 |
| |
|
|
Q Cubed
|
 |
t3h y3ll0w p3ril
Apr 1999
time: 23:33
|
|
quote:
They were not silent.
Also, a helluva lot of Allied POWs were delighted with the A-bomb. "Serve the buggers right" was the sentiment.
And before you diss that... try chaining yourself to a log in a tropical climate for 3 years, eat nothing but cockroaches, and whip yourself daily.
Oh, and watch your friends die of gangrene at the same time. |
cruddy wrote this in the other thread.
i can understand why he might feel that way. after all, if you look at the flag to the left of this post, you could say that my family knows firsthand some of the things that empire did.
nanjing was brutalized for four months. korea was brutalized for forty years.
my italian godfather was in the navy, about to be shipped off to fight in the pacific theatre. his first thought was that he could go home. personally, i'm glad he didn't have to fight.
so cruddy, please, don't presume to think that i'm unaware as to what the empire did to its conquered peoples.
that said, why do this incidents deserve a moment of silence?
plain and simple: even though japan committed a series of wrongs, having a city blinked out of existence does not somehow make anything better. it does not erase what happened prior, and its horror is not mitigated because of what preceded it.
was it, in a way, karmic? i think so. does that make the bombing any less terrible? no.
sure, bring up olympic. bring up the firebombings of tokyo and dresden. bring up bataan, the rape of nanking, the systematic pillaging and destruction of korea for profit. bring up the biological warfare used in manchuria. bring up anything you want, because it doesn't change the fact that in one blinding flash, thousands perished and we learned just how far we could pervert our science and our technology.
that's why it deserves a moment of silence.
besides, if you don't want to give hiroshima a moment of silence, then give nagasaki one three days from now. in hiroshima it hit japanese who weren't outcasts. in nagasaki, it affected mostly catholics japanese, who didn't exactly like the government policies because they were on the outside, and it hit the burakumin, who were treated like blacks were in the us.
hiroshima rages, nagasaki prays.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
MichaeltheGreat
|
|
Apolyton Grand Executioner
|
 |
mooning the house that Ruth built.
Oct 1999
time: 21:33
|
|
So?
Instead of 300 bombers dropping incendiaries for 4 hours and creating a firestorm that sucked the oxygen out of people's lungs 20 miles away, we had one bomb from one bomber. That's efficiency. Human beings have been searching for efficiency in warfare since the first Neanderthal. Better spears, bows, longbows, yadda yadda.
Why does getting killed by one method mean so much more than getting killed by another? For that matter, why is getting killed by a bomb worse than starving, or dying of pneumonia, TB, typhus, or any of a number of other diseases that were starting into outbreaks in Japan, due to poor health and housing conditions and shortages of basic medical care and treatment?
All war is immoral, and the a-bombs were instrumental in ending that war much faster than it would have otherwise.
Sorry to spoil most everybody's happy, first-world liberal angst, but if you have the choice between two nasty, evil decisions, opt for the one that gets the job finished first.
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
Q Cubed
|
|
t3h y3ll0w p3ril
Apr 1999
time: 23:33
|
|
you know, i don't have an argument for you, mtg. it's not first-world liberal angst here that makes me pause and want to give this a moment of silence. it's the fact that ever life is sacred, and when so many can be killed in an instant with a primitive device... it's shocking.
that's why i think it rates one. do nanking, korea, dresden, and tokyo deserve one? sure. but why are the twin bombings remembered and the others often only mentioned in conjunction with the atomics? because the atomics, like it or not, have become literally and figuratively, flash points. they're the things that everybody comes back and references. they're the ones that everyone links to. it's become the big thing that frames and shapes the argument.
===
we could argue all day as to whether the second bomb was necessary. i personally don't think it was, because it seemed to have missed anyone who actually mattered to the japanese (catholics and burakumin rated just a little higher than the koreans during that time). the second bomb is never the one that's remembered.
personally, i think the second one deserves a moment of silence more, simply because nobody gives it one.
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
chegitz guevara
|
 |
Ft. Lauderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Jun 2000
time: 00:33
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Sava
Stop ignoring the fact that an invasion of the home islands would have cost more lives on both sides. |
That ignores the fact that there was a small chance that Japan would have surrendered had the Allies dropped their demand for unconditional surrender. Yes, most likely, had the Japanese tried to surrender on the condition that Emporer not be touched, there would have been a coup. It wouldn't have cost any lives to try.
Second, at the time, the U.S. estimated the total dead from an invasion of the home islands to be 250,000 (1,000,000 casualties total), which is equivalent to the amount of people killed by the bombs. After the war, the number of casualties was taken for the number of dead.
Ultimately, it was probably the right decision, but don't act like it's not debatable.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
MichaeltheGreat
|
|
Apolyton Grand Executioner
|
|
mooning the house that Ruth built.
Oct 1999
time: 21:33
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Q Cubed
you know, i don't have an argument for you, mtg.
it's not first-world liberal angst here that makes me pause and want to give this a moment of silence. |
I wasn't referring to you, but some others.
quote:
it's the fact that ever life is sacred, and when so many can be killed in an instant with a primitive device... it's shocking.
|
I've never quite understood how people react so strongly to a single catastrophic event, instead of the larger events spread over time. Many wars left huge famines and epidemics in their wake, such that the dying didn't stop with the war.
To me, it's not one particular incident or another, but the totality of it - tens of millions dead in a few short years, not 80,000 in one day.
quote:
because the atomics, like it or not, have become literally and figuratively, flash points. they're the things that everybody comes back and references. they're the ones that everyone links to. it's become the big thing that frames and shapes the argument.
|
I think the existence and demonstration of the bomb was unfortunately essential - who would have thought after the carnage of WW1 that barely 20 years later, we'd have had WW2? With even more carnage. After the previous centuries' history with warfare, colonialism, imperialism, etc., what would stop or slow down the human species' fetish for destruction? The only thing I can think of, given the history, is that technology ratcheted up the efficiency of carnage to a point that we all had to give it a second thought. Since that day, we haven't seen anything of the likes of Imperial Japan or Nazi germany anywhere in the world.
quote:
we could argue all day as to whether the second bomb was necessary. i personally don't think it was, because it seemed to have missed anyone who actually mattered to the japanese (catholics and burakumin rated just a little higher than the koreans during that time). the second bomb is never the one that's remembered.
personally, i think the second one deserves a moment of silence more, simply because nobody gives it one. |
I don't think it was necessary at that time (August 9), but LeMay was never given to patience, and it was unfortunate that he had the discretion as to when the bomb was to be used. The Japanese leadership had communications and logistics problems, and they were hard-pressed to believe initial reports about the Hiroshima bombing. Maybe a few more days would have made the second bomb unnecessary. We'll never know.
When I lived in Nagasaki, I had a view out my bedroom window towards ground zero, so it's something that was constantly in the back of my mind.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
lightblue
|
|
L'Boro, UK
Oct 2001
time: 05:33
|
|
I think that the use of the bombs in 1945 precluded their use at any point during the Cold War. Because the effect on population centres had been seen the whole MAD situation arose.
That doesn't mean that the bombings shouldn't be remembered, in fact it is all the more reason to remember them, if not for the victims, then for the realisation that unchecked aggression by humans will one day lead to total destruction. As long as we keep the horrors of Dresden, Warsaw, Leningrad, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Tokyo, Auschwitz etc etc in mind it shouldn't happen again.
And humankind as a whole has a duty to ensure it does not happen again, and has failed this duty on a number of occasions already (Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia to name but a few).
|
|
| |
|
|
|
MichaeltheGreat
|
|
Apolyton Grand Executioner
|
|
mooning the house that Ruth built.
Oct 1999
time: 21:33
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by chegitz guevara
That ignores the fact that there was a small chance that Japan would have surrendered had the Allies dropped their demand for unconditional surrender. Yes, most likely, had the Japanese tried to surrender on the condition that Emporer not be touched, there would have been a coup. It wouldn't have cost any lives to try.
|
The US had no reliable information at that time that this was a possibility, and even so, it was an extremely remote possibility, given that the proponents for surrender were outnumbered numerically and in terms of their importance in the government.
It always costs lives - Japanese civilians were dying every day, especially the very young and very old, due to the hardships the government imposed on the war economy.
quote:
Second, at the time, the U.S. estimated the total dead from an invasion of the home islands to be 250,000 (1,000,000 casualties total), which is equivalent to the amount of people killed by the bombs. After the war, the number of casualties was taken for the number of dead.
|
That was the estimate of the number of US casualties, based on the escalating resistance as the US approached the mainland. The US had very poor information by which to estimate Japanese casualties, and in particular, the Japanese will to resist. It is highly likely that at least that many Japanese would have died in the winter lull in 1945-1946 before an invasion would even begin, due to famine, water quality, epidemics and shortage of medicines for otherwise treatable diseases.
quote:
Ultimately, it was probably the right decision, but don't act like it's not debatable. |
It really isn't realistically debatable, if you frame it in terms of what was known to the decisionmakers at the time.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Q Cubed
|
|
t3h y3ll0w p3ril
Apr 1999
time: 23:33
|
|
quote:
I've never quite understood how people react so strongly to a single catastrophic event, instead of the larger events spread over time. Many wars left huge famines and epidemics in their wake, such that the dying didn't stop with the war.
To me, it's not one particular incident or another, but the totality of it - tens of millions dead in a few short years, not 80,000 in one day |
i don't disagree. it's just that it's harder to encapsulate bigger events, i.e., nanking, holocaust, the occupation, into a single moment, whereas 6 and 9 aug are a bit easier, seeing as the event took less than a minute. the aftereffects, well, that's different.
quote:
I think the existence and demonstration of the bomb was unfortunately essential - who would have thought after the carnage of WW1 that barely 20 years later, we'd have had WW2? With even more carnage. After the previous centuries' history with warfare, colonialism, imperialism, etc., what would stop or slow down the human species' fetish for destruction? The only thing I can think of, given the history, is that technology ratcheted up the efficiency of carnage to a point that we all had to give it a second thought. Since that day, we haven't seen anything of the likes of Imperial Japan or Nazi germany anywhere in the world. |
if that's the case, do you not think that this incident, which helped people realize the sheer scale of murder which we are capable of, deserves a moment of recognition?
|
|
| |
|
| |
All times are GMT. The time now is 05:33.
Apolyton Time is 00:33. |
top of page
|
| archivepost |
|
Forum Rules:
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
|
HTML code is ON
vB code is ON
Smilies are ON
[IMG] code is ON
|
|
|
|
|
|
06-08-2004 20:08
Indeed! You think less people would have died if the bomb not been dropped? Please.
|