On November 03 2008 14:48 Savio wrote: People saying that these bombings were worse than Pearl Harbor are ignoring the fact that Pearl Harbor was an attack on a country they weren't even at war with!
If you start a war all on your own by hitting them before even announcing that you are at war, then YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE TO COMPLAIN ONCE YOU GET JACKED.
Of those 2 attacks, 1 was between 2 wartime countries and the other was between 2 countries that were currently at peace with eachother.
War is Hell and should be avoided. But when you are attacked first, you take the Hell to them until they quit.
In other words, Pearl Harbor justifies murdering over 100,000 civilians, including women and children?
The amount of posters here who apparently believe that civilians are legitimate targets in wartime (and who therefore don't believe in the concept of war crime) is truly astounding.
On November 03 2008 14:48 Savio wrote: People saying that these bombings were worse than Pearl Harbor are ignoring the fact that Pearl Harbor was an attack on a country they weren't even at war with!
If you start a war all on your own by hitting them before even announcing that you are at war, then YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE TO COMPLAIN ONCE YOU GET JACKED.
Of those 2 attacks, 1 was between 2 wartime countries and the other was between 2 countries that were currently at peace with eachother.
War is Hell and should be avoided. But when you are attacked first, you take the Hell to them until they quit.
In other words, Pearl Harbor justifies murdering over 100,000 civilians, including women and children?
The amount of posters here who apparently believe that civilians are legitimate targets in wartime (and who therefore don't believe in the concept of war crime) is truly astounding.
"In other words, Pearl Harbor justifies murdering over 100,000 civilians, including women and children?
The amount of posters here who apparently believe that civilians are legitimate targets in wartime (and who therefore don't believe in the concept of war crime) is truly astounding."
I second that. The amount of people here who think like the Terran Confederacy here is astounding. We could engineer Zerg in the future and unleash them on the enemy to avoid cusualties! That sounds as cool as inhumane.
On November 03 2008 14:48 Savio wrote: People saying that these bombings were worse than Pearl Harbor are ignoring the fact that Pearl Harbor was an attack on a country they weren't even at war with!
If you start a war all on your own by hitting them before even announcing that you are at war, then YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE TO COMPLAIN ONCE YOU GET JACKED.
Of those 2 attacks, 1 was between 2 wartime countries and the other was between 2 countries that were currently at peace with eachother.
War is Hell and should be avoided. But when you are attacked first, you take the Hell to them until they quit.
In other words, Pearl Harbor justifies murdering over 100,000 civilians, including women and children?
The amount of posters here who apparently believe that civilians are legitimate targets in wartime (and who therefore don't believe in the concept of war crime) is truly astounding.
In WW2 Civilians where free targets if you didn't notice WW1 might have been about honor and ace pilots but WW2 was about results can't say something is wrong with it would have saved more lives doing it one way over another. Is it okay to burn down buildings to save other buildings. It's called ACCEPTABLE CASUALTIES. No causalities would be great but face it the world doesn't turn that way.
If it was illegal to cause harm to civilians in wartime, everything from targeting bombing to mortaring cities to softening islands was illegal and cause for prosecution of war crimes - you'd end up prosecuting thousands and thousands of people, from everybody who ever ordered an artillery strike anywhere that wasn't a desert to anyone who fired a bullet in an area containing civilians, essentially everywhere in Europe that wasn't a forest or a field.
It's completely impossible to bomb, say, a munitions factory or a oil refinery without killing hundreds of civilians. It's practically impossible to invade a city held by the enemy without killing hundreds or thousands of civilians. It's absolutely impossible to conduct a bombing campaign on any scale without killing thousands of civilians. To declare illegal any action that would kill civilians would to be to cripple your nation's fighting ability beyond belief.
On November 03 2008 14:48 Savio wrote: People saying that these bombings were worse than Pearl Harbor are ignoring the fact that Pearl Harbor was an attack on a country they weren't even at war with!
If you start a war all on your own by hitting them before even announcing that you are at war, then YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE TO COMPLAIN ONCE YOU GET JACKED.
Of those 2 attacks, 1 was between 2 wartime countries and the other was between 2 countries that were currently at peace with eachother.
War is Hell and should be avoided. But when you are attacked first, you take the Hell to them until they quit.
In other words, Pearl Harbor justifies murdering over 100,000 civilians, including women and children?
The amount of posters here who apparently believe that civilians are legitimate targets in wartime (and who therefore don't believe in the concept of war crime) is truly astounding.
Agree entirely with HnR)hT.
I agree and disagree. Of course im against mass murdering hundreds of thousands of civilians but in those times entire cities in Europe were carpet bombed. Britain, France, Germany, Poland, Belgium, Netherlands etc all lost a huge amount of civilians and structures due to non-nuclear explosives.
In Europe 6 million poles died, 11 million Russians, and 1.6 million Germans. These numbers are from civilian death, not counting soldiers. I hate the fact the America attacked a city instead of a military base but in those times killing 100,000 people to end the war may have seemed justified in that period. edit - every site has different numbers >_>
My only question is: did they have to nuke a city?
I think people have to realize in this topic that its not as simple as to whether "bombing civilians" is right or wrong. The truth is: If you do not kill the innocent civilian, you will be killing many more (Hiroshima and Nagasaki had 200,000 to 300,000 deaths. Estimated deaths without the Atomic Bomb would fall between 1 million to 6 million of various nations including Japan) depending on how fast the war ends.
How is it better to kill x million Japanese civilians (remember that the estimates are very rough but the most OPTIMISTIC is 1 million Japanese dead) through war/starvation/firebombing than 250,000 deaths? (don't forget the 100,000 Chinese dying every month, 20,000 Koreans dying every month, approximately 10,000-100,000 Americans expected to die, Canadian captives, British captives, Filipinos under Japanese occupation, etc..)
Refer to page 23 if you believe Japan was ready to surrender or any of those myths.
Now the question we have to ask is: How will Truman be looked at if the atomic bomb wasn't dropped and the war go beyond 1945 (involving millions of deaths)?
On November 03 2008 23:36 ShcShc wrote: Now the question we have to ask is: How will Truman be looked at if the atomic bomb wasn't dropped and the war go beyond 1945 (involving millions of deaths)?
If you were in his position, would you risk this?
There are other targets for nukes then cities. When you nuke a city you aim at killing civilians. If you drop a bomb on a military naval base, you are aiming at soldiers. Yes this does not mean that no civilians will die either way but there is a difference in the justification of the target.
WW2 was pure madness, you can't look at the books and start thinking in morals/logic... You have to understand the spirit of that time... You think the a-bombs were horrible? What about the concentrationcamps of the nazis/japanese? What about the millions of russians who were sent to combat with only a handfull of bullets or a shovel and not enough equiment/cloth/food to survive the harsh winters there. V2 rockets, building to building fights, mindlessly killing every person on sight, backstabbing other countries, ...
It was a war of ideals and while you can't approve the means that were used to win(I voted no because of moral and warfare rules) we should be happy that we aren't speaking german now instead of dutch/english/french whatever... Personally I think that WW2 as a whole is unjustified and that we all should be ashamed that our species is capable of doing such horrible things...
On November 03 2008 14:48 Savio wrote: People saying that these bombings were worse than Pearl Harbor are ignoring the fact that Pearl Harbor was an attack on a country they weren't even at war with!
If you start a war all on your own by hitting them before even announcing that you are at war, then YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE TO COMPLAIN ONCE YOU GET JACKED.
Of those 2 attacks, 1 was between 2 wartime countries and the other was between 2 countries that were currently at peace with eachother.
War is Hell and should be avoided. But when you are attacked first, you take the Hell to them until they quit.
In other words, Pearl Harbor justifies murdering over 100,000 civilians, including women and children?
The amount of posters here who apparently believe that civilians are legitimate targets in wartime (and who therefore don't believe in the concept of war crime) is truly astounding.
Agree entirely with HnR)hT.
I agree and disagree. Of course im against mass murdering hundreds of thousands of civilians but in those times entire cities in Europe were carpet bombed. Britain, France, Germany, Poland, Belgium, Netherlands etc all lost a huge amount of civilians and structures due to non-nuclear explosives.
In Europe 6 million poles died, 11 million Russians, and 1.6 million Germans. These numbers are from civilian death, not counting soldiers. I hate the fact the America attacked a city instead of a military base but in those times killing 100,000 people to end the war may have seemed justified in that period. edit - every site has different numbers >_>
You are aware that Nazi Germany was waging a war of deliberate racial extermination on the Eastern Front, aren't you? Over a million Soviet civilians were outright shot by the SS or the Einsatzgruppen for being Jewish or Communist. Millions more perished as POWs. Soviet POWs, being of "inferior racial stock", received FAR worse treatment than their French, British, and American counterparts. Entire villages in occupied areas were routinely exterminated. Food was confiscated and civilians starved because Germany, having failed to plan for a prolonged war on the East, didn't have adequate provisions for its own 3 million troops. Finally, the Nazis intended to exterminate tens of millions of Slavs, in addition to murdering every single Jew and commissar they could find.
It seems most Westerners still haven't fully absorbed this very significant contrast to their own WWII experience.
It really, really does your argument no good to use Soviet civilian casualties as a benchmark for anything.
On November 03 2008 14:48 Savio wrote: People saying that these bombings were worse than Pearl Harbor are ignoring the fact that Pearl Harbor was an attack on a country they weren't even at war with!
If you start a war all on your own by hitting them before even announcing that you are at war, then YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE TO COMPLAIN ONCE YOU GET JACKED.
Of those 2 attacks, 1 was between 2 wartime countries and the other was between 2 countries that were currently at peace with eachother.
War is Hell and should be avoided. But when you are attacked first, you take the Hell to them until they quit.
In other words, Pearl Harbor justifies murdering over 100,000 civilians, including women and children?
The amount of posters here who apparently believe that civilians are legitimate targets in wartime (and who therefore don't believe in the concept of war crime) is truly astounding.
Agree entirely with HnR)hT.
I agree and disagree. Of course im against mass murdering hundreds of thousands of civilians but in those times entire cities in Europe were carpet bombed. Britain, France, Germany, Poland, Belgium, Netherlands etc all lost a huge amount of civilians and structures due to non-nuclear explosives.
In Europe 6 million poles died, 11 million Russians, and 1.6 million Germans. These numbers are from civilian death, not counting soldiers. I hate the fact the America attacked a city instead of a military base but in those times killing 100,000 people to end the war may have seemed justified in that period. edit - every site has different numbers >_>
You are aware that Nazi Germany was waging a war of deliberate racial extermination on the Eastern Front, aren't you? Over a million Soviet civilians were outright shot by the SS or the Einsatzgruppen for being Jewish or Communist. Millions more perished as POWs. Soviet POWs, being of "inferior racial stock", received FAR worse treatment than their French, British, and American counterparts. Entire villages in occupied areas were routinely exterminated. Food was confiscated and civilians starved because Germany, having failed to plan for a prolonged war on the East, didn't have adequate provisions for its own 3 million troops. Finally, the Nazis intended to exterminate tens of millions of Slavs, in addition to murdering every single Jew and commissar they could find.
It seems most Westerners still haven't fully absorbed this very significant contrast to their own WWII experience.
It really, really does your argument no good to use Soviet civilian casualties as a benchmark for anything.
On November 03 2008 14:48 Savio wrote: People saying that these bombings were worse than Pearl Harbor are ignoring the fact that Pearl Harbor was an attack on a country they weren't even at war with!
If you start a war all on your own by hitting them before even announcing that you are at war, then YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE TO COMPLAIN ONCE YOU GET JACKED.
Of those 2 attacks, 1 was between 2 wartime countries and the other was between 2 countries that were currently at peace with eachother.
War is Hell and should be avoided. But when you are attacked first, you take the Hell to them until they quit.
In other words, Pearl Harbor justifies murdering over 100,000 civilians, including women and children?
The amount of posters here who apparently believe that civilians are legitimate targets in wartime (and who therefore don't believe in the concept of war crime) is truly astounding.
Agree entirely with HnR)hT.
I agree and disagree. Of course im against mass murdering hundreds of thousands of civilians but in those times entire cities in Europe were carpet bombed. Britain, France, Germany, Poland, Belgium, Netherlands etc all lost a huge amount of civilians and structures due to non-nuclear explosives.
In Europe 6 million poles died, 11 million Russians, and 1.6 million Germans. These numbers are from civilian death, not counting soldiers. I hate the fact the America attacked a city instead of a military base but in those times killing 100,000 people to end the war may have seemed justified in that period. edit - every site has different numbers >_>
You are aware that Nazi Germany was waging a war of deliberate racial extermination on the Eastern Front, aren't you? Over a million Soviet civilians were outright shot by the SS or the Einsatzgruppen for being Jewish or Communist. Millions more perished as POWs. Soviet POWs, being of "inferior racial stock", received FAR worse treatment than their French, British, and American counterparts. Entire villages in occupied areas were routinely exterminated. Food was confiscated and civilians starved because Germany, having failed to plan for a prolonged war on the East, didn't have adequate provisions for its own 3 million troops. Finally, the Nazis intended to exterminate tens of millions of Slavs, in addition to murdering every single Jew and commissar they could find.
It seems most Westerners still haven't fully absorbed this very significant contrast to their own WWII experience.
It really, really does your argument no good to use Soviet civilian casualties as a benchmark for anything.
On November 03 2008 23:54 DwmC_Foefen wrote: What about the millions of russians who were sent to combat with only a handfull of bullets or a shovel and not enough equiment/cloth/food to survive the harsh winters there.
This is a myth of Cold War propaganda. It was never the case that "millions" of Russian troops were sent to battle with a shovel or a handful of bullets, even when the Red Army was hard pressed for supplies in late 1941 and throughout 1942. From 1943 onwards, the Red Army was generally technologically and operationally, if not tactically, superior to the enemy.
Right of vote in an nuclear arsenal country shouldn't be a right but a fucking degree after 10 years of education for that sole purpose.
Jesus you guys are scary as fuck.
I guess most of you would support any war as long your country provides sufficient propaganda to fill up your empty skulls and the latter history books.
On November 03 2008 14:48 Savio wrote: People saying that these bombings were worse than Pearl Harbor are ignoring the fact that Pearl Harbor was an attack on a country they weren't even at war with!
If you start a war all on your own by hitting them before even announcing that you are at war, then YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE TO COMPLAIN ONCE YOU GET JACKED.
Of those 2 attacks, 1 was between 2 wartime countries and the other was between 2 countries that were currently at peace with eachother.
War is Hell and should be avoided. But when you are attacked first, you take the Hell to them until they quit.
In other words, Pearl Harbor justifies murdering over 100,000 civilians, including women and children?
The amount of posters here who apparently believe that civilians are legitimate targets in wartime (and who therefore don't believe in the concept of war crime) is truly astounding.
Rather than be astounded, why not consider the opposing points?
In true wartime there is no such thing as "rules". IF there are rules they are almost always retrospectively announced (after the benefits of the action in question are milked dry), and always is always performed by the winners, sometimes with the critical eye of history. The term "war criminal" is completely subjective, and if youre going to point to Nuremberg to make your point, dont; I do agree that what they did was completely reprehensible and horrible but if the Germans had won and the Nazi vision won out what do you think would have happened? In Hitler's vision, that was "justifiable".
I see your point that civilian lives should be a completely different category from that of a soldier (i mean, who wants to be involved in fighting right? I'm a pacifist too.), but if you think wars are just a chess match between countries your idealism is horribly, horribly misplaced. Wars are avoided because they can cause devastation to the most sacred untouchable parts of your life. Its a rape of culture, land and people on your enemy on a massive scale and the more critical the resources being fought over, the nastier all combatants will get.
World War II was epic in ways many people fail to comprehend the magnitude of the event. From the US perspective, after loosing hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both fronts, why in the living fuck would you risk any more of your soldiers to save ANYONE from a country that you were at war with? In a humanitarian perspective, 10 soldiers lost is equal to 10 civilians lost (though some of you would argue not). In that situation, wherein you have the choice of either
1. starving Japan through blockade 2. orchestrating a full-scale invasion of Japan 3. dropping the bomb
# 3 was the most capable of fulfilling the goals of the US, in minimizing casualties to its own people and economy, at least in the eyes of US brass AND politicians.
The problem with the term "justification" is that like many concepts considered absolute...its not. Its a relative term, dictated by the zeitgeist and those in power.
I'd like to pose this question too: If today the US was nuked by Russia (I know some of you consider that "justified" anyways. Fuck America, right?), what do you think the response would be? Would it be justified?
Militaries should only kill Militaries no person asked for getting born in a particular country, no one is guilty for his country taking the wrong direction by allying with German in Reich Time. so no, Hiroshima was not Justified, i dont want to die for the others mistakes
On November 04 2008 00:34 Boonbag wrote: Right of vote in an nuclear arsenal country shouldn't be a right but a fucking degree after 10 years of education for that sole purpose.
Jesus you guys are scary as fuck.
I guess most of you would support any war as long your country provides sufficient propaganda to fill up your empty skulls and the latter history books.
QFT!
This thread is so sad. I read almost the whole thread and it's full of Americans without clever arguments. They just defend their country because, its their country? Thats totally fucked up. Like that movie I saw a few days ago, a little boy in school in USA get this question to write an essay about "Why does USA have the best government in the world?", oh good I was speechless.
Just because your from USA and you like the country doesnt mean everything USA does is right. Damn the people in USA get controlled so easily.. Just look at Bush, first everyone thinks hes ok because the countrys overall opinion is such, but now the most hate Bush. It's so laughable.
Maybe that was a bad example, but it applies to other stuff ofc.
On November 03 2008 14:48 Savio wrote: People saying that these bombings were worse than Pearl Harbor are ignoring the fact that Pearl Harbor was an attack on a country they weren't even at war with!
If you start a war all on your own by hitting them before even announcing that you are at war, then YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE TO COMPLAIN ONCE YOU GET JACKED.
Of those 2 attacks, 1 was between 2 wartime countries and the other was between 2 countries that were currently at peace with eachother.
War is Hell and should be avoided. But when you are attacked first, you take the Hell to them until they quit.
In other words, Pearl Harbor justifies murdering over 100,000 civilians, including women and children?
The amount of posters here who apparently believe that civilians are legitimate targets in wartime (and who therefore don't believe in the concept of war crime) is truly astounding.
Rather than be astounded, why not consider the opposing points?
In true wartime there is no such thing as "rules". IF there are rules they are almost always retrospectively announced (after the benefits of the action in question are milked dry), and always is always performed by the winners, sometimes with the critical eye of history. The term "war criminal" is completely subjective, and if youre going to point to Nuremberg to make your point, dont; I do agree that what they did was completely reprehensible and horrible but if the Germans had won and the Nazi vision won out what do you think would have happened? In Hitler's vision, that was "justifiable".
I see your point that civilian lives should be a completely different category from that of a soldier (i mean, who wants to be involved in fighting right? I'm a pacifist too.), but if you think wars are just a chess match between countries your idealism is horribly, horribly misplaced. Wars are avoided because they can cause devastation to the most sacred untouchable parts of your life. Its a rape of culture, land and people on your enemy on a massive scale and the more critical the resources being fought over, the nastier all combatants will get.
World War II was epic in ways many people fail to comprehend the magnitude of the event. From the US perspective, after loosing hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both fronts, why in the living fuck would you risk any more of your soldiers to save ANYONE from a country that you were at war with? In a humanitarian perspective, 10 soldiers lost is equal to 10 civilians lost (though some of you would argue not). In that situation, wherein you have the choice of either
1. starving Japan through blockade 2. orchestrating a full-scale invasion of Japan 3. dropping the bomb
# 3 was the most capable of fulfilling the goals of the US, in minimizing casualties to its own people and economy, at least in the eyes of US brass AND politicians.
The problem with the term "justification" is that like many concepts considered absolute...its not. Its a relative term, dictated by the zeitgeist and those in power.
I'd like to pose this question too: If today the US was nuked by Russia (I know some of you consider that "justified" anyways. Fuck America, right?), what do you think the response would be? Would it be justified?
A very, very misguided post. Considering that I actually held the view that the a-bombs were justified for quite some time before changing my mind, I'm fully aware of the reasoning behind the "opposing points".
It is absolutely false and wrong to say that there are no rules in wartime. Yes, minor atrocities in warfare are generally unavoidable and it's unreasonable to expect war to be entirely "clean". But this in no way implies that there are no rules, period. Just because human beings can't act honorably and humanely all the time doesn't mean that we shouldn't even strive to be honorable and humane. Moreover, there is a MAJOR difference between spontaneous minor atrocities committed by soliders who are literally fighting for their and their comerades' lives, and a top-down POLICY of mass murder.
WHY was the unconditional surrender of Japan so necessary that it was worth it to destroy innocent human life on an unprecedented scale?
EPT
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