Actually I would prefer no war at all. War is the last resort of idiots and those with delusions of grandeur.
All wars are merely mass murder justified by propaganda and manipulation of public opinion.
Why America Dropped the Bomb
- Thread starter Locutus
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Actually I would prefer no war at all. War is the last resort of idiots and those with delusions of grandeur.
All wars are merely mass murder justified by propaganda and manipulation of public opinion.
No war at all ain't gonna happen as long as man walks this planet. He can't get along with anyone....
Since somebody wants to bring 'revisionist history' into the mix might I remind that the history of war is usually written by the winner therefore will almost always portray them as the good guys and be extremely revisionist in nature.
I guess you failed at the game too..
I'm not Christian ;-)
So your an agnostic Jew.. lol Walter's best friend.. nice donation to the Obama campain.. Bill
[youtube]KAvDtPz33w0[/youtube]
You're right. We didn't want to keep feeding the Japanese war machine so we stopped selling them oil. So the Japanese knew they had to steal it from that point on.
Revisionism
Funny revisionism.
You're on a roll with this fantasy aren't you?
Yet conventional bombing at the time was killing more. Not to mention Japanese conventional weapons killed a heck of a lot more Chinese than the A-Bombs.
And what of the other countries involved in WWII? Did the UK (including Canada) spare civilians? Germany? The Soviets? Welcome to the club!
Mustard Gas? You aren't talking about WWI are you? If so you are just as guilty. Both sides used gas.
Agent Orange... Canada helped develop it and test it!
Successfully too!
There are no angels in war. There's a reason people want to avoid it: Its awful for everyone involved. It doesnt justify it, but lets face it even the good guys have used some awful tactics to win.
As for the second part, what difference does it make if it was one nuclear weapon used or thousands of conventional bombs? The outcome is the same and both sides were doing it. The US could have used nuclear weapons in Korea and Vietnam and ended those conflicts very quickly. They didnt.
War sucks, of course. It is sometimes necessary though. If no one had put up any resistance to Germany or Japan at that time the world would be a much worse place right now. Even though we were protected by two large oceans it would have been crazy to just sit back and do nothing. Well, aside from WW1, I wouldn't have minded sitting that one out.
A funny part is that some of these Canadians think (or ignore the fact) that they weren't involved in the development of the Atomic Bombs and the Manhattan Project.
The Online NewsHour: Tracking Nuclear Proliferation | Country Profile | Canada | PBS
Although one guy awhile ago in here said they helped develop the non-lethal part of the bombs... the Uranium! lol
The Online NewsHour: Tracking Nuclear Proliferation | Country Profile | Canada | PBS
Although one guy awhile ago in here said they helped develop the non-lethal part of the bombs... the Uranium! lol
The more burning question is why did the Japs drop the bomb on Pearl Harbour? Sure hope they aren't whining about Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
Pearl Harbor was a military target. Most of the people who died there were military personel. At Hiroshima and Nagasaki the vast majority of the casualties were civilians. Thats a pretty big difference. The combined death toll at Hiroshima and Nagasaki is about 150,000. The attack at Pearl Harbor killed around 2,400. Given those numbers I think its alright for them to 'whine' about it.
There are usually several contributing factors for the occurrence of an event. I think it's useful to try to step into the shoes and mindset of the Americans. The Japanese had developed new tactics at Iwo Jima and Okinawa resulting in massive American casualties. The prospect of actually invading Kyushu and Honshu looked like it would take the deaths of at least hundreds of thousands of Americans plus untold numbers of wounded. The Japanese wanted to inflict such casualties so that they could obtain a conditional surrender on favorable terms.
The America people were war weary, and would not sustain another two years of all out war. The Japanese just would not surrender because the country was in the grips of the militarists. Japanese cities had been firebombed, unrestricted submarine warfare had stopped trade...and still the Japanese would not surrender unless the militarists were left in power.
It was this scenario that led to the dropping of the bomb called Little Boy on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. On August 8, 1945 the Red Army invaded Manchuria and swept up the remains of the Kwantung Army. America made the political decision to drop Fat Man on Nagasaki. It was the Soviet entry into the war plus the two atomic bombings that led to the decision by Japan to surrender on August 15, 1945.
I don't think the Japanese truly comprehended the ramifications of the use of atomic weapons, but they did see the destruction. Imo it was the use of these weapons coupled with the prospect of a Soviet occupation of the main Japanese Islands that led to the Japanese decision to accept the Potsdam Declaration unconditionally.
The America people were war weary, and would not sustain another two years of all out war. The Japanese just would not surrender because the country was in the grips of the militarists. Japanese cities had been firebombed, unrestricted submarine warfare had stopped trade...and still the Japanese would not surrender unless the militarists were left in power.
It was this scenario that led to the dropping of the bomb called Little Boy on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. On August 8, 1945 the Red Army invaded Manchuria and swept up the remains of the Kwantung Army. America made the political decision to drop Fat Man on Nagasaki. It was the Soviet entry into the war plus the two atomic bombings that led to the decision by Japan to surrender on August 15, 1945.
I don't think the Japanese truly comprehended the ramifications of the use of atomic weapons, but they did see the destruction. Imo it was the use of these weapons coupled with the prospect of a Soviet occupation of the main Japanese Islands that led to the Japanese decision to accept the Potsdam Declaration unconditionally.
The Japanese were not innocent victims here. The country who suffered the 2nd most civilian casualties were the Chinese and that was at the hands of Japan. And they didn't use one nuke.
I was watching a documentary on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Japanese professor said something along the lines of...
"If Japan had the bomb we would have most certainly used it on the Americans."
You all know they would have.
There is a huge lesson to be learned here, both for regimes and for individuals..................when you start something negatively aggressive you should first consider how much you have to lose. Once the gloves are off we don't start picking and choosing!
Difference is that the Japs bombed Pearl Harbour BEFORE war was declared. That is a no no.