Happy 70th Anniversary of Hiroshima Massacre

[Big Guy]

"Guys flying planes into battleships". That sure is enough to nuke them.

Wait, guys flying planes in to battleships is like guys packing dynamite blowing themselves up in enemy areas.

These are suicide bombers. Why are we wasting little bombs in Libya, Iraq and Syria?

Time to start nuking like we did those Japs!?!!!

Good grief!

[TimG]

I find the idea that we wipe out a quarter million Japanese civilians because we are doing them a favour as ludicrous. So we kill 250,000 of them because if we did not then we would have to kill more than 250,000 of them? This is a rational argument?

Actually it is a perfectly rational argument. The problem is you seem to think that wars can end without killing people. How do you think the US should acted? Simply ignored the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour because 'fighting would kill people'? Now, that _is_ a completely irrational argument. Edited August 6, 2015 by TimG

[Boges]

"Guys flying planes into battleships". That sure is enough to nuke them.

Wait, guys flying planes in to battleships is like guys packing dynamite blowing themselves up in enemy areas.

These are suicide bombers. Why are we wasting little bombs in Libya, Iraq and Syria?

Time to start nuking like we did those Japs!?!!!

Good grief!

How about dropping napalm on a city made of wood houses killing some 90,000 people in one night? That happened in WW2 as well.

Again how would you have handled the end of WW2 if you were in charge?

And every time you compare what happened in WW2 to modern conflicts it makes you look foolish.

Edited August 6, 2015 by Boges

[WestCoastRunner]

[quote name="Boges" post="1076650" timestamp="

And every time you compare what happened in WW2 to modern conflicts it makes you look foolish.

What is foolish is telling others to not examine and scrutinize historical events, especially this one. I'm no WWII expert but I'm sure there are plenty of individuals who would side with big guy. Unfortunately we don't have enough of a cross section of members to support him.

[bush_cheney2004]

Note how this was turned into another anti-Israel rant as well. Not so subtle....

[Derek 2.0]

"Guys flying planes into battleships". That sure is enough to nuke them.

Wait, guys flying planes in to battleships is like guys packing dynamite blowing themselves up in enemy areas.

These are suicide bombers. Why are we wasting little bombs in Libya, Iraq and Syria?

Time to start nuking like we did those Japs!?!!!

Good grief!

With the advent of smart munitions and modern targeting computers/sights, the prior requirement to use tactical nukes for many targets have been greatly reduced........In Libya/Iraq/Syria, if circa early to mid 70s, most static enforced targets in those conflicts would either have not been attacked, subjected to weeks & months of area bombing or nuked...............

[jacee]

What is foolish is telling others to not examine and scrutinize historical events, especially this one. I'm no WWII expert but I'm sure there are plenty of individuals who would side with big guy. Unfortunately we don't have enough of a cross section of members to support him.

-sigh-

...

When women assume their appropriate responsibility of protecting the earth for the coming generations ...

Things are gonna be different.

.

Edited August 6, 2015 by jacee

[bush_cheney2004]

Yeah....women have already aborted millions more people than were killed in WW2 atomic bombings.

[On Guard for Thee]

Impertinence looms, or should I say lurks, large.

[Boges]

What is foolish is telling others to not examine and scrutinize historical events, especially this one. I'm no WWII expert but I'm sure there are plenty of individuals who would side with big guy. Unfortunately we don't have enough of a cross section of members to support him.

If you don't think Nukes should have been used to end WW2 fine. It's a reasonable position to take.

But to compare it to the relatively penny annie conflicts we see today is hyperbole.

WW2 was so savage that any comparison to conflicts since is actually doing a disservice to the people that died back then. There's is no comparison, yet anyway.

We can probably thank Truman for that. Nukes aren't used today because we know how horrible a weapon they are, because they have been used in anger twice, and only twice.

[WestCoastRunner]

[quote name="Boges" post="1076675" timestamp=

We can probably thank Truman for that. Nukes aren't used today because we know how horrible a weapon they are, because they have been used in anger twice, and only twice.

So you are saying that nukes are used in a fit of anger and not a strategically planned assault?

[On Guard for Thee]

Might be an appropriate time to ask if anyone has seen The Fog of War.

[Boges]

So you are saying that nukes are used in a fit of anger and not a strategically planned assault?

It's a figure of Speech. Sheesh. Ever heard the term "shots fired in anger?"

Edited August 6, 2015 by Boges

[WestCoastRunner]

It's a figure of Speech. Sheesh. Ever heard the term "shots fired I'm anger?"

Sure. You didn't answer my question.

[kimmy]

Sure. You didn't answer my question.

Good grief, "shots fired in anger" is a figure of speech meaning "in active conflict". Nuclear weapons have been detonated many times, but only twice as an act of war. Every other time has been as a test or demonstration.

The decision to use nuclear weapons against Japan was hotly debated within the US government, and was not made lightly.

-k

Edited August 6, 2015 by kimmy

[overthere]

Might be an appropriate time to ask if anyone has seen The Fog of War.

Why, do you feel an overwhelming urge to derail the thread?

[kimmy]

I find the idea that we wipe out a quarter million Japanese civilians because we are doing them a favour as ludicrous. So we kill 250,000 of them because if we did not then we would have to kill more than 250,000 of them? This is a rational argument?

Go read about Operation Downfall.

Because that is what would have happened if Japan had not surrendered when they did.

The Americans were on the brink of launching would would have been the most ambitious and most devastating military assault in history.

The Americans were projecting to lose from 250,000 to over 500,000 American soldiers. The cost to the Japanese in military lives alone would have been multiple millions. The cost to Japan in civilian lives and destruction would have been utterly catastrophic. The United States was prepared to use not one, not two, but 7 more atomic bombs against Japan in the course of Operation Downfall. The devastation that would have befallen Japan would have been the most horrifying thing in human history.

Yes, Japan are extremely lucky that they surrendered when they did. If the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is what made up their minds, then they should put up a statue of President Truman in Tokyo.

-k

[On Guard for Thee]

Why, do you feel an overwhelming urge to derail the thread?

I'll take that as you haven't seen the movie.

[overthere]

What is foolish is telling others to not examine and scrutinize historical events, especially this one. I'm no WWII expert but I'm sure there are plenty of individuals who would side with big guy. Unfortunately we don't have enough of a cross section of members to support him.

No, that is fortunate. It indicates that the site has enough rational persons to assess the situation within the context of the war in the Pacific and not within a revisionist emotional analysis. I see that as a positive, you see it as a negative. Oh well.

[kimmy]

"Guys flying planes into battleships". That sure is enough to nuke them.

Wait, guys flying planes in to battleships is like guys packing dynamite blowing themselves up in enemy areas.

Japan did a lot more than crash a few airplanes into some ships, dude. Go read about Japan's actions during WWII, as well as their numerous other atrocities during the first half of the 20th century.

-k

[Derek 2.0]

Japan did a lot more than crash a few airplanes into some ships, dude. Go read about Japan's actions during WWII, as well as their numerous other atrocities during the first half of the 20th century.

-k

Right you are, nearly 20000 American and Filipino POWs died from the abuses handed out by the Japanese during the Bataan death march.....likewise, the Japanese slaughter of Chinese civilians in Nanking, in which more people died than both the Atomic strikes on Japan.......

[Ash74]

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/07/05/national/history/battle-saipan-brutal-invasion-claimed-55000-lives/#.VcLjRPkVi71

Japan did not believe in surrender. It took two nukes and the threat of more and still would only surrender if the Emperor was left in power.

It was a terrible time and I truly do not know how President Truman had the strength to make that decision. Leaders like him are far too rare

[TimG]

Good context from a war historian:

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2015/08/05/commentary/japan-commentary/seven-decades-without-nuclear-war/#.VcLkxiZVhBc

Truman had fought in World War I (he was the only major Allied war leader who did). Although he was not generally seen as an imaginative man, he would have been vividly aware of the ordeal that awaited American soldiers if they had to invade Japan. He would also have been conscious that the U.S. public would never forgive him if they found out that he had the bomb but didn’t use it to save those soldiers’ lives.

Frankly, I am sick and tired of people applying today's knowledge to judge decisions made by people in the past. Hindsight is 20/20 but when you are living through something things look quite different.

[Bonam]

To Bonam - the theory of "the end justifies the means" was the excuse for the Holocaust. Hitler wanted to rid Germany of the Jews, believed that the end (eradication) would justify the mass murders. So he did what he did.

Not really. The excuse for the Holocaust was Hitler's hatred of Jews (along with the similar hatred of Jews shared by many other Germans as well as throughout many other cultures in eastern Europe). The Holocaust was considered justified because Jews were considered subhuman, not because it was a regrettable means to a desirable end. The means WERE the end.

Edited August 6, 2015 by Bonam

[Bonam]

Frankly, I am sick and tired of people applying today's knowledge to judge decisions made by people in the past. Hindsight is 20/20 but when you are living through something things look quite different.

Indeed. In WWII, every participant in the war was scrambling madly to develop new weapons to use against their enemies. It was an existential war, not the kind of limited conflict that people think of today. Every new weapon developed was immediately used, by all sides. The atomic bomb was no different. If Japan had developed it first, you can be sure they would not have hesitated to use it, either. Its significance and ramifications were not realized until much later.