History shows that America beats up the powerless in retaliation

You have a dilema Meagain.

IF you are suggesting the devastating power of the Nuclear bombs were in fact the reason the Japanese surrendered..

.. Then there was NO reason for those bombs to kill thousands of men, women and children!

That bomb could have been dropped on any number of military (only) locales.
It could even have been in a nearby farmland.

The convenient thing about the H-bomb is that it leaves a very obvious crater and surrounding destruction.

IF it was the incredible and unforseen (by the Japanese) devastation that cause the Japanese to surrender - that still doesn't justify burning and exploding mass amounts of Civilians for the sheer sake of 'experimenting'.

By the way - that was the real reason it was dropped on cities. So the Americans would know how and what it would do if used on other cities (incl US cities)

Wow.. Thanks innocent Japanese people.. now we know how we will all burn to death and die slow radiation deaths if we are nuked.

 

As i said earlier....if its killing innocent people that is so horrible...why are you not condemning us bombing german cities?

Yes, we all know how well a bomb persuades people when it isnt actually DROPPED on them. Sorry, there is no indication that they would have surrendered if we dropped it elsewhere. And we did NOT have spare a-bombs sitting around to test with....

who said anything about experimenting? There lots of theories on why the A-bomb was used....from experimenting to sending a message to the soviets..in the end..it saved countless american lives. Thankfully, truman made the right decision. In a war...the military is to save our lives over theirs.

The japanese had only themselves and their government to blame.

 

WTF is wrong with you?
Seriously?

Are you condemning bombing German cities yet in support of bombing Japanese families?

I marvel at how people can live with themselves and others while having that 'oh ya.. well what about something else bad' way of justifying anything?

 

i am not condemnign EITHER....i am wondering why you and others only denounce the atomic bombs and not everything else which is just as horrible if not worse.

Both germany and Japan declared war on America. Both were bombed to hell and back again to end the war as quick as possible with as few american lives lost as possible. America did what it had to do.

 

Would the Japanese have surrendered if we dropped "demonstration" bombs in unpopulated or military only areas? Well, we'll never know now will we.

We will never have any lasting peace in the world until the people on top, those who have the most power, learn to set a higher standard and a good example for the world. And genuinely look out for the little guy.
In America you see bumper stickers and billboards everywhere that say,
"GOD BLESS AMERICA"
Maybe if we started thinking more like GOD BLESS THE WORLD, we wouldn't have to kill an be killed so damned often.

"America Bashing"? No individual or group of people can ever improve if it goes around thinking it's always right. Critical introspection is nessisary, and no matter what action is taken, if people die as a result, then it is wise to assume that next time there may be a better course of action to take.
I'm not saying any other nation is better than America, I'm saying that we have so much potential to make things right in the world now and this John Wayne aproach to problems is just blowing it.

 

Whats wrong with you?

When did it only become possible to condemn a horrible act as long as every other horrid act every commited is also simultaneously condemned?

And why would mentioning other unrelated atrocities have any mitigating effect on another?

Sorry to say it Meagain - but your logic is exactly why things like Abu Gurabh Prison OR Pearl Harbour happen in the first place.
'As long as someone else did something worse once - then I can do something really bad too'.

Wow.

p.s. America did not have to slaughter and poison thousands of innocent people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
They did it for curiousity reasons and to strike terror into the public.

(Oh.. i forgot.. I also condemn Stalin's Checka, The Jewish Holocaust, The bombing of Dresden (even though all civilians were warned to evacuate with plenty of warning) I also condemn Bin Ladens strikes against America, The Rwanda Holocaust, The Chechen Rebels, The IRA's pub bombings, The attacks on Pearl Harbour (though it was a military base only) , the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Viet Nam......)

 

To whomever said the Japanese were going to surrender before Hiroshima and Nagasaki:
You are dead wrong.
The Japanese military commander at the time(can't remember his name) was pushing to continue the war. When the emperor of Japan made two discs with recording of him announcing the official decision to surrender, the military commander stormed the Palace in search of the discs. He found the first and destroyed it, but the second was so carefuly hidden that it was never found. That's how the Japanese barely surrendered. This happened after the atomic bombs were dropped.
The Japanese military was sending pilots in kamakazie planes with engines as powerful as a few horses. It was pathetic, but they weren't going to surrender. The atomic bombs barely worked.

 

as i said. I dont justify the actions by claiming there are far worse ones. Hiroshima and nagasaki were strategic attacks to END the war. THe rape of nanking in NO way helped the war effort..the holocaust did not help the germans win the war.....my lai did not in anyway help america win a war. THey were nothing but murders. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not. If you cant come to grips with that, i'm sorry, there is no need to discuss this with you.

 

Meagain,

It would have been helpful if you simply stated that you believed the killings and poisonings of thousands of Hiroshima / Nagasaki civilians were necessary to save more lives in the future.

Obviously I disagree. I think they were unnecessary.
So didAdmiral William D. Leahy and several others directly involved in the development of the Nukings.

For some bizarre reason, you simply can not break away from this moral relativism and justification mentality.

Don't blame me for inquiring into your thinking when you yourself gave the impression other 'evils' justified another evil.

Thanks for clarifying it after all.

 

They were losing the war, however. It was just a matter of time. Dropping those bombs on Japan's largest cities was not only excessive, it was completely unnecessary to winning the war. We would have won without dropping them.

 

at the cost of how many americans lives? No one doubts that we would have won the war. The question is whether it was worth losing americans lives to risk an invasion.

 

There's alot of hindsight here. That's all that most of this is is speculation. What isn't speculation is that women and children are the target of America's campaign, whether primarily or colaterally, and this has to stop, before it returns to America.


We damn the members of terrorist organizations who will die to stop us from what? From enslaving them. And we have shown that we are merciless towards the small and meek in our means to an end, whatever that end may be. What Machavels we are as a country. What was our end in Iraq this time? Whatever it was, it blew up in our faces, and is far from over yet. Personally I think our real end is to develop a strategic and resource stronghold in the Middle East, by any means. And that we will be ,if not occupying Iraq, at least partners in running it for a long time. I think that America is not being straight with the rest of the world, or even it's own citizens. We are preparing our ground against China, the only other superpower. But if the ends justify the means then we are no better than any other country.

Has anyone ever heard of a strategic plan called "Unilateral Assured Destruction?" It's become a US plan that anyone who messes with the US will be summarily and completely destroyed. Check it out. I don't know about you guys but I'm glad the bullies in my elementary school didn't have grenades.

 

American lives aren't the only important lives in this world.

 

What we also have to realize is that the MAKERS of the atomic bombs told the US government at the time that they COULD NOT GUARANTEE that if a full-scale atomic bomb were actually set off that it wouldn't destroy EVERY LIVING THING ON THE PLANET. THAT is what the makers of the thing said, and these lunatics set TWO of them off anyway.

I don't even dispute that the action MIGHT have saved "american lives." But it doesn't really matter. Saddam Hussein might argue that gassing the Kurds saved IRAQI SOLDIERS' lives. Both acts are STILL a horrific crime against humanity. Would it be ok for an Iraqi to come over here and detonate a nuclear device, justifying it by saying he might be saving Iraqi lives? Why is this kind of thing considered criminal behavior by everyone except Americans?

And to reiterate:
A few years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed, Admiral William D. Leahy went public with the following statement:

"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender . . .

"My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."

Leahy was not what one might call a typical critic of American policy. Not only had the five-star Admiral presided over the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (and, too, the Combined American-British Chiefs of Staff), but he had simultaneously been Chief of Staff to the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, serving Roosevelt in that capacity from 1942 to 1945 and Truman from 1945 to 1949. Moreover, he was a good friend of Truman's and the two men respected and liked each other; his public criticism of the Hiroshima decision was hardly personal.

 

war itself is a crime against humanity. We acted in self defense by responding to pearl harbor and sought an expedient end to the war with the fewest cost of american lives. How many american lives were saved is unknown. Even one lost is too many when we had the means to end the war right then and there.


The american military did its job. It saved americans lives and won the war. The bombing of hiroshima and nagasaki were no more barbaric than any other city bombing during WW2.

Sera: Are we going to start determing how many other lives are worth sacrificing even one american soldier? In a war, the military is to protect its own and win the war. Our military did that. Would you prefer that that we invaded japan and lost countless military lives? Is that more humane? Is limbs being blown off by machine guns more humane than being incinerated instantly? Tell me. You guys make it sound like there is a nice way to fight war. WAR SUCKS. We arent playing with wooden swords and paintballs here. The alternative to the A bomb is just as bad. I guess the fire bombing of dresden was more humane since they were bombed with a billion smaller bombs instead of 1 big one.

edit: and yes. In a war, American lives are most important along with our allies. We should NEVer sacrifice american or ally lives because someone has a problem with dropping a bomb on a military target.

 

Alot of the troops in the pacific were draftees- better too obliterate Japan than force slaves to fight and die against the japanese war machine. The Japaneses population was 100% behind the will of the emperor.

As for prisoner abuse, anyone who wacks some of my buddys and gets caught is going to get exactly what they got coming- I don't give a fuck who gave what order.

Let the rest of the world take care of thier own shit, so we can take care of ours.

 

Of course, there is a THIRD option which no one is even CONSIDERING here, which would have been to negotiate HARDCORE with Japan. Even the makers of the bombs and many top advisors lobbied to have a demonstration of atomic weaponry on an uninhabited island and then ask for immediate negotiation to end the war or Japan would face that destruction. But the FACT is that the US government wanted to SEE what the bomb would actually do and horrify the rest of the planet into submission. And sure, it worked. The world has been cowering at the feet of America ever since. No one REALLY fucks with America. Not REALLY.

Of course, in the process we lost what little humanity we might have had left after committing utter genocide against the natives and building the country by treating africans as animals. A small price to pay for most Americans, I suppose.

 

we gave japan the option to surrender from the beginning on our terms: unconditional surrender or destruction. They chose the latter until after nagasaki.


We didnt have mass stockpiles of nukes to try and be humane and scare the shit out of the japs.

 

Let's face it - War is Hell. It doesn't seem to matter if it is waged by Americans, Japanese, or otherwise.

 

Save for the fact that we (the US) have waged more wars (overtly, covertly and by proxy) in the past century than any other nation on the planet.

Obviously we can't seem to learn the lessons of history as well as other nations have.