In Hiroshima, Kerry will not apologize for atomic bombs dropped on Japan
Source: Washington Post
HIROSHIMA — Secretary of State John F. Kerry will focus on the vision for a nuclear-free future and will not apologize while he is here for the atomic bomb that the United States dropped on Hiroshima at the end of World War II, killing 140,000 people, a U.S. official said Sunday.
Kerry arrived in Hiroshima on Sunday morning to attend a meeting of foreign ministers of the Group of Seven countries, who discussed the war in Syria and the refugee crisis sweeping Europe. On Monday, the diplomats will go as a group to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and lay a wreath at an altar commemorating the conflagration.
Later in the day, he is expected to comment on the experience of visiting the museum, which vividly depicts the effect on the city and its inhabitants.
A State Department official, speaking with reporters who are accompanying Kerry, said that he will not specifically apologize for the bombs that the United States dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki but that he will address the human dimensions.
<more>
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/in-hiroshima-kerry-will-not-apologize-for-a-bombs/2016/04/10/b9a941b6-fb58-11e5-813a-90ab563f0dde_story.html
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Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)Even if he did, how many people would take it as a serious, heartfelt apology?
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)don't start an insane war of aggression.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_territories_occupied_by_Imperial_Japan
I only wish the atomic bomb had been ready sooner; dropping one or two on Germany would have ultimately saved millions of lives.
uppityperson
(115,677 posts)
Ash_F
(5,861 posts)
JustABozoOnThisBus
(23,343 posts)Not the same scale as 1930's Japanese conquest.
Kuwait was small potatoes. Except for the oil.
uppityperson
(115,677 posts)
forest444
(5,902 posts)Since we're on the subject it's worth pointing out that the Bush regime dropped massive amounts of depleted uranium over Iraq during the invasion and shortly afterward.
How much, they won't say (which is telling in itself); but Iraqi authorities have identified 365 sites contaminated by depleted uranium ordnance that will require cleanup costing $45 million (probably much more).
Depleted uranium generates bomb blasts that have been compared to a mini atomic blast in their intensity and destructiveness. While it's 60% less radioactive than natural uranium, it's been linked to a sharp spike in cancer and severe birth defect rates in the areas in which it was dropped.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-considine/us-depleted-uranium-as-ma_b_3812888.html
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/15168-depleted-uranium-contamination-is-still-spreading-in-iraq
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)uppityperson
(115,677 posts)EX500rider
(10,849 posts)...is nothing like the Asian Holocaust that Japan perpetrated.
The Japanese military murdered from nearly 3 to over 10 million people, most likely 6 million Chinese, Koreans, Malaysians, Indonesians, Filipinos and Indochinese, among others, including Western prisoners of war.
Mass killings, human experimentation and biological warfare, use of chemical weapons, widespread torture of prisoners of war, execution and killing of captured Allied airmen, cannibalism, forced labor, comfort women, etc...
TowneshipRebellion
(92 posts)A war to remove an uncooperative foreign leader and replace him with a puppet who will do our bidding when we need them to for business and strategic reasons, dressed up as a war to bring democracy to an oppressed people is worse. We have no moral high ground over the Japanese. None.
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)Mass killings
Human experimentation and biological warfare
Use of chemical weapons
Torture of prisoners of war
Execution and killing of captured Allied airmen
Cannibalism
Forced labor
Comfort women
Looting
Between 1937 and 1945, the Japanese military murdered from nearly 3 to over 10 million people, most likely 6 million Chinese, Koreans, Malaysians, Indonesians, Filipinos and Indochinese, among others, including Western prisoners of war.
According to the 2002 International Symposium on the Crimes of Bacteriological Warfare, the number of people killed by the Imperial Japanese Army germ warfare and human experiments is around 580,000.
Many written reports and testimonies collected by the Australian War Crimes Section of the Tokyo tribunal, and investigated by prosecutor William Webb (the future Judge-in-Chief), indicate that Japanese personnel in many parts of Asia and the Pacific committed acts of cannibalism against Allied prisoners of war.
The Japanese military’s use of forced labor, by Asian civilians and POWs also caused many deaths. According to a joint study by historians including Zhifen Ju, Mitsuyoshi Himeta, Toru Kubo and Mark Peattie, more than 10 million Chinese civilians were mobilised by the Kōa-in (Japanese Asia Development Board) for forced labour. More than 100,000 civilians and POWs died in the construction of the Burma-Siam Railway.
As many as 200,000 women, mostly from Korea, and some other countries such as China, the Philippines, Burma, the Dutch East Indies, Netherlands, and Australia were forced to engage in sexual activity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes
TowneshipRebellion
(92 posts)that the US government and citizenry have perpetrated on the native population of this country and the victims of chattel slavery who still have not been made whole to this day.We have no moral high ground. Once the US makes our people whole then maybe we can take the moral high ground because the Japanese refuse to make the chinese and koreans whole for they have done. You could list 1,000 atrocities the Japanese have done but the US is just as guilty in my eyes. The bombs were not justified.
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)......and killed over 1/2 million with germ warfare and human experiments?
Please.
TowneshipRebellion
(92 posts)After learning about the Tuskegee experiments, I don't know who to trust anymore.
EX500rider
(10,849 posts).....with germ warfare and human experiment you would have heard about it.
TowneshipRebellion
(92 posts)Your thought process seems to be very basic on this issue. We dropped the bomb on the Japanese point blank. We are the only nation to use two atomic bombs in war.Even if the Japanese were sacrificing children to an unknown deity, we had no license to drop those bombs and then claim a moral high ground. The reader can decide which of us is right. You can have the last word.
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)...the bombs weren't just dropped out of the blue. The japanese civilians were given clear advance warning, unlike any Japanese attacks.
And the US troops didn't use babies for bayonet practice
.
Wording of the leaflets dropped on Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and 33 other Japanese cities on 1 August 1945
Read this carefully as it may save your life or the life of a relative or friend.
In the next few days, some or all of the cities named on the reverse side will be destroyed by American bombs. These cities contain military installations and workshops or factories which produce military goods.
We are determined to destroy all of the tools of the military clique which they are using to prolong this useless war. But, unfortunately, bombs have no eyes. So, in accordance with America's humanitarian policies, the American Air Force, which does not wish to injure innocent people, now gives you warning to evacuate the cities named and save your lives.
America is not fighting the Japanese people but is fighting the military clique which has enslaved the Japanese people.
The peace which America will bring will free the people from the oppression of the military clique and mean the emergence of a new and better Japan. You can restore peace by demanding new and good leaders who will end the war. We cannot promise that only these cities will be among those attacked but some or all of them will be, so heed this warning and evacuate these cities immediately.
kristopher
(29,798 posts)EX500rider
(10,849 posts).....so they didn't do much of the heavy lifting....unlike the Eastern Front.
happyslug
(14,779 posts)The main Japanese Army had been in Manchuria since at least 1932, parts of it had been used against US forces in the Pacific, but the Army in Manchuria stayed more or less intact till 1945, when parts of it was sent home to Japan to defend the Home Islands.
The Pacific War was mostly the US Navy and Marines (with some support from the US Army, Air Force and Coast Guard) against the Japanese Imperial Navy and Imperial Marines (With some support from the Japanese Army, such as taking Malaysia and the Philippines, in Malaysia the Japanese Army took on the British Army, in the Philippines the Japanese Army took on the US and Philippines Armies).
Japanese loses during the Soviet Invasion of Manchuria:
21,389 (Japanese data)-83,737 killed (Soviet claim)
590,000-604,000 POWs
1,326,076 Japanese soldiers lost they life between 1937 and 1945, of these over 1 Million died fighting in China (Data is incomplete, the Japanese records says only about 460,000 soldiers died in China, but that is considered to be an huge under-estimation).
My point is, while the Chinese ended up the # cause of Japanese loses during WWII. On the other hand the single largest cause of Japanese Losses during WWII was to the Soviet Union in August 1945. People forget the Soviet Invasion of Manchuria required the Soviet Army to travel the equivalent distance from Berlin to Lisbon and the Soviets did it in three weeks. That was a shock to the Japanese leadership, a bigger shock then even the Atomic Bombing as reported in Wikipedia:
Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's research has led him to conclude that the atomic bombings were not the principal reason for Japan's capitulation. He argues that Japan's leaders were impacted more by the swift and devastating Soviet victories on the mainland in the week following Joseph Stalin's August 8 declaration of war because the Japanese strategy to protect the home islands was designed to fend off a US invasion from the South, and left virtually no spare troops to counter a Soviet threat from the North. This, according to Hasegawa, amounted to a "strategic bankruptcy" for the Japanese and forced their message of surrender on August 15, 1945.[25][26] Others with similar views include The "Battlefield" series documentary,[2] Drea,[17] Hayashi,[18] and numerous others, though all, including Hasegawa, state that the surrender was not due to any single factor or single event.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_War_(1945)
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)....but lost over 1.2 million overall, how were "the greatest loses to the Russians"?
They lost 77,000 to 110,000 kia to the US just in the battle of Okinawa.
happyslug
(14,779 posts)In the Pacific campaign, it was rare for Japanese to surrender and there are reported cases of American REFUSING to take them as POWS.
Now, one of the reason for the LACK of POWs taken by American forces, while the Russians ended up with a lot, was HOW the Japanese selected soldiers to defend the islands. When taking the Philippines and Malaysia, the Japanese Army sent whole units but otherwise the troops sent to the islands had either volunteered for such duty OR been selected for such duties. If the Japanese officer corp had any concern about the "loyalty" of an enlisted rank, he stayed in the Army in Manchuria. Thus any Japanese enlistee with left wing tendencies ended up in the Japanese Army in Manchuria.
Pre WWII Japan has a very strong left, and a draftee army that drafted such lefties. They were watched and never put into a place where they could do much damage. Thus most were NOT sent to the islands to defend the islands.
Thus as more and more hard core righties in the Army left to fight defending the various islands, the enlisted ranks of the Japanese Army in Manchuria became more and more left wing. Thus when the Russians attack, fighting to the death was NOT want they wanted to do, so they surrendered in droves (also Russia's attack bypassed most of those troops and the Russians just ignored them till they surrendered, the Russians did not need to clear them out so the Japanese Troops so surrounded just sat, could not attack, and no need to commit suicide for the Russians were NOT attacking them, the Russians had enough troops to keep the by passed Japanese troops contained, many surrendered to the Russians rather then get killed by the native Manchus and Chinese.
Thus you did NOT have the massive refusal to surrender in Manchuria as you saw in the Pacific Island campaigns.
The Russians ended up with more POWS in three weeks of warfare then did the American had in three years of Fighting.
Adrahil
(13,340 posts)I eman, it could have NOTHING to do with the fact that Japanese knew it was over.
You wanna argue the Soviets were the major factor in Europe? I'll listen. But trying to argue that Soviets we somehowmthe decisive factor with Japan is beyond ludicous. The Soviets didn't even enter the war until victory was invetible, and their goal was gobble up as a much land as poaaible.
The pacific was won with the Blood of U.S. Sevicemen, and those British Empire Allies all the a
British holding in that region.
happyslug
(14,779 posts)The Japanese elite by the Summer of 1945 saw their fleet in harbor, without fuel. No planes or fuel for planes and do to American MINING of harbor campaign internal shipping had come to a standstill (Crews of Civilian ships refused to board ships do to fears that when the ship would sail, it would hit a mine and sink).
Into what even the Japanese ruling elite considered a "Pre-Revolutionary" situation, the Russian intervened. In 1918 Germany had surrendered, but only after a Communist Revolt had broken out in Berlin. It was the Germany Army AND THE SOCIALISTS that put down that revolt (with massive use of "Frie-Corps" (The Corp of the "Frie-Corp later became the SA of the Nazi Party, please note under the Treaty of Versailles such troops were illegal, but the Western Allies ignored that section for they feared a Communist Germany in 1919 more then anything else).
Soviet Doctrine from the 1920s till the collapsed of the Soviet Union in 1989 was that Labor would be suppressed in the west and do to such suppression Labor would revolt and during that revolt the Red Army would attack to support those workers. This doctrine comes right out of writings of Karl Marx, who foresaw labor being suppressed till Labor can not take it any longer and revolt. Karl Marx advocating taking charge of that Revolt, removing the ruling elite and once removed the country will work its way to Communism (Communism would not occur for at least 500 years after such a revolt, but you had to remove the ruling elite first before the world can start on its long march to Communism).
It is unimportant if the above is true in this debate, all we need to know it was Soviet and Communist Doctrine of the 1940s. The Japanese leadership knew of this doctrine and had lived through the problems of 1917-1921 (Which included not only Revolutions in Russia, but Communists revolts in Germany, Austria and Hungary, massive strikes in France, Britain and the USA). Japan had NOT been free from that turmoil. Japan also had one of the largest Communists parties outside of Europe.
Come WWII, the European Communist parties were still effective. They supported US forces in Northern Italy and France. The most effective part of the French Resistance had been Communists. The Yugoslavia Partisans had been able to take over Yugoslavia with Soviet help.
Given the situation in Japan in the Summer of 1845, the Ruling Elite of Japan was seeing a revolution in their near future. On the other hand they saw the Russians and American fear of Communism as they best defense against the USA. Thus by the Summer of 1945 the Ruling Elite of Japan were willing to ally themselves with Russia against the US, even giving up Manchuria and Korea to Russia in exchange for Russian support BUT DID NOT WANT RUSSIAN TROOPS IN JAPAN. The Ruling Elite preferred US Occupation to Russian Occupation.
The Japanese ruling elite game plan by the Summer of 1945 was Stalin was to give them an Ultimatum, giving up Manchuria and Korea to Russia, in exchange the Russian would ask the Americans NOT to invade the Japanese home islands. The Japanese ruling elite were planning to agree to those terms, but Stalin decided to invade NOT give the Japanese an Ultimatum. That change upset the Japanese plans and within a week it was clear Russia would have Manchuria by September 1, and Korea by September 15th. That would be a huge blow to Japan for that would be all that would be needed for the People to revolt and demand a change in Government and the Communists take over Japan. Notice this is a revolt INSIDE Japan, with Russian troops only in Korea. That would give the Japanese Communists enough support inside Japan to take over, as the Socialists of Germany had done so in the fall of 1918.
Thus the Russians were more effective for their were more feared by the Ruling Elite of Japan. Given a choice between a US occupation and a Russian Occupation of even a part of Japan, the Ruling Elite preferred US Occupation. Thus the Ruling Elite Surrendered as Russian Troops entered Korea.
Thus the Russians were more effective for with the Russians came Communism and a replacement of the ruling elite of Japan. With US occupation, the top leadership of the ruling elite would have to go, but the second tier would remain, which was the best the Ruling elite could hope for after the Russian invasion of Manchuria.
Adrahil
(13,340 posts)The Japanese well knew that the US would accept nothing less than unconditional surrender based on their unprovoked attack on Pearl Habor and their inhumane treatment of POWs. They KNEW we were coming fro them. And so we did.
By the time the Soviets joined the fight, Japanese military might had been utterly gutted. WE had decimated their navy, wiped out their air force, and we were rooting out their entrenched forces island by island.
I think any honest reading of the pacific war MUST conclude that Japan was broken by the U.S> and it's British Empire allies.
happyslug
(14,779 posts)Last edited Wed Apr 13, 2016, 01:39 PM - Edit history (1)
Yes, we did execute some of the leaders, but most survived to become American allies post war. You are underestimating the FEAR of Communism that was prevalent both in the US, German and Japanese Ruling elite. By April 1945 US Forces had taken the Ruhr and intelligence had clearly shown almost no German Troops between them and Berlin. All the German Troops were facing the Russians. It was almost like asking the US to take Berlin. At least one American General asked permission to do so, but Eisenhower said no, Berlin was for the Russians to take.
The rapid fall of the Japanese Manchuria Army to the Russians showed to the Japanese Elite that if the Russians invaded Japan, they would face little opposition as Japanese Communists would rally the workers behind their fellow Commies. Whether is this true or not is unimportant, it was what the Japanese ruling elite believed to be the case. The huge number of Japanese Soldiers who SURRENDERED to the Russian were also a shock, it undid the myth of the Japanese soldier more willing to die then surrender.
Sorry, Japan surrendered do to fear of Communism more then the Atomic Bombing and that fear was from the Russians.
braddy
(3,585 posts)and Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Romania, Hitler and the Soviets turned against each other.
Stalin fought a war where he wasted men by the many millions, and had punishment battalions that were literally cannon and mine fodder, and even chained men to their weapons.
It was a case of Germans killing 10 to one as Stalin fought with mountains of human flesh over quality of soldiering.
greymouse
(872 posts)Blow away your own ancestral homeland if you want to.
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)....ending it sooner would have saved lives and cities.
happyslug
(14,779 posts)Unlike the US, most people in the world do NOT move. They tend to stay in the same village or neighborhood they were born in. Women move more then men, but again tend to stay local unless they are force to move. The force to move is generally economic, thus the move from the Farm to the Cities in the 1800s was driven by lost of income do to increase imports of American Grain, but once moved they tend to stay put.
This was a problem for the German War effort during WWII. The new factories being built were in the suburbs NOT the inner cities and the workers did NOT want to move. Thus you had a lot of lost time commuting from the new factories in the suburbs to their homes in the inner cities. The bombing forced the workers to move to the suburbs where the new factories were, thus increased productively by the workers being able to stay on the job longer for they did not have to commute as far once the worker and his family moved to the suburbs.
Till the US Army took the Ruhr Valley in 1945, German arms production INCREASED in 1943 and 1944 and even the beginning of 1945 (and the US Army only was able to take the Ruhr Valley do to the fact that 2/3rds of the German Army was on the Eastern Front Fighting the Russians).
The study that brought this up was hated by the US Air Force and thus buried, but it was a public record so it is known. While it took a while, US bombing policy changed do to that study and subsequent studies on the bombing on Japan, Korea and even Vietnam. Today the emphasis is NOT on cities but transportation (Roads, Ports, bridges, rail roads, Dams, Canals, Airports, water and sewerage plants along with electrical generation plants, which can include dams, Nuclear plants, coal plants etc). Mining of harbors and roads was found to be by far the most effective use of Air Power, for the mines can stay active till removed and that can be months after being dropped, unlike bombs that goes "boom" once and then forgotten.
Side note: When it comes to Nuclear Power plants, knocking out the Nuclear plant is NOT considered essential. What is to be destroyed is the area around, where the infrastructure exist that transport the electrical power from the plant. Thus the concrete dorm around the actual nuke plant is rarely a target (to hard to destroy given its construction). The target is what is outside that dorm for without that infrastructure the electrical power produced by the Nuke plant is useless.
Thus, while Germany was bombed during WWII, the bombing tended to do what Hitler could not get the German Population to do, i.e. move closer to where they work. Thus the bombing actually HELPED the German War Effort.
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)....the lose of oil production, key factories and railway hubs and bridges due to bombing put a huge dint their war production.
According to economic historian Adam Tooze, in his book The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy, a turning point in the bomber offensive was reached in March 1943, during the Battle of the Ruhr. Over five months 34,000 tons of bombs were dropped. Following the raids, steel production fell by 200,000 tons, making a shortfall of 400,000 tons. Speer acknowledged that the RAF were hitting the right targets, and raids severely disrupted his plans to increase production to meet increasing attritional needs. Between July 1943 and March 1944 there were no further increases in the output of aircraft.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II#Germany_later_in_the_war
The United States Strategic Bombing Survey found attacks on waterways, beginning 23 September with strikes against the Dortmund-Ems Canal and Mittelland Canal, produced tremendous traffic problems on the Rhine River. It had immediate impacts on shipments of goods, and especially coal deliveries, upon which Germany's economy depended; with no more additional effort, by February 1945, rail transport (which competed for coal) had seen its shipments cut by more than half, and by March, "except in limited areas, the coal supply had been eliminated.
The statistics point to the gradual strangulation of the German transport system. The daily average of freight car tonnage dropped from 183,000 in June 1944 to 83,000 in December 1944. Waterborne movements of coke and coal from the Ruhr declined from a daily average of 76,000 tons in July 1944 to 14,200 by January 1945. Stocks of coal, the main source of power for German industry, rose from a low of 186,000 tons kept at the mineheads in July 1944 to 2,767,000 tons in February 1945. The rise in tonnage demonstrates the collapse of the transport network, which meant raw materials could not be transported or moved effectively from the mineheads to the factories.[141] It is estimated that production fell by 22 percent between May 1944 and January 1945. Of this reduction, some 50-60% of this was due to attacks on transportation
The sheer tonnage of explosive delivered by day and by night was eventually sufficient to cause widespread damage, and, more importantly from a military point of view, forced Germany to divert resources to counter it. This was to be the real significance of the Allied strategic bombing campaign—resource allocation.
The attack on oil production, oil refineries, and tank farms was, however, extremely successful and made a very large contribution to the general collapse of Germany in 1945. In the event, the bombing of oil facilities became Albert Speer's main concern; however, this occurred sufficiently late in the war that Germany would soon be defeated in any case
The impact of bombing on German morale was significant according to Professor John Buckley. Around a third of the urban population under threat of bombing had no protection at all. Some of the major cities saw 55–60 percent of dwellings destroyed. Mass evacuations were a partial answer for six million civilians, but this had a severe impact on morale as German families were split up to live in difficult conditions. By 1944 absenteeism rates of 20–25 percent were not unusual and in post-war analysis 91 percent of civilians stated bombing was the most difficult hardship to endure and was the key factor in the collapse of their own morale
The other consideration is the vast diversion of resources that were badly needed at the front, with 1.3 million soldiers manning the flak guns, search lights and radars by 1944.
The Germans by 1942 had installed over 15,000 88 mm flak guns in defense of the Reich, guns needed to slow down the Soviets on the Eastern front.
Also the 1,000's of day and night fighters used in defense were desperately need at the front.
happyslug
(14,779 posts)The US was slow in attack the transportation infrastructure during WWII (in more recent Air Campaign it has become the main target) the main reason for that was Germany depended more on its Canals then its railroads, canals are a harder target to take out and easier to defend (you only have to defend the locks, bombs on the Canals could be ignored or worked around).
You also missed Wikipedia on the "United States Strategic Bombing Survey" (after mentioning what it considered successes, the following is reported:
Aviation production: "In 1944 the German air force is reported to have accepted a total of 39,807 aircraft of all types -- compared with 8,295 in 1939, or 15,596 in 1942 before the plants suffered any attack." According to the report, almost none of the aircraft produced in 1944 were used in combat and some may have been imaginary.
Armoured fighting vehicle production "reached its wartime peak in December 1944, when 1,854 tanks and armored vehicles were produced. This industry continued to have relatively high production through February 1945."
Ball bearings: "There is no evidence that the attacks on the ball-bearing industry had any measurable effect on essential war production."
"Secondary Campaigns" (Operation Chastise & Operation Crossbow): "The bombing of the launching sites being prepared for the V weapons delayed the use of V-l appreciably. The attacks on the V-weapon experimental station at Peenemunde, however, were not effective; V-l was already in production near Kassel and V-2 had also been moved to an underground plant. The breaking of the Mohne and the Eder dams, though the cost was small, also had limited effect."
Steel: The bombing greatly reduced production, but the resulting shortage had no contribution to the defeat.
Consumer goods: "In the early years of the war—the soft war period for Germany—civilian consumption remained high. Germans continued to try for both guns and butter. The German people entered the period of the air war well stocked with clothing and other consumer goods. Although most consumer goods became increasingly difficult to obtain, Survey studies show that fairly adequate supplies of clothing were available for those who had been bombed out until the last stages of disorganization. Food, though strictly rationed, was in nutritionally adequate supply throughout the war. The Germans' diet had about the same calories as the British."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Strategic_Bombing_Survey
No one is claiming the bombing campaign had no effect, the problem was its affect was less impressive then the propaganda of WWII would indicate.
EX500rider
(10,849 posts).....the million plus troops manning the AAA batteries would have put another 50 to 100 divisions at the front and several thousand more 88's at the front would have been a shock, with several thousand more fighters working on air superiority over the troops.
happyslug
(14,779 posts)They were "Exempt" for either having a physical problem (bad hearts for example, over age 50 etc) OR on rest from the front (Most troops can NOT be in CONSTANT combat for more then two months without suffering "battle fatigue" and need a long break. Serving on the AA units provided that break.
The biggest problems the German had after 1941, was a lack of fuel. For Example on the way to Stalingrad, the German VI's Army infantry units had to make do with just 10% of their pre war allotment of fuel. NOT a 10% cut, but just 10% of pre war fuel usage. This was to provide fuel for the Air Force and Tanks units. Horse drawn wagons replaced trucks. Of the 12 battalions in an Infantry Division, Eleven traveled by foot, the 12th by bicycle (The Bicycle unit replaced the Battalion that had been assigned trucks as a reserve unit in pre war German Divisions),.
Pre-WWII the main source of Oil for Germany had been Russia. Thus when Hitler was fighting France and Britain, the Germany Army had all the fuel they wanted. When Hitler attacked Russia, he had to take Moscow by December or his forces would run out of fuel. Romania oil (and oil smuggled in from Texas via Spain) was NOT enough. In many ways the oil shortage was the key to the defeat of Germany, Italy and Japan.
As to the bombing of homes, that has the effect of making people support their troops more then ever, so the troops can revenge the destruction of their homes. Furthermore much of the housing stock destroyed were what we would call "Slums", thus the destruction was already in the plans of the Nazi for that housing. The Nazis wanted German Workers next to they place of employment and the newer factories were in the suburbs. Thus the Bombing did what the Nazis refused to do, destroy German Homes so German Workers would move closer to where they worked.
freebrew
(1,917 posts)Gee, what could go wrong with that?
I need a cynical smiley, please....
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)Millions of lives could ultimately have been saved.
freebrew
(1,917 posts)we didn't really need to nuke Japan.
Truman writes of it in his memoirs.
We had already basically won, but there were a lot of outstanding battlefronts and the Japanese PTB weren't surrendering.
There's much debate as to how many lives it saved by dropping the nukes.
And yes, a lot different, as it would have affected allies as well as enemies.
morningfog
(18,115 posts)Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)I only wish the atom bomb had been ready a few years earlier so that we could have dropped one on Germany, put a stop to the Holocaust and saved millions of lives.
morningfog
(18,115 posts)Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)If dropping an atom bomb on Germany in 1943 would have resulted in casualties of about 100,000 people but would have saved 6 million people from being murdered by the Nazis, would it necessarily be a "sick" thing to do?
morningfog
(18,115 posts)Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)from the Battle of Normandy?
"Sick"?
morningfog
(18,115 posts)
Kablooie
(18,634 posts)If I ever mention the bombing of Japan, she quickly becomes furious. I learned early in our marriage that I had to avoid the topic because all rationality quickly disappears into ranting.
She's very liberal politically and hates the right wing that brought about the war but this is a painful point that strikes a deep nerve. If she is representative of the majority of Japanese this could open an old wound that refuses to heal.
GummyBearz
(2,931 posts)She sounds representative of the majority of women for sure. You're lucky if this is the only topic you have to avoid before irrational ranting occurs, my list is pretty long :p
noretreatnosurrender
(1,890 posts)I've already seen threads today trying to divide people by race. Now we have a sexist comment right in the middle of this thread. Donald would be so proud of you.
GummyBearz
(2,931 posts)It was a joke. If you've ever been married you might find it funny... spouses argue from time to time. Donal Trump endorsement my ass.... get a sense of humor.
TipTok
(2,474 posts)
Jackie Wilson Said
(4,176 posts)my own in fear of retribution.
noretreatnosurrender
(1,890 posts)I'm not the one who made the sexist comment and then tried to excuse it because I'm married, as if that somehow magically gives you immunity when you say such crap. 
They outed themselves I merely pointed it out.
kristopher
(29,798 posts)Personal note to explain: I was widowed after 8 years of marriage. We were in Japan where I was studying and I remarried a few years later.
Neither of them had a real problem with the bombings per se, but they're both vehemently against militarism.
A much more touchy subject in my experience was the fire bombing of Tokyo. In all my years there I don't think I ever met anyone who didn't think of that as tantamount to a war crime even if they may not have expressed it that way.
cstanleytech
(26,291 posts)have done and there arent any clean hands no matter how much BS someone tries to spread around to claim otherwise.
kristopher
(29,798 posts)
Bonobo
(29,257 posts)Response to Bonobo (Reply #133)
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Response to Bonobo (Reply #133)
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happyslug
(14,779 posts)Hiroshima and Nagasaki tend to be counted as the greatest loss of life from a bombing raid during WWII, but the Fire Bomb Raid on Tokyo clearly exceeded the losses at Nagasaki and probably exceeded the loss of life at Hiroshima. The real debate is Dresden and Hamburg. Those two cites suffered from a "fire storm" as did Hiroshima (but NOT Nagasaki) and Tokyo (A Fire storm is when the heat from fires caused by the bombing leads to even more fires that absorbs the oxygen killing anything living even in fire proof bomb shelters).
In all three cities you had a lot of wooden building, residences NOT factories, that lead to the fire storm. In fact in all five cities, most of the factories were NOT hit by the bombing, the factories were to far from the city center where the bombing was aimed at.
Dresden is the most inexcusable. The Red Army was pushing the German Army in front of that city. Refugees were pouring in to get away from the Red Army Advances. Someone in the Western Allied High Command decided it was time to show the Soviet Forces the power of Allied Air Power nu bombing Dresden right in front of the Soviet Army, so when they entered that city the Soviets could see what Western Air Power could do.
After the bombing all types of excuses for the bombing were made, including that the Soviets had asked for it (the Soviets denied they asked for it and there is NO record of such a request).
The same involved the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We knew the Russians would invade on August 8th, 1945, three months after the German official surrender on May 8th, 1945 (the German actually surrendered on May 7th, 1945, but the Russians wanted that extra day to get they troops across the width of Russia within the three months Stalin had promised FDR). The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was more to impress the Russians then to force the Japanese to Surrender (Stalin left the Soviet General Staff to prepare the invasion of Manchuria, thus the frontal assaults, favored by Stalin and used by the Soviets on the Eastern Front were NOT done in the invasion of Manchuria. It appears to be in response to British plans for war with the Soviet Union once Germany was defeated (Those plans had been leaked to the Soviets by Soviet Spies in the British Government, thus Stalin knew of the plans).
Just a lot of international politics at the end of WWII with the US not being lily white during that time period (and Stalin was being Stalin a blood thirsty dictator more worried about retaining power then actually taking over other countries)
TeamPooka
(24,227 posts)The US was not the only country to be brutalized by Japanese aggression.
People also forget the warmongers in charge of Japan's military didn't even want to surrender after the two atomic bombs were dropped.
They wanted to keep fighting.
They're lucky we didn't have a 3rd one ready.
Kablooie
(18,634 posts)Her emotions completely take over so she can't consider rationally.
Skittles
(153,164 posts)why would you bring it up?
Kablooie
(18,634 posts)Because it came from our fear of atomic bombs she quickly related it to the bombing of Japan and became upset.
She is disgusted that Americans were afraid of being bombed by the Soviet Union after creating the horrors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
Feeling the Bern
(3,839 posts)Sook Jing massacre,
the littering the farm land with disease pathogens in Jiangxi and Zhejiang,
the carpet bombing of surrendered Shanghai,
Marco Polo Bridge incident,
Mukden train incident,
addicting Chinese children with opium laced cakes and candies,
"Loot All, Burn All, Kill All" policy in the "China Incident"
After all of that, Japanese people still honor war criminals as the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. And they deny and refuse to accept the 300,000 people killed and 20,000 women raped in Nanjing.
I have ZERO sympathy for the Japanese during WW2. They started the war in Asia . . . they earned every bit of misery THEIR war brought.
Kablooie
(18,634 posts)She got angry when they continued to honor the war criminals.
She feels nothing but shame for what Japanese did in WWII.
Her mother suffered by being deserted in Manchuria after the war. The Chinese understandably wouldn't help her at all and she lost her baby because she couldn't eat enough to make milk. My wife blames the Japanese army for this, not the Chinese at all.
ozone_man
(4,825 posts)When it comes down to it, I feel more empathy for the Chinese and Koreans, than i do for the Japanese. But, that still doesn't justify dropping the A-bomb on two cities. That is beyond horrific. So far, we are the only ones who have committed that level of genocide.
whathehell
(29,067 posts)those bombs were dropped. They didn't heed them
ozone_man
(4,825 posts)by dropping an A-bomb on them. That's an attrocity. Inhuman.
Feeling the Bern
(3,839 posts)That's an attrocity. Inhuman. Nary a word from the blame-America first crowd an open denials by the Japanese.
ozone_man
(4,825 posts)I thought we were better than that, but apparently not.
No other country has dropped an atomic bomb on anyone. Instantly killing a hundred thousand civilians. That was an unspeakable war crime.
Feeling the Bern
(3,839 posts)Doing it over six weeks is fine though.
And the Japanese used biological and chemical weapons against Chinese civilians. But that's fine though.
ozone_man
(4,825 posts)They're both atrocities. But, we are included with other countries who have committed the worst atrocities against other human beings.
Feeling the Bern
(3,839 posts)Enough of this revisionism.
Japan caused more misery to more people between 1931-1945 and I, for one, will not apologize to them or anyone in Japan for using The Bomb on them in a war THEY STARTED!
If they didn't want war, they shouldn't have invaded China, Burma, Malaya, Singapore, Indonesia, PI, Laos, Cambodia, Viet Nam, Korea, Taiwan. . .
I have no sympathy for them at all! If I were Truman, after the bomb, I would have told Stalin and Chiang that Japan was their playground and would have supported them with air and naval fire.
Japan wanted a war. Japan has no problem butchering other people's civilians. Let's see if turnabout is fair play.
It's nice that people in 2016 can put on 2016 glasses and look at events now rather than at the time. All you revisionists are historical hindsight people. . .and I sincerely have no tolerance for it anymore.
Japan earned whatever they got in WW2 because, and I cannot stress this enough. . .they started the war!
ozone_man
(4,825 posts)On two cities full of civilians. That puts us in the worst company, including Japan.
On starting the war:
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1930
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)"How U.S. Economic Warfare Provoked Japan’s Attack on Pearl Harbor"
That ought to read:
How Japanese aggressive warfare against China, Indo-China & Manchuria provoked economic sanctions.
treestar
(82,383 posts)Just kept taking their atrocities because we are better than them?
And letting other countries suffer as long as the Japanese felt like committing atrocities?
christx30
(6,241 posts)They get to do whatever they want to you. But the minute you fight back, they're the victim.
There was a kid like that when I was in junior high. I asked him to leave me alone for a couple of week. He didn't do it. So I broke his arm. I got in trouble, but I considered it the cost of doing business. He never messed with me the rest of the year.
whathehell
(29,067 posts)The fact that they were warned three times is not. Given that, their regime bore great responsibility.
FairWinds
(1,717 posts)you are sorry, not even to the HALF MILLION US atomic workers
and veterans that you have contaminated.
And they are planning on dropping another TRILLION on nuclear
"modernization" (i.e., corporate welfare) in violation of treaty and law
because the law is for suckers.
And of course Hiroshima & Nagasaki were justified even though they were civilians and
trying to surrender because, you know, Asians.
Kerry should know better, but he does not recognize the power of
non-violent resistance.
The Veterans For Peace Golden Rule Project is aimed specifically at
nuclear insanity.
Anyone up for a sail for peace?
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)saying "we surrender"?
FairWinds
(1,717 posts)on this subject.
Come back with 5 or 6 solid sources and then we can
have a discussion.
By the way, I met a Hiroshima survivor last year at the
Golden Rule launch and apologized for you, and us.
She is a woman of impressive dignity who bears no
ill will toward anyone.
Veterans For Peace
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)Pretty much everybody involved in dropping the bombs is dead, no need to apologize for me.
Did you want her to apologize for Japans terrible actions in the war or are only US citizens still guilty 71 years later?
TeamPooka
(24,227 posts)kristopher
(29,798 posts)I didn't think so.
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)In December 1945, during the last call by the Americans for alleged war criminals to report to the Americans, he took potassium cyanide poison and committed suicide.
kristopher
(29,798 posts)Too bad.
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)He suggested surrender and was told no.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)being dead and all 
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)The hitch was that the Us wanted an absolute unconditional surrender, while the Japanese wanted to keep the emperor seated (Not that he had any temporal power, but hey, it's how they rolled). The Soviets were getting ready to cross the straits into Japan as well, so rather than risk a communist takeover of japan, the US used the bombs to force the unconditional surrender and US sole occupation that we wanted.
tabasco
(22,974 posts)The crazed military was still in complete control of the Japanese government when we dropped the bombs. They had purged anybody who wanted to sue for peace. Please educate yourself. I recommend The Rising Sun by John Toland.
olddad56
(5,732 posts)kristopher
(29,798 posts)The Japanese were defeated with mass famine and starvation being the rule of the day.
The atomic bombings were dropped with the political goal of setting the stage for what would become the Cold War.
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)braddy
(3,585 posts)being massacred near the end.
Also, an invasion would have cost us up to a million of our fathers and grandfathers, and would have killed millions more Japanese.
karynnj
(59,503 posts)and having just seen the museum. He will almost certainly speak of the horror of a nuclear attack. What the SD said is he won't specifically apologize for the US. Unless the President, born in Hawaii, wants that step taken, his SoS will not go there.
kristopher
(29,798 posts)
SamKnause
(13,107 posts)1 Trillion dollars are being spent over the next 10 years to update
our nuclear arsenal, nuclear bombs, and warheads.
Our nuclear waste was spread all over Iraq.
karynnj
(59,503 posts)His work on Iran alone gives him room to speak -- as does his masterful leadership in the Senate to get START confirmed.
That said, he said back when he first became SoS, that in that job, there was no "my opinion" -- he speaks for the Obama administration and he is intensely loyal to Obama. When he speaks in Japan, it will be something Obama agrees with.
SamKnause
(13,107 posts)I disagree with president Obama.
If you agree we need to spend 1 Trillion dollars on updates
and new nuclear weapons, that's your right.
I don't.
karynnj
(59,503 posts)Have you heard of START II. Obama has worked to limit nuclear weapons. I have no idea where your 1 trillion of updates come from, but I know that START II agreed to LOWERING the US inventory.
SamKnause
(13,107 posts)Last edited Mon Apr 11, 2016, 02:21 AM - Edit history (1)
There are many more.
Article at link;
http://www.billmoyers.com/story/the-trillion-dollar-question-the-media-have-neglected-to-ask-presidential-candidates/
EX500rider
(10,849 posts).....while China, Russia, N Korea, Pakistan, etc still have nuclear weapons is a little too trusting of foreign despots.
And if the US is going to have a nuclear force it is going to require modernization occasionally.
scscholar
(2,902 posts)Nice sneak attack.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)You know that Japanese civilians were brainwashed to fight to the death, right? Tens of millions of Japanese would have died had we invaded Japan
ForgoTheConsequence
(4,868 posts)But keep believing what you learned in school.
Bonobo
(29,257 posts)Dude is full of it.
Response to Bonobo (Reply #134)
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Response to Bonobo (Reply #134)
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melm00se
(4,993 posts)if you take a look at the casualty numbers from the Battle of Okinawa:
Civilian deaths: 40,000 - 150,000 of an estimated population of 300,000 (13% to 50% of the civilian population)
Japanese military deaths: 77,000 (on the low end) of the estimated 100,000 Japanese military (75% or so)
Now, in the case the US led Allies had to invade, lets extrapolate those casualty figures to the Japanese civilian population (1945 estimate: ~72 million) and the number of Japanese Home Island (eventual) military surrenders (~3.5 million but this could almost be double that number as the Japanese brought their overseas military personnel back to defend the Home Islands).
Now, let's do the math:
100% accuracy
9,000,000 to 36,000,000 civilian deaths; 2,600,000 military deaths
50% accuracy
4,500,000 to 18,000,000 civilian deaths; 1,300,000 military deaths
10% accuracy
900,000 to 3,600,000 civilian deaths; 260,000 military deaths
anyway you cut it, the Japanese deaths would have been horrific.
(I personally think that the numbers would have been in the 15-25% of Okinawan civilian exemplar and the military deaths would have been closer to the 66-75% of the Okinawan military exemplar)
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)....in most of the island campaigns?
Are you suggesting they would have fought less on the home islands?
Battle of Okinawa
77,000 Japanese defenders, 77,000 KIA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Okinawa
Iwo Jima
20,530-21,060 troops
17,845-18,375 dead
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Iwo_Jima
Tarawa
2,619 troops,
2,200 construction
4,690 killed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tarawa
Battle of Saipan
32,000 troops
24,000 killed
5,000 suicides
921 prisoners
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Saipan
Need more?
FairWinds
(1,717 posts)And are you aware that Sanders opposes the
Trillion Dollar nuke buildup?
Have you ever been to Asia?
Ignorant? Compared to you? What is your level of education?
Your behavior here is that of a coward.
Proud member of Vets For Peace
Hekate
(90,704 posts)Response to Hekate (Reply #193)
Post removed
Hekate
(90,704 posts)Hekate
BA Asian and Pacific History
University of Hawaii, Manoa
MA Mythological Studies
PhD Mythlogical Studies with a degree emphasis in Depth Psychology
Of course, on the internet no one knows you're a dog, either, so you can simply continue to call me a liar or whatever floats your little boat.
Veterans for Peace, Chapter 54
Arlington West Project
melm00se
(4,993 posts)(not snarky)
what encompasses a degree in Mythological Studies? Sounds interesting.
whathehell
(29,067 posts)and decided to sacrifice their women and children anyway, in the interests of national 'honor' or some such. 
TeamPooka
(24,227 posts)happyslug
(14,779 posts)Thus the first bombing on August 7, 1945 was a shock, but one the Japanese leadership quickly recovered from. The Second bombing had almost no affect on the Japanese leadership. In between occurred an event ignored by Americans, but was the reason the Japanese surrendered, the Soviet Invasion of Manchuria.
In many ways the Atomic bombing was a rush job. The Uranium bomb we were certain would work so it was sent untested, the Plutonium bomb we did not know if it would work, thus it was shipped as another Plutonium bomb was being tested. The reason was simple Stalin had promised FDR that three months after Germany Surrendered he would attack Japan. We knew it would take Stalin three months to move enough troops to Siberia to do so (Japan thought the attack would be around September 1). Everyone knew it was coming. The US had the best idea when the attack would occur, and thus wanted to force a Japanese surrender before the invasion. In any case the US did drop the bombs, but other then shocking the Japanese Military had to affect on the decision to surrender.
The Soviet attack on Manchuria was a different case. That invasion saw Soviet Forces moving the distance from Berlin to Lisbon in Three weeks. By September 1, they would have had all of Manchuria, bu September 15, all of Korea. Worse, from the Japanese ruling elite point of view, you had massive surrender of Japanese Soldiers, something missing from the Pacific island campaigns. This confirmed to the Japanese Ruling elite that Japan had entered a pre-revolutionary period, i.e they were looking at a Marxist revolt inside Japan itself. With Soviet troops posed to invade the Home Islands, such a revolt would occur as anyone invaded, be it American Troops or Russian Troops.
Thus the Russian invasion had reduced Japan's choices to two:
1. First was occupation by US forces only, but that had to be quick before the Russians could move in, i.e. Surrender by September 1, so American forces can occupy Japan by October 1st, OR
2. face an American invasion in November 1945 by which time the Russians would have been able to take all of Korea and send support to Communists inside Japan to assist the US Invasion (which is what happened in Northern Italy after 1943 and France in 1944).
If Russian forces participated, then expect local Communist Governments to take over, as what happened in Romania, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria (Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary clearly had communist government imposed on them by Stalin, but they were in the main thrust of the Soviet Advance against Germany).
Side note: Greece had been liberated by Greek Communists by 1944, as the Germans pulled out troops from the Balkans before the Soviet Advance into Austria, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Hungary would cut them off from Germany. It was so bad in Yugoslavia, German troops passed Partisan forces in Yugoslavia, using the same roads, the Germans going north, the Partisans going south. No fighting, they just passed each other. In Greece with the German withdraw, the British moved in and then started to fight the communists, the subsequent Greek Civil War was a war between British supported ex German allies within Greece against Communists Greeks. Stalin put a stop to this by pointing out that to hold Greece you need a Fleet, and Russia had no Fleet in 1945, and told the Communists in the rest of the Balkans to abandon the Greek Communists.
Given those two bad options the Japanese found themselves by August 15, 1945, they decided to opt for a quick US occupation. The US had similar fears for Japan and agreed to leave the Emperor of Japan alone (and agreed that the basic ruling structure of Japan would remain intact).
Now, post WWII Japanese revisionism has made them the victims of Atomic bombing and thus forced to surrender, but in 1945 the US was restricted to how many such bombs the US could make. By September 1 the US had another one, by November another three. That is it, given the targets those bombs would have used on those bombs would had little affect and the Japanese war effort and the Japanese knew it. The Invasion of Japan set for November 1, 1945 not only included using the Atomic Bombs but also using poison gas on Tokyo and a massive bombing campaign on the southern most main island (The plan was to invade, occupy the southern part and bomb the rest of the island over and over again, till an invasion of the Main island would occur in March 1946).
Given the nature of the Japanese Coast line, you had a very small number of invasion beaches, and is post war analysis of Japanese Plans, they had determined correctly which beaches the US would use. US Losses would have been heavy, but given the limits on Japan's ability to supply ammunition to their own troops not as bad as some estimates. Japan by August 1945 had some like 30 rounds of Ammo for each member of its Army, with limited ability to increase that number.
Japan was defeated by the Summer of 1945, the only issue is when and on what terms would they surrender. The Japanese ruling elite had planned on Stalin demanding Manchuria and Korea before he attacked and they were going to give it to him in exchange for him asking the US NOT to invade Japan (Japan was already pulling troops out of China and Manchuria, thus Japan was giving up everything but the Home Islands). When Stalin did NOT demand Manchuria, instead just invaded after declaring war, was a shock to the Japanese elite. They plans had just fallen apart. Thus it was NOT only the fact that Russia invaded but HOW the Russians did the attack AND how far the Japanese Army in Manchuria fell apart that lead to the surrender.
The Japanese leadership in 1945 biggest fear was NOT a US invasion, but a Communist revolt. Russia was seen as aiding such a revolt and thus the Russian invasion was the biggest shock and why the Japanese Surrendered on August 15, 1945.
Hekate
(90,704 posts)There are limits to apologizing for America's desire to end WW II and how it was done.
"Never surrender" wasn't just a cute slogan to the Japanese populace. Allied troops literally fought island by island across the Pacific. The Bataan Death March was a real thing. The Rape of Nanking was not made up.
It had to end.
Japanese history books to this day do a poor job of telling Japanese people about the reality of what that generation did.
Let's just say we learned something from the experience of using nuclear bombs, and let's make that a reality. I was utterly appalled at the careless and a-historical talk by the BushCheney administration about "bunker busters." I am aware of the appalling use of Depleted Uranium.
Being a superpower means having to behave responsibly. Let's make that a reality.
But apologize for bringing about the sudden end to WW II? Probably not.
PS: In a conversation at DU several years ago it seems the younger generation is under the impression that photos of the human injuries at Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been suppressed by the evil US government. That is not true. My generation, i.e. the Baby Boomers, saw those photos printed extensively in places like LIFE magazine, a publication nearly every household subscribed to. Books were were written and illustrated with photos taken shortly after the bombs fell, and in the years following. They still exist.
happyslug
(14,779 posts)Since WWII, various WWII Japanese leaders have said they were trying to surrender, the actual records from the time period fails to support those statements. What those statements to support is a group think that if the US and Soviet Union went to war in the Summer or fall of 1945, that would tie up US resources in Europe AND Russian could give the three things Japan desperately needed in the Summer of 1945, oil, planes and pilots. Russia would give them to Japan just to tie up US forces against Japan (and the leadership was hoping to use that threat to get a treaty with the US, giving up everything but the Main Japanese Islands, but those Islands being unoccupied).
Thus the bombing of Hiroshima did not affect those plans. The Soviet Invasion of Manchuria, and the speed of that advance, scared the Japanese leadership. By August 15th, 1945 it was clear Soviet Forces would have been entering Korea by September 1, and take all of Korea by no later then October 1,1945 (THE soviets already had troops in Korea to aid in this advance). The first US occupational troops were NOT sent to Japan but Seoul Korea on September 8, 1945 more to stop the Soviet Advance then to accept the surrender of Japanese Forces in Korea (Stalin agreed to the 38th parallel as the border, which American observers saw as a gift from Stalin, for the US did not have anyway to stop Soviet Forces from taking over all of Korea, all US forces were tied up elsewhere).
Sorry, it was the Soviet Invasion that forced the Japanese Surrender. The leadership were fearing a Communist take over, Do to extensive mining of Japanese Harbors, it was getting difficult to feed the Japanese people. With the loss of oil from what then the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) what ships that could find a crew, still could not sail do to lack of fuel. The Japanese had heard of what happened in Italy, the Italian Communists had helped the allies and in return given local power. The Japanese has also seen what happened in the Balkans. In the Balkans it was Soviet Forces that liberated the area and the Communists not only gained local power but national power. In many ways this was the biggest fear in August 1945, not being nuked and why the Japanese leadership decided that American occupation of the Home Island was the preferred option.
whathehell
(29,067 posts)They have never apologized for that, even when actively prodded to do so.
whathehell
(29,067 posts)regardless of the facts.
"Tring to surrender" my ass. Sorry, bro..No one's buying.
tabasco
(22,974 posts)Why the hell would he apologize?
FairWinds
(1,717 posts)Ike and many other military leaders at the time
opposed the bombing, as did nearly all of the
atomic scientists.
They could have made a "demonstration" blast at
an island in Tokyo Bay, for example.
They did not need to incinerate CIVILIANS, though to
be clear the earlier fire bombings killed more
non-combatants.
Hulk
(6,699 posts)Easy to project today on what was one of the most brutal and aggressive nations in the history of the world.
We did drop the first, with NO affect. It was horrendous, but they didn't succumb until after the second, and you can only guess at whether they would have finally surrendered if they weren't being routed across the Pacific at great cost to young Americans.
A land invasion would have ultimately resulted in hundreds of thousands of American lives being lost, and probably millions more civilians' deaths. Look at how the invasion of Germany cost millions of Germans everything they had, including millions of casualties, and thousands of American lives.
We didn't start that fook'n war, and they refused to surrender. It's a shame what transpired, but the blame for that terrible bomb landing on their own population rests squarely on the brutal, war mongering savages that started the war and destruction, and Japan was responsible for the slaughter of innocent lives all across Asian for nearly a decade.
They brought it on themselves, and We never need to apologize for their errors in history. Never!
kristopher
(29,798 posts)...objective reality has a tendency of being impervious to belief systems.
Hulk
(6,699 posts)Objective reality seems to be different in your view is all. It doesn't matter that people believe the earth is 6000 years old. Your point is a distraction to the topic at hand.
kristopher
(29,798 posts)The facts are there. You are denying the known facts when you say the things you do. Those facts aren't altered by a think tank pumping out propaganda to deny them - they remain objectively true in both cases.
Hope that helps.
karynnj
(59,503 posts)Beyond the fact that they could have demonstrated the power as you suggested, there is also the question of why a few days after the first nuclear bomb, they dropped another nuclear bomb, made using a different technique.
What I have always wondered is whether they made it clear that they would do this if Japan did not surrender. As someone posted, there were atrocities on all sides.
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)No question at all, they still hadn't surrendered.
karynnj
(59,503 posts)as the magnitude of the horror sunk in.
I do see that Truman did demand they surrender and spoke of more coming if they didn't. All I know is that I can't imagine how difficult either or those decisions were for Truman. Not to mention, it was one of many many atrocious things that happened because of war. It is also true, that they attacked us starting that war.
Botany
(70,508 posts).... POW in Japan and he told me he was beaten and tortured all the time by one
Japanese Sergeant and he and the other POWs all knew that they would be killed
when America invaded Japan but right after the A-bomb was dropped the man who
had been torturing him tried to become his friend. The bomb might have saved
millions of lives that would have been wiped out in an invasion.
No easy answers on the end of the war and the use of the bomb but
this PBS piece does a really good job.
Heeeeers Johnny
(423 posts)Prior to the film's release, some Japanese nationalists asked for the film and the director to be banned from their country, largely because of a part in Hillenbrand's book, which was not depicted in the film, where she describes "POWs were beaten, burned, stabbed, or clubbed to death, shot, beheaded, killed during medical experiments, or eaten alive in ritual acts of cannibalism" by the Japanese Army.[26][27]:315 A petition on Change.org calling for a ban attracted more than 10,000 signatures.[28] In response, it triggered a Change.org petition by Dutch Indonesian group The Indo Project voicing support for the movie, as they saw it as a reflection of what their family members in the former Dutch East Indies experienced in Japanese camps. Several prominent Dutch Indos, including author Adriaan van Dis, Doe Maar frontman Ernst Jansz, and actress Wieteke van Dort, signed the petition in support of the film.[29] Another petition on Change.org calling for a release of the film in Japan, this time written in Japanese, gathered more than 1,200 signatures.[28] The film was eventually released in Japan on February 6, 2016 by independent distributor Bitters End on a much smaller scale than originally intended, while Toho-Towa, the usual distributor of Universal titles, had passed on releasing the film.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbroken_%28film%29
Heeeeers Johnny
(423 posts)Pearl Harbor, the Bataan Death March, Unit 731, Comfort Women, etc?
From my understanding, they don't even talk about it or acknowledge it amongst themselves.
Feeling the Bern
(3,839 posts)Or blame the Chinese for hyping up the death count in Nanjing. They dispute how many people were killed, but fail to understand. . .and I cannot put this mildly: THEY INVADED ANOTHER COUNTRY AGGRESSIVELY. One person killed is one too many.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)The Japanese seem to forget that they they were completely brainwashed and indoctrinated and all Japanese, including civilians, would have fought to the death.
So I have little sympathy for the Japanese, here.
FairWinds
(1,717 posts)oppose the bombing.
The "saving lives" meme was not even invented until
at least a year after the way was over.
ForgoTheConsequence
(4,868 posts)Ignorant Americans are more than willing to defend war crimes because apologizing means taking ownership of their own guilt.
arcane1
(38,613 posts)I've always found that to be a rather curious justification.
ForgoTheConsequence
(4,868 posts)Weapons of mass destruction are a-ok when we use them. They accuse other cultures of being "brainwashed" while they spew ignorant historical revisionism that somehow makes the mass murder of women and children the "moral" option. It's insanity.
Dawson Leery
(19,348 posts)The Dulles brothers (under his administration) were running around South America, raping the land and people left and right.
I do not want to hear what Ike though about anything. He was a ding dong.
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)Kaleva
(36,307 posts)braddy
(3,585 posts)their first thought was that their lives were saved by not having to go in and fight Japan to the bloody suicidal end. Some of these men like my father, had been in the entire war, and they knew how the Japanese fought.
That saving lives meme was instant.
Imagine if you were a GI having survived the Germans and/or the Japanese (my dad had fought both at the time of the bombs), and had already started training for the last invasion of the war where you knew that more of you were going to die than had already died in the war to date, and Europe was over and won, do you think that you would dread what was coming, and would not know instantly what the A bombs meant to you and the millions of your fellow GIs?
whathehell
(29,067 posts)My father served in the Pacific as well..Had terrible things happen to him & his shipmates via Kamikaze attacks.
Fuck the revisionists and living room warriors.
47of74
(18,470 posts)My Grandpa would have probably been part of the invasion force that went in to Japan. Who knows what would've happened if we had to invade but there's a very good possibility that I and many others would not be around now.
Codeine
(25,586 posts)ForgoTheConsequence
(4,868 posts)???
kristopher
(29,798 posts)That was the provocation they responded to.
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)The US refusing to sell oil to Japan due to their invasion and rape of Manchurian and China are not a "naval blockade".
hack89
(39,171 posts)sanctions in response to Japan waging a war of aggression against their neighbors. The U.S. simply stopped selling oil to Japan - there was no blockade.
kristopher
(29,798 posts)But in light of the fact that the Japanese had only a very limited supply of fuel stockpiled for their military operations meant that they were faced with the perceived necessity of taking preemptive action to secure their ability to develop a source of oil out of SE Asia. It was a military necessity that could not be allowed to be impeded by a naval blockade.
Their calculation was that should they pursue a less aggressive approach they would be depleting their petroleum stores. This, of course, would have a negative impact on their ability to wage a sustained military campaign should less aggressive initiative fail.
And failure was seen as a foregone conclusion. Everyone knew the strong support within the US government to join the war in Europe was guiding these policies. Everyone also knew there was little popular support for joining the UK, (note that this isolationist sentiment remained very high right up until Pearl Harbor).
I don't make any claim that Pearl Harbor was a goal of FDR, only that the decision-makers involved in imposing economic sanctions knew full well it would inevitably lead to a state of war and were OK with that because of Japan's alliance with Germany.
So when I invoke a naval blockade, that was an upcoming chess move that was seen as inevitable by both sides.
I don't know where you were in the 70s but if you weren't there, take those oil shocks the US endured and magnify those effects to the US military 1000% and you'd know what was core to Japan's military thinking.
oneshooter
(8,614 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)It was not an act of war. It was a war crime.
Travis_0004
(5,417 posts)We couldnt just take out a military base, we took out whole cities.
More people were killed when we firebombed toyko, but most people dont care about that.
Hiroshima was a military target. It contained the 2nd army headquarters which was responsible for the defense of southern Japan.
PersonNumber503602
(1,134 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)gladium et scutum
(806 posts)spent their days working in the munitions factories, weapons factories, ship yards, tank production facilities, arsenals, and aircraft plants for the Imperial Japanese war machine.
rug
(82,333 posts)If necessary, do you want a war more total and radical than anything that we can even yet imagine?"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sportpalast_speech#Quotes
If you cannot answer your own question, it is a war crime.
gladium et scutum
(806 posts)millions of Americans went to work, every day, seven days a week for months on end, in the shipyards, foundries, arsenals, plants, factories and mills in the country knowing full well that every round of ammunition, every artillery projectile, every tank, every fighter, every bomber, every ship would be used to kill Germans and Japanese. In Japan, every civilian that worked in every arsenal, every mill, every factory, every foundry, every plant was fully aware that their handy work would be used to kill Chinese, Americans, Malaysians, Australians and whom every else the Emperor of Japan determined needed to be killed, maimed or tortured. This was total war.
rug
(82,333 posts)gladium et scutum
(806 posts)Rosie the Riveter Knows that that B-29 bomber will be used to drop bombs on Japan. The result of that bombing will be the deaths of many Japanese, military or civilian. Rosie, doesn't care, she goes to work every day to make as many B-29s as she can so that We will win the war in the shortest amount of time.
rug
(82,333 posts)I agree that everyone should be acutely conscious of his or her participation in the machinery of war. And I admire those who find it unconscionable to participate in it, no matter how minimal the participation.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/sep/07/british-conscientious-objectors-second-world-war
But those who felt otherwise cannot credibly be compared to those at the highest level of government who deliberately and callously made the calculation that the incineration of tens of thousands of civilians, from infants to ancients - and everyone in between - was justified in the name of war. condoned by the law of war, and worthy of praise in the name of history.
http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/educators/study-guides/history_decision-to-drop-bomb.htm
gladium et scutum
(806 posts)if you had no stake in the game. The objective of war is to win. There is no second place. If the Emperor of Japan had an atomic bomb in 1945, do you doubt for a second, he would have used it. The objective of the Highest levels of Government was to end the war. For us it was the destruction of the Empire of Japan. That is what the vast majority of Americans wanted. If the Atomic bomb would end the war sooner, so be it. General Sherman from a century before made it very clear " War is the solution our enemies have chosen and I say let's give them all the wont." This was the view of out county in 1945. If FDR was alive in August 1945, he would have authorized the use of those weapons on Japan.
rug
(82,333 posts)They're not.
Your views are closer to the speech in 136 than Sherman or FDR. Here it is:
You're defending Total War. There are no limits in Total War.
It's a war crime.
gladium et scutum
(806 posts)But I recognize when it exists. We are removed from those days by 70 some odd years. Instead of placing you self in a nice comfortable living room 70 years after the fact. Look at what those people that had sons, and husbands, uncles, cousins, actually up close and personal with the sons of Japan. The only thing that counted was to win. If you were wiling to allow the Empire of Japan to continue its existence because, in your view, it was that we should have allowed the Empire of Japan to continue to exist, There several million American citizen's that would disagree with your view of those events.
rug
(82,333 posts)Rather than rationalizing the instantaneous vaporization of human beings from the comfortable distance of 79 years, I need only look around and see what destruction than mindset is wreaking today.
I suggest that you look at the sons, and husbands, uncles, cousins, wives, daughters and aunts of those destroyed so many decades ago. While you're at it, look at the sons, and husbands, uncles, cousins, wives, daughters and aunts being destroyed today by drones and suicide bombers. You may think that American citizenship justifies one corpse over another, but that would be total bullshit.
The only limitation I see you putting on the notion of total war is that the Star Spangled Banner be the only music allowed while it takes place.
gladium et scutum
(806 posts)My father, mother, uncles, and grand parents, went war because we were attached by the Empire of Japan. The only objective was to win. There is no second place in a war. They started it, we will finish it. Did we have to follow President Johnson into Vietnam. Yes we did. I don't know, whether Vietnam was his idea. We followed our orders. My brothers and many of my friends, followed the law of our land and went to Vietnam. They did not want to but that was the law. Do you condemn them for obeying the law of the land.
rug
(82,333 posts)We don't have to follow orders. We can oppose. That is what the American flag means. I'll go a step further. That flag requires us to challenge those few at the top who throw the flag at some place of interest to them and chant, "Follow it!"
I'm not going to bring up my father or uncles who were in it from Operation Torch all the way to the end. I know I didn't go. And why.
gladium et scutum
(806 posts)has nothing to do with all of this. Those in power, require us to go to Vietnam. most of us followed the law. If one does not like the law, work to change it. You cannot do that in Canada If you did not go, OK, many of us did not go. But he rest of followed the law. IMO had FDR been alive in August 1945, he would have okayed the dropping of those weapons on Japan. He authorized their construction, he authorized their testing. His objective was the same as the remainder of the countries population, that was to end the war a quickly as possible. He would have not lost one minuets sleep over that decision
rug
(82,333 posts)
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)Thus, no war crime.
rug
(82,333 posts)However, the lack of a specific prohibition in international law (particularly since the weapons did not yet exist) does not establish the legality of the use of atomic weapons in WWII.
http://www.gthunt.com/backg.htm
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)In this case it is.
Feeling the Bern
(3,839 posts)IT was not an act of war. It was a war crime. . .that Japan still denies they did.
rug
(82,333 posts)Feeling the Bern
(3,839 posts)for a country that invaded another and spent eight years butchering and raping as many as the could find.
But, keep blaming America for the Bomb. What the Japanese did all over Asia is excused because we dropped the bomb!
rug
(82,333 posts)And leads to odd statements such as someone other than the US dropped atomic bombs on civilians.
Feeling the Bern
(3,839 posts)The Rape of Nanking, Sook Jing, Parit Sulong, Banka Island, lacing candies with opium and feeding them to Chinese children, comfort women, lacing farm land with disease to attempt to cause a famine in Jiangxi and Zhejiang.
Just the bomb. America's dropping the bomb excuses Japan's brutality, right? After all, Chinese civilians butchered for eight years pales in the Bomb.
I keep forgetting how cheap a lot of country's blood is to the world. Jewish blood has been cheap to the West for 2000 years.
But what do I expect from a country that passed the Chinese Exclusion Act and kept it on the books while the Japanese were annihilating them?
And, no, I am not Chinese. Jewish American from Queens.
rug
(82,333 posts)Start one on Unit 731.
I know you're not Chinese. And I'm from Flushing.
Feeling the Bern
(3,839 posts)And I dare you to walk around the Chinese in Flushing and tell them that the Japanese acts against the Chinese are absolved because the US used the bomb.
We are done here.
rug
(82,333 posts)But I'm not an asshole.
Besides, odds are they'd be Korean.
Archae
(46,328 posts)Our morality, and our weapons, were different during the 1940's.
We saw first hand the atrocious things the Japanese did to civilians, and POW's.
Rape of Nanking comes to mind immediately.
To the military and civilian leadership of the US, the Bomb was simply a much bigger version of the conventional and incendiary bombs that were being dropped on Japan constantly.
The Japanese military would not surrender, no matter how many of their troops died in suicide attacks, or civilian war industry workers.
The two bombs were the shock that brought Hirohito to over-rule the war party and ask for peace.
As it was, a group of junior officers in the Japanese army killed their superior officer and tried to stop the Emperor's broadcast.
They failed, and they killed themselves.
One of my uncles was scheduled to be part of the Japanese Home Islands invasion force, and he knew damn well, he probably would get killed or maimed.
The Japanese still had hundreds of thousands of "Banzai" troopers to repel the invasion, along with millions of trained civilians ready to kill themselves in the attempts to kill Allied troopers.
kristopher
(29,798 posts)You are parroting the victor's sanitized version of history.
Whatever it takes to make you think "USA #1 Hell Yeah!!!"
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall#Estimated_casualties
oneshooter
(8,614 posts)one million Purple Heart awards. This was in preparation for the invasion of Japan.
We are still awarding these medals from that order today.
This is how many casualties were expected from the in nvasion.
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)Last edited Sun Apr 10, 2016, 08:26 PM - Edit history (1)
If anyone has a sanitized view of the events in the pacific theater it is the Japanese by far.
Archae
(46,328 posts)It was facts.
And this is what it was like in the final year of the war against Japan.
The War Party did not want to surrender, despite the appalling losses.
And an invasion of the main islands would have been a slaughter. On both sides.
kristopher
(29,798 posts)Although it's mostly meaningless on an anonymous internet forum, I'm throwing this in anyway. I lived in Japan for nearly 12 years. I went to a Japanese university where I studied cultural anthropology and focused on Japan/China/US. This included extensive study of the wartime era as well as the 100 years of political, economic and cultural trends leading to the war; then the consequent events from the war to the present.
I'm not bragging. You are probably smarter and better educated than I am in a hundred ways. But I do know what I know. You can believe me or not, frankly I don't care.
I try to help but it's mostly it's pearls before swine (that's just a metaphor, no insult is intended).
EX500rider
(10,849 posts).....makes it seem you don't know the subject very well at all.
The United States embargoed iron, steel, petroleum products and mechanical parts against Japan due to their wars of aggression in Indochina, Manchuria and China.
kristopher
(29,798 posts)FDR told his Cabinet he didn't want to stop their oil because it would mean war.
It happened nonetheless and it Roosevelt was correct, it did mean war.
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)That was the provocation they responded to."
No it was not, the US neither had a naval blockade of Japan pre-war nor had they threatened one. So they certainly couldn't have "responded" to something that hadn't happened.
If they had stopped with the rape and plunder of China, IndoChina and Manchuria we would have normalized trade.
And as the US was only about 60% of world oil production in 1940 maybe they could have bought oil elsewhere instead of invading the Dutch-Indies for it.
They were on the path to war regardless of US actions.
kristopher
(29,798 posts)If you don't want to accept it that's up to you, but simply acting obtuse isn't a very convincing reason for rejecting the facts.
Their calculation was that should they pursue a less aggressive approach they would be depleting their petroleum stores. This, of course, would have a negative impact on their ability to wage a sustained military campaign should less aggressive initiative fail.
And failure was seen as a foregone conclusion. Everyone knew the strong support within the US government to join the war in Europe was guiding these policies. Everyone also knew there was little popular support for joining the UK, (note that this isolationist sentiment remained very high right up until Pearl Harbor).
I don't make any claim that Pearl Harbor was a goal of FDR, only that the decision-makers involved in imposing economic sanctions knew full well it would inevitably lead to a state of war and were OK with that because of Japan's alliance with Germany.
So when I invoke a naval blockade, that was an upcoming chess move that was seen as inevitable by both sides.
I don't know where you were in the 70s but if you weren't there, take those oil shocks the US endured and magnify those effects to the US military 1000% and you'd know what was core to Japan's military thinking.
BTW, I understand your view and the reasoning behind it perfectly. But it is what it is, a self serving narrative that's equal in credibility with "Saddam has WMD".
FDR telling his Cabinet that the refusal to sell oil to Japan would lead to war happened on July 18th 1941. He ostensibly didn't want it done, but Dean Acheson did it anyway and Roosevelt didn't find out about it until months later when it wasn't possible for him to back out of it. Or so their narrative goes - lots of people believe that is whitewash to cover getting us into WWII.
Response to kristopher (Reply #152)
Name removed Message auto-removed
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)....without the president's knowledge? lol
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)No, you didn't.
Saying the Japanese were "responding" to the "provocation" of a non-existent naval blockade is not much of a argument.
roamer65
(36,745 posts)Looks like it has come earlier than usual this year.
Hekate
(90,704 posts)Learning history is not the same as swallowing propaganda. Believing the US fought a war of necessity in WW II is not the same as saying BushCheney "needed" to invade Iraq. There is photographic and first person evidence not just of the wounded from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but of the many war crimes perpetrated by Japanese upon civilian populations and prisoners of war. The evidence was on the side of those who believed that Japanese civilians were prepared to fight to the death rather than surrender their homeland....
I'm glad your uncle survived. My high school Chemistry teacher was a Japanese American stationed in Japan immediately after the war ended. From what he said, I don't think he had the slightest regret that the war was good and over before he got there.
Hekate
BA, Asian and Pacific History
University of Hawaii, Manoa
FairWinds
(1,717 posts)you folks from the "nuke 'em all" Reich
probably don't give a rat about a million Iraqi dead either, do you?
and you are all about the US becoming a torture state, correct?
and you thought Saddam had WMD's because Dubya said so, right?
And please note that it really does not matter whether you think
incinerating civilians "worked" or not. It is in violation of the law.
And you think it is OK to call someone you have never met, and who
may be (and is) a taxpaying Vietnam vet "anti-American" just
because you disagree with them.
ForgoTheConsequence
(4,868 posts)This is why America gets away with war crimes, the entirety of the Republican party and a significant chunk of the Democratic party get hard over the thought of invading another country and wiping them out. It really helps if that country isn't white, we love killing brown people and Asians, we'll even make up lies later on to make us feel like mass murder was the responsible and moral choice.
TeddyR
(2,493 posts)Who attacked who in WWII
FairWinds
(1,717 posts)that there are legal and moral laws, not to mention treaties which are
the US "law of the land," forbidding the murder of civilians and especially children.
By your logic, Vietnam and Iraq (and others) would be justified in nuking the US, right?
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)and ended the war in Europe a few years sooner. So many lives would have been saved and the Holocaust would have been stopped in its tracks.
goldent
(1,582 posts)in 1942. Another interesting thought would be the Germans having it at that time.
I think we were very lucky that it came to be at the end of the war, when Japan was nearly defeated. The very limited use there might have prevented a world nuclear war some years later.
TeddyR
(2,493 posts)Really? All of WWII was a "violation of the law." Pearl Harbor certainly was. Bataan Death March, yep. Rape of Nanking. Same. But of course, let's blame the US.
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)No, during WWII it was no such thing.
International law at the outset of World War II did not specifically forbid aerial bombardment of cities despite the prior occurrence of such bombing during World War I, the Spanish Civil War, and the Second Sino-Japanese War.
FairWinds
(1,717 posts)Hague_Conventions_of_1899_and_1907
Based on Abe Lincoln's orders during the US Civil War
Veterans For Peace is gratified to be able to contribute to
your continuing education.
branford
(4,462 posts)Most of the Hague Convention arguments against the use of the atomic weapons were either dismissed in actual legal proceedings or are considered distinct minority viewpoints.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#International_law
I, a humble citizen who can use Google (as well as a practicing litigation attorney), am gratified to be able to contribute to your continuing legal education.
I've noticed from some of your other posts on a range of topics that you heavily rely on Veterans for Peace for many of your political and legal opinions. While you of course may rely on any sources you wish, be very wary of confirmation bias before making unequivocal pronouncements on complicated and controversial matters, particularly outside of areas of professional expertise.
FairWinds
(1,717 posts)Thank you for your sincere and well meaning replies.
But JEEBUS, you are parsing words about incinerating kids!
Civilians are to be accorded mercy, always. Not just from aerial bombs, but from EVERYTHING!!!
And the Hague decisions remind me of Citizens United, in which the law is bent, folded, and
mutilated beyond all recognition. I know that the Neo-cons like Scalia had nothing but
contempt for any sort of international law at all, legal words be damned.
I can tell you that, after Vietnam and Iraq, the military academies really do teach that
civilians are not to be harmed, but . .
as we all know the torture state abides. To the shame of us all, and to the great advantage of Daesh.
(I'm based in northern Ohio, and would love to debate you in any public fora, or over a
beer of your choice.)
branford
(4,462 posts)Discussions today about the need to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki primarily concern arguments over strategic and tactical necessity, not lawfulness, such as would Japan have quickly surrendered without the bombings, were they really much different from the prior firebombings, what would be the estimated Allied and/or Japanese civilian losses in the event of invasion, etc. How one interprets and weighs the many conflicting and complex historical primary sources are often colored by very modern moral absolutes and cultural and ethical priorities generally unknown during WWII and the subsequent period.
When discussing topics like atomic weapons or massive firebombing of cities in WWII, we must always remember the culture, customs, mores and practical considerations of an entire world at war in the 1940, not project about 70 years later in 2016, comfortably distanced and with the benefits of detached reflection or lack of knowledge about the more limited technical capabilities of military technology. Unlike today, armed forces in WWII didn't have smart bombs, stealth fighters, satellites, and even things we take for granted like radar were cutting-edge. In fact, it could easily be argued that our use and subsequent scientific study of atomic weapons to conclusively end the War in the Pacific actually helped prevent their more devastating use in later conflicts. Nevertheless, given the limitations of human nature, serious conflict will virtually never be a venue of clinical moral absolutes. As a retired member of the military, you of all people know that war is indeed always hell.
Our own modern conceptualization of most of the laws of war were also largely developed from the experiences of WWII, including the effects of nuclear weapons. With treaties like the Geneva Conventions, we hoped to avoid the devastation and civilian losses of the prior world-spanning, all-out, genocidal wars. I believe we've somewhat successful, at least with respect to major powers and state actors, but as you note, today we have other new and vexing issues like how to deal with insurgent non-state actors like ISIS who don't even come to complying with our modern understandings of what constitutes moral conflict. Still, I believe you would agree that it's better we debate matters like the limits and ethics of "enhanced interrogation" rather than when (not necessarily if) WMD's like thermonuclear, chemical, biological and radiological should ever be deployed.
Lastly, despite our apparent differences on some aspects of the conduct of WWII, I have no doubt as fellow Democrats our views and perspectives about most things are still quite similar. Although I live and work in NYC, and doubt I'll be in northern Ohio in the near future, you good goodwill is most appreciated and heartily returned.
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)International law relating to aerial bombardment before and during World War II rests on the treaties of 1864, 1899, and 1907, which constituted the definition of most of the laws of war at that time — which, despite repeated diplomatic attempts, was not updated in the immediate run up to World War II. The most relevant of these treaties is the Hague Convention of 1907 because it was the last treaty ratified before 1939 which specify the laws of war regarding the use of bombardment. In the Hague Convention of 1907, there are two which have a direct bearing on this issue of bombardment. These are "Laws of War: Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV); 18 October 1907" and "Laws of War: Bombardment by Naval Forces in Time of War (Hague IX); 18 October 1907". It is significant that there is a different treaty which should be invoked for bombardment of land by land (Hague IV) and of land by sea (Hague IX).[4] Hague IV, which reaffirmed and updated Hague II (1899), contains the following clauses:
Article 25: The attack or bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are undefended is prohibited.
Article 26: The officer in command of an attacking force must, before commencing a bombardment, except in cases of assault, do all in his power to warn the authorities.
Article 27: In sieges and bombardments all necessary steps must be taken to spare, as far as possible, buildings dedicated to religion, art, science, or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals, and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not being used at the time for military purposes.
It is the duty of the besieged to indicate the presence of such buildings or places by distinctive and visible signs, which shall be notified to the enemy beforehand
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_bombardment_and_international_law
GummyBearz
(2,931 posts)If anything, Kerry should brag about the bomb, then ask them to thank us for ending the war for them before Russia joined in an invasion and split Japan up like what happened in Germany.... The "Tokyo wall" got to be avoided
ForgoTheConsequence
(4,868 posts) FairWinds
(1,717 posts)Are you talking about Iraq?
Central America? Chile? Brazil?
Mexico 1846?
And many others . .
GummyBearz
(2,931 posts)I know what you mean, Iraq was a war of aggression... I'm glad Obama is ending it with out the nuking our own cities, or theirs.
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)FairWinds
(1,717 posts)legitimately elected democratic governments.
Brazil - 1964 Chile - 1973
And jeez, how could I forget Vietnam since I was there ?
To paraphrase Yoda, you need to seriously forget everything you
"learned" in high school. It's pretty much all a pack of lies.
And read some Zinn & Chomsky. The scales will start to fall from your eyes.
EX500rider
(10,849 posts).....I also know that none of it compares to the The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere
msongs
(67,407 posts)perpetrator. bombs are devices to kill and incapacitate. there is no difference between a big one and a small one, except in terms of scale. a nuclear bomb is a smart bomb is a dumb bomb - same thing.
Watching videos of our "smart bombs" hitting targets across the Middle East; I see no difference in the destruction of life except on the scale of the bomb destruction.
NO smart bomb would have had an impact on that savage empire. Civilians never deserve to die for the mistakes of their government; but that's not reality, and never has been.
Dawson Leery
(19,348 posts)Japan should have never started their war of aggression. Never forget Manchuria and the Batton Death March.
Fools brainwashed by the bullshido code were not going to be stopped unless blunt force was used.
Hulk
(6,699 posts)They have just voiced their naive wishful thinking on a situation that was being forced on Asian by a brutal monster of a regime.
ForgoTheConsequence
(4,868 posts)The horror! Someone please shield my war loving, flag waving eyes from these opposing views. I might be forced to actually think about my ideas and opinions as opposed to regurgitating right wing historical revisionism.
JustABozoOnThisBus
(23,343 posts)... the end of a large software development project often ended in a semi-coordinated, 16 hr per day effort to hit the deadline. This was called a "death march". Our leadership instructed us to never use that term. We had customers in Japan, and they would be offended by the term "death march".
THEY would be offended by the term "death march".
Leadership's dictate was largely ignored. It was mostly leaders' fault that the projects got jammed up in the first place.
Angel Martin
(942 posts)is that the first bomb was not dropped on the Imperial Quarter in Tokyo.
All the The Fascists, Imperialists, Japanese Supremacists, Militarists and Empire worshippers who started the war and ran Japan could have been killed in one shot.
A decapitation of the entire corrupt, dictatorial ruling class.
It would have been an important lesson to the leadership of fascist and nazi countries that, not only will America not submit to your rule, but the entire ruling elite of your countries will be held personally accountable.
It was an opportunity missed.
GummyBearz
(2,931 posts)I agree the people you list are the ones who should have gotten a nuke dropped on them. The problem is who would then lead Japan after they are all dead? The government couldn't be wiped out in one stroke, because a peace treaty needed to be signed by someone with authority, someone that the Japanese people recognize and accept
MillennialDem
(2,367 posts)Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)PersonNumber503602
(1,134 posts)Why are the atomic strikes on these two cities viewed as being worse than the fire bombings of Tokyo?
Any war is awful, but total war like WW2 is even worse. Is there any doubt that Japan would have done the same if they were in the position to do so? How about we leave it at looking at the past and agreeing to not put ourselves in situations where we are looking for the best ways to wipe out our enemies ability to make war through any means necessary?
Adrahil
(13,340 posts)It was a great big, nasty war. May we never see its like again!
Zynx
(21,328 posts)
Turin_C3PO
(13,998 posts)It was a necessary evil to prevent MILLIONS more civilian deaths had a land invasion occurred.
TexasBushwhacker
(20,191 posts)I've even known Japanese Americans who said it ultimately saved lives.
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)Valentines Day glorifies benevolent sexism! Thanksgiving sanitizes the genocide of Native Americans!
Let's cover all this stuff in one thread!
whistler162
(11,155 posts)people out in force.
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)....I have seen some people who think several hundred thousand people killed in atomic bombings were preferable to several million dead in a invasion. Simple math.
ileus
(15,396 posts)
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)it would start with
1) the genocide perpetrated against the First Peoples,
2) continue through the apology for slavery,
3) continue by apologizing for the endless wars of aggression,
4) definitely for the atomic holocaust perptrated against Japanese civilians,
5) the war crimes committed in Vietnam,
6) the war crimes committed in Iraq,
the apology tour would be as endless as the various Rolling Stones farewell tours.
FairWinds
(1,717 posts)Naive, ignorant, anti-American, etc.
When I had the audacity to assert there were no WMD's in Iraq
prior to the 2003 US war of aggression.
Lemmie tell ya, I got less naive in a hurry after some US Army time in Vietnam.
You so-called democrats from the Reich were wrong then
and you are wrong now. Your families must cringe when they have to sit down
with you on Thaanksgiving - is due to the fact that you authoritarian follower
types think that anyone who disagrees with you is a bad person.
Veterans For Peace
Kaleva
(36,307 posts)The idea that the US would apologize for the results of a war that began with an attack on Pearl Harbor is comical. Anyone that thinks the US owes Japan an apology should spend a day at the USS Arizona memorial.
Feeling the Bern
(3,839 posts)I worked there 2.5 years as a researcher/historian/docent.
Feeling the Bern
(3,839 posts)Singapore, Malaya, Philippines and Indonesia.
But those two bombs get people all riled up. Japan started their war, they wanted to conquer Asia. Look how many civilians the IJA butchered.
No one bats a fucking eye. No one seems to care that my wife's great-grandmother was kidnapped by the IJA in 1938, gang raped and thrown in a muddy ditch with open wounds and a bleeding vagina left to die.
Japan started that war. They shouldn't have invaded anyone. They earned EVERYTHING that war gave them. No sympathy at all.
50,000 filipinos massacred in four days in Manila in 1945
300,000 Chinese massarced in six weeks in Nanjing in 1937-38.
Bataan Death March
Sook Jing Massacre
Parit Sulong
Banka Island
Singapore (where the Japanese butchered the Chinese for crimes such as being too tan or having tattoos)
Human experimentation in Harbin in Unit 731
Addicting Chinese children with opium using cakes and candies
Comfort women (forced prostitution), and then claiming the soldiers needed "release" from fighting the war.
Give me a break. Apologize for your shit, Japan. . .then maybe the world will consider doing the same to you.
Democat
(11,617 posts)So of course America was fighting on the wrong side and doing the wrong things during WWII.
America is always evil in the view of many here on DU.
Just like Christians are always bad and other religions are always good.
ForgoTheConsequence
(4,868 posts)This sounds like it could have been written for Bill O'Reilly's show. WAR ON CHRISTIANS! WAR ON AMERICA!
The situation was far more nuanced than what you are saying, if you're capable of thinking any deeper feel free to step out of the kiddie pool and try again.
Democat
(11,617 posts)Think about what you're writing and look around DU.
Every time a bomb goes off anywhere in the world someone blames Obama or Bush.
As if the world was perfect for thousands of years and then America ruined everything.
Beacool
(30,249 posts)"In December of 1937, in an official effort to break the city’s spirit, Japanese General Matsui had his Japanese Imperial Army march into China’s capital city of Nanking (now Nanjing) and began an organized campaign of pillage, rape and murder that left 300,000 out of 600,000 civilians and soldiers in the city dead. The 6 weeks of carnage became known as the Rape of Nanking and represents the first systematic use of rape as a weapon of war in the 20th century. Japanese soldiers were expressly told to rape and it is estimated that at least 20,000 women and girls of all ages were sexually assaulted. Many were also sexually mutilated and killed in the process."
Be forewarned, the photos are gruesome.
https://etcarlton.com/2014/04/29/research-article-history/
http://search.aol.com/aol/imageDetails?s_it=imageDetails&q=images%2C+rape+of+nanking&host=http%3A%2F%2Frapeofnankingsafetyzone.weebly.com%2Fcontext.html&s_chn=prt_bon11&v_t=comsearch&width=85&height=85&thumbUrl=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.M1b42820fa5c657c25e0ea7da6c6efca2H0%26pid%3DApi%26w%3D85%26h%3D85%26c%3D7&img=http%3A%2F%2Frapeofnankingsafetyzone.weebly.com%2Fuploads%2F1%2F8%2F5%2F6%2F18560740%2F_1293809_orig.jpg&imgHeight=417&imgWidth=602&imgTitle=Context+-+The+Rape+of+Nanking+Safety+Zone&imgSize=63384+B&hostName=http%3A%2F%2Frapeofnankingsafetyzone.weebly.com%2Fcontext.html&b=image%3Fs_chn%3Dprt_bon11%26v_t%3Dcomsearch%26q%3Dimages%252C%2Brape%2Bof%2Bnanking%26s_it%3DimageResultsBack%26oreq%3D01a2c3ec21534899a31975f5300fa5cf
Feeling the Bern
(3,839 posts)My wife's great grandmother was victimized. Trust me, nothing you post can com close to the work I did in Nanjing.
And the Japanese deny it to this day.
Beacool
(30,249 posts)I imagine that the memorial is as gut wrenching as the Holocaust Museum in DC. I'm not Jewish and don't have any family member who was in a concentration camp, but that museum made an impact on me that I'll never forget. I can just imagine how much worse it would be knowing that a family member had been victim of such brutality. Did your wife's great grandmother survive? I hope that she did.
People who commit genocide tend to deny it. The Turks deny their genocide against the Armenians.
Historical background.
http://www.history.com/topics/armenian-genocide
These are images of that massacre.
http://search.aol.com/aol/image?s_it=topsearchbox.imageDetails&s_chn=prt_bon11&v_t=comsearch&q=armenian+girls+massacred+by+turks
I remember how horrified I was that first time I saw this image. They were mostly teenagers.
http://ifunny.co/fun/Ihsd58qF2
Feeling the Bern
(3,839 posts)The Rape of Nanjing Memorial is located on a mass grave called "The Pit of Ten Thousand Corpses." Yes, there are very small skulls with holes in them (stab wounds and bullet holes). Yes, those were babies and children that Japanese used as target practice and bayonet practice.
Yes, her GGM survived, but was never really the same. The entire family hates the Japanese with every fiber of their being. One of my FIL's favorite songs is "Gui Zi," which is an anti-Japanese song.
Beacool
(30,249 posts)before the war started, these I assume that these soldiers led normal lives, having various jobs and professions. What makes an average person into a monster? The same goes for the Nazis, Isis, etc.
I'm glad that your wife's GGM survived, but how could she possibly erase fro her memory the horror that she lived and saw.
Sad world we live in...........
Bonobo
(29,257 posts)The Chinese devote an enormous amount of money to massive anti-Japanese images in movies, books, tv, music.
You shouldn't brag about consuming it. I certainly don't consume the much smaller amount of anti-Chinese stuff here in Japan.
Feeling the Bern
(3,839 posts)Japan has anti-Chinese stuff? Yes, because the Chinese butchered the Japanese and started wars again them.
If Japan acknowledged their errors and made actual acts of contrition, maybe the Chinese would be inclined to forgive.
I'm Jewish. We, for the most part, forgave Germany for the Holocaust for that exact reason.
Japan spent 50 years trying to become the most hated country in Asia. They shouldn't be shocked, surprised or upset when other countries in Asia oblige them.
As for your little missive. . .when you live in China and are married to a Chinese national as I am whose family was personally victimized by the kind, loving Imperial Japanese Army, you can tell me what I should and should not do.
Bonobo
(29,257 posts)"One of my FIL's favorite songs is "Gui Zi," which is an anti-Japanese song."
That is not something to be proud of.
And oh, I live in a country that had the living shit bombed out of it by my home country. And oh yes, I have 3 Japanese children, a Japanese wife, and Japanese family and friends. Yes, yes, I know how you feel. All the civilians were brainwashed monsters and they deserved it. Spare me.
What happened 80 years ago is no reason to continue to keep spreading the hate.
"One of my FIL's favorite songs is "Gui Zi," which is an anti-Japanese song."
Feeling the Bern
(3,839 posts)time.
Go away. Please.
Bonobo
(29,257 posts)You are dripping with hate and I am going NO WHERE.
Put me on ignore. But for god's sake, take a good look at how much hate you are spreading.
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)He said no such thing.
He did say his father-in-law liked the song.
Response to Bonobo (Reply #233)
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Nyan
(1,192 posts)What atomic bomb did was create a very self-serving narrative for Japan and US -specifically, the war-mongering colonizers in both countries. It's a totally revisionist history that so conveniently overlooks all the things you mentioned.
Look up a scholar named "Hasegawa." He's put forth an accurate historical account of what actually happened in 1945 leading up to Japan's surrender. You can start with this article.
http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2011/08/07/why_did_japan_surrender/?page=full
Feeling the Bern
(3,839 posts)broadcast the night before Hirohito announced surrender.
The Japanese high command was ready to fight to the last Japanese person in order not to lose face.
The Bomb convinced Hirohito the war was unwinnable. But the war ALMOST continued.
Nyan
(1,192 posts)serious scholars.
It's a revisionist version of history that US military officials would have liked to have everyone believe; that the atomic bombs they had been pouring tons of money into was effective, and that's why it was necessary to continue developing nuclear weapons. That argument has convinced American public into thinking that atomic bombs are more effective than other weapons in defeating enemies -which was Soviet Union at the time-, and that American forces were indeed the "good guys" when it comes to the WWⅡ in Asia (But unfortunately, that is not entirely true. US forces colonized the Philippines prior to the war. Japan's 35 years of occupation in Korea was, at least, acquiesced by US in the first place. Not to mention 3 years of US occupation that followed Japan's surrender in 1945 where US military government has supported corrupt puppet regime and armed and funded right-wing militia, causing massacres all over the place).
The Japanese civilians on the ground (and military officers) couldn't tell the difference between atomic bomb and traditional bomb. If you read the accounts from actual witnesses, the only difference they felt was that the blast was accompanied by a particularly "bright flash of light." The bombing campaign had been going on for more than 3 weeks in civilian areas, and civilian casualty in other cities were oftentimes higher than it was in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
[link:[img]
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The graph comes from this sholarly article, which I found very informative.
http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/is3104_pp162-179_wilson.pdf
Bonobo
(29,257 posts)Feeling the Bern
(3,839 posts)Last edited Wed Apr 13, 2016, 03:40 AM - Edit history (1)
did in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaya, PI, Taiwan, and Korea, maybe then people will apologize for something done to them.
Remember, Japan started the war! Their butchering of civilians is fine. . .the Bomb was terrible.
I love tortured logic.
Bonobo
(29,257 posts)No apology would ever be enough as long as the Chinese Govt. continues to spread the hate.
Response to Bonobo (Reply #264)
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Bonobo
(29,257 posts)Response to Bonobo (Reply #266)
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Feeling the Bern
(3,839 posts)You realize this is my doctoral dissertation. You realize you are showing me how much you don't care what they did to the Chinese, a people in a country THEY invaded and attacked.
But I guess all of WW2 in Asia was China's fault.
Please leave me alone. I have no desire to deal with people who dismiss the facts Japanese war crimes as "Chinese Government spreading hate."
Bonobo
(29,257 posts)It indicates you carry a lot of hate.
And I dismiss nothing, but the Chinese govt. DOES propagate anti-Japanese hate.
If you don't accept that, you are hopelessly mired in brainwashing yourself.
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)Unless you think FIL=me
Bonobo
(29,257 posts)Response to Bonobo (Reply #297)
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truthisfreedom
(23,148 posts)I would have expected nothing else.
forjusticethunders
(1,151 posts)America can apologize for the atom bombs when Japan apologizes (and I mean, APOLOGIZES, not "issues statements of regret that are almost instantly revoked by the next crazy right wing PM that wins) for their atrocities in WWII.
Also not electing said crazy right wing PMs could help (for example Shinzo Abe is as bad if not worse than Trump and they elect guys like him every 10 years)
Herman4747
(1,825 posts)to drop on San Diego in around Sept. 1945, but the Soviets overran Unit 731 before this could be accomplished.
closeupready
(29,503 posts)Travis_0004
(5,417 posts)FairWinds
(1,717 posts)is that a goodly number of you are trapped in the psychological cage
of modern nationalism (invented, actually, mostly by Napoleon).
What this means is that you do no regard human beings from other
countries as fully human, with rights and dignity equal to your own.
So you are OK with incinerating children in Japan, Iraq, or Vietnam
because some propagandist told you their government did something wrong
(and of course, sometimes they did).
As Robert McNamara suggested, the indefinite combination of attitudes like
yours, and nuclear weapons, will result in the "death of nations."
Your attitudes are just as dangerous as nationalists with nukes in Pakistan,
India, China, Russia, or anywhere else.
To write that it is about "blaming America for everything" misses the point
entirely; and, again, I got the same crap in 2003 when I stood up for the lives
of Iraqis.
Veterans For Peace (whose stated aim is to abolish war as an instrument of
national policy)
karynnj
(59,503 posts)From the various accounts, he managed to thread the needle quite well:
Showing respect and compassion for those killed and speaking of the museum as a gut wrenching experience. Then transitioning to the need to avoid war through diplomacy.
Here is the thread. Please note that it is in the John Kerry group, so if you have negative comments after reading it, PUT THEM HERE in this thread where they are more suited than within the JK support group. http://www.democraticunderground.com/11094961
closeupready
(29,503 posts)Further, as even Germans and Japanese have conceded, when the flames of war are ignited, the whole world goes crazy, and thus, these things happen/war is hell.
apnu
(8,756 posts)Its true we, the United States of America has blood on our hands, but so do the Japanese. I don't feel the US has any need to apologize to Japan until Japan apologizes to pretty much every one of its neighbors.
Yes it is true that Japan has issued some form of apologizes over the decades, but there's a lot of controversy around those statements. Japan has not, directly and simply apologized for its behavior in that war.
So why do we demand such a thing from SoS Kerry?
I'm not diminishing your work for peace, and I agree that we have an over inflated sense of nationalism in the US, but we're talking about the US apologizing for nuking Japan (and firebombing Tokyo, also a heinous crime) to a country that, by most accounts hasn't owned up to their crimes.
braddy
(3,585 posts)A lot of his guys and the other Westerners fighting their way out of there, never made it back.
vkkv
(3,384 posts)event... War is hell.
ozone_man
(4,825 posts)Don't you recognize genocide when you see it? I guess we are in familiar company with our friend Turkey who refuses to recognize their genocide of the Armenian population.
But, including our genocide of Native Americans, we have considerable experience.
braddy
(3,585 posts)ozone_man
(4,825 posts)braddy
(3,585 posts)against the Indians?
ozone_man
(4,825 posts)Genocide definition is more encompassing than just military actions. Forcing Native Americans to live in reservations away from traditional lands, proselytizing them with Christianity, making the children go to white schools, and many other techniques were used to destroy their culture. The end result in the broad interpretation is cultural genocide.
braddy
(3,585 posts)If we call wounded Knee genocide then what do we call what the word is supposed to mean, Hitler's attempt to kill all of the worlds' Jewish people.
ozone_man
(4,825 posts)From wikipedia. I think what we did to Native Americans falls well within this definition.
--------------
Genocide is the intentional action to systematically eliminate a cultural, ethnic, linguistic, national, racial or religious group. The word is a combination of “genos” (race, people) and “cide” (to kill).[1] The United Nations Genocide Convention defines it as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group".[2][3]
Well-known examples of genocide include the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, the 1971 Bangladesh genocide, the Cambodian genocide, and more recently the Kurdish Genocide, the Bosnian Genocide and the Rwandan genocide.
braddy
(3,585 posts)The Aztecs and Normans were not warring and conquering and absorbing, they were practicing genocide.
Hitler's goal against the Jews was something else, what do we call that now?
ozone_man
(4,825 posts)There are certainly different levels of atrocities. Genos meaning race, and cide meaning to kill, in my opinion can be applied in the case of Native Americans.
In the end, killing a race off by war, by gas chambers, or by dropping an A-bomb on them, may not be that different than starving a people of their culture and livelihood. Australia did the same to their Aborigonals. I suppose we need a different term for what it is when a more advanced culture arrives at a new land and decimates the natives, so they can expand. It's Manifest Destiny. Genocide goes hand in hand with that policy.
braddy
(3,585 posts)call everything genocide doesn't appeal to me.
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)FairWinds
(1,717 posts)so as to merit no response.
It's rather like, "Why is there air?"
Please read some Howard Zinn, or any of a thousand others.
(And we noticed "military"
braddy
(3,585 posts)FairWinds
(1,717 posts)I'm a USAR vet too - not that it does or should lend either of us any credibility . .
You could start with the Nez Perce, and the book "The Last Indian War."
It was genocide and thoroughly documented.
(Many of the US Army troops chasing the Nez Perce came to admire them hugely, calling them, for example, "the best skirmishers we have ever seen."
BUT ALL THIS IS THREAD DEFLECTION - WHICH IS NOT ABOUT ANY INSENCERE APOLOGIES, OR WHO DID WHAT TO WHOM, BUT RATHER HOW CAN WE PASS A VIABLE NON-BOMB PLANET ON TO OUR PROGENY.
VETERANS FOR PEACE
braddy
(3,585 posts)sounds quite a bit different from what you are describing, the total losses from all tribes and the American military were pretty small and random.
I think the word "genocide" gets thrown around too easily.
FairWinds
(1,717 posts)when we were being blatantly lied into war?
With at least a million dead, and a country in utter tatters, I'd call that genocide.
(Where are you? Lets have a debate in a public forum, charge some $, and donate it to our favorite charities.)
Mine of course would be Veterans For Peace
("pretty small and random" because most of them had already been killed, and OK I 'm gonna question whether you read that book.)
braddy
(3,585 posts)true genocide, I don't consider wars, invasions and all conflicts, as "genocide"
Hitler invaded Poland in an incredibly bloody war, but it wasn't genocide, yet it is said that some Poles did participate in Hitler's genocide, war and genocide are not the same.
FairWinds
(1,717 posts)we sort of have to work with the definitions that are out there.
Samantha Power's book "A Problem From Hell" would be a decent intro.
and you might want to know that genocide is a legal term with a specific definition.
nobody cares what I or you "consider" it to mean.
you sort of sound like the Red Queen, declaring that words mean exactly what . .
you want them to mean.
Nope, not gonna buy it.
I will for sure raise this point when we - respectfully - debate.
braddy
(3,585 posts)genocide?
Even the word came into being in 1944 to mean Hitler's attempt to exterminate the Jewish people.
FairWinds
(1,717 posts)was by no means the largest in history.
That dubious honor belongs to Genghis Khan, 40 million,
including whole civilizations.
Amazingly, ten percent of the world's population at that time.
Today, that would be 700 million people. !!!!
And there were also other mass killings larger than that of the Third Reich.
But we are getting distracted from the point at issue (was that your object?) which is the
US (and other nations') nuclear genocide machines.
And how about if you read the Power's (deeply flawed) book, and then we can have a discussion?
Better would be to read Zinn and/or Chomsky. The scales will fall from your eyes.
braddy
(3,585 posts)is not genocide, Hitler committed mass murder of millions of Christians, but he was committing genocide of the Jewish people.
GOLGO 13
(1,681 posts)It ended the war so it worked. Yes, ends justified means in this case.
JustABozoOnThisBus
(23,343 posts)They had agriculture, manufacturing, theater, stuff like that. It was not exactly "backwards".
Judi Lynn
(160,542 posts)The ace reporter puts it in her first sentence.
"Hey, John Kerry's NOT gonna apologize to the Japanese for the atom bombs. Stuff that up your patootie."
Journalism never stood so tall as in the day this became the standard of writing at the Washington "Watergate Scandal" Post.
Woo hoo, let's here it for Carol Morello.
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EX500rider
(10,849 posts)....but this was the 1st sentence:
Secretary of State John F. Kerry will focus on the vision of a nuclear-free future while he is here and will not apologize for the atomic bomb that the United States dropped on Hiroshima at the end of World War II, killing 140,000 people, a U.S. official said Sunday.
Judi Lynn
(160,542 posts)FairWinds
(1,717 posts)but they go ballistic when it is their own children who are threatened.
We in Veterans For Peace are trying to outgrow that sort of primitive ethno-centrism.
Think about it - Why should anyone give a rat about you and your kids, if you care not a whit for theirs?
