Racism in Hiroshima memorial thread

[BaliBabyDoc]

Not trying to start trouble . . . well at least not as much as usual . . . but I thought the posts were rather reasonable. A little Japan bashing but you can't talk about relevant events from the 1940s without it. My point in quoting Truman verbatim is to demonstrate his lack of regard for Japanese civilians (and of course the military's job is to kill the enemy). His words and deeds along with Groves and the Oppenheimer gang as recorded in our archives imparts an ominous tenor to American motives in the use of nuclear weapons.

If the thread had been more general . . . say bombing of civilians well damn then Germans, English, Japanese, Russians, Americans, and Italians were equal opportunity offenders. One of the primary goals of our campaign was to terrorize the civilian population. Truman has plausible deniability. Groves is a war criminal and so is Oppy. Great patriots but evil acts consistent wtih Nazi Final Solution from US/British records, Nanjing, Comfort Women, and vivisection.

It is sad that man is not intelligent enough to solve problems without killing . . . The present world crisis can be solved only by a general human revolution against outdated concepts . . . Man is not a blood-thirsty animal, and war is only due to the greed and lust for power of relatively small groups, the conspiracy of the few against the many. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (1893-1986)

 

[pyonir]

for f--ks sake...

 

[UltraQuiet]

Groves is a war criminal and so is Oppy. Great patriots but evil acts consistent wtih Nazi Final Solution from US/British records, Nanjing, Comfort Women, and vivisection.

War criminals? Hardly. Especially when you make the comparisons that you did. They weren't trying to exterminate an entire race(s) of people, they were trying to stop a war. You may not agree with their methods and everyone wishes there had been a suitable alternative but calling them war criminals is a bit of a stretch. Also remember that when it becomes necessary to kill your enemy it also becomes necessary to dehumanize him in any way possible. Without that, unless you are insane, the killing becomes impossible. This may explain the attitude and language found in many of the related documents. JMO

Dave

 

[Dudd]

-Deleted-

 

[pyonir]

fixed. n/m

 

there has to be a new mod, cause that debate was awesome and it was still locked.

 

[pulse8]

Originally posted by: Dudd
Hehe, I'm in before the lock. Somehow I think that the mods arn't down with this subject.

They aren't down with 'in before the lock' posts either, numbnuts. 🙂

 

[AnthraX101]

This from a man named "BabyDoc"?

Armani

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

Good lord.

The reason that we attacked Nagasaki and Hiroshima was because they were the heart of the Japanese industrial complex - the heart and sould of the Japanese war machine. We were not aiming for civilians.

Your view is historically incorrect. In short, you are an idiot and should avoid showcasing your ignorance.

 

[NikPreviousAcct]

Originally posted by: pyonir
for f--ks sake...

I totally agree. I don't think the other thread was locked for a good reason, but it's not my place to push that. And starting this thread is like the guy has something to prove or is just ... well, "looking to start trouble"

sorry, BaliBabyDoc, but ya are.

nik

 

[Linflas]

Originally posted by: BaliBabyDoc
Not trying to start trouble . . . well at least not as much as usual . . . but I thought the posts were rather reasonable. A little Japan bashing but you can't talk about relevant events from the 1940s without it. My point in quoting Truman verbatim is to demonstrate his lack of regard for Japanese civilians (and of course the military's job is to kill the enemy). His words and deeds along with Groves and the Oppenheimer gang as recorded in our archives imparts an ominous tenor to American motives in the use of nuclear weapons.

If the thread had been more general . . . say bombing of civilians well damn then Germans, English, Japanese, Russians, Americans, and Italians were equal opportunity offenders. One of the primary goals of our campaign was to terrorize the civilian population. Truman has plausible deniability. Groves is a war criminal and so is Oppy. Great patriots but evil acts consistent wtih Nazi Final Solution from US/British records, Nanjing, Comfort Women, and vivisection.

It is sad that man is not intelligent enough to solve problems without killing . . . The present world crisis can be solved only by a general human revolution against outdated concepts . . . Man is not a blood-thirsty animal, and war is only due to the greed and lust for power of relatively small groups, the conspiracy of the few against the many. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (1893-1986)

After reading this post and your posts in the previous thread the quote below from the doctor played by Alec Baldwin in "Malice" comes to mind.

I have an M.D. from Harvard, I am board certified in cardio-thoracic medicine and trauma surgery, I have been awarded citations from seven different medical boards in New England, and I am never, ever sick at sea. So I ask you; when someone goes into that chapel and they fall on their knees and they pray to God that their wife doesn't miscarry or that their daughter doesn't bleed to death or that their mother doesn't suffer acute neural trama from postoperative shock, who do you think they're praying to? Now, go ahead and read your Bible, _Dennis_, and you go to your church, and, with any luck, you might win the annual raffle, but if you're looking for God, he was in operating room number two on November 17, and he doesn't like to be second guessed. You ask me if I have a God complex. Let me tell you something: I am God.

 

[ElFenix]

any bomb has a chance of taking out civilians. when you're bombing an industrial center with dumb bombs its going to happen. the fact that the bomb used was very high yield is going to increase the casualty count. strategic bombing, that is bombing to take out the enemy's resources, was very common in WWII and was vital to breaking the military's ability to fight.

of course then you have to wonder, what exactly is a civilian in a militarized society where ever the youngest were being taught to fight with spears against a potential invasion.

 

[UltraQuiet]

Originally posted by: DevilsAdvocate
Good lord.

The reason that we attacked Nagasaki and Hiroshima was because they were the heart of the Japanese industrial complex - the heart and sould of the Japanese war machine. We were not aiming for civilians.

Your view is historically incorrect. In short, you are an idiot and should avoid showcasing your ignorance.

BBD is hardly ignorant. You may not agree with what he says (I often don't) but he is hardly an idiot. As far as target selection is concerned, read this
Targets. There are some very disturbing things in there.

 

[Linflas]

Originally posted by: DaveSohmer

Originally posted by: DevilsAdvocate
Good lord.

The reason that we attacked Nagasaki and Hiroshima was because they were the heart of the Japanese industrial complex - the heart and sould of the Japanese war machine. We were not aiming for civilians.

Your view is historically incorrect. In short, you are an idiot and should avoid showcasing your ignorance.

BBD is hardly ignorant. You may not agree with what he says (I often don't) but he is hardly an idiot. As far as target selection is concerned, read this
Targets. There are some very disturbing things in there.

Dave you of all people should know that the dry language used in military documents like the one you linked above never read well from a humanitarian view. That document does not convey in any way the feelings and emotions of the people behind the operation. It is much the same when you read the old threat assesment documents from the cold war. It is as if the authors are totally detached from the horrors they are describing in them.

 

[Nemesis77]

Link

 

[308nato]

I would like to invite you to restate your post verbatim at the next American Legion meeting here. We will be glad to pay your way. I am going to sit you down with some old war criminals who were there to teach you a little about history.

 

[UltraQuiet]

Originally posted by: Linflas

Originally posted by: DaveSohmer

Originally posted by: DevilsAdvocate
Good lord.

The reason that we attacked Nagasaki and Hiroshima was because they were the heart of the Japanese industrial complex - the heart and sould of the Japanese war machine. We were not aiming for civilians.

Your view is historically incorrect. In short, you are an idiot and should avoid showcasing your ignorance.

BBD is hardly ignorant. You may not agree with what he says (I often don't) but he is hardly an idiot. As far as target selection is concerned, read this
Targets. There are some very disturbing things in there.

Dave you of all people should know that the dry language used in military documents like the one you linked above never read well from a humanitarian view. That document does not convey in any way the feelings and emotions of the people behind the operation. It is much the same when you read the old threat assesment documents from the cold war. It is as if the authors are totally detached from the horrors they are describing in them.

Agreed. I addressed this very detachment and dehumanization in my first thread. Sift through some of this Atom Bomb. Some good reading. Just for the record, I still think that dropping the bombs was the only way to end the war without a lot more casualties on both sides. We are, however, discussing it and there are other issues.

Dave

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

Actually Dave, I'm going to have to stick behind my original statement.

BBD stated "One of the primary goals of our campaign was to terrorize the civilian population." - This is simply a gross misstatement of history. The Japanese culture was highly militarized. Every citizen was a cog in the military machinery. Children were trained to attack with spears, as human bombs - whatever was required to protect the island from invasion and occupation.

The Japanese were not civilians. They were hostiles. But that is only one reason why his view was incorrect.

Truman rejected attacks on more populous areas - like Tokyo and Kyoto - where the civilian body count would have been much higher. If body count was the goal, why were these left standing? Easy.

The military objective was clear... to destroy the ability of the Japanese to make war. This could be readily accomplished by decimating the military industrial complex in Japan. Destroy the factories and the Japanese will have no means of carrying on a war.

The civilians were not the target. At most, they are a collateral loss.

BBD's is an incorrect view of history. It is a sweeping statement that is incorrect, and I feel the need to correct his misapprehension and any subsequent revision of history.

 

[UltraQuiet]

Originally posted by: DevilsAdvocate
Actually Dave, I'm going to have to stick behind my original statement.

BBD stated "One of the primary goals of our campaign was to terrorize the civilian population." - This is simply a gross misstatement of history. The Japanese culture was highly militarized. Every citizen was a cog in the military machinery. Children were trained to attack with spears, as human bombs - whatever was required to protect the island from invasion and occupation.

The Japanese were not civilians. They were hostiles. But that is only one reason why his view was incorrect.

Truman rejected attacks on more populous areas - like Tokyo and Kyoto - where the civilian body count would have been much higher. If body count was the goal, why were these left standing? Easy.

The military objective was clear... to destroy the ability of the Japanese to make war. This could be readily accomplished by decimating the military industrial complex in Japan. Destroy the factories and the Japanese will have no means of carrying on a war.

The civilians were not the target. At most, they are a collateral loss.

BBD's is an incorrect view of history. It is a sweeping statement that is incorrect, and I feel the need to correct his misapprehension and any subsequent revision of history.

I will agree it was not a primary goal but it is apparent, IMO, that it was a consideration.

 

[Tiger]

One of the primary goals of our campaign was to terrorize the civilian population. Truman has plausible deniability. Groves is a war criminal and so is Oppy. Great patriots but evil acts consistent wtih Nazi Final Solution from US/British records, Nanjing, Comfort Women, and vivisection.

More pinko revisionist history.:disgust:
If we had wanted to inflict maximum civilian casualties we'd have nuked Tokyo right off the bat and kept coming back.
The state of higher education in this country has gone right in the toilet.

 

[jjones]

On March 9, 1945 Bomber Command attacked Tokyo with 325 aircraft armed exclusively with incendiaries, flying at low altitude under the cover of darkness. In a few minutes of bombing the city centre took fire and by morning 16 square miles had been consumed; 267,000 buildings had burnt to the ground, and the temperature in the heart of the firestorm caused the water to boil in the city's canals. The casuality list is recorded at 89,000 dead, half as large again as the number of injured survivors treated in the cities hospitals. Losses to the bombers were below 2 percent and were to decline as the campaign gathered momentum. By mid-June, Japan's five other largest industrial cities were devastated- Nagoya, Kobe, Osaka, Yokohama, and Kawasaki. 260,000 people had been killed, 2 million buildings had been destroyed and between 9 and 13 million people made homeless. The destruction continued and there was virtually no loss to the American bomber crews. By July, 60 percent of the ground area of the country's 60 larger cities and towns had been burnt. Now I ask, What was worse?

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: ffmcobalt

Originally posted by: pyonir
for f--ks sake...

I totally agree. I don't think the other thread was locked for a good reason,

I disagree with the mod's action. I saw no racism in that thread. For once we had a serious debate with no damn neffing, and it gets shut down.

It's becoming readily apparent that only non-serious fluff can be posted, but gawd help you if you seriously nef.

I posted about this in Forum Issues and asked where the "racism" was. Not surprisingly, there is no answer.

Have we become so PC in this country that it is "racism" to debate the culture, military and mindset of 1945 Japan? Are we scared of the truth?

 

[yllus]

Originally posted by: BaliBabyDoc
Not trying to start trouble . . . well at least not as much as usual . . . but I thought the posts were rather reasonable.

I'm not sure where that lock came from either, that was an entirely acceptable thread.

Groves is a war criminal and so is Oppy. Great patriots but evil acts consistent wtih Nazi Final Solution from US/British records, Nanjing, Comfort Women, and vivisection.

Well, perhaps. Ok, time to say something pretty un-PC.

If World War III was ever to come to be, wouldn't you want some war criminals of the type above to be on your side? I'd rest much easier as a civilian knowing that our general's hands were free to do whatever was necessary to make sure that at the end of the day we were the ones left standing. Decapitate the enemies' children's heads and let our soldiers use them as masks, I don't care. If the only way to take our an aggressors' tanks is to unleash killer endangered panda bears on them well then strike one more species off the list.

When it comes down to a question of your very survival, forget the niceties and remember what the real world looked like. Your compassion is commendable, though - just try to intermix a dose of said reality into it where you can.

 

[NikPreviousAcct]

Originally posted by: AmusedOne

Originally posted by: ffmcobalt

Originally posted by: pyonir
for f--ks sake...

I totally agree. I don't think the other thread was locked for a good reason,

I disagree with the mod's action. I saw no racism in that thread. For once we had a serious debate with no damn neffing, and it gets shut down.

It's becoming readily apparent that only non-serious fluff can be posted, but gawd help you if you seriously nef.

I posted about this in Forum Issues and asked where the "racism" was. Not surprisingly, there is no answer.

Have we become so PC in this country that it is "racism" to debate the culture, military and mindset of 1945 Japan? Are we scared of the truth?

Like I said, I didn't think the reasoning was acceptable, but since you and I both don't have any say, we simply have to live with reason in our own minds. 🙂

nik

 

[UltraQuiet]

Could we not turn this thread into bitch session about the mods. I'd like to keep this one open.