Israel forced to apologise over offensive Hiroshima comments

Just to keep the record straight, Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy (the Chief of Staff to the President), Brigadier General Carter Clarke (the military intelligence officer who prepared intercepted Japanese cables for U.S. officials), and Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, all disagreed with the necessity of dropping nuclear bombs on civilian populations to bring the war to an end...it was already at an end.

Except for those pesky Russians...

But I'm sure the Einsteins (BTW who also objected) on this board will believe they know more then Eisenhower, MacArthur, Leahy, Clarke and Nimitz.

BTW, I think a reprise of Nimitz is in order..


"The use of [the atomic bombs] at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons... The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."

 

The issue is a moral and humanitarian one in the context of the question as to whether the dropping of an atomic bomb on a major civilian population centre of ones "enemy" could ever be morally justified on humanitarian grounds, particularly given the high probability the said enemy would have surrendered had the bomb not been dropped. I say NEVER.

 

And yet most wars have been won by "destroying women and children."

I'm not saying it makes it right. It simply is reality.

We'd probably enter less wars if we actually accepted this harsh truth.

The bombings were very effective at expressing to the Soviets our full destructive potential, and the Japanese did well in earning their role as sacrifice.

Of course, our advantage in nuclear technology didn't last long due to the Rosenbergs.

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And my argument is that governments pay lip service to morals while lacking them mostly.

Because of that, morals have a limited relevance compared to strategy.

Unfortunately, moral rhetoric is very effective at manipulating the masses into supporting war, however.

 

Oh that high horse! Don't you people ever get tired? If you or your son or daughter was in the war in the line of fire and your government had a way to end it right there, you'd be the first to scream "go for it, wtf are you waiting for". But from the distance of 70 years and from your comfortable and safe armchair you may be as moralizing and as humanitarian as you wish to be. The hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty of all these narcissistic self-righteous "pacifists" is shining right through though.

 

They had been trying to for 6 months..

 

In some respects, yes. They apparently didn't try hard enough though.

 

I agree. It's a political decision-making discourse of the kind which trumps geopolitical considerations above questions of morality, that is, in my view, the most depressing feature of international relations in the contemporary world. Has it ever been not so in our modern history? Almost certainly not.

 

Whether or not it is depressing is a matter of expectations.

Seeing as how humanity has never operated in this fashion on this level, I don't see any reason to expect it to be the case for the future.

As such, I'm not depressed by it so much as I am wary of it.

To me, the best course of action is non-interventionism. The less involved we get, the less likely we'll end up killing a lot of people.

Even in supposed humanitarian missions, there is usually a strategic or economic interest driving intervention.

 

I agree with the first two sentences. In your third one, I would have put "supposed" in italics, added "99 percent of the time" after "missions" and erased "usually".

 

The hardest thing for me in the realization of what we did in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was overcoming the natural urge to fall back into the mindset of "My country, right or wrong".

Once one can get over that a whole new world opens up. In it's own way, it's liberating and a lot of weight is lifted off ones shoulders.

 

"...we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."

Chester W. Nimitz.

But then again, you might know more than him.

 

You fire bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki as you did Tokyo and other Japanese Cities and Infrastructure and German Infrastructures and villages and Cities. There is no such thing as a Nuke, just good ol' Propaganda..

 

As George Galloway might of put it: "My flag is red and my country is the future."

 

You wanted their Emperor they said No, you bombed and then said we don't want him after all.

 

It was never about the Japanese Emperor, it was about the Russians and vengeance.

If we had agreed to negotiate the terms of surrender with the Japanese, as they had been petitioning to do for months, we wouldn't have been able to drop the bomb.

How many US servicemen lives were lost in those last couple of months that might have been saved? Truman wanted to make a statement to the Russians and at least 500,000 Japanese civilians of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, men, women, children, the elderly, were the price.

But at that time, who cared about Japanese civilians? All the atrocities of the Japanese military were visited upon them.

How many times in the history of man have civilians paid the price for the pride and vanity of kings, emperors and generals?

 

I know the Emperor was an excuse and yes to the rest.

 

Oh we nuked 'em, we nuked 'em good.

 

Fire bombed


go and find the photos it doesn't add up, the damage was the same as a fire bombing raid, exactly. No such thing as a Nuke The Nuke was a dupe..

 

Hmmmm, no.

 

Hiroshima




and Tokyo after being fire bombed. Both have buildings standing and both have trees standing ............. that ain't supposed to happen with a Nuke/






another Hiroshima .................. fire bombed

 

there is no such thing as a nuclear weapon?

 

A bomb nope ................ there is also not much science about it to be found.

 

Dude, I'm not going to argue with you on whether it was an A bomb on Hiroshima. Take it to the conspiracy forum.

 

yeah, whatever.

hundreds of atomic bombs have been tested around the world. we have video of many of them.

the residual radioactivity of their detonations still exist in deserts out west.

 

You don't have videos of them you have videos .................. no one has actually seen the mushroom ,,,not allowed to look. The explosions yup no question the were felt but that don't prove Nuke ............. yes there were some horrid tests done with radiation.but Xrays are radiation.

Anyway .........we should question everything believe it or don't makes no difference fire bombing or a Nuke .they are still the work of the Anti Christ