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On November 03 2008 02:17 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2008 02:00 KlaCkoN wrote:On November 03 2008 01:50 Jibba wrote:On November 03 2008 01:33 KlaCkoN wrote:On November 03 2008 01:28 SpiralArchitect wrote:
Haha dont diminish what I sad to some stupid argument. The Japanese started the war and they have to deal with the consequences, many people seem to think that the citizens hold no responsibility. That is what I said and any serious debater would use that argument. You could make that argument, the very same argument justifies 9/11 though. I think both events were horrible crimes against humanity Modern day US does not have a war economy and we're not indoctrinated to fight. You could use that argument to justify an attack on a Jeep or airplane factory during the war and from the Japanese perspective that really would not have been that out of line. A _lot_ of americans actually are indoctrinated to hate muslims / support the killing of them. Just see Palins quotes about "They hate our freedoms, they will try to kill us for them". And believe it or not some people even on this rather liberal site agreed. The twin towers were a huge symbol for the ecconomic force the US used (and uses) to opress people in africa/middle east. From the point of view of someone who is on the recieving end of that stick it is not far fetched at all to consider that symbol a valid military target. Don't misunderstand me, for all its pecularities I rather like america and I think 9/11 was a horrible crime which can never be justified, just as I think bombing japanese cities was a horrible crime which cannot be justified. There's obviously bigots with racist views, but it's not the same thing as state sponsored bigotry in schools, radio, etc. I think you're right that the towers symbolized something much greater, but I have to tell you that I don't think 'terror' as a tactic is much worse than any conventional fighting. It doesn't make sense to fight conventionally if you're disadvantaged like that, so I think it's tactically justified. In the case of the bombs, it wasn't because we weren't disadvantaged and we were going to win no matter what. The only legitimate explanation is the political aspects and the perceived threat of communism. The real analysis should be done on whether Truman (and all ensuing presidents) was justified in believing communism/Stalin was the greatest threat at the time. I'm really not sure. I know the US was never going to fight a conventional war in Europe with them because we thought that we'd lose, but that was only fleshed out in 1949.
Ok then you are at least consequent. I respect that.
I can agree with that the ultimate reason for the bomb was soviet as well.
I still think it was fucking wrong.
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All this shows one thing: Speculating about history is easy, making history is hard. Those standards by which we nowadays measure up what our forefathers did are most likely only available because they did what they did.
Most of our counterfactual speculations can be traced to politicians, military commanders and decision makers who ruminated about past decisions after the fact in memoirs, diaries, etc. This at once narrows the field of speculation to plausible courses of action, and because of historical documentation, it is often possible to follow the individual arguments as to why a specific action was chosen, and the momentary opposition to it. That is not to say that counterfactual speculation is devoid of risks, since one cannot assume perfection of information on either side, nor can one anticipate the sum of microcosmic actions, but to take a critical approach to historical decisions is the business of history. History is not a science which establishes facts with self-evident meanings, nor is it a court of justice delivering a final judgement on an argument. It is a process of re-thinking the past which is always in motion. The moral picture of hiroshima will be different 100 years from now, but that does not mean that what we have to say about it today is meaningless. On one level, we can discover new documents, new arguments and new perspectives which enhance our understanding of the issue. On another, we can repeat what old documents and arguments already say, and thereby remind people of what they have forgotten. Because we cannot see truth itself does not mean we ought to despair of trying.
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On November 03 2008 02:28 brambolius wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2008 14:44 DoctorHelvetica wrote:
The ground assault would have resulted in more casualties on both sides.
The job of the American Government is to protect American lives at any cost. We did exactly that. *charges DoctorHelvetica with flamethrower*
Hey if it was just 1 bomb then you could say that but it's ever so justified because we had to drop another bomb until we heard a surrender and even then before the emperor tried to surrender the military power of japan tried a coup to prevent him from.
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I think there's two important things to consider.
Japanese culture at the time (will probably lean you toward justifying the bombing)
and
the way that these citizens were killed. I mean... Death by nuclear radiation is pretty much the worst possible way to go (obviously this leans toward not justifying it).
To argue this properly requires knowledge I don't actually have though, so I don't claim to take either side. It was, in my opinion, a lose lose situation for the United States at the time, and at least in one option they protected their own state (Japan wasn't surrendering any time soon, I hope that most posters realise that).
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On November 02 2008 14:44 DoctorHelvetica wrote:
The ground assault would have resulted in more casualties on both sides.
The job of the American Government is to protect American lives at any cost. We did exactly that.
we??? you werent even alive when that happened!
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I was just reading DJEtterStyle's Day 5 Blog, then I saw this thread...
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rofl, united states acted like fucking fags. They dropped the bombs on japan because if they didnt win quickly russia would have been able to attack japan too and would have taken part of the war loot.
i love how this debate is polarized; USA : yes \ Rest of the world: no
Note that this doesnt imply that the whole american nation wanted that.
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His advisers introduced it to him on such terms and he later wrote about it in that way.
Here is what Truman says in his diaries:
This weapon is to be used against Japan between now and August 10th. I have told the Sec. of War, Mr. Stimson, to use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children. Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop that terrible bomb on the old capital or the new.
He and I are in accord. The target will be a purely military one and we will issue a warning statement asking the Japs to surrender and save lives. I'm sure they will not do that, but we will have given them the chance.
That Truman wrote about blackmailing the Russians with the bomb is untrue. If there is documentation to that effect, I'd like to see it. As indicated by the citations above, Truman was more concerned with whether to inform the Russians of the existence of the bomb before or after its demonstration. The decision to reveal it before was considered good diplomacy, and to pre-empt Soviet suspicions of bad faith. If Truman went ahead and exploded the bomb over Japan without informing Stalin, the diplomatic effect would have been much greater.
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First off death by nuclear radiation wasn't known until after the bombings. So atlest at the time the president deiced to drop the bombs it def wouldn't seem that bad to him. Kill a lot of semi innocent civilians to take out 2 prominent military facilities and to scare japan into surrender vs the loss of thousands of American boys including the loss of Japanese lives. Also included is the threat of Russia invading and then claiming to have right to control that territory of japan after the war. I mean just taking how American treated japan after the war more or less says oh shit i didn't know it would be that bad.
Sorry about the radiation lol we just thought that shit wouldn't kill you like that thought your just might develop cancer after a few years instead of your skin pealing off and you shitting your bowels to death. But hey your not a communist and your industry is being rebuilt congratulations also hows MacArthur people say you like him but i think hes just an ass!
-America
On November 03 2008 02:43 RtS)Night[Mare wrote:
rofl, united states acted like fucking fags. They dropped the bombs on japan because if they didnt win quickly russia would have been able to attack japan too and would have taken part of the war loot.
i love how this debate is polarized; USA : yes \ Rest of the world: no
Note that this doesnt imply that the whole american nation wanted that.
Lets see death of a small number of people hell less then the amount of Japanese men that would have died and a short after war occupation to rebuild japan into a bisness would power. Vs fighting over japan parts for dedicates between America/Europe vs Russia and China You know communism wasn't a scare at all =p Russia just kept those country's poor and without any power. Face it no civilian is innocent only if they are in a neutral country they are innocent.
Hell people seem to forget for Germany the US/Britian dropped thousands of bombs on their city's creating fire storms that would suck the air out of you and the estimated total of deaths of civilians there is about = to the amount lost by these 2 bombs.
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Hungary11305 Posts
On November 03 2008 02:34 MoltkeWarding wrote:Show nested quote +All this shows one thing: Speculating about history is easy, making history is hard. Those standards by which we nowadays measure up what our forefathers did are most likely only available because they did what they did. The moral picture of hiroshima will be different 100 years from now, but that does not mean that what we have to say about it today is meaningless. On one level, we can discover new documents, new arguments and new perspectives which enhance our understanding of the issue. On another, we can repeat what old documents and arguments already say, and thereby remind people of what they have forgotten. Because we cannot see truth itself does not mean we ought to despair of trying.
Obviously I didn't imply this. What I was aiming to convey was: 1) It is easy to speculate about the past, and when doing so, one should be aware of those "risks of counterfactual speculation". 2) Trying to "get at" the past is obviously an important issue. But it should be done in more challenging ways than posing a binary question.
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Killing hundreds of thousands of civilians for strategic ends is a warcrime/crime against humanity, particularly when done in such a horrific way, and when it was not absolutely necessary.
Probably the best work I've read on these kind of choices is Michael Walzer's 'Just and Unjust wars'. He essentially says that in a supreme emergency, when a nation is threatened with being wiped out, they can justify targeting civilians/using extreme tactics. So for example, during the first part of the 2nd world war, Britain was justified in mass bombing German cities, but as the war went on and victory or at least peace became assured, Britain was not justified in further actions (so Dresden etc would be seen as war crimes). This seems pretty reasonable to me. So if Japan was poised to invade America, the bombs would have been justified. As Japan was ridiculously far from such a position, the bombs weren't justified.
The argument that the Japanese had committed war crimes and so 'had it coming to them' is obviously flawed. That would mean that if the Vietnamese had somehow acquired a nuclear weapon, they'd have been justified in nuking an American city as a retaliation to inhumane napalm attacks. The right thing is to condemn all war crimes- not respond in kind when its unnecessary.
I think the best argument in support is that the resulting Cold war was (probably) made safer by the M.A.D standoff, therefore with extreme hindsight, it might have been the right move. However, considering the horrifying number of accounts of near-nuclear war, and the fact that much conflict was merely exported to the Third World, makes even this tricky.
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On November 03 2008 02:55 Tal wrote:
Killing hundreds of thousands of civilians for strategic ends is a warcrime/crime against humanity, particularly when done in such a horrific way, and when it was not absolutely necessary.
Probably the best work I've read on these kind of choices is Michael Walzer's 'Just and Unjust wars'. He essentially says that in a supreme emergency, when a nation is threatened with being wiped out, they can justify targeting civilians/using extreme tactics. So for example, during the first part of the 2nd world war, Britain was justified in mass bombing German cities, but as the war went on and victory or at least peace became assured, Britain was not justified in further actions (so Dresden etc would be seen as war crimes). This seems pretty reasonable to me. So if Japan was poised to invade America, the bombs would have been justified. As Japan was ridiculously far from such a position, the bombs weren't justified.
The argument that the Japanese had committed war crimes and so 'had it coming to them' is obviously flawed. That would mean that if the Vietnamese had somehow acquired a nuclear weapon, they'd have been justified in nuking an American city as a retaliation to inhumane napalm attacks. The right thing is to condemn all war crimes- not respond in kind when its unnecessary.
I think the best argument in support is that the resulting Cold war was (probably) made safer by the M.A.D standoff, therefore with extreme hindsight, it might have been the right move. However, considering the horrifying number of accounts of near-nuclear war, and the fact that much conflict was merely exported to the Third World, makes even this tricky.
So victory occurred 16 March 1945(The last of the firebombing of cities) When Germany surrendered in April 29 1945 =p
Also
![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f1/World_War_II_Casualties2.svg/550px-World_War_II_Casualties2.svg.png)
poor old russian buring their own wells to prevent german advance
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I get scared of what people are tought in american schools.
There should be no debate, the bombs where a crime against humanity and cant be justified.
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United States22883 Posts
On November 03 2008 02:44 MoltkeWarding wrote:Show nested quote +His advisers introduced it to him on such terms and he later wrote about it in that way. Here is what Truman says in his diaries: Show nested quote +This weapon is to be used against Japan between now and August 10th. I have told the Sec. of War, Mr. Stimson, to use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children. Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop that terrible bomb on the old capital or the new.
He and I are in accord. The target will be a purely military one and we will issue a warning statement asking the Japs to surrender and save lives. I'm sure they will not do that, but we will have given them the chance. That Truman wrote about blackmailing the Russians with the bomb is untrue. If there is documentation to that effect, I'd like to see it. As indicated by the citations above, Truman was more concerned with whether to inform the Russians of the existence of the bomb before or after its demonstration. The decision to reveal it before was considered good diplomacy, and to pre-empt Soviet suspicions of bad faith. If Truman went ahead and exploded the bomb over Japan without informing Stalin, the diplomatic effect would have been much greater.
Truman went to Potsdam to convince them to enter the war, but he also specifically to inform them of the bomb for diplomatic purposes.
top American officials calculated that using the atomic bomb would enormously bolster U.S. diplomacy vis-a-vis with Soviet Union in negotiations over postwar Europe and the Far East. The atomic bomb, was not, in fact, initially brought to Truman's attention because of its relationship to the war againt Japan, but because of its likely impact on diplomacy. In late April, in the midst of an explosive confrontation with Stalin over the Polish issue, Secretary of War Stimson urged discussion of the bomb because, as he told Truman, it had "such a bearing on our present foreign relations and ... such an important effect upon all my thinking in this field."
Stimson, for his part, regarded the atomic bomb as what he called the "master card" of diplomacy towards Russia. However, he believed that sparring with the Soviet Union in early spring, before the weapon was demonstrated, would be counterproductive.
Stimson's files indicate that Truman had come to similar conclusions roughly a month after taking office. Quite specifically - and against the advice of Churchill, who wanted an early meeting with Stalin before American troops were withdrawn from Europe - the president postponed his only diplomatic encounter with the Soviet leader because he first wanted to know for certain that the still untested atomic bomb actually worked. ... In a 1949 interview, Truman recalled telling a close associate before the test, "If it explodes as I think it will I'll certainly have a hammer on those boys" Hiroshima: Historians Reassess, by Gar Alperovitz Foreign Policy © 1995
It's on JSTOR if you want to read the whole thing.
There's also no question that the bombs were dropped specifically to end conflict before the Soviets could enter Japan.
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Says the people who didn't have to put more of their nations people at risk. =p I swear Europe would be more behind this if japan bombed Europe instead of just Asia and the US.
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From what I know US wanted to avoid casualties (especially because of suicide attacks) because of their experience after fighting on smaller islands (smallers ones on Pacific but I think Kuyshu too). They estimated 1million casualties more and needed something to force Japan to surrender faster.
I can't say it's good.
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Yeah. It wasn't uncommon to end up having to set caves on fire, stab the dead to make sure they aren't playing possum and seeing women and children slaughter after they invaded a island from japan. Cause japan had a small tendency to kill the women and children in belief they are saving them from the Americans.
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On November 03 2008 03:14 IzzyCraft wrote:
Says the people who didn't have to put more of their nations people at risk. =p I swear Europe would be more behind this if japan bombed Europe instead of just Asia and the US.
There wasnt even anything left in Europe to bomb after WW2.
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EPT
