The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (your views)

Page 3 of 3 [ 46 posts ] Go to page Previous 1, 2, 3

Previous topic | Next topic

Sand
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 15 Sep 2007
Age: 99
Gender: Male
Posts: 11,484
Location: Finland

25 Nov 2009, 11:03 am

ruveyn wrote:

showman616 wrote:

An important and difficult question.

Lets do a thought experiment. Suppose the manhatten project had failed, and using the atomic bomb had not been an option. What wouldve happened?

President Truman authorized the use of gas and chemicals in Japan if we had to invade. Millions more Japanese would have died than did.

In addition to gas and chemicals we would have starved them out. We cut off their sea trade and virtually destroyed their merchant marine fleet. We would have attacked their fields and caused mass starvation. Figure 30 million dead, at a minimum.

ruveyn

And therefore, to this day the Japanese, in all probability, are ungrateful for the great humanitarian action of dropping the two atomic bombs on the two Japanese cities.

TheOddGoat
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 19 Oct 2009
Age: 33
Gender: Male
Posts: 516

25 Nov 2009, 11:04 am

Sand wrote:

TheOddGoat wrote:

Sand wrote:

TheOddGoat wrote:

Sand wrote:

TheOddGoat wrote:

Sand wrote:

TheOddGoat wrote:

Sand wrote:

Christianity provides some worthwhile directives in that area.

Yes, an eye for an eye...

Or did you mean turn the other cheek?

I'm sorry, I can make christianity mean whatever I want.

:twisted:

You seem to have some difficulty discerning between the Old and New Testament.

New requires Old, so Old is more important you mean?

The phrase "an eye for an eye" is from the Old Testament which is not Christian, it is Jewish. If you refer to the Bible you should at least know what you are talking about.

Original Sin is from the Old Testament, which is "not christian" which means Jesus was sacrificed for laughs and the new testament makes no sense?

The order not to murder is old testament too, so christianity allows murder? That would explain the bombings quite easily when you consider the majority religion of the US.

Christians use the old and new testament, jews use the old but not the new. There is crossover you know. That's like saying Jesus was jewish, not christian, so christians don't follow him.

If you refer to the Bible you should at least know what you are talking about.

Since Jesus is credited with turning the other cheek you then must assume, I take it that it was an invitation to pluck out his other eye. Are you denying that Jesus was Jewish?

No, I am saying he was, but by your argument christians shouldn't follow him.

"Do not think that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill."

- Jesus Christ
(Matthew 5:17)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4565LFdC_To[/youtube]

A christian can be described as a jew who thinks jesus was the son of god.

So, since turning the other cheek and plucking out the other eye are directives that contradict each other, which one would you choose as being a Christian action? It cannot be both.

I say either, obviously you can't do both at the same time, but since christianity has a belief in gnossis you should be telepathically told by god which one to choose in each situation where you need to choose.

Best choice would be to stop being a christian, because its better to be moral instead of using rules :-D

On christian rules the bombings may or may not have been necessary but its no-one's fault on morality it may or may not have been necessary but people have to accept responsibility.

On christian rules nuking would likely have continued until surrender if they hadn't on morality it most likely wouldn't have.

ruveyn
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 21 Sep 2008
Age: 88
Gender: Male
Posts: 31,502
Location: New Jersey

25 Nov 2009, 11:08 am

Sand wrote:

You seem to have some difficulty discerning between the Old and New Testament.

The Hebraic law is grounded on justice and the Christian law is grounded on yuccchy love and sentiment.

ruveyn

Sand
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 15 Sep 2007
Age: 99
Gender: Male
Posts: 11,484
Location: Finland

25 Nov 2009, 11:21 am

TheOddGoat wrote:

Sand wrote:

TheOddGoat wrote:

Sand wrote:

TheOddGoat wrote:

Sand wrote:

TheOddGoat wrote:

Sand wrote:

TheOddGoat wrote:

Sand wrote:

Christianity provides some worthwhile directives in that area.

Yes, an eye for an eye...

Or did you mean turn the other cheek?

I'm sorry, I can make christianity mean whatever I want.

:twisted:

You seem to have some difficulty discerning between the Old and New Testament.

New requires Old, so Old is more important you mean?

The phrase "an eye for an eye" is from the Old Testament which is not Christian, it is Jewish. If you refer to the Bible you should at least know what you are talking about.

Since Jesus is credited with turning the other cheek you then must assume, I take it that it was an invitation to pluck out his other eye. Are you denying that Jesus was Jewish?

So, since turning the other cheek and plucking out the other eye are directives that contradict each other, which one would you choose as being a Christian action? It cannot be both.

I must express my extreme gratitude for your reminding me forcefully why I stopped posting to this site and why it was totally wrong to yield to the temptation to participate again. When confronted with abysmal stupidity the only sensible recourse is to turn one's back and walk away.

ruveyn
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 21 Sep 2008
Age: 88
Gender: Male
Posts: 31,502
Location: New Jersey

25 Nov 2009, 11:34 am

Sand wrote:

Since Jesus is credited with turning the other cheek you then must assume, I take it that it was an invitation to pluck out his other eye. Are you denying that Jesus was Jewish?

Jesus was Jewish. Consider the following:

1. Jesus went into his father's business.
2. He lived at home until he was 33 years old.
3. He believed his mother was a virgin.
4. His mother believed he was God.

QED.

ruveyn

Macbeth
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 27 May 2007
Age: 46
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,984
Location: UK Doncaster

25 Nov 2009, 12:39 pm

Sand wrote:

Macbeth wrote:

Sand wrote:

The sheer technological superiority of the west proved to be relatively helpless in Vietnam, in Iraq, in Afghanistan. It admittedly kills a lot of people, particularly innocent bystanders and no doubt, when a group of total whackos get their hands on nuclear weapons the effect will be magnified even more greatly but I doubt it will result in a world of peace and plenty.

Carrying that theory to its ultimate solution, it would be wise for the USA and Russia who have far more nuclear weapons in storage than they ever could find useful to take their surplus and distribute it to all nations, great and small, and warfare, by that logic, would become extinct.

Rather my point, as far as technology is concerned. Things like tank and aircraft technology have become so superior to anything else going, that conventional battles simply dont happen, because the west almost invariably has complete air superiority, complete armoured superiority, and generally much superior intelligence and surveillance, not to mention total naval superiority vs most opponents. In the face of this, partisan warfare is really the only way to go, and its remarkably successful. In fact almost everything after Korea has relied on small unit infantry combat tactics, because almost every foe has suffereed from technological inferiority. the few opponents who could match the US for technology well enough that they might engage in conventional warfare would be limited ni the scope of that engagement merely because of the possibility of a tactical nuclear strike. Assume that the Chinese could muster an invasion fleet large enough to attempt an Overlord-style landing on the west coast.. a gathering of men and equipment that big would be the mother of all targets, and no doubt if their home soil was threatened, the US would react with the mother of all banhammers.

The problem with handing out nukes to everyone is a matter of stability. Many nations (and their leaders) are clearly not stable enough, and would be too tempted to deploy such weapons (probably in an unconventional manner so as to avoid "blame". Imagine the problems of each of the Balkan states having access to nukes. These are nations that still havent manged to work out where their borders ARE and who counts as living where. Giving such tenuously constructed places such power is like giving children fireworks. The long tenure of the Cold War proves that most of the larger states that have such weapons are well versed in resisting the urge to obliterate everyone. If the Americans were really that triggerhappy about nukes then the whole world would probably have been dusted round about the Cuban crisis, or possibly even in the period before the Soviet bloc developed a nuclear capability. They appear to be reasonably responsible about their nukes, even if they are a bit random on their conventional policy.

Considering what is going on in Afghanistan now your crediting the US government with maturity strikes me as absurd.

Did you not read the last line of text where I made the distinction between the responsibility of their nuclear policy vs their conventional warfare activities? I bolded it for you and everything ^^^^. I note your later comment about abysmal stupidity on this site, and cant help but wonder how much of that problem is brought about by your not reading posts properly?

_________________
"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart,
that you can't take part" [Mario Savo, 1964]

weatherman90
Hummingbird

Joined: 5 Sep 2009
Age: 34
Gender: Male
Posts: 20

25 Nov 2009, 8:06 pm

Orwell wrote:

weatherman90 wrote:

Yes, that's a great justification we just got hundred's of people killed, oh here the solution lets kill millions. It just created a positive feedback. War is all about who has the bigger pe*is isn't it? Well i guess we won.

An excessively simplistic take on the situation. The Japanese goal at Pearl Harbor was to destroy our Pacific navy so they would be able to defeat us in an outright war. Did you know the Japanese government had already printed money for use in America? They hoped to invade and occupy us. How are we supposed to respond to that?

And by the way, the nukes at Hiroshima and Nagasaki have not created a positive feedback loop. If you would bother to check your history, Japan has not attacked anyone since we destroyed those two cities. They've completely abandoned their warrior culture, and no longer even have a proper military, at least not one capable of being a serious threat to anyone. In short, we scared them straight.

Creating a bomb didn't create a positive feedback really? I find that funny that we went to another war because we "suspected" Iraq to have Nukes, I am pretty sure that at least fifteen other countries have nuclear warheads, enough to blow up earth about seven times. I think that is enough justification for that. War just leads to more Wars. There is no justification for killing another human being simple as that therefore the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were unjustified and created a much more hostile world as a result simple as that.

pakled
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 12 Nov 2007
Age: 67
Gender: Male
Posts: 7,015

26 Nov 2009, 8:46 pm

Those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it, or at least re-quote it...
Japan at the time was infused with the Bushido spirit; if you won, you use the long sword against your enemies, if you lost, you use the short one against yourself.

There were elements in the Japanese government that were wanting peace; but they were outweighed by the military, who intended to fight to the bitter end. It's controversial, but we did mention the bomb in communications through 3rd countries, and the reply was 'to reply by silence'. (there were more interpretations than that of the phrase, but that's what the history books record.

The Japanese never surrendered as policy; when we invaded Okinawa, the local populace tried to commit suicide (and many did) by jumping off cliffs into the ocean.

The Japanese military was training civilians to fight for every inch of the islands; US military estimated that there would be a million US dead if we invaded.

Here's one fact not mentioned so far; the Russians agreed to come to war against the Japanese; they mainly conquered the north China areas; and turned over all the weapons to Mao. Had we gone in conventionally, eventually the Russians would have invaded the Home islands as well, and we'd have a North Japan and South Japan, same as Korea.

But finally, one thing the bomb did do; back us off from total war. When war games were played in the US (at least as we know, and from what little we learned from the Russians) it was the Civilians who wanted to 'go nuke', and it was actually the military that held back.

It's a sad thing we had to do it, and no one has seriously considered it since (saving Westmorland in '68, and thank heavens no one took him seriously), but it's actually saved a lot more lives than it took (we weren't going to nuke Tokyo, because if we'd killed the Emperor, we'd have had it a dozen times as hard. We actually went out of our way to not bomb the compound)

Considering the possibility of even a conventional WWIII, it's 'the worst possible case, with the exception of all the others'

_________________
anahl nathrak, uth vas bethude, doth yel dyenvey...

techstepgenr8tion
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 6 Feb 2005
Age: 45
Gender: Male
Posts: 24,532
Location: 28th Path of Tzaddi

26 Nov 2009, 10:52 pm

ruveyn wrote:

The nuclear bombings got the attention of the Japanese leadership. The result: our occupation of Japan was unopposed. A million allied lives were saved and incidentally many Japanese lives were saved. If we did not use A-Bombs we would have used gas and chemical weapons, which President Truman authorized. Possible 10 to 35 million Japanese would have been killed.

We were thoroughly justified in doing what we did: Two words: Pearl Harbor.

ruveyn

Seconded. They believed the emperor was God and were willing to do anything to save their country from invasion. A military campaign in mainland Japan would have caused far more deaths on both sides and in many cases for the Japanese it would have been their customary suicide over surrender.

techstepgenr8tion
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 6 Feb 2005
Age: 45
Gender: Male
Posts: 24,532
Location: 28th Path of Tzaddi

26 Nov 2009, 10:55 pm

parts wrote:

War is a dirty business the fact that they did not surrender after the first one speaks volumes. I had two uncles who would have been in the invasion if there had been one and I for one am glad they didn't have to. Look up how they fought on the other islands like Okinawa to get a feel for what it would have been like. And lets not forget the rape of Nanking if you want to talk war crimes or the use of biological weapons on the Chinese. It was war they would have done the same if they had the option

Talking to a vet today over dinner he mentioned that we lost more men in the first day of invading Okinawa than the first day at Normandy.

techstepgenr8tion
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 6 Feb 2005
Age: 45
Gender: Male
Posts: 24,532
Location: 28th Path of Tzaddi

26 Nov 2009, 11:03 pm

Sand wrote:

That statement really makes me wonder, if we hadn't used it on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, if we ever would have found such morally or strategically pristine a situation to use them justifiably ever again. If we hadn't dropped them on Japan and seen the devastation, we likely would have dropped them somewhere far less appropriate.

DentArthurDent
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 26 Jul 2008
Age: 60
Gender: Male
Posts: 3,884
Location: Victoria, Australia

28 Nov 2009, 2:57 pm

ruveyn wrote:

Sand wrote:

Since Jesus is credited with turning the other cheek you then must assume, I take it that it was an invitation to pluck out his other eye. Are you denying that Jesus was Jewish?

_________________
"I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance anyday"
Douglas Adams

"Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand" Karl Marx

iamnotaparakeet
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 31 Jul 2007
Age: 39
Gender: Male
Posts: 25,091
Location: 0.5 Galactic radius

28 Nov 2009, 7:02 pm

techstepgenr8tion wrote:

Sand wrote:

What would have been even worse is if Russia didn't have a good enough system of espionage. M.A.D. is a good policy, at least when sane leaders lead.

BTW, the first test of an atomic weapon wasn't in Japan, but in Trinity NM.

Coadunate
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 13 Aug 2008
Age: 68
Gender: Male
Posts: 640
Location: S. California

29 Nov 2009, 12:13 am

jc6chan wrote:

Quote:

What are your views on the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan at the end of ww2?
Do you believe that the Americans did it out of neccessity?
Do you believe it was a huge act of terrorism?
Do you believe it was both things mentioned above but it was appropriate action?
Inappropriate action?

I personally believe that while it saved lives in the end, the intention of the Americans were not genuine. I heard that the Americans were going to continue to drop nukes on Japan if it didn't surrender so that means that had the Japanese not surrendered, the US would've caused a genocide. Besides, the US commited other crimes against humanity by mutilating the bodies of dead Japanese soldiers and and playing around with them. So in conlusion, at that time period, the Americans were dehumanising the Japanese people

What do you mean by the word “genuine”? The "intention" was not "genocide" but the end result could have been.

Page 3 of 3 [ 46 posts ] Go to page Previous 1, 2, 3

Jump to:

The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (your views) Post Reply New Topic

The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (your views)