europe for the most part, and even that was brief. We never went over the Rape of Nanjing; I never heard of the Battle of Okinawa, just a couple major battles in the Pacific, Iwo Jima and the costs of island hopping. I think AP got up to present day by the end of your requirement, and honors finished with Vietnam. I guess they don't care about you unless you're in AP or at least honors, those in college prep are expendable, garbage. Most of what I've learned has been through the History Channel, PBS, museums, my copy of Medal of Honor: Pacific Assualt that has the bonus history material, and discussions such as these.
Self education is very important. I really should get a book.
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Originally posted by Deepblue
OT
Does anyone else find it sad that in schools these days kids are taught about the atrocities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (without bg info to explain why such an action in all probability saved more lives) and yet ignore things like the Rape of Nanking, Pearl Harbor, and more?
Not really. WW2 is a big subject to teach, and within a general history class (i.e. not a specialised subject like military history, or uni grade) it's possibly inefficient to teach about the entire history of WW2 because it would take time from other subjects.
i.e (offhand) my 3 years (Standard grade & Higher) doing history covered (this is in the UK, bytheway) Appeasement prior to WW2, World War 1, the industrial revolution, the democratisation of the UK (i.e. reforms from the 1800s up to full democracy and universal sufferage), and some other topics on top (I think the growth of Communism in russia and the Russian civil war was one of these). The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki can be seen as a cultural watershed (i.e. which changed the world), whereas other battles might not have had that same lasting impact.
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Originally posted by aldo_14
i.e (offhand) my 3 years (Standard grade & Higher) doing history covered (this is in the UK, bytheway) Appeasement prior to WW2, World War 1, the industrial revolution, the democratisation of the UK (i.e. reforms from the 1800s up to full democracy and universal sufferage), and some other topics on top (I think the growth of Communism in russia and the Russian civil war was one of these). The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki can be seen as a cultural watershed (i.e. which changed the world), whereas other battles might not have had that same lasting impact.
That sounds pretty consistant with what I can remember. I remember having some "specific" years though. One year we did alot about The Romans, then the Industrial Revolution, then WW1(at the time I was pretty disapointed when I didn't do WW2 like the other class in our year). I don't recall much ColdWar/Russia stuff though.
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Originally posted by aldo_14
The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki can be seen as a cultural watershed (i.e. which changed the world), whereas other battles might not have had that same lasting impact.
Exactly so - which is why Japan is the only country to day which lives in a "Post-Apocalyptic" setting.
You can be sure it influenced their society and culture in many different ways, than possibly any regular war any of the other countries had.
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Originally posted by BlackDove
Exactly so - which is why Japan is the only country to day which lives in a "Post-Apocalyptic" setting.
You can be sure it influenced their society and culture in many different ways, than possibly any regular war any of the other countries had.
Albeit it probably has to be held within the context that the US occupation also totally reformed the Japanese systems of government, education, etc; it's possible impossible to judge the exact effect of the bombings (or indeed the war itself) on a societal reason because of that.
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Originally posted by BlackDove
Exactly so - which is why Japan is the only country to day which lives in a "Post-Apocalyptic" setting.
You can be sure it influenced their society and culture in many different ways, than possibly any regular war any of the other countries had.
I would hardly call two cities, no matter how they were specifically destroyed, an apocalypse.
If you're referring to the damage done by the war in general, then I'd say at the very least Germany would also fit into that description, as would, to a somewhat lesser extent, the UK.
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Originally posted by Black Wolf
I would hardly call two cities, no matter how they were specifically destroyed, an apocalypse.
If you're referring to the damage done by the war in general, then I'd say at the very least Germany would also fit into that description, as would, to a somewhat lesser extent, the UK.
Possibly Germany in particular had less of a societal 'shame' in surrender, particularly to barbarians. Japan had also not been beaten in a war only 20-odd years earlier as Germany, and AFAIK the military leadership fostered a culture of xenophobia and invincibility. Not even the Germans had a suicide before surrender culture drilled into them AFAIK.
On the other hand, IMO Germany itself went through a pretty major societal change as a result of occupation and division.
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That (intention or chain of command responsibility) is a matter of current legal dispute. Evidence is that there was some form of intentional, systematic destruction of Serbian held property. I would say it's not any better (morally) to destroy houses because they were lived in by a different ethnicity, than it is to attack an enemy nation. Certainly bombing during WW2 had the pretext of destruction infrastructure of enemy nations; what pretext can destroying houses in your own country have beyond deliberate expulsion?
I'm aware of some accusations, but no real proof of that being ordered from high up.
I have to say that it's funy isn't it.. you can ask such question (was their crimes ordered from high up) in any war.
Were US soldiers ordered to bburin villages and kill poepl in vietnam? Waht about russian in Cecenia? Or Isreali in their attacks against palestinian terrorists?
but such accusation will never be launched against such powerfull nations, while msall ones get pummled.
the thing about accusation is that you don't have to prove you're right about accusing someone - teh damage to the accused is allready done.
Like I said, HAAG is a piece of ****. Remeber this part?
Now Carla Del Ponte even accused Croatia of hiding gotovian (and stil constantly does) and demend profo of the opposite!! She demans profo that he is NOT in Croatia? This is redicolous! the only way to prove it would be to find him in another country. It is HAAG that should find evidence of him being in CRO before accusing.
anyway, about the Japan thing.
If I were Trumman, what I would have done:
- Ordered all troops to sstand down and hold position.
- make a official statment that US troops are currently holding a one-sided cease-fire, and would cal Japan to ddo the same
- annaounce that I would fly to Tokio to talk to their leaders (regardless of the risk)
- bring with me tapes of hte A-bomb testing
Now, no nation wants to surrender, since it means massive war reparations and in general, very bad things for your country. Allso, generals lead by their sense of honour wouldn't want to surrender.
So I would offer them an honorable and easy way out.
Signing of a peace (non-aggreasion) treay (with no conditions except the release of prisoners of war). I wouldn't ask anything else from them.
This is different from surrender, but it' allso less destructive for both sides.
If they refuse, THEN I would bomb somewhere and repeat the warrnng.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
I'm aware of some accusations, but no real proof of that being ordered from high up.
I have to say that it's funy isn't it.. you can ask such question (was their crimes ordered from high up) in any war.
Were US soldiers ordered to bburin villages and kill poepl in vietnam? Waht about russian in Cecenia? Or Isreali in their attacks against palestinian terrorists?
but such accusation will never be launched against such powerfull nations, while msall ones get pummled.
Those allegations have indeed been made. Especially vis-a-vis the Russians in Chechnya.
The lack of prosecution may be unfair (and I agree upon that), but the way to deal with that unfairness is not to simply ignore all war crimes.
The issue of proof is one for the courts to decide. I simply pointed out that war crimes had occurred, and there was an allegation they were planned.
Originally posted by TrashMan
the thing about accusation is that you don't have to prove you're right about accusing someone - teh damage to the accused is allready done.
Like I said, HAAG is a piece of ****. Remeber this part?[/b
Yes, the part where you deny the legitimacy of any organization which dares to differ from your opinion. I'm well familiar with that attitude.
Originally posted by TrashMan
anyway, about the Japan thing.
If I were Trumman, what I would have done:
- Ordered all troops to sstand down and hold position.
- make a official statment that US troops are currently holding a one-sided cease-fire, and would cal Japan to ddo the same
- annaounce that I would fly to Tokio to talk to their leaders (regardless of the risk)
- bring with me tapes of hte A-bomb testing
And what if Japanese troops decided to use the opportunity to attack in the territory they still held? Or simply to reinforce and resupply their defensive positions?
I mean, this is a military leadership that didn't want to surrender after 2 atomic bombings, they certainly would not see it as anything other than a golden opportunity to attack (say, Okinawa; part of the Kyushu defense plan was actually to land paratroopers there as a diversionary counter-attack anyways).
(and they'd almost certainly take Truman prisoner or kill him; what a perfect bargaining chip to have - the head of the US in their hands).
Tapes of atomic bombing might not be all that reliable as (even in 1945) it would probably be possible to fake these things for effect. The Japanese would be more likely to doubt it - what sort of enemy would show a weapon yet not use it in a war?
There's also the issue of handing over classified intelligence (in the existence of the a-bomb) to an enemy nation, particularly one with a nuclear program (underfunded, but when you know it's possible...).
All of which is a moot point when it's blatantly obvious you can't fly your commander in chief straight to the enemys HQ with nothing but a smile. Assuming his plane wasn't shot down on sight by Japanese AAAf, or upon landing, of course.
Didn't I ask for a feasible alternative? i.e. one with a chance of working? This is amounting to a de-facto surrender by the US.
Originally posted by TrashMan
Now, no nation wants to surrender, since it means massive war reparations and in general, very bad things for your country. Allso, generals lead by their sense of honour wouldn't want to surrender.
So I would offer them an honorable and easy way out.
Signing of a peace (non-aggreasion) treay (with no conditions except the release of prisoners of war). I wouldn't ask anything else from them.
This is different from surrender, but it' allso less destructive for both sides.
If they refuse, THEN I would bomb somewhere and repeat the warrnng.
And if they don't listen? Say it takes 1 month to do all this (at the rate of what, 10,000 dying per week?), and you drop the bomb. what if they don't surrender then?
Now, you propose a treaty that leaves the same (quasi-facist) military commanders in power (the same ones that committed suicide rather than surrender, after all), and which assumes they won't decide to continue their ways Presumably Japan also get to keep their territory in China, Korea, etc too?
And let's not forget the Russo-Japanese war of 1905, where the peace treaty (Treaty of Portsmouth) gave them extensive land gains, leasing rights to a key naval base, and the later ability to annex Korea with nary a peep (by making it part of Japans sphere of influence). And yet the terms of that treaty were still greeted with riots in Japan, and the burning down of the only newspaper supporting the peace treaty. The 'condescending attitude' of the western powers (the Treaty was brokered by Roosevelt) is what helped lead to Japanese xenophobia - they'd probably be insulted by an incredibly soft treaty in exchange for countless atrocities and waging war against the Pacific.
In July 29 1905, Japan signed an agreement with the US not to get involved in the Phillipines - in 1941 they invaded them.
When the Japanese invaded Manchuria (a region in China) in 1932, the League of Nations (roughly equivalent to the UN) ordered them to leave. Instead, the Japanese ignored them and left the League.
That's not a track record I'd trust, myself. I guess if Hitler had promised never to invade another nation (er, that is ignoring all the promises he signed in the 1930s before he did, of course), you'd have been happy to end the war there?
This is, after all, a Japanese culture - fostered by a military (effective) dictatorship - that had been taught that all westerners were barbarians, that their emperor was a god, and that they had a duty to wage a 'holy war' against the Soviet Union and China. The very same people left in power (probably strengthed by 'fending off the barbarian Americans' as the propaganda would put it), no actual measures taken to prevent rearmament... sure, no possible threat could arise from them atall.
(all of which is a mooot point, probably, as the Soviets would doubtless have invaded Japan even if the US had pulled out)
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Yes, the part where you deny the legitimacy of any organization which dares to differ from your opinion. I'm well familiar with that attitude.
What a load of bull****. It seems to me the only one with that attitude here is you.
I've given you clear examples of how HAAG isn't treating Cro farely. How can anyone ask such a illogical and impossible thing? Or ask yoursef, why does she coonstatnly attakc CRO in every media, caliming that we do not wish to cooperate simply becosue we can't track Gotovins.. 1 general who even isn't in CRO.
Or how about dissmisall of some evidence or accepting it after several years only?
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As for hte A-bomb thing:
What the hell could the Japanese do in 1 day against superior US firepower? You forget the Japan was under siege.
And doing the right (good) thing often requires sacrifice. Yes, I would try to negotiate piece even at the cost of my life. and I doubt even tha japanses were that dumb - that would bring the full wrath ofteh US against them - not a single city would be left standing. Not to mention the code of honor of the Japanese.
And you forget, I newver said SURRENDER. I would sacrifice war reparations for immediate piece. Why wouldn't Japan accept that?
It's an honorable way out of the war and very mild vcompared to what a real surrender would do to them.
And Japan would be warned of the chiefs cammon and reprocussions of an attack.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
What a load of bull****. It seems to me the only one with that attitude here is you.
I've given you clear examples of how HAAG isn't treating Cro farely. How can anyone ask such a illogical and impossible thing? Or ask yoursef, why does she coonstatnly attakc CRO in every media, caliming that we do not wish to cooperate simply becosue we can't track Gotovins.. 1 general who even isn't in CRO.
Or how about dissmisall of some evidence or accepting it after several years only?
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You see, you're doing it again.
Hmm. You seem a bit uptight about this.
I would guess if the Hague was 'attacking' Croatia in the media, it would be for not handing over a suspected war criminal who was believed to still be within the country. Given that the Hague will have access to various intelligence from UN member nations, it's not entirely unfair to suggest they might have some evidence for this belief.
Originally posted by TrashMan
As for hte A-bomb thing:
What the hell could the Japanese do in 1 day against superior US firepower? You forget the Japan was under siege.
Well, surely you're not giving the Japanese 1 day to surrender? I mean, after all it took them over a week to surrender after the somewhat significant impetus of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
Also, the point being that the US could not have known the stage of the Japanese atomic program, nor made the assumption that they wouldn't either a) somehow survive long enough to build one or b) build one during this purported 'peace' period. Generally speaking, if you show an enemy or even ally a weapon, they'll want one at some point. Post-ceasefire, you'd have a Japan led by the same militaristic leaders, with the same expansionist ambitions and belief in manifest destiny to 'Japanify' Asia, except now who knew they could build a superweapon (especially as the US couldn't prove the A-bomb existed with simply video; they'd have to give a degree of information for Japan to prove to themselfs such a thing could exist)
Not to mention the military value of surprise. The US only had 2 deployable weapons, had the Japanese evacuated the cities or shifted around enough of their logistics (plus of course strengthened AAF to attack even single aircraft), they could have absorbed enough of the impact to continue fighting. Plus the scientists couldn't be 100% sure the bomb would work when dropped; even the technician who armed the bomb on the Enola Gay admitted he didn't really expect it to go off.
Remember that the Japanese were holding back their remaining aircraft in anticipation of an invasion, too; if they knew of an a-bomb, they'd probably have put those into play. In that case, it's possible the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks could have failed, as both were performed by single bombers.
Japan wasn't completely under seige, anyways. The US had already concluded it was logistically impossible to completely blockade the Pacific during the planning process for Operation Downfall; some of the troops moved to Japan in preperation for that invasion actually came from the frontlines in China.
Originally posted by TrashMan
And doing the right (good) thing often requires sacrifice. Yes, I would try to negotiate piece even at the cost of my life. and I doubt even tha japanses were that dumb - that would bring the full wrath ofteh US against them - not a single city would be left standing. Not to mention the code of honor of the Japanese.
The Japanese code of honour? What, the same one that allowed them to enslave hundreds of thousands as POWs across the Pacific, that saw women taken off to be sex slaves for occupying troops, experimentation of biological weapons upon civillians by unit 731, the murder of injured Australian POWs in Parit Sulong (150 men who were tied up with wire, machine gunned, set on fire and then ran over repeatedly by trucks), the Baatan death march (70,000 emaciated POWs forced to mark 100km, with stragglers being executed and the rest denied food or water for days on end), the murder of 22 nurses in the Banka Island massacre, and the rape of Nanking (20 -up to 80,000 chinese women from 7 to elderly aged were raped, forced incest with boys forced to rape their mothers, and the murder of thousands of civillians considered of fighting age)?
Yes, I'm sure you'd want to trust their honour.
Do you really thing the Japanese would trust the word of the US? That they'd believe an enemy who was so desperate to end the war as to send their supreme commander would still have the ability to even inflict that much damage? If you want to force the enemy to surrender, the last thing you do is show that sort weakness and desperation.
Hell, even with Truman personally flying in (through some miracle of stupidity and AAF incompetence, i presume), it doesn't mean the Japanese would have surrendered anyways - after all, the military controlling the country didn't want to surrent post Nagasaki, and the only reason they did was that the Emperor ordered them to (having seen the inevitable destruction of the country and realised it was worth the risk of a coup as he'd otherwise lose power anyways).
Not to mention the full wrath of the US was already upon them.
Originally posted by TrashMan
And you forget, I newver said SURRENDER. I would sacrifice war reparations for immediate piece. Why wouldn't Japan accept that?
It's an honorable way out of the war and very mild vcompared to what a real surrender would do to them.
They might accept it, in order to preserve their powerbase (i.e. keep the militarists with a long history of imperialism in power) and then rebuild for future expansion. Hence why such a surrender would never be offered by the US.
Of course, on the other hand, 1000 officers tried to storm the palace and kill the emperor after accepting surrender under threat of the entire country being flattened by nuclear weapons, as it was so unacceptable. Perhaps had there not been a somewhat visible demonstration that they would not only not win the war, but not even be able to kill the enemy on the beaches as expected, there would have been more support for such a coup?
That's completely ignoring the domestic political unacceptability (within the US) of such an offer, of course. (Or the fact the Russians simply wouldn't care and probably attack anyways).
Originally posted by TrashMan
And Japan would be warned of the chiefs cammon and reprocussions of an attack.
Presumably you'd threaten to nuke them?
I'm sure threatening them with a bomb that can destroy a city and be carried by a single plane will be a great incentive for them to ignore a single plane flying over their capital.
Or would you say 'don't shoot our plane or we'll keep bombing you'? i'm sure that'd sound so convincing to the Japanese military.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
Signing of a peace (non-aggreasion) treay (with no conditions except the release of prisoners of war). I wouldn't ask anything else from them.
Cause that worked out so well for Neville Chamberlain that the Americans would think it definately worth trying :rolleyes:
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Originally posted by aldo_14
You see, you're doing it again.
Hmm. You seem a bit uptight about this.
I would guess if the Hague was 'attacking' Croatia in the media, it would be for not handing over a suspected war criminal who was believed to still be within the country. Given that the Hague will have access to various intelligence from UN member nations, it's not entirely unfair to suggest they might have some evidence for this belief.
And those sources are, as Carla once said on a press conference, some croatian newspapers. What she didn't mention is that it was two worst TABLOIDS that in the samme issue allso wrote that Britney Spears is having tripplets, that Jack Nicholson has bought a croatian island and that Michael Jackson has been using some prototype drungs and that's why he's in such aa bad shape...
Besides, assuming he is in Cro. then she should prove it insted of flinging accusations. And again and again you are avoiding the issue of her asking our governmet to prove he is not in croatia!!!
Post-ceasefire, you'd have a Japan led by the same militaristic leaders, with the same expansionist ambitions and belief in manifest destiny to 'Japanify' Asia, except now who knew they could build a superweapon (especially as the US couldn't prove the A-bomb existed with simply video; they'd have to give a degree of information for Japan to prove to themselfs such a thing could exist)
Not to mention the military value of surprise. The US only had 2 deployable weapons, had the Japanese evacuated the cities or shifted around enough of their logistics (plus of course strengthened AAF to attack even single aircraft), they could have absorbed enough of the impact to continue fighting. Plus the scientists couldn't be 100% sure the bomb would work when dropped; even the technician who armed the bomb on the Enola Gay admitted he didn't really expect it to go off.
Well, maby showing them the A-bomb would be a bad move, but one fact still remains. Japan is an island power with no naval power left. The USA whad the mightiest navy the world has ever seen.
In order for Japan to continue it's expansion it needed naval power. It's forces in China needed supplies and relief. And not to mention the russians were coming from that direction - and tehy beace a military powerhouse by that time.
As long as USA was watching them, they couldn't do nothing. One of the reasons they went in to war is oil. And they had no source left after the usa and russias push. And you can't build a working navy without oil..
Do you really thing the Japanese would trust the word of the US? That they'd believe an enemy who was so desperate to end the war as to send their supreme commander would still have the ability to even inflict that much damage? If you want to force the enemy to surrender, the last thing you do is show that sort weakness and desperation.
Desparate or self-confident? It might have the opposite effect.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
And those sources are, as Carla once said on a press conference, some croatian newspapers. What she didn't mention is that it was two worst TABLOIDS that in the samme issue allso wrote that Britney Spears is having tripplets, that Jack Nicholson has bought a croatian island and that Michael Jackson has been using some prototype drungs and that's why he's in such aa bad shape...
Besides, assuming he is in Cro. then she should prove it insted of flinging accusations. And again and again you are avoiding the issue of her asking our governmet to prove he is not in croatia!!!
Well, maby showing them the A-bomb would be a bad move, but one fact still remains. Japan is an island power with no naval power left. The USA whad the mightiest navy the world has ever seen.
In order for Japan to continue it's expansion it needed naval power. It's forces in China needed supplies and relief. And not to mention the russians were coming from that direction - and tehy beace a military powerhouse by that time.
As long as USA was watching them, they couldn't do nothing. One of the reasons they went in to war is oil. And they had no source left after the usa and russias push. And you can't build a working navy without oil..
Desparate or self-confident? It might have the opposite effect.
Questions:
How are American celebraites related to the topic of WWII that have been discussed in the last week or so?
What is the point you're trying to make from the 'myth' of Japan Navy and oil?
I think you're pretty far off from the original discussion.
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There are now two threads: the topic shown in the thread name, and TrashMan's inappropriate use of (and subsequent tangent on) the Serb-Croat war. Trashman really has no argument besides "Because I say so" on either. This just keeps going because, well, I'm not really sure why. We can't let "I say so" win, I guess, on moral grounds. :rolleyes:
EDIT: sorry, I just can't resist this.
Originally posted by TrashMan
And you forget, I newver said SURRENDER. I would sacrifice war reparations for immediate piece. Why wouldn't Japan accept that?
It's an honorable way out of the war and very mild vcompared to what a real surrender would do to them.
Ok, so history lesson time. How were the costs on Japan for surrender higher than those of prolonging the war under siege? Well, they weren't. Truman pressured the allies to not only forgive Japan of the costs of the war (as in, no reparations) but even went out of his way to see that Japan and Germany recieved money and support to rebuild. The whole point was not to make them pay for a catastrophic war that they caused, it was to see that such a war would never happen again. Now fair enough, we're looking at what the leadership of those nations would have anticipated at the time, or we should be. But then, if you're going to apply that to the other options, we have to apply it to the option that was utilized (A-bomb). You can't get around that. And yet you make hypothetical suggestions that aren't really backed up by the historical record, while ignoring the facts and the situations that led to the decision that WAS made. I'm sorry, but you are wrong. If anyone else here cares to digress and take your stance, please let them speak.
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Originally posted by TrashMan
And those sources are, as Carla once said on a press conference, some croatian newspapers. What she didn't mention is that it was two worst TABLOIDS that in the samme issue allso wrote that Britney Spears is having tripplets, that Jack Nicholson has bought a croatian island and that Michael Jackson has been using some prototype drungs and that's why he's in such aa bad shape...
Besides, assuming he is in Cro. then she should prove it insted of flinging accusations. And again and again you are avoiding the issue of her asking our governmet to prove he is not in croatia!!!
I said intelligence sources, not newspapers. That would be the intelligence services and diplomatic contacts of member nations of the UN.
For example, in one briefing Del Ponte cited General Philippe Rondot of French intelligence as being involved in trying to track down Gotovina. As you probably know, Gotovina served in the French Foreign Legion and has a (as yet unused) French passport. There's also rumours of an MI6 operation named 'Cash' which attemped to track Gotovina within Croatia by pentrating his support network.
If Gotovina is a wanted war criminal and not in Croatia, why would the ICTY be so concerned over it? Your best reason for that appears to be allegations of bias and a persecution complex.
Originally posted by TrashMan
Well, maby showing them the A-bomb would be a bad move, but one fact still remains. Japan is an island power with no naval power left. The USA whad the mightiest navy the world has ever seen.
In order for Japan to continue it's expansion it needed naval power. It's forces in China needed supplies and relief. And not to mention the russians were coming from that direction - and tehy beace a military powerhouse by that time.
As long as USA was watching them, they couldn't do nothing. One of the reasons they went in to war is oil. And they had no source left after the usa and russias push. And you can't build a working navy without oil..
What makes you think the US had the military and logistical power to continue an indefinite blockade? After all, they couldn't even establish a complete blockade ('ring of steel') round Japan.
Not to mention the threat of the Soviets annexing China and even pushing further into europe; tieing up that many troops would be risking giving Russia the opportunity to expand. Hell, it's arguable that Yalta was in many ways a concession to Stalin because the US was shippping many of its troops off to the Pacific to fight - who can predict what would happen if Stalin knew those troops would be tied up for a long time and without the threat of the a-bomb on the table? It's certainly a big risk to take.
And if you decide it's fine to pull out and let the Russians continue fighting, how is that 'better'? We're still looking at millions dieing when the Russians inevitably push onto Japan, so how is that better than what transpired? (not only is that worse in terms of death and damage, it's worse in terms of geopolitics; Russia would probably become the most powerful nation on earth, and I'm not sure I'd want Stalin in that position)
Also, how are you going to deny Japan oil and materials that could be used to rearm without preventing the country from rebuilding? I mean, if you honestly believe this would lead to a lasting peace and tame the previously ultra-imperialist government, Japan would need to rebuild its infrastructure and indeed build ships to bring in food and soforth (to counter the effects of Operation Stavation). Or are you suggesting it be kept in a feudal level of technology?
Not to mention the possibility of a Chinese attack upon Japan (for revenge, for example); what would the US position be in that eventuality, having denied Japan the ability to defend itself?
Originally posted by TrashMan
Desparate or self-confident? It might have the opposite effect.
Self confident would mean they wouldn't feel the need to send a figurehead or sue for peace on terms which amounted to appeasement (a policy which failed to stop the war starting just 6 years ago...)
Either way it's a ****ing huge assumption and even larger tactical risk - how long do you think the Japanese would take to realise the President of the US might know a thing or two about the tactics to be used against Japan? (if you've been planning a major invasion that would cost hundreds of thousands of your own troops, you'd kind of need to inform the president why and what you're planning to get his consent)