06-08-2005 13:24									#1
	Mandatory Aug 6 Hiroshima thread Get a bigger avatar today!

I may as well be the first to post it. We know it's coming.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=sto...ar_050805235006

This article probably doesn't have what I read in the paper today. At the peace memorial there's an inscription that was vandalized by what authorities believe is an ultra-nationalist. They feel that the inscription infers that Japan is somehow responsible for being nuked.

I want to go with that. Maybe the discussion can be a little different this year than last. Where people kept insisting Japan was going to surrender.

I support the use of these devices on those 2 day in August. I feel that the deaths of those couple hundred thousand people have saved millions of lives since then. I feel that was the reason we have avoided ww3 and millions more deaths. And imagine if there was no atom bomb. WW3 would have happened. And it would be just as devestating as WW2 (but with no halocaust)

	06-08-2005 13:28									#2
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Another interesting bit is some people in Japan now feel they should possibly attain nuclear weapons. Since Hiroshima bombing Japan has never allowed nuclear weapons on it's soil.

But with the threat of North Korean nukes and missiles that have the capability to strike Japan, some are rethinking this policy.

Should the Japanese develop nukes?

	06-08-2005 16:26									#3
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post 1 :

then you should have used it on a military target. not on a city. imo


post 2 :

dunno...

if NK ever nukes japan, wouldn't the US retaliate ?

	06-08-2005 16:34									#4
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Mandatory? If you don't feel it's really necessary, why post it?

Military schmilitary. The way it happened it had a proper effect on the Japanese leadership's psychology. A purely military target probably wouldn't have scared them enough.

Also, it provided a scare of nuclear combat and of the willingness of any nuclear power to actually use the bomb that was necessary to keep the bipolar system cold. With no fear of going nuclear, I see the Cuban missile crisis go a much more dangerous path.

While all that doesn't justify the use of the bomb, it explains why it happened and also what positive effects it had. And noone should apologise on the Japanese before they have done likewise.

	06-08-2005 16:37									#5
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I was watching CNN the other day about that. and they said that the japanese explain to their children all the horrours of being blasted with a nuclear weapon but the cnn had trouble because they say the japanese didnt educate their kids why it was necessairy to drop the nuclear bomb.

then the cnn had more questions like why if they dont feel for the US so much then why do young japanese (i hope i write it according to q cube wishes or he'll bust my testicles again) embrace "american culture" so much.

then i realized it's not american culture or non american culture. it's modern culture. would you expect someone to dance folklore dances in 2005 so as to characterize them not following american culture? it's simply modern culture, that is similar to most modern nations. maybe it looks like american because there are similarities but the underground unificating factor is modernity i thought.

	06-08-2005 17:20									#6
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I always kind of atributed the Japanese obsession with American culture with the fierce honor system that was inplace at the time (during WWII). The Japanese people thought that they were unbeatable and would gladly give up their lives to serve the Emperor. When the Americans came and whopped up on them and droped a couple of Nukes, they latched onto what they thought of as a higher power and started to imitate the people that defeated them so they could be just as good. IMHO.

	06-08-2005 17:54									#7
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Why did West Germans imitate them then? Hardly for the same reason...

	06-08-2005 18:08									#8
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quote: Originally posted by Ecthy Why did West Germans imitate them then? Hardly for the same reason...

Jeans are cooler than lederhosen.

	06-08-2005 18:12									#9
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Bavarians never actually did.

	06-08-2005 18:22									#10
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Not a Bavarian:

Attachment: mon-lederhosen-large.jpg
This has been downloaded 150 time(s).

	06-08-2005 18:24									#11
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Austrian then or something along those lines, maybe even Swabian.

	06-08-2005 18:26									#12
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quote: Originally posted by Ecthy Austrian then or something along those lines, maybe even Swabian.

This website might be dodgy but I'm selecting this from it:

quote: Figure 1.--Quite a number of the boys in this German school photograph wear lederhosen, more than we have noticed in most German classes. The German reader who provided us his image reports that it was taken in Eslingen, a small city close to Stuttgart, during 1965-1967.

	06-08-2005 18:28									#13
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Close to Stuttgart means it's in Swabia. They're not remotely human beings.

	06-08-2005 18:46									#14
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quote: Originally posted by Ecthy Close to Stuttgart means it's in Swabia. They're not remotely human beings.

Germanic brotherly love.

It's been there ever since the time when Lothar, Louis and Charles fell out.


Kulturkampf, anyone ?

	06-08-2005 18:56									#15
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quote: Originally posted by molly bloom Not a Bavarian:

That's a very cruel thing to do to your boyfriend.

	06-08-2005 18:59									#16
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara That's a very cruel thing to do to your boyfriend.

He's goodlooking. (So's my boyf.)

The lederhosen chap looks like Cary Elwes a bit.

	06-08-2005 22:28									#17
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The bombings may or may not have been justified. Certainly the military bigwigs didn't think it was (even MacArthur, who one would have expected to be all for it).

But what's distastefull is the Americans celebrating it like it was a good thing. Both were black days for humanity, and the Enola Gay should have been scrapped and melted down.

	06-08-2005 23:29									#18
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Stop whining. The bombings were the lesser of two evils in the context of the war, and when compared to other options in the eyes of the leadership in the 1940s, were a good thing.

What is distasteful is how some people try to portray the bombings as an act of unnecessary bloodlust, as if the Axis had done nothing to provoke the decision.

	06-08-2005 23:40									#19
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...

	06-08-2005 23:52									#20
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quote: Originally posted by Agathon The bombings may or may not have been justified. Certainly the military bigwigs didn't think it was (

I suspect that the military leaders and the politicians didn't really comprehend what the atomic bomb could do. They probably thought it was just a big bomb. But when they saw that a single bomb could wipe out an entire city, they initially would ahve thought, this is power, we have to have more of these bombs. But when other countries built the a-bomb, people realized it would not be a good thing to ever use the bomb.

That's why dropping the bomb on Japan ended up being worthwhile. The world saw how destructive the A-bomb is.

If the bombs had not been dropped on Japan, it would have been dropped somewhere else at some point, and by dropping the bomb on Japan, we avoided a war between two nuclear powers.

	07-08-2005 03:42									#21
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quote: Originally posted by Agathon even MacArthur, who one would have expected to be all for it.

He didn't like it because it deprived him of the glory he thought would get from invading the Home Islands.

The A-bomb was justified. it killed a lot less Japanese civilians than an invasion would of.

	07-08-2005 03:43									#22
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quote: Originally posted by Verto What is distasteful is how some people try to portray the bombings as an act of unnecessary bloodlust, as if the Axis had done nothing to provoke the decision.

	07-08-2005 03:56									#23
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quote: Originally posted by Agathon The bombings may or may not have been justified. Certainly the military bigwigs didn't think it was (even MacArthur, who one would have expected to be all for it). But what's distastefull is the Americans celebrating it like it was a good thing. Both were black days for humanity, and the Enola Gay should have been scrapped and melted down.

Remember when they displayed the airplane and a Japanese widow threw that red jar at the plane? I do. They SHOULD HAVE melted that plane down into scrap.

You ever see the victims of the bombs? I have. The immediate blast killed tens of thousands and the radiation killed even more. My granddad died from cancer caused by the radiation.

Yeah, the bombs might have saved untold lives I understand that. But have some compassion for the victims, eh? Melt the plane down.

	07-08-2005 04:00									#24
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quote: Originally posted by Frankychan But have some compassion for the victims, eh? Melt the plane down.

Did we glass Auschwitz, or did we leave it as a memorial?

	07-08-2005 04:05									#25
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Precisely. If we destroy the Enola Gay, does that also mean we need to tear down the concentration camp memorials?

	07-08-2005 04:17									#26
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Memorials help to remember the dead. The vicitms of the camps have the right to be remembered, but so do the vicitms of the bombs (i.e. the Enola Gay). The plane is celebrated as the end of the war, not about all the vicitms it's payload cost.

The memorials for the camps should remain because of the lives lost, the plane shouldn't. The plane isn't a memorial, it's a celebration.

	07-08-2005 04:31									#27
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quote: Originally posted by Frankychan Memorials help to remember the dead. The vicitms of the camps have the right to be remembered, but so do the vicitms of the bombs (i.e. the Enola Gay). The plane is celebrated as the end of the war, not about all the vicitms it's payload cost. The memorials for the camps should remain because of the lives lost, the plane shouldn't. The plane isn't a memorial, it's a celebration.

Ever been to the Air&Space Musuem? I'll admit maybe it's changed in the past year or so, but I recall the exhibit stating what the Enola Gay was...and that was it. This was at the Annex they built near Dulles, not the Old Exhibit at the main musuem on the mall.

Just a Sign that said what it was and what it did. No gloating.

	07-08-2005 05:09									#28
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It belongs in a museum.

	07-08-2005 06:11									#29
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quote: Originally posted by Frankychan Memorials help to remember the dead. The vicitms of the camps have the right to be remembered, but so do the vicitms of the bombs (i.e. the Enola Gay). The plane is celebrated as the end of the war, not about all the vicitms it's payload cost. The memorials for the camps should remain because of the lives lost, the plane shouldn't. The plane isn't a memorial, it's a celebration.

It should be celebrated as the end of the war, because it was.

	07-08-2005 06:15									#30
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Thank god I forgot it was Hiroshima Day. I think wishing the "Mrs." a happy Hiroshima day would've gotten me in a **** load of trouble

quote: Ever been to the Air&Space Musuem? I'll admit maybe it's changed in the past year or so, but I recall the exhibit stating what the Enola Gay was...and that was it. This was at the Annex they built near Dulles, not the Old Exhibit at the main musuem on the mall. Just a Sign that said what it was and what it did. No gloating.

To this day you will find Japanese tourists all over the Air and Space museum except in the sections about the A-Bomb. Just an oberservation.