Yosuke Yamahata

[GreasyDogMeat]

I'd like to clarify my above outburst a bit... as I came off as "OMG someone criticizing the US bomb droppings! RAAAGH! LIES BOMB DROPPINGS GOOD!".

 

Yuusha has stated in numerous threads that he isn't a fan of the US government... really, who is these days? That's not my problem. My problem is that he has done everything but come out and say that he considers the atomic bombs the worst terrorist attack in the history of human existance... he considers muslim extremist who cut heads off of people on TV, fly planes into buildings and bomb civilians to come nowhere near the atomic bombs and the US gov that authorized them. When I saw this thread... it was just another of his 'LOOK HOW AWFUL AMERICA IS... WORST TERRORISTS IN THE WORLD' threads.

 

If anyone else had posted this thread, I would not have reacted like I did... but when it comes from such a skewed perception... one unwilling to even admit or discuss other attrocities in the world... it is angering.

 

The atomic bombs of WWII were a horrific event, but an event that, with 100% certainty, saved the American, British and Russian lives that would have been required to take Japan in a ground war. I'd like to think that maybe the situation could have been handled differently. Maybe if the US had launched a missile into the ocean to show what he had... but I honestly don't think that would have worked either. The Japanese government waited six entire days after the second bomb hit to finally surrender.

 

If you actually understand the culture and propaganda of Japan during WWII, you would understand what surrender meant to them at the time, how the civilian population viewed America, and how truly brutal a ground war would have been. Frankly, I truly believe actual civilian casualties would have soared above 180,000 if a ground and aerial war were fought on Japanese soil. Look at the Okinawa suicide cliff, where women leaped to their deaths rather than surrender to American soldiers. They truly believed that soldiers would brutalize them and their children. Statistics of battles fought in the pacific show an extremly low rate of surrender on the Japanese side... it was dishonorable, hence their barbaric treatment of prisoners. People who surrendered were nothing but animals.

 

While there is plenty of disapointment and anger that the atomic bombs were dropped, I would honestly like to know how people would have handled it differently if they were in charge at the time. What would you have done? Packed your bags and gone home? Invaded Japan with a land/aerial war after 30,000 US soldiers lost their lives taking Iwo Jima? What do you think casualties would have been like on the homeland of Japan?

 

I think these are interesting questions, and I honestly ask them without malice. What would YOU have done? As I stated above, I would have preferred to have dropped a 'show off' bomb, to show them what we had at the time. Hindsite is 20/20 though, and looking at Japanese mentality at the time... I don't know if it would have worked.

 

The celebrations in America after the bomb droppings were not "Yay! Japanese died in horrible firey death!", the celebrations were... "Thank god this miserable war is OVER! Our sons and daughters can come home!". For Yuusha, in a previous thread to compare this event as worse than 911, when Al Qaida celebrated people burning, dying and falling is, imho dispicable.

 

This begs another question... do you believe that the atomic bomb droppings during WWII was equal, or worse to current terrorism and that people like me who do find the bombs horrible, but a necessary evil of WWII to end it to be no different than an Alqaida terrorist? Please... explain.

Edited August 5, 2007 by GreasyDogMeat

[Dark_Raven]

The Most Powerful Images Ever Made

 

Brought to you by the most powerful weapon mankind has made thus far. Point?

[Gorth]

The atomic bombs of WWII were a horrific event, but an event that, with 100% certainty, saved the American, British and Russian lives that would have been required to take Japan in a ground war. I'd like to think that maybe the situation could have been handled differently. Maybe if the US had launched a missile into the ocean to show what he had... but I honestly don't think that would have worked either. The Japanese government waited six entire days after the second bomb hit to finally surrender.

You need to think outside your usual box. Maybe they wouldn't have had to do anything (see my previous post)?

 

They could have sit down, waited four or five months and the soviets would have been busy building naval bases in soviet occupied Japan for their new pacific navy. Imagine the world if the soviets had not only had Cuba but also bases spread all over the pacific.

 

I don't think Washington enjoyed thinking about the millions of veteran soviet troops that was amassing in the far east in fall 1945, ready to take on Japan. I think (personally) it was more about getting us troops in japan as fast as possible, not necessarily with the lowest number of casualties possible. Otherwise I would be seriously overestimating the strategic thinking of the US administration back then.

 

The atomic bomb was a tool to beat the soviets in the race for dominance of the northern pacific, nothing more nothing less.

[Hurlshort]

The atomic bomb was a tool to beat the soviets in the race for dominance of the northern pacific, nothing more nothing less.

 

Yes, clearly. I know whenever I make a major decision, I only base it on a single reason. There is no way that other reasons could have played a factor in the dropping of the bombs.

[Yuusha]

I wonder if Yuusha ever feels 'sad' for victims of Japanese POW camps.

 

I wonder if Yuusha will feel 'sad' on a Holocaust remembrance day. Then again, maybe Yuusha doesn't even believe the holocaust happened.

Of course I feel sad for the POWs and the holocaust victims. I am after all a human being.

 

Look I know you don't like me and my views, and frankly I don't care, but please understand something: This thread is not about me, it's not about you, it's not about the US and it's not about the Japanese government either.

 

This thread, first and foremost, is about the victims of the Atomic Bomb.

 

Look at the pictures man. Look at them. I mean really look at them. Set aside whatever hatred you have for me and look at the pictures. Look at all the women, the children, the corpses, the destruction and the suffering that occured on that fateful day. Look at the lifeless eyes of the women who was holding her baby.

 

It's sad isn't it.

 

Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We must never forget.

[Aram]

This is the Least Powerful Thread Ever Made.

[Xard]

Problem here being, I've realized and grieved horror of these bombings ****ing years before finding teh internets

 

In other words this thread should be useless to, well, everyone. It's hard to find someone who haven't heard about Hiroshima

Edited August 5, 2007 by Xard

[Gorth]

In other words this thread should be useless to, well, everyone. It's hard to find someone who haven't heard about Hiroshima

Except perhaps as a tribute to the photographer who took the pictures at what turned out to be at the cost of his life.

 

More questionable is the intention of the thread, is somebody truly paying tribute to the photographer or just abusing his legacy for a personal agenda?

[Xard]

More questionable is the intention of the thread, is somebody truly paying tribute to the photographer or just abusing his legacy for a personal agenda?

 

That's exactly the reason why I'm aggressive towards this thread

[Arkan]

Disagree with the claim of this thread.

 

The most powerful image ever made/taken are the images of the Ultra Deep Field taken by the Huble Telescope.

[Walsingham]

Couple of points:

 

1. Given the British insistence in the RAF on 'strategic' bombing of civilian centres, coupled with Churchill's evident enthusiasm at Yalta for possession of the bomb, I think it is obvious that we would certainly have used it on Germany at any point in the war after 1942.

 

2. Gorth makes a really good point, which is that in 1945 the greatest threat to the Allies was within the alliance in the form of Soviet Russia, and 'Uncle' Joe Stalin. Detonating the bombs may have been one of the few things which prevented the 10 million Soviet troops in Eastern Europe during 1945 steaming westwards, linking up with Communist guerillas all the way.

 

3. I am sometimes aggravated by the sanctimonious tone taken by some members when discussing the malfeasances of governments. Government is invariably a matter a choosing between evils, while hamstrung by a dearth of money, time, information, or other resources. If a member believes they have the capacity to do better then I invite them to do so for the good of all mankind.

 

4. Even given the above I join with a great many in mourning the dead of the two cities. Their deaths being just part of the great tragedy of World War 2. A life taken is a life taken, whether it be through starvation and disease in the seige of Leningrad, drowning at Dunkirk, in a forced labour camp in the Phillipines, or the flash of a thousand suns.

[GreasyDogMeat]

It seems almost as if this is the first time you have seen these images Yuusha. It IS sad, it is awful, but there comes a time to move on and discuss the event from other angles. I hope this isn't some yearly morbid ritual where you sit down and stare at disturbing images of past tragedies on their anniversaries... because all that does is harden your heart and place hate in it.

 

As Xard said, most of us have already seen the images, studied the event, mourned it and moved on. It IS always important to better understand history... to go back and look closely at the whys and hows.

 

If this is your first time seeing the images, then I'm sorry for what you must be feeling, but there comes a time where you either need to discuss it and gain some perspective of why it happened and how to prevent it in the future, or a time to move on and not dwell on images like this.

 

You made it clear in a previous thread that you viewed the atom bombs as a terrorist incident worse than any current muslim extremist attack. The thing is, to then create a forum displaying horrible images of this event, that comes across as an attempt to breed hate and anger. This is why I don't yearly, on 9-11, sit down and view images of body parts and people jumping out of the twin towers to escape the blaze or images of the holocaust.

Edited August 5, 2007 by GreasyDogMeat

[Gorgon]

But towards the end ? I mean, bomb what, Berlin, just before it was about to fall, somehow I think not.

 

It's not that that the US was somehow worse that i'm trying to suggest here, simply that the action may/should have been avoided. The argument that they did not surrender in the days after the first bomb does not rule out the concept of surrender without the bombings at all, and again, the hypothetical casualty rates in the event of invasion assumes there would be one. These are all assumptions, and they are convenient to hide behind.

 

Bargaining and some kind of fig leaf for the emperor and his cronies that would enable a surrender was another possible outcome, and as mentioned I am not alone in this assessment, in the words of then General Eisenhower ; "It wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing."

 

The political message was, as mentioned, quite unmistakable, but to begin in the language of 'world communism' to suggest all kinds of outlandish machinations by Soviet Russia and that the bomb prevented these as well, it's just another example of selective memory, and history writing.

Edited August 5, 2007 by Gorgon

[kirottu]

Disagree with the claim of this thread.

 

The most powerful image ever made/taken are the images of the Ultra Deep Field taken by the Huble Telescope.

 

That definately was a great one. I

[Pop]

I'd put images of the Killing Fields or the concentration camps above it. Or pictures of nuclear tests.

[Yuusha]

Well today's the 6th of August, Hiroshima day. On this day 62 years ago terror and destruction marked the birth of the world's first superpower.

 

Click me if you dare.

[Walsingham]

Having slept on it, I agree with Pop. There are tonnes of fantastic images out there if you are looking to be moved. I have one which I think GDM will approve of.

 

 

 

 

NGOs trying to bring sense to the mass graves in Iraq are forced to give some graves nothing but a number. Estimates of how many of people were killed during the giddy years of peace before we invaded in our 'genocidal' action are between 200,000-300,000.

[Gorgon]

I wonder how that stacks up per annum versus the general death rate after the invasion. Hard to tell since the US and the Iraqi authority in their wisdom decided not to count.

 

Sadam was in power how many years, 20+ ?

Edited August 6, 2007 by Gorgon

[GreasyDogMeat]

I honestly have come to believe that you don't give a damn about what happened to the Japanese victims of the nuclear bombs. All they are is ugly pictures and statistics to feed your own anger and hatred towards the U.S. You remind me of those lawyers who represent a burglar who breaks into a store, injures himself in the process and then sues the store owner.

 

As for 'powerful' images... I'm not into images that show how much humanity sucks... especially not in this case when the sole purpose (of the OP) is to show how much the U.S. supposedly sucks.

 

The 'most powerful' images to me are images that show human imagination at work, scientific advancement... things like, as a previous poster mentioned, images from the hubble telescope.

[Gorgon]

uhh, me ?

[GreasyDogMeat]

No... Yuusha. He uses the atom bombs as his... 'mascot' for why he hates the U.S. government. I have nothing against people who feel the bombings were wrong and that they shouldn't have occurred, I actually enjoy discussing history, the whys and what ifs. To use WWII as a reason to hate current America and to obsess over the bombings just to enhance negative feelings bothers me though. In a way he acts like this just happened yesterday.

[Yuusha]

I honestly have come to believe that you don't give a damn about what happened to the Japanese victims of the nuclear bombs. All they are is ugly pictures and statistics to feed your own anger and hatred towards the U.S. You remind me of those lawyers who represent a burglar who breaks into a store, injures himself in the process and then sues the store owner.As for 'powerful' images... I'm not into images that show how much humanity sucks... especially not in this case when the sole purpose (of the OP) is to show how much the U.S. supposedly sucks.

 

The 'most powerful' images to me are images that show human imagination at work, scientific advancement... things like, as a previous poster mentioned, images from the hubble telescope.

Yeah I've heard of that story. Is that a true story or just an urban legend.

 

About the 'most powerful images' thing, it's a matter of opinion right?

 

And lastly, I do care about the victims of the bomb. I care a great deal. How can you even suggest that I do not?

[St_Jimmy]

How horrible we are to end one tragedy to simple start many more...

 

No... Yuusha. He uses the atom bombs as his... 'mascot' for why he hates the U.S. government. I have nothing against people who feel the bombings were wrong and that they shouldn't have occurred, I actually enjoy discussing history, the whys and what ifs. To use WWII as a reason to hate current America and to obsess over the bombings just to enhance negative feelings bothers me though. In a way he acts like this just happened yesterday.

 

In historical terms it was not that long ago.

 

U.S. did many things such as that in WWII

Edited August 6, 2007 by St_Jimmy

[Gorgon]

Everyone did.

 

Dresden, NanKing, Stalin's Purges, Auswitch etc.

Edited August 6, 2007 by Gorgon

[St_Jimmy]

Everyone did.

 

Dresden, NanKing, Stalin's Purges, Auswitch etc.

 

Thank you for proving my point.

 

As you see, we are not the indestructible super-troopers of the world. We aren't the international Superman that does no wrong.