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Post by Mister Buch on Aug 9, 2014 17:57:43 GMT 1
The Japanese bombing thing - I just noticed the conversation I was interrupting.
This will come as a great shock to you all but I disagree with Iron. My view is-
While obviously nobody not directly involved is a war criminal - I do sympathise for people who are blamed for joining the military. As Lily said, it's sadly necessary that people do. Calling the guy who just got back from Me Lai a 'babykiller' is one thing. The guy in his platoon, another. But blaming a young guy in 2014 for Hiroshima is, I agree, just thoughtless, ignorant and wrong.
HOOOOWEVER. I find it deeply disturbing that the US seems to barely regard these two mass civilian bombings as shameful, let alone as despicable as I see them, and has the temerity to go on about Pearl Harbour after that.
And because of our track record, that'll have to be my final word - discussing this sort of thing has not gone well for us in the past! There's my 2c, proceed to bury it.
--
Linders - none of the posts on this subject belong in Pet Hates. Please stick them in the War Zone forum if you agree!
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Post by jklinders on Aug 9, 2014 21:22:17 GMT 1
Mod note, moving this post only. Any serious debate about the bombing can go here. The other posts on the topic were about the lunacy of blaming a man in his 20s for something that happened 70 years ago.
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Post by CAPT Issac R. Madden on Aug 10, 2014 6:36:11 GMT 1
Buch, in those days, surgical strikes didn't exist. The only way to really guarantee destruction of a target from the air was massed bombing raids. Personally, I'm glad we have the technology these days to make that kind of wanton destruction unnecessary except in the most extreme of circumstances. There are three ways to win a war: you destroy the opposing military, you take out their leadership, or you convince them to quit (usually by showing that ending the war is a better alternative to keeping it going). As I stated before, the nuclear bombings were horrific and there's a sizable portion of the populace over here that routinely condemns the actions (rather small in my particular area, but it's not unsubstantial). Another thing to consider is the fact that when fighting evil, one must at times commit evil acts. I won't re-hash things like the shit the Nazis did as this is about Japan, so I'll leave some links as to what Japan was doing in those days. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacreen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimesAnd that civil defense command I spoke of: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volunteer_Fighting_CorpsTo reiterate my final point: to win the war without the nuclear bombs would have taken far longer and killed tens of millions, to the point of full-blown genocide. Given the options, those bombings were the lesser of two horrific evils.
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Post by Warhammer Gorvar on Aug 10, 2014 16:04:54 GMT 1
The Japanese bombing thing - I just noticed the conversation I was interrupting. While obviously nobody not directly involved is a war criminal-Speak for yourself, limey bastard.
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Post by Cali on Aug 10, 2014 20:58:43 GMT 1
(Not) SORRY GUYS I GOTTA SIT THIS ONE OUT
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Post by Clint Johnston on Aug 11, 2014 6:23:56 GMT 1
I consider them horrible, but not shameful. As I said over in the other post, the only possible change I might make would be to delay the 2nd bomb and see if the first was enough. Given the Japanese Leaders' temperament, I highly doubt that it would have been enough. They were pretty set on their plans of world (or at least asian) domination. As to Pearl Harbor, it was a devastating surprise attack, and had technology not bit them in the ass (they got rid of our battleships and we had to learn how to use our Aircraft Carriers in a hurry), it would have worked. It also killed thousands of our soldiers who had done nothing against the Japanese. Iron's right that the folks in Hiroshima & Nagasaki were actively supporting the war effort. The people killed at Pearl Harbor weren't at war at all. As to those who suggest that we forced the Japanese to attack us by laying an Oil embargo on them, I would point them to Iron's links above. The Embargo was a direct reaction to the horrible treatment of civilians going on in Asia. War is never good. But at least in the Pacific Theater we didn't seek it out. It came to us. There is no shame in finishing a fight that somebody else picked.
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Post by jklinders on Aug 11, 2014 10:29:18 GMT 1
I am going to throw my .02 in here to mention what was not really mentioned yet.
First off, my schooling always completely neglected to mention how hellbent the Japanese military were to fight to the bitter end. Bushido demanded of a person who followed it (nearly all Japanese men at the time) to die fighting rather than surrender. the horrifying casualty rate among the Japanese soldiers during the island hopping campaign confirms this. While it's doubtful that the citizen army would have been as disciplined and ready to die as the rank and file soldiers, it's also doubtful they would have surrendered as readily as westerners in the same situation. The propaganda they were being fed was that the US was exhausted from fighting across the ocean and only needed to be pushed out like the Kublai Khans mongols of the 12th century. Hell even the word Kamikaze was evoking the idea of divine invincibility that Japan had held until the end of WWII. the Japanese military would have been just fine with fighting to the last child. That is until confronted with something they could not fight. None of my schooling mentioned this at all. But as a kid, it did not seem likely that they would surrender. that might have been some influence from my (military) Dad, but I don't think he approved of nukes any more than most folks.
Not a lot of people talk about how horrifying the firebombing raids in both Germany and Japan were prior to the bombing at Hiroshima. Most German and Japanese cities affected didn't have two sticks standing next to each other when they were done. I've seen the photos. We're talking shattered moonscapes of rubble here. The Americans, I believe did not fully understand what kind of beast they were unleashing with these bombs but the numbers they were working off of were brutal. Cow the Japanese leadership into submission or let millions die. The surrender had to be unconditional or Japan would just bounce back and try again. You don't feed lies like what their propaganda machine were without the intention of pursuing the war until it's done.
Lastly, I believe the Nagasaki bomb was the last one the Americans had ready at that time. I've heard accounts that if the Japanese military had know that was the last bomb they had for a while they would have kept going. Thinking down that path is revisionism though so I can't go by it. Lastly, speaking of revisionism, it's easy for us to sit in our easy chairs pipe in hand and wax philosophical about how we would have done things in their place. We did not have the lives of millions of soldiers and 10s of millions of civilians in our hands. We did not have access to the logistical reports on supplies, combat ready men and wounded and killed on a daily basis. Until we ourselves are confronted by the brutal math of total war we should be very careful about how we second guess those who have been. This is not to say we shouldn't, but we need to employ careful thought when we do.
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Post by CAPT Issac R. Madden on Aug 11, 2014 21:59:21 GMT 1
Regarding the timing of the second bombing: it was originally supposed to go on the 11th, but there were huge storms rolling in that would have caused serious issues in delivering the bomb over the right target. Also, my understanding is the Japanese government told its populace that Hiroshima had experienced some sort of natural disaster plus we had intercepted encrypted messages (that we had the codes to decypher) that pointed to Japanese leadership still wanting to fight, even after the first bombing. Dropping a second bomb (which was also the last one we had at the time and more wouldn't be ready until 1946) made it appear we had an entire stockpile of them ready to go and combined with an American POW "confessing" under torture that we had a hundred of them with Tokyo and Kyoto were next helped speed the end of the war. Hirohito himself was shocked by the attacks and by attacking again so quickly, it likely made him realize just how far we were willing to go if he continued the war in a way that our firebombings (of which the average destruction rate for the cities targeted averaged over 95%) did not. In his surrender speech, he said that to continue the war meant the end of the Japanese people and possibly all of mankind.
One key thing to keep in mind is how differently the West conducts war compared to the East. The West tends to view war as an extension of a political dispute so we have all sorts of laws and rules in place to limit the destruction as much as we can until both sides agree to call it off. The East, on the other hand, goes to war to conquer, enslave, pillage, and destroy; they want to win, not find an outcome acceptable to both parties. Examples of this still exist today when you look at how things are going in Africa and the Middle East: if someone doesn't agree with an attacking group, then the attackers try to wipe out the other side. When faced with that kind of brutality, and an enemy that sees diplomacy as weakness, there is little else to do but force them into submission. Kind of like dealing with a schoolyard bully who won't stop until someone punches him in the mouth hard enough to make him realize that victory isn't worth the cost he's going to pay to get it.
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Post by salty on Aug 12, 2014 22:33:35 GMT 1
I wasn't going to say anything but thought why not. I've no idea if what I'll say will mean much or be agreed with.
We will all carry the mistakes of our forefathers, how else do we promise not to allow those to happen again?
I've done things that I ohope was for the better, maybe that's the point that made that decision
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