Brush up on my history? Why, were you unsatisfied with the history lesson I just gave you? As any argument you make going forward will be based on the facts I just taught you, you should be thanking me.
I do thank you… I’m not a history major, but I know psychology and game theory. If the russians hadn’t stepped in, the japanese would have won, so we have the russians to thank for that. The Japanese were using the best war game theory on planet earth, but this theory couldn’t take the russians and the americans combined. I didn’t know about the russians declaring war on the japanese after the two bombs… the eluded my education in life. But if the russians had done it beforehand, the americans certainly would’t have needed the bombs… and actually before an international community, the americans could have explained radiation sickness and shown one nuclear weapon to help bring the world closer together, without a single casualty. The radiation levels increased all over the globe after Chernobal… so this isn’t stuff to screw around with.
Before the russians stepped in, we kicked their ass from Pearl Harbor through the islands and took Okinawa. If the Russians didn't step in, we would have fought a long war of attrition and dropped nukes on them every time we had one manufactured. They had no navy, they had no air force, and their anti-air was so weak that we were more worried about the weather than their guns when we ran our bombing missions. I don't know where you're getting the above from considering how the actually war without Russians went, but at this point I don't care so much.
If the Russians declared war on Japan before we nuked them, we may not have needed the nukes, but we still would have needed a land invasion that would have killed hundreds of thousands of people if not over a million between the US, Japan, and Russia. A three way war like that would almost certainly have resulted in more casualities than the nukes it. Russia had a non-aggression pact with Japan that they had to violate in order to go to war with them, and it seems our use of nukes that promoted them to discard it.
The relevant nations already knew all that, they were working on their own nuclear programs. It's how Japan was able to estimate the size of our arsenal so well. There's people living in Chernobyl now without problem, just like they are in Nagasaki, Hirsoshima, and so on.
There’s also cancer rates going up all over the world that you need to take pancreatic enzymes to cleanse. But you probably didn’t know that since you can’t patent pancreatic enzymes… one of the most lethal forms of cancer is cured by the enzymes of that organ which kills all cancer duh go figure… But that’s totally off topic, somewhat, because Chernobal is still having a huge effect… that’s assuming the Japanese didn’t understand basic game theory (our small island vs. the russians and americans… hmmm…) You did make these people out to be intelligent enough to understand out nuclear capabilities didn’t you?
The hair samples pre-chernobal and post chernobal show a massive spike in radiation levels for EVERYONE on the PLANET.
totally off topic Most cancer can be CURED by taking pancreatic enzymes at high doses. The average prognosis for pancreatic cancer is 2-3 months… this is because pancreatic enzymes destroy cancer, this has been known for 70 years!!!
But the pharmaceutical companies don’t want you to know that because they can’t PATENT them.
True.
But, there can be a lot of difference between what has happend so far or what happens generally and what should happen. Habits cannot be considered as justifications.
Jr, i am talking about an idealistic situation, not general; what is ought to be not what it is.
with love,
sanjay
That is okay. Sanjay is my real name and Zinnat 13 is username. I do not mind being called by either one.
with love,
sanjay
Agreed, but I think humans find it difficult to develop empathy for those of vastly different cultures. They see the differences as being greater than the similarities and hence create distance between them and us. It is easy then to excuse the genocides of such cultures. Killing something that you do not care about is easy and justifiable.
Would you say you know more about medicine than you do World War II, or less? About the same?
Anyway, it went the way I predicted some posts ago- we kept talking and talking until eventually you found a way to jump ship and talk about something completely different so you could still feel 'correct', even if it's about something completely irrelevant. Even if I believed your notions about cancer had any more credence than your notions about history, God, or facial expressions, it wouldn't affect the things I've said about the bombing of Japan one bit.
If Japan didnt want to get nuked, they should have surrendered.
I don’t mind Ecmandu. He is a lovable character. He can talk about whatever he wants in my threads.
Yes, but the nuclear bombing of Japan was completely justified, and there’s no argument to the contrary to be found here, least of all from Ecmandu. Whether or not his nonsense is lovable isn’t my primary concern.
Anything and everything is justifiable.
Depends what you value.
The Jr Wells who began this thread specifically asking if such acts where justifiable, and who called the Dresden bombing 'horrific' did not seem to take such a flippant attitude toward justification. I think you just didn't get the answer you sought.
Criticisms of Hiroshima and even Dresden melt away to almost nothing when it’s remembered these were acts against an aggressor who could have surrendered at any time previous. Japan made a specific, calculated, and knowledgeable decision to allow their people to be nuked a second time rather than give up the war they started.
I am not after any specific answer. I am not attached to any specific reply from anyone.
I am happy with your reply and I am happy with Ecmandu’s reply.
I used the word “horrific” as intentional emotive language.
Can you base your views on the justification of the bombings without referring to what “you” value.
I do not tend to think in terms of black hat and white hat (bad vs good) and so your position is foreign to me.
Why did we need to force Japan surrender?
You think some acts are horrible and others have dubious justification but you don’t think in terms of good and bad? Mmm.
Because they attacked us and we were at war with them. When you don't force somebody to surrender, you're just giving them a chance to reload. You can compare situations where we forced a surrender (Germany, Japan), with situations where we did not (North Korea, Iraq after the first Gulf War) and see what happens when you just stop fighting at some arbitrary point.
I notice that, despite your insistance that you aren't concerned with sides or goodness or badness, you resist any sort of analysis that doesn't put America in the active role and Japan the passive- why did we do this, why did we do that. But when it comes to these bombings, that's not the most important question. Why didn't Japan surrender after Potsdam where we told them in no uncertain terms that we would annihilate them with weapons never before seen on the battlefield if they did not? Why didn't Japan surrender after we nuked Hiroshima? The second question has an answer- they knew we only had a couple of nukes and were willing to let a couple more cities be destroyed if it meant not giving up. Think about that. The people being nuked were willing to keep on being nuked as opposed to surrendering. They made the decision to allow that to happen to their people. What does that say about the act itself in the context of the war it occured in?
I think in terms of consequences, not in terms of good and bad.
The causes of war are complex. I tend to think of war as a consequence.
Justifying the consequence seems crazy to me.
If you want to know if a particular act in a war is justified, but you handwave away the causes of that war and it’s consequences, then what do you want? A poem?
The causes of a war are complex in that they are [i]hard.[/i] You actually have to do a bunch of reading and critical thinking and examination instead of just saying what feels good to say. Nevertheless, that's where the answer to your originally posed question lies. I think the utilitarian answer Zinnat gave and the science fiction answer Ecmanadu gave are firmly rooted in saying what feels good to say.
You obviously have strong views about this. I do not share your strong views or anyone else’s strong views. I think everyone has made many valid points.
Well, you’re incorrect about that. But I know taking the egalitarian track feels like wisdom these days, so I leave you to it.