Most heinous use of WMD in history

[JulesMaximus]

500,000 alone were killed in conventional bombing campaigns on Japanese cities leading up to the use of the atomic bombs. Casualties on both sides were projected to be enormous with an invasion. It's easy to knee-jerk on this issue, but the reality is that the use of the atomic bombs brought a quick end to the war and very possibly resulted in fewer casualties (certainly among the Allies, but maybe even among the Japanese as well) than a full-blown invasion would have.

Japan's military leaders were also idiots for not surrendering immediately after Hiroshima. The US told them more cities would be bombed if they didn't surrender, but they chose not to and we called them on their bluff. Thankfully Hirohito stepped in after Nagasaki and put an end to the war.

Silence you White Devil! How dare you bring logic and facts into this thread!

I KILL YOU!!!

 

[olds]

Not sure whether to respond to this drivel or prop up a lawn chair...

Like me. I just rolled my eyes, now I will close this thread and not look at it again.
I don't want the OP's stupidity to get on me.

 

[Possessed Freak]

Mongols used their dead to infect opposing forces helping spread the plague.

 

[sdifox]

There is no reason we would have needed to invade Japan. That's just a BS excuse that most of the sheep in this country will accept, because it makes us feel better. Nothing much has changed... we are still accepting the BS that our government feeds us as excuses for things like invading Iraq and meddling in Libya.

You kidding right? Did you miss the memo? It was called WORLD WAR II. We got so good at it we are having to number them.

 

[bobdole369]

how bout the Crusades? I'm sure there were some war crimes going on there. I know in WWI they used mustard gas pretty regularly right? And Agent Orange in Vietnam but that wasn't a military target thing, just (conveniently?) a mistake.

 

[BrownShoes]

 

[sdifox]

Looks like someone just got back from their first history course with some super liberal professor/teacher and now they come to ATOT proclaiming they know everything there is about our use of nuclear weapons on japan. Congrats?

No, that is not super-liberal. Nothing to do with liberalism what he is spewing.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

Oh no no no - we chose correctly. It's just that everyone seems to fall for that fallacy.
Like this guy did:



For the record, I support the use of nuclear weapons in 1945 in Japan, just pointing out everyones error.

There is no error. In war, you make sure more people on the enemies side die than yours. There is nothing morally wrong with it. As proven with Okinowa and other islands Americans took, the Japanese people were not going to surrender. They were going to fight to the death. Those that didn't fight killed their children and themselves instead of being caught. This was because the Japanese authorities told them that The Americans were going to tourture them and do all kinds of horrific things to them. When in fact it was the Japanese that committed the atrocities. But in todays revisionist history of hating America, they tell you outright lies and ommit complete portions of the war. Like the Japanese Rape of Nanking. The Baton Death March.

The amount of damage done by the two atomic bombs dropped was less than the firebombings of Tokyo, and don't forget the mass bombing raids on Germany too.

 

[Kev]

I still don't buy this:



How do we know? Can someone point me to something besides wikipedia? Something where real science was used to provide proof that a country would act a certain way when we did something that had never been done before? I'm willing to learn. I just don't see how this conclusion is drawn from the evidence.

It's pretty fucking simple. Just look at the death tolls/casualty numbers from any of the battles on the small islands. Now extrapolate that to the entire island and population of Japan. Even if the actual numbers are a fraction of that extrapolation, the atomic bombs still caused less damage.

The Japanese were going to dig in deep, not just their military but their citizens as well. And the war likely would have gone on for years. Think Iraq to the 10th power.

 

[sdifox]

This helps put it in perspective:


Way more would have died during an invasion. Not only that, I don't think we would have the same relation we have with Japan now if we were forced to invade and kill millions before they surrendered. It would have affected both countries' psych.

Also take a look at civilian casualties of countries that were invaded (France, China, Russia and Germany). Kind of surprised by the 1.5-2.5 million dead in India, didn't know of any fighting going on there. Britain vs Japan?

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

 

[crashtestdummy]

Ok, thank you, that's what I was looking for with this thread. Other examples of heinous use of WMD. So I guess the USA gets credit for #1 and #2 so far. Any more?

Well, if you want to talk about killing of civilians, the Nazis killed at least 11 million civilians in a systematic manner. The Japanese killed 7.5 million Chinese civilians, including over two hundred thousand in one incident (including tens of thousands of women raped). Now, I'm sure you're going to claim that this wasn't as bad because they didn't use WMD, but killing is killing.

Let me just say that killing is horrible, dropping the atomic bombs is horrible and, most of all, war is horrible. I think the thing people forget when they hear the admittedly horrific death toll of the atomic bombings was just how unbelievable awful this war was. 60 million people died, 40 million of them civilians (more than 90% of those allied, mind you). One out of every 4 Russian citizens died or was wounded during the war. It may seem crass and callous, but if you told someone at any point in the war that you could sacrifice 200,000 to ensure an ending to everything, most would take it.

 

[mugs]

There is no reason we would have needed to invade Japan. That's just a BS excuse that most of the sheep in this country will accept, because it makes us feel better. Nothing much has changed... we are still accepting the BS that our government feeds us as excuses for things like invading Iraq and meddling in Libya.

I'm going to humor you, because this is kind of amusing.

Is it your position that we should have accepted a conditional surrender from one of the two main aggressors in the most devastating war in the history of the world? A war that caused the deaths of more than 70 million people?

Or is it your position that we could have forced an unconditional surrender through some means other than invading Japan or dropping the atomic bombs?

 

[BoomerD]

There is no error. In war, you make sure more people on the enemies side die than yours. There is nothing morally wrong with it. As proven with Okinowa and other islands Americans took, the Japanese people were not going to surrender. They were going to fight to the death. Those that didn't fight killed their children and themselves instead of being caught. This was because the Japanese authorities told them that The Americans were going to tourture them and do all kinds of horrific things to them. When in fact it was the Japanese that committed the atrocities. But in todays revisionist history of hating America, they tell you outright lies and ommit complete portions of the war. Like the Japanese Rape of Nanking. The Baton Death March.

The amount of damage done by the two atomic bombs dropped was less than the firebombings of Tokyo, and don't forget the mass bombing raids on Germany too.

I agree...the Baton Death March was terrible...

But when compared to the Bataan Death March...it was just a walk in the park...

Perhaps NOT for the squeamish
http://www.bataansurvivor.com/pics/big/beheading.jpg

 

[dougp]

Well, if you want to talk about killing of civilians, the Nazis killed at least 11 million civilians in a systematic manner. The Japanese killed 7.5 million Chinese civilians, including over two hundred thousand in one incident (including tens of thousands of women raped). Now, I'm sure you're going to claim that this wasn't as bad because they didn't use WMD, but killing is killing.

Let me just say that killing is horrible, dropping the atomic bombs is horrible and, most of all, war is horrible. I think the thing people forget when they hear the admittedly horrific death toll of the atomic bombings was just how unbelievable awful this war was. 60 million people died, 40 million of them civilians (more than 90% of those allied, mind you). One out of every 4 Russian citizens died or was wounded during the war. It may seem crass and callous, but if you told someone at any point in the war that you could sacrifice 200,000 to ensure an ending to everything, most would take it.

Both the Extermination Camps setup by the Germans and the Japanese Death Squads used gas to kill millions of people. These were gases being tested for effectiveness as WMDs. I think they'd take #1 and 2.

 

[OCGuy]

Well, if you want to talk about killing of civilians, the Nazis killed at least 11 million civilians in a systematic manner. The Japanese killed 7.5 million Chinese civilians, including over two hundred thousand in one incident (including tens of thousands of women raped). Now, I'm sure you're going to claim that this wasn't as bad because they didn't use WMD, but killing is killing.

Let me just say that killing is horrible, dropping the atomic bombs is horrible and, most of all, war is horrible. I think the thing people forget when they hear the admittedly horrific death toll of the atomic bombings was just how unbelievable awful this war was. 60 million people died, 40 million of them civilians (more than 90% of those allied, mind you). One out of every 4 Russian citizens died or was wounded during the war. It may seem crass and callous, but if you told someone at any point in the war that you could sacrifice 200,000 to ensure an ending to everything, most would take it.

All American CIA lies! USA IS TEH DEVIL!

 

[bfdd]

machine guns were worse. nothing has spilled the blood of more men.

 

[Homerboy]

machine guns were worse. nothing has spilled the blood of more men.

Over the course of time? I'm going to go with arrows.

 

[bfdd]

Over the course of time? I'm going to go with arrows.

possibly arrows, but I'm pretty sure machine guns are the most destructive weapon we've ever used in war in terms of loss of life.

 

[ussfletcher]

Rebbecca Black- Friday

 

[sdifox]

Water was a WMD. Moses drowned a lot of Egyptians.

 

[crownjules]

In 1346, Tartar forces (subjugated Mongol force) sieged a city in modern day Ukraine. During the siege, the attackers lobbed the bodies of dead Mongol soldiers over the walls to spread disease and infection. The bubonic plague is native to the Mongol homelands but not Europe. It's speculated that this introduced the Black Death to Europe, and we all know what happened with that.

Throughout the course of the Black Death, it was a common tactic for attacking armies to catapult the bodies of plague victims into the cities they were sieging.

 

[Evadman]

Over the course of time? I'm going to go with arrows.

I don't think arrows are even close when counting all of recorded/unrecorded history. I would bet roughly 3-5% of humans that ever lived are alive right now. Arrow deaths would be a minor blip in the history of death.

 

[bobdole369]

As proven with Okinowa and other islands Americans took, the Japanese people were not going to surrender. They were going to fight to the death. Those that didn't fight killed their children and themselves instead of being caught. This was because the Japanese authorities told them that The Americans were going to tourture them and do all kinds of horrific things to them. When in fact it was the Japanese that committed the atrocities. But in todays revisionist history of hating America, they tell you outright lies and ommit complete portions of the war. Like the Japanese Rape of Nanking. The Baton Death March.

This is the problem right here.

What soldiers did at Okinawa does not indicate what other soldiers and civilians will do at Tokyo or Kyoto. You are VERY VERY close with this:

This was because the Japanese authorities told them that The Americans were going to tourture them and do all kinds of horrific things to them.

But then you lost it by going off-topic and appearing to be a crazy person:

When in fact it was the Japanese that committed the atrocities. But in todays revisionist history of hating America, they tell you outright lies and ommit complete portions of the war. Like the Japanese Rape of Nanking. The Baton Death March.

Attempting to downplay the damage done is another attempt at deflection that has failed.

The amount of damage done by the two atomic bombs dropped was less than the firebombings of Tokyo, and don't forget the mass bombing raids on Germany too.

It's pretty fucking simple. Just look at the death tolls/casualty numbers from any of the battles on the small islands. Now extrapolate that to the entire island and population of Japan.

The above doesn't prove anything. You don't know that what happened on some island will happen everywhere. And the rates of which that sort of thing did happen are sure to be all over the place. There are a few bloody ass battles yes, (Peleliu, okinawa, etc) but I bet there are just as many quick in and outs where it wasn't a meat grinder.

Even if the actual numbers are a fraction of that extrapolation, the atomic bombs still caused less damage.

The extrapolation is not something that can be considered fact. And see again that this is an attempt to downplay the destructiveness of the ultimate weapon of mass destruction.

But honestly though - I'm doing a bit of quick research and I'm NOT finding any battles where it was over quick and they didn't dig in and fight to the last man. Wow - they almost all had to get killed at Tarawa for example. Now it could be propaganda, no reporting on the non-bloody battles or whatever, but I'm almost ready to concede based not on your arguments, but on my own research.

 

[shiner]

No, that is not super-liberal. Nothing to do with liberalism what he is spewing.

Not directly, but I understand what he is talking about. Ran into myself in college as a history major. Occasionally you would run into one of those ultra left prof's who used his/her class to bash the United States and point to it as the source of all evil throughout history. Ignoring the facts and just preaching their anti us crap. They hated it when the class would start questioning their bullshit.

Of course there are right wing nutjob profs who do the same thing, I just don't think there are as many of them. I do remember one that taught a poli sci class on the American Presidents. Dropped that one to after he and I got into a screaming match one day and we ended up throwing stuff at each other in class.

I had to withdraw from several classes due to clashes with profs who let their ideology dictate how they skewed the facts and taught their classes. Can't stand that shit, just teach the facts and don't bullshit it up with your beliefs.

 

[bobdole369]

Hmmm - God. Use God as the justification for your wars and look at the sheer numbers. Now thats just war in general and not WMD, but imagine if you consider God as the WMD.