60th anniversary of a-bomb attack

[Bella]

Hiroshima survivors call for peace...


User Name: imafreethinker
Password: password

[albert cipriani]

I'm glad we did it. By any calculation, the Japanesse should be glad we did it, too.

When will we get over giving the fools of this world victim status? It's like we have buckets of guilt sloshing aroung and so jump at the chance to pass them out to the fire birgade that's called every time some jerk lights up a smoke. Let them smoke and smolder in peace. I'm not going to expend any guilt over the deaths Japan brought on to itself. -- Albert Cipriani the Traditional Catholic

[Crumb]

That was an interesting article Bree, thanks for posting it. I was very moved by the official Japanese reaction to the bombings over the last 60 years. I have never heard anything about that before. I hope it does not change so drastically as they are suggesting it might.

[Darren]

80 000 deaths, almost all civilians, in one attack - an atrocity by any standards, or it should be at least. The horror of all those little kids dying so atrociously from radiation burns and the "black rain". And then Nagasaki. 90 000, wasn't it? Oh well, at least those kids were sacrificed to save the lives of all those innocent adult soldiers (and to stop the hostilities before those reds got too far down into South East Asia!). That's one interpretation of "suffer little childeren to come unto me", anyway.
Funny how when the Japanese invaded China and massacred 100 000 civilians, it is deemed criminal, but when America invaded Okinawa, killing around the same number of civilians, it is all the fault of the Japanese. Talk about a lopsided view of things!
It's interesting to see the inexcusable excused, real mental gymnastics - they make it seem so effortless with their skill!

[albert cipriani]

Originally Posted by Darren

Funny how when the Japanese invaded China and massacred 100 000 civilians, it is deemed criminal, but when America invaded Okinawa, killing around the same number of civilians, it is all the fault of the Japanese.

That's not funny. It's stupid.

I understand how mindless people don't much recognize facts, but ususally they do give grudging credence to motion pictures. So why don't you? Haven't you seen the motion pictures of mothers throwing their children over the clifts and jumping after them? The Japs did the same on Saipan. But according to you American GI's are responsible for their cult of death and unwillingness to surrender.

No wonder you're on an atheistic message board. If motion pictures of facts can't get any credulity out of your brain, how can the word of God spark any conviction in you either? What a hopeless example of mental rot you represent! Shame on you, Albert Cipriani the Traditional Catholic

[Darren]

Those motion pictures were filmed and produced entirely by the American military, they don't actually prove anything at all (think propoganda here).
Even if they were 100% authentic in all respects, they still wouldn't account for even 100 terrified civilians committing suicide out of desperation, let alone 100 000!

Actually, the American forces spokesmen themselves explain a lot (but certainly not all) of the killing when they describe how, by that stage in the Pacific campaign, standard tactics involved the use of extremely heavy firepower and ordnance to "clear" the way before the infantry advanced and before any contact could take place. This was designed to reduce casualties among the American forces, tough luck for the civilian population of Okinawa! They were just in the way.
Actually, if you really do think about it, how could even a Japanese soldier (let alone a civilian) surrender to an incoming shell, stick of bombs or stream of napalm? And do civilians have to surrender or die? I do agree that this is not obvious and takes some thought and consideration of the facts, but when these last are examined, the propoganda is undermined.
I suppose the authorities needed some way of explaining the horrendous "collateral damage", so the Signal Corps cameramen were brought in to sanitise the event.
Apparantly it worked!

[albert cipriani]

Originally Posted by Darren

Those motion pictures were filmed and produced entirely by the American military, they don't actually prove anything at all (think propoganda here).

There you have it folks, the real non-reason Darren is an atheist. He, like the rest of you, has got an aversion to the truth. He’s so in love with his pet ideas, that even documentary films to the contrary are, well, propaganda. Until you are there, I suppose even hell will remain just another species of propaganda. Good Luck, Albert Cipriani the Traditional Catholic

[D. Scarlatti]

And your penchant for ad hominem gets more pathetic with each dismal appearance.

[Darren]

Originally Posted by albert cipriani

There you have it folks, the real non-reason Darren is an atheist. He, like the rest of you, has got an aversion to the truth. He’s so in love with his pet ideas, that even documentary films to the contrary are, well, propaganda. Until you are there, I suppose even hell will remain just another species of propaganda. Good Luck, Albert Cipriani the Traditional Catholic

Albert, just where are you sending this from, and do you have any documentary footage? Just calm down, man, calm down and think before you type.

[albert cipriani]

Originally Posted by D. Scarlatti

And your penchant for ad hominem gets more pathetic with each dismal appearance.

And your inability to construct more than a single-sentence retort free of inferential thought has been pathetically apparent from the very beginning. – Albert Cipriani the Traditional Catholic

[Darren]

Originally Posted by albert cipriani

I understand how mindless people don't much recognize facts, but ususally they do give grudging credence to motion pictures.

Certainly one of them seems to!

Originally Posted by albert cipriani

So why don't you?

I'll give you one guess!

I tried, but I just couldn't resist
Come on Albert, you even talked about a Goebbels film in one of your posts, you know that anything on film is like anything else that is produced, inevitably biased.
Film is at least selective in that its producers both consciously and unconsciously choose what "facts" to represent and how they will be represented, as we know it can be downright deceiving too.
Are you actually disputing who the cameramen and producers of the Okinawa footage were? Now that is a cold hard fact, they were in the U.S. military, and they were producing film for the U.S. military. Therefore they were biased, unavoidably so. Calling something "truth" because its on film is a bit naive.

[godfry n. glad]

Not to mention the "truth" of the "million American lives saved" by the dropping of the two bombs. That figure was made up out of thin air by McGeorge Bundy, who wrote the speeches for Secretary Stimson on why they were used.

What has been fairly well obscured by Allied "histories" of the end of the war in the Pacific is that Japanese sources were already looking for avenues to sue for peace before the atomic bombs were dropped. This was acknowledged by the Allied leaders at Yalta. The "necessity" of the atomic bombs was a rationalization...propaganda. It sure made us feel better, having repeatedly violated the standards of waging war we held when we entered it, the atomic bombings being the most egregious of the violations.

[albert cipriani]

Originally Posted by godfry n. glad

“It sure made us feel better, having repeatedly violated the standards of waging war we held when we entered it, the atomic bombings being the most egregious of the violations.”

Dropping one big bomb that did more efficiently what thousands of little bombs did was a violation of the standards of warfare? I see.

But the Japs’ starving and working and marching and bayoneting 1 out of 3 American POW was not a violation of the standards of warfare?! Of course, you are correct, because the Japs never even bothered to sign the Geneva convention. Ergo, the Japs committed their atrocities without violating the standards of warfare. Your logic is demonic.

Well leave off describing the vivisections the Japs performed on our POW’s. We won’t discuss their macabre use of nerve and biological agents on our POWs. No. For those facts interfere with your delusion that our a-bomb was “the most egregious of the violations.”

What’s the point of talking theology to people such as yourself who are so factually-challenged as to not even be able to be coherent about what has been documented to have happened just 60 years ago? – Disgusted, Albert Cipriani the Traditional Catholic

[Ari]

I purposely didn't respond to Al because I have noticed it is impossible to have any kind of serious mature conversation with him when he thinks he is right.

But since someone opened the can of spam, I will add, I don't think most people are against the A-bomb being a large bomb. Nor are they against the idea of trying to ultimately save lives. What they are against is the fact America purposefully chose a civilian target to bomb. That the number 1 consideration when picking a target was how much civilian damage we could do. If such an event happened today, to the US, during a war, we would call those who did it terrorists and animals. Yet the majority of the US finds it acceptable that we did it to someone else.

[But]

Originally Posted by albert cipriani

Dropping one big bomb that did more efficiently what thousands of little bombs did was a violation of the standards of warfare? I see.

Oh, and that little bit about radiation sickness, cancer, leukemia, irreversibly damaging people's genes and all that.

But the Japs’ starving and working and marching and bayoneting 1 out of 3 American POW was not a violation of the standards of warfare?! Of course, you are correct, because the Japs never even bothered to sign the Geneva convention. Ergo, the Japs committed their atrocities without violating the standards of warfare. Your logic is demonic.

Sorry, I don't think bayoneting POWs, as cruel as it may be, is as bad as making civilians puke their irradiated innards out.

Well leave off describing the vivisections the Japs performed on our POW’s. We won’t discuss their macabre use of nerve and biological agents on our POWs. No.

Thanks.

What’s the point of talking theology

Good question.

[godfry n. glad]

So.... If the actions of the enemy are reprehensible, we are absolved of our need to NOT be reprehensible?

I did not deny that the Japanese military engaged in the actions of which you speak. I spoke only of the US military's jettisoning of the standard of minimizing the civilian casualties. Not to worry, though, al, we did that long before we dropped the atomic bombs on hundreds of thousands of non-combatants in Japan. The fire-bombing of Dresden and the fire-bombing of multiple Japanese cities had already made us complicit in immoral acts of war by the time of Hiroshima. It, and Nagasaki, were just egregious lapses.

As for knowing my history, I have a master's degree that says I can teach it. And, my specialty is Asian history (along with American history). And, my second language is Japanese. And, I'm not particularly fond of the Japanese as a people. But, I still believe that both atomic bombs were unnecessary and our use of them was misguided to the extreme.

[albert cipriani]

Originally Posted by Ari

“What they are against is the fact America purposefully chose a civilian target to bomb.”

Duh! What other targets were left in 1945 Japan?! We’d already firebombed every thing else. Why not shed your crocodile tears over those civilian deaths that far exceeded the deaths of both a-bombs put together? I know. It’s cuz it’s more cool to be against the deaths caused by a non-PC a-bomb than it is to be against deaths caused by plain old conventional bombs. And why is that? Because, like, what’s cool is cool and the fact that I’d even have to ask you the question proves that I am not as cool as you.

Since Sherman’s march to Savannah, there has been no such thing as a war in which civilians are considered off-limits. Where have you been these past 150 years? Because of the Industrial Revolution, battlefields can no longer be fields. They extend into the heart of all cities. If you paid more attention to military history and less attention to trying to be cool you might not look like such an idiot.

The only question is whether or not combatants make attempts to discriminate between industrial and civilian targets, to maximize the former and minimize the latter. That we did in every war we fought. That you can’t see that probably has something to do with why you see documentary footage of Japs committing suicide as our own propaganda. Damn you guys are dumb!

“The number 1 consideration when picking a target was how much civilian damage we could do.”

Pray tell Mr. Living in La La Land, exactly what kind of targets do you have in mind that don’t involve civilian damage? Be specific now: mountain tops,? Do you imagine the Japs centralized their armament manufacturing to make it easy for us to bomb such things without killing civilians? Do you think they blew a whistle so that all the civilians would go home and be fast asleep in peace while we night-bombed the place? Or do you even know that the Japs located POW camps next to targets of military worth?

I hope you are simply ignorant, for the alternative is that you are mentally ill. – Disgusted, Albert Cipriani the Traditional Catholic Whose Brain Cells are Wasted on You

[livius drusus]

Are you intentionally using a racial slur when you say "Jap", Albert?

[Ari]

A reply to Al against my better judgement.

Duh! What other targets were left in 1945 Japan?! We’d already firebombed every thing else. Why not shed your crocodile tears over those civilian deaths that far exceeded the deaths of both a-bombs put together? I know. It’s cuz it’s more cool to be against the deaths caused by a non-PC a-bomb than it is to be against deaths caused by plain old conventional bombs.

You ignored what I said but call us dumb. Ok, whatever.
Guess what I said? "I don't think most people are against the A-bomb being a large bomb."
So yes, I am obviously against the A-bomb because it's cool to be against big bombs.
I am also saddened by other civilian death, but this thread is about the A-bomb, so stay on topic.

Since Sherman’s march to Savannah, there has been no such thing as a war in which civilians are considered off-limits.

So I shouldn't complain about targeting civilians because other people have done it. What great logic.

The only question is whether or not combatants make attempts to discriminate between industrial and civilian targets, to maximize the former and minimize the latter. That we did in every war we fought

Not reading the thread against, Tisk tisk.
What did I say?
"What they are against is the fact America purposefully chose a civilian target to bomb."
Whatever we did in "every war" we chose to maximize civilian casualties when dropping the A bomb (the current topic), not minimize them.

Pray tell Mr. Living in La La Land, exactly what kind of targets do you have in mind that don’t involve civilian damage?

Hey look, another bit of not reading the thread.
Civilian damage is inevitable. But "The only question is whether or not combatants make attempts to discriminate between industrial and civilian targets, to maximize the former and minimize the latter"
In this case we didn't choose to minimize the latter but maximize it. There were quite a few military targets still available but the military felt they wouldn't show off the bombs maximum power and wouldn't provide enough civilian casualties.

I hope you are simply ignorant, for the alternative is that you are mentally ill.

Should you really be saying this when you ignored the majority of my post? Exactly what does attacking people directly gain? On a message board you can't bully people to your side, but you can make yourself look foolish.

[Adora]

Originally Posted by The Dick

If motion pictures of facts...

Yes. Of course. Because movies aren't fabricated. Or staged. Ever. There's no such thing as propaganda. The raising of the flag at Iwojima was totally not staged. Nu-uh. Nooooo way. That's fact, that is.

[albert cipriani]

Originally Posted by livius drusus

Are you intentionally using a racial slur when you say "Jap", Albert?

Do you prefer "Nip"?

[livius drusus]

I see. You disappoint me, Albert.

[albert cipriani]

Originally Posted by livius drusus

I see. You disappoint me, Albert.

No you don’t see. And ditto for you disappointing me.

It’s just like you to see the flea and not the dog. The dog in this case, that will not bite or bark (and cannot roll over and will not die let alone play dead), is that Jap suicides during WWII is US propaganda. Not one person on your august board challenges that bit of insanity except me. And in the process, all you can see fit to challenge is my bigot credentials because I leave the last 5 letters off the word Japanese.

Hey, didn’t ya notice, I called us the US, not Americans? Don’t ya think that smacks of being a bit egocentric, the flip side of being a Jap racist? And it involved the dropping of 7, count them, 7 letters, not just 5. I find that about as reprehensible as dropping the big one… which is to say NOT! – Disgusted and Disappointed, Albert

[livius drusus]

I asked a question. Your answer disappointed me. C'est tout.

[Adora]

Considering "Americans" can refer to any citizen of the countries that come under the umbrella of "The Americas", "US" is probably more correct.