9/11, time to forget?

Do you guys want to know why they didn't drop the bomb on Tokyo? Because Tokyo was already fucking demolished by incendiary raids.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incendiary_device#Development_and_use_in_World_War_II

Also, here's an excerpt from Saving Private Power by Michael Zezima:

Truman on April 28, 1959:

So enough with the "we didn't understand the repercussions", we just didn't care.

So testing a nuclear bomb means we will know that it has extreme long term effects? Also, put yourself in the shoes of the people who ordered the dropping of the bomb. They did not have the advantage of hindsight. To them, there were only two options they thought they had to choose from. Dropping two nuclear bombs and killing a few hundred thousand people which probably will make Japan surrender. Or invade Japan and lose a few million on each side, and there is no guarantee that the invasion would succeed. If anyone was given those two options they would almost certainly choose dropping the bomb. Again, they did not have the advantage of hindsight.

...That kinda is the point of testing, you know.

To see if radiation levels will have an effect on people for thirty years? They tested it to find out the initial damage not what it will do 30-40 years afterwards.

Yeah, they were pretty careless about the consequences, I agree.

And the initial damage was devastating. But American soldiers > Japanese civilians.

Do you know how many civilians would have been killed in an invasion? They were training them to fight with fucking sharpened bamboo sticks. Millions of civilian would have died as well.

Read my earlier post. Truman exaggerated our projected deaths greatly, as well as those for the enemy.

Im just gonna quote stalin here.

Ok, so I'm lost. Do you think the bomb was necessary or was that someone else posting here? Do you think the civilians that wanted so badly to surrender would have fought? Also, I disagree with Stalin, I would not have dropped it.

I don't think it was 100% necessary. What I am saying is, with the situation the generals were in, and with the options they were presented, there is no reason you should be calling them out for dropping the bomb. You gotta stop looking at it from the persective of somebody who has seen what the bomb can do and knows its long term effects and knows what the real situation was, and put yourself in their shoes.

And of course you are gonna say you wouldnt have dropped it because you know the effects it has. They did not know the effects it had. Look at it from their eyes, not from the eyes of someone who has had 67 years to see the damage it has caused.

People die when you drop explosives on them. That's why I wouldn't have done it.

Truman:

I don't know how many would have died, but it would have been nowhere near "millions". Even if this is Truman just trying to convince himself it was necessary, it still shows he was full of shit.

And since you couldn't be bothered to read my earlier post, this is from Saving Private Power:

This is why I'm calling them out.

When you are faced with dropping explosives or invading, and people die either way, then your opinion might change a bit.

Did you just ignore everything I posted except for that one sentence? THERE. WOULD. NOT. HAVE. BEEN. MILLIONS. OF. DEATHS. IF. WE. INVADED. We could have waited on the Soviets so as to increase the likelihood of the Emperor excepting our terms. We could have excepted THEIR terms. But we choose massacre, NEEDLESS massacre.

And yes I'm well aware of why we didn't, I just think those are bullshit excuses. They didn't want the Soviets to claim victory? They want the Emperor removed? TOO BAD.

I didnt say put yourself in the position of Truman. I didn't say put yourself in the same position as someone who knows whats gonna happen. I said put yourself in the shoes of someone who doesn't know that the dropping of the bomb was pointless. Someone who doesn't know that the invasion would not kill millions of people. The generals believed the invasion was the only other option at that time. They didn't know what the bomb was gonna do. Stop looking at it from the perspective of someone who already knows the effects and instead look at it from the perspective of a general at the time the bomb was dropped.

HE ordered the bomb being dropped. THEY knew innocents would die. And what makes you say Truman didn't share this information with his generals? Why wouldn't he? And of course they knew about the other options. They just thought civilians were less important than looking better than the Soviets.

Colonel Harry F. Cunningham:

Honestly now, did it surprise you one bit? Seems like everyone is doing it, especially the side defending the bombing.

Did stalin not already settle this little debate? I don't understand the controversy here. The allied generals saw two options, invade or use the nukes to shock japan into surrendering. We were in a fucking war, and you people are acting as if it were posssible to win without any civilan getting killed. Newflash for you children, wars are fucking messy, there has not been a war in history were innocents were not caught in the crossfire. This is nature of war and it always has been. I would love to see any of you, with no military experience or background, do a better job then the wwII generals did.

The US commanders saw two options, invade or use this newly invented bomb to try to shock japan into surrendering. It would be impossible for them to understand the long term effects the radiation would have, we tested it, it made a big explosion, so we thought hey, this will win war for us. The generals thought a full scale invasion would have cost literally millions of lives, whether or not that is true is debatable, and utlimately unimportant. The point is, that is how they saw it.

I know it's real easy sit there, and criticize something that happened over 60 years ago, after years of research and investigation went into finding all the little details that people at the time could not see, but does that not seem just a little stupid and childish? I mean just try a little, to put yourself in their postion and ask yourself what you would do.

Ok, I'm just going to lay out my position and try and make myself as clear as possible.

Truman and his generals knew innocents would die from the bombs. They knew the casualties would be worse than invading or accepting the Emperor's proposal for surrender. They didn't care. They already massacred hundreds of thousands of Japanese. Look at my earlier posts for evidence, I'm not writing it down again.

This is relevant today because the leaders of my country have taken a tragedy, one that could have been completely avoided if they hadn't been criminally negligent and/or incompetent, and used it to start a war with a country that had NO relation to the attackers. NONE. The media was flooded with tales of a madman wielding nuclear power, calls for revenge at any cost. The cost turned out to be near 105,721 to 115,476 Iraqi civilians killed (once again, mostly from bombing) and 4486 American soldiers killed and over 100000 estimated wounded (I'm not to sure about the Iraqi military).

Despite a call for peace by the families effected and even by the soldiers who participated, we were met with rhetoric of a battle between good and evil, by both Republicans and Democrats, one that could only be solved by force. I see it as an obvious attempt by my government to establish a foothold in the Middle East, to exploit yet another foreign power.

I don't think 9/11 should be forgotten until this is brought to the American public's attention.

A few sources:
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
http://antiwar.com/casualties/
http://www.ivaw.org/
http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/cra0185.htm

First of all, we never tried to justify the Iraq war. If you were following the argument, you would know that the controversy that was going on for the last few pages was about Afghanistan. I didn't agree with the Iraq war as I'm sure many of the people on this forum don't. I'll say this again: WE ARE NOT TRYING TO JUSTIFY THE IRAQ WAR.