NationStates

Non Aligned States wrote:You mean strategic bombing, like in oh say, Dresden, had much more finesse to it? I do recall that the city was razed to the ground. Where's your outrage to that hmm? Or how about any number of cities reduced to rubble by artillery? No outrage on that either?

Dresden wasn't strategic bombing. The British bombers carried a heavy proportion of incendiary devices, rather than a pure high-explosive payload, which they would have used for actual strategic bombing. So - even at take-off, it was already established what the nature of the attack was to be.

Dresden was retaliation for the firebombing that german bombers had carried out on British cities (like Coventry).

Was it an outrage? Oh yes. We deliberately targetted a city with a strategic target... but we deliberately did not target that strategic objective. Which means we wanted to kill people and cause damage to civlian structures.

The only defence for that outrage - is that it was a retaliation. Some mitigation, perhaps - but it doesn't make it alright.

I'm not sure what you wanted me to say.

Grave_n_idle wrote:

Galloism wrote:

Grave_n_idle wrote:Not irrelevent.

If it was just a symbol - we could have dropped 'Little Boy' and done what Truman DID - we could have said we were just going to keep dropping more until they surrendered. The fact that we dropped Little Boy, waited a few days and dropped Fat Man, suggests we WANTED to drop two bombs.

Perhaps, but you've produced no evidence that there was any motive besides the stated one. You have supplied conjecture, but no proof. Proof is something that you can cite as a quote from an authoritative source, or irrefutable logic as regards the situation. Since you have provided no quotes from any military or political personnel from the period that there was any other goal besides the stated one, and offered only conjecture by your own revisionist view of history, I'm calling "bullshit" until you trot out some proof.

So, because I'm saying something that doesn't match what the administration claimed and because the administration did not make declarations that what actually happened was not what had actually happened (crazy, I know) it's 'revisionism' (because, obviously, I'm actually rewriting the history here, rather than just claiming that the excuses used were false)?

Some of Truman's advisors told him to use Little Boy on barren areas. Some others claimed that Little Boy needed to be used on a settled area. That was an actual choice that was made - to drop a pure symbol, or to inflict massed casualties. We carefully positioned observors, and then repositioned them half a week later.

The logic suggests we wanted to kill people, rather than just scare people. The logic suggests we wanted to see what happened when you dropped nuclear devices on civlian areas (we'd already tested the technology here).

There is nothing revisionist or illogical about what I'm saying. It just doesn't match the propaganda you were raised on.

No, Galloism is quite right, you have nothing coming close to proof.

So I'll join him, bull fucking shit.

Let me repeat that, bull shit.

Do I need to do it again? Ok, bull shit.

You have nothing until you can come up with a source for your claims.

Grave_n_idle wrote:Dresden wasn't strategic bombing. The British bombers carried a heavy proportion of incendiary devices, rather than a pure high-explosive payload, which they would have used for actual strategic bombing. So - even at take-off, it was already established what the nature of the attack was to be.

Fail. Strategic bombing has nothing to do at all about what the payload is, so long as it's destructive and the objective is the large scale destruction of enemy war capacity.

Grave_n_idle wrote:Was it an outrage? Oh yes. We deliberately targetted a city with a strategic target... but we deliberately did not target that strategic objective. Which means we wanted to kill people and cause damage to civlian structures.

Dresden was a huge production center of military equipment for the 3rd Reich. It's destruction with incendiaries instead of explosives had little to do with terror bombing and everything to do with the fact that incendiaries would, and did, do greater damage to the city than explosives would have. More efficient destruction.

And in case you hadn't noticed, most munitions plants are civilian staffed and run, so your outrage is still stupid.

Oh, and you've not produced an ounce of proof for the bolded accusation either I see. Is this going to be a trend of yours? Make accusations and run away when proof is demanded?

Lacadaemon wrote:The government wanted to show that it wasn't a one trick pony with this thing. Especially to the Russians.

...who were closely monitoring the Manhattan Project, and pretty much knew exactly what America's capability was - as Truman found out when he tried to cow the Soviets at the Potsdam Conference.

Lacadaemon wrote:You have to remember that everyone sort of 'knew' about this stuff and had their own little pathetic programs, but they didn't know specifically what critical mass was or had solved the engineering problems required to produce enough fissile material. So it wouldn't have been inconceivable to think that all the US had was one bomb and it would take years to produce another.

You're about 4 years out of date - historians were positing in 2005 that Germany had already tested a nuclear weapons-potential technology. This idea of the US as atomic civilised beings lording it over nuclear barbarians is frankly laughable.

Lacadaemon wrote:As for dropping it on civilians that had to be done to show that the US prepared to do that sort of thing.

How circular. We had to drop it on people to show we were willing to drop it on people.

Interestingly - you are making a far more 'revisionist' claim than mine - you're effectively claiming we dropped nuclear technologies on two populated cities to prove we were committed.

Lacadaemon wrote:And really, since it prevented there being a North and South Japan, and therefore probably millions upon millions of casualties and all kinds of horribleness later on, it was a completely sensible thing to do under the circumstances.

Right.

America could be split in two by our economic woes. I assume you think the US should be nuked to prevent casualties. It is a completely sensible thing to do, under the circumstances... no?

Galloism wrote:Of course we wanted to kill people. You do that in war.

And, in Geneva, in 1949, we all agreed that it was wrong to do what we HAD done - you don't target civilians.

Galloism wrote:I believe someone pointed out that there was a major strategic military importance to both cities. We didn't think the bomb wouldn't kill anyone - we weren't born yesterday. However, we also had to show that we were capable of doing this, and we didn't have a whole lot of bombs to piss away with demonstrations out in barren areas. We had two bombs, and only two bombs.

In the event that Japan refused to capitulate even after the bombs, we didn't want to piss one away when we could take out a viable military target - production of military equipment and a base for military troops.

Now you're making something of a mockery of your own defence. If we couldn't back the threat, then the threat was hollow ANYWAY. If we dropped one bomb on a blank slate, there was no capitulation, and THEN we dropped anothe bomb on city, that would have shown the resolve, the inent, and that we had more than one device. Same result - half the civilian populations centres - and the potential to force a capitulation by deploying a nuclear threat without killing anyone.

Grave_n_idle wrote:Now you're making something of a mockery of your own defence. If we couldn't back the threat, then the threat was hollow ANYWAY. If we dropped one bomb on a blank slate, there was no capitulation, and THEN we dropped anothe bomb on city, that would have shown the resolve, the inent, and that we had more than one device. Same result - half the civilian populations centres - and the potential to force a capitulation by deploying a nuclear threat without killing anyone.

There was no surrender after the first bomb. It only appeared after the second. And even then, I do believe there was a failed coup attempt to prevent the surrender. So once again, your outrage is the mental masturbation of someone pretending to be a moral elitist with no bearing on the realities of history.

Grave_n_idle wrote:

Galloism wrote:Of course we wanted to kill people. You do that in war.

And, in Geneva, in 1949, we all agreed that it was wrong to do what we HAD done - you don't target civilians.

4 years later. In 1945, it was not only accepted military practice, but done by every power in the war. The brits did it, the germans did it, the japanese did it, the russians did it, and I suspect the italians did it. I don't know that last one for a fact, but I suspect it.

Grave_n_idle wrote:Now you're making something of a mockery of your own defence. If we couldn't back the threat, then the threat was hollow ANYWAY. If we dropped one bomb on a blank slate, there was no capitulation, and THEN we dropped anothe bomb on city, that would have shown the resolve, the inent, and that we had more than one device. Same result - half the civilian populations centres - and the potential to force a capitulation by deploying a nuclear threat without killing anyone.

Of course it was a hollow threat. However, it was a threat that worked. As they say in Poker, "You don't need to be holding four aces if your opponent thinks you're holding four aces." They took out two viable military targets, engaged in a campaign to cripple the Japanese will to fight, and issued a (ultimately hollow) threat that we could keep doing this until all of Japan was a destroyed ruin.

If the Japanese refused to surrender, we took out two viable military targets and weakened their ability to fight.
If the Japanese did surrender, we saved many lives on both the Japanese and the American side.

However, all of this is irrelevant. You have claimed in this thread (and others) that we were field testing the devices to see which was better, and that we were showcasing to the Russians what we could do and it had nothing to do with the Japanese at all. You have made these two claims repeatedly with no proof. Now, gimme some proof.

Grave_n_idle wrote:

Galloism wrote:Of course we wanted to kill people. You do that in war.

And, in Geneva, in 1949, we all agreed that it was wrong to do what we HAD done - you don't target civilians.

Galloism wrote:I believe someone pointed out that there was a major strategic military importance to both cities. We didn't think the bomb wouldn't kill anyone - we weren't born yesterday. However, we also had to show that we were capable of doing this, and we didn't have a whole lot of bombs to piss away with demonstrations out in barren areas. We had two bombs, and only two bombs.

In the event that Japan refused to capitulate even after the bombs, we didn't want to piss one away when we could take out a viable military target - production of military equipment and a base for military troops.

Now you're making something of a mockery of your own defence. If we couldn't back the threat, then the threat was hollow ANYWAY. If we dropped one bomb on a blank slate, there was no capitulation, and THEN we dropped anothe bomb on city, that would have shown the resolve, the inent, and that we had more than one device. Same result - half the civilian populations centres - and the potential to force a capitulation by deploying a nuclear threat without killing anyone.

Only if you ignore what the Japanese were saying at the time, like say the minister of war who refused to admit that Hiroshima was an atomic bomb and attempted to explain it away as a natural disaster. He changed his tune after Nagasaki.

NERVUN wrote:

Grave_n_idle wrote:

Galloism wrote:Perhaps, but you've produced no evidence that there was any motive besides the stated one. You have supplied conjecture, but no proof. Proof is something that you can cite as a quote from an authoritative source, or irrefutable logic as regards the situation. Since you have provided no quotes from any military or political personnel from the period that there was any other goal besides the stated one, and offered only conjecture by your own revisionist view of history, I'm calling "bullshit" until you trot out some proof.

So, because I'm saying something that doesn't match what the administration claimed and because the administration did not make declarations that what actually happened was not what had actually happened (crazy, I know) it's 'revisionism' (because, obviously, I'm actually rewriting the history here, rather than just claiming that the excuses used were false)?

Some of Truman's advisors told him to use Little Boy on barren areas. Some others claimed that Little Boy needed to be used on a settled area. That was an actual choice that was made - to drop a pure symbol, or to inflict massed casualties. We carefully positioned observors, and then repositioned them half a week later.

The logic suggests we wanted to kill people, rather than just scare people. The logic suggests we wanted to see what happened when you dropped nuclear devices on civlian areas (we'd already tested the technology here).

There is nothing revisionist or illogical about what I'm saying. It just doesn't match the propaganda you were raised on.

No, Galloism is quite right, you have nothing coming close to proof.

So I'll join him, bull fucking shit.

Let me repeat that, bull shit.

Do I need to do it again? Ok, bull shit.

You have nothing until you can come up with a source for your claims.

If it's 'bullshit' then there can be no evidence... which is, of course, what you (were raised to) expect.

However, Truman's own personal writings reveal that HE fully believed that Japan were going to surrender anyway - and not only were our own forces aware of this, but many important people (especially in the military) were telling Truman NOT to attack civilian centres, and agressively condemned the move after the fact. Add to that - experts believed that Truman was lying about the risk of lost American lives if we HAD engaged militarily. One evaluation suggested that a WORST-case scenario for American casualties... would have been less than 50,000. We actually LOST American lives because we refused to entertain the ONE Japanese concern for surrender (survival of the Emperor) until AFTER the two bombs were dropped.

It's interesting - there's a lot of evidence out there (that people like you and Gallo ignore). The only place where I am saying anything even vaguely revolutionary - is that most scholars argue the tests were designed to scare the soviets, rather than just to test the weapons.

And this 'exploded myth' isn't new - here's an article from 15 years ago:

http://www.csmonitor.com/1992/0806/06191.html

Non Aligned States wrote:There was no surrender after the first bomb. It only appeared after the second.

The Japanese had offered surrender earlier that year, with only one request - survival of the Emperor.

Grave_n_idle wrote:...who were closely monitoring the Manhattan Project, and pretty much knew exactly what America's capability was - as Truman found out when he tried to cow the Soviets at the Potsdam Conference.

No he didn't find that out, at all. He had no idea of the extent of Soviet penetration of the Manhattan project and it wasn't discovered until years later. It's easy to second guess now when you can see everyone's cards but that wasn't the situation then.

You're about 4 years out of date - historians were positing in 2005 that Germany had already tested a nuclear weapons-potential technology. This idea of the US as atomic civilised beings lording it over nuclear barbarians is frankly laughable.

No, the Germans hadn't. In fact they still hadn't figured out what critical mass was. They had a small program that lacked the resources and scientific depth of the US project. They just didn't have the industrial base. As for the claim that they had tested nuclear weapons-potential technology it refers to a radiological device - dirty bomb - and not a fission bomb, and in any case was not supported by further investigation.

How circular. We had to drop it on people to show we were willing to drop it on people.

Really yeah. America did have a reputation for being gun-shy. Daylight bombing, lack of forced labor camps &c. Dropping it on some empty land would have just played into the propaganda. Truman had to back up his threat of total destruction (which the Japanese had pointedly shrugged off).

America could be split in two by our economic woes. I assume you think the US should be nuked to prevent casualties. It is a completely sensible thing to do, under the circumstances... no?

Well that's a complete non-sequitur.

Galloism wrote:However, all of this is irrelevant. You have claimed in this thread (and others) that we were field testing the devices to see which was better, and that we were showcasing to the Russians what we could do and it had nothing to do with the Japanese at all. You have made these two claims repeatedly with no proof. Now, gimme some proof.

And the only 'evidence' you have, is the fact that the administration claimed a certain thing. Well, there's a clinching proof.

Lacadaemon wrote:No he didn't find that out, at all. He had no idea of the extent of Soviet penetration of the Manhattan project and it wasn't discovered until years later. It's easy to second guess now when you can see everyone's cards but that wasn't the situation then.

Stalin's complete lack of interest in what Truman had been hoping was going to be his trump card suggests otherwise.

All Truman ended up doing was accelerating the Soviet project.

Lacadaemon wrote:Well that's a complete non-sequitur.

Uh huh.

You made a nonsensical claim, and I showed it was nonsensical by applying it to another target, which immediately showed how arbitrary you were being.

How is this any different than a guy fucking a blow-up doll?

Milks Empire wrote:How is this any different than a guy fucking a blow-up doll?

Because this is all about 'those crazy Japanese'.

North Suran wrote:

Omega Uliza wrote:

North Suran wrote:This is why we should have dropped a third bomb.

This is a joke, for the love of God.

Cute...hiding the joke part.

A joke tends to lose its punch if you have explain it.

I didn't expect people to take a comment like that as an advocation of genocide.

It doesn't help that NSG in the past had posters who argued in favor of genocide and weren't joking. (If you went and made a new nation again hi Deep Whispering Eve Kimchi.) Maybe joking about genocide isn't a good idea.

NERVUN wrote:Only if you ignore what the Japanese were saying at the time, like say the minister of war who refused to admit that Hiroshima was an atomic bomb and attempted to explain it away as a natural disaster. He changed his tune after Nagasaki.

Anami Korechika was not typical, and actually opposed even Hirohito until he was expressly ordered otherwise. At which point he conceded... and then killed himself.

Grave_n_idle wrote:

Milks Empire wrote:How is this any different than a guy fucking a blow-up doll?

Because this is all about 'those crazy Japanese'.

I'm sure this isn't limited to "those crazy Japanese" and that many American men have done something very similar.

Gauthier wrote:

North Suran wrote:This is why we should have dropped a third bomb.

And the only entertainment console in the world would all be from Microsoft. Isn't that delightful?

Think about it this way, at least Microsoft would be making "the best" entertainment consoles in the world!

Grave_n_idle wrote:

Non Aligned States wrote:You mean strategic bombing, like in oh say, Dresden, had much more finesse to it? I do recall that the city was razed to the ground. Where's your outrage to that hmm? Or how about any number of cities reduced to rubble by artillery? No outrage on that either?

Dresden wasn't strategic bombing. The British bombers carried a heavy proportion of incendiary devices, rather than a pure high-explosive payload, which they would have used for actual strategic bombing. So - even at take-off, it was already established what the nature of the attack was to be.

Dresden was retaliation for the firebombing that german bombers had carried out on British cities (like Coventry).

Was it an outrage? Oh yes. We deliberately targetted a city with a strategic target... but we deliberately did not target that strategic objective. Which means we wanted to kill people and cause damage to civlian structures.

The only defence for that outrage - is that it was a retaliation. Some mitigation, perhaps - but it doesn't make it alright.

I'm not sure what you wanted me to say.

I think they're looking for a list of every attack ever that you find to be an atrocity. However can we PLEASE split this to it's own thread and keep this one on topic?

That Jessica Rabbit sure was hot wasn't she?

Milks Empire wrote:

Grave_n_idle wrote:

Milks Empire wrote:How is this any different than a guy fucking a blow-up doll?

Because this is all about 'those crazy Japanese'.

I'm sure this isn't limited to "those crazy Japanese" and that many American men have done something very similar.

No, no, no. Americans don't even masturbate. Women orgasm spontaneously from the mere existence of American penises.

Grave_n_idle wrote:The Japanese had offered surrender earlier that year, with only one request - survival of the Emperor.

This is a blatant lie.

You're also ignoring the coup attempt I see.

Milks Empire wrote:

Grave_n_idle wrote:

Milks Empire wrote:How is this any different than a guy fucking a blow-up doll?

Because this is all about 'those crazy Japanese'.

I'm sure this isn't limited to "those crazy Japanese" and that many American men have done something very similar.

I don't know that it's taken as far as the subject of the article but a google image search with the subject "Rule 34" should be educational.

Grave_n_idle wrote:

Milks Empire wrote:I'm sure this isn't limited to "those crazy Japanese" and that many American men have done something very similar.

No, no, no. Americans don't even masturbate. Women orgasm spontaneously from the mere existence of American penises.

That's because American penis soooooooo big, Japanese penis sooooooo tiny. /southpark reference.

Redwulf wrote:

Grave_n_idle wrote:

Milks Empire wrote:I'm sure this isn't limited to "those crazy Japanese" and that many American men have done something very similar.

No, no, no. Americans don't even masturbate. Women orgasm spontaneously from the mere existence of American penises.

That's because American penis soooooooo big, Japanese penis sooooooo tiny. /southpark reference.

We need a smiley that combines with .