Here Today... Gone To Hell!

By ERIC TALMADGE, Associated Press Writer

HIROSHIMA, Japan - Hiroshima marked the 60th anniversary of the first atomic bomb attack Saturday with prayers and water for the dead and a call by the mayor for nuclear powers to abandon their arsenals and stop "jeopardizing human survival."

At 8:15 a.m., the instant of the blast, the city's trolleys stopped and more than 55,000 people at Peace Memorial Park observed a moment of silence that was broken only by the ringing of a bronze bell.

A flock of doves was released into the sky. Then wreaths and ladles of water ? symbolizing the suffering of those who died in the atomic inferno ? were offered at a simple, arch-shaped stone monument at the center of the park.

Outside the nearby A-Bomb Dome, one of the few buildings left standing after the blast, peace activists held a "die-in" ? falling to the ground to dramatize the toll from a bombing that turned life to death for more than 140,000 and forever changed the face of war.

Thousands of paper lanterns symbolizing the souls of the dead were to be floated in a river next to the park.

Fumie Yoshida was just 16 when Hiroshima was bombed. She survived but lost her father, brother and sister. On Saturday, she chose not to attend the formal memorial, but paid her respects privately with a small group of friends in the peace park.

"My father's remains have never been found," she said. "Those of us who went through this all know that we must never repeat this tragedy. But I think many Japanese today are forgetting."

In a "Peace Declaration," Hiroshima's outspoken Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba vowed to never allow a repeat of the tragedy and gave an impassioned plea for the abolition of nuclear weapons, saying the United States, Russia and other members of the nuclear club are "jeopardizing human survival."

"Many people around the world have succumbed to the feeling that there is nothing we can do," he said. "Within the     United Nations, nuclear club members use their veto power to override the global majority and pursue their selfish objectives."

In a more subdued speech, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi offered condolences for the dead.

"I offer deep prayers from my heart to those who were killed," he said, vowing that Japan would be a leader in the international movement against nuclear proliferation.

Though Hiroshima has risen from the rubble to become a thriving city of 3 million, most of whom were born after the war, the anniversary underscores its ongoing tragedy.

Officials estimate that about 140,000 people were killed instantly or died within a few months after the Enola Gay dropped its deadly payload over the city, which then had a population of about 350,000.

Three days later, another U.S. bomber, Bock's Car, dropped a plutonium bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki, killing about 80,000 people. Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, 1945, ending World War II.

Including those initially listed as missing or who died afterward from a loosely defined set of bomb-related ailments, including cancers, Hiroshima officials now put the total number of dead in this city alone at 242,437.

This year, 5,373 more names were added to the list.

In central London, more than 200 anti-nuclear activists and others gathered at Tavistock Square, where a cherry tree was planted in 1967 in memory of the victims of the Hiroshima bombing.

Jeremy Corbyn, a lawmaker in the governing Labour Party and vocal anti-war campaigner, urged people to remember the "unique horror" of what happened in 1945.




/jarmo

Well thanks, i dont even have to go to yahoo.com , i just read the news here ;)

Jarmo the News Reporter: No Comments, Just News ;D

The lucky ones were the people who died right then. Thousand more died from radiation cancer and other diseases years later. Horrible.

i think it's crazy. but there is something wierd about all that.
it's the craziest thing that every happend in history.
i think it's even worst than the Nazi camps, because it was done by the ones that were supposed to be the good ones (USA).

yeah, and people deep inside know that this nuclear strike was the craziest, most horrible thing, that happen in history, and yet ... there is a wierd feeling. like we dont wanna be held responsible or something.... i dont know ...

Yea, people will always claim that "we had to do it"...Guess that makes them feel better about the act.

Fortunately, one hasn't been used in 60 years.  I hope our leaders never forget  the destruction and horror of these weapons.  I think that the use of these weapons in WWII may have prevented their use in the Korean and Cold wars.   

great movie about nuclear power

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057012/

http://gorillamask.net/famguyretard.shtml

Here's a clip from Family Guy... somewhere around the middle they have a bit on a Japanese guy having a bad day on August 6th, 1945.

Not everything needs comments.

If even one person actually reads the news articles I post here, then it's a good thing.






/jarmo

they should never have dropped those bombs...even after the first bomb was proven to devastate a city and kill over 150 thousand people they thought it necessary to drop the bomb on a second city...how utterly barbaric...most of the people in these cities were civilians...but it is no surprise that the USA circumnavigated the principles of the League of Nations on the action of bombing a civilian population which was then, even in WW2, illegal...

A League of Nation resolution from 1938
-------------------

Protection of Civilian Populations Against Bombing From the Air in Case of War, League of Nations, September 30, 1938

PROTECTION OF CIVILIAN POPULATIONS AGAINST BOMBING FROM THE AIR IN CASE OF WAR
Unanimous resolution of the League of Nations Assembly,
September 30, 1938.

The Assembly,

Considering that on numerous occasions public opinion has expressed through the most authoritative channels its horror of the bombing of civilian populations;

Considering that this practice, for which there is no military necessity and which, as experience shows, only causes needless suffering, is condemned under the recognised principles of international law;

Considering further that, though this principle ought to be respected by all States and does not require further reaffirmation, it urgently needs to be made the subject of regulations specially adapted to air warfare and taking account of the lessons of experience;

Considering that the solution of this problem, which is of concern to all States, whether Members of the League of Nations or not, calls for technical investigation and thorough consideration;

Considering that the Bureau of the Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments is to meet in the near future and that it is for the Bureau to consider practical means of undertaking the necessary work under conditions most likely to lead to as general an agreement as possible:

I. Recognizes the following principles as a necessary basis for any subsequent regulations:

    1) The intentional bombing of civilian populations is illegal;

    2) Objectives aimed at from the air must be legitimate military objectives and must be identifiable;

    3) Any attack on legitimate military objectives must be carried out in such a way that civilian populations in the neighbourhood are not bombed through negligence;

II. Also takes the opportunity to reaffirm that the use of chemical or bacterial methods in the conduct of war is contrary to international law, as recalled more particularly in the resolution of the General Commission of the Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments of July 23rd 1932, and the resolution of the Council of May 14th, 1938.

---------


of course we all see it as an act of they had to do it...as if these decisions were taken fairly quickly...unfortunately the plan was more preconceived than some realise

http://www.dannen.com/decision/targets.html

i'd like to know what kind of "we're sorry" the usa gave to japan ?

money ? official escuse ?
are the governement still sensible about that topic ?

just for that the usa shouldnt be allowed to hold nuclear power. they're nuts ;)

I'd like to know what kind of excuse Japan gave the US over Pearl Harbour

it was war.
the right to bomb a normal city is not really in the geneva convention ...

wasnt pearl harbor a military base?

I'm glad we nuked them. Japan was just as evil as Germany. They would lock women and children in abandoned houses and let them die of thirst. The only thing that put a stop to that kind of shit was vaporizing a few hundred thousand of them. I've read books about that day. There were so many dead bodies flowing through their rivers that all you could see was bodies and blood. There was also people walking around with parts of their bodies melting off. They finally got a taste of their own medicine.

alternatively the USA nuked the women and children...more efficent eh...im glad you feel at ease when you know that over 30 thousand children died with one bomb...im glad you feel good that killing innocent people in revenge for them killing innocent people is such a great thing...no wonder the world is getting used to hating americans, you set such a fine example of amorality and hypocrisy

^
This isn't even a case of someone thinking it "had to be done"... this is a case of someone taking pleasure in the killing of thousands of people.

Although, coming from "Lofters"... Eh, I'm not very suprised.  :-\

It is widely known by now that FDR was looking for any excuse he could find to get the US involved in WWII.  He actually met with the britich PM at the time (Chamberlain?  Churchill?) actively discussing ways to get the US into the war.  Pearl Harbor was the perfect way to do it.  A large portion of the US Naval fleet was moved there (under protests of the Naval commander at the time-- he was fired for protesting it) to be a bait for Japan.  The US also tightened restrictions on Japan, and all of this led to an attack, which FDR most likely knew was coming.  The US had already broken much of the Japanese code.

As for the atomic bomb, there was no need to drop it.  The allied forces wanted Japan to abandon its ties to the emperor.  Other than that lone section, Japan agreed to every section of the treaty to surrender.  Apparently this wasn't good enough, and the bombs were dropped.  Just because we felt the need to force them away from their imperial system, millions of people were killed, not just by the bombs, but also as stated by radiation problems for years to come.

He says it more to get a reaction then anything. I doubt he really has an opinion one way or the other.

He's in the same column with "walk".

Dubious to say the least! Of course their cancer deaths were from the bomb ::) - and not from the fact 1 in 4 contract cancer anyway. Does everyone that gets cancer in Japan blame the war? Sounds like a blatant attempt to get sympathy.

----------

Personally i don't believe dropping either nuke was appropriate, Japan was neutralised a simple blockade would have forced them to surrender, we must remember Japan has no natural resources, a few weeks of a full blockade and they would have to surrender as they wouldn't even have food.

i totally agree with that opinion, there seems to be alot of hypocrisy were the US is concerned.

Dude you look and judge only the one side of the coin. None of them were saints.

Don't say that around here....USA is always right, no matter what!

don't answer to jameslofton29 outside of the Guns n' Roses section. he is just seeking reactions. he does not think what he says. or does not think at all ;)

We can't sit back 60 years later and do all this would've, could've, should've stuff.  For better or for worse it happened.  Yes, thousands of civillians lost their lives but how many more would have died if there was an invasion of mainland Japan?  All nations have learned from this event or it would have happened again. 

As for an earlier posts question of what has the US done to make it up to Japan, how about rebuilding thier country and turining it into one of the most powerful economies in the world?

yeah japanese are all happy
http://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&lr=&q=japan+suicide&btnG=Search

;D

but yes, the world has learned a lot from the past. yes. we've learned sooo much ;)

I didn't say all the Japanese were happy.  You can't say that about any country's people. 

I guess I should have said that most nations have learned lessons from Hiroshima with the exception of the great leadership of the US.  As sad as it makes me to type this the US was the first to use these weapons and will probably be the second too.  We had a Congressman from Oklahoma advocate nuking Mecca if terrorists struck within the US again.  Thats drunken bar talk, it's not what a supposed leader should be saying!

Why would they ever needed to have invaded?

Simple blocakde would have done the job in months

Also - if they had invaded, Japan had no oil - what would they have fought back with?

The whole invasion angle is a blatant lie - and Japan was sueing for peace before either bomb was dropped

Oh, so fighting to the last man on Okinawa and Iwa Jima is sueing for peace?  Japan's deployment of suicide bombers and the tactics they had employed on previous islands led to the decision that was made.  I hardly think that the Japanese would have rolled over for a blockade, nice pipe dream though.  Last time I checked you don't need much oil to shoot a gun or throw a grenade.  I don't think that the Viet Cong had vast oil reserves and they kicked the US's ass.

i think drooping the bomb was a terrible thing , in the other hand , i dont know if the things about that deccision saving the lives of one million people counting japanese and americans its true , i think japan was going to keep fighting , they trained women children and almost all the people to atack if there was an invasion , did america really nedded to invade japan? like one poster said maybe they didnt . its hard , to drop a bomb like that its inhuman and shouldnt be done for whatever reason . but its hard to know what had to be done .

Instead of material resources japan has very obedient and diligent citizens.


Yeah, I guess the economic growth has profited Japanese government and the big business, Especially Japanese financial combines who'd have been benefited from any war.

Is it much help to the people who've suffered all their life from the A bomb disease?

I never get why those innocent people should have oppressed under the tyranny of their "own" military government that wasn't of their choice before the bomb and then got killed or fatally disabled by the bombs.

I'd say influencing Japanese government to give Those civilians civic rights first time was the best thing the US has done to Japan.

Wat-Ever, I'm not trying to get reactions. I'm just saying how I feel about the situation. Japan deserved the hell that those bombs caused. They were seeking world domination. The U.S. made them change their minds.

Are you the Japanese who was seeking the world domination or what? ::)

Do you know any japanese who lived that era?

Isn't the US seeking world domination now? aren't they trying to impose there values on the rest of the world? haven't they just invaded a country? do they deserve to be nuked as well?

Yea, I was wondering the same thing.

By all accounts, many parts of the world believe we are trying to dominate the globe, as we set up military bases around the middle east.

All the while our liar in the whitehouse cries "democracy" but only his version of it, picked and executed by our blue prints only.

 Hmmm.......

Yes, all the nations that seem to be ripe for democracy also, ironically, are ripe with oil, natural gas, or some other commodity.  The Bush Cartel is very imperialistic but they don't seem to be very good at it so this will all pass, I hope.

US seeking world domination?? Thats funny. If we were seeking world domination, we would get it as fast as it takes to fuel our nuclear missiles.

The missing link has been revealed......

I love the topics that start on this board.

The two bombs being droped on Japan were the best thing that could happen. It stoped a war without a huge loss of American Life (which is what our militay's goal is). The misinformed could say that we wouldn't have had to invade Japan, but we would have. The Japanese weren't stopping that war. We would have sent in troops and lost tens of thousands of men in days..... not to mention the huge loss of Japanese life. I get that it is tragic if a civilian is killed, but when you are in a war and it is between 1 Japanese civilian and 1 US troop, sorry the civilian is dead. Until you people serve you can have all the opinions you want, but they don't mean anything.



Whats wrong with that.... There are plenty of  "Good Muslims" that are harboring and or covering up for these terror groups. I think they should be given a warning. "If you want to make another attack within our boarders be advised, the second the attack is launched by you we will have ten bombers in the air with ten targets, the first is Mecca, the next 4 will be anounced on the day of the bombing, and the last five will be a suprise.... Good Luck." If they want a wall to turn to 8 times a day they will stop their attacks.... We arent dealing with rational people, we are dealing with people who want to exterminate us. The only way to fight back a group like that is to take that same intensity at them, you can;'t just wish them away. It's times like these that I wish George Bush would channel Harry Truman and end this "War on Terror" the quick way. Of course there is no reason to drop nukes..... that is crazy, but a few well guided MOAB's would do the trick.

Yes, they were.
Do you think they could have invaded US at that point? Had they even managed to fly over the US cities?

:idea: So, the outline of the story is, 

the then liar in the Whitehouse dropped the A-bombs for starters to demonstrate that America's world domination started, which was soon deterred by USSRs nuke armament, and now the new liar in the Whitehouse is up to it again?
That's about the size of it?

No, as far as there are civil people like SLCPUNK.
In any nation of any time they have individuals like us.

thank you yoda. you're so wise. you're like a miniature budha covered in hair.

Japan was fighting toth and nail for every last step of the war, they were not gong to give up easily.  Just because they couldn't attack the US doesn't mean they were not fighting, that's stupid to think.   Funny how you Euros call Truman a liar, you grand-parents didn't do the same when he was saving their asses from the Nazis. 

even by your standards it must be difficult to think that people are going to fight for their country no matter what or who is in charge of that country...of course they were still fighting, and so were the americans ( and other nations which also had ships around japan at the time)...they were both fighting for their countries werent they? the war was still ongoing was it not? of course you fail to even know the facts that were mentioned previously about the emperor and the deal that the US wanted...no matter how you distort it that offer existed

of course if some other country dropped a bomb on yours you wouldnt be slow to call them mass murderers, terrorists etc, would you? the people who dropped those bombs, and the ones who ordered it are nothing short of criminals

you have to admire the japanese, i have never ever heard any sign of them wanting revenge...i guess thats what separates the US from Japan

when they couldn't attack the US, what point was there in the us attacking them?
Or rather, who you mean with "they"?

Do you think those who got A bombed were those who choose the war?

While agreeing with IQ, I think the then japanese goverment was criminal to its people as well.
They had executed the people who were against the war.

Nice try, but some of us have a degree in this kind of stuff, so i'm gonna win this

Check the discussions at the top levels of the Japanese gov - guess what they are talking about - peace, they did approach the US with terms for peace too :D



Well it damn near beat Germany in WW1 and they weren't even an island :confused:

Now answer me this:

how long can a country last without any resources?

They would have starved to death unless they'd surrendered so not entirely sure how it could fail



But u need it to make them and transport them and even to clean the rifles! Busted!


What about the zillions of tons of everything China and the USSR gave them.....

u=pwned

Good for you, izzy, I am glad that you went to school for 4 years or more so you can show your big brain off on a lame GNR site.  Your parents must be very proud!

OK, so if the Japanese were trying for a deal then why were they continueing to fight to the last on each island?  Implementing kamikazes in battes is a way to negotiate?  I was unaware of this peace overture but it seems that the Japanese were talking out of both sides of their mouth.

Besides, why all the sympathy for the Japanese?  They have failed to apologize to China and all of the other countries they committed atrocoties in.  What they did to Nanking was horrible.  It was a brutal regime that had to be stopped, period.

here is a list of apologies that japan have offered since the 1970's...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_apology_statements_issued_by_Japan

how many apologies do you need?

go crawl back in your hole..... christ you dont know anything about tacticts.....me and you are at war.... im japan.. your the US...... the US is pushing.... we are vieing for a peace treaty.... the US is not accepting anything but total surrender..... you seriously expect me to pull up camp from every isalnd and return to japan while i dont have a treaty to protect my ass while i pull back giving you every stragic point at which you can use to attack me and destroy me?


you got to be joking..... im going to make you fight for every inch till i get a treaty that will cover my withdrawl...... so while im fighting you... in asymetric warfare...... you know do the most damage for teh least amount of losses being teh smaller guy..... (nukes dont count in asymetric warfare) if you push me back to my mainland.... and you land troops... every man woman and child will fight you and kill you...... you will take huge losses........ maybe if you neogiated a temp cease fire for neogiations of peace to be obtained..... but nooooooooo

i love how you all forget that there was more then the US as the allied force that defeated japan, and germany..... For one canada was in bother theatres and lost men on almost ever island you did.....and we spilt soooooo much blood in northern europe it looked like the freacking canadain flag.....not to mention that per capita my provience... then colony of britan spilt more blood and had more blood spilt then any allied member.....


but gues what we were agnit the bomb...... we would have rather lost more lives then to kill so many innocents.......

Sore loser.......

I was unaware that I was amongst so many scholarly elites and WWII experts.  Wow, maybe Jarmo should call this University of the Jungle.  MacMaul, don't sit here and lecture me about fucking history.  If we're going to toot our own horns around here, I attended one of the finest universities in the world, Purdue, so I 'm not talking out my ass.  I believe the reason that Canada's war time efforts have not been mentioned is because we are discussing the US dropping the bomb, nothing to do with Canada.  Province suffered?  My own family was there and spilled their blood so save your babble.

  Total surrender was the only option.  Why let your enemy regroup and fight them again years later?  The head of the snake had to be cut off.  The Bomb was chosen as means to do it, right or wrong, it was chosen.  Atrocities were committed by all sides in this war, the Bomb was a horrible exclaimation point to millions of deaths.

Thanks for the added insight there, Punk.  I'm guessing your name is in reference to the prison lingo definition for punk and not the musical genre! Unlike you,  I didn't realize that this was a contest so your penis must be really small if it comes down to bragging rights over message board threads.

wait now......... you went to purdue?......... so you got you cock waving in the wind.... throwing down education from what ever inistution matters not among the 1's and 0's. the fact that such a, and i shudder to use the words, peron of such higher learning has to call out on someone first about them and their education, then when gutted and quartered tries to make a fire wall with his "boom stick" of education..... wait did you graduate? either way you trode too deeply into this pool of non Prudue persons...... if you dont want to deal with us please wipe the shit off your boots on the way back to your horse as we can always sue the extra food..........


cause its all about teh  BOOOOOOOM headshot

My brother was a professor (Now at Rice)  there, how long ago did you attend? What years?

I could validate your claim in one phone call.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
Maybe one of the finest Universities in Indiana, but the world? :hihi: :hihi: :hihi: :hihi:

Yes....not top 5.... but it is a great school.

my school kick all of your school asses !

Is it a better school than MIT is? It's the only American school of which I know the graduates personally.
I don't know much about us schools. Is your educational background all important in the US?
Maybe gilld can prove the diplomaism wrong. :D

By the way, I went to Oxford several times. Does it count? :hihi:

74, 000 people died on august 9th 1945, in Nagazaki ...

74 thousands ... i will never process that number. it's too big.

gosh. i wonder how the people who decided that strike felt after it was done ... :(
i wonder if these people, christian i'm sure, are in heaven now ?
 :-[

finest universities...ok...amusing...i counted 37 apologies, you said they had never apologised...your credibility is zero if you ignore the facts...so what if you attended a university that you think is a top university  (which i doubt), and if you are a result of a history course then it certainly ranks nowhere in my reckoning as the best with History courses...if it teaches you to ignore the facts then its a laugh more than respected...and then there is the fact that you didnt even try to refute these apologies...not exactly a great debator are you? i could take your arguments apart bit by bit because it doesnt take a university course to think...it takes the right mindset

Lame GNR site, what u doin here then buddy?


Yep, i think they are



The poster quoted below beat me to an answer, and a damn good one it is too:


There's ur answer



Hundreds of thousands of civilians died needlessly


IQ has already dealt with u on this point

gilld1 - i did say u were only going to come out of this badly, but please, anymore ill-informed comments are always welcome

I'm sure they felt great, they saved more American Lives than they did end Japanese lives that day, and that was their goal.

The bombs were dropped because the Americans wished to see what they could do - isn't it somewhat strange they refused to warn the Japanese in advance?

Isn't it somewhat strange that after Hiroshima they didn't give the Japanese time to surrender - less than 48 hours and they hit them again!

Isn't it strange that the two nukes were different designs offering different yields that needed to be compared?

Isn't it also strange that from January 1945 General Curtis Lemay in charge of US bombers was ordered to leave 2 cities untouched so the full effects of a new 'weapon' could be fully guaged?

The whole invasion angle is a comforting lie - Japan was going to surrender anyway and didn't have anything left to fight an invasion with!

Maybe a month or so ago, China got all in an uproar about some new Japanese textbooks that glossed over the war in China. ?The article I read stated that Japan had still not apologized for some of their actions in China. ?I took it and made it a blanket statement and you called me on it, fair enough. ?I am man enough to admit when I'm wrong. ?I said some inaacurate things and that's all that's focused on. ?I also said some valid satements that all chose to ignore because it was contrary to your thinking. ?That's great intellect, ignore differing opinions, your just like Bush and all his cronies. ?You too Canada boy, if your unwilling to see others perspectives from up there in utopia then you too are like Bush. ?But some of you people sound like Iran and think the US is the Great Satan because of what happened 60 years ago. ?Every country has their skeletons in the closet so lets all get off their high horses.

Slam me but not Purdue! ?I said one of the finest, I never said Top 5. ?2001 graduate in School of Liberal Arts. ?So whoever can go ask their uncle anout my "claim". ?Why would I make it up? ?To impress people I'll never meet? ?Who I don't give a shit about? ?Anyway asshole, 40k students go to Purdue soI'm sure your Uncle would remember. ?At any rate, Purdue's programs in Agriculture, Pharmacy, Engineering, and Business are highly rated. ?Famous alum include Neil Armstrong, John Glenn, and Orville Redenbacher (the popcorn guy). ?Purdue has the largest # or foreign students of all schools in the US, so it's not just an Indiana thing. ?The school also brings in some of the finest entertainers in the world too, Dylan, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Miles Davis, Dave Matthews, STP, Pearl Jam, Bill Cosby, and more.

All right, let me have it you vile cunts!!!!

what ever .... you're going to hell.

Hey people, all's fair in love & war. Those fucking zips had it coming in a big way & everyone knows it. I guess the moral of the story is don't go around starting wars with countries that can blow u up. Lesson learned.

On the flip side, America has just put a bullseye on its' back by starting a war based on lies over in Iraq. We now deserve anything we get cause we started shit that we didn't need to. It's an excuse for all those people to attack us even more vigorously. Should of just caught Bin Laden & cleaned up Afghanistan/Pakistan. But now the U.S. is no better than anyone else, cause technically, we are terroists as well.

You are vile.

I said my brother was a professor there and can easily look up your info to back your claim. If you don't want to give me that information, then scan and post your degree.

This is your can of worms that you opened. If you are going to slam people and use a supposed to degree to back it up (which is a logical fallacy anyway) then show us, or shut up about it.

You asked for an answer.....

Going to hell for saving more lives than they killed?  Interesting.

Here is a defense of the bombing.  I think military strategy is very interesting looking at it from a moral perspective.  I think the most important factor, while of course not the only factor, to look at is the loss of life versus the amount of lives saved.  This thread simply shows that the numbers are disputed.  Considering the casualties before the bombs were dropped, it seems that more lives were probably saved with their use.  Of course, Izzy made a powerful argument to the contrary.


60 Years Later
Considering Hiroshima.



For 60 years the United States has agonized over its unleashing of the world?s first nuclear weapon on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. President Harry Truman?s decision to explode an atomic bomb over an ostensible military target ? the headquarters of the crack Japanese 2nd Army ? led to well over 100,000 fatalities, the vast majority of them civilians.



     
Critics immediately argued that we should have first targeted the bomb on an uninhabited area as a warning for the Japanese militarists to capitulate. Did a democratic America really wish to live with the burden of being the only state that had used nuclear weapons against another?

Later generals Hap Arnold, Dwight Eisenhower, Curtis LeMay, Douglas Macarthur, and Admirals William Leahy and William Halsey all reportedly felt the bomb was unnecessary, being either militarily redundant or unnecessarily punitive to an essentially defeated populace.

Yet such opponents of the decision shied away from providing a rough estimate of how many more would have died in the aggregate ? Americans, British, Australians, Asians, Japanese, and Russians ? through conventional bombing, continuous fighting in the Pacific, amphibious invasion of the mainland, or the ongoing onslaught of the Red Army had the conflict not come to an abrupt halt nine days later and only after a second nuclear drop on Nagasaki.

Truman?s supporters countered that, in fact, a blockade and negotiations had not forced the Japanese generals to surrender unconditionally. In their view, a million American casualties and countless Japanese dead were adverted by not storming the Japanese mainland over the next year in the planned two-pronged assault on the mainland, dubbed Operation Coronet and Olympic.

For the immediate future there were only two bombs available. Planners thought that using one for demonstration purposes (assuming that it would have worked) might have left the Americans without enough of the new arsenal to shock and awe the Japanese government should it have ridden out the first attack and then become emboldened by a hiatus, and our inability to follow up the attacks.

As it was, after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, General Tojo?s followers capitulated only through the intervention of the emperor. And it was not altogether clear even then that Japanese fanatics would not attack the Americans as they steamed into Tokyo Bay for the surrender ceremonies.

These are the debates that matured in the relative peace of the postwar era. But in August 1945 most Americans had a much different take on Hiroshima, a decision that cannot be fathomed without appreciation of the recently concluded Okinawa campaign (April 1-July 2) that had cost 50,000 American casualties and 200,000 Japanese and Okinawa dead. Okinawa saw the worst losses in the history of the U.S. Navy. Over 300 ships were damaged, more than 30 sunk, as about 5,000 sailors perished under a barrage of some 2,000 Kamikaze attacks.

And it was believed at least 10,000 more suicide planes were waiting on Kyushu and Honshu. Those who were asked to continue such fighting on the Japanese mainland ? as we learn from the memoirs of Paul Fussell, William Manchester, and E. B. Sledge ? were relieved at the idea of encountering a shell-shocked defeated enemy rather than a defiant Japanese nation in arms.

About a month after Okinawa was finally declared secure came Hiroshima. Americans of that age were more likely to wonder not that the bomb had been dropped too early, but perhaps too late in not avoiding the carnage on Okinawa ? especially when by Spring 1945 there was optimism among the scientists in New Mexico that the successful completion of the bomb was not far away. My father, William Hanson, who flew 39 missions over Japan on a B-29, was troubled over the need for Okinawa ? where his first cousin Victor Hanson was killed in the last hours of the battle for Sugar Loaf Hill ? when the future bomb would have forced Japanese surrender without such terrible loss of life in 11th-hour infantry battles or even more horrific torching of the Japanese cities.

Hiroshima, then, was not the worst single-day loss of life in military history. The Tokyo fire raid on the night of March 9/10, five months earlier, was far worse, incinerating somewhere around 150,000 civilians, and burning out over 15 acres of the downtown. Indeed, ?Little Boy,? the initial nuclear device that was dropped 60 years ago, was understood as the continuance of that policy of unrestricted bombing ? its morality already decided by the ongoing attacks on the German and Japanese cities begun at least three years earlier.

Americans of the time hardly thought the Japanese populace to be entirely innocent. The Imperial Japanese army routinely butchered civilians abroad ? some 10-15 million Chinese were eventually to perish ? throughout the Pacific from the Philippines to Korea and Manchuria. Even by August 1945, the Japanese army was killing thousands of Asians each month. When earlier high-level bombing attacks with traditional explosives failed to cut off the fuel for this murderous military ? industries were increasingly dispersed in smaller shops throughout civilian centers ? Curtis LeMay unleashed napalm on the Japanese cities and eventually may have incinerated 500,000.

In some sense, Hiroshima and Nagasaki not only helped to cut short the week-long Soviet invasion of Japanese-held Manchuria (80,000 Japanese soldiers killed, over 8,000 Russian dead), but an even more ambitious incendiary campaign planned by Gen. Curtis LeMay. With the far shorter missions possible from planned new bases in Okinawa and his fleet vastly augmented by more B-29s and the transference from Europe of thousands of idle B-17s and B-24, the ?mad bomber? LeMay envisioned burning down the entire urban and industrial landscape of Japan. His opposition to Hiroshima was more likely on grounds that his own fleet of bombers could have achieved the same result in a few more weeks anyway.

Postwar generations argued over whether the two atomic bombs, the fire raids, or the August Soviet invasion of Manchuria ? or all three combined ? prompted Japan to capitulate, whether Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a stain on American democracy, or whether the atomic bombs were the last-gasp antidote to the plague of Japanese militarism that had led to millions of innocents butchered without much domestic opposition or criticism from the triumphalist Japanese people.

But our own generation has more recently once again grappled with Hiroshima, and so the debate rages on in the new age of terrorism and handheld weapons of mass destruction, brought home after an attack on our shores worse than Pearl Harbor ? with more promised to come. Perhaps the horror of the suicide bombers of Japan does not seem so distant any more. Nor does the notion of an extreme perversion of an otherwise mainstream religion filling millions with hatred of a supposedly decadent West.

The truth, as we are reminded so often in this present conflict, is that usually in war there are no good alternatives, and leaders must select between a very bad and even worse choice. Hiroshima was the most awful option imaginable, but the other scenarios would have probably turned out even worse.

Punk, if you made some statement about having a degree I would have no reason to think you're lying.  Why would you?  I don't doubt that Izzy has a degree, I just made a sarcastic remark about it.  But never did I say you're full of shit Izzy, prove it.  Get over yourself , man.  Maybe you gave it the ol' college try but couldn't quite make to Grad day but trust me, people do actually graduate from college. 

Don't bring it up, if you are worried somebody might call you on it.

Seriously, Punk, get a life.  You've put up a lot of posts in not very much time, that kind of screams "I don't have a fucking job so I'm on the computer all day!"  Worried?  Why would I be?  I'm secure which is more than I can say for you.  You could be some Methed out tweaker that steals IDs for your living so I will not put my full name on here.  Prove your brother works there, what's his name?  I can get on the alum site.  Put your fucking money where your mouth is loser.

Warn them???
"here we come, this is probably gonna hurt......"
I guess the telephone operator the fielded the call from the Japanese Emporer just before they attempted to take out our entire Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor must have just forgot to relay the message that they were on the way.....
Did you think before you typed that??

"Uh..hello?  Hirohito?  This is Truman.  We are gonna bomb the shit out of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Might want to get all your troops and supplies and such on out of there.  Take it easy..."

I thought you'd say something like that. When all else fails just insult away.

Doesn't bother me a bit.

You crack me up, wanna compare financial statements? Assets? What?  :hihi:

Where do you want to stop?

Wanna pull our dicks out and measure?

What are you trying to prove?

Bottom Line: Don't pull out personal info on yourself if you don't want to get questioned on it. It's that simple.

Denial is more than just a river, Punk.  You seem to be quite an angry guy.  Life kinda sucks for ya, huh?  I assume you attack everyone's statements like this or just the ones you don't agree with?  Go ahead, pat yourself on the back, you sure showed some guy on the internet.  Go tell your friends if you have any other than cyberfriends.  I'm through with your clownish ways.

Not angry, I just don't like assholes......

Then you must have a self hatred complex.

The sound of one hand clapping is deafening.

Gonna talk about my Momma too?

 :hihi:

Surfrider ... very interesting the " saved more lives than killed ..."

do you know a book called The Brothers Karamazov (by Fyodor Dostoevsky)

i havent read it. but i read a article a while ago , when the us was about to go to war. and there was this philosophical question, that is brought in the book at some point, i'd like you to answer ....
yes or no ...

would you kill or torture a little innocent girl if that would save humanity ? - like everybody will live in peace and harmony-

this little innovent girl get to be tortured for ever, but humanity is safe and happy ?

uh uh ?

you're sick man. you try to think logically " yeah, more life saved, rock n roll .. " but it's because you're on your computer, in your little home with your diet coke can ...

 :rofl:

Ur so funny

America had the nukes in place by July and it was debated whether to detonate one somewhere uninhabited and invite the Japanese gov to watch - the idea being they would be so terrified of this mushroom cloud they would surrender and no one would be hurt

But, they decided against it - on the pathetic excuse that ''something might go wrong''!

That's fact by the way :)

They really could have warned them :D

I'm devestating u lot, come on - one of u has to have something!

devestating us?? by saying that we should have warned Japan that we were going to bomb them.....
Lets just say I'm glad that you don't hold a position of power in the US military.

Also you don't seem to have an answer for Japan launching an unprovoked attack aimed at destroying our entire Pacific Fleet. We eren't even in the War at that time...... where was there warning?

nobody wants to answer the "torturing the little girl" question.... :(

Yes, and i'm enjoying it too :)


Yeah - cos if i was i might actually target troops as opposed to peasants - wouldn't that by a PR disaster :hihi: :rofl:

Warning them would have given them a chance to surrender and saved 250,000 lives. I'd say that was worth taking



 :hihi:

Classic.

How is that even remotely relevant?

The Japanese attacked a naval base so the US was entitled to exterminate civilians? ::) Dubious logic there! Two wrongs don't make a right - but maybe they do where ur from.... :nervous:

We were alledgely the good guys, thus we were supposed to do things in a moral way - if we fought as u suggest, how the hell would we be any different to them?

Out of curiosity, what would you argue is the most important factor?

No

I am not sure if this is a question or a statement, sorry bro.  Havent read it though.

I think its a difficult question, and certainly you would have lots of people come out on both sides of this question.  Considering that tons of people die innocently everyday I think you would have to somewhat weigh that against the little girl.  Of course the problem is that she is the means of saving those people.

No offense bro, but I think you would have to be an absolute ditz not to strongly think out this question.  Sacrifice one life for millions?

I am not sure why you are attacking me bro, but funny statement considering there were millions of troops that were about to invade Japan risking their own lives for the lives of others, yet you sit here and criticize behind your computer an action that may have saved more lives than it lost.  When you are about to invade Japan or some other country after finishing a 2 year tour in Germany or invading the beaches of D-Day, Ill bet you will have a different perspective on the use of an action that would end the war, save your life, and kill less people than the other action. 

I am not sue if you read the post, but I said number of lives is the most important factor, but certainly not the only factor.

I am sure you probably know far more about this than I, but didnt Japan refuse to surrender after the first bomb?  What makes you think they would have surrendered after a mere warning?

yeah, sorry for attacking you.

it's just that the way you talk about INNOCENT dying is unacceptable.
it is NOT right *morally* to kill people to save other people.
just like you said "killing the SEVENTY FOUR THOUSANDS (74, 000) japanese was a good thing cause it might have saved america ..."

first, i think that if you were in front of that little girl, and you just needed to shoot her in the head so humanity leave in peace and heaven on earth ... you wouldnt do it.

if you were behind that little red button that makes the bomb drop on japan, you wouldnt do it. i'm sure of that.

if you can defend the use of a nuclear strike then, would you defend it now ?
can you defend the acts of other countries than the us ?
let say , the usa marches on North korea, and by some mystery, North korea launches a nuclear strike on new york or la, and 100, 000 people die.
would you understand ?
would you see that North Korea did that to save their people ? uh uh ?

I'll answer it.

Torture.... thats harsh.
But if one (just for argument) Iraqi girl had to die to save 2 American soldiers........sorry..........the little girl goes....

wow. ok ....

No prob, I understand its a passionate discussion : ok:

I can't let you get away with putting a statement in quotes as if I said it when in fact I did not. ?Please only quote real statements, not your characterizations of my statements, it becomes misleading.

I never said it was a good thing. ?I would never characterize death as a good thing. ?Certainly either choice was choosing between two evils. ?Either we invade or we bomb? ?One route arguably lead to fewer deaths than the other. ?Of course there are other factors to look at such as: being the only nation to have used the bomb, creating precedent for such use. ?But there were far more innocents dying during the firebombing of Tokyo than the nuclear weapons. ?Innocent people dying is a horrible thing, but sadly it happens in war.

I am not going to argue with you on this one. ?

Let me ask you this: Say you had a chance at saving one or the other (both innocent parties): 2 lives or random people you never met, or 1 live being your brother (girlfriend, mother or closest relative) what would you choose?

Its a little different when you are elected and have a duty to protect people. ?Truman certainly protected the people he took an oath to protect. ?I agree though, it would be the toughest decision ever, and I am sure Truman did not take it lightly. ?That is why certain people should make these decisions and not others. ?I will refrain from commenting on whether our current President should be such persons :nervous:

I am not necessarily defending its use, Im simply trying to play devils advocate and present different arguments. ?Certainly, I wouldnt suggest the use of one now, but again, if it would save more lives than it would take, I think it is a debateable topic.

Good question. ?I was looking at the entire thing objectively based on number of lives lost. ?I guess you looked at it from that perspective than you could justify the use by other countries against the US as well. ?However, as I said there are other factors to take into account as well. ?Such as living under a North Korean regime should such use of a weapon cause the US to surrender in such a war. ?How many people would die under the regime? ?How many freedoms would be lost? ?Certainly, its use by someone such as Hitler could be justified on pure numbers if looked at to win a war, but again other factors would have to be taken into account such as rule under Hitler and the possibility of more war and more death.

It's war, not a soccer (futbol) match. People die, if you don't want people to die than don't start a war by bombing our largest concentration of Naval Ships. The only thing on the minds of the people calling the shots in a War time situation is saving as many of OUR troops as possible. We ended the war in 48 hours...... I know you like to pretend that an invasion of Japan wasn't just over the horizon, but it was. So the easiest solution to losing hundreds of thousands of American troops in a matter of days was to drop the bomb. Sorry, but there is no sportsmanship in War.


I would fully expect them to launch a Nuclear strike if attacked, if of course they are able to after all of their strategic targets are removed in one night of "Shock and Awe."

I would also fully expect North Korea to be removed from existence if that happened. What do they have, maybe 5 or 6 Nukes since launching their program...... So say they launch on New York City........12 hours later the Far East would be glowing like the Las Vegas Strip. It's always a possibility that there will be another attack with that weaponry, and thats exactly why North Korea hasn't had a mud hole stomped in it's ass yet.

But yes, i would fully understand North Korea's decision to try to get us to surrender in one move without risking Korean troops. Afterall what else could they do, is the Korean Navy going to steam across the Pacific to invade the US....... They would be destroyed before they hit the international date line.

wonder all you want, but until you or one of you family have served in a war zone..... you have no understanding of that question and answer.

you know what moron..... i have had family that have serverd on teh front in WW2, and korea, and vietnam........ you know what...... they were very candid about their experiences, they have seen what you talk about but in more situations it would not happen because of the moralities of the soilders involved...... get it got it good

If they would let two of their fellow soldiers die to save the life of a little girl, then they don't belong there.

I don't know if they refused to surrender after Hiroshima but consider this:

They blew up Nagasaki so soon after wards its highly unlikley the government was even fully aware of what had already happened, factor in travel times there and back, the fact every road was ful of refugees etc etc, they weren't even given the chance to consider what had happened and get the Americans an answer

They may not have surrendered after a warning, i never said they would have.

But, the chances are they would have - and if they still refused to surrender when fully informed of this weapon - then the decision to use it becomes slightly more justified

They didn't warn them because they were afriad they would quit and then they'd have no chance to test it

At the end of the day - how could it of hurt to show them? They never even tried

Really? I hadn't realised ::) Both football and war have RULES


Did the people in Hiroshima bomb the naval base?



Naive, so naive!

They wanted to test their new toy and frighten the Russians (remember while all these nukes are falling America and Russia are dividing up Europe between them :) - bit of leverage u see : ok:)


War ended on August 15 if memory serves, Hiroshima was on the 7th - not 48 hours....



Strange that British forces weren't even in position yet - there was no invasion planned till 1946, they wouldn't have been ready till then : ok:



We agree! It WAS the easiest thing to do. But the easiest way isn't the right way - 250,000 died for convenience!


Well shows how little u know about war. History is full of galantry in war. Oh yes, even the Germans in WW2 showed tremendous decency to western troops (not eastern troops...)

When u are fighting against evil how on earth can u use evil means!

U seem rather immoral in ur views on war - 250k maybe just a statistic to u but read the accounts of those that were there, give a face to that number and then tell me it was justified

If war is simply to be won then using gas and biological weapons would have been the best way to beat Japan - they could have killed them all off, every last one!

If the means justify the ends in war then killing every male in Iraq would achieve peace!

If u are prepared to disgard rules in war then u get the war that was fought by Germany against Russia - they killed every man woman and child they saw - as a tactic that works, that will help u win - but its beyond the pale, its immoral and there comes a point where defeat itself is a better alternative than to have reduced urself to such inhumanity that u are as bad as those u fight

IF Japan had had the means to continue fighting and killing Allied forces on an epic scale and surrender was years away and if EVERY alternative had been exhasuted then those nukes could be justified.

But that wasn't the case. A defeated enemy was massacred. I wonder what the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have gone on to do with their lives if our leaders hadn't lost their humanity.

Yeah, Warning japanese leaders would have given them a chance to surrender and saved 250,000 lives and that might have hurt the god damn project.
I'm not sure but didn't the US distribute the warning bills that didn't fully inform of this weapon over these cities?

Nope. With all their thickness, the japanese rulers had a capitulation ready.
Like Izzy said above and in his other posts in this thread they had run out of their thin resources even before that point. The whole nation was starving. It was a matter of time.


If you were the innocent citizen in Hiroshima or Nagasaki at the time of the A bomb attack and after, I bet you would have a different perspective on the use of an action that would end the war, save your life, and kill less people than the other action.

I'd be surprised if there was anything dropped over these cities beforehand

They were packed full of refugees as they were the only cities not hit by the firebombings- when the Enola Gay flew over they sounded the air attack alarm and then blew the all clear thinking one plane was of no threat - they weren't expecting anything

Guess those refugees just picked the wrong city to go to eh? :P

I've always wondered how many hospitals and temples and schools where flattened - military targets the lot of them :confused:

your some idiot seriously.... so i guess you would shoot every pow you had if it meant getting one to talk so you could in teh future save 2 lives?

you may belong there but not to the human race. sorry.
by no means I would like to belong to the criminal against the civil with no arm and no harm.
Your statement tells there is no other excuse for the bombs than the chauvinism.
No? Then Answer me. What If the little girl was your daughter?
It's like defending a wrestler who hit a girl in the cheering section for his opponent wrestler to piss off the latter.
The solders are there to fight. They are agreed to risk their lives. While The girl is obviously not.

The simile of the torture someone's entire life is spot on for the A bomb disease or any radioactive illness. Unlike other wound or burn, the radioactive damage never heals up.  the radiation harms your genes fatally, which stops your new cells from regenerating the injuries. the damaged parts just keep shrinking. That never be cured with all today's medical science. You got to live with the forever pains. It's nothing but a torture.

Can't you see this issue is not really about America vs japan or the country A vs the rest, on the whole.
It deals with the subjects like the rulers vs the ruled, the strong and the weak, or politicians vs civilians.

More importantly, It's a matter of humanity.

Thanks for the answer, it seems that you are quite knowledgeable on this subject.  The only thing is that there were only two bombs that were made.  I dont think the americans wanted to risk showing one as a demonstration and then only have one left to use.  Your point on the travel of info is a good one though.

Yeah, Izzy, the Germans sure were decent when they randomly bombed London and when they killed GI POWs execution style during the Battle of the Bulge. 

This thread has turned ridiculous. Remind me again who attacked who first?

I wouldn't Shoot them, but I also wouldn't treat them with the same rights as I treat prisoners in my own country.... but thats niether here nor there (this is why I laugh at the complaints of Guantanamo Bay and Abu Grab, they have info we need, and American Citizens that are being made safe by the men gathering this info are acting like we are gassing these people with no provocation)



I'm not saying I'd walk up to a random girl in the street and off her....... What i mean is:

picture the urban combat of Iraq...... a team of 5 Marines is recieving fire. They get seperated and a group of two Marines are now recieving the majority of the fire and have no cover. The three remaining Marines have a shot on the gunman but suddenly an 8 yearold girl wanders out of a house and is now obsructing the shot. if you don't take down the gunman he is going to kill the two seperated Marines........ I fire threw the girl and take them both out....... The two Marines live, the gunman and the girl die.......

If you arent prepaired to make that kind of a decision you don't belong on a battlefield because you will probably get someone in your team killed, and they are more important than anyone (ANYONE) on the otherside.

my point is this if you do this style of "warfare" and you kill civi's or torture POW's you violate the treaties that you have signed..... geniva.... and in the eyes of everyone.. are not your actions no better then that of terroists?

dont twist that into me saying the US are nothing but terroists.....

yup, Coma, there are laws, even during war, even IN the action.

but man, you're talking, but the thing is, that you wouldnt do it. you wouldnt kill anybody.
and that's a good thing.

Any one of us on here would have no problem pulling the trigger on someone in a WAR situation.  You sit and so the opposite but it comes down to self-preservation and to thinkthat you wouldn't save yourself is pure nonsense.  Luckily, we don't all have to go through a war....

The Geneva Convention only applies to Uniformed members of a recognized armed force. So for instance what ever is done to the prisoners in Abu Grab and Guantanamo Bay is not covered by Geneva. So If they have info that will save US or Coalition troops, you do anything within reason to garner that info.

But I'm not saying torture all prisoners or just randomly kill civilians, what I am saying is if put in the right situation you have to do everything possible to keep your fellow troops safe. Sometimes that action could get ugly, but needs to be done.

 well i have to ask you why during WW2 it was found that a rather high % of pte. would just hide in their hole and not even shoot.... and whn shot at they would most times leave their weapon behind...... saw that on a documentry talking about training doctrines and how they have changed since the 1800's through to modren day


for the most part everyone has the ability to kill another human, however even today you will find people that will freese up in high stress situations, as much as militarty personal and hopefuls hate to admit we are brainwashed into a state where we do not hink about our actions, it is pure reaction. this reaction ability has slowly been taken out of the general population of humanity over the years, that why there are morals to which we should adhere ourseleves to. that is why laws exists so we know the moral boundries to which we are to guide ourseleves.

ye p !

and cOma, you are a living proof of that.

years ago, when you were twelve, or less ... innocent and good, you wouldnt even think about that. you wouldnt even have to think before crying and being horrified by your a coutry that nukes 70 THOUSANDS people  ....

but now, you've changed.
just think about when you were a kid, and killing people WAS OUT OF THE QUESTION. now you consider things like that ....
when you were a kid, loving your country meant loving the basketball team
now it's finding reasons for people to die.

funny then how come taliban fighters are termed as BF detainee's?

and since you have no idea of anything about the convention lets go to school



hmmm but wait not military right and this convention dont cover civis.....


hmmm thought that you can be held without legal council........ hey and look it covers off civi's...... intresting wait im getting to the good stuff

you know that kid killing bit..... illegal.... can yo say that with me..... illegal...... you can be charged by your own nation for it...... intresting isnt it?


not only illegal but you have to protect them at all cost... hahahahahaha... thats funny


ok now to give you some rope to hang me with...... but wait.. no i think ill hold onto that cause heres the defn of a civi


i guess you can use teh  weel he looked like a civi... wait then hes still protected... err i mena he looked like he would be an insurgent... erri dont know... lol he is still protected by the convention......


christ would ya actually look stuff up first b4 you make blanket statements

now thats a little bit harsh.........ok its alot harsh...... its not like they or he actually sits down and plans out howmany people that they want to kill today that are innocent... they accidental, they are a part of war that we must accept............. god......... defending  the right wing....... .. well i guess that shows how much of a lefty i actually am......

no i know ... i didnt say it to be harsh ... it's just that people can lose some of their "normal" reactions (like "killing a lot of people is bad no matter what" ) when they get older and start thinking in terms of politics, patriotism ....

its not that coma is liek that, cause he is just on his computer. but ... i dunno ...i'm sleepy :)

I'll end with this............

If I was in a team of 5 soldiers (WAT-EVER, "Prom" (i know where not going steady), SLC, Gilld1, and my self) I wouldn't let a 50 yearold treaty lead to any of your deaths because an old woman, child, or cripple might get killed saving you. My only goal in that situation would be keeping you safe, not saving a civi from the country we are at war with. Anyone who isn't prepared to do anything to protect their squad has no business being in a war zone.

I guess if you don't agree with that, we will never agree, so why debate it........

good ! we're robots ;)
this world is already too full of love and feelings, let's all base our reactions on reflex ! yay ! ;)

Careful there - apparently there was a third - Truman upon hearing what he had done alledgedly ordered the third to be recalled.

 :rofl:

Who bombed who first?

We bombed their cities first!

They bombed London by ACCIDENT (that's fact), we retaliated and then they retaliated again

But even BEFORE all that we were bombing them!

Comapre the 60,000 they bombed to death to the 593,000 we got of theirs!



Lol - quote a lone example!

A generalisation is a statement that applies to the majority of the cases - not all humans have 2 eyes, 2 legs etc but as a generalisation it works

The German's treated British troops captured in battle surprisingly well, and they fought against us with much restraint

Against Russian they starved to death every man woman and child they didn't shot or work to death. They shot ever Red Army officer they found on the spot and all the politcal officers too, and wiped out the entire Polish officer class

They sent in troops with flamethrowers to kill everything in Russian villages

Against us they fought with some decency. There are relatively few war crimes committed against Allied troops.

Their cause was horrific but its fair to say they treated our forces surprisingly well - or as well as u can in a situation where both sides are trying to kill each other

I'm not even sure we are talking about this - sounds like an attempt to drag this thread off topic!

Some version of things you hhave there, Izzy.  Launching V2s was an accident?  The Battle of London was an accident?  That must have been some Liberal college you went too!

Well if the truth is a version....




Nope, not sure where i said other wise ::)

Hell i even gave the figure for the numbers of us they bombed overall - 20,000 were killed in V-1 and V-2 attacks :)



Its called 'The Blitz' ::)

Again - if u can't read 5 lines of text accurately i really wonder - didn't u go to a world renown University :rofl: :hihi:

The Blitz was started by the accidently bombing of London by planes involved in bombing airfields - Hitler was apparently furious over the incident. It began in earnest in revenge for a British raid on Berlin


I love the way thats used as an insult, and that regardless of the fact all the things i have said (other than things clearly marked) have been FACTS delivered by a person who has spent 2 years researching the topic, and yet u try to argue! If i'm making this stuff up then i must have a rather large number of academics on my pay roll!

I am beating u so hard i'm just feeling sorry now - i feel like a bully - u have absoluetly no clue at all, c'mon, give me a challenge!

But please keep trying :)

to actual give ya an example of how the bombing of london was an accident... due to th black out several german bombers were off course and thought they were farther north west.... and dropped teh bombs on london....  the pilots didnt even know till a few days later when they got remmed for bombing it.... Hitler wanted london intact when he would ride down teh streets..... or somethign to that effect....IIRC the v-1 and 2 attacks came after this mistaken bomber attack. but as izzy said we were bombing their cities well b4 this mistaken bombing raid

 i guess not my man... i guess not


but what i want to see right now.... is a who was right and who was wrong about the convention.... come on.... lets see it.....

Izzy, you're such an arrogant piece of shit.  You guys and your little egos that depend on showing up someone on the Net.  Pat yourself on the back.  I am not a History expert nor doI claim to be.  Thaks for clearing somethings up, I've learned a few things on here I didn't know but you don't have to be asshole about it.  Get a fucking sense of humor, the liberal thing was a joke because isn't that a new dirty word in the US?  I must have missed the part where all discussions become contests.  You should try a penis enlarger instead of trying to put others down to make up for it!

I guess size is less important than quality.
How about you follow your own advice from now on?
Me too learned a lot. It was a bit of shock to know the mentality or the intelligence of the people to whom today's most powerful country's sovereignity rests with. Well I still put my hopes on the ppl like SCL. Besides, they say All that prosper must decline.
Getting new knowledge is always great innit? : ok:

you were right, I was misinformed...... BUT i stand by my point of view, regardless of that document (it is out dated, it certainly shouldn't apply to terrorists, it was writen just post WW2)

 exactly.. though i dont put to much fait on SLC.... lol

Haha!

Good fella to be in power!

Although...I'd probably do my part to help put him in office, just to see what he'd be like.

And that's not what yer talking about is it... :-[

Oh well...

...(just for good measure)...

...the dots I mean...

...

 : ok:

Another one who can't handle the fact that he was proven wrong.....

Pay attention to the rules if you want to keep learning new things on this board.




/jarmo

Thanks, weren't we debating the morality of Hiroshima and Nagaskai?



I didn't show u up - a lack of knowledge on the topic was what showed u up


But u sought to challenge someone who has spent 2 years researching this, i did warn in advance...



If u don't know much about the topic such belligerant posts are not needed - ur not likely to find me in the most forgiving of moods when u challenge facts...i didn't create them ya'know


Thanks, but i think its fine - i've found this thread enjoyable and amusing


Dunno


When u attack every point i make in an aggresive manner i have to ask ' was it really me that turned this into a contest?'


This ways cheaper :hihi:

Now, please to the topic in hand...if there any more valid arguments to be made?

well izzy... i have to disagree with everything that you ahve said...... and that YOU are 100% wrong on all accounts...........and im not going to back up my statement im jsut going to pop out of the thread.... and consider this a victory for me.......

Izzy, because you have studied the subject at such depth you know stuff that is not considered common knowledge so you have to expect some (myself included) that think that you're BSing.  For example, the accidental bombing of London, sounds pretty far fetched to the casual student of history.  I believe you but you have to understand that we are not all experts.  I can see why you think I was being aggressive in some posts but that was not at all times intended.  It's mostly that I am usually in a hurry on here.  You have the knowledge to be a teacher but too many times you sound like a preacher.  Is this your thesis?

Jarmo, if I couldn't handle then why am I still here?  I'm not running anywhere.  Rules?  We don't need no stinking rules!!

Sorry, but people like yourself has made it clear we do need them.....




/jarmo

BUMP

i went to an exhibit in the Hotel de Ville (townhall) of Paris yesterday, on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
And this was very intense.

I saw pictures i haven't seend before, and read stuff that i didnt know about.

* the story of a girl who, starting having cancer and so, years after, who in her hospital bed, thought that making 1,000 little paper birds will make her survive. She started, made like hundreds of birds, and then died ... her school then raised money to make a momnument about her and all the kids that suffered

* the fact that the american army named the Bombs ' Little Man ' and ' Big Boy ' .... nicknames .... this is insane. And how the president was told that the 1st bomb was built with the phrase " the baby is born ..."

* in the exhbit there was this very strong picture of a destroyed, tore appart, Church and.... in the debris, the huge Jesus Christ sculpture on the cross ... uspide down.
i found it very ironic, strong, sad, funny, that the people who planned, launched, pressed the button in the plane, were i'm sure faithful christian and that they actually bombed the symbol of their religion, burnt priest and churches (nagasaki had a very large christian community)

* the actual pocket watch of a young man, which stopped and melted at 08:15

* the fact that the US did plan to hit at 8.15am because it was known that most people would be outside (seeking for casualties?)

* nagasaki was not the actual planned target, it was another town, but due to coulds situation, the plane changed his route and went to nagsaki, that is why the bomb exploded at 11am.

* the fact that these bombing happened very early in nuclear weapon history, it was cleary a test for the US. they actually tested their weapon on real human being.

and i really think that these bombing were the most crazy and insane thing that happend in history. i think it's bigger than the fuckin birth of Jesus Christ, bigger than the crusades, than the Nazi camps, than 9/11 than anything ....
because, unlike nazis, the united states were supposedly the "nice ones" ....


well. that's it :)

WTB..... im in such a mixed mood about everything that you have posted, I wish i could go see that exbit for myself, alas france is a long way away from me...... well mainland france is, sait-peirre et miqulion are jsut a 30min ferry ride away.

I really dont know what to say to your statements, its not that i cant attack them, its not that i want to attack them......... i think im broken..... its jsut that for the most part i cant not agree. Simply the only question that one can ask ones self is did the ends justify the means. That question is something that you can only answer for yourself and is something no one can every change for you. For me the naming of these devices is a moot point. Had they been named somethign different there effect would still have had the far reaching affects. The most notiable is the overwhelming sence that it has bestowed that these weapons should not be used and the resolve that they are meant only as a final movement of desperation. However in the state of the world it "MAD" the whole if i cant win neither can you. In all things there is a winner and a loser, it would come to that point that if a launch had occured all would loose unless one side decided that it is better for the world to let your nation loose then to destroy everything for everyone.

tactily the allied resonce to a full european ground attack by soviet forces was for a tactical nucelar attack on the tank bases of the USSR because without that all of NATO could not provide a ground force capable of stoping a russian invasion. i think the numbers were 3:1 or 4:1 infoavour of the russians. These nukes were for military targets alone. The ICBM fleets of both the US and Russia was for MAD... the nucelar deterrent. and a bipolar world is more stable then the current state of affairs.... at least then we knew who are enemies were, unlike now where it could be the little old lady sitting on her step.

and yes I do have to thank the US for its massive military budget keeping me safe at night without that im sure i would be a commie.