Most heinous use of WMD in history

[M0RPH]

I think it's sickening the way so many of you are trying to justify this abominal use of nuclear weapons on civilian populations, indiscriminately killing women and children. There should NEVER be any justification for the use of nuclear weapons on civilian populations. I suppose you will support the use of nuclear warfare this same way in the future in order to put a quick end to wars? That's just the type of attitude that will lead to the nuclear destruction of all of us.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised by the mindset here. It's typical American arrogance and ignorance, fed by the notion that American lives are worth more than the lives of non-Americans.

 

[sdifox]

I think it's sickening the way so many of you are trying to justify this abominal use of nuclear weapons on civilian populations, indiscriminately killing women and children. There should NEVER be any justification for the use of nuclear weapons on civilian populations. I suppose you will support the use of nuclear warfare this same way in the future in order to put a quick end to wars? That's just the type of attitude that will lead to the nuclear destruction of all of us.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised by the mindset here. It's typical American arrogance and ignorance, fed by the notion that American lives are worth more than the lives of non-Americans.

Cry me a river. Again, you are a few decades late for your "outrage"
Would you prefer Siege of Leningrad on all of Japan?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_leningrad

<== not American, most definitely not right wing.

Your problem is you have a very narrow view of the events/psyche involved.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were clearly military targets. Too bad civilians lived there. Would you have preferred the USA expanded on the fire boming tactic? That surely is less horrible than Nukes .

"In its attacks on Japan the USAAF abandoned its policy of precision bombing, and used a mix of incendiaries and high explosives to burn Japanese cities to the ground. These tactics were used to devastating effect with many urban areas burned out. The first raid using low-flying B-29 Superfortress bombers carrying incendiary bombs to drop on Tokyo was on the night of 24/25 February 1945 when 174 B-29s destroyed around fifty square mile (150 km&#178 of the city. Changing their tactics to expand the coverage and increase the damage, 279 B-29s raided on the night of 9/10 March, dropping around 1,700 tons of bombs. Approximately 16 square miles (41 km&#178 of the city were destroyed and some 100,000 people are estimated to have died in the resulting firestorm, more than the immediate deaths of either the Hiroshima or Nagasaki, Japan atomic bombings.[7]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tokyo_kushu_1945-3.jpg


BTW, when you are in a WAR, it is considered a good thing when you can take out your enemy without losing your own people.


GROW UP.

 

[FallenHero]

I think it's sickening the way so many of you are trying to justify this abominal use of nuclear weapons on civilian populations, indiscriminately killing women and children. There should NEVER be any justification for the use of nuclear weapons on civilian populations. I suppose you will support the use of nuclear warfare this same way in the future in order to put a quick end to wars? That's just the type of attitude that will lead to the nuclear destruction of all of us.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised by the mindset here. It's typical American arrogance and ignorance, fed by the notion that American lives are worth more than the lives of non-Americans.

Because Chinese don't think that Chinese lives are worth more then others that are not Chinese, or that a Saudi doesn't think his life is worth more then a non-Saudi.

You can't be that dense, can you?

 

[MikeyLSU]

sorry, but sometimes, the cost of innocent is worth putting the end to a war. It is very unfortunate, but lets not forget Japan had ample time to surrender and refused.

Invading the mainland was a suicide mission that would have killed millions.

Lets also not forget that Japan attacked the US without any declaration of war. Those lives were just as innocent.

 

[M0RPH]

"In its attacks on Japan the USAAF abandoned its policy of precision bombing, and used a mix of incendiaries and high explosives to burn Japanese cities to the ground. These tactics were used to devastating effect with many urban areas burned out. The first raid using low-flying B-29 Superfortress bombers carrying incendiary bombs to drop on Tokyo was on the night of 24/25 February 1945 when 174 B-29s destroyed around fifty square mile (150 km&#178 of the city. Changing their tactics to expand the coverage and increase the damage, 279 B-29s raided on the night of 9/10 March, dropping around 1,700 tons of bombs. Approximately 16 square miles (41 km&#178 of the city were destroyed and some 100,000 people are estimated to have died in the resulting firestorm, more than the immediate deaths of either the Hiroshima or Nagasaki, Japan atomic bombings.[7]"

You help to prove my point. The Japanese were already on the verge of surrender due to all this conventional bombing (which was also pretty heinous, btw). Most historians agree that the nuclear bombing was not necessary to bring a Japanese surrender, even without any mainland invasion. I could give you a million links, but I'll just quote one of the first ones I found:

A Beaten Country

Apart from the moral questions involved, were the atomic bombings militarily necessary? By any rational yardstick, they were not. Japan already had been defeated militarily by June 1945. Almost nothing was left of the once mighty Imperial Navy, and Japan's air force had been all but totally destroyed. Against only token opposition, American war planes ranged at will over the country, and US bombers rained down devastation on her cities, steadily reducing them to rubble.
What was left of Japan's factories and workshops struggled fitfully to turn out weapons and other goods from inadequate raw materials. (Oil supplies had not been available since April.) By July about a quarter of all the houses in Japan had been destroyed, and her transportation system was near collapse. Food had become so scarce that most Japanese were subsisting on a sub-starvation diet.
On the night of March 9-10, 1945, a wave of 300 American bombers struck Tokyo, killing 100,000 people. Dropping nearly 1,700 tons of bombs, the war planes ravaged much of the capital city, completely burning out 16 square miles and destroying a quarter of a million structures. A million residents were left homeless.
On May 23, eleven weeks later, came the greatest air raid of the Pacific War, when 520 giant B-29 "Superfortress" bombers unleashed 4,500 tons of incendiary bombs on the heart of the already battered Japanese capital. Generating gale-force winds, the exploding incendiaries obliterated Tokyo's commercial center and railway yards, and consumed the Ginza entertainment district. Two days later, on May 25, a second strike of 502 "Superfortress" planes roared low over Tokyo, raining down some 4,000 tons of explosives. Together these two B-29 raids destroyed 56 square miles of the Japanese capital.
Even before the Hiroshima attack, American air force General Curtis LeMay boasted that American bombers were "driving them [Japanese] back to the stone age." Henry H. ("Hap") Arnold, commanding General of the Army air forces, declared in his 1949 memoirs: "It always appeared to us, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse." This was confirmed by former Japanese prime minister Fumimaro Konoye, who said: "Fundamentally, the thing that brought about the determination to make peace was the prolonged bombing by the B-29s."

http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n3p-4_Weber.html


What's really sickening to me is that I believe a significant part of the reason we dropped those nukes is just because our government/military had some shiny new toys that they wanted to play with

 

[sdifox]

You help to prove my point. The Japanese were already on the verge of surrender due to all this conventional bombing (which was also pretty heinous, btw). Most historians agree that the nuclear bombing was not necessary to bring a Japanese surrender, even without any mainland invasion. I could give you a million links, but I'll just quote one of the first ones I found:

http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n3p-4_Weber.html


What's really sickening to me is that I believe a significant part of the reason we dropped those nukes is just because our government/military had some shiny new toys that they wanted to play with

You are still not getting it. Do you understand that Japan was not ready to surrender although they knew they were beaten?

The people were being told to sharpen bamboo sticks to use as weapon...
The military was running the government and not the other way around. Many people that objected to this were killed.

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


Firebombing supposedly killed as many as 500,000.

http://www.worldwar2database.com/html/japanbom.htm

 

[JTsyo]

I think it's sickening the way so many of you are trying to justify this abominal use of nuclear weapons on civilian populations, indiscriminately killing women and children. There should NEVER be any justification for the use of nuclear weapons on civilian populations. I suppose you will support the use of nuclear warfare this same way in the future in order to put a quick end to wars? That's just the type of attitude that will lead to the nuclear destruction of all of us.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised by the mindset here. It's typical American arrogance and ignorance, fed by the notion that American lives are worth more than the lives of non-Americans.

Japan wasn't going to surrender without an invasion. Even after the first bomb the government still wasn't considering unconditional surrender.

The cabinet meeting over the night of 9-10 August was deadlocked with six in favor of surrender under certain conditions, three to fight on until after the final battle had shown Japan's will, and with five neutral members. Issues discussed that night were: that the Emperor must remain; that Japan must disarm her own troops and not surrender arms to a foreign power; and that Japan must try her own war criminals. Word came during the meeting that a second city had been destroyed by atomic attack. The meeting was moved to an audience with the Emperor who listened to the arguments on both sides and concluded that the time had come to "bear the unbearable". The Emperor had no direct authority other than the loyalty of those who would listen to him. A diplomatic message was drafted to the Allies describing Japan's conditions of accepting the Potsdam proclamation.

 

[Vette73]

nanking

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

:thumbsdown:

 

[erikistired]

I think it's sickening the way so many of you are trying to justify this abominal use of nuclear weapons on civilian populations, indiscriminately killing women and children. There should NEVER be any justification for the use of nuclear weapons on civilian populations. I suppose you will support the use of nuclear warfare this same way in the future in order to put a quick end to wars? That's just the type of attitude that will lead to the nuclear destruction of all of us.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised by the mindset here. It's typical American arrogance and ignorance, fed by the notion that American lives are worth more than the lives of non-Americans.

here is a picture that goes along with your thinking.

 

[blackdogdeek]

everyone should read this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Unbroken-World...1587068&amp;sr=8-1

 

[AreaCode707]

Over 110 million land-mines of various types &#8212; plus millions more unexploded bombs, shells and grenades &#8212; remain hidden around the world, waiting to be triggered by the innocent and unsuspecting

REMAIN. As in, 110 million deaths waiting to happen, not even counting those already dead.

Naturally curious, children are likely to pick up strange objects, such as the infamous toy-like 'butterfly' mines that Soviet forces spread by the millions in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan, Angola and Cambodia have suffered 85 per cent of the world's land-mine casualties. Overall, African children live on the most mine-plagued continent, with an estimated 37 million mines embedded in the soil of at least 19 countries. Angola alone has an estimated 10 million land-mines and an amputee population of 70,000, of whom 8,000 are children. Since May 1995 children have made up about half the victims of the 50,000-100,000 anti-personnel mines laid in Rwanda.

Once laid, a mine may remain active for up to 50 years. Unless vigorous action is taken, mines placed today will still be killing and maiming people well into the middle of the next century.

http://www.unicef.org/graca/mines.htm

 

[Lalakai]

not the earliest use of biological warfare, but perhaps the first time on American soil.

http://academic.udayton.edu/health/syllabi/bioterrorism/00intro02.htm

http://www.emedicinehealth.com/biological_warfare/article_em.htm

kind of surprising that we have survived this long. oh well.

 

[Brainonska511]

A great quote from Patton:
"I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor, dumb bastard die for his country."

As I said before - war is a shitty thing. People die. That's war. Don't like it? Don't start a fucking war.

 

[jonks]

troll thread is successful. failure to unconditionallly surrender even after the first bomb should end discussion. there was going to be a third (and more) but they finally surrendered.

 

[DCal430]

How is saving (preventing the deaths of) millions and millions and millions of lives heinous?

WMD isn't limited to nukes and WMDs have been used in wars, conflicts, battles, riots, coups, dictatorship terrorism, and tons of other situations not limited to the United States and infact grossly outnumber the number of times the US has ever used WMDs.

/sits back and presses the ON button for the remote controlled popcorn stand

Take a real history class. We dropped the bomb as a show of power. Japan already offered a surender before the bombs were dropped.

 

[sdifox]

Take a real history class. We dropped the bomb as a show of power. Japan already offered a surender before the bombs were dropped.

You went to the Japanese revisionist class didn't you?

 

[Fayd]

Because we already had word that the Japs would surrender. Truman was just pouring salt on open wounds.

no we didn't.

we got conflicting messages from japan, one saying surrender, the other saying fight to the death.

no idea which one to believe, we took out a couple things of vital military importance, and forced their hand.

 

[jonks]

Would you like to know more?

/starshiptroopers

 

[BoomerD]

Even if some factions of the Japanese government was in favor of surrender, we had already spent MILLIONS OF DOLLARS developing "The BOMB!"
You don't think we were going to just stick it in a warehouse somewhere...untested...did you?

Fuck no. We still wanted some payback for Pearl Harbor...

 

[DCal430]

no we didn't.

we got conflicting messages from japan, one saying surrender, the other saying fight to the death.

no idea which one to believe, we took out a couple things of vital military importance, and forced their hand.

That is just a fabrication. Japanese gave us a conditional surrender before we dropped the bombs, and we rejected it.

 

[sdifox]

That is just a fabrication. Japanese gave us a conditional surrender before we dropped the bombs, and we rejected it.

Care to list the conditions? They were told to surrender unconditionally or suffer the consequences.

They didn't buy it. Boom.

Took some time to talk about what to do next, still considering conditions

Boom.

Emperor steps in and says "WTF are you guys doing, surrender now!"

 

[frostedflakes]

You help to prove my point. The Japanese were already on the verge of surrender due to all this conventional bombing (which was also pretty heinous, btw). Most historians agree that the nuclear bombing was not necessary to bring a Japanese surrender, even without any mainland invasion. I could give you a million links, but I'll just quote one of the first ones I found:

http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n3p-4_Weber.html


What's really sickening to me is that I believe a significant part of the reason we dropped those nukes is just because our government/military had some shiny new toys that they wanted to play with

Historians have the advantage of hindsight. Was it so obvious to the US government at the time that the Japanese were going to surrender soon? This isn't a subject I've done a ton of reading on, but I'm going to assume the answer is no.

And considering the military leaders didn't surrender immediately after Hiroshima and the emperor had to step in after Nagasaki to put an end to the war, I question your claims about how close Japan really was to surrendering. If they planned to anyway, why not throw in the towel right after Hiroshima? They knew more cities would be bombed, why allow the continued death and suffering if they had no qualms about surrendering?

 

[DCal430]

Care to list the conditions? They were told to surrender unconditionally or suffer the consequences.

They didn't buy it. Boom.

Took some time to talk about what to do next, still considering conditions

Boom.

Emperor steps in and says "WTF are you guys doing, surrender now!"

I believe the conditions were to keep some of their military and have no harm done to the emperor.

 

[OCGuy]

I can't believe ATOT fell for this troll.

Wait, yes I can.

 

[KMFJD]

You went to the Japanese revisionist class didn't you?

He even got B+ in the class