A Comment On The Anniversary Of The Worst Act Of Terrorism In Human History
- Thread starter Ponca Dan
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My stepfather was one of those guys who was island hopping their way towards the Japanese homeland. They were waiting to begin the invasion when the two large booms occurred, ending the war. He was grateful to not have to keep going. So am I.
read about 30 seconds of article
quit thinking
any american that kept reading in agreement should have the honor of experiencing war from below deck of the
uss oklahoma
quit thinking
any american that kept reading in agreement should have the honor of experiencing war from below deck of the
uss oklahoma
I wish you had read the whole article. Then we could have had a reasonable discussion. It pains me that so many people have accepted the government's version of the truth, when the truth goes much deeper than the government would have you believe. Somewhere between 175,000 and 190,000 innocent civilians were incinerated in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, some of them literally vaporized. Here one second. Poof!, gone into thin air the next. That is the textbook definition of terrorism.
Mess with the bull you get the horns.
What a tear jerker. It's too bad that little snowflake doesn't have a time machine. War was hell back then but we fought to win. Trying to apply modern sensitivity to WW2 is nothing but empty academia at work.
What a tear jerker. It's too bad that little snowflake doesn't have a time machine. War was hell back then but we fought to win. Trying to apply modern sensitivity to WW2 is nothing but empty academia at work.
So does America deserve payback after what our military did to Iraq? Intentionally destroying the water supply and infrastructure that led to the mass starvation and dehydration deaths of up to 500,000 civilians? Mostly children? Somewhere along the line we need to stop the Hatfield/McCoy attitude. We need to become a nation of free traders, not empire builders and merchants of death. We have lost our way as a moral nation. Too many of us blindly and loyally follow the story line we are fed by our so called leaders. The truth of what our government is doing on our name to other nations is out there. We just have to see it.
I wonder why if Japan was ready to surrender as the author suggests that Hiroshima wasn't enough? The author also minimizes the fact that 46,000 Americans would have died in a land invasion. How many Japanese would have died.....probably 3 or 4 times that many? That alone gets you close to the Hiroshima/Nagasaki numbers. Would that scenario have been more acceptable or more just?
Sorry, but when the Japanese were slaughtering their own people on the basis of not speaking the Japanese language identical to mainland Japan (Okinawans were repeatedly killed for this and for food, etc.) drastic measures had to be taken. Those stopped the war. Those stopped from many more lives being lost.
What do you know about the truth of what happened? Did the Japanese apologies for their oopsie on Pearl Harbor? They were just being meanies and looking for a safe space...
What do you know about the truth of what happened? Did the Japanese apologies for their oopsie on Pearl Harbor? They were just being meanies and looking for a safe space...
Similar...what if we dropped those on Berlin and Munich? What would your opinion be?
Japan had already sought peace. They had already given up. The US government insisted on unconditional surrender. All Japan wanted was to keep its emperor, who was revered as a god-like creature. We balked, bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki into the dark ages, and followed that up two weeks later with the most horrific fire bombing of Tokyo, resulting in as many as 1,000,000 deaths, and destroying over 250,000 homes. Then we accepted peace and let them keep their emperor. We had leveled over 50 cities in Japan. They were blockaded. They were defeated. The atrocities were entirely unnecessary. But, In Medic's view they messed with the wrong junk yard dog. The problem with that attitude is the people who were devastated had nothing to do with messing with the junk yard dog. They were the same pawns, the same cannon fodder for their government as our young men were ours.
If we had dropped atomic bombs on innocent civilians in Berlin and Munich my opinion would be the same. The fire bombing of Dresden was an atrocity of monumental proportions.
The people doing the slaughtering were not the elderly, or the women or children of Hiroshima, Nagasaki or Tokyo. The ones doing the slaughtering deserved no quarter. Punishing people who probably didn't even know of the slaughtering is over the red line, and deserving of the same outrage as you are expressing against the guilty Japanese.
Both situations were full of the same people. People who knew, people who ignored.
You may be a little bit right, but they didn't surrender -- that's not true. They plainly wanted to keep the emperor. That emperor condoned torture, unchecked barbarism, making games out of killing helpless americans, racial superiority, their empire building and he would've been perfectly fine with incinerating the west coast if they had the ability. His status was a big part of the problem. Wtf, they were still negotiating? What do they expect? We're supposed to enable another generation of japanese thinking they have their own living japanese god that was better than everyone else? Nope -- it had to end.
They treated everyone else like animals - civilians and military alike. Not just us, but the world needed to see an unconditional surrender or a pretty awful outcome. I'm not sure how many Japan killed, but they killed a TON of innocents. They also killed a ton of innocent american kids that got sucked into that war. I'm not convinced the U.S. killed more people than the japanese did. Have you read what they did in China?
Oliver Stone has a similar take to yours. I simply do not get why anyone wrings their hands over that deal -- Japan started it and would've killed us all. Or did I miss the mass protests of the civilian japanese?
We'll just have to respectfully disagree. The five year old playing stick ball with her friends when the bomb went off over her head probably didn't even know there was a war. She was just collateral damage.
I am not arguing that innocent people died. It is war. But, I feel, to end the war, this was a necessary action. Sad and definitely not something I celebrate, but I am not ashamed of it.
The Japanese government - like all governments - was a criminal enterprise. The things it did in the name of the Japanese people was unmitigated evil. The Japanese people (as a whole) were no more evil than the American people. The rules of war are supposed to mitigate the destruction of civilians. What we did to those people in no way is justified as a response to what those people were doing. Japan was suing for peace. They had essentially surrendered. The wholesale slaughter of over one million civilians (including the fire bombing of Tokyo by 1000 planes) was nothing less than a war crime. We should be ashamed of what our government did, and we should insist that it never be allowed to happen again. And yet we loyally swallow the story we are given by our overlords. Just a few years later we did the same thing - in many ways worse - to North Korea. We bombed that country into the stone age, literally destroyed every city and manufacturing plant in the country. All the while being shown Gregory Peck movies like "Pork Chop Hill."
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So, reject the narrative of the US government and history in favor of some whiney guy who wrote an article. Sounds like a reasonable trade off Dan.
It was World War 2. The Japanese made a conscious decision to attack Pearl Harbor. No thoughts for the innocent people that died there? Was their slaughter justified somehow? Why did the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor? What was their motive? I suppose what the Japanese were doing in their own campaigns was justified? No "terrorism" there?
The author of that opinion piece sure makes an effort to whitewash Japanese atrocities. They just wanted to keep their Emperor? Really? Maybe Germany just wanted to keep Hitler too. Japan wanted favorable terms to keep conquered lands in Korea, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Burma, and Pacific islands. What about those suffering people? Japan didn't exactly treat them as equals.
History shows that Japan had two strategies for the end of the war on terms they found favorable. Invite heavy casualties on the American side with a ground invasion or try to get in bed with the Soviets to broker a deal favorable to Japan. But they didn't count on the Soviets declaring war and invading Manchuria and Sakhalin or the brutality the Americans were willing to use to avoid a ground invasion.
The atomic bombs were a drop in the proverbial bucket of violence. Hiroshima wasn't even the highest body count event and wasn't top 3 for destruction. The author fails to acknowledge what Japan put at stake when they attacked Pearl Harbor. They alone set their fate due to their rampant desire for imperialism. I wonder how things would have unfolded if they had destroyed the entire Pacific fleet as they intended to do. The intentions of the US weren't meant to be pure. They were intended to be as violent as possible to bring an end to Imperial Japan. Does that make it right? Maybe, maybe not. But it was necessary much like the end of the Third Reich was necessary. What does the world look like without the defeat of both? We don't have to know because they were both soundly defeated. Germany couldn't keep Hitler and Japan couldn't keep Hirohito. That's just how it goes when you get your ass kicked during your conquests. History is full of examples of this.
So yes, you mess with the bull you get the horns. Talk down your nose all you'd like PoncaDan. I'm thick skinned and knowledgeable enough in history to know better. I fully embrace the actual history of WW2. Some random author with some kind of ideological message years after the fact? Not so much.
The "firebombing of Dresden" was almost certainly way overblown as were the claims on casualty figures. It was one of the last successful Nazi propaganda efforts before the regime collapsed.
Dresden was a manufacturing center and there were certainly a number of buildings housing military command centers within the city and on the outskirts, as it was the one major German city, up until that point, that had not been extensively bombed.
The "blue-ribbon" historical commission appointed in 2004 to look into Dresden, said that the casualty figures were more likely in the 18,000 - 25,000 range, NOT the hundreds of thousands that Hitler/Goebbels claimed.
If London was a "legitimate" target for Germans bomb with conventional bombers and target with V1's and V2's, then Dresden was certainly as much of a legitimate target as well.
Back in the early 80's, I met my aunt's (by marriage) dad who had been a minor govt official in Berlin, working for the postal authority starting in the 1920's (he was a WWI vet.) His take was the the vast majority of those who were still alive and free in Germany following the war were those who were and always had been members of the Nazi party and who were vital in Hitler's rise to power. He said those who denied it and claimed to know nothing about the atrocities were just largely engaged in CYA.
His point was: How could you see stores looted by storm troopers, neighbors all around you ushered out of their homes, marched down the streets to the train stations only to never once come back, and not know something was up? Those who truly opposed the Nazi's were all pretty much dead, in regular prison and for the less fortunate in the Concentration camps by the end of the war. Most of the rest of the people were the ones rounding up their neighbors, cheering it on, and helping loot the houses of those arrested and sent away.
I have a real hard time working up much sympathy for those Nazi/Hitler supporting "common folk" killed during the War in Germany. Even though, undoubtedly some of them were related to me. My Grandfather was the first of our family to be born in America and he wanted all of his sons to volunteer and fight against the Nazi's, which they all did, but for the youngest who was only still a teenager when the war ended.
My dad (who flew on B-17's) died when I was still a toddler. But my mom told me that he never regretted bombing and killing during his bombing raids, except for one time. They had received intelligence that there was an orphanage and home for the mentally retarded that had been evacuated and being used as an SS headquarters and the intelligence was wrong.
Having said that, I agree that targeting purely, or largely, civilian targets creates a lot of issues that are not good.
News flash. We didn't have precision munitions in WW2. Another news flash. Japanese civilians were innocent but necessary to feed a war machine much like the civilians in Germany, England, the US, and the Soviet Union were. A war of the scale of WW2 demanded doing as much damage to the infrastructure of the war machines as possible to stop them. Simply targeting the military industries of Japan and Germany meant targeting civilians because the whole of those countries were military industries. If Germany and Japan had the capability to bring the war to the US, what do you think they would have been doing?
I get the outrage, but the revisionist history is quite unusual for you. I'm very weirded out by what seems to be your avoidance of what good came out of all of the bad of WW2. When so much good came out of something so bad, why would I be ashamed of the sacrifices those before me made to create the world I live in today? It's not perfect by any stretch, but it's a much better place than it was when the bombs were dropped in 1945.
no it's not. it can be debated as to whether it saved more lives than it cost but referring to the method used to end the last truly moral war the United States has fought as "terrorism" is plainly insulting to every sacrifice and victim of that war.
you typically make great points. this one feels like a miss.
"The Japanese government - like all governments - was a criminal enterprise."
All governments are a criminal enterprise?
So you are a utopian anarchist?
All governments are a criminal enterprise?
So you are a utopian anarchist?
Reading through these testimonials I was struck by a thought I've had before. I was in the Air Force stationed in Japan in the late 60's/early 70's. I was young, very ignorant of history. I knew about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, of course, but they were just things I'd learned in history classes in high school. I'd never really thought about them. I knew nothing of the fire bombing of Tokyo, knew nothing about the complete destruction of over 50 cities in Japan. I was young, single, an American soldier living in a country my government had crushed, killing over a million innocent civilians in the process. I didn't know or think about any of that. All I knew was the Japanese people were the friendliest people I had ever met. I would take a train into Sendai and would be overwhelmed by Japanese of all ages wanting to practice their English on me. I was repeatedly invited to homes for tea, or to stay overnight. Everyone seemed to love the Americans. Doesn't that strike you as strange? We had decimated their country, and yet they had somehow found it in their hearts to forgive, to seek peace, to reconcile. Wouldn't you have thought they would have hated Americans with all their being? Wouldn't you have thought a lone American soldier walking through their streets would have been in danger? And yet everything was exactly the opposite.
In the meantime it seems many Americans have taken a different path. The attitude is the Japanese people deserved what they got. F__k 'em! Pearl Harbor! They started it! I had an aunt that hated - quite literally hated - the very mention of the Japanese. Hated them all the way to her death bed. A highly educated professional woman, she hated with a passion I have never seen elsewhere.
Doesn't it seem strange to you, too? We won, and yet we can't let go of our hatred. They lost, and have come out of it with a devotion to us that is unusual, to say the least.
History is history. Your aunt lived WW2. That generation didn't get afforded the hindsight of what Japan is today. In her day, Japan was an imperialist nation bent on conquer by any means possible. You should cut her some slack.
Japanese deserved everything they got and maybe more...what government, after attacking nations (without declaring war), slaughtering civilians by the millions for no reason, running a germ warfare unit that would have Mengele proud and basically ignoring ever tenant of "civilized' warfare deserves to dole out conditions before surrendering? That is just ****ing stupid! I can't believe this still gets written and discussed....equating bombing of cities where civilians die to terrorism is also ignorant. Historically civilians have always suffered in war and even today with all our whiz-bang tools we still manage to kill our own troops in the field.
Ponca, read "Hell To Pay," and get back to this thread. That is not some government version of the way it could have been or even the way it should have been. The Japanese were preparing for total all out war. With women and children throwing bamboo spears, kamikaze attacks like not seen before and a massive underestimation of troop strength by the US and allies. Some of the people behind the keyboards, in this thread, might not even be here because of the massive casualties we would have suffered.
Negotiated peace agreements with loser qualifiers have failed ever since the end of WWII and to have acquiesced for anything less then unconditional is just ludicrous. I've spent my whole life reading history, especially military (WWII & War Between The States) and the Japanese were the most vicious, cutthroat and despicable humans to participate in that war. From executing a 13 year old in between his parents, on Rabual, as spy to tying nuns/preachers/ to trees for bayonet practice on Guadalcanal, to practicing as to which office could cut the most heads off with a samurai sword in China and on and on...they deserved to be squashed like a cockroach and with even less thought of doing so.
Here are a few more tidbits on those two cities...
Hiroshima was the headquarters of the Fifth Division and Field Marshal Shunroku Hata's 2nd General Army Headquarters, which commanded the defense of all of southern Japan. It was also a communications center, a storage point, an assembly area for troops, and was a military-industrial center powered by the mass-scale forced labour of Koreans known as hibakusha. The Hiroshima island of Edajima hosted the Navy Elite Academy. Kure, around 20 km from Hiroshima, was also known for a military port and navy factories. The famous giant warship, Yamato, was constructed in Kure. The material and labour for Kure came from Hiroshima.
Nagasaki was one of the largest sea ports in southern Japan and had wide-ranging industrial importance. Ordnance, ships, military equipment, and other war materials were manufactured there. The Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works was located there. Mitsubishi produced over 10,000 Zero fighters and the battleship Musashi.
Ponca, read "Hell To Pay," and get back to this thread. That is not some government version of the way it could have been or even the way it should have been. The Japanese were preparing for total all out war. With women and children throwing bamboo spears, kamikaze attacks like not seen before and a massive underestimation of troop strength by the US and allies. Some of the people behind the keyboards, in this thread, might not even be here because of the massive casualties we would have suffered.
Negotiated peace agreements with loser qualifiers have failed ever since the end of WWII and to have acquiesced for anything less then unconditional is just ludicrous. I've spent my whole life reading history, especially military (WWII & War Between The States) and the Japanese were the most vicious, cutthroat and despicable humans to participate in that war. From executing a 13 year old in between his parents, on Rabual, as spy to tying nuns/preachers/ to trees for bayonet practice on Guadalcanal, to practicing as to which office could cut the most heads off with a samurai sword in China and on and on...they deserved to be squashed like a cockroach and with even less thought of doing so.
Here are a few more tidbits on those two cities...
Hiroshima was the headquarters of the Fifth Division and Field Marshal Shunroku Hata's 2nd General Army Headquarters, which commanded the defense of all of southern Japan. It was also a communications center, a storage point, an assembly area for troops, and was a military-industrial center powered by the mass-scale forced labour of Koreans known as hibakusha. The Hiroshima island of Edajima hosted the Navy Elite Academy. Kure, around 20 km from Hiroshima, was also known for a military port and navy factories. The famous giant warship, Yamato, was constructed in Kure. The material and labour for Kure came from Hiroshima.
Nagasaki was one of the largest sea ports in southern Japan and had wide-ranging industrial importance. Ordnance, ships, military equipment, and other war materials were manufactured there. The Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works was located there. Mitsubishi produced over 10,000 Zero fighters and the battleship Musashi.
It was a declared war. And hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Japanese would've been killed in Tokyo, Yokohama, Kyoto, Nagoya, not to mention many more thousands of Americans (and our allies).
Most within the upper brass of the Japanese Navy knew that U.S. victory was inevitable by 1942 or early 1943, yet they kept fighting. Heck, Yamamoto knew it BEFORE the war even began. They were not going to stop fighting.
You know who agrees with PoncaDan? My pot smoking neighbors kid that can't hold down a job because he believes he's already management material and doesn't want to start at the bottom. He also told me that Dunkirk was BS because the movie didn't make mention once about how Hitler was trying to be nice and just let them off the beach if Churchill would have just surrendered. But NOOOO Churchill was a war monger and refused to sign a peace treaty and look at how many lives were lost because of the bully Churchill. I weep for our youth. It's a slippery slope eyeing history through modern lenses.
All great points windriverrange.Japanese deserved everything they got and maybe more...what government, after attacking nations (without declaring war), slaughtering civilians by the millions for no reason, running a germ warfare unit that would have Mengele proud and basically ignoring ever tenant of "civilized' warfare deserves to dole out conditions before surrendering? That is just ****ing stupid! I can't believe this still gets written and discussed....equating bombing of cities where civilians die to terrorism is also ignorant. Historically civilians have always suffered in war and even today with all our whiz-bang tools we still manage to kill our own troops in the field.
Ponca, read "Hell To Pay," and get back to this thread. That is not some government version of the way it could have been or even the way it should have been. The Japanese were preparing for total all out war. With women and children throwing bamboo spears, kamikaze attacks like not seen before and a massive underestimation of troop strength by the US and allies. Some of the people behind the keyboards, in this thread, might not even be here because of the massive casualties we would have suffered.
Negotiated peace agreements with loser qualifiers have failed ever since the end of WWII and to have acquiesced for anything less then unconditional is just ludicrous. I've spent my whole life reading history, especially military (WWII & War Between The States) and the Japanese were the most vicious, cutthroat and despicable humans to participate in that war. From executing a 13 year old in between his parents, on Rabual, as spy to tying nuns/preachers/ to trees for bayonet practice on Guadalcanal, to practicing as to which office could cut the most heads off with a samurai sword in China and on and on...they deserved to be squashed like a cockroach and with even less thought of doing so.
Here are a few more tidbits on those two cities...
Hiroshima was the headquarters of the Fifth Division and Field Marshal Shunroku Hata's 2nd General Army Headquarters, which commanded the defense of all of southern Japan. It was also a communications center, a storage point, an assembly area for troops, and was a military-industrial center powered by the mass-scale forced labour of Koreans known as hibakusha. The Hiroshima island of Edajima hosted the Navy Elite Academy. Kure, around 20 km from Hiroshima, was also known for a military port and navy factories. The famous giant warship, Yamato, was constructed in Kure. The material and labour for Kure came from Hiroshima.
Nagasaki was one of the largest sea ports in southern Japan and had wide-ranging industrial importance. Ordnance, ships, military equipment, and other war materials were manufactured there. The Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works was located there. Mitsubishi produced over 10,000 Zero fighters and the battleship Musashi.
Imperial Japan was downright evil just like Hitler's Germany. Unfortunately, civilians were just as much part of the war machine as the men driving tanks and flying planes. Complete destruction of facilities and people churning out military hardware was a necessary part of the strategy for victory.
To effectively crush an empire you have to crush the will of the people that support it. Our cities would have suffered the same fate had Germany and Japan had the means. The US manufacturing industry became an integral part of our war machine and would have been necessary targets for any military looking to defeat the US.
Ponca.....I don't hate the Japanese now, nor do any of the history buffs I know. Context, context and context. In the context of the times and what they did, how could you expect anyone to have sympathy for them? There were civilians in that "vaporized" group who built machines that killed US, Allied and civilians on behalf oft he Japanese Armed forces. you simply can't cull out the pacifists versus the supporters (implicit or otherwise). If I'm not mistaken we also dropped fliers saying get out.
This always circles me back to people still hating the South for The War Between the States, when most of those people that "hate" have no tertiary connection whatsoever to slavery, rebellion or relatives that fought on one side or the other.
Its always been my goal to read history with an eye towards the times...what was/wasn't acceptable, what were the norms of the days, why had people/countries/empires developed the way they had and so on. To paint yesterday with todays brush is the first error people make (IMHO) when dealing with history because you are already negating the detachment it takes to give the historical event itself an opportunity to stand on the merits or not) of the time and context. Should I be mad at The Germanic tribes for destroying three legions under Varus in the Teutoberg forest in 9 AD or should I hail Arminius, leader of the Germanic tribes a hero? What would have been the difference, if any, had the Roman Legions succeeded in beating the Germanic Tribes? To hate someone/people/countries for events before your lifetime or scope of impartial understanding is a very tricky deal and it is why there are some many incredibly "historically restarted" people in the world now. They like to interject their FEEEEEEEELINGS into every argument and situation, regardless of anything else.
This always circles me back to people still hating the South for The War Between the States, when most of those people that "hate" have no tertiary connection whatsoever to slavery, rebellion or relatives that fought on one side or the other.
Its always been my goal to read history with an eye towards the times...what was/wasn't acceptable, what were the norms of the days, why had people/countries/empires developed the way they had and so on. To paint yesterday with todays brush is the first error people make (IMHO) when dealing with history because you are already negating the detachment it takes to give the historical event itself an opportunity to stand on the merits or not) of the time and context. Should I be mad at The Germanic tribes for destroying three legions under Varus in the Teutoberg forest in 9 AD or should I hail Arminius, leader of the Germanic tribes a hero? What would have been the difference, if any, had the Roman Legions succeeded in beating the Germanic Tribes? To hate someone/people/countries for events before your lifetime or scope of impartial understanding is a very tricky deal and it is why there are some many incredibly "historically restarted" people in the world now. They like to interject their FEEEEEEEELINGS into every argument and situation, regardless of anything else.
Marshal, have read both of those books...wowza good stuff! If you want to go a bit outside total US involvement, read "Bastard of A Place," about the Australian fight from Port Moresby to Gona/Buna, on new Guinea. Oh yea did I mention before the Japanese soldiers also practiced cannibalism on Australian soldiers?
I do, and appreciate you clearly stating so.
I also think it is naive, unrealistic and untenable to be a utopian anything.
But we've had this conversation.
It was indeed a reasonable discussion. I enjoyed it immensely. We should do this more often! I tried my best to persuade the rest of you to my way of thinking, alas, to no avail. But, that's what I get for being a utopian! Better luck next time! Hopefully I managed to get some of you to think about government in a different way, at least a little bit. The great thing about being a utopian is you are filled with never ending optimism!
