The Japs were dirty savages who used POW’s for medical experiments.  The atrocities of Imperial Japan have more or less been swept under the historical rug and Japan has never acknowledged its crimes or made any meaningful restitution.

opsec wrote:

It's also a foregone conclusion that the bombs saved more lives than they took.

Yes, the killing of thousands of non-combatants did indeed prevent the need for thousands more combatants to lose their lives in battle.  Some people still have problems with that equation.

Opie is right about the numbers, I imagine.  Also, we get bragging rights as the first-and-only.  It's hard to make light of it though, at least not if you think about it.

Those poor Japanese.  We dropped a big bad bomb (or two) on them.

Rapeof Nanjing or Bataan Death March mean anything to anyone anymore, I wonder?





"The bodies in the villages, piled up in tens or hundreds, laid in ditches, ponds, fields or among haystacks. The horror of the scenes is hard to describe. Especially women..., their faces were dark, teeth fell, cheeks broken, blood in their mouth, their breasts had been cut off, chest and abdomen had been pierced through, intestines dragged on the ground, lower abdomens had been kicked at, their bodies had been bayoneted randomly."
(Ref. "Photographic history of the atrocities of the Japanese army", DaHua Publishing House, 1946 edition. )



"On the first day, I saw two things I will never forget. A Filipino man had been beheaded. His body lay on the ground with blood everywhere. His head was a short distance away. Also, there was a dead Filipino woman with her legs spread apart and her dress pulled up over her. She obviously had been raped and there was a bamboo stake in her private area. These are instances I would like to forget."

What bad timing.....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/secondworldwa … 57,00.html

whosasailorthen wrote:

Those poor Japanese.  We dropped a big bad bomb (or two) on them.
Rape of Nanjing or Bataan Death March mean anything to anyone anymore, I wonder?

Not one of the women or children who were killed in Hiroshima or Nagasaki were involved in those atrocities.  Committing atrocities against the civilian people of one nation is not excused by the bad acts of that nation's government or its military.

Zookeeper wrote:

whosasailorthen wrote:

Those poor Japanese.  We dropped a big bad bomb (or two) on them.
Rape of Nanjing or Bataan Death March mean anything to anyone anymore, I wonder?

Not one of the women or children who were killed in Hiroshima or Nagasaki were involved in those atrocities.  Committing atrocities against the civilian people of one nation is not excused by the bad acts of that nation's government or its military.

Nor were the women and children at Pearl Harbor.  Or on Guam.  Or in the Philippines.  Or any of the other places that the Japanese slaughtered civilians.

The capacity of the bomb could of been demonstrated without either Nagasaki or Hiroshima. 

My step father was in the Japanese camps for 4 years.  He was captured on Corregidor... (this probably means nothing to you all), and he felt it was a monstrous war crime.  He suffered for the rest of his life, from the injuries, disease and the beatings. (his lower spine was fused from being beaten with rifle butts)  He went in to the service weighing 180 pds, came out of the camp weighing 92 pds...

I refused to buy Japanese anything for many, many years.  He went merrily along, buying Hondas, Mitsubishis and the like.  He laughed when he figured out what I was up to. 

There are so many horror stories I could tell, but to what purpose.  He was a medic, and out of the 36000 men who went into the camps with him, 6000 came out.  The Japanese denied the prisoners any medicines from the red cross, and everytime someone died in my Step-Fathers care, he got beaten or tortured... He told me he had over 2000 men die in his arms.

So.... if he could see the crime of the A-Bomb, I would think anyone could.

What everyone forgets about WWII today is that we won it because we realized we had to become meaner than the sons-of-bitches we were fighting.

That realization is completely lacking in today's "kinder, gentler" politically correct world.  And our enemies are exploiting it for all they're worth.

War is no place for morality.  War is about killing, because if you don't do it, you will be killed.  Morality comes after surrender and treaties, and works only until the next bunch of madmen start the next war.

Montecore wrote:

What everyone forgets about WWII today is that we won it because we realized we had to become meaner than the sons-of-bitches we were fighting.

That realization is completely lacking in today's "kinder, gentler" politically correct world.  And our enemies are exploiting it for all they're worth.

War is no place for morality.  War is about killing, because if you don't do it, you will be killed.  Morality comes after surrender and treaties, and works only until the next bunch of madmen start the next war.

In this case, I wish I didn't agree with you. 

"I watched.... a snail... crawl along the edge.... of a straight razor........... It's my dream.... It's my nightmare....."

It's a path that damages the traveller - I don't know how "American" soldiers would be after fighting the truly vicious on terms that allowed "us" to win.  Maybe it's better to make the fewest people responsible for the most cruelty so we wouldn't have to deal with veterans like those of Sudan.



gawd- this image is even more reetarded than the one I intended to post.  oopsy.

Last edited by DoucheEllington (2007-11-03 10:44:52)

Zookeeper wrote:

whosasailorthen wrote:

Those poor Japanese.  We dropped a big bad bomb (or two) on them.
Rape of Nanjing or Bataan Death March mean anything to anyone anymore, I wonder?

Not one of the women or children who were killed in Hiroshima or Nagasaki were involved in those atrocities.  Committing atrocities against the civilian people of one nation is not excused by the bad acts of that nation's government or its military.

As you seek to sterilize war you seek to extend it's reach and power, the less war touches the longer war goes on.

There is a reason we so easily draw the sword here in America, and as you look around and realize all of our buildings lack bullet scars and our sidewalks are not blood stained it may become apparent to you.  The truth is that we  don't know or feel war here, it holds no fear for us - it's just another video clip served up during sweeps week.

opsec wrote:

Zookeeper wrote:

Still, I have a hard time with justifying the blowing up women and children to save the lives of soldiers (even hundreds of thousands of soldiers).

In most wars, collateral casualties are higher than military ones.  In this case, civilian deaths actually served a purpose.

But Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought the scale to a new high.  It was a case of "destroying everything (and everyone) to destroy something".  There has to be a point where it is determined that the collateral casualties exceed the genuine military casualties to an unacceptable level.  Destroying an entire population center reaches that point for me.
 

opsec wrote:

Zookeeper wrote:

With the possible exception of low yield battlefield nukes (used in massivly open battle fields) nuclear weapons really are weapons of terror in that they are too powerful to be used to target just military and industrial targets without massive civilian casualties.

This is the reason they haven't been used.

They have been used.  Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

They have been used.  Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Cheap troll. 

But Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought the scale to a new high.  It was a case of "destroying everything (and everyone) to destroy something".  There has to be a point where it is determined that the collateral casualties exceed the genuine military casualties to an unacceptable level.  Destroying an entire population center reaches that point for me.

So you're against bombing, not necessarily nukes.  Also remember that Dresden was a *completely* nonmilitary target.

opsec wrote:

Dresden was a *completely* nonmilitary target.

Dresden (and Tokyo) is the complete example of why the bomb is more of a publicity tool than an end all weapon.  The bomb merely signaled to potential enemies that we were above and beyond them and it did serve some effectiveness in our negotiations with Stalin. 

But in the end the bomb was the final product of a long ugly war fought tooth and nail the entire way.  It is laughable to play monday morning quarterback 75 years later from the comfort and safety of the living room and an extreme insult to the men who bore the brunt of Banzai charges and prison camp atrocities.  WW-II was a fight to the death, something which is best not second guessed until you've lived it.

And for the record I've walked the streets of Hiroshima, I've visited the muesems and watched the ceremonies.  I saw how the Japanese played up the child card to stir pity while neglecting to mention that they were warned to evacuate all non-military personell.

In the end I walked away feeling that they "got what you get for doing what they did".

War is....

"To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women!"

Anything less will result in the quagmires that have been so prevalent in resent history.

Taint wrote:

unintentional pun

Never.

pALEPHx wrote:

Yeah. Quoting Ah-nold movies.

The quote came from a wimpy fucker named Robert E. Howard. [For the record.]

Who would have guessed a site where photos of defecating japanese porn stars are distributed as the coins of the realm also has such thoughtful and well articulated ideas on this subject?

I find-agreeing with Montecore/H, here, shockingly enough-that enough blame, as it were, isn't given to the Japanese leaders themselves, who so willingly allowed a second bomb to fall before declaring surrender. War is hell. Nuclear war is stupid. But to second guess the decision to drop the atom bomb is, at this point, not only useless but disregards the agonies of the era. Truman was the kind of leader we can only hope to see again someday. In comparison, he makes George Bush look even more like the useless empty rat brained fool than...than he would is you compared him only to say, Nixon.

My opinions aside, we have a great group here. Twisted dildo shaped kudos and leftover porn shoot poop to all.

pALEPHx wrote:

finicky

Now there is a word that is not in my day to day vocabulary.

Germany has been made to eat shit for sixty years, paying reparations to Israel, a country that didn’t exist at the time, and has paid pensions and damages to the survivors and their heirs.  In addition, Russia disassembled and carted off many German factories as war reparations.  Germany lost territory to Poland and ethnic Germans were expelled from Czechoslovakia, Poland, Russia and other countries.  A ruined Germany had to resettle ethnic Germans from other countries.  Many ethnic Germans died during the forced relocations to Germany.

Japan has never been made to eat shit for what it did to China, Korea, The Philippines and the rest of Asia.  Don’t get me wrong, Germany wasn’t a benign overlord, but Germany’s behavior was saintly in its occupied territories compared to what Japan did.  Japan has never apologized to the comfort women or paid reparations to them.  MacArthur was an asshole to give the sadistic Japanese doctors immunity for using Allied POWs for germ warfare and other medical experiments.

Emmeran wrote:

It is laughable to play monday morning quarterback 75 years later from the comfort and safety of the living room and an extreme insult to the men who bore the brunt of Banzai charges and prison camp atrocities.  WW-II was a fight to the death, something which is best not second guessed until you've lived it.

Bullshit.  By that standard nothing that has ever happened in history can ever be called into question by the next generation.  Bullshit.

I'm sorry Zoo, but you can't convince me that war fought by Marquess of Queensberry rules is less destructive in the long run. 

No matter. My money is on a biological disaster natural or otherwise.  Overgrazing, it happens to the best species.

Zookeeper wrote:

No doubt you then advocate the targeting of schools and hospitals.  Geneva Convention?  Fuck it.  We need to give out medals for raping and torturing civilians.  That'll show 'em not to fuck with us.

I see you've fallen hook, line and sinker for the "surgical strike" myth; Yes Zooker we now have the ability to limit the scope of our  mayem and destruction.  We can be at war for 6 years with only a handful of our casulties and a few hundred thousand lesser beings killed on the other side.  Feed the war machine, fan the fires of warfare capitalism, hand out huge open-ended contracts to your friends.

Don't worry, there won't be much blood or destruction on the TV, the churches and schools are safe and the mindless masses will be too busy watching to see who's going to win the next american idol to give a fuck.

I'm beginning to see the logic behind your "safe and sane" warfare.

fnord wrote:

Germany has been made to eat shit for sixty years, paying reparations to Israel, a country that didn’t exist at the time, and has paid pensions and damages to the survivors and their heirs.  In addition, Russia disassembled and carted off many German factories as war reparations.  Germany lost territory to Poland and ethnic Germans were expelled from Czechoslovakia, Poland, Russia and other countries.  A ruined Germany had to resettle ethnic Germans from other countries.  Many ethnic Germans died during the forced relocations to Germany.

Japan has never been made to eat shit for what it did to China, Korea, The Philippines and the rest of Asia.  Don’t get me wrong, Germany wasn’t a benign overlord, but Germany’s behavior was saintly in its occupied territories compared to what Japan did.  Japan has never apologized to the comfort women or paid reparations to them.  MacArthur was an asshole to give the sadistic Japanese doctors immunity for using Allied POWs for germ warfare and other medical experiments.

Yeah, you're right, they never apologize for anything.  Yeah, you're right that people put Germany through a lot more "restitution" than was required of Japan.   Where you're veering off into your usual douchebaggery is where you somehow have come to the conclusion that the Japanese were somehow worse than anyone else. 

The Japanese did some horrendous things to their prisoners, but one place where you're wrong is that almost all of the experimentation they did was on Chinese prisoners, not allies.  This was probably mostly due to accessibility, but it was Chinese prisoners that they were infecting with black plague so they could feed an army of infected fleas, for example.  That notwithstanding, they never accomplished anything on the scale of the Germans, not that scale even matters. 

You've spent years convincing yourself that other races and nations are worse than yours, and part of your fantasy is that the Japanese were worse than others.  What they did was horrendous, but there is no horrend-o-meter, and nobody gets to say, "sure we bought Japanese information on delivery systems for bubonic plague because we wanted to be able to use it on our enemies later, but damn, we never did the experiments.  Those guys are evil."  And if you think MacArthur was somehow solely responsible for the decision then you're fooling yourself.  We were developing biological weapons already, and that's why we thought the information might be valuable.