Re: how bad is USA

Post #47,258 by mmoffitt 7/28/02 9:32:37 AM Reply	Re: how bad is USA An outside observer of the world would note that the USA is not the only country that has nuclear weapons, nor is it the only country who had internal pressure to use them (for example, there was pressure in the CCCP to use nukes against China, but that was ruled out). However, the USA remains the only country to have ever used them and they targetted what? Cities. Tens of thousands of, perhaps as many as 200,000, civilians were killed in those two bombing attacks. Atrocious? Inhuman? Not according to the Murican people. Even today a good many Muricans (perhaps a majority) maintain that the use of nuclear weapons against Japan was "justified" notwithstanding all the civilian casualties. These same people were "horrified" at 9/11, despite the fact that the number of deaths in those attacks were trivial by comparison. And the Murican President maintains a popularity rating in the 60's, highest in his handling of foreign matters. This despite the fact that even by the understated "official" numbers, we've killed more Afghani civilians than civilians who were killed here on 9/11 - this despite the fact that NONE of the hijackers responsible for the US dead were Afghani. Given these facts, and this is by no means a comprehensive list of examples, it may well be argued that the Murican government AND the majority of the Murican people are the most ethically and morally challenged people on the planet. The point the author is trying to make, however, is not "how bad is USA"; rather it is "we are not much different from them".
Post #47,269 by Arkadiy 7/28/02 12:05:28 PM Reply	USSR was not in a shooting war with China (if you discount one border incident). USSR was not facing the prospect of driving to Peking through heavily defended terrain, losing millions more than necessary and killinng millions more. It infuriates me no end when someone said that US is somehow less moral for not using nuclear weapons. Firebombing of Tokyo and destruction of Dresden were accomplished with conventional weapons, yet more lives were lost. German army robbed and raped through half of Russia, starved Leningrad, destroyed cities by dozens. Red army was much worse as it went the other way. US, in comparison, was smelling like roses, internement of Japanese citizen and all. I don't have time now to discuss the Afghan campain now - hopefully later. My point was that the article's author doesn't give a rat's ass about Islam or Muslims. He simply wants to drag US in the durt one more time. An admirable goal, if done sincerely. He is not. He pretends to enlighten me about Islam, while advancing his own tired and "true" agenda.
Post #47,517 by mmoffitt 7/30/02 5:25:00 PM Reply	Doesn't mean nukes weren't under consideration. A State Department memorandum of conversation, published here for the first time, recounts one of the more extraordinary moments in Cold War history--a KGB officer's query about the U.S. reaction to a hypothetical Soviet attack on Chinese nuclear weapons facilities. Also included is a recently declassified report warning of the danger of a Soviet attack on China, written for Henry Kissinger by the influential China watcher Allen S. Whiting. [link\|http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB49/\|But they didn't]
Post #47,840 by Arkadiy 8/2/02 10:45:06 AM Reply	My point is, US had more reasons to use nukes.
Post #47,988 by mmoffitt 8/3/02 8:59:36 PM Reply	My problem with that is... that I am deeply troubled that any reason could be considered valid for the extermination of hundreds of thousands of civilians. (And yes, that includes what I think the "real reason" was below). I do not accept the premise that you overcome an adversary by becoming just like him.
Post #47,277 by Ashton 7/28/02 4:05:46 PM Reply	Re: how bad is USA?____ Not that bad.. Personally I find the Strangelovian fascination since our first-use of Fat Man & Little Boy the vastly more ominous matter. (YAN example of how we'll choose Disneyland names for horrific infernal machines: cf. also Ronnie's Peacekeeper ... inane name for a fully MIRV-ed initiator of Doomsday) It's been >50 years. Everyone always screws up the first application of.. damn near anything unprecedented. My view is that - while there were (and are) a significant slice of Muricans who deem anyone alien (and not WASP) as utterly expendable cannon fodder: the exigencies of somehow ending the war at Japanese mainland was a matter as horrific as the new weapons. Estimates of the casualties on both sides - facing NOT 'military forces' alone, but an entire population quite apparently willing to suicide for 'Honor' -- was what Truman / we faced. And whatever was suspected of the dueling factions within the Japanese govt. just then? I submit: merely contrast our 'Japan knowledge' with just how badly we called (say) the scenario of German nuke development: and hey! the CIA (then called the OSS) HAD actual people working for them, not toy satellites with Nintendo warriors. But no one was sure just how much Heisenberg had deduced, nor whether in fact he was truly supporting the development. (Much remains unclear today! and the principals are dead). Only in 20/20 can one pick to cynical death - the decision to 'demo' these bombs.. somehow evade the bloodbath of invasion. It can be argued as effectively: these bombs saved millions of heaped dead burned bodies - most of those Japanese. If it wasn't our Finest Hour neither was it an act of overt barbarism: THAT was the mindset of the seriously entertained First Strike scenario.. ever just under the surface during cold war. Annihilate them First because maybe they might.. try the same. (But that MADness too was species-wide and not just a Murican bestiality. It exists right this minute in silos and subs. <2 minutes response time 7/29/02.) Ashton It remains a MAD world. We remain a MAD species. Nothing much has changed.
Post #47,369 by Brandioch 7/29/02 2:09:51 PM Reply	It was a war crime. We deliberately targetted a city. Not a factory. A city. We knew we'd be killing civilians. -BUT- Just because it was a war crime does NOT mean it was "wrong". "Right" and "Wrong" are value judgements. To determine whether it was "right" or "wrong" means you have to weigh the fact that Japan attacked us first (some question as to why) and that Japan would, seemingly, continue to attack us and that, should we invade the main island, BOTH of our sides would take heavy casualties (possibly heavier than the nukes themselves). The end does not justify the means. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. and so forth. It was a crime. We had a debt to the victims of our crime (as their country had a debt to our's for their attack on us). Whether we have paid that debt or not is a matter of indivual consideration. Life is complicated.
Post #47,389 by Ashton 7/29/02 4:37:34 PM Reply	Yes it was, though most nations have become war criminals - since about the time that random bombing of cities in WW-II was justified because "manufacturing occurred somewhere within them". When the Germans moved much critical mfg. to underground sites, I note that there was no moratorium on cities: afterwards. Hiroshima had a military base of a sort (been so long I've forgotten if navy or what). Dunno if Nagasaki had such a putative justification. Since 'nations' are indeed amoral, so long as there exists no actually adhered-to protocol + enforcement of such planet-wide: we see that all our fine words + $3.25 can get a Mocha Java at some fast-coffee kiosk. Adolescence can be a terrible time - especially when it lasts for centuries. Ashton
Post #47,414 by mmoffitt 7/29/02 9:36:17 PM Reply	And the threat. Don't forget the threat. McArthur was fired for the very same reason we used nukes. The thing the General forgot, and Harry forgot was that "The object of war is peace." Not unconditional surrender, peace. Don't forget about the Paris meetings to discuss "terms of surrender." And for heavens sake, let's not forget that we told them, "You surrender unconditionally or we will use the Bomb on Tokyo next." The bluff worked, we'd already blown our wad by then. You can make the claim that "well, gosh, we didn't really know how bad it would be" on the first one (an argument I find reprehensible, for if you don't know what's going to happen, why use it on a city at all?) but you cannot make that claim for the second one. (Aside: In an advanced placement history class way back in high school, I successfully prosecuted Harry for war crimes - it may have been my finest hour ;-)
Post #47,332 by inthane-chan 7/29/02 11:20:44 AM Reply	One viewpoint (out of millions) from Japan. In 1989, I visited Hiroshima on August 1st. While I won't go into details, I will say the visit left me emotionally drained, and at tears occasionally. On my way out of the city, I struck up a conversation with a Japanese man - obviously native, due to a combination of accent and attitude I picked up from him - who claimed that some of his family had died in Hiroshima. He actually said that most people in Japan were grateful(!) for the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings - because it kept the USSR from "partitioning" Japan in much the way Germany was partitioned. Japan and Russia are still at loggerheads over some islands - believe the name is the Kurile Islands, just confirmed via Google - and this individual believed that if the U.S. had not caused the unconditional surrender of Japan, that the U.S.S.R. could have ended up controlling half, if not more, of modern Japan. I honestly don't know what to make of his attitude. To me, the reason to truly Fear the bomb isn't that it's based on atomic energy, but it's tremendous destructive potential in such a small, efficient package makes industrial-scale destruction that much easier to wreak. When you have to send thousands to die to wipe out your "enemy" - there will be some hue and cry. If all you have to do is press a button, well, people are going to be a lot less noisy about it... There are 10 types of people. Those who understand binary, and those who don't.
Post #47,390 by Ashton 7/29/02 4:52:32 PM Reply	I've heard this viewpoint expressed also. And like you - have no 'stats' to estimate how widespread in Japan was? / still is? this angle of a "devil's tradeoff" -- which seems to me a lot like chemotherapy: poison the liver and other organs; almost destroy the immune system itself - just almost to the point.. where you die from that: to poison something you want to go away! We sure are a scary bunch - whenever we get hold of anything more effective than say, a (short) bow and arrows. Does that mean we'll be scary right up to the end? A.
Post #47,417 by mmoffitt 7/29/02 9:40:11 PM Reply	That is precisely why we did it. Using nukes had nothing at all to do with "saving lives" Japanese or American. We used nuclear arms on cities to send the Russians a message: "Don't expand eastward and stop where you are in Europe." Anyone claiming that we used nukes against civilians for any other purpose is completely ill-informed. And that, Ashton, does make us ethically, morally challenged.
Post #47,436 by Ashton 7/30/02 1:21:22 AM Reply	Well it is a major factor; not the single one. I'm aware of the threat of Russian entre into Japan. Maybe that alone could have been sufficient a reason, given the general madness in all players.. after 4 years (for US) to 6 years for Europeans. But the invasion loss prospect was stark also - and that underscored even more the exhaustion: moving battle-weary Euro. troops to Pacific? So I deem - we cannot today separate-out any One causality of the decision; humans made it and all human decisions are forever Iffy. (Only in 'debates' do we imagine that logic has much to do with those.) Ashton
Post #47,842 by Arkadiy 8/2/02 10:56:41 AM Reply	Sending Russians a message might have been a worthwile thing too. Millions would have been lost in invading Japan. Tens of millions would have been lost in a war between Russia and Allies.Or would you rather cede more countries to Russia? Greece was a prime candidate. How about Iran? Not sure if Turkey was in the plans too.And in all those places, Stalin would have been killing by millions (oh, that word again! "One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic." I. V. Stalin).
Post #47,987 by mmoffitt 8/3/02 8:57:39 PM Reply	Interesting thought. Would it be better to have Bolsheviks run Iran or Mullahs? Your point is well taken about the other countries though ;-)

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