Quote from: hfishjr81 on July 17, 2012, 10:19:22 AM




Dropping atomic bombs on occupied cities.

I think you'll find the answer here.
I see no need in rehashing what actually saved lives on both sides.
http://conservativepoliticalforum.com/war/we-nuked-japan-was-it-necessaryjustified/

Quote from: Solar on July 17, 2012, 10:39:45 AM
I think you'll find the answer here.
I see no need in rehashing what actually saved lives on both sides.

So destroying cities filled with women and children is ok as long as it saves someone else, in Your opinion. Got it. I simply disagree.   

For the edification and education of those who don't understand Islam and the low intelligence of the  "Faithful."  These incidents were carried out by Islamic governments (Including ours)with the exception of the murders in Pakistan.  Just a few radicals?
Would you like to buy a bridge?

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/07/sharia-in-action-islamic-supremacists-give-timbuktu-man-40-lashes-for-drinking.html

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/07/pakistan-jihadists-wearing-burqas-murder-three-policemen.html

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/07/iran-west-using-technology-to-manipulate-irans-climate-causing-drought.html

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/07/iran-west-using-technology-to-manipulate-irans-climate-causing-drought.html

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/07/911-mass-murderers-gitmo-hearing-postponed-for-ramadan.html

Quote from: hfishjr81 on July 17, 2012, 11:16:31 AM

So destroying cities filled with women and children is ok as long as it saves someone else, in Your opinion. Got it. I simply disagree.

If a country attacks us, we attack back.  Then, when another country sees how we retaliate, it makes them think twice if they had any ideas.

Seems logical to me.

You still have told how you would have gone about bring the War to a successful end.

I think this entire discussion has to be viewed in terms of the events of the time. My father was an SFC on USS Trathen, a Fletcher-class tin can that roamed all over the South Pacific from mid-1943 until the end of the war. Also, I've known other men who served in much the same capacity. Their take on the Pacific war is uniform -- we were facing the cruelest, most ruthless enemy imaginable. The one most striking aspect of a Japanese soldier, whether he be infantry or pilot or sailor: a literally religious refusal to admit defeat, and a preference for death over surrender.

My father and others were stunned, even disoriented by this. Kamikaze? Seriously? What the hell sort of people are these Japanese? Why do they think this Bushido crap will serve them well in 1944? The cartoons and posters depicting Japanese military figures as slant-eyed, horned-rim wearing tyrants arose not so much because they looked different, but because they WERE different, RADICALLY different from us.

The point can be made with statistics. The US invaded the island stronghold of Iwo Jima, which was defended by roughly 22,000 Japanese. Not one Jap escaped the island, and only 216 were taken prisoner. At Tarawa, there were 3,636 Japanese defenders; 17 surrendered. At Saipan, the Japanese had roughly 31,000 defenders and a large force of native laborers. Not one Japanese soldier was evacuated. Only 921 surrendered; an estimated 5,000 Japanese soldiers committed suicide rather than surrender. About 22,000 of the native workforce died too, mostly suicides, many dying after voluntarily jumping off cliffs after being told by their Japanese masters that they would be mistreated by the invading Americans.

By way of comparison, US forces invading these islands largely lived to tell the tale. At Saipan, for instance, around 71,000 US troops were involved, but only 3,426 were killed, and 10,364 were wounded. In plain terms, the Americans had a survival rate of over 95%. The Japanese had a survival rate of less than 3%, not counting the civilian suicides.

Time after time, the Japanese, knowing the odds, accepted and suffered losses on this scale. Clearly, this sort of mindset does not fit in with Western logic. It is no wonder that our guys came home rattled, many -- like my dad -- unwilling to even talk about it.

As I've pointed out previously in this thread, Japan was essentially defeated when 1945 came along. (Actually, Japan never won a major naval engagement after its devastating loss at Midway.) But Japan, keeping with the then-popular militarist Bushido policies, would never consider surrender. We faced an enemy completely unlike any ever encountered before, with a philosophy completely alien to ours. The Japanese could NEVER have won on Iwo Jima, for example, and they knew it before the Marines stormed ashore, but that didn't stop them from resisting at every turn, and burning two divisions of trained soldiers like so much cordwood.

Harry Truman inherited the war and the bomb. But he hadn't been sleeping or out of the loop; he had been Vice President, privy to some pretty special intelligence. The war in Europe was over a couple weeks after he took office, so he was focused on Japan, naturally. His top military advisers were giving him doom-and-gloom forecasts for hundreds of thousands of casualties if we had to invade Japan's home islands -- and they were probably right! Harry pulled the trigger, as would I. "These people are so damn crazy they don't they've already lost the war; let's point it out to them with a couple of capital A's."

Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were selected because they contained factories engaged in military production. The inhabitants of both cities were warned days before the bombings with leaflets describing the coming event, and telling them to get the hell out of Dodge. The leaflets were ignored on the advice of the Japanese government.

Harry Truman did the right thing. Dropping the a-bombs was the right thing.

Quote from: taxed on July 17, 2012, 12:27:10 PM
it makes them think twice if they had any ideas.

Seems logical to me.

Just because it seems logical to You doesn't make it any less horrible. Bombing civilians isn't justifiable.   

Quote from: hfishjr81 on July 17, 2012, 12:53:51 PM

Just because it seems logical to You doesn't make it any less horrible. Bombing civilians isn't justifiable.

Stating the obvious that it's sad when innocent people die means nothing.  The sky is blue too.

Quote from: tbone0106 on July 17, 2012, 12:46:56 PM
Harry Truman did the right thing. Dropping the a-bombs was the right thing.

I disagree.   Knowing they weren't going to allow their Women and children run away, and yet still choosing to drop a bomb on them, is choosing to shoot the civilian shields.   I don't see that as the right thing to do.

Quote from: hfishjr81 on July 17, 2012, 12:58:46 PM

I disagree.   Knowing they weren't going to allow their Women and children run away, and yet still choosing to drop a bomb on them, is choosing to shoot the civilian shields.   I don't see that as the right thing to do.

You're right.  We should have just gave them a pass for Pearl Harbor and waited for an apology.  Good strategy!

Quote from: taxed on July 17, 2012, 01:03:23 PM
You're right.  We should have just gave them a pass for Pearl Harbor and waited for an apology.  Good strategy!

You're not right, killing civilians is a bad strategy, even though You believe it sound logic. 


Hmm, I wonder who else believed it was ok to kill civilians?

Quote from: hfishjr81 on July 17, 2012, 01:06:31 PM


You're not right, killing civilians is a bad strategy, even though You believe it sound logic. 


Hmm, I wonder who else believed it was ok to kill civilians?

Another great strategy.  We should have went to Japan, knocked on everyone's door and said "Excuse me... I'm sorry to disturb you, but w... mmmm, that smells delicious... anyway, we are going to drop an atomic bomb on your city, so if you could maybe not be here when that happens, that would be wonderfulthankssssssssss."

Quote from: taxed on July 17, 2012, 01:09:54 PM
Another great strategy.  We should have went to Japan, knocked on everyone's door and said "Excuse me... I'm sorry to disturb you, but w... mmmm, that smells delicious... anyway, we are going to drop an atomic bomb on your city, so if you could maybe not be here when that happens, that would be wonderfulthankssssssssss."

Or We could've just not dropped an atomic bomb. 

Quote from: hfishjr81 on July 17, 2012, 01:12:34 PM

Or We could've just not dropped an atomic bomb. 

Destroying them was the right answer.

Quote from: hfishjr81 on July 17, 2012, 12:53:51 PM

Just because it seems logical to You doesn't make it any less horrible. Bombing civilians isn't justifiable.

Does the military produce it's own bombs and bullets? Or do civilians produce them.
If civilians produce them, you are in effect saying that they can shoot at you, but you can't shoot back.