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At 8/7/05 11:43 PM, Empanado wrote: Alright, I can understand Hiroshima, but Nagasaki was, in my opinion, just cold-hearted bad-ass-ness. I just don't see the motive in the second nukeing.

Did they surrender after Hiroshima?

Do we have any evidence Hiroshima made them decide to surrender? Much less any that the US would have seen?

They needed to believe we were going to continue dropping bombs until they surrendered.

At 8/7/05 09:21 PM, seventy-one wrote:

Well, that was considered by survivors as an "army city", everywhere you look, you would see a soldier, they were teaching schoolgirls to kill invading americans. The US's first choice was Kyoto, but the secretary of war at the time liked the city and the temples, so they went to the next logical choice, Hiroshima.

I'm aware of that, but the fact remains that Hiroshima was not a military target. There were many cities in Europe during the second World War that were heavily populated, but had an even larger military presence than Hiroshima. These cities however were not indiscriminantly wiped out.

At 8/8/05 04:15 AM, Jimsween wrote:

That made quite possible the least sense of anything I've heard in a long time. First off My Lai was a south vietnamese city, so it wouldn't really demoralize the Vietcong. And it was not at all done to end the war quicker or demoralize the Vietcong, it was done out of anger and because of confusion in orders.

Also, a larger scale would only help to justify it, you demoralize much more if you kill much more.

...That's exactly the point I was making in my post. Note the part where I said in nature , this implies that the motivation and ethical implications of this event are comparable to those of Hiroshima.

Only if we dropped it on Poland, directly on Auschwitz. Apperantly I made a mistake in assuming you would know how an atomic bomb works, it doesn't destroy an entire country, it doesn't even destroy an entire city, it's just a very large bomb.

You seem to lack the capacity to infer from the things I type. And dropping it on Auschwitz? The result being you kill several Nazi soldiers, hundreds of Jews, and destroy a relatively basic concentration camp. Auschwitz wasn't the only death camp, and they could just have easily constructed more. Such a target would not require an atomic bomb anyway, it's really only a few sheds and houses, plus the Nazis didn't exactly broadcast the locations of these places.
Destroying Auschwitz would ultimately accomplish nothing, and doing so with the A-bomb would be a complete waste of life and resources.

Where is your evidence that it was made as a snap judgement? We had the bomb some 7 months before we dropped it.

You missed the point (again). I was refering to the way you instantly made the decision that it would have been a good idea to nuke areas of Germany/Poland in an attempt to advert the holocaust, when in fact I have just explained why it would be a terrible idea to do so.

Hmm, nope still makes no sense. He said that was imperialism, and it wasn't at all. Don't try and make an idiot sound reasonable, your just going to make yourself look like an idiot in the process.

The problem here being that you take everything at face value. Learn to read between the lines.

I think your mistaken, my argument is that it was right to drop the bomb, not that people should be able to say stupid shit without anyone calling them an idiot.

And that pretty much lowers my opinion of the substance of your arguments even more. When people run out of substantial material, they tend to resort to insults.

At 8/8/05 06:50 AM, -TheDoctor- wrote: ...That's exactly the point I was making in my post. Note the part where I said in nature , this implies that the motivation and ethical implications of this event are comparable to those of Hiroshima.

Thats not at all what you said? What the hell is wrong with you?

I clearly noted how My Lai was different from Hiroshima because it was done for no strategic warfare purposes and could not at all help to end the war. I can't believe how you could have missed that.

You seem to lack the capacity to infer from the things I type. And dropping it on Auschwitz? The result being you kill several Nazi soldiers, hundreds of Jews, and destroy a relatively basic concentration camp. Auschwitz wasn't the only death camp, and they could just have easily constructed more. Such a target would not require an atomic bomb anyway, it's really only a few sheds and houses, plus the Nazis didn't exactly broadcast the locations of these place

Destroying Auschwitz would ultimately accomplish nothing, and doing so with the A-bomb would be a complete waste of life and resources.

Wow, okay, I guess I didn't realize I was talking to a pile of sludge, I thought it was a human being capable of thought.

There were not death camps in Germany, and the only way we could end up killing the victims of the holocaust is by bombing specific camps, not by bombing a city.

I never said they should bomb Auschwitz you idiot, if your not even going to try to read things dont bother posting.

You missed the point (again). I was refering to the way you instantly made the decision that it would have been a good idea to nuke areas of Germany/Poland in an attempt to advert the holocaust, when in fact I have just explained why it would be a terrible idea to do so.

I didn't dumbass. Learn to read. I said dropped a bomb on Germany, I never said on concentration camps.

The problem here being that you take everything at face value. Learn to read between the lines.

So what your saying is that when people say things, I shouldn't interpret what they say as what they meant. I should look for the invisible words that don't really exist and try to interpret those... ahh.. I see.. hmm... no wait... no... thats retarded.

And that pretty much lowers my opinion of the substance of your arguments even more. When people run out of substantial material, they tend to resort to insults.

That trite phrase would have been more pertinent if I wasn't presenting tons of 'substantial material' (substantive?) already. The difference is, I'm proving you wrong, and calling you an idiot, two seperate things.

Which, in the end, would make you the one trying to win your argument without offering substantive material, by claiming my argument is bad because I also am calling you an idiot. Sad, really.

At 8/7/05 05:19 PM, LegendaryLukus wrote: I don't think you can say it was a good thing, but probably a necessary evil. It ended the Second World War and made sure that many more werent lost in the invasion.
It was also dropped as a sign of the military dominance of the US, but I doubt that was much comfort to the innocent people who died that day

A third World War maybe started by a nuke a end with a better weapon than a nuke.

Watching a drama-doc last night (by the way, the pilot of the Enola Gay is a psychopath in waiting and sleeps at night by telling himself the same lies every ten minutes), the fact is that if the US invaded Japan it would've been a lot easier than made out - there was little food supplies so most of the population were weak and, therefore, unable to fight against an invading army that was well-fed and far better motivated due to recently sinking most of the Japanese navy and invading a hell of a lot of islands on the way.

Then again, there was also the insinuation that, because the Japanese were using suicide bombers, the only way to beat that is nuke them. Anyone want to tell the population of Bagdhad this?

At 8/8/05 07:11 AM, Jimsween wrote:

Thats not at all what you said? What the hell is wrong with you?

Let's take a look shall we:

Also, a larger scale would only help to justify it, you demoralize much more if you kill much more.

-Exactly the point I was making.

I clearly noted how My Lai was different from Hiroshima because it was done for no strategic warfare purposes and could not at all help to end the war.

You're not listening. For the third time: it is similar in nature. A breach of the rules of war resulting in the deaths of many innocents, fueled in part by a hatred towards the enemy. My Lai was not the only case of this happenning. Often it was due to Vietcong presence in villages, leading American soldiers to kill the entire population (or most of it), although they had no substantial grounds on which to justify such an act. The only difference in principal is that Hiroshima had strategic value.

I never said they should bomb Auschwitz you idiot, if your not even going to try to read things dont bother posting.

Hmm, there seems to be some confusion about this matter:

Only if we dropped it on Poland, directly on Auschwitz.

This was after I had challenged your view that the A-bomb could have been used to prevent the holocaust. If you meant something different then you should have made it clear.

I didn't dumbass. Learn to read. I said dropped a bomb on Germany, I never said on concentration camps.

And how would that help the situation hmm? You would still kill thousands of innocents, likely a lot more than died as a result of the holocaust.

So what your saying is that when people say things, I shouldn't interpret what they say as what they meant. I should look for the invisible words that don't really exist and try to interpret those... ahh.. I see.. hmm... no wait... no... thats retarded.

Clearly you don't have a clue how this concept works, or how to implement it into a debate.

That trite phrase would have been more pertinent if I wasn't presenting tons of 'substantial material' (substantive?) already. The difference is, I'm proving you wrong, and calling you an idiot, two seperate things.

Which makes you seem incredibly arrogant. Arrogant people tend not to listen. One day you might learn that insulting people and denying the possibility that you might be wrong generally doesn't get you very far in life.

Which, in the end, would make you the one trying to win your argument without offering substantive material, by claiming my argument is bad because I also am calling you an idiot. Sad, really.

Again, you seem to lack the capacity to grasp what I'm trying to explain. If you can't be civil and discuss things like an adult, then you really shouldn't be debating issues like this. I think a lot of the things you have said are wrong, but do I assume you are an idiot? No. You make decent points, I'm not denying that, but just because I disagree with them is no sound basis for making the judgement that you are a fool.
I only ask that I can have a decent discussion without some obnoxious individual insulting me at every given opportunity.

At 8/7/05 08:17 PM, Jimsween wrote:

At 8/7/05 06:30 PM, Gingerwarrior wrote:

I disagree with killing so many people entirely, but the Japanesse wouldn't have given up if they weren't bombed until they were all dead,

Yeah, wait.... No they did give up. That kind of throws your theory out the window.

Let me re-phrase that, they would not have given up until they were all dead, unless they were bombed

but even worse is the pilot siad he'd do it again even though the war was over, what a murderous bastard!

Saying you would do it all again is a common phrase meaning in the same situation you would have done it, hes not saying he would go bomb Japan now, he is saying even after knowing the consequences he still would have done it.

LOL, i've never taken that phrase the wrong way b4.
But he also said he enjoyed it apparently, i'm not sure on that one.

At 8/8/05 08:37 AM, D2KVirus wrote: Watching a drama-doc last night (by the way, the pilot of the Enola Gay is a psychopath in waiting and sleeps at night by telling himself the same lies every ten minutes),

yeh i saw that. I have to say it probably had a big impact upon everyone who watched it. note that the people interviewed who were involved in the mission were probably trying to convince themselves, as well as the rest of us

You really have little grasp on history. Being that you're only 16 and probably the product of public school, this really doesn't suprise me.

At 8/8/05 04:25 AM, Jimsween wrote: Prove to me that the civilian populations were targetted. We dropped a huge ass bomb, on a city dedicated to plane and tank production with many military personell in it. And we also dropped leaflets warning the civilian population.

Hiroshima was a city of very little military value. They had a very small contingent of soldiers there and a handful of small industries. Essentially, it was akin to nuking NYC. Americans have been repeatedly told that the bomb saved a half-million, even a million, American lives or casualties. This is horseshit. American military planners officially estimated that an invasion of the Japanese mainland would cost 20,000 to 46,000 casualties. Those figures were then increased in postwar justifications into the millions by Truman in justification for using the atom bomb.

"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender.... My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages...wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."
Fleet Adm. William Leahy, Chief of Staff to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman

As far as US imperialism, you can see examples of that, blatent examples in regards to our policies in Latin America as you can see US violations of the Geneva Convention. Most notably our actions in Nicaragua.

Thats really great, but how does this have anything to do with Japan?

And at that, every one of those actions can be written off as defense against the Soviet Union.

Written off as defense against the Soviets? You need to hit the books, son. Our actions in Latin America, terroristic by the definition put forth by our current president, were more to thwart democracy than to prevent Soviet meddling. You're getting good at proving your ignorance kid. Keep it up!

All I know is that Hiroshima was a city that had been left relatively untouched by American bomb runs. Perhaps if we had waited a week or two before dropping the second atomic bomb, the Japanese would have surrendered because of seeing the horrible effect of radiation poisoning. Then again maybe not, it's all history.

It was a stupid thing for Truman to say that ordering the atomic bombing was "no big thing."

I KNOW an order is "no big thing," but it's still dumb to say things like that.

The reason we dropped the bombs in such quick succession was because we wanted to make the Japanese think that se had a large amount of these weapons stored away and that we were willing to bomb city after city if they didn't surrender. The tactic worked obviously because they surrendered after the second bomb was dropped.

At 8/8/05 10:14 AM, LegendaryLukus wrote:

Watching a drama-doc last night (by the way, the pilot of the Enola Gay is a psychopath in waiting and sleeps at night by telling himself the same lies every ten minutes),

What lies?

At 8/8/05 08:37 AM, D2KVirus wrote:

yeh i saw that. I have to say it probably had a big impact upon everyone who watched it.

Is that the discovery channel one?

At 8/8/05 09:02 AM, -TheDoctor- wrote:

-Exactly the point I was making.

And what happened to-

"It's not so different in nature to when American soldiers slaughtered entire villages in Vietnam."

You're not listening. For the third time: it is similar in nature. A breach of the rules of war resulting in the deaths of many innocents, fueled in part by a hatred towards the enemy. My Lai was not the only case of this happenning. Often it was due to Vietcong presence in villages, leading American soldiers to kill the entire population (or most of it), although they had no substantial grounds on which to justify such an act. The only difference in principal is that Hiroshima had strategic value.

There is absoltely no evidence that Hiroshima was fueled because of hate of the Japanese.

Hmm, there seems to be some confusion about this matter:

Only if we dropped it on Poland, directly on Auschwitz.

This was after I had challenged your view that the A-bomb could have been used to prevent the holocaust. If you meant something different then you should have made it clear.

No, I was referring to you saying that we would kill the victims of the holocaust too. Only if we were to drop the bomb directly on Auschwitz.

And how would that help the situation hmm? You would still kill thousands of innocents, likely a lot more than died as a result of the holocaust.

Hmm.. no. 6 million died in the holocaust. If we dropped a nuke on Berlin in 1943 we would have only killed at the very maximum 1 million germans.

Clearly you don't have a clue how this concept works, or how to implement it into a debate.

No I know exactly how it works. Youre pretending that he isn't an idiot and twisting the dumbass things he said into something more tolerable.

Which makes you seem incredibly arrogant. Arrogant people tend not to listen. One day you might learn that insulting people and denying the possibility that you might be wrong generally doesn't get you very far in life.

So your now using generalizations about my charachter to prove yourself right. That would still be avoiding debate.

Again, you seem to lack the capacity to grasp what I'm trying to explain. If you can't be civil and discuss things like an adult, then you really shouldn't be debating issues like this. I think a lot of the things you have said are wrong, but do I assume you are an idiot? No. You make decent points, I'm not denying that, but just because I disagree with them is no sound basis for making the judgement that you are a fool.
I only ask that I can have a decent discussion without some obnoxious individual insulting me at every given opportunity.

"you seem to lack the capacity to grasp what I'm trying to explain"

"You're a moron"

I contend, there is no difference.

I did not insult you, I insulted the idiot who said Hiroshima was about imperialism. I only insulted you when you tried to defend his idiocy.

At 8/8/05 11:44 AM, yellowsmoke wrote: You really have little grasp on history. Being that you're only 16 and probably the product of public school, this really doesn't suprise me.

Hmm... nope I can't seem to find any excuse for your idiocy. That sucks.

Hiroshima was a city of very little military value. They had a very small contingent of soldiers there and a handful of small industries. Essentially, it was akin to nuking NYC. Americans have been repeatedly told that the bomb saved a half-million, even a million, American lives or casualties. This is horseshit. American military planners officially estimated that an invasion of the Japanese mainland would cost 20,000 to 46,000 casualties. Those figures were then increased in postwar justifications into the millions by Truman in justification for using the atom bomb.

First off, sources?

Second, Hiroshima is the headquarters of the 5 division, it most certainly had military value. Large parts of it were designated as military zones. And it was an important port.

And third, it wouldn't matter how goodof a military target it was, only that it was a military target. A war crime can't be designated by how reckless an attack was, only if it was directly targeting civilians.

And the fact that leaflets were dropped alone proves civilians were not targeted.

"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender.... My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages...wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."
Fleet Adm. William Leahy, Chief of Staff to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman

So your basing your argument off of one guys opinion? They did not even surrender after the first bomb, there is absolutely no evidence that they were going to surrender beforehand.

Written off as defense against the Soviets? You need to hit the books, son. Our actions in Latin America, terroristic by the definition put forth by our current president, were more to thwart democracy than to prevent Soviet meddling. You're getting good at proving your ignorance kid. Keep it up!

We never once took action against a democracy in Latin America. It was always against dictatorial powers, espescially those that favored the Soviets or Cubans.

Oh, and what happened to you arguing that it was a war crime? Hmm?

At 8/8/05 10:07 AM, Gingerwarrior wrote: LOL, i've never taken that phrase the wrong way b4.
But he also said he enjoyed it apparently, i'm not sure on that one.

Where are you getting this from, then?

At 8/8/05 08:37 AM, D2KVirus wrote: the fact is that if the US invaded Japan it would've been a lot easier than made out - there was little food supplies so most of the population were weak and, therefore, unable to fight against an invading army that was well-fed and far better motivated due to recently sinking most of the Japanese navy and invading a hell of a lot of islands on the way.

And they were just bursting with food in Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, and Okinawa. Right?

I mean, it's not as if we saw any casualties there. And we were facing tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers, fighting 7 million would be so much easier.

At 8/8/05 10:05 PM, Jimsween wrote:

At 8/8/05 11:44 AM, yellowsmoke wrote: You really have little grasp on history. Being that you're only 16 and probably the product of public school, this really doesn't suprise me.

Hmm... nope I can't seem to find any excuse for your idiocy. That sucks.

Boy, children these days... good retort kiddo.

Hiroshima was a city of very little military value. They had a very small contingent of soldiers there and a handful of small industries. Essentially, it was akin to nuking NYC. Americans have been repeatedly told that the bomb saved a half-million, even a million, American lives or casualties. This is horseshit. American military planners officially estimated that an invasion of the Japanese mainland would cost 20,000 to 46,000 casualties. Those figures were then increased in postwar justifications into the millions by Truman in justification for using the atom bomb.

First off, sources?

Look em up kiddo. They're not hard to find.

Second, Hiroshima is the headquarters of the 5 division, it most certainly had military value. Large parts of it were designated as military zones. And it was an important port.

Not really but okay.

And third, it wouldn't matter how goodof a military target it was, only that it was a military target. A war crime can't be designated by how reckless an attack was, only if it was directly targeting civilians.

Hiroshima was an attack on a civilian population. Thats why it was chosen. If you understood your history, you'd realize that very early on during WWII people pretty much gave up on protecting civilian populations.

And the fact that leaflets were dropped alone proves civilians were not targeted.

See, if you had half a brain cell you'd do some research and realize that the leaflets were dropped roughly 12 hours before the bomb was dropped. Yep, that proves your point that civilians wern't targetted.

"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender.... My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages...wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."
Fleet Adm. William Leahy, Chief of Staff to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman

So your basing your argument off of one guys opinion? They did not even surrender after the first bomb, there is absolutely no evidence that they were going to surrender beforehand.

Hmmm, one guy eh... he was only the Chief of Staff to two presidents. Thats basically what Karl Rove is to George W.

Written off as defense against the Soviets? You need to hit the books, son. Our actions in Latin America, terroristic by the definition put forth by our current president, were more to thwart democracy than to prevent Soviet meddling. You're getting good at proving your ignorance kid. Keep it up!

We never once took action against a democracy in Latin America. It was always against dictatorial powers, espescially those that favored the Soviets or Cubans.

Actually, we took action against elected administrations that had communistic ideals. IE, countries that elected their people, but didn't elect a fascist administration that bowed to US policy. Basically, once control was in the hands of the working class, we stepped in because we realized that we couldn't take advantage of the governments that were in place.

again, kiddo, you're a twit.

Were to beg in were to begin?

At 8/8/05 11:44 AM, yellowsmoke wrote: You really have little grasp on history. Being that you're only 16 and probably the product of public school, this really doesn't suprise me.

At 8/8/05 04:25 AM, Jimsween wrote: Prove to me that the civilian populations were targetted. We dropped a huge ass bomb, on a city dedicated to plane and tank production with many military personell in it. And we also dropped leaflets warning the civilian population.

Hiroshima was a city of very little military value. They had a very small contingent of soldiers there and a handful of small industries. Essentially, it was akin to nuking NYC. Americans have been repeatedly told that the bomb saved a half-million, even a million, American lives or casualties. This is horseshit. American military planners officially estimated that an invasion of the Japanese mainland would cost 20,000 to 46,000 casualties. Those figures were then increased in postwar justifications into the millions by Truman in justification for using the atom bomb.

Well hear's a good place to start. We'll begin on whether or it was a viable target. Hiroshima contained a large civilian population, and when a civilain population has sworn that it is prepared to fight with whatever they can get their hands on, this means by killing them you just elimated a large opposing force. That's a good thing when your in a war. Also this is known as total warfare the Japanese used this tactic against China, so this is all fair play to them. And this also would have a devestaing effect to see a whole city destroyed. Secondly historians and military tacticains have come to the conclusion that it would have taken at least the lives of 1/2 million Americanss if we were to invade. And don't go citing what the military planners numbers were before the invasion they're nitorus for underestimating what actual casualties would be take a look at Iwo Jima and the Battle for Okinawa if you want evidence of this.

"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender.... My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages...wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."
Fleet Adm. William Leahy, Chief of Staff to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman

Ah yes a quote from Admiral Leahy who was far removed from the war in the pacific. if the dropping of the bomb was really that objeciable how come we hear nothing from General McArthur or Admiral Nimitz? The truth is that dropping the bomb was adviasable it saved not only many American lives, but the lives of many Japanese who would have died in the invasion.

At 8/9/05 12:31 AM, Blackhawkdown wrote: Were to beg in were to begin?
And this also would have a devestaing effect to see a whole city destroyed. Secondly historians and military tacticains have come to the conclusion that it would have taken at least the lives of 1/2 million Americanss if we were to invade. And don't go citing what the military planners numbers were before the invasion they're nitorus for underestimating what actual casualties would be take a look at Iwo Jima and the Battle for Okinawa if you want evidence of this.

Actually, historians didn't come to the conclusion... Thats figures Truman used after the war to justify his actions. A bit of US propaganda if you will. something the population is prone to believe... even today.

At 8/9/05 12:41 AM, yellowsmoke wrote:

Actually, historians didn't come to the conclusion... Thats figures Truman used after the war to justify his actions. A bit of US propaganda if you will. something the population is prone to believe... even today.

It's not a biased number if you think about it, because every man, woman, and child was ready to kill any invaders, I'd say that that number is a little low.

Hey yellowsmoke, since you seem to be so dead-set against the US's nuking of Japan. . . do you think if Japan, or Germany, had developed the capability to incinerate an entire city, they would? Keep in mind who made the first blatant assault on who's soil.

At 8/8/05 08:26 PM, seventy-one wrote:

At 8/8/05 10:14 AM, LegendaryLukus wrote:

Watching a drama-doc last night (by the way, the pilot of the Enola Gay is a psychopath in waiting and sleeps at night by telling himself the same lies every ten minutes),

What lies?

i dont recall saying that. i think you have mine and d2k quotes mixed up.

At 8/8/05 09:48 PM, Jimsween wrote:

And what happened to-

"It's not so different in nature to when American soldiers slaughtered entire villages in Vietnam."

Alright, let's start from the beginning:
I stated that peasant village massacres were similar in nature to Hiroshima. That the killing of civilians could be justified as a means to demoralise the enemy. I went on to say that this was not the case in Vietnam, as such relatively small and isolated incidents could never be justified, the fact remains though that the American government could have tried to justify these events in the same way they did Hiroshima, but they were sensible, and therefore didn't. You said that an event would have to be on a large scale to have any considerable effect, which was the same thing I mentioned. The nature of the two events is comparable in this way, although the motivation for Hiroshima can be justified to a considerable extent.

There is absoltely no evidence that Hiroshima was fueled because of hate of the Japanese.

Other than the sudden nature of the attack, relative lack of warning about the full extent of what would happen, and the fact that Japan used tactics such as suicide bombing and torture during the war. Interviews with the crew of the Enola Gay show that soldiers had very low opinions of the Japanese at the time, many hated them due to their methods of warfare, and events like Pearl Harbour. Let us not also forget that the USA is a patriotic nation by nature. There is no concrete proof, but suffice to say it's unlikely the motives to drop the bomb were strictly impersonal.

No, I was referring to you saying that we would kill the victims of the holocaust too. Only if we were to drop the bomb directly on Auschwitz.

Ah, thank you for clarifying that.

Hmm.. no. 6 million died in the holocaust. If we dropped a nuke on Berlin in 1943 we would have only killed at the very maximum 1 million germans.

If you had a time machine, then that's all very well. But at the time there was no way of knowing what the long-term effects of such an action might be, plus the true extent of the holocaust was not known until after/at the end of the war. There are too many "what if's" in a situation like that to justify the decision at the time.
If the motivation was to bring about an end to the war, then it makes sense, but the holocaust was too much of a grey area at the time to make a decision like that based what you have said.

So your now using generalizations about my charachter to prove yourself right. That would still be avoiding debate.

I was merely stating that your persona makes me doubt some of your arguments. I can't help it if I feel that way, but that's the kind of impression you give when debating the way you have been. You really have no one to blame but yourself for that one.

"you seem to lack the capacity to grasp what I'm trying to explain"

"You're a moron"

I contend, there is no difference.

Not understanding a specific point is being a moron? Now you are starting to read between the lines in the wrong places. I do not think you are a moron.

I did not insult you... I only insulted you when you tried to defend his idiocy.

Yes... well I think we can leave it at that. This discission has gone way off track, to the point of being somewhat trivial. My original point was that more warning should have been given to Japan and it's citizens, preferable in a demonstration of the A-bomb beforehand. Albeit, this would have had very little effect on the situation, given what we know, but the fact that America hardly even tried is what I find appalling. For me the bomb would have been a very last resort, if anything the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at least deserved to know exactly what was going to happen.

I close my debating here by saying that I think Hiroshima was the right decision, I just don't approve of how the US approached the situation.

At 8/8/05 04:15 AM, Jimsween wrote:

At 8/7/05 08:32 PM, -TheDoctor- wrote:

The reason why it's not classifed as a war crime and why Japanese do not view this as a surrender is because they became buddies after the war. And if you don't know why then you're an idiot. Why do you think Stalin looked like an asshole after the war (even though he was on the winning side)? It's simple. Japan became buddies because of the KOREAN WAR. It served as a place where USA could simply place their troops and show that Democracy is better than Communism. It still happens now. Japan and Germany's economy recovered quick because of this "Cold War". Germany was divided (Potsdam and Yalta) and again was a place of conflict between democracy and communism (or capitalism and socialism, up to you), particularly in Berlin. USA funding them meant hushing up Japan's defeat even though we all know they loss...

It's how the media spins it. As for the A-bomb? It was the perfect time to test their new weapons...as for other minor reasons.

Either way, that didn't stop USA from sending their troops in (especially during the Korean War).

At 8/8/05 08:22 PM, Blackhawkdown wrote: The reason we dropped the bombs in such quick succession was because we wanted to make the Japanese think that se had a large amount of these weapons stored away and that we were willing to bomb city after city if they didn't surrender. The tactic worked obviously because they surrendered after the second bomb was dropped.

That was a better reason of not invading Japan and getting soldier killed.

At 8/8/05 12:56 PM, Redwrath wrote: All I know is that Hiroshima was a city that had been left relatively untouched by American bomb runs. Perhaps if we had waited a week or two before dropping the second atomic bomb, the Japanese would have surrendered because of seeing the horrible effect of radiation poisoning. Then again maybe not, it's all history.

In reality, that's the real debate - not whether it was right or wrong to drop the thing, but the morality of leaving a city unscathed so they can see the full effects of dropping the thing on it - in the morning rush hour as well, for maximum collateral damage.

Think about it - if the US just dropped one off the bay of Tokyo, wouldn't that terrify the Japanese into surrender, especially as it was near the Emperor's Palace? Seeing a huge mushroom cloud and imagining the possible devastation it would cause is a lot more frightening that using it due to the psychological effect. Especially if they believe the next one will be a bit closer.

Considering that, after Nagasaki certain members of the Japanese military guessed - rightly - the US wouldn't have any more to drop, if they were listening to it would've been in vain.

Yeah but if we had just demostrated it then not only would we have wasted one of them bombs the Japanese would think that we wouldn't actually drop the bomb. Also why would a demostration of it's power make them surrende, when we had to destroy two cities to finally get them to surrender?

my self personally im compleatly anti war and i justify this with one quote

my faith in my god is stronger than my faith in my guy
(i made that one up)

At 8/10/05 01:19 PM, RaNDyCHaOs wrote:

my faith in my god is stronger than my faith in my guy
(i made that one up)

I MEANT TO SAY FAITH IN MY GUN

....damn im a loser