did i just kill this topic? :-s

 

 

 

Eh, it was quite dead from the start. Reb and Assassin were the only ones really talking. Its more of an opinion/factual matter, and I guess nobody, myself included, really felt like discussing it further.

did i just kill this topic? :-s

 

 

 

Eh, it was quite dead from the start. Reb and Assassin were the only ones really talking. Its more of an opinion/factual matter, and I guess nobody, myself included, really felt like discussing it further.

 

 

 

omg, i wonder if this means i won an argument>? :-$

omg, i wonder if this means i won an argument>? :-$

 

 

 

Won by resignation, I suppose. Not many people felt like responding.

 

 

 

If you read the thread, you can probably tell why I resigned...

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oh yea, open to negotiations, they wanted to keep the emperor in power(fine by me), keep thier army(no way) ,and have no occupation. it sounds like an easy decision today, but put yourself back in that time.

 

you have lost friends, brothers, uncles, fathers. you are in a country that was nuetral through so much, then the other guys attack YOU! do you really want to let them get away with a slap on the wrist? no, you want them to never be able to do that again.

 

Wow. Someone may have read up on the ending to the American-Japanese War but they sure haven't read up on one of the main factors that caused WWII in the first place, namely, the Treaty of Versailles. The whole of Europe (and the U.S., actually) forced Germany to accept peace on condition they had an army of a restricted size. It created a feeling of resentment amongst normal German citizens, and just gave Hitler a manifesto to get into power. Do you seriously think the Japanese, especially in the light you've portrayed them in, would have reacted much differently to you?

 

 

 

Signing peace with a country in war-time isn't giving them a "slap on the wrist". As you said, collateral damage had already been inflicted on the Japanese infrastructure. They'd already lost enough. You could just as easily have pushed them into surrender through a coastal amphibious invasion than by dropping a bomb which literally frazzled thousands of innocents civilians on the spot.

 

 

 

Ah yes, an invasion, instead of forcing the japenese to think that we had the unlimited power to level thier country, lets just send a couple million US and British troops to die in an invasion that nearly every japenese would have fought against. what you dont seem to realize is that the imperial army of japan was giving thier own civilians SPEARS to charge GIs with. millions of japenes civilians would have been sloughtered, along with thousands of Americans. Once we landed they never would have thought about surrender.

 

 

 

Had we allowed ourselves to accept thier terms of surrender we would have left ourselves open to another attack by the japenes. i seriosly doubt they would have been that dumb but in 1945 thinking they were still a massive liability.

 

 

 

no, these bombs saved millions of live, american, british, and japanese. without them literally all of japan would have ceased to exist. i gauruntee that most of the americans posting on this forum today would not have been born, because thier great-grandfather would have been killed, or stationed somewhere else. trading 80000 lives to preserve a entire country seems heartless, but i stand by what we did.

 

"Trading 80,000 lives"? What makes you think they were your lives to trade? They were innocent Japanese civlilians - what on earth makes you think you have a moral right to target them just because it will force them into surrender?

 

 

 

And hardly any Americans would have died. Yes, Japanese soldiers literally threw themselves into suicide attempts with the sole purpose of taking someone else down, but surely isn't that what all soldiers in war are in effect doing? they're all dying for their own country, albeit in different ways.

 

 

 

It was not America's right to decide that the death of 80,000 innocent lives in trade for the preservation of another imperialist country between you and the Soviet Union is the lesser of two evils. Don't pretend as though Japan appreciates you for dropping those bombs when there are still thousands of people even today suffering from the radiation released after those two bombs.

 

 

 

Read up on thier preperations. they were ready for an assault. thier civilians were being trained in how to kill as many americans as possible before they died. hundreds of thousands of americans would have been killed. saying that hardly any would have died shows that you really have no idea of the military and civilian power japan still controlled. an estimated 100.000 would have become casualties before they even hit the shore. Millions of japenese would have been mowed down in Kamikaze charges. thousands more would have died of starvation in the following months. of the 80,000 killed in the blasts it is doubtful that even a quarter would have survived. If i had to make the choice now knowing full well what would have met my troops had they invaded i would drop those bombs again in an instant.

 

 

 

 

 

Try a new tact, think about what we could be arguing about right now if we had invaded and not bombed, and we just now figured out that all those millions of lives could have been saved had we used our technology when we had it. what would your reaction be?

[/hide]

 

Who says we had to actually invade them? Japan's economy was crumbling, their navy was obliterated, and the only thing in their arsenal was the fighting spirit. Who knows? Maybe if Japan actually discussed peace talks with America through the Soviets, we could have had a proper treaty.

 

And let's say the peace talks failed, and there was no choice left. In this case, Hiroshima would be more than justified, it should be encouraged. But why in the world would we bomb Nagasaki? Especially if we know that Japan is on the losing end of the bargain? Had America waited for a week and listened to a response, we might never had to slaughter the 70k people or so in Nagasaki for no apparent reason.

There where talks with Japan to end the war but they refused to surrender. Also the Japanese ambassadors where present when the bombs where tested they where told they whould be dropped. And even after the bombs where droped, when the emperor wanted to surrender, there was a tempted milatary coup. They STILL wanted to go on after the bombs where dropped.

well from all i have read, i haven't seen this anywhere..

 

it was either Us or Them...did you know that the Germans were about two weeks behind us.

 

so if the Manhattan project didn't get finished in two weeks some of us may not be here...this was just a side note.

 

 

 

but yes IMO the bombings (both) were justified.

[hide]

oh yea, open to negotiations, they wanted to keep the emperor in power(fine by me), keep thier army(no way) ,and have no occupation. it sounds like an easy decision today, but put yourself back in that time.

 

you have lost friends, brothers, uncles, fathers. you are in a country that was nuetral through so much, then the other guys attack YOU! do you really want to let them get away with a slap on the wrist? no, you want them to never be able to do that again.

 

Wow. Someone may have read up on the ending to the American-Japanese War but they sure haven't read up on one of the main factors that caused WWII in the first place, namely, the Treaty of Versailles. The whole of Europe (and the U.S., actually) forced Germany to accept peace on condition they had an army of a restricted size. It created a feeling of resentment amongst normal German citizens, and just gave Hitler a manifesto to get into power. Do you seriously think the Japanese, especially in the light you've portrayed them in, would have reacted much differently to you?

 

 

 

Signing peace with a country in war-time isn't giving them a "slap on the wrist". As you said, collateral damage had already been inflicted on the Japanese infrastructure. They'd already lost enough. You could just as easily have pushed them into surrender through a coastal amphibious invasion than by dropping a bomb which literally frazzled thousands of innocents civilians on the spot.

 

 

 

Ah yes, an invasion, instead of forcing the japenese to think that we had the unlimited power to level thier country, lets just send a couple million US and British troops to die in an invasion that nearly every japenese would have fought against. what you dont seem to realize is that the imperial army of japan was giving thier own civilians SPEARS to charge GIs with. millions of japenes civilians would have been sloughtered, along with thousands of Americans. Once we landed they never would have thought about surrender.

 

 

 

Had we allowed ourselves to accept thier terms of surrender we would have left ourselves open to another attack by the japenes. i seriosly doubt they would have been that dumb but in 1945 thinking they were still a massive liability.

 

 

 

no, these bombs saved millions of live, american, british, and japanese. without them literally all of japan would have ceased to exist. i gauruntee that most of the americans posting on this forum today would not have been born, because thier great-grandfather would have been killed, or stationed somewhere else. trading 80000 lives to preserve a entire country seems heartless, but i stand by what we did.

 

"Trading 80,000 lives"? What makes you think they were your lives to trade? They were innocent Japanese civlilians - what on earth makes you think you have a moral right to target them just because it will force them into surrender?

 

 

 

And hardly any Americans would have died. Yes, Japanese soldiers literally threw themselves into suicide attempts with the sole purpose of taking someone else down, but surely isn't that what all soldiers in war are in effect doing? they're all dying for their own country, albeit in different ways.

 

 

 

It was not America's right to decide that the death of 80,000 innocent lives in trade for the preservation of another imperialist country between you and the Soviet Union is the lesser of two evils. Don't pretend as though Japan appreciates you for dropping those bombs when there are still thousands of people even today suffering from the radiation released after those two bombs.

 

 

 

Read up on thier preperations. they were ready for an assault. thier civilians were being trained in how to kill as many americans as possible before they died. hundreds of thousands of americans would have been killed. saying that hardly any would have died shows that you really have no idea of the military and civilian power japan still controlled. an estimated 100.000 would have become casualties before they even hit the shore. Millions of japenese would have been mowed down in Kamikaze charges. thousands more would have died of starvation in the following months. of the 80,000 killed in the blasts it is doubtful that even a quarter would have survived. If i had to make the choice now knowing full well what would have met my troops had they invaded i would drop those bombs again in an instant.

 

 

 

 

 

Try a new tact, think about what we could be arguing about right now if we had invaded and not bombed, and we just now figured out that all those millions of lives could have been saved had we used our technology when we had it. what would your reaction be?

[/hide]

 

Who says we had to actually invade them? Japan's economy was crumbling, their navy was obliterated, and the only thing in their arsenal was the fighting spirit. Who knows? Maybe if Japan actually discussed peace talks with America through the Soviets, we could have had a proper treaty.

 

And let's say the peace talks failed, and there was no choice left. In this case, Hiroshima would be more than justified, it should be encouraged. But why in the world would we bomb Nagasaki? Especially if we know that Japan is on the losing end of the bargain? Had America waited for a week and listened to a response, we might never had to slaughter the 70k people or so in Nagasaki for no apparent reason.

 

 

 

they did discuss peace through the soviets. then the soviets invaded manchuria. that kinda threw off thier peace talks. the talks didnt have any significance because niether side was willing to give any ground.

 

 

 

And even after we dropped the first bomb ton hiroshima, the japenese still weren't going to surrender. the imperial cabinet had set itself against the idea, thinking it better to die than surrender. it wasn't until the emperor stepped in and forced them to accept unconditional surrender after the second bomb that they finally gave in. Even after that there was a large attempted coup to overthrow those wanting surrender, and it came a hairs breadth from succeeding.