[karajorma]

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.

[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.

[aldo_14]

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.

[karajorma]

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.

[vyper]

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.

[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...

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)

[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....

[karajorma]

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!

[aldo_14]

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?

[Black Wolf]

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!"

[karajorma]

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 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?

[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.

[StratComm]

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.

[aldo_14]

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.

[Singh]

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...

[karajorma]

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 you know

[Sandwich]

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. 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.

[karajorma]

Maybe you shouldn't have started your post with the words "TrashMan.....is pretty much correct" That's always a recipe for disaster 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?

[castor]

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?

[karajorma]

So what was A then?