# We Were Right to Drop the Bomb



## Toro (Aug 4, 2015)

I tend to agree.  It saved hundreds of thousands of lives, including many Americans.

The headline of this column is lifted from a 1981 essay by the late Paul Fussell, the cultural critic and war memoirist. In 1945 Fussell was a 21-year-old second lieutenant in the U.S. Army who had fought his way through Europe only to learn that he would soon be shipped to the Pacific to take part in Operation Downfall, the invasion of the Japanese home islands scheduled to begin in November 1945.

Then the atom bomb intervened. Japan would not surrender after Hiroshima, but it did after Nagasaki.

I brought Fussell’s essay with me on my flight to Hiroshima and was stopped by this: “When we learned to our astonishment that we would not be obliged in a few months to rush up the beaches near Tokyo assault-firing while being machine-gunned, mortared, and shelled, for all the practiced phlegm of our tough facades we broke down and cried with relief and joy. We were going to live.”

In all the cant that will pour forth this week to mark the 70th anniversary of the dropping of the bombs—that the U.S. owes the victims of the bombings an apology; that nuclear weapons ought to be abolished; that Hiroshima is a monument to man’s inhumanity to man; that Japan could have been defeated in a slightly nicer way—I doubt much will be made of Fussell’s fundamental point: Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren’t just terrible war-ending events. They were also lifesaving. The bomb turned the empire of the sun into a nation of peace activists.​
Thank God for the Atom Bomb - WSJ

What are your thoughts?


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## Dont Taz Me Bro (Aug 4, 2015)

Yes, it ended the war which could have dragged on for a lot longer.  People also forget it wasn't just us researching the bomb.  They were doing it too.  Someone was going to drop it.  Better us on one of their cities than them on one of ours.


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## Sonny Clark (Aug 4, 2015)

Toro said:


> I tend to agree.  It saved hundreds of thousands of lives, including many Americans.
> 
> The headline of this column is lifted from a 1981 essay by the late Paul Fussell, the cultural critic and war memoirist. In 1945 Fussell was a 21-year-old second lieutenant in the U.S. Army who had fought his way through Europe only to learn that he would soon be shipped to the Pacific to take part in Operation Downfall, the invasion of the Japanese home islands scheduled to begin in November 1945.
> 
> ...


YES ... definitely YES .......... and, we should've done the same in the Viet Nam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Many of our soldiers would be alive today. We would've save multi-$Billions, and ended the wars in days instead of years.


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## Iceweasel (Aug 4, 2015)

I think also the fear was the Nazis had made progress and were in bed with the Japanese. They were determined to fight to the last man too so as bad as it was it did shorten the war.


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## Unkotare (Aug 4, 2015)

Sonny Clark said:


> we should've done the same in the Viet Nam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. .....




It's OK to stop and think for a second before posting, you know.


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## Sonny Clark (Aug 4, 2015)

Unkotare said:


> Sonny Clark said:
> 
> 
> > we should've done the same in the Viet Nam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. .....
> ...


Yes, I agree. And, I did think before I posted it.


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## there4eyeM (Aug 4, 2015)

The idea that it saved countless American lives is based on the assumption that invasion was necessary. It was not.
That others were 'working on the bomb' is ludicrous as we know no one else was even close.
The only lives that were saved, ironically, were Japanese. Since the suicidally maniacal 'leaders' refused to surrender even in the face of certain defeat, many people would have died of starvation, likely even more than died from the two bombs, before the inevitable finally did come and the white flags went up, as they would have had to.
The Japanese did not have time to appreciate what had happened after Hiroshima. Nagasaki was totally unnecessary. It is a terrible thing that America has to live with the onus of having been the first to use the bomb, especially as it did not win the war, though it did end it a bit sooner. That was part of the goal, to settle things before Joe Stalin took even more territory in the East. Arguably, he is the reason the bomb was used at all; i.e., to announce we had it and to demonstrate we would use it.
Harry Truman was not prepared to be President, and certainly not prepared for the post-war geo-political situation. Perhaps no one really was. Roosevelt did a very poor job at the end and was irresponsible in not better training Harry, who should have been at his side at the last meetings with world leaders.
Things could and should have been much better.


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## martybegan (Aug 4, 2015)

Dont Taz Me Bro said:


> Yes, it ended the war which could have dragged on for a lot longer.  People also forget it was just us researching the bomb.  They were doing it too.  Someone was going to drop it.  Better us on one of their cities than them on one of ours.



It also prevented the Soviets from getting in on the invasion and occupation.

Imagine a Cold War with a "North and South Japan".


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## browsing deer (Aug 4, 2015)

I tend to agree.  My father was one of those preparing to attack the home islands in the summer of 45, so I have no problem dropping the bomb on japan.  I would not be here otherwise.  Iwo Jima and Taiwan let us know what to expect.

That said, I  am of the opinion that doing the reasearch was a total waste.  1/4 of industrial output in 1944-45 was focused on the bomb, I feel we could have won the war sooner  if we had focused on convenional means.  being ignorent of it longer would have been a lot better.   The bomb reqired brainpower to build it,  but that brainpower was easily fungible.   Stalin knew more about the bomb than Truman, and beause of the spies he got it in short order.  No bomb means no spies getting the bomb.  and no terror weapons for a substantial time afterwards.

I believe we could have finished of hitler by november of 44 if we had focused our resources better


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## Muhammed (Aug 4, 2015)

I don't think we should have provoked Japan and Germany in the first place. That horrific war was easily avoidable.


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## Correll (Aug 4, 2015)

not just yes, but hell yes.


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## Dont Taz Me Bro (Aug 4, 2015)

Sonny Clark said:


> YES ... definitely YES .......... and, we should've done the same in the Viet Nam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Many of our soldiers would be alive today. We would've save multi-$Billions, and ended the wars in days instead of years.



We had no business being in Vietnam or Iraq in the first place.


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## JakeStarkey (Aug 4, 2015)

This "The idea that it saved countless American lives is based on the assumption that invasion was necessary. It was not." is flatly incorrect.

Classified documents released in the last ten years of the planning recognized the growing difficulty of establishing a beach head, then a bridge head, and then operations without taking and causing hundreds of thousands of casualties.

All of the evidence taken together makes it quite clear the Empire was not willing to surrender without maintaining its conquered territories, and many of the higher leaders of the Empire was willing to make its homeland a charnel heap.

Any individual or group that says nay simply does know the evidence.


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## regent (Aug 4, 2015)

Most of the Japanese leadership knew Japan could not win the war. If that is true what then was Japan's strategy, and how would that strategy fit into operation Olympic and Coronet, and finally the A bomb?


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## westwall (Aug 4, 2015)

there4eyeM said:


> The idea that it saved countless American lives is based on the assumption that invasion was necessary. It was not.
> That others were 'working on the bomb' is ludicrous as we know no one else was even close.
> The only lives that were saved, ironically, were Japanese. Since the suicidally maniacal 'leaders' refused to surrender even in the face of certain defeat, many people would have died of starvation, likely even more than died from the two bombs, before the inevitable finally did come and the white flags went up, as they would have had to.
> The Japanese did not have time to appreciate what had happened after Hiroshima. Nagasaki was totally unnecessary. It is a terrible thing that America has to live with the onus of having been the first to use the bomb, especially as it did not win the war, though it did end it a bit sooner. That was part of the goal, to settle things before Joe Stalin took even more territory in the East. Arguably, he is the reason the bomb was used at all; i.e., to announce we had it and to demonstrate we would use it.
> ...








With 20/20 hindsight we know.  At the time we didn't.  Your other points have merit especially the numbers of Japanese lives that were saved.  They would have died in their millions and the ruling elite expected that of them.


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## Skull Pilot (Aug 4, 2015)

Funny how the thought of killing 200000 people (mostly civilians) was once deemed a sound strategy


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## martybegan (Aug 4, 2015)

regent said:


> Most of the Japanese leadership knew Japan could not win the war. If that is true what then was Japan's strategy, and how would that strategy fit into operation Olympic and Coronet, and finally the A bomb?



They were aiming for a draw, basically smash the invasion beachhead, and hope the Allies would negotiate.


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## martybegan (Aug 4, 2015)

Skull Pilot said:


> Funny how the thought of killing 200000 people (mostly civilians) was once deemed a sound strategy



At least in those cases the wars ended, instead of the slow bleed we see now.


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## Skull Pilot (Aug 4, 2015)

martybegan said:


> Skull Pilot said:
> 
> 
> > Funny how the thought of killing 200000 people (mostly civilians) was once deemed a sound strategy
> ...



Since there have been no official declarations of war you can say we haven't fought any wars since WWII


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## there4eyeM (Aug 4, 2015)

Allocating the resources differently is interesting, but it isn't clear that more of what was being produced could have been applied effectively. US submarines were isolating the Japanese home islands. Bombing their cities was not much more than some kind of revenge, since without imports Japanese cannot survive. In general, 'strategic' or 'carpet bombing' did little more than increase the death toll of the war. It didn't stop England, it didn't stop Germany and it didn't stop Japan. Later, it didn't stop North Vietnam, though more tons were dropped there than on the Nazis.
Turning tens of thousands of civilians to cinders in seconds is profoundly sad. Throwing around statements about using nuclear weapons as if they were some kind of neat, clean easy solution is disquieting to hear.


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## martybegan (Aug 4, 2015)

Skull Pilot said:


> martybegan said:
> 
> 
> > Skull Pilot said:
> ...



Maybe that's part of the issue as well. War should be war. you declare, you fight, you finish. What we have now goes more back to the primitive form of skirmish war than the European tradition of armed conflict.


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## there4eyeM (Aug 4, 2015)

regent said:


> Most of the Japanese leadership knew Japan could not win the war. If that is true what then was Japan's strategy, and how would that strategy fit into operation Olympic and Coronet, and finally the A bomb?


There was no 'strategy' left. There were only the tactics of clinging to power and the ghost of some ridiculous code. Like the Nazis, they had a kind of death cult that meant success or annihilation. Both got the latter.


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## westwall (Aug 4, 2015)

Skull Pilot said:


> Funny how the thought of killing 200000 people (mostly civilians) was once deemed a sound strategy







Not funny.  But certainly sad.  Also necessary, which is even worse.


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## Correll (Aug 4, 2015)

Skull Pilot said:


> martybegan said:
> 
> 
> > Skull Pilot said:
> ...



you can say it.

it would not be true, of course.

words do not define reality.

if the words fail to accurately describe the reality that exists independently of them, then they are worthless bullshit.


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## regent (Aug 4, 2015)

Some assume the Japanese were like the Nazi or other European nations, when it was clear they could not win they would surrender. That was not true of the Japanese, the Japanese knew, as has been suggested, they could not win the war, but did believe America would tire of the casualties and arrange some type of peace where Japan would end up with territory that had her needed raw materials. With the Japanese philosophy of nation over death she would make every island, every inch of territory so costly in American casualties we would negotiate, and as we neared the mainland of Japan, Japan's resistance stiffened, hence the Iwo's and Okinawa's. We will never know how long Japan would have fought on, or how many more Americans would have died but we were given a choice, and we took it.
Thank you America


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## there4eyeM (Aug 4, 2015)

It was not necessary for any rational or human reason.


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## Correll (Aug 4, 2015)

there4eyeM said:


> It was not necessary for any rational or human reason.




sure. you could have just doubled us losses for the whole of wwii.

or not.


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## HenryBHough (Aug 4, 2015)

Fortunately FDR was dead before the hard decision had be made.  Had he lived we might all be bowing toward Mt. Fuji five times a day.


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## there4eyeM (Aug 4, 2015)

Japan was subdued. No further ground action on any large scale was needed. As with many other aspects of WWII, mistakes in strategy and goals lead to terrible losses without proportionate gain. Propaganda still insists on a version that puts Hiroshima and Nagasaki in a light that spares the US.


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## regent (Aug 4, 2015)

HenryBHough said:


> Fortunately FDR was dead before the hard decision had be made.  Had he lived we might all be bowing toward Mt. Fuji five times a day.


Truman simply carried out FDR's intent. The bomb was FDR all the way, I wonder how many Americans know the extent of the decision to build the bomb starting with Einstein saying it could be done?


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## Correll (Aug 4, 2015)

there4eyeM said:


> Japan was subdued. No further ground action on any large scale was needed. As with many other aspects of WWII, mistakes in strategy and goals lead to terrible losses without proportionate gain. Propaganda still insists on a version that puts Hiroshima and Nagasaki in a light that spares the US.





there4eyeM said:


> Japan was subdued. No further ground action on any large scale was needed. As with many other aspects of WWII, mistakes in strategy and goals lead to terrible losses without proportionate gain. Propaganda still insists on a version that puts Hiroshima and Nagasaki in a light that spares the US.





there4eyeM said:


> Japan was subdued. No further ground action on any large scale was needed. As with many other aspects of WWII, mistakes in strategy and goals lead to terrible losses without proportionate gain. Propaganda still insists on a version that puts Hiroshima and Nagasaki in a light that spares the US.




Soooo, we should have what, asked them to surrender and they would have said yes?

Color me suspicious.


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## browsing deer (Aug 4, 2015)

regent said:


> HenryBHough said:
> 
> 
> > Fortunately FDR was dead before the hard decision had be made.  Had he lived we might all be bowing toward Mt. Fuji five times a day.
> ...


It was a remarkable achivement.  no doubt about that.  I kind of wish  we never built it, but I have no cumpontion  about using it on the kind of folks who faught the way the japanese did on Iwo and Okinowa


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## whitehall (Aug 4, 2015)

The victors write the history books and life was cheap during the 2nd war to end all wars. The insanity that surfaced and prevailed among the Allies half way into the "world war" was that it was a legitimate concept that the mass killing of "enemy" civilians was a factor in winning the war. Was Paul Fussell aware that the Bushido Japanese holdouts were desperate to negotiate terms of surrender with the U.S. and desperate egghead scientists were pressuring the administration to test their monstrosity on real (sub human) people? Meanwhile president Harry Truman was under some sort of mystical pressure from his former dead boss to refuse to talk about terms of surrender with the Japanese other than unconditional surrender. Meanwhile the Japanese were trying desperately to negotiate terms of surrender with freaking Stalin. Ironically the most important term in Japanese surrender was the preservation of the Japanese emperor and  the guarantee of not executing him and that happened anyway after the former clothing store owner who found himself president without a clue authorized the incineration of two Japanese cities.


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## skye (Aug 4, 2015)

In  a strange but terrible way they were right to drop the bomb back then because ....it's like they ended  WW2 in a  prophetic way ...the way  WW3 is going to start....

if you know what I mean...

horrible ...I know


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## Correll (Aug 5, 2015)

regent said:


> HenryBHough said:
> 
> 
> > Fortunately FDR was dead before the hard decision had be made.  Had he lived we might all be bowing toward Mt. Fuji five times a day.
> ...



FDR certainly deserves credit for listening to Einstein and putting so much resources behind the weapon that saved so many American lives.


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## Correll (Aug 5, 2015)

whitehall said:


> The victors write the history books and life was cheap during the 2nd war to end all wars. The insanity that surfaced and prevailed among the Allies half way into the "world war" was that it was a legitimate concept that the mass killing of "enemy" civilians was a factor in winning the war. Was Paul Fussell aware that the Bushido Japanese holdouts were desperate to negotiate terms of surrender with the U.S. and desperate egghead scientists were pressuring the administration to test their monstrosity on real (sub human) people? Meanwhile president Harry Truman was under some sort of mystical pressure from his former dead boss to refuse to talk about terms of surrender with the Japanese other than unconditional surrender. Meanwhile the Japanese were trying desperately to negotiate terms of surrender with freaking Stalin. Ironically the most important term in Japanese surrender was the preservation of the Japanese emperor and  the guarantee of not executing him and that happened anyway after the former clothing store owner who found himself president without a clue authorized the incineration of two Japanese cities.




And because of all that spin, you get to talk about WWII, without having to say something nice about the United States!


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## there4eyeM (Aug 5, 2015)

To ease the conscience, believing the nice story may be preferable.


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## Camp (Aug 5, 2015)

I have wondered if balloon bombs had anything to do with the decision. About 300 of them reached the US and Canada. These were fire bombs and fragmentation bombs, but bio weapons were a possibility and probably would have been used once the targeting had become more accurate. The Japanese had an extensive bio weapons development program. The hydrogen plants were bombed in Japan and that was the only thing that prevented further development and implementation of this easy and inexpensive way of intercontinental attack. 

npr.org/sections/npr-history-dept/2015/01/20/375820191/beware-of-japanese-balloon-bombs


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## Unkotare (Aug 5, 2015)

HenryBHough said:


> we might all be bowing toward Mt. Fuji five times a day.



That makes no sense.


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## Unkotare (Aug 5, 2015)

Camp said:


> I have wondered if balloon bombs had anything to do with the decision. ...




Very, very unlikely. They were almost entirely ineffective and had no bearing on the outcome of the war.


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## Camp (Aug 5, 2015)

Unkotare said:


> Camp said:
> 
> 
> > I have wondered if balloon bombs had anything to do with the decision. ...
> ...


Agreed, but I have never been able to ascertain with reliability of the extent of our knowledge of the bio weapon developments being made in Japan during that time frame. If we knew then what we learned after the war if might have freaked some people out.


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## JoeB131 (Aug 6, 2015)

Thoughts?  

First, we need to dispense with some of the myths.  the first myth is that Japan surrendered because of the atom bombs.  They didn't.  The Japanese surrendered because the USSR entered the Pacific War, opening up another front they were unable to really defend effectively.  

The second one was that Truman vaporized a quarter million people to save millions of American lives.  this is nonsense.  

The indefensible Hiroshima revisionism that haunts America to this day - Salon.com

_*Truman did not seriously consult with military commanders who had objections to using the bomb.  He did, however, ask a panel of military experts to offer an estimate of how many Americans might be killed if the United States launched the two major invasions of the Japanese home islands scheduled for November 1, 1945 and March 1, 1946. Their figure: 40,000 — far below the half-million he would cite after the war. Even this estimate was based on the dubious assumption that Japan could continue to feed, fuel, and arm its troops with the U.S. in almost complete control of the seas and skies.*_

Here's the reality. In the heat of the moment, we did something that was pretty horrific. Understandable, the Japanese did a lot of horrible things- Pearl Harbor, the Bataan Death March, Kamikaze attacks - and there just wasn't a lot of sympathy for them.  Oh yeah, and they weren't white like the Germans were.  While we kept hoping for the "Good German" who would overthrow Hitler and never did, the Japanese were always portrayed as sub-human.  







 Then after we did it, we realize how terrible it was. The Japanese really weren't bad people, they just had stupid leaders.  More to the point, we realized the demon we unleashed on the world. 

So we've spent the last 70 years rationalizing it. 

One thing Americans are very good at is rationalizing the seedier parts of our history.


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## JoeB131 (Aug 6, 2015)

westwall said:


> With 20/20 hindsight we know. At the time we didn't. Your other points have merit especially the numbers of Japanese lives that were saved. They would have died in their millions and the ruling elite expected that of them.



Not really. The Japanese elite were already looking for a way to negotiate a peace, and were putting out feelers to the Soviets, Swiss and Swedes to do so.  

When the Soviets entered the Pacific War, they knew it was over and surrendered.  the A-bombs were unnecessary.


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## JoeB131 (Aug 6, 2015)

regent said:


> Some assume the Japanese were like the Nazi or other European nations, when it was clear they could not win they would surrender. That was not true of the Japanese, the Japanese knew, as has been suggested, they could not win the war, but did believe America would tire of the casualties and arrange some type of peace where Japan would end up with territory that had her needed raw materials. With the Japanese philosophy of nation over death she would make every island, every inch of territory so costly in American casualties we would negotiate, and as we neared the mainland of Japan, Japan's resistance stiffened, hence the Iwo's and Okinawa's. We will never know how long Japan would have fought on, or how many more Americans would have died but we were given a choice, and we took it.
> Thank you America



The reason the Japanese fought so viciously for Iwo Jima and Okinawa is because they knew possession of those islands would allow the US to bomb their home Islands with impunity.  They fought so "stiffly" because they were protecting their loved ones back home. 

The point is, the Japanese were not the Germans, who actually did continue to fight until Berlin fell. They were looking for a negotiated peace, particularly after Germany surrendered and they realized they would face the full force of the Allied effort. 

We dropped the bombs to intimidate the Soviets, not to get peace with Japan.


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## JoeB131 (Aug 6, 2015)

Correll said:


> Soooo, we should have what, asked them to surrender and they would have said yes?
> 
> Color me suspicious.



here's the thing, they had already offered to surrender, as long as we allowed them to keep Hirohito as Emperor.  We held out on that point until after the USSR got into the war, and all of a sudden, we were all cool with Hirohito, who remained emperor until 1989.


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## gipper (Aug 6, 2015)

Toro said:


> I tend to agree.  It saved hundreds of thousands of lives, including many Americans.
> 
> The headline of this column is lifted from a 1981 essay by the late Paul Fussell, the cultural critic and war memoirist. In 1945 Fussell was a 21-year-old second lieutenant in the U.S. Army who had fought his way through Europe only to learn that he would soon be shipped to the Pacific to take part in Operation Downfall, the invasion of the Japanese home islands scheduled to begin in November 1945.
> 
> ...


BS.  Been debunked over and over again, but statist brainwashing is difficult to overcome.


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## martybegan (Aug 6, 2015)

JoeB131 said:


> Correll said:
> 
> 
> > Soooo, we should have what, asked them to surrender and they would have said yes?
> ...



Actually they wanted to keep Hirohito, not disarm, not have any occupation of Japan, and try war criminals themselves. You have to remember that the Japanese cabinet was controlled by the military, 4/6 members, and most of them thought they could force a negotiation by smashing any beachhead. 

Hirohito forced the army to accept defeat, and while the Soviets may have had a part in that, the two bombs, with the promise of more to come, gave him the ammunition to make them accept the surrender terms.


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## martybegan (Aug 6, 2015)

JoeB131 said:


> westwall said:
> 
> 
> > With 20/20 hindsight we know. At the time we didn't. Your other points have merit especially the numbers of Japanese lives that were saved. They would have died in their millions and the ruling elite expected that of them.
> ...



Those peace feelers were dire attempts, and none of them went anywhere. The Emperor forced a political decision to end the war, and without the bombs he wouldn't have had the shock value to get the army to submit to his demand. He even mentions it in the Imperial Rescript that announced the surrender.


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## gipper (Aug 6, 2015)

browsing deer said:


> I tend to agree.  My father was one of those preparing to attack the home islands in the summer of 45, so I have no problem dropping the bomb on japan.  I would not be here otherwise.  Iwo Jima and Taiwan let us know what to expect.
> 
> That said, I  am of the opinion that doing the reasearch was a total waste.  1/4 of industrial output in 1944-45 was focused on the bomb, I feel we could have won the war sooner  if we had focused on convenional means.  being ignorent of it longer would have been a lot better.   The bomb reqired brainpower to build it,  but that brainpower was easily fungible.   Stalin knew more about the bomb than Truman, and beause of the spies he got it in short order.  No bomb means no spies getting the bomb.  and no terror weapons for a substantial time afterwards.
> 
> I believe we could have finished of hitler by november of 44 if we had focused our resources better


Murder innocent women and children of a defeated defenseless nation is okay to protect the lives of your soldiers.  

How utterly immoral, unethical, and heinous...and all done by a man who claimed to be a devote Christian...I suspect he is burning Hell right now.


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## Skull Pilot (Aug 6, 2015)

Correll said:


> Skull Pilot said:
> 
> 
> > martybegan said:
> ...



The problem is that every "war" since WWII has been nothing but games of political brinksmanship on the part of our politicians

Our government has sent tens of thousands of our brave men and women to their deaths and has maimed and crippled tens of thousands more for no reason other than political maneuvering

Quite frankly we should be ashamed


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## JoeB131 (Aug 6, 2015)

martybegan said:


> Actually they wanted to keep Hirohito, not disarm, not have any occupation of Japan, and try war criminals themselves. You have to remember that the Japanese cabinet was controlled by the military, 4/6 members, and most of them thought they could force a negotiation by smashing any beachhead.
> 
> Hirohito forced the army to accept defeat, and while the Soviets may have had a part in that, the two bombs, with the promise of more to come, gave him the ammunition to make them accept the surrender terms.



Not really.  i think Japan knew they were defeated and were just looking for the best deal they could get.  They realized that deal would get a LOT worse with the Soviets.  The bombs didn't make a difference because they were ALREADY bombing the snot of Japan conventionally. 



martybegan said:


> Those peace feelers were dire attempts, and none of them went anywhere. The Emperor forced a political decision to end the war, and without the bombs he wouldn't have had the shock value to get the army to submit to his demand. He even mentions it in the Imperial Rescript that announced the surrender.



None ofthem went anywhere because the Americans weren't willing to talk peace. That's really not an excuse.


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## gipper (Aug 6, 2015)

A little know fact...well to most Americans that is...

*Largest Bombing Raid in History was Perpetrated against Japan AFTER the Atomic Bombings*
_Posted on August 6, 2015 by Robert Barsocchini
The largest bombing campaign in history, at that point, was perpetrated by the US against Japan after the atomic bombings of civilians on August 6th and 9th, 1945.

Several days later,

In the largest bombing raid of the Pacific War, more than 400 B-29s attacked Japan during daylight on August 14, and more than 300 that night.[103] A total of 1,014 aircraft were used with no losses.

At 2:49 AM on August 14, the US had intercepted a message from Japanese leadership to Japanese foreign embassies, instructing them “to accept the Allied terms of surrender.”

Writer Laurence M. Vance points out that “many timelines of World War II do not even list this event [the post-nuke bombing raids against Japan] as having occurred.”_


How does anyone approve of or defend this?


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## martybegan (Aug 6, 2015)

JoeB131 said:


> martybegan said:
> 
> 
> > Actually they wanted to keep Hirohito, not disarm, not have any occupation of Japan, and try war criminals themselves. You have to remember that the Japanese cabinet was controlled by the military, 4/6 members, and most of them thought they could force a negotiation by smashing any beachhead.
> ...



There is a difference between a 300 bomber raid and one bomber, one bomb, boom. The Japanese Army still wanted to fight, the Navy knew they were doomed but was worried about an Army Coup, same as the civilian cabinet members. 

The 3 conditions above and beyond keeping the Emperor were not acceptable.


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## martybegan (Aug 6, 2015)

gipper said:


> A little know fact...well to most Americans that is...
> 
> *Largest Bombing Raid in History was Perpetrated against Japan AFTER the Atomic Bombings*
> _Posted on August 6, 2015 by Robert Barsocchini
> ...



War is hell.


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## JoeB131 (Aug 6, 2015)

martybegan said:


> There is a difference between a 300 bomber raid and one bomber, one bomb, boom. The Japanese Army still wanted to fight, the Navy knew they were doomed but was worried about an Army Coup, same as the civilian cabinet members.
> 
> The 3 conditions above and beyond keeping the Emperor were not acceptable.



sure they were.  We let a whole bunch of Axis Criminals  off the hook after the war. We had some show trials for the top guys, but most of them went on to have happy lives in the New Japan. 

We used an indefensible weapon to try to intimidate our allies in the post-war world. 

There was no excuse for it.


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## gipper (Aug 6, 2015)

martybegan said:


> gipper said:
> 
> 
> > A little know fact...well to most Americans that is...
> ...


No.  Murdering innocent civilians is hell.


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## martybegan (Aug 6, 2015)

JoeB131 said:


> martybegan said:
> 
> 
> > There is a difference between a 300 bomber raid and one bomber, one bomb, boom. The Japanese Army still wanted to fight, the Navy knew they were doomed but was worried about an Army Coup, same as the civilian cabinet members.
> ...



It was a weapon, the war wasn't over, and no one really knew what the impact was going to be.  We were already bombing the everloving shit out of Japanese cities for almost a year. 

The bomb gave the Emperor the ability to force the army to quit, saving American lives and Japanese lives. It also had the impact of letting us see how truly awful these bombs were, without which someone may have tried to pop one off a few years later, and how do you think THAT would have gone?


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## martybegan (Aug 6, 2015)

gipper said:


> martybegan said:
> 
> 
> > gipper said:
> ...



It wasn't murder, it was war, and both sides did Strategic bombing if they had the aircraft to do it.


----------



## Correll (Aug 6, 2015)

there4eyeM said:


> To ease the conscience, believing the nice story may be preferable.



No. I have no problems with the decision to use nukes. None.


Skull Pilot said:


> Correll said:
> 
> 
> > Skull Pilot said:
> ...



MAD prevented Total War.


----------



## there4eyeM (Aug 6, 2015)

Nuclear war is like suicide; a permanent solution to a temporary problem. 

That the US and the USSR were ready to burn down the earth over a difference in economics was indeed mad, not to mention genocidal.

When people who have no qualms about using nukes get decision making power over them, things will turn grim indeed.


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## there4eyeM (Aug 6, 2015)

Then, there are those with no conscience, so no need for salve.


----------



## gipper (Aug 6, 2015)

martybegan said:


> gipper said:
> 
> 
> > martybegan said:
> ...


No doubt about this, if the Germans or Japanese did to us what we did to them, you would think differently.  Try to overcome your statist brainwashing.  

The massive aerial bombing of civilians by the American military in WWII, was a war crime.  Histories greatest war crime was the A bombings.


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## there4eyeM (Aug 6, 2015)

Curis Lemay expressed the correct opinion about who would have been on trial for what if the tables had been turned.


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## there4eyeM (Aug 6, 2015)

gipper said:


> martybegan said:
> 
> 
> > gipper said:
> ...



It is truly tragic that the 'Allies' stooped to the level of their enemies.


----------



## martybegan (Aug 6, 2015)

gipper said:


> martybegan said:
> 
> 
> > gipper said:
> ...



Fuck off with your whole "statist brainwashing" bullshit. 
WWII saw strategic bombing on both sides, and was seen as within the rules of war, total war, where production is a legitimate target.


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## gipper (Aug 6, 2015)

martybegan said:


> gipper said:
> 
> 
> > martybegan said:
> ...


You can try to justify the mass murder of civilians all you like, but you will fail.  There is no justification for it.

Again...if the Japanese and Germans did to us what we did to them, what would your opinion be?  Would you merely state 'war is hell?'  Would you justify it by stating 'its total war.'  

Be honest now.


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## Correll (Aug 6, 2015)

there4eyeM said:


> Nuclear war is like suicide; a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
> 
> That the US and the USSR were ready to burn down the earth over a difference in economics was indeed mad, not to mention genocidal.
> 
> When people who have no qualms about using nukes get decision making power over them, things will turn grim indeed.




The USSR was an expansionistic Totalitarian State. Building nukes to balance out their conventional military advantage in numbers made complete sense in the 50 and 60s.

IT was not "mad", nor "genocidial".

That the USSR was able to counter that deterrence with a nuclear force their own was unfortunate. 

Their decision to build nukes was not "mad". THey wanted to expand, and they could not while the US had a nuclear advantage, so that had to be matched.

It might have been "Genocidal" in that if they ever reached a point where they thought they could win, and they pushed the button, genocide would occur.

But genocide was never a problem for the soviets.


----------



## martybegan (Aug 6, 2015)

gipper said:


> martybegan said:
> 
> 
> > gipper said:
> ...



The fact that the Japanese and Germans lacked the ability to reach our shores to do strategic bombing makes your point moot. But we can use the British as a reference, and they did not go after Germans for war crimes for strategic bombing at all, even for "The Blitz" which was purely targeted at population centers. 

And to answer your question, if the US had the snot pounded out if it like Japan and Germany did, I would probably react how those people did, give up and try to rebuild under occupation. 

The Japanese had their own issues on a more personal level with playing naughty when it came to war, again war is hell, but the more brutal it is, the quicker it can end, not like the slow bleed we see in modern conflict.


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## Correll (Aug 6, 2015)

there4eyeM said:


> Then, there are those with no conscience, so no need for salve.



When was the last time you were "wrong"?


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## there4eyeM (Aug 6, 2015)

Reproduction was the target, killing women and children because they lived in a foreign country under an enemy regime they had virtually nothing to do with.

It was a morally indefensible act.


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## there4eyeM (Aug 6, 2015)

Correll said:


> there4eyeM said:
> 
> 
> > Then, there are those with no conscience, so no need for salve.
> ...


Here and now, bothering to answer people with such 'opinions'.


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## frigidweirdo (Aug 6, 2015)

Sonny Clark said:


> Toro said:
> 
> 
> > I tend to agree.  It saved hundreds of thousands of lives, including many Americans.
> ...



No definitely not drop it in other places. 
The US is by far and away the biggest threat to world security right now, if it got used to dropping a-bombs on everyone then it'd be worthy of invasion itself.


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## Correll (Aug 6, 2015)

there4eyeM said:


> Correll said:
> 
> 
> > there4eyeM said:
> ...




Cute. 

And dishonest.


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## Correll (Aug 6, 2015)

frigidweirdo said:


> Sonny Clark said:
> 
> 
> > Toro said:
> ...



How hard was it for you to reach the conclusion that the US is the biggest threat to world security?


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## frigidweirdo (Aug 6, 2015)

Correll said:


> frigidweirdo said:
> 
> 
> > Sonny Clark said:
> ...



Not very hard at all. All you need to do is open your eyes.


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## Correll (Aug 6, 2015)

frigidweirdo said:


> Correll said:
> 
> 
> > frigidweirdo said:
> ...




I meant personally.

Did you have to overcome a patriotic bias and fight though to that conclusion, or did it just flow naturally and easily for you?


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## frigidweirdo (Aug 6, 2015)

Correll said:


> frigidweirdo said:
> 
> 
> > Correll said:
> ...



As I said, it comes from having my eyes open. 

Patriotic bias?????


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## Correll (Aug 6, 2015)

frigidweirdo said:


> Correll said:
> 
> 
> > frigidweirdo said:
> ...




It was a simple question. DId you feel any resistance inside, to your conclusion, or was it easy for you to reach it?

"Having your eyes open" is just you saying that you are sure you are more objective than me.

It is nice that you have a good self image.

That is all that means.


----------



## frigidweirdo (Aug 6, 2015)

Correll said:


> frigidweirdo said:
> 
> 
> > Correll said:
> ...



It's a simple question that I've answered twice. I'm sorry you don't like my answer. I couldn't give a damn whether you like it or not. Get over it.


----------



## Correll (Aug 6, 2015)

frigidweirdo said:


> Correll said:
> 
> 
> > frigidweirdo said:
> ...



See, it sounds like you are saying "no".

BUt then if I build on that, then you libs flip out and accuse me of putting words in your mouth.

Are you an American and do you have any sense of Patriotism?


----------



## frigidweirdo (Aug 6, 2015)

Correll said:


> frigidweirdo said:
> 
> 
> > Correll said:
> ...



It sounds more like you ain't listening. 

Am I an American and do I have any sense of Patriotism? 

To be honest, I don't do personal questions, get over it. When it comes to the time when you're wondering if I'm male or female, you can scratch your head to that one too. 

All the personal info you're getting from me. I'm me, I don't have any choice to be any one else, so I'm me. Get over it.

Thanks for enjoying.


----------



## Correll (Aug 6, 2015)

frigidweirdo said:


> Correll said:
> 
> 
> > frigidweirdo said:
> ...



I'm listening. I just wanted you to be clear before I responded.

The point I was trying to make was that your conclusion is self serving to your anti-american bias.


Much like the Gipper's serves his anti-government bias.

Your belief that you, as opposed to the rest of US, have "yours eyes open" is just your telling yourself that you are smarter and better than the rest of US.

Like I said, it is nice you have a good self image.

But it really doesn't do a thing to support your position.

Imo. my eyes are open and yours are blinded by your anti-american bias.

Thanks for enjoying.

Now, you might want to accuse me of having a pro-american bias.

The difference between us is that I am aware of my biases.

Unlike you, my eyes are ACTUALLY open.

At least compared to you.


----------



## whitehall (Aug 6, 2015)

Correll said:


> whitehall said:
> 
> 
> > The victors write the history books and life was cheap during the 2nd war to end all wars. The insanity that surfaced and prevailed among the Allies half way into the "world war" was that it was a legitimate concept that the mass killing of "enemy" civilians was a factor in winning the war. Was Paul Fussell aware that the Bushido Japanese holdouts were desperate to negotiate terms of surrender with the U.S. and desperate egghead scientists were pressuring the administration to test their monstrosity on real (sub human) people? Meanwhile president Harry Truman was under some sort of mystical pressure from his former dead boss to refuse to talk about terms of surrender with the Japanese other than unconditional surrender. Meanwhile the Japanese were trying desperately to negotiate terms of surrender with freaking Stalin. Ironically the most important term in Japanese surrender was the preservation of the Japanese emperor and  the guarantee of not executing him and that happened anyway after the former clothing store owner who found himself president without a clue authorized the incineration of two Japanese cities.
> ...


Oh, do the rules say that I was supposed to say something nice about the U.S.? Let's see, about 6,000 Marine heroes died taking a stinking little island that could have been bypassed about four months before they dropped the Bomb. The often stated reason that Iwo Jima was taken to provide a haven for crippled bombers is a myth. The stated purpose for taking Iwo Jima was to suppress Japanese fighters. My guess is that Marines were sacrificed to justify the argument by the blood thirsty eggheads that  the Japanese would never surrender unless Japanese civilians were systematically anihiliated.


----------



## frigidweirdo (Aug 6, 2015)

Correll said:


> I'm listening. I just wanted you to be clear before I responded.
> 
> The point I was trying to make was that your conclusion is self serving to your anti-american bias.
> 
> ...



Anti-American bias? Really? So I disagree with you, therefore I have "anti-American bias", oh give me a break. 

Am I smarter than the rest of the US? Not necessarily, however many people have the heads stuck up the proverbial ass of the US govt's media machine. However you're claiming I'm biased for no reason other than you are trying to chip away at me. I'm sorry, but many people are biased because they simply accept that the US is right. Cowboys 'n' Injuns syndrome. Cowboys are the good guys, committing genocide, and the Injuns are the bad guys who are receiving genocide and the destruction of their way of life and the taking of their land. 

The same. Whatever the US does it must be good because we're the US and we only do good things. The Iranians and Iraqis and Libyans and Syrians and ISIS and everyone must be bad because they're our enemies and we fight for good. It's black and white, nothing else. 

However I'm not looking at good v. evil. I see evil v. evil. 

But then if you think i'm blinded by some "anti-American bias" when you have no freaking clue about me, then maybe this says more about you.

I'm here to discuss what I THINK. You're here to tell me that I'm this and that and the other. That's the difference.


----------



## regent (Aug 6, 2015)

It won't be long until the some start believing that the Japanese army treated enemy civilians with courtesy and care. Did the Japanese military ever bomb defenseless Chinese civilians, or at times use Chinese for bayonet practice or simple beheadings?
After the surrender it seemed essential to get American troops to Japan as quick as possible to prevent possible beheadings and mutilation of our prisoners.
With the surrender, however, it seems the Japanese become a different people, humble and apologetic, and maybe they always were? Maybe it was the military that was not the care- givers some posters believe. In fact, I wonder if  Japanese civilians knew much about the war except what they were told and the bombings they experienced?
It was not a nice war, sort of uncivilized at times.


----------



## westwall (Aug 6, 2015)

gipper said:


> martybegan said:
> 
> 
> > gipper said:
> ...














And the Germans were just as guilty.  The Japanese were guilty of the rape of Nanking and then there is that whole sneak attack on Pearl Harbor issue.  The Japanese were also pretty vicious in how they conquered and ruled the Philippine Islands.  So, basically, the Axis powers violated the rules of war, and you people, who have no clue of history other than what your buddy Zinn tells you, call every one else brainwashed. 

The level of your ignorance is profound.


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## Unkotare (Aug 6, 2015)

frigidweirdo said:


> But then if you think i'm blinded by some "anti-American bias" when you have no freaking clue about me, then maybe this says more about you.....




But you seem to feel free to assume what others think and feel when you "have no freaking clue" about what goes on in their heads. Kind of hypocritical.


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## Unkotare (Aug 6, 2015)

regent said:


> It won't be long until the some start believing that the Japanese army treated enemy civilians with courtesy and care.....




Does that irrational emoting make you feel better?


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## Unkotare (Aug 6, 2015)

westwall said:


> you people, who have no clue of history other than what your buddy Zinn tells you, call every one else brainwashed.
> 
> The level of your ignorance is profound.



In all fairness, you know that's an illogical statement.


----------



## regent (Aug 6, 2015)

Unkotare said:


> regent said:
> 
> 
> > It won't be long until the some start believing that the Japanese army treated enemy civilians with courtesy and care.....
> ...


Are you one of those that believe the Japanese army treated enemy  civilians with courtesy and care?


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## Unkotare (Aug 6, 2015)

regent said:


> Unkotare said:
> 
> 
> > regent said:
> ...




Have you ever heard anyone say that, emo?


----------



## regent (Aug 6, 2015)

So  if the Japanese did not treat civilians with courtesy and care do posters have a case that the Americans did not treat Japanese civilians with courtesy and care?


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## Unkotare (Aug 6, 2015)

regent said:


> So  if the Japanese did not treat civilians with courtesy and care do posters have a case that the Americans did not treat civilians with courtesy and care?




Trying to use up all your straw men before they expire?


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## there4eyeM (Aug 6, 2015)

regent said:


> So  if the Japanese did not treat civilians with courtesy and care do posters have a case that the Americans did not treat Japanese civilians with courtesy and care?


?

What does the conduct of an enemy military have to do with what Americans should do?


----------



## regent (Aug 6, 2015)

Unkotare said:


> regent said:
> 
> 
> > So  if the Japanese did not treat civilians with courtesy and care do posters have a case that the Americans did not treat civilians with courtesy and care?
> ...


Surely you can think of  some type of response that fits? OK let's try this, do you think the Japanese mistreated civilians, prisoners of war and used bombs dropped from airplanes to destroy civilians?


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## Unkotare (Aug 6, 2015)

regent said:


> Unkotare said:
> 
> 
> > regent said:
> ...




That was the response that fits. If all you have are straw men then stop wasting your time talking to yourself.


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## regent (Aug 6, 2015)

there4eyeM said:


> regent said:
> 
> 
> > So  if the Japanese did not treat civilians with courtesy and care do posters have a case that the Americans did not treat Japanese civilians with courtesy and care?
> ...


Of course,  there are rule books that have to be followed in a war. 
'Believe it or not, wars escalate, and few nations will not escalate if the escalation gives them a better chance to save lives, win a battle or win a war. Where did tanks, poison gas, H bombs, drones come from?


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## gipper (Aug 6, 2015)

westwall said:


> gipper said:
> 
> 
> > martybegan said:
> ...


So because the Japanese and Germans were ruthless and prosecuted total war, the USA can too.  Is that your point?  Foolish!

The USA should not make total war.  We are better than that, or at least we like to think we are...sadly our political leadership is fully prepared to murder civilians on a vast scale, no matter what the American people want.


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## westwall (Aug 6, 2015)

gipper said:


> westwall said:
> 
> 
> > gipper said:
> ...








Yes.  Total war can ONLY be fought with total war.   That was the problem with Korea and Vietnam.  The goal wasn't to win.  I firmly believe that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.  I truly do.  However, if you MAKE me fight you.  I am going to end you.


----------



## gipper (Aug 6, 2015)

westwall said:


> gipper said:
> 
> 
> > westwall said:
> ...


The problem with your thinking is no nation made the US fight them.  Did Korea or Vietnam MAKES us fight them?  We had no business getting involved in WWI or II either.  Iraq?

When we allow corrupt lying scumbag politicians to take the nation to war, we are doing their bidding not protecting the nation.

Secondly ending the lives of thousands of innocent people who have no control over their tyrannical government in an effort to win a war, is entirely evil and immoral.


----------



## westwall (Aug 6, 2015)

gipper said:


> westwall said:
> 
> 
> > gipper said:
> ...









Where did I say we should have gone in to Korea or Vietnam?  The problem with your logic stream is it is one dimensional.  The US was forced into WW II (with some help from the progressive policies of FDR) and thus they deserved whatever the hell they got.


----------



## regent (Aug 6, 2015)

westwall said:


> gipper said:
> 
> 
> > westwall said:
> ...


The progressive policies of FDR was too not sell any more resources to Japan that were being used to invade and kill Chinese.


----------



## Skull Pilot (Aug 6, 2015)

Correll said:


> there4eyeM said:
> 
> 
> > To ease the conscience, believing the nice story may be preferable.
> ...



What does MAD have to do with all the undeclared unnecessary "wars" we have fought?

Was Vietnam going to nuke us?
Korea?
Iraq in the first Gulf war?
The second war in Iraq?

How about Afghanistan?

Yeah all those piddly ass backwards countries were a real threat to  America

Like I said we should be ashamed that our soldiers are nothing but game pieces to be wasted on brinksmanship rather than fighting in just and necessary wars


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## Desperado (Aug 6, 2015)

Yes we were.   It ended the war sooner and save thousands of American lives by eliminating the need to invade main land Japan.
It we had to do it again there should be no problem.


----------



## Correll (Aug 6, 2015)

whitehall said:


> Correll said:
> 
> 
> > whitehall said:
> ...



Rules? No.

But the over all story of WWII, was the US fighting on the right side against the worst of the worst, ie the Nazi and the Imperial Japanese.

To look at that and only have bad things to say about the US reveals your agenda, nothing more.


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## Correll (Aug 6, 2015)

frigidweirdo said:


> Correll said:
> 
> 
> > I'm listening. I just wanted you to be clear before I responded.
> ...



No, you disagree with me and insist on judging people in the middle of a world war in the middle of the last century by modern standards.

THe second is indefensible.


----------



## Correll (Aug 6, 2015)

regent said:


> It won't be long until the some start believing that the Japanese army treated enemy civilians with courtesy and care. Did the Japanese military ever bomb defenseless Chinese civilians, or at times use Chinese for bayonet practice or simple beheadings?
> After the surrender it seemed essential to get American troops to Japan as quick as possible to prevent possible beheadings and mutilation of our prisoners.
> With the surrender, however, it seems the Japanese become a different people, humble and apologetic, and maybe they always were? Maybe it was the military that was not the care- givers some posters believe. In fact, I wonder if  Japanese civilians knew much about the war except what they were told and the bombings they experienced?
> It was not a nice war, sort of uncivilized at times.



Err, what?


----------



## Correll (Aug 6, 2015)

Skull Pilot said:


> Correll said:
> 
> 
> > there4eyeM said:
> ...



Vietnam was part of the COntainment Strategy. We could not make it a total war, because doing so would invite MAD. 

Ditto Korea.


----------



## Old Rocks (Aug 6, 2015)

Toro said:


> I tend to agree.  It saved hundreds of thousands of lives, including many Americans.
> 
> The headline of this column is lifted from a 1981 essay by the late Paul Fussell, the cultural critic and war memoirist. In 1945 Fussell was a 21-year-old second lieutenant in the U.S. Army who had fought his way through Europe only to learn that he would soon be shipped to the Pacific to take part in Operation Downfall, the invasion of the Japanese home islands scheduled to begin in November 1945.
> 
> ...


I think that without the examples of Hiroshima and Nagasaki we would have had a nuclear WW3. The utter destruction of those cities demonstrated for all that in a nuclear war, one plane, one bomb, one city. No defense, because one can always get through. 

The nuclear bombing of the Japanese cities ended WW2, and, I believe, prevented WW3. MAD was and is the chief deterant to any major power using nuclear weopons.


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## Old Rocks (Aug 6, 2015)

Iceweasel said:


> I think also the fear was the Nazis had made progress and were in bed with the Japanese. They were determined to fight to the last man too so as bad as it was it did shorten the war.


Fellow, the Nazis were already history.


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## Old Rocks (Aug 6, 2015)

Muhammed said:


> I don't think we should have provoked Japan and Germany in the first place. That horrific war was easily avoidable.


We provoked Japan and Germany? Damn, there are indeed some ignorant people in this world.


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## Correll (Aug 6, 2015)

Old Rocks said:


> Muhammed said:
> 
> 
> > I don't think we should have provoked Japan and Germany in the first place. That horrific war was easily avoidable.
> ...




Well, we had sanctions on the Japanese, that could be considered "provocative".

And we were selling weapons and supplies to the UK, that could be considered "provocative" to their enemy, Nazi Germany.


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## Old Rocks (Aug 6, 2015)

Both nations were engaged in empire building and committing unthinkable atrocities in their aggresion.


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## gipper (Aug 6, 2015)

Old Rocks said:


> Muhammed said:
> 
> 
> > I don't think we should have provoked Japan and Germany in the first place. That horrific war was easily avoidable.
> ...


Brainwashed statist dribble.

Of course FDR provoked Japan and he tried desperately to provoke Germany.  

Not knowing these facts only proves how uninformed you are.


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## Old Rocks (Aug 6, 2015)

Lordy, lordy, so now our 'Conservatives' apologists for Hitler and the Japanese Empire. Today, the acts they committed would be reason for an international force to invade their nations. Or are you denying that the Rape of Nanking occurred?


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## whitehall (Aug 6, 2015)

Old Rocks said:


> Lordy, lordy, so now our 'Conservatives' apologists for Hitler and the Japanese Empire. Today, the acts they committed would be reason for an international force to invade their nations. Or are you denying that the Rape of Nanking occurred?[/QUOTE
> 
> I get it, I think. We incinerated Japanese civilians as punishment for "the rape of Nanking".


----------



## Unkotare (Aug 6, 2015)

Old Rocks said:


> Today, the acts they committed would be reason for an international force to invade their nations.




Do you really think the so-called UN today would commit to real action anywhere under any circumstances? The biggest 'action' they are willing to take is in spreading cholera in Haiti.


----------



## frigidweirdo (Aug 6, 2015)

Correll said:


> frigidweirdo said:
> 
> 
> > Correll said:
> ...



Well hasn't your judging of me based on nothing much been fun? No, not really. I'm not really interested in a discussion like this which is baseless and just intent on blocking actual points being made.


----------



## frigidweirdo (Aug 6, 2015)

Old Rocks said:


> Toro said:
> 
> 
> > I tend to agree.  It saved hundreds of thousands of lives, including many Americans.
> ...



Is that why the US wants to stop Iran getting nukes. It doesn't want Iran being in a MAD situation. It wants Iran to be invadable?


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## whitehall (Aug 6, 2015)

The Truman defenders are all over the place about the use of the Bomb. Japan was defeated by the spring of 1945 and it's industry was almost completely destroyed. With the cooperation of the willing media, the Allies managed to deflect outrage about the bombing campaign over Dresden Germany and subsequent fire storm while Dresden was considered a non-military target but Allied daylight bomb runs over Japan changed from high impact to incendiary after almost all the industry was destroyed. The dirty little secret was that the FDR administration respected the German army but considered the Japanese to be sub-human and so did the eggheads who were pressuring Truman to use the ultimate weapon they spent so long developing.


----------



## frigidweirdo (Aug 6, 2015)

whitehall said:


> The Truman defenders are all over the place about the use of the Bomb. Japan was defeated by the spring of 1945 and it's industry was almost completely destroyed. With the cooperation of the willing media, the Allies managed to deflect outrage about the bombing campaign over Dresden Germany and subsequent fire storm while Dresden was considered a non-military target. Allied daylight bomb runs over Japan changed from high impact to incendiary after almost all the industry was destroyed. The dirty little secret was that the FDR administration respected the German army but considered the Japanese to be sub-human and so did the eggheads who were pressuring Truman to use the ultimate weapon they spent so long developing.



The hardly needed to deflect outrage. 
Six years of war for some, more for those in the Far East, millions of dead. The chance to stop the war, who cares how many more of the brutal enemy died?


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## Unkotare (Aug 6, 2015)

frigidweirdo said:


> who cares how many more of the brutal enemy died?




Innocent women and children were "the brutal enemy"?


----------



## Muhammed (Aug 6, 2015)

Old Rocks said:


> Muhammed said:
> 
> 
> > I don't think we should have provoked Japan and Germany in the first place. That horrific war was easily avoidable.
> ...


Yes, those who don't know that the USA provoked them are extraordinarily ignorant.


----------



## JoeB131 (Aug 7, 2015)

martybegan said:


> It was a weapon, the war wasn't over, and no one really knew what the impact was going to be. We were already bombing the everloving shit out of Japanese cities for almost a year.
> 
> The bomb gave the Emperor the ability to force the army to quit, saving American lives and Japanese lives. It also had the impact of letting us see how truly awful these bombs were, without which someone may have tried to pop one off a few years later, and how do you think THAT would have gone?



If we had to invade Japan, it would have cost less lives than the 250,000 we killed with the bombs. 

We bombed to try to intimidate the Soviets, not because of any military necessity.


----------



## JoeB131 (Aug 7, 2015)

westwall said:


> And the Germans were just as guilty. The Japanese were guilty of the rape of Nanking and then there is that whole sneak attack on Pearl Harbor issue. The Japanese were also pretty vicious in how they conquered and ruled the Philippine Islands. So, basically, the Axis powers violated the rules of war, and you people, who have no clue of history other than what your buddy Zinn tells you, call every one else brainwashed.
> 
> The level of your ignorance is profound.



The difference between war heroes and war criminals is the difference between winners and losers. 

Point is, we dropped two atomic weapons on a defeated country for no good reason.


----------



## Skull Pilot (Aug 7, 2015)

Correll said:


> Skull Pilot said:
> 
> 
> > Correll said:
> ...



IOW neither was a threat to us but we sent tens of thousands of our soldiers into the meat grinder for nothing


----------



## Correll (Aug 7, 2015)

Unkotare said:


> Old Rocks said:
> 
> 
> > Today, the acts they committed would be reason for an international force to invade their nations.
> ...



Especially against nations with any real power.


----------



## Correll (Aug 7, 2015)

frigidweirdo said:


> Correll said:
> 
> 
> > frigidweirdo said:
> ...




Nothing in that last post was a personal judgement on you, it was a judgement on your actions.

You have been judging these WWII figures by modern standards, not those of the time.


----------



## Correll (Aug 7, 2015)

JoeB131 said:


> westwall said:
> 
> 
> > And the Germans were just as guilty. The Japanese were guilty of the rape of Nanking and then there is that whole sneak attack on Pearl Harbor issue. The Japanese were also pretty vicious in how they conquered and ruled the Philippine Islands. So, basically, the Axis powers violated the rules of war, and you people, who have no clue of history other than what your buddy Zinn tells you, call every one else brainwashed.
> ...




NOnsense.


----------



## Correll (Aug 7, 2015)

Skull Pilot said:


> Correll said:
> 
> 
> > Skull Pilot said:
> ...



No, both were real threats to US as allies and proxies of the Soviet Union.


----------



## Wyatt earp (Aug 7, 2015)

Muhammed said:


> Old Rocks said:
> 
> 
> > Muhammed said:
> ...


 I agree history is not where he is very bright at.


----------



## Correll (Aug 7, 2015)

JoeB131 said:


> martybegan said:
> 
> 
> > It was a weapon, the war wasn't over, and no one really knew what the impact was going to be. We were already bombing the everloving shit out of Japanese cities for almost a year.
> ...




Your assumption that the Japanese would fall easily reminds me of Hitler's confidence with the RUssians.


----------



## Wyatt earp (Aug 7, 2015)

JoeB131 said:


> martybegan said:
> 
> 
> > It was a weapon, the war wasn't over, and no one really knew what the impact was going to be. We were already bombing the everloving shit out of Japanese cities for almost a year.
> ...


 Joe it would, millions would of died if we invaded the main land it would of been a blood bath, remember the last Japanese soldier didn't surrender till 1974 and only when his commander flown out to force him to surrender.


----------



## Camp (Aug 7, 2015)

Correll said:


> JoeB131 said:
> 
> 
> > westwall said:
> ...


The Japanese still had plenty of soldiers that could have been brought home from China and Southeast Asia. More importantly, an occupation would have been struggling and fighting a guerrilla war. Suicide bombers, both civilian and military would have been endless. So, at first it would have been a conventional battle fighting conventional experienced combat forces while contending with guerrilla forces at the same time. Once conventional forces were defeated it would have reverted to insurgency or guerrilla warfare conducted by trained and experienced veterans supplemented by civilians. That could have and probably would have continued for many years.


----------



## Wyatt earp (Aug 7, 2015)

On a side note, Truman what I read almost used the bomb during the battle of the budge


----------



## there4eyeM (Aug 7, 2015)

It would have required ships to transport troops back to Japan; US subs had seen to the elimination of those.

Who cares what a bunch of impotent crazies might have done running around a destroyed island with no capacity to project their craziness?

Japan essentially posed no further threat to the US or its vital interests.

A demonstration of the bomb might have done wonders for US relations, showing true strength and restraint.


----------



## Correll (Aug 7, 2015)

there4eyeM said:


> It would have required ships to transport troops beck to Japan; US subs had seen to the elimination of those.
> 
> Who cares what a bunch of impotent crazies might have done running around a destroyed island with no capacity to project their craziness?
> 
> Japan essentially posed no further threat to the US or its vital interests.




Well, all the people in Japanese occupied territories, and all the POWS, for starters.

And to be clear, I consider US AND allied POWS to be a vital interest of the USA.


----------



## prison/con.net (Aug 7, 2015)

the nukes should have been dropped on moscow, stalingrad and lenin grad, actually. there was no need to invade Japan. just navel blockade, no shipping, no fishing, and fire bomb them. We killed more people by fire bombing toyko than with the nukes.


----------



## Iceweasel (Aug 7, 2015)

Old Rocks said:


> Iceweasel said:
> 
> 
> > I think also the fear was the Nazis had made progress and were in bed with the Japanese. They were determined to fight to the last man too so as bad as it was it did shorten the war.
> ...


No shit fellow. If they had technology and gave or sold it to the Japanese it would have been a serious threat.


----------



## Skull Pilot (Aug 7, 2015)

Correll said:


> Skull Pilot said:
> 
> 
> > Correll said:
> ...



I don't think so


----------



## Correll (Aug 7, 2015)

Skull Pilot said:


> Correll said:
> 
> 
> > Skull Pilot said:
> ...




Well, generations of American voters and leaders, as well as Soviet leaders disagreed with you.

NOt to mention quite a few allied voters and leaders who fought alongside of US in both places.


----------



## frigidweirdo (Aug 7, 2015)

Correll said:


> frigidweirdo said:
> 
> 
> > Correll said:
> ...



You're calling me anti-American and saying I'm biased, and now you're saying it's all about judging WW2 people by today's standards.

I'd say that we SHOULD be judging those in the past by our standards. How else are you supposed to learn and move on.

If Washington was a great man who kept slaves, then can't great men today keep slaves too? No, we can say Washington was a man of his time, however we also need to look at Washington with our own eyes and make judgements based on our own thoughts, so that we can dictate how we should proceed as contemporary people.


----------



## Correll (Aug 7, 2015)

frigidweirdo said:


> Correll said:
> 
> 
> > frigidweirdo said:
> ...




Both are true. You are anti-american, and you are judging those in the past by the standards of today.

Judging those in the past by the standards of today is the exact opposite of learning or moving forward.


George Washington was a great man. There is a lot to learn from him and his example.

If you cannot wrap your mind around the fact that he was a great man who owned slaves, then you will not be able to learn the lessons that are there.

If you insist on judging him by the standards of today, then you cannot see his greatness, and your understanding of history will be greatly limited.

DO you want to tear down his monument and remove his face from the Dollar Bill?


----------



## regent (Aug 7, 2015)

Perhaps Washington's real scandal was Sally Fairfax.


----------



## Correll (Aug 7, 2015)

regent said:


> Perhaps Washington's real scandal was Sally Fairfax.




Or not.


----------



## there4eyeM (Aug 7, 2015)

So, if we critique Washington's performance at the Battle of the Brandywine and observe that he almost lost the entire Continental Army due to incompetence, are we anti-American, chronologically amiss with our military evaluations, 'slamming' America, or stating a fact?


----------



## Correll (Aug 7, 2015)

there4eyeM said:


> So, if we critique Washington's performance at the Battle of the Brandywine and observe that he almost lost the entire Continental Army due to incompetence, are we anti-American, chronologically amiss with our military evaluations, 'slamming' America, or stating a fact?



Depends on the context.

In a military history class, or a small unit tactics class for military officers? Then probably stating a fact.

If it is in an unrelated general discussion where your goal is to just throw up a fact that paints a great man in a bad light, then you are "slamming America" and being Anti-american.


----------



## there4eyeM (Aug 7, 2015)

Then, in a discussion related to the first use of atomic bombs in war, stating that there is valid argument against an invasion of a supine adversary and that incinerating a population that was not responsible for the acts of a military clique is wrong, is not anti-American and not chronologically reprehensible.


----------



## prison/con.net (Aug 7, 2015)

we never had to invade Japan. that was all a lie.  if we were REALLy so scared of stalin, why NOT nuke him, eh?  Because, folks, we had no IDEA that we'd have an economic boom after WW2.  We mostly thought that if the economy did not have a "war footing", the depression would return. so we "had" to have a boogeyman to justify spending a trillion $ a year on the military and keep everyone doing SOMETHING.  Stalin was perfectly suited to playing boogey man. Khruschve and Breshnev, too. Ol' Gorbie let them down, so they had to create Saddam. WE set up saddamm. WE set up Castro (and Batista before him). WE set up the shah, and then Khomeni. it's been OUR interefering bs, ever since the Spanish American war, WW1, etc, that made things 10x worse than if we'd stayed out of it.


----------



## prison/con.net (Aug 7, 2015)

the ruling class has ALWAYS hidden behind the masses. the masses have ALWAYS taken the fall for what their rulers do. If they don't like it, they need to kill those rulers FIRST and save us the hassle. If they don't do so, then they suffer the consequences, that's all. When you acquiese, instead of fighting for what's right, you deserve what happens to you. Everyone has had access to silenced, long distance, take down rifles since before WW1. ANYBODY can be whacked. Within the past 40 years,3 people have closed within pistol distance of the most protected man in the world,


----------



## prison/con.net (Aug 7, 2015)

George W was a pos, apparently.


----------



## Correll (Aug 7, 2015)

there4eyeM said:


> Then, in a discussion related to the first use of atomic bombs in war, stating that there is valid argument against an invasion of a supine adversary and that incinerating a population that was not responsible for the acts of a military clique is wrong, is not anti-American and not chronologically reprehensible.





That is a very low bar you have there. And not the one you were operating from earlier.

THe mere existence of a "valid argument against" is not the same as stating that

"It was not necessary for any rational or human reason."

If an act is taken that is " not necessary for any rational or human reason" then by definition it is an insane and inhuman act.

There was nothing "insane" about using a weapon that would led to a quick end to a bloody conflict. It is NOT reasonable to make such a claim. To make such a claim is to be "anti-American and chronologically reprehensible".


"Inhuman"? War is inhuman, total war more so. To judge the use of nuclear weapons as worthy of special condemnation in a war like WWII, with all the other inhumanity that occurred seems more driven by anti-americanism than any concern or interest in the use of nuclear weapons.


----------



## Correll (Aug 7, 2015)

prison/con.net said:


> we never had to invade Japan. that was all a lie.  if we were REALLy so scared of stalin, why NOT nuke him, eh?  Because, folks, we had no IDEA that we'd have an economic boom after WW2.  We mostly thought that if the economy did not have a "war footing", the depression would return. so we "had" to have a boogeyman to justify spending a trillion $ a year on the military and keep everyone doing SOMETHING.  Stalin was perfectly suited to playing boogey man. Khruschve and Breshnev, too. Ol' Gorbie let them down, so they had to create Saddam. WE set up saddamm. WE set up Castro (and Batista before him). WE set up the shah, and then Khomeni. it's been OUR interefering bs, ever since the Spanish American war, WW1, etc, that made things 10x worse than if we'd stayed out of it.



The idea of NOT invading Japan, after Pearl Harbor and all the death and blood that followed would have been nearly unthinkable to the people of that time.

Nuclear weapons was just about the only way they were going to step out of that box.

Your classic myth that the Cold War was a reflection of internal politics and driving by the Military Industrial Complex was debunked by the massive drop in military spending after the end of the Cold War, with the cuts occurring under both republican and democratic presidents.

Your blame American first and only is nonsense.


----------



## Unkotare (Aug 7, 2015)

By The Numbers The atomic bombing of Hiroshima Japan Today Japan News and Discussion



350,000: Population of Hiroshima before the bombing, of which 40,000 were military personnel.

___

140,000: Estimated death toll, including those who died from radiation-related injuries and illness through Dec. 31, 1945.

___

300,000: Total death toll to date, including those who have died from radiation-related cancers.

___

1.2 million: Population of Hiroshima today.

___

31,500: Height in feet (9,600 meters) from which the B-29 Enola Gay dropped the “Little Boy” bomb.

___

2,000: Height in feet (600 meters) at which the bomb exploded 43 seconds after it was dropped.

___

3,000-4,000: The estimated temperature in Celsius (5,400-7,200 Fahrenheit) at ground zero seconds after the detonation.

___

8,900: Approximate weight of the “Little Boy” bomb in pounds (about 4 metric tons).

___

1,600: Radius in feet (500 meters) from ground zero in which the entire population died that day.

___

90: Percent of Hiroshima that was destroyed.

___

45: Minutes after the 8:15 a.m. blast that a “black rain” of highly radioactive particles started falling.

___

3-6: Weeks after the bombing during which most of the victims with severe radiation symptoms died.

___

10 million: _Origami_ (folded paper) cranes that decorate the Children’s Peace Monument in Hiroshima each year.

___


----------



## JoeB131 (Aug 7, 2015)

Correll said:


> Your assumption that the Japanese would fall easily reminds me of Hitler's confidence with the RUssians.



No my confidence was based on what the tactical situation was like at the time.  

in Manchuria, the Kwantung Army was rolled up by the soviets in less than a week.  They met stiff resistance on the southern half of Sakhalin (the Island that was to the North of Japan, the USSR owned half of it, and Japan the other half). but they overran it within two weeks. 

The northern Island of Hokkaido was only guarded by 2 divisions.  They were deployed along the eastern coast to repel an American invasion, and would have been caught completely off guard had the Soviets landed in the North or West. 

In short, Japans leaders didn't care about the Bomb, the the thought of facing a rape-happy Red Army of a hundred divisions really did scare the pants off of them.


----------



## Correll (Aug 8, 2015)

JoeB131 said:


> Correll said:
> 
> 
> > Your assumption that the Japanese would fall easily reminds me of Hitler's confidence with the RUssians.
> ...




Yep. Just kick in the door, and the whole house of cards would have come tumbling down, right?

Have the Soviets EVER done a significant amphibious landing?


----------



## JoeB131 (Aug 8, 2015)

Correll said:


> Yep. Just kick in the door, and the whole house of cards would have come tumbling down, right?
> 
> Have the Soviets EVER done a significant amphibious landing?



The thing was, the Soviets didn't even have to kick down the door.  the Japanese SURRENDERED just because they entered the war. 

The way they mopped up the Kwantung Army, which was better armed than Japanese home army, is a pretty good indication of how poorly they'd have faired.  

That was the thing.  The Russians were in Korea in AUGUST 1945.  We weren't even going to be ready for an invasion of the southernmost island until November, 1945.


----------



## Unkotare (Jan 5, 2019)

there4eyeM said:


> Japan was subdued. No further ground action on any large scale was needed. As with many other aspects of WWII, mistakes in strategy and goals lead to terrible losses without proportionate gain. Propaganda still insists on a version that puts Hiroshima and Nagasaki in a light that spares the US.


.


----------



## Unkotare (Jan 5, 2019)

HenryBHough said:


> Fortunately FDR was dead before the hard decision had be made.  Had he lived we might all be bowing toward Mt. Fuji five times a day.




??????


----------



## Unkotare (Jan 5, 2019)

regent said:


> Some assume the Japanese were like the Nazi or other European nations, when it was clear they could not win they would surrender. That was not true of the Japanese, the Japanese knew, as has been suggested, they could not win the war, but did believe America would tire of the casualties and arrange some type of peace where Japan would end up with territory that had her needed raw materials. With the Japanese philosophy of nation over death she would make every island, every inch of territory so costly in American casualties we would negotiate, and as we neared the mainland of Japan, Japan's resistance stiffened, hence the Iwo's and Okinawa's. We will never know how long Japan would have fought on, or how many more Americans would have died but we were given a choice, and we took it.
> Thank you America





THAT is revisionist history.


----------



## harmonica (Jan 6, 2019)

JoeB131 said:


> Correll said:
> 
> 
> > Yep. Just kick in the door, and the whole house of cards would have come tumbling down, right?
> ...


they only surrendered after the Nagasaki bombing 9 Aug
Russia declared war on 8 Aug


----------



## Likkmee (Jan 6, 2019)

Since the test was a success, how about one for crapital hell in full session ? Now THAT would be cool !


----------



## JoeB131 (Jan 6, 2019)

harmonica said:


> they only surrendered after the Nagasaki bombing 9 Aug
> Russia declared war on 8 Aug



Right.  BUt looking at the documents, the fact Russia had entered the war was the bigger deal.  

1) It meant they could not count on the USSR to broker a peace.
2) It opened up several new fronts they were unprepared to fight on. (Manchuria, Korea, China, Sahkalin.)
3) It opened up the possibility that Japan might be partitioned like Germany. (With word already getting back of massive rapes of German women by Russian soldiers)

On the American side, the entry of the USSR also changed position. Up until that time, the main sticking point was the status of the Emperor.  The US Dropped it's insistence on his abdication.


----------



## there4eyeM (Jan 6, 2019)

Again, if a bomb absolutely positively had, imperatively, to be dropped in August, 1945, what capital would have been the most deserving?


----------



## HenryBHough (Jan 6, 2019)

FDR started World War II.

Truman finished it.

See, there are some intelligent Democrats though Truman couldn't be one today.
Too intelligent.  Too much in love with America.


----------



## harmonica (Jan 6, 2019)

JoeB131 said:


> harmonica said:
> 
> 
> > they only surrendered after the Nagasaki bombing 9 Aug
> ...


but the less fanatical Germans did not surrender until the Russians were in Berlin

upon surrendering, the Emperor,-- which cast the deciding vote--, mentions the *bombs-*-not the Russians..unless you can link otherwise


> ''The enemy has begun to employ a *new and most cruel bomb,* the power of which to do damage is indeed incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives,'' the emperor said



A Leader Who Took Japan to War, to Surrender, and Finally to Peace


----------



## eagle1462010 (Jan 6, 2019)

Yes the bomb should have been dropped...........The casualties taking Japan would have been massive.....extremely massive for the Japanese.............

.I can't agree on the bomb itself.............it is something I wish was never invented.........It is a weapon that will quite possibly destroy the earth.


----------



## harmonica (Jan 6, 2019)

..let me say again for all to read--the Emperor, who cast the deciding vote, mentions the A bombs as *the reason *for surrendering
the vote was tied


> ''The enemy has begun to employ *a new and most cruel bomb, *the power of which to do damage is indeed incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives,'' the emperor said


A Leader Who Took Japan to War, to Surrender, and Finally to Peace

this is the walk off home run


----------



## HenryBHough (Jan 6, 2019)

Truman can be faulted, though, for having stopped too soon.


----------



## Unkotare (Jan 6, 2019)

eagle1462010 said:


> ............It is a weapon that will quite possibly destroy the earth.




The planet? Um, no.


----------



## Unkotare (Jan 6, 2019)

eagle1462010 said:


> .............The casualties taking Japan would have been massive.....extremely massive for the Japanese..................




Speculation.


----------



## JoeB131 (Jan 7, 2019)

harmonica said:


> but the less fanatical Germans did not surrender until the Russians were in Berlin



Um, the germans were Nazis... they were about as fanatical as you can get. 



harmonica said:


> upon surrendering, the Emperor,-- which cast the deciding vote--, mentions the *bombs-*-not the Russians..unless you can link otherwise



Again, you kind of have to understand Japanese culture... of course they are going to tell us how mighty we are before surrendering to us. 

But the reality- the USSR entering the war tipped the scales.


----------



## harmonica (Jan 7, 2019)

JoeB131 said:


> harmonica said:
> 
> 
> > but the less fanatical Germans did not surrender until the Russians were in Berlin
> ...


hahahahhahahahaaha---talk about twisting the truth---
wrong
you--ALSO-have no knowledge of military history 
the Germans did not have kamikaze as a culture
out of about 20,000 troops on Iwo Jima, only about 300 surrendered
many Japanese committed suicide/banzai charges/etc 
NO --the Japanese were more fanatical


----------



## harmonica (Jan 7, 2019)

JoeB131 said:


> harmonica said:
> 
> 
> > but the less fanatical Germans did not surrender until the Russians were in Berlin
> ...


so your evidence is something the Emperor DIDN'T say..........???!!!????
your evidence is what *you *THINK the Emperor was THINKING...?????!!!!!!
hahahahahah
and hahahahhahahaha
I can make up ANYTHING also:
hitler thought microwaves were great
Stalin really LOVED the Emperor and his shoes


----------



## JoeB131 (Jan 7, 2019)

harmonica said:


> you--ALSO-have no knowledge of military history
> the Germans did not have kamikaze as a culture
> out of about 20,000 troops on Iwo Jima, only about 300 surrendered
> many Japanese committed suicide/banzai charges/etc
> NO --the Japanese were more fanatical



No, they really weren't... The Nazis were the ones who tried to racially purify Europe based on a nutty philosophy. 



harmonica said:


> so your evidence is something the Emperor DIDN'T say..........???!!!????
> your evidence is what *you *THINK the Emperor was THINKING...?????!!!!!!



No, it's more the military reality on the ground..  They were now facing hundreds of battle hardened Soviet Divisions on their northern and western fronts.   

Hokkadio (the Nothern most Island in the Japanese chain) had all of two infantry divisions to defend it. Most of what Japan had left was deployed South to fend off the Americans.


----------



## harmonica (Jan 7, 2019)

JoeB131 said:


> harmonica said:
> 
> 
> > you--ALSO-have no knowledge of military history
> ...


exactly---your evidence is what someone DIDN'T say
boy, you would make a great lawyer


----------



## harmonica (Jan 7, 2019)

JoeB131 said:


> harmonica said:
> 
> 
> > you--ALSO-have no knowledge of military history
> ...


and the Japanese attacked the US!--that had ''10 times'' the military power/etc!! 
duh


----------



## JoeB131 (Jan 7, 2019)

harmonica said:


> exactly---your evidence is what someone DIDN'T say
> boy, you would make a great lawyer



It doesn't matter what people say... it matters what the political and military realities on the ground were.  

The reality was, once the USSR was in it, as Truman said in his diary, "Fini Japs".  Everyone knew it. The Japanese knew it, the Americans knew it, the Russians knew it.  

Then it just became who could get the most out of the surrender agreement.  The Japanese got to keep their territorial integrity and their Emperor. 



harmonica said:


> and the Japanese attacked the US!--that had ''10 times'' the military power/etc!!
> duh



Not really.  The Japanese had 10 Battleships to our 15 (8 of which were damaged at Pearl Harbor, and others were in the Atlantic.)  

they had more carriers than we had (13 to our 7) 

There strategy was to bog the Americans down until we tired of war, and then negotiate a favorable peace.  Where they miscalculated was how great American outrage was after Pearl Harbor.


----------



## there4eyeM (Jan 7, 2019)

Outrage didn't count for much. Output outdid the enemy.


----------



## harmonica (Jan 7, 2019)

JoeB131 said:


> harmonica said:
> 
> 
> > exactly---your evidence is what someone DIDN'T say
> ...


so when OJ said he didn't do it, he really means he DID do it...???!!!

you people just scratch the surface with your knowledge of WW2
*10 times *is in QUOTES
*
Nearly twice the population of Japan.



Seventeen time's Japan's national income.





 Five times more steel production.





 Seven times more coal production.



Eighty (80) times the automobile production.
*


> *
> The net effect of all these factors meant that even in the depths of the Depression, American war-making potential was still around seven times larger than Japan's, and had the 'slack' been taken out in 1939, it was closer to *_*nine or* ten times_ as great*! *


Grim Economic Realities
etc etc
....you are like a lot of members--you back up your ''facts [ hahahah ] with lots of links/information/etc


----------



## JoeB131 (Jan 7, 2019)

harmonica said:


> you people just scratch the surface with your knowledge of WW2
> *10 times *is in QUOTES
> *
> Nearly twice the population of Japan.
> ...



Which, again, had nothing to do with military parity...  Had the Japanese won the battles of Midway and Coral Sea, they'd have dominated the Pacific.  

again, I have a degree in 20th century history.... what do you have?


----------



## JoeB131 (Jan 7, 2019)

there4eyeM said:


> Outrage didn't count for much. Output outdid the enemy.



Not really...   

If output alone won wars, we wouldn't have given up in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.... 

People weren't keen on the idea of another war prior to Pearl Harbor.


----------



## harmonica (Jan 7, 2019)

JoeB131 said:


> harmonica said:
> 
> 
> > you people just scratch the surface with your knowledge of WW2
> ...


so you have not zeroed in on WW2 in your studies
I have been reading/studying  WW2 for over 40 years!!!
hahahahahha
another one that thinks the enemy is a snowman that just sits there
and *if *the US didn't go to war in Europe, all the power would've went to the Pacific
*IF *the US subs sank the IJN at Pearl, the IJN would NOT dominate
*IF *I win the lottery, I'll send you some $$$

now--you have to define win
it's like Russia and Germany--Germany was NEVER going to win
Vietnam--the US COULD NOT win
Japan did not have the logistics/industry to dominate --for long, if at all but the US did


----------



## JoeB131 (Jan 7, 2019)

harmonica said:


> so you have not zeroed in on WW2 in your studies
> I have been reading/studying WW2 for over 40 years!!!





harmonica said:


> now--you have to define win
> it's like Russia and Germany--Germany was NEVER going to win
> Vietnam--the US COULD NOT win



Germany? Vietnam?


----------



## harmonica (Jan 7, 2019)

JoeB131 said:


> harmonica said:
> 
> 
> > so you have not zeroed in on WW2 in your studies
> ...


and YOU have a degree??? 
Japan was not going to dominate anything 
they were not going to win anything


----------



## harmonica (Jan 7, 2019)

JoeB131 said:


> there4eyeM said:
> 
> 
> > Outrage didn't count for much. Output outdid the enemy.
> ...


we won PG1 !!
we were not attacking N Vietnam--we were not attacked by a sneak attack in Vietnam
Afghan war is not a Total War like WW2 was,... if it was, we would've won loooong ago
wrong analogies


----------



## JoeB131 (Jan 7, 2019)

harmonica said:


> and YOU have a degree???
> Japan was not going to dominate anything
> they were not going to win anything



I'm still trying to get over your claim the Germans were invading Vietnam....


----------



## harmonica (Jan 7, 2019)

JoeB131 said:


> harmonica said:
> 
> 
> > and YOU have a degree???
> ...


you sure did not get a degree in reading comprehension
where does it say that ?


> now--you have to define win
> it's like Russia and Germany--Germany was NEVER going to win
> Vietnam--the US COULD NOT win


Russia-Germany in same sentence
Vietnam -US same sentence


----------



## JoeB131 (Jan 7, 2019)

harmonica said:


> Germany was NEVER going to win Vietnam



That's what you said.  Learn to use punctuation.


----------



## harmonica (Jan 7, 2019)

JoeB131 said:


> harmonica said:
> 
> 
> > Germany was NEVER going to win Vietnam
> ...



your quote is wrong
I  *copied and pasted* it  below 
here it is:

now--you have to define win
it's like Russia and Germany--Germany was NEVER going to win
Vietnam--the US COULD NOT win

are you freakin blind?? drinking? 
please---you are just trying being a jackass and doing a good job--
you are looking more stupid


----------



## harmonica (Jan 7, 2019)

JoeB131 said:


> Correll said:
> 
> 
> > Your assumption that the Japanese would fall easily reminds me of Hitler's confidence with the RUssians.
> ...



''in''--not capitalized 
''North'' --capitalized when it shouldn't be 
etc etc 
many more grammar mistakes in the first ''sentence''/paragraph--[ hahahahah ] 
Japans  ?????   should be Japan's 
so many mistakes 
you should learn writing skills--your post is very confusing


----------



## JoeB131 (Jan 8, 2019)

harmonica said:


> your quote is wrong
> I *copied and pasted* it below
> here it is:



They did explain punctuation to you in the home school you went to, right, Cleetus?


----------



## Unkotare (Aug 11, 2021)

Toro said:


> I tend to agree.  It saved hundreds of thousands of lives, including many Americans.
> 
> The headline of this column is lifted from a 1981 essay by the late Paul Fussell, the cultural critic and war memoirist. In 1945 Fussell was a 21-year-old second lieutenant in the U.S. Army who had fought his way through Europe only to learn that he would soon be shipped to the Pacific to take part in Operation Downfall, the invasion of the Japanese home islands scheduled to begin in November 1945.​​Then the atom bomb intervened. Japan would not surrender after Hiroshima, but it did after Nagasaki.​​I brought Fussell’s essay with me on my flight to Hiroshima and was stopped by this: “When we learned to our astonishment that we would not be obliged in a few months to rush up the beaches near Tokyo assault-firing while being machine-gunned, mortared, and shelled, for all the practiced phlegm of our tough facades we broke down and cried with relief and joy. We were going to live.”​​In all the cant that will pour forth this week to mark the 70th anniversary of the dropping of the bombs—that the U.S. owes the victims of the bombings an apology; that nuclear weapons ought to be abolished; that Hiroshima is a monument to man’s inhumanity to man; that Japan could have been defeated in a slightly nicer way—I doubt much will be made of Fussell’s fundamental point: Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren’t just terrible war-ending events. They were also lifesaving. The bomb turned the empire of the sun into a nation of peace activists.​
> Thank God for the Atom Bomb - WSJ
> ...











						Clipping from Chicago Tribune - Newspapers.com
					

Clipping found in Chicago Tribune in Chicago, Illinois on Aug 14, 1965.




					www.newspapers.com


----------



## GMCGeneral (Aug 11, 2021)

We should have listened to Patton and take out Moscow and Stalingrad next.


----------



## mikegriffith1 (Aug 25, 2021)

Toro said:


> I tend to agree.  It saved hundreds of thousands of lives, including many Americans.
> 
> The headline of this column is lifted from a 1981 essay by the late Paul Fussell, the cultural critic and war memoirist. In 1945 Fussell was a 21-year-old second lieutenant in the U.S. Army who had fought his way through Europe only to learn that he would soon be shipped to the Pacific to take part in Operation Downfall, the invasion of the Japanese home islands scheduled to begin in November 1945.​​Then the atom bomb intervened. Japan would not surrender after Hiroshima, but it did after Nagasaki.​​I brought Fussell’s essay with me on my flight to Hiroshima and was stopped by this: “When we learned to our astonishment that we would not be obliged in a few months to rush up the beaches near Tokyo assault-firing while being machine-gunned, mortared, and shelled, for all the practiced phlegm of our tough facades we broke down and cried with relief and joy. We were going to live.”​​In all the cant that will pour forth this week to mark the 70th anniversary of the dropping of the bombs—that the U.S. owes the victims of the bombings an apology; that nuclear weapons ought to be abolished; that Hiroshima is a monument to man’s inhumanity to man; that Japan could have been defeated in a slightly nicer way—I doubt much will be made of Fussell’s fundamental point: Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren’t just terrible war-ending events. They were also lifesaving. The bomb turned the empire of the sun into a nation of peace activists.​
> Thank God for the Atom Bomb - WSJ
> ...



This post is based on myths that were debunked decades ago. The bomb did not save "hundreds of thousands of lives." Japan was prostrate and virtually defenseless against air and naval attack. So defenseless was Japan against air attack that we stopped sending fighter escorts on our bombing missions. Japan's population was on near-starvation rations. What's more, Japan was already trying to surrender when we nuked Hiroshima, and we knew it from multiple sources. 



			https://miketgriffith.com/files/immoraluse.pdf


----------



## mikegriffith1 (Aug 25, 2021)

The Pacific War and the Atomic Bomb








						The Pacific War and the Atomic Bomb
					

THE PACIFIC WAR AND THE ATOMIC BOMB




					sites.google.com


----------



## gipper (Aug 25, 2021)

mikegriffith1 said:


> This post is based on myths that were debunked decades ago. The bomb did not save "hundreds of thousands of lives." Japan was prostrate and virtually defenseless against air and naval attack. So defenseless was Japan against air attack that we stopped sending fighter escorts on our bombing missions. Japan's population was on near-starvation rations. What's more, Japan was already trying to surrender when we nuked Hiroshima, and we knew it from multiple sources.
> 
> 
> 
> https://miketgriffith.com/files/immoraluse.pdf


Of course it was debunked decades ago but Toro like so many Americans still believes the lie promoted by the state, ignoring the tons of evidence proving it’s a lie.

Just goes to prove the old adage if the state promotes a lie repeatedly over many years, many people will accept it.


----------



## gipper (Aug 25, 2021)

mikegriffith1 said:


> The Pacific War and the Atomic Bomb
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Just bought the book.


----------



## mikegriffith1 (Aug 25, 2021)

When you have to tell numerous lies about something you did, that's a pretty good indication that you did something wrong. Few people realize that initially the Truman administration and its allies in the press claimed that Hiroshima was a "military target" and that the bombing mission encountered fierce anti-aircraft fire, and in the ensuing months the government tried to suppress accounts of the horrific nature of the deaths and injuries that were inflicted. The government also withheld vital information about radiation effects from the Japanese and refused to treat victims of the atomic blasts. The Army set up a center in Hiroshima to study the effects of radiation on Hiroshima's residents but refused to provide any treatment for them. 

There was a small garrison at Hiroshima of about 10,000 troops, most of them garrison troops, out of a population of about 300,000. The garrison was located on the outskirts of the city, and could have easily been taken out with a conventional bombing mission. Hiroshima's port had long since been closed by the U.S. Navy. Numerous disabled ships sat lifelessly in the harbor. 

Why did the Army Air Corps send the Enola Gay to Hiroshima with no fighter escorts? Because we knew that Japan was virtually defenseless against air attack. And the crew later admitted that there was no anti-aircraft fire.


----------



## there4eyeM (Aug 25, 2021)

Given the evolution of thought during the Second World War, it was logical for them to use the weapon. That only demonstrates how logic can lead to gross error.


----------



## gipper (Aug 25, 2021)

there4eyeM said:


> Given the evolution of thought during the Second World War, it was logical for them to use the weapon. That only demonstrates how logic can lead to gross error.


I don’t see the logic in massacring defenseless women and children, of a nation trying to surrender.


----------



## there4eyeM (Aug 26, 2021)

gipper said:


> I don’t see the logic in massacring defenseless women and children, of a nation trying to surrender.


You are not immersed in the epoch as they were. As with so many poor decisions in the past, more of us can see clearly now what few did at the time.


----------



## Unkotare (Aug 26, 2021)

there4eyeM said:


> You are not immersed in the epoch as they were. As with so many poor decisions in the past, more of us can see clearly now what few did at the time.


Plenty of people saw it clearly at that time.


----------



## there4eyeM (Aug 26, 2021)

Unkotare said:


> Plenty of people saw it clearly at that time.


It certainly seems obvious to me, but obviously not enough influence was in place back then.


----------



## mikegriffith1 (Aug 26, 2021)

There is a reason that the vast majority of scholars who specialize in Japan's surrender argue that nuking Japan was completely unnecessary and criminal. Even some historians who you would expect would endorse dropping the bomb have condemned it.


----------



## JoeB131 (Aug 26, 2021)

mikegriffith1 said:


> This post is based on myths that were debunked decades ago. The bomb did not save "hundreds of thousands of lives." Japan was prostrate and virtually defenseless against air and naval attack. So defenseless was Japan against air attack that we stopped sending fighter escorts on our bombing missions. Japan's population was on near-starvation rations. What's more, Japan was already trying to surrender when we nuked Hiroshima, and we knew it from multiple sources.



Mormon Mike, you work under the delusion that people at the time looked at the bomb with the existential dread that those of us born after 1950 look at it. 

They didn't.  It was just another weapon to drop on an enemy four years of propaganda had told Americans to look upon as sub-human.  (Not that they didn't themselves any favors raping and murdering all over Asia.)


----------



## JoeB131 (Aug 26, 2021)

mikegriffith1 said:


> There is a reason that the vast majority of scholars who specialize in Japan's surrender argue that nuking Japan was completely unnecessary and criminal. Even some historians who you would expect would endorse dropping the bomb have condemned it.



Awesome. Hindsight is always 20/20.  

I grew up knowing a lot of WWII vets, including my late father...  I never met a one of them who had an objection to nuking Japan.


----------



## Colin norris (Aug 26, 2021)

Toro said:


> I tend to agree.  It saved hundreds of thousands of lives, including many Americans.
> 
> The headline of this column is lifted from a 1981 essay by the late Paul Fussell, the cultural critic and war memoirist. In 1945 Fussell was a 21-year-old second lieutenant in the U.S. Army who had fought his way through Europe only to learn that he would soon be shipped to the Pacific to take part in Operation Downfall, the invasion of the Japanese home islands scheduled to begin in November 1945.
> 
> ...



Firstly, God had nothing to do with the development of the atomic bomb and only a godbothering dickhead would say that. 
Secondly, I agree about dropping it.  Its stopped the war and that's the whole point of the exercise.


----------



## gipper (Aug 26, 2021)

JoeB131 said:


> Mormon Mike, you work under the delusion that people at the time looked at the bomb with the existential dread that those of us born after 1950 look at it.
> 
> They didn't.  It was just another weapon to drop on an enemy four years of propaganda had told Americans to look upon as sub-human.  (Not that they didn't themselves any favors raping and murdering all over Asia.)


Wrong.


----------



## gipper (Aug 26, 2021)

Colin norris said:


> Firstly, God had nothing to do with the development of the atomic bomb and only a godbothering dickhead would say that.
> Secondly, I agree about dropping it.  Its stopped the war and that's the whole point of the exercise.


STFU


----------



## Colin norris (Aug 26, 2021)

gipper said:


> STFU



Not a happy camper?  Still love God dickhead,? Fuck your silly gods.


----------



## gipper (Aug 26, 2021)

Colin norris said:


> Not a happy camper?  Still love God dickhead,? Fuck your silly gods.


STFU!


----------



## Colin norris (Aug 26, 2021)

gipper said:


> STFU!



I'm under  your skin.  
Every time you reply I get another whack at you.  Have another go dickhead


----------



## there4eyeM (Aug 27, 2021)

If past mistakes are not acknowledged as such it increases the likelihood of repetition.


----------



## gipper (Aug 27, 2021)

Colin norris said:


> I'm under  your skin.
> Every time you reply I get another whack at you.  Have another go dickhead


That’s not it. I just dislike purposely ignorant people.


----------



## gipper (Aug 27, 2021)

there4eyeM said:


> If past mistakes are not acknowledged as such it increases the likelihood of repetition.


Very true. Yet after all these many failed foreign interventions since and including Vietnam, our corrupt government continues to follow an interventionist foreign policy completely undeterred and uncontrolled.

The power of the MIC can’t be overstated.  The profits for the war profiteers is just too great.


----------



## mikegriffith1 (Aug 27, 2021)

Look, if we were really worried about the "headquarters" garrison at Hiroshima, we could have easily taken it out with a small conventional bombing mission. The garrison's buildings were on the outskirts of the city. Ditto for most of the factories--they were on the outskirts of town and could have easily been wiped out via conventional bombing. But the aiming point for the a-bomb was in the middle of the city.


----------



## Colin norris (Aug 27, 2021)

gipper said:


> That’s not it. I just dislike purposely ignorant people.



Not ignorant son. Its you inability to accept facts which is ignorant.  We are all ignorant about something. You're ignorant about every thong because you are a Republican.


----------



## gipper (Aug 27, 2021)

Colin norris said:


> Not ignorant son. Its you inability to accept facts which is ignorant.  We are all ignorant about something. You're ignorant about every thong because you are a Republican.


Damn and I was just accused of being a commie by another dumb poster. I must be doing something right.


----------



## JoeB131 (Aug 28, 2021)

mikegriffith1 said:


> Look, if we were really worried about the "headquarters" garrison at Hiroshima, we could have easily taken it out with a small conventional bombing mission. The garrison's buildings were on the outskirts of the city. Ditto for most of the factories--they were on the outskirts of town and could have easily been wiped out via conventional bombing. But the aiming point for the a-bomb was in the middle of the city.



Um, yeah... that's the point of bombing, to create as much fear and destruction as possible.  

But again, you are putting existential dread that we feel today about nukes on people who had already endured six years of global war and had become kind of numb to it.


----------



## there4eyeM (Aug 28, 2021)

JoeB131 said:


> Um, yeah... that's the point of bombing, to create as much fear and destruction as possible.
> 
> But again, you are putting existential dread that we feel today about nukes on people who had already endured six years of global war and had become kind of numb to it.


Wouldn't that mean that bombing is terrorism?


----------



## mikegriffith1 (Sep 12, 2021)

I would compare denying the immorality of nuking Japan to Holocaust denial. The facts are that obvious. It just boils down to whether one is willing to acknowledge their clear meaning.


----------



## mikegriffith1 (Sep 12, 2021)

JoeB131 said:


> Um, yeah... that's the point of bombing, to create as much fear and destruction as possible.



Uh, well, gee, that may be how Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse Tung viewed the point of bombing, but that's not how a civilized nation views it. You don't bomb civilians, period, and you especially don't bomb them to destroy and to terrorize the surviving civilians. That's not warfare. That's murder.

You simply ignored the point that we could have destroyed the meaningless military facility in Hiroshima with conventional bombing. The same goes for the factories in Hiroshima, most of which were on the outskirts of the city (and since we aimed the nuke for the heart of the city, most of the factories were not destroyed, precisely because they were on the outskirts of the city).

Denying the immorality of nuking Japan is as bad as Holocaust denial. The facts are that obvious. It just boils down to whether one is willing to acknowledge their clear meaning.


----------



## gipper (Sep 12, 2021)

mikegriffith1 said:


> Uh, well, gee, that may be how Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse Tung viewed the point of bombing, but that's not how a civilized nation views it. You don't bomb civilians, period, and you especially don't bomb them to destroy and to terrorize the surviving civilians. That's not warfare. That's murder.
> 
> You simply ignored the point that we could have destroyed the meaningless military facility in Hiroshima with conventional bombing. The same goes for the factories in Hiroshima, most of which were on the outskirts of the city (and since we aimed the nuke for the heart of the city, most of the factories were not destroyed, precisely because they were on the outskirts of the city).
> 
> Denying the immorality of nuking Japan is as bad as Holocaust denial. The facts are that obvious. It just boils down to whether one is willing to acknowledge their clear meaning.


You’re fighting an uphill battle and I suspect you know it. Most Americans only know what their government and it’s jesters have told them about the A-bombings. So naturally, they’re completely uninformed and duped. 

Imagine if every high school student in the country was required to read your book. I’m reading it now, but I already knew much of the truth. However you really drive it home. 

This belief by many Americans that total war is acceptable, is appalling. The mass murdering of innocent civilians by our military continues to this day, without much criticism. It’s shameful.


----------



## JoeB131 (Sep 14, 2021)

mikegriffith1 said:


> Uh, well, gee, that may be how Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse Tung viewed the point of bombing, but that's not how a civilized nation views it. You don't bomb civilians, period, and you especially don't bomb them to destroy and to terrorize the surviving civilians. That's not warfare. That's murder.



Except Mao and Stalin didn't do carpet bombing of other countries...that's our thing.  Japan wasn't even out last victim.  We dropped more bombs on Vietnam than we dropped on the Axis, and funny thing, they never learned to love Coca-Cola.  



mikegriffith1 said:


> You simply ignored the point that we could have destroyed the meaningless military facility in Hiroshima with conventional bombing. The same goes for the factories in Hiroshima, most of which were on the outskirts of the city (and since we aimed the nuke for the heart of the city, most of the factories were not destroyed, precisely because they were on the outskirts of the city).



Again, you work on the assumption that the nuke was seen with the dread and awe we see Nukes with today.  People at the time didn't see it that way.  It was just another weapon.   Period.  




mikegriffith1 said:


> Denying the immorality of nuking Japan is as bad as Holocaust denial. The facts are that obvious. It just boils down to whether one is willing to acknowledge their clear meaning.



It's fun to watch you Fascists turn into a hippy drum circle.  

The thing is, again, your view is skewed by living in 2021.   

For most your lifetime (and mine, and I'm probably older than you), we were told the Nazis were the epitome of evil, and the War with Japan was just unfortunate.  It's why _Casablanca_ has survived as a "classic", while those anti-Japanese films with white actors in Yellow-face have been largely banned. 

At the time, our propagandists made a distinction between "Good German" and "Nazis", while the Japanese were all sub-human monsters.  Of course, the Good Germans fought to the last old man and little boy for Hitler, while the Japanese realized that the war was lost and surrendered to avoid more bloodshed. 

But after being fed four years of propaganda like this.... 






....nobody at the time thought twice about nuking Japan.  Some people even wondered why we only dropped two atom bombs on them. (Because that was all we had, actually).


----------



## JoeB131 (Sep 14, 2021)

there4eyeM said:


> Wouldn't that mean that bombing is terrorism?



Why, yes. Yes, it would.  

Another great film, called "The Battle of Algiers" - an Algerian/Italian co-production, the French have caught a rebel leader and are parading him in front of the French Press.  

They ask him, "Why do you put bombs in women's baskets?" and he responds, "Why do you drop bombs from airplanes?  We'll happily trade our baskets for planes."


----------



## gipper (Sep 14, 2021)

JoeB131 said:


> Except Mao and Stalin didn't do carpet bombing of other countries...that's our thing.  Japan wasn't even out last victim.  We dropped more bombs on Vietnam than we dropped on the Axis, and funny thing, they never learned to love Coca-Cola.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That’s a flawed opinion Joe. Just because Americans thought nuking Japan was acceptable at the time, doesn’t make it right. Nearly all Americans had no idea of the destruction and consequences of the nukes. Secondly as you point out, Americans had been propagandize to believe the Japanese were subhuman and deserving of mass death…funny thing about that.  Hitler and the Nazis thought the same of the Jews and Slavs.

At any rate, mass murdering defenseless civilians is never acceptable. It is a war crime. Truman is no different than Hitler, Stalin, or Mao.


----------



## JoeB131 (Sep 15, 2021)

gipper said:


> That’s a flawed opinion Joe. Just because Americans thought nuking Japan was acceptable at the time, doesn’t make it right. Nearly all Americans had no idea of the destruction and consequences of the nukes. Secondly as you point out, Americans had been propagandize to believe the Japanese were subhuman and deserving of mass death…funny thing about that. Hitler and the Nazis thought the same of the Jews and Slavs.
> 
> At any rate, mass murdering defenseless civilians is never acceptable. It is a war crime. Truman is no different than Hitler, Stalin, or Mao.



Okay, you keep telling yourself that, man.  

70 million people died in WWII.  The Japanese inflicted death all across Asia to the point the rest of Asia still hates them.  The Rape of Nanking (Oh, wait, Mormon Mike thinks that wasn't so bad) and the Bataan Death March, you aren't going to find a lot of Chinese or Filipinos wringing their hands about Hiroshima. 

War sucks.  We didn't start this one.


----------



## gipper (Sep 15, 2021)

JoeB131 said:


> Okay, you keep telling yourself that, man.
> 
> 70 million people died in WWII.  The Japanese inflicted death all across Asia to the point the rest of Asia still hates them.  The Rape of Nanking (Oh, wait, Mormon Mike thinks that wasn't so bad) and the Bataan Death March, you aren't going to find a lot of Chinese or Filipinos wringing their hands about Hiroshima.
> 
> War sucks.  We didn't start this one.


So, you’re position is since the Japanese committed terrible atrocities against civilians and started the war, the US is justified in mass murdering the Japanese people. I think not. Your thinking is that of a grade schooler. Immature and ignorant.


----------



## JoeB131 (Sep 15, 2021)

gipper said:


> So, you’re position is since the Japanese committed terrible atrocities against civilians and started the war, the US is justified in mass murdering the Japanese people. I think not. Your thinking is that of a grade schooler. Immature and ignorant.



Um, yeah, when you commit crimes against peace and humanity, you should fully expect to get bombed. 

We didn't start this fight, the Axis Powers did. 

We did finish it.


----------



## gipper (Sep 15, 2021)

JoeB131 said:


> Um, yeah, when you commit crimes against peace and humanity, you should fully expect to get bombed.
> 
> We didn't start this fight, the Axis Powers did.
> 
> We did finish it.


Terribly ignorant. Apparently you’re unaware the Japanese people had no control over the actions of their government. As such my son, they shouldn’t be held responsible for the actions of their government. Our government mass murdering defenseless Japanese women and children who weren’t responsible for their government’s atrocities, is a war crime.

Think before posting.

You like to claim you aren’t a racist, but your illogical hatred of the Japanese people would seem to indicate otherwise.


----------



## elektra (Sep 15, 2021)

Sad, that the idiots never give up. 

The two atomic bombs ended the Pacific War. 
_Did people die, yes, of course. But, it is a Nation that goes to war, sadly those women and children are a part of the war. They are intermingled amongst the industry, their homes within walking distance of the factories that make war. Their homes within walking distance of the docks that repair ships. Their homes within walking distance of Army and Navy headquarters. _

In total war, there is no save haven for innocents. That is simply a sad fact of war.


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 15, 2021)

elektra said:


> ...
> 
> The two atomic bombs ended the Pacific War.
> ....


"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."
              - Admiral William Leahy, White House chief of staff and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the war


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 15, 2021)

elektra said:


> ...
> 
> In total war, there is no save haven for innocents. That is simply a sad fact of war.



"I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."


----------



## gipper (Sep 15, 2021)

elektra said:


> Sad, that the idiots never give up.
> 
> The two atomic bombs ended the Pacific War.
> _Did people die, yes, of course. But, it is a Nation that goes to war, sadly those women and children are a part of the war. They are intermingled amongst the industry, their homes within walking distance of the factories that make war. Their homes within walking distance of the docks that repair ships. Their homes within walking distance of Army and Navy headquarters. _
> ...


Wrong. Total war is a war crime. Wake the fuck up.


----------



## AZrailwhale (Sep 15, 2021)

regent said:


> Most of the Japanese leadership knew Japan could not win the war. If that is true what then was Japan's strategy, and how would that strategy fit into operation Olympic and Coronet, and finally the A bomb?


The Japanese government's strategy was simple, drown the invaders in an ocean of Japanese and American blood and hope that the American voters would force the government to give Japan a favorable peace deal.


----------



## AZrailwhale (Sep 15, 2021)

there4eyeM said:


> Japan was subdued. No further ground action on any large scale was needed. As with many other aspects of WWII, mistakes in strategy and goals lead to terrible losses without proportionate gain. Propaganda still insists on a version that puts Hiroshima and Nagasaki in a light that spares the US.


So what would you do?  Blockade Japan so hundreds of thousands or even millions of Japanese civilians starved to death?  All the while the Japanese Army would be killing more hundreds of thousands Chinese, Burmese,   Vietnamese and Malaysian civilians?  Plus all the Allied POWS being beaten and starved to death in Japanese POW and forced labor camps?


----------



## AZrailwhale (Sep 15, 2021)

whitehall said:


> The victors write the history books and life was cheap during the 2nd war to end all wars. The insanity that surfaced and prevailed among the Allies half way into the "world war" was that it was a legitimate concept that the mass killing of "enemy" civilians was a factor in winning the war. Was Paul Fussell aware that the Bushido Japanese holdouts were desperate to negotiate terms of surrender with the U.S. and desperate egghead scientists were pressuring the administration to test their monstrosity on real (sub human) people? Meanwhile president Harry Truman was under some sort of mystical pressure from his former dead boss to refuse to talk about terms of surrender with the Japanese other than unconditional surrender. Meanwhile the Japanese were trying desperately to negotiate terms of surrender with freaking Stalin. Ironically the most important term in Japanese surrender was the preservation of the Japanese emperor and  the guarantee of not executing him and that happened anyway after the former clothing store owner who found himself president without a clue authorized the incineration of two Japanese cities.


The only official Japanese offer was a return to status quo ante December 5th 1941.  No war crimes trials and the Japanese got to oversee whatever disarmament they decided to do.  All the other offers were from individuals who had no power in the government and no authority to make offers in the first place.


----------



## gipper (Sep 15, 2021)

AZrailwhale said:


> So what would you do?  Blockade Japan so hundreds of thousands or even millions of Japanese civilians starved to death?  All the while the Japanese Army would be killing more hundreds of thousands Chinese, Burmese,   Vietnamese and Malaysian civilians?  Plus all the Allied POWS being beaten and starved to death in Japanese POW and forced labor camps?


One thing is for sure, nuking a defenseless nation trying to surrender mass murdering thousands of innocent women and children, is a war crime.


----------



## elektra (Sep 15, 2021)

Unkotare said:


> "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."
> - Admiral William Leahy, White House chief of staff and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the war


Yet surrender they did not. Leahy never spoke against using the bomb during the war. Certainly after Hiroshima Leahy could object. But he did not. Leahy is Navy, Certainly he did not want the Army to win the war.


----------



## AZrailwhale (Sep 15, 2021)

Unkotare said:


> "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."
> - Admiral William Leahy, White House chief of staff and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the war


William Leahy who never saw a shot fired in anger during his entire career.


----------



## gipper (Sep 15, 2021)

elektra said:


> Yet surrender they did not. Leahy never spoke against using the bomb during the war. Certainly after Hiroshima Leahy could object. But he did not. Leahy is Navy, Certainly he did not want the Army to win the war.


They had been trying to surrender for months. All they asked is don’t harm the emperor. Truman nuked them and then agreed to their terms. Nice guy old Dirty Harry.


----------



## elektra (Sep 15, 2021)

gipper said:


> Wrong. Total war is a war crime. Wake the fuck up.


Wrong, Total War is what war was, in 1945

Today we have a bit of a luxury, with smart bombs and special forces, that was not the case in World War II


----------



## gipper (Sep 15, 2021)

elektra said:


> Wrong, Total War is what war was, in 1945
> 
> Today we have a bit of a luxury, with smart bombs and special forces, that was not the case in World War II


We didn’t have to do total war. It’s a crime. Mass murdering civilians is always a crime.

Oh fuck that bs. Our government is still mass murdering civilians today. Old Joe just got done murdering several children. It’s what our military does.

Don’t try to justify total war. It’s not possible.


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 15, 2021)

elektra said:


> Yet surrender they did not. Leahy never spoke against using the bomb during the war. Certainly after Hiroshima Leahy could object. But he did not. Leahy is Navy, Certainly he did not want the Army to win the war.


Read the entire thread before asking anyone to rehash all of the points already addressed in detail.


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 15, 2021)

AZrailwhale said:


> William Leahy who never saw a shot fired in anger during his entire career.


"the first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment." (the Japanese had )... "put out a lot of peace feelers through Russia long before" (the bomb was used).
                                    -  Admiral William "Bull" Halsey


----------



## elektra (Sep 15, 2021)

gipper said:


> We didn’t have to do total war. It’s a crime. Mass murdering civilians is always a crime.
> 
> Oh fuck that bs. Our government is still mass murdering civilians today. Old Joe got done just murdering several children. It’s what our military does.
> 
> Don’t try to justify total war. It’s not possible.


I am justifying ending the war, as soon as we could, saving 140,000 pow's

I am pretty fucking happy we saved Pappy Boyington by dropping two atomic bombs


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 15, 2021)

"many military leaders of the time — including six out of seven five-star officers — criticized the use of the atomic bomb. "











						Hiroshima: Military Voices of Dissent | Origins
					

Almost six decades after the fact, the 1945 unleashing of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima continues to be the subject of  impassioned debate. Every year the bombing anniversary — which falls on August 6 — occasions heated exchanges between those who question the atomic bombing and those who...




					origins.osu.edu


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 15, 2021)

elektra said:


> I am justifying ending the war, as soon as we could, saving 140,000 pow's
> 
> I am pretty fucking happy we saved Pappy Boyington by dropping two atomic bombs


American POWs were killed by the bombing of Hiroshima.


----------



## elektra (Sep 15, 2021)

Unkotare said:


> Read the entire thread before asking anyone to rehash all of the points already addressed in detail.


How about you reading the entire book before you cherry pic quotes, not once did Leahy try to stop the bombs. 

What Leahy did say, is, "they wont work". If I can paraphrase


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 15, 2021)

AZrailwhale said:


> The only official Japanese offer was a return to status quo ante December 5th 1941.  ...


Wrong.









						Clipping from Chicago Tribune - Newspapers.com
					

Clipping found in Chicago Tribune in Chicago, Illinois on Aug 14, 1965.




					www.newspapers.com


----------



## elektra (Sep 15, 2021)

Unkotare said:


> American POWs were killed by the bombing of Hiroshima.


sure, war sucks, a dozen? On there way to a concentration camp where 1 in 3 of all prisoners died.


----------



## elektra (Sep 15, 2021)

AZrailwhale said:


> The only official Japanese offer was a return to status quo ante December 5th 1941.  No war crimes trials and the Japanese got to oversee whatever disarmament they decided to do.  All the other offers were from individuals who had no power in the government and no authority to make offers in the first place.


you are right


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 15, 2021)

elektra said:


> sure, war sucks.......


Sounds like you don't care much that Truman killed American POWs with an atomic bomb. That's un-American.


----------



## Staidhup (Sep 15, 2021)

My father who lived through hell in the Marines during the South Pacific campaigns and uncle that died a proud Marine serving his country would have voted yes without hesitation. Revisionist BS is what it is just……BS!


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 15, 2021)

Staidhup said:


> My father who lived through hell in the Marines during the South Pacific campaigns and uncle that died a proud Marine serving his country would have voted yes without hesitation. Revisionist BS is what it is just……BS!


"Joseph O'Donnell, a retired marine corps sergeant who served in the Pacific, answered that "we should have went after the military in Japan. They were bad. But to drop a bomb on women and children and the elderly, I draw a line there, and I still hold it." 

"Doug Dowd, a Pacific-theater rescue pilot who was slated to take an early part in the invasion of Japan if it had come to that, recently stated that it was clear in the final months of the war that the Japanese "had lost the ability to defend themselves." American planes "met little, and then virtually no resistance," Dowd recalled. He added, "It is well-known [now] that the Japanese were seeking to make a peace agreement well before Hiroshima."


----------



## elektra (Sep 15, 2021)

Unkotare said:


> Sounds like you don't care much that Truman killed American POWs with an atomic bomb. That's un-American.


what is unamerican is your perverted user name


----------



## JoeB131 (Sep 15, 2021)

Unkotare said:


> "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."
> - Admiral William Leahy, White House chief of staff and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the war



Leahy and other military leaders, who had political disagreements with Truman on other issues, expressed these regrets in the 1950's, after Nuclear Weapons became an existential threat.

Not during the war, when they were just another weapon.


----------



## JoeB131 (Sep 15, 2021)

Unkotare said:


> "Joseph O'Donnell, a retired marine corps sergeant who served in the Pacific, answered that "we should have went after the military in Japan. They were bad. But to drop a bomb on women and children and the elderly, I draw a line there, and I still hold it."


Last time I checked, they didn't go to Sergeants for policy decisions... or at least no one did when I was a Sergeant in the Army.  

The line of dropping bombs on civilians got crossed before the US ever got into the war. 




Unkotare said:


> "Doug Dowd, a Pacific-theater rescue pilot who was slated to take an early part in the invasion of Japan if it had come to that, recently stated that it was clear in the final months of the war that the Japanese "had lost the ability to defend themselves." American planes "met little, and then virtually no resistance," Dowd recalled. He added, "It is well-known [now] that the Japanese were seeking to make a peace agreement well before Hiroshima."


Meaningless, since they weren't ready to agree to UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER. 




Unkotare said:


> "many military leaders of the time — including six out of seven five-star officers — criticized the use of the atomic bomb. "


Again, given that atom bombs made their jobs obsolete, we can understand their objections.


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 15, 2021)

elektra said:


> what is unamerican is your perverted user name


What do you mean?


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 15, 2021)

Clipping from Chicago Tribune - Newspapers.com
					

Clipping found in Chicago Tribune in Chicago, Illinois on Aug 14, 1965.




					www.newspapers.com


----------



## elektra (Sep 15, 2021)

Yes, we dropped the Bombs on military targets. Sadly, in those days, and even today military bases are surrounded by cities. 

A 100 years ago, when Japan built those bases, there was not widespread use of cars and buses. Cities grew up around the bases. 

Should our men die, 140,000 prisoners, should they die because the military has civilians as a shield?

And what were those civilians doing during the war? They were guards at the prisons. They worked in the shipyards repairing warships. The innocent civilians made bombs and bullets. The innocent civilians were even building defenses for the military. 

But, hey, lets not let a bunch of facts get in the way of your revisionist opinions.


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 15, 2021)

elektra said:


> Yes, we dropped the Bombs on military targets. .....


Wrong. Real the entire thread.


----------



## elektra (Sep 15, 2021)

Unkotare said:


> What do you mean?


You know exactly what I mean when I bring up your user name. You are simply, broken brained, your posts, pure ignorance, a poor google search at best.


----------



## elektra (Sep 15, 2021)

Unkotare said:


> Wrong. Real the entire thread.


Yes, dropping bombs on the 2nd Army Headquarters in Hiroshima was a legitimate target. The city was also a communications center. Hiroshima was storage point as well. 

Nagasaki? Repaired ships, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is a great military target. They some of the biggest battleships Japan had. Nagasaki was a very industrialized city, producing all kinds of bombs. Building military equipment. Nagasaki was home of one of four princible naval sea bases as well. 

Both, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are military bases


----------



## AZrailwhale (Sep 15, 2021)

Unkotare said:


> Wrong.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Did you bother to read the article?  It says the Swedish minister was approached by " representatives of one of the best known statesmen in Japan"  NOT the Japanese government.  Plus the only territorial concessions being offered were territories seized during the war and Manchuria.  That's status quo ante December Fifth with the addition of Manchuria.  All that territory was already lost to the Japanese.  With the US blockade Manchuria was nothing but an expense to the Japanese.  It wasn't an official offer from the government and didn't meet the terms Stalin, Churchill and FDR had already agreed on to end the war.  Unconditional Surrender, just like the Germans had to accept.


----------



## elektra (Sep 15, 2021)

AZrailwhale said:


> Did you bother to read the article?  It says the Swedish minister was approached by " representatives of one of the best known statesmen in Japan"  NOT the Japanese government.  Plus the only territorial concessions being offered were territories seized during the war and Manchuria.  That's status quo ante December Fifth with the addition of Manchuria.  All that territory was already lost to the Japanese.  With the US blockade Manchuria was nothing but an expense to the Japanese.  It wasn't an official offer from the government and didn't meet the terms Stalin, Churchill and FDR had already agreed on to end the war.  Unconditional Surrender, just like the Germans had to accept.


that shitty user you are responding to, knows everything you have said. It has been told, many many many times in other threads.

They are here, to change history. They do not like that we were the good guys and won the war. 
These people are American Marxists. They must take events like this to disparage our great history. The goal of these shitty users is simply to make people hate the USA so they can change it to as close to a American Marxist model as possible. 

Rest assured, they know we are right. I post simply to brush up on my history, learn what the revisionists say, and then prove them wrong. I show my children these hateful people and I show them with books how they cherry pic a sentence, and at that they cherry pic when in history they will quote someone, so that story fits there revisionist narrative. 

Post for fun, post to show yourself that it is easy to refute their lies. Post so that other people see that the revisionists will lose every argument they make,


----------



## gipper (Sep 15, 2021)

elektra said:


> I am justifying ending the war, as soon as we could, saving 140,000 pow's
> 
> I am pretty fucking happy we saved Pappy Boyington by dropping two atomic bombs


So you believe the lie that the a-bombings were needed to end the war. LOL.


----------



## elektra (Sep 15, 2021)

gipper said:


> So you believe the lie that the a-bombings were needed to end the war. LOL.


the war was not over when they were dropped, the war was over the day after they were dropped

you can call that a coincidence, ha, ha, ha!


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 15, 2021)

"the vibrant city of over a quarter of a million men, women and children was hardly “a military base.” Indeed, less than 10 percent of the individuals killed on Aug. 6, 1945, were Japanese military personnel."









						Hiroshima and the Myths of Military Targets and Unconditional Surrender
					

Every year, in early August, new articles appear that debate whether the dropping of the atomic bombs in 1945 was justified. Earlier this month, the 75th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks, was no exception.




					www.lawfareblog.com


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 15, 2021)

elektra said:


> You know exactly what I mean when I bring up your user name. ......


Not unless you explain.


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 15, 2021)

AZrailwhale said:


> Did you bother to read the article?  It says the Swedish minister was approached by " representatives of one of the best known statesmen in Japan"  NOT the Japanese government.  Plus the only territorial concessions being offered were territories seized during the war and Manchuria.  That's status quo ante December Fifth with the addition of Manchuria.  All that territory was already lost to the Japanese.  With the US blockade Manchuria was nothing but an expense to the Japanese.  It wasn't an official offer from the government and didn't meet the terms Stalin, Churchill and FDR had already agreed on to end the war.  Unconditional Surrender, just like the Germans had to accept.


Try reading the entire article, including the paragraph under the photo.


----------



## elektra (Sep 15, 2021)

With the defeat of the newly created 2nd General Army, the USA was close to ending the war Japan started.





__





						Second General Army (Japan) - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				






> After the fall of Okinawa, the command of the Second General Army was relocated to Hiroshima. When the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, most of the military units, logistical arms, and command staff of the Second General Army were killed. Together with the Fifth Division, Fifty-Ninth Army, and other combat divisions in the city who were also hit, an estimated 20,000 Japanese combatants were killed.[1]


----------



## elektra (Sep 15, 2021)

Unkotare said:


> Not unless you explain.


you know exactly what it means, play dumb all you want. I am surprised a user name such as yours is allowed, but you are who you are, are you not. 

We have gone through this before, so like I said, your act does not fly. You are simply a very sick demented person. It is nice that you make me address you as such.


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 15, 2021)

elektra said:


> you know exactly what it means, ......


I know what it really means. You apparently do not. Google can't help you.


----------



## elektra (Sep 15, 2021)

Unkotare said:


> Not unless you explain.


you have picked a user name you think is somehow clever? or it is who you are. There are no other results if one searches your name in google, except the result that is not fit to be commented here.


----------



## AZrailwhale (Sep 15, 2021)

Unkotare said:


> "the vibrant city of over a quarter of a million men, women and children was hardly “a military base.” Indeed, less than 10 percent of the individuals killed on Aug. 6, 1945, were Japanese military personnel."
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Ten percent of the population is a huge number.  I doubt that ten percent of the population of DC are military despite it being the headquarters of the largest military force in the world.  You just undermined your own point.


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 15, 2021)

elektra said:


> you have picked a user name you think is somehow clever? or it is who you are. There are no other results if one searches your name in google, except the result that is not fit to be commented here.


Are you under the impression that all information in the universe is on Google?


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 15, 2021)

AZrailwhale said:


> Ten percent of the population is a huge number.  I doubt that ten percent of the population of DC are military despite it being the headquarters of the largest military force in the world.  You just undermined your own point.


If you think that slaughtering 90% civilians is a moral choice, that is for you to live with. It sure as hell isn't American.


----------



## elektra (Sep 15, 2021)

Unkotare said:


> Are you under the impression that all information in the universe is on Google?


I am under the impression you are sick and enjoy the attention


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 15, 2021)

elektra said:


> I am under the impression you are sick and enjoy the attention


Your ignorance is your problem.


----------



## gipper (Sep 16, 2021)

elektra said:


> the war was not over when they were dropped, the war was over the day after they were dropped
> 
> you can call that a coincidence, ha, ha, ha!


The war was over long before the bombs dropped.


----------



## elektra (Sep 16, 2021)

gipper said:


> The war was over long before the bombs dropped.


Yet our prisoners were not released, how come? According to you the war was over for weeks?

And then of course, the USS Indianapolis was sunk killing 900 men just a week before Hiroshima. 

Nope, sorry, your comment is opinion, nothing more.


----------



## gipper (Sep 16, 2021)

elektra said:


> Yet our prisoners were not released, how come? According to you the war was over for weeks?
> 
> And then of course, the USS Indianapolis was sunk killing 900 men just a week before Hiroshima.
> 
> Nope, sorry, your comment is opinion, nothing more.


Lol. You’re not getting this. Japan had been trying to surrender, but old Dirty Harry said no way…we need to keep killing your defenseless women and children.


----------



## AZrailwhale (Sep 16, 2021)

gipper said:


> The war was over long before the bombs dropped.


No it wasn’t.  Japanese troops were still fighting and murdering troops, POWs and civilians in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, China and a lot of other places.   The Home Islands weren’t the war, they were just the place the US was trying to force the Japanese to surrender.  People like you are trying to turn the Japanese into helpless, blameless victims.  They weren’t.  They behaved like monsters raping, looting killing and enslaving both civilians and POWs everywhere they went from 1936 on.  Ever see the movie Bridge on the River Kwai?  That was about the Burmese-Siam railway.  The Japanese worked hundreds of thousands people to death building that railway while starving and torturing them.  The people that they murdered were mostly local civilians.


----------



## gipper (Sep 16, 2021)

AZrailwhale said:


> No it wasn’t.  Japanese troops were still fighting and murdering troops, POWs and civilians in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, China and a lot of other places.   The Home Islands weren’t the war, they were just the place the US was trying to force the Japanese to surrender.  People like you are trying to turn the Japanese into helpless, blameless victims.  They weren’t.  They behaved like monsters raping, looting killing and enslaving both civilians and POWs everywhere they went from 1936 on.  Ever see the movie Bridge on the River Kwai?  That was about the Burmese-Siam railway.  The Japanese worked hundreds of thousands people to death building that railway while starving and torturing them.  The people that they murdered were mostly local civilians.


Lol. You recognize the heinous actions of the Japanese military, but not Truman’s mass murdering of defenseless civilians. You have no credibility.


----------



## AZrailwhale (Sep 16, 2021)

gipper said:


> Lol. You’re not getting this. Japan had been trying to surrender, but old Dirty Harry said no way…we need to keep killing your defenseless women and children.


Japan wasn’t trying to surrender, they wanted an armistice that allowed them to keep their ill gotten gains and avoid punishment for all the horrible things they did for over a decade on the Asian mainland and for four years in the Pacific.  You name a war crime and the Japanese committed it.


----------



## AZrailwhale (Sep 16, 2021)

gipper said:


> Lol. You recognize the heinous actions of the Japanese military, but not Truman’s mass murdering of defenseless civilians. You have no credibility.


The Japanese started bombing helpless civilians long before the US entered the war.  They bombed defenseless cities that had been declared “open” meaning that the Chinese wouldn’t even try to defend them,  the Japanese used poison gas against Chinese civilians, they released anthrax ridden fleas on Chinese civilians to cause plagues.  All the US did was to balance the scales.  The Japanese weren’t signatories of the Geneva Conventions, so the war in the Pacific was fought under the old rules of war.  They were enforced by reciprocity, if the enemy violated the rules you returned the favor.  The Japanese killed troops by faking surrenders, the allies stopped taking prisoners.  The Japanese bombed civilians, the US bombed Japanese civilians right back.  War isn’t a sterile video game, at its best it’s savagery and horror, at its worst it’s organized slaughter.  The British general who defeated Napoleon said “ the only thing worse than a battle won, is a battle lost”.  You and your friends always want to blame the Americans, but think about this one fact, there would have been no Pacific War if the Japanese hadn’t invaded, enslaved and subjugated, Korea, Manchuria, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and finally China.  The US tried every peaceful means to stop Japanese aggression, boycotts, economic sanctions and finally cutting off the oil exports to Japan.  All the Japanese had to do to remove all those sanctions was to cease their invasion of China.  We weren’t even trying to get them to give up the other countries they had already conquered.  Instead, they chose to go to war with the UK, the Dutch, the Australians and most stupidly, the Americans.


----------



## Staidhup (Sep 16, 2021)

The lesson here is simple, War is ugly, it has a broad and all encompassing effect on not only the lords of war but civilians as well. I am willing to bet the lords of war didn’t much care about their own citizen’s, otherwise they wouldn’t have started the dam thing in the first place.


----------



## Turtlesoup (Sep 16, 2021)

Unkotare said:


> It's OK to stop and think for a second before posting, you know.


Yes it is...to bad that you don't do this.


----------



## elektra (Sep 16, 2021)

gipper said:


> Lol. You’re not getting this. Japan had been trying to surrender, but old Dirty Harry said no way…we need to keep killing your defenseless women and children.


I get it, I have read all the cherry picked sources you folks link to. I have gone further as well and bought every book that was cherry picked for your Google search source. 

So, if you care to rehash Sweden, Russia, or the OSI surrender bullshit, give it your best shot.


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 16, 2021)

Staidhup said:


> The lesson here is simple, War is ugly, it has a broad and all encompassing effect on not only the lords of war but civilians as well. I am willing to bet the lords of war didn’t much care about their own citizen’s, otherwise they wouldn’t have started the dam thing in the first place.


You mean like a leader who threw his own citizens into concentration camps?


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 16, 2021)

AZrailwhale said:


> .... The Japanese bombed civilians, the US bombed Japanese civilians right back.  ....



"Right back"? Since when is the US part of China?


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 16, 2021)

Unkotare said:


> Clipping from Chicago Tribune - Newspapers.com
> 
> 
> Clipping found in Chicago Tribune in Chicago, Illinois on Aug 14, 1965.
> ...


.


----------



## Staidhup (Sep 16, 2021)

No, the lords of war that enslaved their citizens, sacrificed the youth of their nation, out to slaughter civilians and conquer sovereign nations for the glory of Shinto puppet emperor. FDR reacted poorly yet under the circumstances had no other choice. Must be comforting to sit back and play your game of revisionist hypothetical what if spin games.


----------



## AZrailwhale (Sep 16, 2021)

Unkotare said:


> "Right back"? Since when is the US part of China?


The Japanese also bombed Manila AFTER it was declared an open city.  Now you are reduced to trying to nitpick over which country's civilians the Japanese committed war crimes against.


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 16, 2021)

AZrailwhale said:


> The Japanese also bombed Manila AFTER it was declared an open city.....


Is the US part of the Philippines?

Did we develop and use atomic weapons on behalf of other nations rather than our own?


----------



## gipper (Sep 16, 2021)

elektra said:


> I get it, I have read all the cherry picked sources you folks link to. I have gone further as well and bought every book that was cherry picked for your Google search source.
> 
> So, if you care to rehash Sweden, Russia, or the OSI surrender bullshit, give it your best shot.


Cherry picked info…lmfao. That’s you my friend. You merely accept what the corrupt establishment has told you. I don’t.


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 16, 2021)

Staidhup said:


> ..... FDR reacted poorly yet under the circumstances had no other choice. .....


That is absurd. Of course the scumbag had a choice.


----------



## gipper (Sep 16, 2021)

AZrailwhale said:


> The Japanese also bombed Manila AFTER it was declared an open city.  Now you are reduced to trying to nitpick over which country's civilians the Japanese committed war crimes against.


So you conclude from that Truman was justified in mass murdering thousands of defenseless innocent women and children with the a-bombs. CRAZY!


----------



## gipper (Sep 16, 2021)

Staidhup said:


> No, the lords of war that enslaved their citizens, sacrificed the youth of their nation, out to slaughter civilians and conquer sovereign nations for the glory of Shinto puppet emperor. FDR reacted poorly yet under the circumstances had no other choice. Must be comforting to sit back and play your game of revisionist hypothetical what if spin games.


Oh please. FDR set up events at Pearl Harbor, knew the attack was forthcoming, failed to warn commanders at Pearl, and sacrificed thousands of American boys for his nefarious goals.


----------



## elektra (Sep 16, 2021)

gipper said:


> Cherry picked info…lmfao. That’s you my friend. You merely accept what the corrupt establishment has told you. I don’t.


Just as long as you don't post a quote or link you can claim whatever you like.

And as we know, Democrats were born angels and unlike the people below them, Democrats are totally honest.


----------



## Staidhup (Sep 16, 2021)

gipper said:


> Oh please. FDR set up events at Pearl Harbor, knew the attack was forthcoming, failed to warn commanders at Pearl, and sacrificed thousands of American boys for his nefarious goals.


I do not disagree that FDR had prior knowledge of the  potential imminent attack against US interests, however, State Department and Intelligence service believed the likely target would be the Philippines or Midway.
Cordell Hull had been instructed by FDR to exercise all diplomatic efforts available in finding a means to cease hostilities and genocide resulting from occupying Japanese forces in China and Korea.


----------



## AZrailwhale (Sep 16, 2021)

Unkotare said:


> Is the US part of the Philippines?
> 
> Did we develop and use atomic weapons on behalf of other nations rather than our own?


The Philippines were a US territory  at that time like Guam, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.


----------



## AZrailwhale (Sep 16, 2021)

Unkotare said:


> Is the US part of the Philippines?
> 
> Did we develop and use atomic weapons on behalf of other nations rather than our own?


As a matter of fact, yes.   The Manhattan Project was a cooperative project between the Commonwealth and the USA.  A lot of the original research was British.


----------



## JoeB131 (Sep 17, 2021)

Unkotare said:


> You mean like a leader who threw his own citizens into concentration camps?



You mean citizens who were in a front line zone we didn't have any reason to trust? 

Yes, it was a shitty thing to do, but on the list of "shitty things done during WWII", it ranks pretty low.  




Unkotare said:


> Is the US part of the Philippines?
> 
> Did we develop and use atomic weapons on behalf of other nations rather than our own?



At the time, the Philippines were a commonwealth of the US.


----------



## JoeB131 (Sep 17, 2021)

AZrailwhale said:


> The Philippines were a US territory  at that time like Guam, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.



Sadly, Dripping Poop doesn't know that, and he claims to be a teacher. 

it explains much.


----------



## gipper (Sep 17, 2021)

Staidhup said:


> I do not disagree that FDR had prior knowledge of the  potential imminent attack against US interests, however, State Department and Intelligence service believed the likely target would be the Philippines or Midway.
> Cordell Hull had been instructed by FDR to exercise all diplomatic efforts available in finding a means to cease hostilities and genocide resulting from occupying Japanese forces in China and Korea.


No. Our intelligence services knew the Japanese fleet was steaming toward Hawaii. They followed it all the way across the Pacific. This is why the carriers were moved out just in time.

Secondly, FDR made no efforts to negotiate with the Japanese to avoid hostilities. He did all he could to position Japan into attacking us. He committed treason and should have been hung.


----------



## there4eyeM (Sep 17, 2021)

When both sides are wrong, when neither side possesses a position of moral superiority, such discussion as has gone on here is moot. The simple question, however, "should an atomic bomb be dropped?", is, in general, absurd. Of course it "should" not. War should not happen. Cruelty should not be inflicted. Such a question, then, is ridiculous. The closest thing to a genuine question is, did it do more harm than not dropping it would have? That alone is arguable. Honest people could disagree over that.


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 17, 2021)

JoeB131 said:


> You mean citizens who were in a front line zone we didn't have any reason to trust?
> 
> ....



Who is "we," you racist son of a bitch? WE have no reason to trust YOU. I guess WE should throw YOU in a concentration camp. 


The government doesn't need a reason to trust its citizens, citizens need a reason to trust the government. Clearly any trust in that piece of shit fdr was more than misplaced.


----------



## Staidhup (Sep 17, 2021)

gipper said:


> No. Our intelligence services knew the Japanese fleet was steaming toward Hawaii. They followed it all the way across the Pacific. This is why the carriers were moved out just in time.
> 
> Secondly, FDR made no efforts to negotiate with the Japanese to avoid hostilities. He did all he could to position Japan into attacking us. He committed treason and should have been hung.


That may friend is pure BS. Apparently you subscribe to baseless conspiracy theories. Furthermore maybe it’s time to read the “released” Sec of State and State Department documents, between the US and Japan, regarding the run up to Pearl. Enough with your woke nonsense.


----------



## gipper (Sep 17, 2021)

Staidhup said:


> That may friend is pure BS. Apparently you subscribe to baseless conspiracy theories. Furthermore maybe it’s time to read the “released” Sec of State and State Department documents, between the US and Japan, regarding the run up to Pearl. Enough with your woke nonsense.


You are uninformed but typical of most Americans who haven’t bothered to study the event. If you knew history you’d know that many  people came forward with evidence of prior knowledge.


----------



## JoeB131 (Sep 17, 2021)

Unkotare said:


> Who is "we," you racist son of a bitch? WE have no reason to trust YOU. I guess WE should throw YOU in a concentration camp.



Sorry, Dripping Poop, I'm a second generation veteran... if the government can't trust me, they really can't trust anyone.

Now, looking at it from the view of people at the time.  You have 110,000 people who were born or directly linked to the power that just attacked you, you have only a few ships left between them and the west coast. And you know from the last two years of this war that the Axis Powers have found collaborators in every country they've invaded.  

So you are going to let 110,000 potential collaborators run free on the west coast?  That would be a bit daft. 



Unkotare said:


> The government doesn't need a reason to trust its citizens, citizens need a reason to trust the government. Clearly any trust in that piece of shit fdr was more than misplaced.



yeah, he only saved us from the Great Depression and defeated fascism.  What a jerk.   I think you should totally refuse to cash any social security checks just to protest what an awful guy he was.


----------



## C_Clayton_Jones (Sep 17, 2021)

Toro said:


> I tend to agree.  It saved hundreds of thousands of lives, including many Americans.
> 
> The headline of this column is lifted from a 1981 essay by the late Paul Fussell, the cultural critic and war memoirist. In 1945 Fussell was a 21-year-old second lieutenant in the U.S. Army who had fought his way through Europe only to learn that he would soon be shipped to the Pacific to take part in Operation Downfall, the invasion of the Japanese home islands scheduled to begin in November 1945.​​Then the atom bomb intervened. Japan would not surrender after Hiroshima, but it did after Nagasaki.​​I brought Fussell’s essay with me on my flight to Hiroshima and was stopped by this: “When we learned to our astonishment that we would not be obliged in a few months to rush up the beaches near Tokyo assault-firing while being machine-gunned, mortared, and shelled, for all the practiced phlegm of our tough facades we broke down and cried with relief and joy. We were going to live.”​​In all the cant that will pour forth this week to mark the 70th anniversary of the dropping of the bombs—that the U.S. owes the victims of the bombings an apology; that nuclear weapons ought to be abolished; that Hiroshima is a monument to man’s inhumanity to man; that Japan could have been defeated in a slightly nicer way—I doubt much will be made of Fussell’s fundamental point: Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren’t just terrible war-ending events. They were also lifesaving. The bomb turned the empire of the sun into a nation of peace activists.​
> Thank God for the Atom Bomb - WSJ
> ...


It wasn’t a matter of right or wrong.

The question of right or wrong became moot at the start of the war, when the doctrine of Total War was codified: that the intentional killing of civilians was justified, that civilians were a legitimate military target.

How civilians died became likewise moot – whether by conventional bombing or nuclear weapons, it made no difference.


----------



## gipper (Sep 17, 2021)

C_Clayton_Jones said:


> It wasn’t a matter of right or wrong.
> 
> The question of right or wrong became moot at the start of the war, when the doctrine of Total War was codified: that the intentional killing of civilians was justified, that civilians were a legitimate military target.
> 
> How civilians died became likewise moot – whether by conventional bombing or nuclear weapons, it made no difference.


No. Civilians were not targeted early in the war. The US and Britain targeted civilians with their massacres from the air. Ruthlessly killing women and children. Germany tried to avoid civilian casualties early on, other than targeting Jews. The Japanese were ruthless and did kill civilians, but not any more than the US.

Why do Americans think total war is acceptable?  It’s not. It’s a war crime. Truman should have been hung at Nuremberg for his mass murdering of innocent civilians.


----------



## Otis Mayfield (Sep 17, 2021)

gipper said:


> Oh please. FDR set up events at Pearl Harbor, knew the attack was forthcoming, failed to warn commanders at Pearl, and sacrificed thousands of American boys for his nefarious goals.



That's conspiracy nonsense.


----------



## gipper (Sep 17, 2021)

Otis Mayfield said:


> That's conspiracy nonsense.


Dumb. Get informed. Stop believing what your government told you in third grade, for Christ’s sake


----------



## AZrailwhale (Sep 17, 2021)

gipper said:


> No. Our intelligence services knew the Japanese fleet was steaming toward Hawaii. They followed it all the way across the Pacific. This is why the carriers were moved out just in time.
> 
> Secondly, FDR made no efforts to negotiate with the Japanese to avoid hostilities. He did all he could to position Japan into attacking us. He committed treason and should have been hung.


No they didn't.  It would have been pretty hard to follow the KB across the North Pacific as it had the crystals removed from it's radio transmitters and there were radio operators in the Inland Sea transmitting using the ships of the KB's call signs.

Intelligence knew the Japanese were up to something because they were reading the Japanese DIPLOMATIC codes, not the military ones.  No one thought the Japanese had the ability to project power all the way to Pearl Harbor.  It took every modern tanker available to Japan to do so.

FDR had been negotiating with Japan to end the invasion of China for years, when words failed, he froze Japanese assets in the USA. when that failed he embargoed metals, when that failed, he embargoed oil and encouraged the Dutch to do so as well.  All the Japanese had to do to get the sanctions lifted was to end their illegal invasion of China.  They weren't willing to do so.  

Exactly what more do YOU think FDR could have done?  He didn't want war with Japan, he wanted war with Germany and war with Japan would have been a distraction.


----------



## AZrailwhale (Sep 17, 2021)

Unkotare said:


> Who is "we," you racist son of a bitch? WE have no reason to trust YOU. I guess WE should throw YOU in a concentration camp.
> 
> 
> The government doesn't need a reason to trust its citizens, citizens need a reason to trust the government. Clearly any trust in that piece of shit fdr was more than misplaced.


Putting Japanese nationals in relocation camps pending returning them to Japan would not only have been legal, but a normal practice.  The problem was that second and third generation American citizens were confined to the camps as well.  That was illegal and people should have gone to jail for it.


----------



## gipper (Sep 17, 2021)

AZrailwhale said:


> No they didn't.  It would have been pretty hard to follow the KB across the North Pacific as it had the crystals removed from it's radio transmitters and there were radio operators in the Inland Sea transmitting using the ships of the KB's call signs.
> 
> Intelligence knew the Japanese were up to something because they were reading the Japanese DIPLOMATIC codes, not the military ones.  No one thought the Japanese had the ability to project power all the way to Pearl Harbor.  It took every modern tanker available to Japan to do so.
> 
> ...


Wrong. He did want war with Japan. Jesus dude get informed.


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 17, 2021)

JoeB131 said:


> ..... I'm a second generation veteran... if the government can't trust me, they really can't trust anyone.
> 
> ......


I don't care if you're a 10th generation janitor at the White House. You're a racist, untrustworthy son of a bitch and you deserve more than a few years in a concentration camp, asshole.


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 17, 2021)

AZrailwhale said:


> Putting Japanese nationals in relocation camps pending returning them to Japan would not only have been legal, but a normal practice.  The problem was that second and third generation American citizens were confined to the camps as well.  That was illegal and people should have gone to jail for it.


There was nothing right about the scumbag fdr's *concentration camps* for _any_ of his innocent victims.


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 17, 2021)

AZrailwhale said:


> ....He didn't want war with Japan, he wanted war with Germany and war with Japan would have been a distraction.


War with Japan was his guarantee that Germany would declare war on us. Very few dots to connect.


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 17, 2021)

JoeB131 said:


> ......
> 
> 
> 
> yeah, he only saved us from the Great Depression and defeated fascism. .....


He deepened and prolonged the Great Depression, and it was the courage and determination of the American military and American people that won the war the scumbag fdr so eagerly sought.


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 17, 2021)

JoeB131 said:


> .....And you know from the last two years of this war that the Axis Powers have found collaborators in every country they've invaded.
> 
> .....


Not one Japanese American was ever convicted of espionage or sabotage during the war.


----------



## AZrailwhale (Sep 17, 2021)

gipper said:


> No. Civilians were not targeted early in the war. The US and Britain targeted civilians with their massacres from the air. Ruthlessly killing women and children. Germany tried to avoid civilian casualties early on, other than targeting Jews. The Japanese were ruthless and did kill civilians, but not any more than the US.
> 
> Why do Americans think total war is acceptable?  It’s not. It’s a war crime. Truman should have been hung at Nuremberg for his mass murdering of innocent civilians.


Do you know any history at all?  Germany was bombing defenseless civilians in Spain as early as 1937.  Does Guernica ring any bells for you?  The Germans also bombed Warsaw in Poland AFTER the defenses were removed and the Polish government notified the German government that Warsaw had been declared a open city.  German aircraft strafed civilian refugees in Poland even before the UK entered the war.  The Japanese behaved the same way in China from 1936 on as well as in Manchuria and Korea beginning as far back as 1931.  The Italians bombed and gassed Ethiopian civilians as well before the war.  The Axis powers were all big on attacking defenseless civilians and bombing cities.


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 17, 2021)

JoeB131 said:


> .....You have 110,000 people who were born or directly linked to the power that just attacked you......


Innocent people, US CITIZENS, who had nothing to do with the attack on a US military base on Pearl Harbor.


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 17, 2021)

AZrailwhale said:


> Putting Japanese nationals in relocation camps pending returning them to Japan would not only have been legal, but a normal practice.  The problem was that second and third generation American citizens were confined to the camps as well.  That was illegal and people should have gone to jail for it.


Everything about the scumbag fdr's CONCENTRATION CAMPS was immoral and unconstitutional. 









						Supreme Court Overturns Ruling That Enabled Internment of Japanese Americans During World War II
					

As part of its ruling upholding the travel ban.




					time.com


----------



## AZrailwhale (Sep 17, 2021)

gipper said:


> Wrong. He did want war with Japan. Jesus dude get informed.


No he didn't, he was already fighting an undeclared war against Germany in the Atlantic.  American warships were being torpedoed and sunk by U Boats and the USN was escorting BRITISH convoys halfway across the Atlantic because the RN lacked convoy escorts.  Stop reading conspiracy theories and read some real history written by the people who were actually there.


----------



## AZrailwhale (Sep 17, 2021)

Unkotare said:


> There was nothing right about the scumbag fdr's *concentration camps* for _any_ of his innocent victims.


It was normal procedure under international law to intern the citizens of opposing powers until they could be safely repatriated to their home countries.  WWII was some what unusual in that the Japanese refused to repatriate enemy civilians and kept them in REAL concentration camps where they were brutalized.  The Japanese also refused to accept their own citizens being repatriated.  When I was growing up I had a number of Nisei and Sansei friends who either had parents or grandparents in the relocation camps.  I talked to the adults, none of them thought the camps were horrible places.  They were not very nice facilities, but the guards mostly treated the internees from decently to very well.  If they had been real concentration camps, the young men wouldn't have been queuing up to enlist for the 442nd RCT, the 100th Infantry Battalion or the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion.  In all, 33,000 Nisei men and women VOLUNTEERED to serve in the US military and the 442nd was one of the most decorated Army units of WWII.


----------



## AZrailwhale (Sep 17, 2021)

Unkotare said:


> War with Japan was his guarantee that Germany would declare war on us. Very few dots to connect.


There was no guarantee.  The pact between Japan and Germany was one of defense.  Only if one was attacked did the other HAVE to declare war on the attacker.  Sooner or later either Germany was going to declare, or the U Boats would sink an important enough ship to overcome the isolationist sentiment in congress that was preventing FDR from declaring war against Germany.


----------



## AZrailwhale (Sep 17, 2021)

Unkotare said:


> He deepened and prolonged the Great Depression, and it was the courage and determination of the American military and American people that won the war the scumbag fdr so eagerly sought.


For once you are right about something historical.


----------



## AZrailwhale (Sep 17, 2021)

Unkotare said:


> Not one Japanese American was ever convicted of espionage or sabotage during the war.


You are correct again, but there were three Japanese on Niihau that should have been.  They were assisting a downed Japanese pilot in causing trouble on the island.  They kidnapped a few people and terrorized others for a few days until some native Hawaiians killed or captured them.


----------



## AZrailwhale (Sep 17, 2021)

Unkotare said:


> Innocent people, US CITIZENS, who had nothing to do with the attack on a US military base on Pearl Harbor.


Some were US citizens, many of the adults were Japanese nationals living in the USA under Green Cards.


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 17, 2021)

AZrailwhale said:


> It was normal procedure under international law to intern the citizens of opposing powers until they could be safely repatriated to their home countries.  ....


Most of the victims of the scumbag fdr's CONCENTRATION CAMPS were US citizens, you traitor. 





__





						Children of the Camps | INTERNMENT HISTORY
					





					www.pbs.org


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 17, 2021)

AZrailwhale said:


> ..... They were not very nice facilities, but the guards mostly treated the internees from decently to very well.   .....







__





						Homicide in camp | Densho Encyclopedia
					





					encyclopedia.densho.org


----------



## JoeB131 (Sep 17, 2021)

AZrailwhale said:


> Putting Japanese nationals in relocation camps pending returning them to Japan would not only have been legal, but a normal practice. The problem was that second and third generation American citizens were confined to the camps as well. That was illegal and people should have gone to jail for it.



Except that it really wasn't illegal.  There were a whole lot of earlier laws to back them up, such as the Alien Enemies Act from WWI, or the Alien and Sedition acts. 





__





						Alien and Sedition Acts - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				




More to the point, the internment was voted on in Congress (where both houses voted for it after less than an hour of deliberation, ) and it was challenged at the Supreme Court in several cases, all of which found in favor of the government.


----------



## JoeB131 (Sep 17, 2021)

The scary thing about Dripping Poop is that he claims to be a teacher.  I'd be kind of horrified if someone this deranged was teaching in a school where I had kids. 



Unkotare said:


> I don't care if you're a 10th generation janitor at the White House. You're a racist, untrustworthy son of a bitch and you deserve more than a few years in a concentration camp, asshole.



Um, yeah, guy, seriously, you need help.  




Unkotare said:


> He deepened and prolonged the Great Depression, and it was the courage and determination of the American military and American people that won the war the scumbag fdr so eagerly sought.



So what would have been your solution, keep out of it, let the Japanese murder all the Chinese and the Nazis murder everyone else?  FDR was commendable in wanting to stop that crap. 




Unkotare said:


> Not one Japanese American was ever convicted of espionage or sabotage during the war.


Well, kind of hard to do if you are locked up.  So thanks for admitting the policy worked.  




Unkotare said:


> Innocent people, US CITIZENS, who had nothing to do with the attack on a US military base on Pearl Harbor.



But also people whose loyalty we couldn't vouch for if the _Yamato_ showed up off the coast of LA and started lobbing 18 inch shells.  

Should also point out that 11,000 Americans of German ancestry were interned during the war as well, as were 3000 Italians.


----------



## AZrailwhale (Sep 17, 2021)

Unkotare said:


> Most of the victims of the scumbag fdr's CONCENTRATION CAMPS were US citizens, you traitor.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Your own article says that half of them were minor children.  What you should be upset about is that if Japan had allowed repatriation, they would have been forced to go to Japan with their parents.  Why are you so hostile?  I agree that adult American citizens shouldn't have been sent to the camps.  But the children had to go with their parents.  Things could have been a lot worse, the US could have treated the internees like the Japanese treated their internees, starvation, forced labor, sexual slavery.  Why do you constantly try to prove that Japanese crap doesn't stink?
I said before that confining enemy aliens in time of war pending repatriation was legal and customary under international law.  Japan was the one breaking the law, not the USA.  But I'll say it again, ADULT US CITIZENS SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN SENT TO THE CAMPS.  There, does that satisfy you?


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 17, 2021)

AZrailwhale said:


> Your own article says that half of them were minor children.  What you should be upset about is that if Japan had allowed repatriation, they would have been forced to go to Japan with their parents.  ....


What lucky children to be thrown into concentration camps! What kind of low-life, unAmerican scum are you?


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 17, 2021)

Unkotare said:


> Everything about the scumbag fdr's CONCENTRATION CAMPS was immoral and unconstitutional.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


.


----------



## AZrailwhale (Sep 17, 2021)

Unkotare said:


> __
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Seven homicides over four years.  At least a couple of which look to be justified based upon the article YOU posted.  We aren't talking Dachau here.  Here's how the Japanese dealt with their interned civilians in the Dutch East Indies:
"110,000 Europeans were detained in internment camps, where circumstances gradually deteriorated. Camps became ever more crowded, and hunger and illness were reinforced by violent and humiliating treatment. About 13% died."  
What the Japanese did to the Americans in the Philippines was worse as was what they did to the Europeans in the camps in China.


----------



## AZrailwhale (Sep 17, 2021)

Unkotare said:


> What lucky children to be thrown into concentration camps! What kind of low-life, unAmerican scum are you?


What kind of idiot are you?  Should the children have been left on the street to starve without their Japanese national parents?


----------



## AZrailwhale (Sep 17, 2021)

Unkotare said:


> .


The Supreme Court overturned it because AMERICAN CITIZENS were sent to the internment camps.  Not because JAPANESE NATIONALS were.  It was wrong and illegal to send American citizens to the camps.  It was then and is now.


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 17, 2021)

AZrailwhale said:


> .....  If they had been real concentration camps, the young men wouldn't have been queuing up to enlist for the 442nd RCT, the 100th Infantry Battalion or the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion. ....


They were REAL concentration camps. The scumbag fdr said so himself. The brave young men who volunteered from inside the camps did so to prove their patriotism despite they and their families abuse at the hands of the vile scumbag fdr.


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 17, 2021)

AZrailwhale said:


> What kind of idiot are you?  Should the children have been left on the street to starve without their Japanese national parents?


Maybe innocent families shouldn't have been thrown into concentration camps at all, you fucking idiot.


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 17, 2021)

AZrailwhale said:


> ....It was then and is now.











						Ralph Carr: Defender of Japanese Americans
					

When: 1887 - 1950  Where: Denver, Colorado and Southern Colorado    Why Important: Governor who supported the rights of Japanese Americans during World War II Biography Ralph Carr was born in 1887. His father was a miner, and the family moved around to several Colorado towns, including Aspen




					www.coloradovirtuallibrary.org
				




There were real Americans then just as there are still real traitors like you now.


----------



## Unkotare (Sep 17, 2021)

AZrailwhale said:


> Seven homicides over four years.  ....


Don't forget the nearly 2000 who died of disease due to the conditions in your concentration camps.


----------



## Open Bolt (Mar 9, 2022)

there4eyeM said:


> The idea that it saved countless American lives is based on the assumption that invasion was necessary. It was not.
> That others were 'working on the bomb' is ludicrous as we know no one else was even close.
> The only lives that were saved, ironically, were Japanese. Since the suicidally maniacal 'leaders' refused to surrender even in the face of certain defeat, many people would have died of starvation, likely even more than died from the two bombs, before the inevitable finally did come and the white flags went up, as they would have had to.


No argument thus far, but....




there4eyeM said:


> The Japanese did not have time to appreciate what had happened after Hiroshima. Nagasaki was totally unnecessary.


This term "necessary" doesn't have much place in warfare.  You can always take one particular bullet or gun and say that it isn't necessary, that the outcome of the war would not change if we did not use that one particular bullet or gun.

The fact remains, Japan was still refusing to surrender, so it was perfectly appropriate for us to continue to attack them.




there4eyeM said:


> It is a terrible thing that America has to live with the onus of having been the first to use the bomb, especially as it did not win the war, though it did end it a bit sooner.


That's not much of an onus.  There is nothing wrong with our use of nuclear weapons in WWII.




there4eyeM said:


> That was part of the goal, to settle things before Joe Stalin took even more territory in the East. Arguably, he is the reason the bomb was used at all; i.e., to announce we had it and to demonstrate we would use it.


Actually no.  The only reason why we dropped atomic bombs on Japan was to further the goal of making Japan surrender.

Hindsight analysis that the atomic bombs did not cause the surrender does not mean that it was not the intended goal of the people who used them.




there4eyeM said:


> Harry Truman was not prepared to be President, and certainly not prepared for the post-war geo-political situation. Perhaps no one really was. Roosevelt did a very poor job at the end and was irresponsible in not better training Harry, who should have been at his side at the last meetings with world leaders.
> Things could and should have been much better.


Mr. Truman seems to have done pretty well from what I can see.


----------



## Open Bolt (Mar 9, 2022)

whitehall said:


> The insanity that surfaced and prevailed among the Allies half way into the "world war" was that it was a legitimate concept that the mass killing of "enemy" civilians was a factor in winning the war.


That is unlikely given the fact that we did not target civilians and focused instead on attacking military targets.




whitehall said:


> the Bushido Japanese holdouts were desperate to negotiate terms of surrender with the U.S.


That is unlikely given the fact that Japan was refusing to talk to us despite all our efforts to talk to them.




whitehall said:


> desperate egghead scientists were pressuring the administration to test their monstrosity on real (sub human) people?


Actually the opposite.  The scientists opposed using the atomic bombs.  But they were given no opportunity to voice their opinion to the government.




whitehall said:


> Meanwhile president Harry Truman was under some sort of mystical pressure from his former dead boss to refuse to talk about terms of surrender with the Japanese other than unconditional surrender.


Whatever mystical pressure Mr. Truman may have felt didn't prevent him from presenting Japan with a list of generous surrender terms in the Potsdam Proclamation.




whitehall said:


> Meanwhile the Japanese were trying desperately to negotiate terms of surrender with freaking Stalin.


Not the wisest choice on their part.




whitehall said:


> Ironically the most important term in Japanese surrender was the preservation of the Japanese emperor and the guarantee of not executing him and that happened anyway


No one was stopping them from surrendering earlier, before the atomic bombs were dropped.


----------



## Open Bolt (Mar 9, 2022)

JoeB131 said:


> The indefensible Hiroshima revisionism that haunts America to this day - Salon.com


That Salon article is packed with many outright falsehoods.  I do not advise using it as a source.




JoeB131 said:


> _*Truman did not seriously consult with military commanders who had objections to using the bomb.  He did, however, ask a panel of military experts to offer an estimate of how many Americans might be killed if the United States launched the two major invasions of the Japanese home islands scheduled for November 1, 1945 and March 1, 1946. Their figure: 40,000 — far below the half-million he would cite after the war. Even this estimate was based on the dubious assumption that Japan could continue to feed, fuel, and arm its troops with the U.S. in almost complete control of the seas and skies.*_


There were many estimates of the casualties that the US would face in an invasion.  Some estimates were low.  Some estimates were quite high.

Invading Japan would have involved two subsequent "D-Day scale" amphibious invasions, first in southern Kyushu, and then on the Tokyo plain.  It is reasonable to suppose that the invasions would have been a horrific bloodbath.

The US military ordered half a million purple hearts in anticipation of the invasion of Japan.  There were still leftover medals from this stockpile after the Korean and Vietnam wars.  So it can safely be said that the US military was expecting that the invasion of Japan would be more horrific than the entire Korean War and the entire Vietnam War combined.




JoeB131 said:


> We dropped the bombs to intimidate the Soviets, not to get peace with Japan.


That is incorrect.  The reason why we dropped the atomic bombs was to make Japan surrender, something that Japan was steadfastly refusing to do at the time.




JoeB131 said:


> here's the thing, they had already offered to surrender, as long as we allowed them to keep Hirohito as Emperor.  We held out on that point until after the USSR got into the war, and all of a sudden, we were all cool with Hirohito, who remained emperor until 1989.


That is incorrect.  Japan did not present us with any surrender offers until *after both* atomic bombs had already been dropped.

Also, when Japan did finally present that surrender offer to us, their condition was that Hirohito would retain unlimited dictatorial power.  We flatly rejected that condition and told them that Hirohito would be subordinate to MacArthur.




JoeB131 said:


> None of them went anywhere because the Americans weren't willing to talk peace. That's really not an excuse.


That is incorrect.  The Americans would have been delighted to talk peace.

The feelers to the Soviets went nowhere because _Stalin_ stonewalled them.

The feelers to places other than the Soviets went nowhere because _Japan_ stonewalled them, insisting on working only with the Soviets.




JoeB131 said:


> We used an indefensible weapon to try to intimidate our allies in the post-war world.
> There was no excuse for it.


Atomic bombs are perfectly defensible.  Legitimate acts of war do not require excusing.

Our reason for using atomic bombs was to force Japan to surrender, which they were steadfastly refusing to do.




JoeB131 said:


> If we had to invade Japan, it would have cost less lives than the 250,000 we killed with the bombs.


We did not kill 250,000 with the atomic bombs.  The high estimate is around 200,000.  There are also credible estimates closer to 100,000.

There is no reason to think that the deaths from the invasion would not have exceeded 250,000.  And many of those deaths would have been Americans.

Not that it matters.  The true justification for using the atomic bombs was not an attempt to save lives.  The true justification for the atomic bombs was the mere fact that Japan was still refusing to surrender.




JoeB131 said:


> We bombed to try to intimidate the Soviets, not because of any military necessity.


That is incorrect.  We bombed to try to force Japan to surrender.




JoeB131 said:


> Point is, we dropped two atomic weapons on a defeated country for no good reason.


We had a really good reason for doing it.  We wanted to force them to surrender.


----------



## Open Bolt (Mar 10, 2022)

gipper said:


> BS.  Been debunked over and over again, but statist brainwashing is difficult to overcome.


Actually no.  It has not been debunked.




gipper said:


> Murder innocent women and children of a defeated defenseless nation is okay to protect the lives of your soldiers.


Wartime strikes against military targets are not murder.  Also, Japan was far from defenseless.  They had millions of soldiers waiting to fight to the death when we invaded.

If they were defeated then they should have surrendered instead of waiting for us to nuke them.




gipper said:


> [the post-nuke bombing raids against Japan]
> 
> How does anyone approve of or defend this?


Easy.  Japan had not yet surrendered when we launched that bombing raid.

That last bombing raid was actually key to Japan surrendering too.




gipper said:


> No.  Murdering innocent civilians is hell.


Wartime strikes against military targets are not murder.




gipper said:


> The massive aerial bombing of civilians by the American military in WWII, was a war crime.


The massive aerial bombing of civilians by the American military in WWII, never happened.

US bombers focused on destroying military targets.




gipper said:


> Histories greatest war crime was the A bombings.


That is incorrect.  Attacks against military targets are not a war crime.




gipper said:


> You can try to justify the mass murder of civilians all you like, but you will fail.  There is no justification for it.


I can point out that no such murders ever happened.

Attacks against military targets are not murder.




gipper said:


> ...sadly our political leadership is fully prepared to murder civilians on a vast scale, no matter what the American people want.


Wartime strikes against present-day military targets are not murder either.




gipper said:


> Did Korea or Vietnam MAKE us fight them?


Yes, when they attacked our allies.




gipper said:


> We had no business getting involved in WWI or II either.


Pearl Harbor says otherwise.




gipper said:


> Of course FDR provoked Japan and he tried desperately to provoke Germany.


Japan provoked the US into dropping the atomic bombs.




gipper said:


> I don’t see the logic in massacring defenseless women and children, of a nation trying to surrender.


The atomic bombs were dropped on military targets.  Women and children were not the target.

Japan was still refusing to surrender when the atomic bombs were dropped.




gipper said:


> Truman is no different than Hitler, Stalin, or Mao.


That is incorrect.  Mr. Truman never committed genocide.




gipper said:


> One thing is for sure, nuking a defenseless nation trying to surrender mass murdering thousands of innocent women and children, is a war crime.


It's a good thing then that the United States has never nuked a defenseless nation trying to surrender.




gipper said:


> They had been trying to surrender for months.


That is incorrect.  Japan did not offer to surrender until *after both* atomic bombs had already been dropped.




gipper said:


> All they asked is don’t harm the emperor. Truman nuked them and then agreed to their terms. Nice guy old Dirty Harry.


That is incorrect.  When Japan did finally ask to surrender, their request was that Hirohito retain unlimited dictatorial power.

Mr. Truman did not nuke them after this surrender request.

Mr. Truman never agreed to Japan's terms.  He told them that Hirohito would be subordinate to MacArthur.




gipper said:


> The war was over long before the bombs dropped.


That is incorrect.  The war ended only when Japan surrendered, which was *after both* atomic bombs had already been dropped.




gipper said:


> Lol. You’re not getting this. Japan had been trying to surrender, but old Dirty Harry said no way…we need to keep killing your defenseless women and children.


Japan only offered to surrender *after both* atomic bombs had already been dropped.

Mr. Truman accepted their surrender, although he refused Japan's request to allow Hirohito to retain unlimited dictatorial power.




gipper said:


> Lol. You recognize the heinous actions of the Japanese military, but not Truman’s mass murdering of defenseless civilians. You have no credibility.


Wartime strikes against military targets are not mass murder.




gipper said:


> So you conclude from that Truman was justified in mass murdering thousands of defenseless innocent women and children with the a-bombs. CRAZY!


A more accurate conclusion would be that Mr. Truman did not commit any murders.




gipper said:


> Oh please. FDR set up events at Pearl Harbor, knew the attack was forthcoming, failed to warn commanders at Pearl, and sacrificed thousands of American boys for his nefarious goals.


Japan set up the events at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.




gipper said:


> No. Civilians were not targeted early in the war.


All the civilians murdered by Japan and Germany would beg to differ.




gipper said:


> The US and Britain targeted civilians with their massacres from the air.


The US certainly didn't.  I doubt that the UK did either.




gipper said:


> Germany tried to avoid civilian casualties early on, other than targeting Jews.


Jews count as civilians.

Not to mention the Germans also murdered gypsies, gays, and mentally handicapped people.




gipper said:


> The Japanese were ruthless and did kill civilians, but not any more than the US.


Nonsense.  Japan's genocide killed more than ten million of their Asian neighbors.




gipper said:


> Truman should have been hung at Nuremberg for his mass murdering of innocent civilians.


That would have been a terrible injustice considering that he did no such thing.


----------



## Mushroom (Mar 10, 2022)




----------



## Open Bolt (Mar 10, 2022)

mikegriffith1 said:


> When you have to tell numerous lies about something you did, that's a pretty good indication that you did something wrong.


Note the fact that Mr. Truman always told the truth.




mikegriffith1 said:


> Few people realize that initially the Truman administration and its allies in the press claimed that Hiroshima was a "military target"


Hiroshima was indeed a military target.




mikegriffith1 said:


> and that the bombing mission encountered fierce anti-aircraft fire,


The mission to drop the second atomic bomb did indeed encounter such resistance.




mikegriffith1 said:


> and in the ensuing months the government tried to suppress accounts of the horrific nature of the deaths and injuries that were inflicted.


True, but they thought it was propaganda.




mikegriffith1 said:


> The government also withheld vital information about radiation effects from the Japanese and refused to treat victims of the atomic blasts. The Army set up a center in Hiroshima to study the effects of radiation on Hiroshima's residents but refused to provide any treatment for them.


Nonsense.




mikegriffith1 said:


> There was a small garrison at Hiroshima of about 10,000 troops, most of them garrison troops, out of a population of about 300,000.


That is incorrect.  There were 43,000 Japanese soldiers in Hiroshima.




mikegriffith1 said:


> The garrison was located on the outskirts of the city,


The soldiers were located in several parts of the city.  Many were right in the center of the city.

20,000 of them were close enough to be killed by the blast.




mikegriffith1 said:


> and could have easily been taken out with a conventional bombing mission.


That is unlikely.  Had we taken Hiroshima with a large carpet-bombing raid, most of the soldiers would have taken shelter and survived.  The atomic bomb caught them out in the open.

But even if that had actually been true, so what?  The atomic bomb did a satisfactory job of killing the soldiers.  There was no need to consider an alternative method of killing them.




mikegriffith1 said:


> Hiroshima's port had long since been closed by the U.S. Navy. Numerous disabled ships sat lifelessly in the harbor.


The soldiers were still able to be deployed to the beaches to resist our invasion.




mikegriffith1 said:


> There is a reason that the vast majority of scholars who specialize in Japan's surrender argue that nuking Japan was completely unnecessary and criminal.


The premise of your claim is untrue.  The vast majority of scholars who specialize in Japan's surrender do not argue that any crime was committed.

As far as necessity goes, 100% of the scholars who specialize in Japan's surrender say that Japan was still refusing to surrender when they were nuked.




mikegriffith1 said:


> Look, if we were really worried about the "headquarters" garrison at Hiroshima, we could have easily taken it out with a small conventional bombing mission.


Hardly.  Conventional missions in WWII were not small.  They carpet-bombed entire cities.

More to the point though, there was no reason to use a conventional mission.  The atomic bombs were adequate to the task.




mikegriffith1 said:


> The garrison's buildings were on the outskirts of the city.


That is incorrect.  The main military facilities in Hiroshima were in the center of the city.




mikegriffith1 said:


> I would compare denying the immorality of nuking Japan to Holocaust denial.


Few people would share that opinion.




mikegriffith1 said:


> The facts are that obvious. It just boils down to whether one is willing to acknowledge their clear meaning.


The facts are Hiroshima was a military target.




mikegriffith1 said:


> You don't bomb civilians, period, and you especially don't bomb them to destroy and to terrorize the surviving civilians. That's not warfare. That's murder.


That's why we dropped our atomic bombs on military targets instead.




mikegriffith1 said:


> You simply ignored the point that we could have destroyed the meaningless military facility in Hiroshima with conventional bombing.


The military base in Hiroshima was far from meaningless.  It was the headquarters in charge of repelling our coming invasion of Japan.  Hiroshima also held tens of thousands of soldiers, many awaiting deployment to the beaches to resist our coming invasion.

As for your point about using conventional weapons, it is hard to see the significance of that point.  The atomic bombs were sufficient.  There was no need to use conventional weapons.




mikegriffith1 said:


> Denying the immorality of nuking Japan is as bad as Holocaust denial.


No it isn't.




mikegriffith1 said:


> Japan was prostrate and virtually defenseless against air and naval attack. So defenseless was Japan against air attack that we stopped sending fighter escorts on our bombing missions. Japan's population was on near-starvation rations.


You forgot to mention the millions of Japanese soldiers waiting to fight to the death when we invaded.




mikegriffith1 said:


> What's more, Japan was already trying to surrender when we nuked Hiroshima, and we knew it from multiple sources.


That is incorrect.  Japan made no attempt to surrender until *after both* atomic bombs had already been dropped.


----------



## Colin norris (Mar 10, 2022)

Unkotare said:


> It's OK to stop and think for a second before posting, you know.


Hes very concerned about American soldiers but doesn't give a shit about anyone else. So merciful and considerate.


----------



## Open Bolt (Mar 10, 2022)

JoeB131 said:


> ....nobody at the time thought twice about nuking Japan.  Some people even wondered why we only dropped two atom bombs on them. (Because that was all we had, actually).


Actually we had a lot more atomic bombs on the way if Japan had kept refusing to surrender.  The reason why we stopped when we did was because they surrendered.




JoeB131 said:


> sure they were.


No.  Those conditions would have been entirely unacceptable to us had we ever been presented with them.

Those terms amounted to ending the war in a draw (like how the Korean War later ended).

Accepting them would have meant letting the military caste continue to rule Japan instead of us reforming Japan into a peaceful society.




JoeB131 said:


> On the American side, the entry of the USSR also changed position. Up until that time, the main sticking point was the status of the Emperor.  The US Dropped it's insistence on his abdication.


Our position remained the same when the Soviets entered the war against Japan.

Our main sticking point was Japan's continued refusal to surrender.  We never insisted that the Emperor abdicate.


----------



## Open Bolt (Mar 10, 2022)

there4eyeM said:


> Wouldn't that mean that bombing is terrorism?


No.  Terrorism requires the deliberate targeting of civilians.  Bombing a military target is something entirely different.


----------



## Open Bolt (Mar 10, 2022)

whitehall said:


> The Truman defenders are all over the place about the use of the Bomb. Japan was defeated by the spring of 1945 and it's industry was almost completely destroyed.


Funny how Japan kept refusing to surrender.




whitehall said:


> With the cooperation of the willing media, the Allies managed to deflect outrage about the bombing campaign over Dresden Germany and subsequent fire storm while Dresden was considered a non-military target


I am no expert on UK targeting, but I do not accept that Dresden was not a military target.




whitehall said:


> Allied daylight bomb runs over Japan changed from high impact to incendiary after almost all the industry was destroyed.


Allied daylight bomb runs over Japan failed to significantly damage industry and were halted.

The incendiary raids were nighttime, and were what finally destroyed Japanese industry.




whitehall said:


> The dirty little secret was that the FDR administration respected the German army but considered the Japanese to be sub-human and so did the eggheads who were pressuring Truman to use the ultimate weapon they spent so long developing.


The eggheads opposed using atomic bombs against Japan.  They were not allowed to voice their views to the President.


----------



## Open Bolt (Mar 10, 2022)

prison/con.net said:


> the nukes should have been dropped on moscow, stalingrad and lenin grad, actually.


Easier said than done considering the limits of our technology at the time.




prison/con.net said:


> there was no need to invade Japan. just navel blockade, no shipping, no fishing, and fire bomb them. We killed more people by fire bombing toyko than with the nukes.


We were not going to wait around and drag out the war.  If Japan had kept refusing to surrender when we were ready to invade, we were going to invade.




prison/con.net said:


> we never had to invade Japan. that was all a lie.


It was no lie.  We were going to invade if Japan had kept refusing to surrender.




prison/con.net said:


> if we were REALLy so scared of stalin, why NOT nuke him, eh?


Where would the B-29s take off from?




prison/con.net said:


> Because, folks, we had no IDEA that we'd have an economic boom after WW2.  We mostly thought that if the economy did not have a "war footing", the depression would return. so we "had" to have a boogeyman to justify spending a trillion $ a year on the military and keep everyone doing SOMETHING.  Stalin was perfectly suited to playing boogey man.


Stalin was not merely playing.  He was genuinely evil.




prison/con.net said:


> it's been OUR interefering bs, ever since the Spanish American war, WW1, etc, that made things 10x worse than if we'd stayed out of it.


Just the opposite.  The world would be a far worse place if not for us championing freedom and democracy.


----------



## Open Bolt (Mar 10, 2022)

Wyatt earp said:


> On a side note, Truman what I read almost used the bomb during the battle of the budge


There were no atomic bombs available for use at that time.


----------



## Open Bolt (Mar 10, 2022)

Unkotare said:


> "the vibrant city of over a quarter of a million men, women and children was hardly “a military base.”


Hiroshima was a huge military center that was the headquarters in charge of repelling our coming invasion of Japan.

Nagasaki was an industrial center with large weapon factories.




Unkotare said:


> Indeed, less than 10 percent of the individuals killed on Aug. 6, 1945, were Japanese military personnel."


At least 15% of the dead at Hiroshima were soldiers.




Unkotare said:


> Hiroshima and the Myths of Military Targets and Unconditional Surrender
> 
> 
> Every year, in early August, new articles appear that debate whether the dropping of the atomic bombs in 1945 was justified. Earlier this month, the 75th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks, was no exception.
> ...


That article is chock full of untrue claims.  I advise not relying on it for anything.


----------



## JoeB131 (Mar 10, 2022)

Open Bolt said:


> There were many estimates of the casualties that the US would face in an invasion. Some estimates were low. Some estimates were quite high.
> 
> Invading Japan would have involved two subsequent "D-Day scale" amphibious invasions, first in southern Kyushu, and then on the Tokyo plain. It is reasonable to suppose that the invasions would have been a horrific bloodbath.



Works on the assumption that the Japanese would have continued to fight, when in fact they were desperately seeking peace terms.  



Open Bolt said:


> The US military ordered half a million purple hearts in anticipation of the invasion of Japan. There were still leftover medals from this stockpile after the Korean and Vietnam wars. So it can safely be said that the US military was expecting that the invasion of Japan would be more horrific than the entire Korean War and the entire Vietnam War combined.



If you ever worked in military procurement, you'd know the military always orders far more of something than they will actually use. 



Open Bolt said:


> That is incorrect. The reason why we dropped the atomic bombs was to make Japan surrender, something that Japan was steadfastly refusing to do at the time.



Except they were...  



Open Bolt said:


> That is incorrect. Japan did not present us with any surrender offers until *after both* atomic bombs had already been dropped.
> 
> Also, when Japan did finally present that surrender offer to us, their condition was that Hirohito would retain unlimited dictatorial power. We flatly rejected that condition and told them that Hirohito would be subordinate to MacArthur.



Hirohito didn't have dictatorial power before, during the war or after, so that's just silly.  

The fact was, Japan sought a surrender but also sought to keep Hirohito, because he was a RELIGIOUS figure in Shintoism, which most Japanese belonged to.  Americans insisted on deposing him.  

Then the Soviets got into the war, and America started to realize that Stalin wasn't particularly trustworthy, as he was already breaking most of his promises in Europe.  Furthermore, the Soviets were making better progress in Manchuria and Korea than anyone thought they would.  

The original partition plan would have given the USSR Half of Honshu and all of Hokkaido. Everyone realized what an awful idea that would be.  So suddenly, the Americans became kind of cool with keeping Hirohito, who was probably a war criminal, on the throne. 



Open Bolt said:


> That is incorrect. The Americans would have been delighted to talk peace.
> 
> The feelers to the Soviets went nowhere because _Stalin_ stonewalled them.
> 
> The feelers to places other than the Soviets went nowhere because _Japan_ stonewalled them, insisting on working only with the Soviets.


Actually, the Japanese also reached out through the Swiss.  

The problem you and a lot of people have is you put too much emphasis on the bomb, which is understandable, we've been living in existential terror of nukes for 75 years now. 

At the time, they were probably just seen as another weapon.  we were doing far more damage to Japan with conventional weapons. 

The hope Japan had was they would come out of the war keeping some of what they had gained, which is to hold on to Korea and Taiwan, and to keep the friendly regimes they had installed in Manchuria and China.  Then when the Americans got tired and went home, they would be in a dominant position in Asia after the war. 

All this became moot when the USSR entered the war and quickly rolled up their empire on the mainland. 




Open Bolt said:


> Atomic bombs are perfectly defensible. Legitimate acts of war do not require excusing.
> 
> Our reason for using atomic bombs was to force Japan to surrender, which they were steadfastly refusing to do.



Except they were, and there was no reason to use them, other than we had them 



Open Bolt said:


> There is no reason to think that the deaths from the invasion would not have exceeded 250,000. And many of those deaths would have been Americans.
> 
> Not that it matters. The true justification for using the atomic bombs was not an attempt to save lives. The true justification for the atomic bombs was the mere fact that Japan was still refusing to surrender.



Except again, why did they need to "surrender"?  The concept of "unconditional surrender" dragged WWII out longer than it needed to go and gave us 40 years of Cold War.  We devastated Germany and Japan and then had to invest billions rebuilding them to keep them as bulwarks against communism.  



Open Bolt said:


> Our position remained the same when the Soviets entered the war against Japan.
> 
> Our main sticking point was Japan's continued refusal to surrender. We never insisted that the Emperor abdicate.



We insisted on "unconditional surrender".  Hirohito keeping his job was a condition.


----------



## Open Bolt (Mar 10, 2022)

JoeB131 said:


> Works on the assumption that the Japanese would have continued to fight,


True.  Invasion casualty estimates work on the assumption that an invasion will happen.




JoeB131 said:


> when in fact they were desperately seeking peace terms.


Japan already had the peace terms.  We provided them in the Potsdam Proclamation.




JoeB131 said:


> If you ever worked in military procurement, you'd know the military always orders far more of something than they will actually use.


They never overordered purple hearts at any other point in time.

One estimate said that conquering Japan would cost up to a million American dead and millions more maimed and wounded.




JoeB131 said:


> Except they were...


That is incorrect.  Japan refused to surrender until after both atomic bombs had already been dropped.




JoeB131 said:


> Hirohito didn't have dictatorial power before, during the war or after, so that's just silly.


That is incorrect.  That is where the dictatorial power of the Japanese Army came from.  They exercised their power in the name of the Emperor.




JoeB131 said:


> The fact was, Japan sought a surrender but also sought to keep Hirohito, because he was a RELIGIOUS figure in Shintoism, which most Japanese belonged to.


What Japan asked for was that he retain unlimited dictatorial power.




JoeB131 said:


> Except they were, and there was no reason to use them, other than we had them


That is incorrect.  Japan was not offering to surrender when the atomic bombs were used.

The fact that Japan had not yet surrendered was very much a reason to use atomic bombs.




JoeB131 said:


> Except again, why did they need to "surrender"?


Because we were going to reshape their society into something more to our liking.




JoeB131 said:


> The concept of "unconditional surrender" dragged WWII out longer than it needed to go and gave us 40 years of Cold War.  We devastated Germany and Japan and then had to invest billions rebuilding them to keep them as bulwarks against communism.


We got the Cold War because Russia is an evil dictatorship.




JoeB131 said:


> We insisted on "unconditional surrender".


Not really.  The Potsdam Proclamation (which was issued well before the atomic bombs were dropped) was a list of generous surrender terms.




JoeB131 said:


> Hirohito keeping his job was a condition.


The actual condition requested that Hirohito retain unlimited dictatorial power.

We refused and told them that Hirohito would be subordinate to MacArthur.


----------



## Mushroom (Mar 10, 2022)

JoeB131 said:


> Works on the assumption that the Japanese would have continued to fight, when in fact they were desperately seeking peace terms.



They would continue to fight, that is obvious.  And they were not seeking "peace terms", they were seeking an armistice.  The two are not the same thing.



JoeB131 said:


> Except they were...



No, they were not.

Japan was trying to act like they were winning the war.  They literally were trying to dictate a peace agreement that would have had most of the battle lines restored to 1941 levels.  In other words, pretend the war had never happened, a hard reset.

But worse for the Allies!  Allied powers would have to leave all Japanese soil they occupied, And land that Japan occupied would become demilitarized and under joint Japan-Allied control.  That was absolute insanity, and they tried to get several countries to present those terms for them.  Sweden, and the Swiss all refused to even consider it once they knew what Japan was proposing.  Stalin ordered his Ambassador to stall the Japanese, but said that presenting those terms to the Allies would have been political suicide for him.

Hell, the Japanese Foreign Minister and Ambassador to the Soviet Union both told their own governments they were insane, and should get serious about trying to surrender before it was too late.

To make a comparison, that would be like Germany trying to dictate terms as the Red Army is battling inside Berlin.  And yes, early Showa era Japan was when they were more than slightly crazy.



JoeB131 said:


> Hirohito didn't have dictatorial power before, during the war or after, so that's just silly.
> 
> The fact was, Japan sought a surrender but also sought to keep Hirohito, because he was a RELIGIOUS figure in Shintoism, which most Japanese belonged to.  Americans insisted on deposing him.



He never did, that is not how the Japanese Emperors rule.

And no, they wanted an armistice as I described.  And no, the Americans never insisted on deposing him.  Holy hell, what was demanded was already in their hands by then, the Potsdam Declaration

_We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now* the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces,* and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction._

That was the closing line of Potsdam.  Nowhere did it even discuss the Emperor.  It did not even demand the surrender of "Japan", only of the armed forces.




JoeB131 said:


> Actually, the Japanese also reached out through the Swiss.



Which I discussed.  And the Swedish, and the Soviets.  None of which would even present the terms that Japan wanted.  Because they knew they would be rejected, and their standing among the Allied nations would fall.

They actually expected to retain their previously agreed occupation of China, demilitarize the Philippines, Singapore, Dutch Indonesia, and French Indochina.  Yet all allied forces would immediately leave Okinawa, Saipan, and all Japanese territory they occupied.  That there would be no war crime trials, and not one foreign soldier would set foot on Japan.  The Swiss and everybody else knew that was insanity, and would never be accepted.



JoeB131 said:


> The hope Japan had was they would come out of the war keeping some of what they had gained, which is to hold on to Korea and Taiwan, and to keep the friendly regimes they had installed in Manchuria and China.  Then when the Americans got tired and went home, they would be in a dominant position in Asia after the war.
> 
> All this became moot when the USSR entered the war and quickly rolled up their empire on the mainland.



They owned Korea and Taiwan long before the war even began.  So that is nonsensical.

And you are basically trying to say exactly what I am.  That they wanted to pretend they were winning, and could dictate the terms.  That screams that they were not even close to "surrender".  And all of the Allied Powers knew that and would have rejected outright any such offer even if Japan found somebody to present it for them.  



JoeB131 said:


> Except they were, and there was no reason to use them, other than we had them



You just said basically that their idea of "surrender" was a lie, But yes, there was a reason, the Shockley Report.  



> If the study shows that the behavior of nations in all historical cases comparable to Japan's has in fact been invariably consistent with the behavior of the troops in battle, then it means that the Japanese dead and ineffectives at the time of the defeat will exceed the corresponding number for the Germans.* In other words, we shall probably have to kill at least 5 to 10 million Japanese. This might cost us between 1.7 and 4 million casualties including 400,000 to 800,000 killed.*



That report sent shockwaves through the upper levels of the US military and Government.  Because it took into account the deaths at Saipan and Okinawa, Something previous estimates did not.

Hell, many Japanese did not surrender until the 1970s.  Decades after the war ended.



JoeB131 said:


> Except again, why did they need to "surrender"?  The concept of "unconditional surrender" dragged WWII out longer than it needed to go and gave us 40 years of Cold War.  We devastated Germany and Japan and then had to invest billions rebuilding them to keep them as bulwarks against communism.
> 
> We insisted on "unconditional surrender".  Hirohito keeping his job was a condition.



Because both sides learned the mistake of WWI.  That not insisting on a change in the country itself only ensures as you yourself said that they would return even more determined in the future.  Funny, you yourself commented on that, you forget already?  You do not think that the Allied Powers already knew that?

And no, the demand was never "unconditional surrender".  Read the Potsdam Declaration, they made their demands quite clear.





__





						Potsdam Declaration | Birth of the Constitution of Japan
					





					www.ndl.go.jp
				




The Japanese Government not only ignored Potsdam (as do you apparently), they said it was outright ignoring it because it was not worth even talking about.  But at any time they could have reached out to the Allied Powers directly or through an intermediary to request a clarification.

They were not yet willing to surrender.  The fact that even after the first bomb was dropped only a single member of the War Cabinet stated that he was willing to see Japan surrender screams that.


----------



## JoeB131 (Mar 11, 2022)

Open Bolt said:


> Japan already had the peace terms. We provided them in the Potsdam Proclamation.


Which they found unacceptable, and they were right.  Which is why we had to give in on the Emperor issue.  


Open Bolt said:


> They never overordered purple hearts at any other point in time.


That's not true.  I can tell you they did for the Gulf war when I was in.


----------



## Open Bolt (Mar 11, 2022)

JoeB131 said:


> Which they found unacceptable,


That lack of acceptance got them nuked twice.




JoeB131 said:


> and they were right.


Not really.  They would have been better off surrendering before they were nuked.




JoeB131 said:


> Which is why we had to give in on the Emperor issue.


We didn't give in on the Emperor issue.  Japan surrendered without Hirohito retaining unlimited dictatorial power.




JoeB131 said:


> That's not true.  I can tell you they did for the Gulf war when I was in.


How did they overorder?


----------



## JoeB131 (Mar 11, 2022)

Open Bolt said:


> That lack of acceptance got them nuked twice.



Do you go around telling rape victims that they had it coming for wearing a short dress?


----------



## Open Bolt (Mar 11, 2022)

JoeB131 said:


> Do you go around telling rape victims that they had it coming for wearing a short dress?


Japan was the rapist in this example.

Yes, if a rapist gets shot in self defense, I tell them that they had it coming.


----------



## JoeB131 (Mar 11, 2022)

Open Bolt said:


> Japan was the rapist in this example.
> 
> Yes, if a rapist gets shot in self defense, I tell them that they had it coming.



The innocent women and Children of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not the "rapists" in this scenario.  

So why do you hate Asian people?


----------



## Mushroom (Mar 11, 2022)

JoeB131 said:


> Which they found unacceptable, and they were right. Which is why we had to give in on the Emperor issue.



Which was the loop they found themselves in.  But it was of their own making.

Nowhere in Potsdam did it demand the surrender of the Government of Japan, nor the Emperor.  It only stated that the armed forces must surrender.  And they rejected it because in their minds, it was impossible for them to lose.  That was why on every single War Council meeting prior to the bombing of Hiroshima it was unanimously decided to continue fighting.

But Potsdam never demanded that the Government surrender, or the Emperor step down.  And if Japan had been serious about surrendering, then at any time after 26 July 1945 they could have simply requested a clarification through back channels.  Instead, the Prime Minister outright rejected it, and announced publicly it was being ignored.  Those are not the actions of a nation on the verge of surrender.


----------



## Mushroom (Mar 11, 2022)

JoeB131 said:


> The innocent women and Children of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not the "rapists" in this scenario.



How about the 300,000 slaughtered by the Japanese in the Rape of Nanking?  But even that is a drop in the bucket in the over 10 million Chinese civilians killed in that war.

What about Unit 731?  Who primarily used Chinese civilians as experiments not only on biological and chemical warfare experiments, but also for things such as exposure, dehydration, and battlefield injuries.  Over 10,000 died during those experiments.

Tell us, who was the "Rapist" in China?  You want to weigh this on some kind of scale?  Well, then the over 10 million innocent women and children of China far outweigh those in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Which were clear military targets.  Where as in China they were just trying to create mass terror.  Even gleefully reporting in Japanese newspapers a contest created by two IJA officers.  To see who would be the first to behead 100 people with a sword.

This contest was reported on in the sports pages of Japanese newspapers, like it was a pennant race in baseball.  This is even more clear when it was announced they went into "extra innings" as both soldiers passed 100 at around the same time and the contest would continue.







But I can see your attempt to play this as a racist thing.  Sorry, that is a fail.  Try learning real history instead of pushing sad old propaganda.  In fact, it is rather funny in the wake of what was known as the "Rape of Nanking", and the many atrocities Japan did in the countries they conquered.  Like Korea, the Philippines, Manchuria, and more.  They might have been even seen as liberators by some, but they were so brutal that even those that might have supported them turned their backs on them.

You talk about rape?  Tell us about the Comfort Women.  The roughly 200,000 women captured by the Japanese and literally turned into free prostitutes for their soldiers to use.  What about the actual systemic Rape by Japanese soldiers?


----------



## JoeB131 (Mar 12, 2022)

Okay, we realize you are slow, but what did the women and children of Hiroshima have to do with any of these. 



Mushroom said:


> How about the 300,000 slaughtered by the Japanese in the Rape of Nanking? But even that is a drop in the bucket in the over 10 million Chinese civilians killed in that war.



And the women and children of Hiroshima had nothing to do with that. 



Mushroom said:


> What about Unit 731? Who primarily used Chinese civilians as experiments not only on biological and chemical warfare experiments, but also for things such as exposure, dehydration, and battlefield injuries. Over 10,000 died during those experiments.



Unit 731 wasn't in Hiroshima, and the women and children of that city had nothing to do with that. 



Mushroom said:


> Tell us, who was the "Rapist" in China? You want to weigh this on some kind of scale? Well, then the over 10 million innocent women and children of China far outweigh those in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Which were clear military targets. Where as in China they were just trying to create mass terror. Even gleefully reporting in Japanese newspapers a contest created by two IJA officers. To see who would be the first to behead 100 people with a sword.



Again- women and children of Hiroshima had nothing to do with that.  And the world didn't declare war on Japan when it did that, that was the thing. the US and UK were fine with Japan doing that to China.  They only got upset when the Japanese started coveting their colonial holdings in Southeast Asia.  



Mushroom said:


> But I can see your attempt to play this as a racist thing. Sorry, that is a fail. Try learning real history instead of pushing sad old propaganda. In fact, it is rather funny in the wake of what was known as the "Rape of Nanking", and the many atrocities Japan did in the countries they conquered. Like Korea, the Philippines, Manchuria, and more. They might have been even seen as liberators by some, but they were so brutal that even those that might have supported them turned their backs on them.



Actually, a lot of those countries DID see the Japanese as liberators at the time.  For instance, the Japanese founded the Second Philippine Republic and a lot of Filipinos embraced it.   Many of the politicians who served in that government went on to have careers in the Third Philippine Republic after the war.  

For those playing along at home, the First Philippine Republic was established in 1899 after the US defeated Spain, and was quickly crushed by American forces.  In the resulting Philippine War, Americans killed up to 200,000 Filipinos. 

The end result of the Japanese liberation was when the British, Dutch and French tried to reestablish their "empires", the Malaysian, Indonesians and Vietnamese were having none of it.  



Mushroom said:


> You talk about rape? Tell us about the Comfort Women. The roughly 200,000 women captured by the Japanese and literally turned into free prostitutes for their soldiers to use. What about the actual systemic Rape by Japanese soldiers?


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## Open Bolt (Mar 12, 2022)

JoeB131 said:


> The innocent women and Children of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not the "rapists" in this scenario.


They were stand-ins for the rapists though.  They answered for the crimes that the rapists committed.




JoeB131 said:


> So why do you hate Asian people?


Don't be silly.  I don't hate Asians.

WWII Japan was the biggest scourge against Asian people in the 20th century.




JoeB131 said:


> And the world didn't declare war on Japan when it did that, that was the thing. the US and UK were fine with Japan doing that to China.  They only got upset when the Japanese started coveting their colonial holdings in Southeast Asia.


I recall hearing that we embargoed Japan when they started committing horrific crimes against their Asian neighbors.


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## JoeB131 (Mar 12, 2022)

Open Bolt said:


> I recall hearing that we embargoed Japan when they started committing horrific crimes against their Asian neighbors.



Oooooh, an "Embargo".   Let's ask Putin how bad that is.


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## Open Bolt (Mar 13, 2022)

JoeB131 said:


> Oooooh, an "Embargo".   Let's ask Putin how bad that is.


It prevented our goods from being used to perpetrate the genocide that Japan was committing.


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## JoeB131 (Mar 13, 2022)

Open Bolt said:


> It prevented our goods from being used to perpetrate the genocide that Japan was committing.



Um, okay.  Point was, we didn't go to war with Japan over it... because we didn't consider it a big deal. 

Instead, we put on an embargo, which just drove them to attack us so we wouldn't interfere when they went to Southeast Asia for those resources.


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## Wballz49 (Mar 15, 2022)

Good job Bomb Wing from Roswell!  Fuck Japan


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## Mushroom (Mar 16, 2022)

JoeB131 said:


> Instead, we put on an embargo, which just drove them to attack us so we wouldn't interfere when they went to Southeast Asia for those resources.



No, it did not cause them to attack us.  They were already planning on attacking even before the first embargo was announced.

The "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" was a concept they developed in the early 1930s, and they envisioned their Empire expanding to cover all of the Western Pacific, from the Arctic to Australia.  From Midway all the way across Asia to the border of China.






Basically everything within 4,000 kilometers of Japan was theirs.  Including the Dutch East Indies, British Singapore, the Philippines, and everywhere else.  But what they needed at the time was the Southern islands, for oil and rubber.

But it is stupid to think it is because of the embargos, as on the same day they declared war against the UK.  And had already declared war on the Dutch and French.

No, what really caused the war is that they needed to eliminate the US garrison and presence on the Philippines.  That was a key choke point for any forces and supplies to and from modern Indonesia and other islands in that area.  If the US did not enter the war when they attacked UK territory but instead joined later in mid-1942, they could have cut the Empire in half from the Philippines.  But they had been planning on that since early 1941.  Long before the steel or oil embargos were even considered, let alone enacted.

The oil embargo was in August 1941.  Do you really think that Japan was able to plan, train for, modify equipment for, then execute three simultaneous attacks in 4 months?  And why attack the UK, if it was just about oil and steel?

No, that is yet another stupid belief that a lot of people seem to have, but looking into the facts shows that it makes no sense at all.  They were simply trying to grab once and for all their GEACPS.  And could not leave the US where it was.  The oil and steel embargos were just an excuse.


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