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Obama in Hiroshima


RavenHawk

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On 6/1/2016 at 10:43 AM, Otto von Pickelhaube said:

Japan was almost certainly ready to surrender, and probably would have already done if it hadn't been for the Allies' vindictive demands for "unconditional Surrender", which they felt would have meant a demand for the Emperor to stand down. It was almost certainly purely a political gesture, aimed mainly at Joe Stalin.

It was certainly a different time and judging the people of that time (who suffered immensely) by modern mores is wrong.  Japan decided to enlarge it's fortunes and did not worry enough about the costs if they were unsuccessful.  To apply a modern face to it, what do you imagine ISIS would do if there were no one to stand against them?  Does it really escape you that true evil exists in this world?  I'm sure you are aware of what the Japanese did during the war to captured peoples.  Does that not qualify?  The civilians in those two towns had worked for the victory for many years and were a justifiable target at the time.  It's only through the modern hate the US lens that they seem so much the victims in history.  Had we allowed the institution of the Mikado to go untouched and un-humbled then we might have had to fight the same kind of insanity a few decades later.  The Japanese peasants at the time prostrated themselves before radios - they really thought he was DIVINE.  Divine beings do not get humbled by anything.

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5 hours ago, and then said:

It was certainly a different time and judging the people of that time (who suffered immensely) by modern mores is wrong.  Japan decided to enlarge it's fortunes and did not worry enough about the costs if they were unsuccessful.  To apply a modern face to it, what do you imagine ISIS would do if there were no one to stand against them?  Does it really escape you that true evil exists in this world?  I'm sure you are aware of what the Japanese did during the war to captured peoples.  Does that not qualify?  The civilians in those two towns had worked for the victory for many years and were a justifiable target at the time.  It's only through the modern hate the US lens that they seem so much the victims in history.  Had we allowed the institution of the Mikado to go untouched and un-humbled then we might have had to fight the same kind of insanity a few decades later.  The Japanese peasants at the time prostrated themselves before radios - they really thought he was DIVINE.  Divine beings do not get humbled by anything.

The trouble with the principle of retribution is that some people might be tempted to consider that it works both ways, and (to use a modern analogy) any inhabitant of any U.S. city would be seen equally as a fair target for retribution by anyone seeking to retaliate for any such "seeking to enlarge its fortunes" the US may have done since then. Do you still see it as fair? Some people in other countries might almost say the same - Had we allowed the institution of the Mikado to go untouched and un-humbled then we might have had to fight the same kind of insanity a few decades later - about, for example, the direction successive U.S. Administrations have been taking in recent years.  

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On 6/4/2016 at 11:23 AM, Rlyeh said:

Following this logic, if hypothetically the US attacked a nation first would it be ok if they retaliated by nuking you?

I'm curious if this justification works both ways. 

 

Except the the nuking was only done as a last resort, it was done to shorten a war and save lives.  That's the difference between using it just because, and using it because there's no choice.

And yes, if any just nation threatens another with its very survival, they should be allowed to resort to whatever they need to do survive.

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On 6/4/2016 at 8:12 PM, Uncle Sam said:

If I was the President, I would have done two things. I would have paid tribute to the citizens that were innocent and caught up between two countries fighting, then I would pay tribute to the American Soldiers who died in the war. Would never honor the soldier's from Japanese Imperial Army, ever, because they committed major war crimes that still leave a scar today in all of Asia. The citizens who had no connection to this war also deserve to be remembered from the country who lost the war. All military's have a bad habit of dehumanizing the citizens and army of the foreign country every time. It is much easier to kill an soldier you perceive to be evil than a another human being forced to fight a war he never wanted to fight, much more easier and works towards the advance of political angle too.

There were no "citizens caught up between two countries fighting".  Where did you get that?  Japan was making war on the world, not just their military.  Without its civilians helping out, the Japanese wouldn't have been able to make war.

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On 6/1/2016 at 11:43 AM, Otto von Pickelhaube said:

Japan was almost certainly ready to surrender, and probably would have already done if it hadn't been for the Allies' vindictive demands for "unconditional Surrender", which they felt would have meant a demand for the Emperor to stand down. It was almost certainly purely a political gesture, aimed mainly at Joe Stalin.

"Vindictive'?  Oh those poor, poor Japanese being bullied by the allies.  All they wanted to do was wage war and commit atrocities, why wouldn't everyone just leave them alone.

You are full of BS.  And the Japanese were nowhere near ready to surrender.  Crack open an effing history book for once.

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1 minute ago, Thorvir Hrothgaard said:

"Vindictive'?  Oh those poor, poor Japanese being bullied by the allies.  All they wanted to do was wage war and commit atrocities, why wouldn't everyone just leave them alone.

You are full of BS.  And the Japanese were nowhere near ready to surrender.  Crack open an effing history book for once.

Whose book? Because I can tell you that, depending on who wrote it (and some of them were Japan's enemies at the time) they will either confirm or deny his version.

 

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On 6/3/2016 at 5:47 PM, Yamato said:

Well OS and SE409, if you're right then when the pencil pushers at the bureau scribble out another operation, reality moves aside and the real God on earth seamlessly takes over.

We were indiscriminately killing them by the millions already.  Nobody on earth outside of Japan itself cared.   Ketsugo was a dumb idea that had zero chance of success, it was  patriotic propaganda designed to make their enemy reluctant to invade.   Invasion wasn't necessary.   Diplomacy was.  We could have wrapped this war up by June 3, 1945, with orders of magnitude less subsidies pouring into Japan after the war. 

The Japanese military was finished.   Hirohito was more than ready to make peace under the unsurprising condition that he stayed.   That's a wide open door to the end of the war that the proponents of nuclear strategic bombing don't want to acknowledge.   Admiral Nimitz October 5, 1945:  "The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace before the atomic age was announced to the world with the destruction of Hiroshima and before the Russian entry into the war."

Yes there were real Warmongers in the Japanese govt, possibly even worse than the Neocons we have today.   However it wasn't the Japanese people that were brainwashed robots of hate against the Americans, it was a collection of warmongering nutbars high in the Japanese gum'mint, just like we have today.  The hindsight of how warmly we were received by the Japanese people leaves no doubt.   Even if someone still wants to argue the opposite it's a moot point arguing the other way because the Emperor wanted to make peace, and btw, the unquestionable propaganda campaign of women and children hitting GI Joe with a bamboo stick in the kitchen was reliant on him.  

This "idea" of killing millions of people over one damned guy and his bad gang of nuts, Syria's Bashar al Assad most recently.  Or in Hirohito's case, just his bad gang of nuts.     

I don't think that mass life is so overpowered by ANY political whim in-flux, nor in-between whoever's invisible lines we're tripping over next.  

 

 

 

This is your opinion only and because of the way reality turned out it will never be anything but opinion.  Everyone can have an opinion, even me.

 

You see what sticks in my mind is footage filmed by horrified Americans of the Japanese people jumping off of cliffs with their children in their arms rather than surrender.

Edited by OverSword
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8 hours ago, Otto von Pickelhaube said:

any inhabitant of any U.S. city would be seen equally as a fair target for retribution by anyone seeking to retaliate for any such "seeking to enlarge its fortunes" the US may have done since then.

I live in Seattle, the home of Boeing and was raised around NIKE missile bases and submarine bases.  There was never a time including now that my city was not a target.  I'm used to it.

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5 hours ago, OverSword said:

This is your opinion only and because of the way reality turned out it will never be anything but opinion.  Everyone can have an opinion, even me.

"This "idea" of killing millions of people over one damned guy and his bad gang of nuts, Syria's Bashar al Assad most recently.  Or in Hirohito's case, just his bad gang of nuts.     I don't think that mass life is so overpowered by ANY political whim in-flux, nor in-between whoever's invisible lines we're tripping over next. "

is my opinion.  The rest of the reply is not.

 

Quote

You see what sticks in my mind is footage filmed by horrified Americans of the Japanese people jumping off of cliffs with their children in their arms rather than surrender.

Rather than what turned out in hindsight to be more bureaucratic BS:  "Unconditional Surrender."   Personally I wouldn't trust an enemy who was slaughtering my country's civilians as quickly as possible with as big a weapons as they could build.

We were busy with the act of completely destroying Japanese cities, and Americans got "horrified" by Japanese jumping off cliffs?   That's rich.  

Maybe they'd rather take control of their own lives and deaths than burn to death in B-29 raids or battleship bombardments, or flamethrowers smoking them out of their holes.  Maybe they killed themselves because their govt hadn't "unconditionally" surrendered yet.   Reality would suggest this is true, when we didn't see the mass suicides after the war was over.

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7 hours ago, Thorvir Hrothgaard said:

There were no "citizens caught up between two countries fighting".  Where did you get that?  Japan was making war on the world, not just their military.  Without its civilians helping out, the Japanese wouldn't have been able to make war.

You do realize at the time, Japan was a Imperial Nation ruled by a Empire that basically did what it wanted. :\

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14 minutes ago, Yamato said:

We were busy with the act of completely destroying Japanese cities, and Americans got "horrified" by Japanese jumping off cliffs?   That's rich.  

Is that rich?  You haven't heard the first hand accounts of the Americans that witnessed it then.  They were thinking the civilians will all kill themselves and the soldiers fight until they were all dead rather than just put up their hands.  They were horrified.  You ever watch a person kill themselves?

I stand by my opinion, while terrible, the bombs stopped the war and saved more lives than they took. 

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3 minutes ago, OverSword said:

 

I stand by my opinion, while terrible, the bombs stopped the war and saved more lives than they took. 

The bombs stopped the war more quickly and saved more lives than they took vs. one other possible competing outcome.

Quote

Is that rich?  You haven't heard the first hand accounts of the Americans that witnessed it then.  They were thinking the civilians will all kill themselves and the soldiers fight until they were all dead rather than just put up their hands.  They were horrified.    You ever watch a person kill themselves?

Yes it's super rich and ironic.  You think the Japanese weren't horrified?   Did those witnesses hear what those people were told before they jumped?   Did they have a flipping clue what those suicidal people were really thinking or what they were so scared of?   It's supremely rich that some small group of political prawn journalists behind a camera were "horrified" by Japanese jumping off cliffs and meanwhile "not horrified" by the wholesale slaughter in their cities.

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There is some psychological backing for a "horrified by one witnessed death, ignoring the ramifications of massed slaughter" mindset.

Furthermore, there are stories of Japanese civilians in the Pacfic coming up to Allied soldiers going "my baby my baby" and then exploding the hand grenade they were carrying. So once those stories reached MacArthur etc in Brisbane and the suits in Wahington, they'd have built this image of the the Japanese civilian as bring as much a danger as Japanese combatants.

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On 6/1/2016 at 10:43 AM, Otto von Pickelhaube said:

 

Again, cannot "quote" post 77

But for OvP, yes I agree that if other nations decide to attack us based on such behavior then they will do and any justice in it won't matter anyway.  We can bemoan the fact that the world is basically controlled by a single nation at a time but it doesn't change said fact.  I have no doubt that many nations would like to gut America like a Carp.  Maybe someday they'll get to see it.  I think they call that "cutting off your nose to spite your face" though.  This country has done no more to pillage or dispossess the world than did any of the other dynasties.  

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The fact is that we know for a fact how it ends after dropping two A-Bombs and everything else is just fantasy.  So keep dreaming your what-if's and coulda' been's.

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18 hours ago, Uncle Sam said:

You do realize at the time, Japan was a Imperial Nation ruled by a Empire that basically did what it wanted. :\

You do realize, at that time, Japan was an Imperial Nation ruled by an Emperor that was worshiped as a god by his citizens, and they allowed him to do what he wanted to do?  And that they would lay down their lives as fast as you can say it to preserve the Emperor and his Empire?  So, again, there were no "citizens caught up between two countries' fighting.  With it's citizens, Japan would not have had the capacity to wage a genocidal war in the first place.

Edited by Thorvir Hrothgaard
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