Military Buffs I need your help.

[AssHat]

Hey you're the one with the vampire sig

[CNCRaymond]

Originally posted by rextorres:
I don't know if the US was wrong or not in dropping the bomb (frankly the fire bombings sound more horrific based on accounts I've read) - but a lot of people - even a couple on this forum have implied that the bombs were dropped for some altruistic reasons.

Really, and who are these people? From what I read, most of the people here say that war was war, and they make no excuses for what the US did given the fact that in that day and age, the ends did justify the means. Fire bombing civilian targets, why the hell not, if they could have done it to use, they would have. But as history would have it, we were the ones to pull it off. Was that the right thing to do by today’s standards, sure, why not, by the standards of then, oh hell yes. People die in war Rex, that is the horror of it. It is a crying shame, but again, it was war and even now when we look back on our history through the optics of revisionism, it was still war and no one can deny that. I lost family in that war as did a great many people, and we all know how horrible war can be. But to look back on it now and say that it was done out of hatred alone is utterly wrong.

The truth is those cities were fire bombed mainly because they were made out of wood and paper and were industrial centers. They did not deliberately target civilians although they knew that the fires would spread. To the military leaders of that time, it was the best tactical way to subdue and demoralize the population of Japan. Break their will to fight and soften them up for an invasion.

In reality the US was fire bombing civilians already and dropped the bomb on a civilian target, probably dropped the bomb out of revenge (as your posting and some others on the board highlights), for strategic leverage after the war, and based on what some Japanese documents suggest could have gotten a surrender without the need to drop the bombs.

Or as you point out, it was just pay back for the war right? They dropped those bombs because they wanted revenge. The sad truth is simply that in war miscommunications between enemies is a common place occurrence. The Japanese culture was different from that of our own and that too played a part in what happened. Simply we did not know, or did not understand that they were considering surrender.

The horror of war can not be ignored, nor can it be excused even after 50 years. Horrible things happen in war Rex, things that should be considered war crimes that are not, and things that should never have happened did happen. Its in the past now, and all we can do is live with the guilt of what happened.

Some people feel uncomfortable with this "revisionist" history because it doesn't show the US in the best light and in today's Jingoistic climate if your not 100% pro US your unpatriotic . . . I guess if it lets them sleep better at night good for them.

I have to disagree with this assessment of your assumption on what people think. No where in any of the threads of this topic have I read where any one becomes uncomfortable with your comments about history. You have your view, and they have theirs. The only one I have seen get upset about any thing has been you Rex. In fact, I think, and forgive me for not being politically correct here, that you enjoy the argument and are not willing to be humble and professional enough to conduct yourself with the professionalism that is this board.

Frankly rex, I think much of what you have said is spot on, but your delivery of it has been deliberately hostile with the intent to provoke animosity

[ December 14, 2003, 00:33: Message edited by: CNCRaymond ]

[rextorres]

Hmmm . . . since I wasn't alive and to my knowledge none of my relatives died because of it . . . I guess I don't feel as strongly as some people seem to about that war.

Still, I know what I have read, and it enlightening that there is still so much vitriol towards the Japanese and so much self-righteousness about A-bombing a civilian target even after 50 years. And I guess that's what's upsetting.

Anyway, if we had lost the war fire bombing and A-bombing cities probably would have been a war crime. Sure sometimes a country has to commit an evil act for self-preservation but it doesn't make it a good act; it's still an evil act. In my opinion fire bombing or A-bombing a city with civilians is an evil act even if it was against the JAPS.

I think President Truman captures how many felt about "the beasts" as he says -

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistle...mall/mb13a.htm

Sure he is disturbed BUT they deserved it.

[ December 14, 2003, 01:18: Message edited by: rextorres ]

[CNCRaymond]

I agree with you Rex, I wish they could have found another way than to have dropped those bombs, I really do.

The motivations back then were skewed by the war, and in war we spend a lot of time making our enemies evil. It is easier to kill a thing, than it is a man. This kind of thing dates back to the dawn of time, and I feel it will go on long after we are gone.

I often wonder how we would all respond to a world war situation if one occured now. If say China bombed Seattle or New York, how we would view them? Or how they would view us when we retalated.

I am a believe that a third world war will come, a war not over politics, but a war over resources. It will be a bloody and unholy war unlike any war we have ever seen before. Billions will die, and in the end, those who survive it will have nothing left to fight with say sticks and stones.

You put 5 people on an island with enough food to Last 50 days. It won't take long for on or two of them to figure out that if s/he bumps off the others, that 50 days of food will Last 250.

[primitive]

Originally posted by AssHat:
Please. That's lame.

At least any two-month old children killed by U.S. action were collateral damage, and not killed at the tip of laughing soldiers' bayonets (Nanking) or cruelly separated from their family and gassed (Auschwitz). From now on you need to provide specifics, not platitudes.

And if (note the if, as I believe we are still discussing this) the bombing was done for no other purpose than revenge, is there really a difference ?

While there are several good arguments for dropping the first bomb, can anybody come up with one single decent argument for the second.

[Loser]

Originally posted by primitive:
While there are several good arguments for dropping the first bomb, can anybody come up with one single decent argument for the second.

Yes, because the Japanese government clearly, directly, and confidently told the American government that it was a fluke, would not work again, and that they would not surrender.

Originally posted by AssHat:
That said, there is no more magnanimous victor than the United States and any country rehabilitated by U.S. force of arms is sure to benefit in the long run.

I wouldn't lean to heavily on that magnanimity, because it really only happened once. The Union crushed the South, abused it and pushed it down. They did this so that the South would not be able to rebel again. The South was still broken fifty years later, and the scars remain today in poverty and racial hatred.

The only time we have rebuilt our conquered enemies was the end of World War Two. That is the only time in history that something like that has happened, but it did not happen for magnanimous reasons, it happened because the American leadership saw another war coming and needed to be ready. And the Third World War did come, we call it the Cold War and we did need those allies we built up. Without them we would not have been able to face the Soviet threat.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by primitive:
While there are several good arguments for dropping the first bomb, can anybody come up with one single decent argument for the second.

There is only one argument that needs to be given for the second bombing. The war was not over. Japan had not surendered, even after the first bombing. All of the theories, opinions, and estimates about what the Japanese were planning to do or might do are just that, theories, opinions and estimates. The only thing that we knew for sure, and the only thing we know now for sure is that as of the time of the bombing of Nagasaki, they had not surendered.

Perhaps a case can be made that neither bombing was acceptable, that both were inhumane. That's an argument I won't attempt to make on either side because I have not truly decided for myself. But if you accept the first bombing, as you seem to do from your statement, then you must accept the second bombing as well. As we would have to accept every subsequent bombing after the first two if they had not surendered when they did.

Geoschmo

[Thermodyne]

Some of you people should really step back and listen to what you are saying. War is not a polite little game played between gentlemen. It is economic competition at its worst. And the idea that civilians should be immune is just pure stupidity. Anyone that contributes to the economic well being of the enemy is a viable target. In all out war, the idea is to kill them and theirs, before they kill you and yours. To say that the atomic bombs were any worse that the mass bombing of Tokyo or Dresden or Hamburg is pure nonsense. They biggest difference was a merely economics. It would have been cheaper and more efficient to use fission bombs than it was to use HE and incendiaries.

Often we hear that the next war will be fought over resources. Well if you bothered to study WWII, you would already know that it too was fought over resources. The Japanese went to war to secure the resources that their economy needed. Resources that the US had taken great lengths to deny to them. Resources that they had invaded China to secure. Germany went to war so that they could sustain an economic model that was only sustainable by war. And England, well once they allowed the Germans the time to face them; it was a war of economic survival. A point that is often lost in the texts of the war is what the major resource of the western Pacific is. In the late 1930’s it was rubber and oil. The rubber is not much of a resource these days, but there are still several billion barrels of oil under the South China Sea. Anyone ever notice what effect North Slope oil had on American foreign policy? Oil and Iron were the two most fought over resources in WWII. So if WWIII is fought over resources, we will just be repeating history once again.


Now about those civilians. In a war, there are no civilians. Every person that is able to contribute to the economy is a target. Every farm that produces food is a target. Every worker in a factory is a target. Every home that shelters a worker is a target. Every medical facility that contributes to the well being of these workers is a target. Every school that educates the next generation of workers will become a target if the war is allowed to continue long enough. To say that only combatants should be targeted is short sighted and naive. It should be noted that the four greatest slayers of civilians were Mao, Stalin, Polpot (sp) and Hitler in the order listed. It should also be noted that Japan lost less people in WWII than did China. What is a human life worth? There is no easy answer to that; it depends on the point of ones perspective. But to say that the taking of life with a fission devise is worse that the taking of lives with napalm is not supportable by reasonable logic. The same holds true for all forms of death that war provides. Starvation surly has to be several time more horrible. I would dare say that the soldiers that gave their lives at Stalingrad would have died kinder deaths had they been nuked. And what about Berlin, how many people died there? More than a million? Well, no one knows for sure, but Soviet casualties were in excess of that number after they crossed into Germany. And what of an invasion of Japan? Estimates ran from 400,000 to 800,000 Americans with 1/3 of these being fatalities. After the war this was revised to over a million based on the results of Sipan, Okinawa, and Iwo Jima. From that just do the math. Use the numbers form the previous three battles, and use the low end American number. That gives you 4.5 million dead Japanese. Add in another half million for continuing the strategic bombardment for a year and at least another million who would have died from starvation and disease. Real quick it would appear that the bomb saved both American and Japanese lives. Sure, Japan might have surrendered based on the fact that the war was already lost, but that would have taken a reversal of the culture. And time was not a luxury that the allies had to waste. America has elections every two years, and England was in very bad shape. To have paused and then accepted less than total victory would have been political suicide on both sides of the Atlantic.


I for one have no pity for Japan. Japan could have avoided the war by removing its troops from China. But they chose to attack America, France, England, and the Dutch instead. They justified it based on the genetic purity and superiority of the Japanese race. And in the end they bit off more than they could chew. They started the war, and as a result, they became the target of the might of America. The two cities that were attacked had been forfeited long before the bombs fell. That fact that they both died as a result of single bombs is of little consequence. Dead from one bomb or dead from the bombs of a thousand B29s is no different. To die from radiation burns is little different than dieing from phosphorous burns. And when taken as a whole, I would think that the people of Dresden suffered a worse death, their torment Lasted a full night and much of the next day.

And as a Last point, I would offer this. Where does it say that a nation can not use a weapon of mass destruction in a declared war? Especially when the war was forced upon said nation by an aggressor? It must be remembered that the allies had been killing people on this scale for more than a year when the fission bombs were dropped. The morality of the times found little fault with it.

[ December 14, 2003, 03:36: Message edited by: Thermodyne ]

[TerranC]

Originally posted by Thermodyne:
Now about those civilians. In a war, there are no civilians. Every person that is able to contribute to the economy is a target. Every farm that produces food is a target. Every worker in a factory is a target. Every home that shelters a worker is a target. Every medical facility that contributes to the well being of these workers is a target. Every school that educates the next generation of workers will become a target if the war is allowed to continue long enough. To say that only combatants should be targeted is short sighted and naive.

I don't get what you're trying to say here thermo; are you saying that any and every body who just happens to be a fellow citizen of the enemy nation should be wiped out?

[ December 14, 2003, 03:55: Message edited by: TerranC ]

[oleg]

Thermo' arguments are valid in the situation when the outcome of the war has not been decided yet. That was most certainly not true in the case of Hiroshima/Nagasaki. Please read my older Posts with quotes of people intimately involved in the desision. I regard their opinions much higher than canonised official US history books.