I have never heard that the Japanese were close to surrendering. Today on this thread is the first time I ever heard of that. I would like proof that they were ready to surrender because its news to me.
Somebody is going to throw out some intercepted messages between a Soviet ambassador and the Japanese to say that surrender was imminent...it always appears on this WWII threads on the Train. I believe in its story about like I believe in the tooth fairy. Besides, the Soviet Union had declared war on Japan and was gobbling up Japanese territory....I sure that folks in the Japanese government would tell them anything that they wanted to hear.
All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a thousand enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.
Somebody is going to throw out some intercepted messages between a Soviet ambassador and the Japanese to say that surrender was imminent...it always appears on this WWII threads on the Train. I believe in its story about like I believe in the tooth fairy. Besides, the Soviet Union had declared war on Japan and was gobbling up Japanese territory....I sure that folks in the Japanese government would tell them anything that they wanted to hear.
Yea I don't believe that either. I honestly believe that Japan was in it for the long haul. If a surrender was imminent and we dropped the bomb anyways, there would be a ton of hate and resentment towards the American people from Japan. Instead they love and embrace every aspect of our culture. Just ask Eddie and the boys.
Japan at the time was ruled by a dictator and dictators don't tend to surrender. They have to be defeated.
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The real number is estimated between 3-10 million... NOT 20-30 million... not that I'm justifying it, but it's a big difference.
I can't believe some of the things I read on here though. The fact that people think all those hundreds of thousands of civilians dying were just collateral damage... what the fuck.... I bet had another country done that to the war-mongering United States right now, and your family was one of those bodies... well, you wouldn't be fucking thinking that same thing.
It was definitely not a "necessary" evil. After Germany lost, Japan was pretty much done, considering they were facing so many nations. The US just happened to move to drastic measures just to... according to history books... "end the battle for sure and make sure no more innocents were lost by the big bad Japanese empire (of course innocents lost by the good ole US were ok of course ...)"
give me a fucking break.
Also, just to clear this up... people seem to ALLLWAYS think had the US not interfered and saved the day, then the Nazis would have won and made everyone in the world a slave. That's completely UNTRUE. THE SOVIETS WOULD HAVE WON THE WAR ANYWAY. THEY WON THE WAR. WE JUST HAPPENED TO BRING A QUICKER END TO IT. NO MORE.
I feel like I've had to explain that to people about 467 million times.
Anyway to conclude my point, no, the killings were never and are still not justified no matter how many idiots try to do so. It's like that question in the Presidential debate last year...
"Would you all kill Osama Bin Laden at the risk of killing another innocent person?" (or something close to that). All the presidential candidates (dems) said yes, save for Kucinich. Then they all tried to change their answers and say "it depends on the situation...."
It may be pointless to try to establish which World War Two Axis aggressor, Germany or Japan, was the more brutal to the peoples it victimised. The Germans killed six million Jews and 20 million Russians; the Japanese slaughtered as many as 30 million Filipinos, Malays, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Indonesians and Burmese, at least 23 million of them ethnic Chinese. Both nations looted the countries they conquered on a monumental scale, though Japan plundered more, over a longer period, than the Nazis. Both conquerors enslaved millions and exploited them as forced labourers – and, in the case of the Japanese, as prostitutes for front-line troops. If you were a Nazi prisoner of war from Britain, America, Australia, New Zealand or Canada (but not Russia) you faced a 4 per cent chance of not surviving the war; the death rate for Allied POWs held by the Japanese was nearly 30 per cent.
And according to another source, China had 16,000,000 civilian deaths
As far as I know, our newspapers did not have a competition involving running counts of the number of decapitated Chinese by Japanese officers like the newspapers in Japan did during the war.
No I'm not blind. I think its a ridiculous and poor argument to say that 3 to 10 million is a big difference to 20 and 30 million. It's not that big of a difference when you are talking about a slaughter of innocent Asians.
So no I don't see your point because I don't think you have a valid one.
It's not an argument. It is fact. 3-10 million is a very big difference to 20-30 million. It's just a plain fact. Whether it's math or anything else, you can't argue that 20 is less than 3.
I was clearing up any misconceptions. How would you like it if someone came into this thread and said "The US killed 1 million people in the nuclear attacks on Japan, as opposed to the couple hundred thousand"? Would you just ignore that or would you say "Actually, the correct number is..."
The fact that you are trying to use that against me just shows how close-minded and ignorant you are. Also, I love how the only part of my argument you are trying to take apart is the part that ISN'T EVEN AN ARGUMENT.
Somebody is going to throw out some intercepted messages between a Soviet ambassador and the Japanese to say that surrender was imminent...it always appears on this WWII threads on the Train. I believe in its story about like I believe in the tooth fairy. Besides, the Soviet Union had declared war on Japan and was gobbling up Japanese territory....I sure that folks in the Japanese government would tell them anything that they wanted to hear.
So what's your reasoning to not believing it? That "folks in the govt would tell them anything they wanted to hear"? That's a very poor argument.
Yea I don't believe that either. I honestly believe that Japan was in it for the long haul. If a surrender was imminent and we dropped the bomb anyways, there would be a ton of hate and resentment towards the American people from Japan. Instead they love and embrace every aspect of our culture. Just ask Eddie and the boys.
Japan at the time was ruled by a dictator and dictators don't tend to surrender. They have to be defeated.
Hi.
I just wanted to remind you of a couple things, incase you didn't know.
So... the year now is 2008.
World War II was over 60 years ago.
Your argument... makes no sense. That's like saying "WHY DOESN'T GERMANY HATE US BECAUSE WE INVADED THEM N STUFF?"
Japan has completely changed since the 1940s... they have a new government and everything, and have major economic power int he world. Just because the Japanese don't hate Americans does not justify the bombings. End of story.
The real number is estimated between 3-10 million... NOT 20-30 million... not that I'm justifying it, but it's a big difference.
I can't believe some of the things I read on here though. The fact that people think all those hundreds of thousands of civilians dying were just collateral damage... what the fuck.... I bet had another country done that to the war-mongering United States right now, and your family was one of those bodies... well, you wouldn't be fucking thinking that same thing.
It was definitely not a "necessary" evil. After Germany lost, Japan was pretty much done, considering they were facing so many nations. The US just happened to move to drastic measures just to... according to history books... "end the battle for sure and make sure no more innocents were lost by the big bad Japanese empire (of course innocents lost by the good ole US were ok of course ...)"
give me a fucking break.
Also, just to clear this up... people seem to ALLLWAYS think had the US not interfered and saved the day, then the Nazis would have won and made everyone in the world a slave. That's completely UNTRUE. THE SOVIETS WOULD HAVE WON THE WAR ANYWAY. THEY WON THE WAR. WE JUST HAPPENED TO BRING A QUICKER END TO IT. NO MORE.
I feel like I've had to explain that to people about 467 million times.
Anyway to conclude my point, no, the killings were never and are still not justified no matter how many idiots try to do so. It's like that question in the Presidential debate last year...
"Would you all kill Osama Bin Laden at the risk of killing another innocent person?" (or something close to that). All the presidential candidates (dems) said yes, save for Kucinich. Then they all tried to change their answers and say "it depends on the situation...."
give me a fucking break.
it was 20-30 million...
Take me piece by piece..... Till there aint nothing left worth taking away from me.....
It may be pointless to try to establish which World War Two Axis aggressor, Germany or Japan, was the more brutal to the peoples it victimised. The Germans killed six million Jews and 20 million Russians; the Japanese slaughtered as many as 30 million Filipinos, Malays, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Indonesians and Burmese, at least 23 million of them ethnic Chinese. Both nations looted the countries they conquered on a monumental scale, though Japan plundered more, over a longer period, than the Nazis. Both conquerors enslaved millions and exploited them as forced labourers – and, in the case of the Japanese, as prostitutes for front-line troops. If you were a Nazi prisoner of war from Britain, America, Australia, New Zealand or Canada (but not Russia) you faced a 4 per cent chance of not surviving the war; the death rate for Allied POWs held by the Japanese was nearly 30 per cent.
And according to another source, China had 16,000,000 civilian deaths
As far as I know, our newspapers did not have a competition involving running counts of the number of decapitated Chinese by Japanese officers like the newspapers in Japan did during the war.
Very strange. Your wikipedia article stated something contradictory to this one:
"R. J. Rummel, a professor of political science at the University of Hawaii, states that between 1937 and 1945, the Japanese military murdered from nearly 3,000,000 to over 10,000,000 people, most probably 6,000,000 Chinese, Indonesians, Koreans, Filipinos, and Indochinese, among others, including Western prisoners of war."
Very strange. Your wikipedia article stated something contradictory to this one:
"R. J. Rummel, a professor of political science at the University of Hawaii, states that between 1937 and 1945, the Japanese military murdered from nearly 3,000,000 to over 10,000,000 people, most probably 6,000,000 Chinese, Indonesians, Koreans, Filipinos, and Indochinese, among others, including Western prisoners of war."
It may be pointless to try to establish which World War Two Axis aggressor, Germany or Japan, was the more brutal to the peoples it victimised. The Germans killed six million Jews and 20 million Russians; the Japanese slaughtered as many as 30 million Filipinos, Malays, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Indonesians and Burmese, at least 23 million of them ethnic Chinese. Both nations looted the countries they conquered on a monumental scale, though Japan plundered more, over a longer period, than the Nazis. Both conquerors enslaved millions and exploited them as forced labourers – and, in the case of the Japanese, as prostitutes for front-line troops. If you were a Nazi prisoner of war from Britain, America, Australia, New Zealand or Canada (but not Russia) you faced a 4 per cent chance of not surviving the war; the death rate for Allied POWs held by the Japanese was nearly 30 per cent.
And according to another source, China had 16,000,000 civilian deaths
As far as I know, our newspapers did not have a competition involving running counts of the number of decapitated Chinese by Japanese officers like the newspapers in Japan did during the war.
another part of that article that is mind boggling...
after the surrender of Japan....
a TOTAL of 56 Chinese POW'S were released by Japan...
THATS IT!!!!
56
Take me piece by piece..... Till there aint nothing left worth taking away from me.....
To determine the treatment of frostbite, prisoners were taken outside in freezing weather and left with exposed arms, periodically drenched with water until frozen solid. The arm was later amputated; the doctor would repeat the process on the victim’s upper arm to the shoulder. After both arms were gone, the doctors moved on to the legs until only a head and torso remained. The victim was then used for plague and pathogens experiments
nice.....
Take me piece by piece..... Till there aint nothing left worth taking away from me.....
Somebody is going to throw out some intercepted messages between a Soviet ambassador and the Japanese to say that surrender was imminent...it always appears on this WWII threads on the Train. I believe in its story about like I believe in the tooth fairy. Besides, the Soviet Union had declared war on Japan and was gobbling up Japanese territory....I sure that folks in the Japanese government would tell them anything that they wanted to hear.
All I was saying is that the japanese's refusal to surrender wasn't as clear cut as some make it out to be. Depending on the sources you can find that several diplomatic measures were ongoing. It might not have worked, or taken way too long but sings were not as black and white.
... Well at least from what I read.
In some cases, flesh was cut from living people: another Indian POW, Lance Naik Hatam Ali (later a citizen of Pakistan), testified that in New Guinea:
the Japanese started selecting prisoners and everyday one prisoner was taken out and killed and eaten by the soldiers. I personally saw this happen and about 100 prisoners were eaten at this place by the Japanese. The remainder of us were taken to another spot 50 miles [80 km] away where 10 prisoners died of sickness. At this place, the Japanese again started selecting prisoners to eat. Those selected were taken to a hut where their flesh was cut from their bodies while they were alive and they were thrown into a ditch where they later died
Take me piece by piece..... Till there aint nothing left worth taking away from me.....
It's not an argument. It is fact. 3-10 million is a very big difference to 20-30 million. It's just a plain fact. Whether it's math or anything else, you can't argue that 20 is less than 3.
I was clearing up any misconceptions. How would you like it if someone came into this thread and said "The US killed 1 million people in the nuclear attacks on Japan, as opposed to the couple hundred thousand"? Would you just ignore that or would you say "Actually, the correct number is..."
The fact that you are trying to use that against me just shows how close-minded and ignorant you are. Also, I love how the only part of my argument you are trying to take apart is the part that ISN'T EVEN AN ARGUMENT.
So what's your reasoning to not believing it? That "folks in the govt would tell them anything they wanted to hear"? That's a very poor argument.
Hi.
I just wanted to remind you of a couple things, incase you didn't know.
So... the year now is 2008.
World War II was over 60 years ago.
Your argument... makes no sense. That's like saying "WHY DOESN'T GERMANY HATE US BECAUSE WE INVADED THEM N STUFF?"
Japan has completely changed since the 1940s... they have a new government and everything, and have major economic power int he world. Just because the Japanese don't hate Americans does not justify the bombings. End of story.
You really are brain-washed.
First of all don't talk down to me. I don't like it and its pissing me off.
Second a lot of Jewish people still have resentment towards Germans. Chinese and Japanese hate each other. My girlfriend is Armenian and she and all of her family HATES the Turks for the genocide of 1914. So time doesn't heal all wounds.
Germany doesn't hate us because a lot the people are still feeling guilty for allowing the Holocaust to happen. The people either deny it happened or don't talk about that time period at all. I wrote a paper on it in college a few years back and its amazing how much guilt still exists in Germany for allowing the Nazi's to take power. So time hasn't healed that wound either.
Third the bombings may not have been justified because of the long term effects but we didn't know the long term effects until we dropped the bomb. We were still researching the sucker in the 1950's years after dropping it for the first time. Still a full scale invasion of Japan would have led to Civilian Deaths as well as US soldiers death. Young men who joined after our country was attacked by Japan. So if you want me to lose sleep at night over what we did in Hiroshima or Nagasoki I won't. It was a horrible tragedy, but it wouldn't have happened had Japan not involved us in the war.
And Lastly I'm not brainwashed because I don't believe the US is always wrong. I love my country enough to know that we are right as much as we are wrong. You sound more brainwashed with your Anti America Propaganda then I ever will. Especially how you have to correct people that Russia would have won the war without us. Would Russia have fought to save the innocent Asians dying at the hands of the Japanese? I think not. Also its debatable if Russia could have defeated the Nazi's but there was no question that the Nazi's were done after the US got involved. So that means we had an effect on the outcome.
WWII was a WORLD WAR. Russia defended there border successfully but imo could care less if the rest of Europe fell to the Nazi's. The US involved themselves in all aspects of the World War so yes I think we deserve the credit we give ourselves for the outcome. The credit that is openly shared with Russians and the UK btw in any history book.
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The International Military Tribunal for the Far East stated that 20,000 (and perhaps up to 80,000) women were raped, their ages ranging from infants to the elderly (as old as 80).[20] Rapes were often performed in public during the day, sometimes in front of spouses or family members that were tied up and forced to watch. A large number of them were systematized in a process where soldiers would search door-to-door for young girls, with many women taken captive and gang raped. The women were then killed immediately after the rape, often through mutilation, including breasts being cut off, or stabbing by bamboo (usually very long sticks), bayonet, butcher's knife and other objects into the vagina. According to some testimonies, other women were forced into military prostitution as comfort women. There are even stories of Japanese troops forcing families to commit acts of incest.[21] Sons were forced to rape their mothers, fathers were forced to rape daughters. One pregnant woman who was gang-raped by Japanese soldiers gave birth only a few hours later; the baby was perfectly healthy (Robert B. Edgerton, Warriors of the Rising Sun). Monks who had declared a life of celibacy were forced to rape women for the amusement of the Japanese.[21] Chinese men were forced to have sex with corpses and infants, Chinese men were forced to have their penises cut off by bayonets for "humorous" reasons as detailed by some Japanese soldiers, and the testicles were as well, cut off (some men were forced to eat them), farmers were forced to commit zoophiliac acts with their livestock. Men were tied up by Japanese soldiers and hit in the crotch area with bamboo sticks. Any resistance would be met with summary executions. While the rape peaked immediately following the fall of the city, it continued for the duration of the Japanese occupation
Take me piece by piece..... Till there aint nothing left worth taking away from me.....
The International Military Tribunal for the Far East stated that 20,000 (and perhaps up to 80,000) women were raped, their ages ranging from infants to the elderly (as old as 80).[20] Rapes were often performed in public during the day, sometimes in front of spouses or family members that were tied up and forced to watch. A large number of them were systematized in a process where soldiers would search door-to-door for young girls, with many women taken captive and gang raped. The women were then killed immediately after the rape, often through mutilation, including breasts being cut off, or stabbing by bamboo (usually very long sticks), bayonet, butcher's knife and other objects into the vagina. According to some testimonies, other women were forced into military prostitution as comfort women. There are even stories of Japanese troops forcing families to commit acts of incest.[21] Sons were forced to rape their mothers, fathers were forced to rape daughters. One pregnant woman who was gang-raped by Japanese soldiers gave birth only a few hours later; the baby was perfectly healthy (Robert B. Edgerton, Warriors of the Rising Sun). Monks who had declared a life of celibacy were forced to rape women for the amusement of the Japanese.[21] Chinese men were forced to have sex with corpses and infants, Chinese men were forced to have their penises cut off by bayonets for "humorous" reasons as detailed by some Japanese soldiers, and the testicles were as well, cut off (some men were forced to eat them), farmers were forced to commit zoophiliac acts with their livestock. Men were tied up by Japanese soldiers and hit in the crotch area with bamboo sticks. Any resistance would be met with summary executions. While the rape peaked immediately following the fall of the city, it continued for the duration of the Japanese occupation
Stop spreading facts.
America sucks.
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So what's your reasoning to not believing it? That "folks in the govt would tell them anything they wanted to hear"? That's a very poor argument.
That and the fact that no other documents back-up any Japanese intentions to surrender prior to the A-bombs.
This tactic was the same thing that Japan was doing in December of 1941.
All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a thousand enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.
this is what war is. war kills mass quantities of innocent people. there is no nobility in it. WWII was more than just storming the beaches of Normandy or the battle of Midway. You have to include fire bombing civilians, nukes, prison camps, and all these other heinous acts in your calculations when going to a war fought against an enemy of near equal strength. THESE ACTS WILL OCCUR, MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT. they are unavoidable to a degree. This is why war should only be fought as a last resort! Thats what fucktard cowboy, wannabe pilots like Bush don't understand.
But that doesn't mean war should never be fought. WWII, even with its atrocities, was a war that had to be fought. Innocent people had to die. Lots of them. Its a terrible price but one that had to be paid. This was not Vietnam or Iraq; losing does not mean our cultural destruction. Those wars could be fought with limited strength, because it didnt mean our destruction. In contrast, with WWII, the stakes were for nothing less than the SURVIVAL OF THE FREE WORLD!!! If you try to fight such a war with an arm tied behind your back or only halfheartedly, you risk your very survival. Total war should be fought with everything yu have, even if the enemy is on the brink of defeat or weaker than you. You don't let up until they surrender.
To say the people were evil because they had to make terrible decisions to win a war for survival is just ignorant and self-righteous, because you are a fucking fool if, under those circumstances, you don't fight with every available weapon in your arsenal until the enemy surrenders.
Dont know if anyone covered this, dont feel like reading through all the posts but agree these were horrible acts. I read something one time that said that the Japanese were trying to negotiate with us for week prior to their surrender. They knew what was coming and they wanted to surrender but we ignored them because Truman wanted Russia to know what we could do them.
The International Military Tribunal for the Far East stated that 20,000 (and perhaps up to 80,000) women were raped, their ages ranging from infants to the elderly (as old as 80).[20] Rapes were often performed in public during the day, sometimes in front of spouses or family members that were tied up and forced to watch. A large number of them were systematized in a process where soldiers would search door-to-door for young girls, with many women taken captive and gang raped. The women were then killed immediately after the rape, often through mutilation, including breasts being cut off, or stabbing by bamboo (usually very long sticks), bayonet, butcher's knife and other objects into the vagina. According to some testimonies, other women were forced into military prostitution as comfort women. There are even stories of Japanese troops forcing families to commit acts of incest.[21] Sons were forced to rape their mothers, fathers were forced to rape daughters. One pregnant woman who was gang-raped by Japanese soldiers gave birth only a few hours later; the baby was perfectly healthy (Robert B. Edgerton, Warriors of the Rising Sun). Monks who had declared a life of celibacy were forced to rape women for the amusement of the Japanese.[21] Chinese men were forced to have sex with corpses and infants, Chinese men were forced to have their penises cut off by bayonets for "humorous" reasons as detailed by some Japanese soldiers, and the testicles were as well, cut off (some men were forced to eat them), farmers were forced to commit zoophiliac acts with their livestock. Men were tied up by Japanese soldiers and hit in the crotch area with bamboo sticks. Any resistance would be met with summary executions. While the rape peaked immediately following the fall of the city, it continued for the duration of the Japanese occupation
All very accurate information...
...and it has absolutely NOTHING to do with America carrying out a massive slaughter of civilians.
Dont know if anyone covered this, dont feel like reading through all the posts but agree these were horrible acts. I read something one time that said that the Japanese were trying to negotiate with us for week prior to their surrender. They knew what was coming and they wanted to surrender but we ignored them because Truman wanted Russia to know what we could do them.
I dont buy that. The Russians werent stupid. They knew what a nuke could do. All the US would have had to do was film a nuke going off in the desert to prove we had them. What would be the point of dropping it on a city? I seriously doubt Truman was so depraved and bloodthirsty that he just preferred to vaporize a city when a simple detonation in a remote area would suffice just as well.
First of all don't talk down to me. I don't like it and its pissing me off.
Second a lot of Jewish people still have resentment towards Germans. Chinese and Japanese hate each other. My girlfriend is Armenian and she and all of her family HATES the Turks for the genocide of 1914. So time doesn't heal all wounds.
Germany doesn't hate us because a lot the people are still feeling guilty for allowing the Holocaust to happen. The people either deny it happened or don't talk about that time period at all. I wrote a paper on it in college a few years back and its amazing how much guilt still exists in Germany for allowing the Nazi's to take power. So time hasn't healed that wound either.
Third the bombings may not have been justified because of the long term effects but we didn't know the long term effects until we dropped the bomb. We were still researching the sucker in the 1950's years after dropping it for the first time. Still a full scale invasion of Japan would have led to Civilian Deaths as well as US soldiers death. Young men who joined after our country was attacked by Japan. So if you want me to lose sleep at night over what we did in Hiroshima or Nagasoki I won't. It was a horrible tragedy, but it wouldn't have happened had Japan not involved us in the war.
And Lastly I'm not brainwashed because I don't believe the US is always wrong. I love my country enough to know that we are right as much as we are wrong. You sound more brainwashed with your Anti America Propaganda then I ever will. Especially how you have to correct people that Russia would have won the war without us. Would Russia have fought to save the innocent Asians dying at the hands of the Japanese? I think not. Also its debatable if Russia could have defeated the Nazi's but there was no question that the Nazi's were done after the US got involved. So that means we had an effect on the outcome.
WWII was a WORLD WAR. Russia defended there border successfully but imo could care less if the rest of Europe fell to the Nazi's. The US involved themselves in all aspects of the World War so yes I think we deserve the credit we give ourselves for the outcome. The credit that is openly shared with Russians and the UK btw in any history book.
Much of family still hates the Japanese for the atrocities they committed in WW2. I'm half-Filipino with a lot of family there and my grandfather still has the scars from being tortured by the Japanese as they tried to get info from him about positions where the Filipino army was stationed. He was a colonel and at the end of the war he was one of the highest ranking Filipino officers who served under MacArthur and became friends with him. My grandmother escaped before her village was taken over by the Japanese and she told me about her friends being raped and her neighbor's infant being killed after a Japanese soldier throw it up in the air to "catch" it on his bayonet.
The Japanese thought of Filipinos as inferior and not part of the Master Asian Race. So I'm sorry if I don't feel bad about the use of the atomic bomb being used on them.
Dont know if anyone covered this, dont feel like reading through all the posts but agree these were horrible acts. I read something one time that said that the Japanese were trying to negotiate with us for week prior to their surrender. They knew what was coming and they wanted to surrender but we ignored them because Truman wanted Russia to know what we could do them.
It's called delaying tactics....any terms for surrender had been set by the Allies (U.S., Great Britain and the Soviet Union) at the Yalta Conference (Yalta should be right, I occasionally get the conferences screwed up). The terms were simple. Unconditional Surrender was the only terms accepted by the Allies, not just the U.S. Germany accepted those terms...what made the Japanese so special that they could negotiate out of them?
All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a thousand enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.
A lot of good info and banter in this thread. After reading all the numbers of deaths per nation, why the hell does one race still want money and guilt from everybody else on this planet!!!
As for the bombs? As has been pointed out, war is hell and it is win at any cost when it is a real war. Something some coutries like to pretend they have every 10 years or so.
If you're going to quote me, quote the entire thought.
I said I don't care because it came down to a choice: Nuke the Japanese or lose hundreds of thousands of troops in a full-scale invasion. Apparently you don't get that the Japanese were not going to surrender if we stepped foot on their islands. They were going to fight to the death.
You don't care because it came down to a choice? You don't care that over 200,000 innocent people died because it came down to a choice. I'm sorry but that's fucked up no matter how you put it or try to twist it.
Also, I guess you would have rather me make the argument that the bombings were "something that had to be done (there's no way any of us can know what would've happened if they hadn't dropped the bombs)" so you could play the "but we didn't know if there was another way" card.
Well, sorry to disappoint you, but making that argument is some 21st century bullshit.
No, I'm saying no one knows. Just that, you don't know and I don't know.
Also, there are people (I think Eisenhower was one of them) who said the bombings were not necessary, that Japan was already defeated. So, I definitely wouldn't say that argument is 21st century bullshit.
But the point is we don't know. You say there was no other way, other people say there might as well have been another way.
The people who were pulling the strings in Japan were sick fucks who believed they were the master race and destined to rule the world. Their people bought into it when things were going well, but once they started to get their asses kicked we should forget all the horrible war crimes their armies committed? Nope, not going to happen.
So you bomb 200,000 innocent people as punishment for the horrible war crimes :rolleyes: That makes sense.
Dropping those bombs did a couple of things: First, it defeated the Japanese both physically and mentally (and mentally was the most important part); second, it let the world know that we had a weapon that would totally flatten them if they tried to extend the war in some sort of mad land grab.
That it did. It also killed 200,000 innocent people, which you don't care about because they, innocent as they were, deserved it somehow. It mutilated children and made thousands of people ill. There are more than 400,000 people who have died because of the bombs.
War is disgusting and evil. Innocent people die. Horrible decisions must be made.
I wonder how you feel when someone says they don't give a damn about the people who died on 9/11. It wasn't their grandmother and terrible things happen in war. And don't tell me it's different.
Looking back on it and criticizing the U.S. for wanting to stop the worst war the world had ever seen by dropping bombs on cities that were factory towns for the Japanese war machine is a pathetic attempt at saying you -- a person who benefitted from the bombs -- are above those folks. You're smarter and more compassionate. You are more human.
ONly problem is, you're discounting the experiences of those people. You're trying to take your sensibilities as a 21st century who has never experienced those horrors and ascribe them to the people who were involved. History, at least non-revisionist history, doesn't work that way.
If taking into account the concerns of WWII leaders makes me disgusting, it's a label I wear proudly.
No, I took into account the concerns of WWII leaders as well. You said they deserved to die. Innocent people. And that's what I find disgusting.
Also, there are people (I think Eisenhower was one of them) who said the bombings were not necessary, that Japan was already defeated. So, I definitely wouldn't say that argument is 21st century bullshit.
But the point is we don't know. You say there was no other way, other people say there might as well have been another way.
It doesn't matter what Eisenhower thought...it wasn't his theater of the war..he didn't have to fight the Japanese. Maybe he wanted to???? It mattered more what people like MacArthur or Halsey thought...they were the ones dodging Japanese bullets and the "Divine Wind."
Most of the argument is 21st century bullshit revisionist history...you can't take what we know 60 years after the fact and act like the people of that time knew the same information...it doesn't work that way...you can't interject 21st century judgments and ideas into people's actions six decades gone.
The only other plan outside of the bombs and an invasion was prolonged aerial bombardment of the home islands....I have read some estimates from this plan, and it would have probably killed more Japanese through famine than the bombs did through their magic. Choose your poison...atomic radiation or starving to death.
I most admit that my reasons for thanking God that the bombs quickly ended the war is selfish....my maternal Grandfather did not have to drop bombs over a besieged Japan like he did over Nazis in North Africa and Italy. If the war stretched beyond what it did....he would have been in harm's way again.
All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a thousand enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.
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Yea I don't believe that either. I honestly believe that Japan was in it for the long haul. If a surrender was imminent and we dropped the bomb anyways, there would be a ton of hate and resentment towards the American people from Japan. Instead they love and embrace every aspect of our culture. Just ask Eddie and the boys.
Japan at the time was ruled by a dictator and dictators don't tend to surrender. They have to be defeated.
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http://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n22/john04_.html
It may be pointless to try to establish which World War Two Axis aggressor, Germany or Japan, was the more brutal to the peoples it victimised. The Germans killed six million Jews and 20 million Russians; the Japanese slaughtered as many as 30 million Filipinos, Malays, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Indonesians and Burmese, at least 23 million of them ethnic Chinese. Both nations looted the countries they conquered on a monumental scale, though Japan plundered more, over a longer period, than the Nazis. Both conquerors enslaved millions and exploited them as forced labourers – and, in the case of the Japanese, as prostitutes for front-line troops. If you were a Nazi prisoner of war from Britain, America, Australia, New Zealand or Canada (but not Russia) you faced a 4 per cent chance of not surviving the war; the death rate for Allied POWs held by the Japanese was nearly 30 per cent.
And according to another source, China had 16,000,000 civilian deaths
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#endnote_China
http://www.asianholocaust.com/html/asian-holocaust-memorial03.html
As far as I know, our newspapers did not have a competition involving running counts of the number of decapitated Chinese by Japanese officers like the newspapers in Japan did during the war.
- 8/28/98
- 9/2/00
- 4/28/03, 5/3/03, 7/3/03, 7/5/03, 7/6/03, 7/9/03, 7/11/03, 7/12/03, 7/14/03
- 9/28/04, 9/29/04, 10/1/04, 10/2/04
- 9/11/05, 9/12/05, 9/13/05, 9/30/05, 10/1/05, 10/3/05
- 5/12/06, 5/13/06, 5/27/06, 5/28/06, 5/30/06, 6/1/06, 6/3/06, 6/23/06, 7/22/06, 7/23/06, 12/2/06, 12/9/06
- 8/2/07, 8/5/07
- 6/19/08, 6/20/08, 6/22/08, 6/24/08, 6/25/08, 6/27/08, 6/28/08, 6/30/08, 7/1/08
- 8/23/09, 8/24/09, 9/21/09, 9/22/09, 10/27/09, 10/28/09, 10/30/09, 10/31/09
- 5/15/10, 5/17/10, 5/18/10, 5/20/10, 5/21/10, 10/23/10, 10/24/10
- 9/11/11, 9/12/11
- 10/18/13, 10/21/13, 10/22/13, 11/30/13, 12/4/13
I was clearing up any misconceptions. How would you like it if someone came into this thread and said "The US killed 1 million people in the nuclear attacks on Japan, as opposed to the couple hundred thousand"? Would you just ignore that or would you say "Actually, the correct number is..."
The fact that you are trying to use that against me just shows how close-minded and ignorant you are. Also, I love how the only part of my argument you are trying to take apart is the part that ISN'T EVEN AN ARGUMENT.
So what's your reasoning to not believing it? That "folks in the govt would tell them anything they wanted to hear"? That's a very poor argument.
Hi.
I just wanted to remind you of a couple things, incase you didn't know.
So... the year now is 2008.
World War II was over 60 years ago.
Your argument... makes no sense. That's like saying "WHY DOESN'T GERMANY HATE US BECAUSE WE INVADED THEM N STUFF?"
Japan has completely changed since the 1940s... they have a new government and everything, and have major economic power int he world. Just because the Japanese don't hate Americans does not justify the bombings. End of story.
You really are brain-washed.
Till there aint nothing left worth taking away from me.....
"R. J. Rummel, a professor of political science at the University of Hawaii, states that between 1937 and 1945, the Japanese military murdered from nearly 3,000,000 to over 10,000,000 people, most probably 6,000,000 Chinese, Indonesians, Koreans, Filipinos, and Indochinese, among others, including Western prisoners of war."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes#Mass_killings
I'll have to do more research and talk to my professor about it when I get back to school.
and your statement are from the same article....
the paragraph before your statement says......20-30 million
Till there aint nothing left worth taking away from me.....
after the surrender of Japan....
a TOTAL of 56 Chinese POW'S were released by Japan...
THATS IT!!!!
56
Till there aint nothing left worth taking away from me.....
nice.....
Till there aint nothing left worth taking away from me.....
All I was saying is that the japanese's refusal to surrender wasn't as clear cut as some make it out to be. Depending on the sources you can find that several diplomatic measures were ongoing. It might not have worked, or taken way too long but sings were not as black and white.
... Well at least from what I read.
the Japanese started selecting prisoners and everyday one prisoner was taken out and killed and eaten by the soldiers. I personally saw this happen and about 100 prisoners were eaten at this place by the Japanese. The remainder of us were taken to another spot 50 miles [80 km] away where 10 prisoners died of sickness. At this place, the Japanese again started selecting prisoners to eat. Those selected were taken to a hut where their flesh was cut from their bodies while they were alive and they were thrown into a ditch where they later died
Till there aint nothing left worth taking away from me.....
First of all don't talk down to me. I don't like it and its pissing me off.
Second a lot of Jewish people still have resentment towards Germans. Chinese and Japanese hate each other. My girlfriend is Armenian and she and all of her family HATES the Turks for the genocide of 1914. So time doesn't heal all wounds.
Germany doesn't hate us because a lot the people are still feeling guilty for allowing the Holocaust to happen. The people either deny it happened or don't talk about that time period at all. I wrote a paper on it in college a few years back and its amazing how much guilt still exists in Germany for allowing the Nazi's to take power. So time hasn't healed that wound either.
Third the bombings may not have been justified because of the long term effects but we didn't know the long term effects until we dropped the bomb. We were still researching the sucker in the 1950's years after dropping it for the first time. Still a full scale invasion of Japan would have led to Civilian Deaths as well as US soldiers death. Young men who joined after our country was attacked by Japan. So if you want me to lose sleep at night over what we did in Hiroshima or Nagasoki I won't. It was a horrible tragedy, but it wouldn't have happened had Japan not involved us in the war.
And Lastly I'm not brainwashed because I don't believe the US is always wrong. I love my country enough to know that we are right as much as we are wrong. You sound more brainwashed with your Anti America Propaganda then I ever will. Especially how you have to correct people that Russia would have won the war without us. Would Russia have fought to save the innocent Asians dying at the hands of the Japanese? I think not. Also its debatable if Russia could have defeated the Nazi's but there was no question that the Nazi's were done after the US got involved. So that means we had an effect on the outcome.
WWII was a WORLD WAR. Russia defended there border successfully but imo could care less if the rest of Europe fell to the Nazi's. The US involved themselves in all aspects of the World War so yes I think we deserve the credit we give ourselves for the outcome. The credit that is openly shared with Russians and the UK btw in any history book.
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Till there aint nothing left worth taking away from me.....
Stop spreading facts.
America sucks.
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This tactic was the same thing that Japan was doing in December of 1941.
But that doesn't mean war should never be fought. WWII, even with its atrocities, was a war that had to be fought. Innocent people had to die. Lots of them. Its a terrible price but one that had to be paid. This was not Vietnam or Iraq; losing does not mean our cultural destruction. Those wars could be fought with limited strength, because it didnt mean our destruction. In contrast, with WWII, the stakes were for nothing less than the SURVIVAL OF THE FREE WORLD!!! If you try to fight such a war with an arm tied behind your back or only halfheartedly, you risk your very survival. Total war should be fought with everything yu have, even if the enemy is on the brink of defeat or weaker than you. You don't let up until they surrender.
To say the people were evil because they had to make terrible decisions to win a war for survival is just ignorant and self-righteous, because you are a fucking fool if, under those circumstances, you don't fight with every available weapon in your arsenal until the enemy surrenders.
...and it has absolutely NOTHING to do with America carrying out a massive slaughter of civilians.
I dont buy that. The Russians werent stupid. They knew what a nuke could do. All the US would have had to do was film a nuke going off in the desert to prove we had them. What would be the point of dropping it on a city? I seriously doubt Truman was so depraved and bloodthirsty that he just preferred to vaporize a city when a simple detonation in a remote area would suffice just as well.
Much of family still hates the Japanese for the atrocities they committed in WW2. I'm half-Filipino with a lot of family there and my grandfather still has the scars from being tortured by the Japanese as they tried to get info from him about positions where the Filipino army was stationed. He was a colonel and at the end of the war he was one of the highest ranking Filipino officers who served under MacArthur and became friends with him. My grandmother escaped before her village was taken over by the Japanese and she told me about her friends being raped and her neighbor's infant being killed after a Japanese soldier throw it up in the air to "catch" it on his bayonet.
The Japanese thought of Filipinos as inferior and not part of the Master Asian Race. So I'm sorry if I don't feel bad about the use of the atomic bomb being used on them.
- 8/28/98
- 9/2/00
- 4/28/03, 5/3/03, 7/3/03, 7/5/03, 7/6/03, 7/9/03, 7/11/03, 7/12/03, 7/14/03
- 9/28/04, 9/29/04, 10/1/04, 10/2/04
- 9/11/05, 9/12/05, 9/13/05, 9/30/05, 10/1/05, 10/3/05
- 5/12/06, 5/13/06, 5/27/06, 5/28/06, 5/30/06, 6/1/06, 6/3/06, 6/23/06, 7/22/06, 7/23/06, 12/2/06, 12/9/06
- 8/2/07, 8/5/07
- 6/19/08, 6/20/08, 6/22/08, 6/24/08, 6/25/08, 6/27/08, 6/28/08, 6/30/08, 7/1/08
- 8/23/09, 8/24/09, 9/21/09, 9/22/09, 10/27/09, 10/28/09, 10/30/09, 10/31/09
- 5/15/10, 5/17/10, 5/18/10, 5/20/10, 5/21/10, 10/23/10, 10/24/10
- 9/11/11, 9/12/11
- 10/18/13, 10/21/13, 10/22/13, 11/30/13, 12/4/13
oh yeah thats right just like everything else in American history it was made up, like 9/11, it was done by the government
nope, the US government had nothing whatsoever to do with provoking an attack from Japan at a time that the US was at peace. :rolleyes: allah.
As for the bombs? As has been pointed out, war is hell and it is win at any cost when it is a real war. Something some coutries like to pretend they have every 10 years or so.
You don't care because it came down to a choice? You don't care that over 200,000 innocent people died because it came down to a choice. I'm sorry but that's fucked up no matter how you put it or try to twist it.
No, I'm saying no one knows. Just that, you don't know and I don't know.
Also, there are people (I think Eisenhower was one of them) who said the bombings were not necessary, that Japan was already defeated. So, I definitely wouldn't say that argument is 21st century bullshit.
But the point is we don't know. You say there was no other way, other people say there might as well have been another way.
So you bomb 200,000 innocent people as punishment for the horrible war crimes :rolleyes: That makes sense.
That it did. It also killed 200,000 innocent people, which you don't care about because they, innocent as they were, deserved it somehow. It mutilated children and made thousands of people ill. There are more than 400,000 people who have died because of the bombs.
I wonder how you feel when someone says they don't give a damn about the people who died on 9/11. It wasn't their grandmother and terrible things happen in war. And don't tell me it's different.
No, I took into account the concerns of WWII leaders as well. You said they deserved to die. Innocent people. And that's what I find disgusting.
naděje umírá poslední
sound familiar????
Till there aint nothing left worth taking away from me.....
Most of the argument is 21st century bullshit revisionist history...you can't take what we know 60 years after the fact and act like the people of that time knew the same information...it doesn't work that way...you can't interject 21st century judgments and ideas into people's actions six decades gone.
The only other plan outside of the bombs and an invasion was prolonged aerial bombardment of the home islands....I have read some estimates from this plan, and it would have probably killed more Japanese through famine than the bombs did through their magic. Choose your poison...atomic radiation or starving to death.
I most admit that my reasons for thanking God that the bombs quickly ended the war is selfish....my maternal Grandfather did not have to drop bombs over a besieged Japan like he did over Nazis in North Africa and Italy. If the war stretched beyond what it did....he would have been in harm's way again.