julianw

I say no.

Very few countries allow women in combat situations, but that might change in a few decades since many countries' populations are steadily aging as the result of longer life-expectancies and people having more sex for pleasure but producing less children. Personally, I would hate to see the day when legions of women are killing each other on a battlefield. I believe men and women have equal rights but not equal roles in society. Women should be content with washing dishes and changing diapers. (Just kidding about the last part.)

At least they weren't sending them into gas chambers. Also, their own government has put them on trial for their misbehaviors.

I agree with Hades on this. The soldiers who chose to fight and believed that their actions are serving a greater good deserve our support and respect even if we believe that they had been misled by their own government through its false intelligence. On the other hand, there is nothing to be proud of if some one was a prison guard at a Nazi concentration camp since it was his duty to his government.

I feel loved. :">

I hope you really meant it. :'( cause I want you, too.

My best day ever will probably be the day I die. I am so tired of this life.

^ Good read. Everybody loves a good revenge story, except that vengeance among nations never dies. Maybe that's why we need genocide.

reminds me of the dantooine speech you give in K2. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> But I was playing DS! Anyhoo, if Mel's speech in Braveheart is a 10 and Viggo's speech in Lotr is a 7, this guy gets -100.

I also agee that the Japanese government should shoulder much more blame for the deaths at Nagasaki than the American government. Though I'd like to add that I must have been quite disappointed when I learned (from my history teacher, so anyone is welcome to refute me) that part of the reasons President Truman decided to use their atomic weapons on Japanese civilians was revenge for Pearl Harbor, which reminds me that one of the chief driving forces behind W.W.II was Hitler's desire for vengeance for the first Great War. Even today, millions of Chinese students still hold a serious grudge against the entire nation of Japan. I am just an idealist and I am no 'decider'(in president Bush's words), so I am not trying to point any fingers, but all these casualties and harm done by nations to each other that might have been avoided just sadden and worry me. I guess mercy just doesn't sound as cool as vendetta.

That means you agree with 68% of this country's population. Big deal...

With Calax's attitude, you won't get disappointed with people as often.

Just saw Shadowless Sword since some dude here posted the trailer. The guy lead in the film gave a terrible speech to his troops. If I was one of the soldiers, I would have run for my life after hearing that. I feel sorry for the girl who died...

Actually the victims' family members are working with the film crew, so they should be making some money off this film themselves.

^I thought it was some senator who made the suggestion.

'Either quit or carry on fighting': that is a very big decision to make and it's not one man's decision either. People held meetings about this stuff. People who didn't really care that much for inncoent lives. Are the Japanese at that point any threat to the US? No. They have no oil to run their tanks and ships and all their trained soldiers are killed already. The only incentives for US to drop the bomb are: 1) show strength to the Russians who has become a threat and 2) avoid a land invasion of Japan, which they had no plan to start in three days after Hiroshima. The US had all the time in the world to wait for an response. Instead, they decided to drop another atomic bomb on another city heavily populated with civilians after merely three days.

What am I missing then? 72 hours are hardly enough time to make a decision this important. It's as if someone was just slapped hard in the face and as he was standing there dumbfounded, the guy slapped him again.

@Paladin - Right. US should have given Japan more time. If Bush was running the Japanese government, they probably needed weeks to respond, once they got him out of the bombshelter first.

Because they dropped the second bomb within three days? The Japanese government was scrambling to keep its citizens calm as well as assessing the damage and weighing the little options they have left. Even with today's high-speed communications, when 9/11 happened, Bush kept reading his children's book for another 20 minutes and then disappeared into Air Force 1 and flied blindly in the sky for another two hours while Chaney went hiding in a bunker. President Bush did not address the nation until half a day later. How can you expect the Japanese to respond with a non-conditional surrender within 72 hours?

Seriously Lonewolf, stop drooling... There are much 'better' pictures of Jessica Alba out there. Just use image google.

I just like to point out that there is no solid evidence for this conspiracy theory about Pearl Harbor. All the speculations are hindsight. Alan, you are right that US was not hit as bad as they initially assessed and Japan wasn't able to achieve the result they desired from Pearl Harbor. But Lonewolf's got a point about US's total lack of preparation on the day of the attack. Remember that the Harbor's radar picked up Japan's bombers but stupidly thought they were US's own from mainland. The general in charge was playing golf when the attack happened. Most of the sailors just got out of bed and were gathered on the deck to raise the flags and actually waved at the Japanese bombers until they started dropping bombs. Most of US's aircrafts on the island were destroyed before they even took air. There are just so many things the US military could have done to reduce the loss at Pearl Harbor without alerting the Japanese fleet since they were already on a 30-day secret journey across the Northen Pacific, unless of course the conspiracy theory was not true.

Actually, the US "attacked" Japan first. Pearl Harbour was attacked in retaliation for a "show of power" off the coast of Japan(it was apparently a "test" for a new weapon...), presumably as a warning to stop hostilities towards the US military in a particular theater of the war(Philipines I think). When Pearl Harbour was attacked, a peace treaty had just been signed(or was about to be) to stop the war but Japan refused to let go. This little known "warning" from the US was met with the attack at Pearl Harbour that was almost aborted because of this peace treaty that was being signed. President (General) Truman decided to end the Japanese threat the only way America knows how: Overkill. It also sent a warning to other nations who would now think twice before f****ng with America. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The history I learned was that Japan always knew that a total war with America is unavoidable since they were seeking to expand their territory in Southeast Asia, so they distracted the US by negotiating the peace treaty while secretly deployed their fleet to attack Pearl Harbor. As for dropping the A bomb, Japan was no longer a threat at the time. I think it's more of a warning to the Russian communists: don't get any funny ideas or we roast you.

FDR didn't even push for the development of the A bomb until Germany started their own research, so he had no insurance policy during Pearl Harbor if the conspiracy theory is true.

I understand that US intelligence probably had information hinting at an attack on Pearl Harbor, which they probably ignored as false lead. The theory that Roosevelt delibrately hid that information to sacrifice a huge bulk of the Pacific fleet sounds like bs to me. Remember that US's Pacific fleet was davastated after the attack and ended up on the losing side of the war until many months later at the Battle of Midway. If FDR really played this trick on his own troops, then he almost lost us the war in Pacific.

Great. I thought I didn't need to worry about that.