# h



## Tamok123 (Apr 23, 2010)

h


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## LizardKing (Apr 23, 2010)

OKay so great, a lot of copy and paste, what exactly is  your [point?


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## Smelge (Apr 23, 2010)

Am I supposed to read that?

Yes, the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people is terrible, but on the bright side, they died in the most awesome way imaginable.


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## Willow (Apr 23, 2010)

The fuck?


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## Smelge (Apr 23, 2010)

I think there's a very real correlation between massive amounts of nuclear fallout over Japan, and the advent of anime and tentacle rape.


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## Ilayas (Apr 23, 2010)

Voidrunners said:


> Am I supposed to read that?
> 
> Yes, the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people is terrible, but on the bright side, they died in the most awesome way imaginable.



Not really.  The majority of the people that died didn't die in the initial blast.  It was mostly from horrible horrible radiation burns and cancer.


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## anthroguy101 (Apr 23, 2010)

Yeah, I get it.  The Atom Bomb shortened the war by 4 years and saved millions of lives.  I've heard it before.


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## Kangamutt (Apr 23, 2010)

Voidrunners said:


> I think there's a very real correlation between massive amounts of nuclear fallout over Japan, and the advent of anime and tentacle rape.



Mutant squid coming ashore to rape the wives of fishermen while they're out at sea is no laughing matter. >:[


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## Xipoid (Apr 23, 2010)

And the premise is...


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## Smelge (Apr 23, 2010)

Ilayas said:


> Not really.  The majority of the people that died didn't die in the initial blast.  It was mostly from horrible horrible radiation burns and cancer.



Which was caused by an atomic explosion. Which is awesome.

Gawd, it's a nuclear weapon. Anything related to nuclear is automatically awesome, even if it's deadly. Chaotic Awesome.


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## anthroguy101 (Apr 23, 2010)

Xipoid said:


> And the premise is...


Though many of us thought it was a horrible act, it would have been far worse to lengthen the war by not using it.</story>


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## Smelge (Apr 23, 2010)

Actually, I was under the impression it was more like this:

Japan: LOL WE GIV UP! 2 bord naow
USA: FuK u! eEt Nukez
Japan: oHNoes! Aghz!
USA: LAWL WE WINS


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## Xipoid (Apr 23, 2010)

anthroguy101 said:


> Though many of us thought it was a horrible act, it would have been far worse to lengthen the war by not using it.</story>




I always felt that was something of common knowledge. I suppose the history book in question had quite a biased view.


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## Smelge (Apr 23, 2010)

The history books are written by the victors. So of course it'll say that dropping the bombs was the right thing to do. Of course Hitler is evil. Even though the war is done, it's still propoganda to gloss over what the winners did in the war.

For example, very few people know that Hitler was a member of the Womens Institute, regularly donated to charity and was an avid flower-presser.


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## Ilayas (Apr 23, 2010)

Voidrunners said:


> Actually, I was under the impression it was more like this:
> 
> Japan: LOL WE GIV UP! 2 bord naow
> USA: FuK u! eEt Nukez
> ...



It's more like 

Japan: Holy shit the Americans have a horrible death weapon and the Russians are kicking our ass in China.  Quick lets surrender to the Americans before the Russians get us. 

Cus lets be honest who would YOU rather surrender to?


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## Smelge (Apr 23, 2010)

Ilayas said:


> It's more like
> 
> Japan: Holy shit the Americans have a horrible death weapon and the Russians are kicking our ass in China.  Quick lets surrender to the Americans before the Russians get us.
> 
> Cus lets be honest who would YOU rather surrender to?



They were unaware the US had a horrible death weapon.

It was a morning like any other morning. Mr Yugosaki, mayor of Hiroshima was sitting down and having a quick 38 minute tea ritual when suddenly there was a faint whistling. "What the fuck is tha-


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## anthroguy101 (Apr 23, 2010)

Look, the way I understood it, these Japanese people were not going to quit.  They had a very strict code of honor and dishonor, and they considered quitting VERY dishonorable.  Had the bomb not been used, the war would have dragged on much longer and the death tolls would have been much higher on both sides.  Some estimate that millions more troops would have died.

Only after the bomb was dropped did the emperor finally cooperate.  Even with that kind of threat, many people were _still_ very disappointed when he finally caved in.


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## Smelge (Apr 23, 2010)

anthroguy101 said:


> many people were _very_ disappointed when he finally caved in.



Yes. And many people were shadows pasted up walls around downtown.


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## Xipoid (Apr 23, 2010)

Voidrunners said:


> The history books are written by the victors. So of course it'll say that dropping the bombs was the right thing to do. Of course Hitler is evil. Even though the war is done, it's still propoganda to gloss over what the winners did in the war.
> 
> For example, very few people know that Hitler was a member of the Womens Institute, regularly donated to charity and was an avid flower-presser.



There's a lot of WWII that isn't spoken about much. Not too many people I meet know about Unit 731 or the firebombings of Japanese cities. I'm not going to comment on what was right or not.


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## Ricky (Apr 23, 2010)

Lots of words in the OP :roll:

Looking at the comments though I think I understand where it's coming from.

Although I agree it was effective I don't think I could ever agree it justified killing so many innocent people.


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## Smelge (Apr 23, 2010)

Ricky said:


> I don't think I could ever agree it justified killing so many innocent people.



Rule 1: No-one is innocent.

The first thing you do in war, is destroy the enemy infrastructure. If they can't produce new weapons of war, they're fucked. Unfortunately, japan had this nasty habit of using themselves as weapons. So we went for their baby-factories.


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## Xipoid (Apr 23, 2010)

Tamok123 said:


> And the artical isn't "biased", it shows both sides and clearly tells us how fucked over the US would be if we assaulted the Japanese mainland. Why don't you actually look up the definition of a word before you throw it around.




I presume you are referring to me as I am the only person who used the word "biased". I said I supposed the history book that the article is speaking of had a biased view, not the article itself.


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## TreacleFox (Apr 23, 2010)

I like this bomb: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba
1,400 times the combined power the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima  and Nagasaki. o=​


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## Tao (Apr 23, 2010)

I personally prefer the sex bomb.


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## Kommodore (Apr 23, 2010)

I though the article was pretty interesting actually, I knew just about none of that prior to reading it. No real point to the thread tho. 



Meadow said:


> I like this bomb: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba
> 1,400 times the combined power the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima  and Nagasaki. o=​



Yeah but there are, like, 2 pictures of it. You never get to see the explosion itself like the smaller but better documented American bombs. That alone makes it a garbage bomb.


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## Zontar (Apr 23, 2010)

Tamok123 said:


> [SIZE=+1]I for one support the droppings of the bomb, and I found an article that basically sums up my thoughts on it.
> 
> ----
> This article was written by USS SLC WWII Veteran H. H. Jaekel in 1996 to the University on behalf of his granddaughter when he found out what a text book she was using said about the dropping of the atomic bomb. [/SIZE]
> ...


 
 This post is a lot funnier if you imagine Yakety Sax playing while you read it.


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## Surgat (Apr 23, 2010)

anthroguy101 said:


> Look, the way I understood it, these Japanese people were not going to quit.



They had been trying to reach a peace agreement for a while, actually; they just didn't want to surrender unconditionally. 

The reason they dropped the bombs (and did not accept anything less than an unconditional surrender) was to intimidate the Soviets by letting them know we possessed, mass-produced, and were willing to use nukes. 



Voidrunners said:


> Rule 1: No-one is innocent.
> 
> The first thing you do in war, is destroy the enemy infrastructure. If they can't produce new weapons of war, they're fucked. Unfortunately, japan had this nasty habit of using themselves as weapons. So we went for their baby-factories.





Tamok123 said:


> And if you want to talk about killing innocents, the Japanese closed down schools and armed the children.



Though I don't have statistics or anything, most Japanese children at the time probably weren't used for suicide missions, and the overwhelming majority of adult individuals in cities like Hiroshima were undoubtedly non-combatants. 

Killing a non-combatant is just murder. You can't call it an atrocity when enemy soldiers kill non-combatants, and then turn around and say it's alright when your guys do the same thing. You've got to be consistent.


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## capthavoc123 (Apr 23, 2010)

Voidrunners said:


> They were unaware the US had a horrible death weapon.
> 
> It was a morning like any other morning. Mr Yugosaki, mayor of Hiroshima was sitting down and having a quick 38 minute tea ritual when suddenly there was a faint whistling. "What the fuck is tha-



That's actually not true. The US warned Japan about a week in advance what they were going to do, and the Japanese government refused to believe it. They even dropped leaflets over the Japanese countryside to inform the citizens.



			
				Surgat said:
			
		

> The reason they dropped the bombs (and did not accept anything less than an unconditional surrender) was to intimidate the Soviets by letting them know we possessed, mass-produced, and were willing to use nukes.



It was a really stupid risk, too, even though it worked, because after Nagasaki we were out of nukes and wouldn't have any for a while after that. Little Boy and Fat Man were the only operational warheads that hadn't been used for testing.


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## Mulefa Zalif (Apr 24, 2010)

Voidrunners said:


> Am I supposed to read that?
> 
> Yes, the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people is terrible, but on the bright side, they died in the most awesome way imaginable.


radiation sickness = awesome!


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## TashkentFox (Apr 24, 2010)

TL;DR

Anyway, now for my opinion, Japan was basically finished by the time of the atomic bombings, all they could do by then was stage a defensive war against the threat of occupation of the Home Islands, Tokyo had already been completely levelled by US air attacks and the Japanese Navy was in ruins. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were little more than an act of revenge and are not morally justifiable.


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## auzbuzzard (Apr 24, 2010)

Why no one caters for the Chinese who died in the war?

Btw Chinese history in class is teaching this stage. I'll ask my teacher what she thinks.


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## TashkentFox (Apr 24, 2010)

auzbuzzard said:


> Why no one caters for the Chinese who died in the war?
> 
> Btw Chinese history in class is teaching this stage. I'll ask my teacher what she thinks.



The PRC doesn't like Chiang Kai-Shek, even though he led the Chinese resistance, so it wouldn't surprise me if they've edited the true history.


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## auzbuzzard (Apr 24, 2010)

TashkentFox said:


> The PRC doesn't like Chiang Kai-Shek, even though he led the Chinese resistance, so it wouldn't surprise me if they've edited the true history.



Actually the two parties agreed to fight together. Well, surely the Xi'an incident did most of the job but both were fighting for the life and death of the nation. 

I don't think the gov would cover this story. It doesn't need to.


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## TashkentFox (Apr 24, 2010)

auzbuzzard said:


> Actually the two parties agreed to fight together. Well, surely the Xi'an incident did most of the job but both were fighting for the life and death of the nation.
> 
> I don't think the gov would cover this story. It doesn't need to.



I know, but then the communists and the nationalists started fighting again after the war and Kai-shek's government fled to the island of Formosa leading to frosty relations between the PRC and the west for the next 30 years.


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## GoldenJackal (Apr 24, 2010)

This happened 65 years ago.

It's kinda like arguing over whether bell-bottom pants were a good idea.


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## kyle19 (Apr 24, 2010)

Ilayas said:


> Not really.  The majority of the people that died didn't die in the initial blast.  It was mostly from horrible horrible radiation burns and cancer.



Though alot of people died from radiation burns. There were thousands that were buried in their wooden houses and burned alive by the fire that razed the city. 

And read the book Hiroshima, it's a really good nonfiction book with personal accounts of survivors.


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## auzbuzzard (Apr 24, 2010)

War is war. No way it can be humane.


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## ValiantWolf (Apr 24, 2010)

Even though i agree it was a good idea to drop the atomic bombs, i am wayyyyyy to lazy to read all the info you posted


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## Stargazer Bleu (Apr 24, 2010)

Bombs and weapons like this should never be used.

Tho i guess it did help lead to the end of the war.


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## TashkentFox (Apr 24, 2010)

Stargazer Bleu said:


> Tho i guess it did help lead to the end of the war.



No it didn't, the war was already lost, the Japanese had been driven out of China and Korea and their navy was in ruins, by the end all Japan was fighting for was to prevent American occupation.


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## TreacleFox (Apr 24, 2010)

:|


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## yiffytimesnews (Apr 24, 2010)

I look at it this way, according to the experts if the Allies did actually invade Japan 1,000,000 soldiers would of died. Now ask yourself what was worst.


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## CynicalCirno (Apr 24, 2010)

Nobody cares about Japan and Atomic bombs now.

It's the cheap Iran's nuclear bombs that make us laugh now and lmao at their poor technology while the USA and us have PURE technology.

Though, I don't understand how can those small bombs can carry 10-50 megatons? It's 1,000,000 kilograms. HOW? Can nuclear be compressed this much? Though, nuclear is energy and not an element. Weird.


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## TreacleFox (Apr 24, 2010)

CynicalCirno said:


> Nobody cares about Japan and Atomic bombs now.
> 
> It's the cheap Iran's nuclear bombs that make us laugh now and lmao at their poor technology while the USA and us have PURE technology.
> 
> Though, I don't understand how can those small bombs can carry 10-50 megatons? It's 1,000,000 kilograms. HOW? Can nuclear be compressed this much? Though, nuclear is energy and not an element. Weird.



They dont weigh that much, its a measurement of how powerfull they are -.- (the TNT equivalent)


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## CynicalCirno (Apr 24, 2010)

Meadow said:


> They dont weigh that much, its a measurement of how powerfull they are -.- (the TNT equivalent)



Sorry I am not a nuclear expert, Professor Smartypantsdragon.
Or a basic nuclear fangirl.

Though, I have read about the measurements of weight. Megatons are 1000 tons, and that's why I'd think a bomb weights so much.

Megatons do not equal power.

The weight measurements is probably of all the atoms weight after the decompression of the bomb.


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## TreacleFox (Apr 24, 2010)

CynicalCirno said:


> Sorry I am not a nuclear expert, Professor Smartypantsdragon.
> Or a basic nuclear fangirl.
> 
> Though, I have read about the measurements of weight. Megatons are 1000 tons, and that's why I'd think a bomb weights so much.
> ...



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT_equivalent


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## CynicalCirno (Apr 24, 2010)

Meadow said:


> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT_equivalent



I was talking about different tons then.
I am not an explosives fan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonne

We write 'tons' and 'tonnes' the same in hebrew, so I never knew to begin with.


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## BroadSmak (Apr 24, 2010)

TNT equivalient is almost common knowledge, even I know what it means 

Didn't read OP, but dropping an atomic bomb on japan when they pretty much already won..


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## Browder (Apr 24, 2010)

GoldenJackal said:


> This happened 65 years ago.
> 
> It's kinda like arguing over whether bell-bottom pants were a good idea.



Bell-bottoms haven't killed millions of people and altered an entire cultural standard. At least not to my knowledge.



kyle19 said:


> And read the book Hiroshima, it's a really good nonfiction book with personal accounts of survivors.



^This is good advice. Read that book all the way back in middle school and picked it up two years ago. Still a good read.

To adress OP: I don't know whether or not it was justified. It was war. Shit happens in war and the lines of morality get blurry very fast.


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## CrazyLee (Apr 24, 2010)

OP: TL;DR

I'm not exactly sure how anyone can justify the murder of innocent civilians. Targeting specific military targets is one thing, but using a bomb that would knowingly destroy everything within several square miles of the target seems cruel. When I read the horror stories of survivors of Hiroshima, I actually got physically sick. It was the most horrible thing imaginable.

And I counteract your statement that Hiroshima saved more lives than it killed. Was there any proof that the alternative invasion would have caused any more death than the two nuclear weapons?

And in any case, if the invasion would have gone through as planed, even if more people had died, they would have been SOLDIERS. People trained to die in combat. People with weapons to at least defend themselves. People who know they're going to die.

So, what's worse. Soldiers dying during an invasion of Japan? Or civilians dying because we decided to take the easy route, turn a city into a radioactive crater, and melt their skin off? What's more justified, letting millions of US soldiers die, or letting thousands of Japanese civilians die?

But oh wait.... that's right... back then Japanese were NON CAUCASIAN, thus lesser than the True Blue Caucasians of the USA. Who cares if we kill lots of non-white people. (see: Vietnam)


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## Browder (Apr 24, 2010)

CrazyLee said:


> OP: TL;DR
> 
> I'm not exactly sure how anyone can justify the murder of innocent civilians. Targeting specific military targets is one thing, but using a bomb that would knowingly destroy everything within several square miles of the target seems cruel. When I read the horror stories of survivors of Hiroshima, I actually got physically sick. It was the most horrible thing imaginable.
> 
> ...



You've got to remember that it wasn't just the U.S. The Japanese were pretty much torturing Asia. Singapore, Asia's melting pot, still harbors ill feelings to the Japanese because of what they did to their country in the war. It indeed have saved more lives. 

But your right to think that the U.S. probably only thinking of it's own citizens.


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## capthavoc123 (Apr 24, 2010)

CrazyLee said:


> I'm not exactly sure how anyone can justify the murder of innocent civilians. Targeting specific military targets is one thing, but using a bomb that would knowingly destroy everything within several square miles of the target seems cruel.



Hiroshima and Nagasaki were both highly industrialized cities that provided a significant portion of materials and finished products for the Japanese military. They were definitely targets of significant military value.



			
				CrazyLee said:
			
		

> And I counteract your statement that Hiroshima saved more lives than it killed. Was there any proof that the alternative invasion would have caused any more death than the two nuclear weapons?



There can never be concrete proof because an invasion was never initiated, but based off of the contemporary evaluation of Japanese military strength, training, skill, and will, as well as by extrapolating from losses in the Pacific theater, they were able to make an educated estimate. Conservative estimates had the casualties at 200,000 Japanese and American military and civilian deaths in an invasion and occupation, and realistic estimates placed the numbers somewhere above 500,000, with the high estimates going up to a million. This of course does not account for property and environmental damage.



			
				CrazyLee said:
			
		

> And in any case, if the invasion would have gone through as planed, even if more people had died, they would have been SOLDIERS. People trained to die in combat. People with weapons to at least defend themselves. People who know they're going to die.



This is really a telling display of your naivete when it comes to war. In ANY type of war that takes place in a populated area, whether it's a bombing campaign or an invasion, civilians are ALWAYS killed in higher numbers than soldiers. The only way to avoid civilian deaths is to fight in a remote location or to not have a war in the first place.



			
				CrazyLee said:
			
		

> But oh wait.... that's right... back then Japanese were NON CAUCASIAN, thus lesser than the True Blue Caucasians of the USA. Who cares if we kill lots of non-white people. (see: Vietnam)



They started the war, they massacred Chinese/Korean/Pacific Islander civilians, they viewed us exactly the same way, etc., etc., etc. Point is, you're looking for a racially-biased motivation when there's really no evidence of such.


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## Tycho (Apr 24, 2010)

The bombs were not necessary.  The Japanese Empire was very much on the brink of collapse and was fighting a war of desperation, which they would not be able to do for much longer.  Many of their major cities had been hammered with incendiary bombs dropped from B-29s flying frequent sorties over the Japanese mainland.  Their losses were massive at this point, their supply of well-trained pilots and soldiers nearly exhausted, being reinforced with relatively green pilots being sent on kamikaze missions more often than not, and green soldiers.  IIRC Hirohito had already capitulated (don't know if he had done any paper-signing on the decks of American ships yet) and only the last most stubborn elements of the Japanese military were still fighting, driven by pride and desperation.

It might be argued that were it not for the bombs the loss of human life would have been greater as American soldiers attempted an invasion of the Japanese mainland.  I personally think that's bullshit.  Less American casualties perhaps.  Less Japanese casualties, NO.  The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were simply live tests on real targets, both to assess effectiveness AND send a message to Stalin regarding the ever-growing threat to American power abroad being posed by the Soviets and what we could and would do in the event of military conflict with them - posturing and saber-rattling.  

The accelerated COMPLETE submission of the Japanese military was perhaps a small bonus at most, and likely a thin veiling of their true motives at best.  US generals have never been terribly squeamish about tossing US troops into meatgrinders where they thought it served their ends.  Old men sending young men to die.

I personally think the use of atomic weapons was not warranted and was morally reprehensible.  But morality in warfare is nigh-on meaningless.

The only "good thing" to come from it was the realization of the horrors nuclear war would bring.


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## Telnac (Apr 24, 2010)

Voidrunners said:


> Am I supposed to read that?
> 
> Yes, the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people is terrible, but on the bright side, they died in the most awesome way imaginable.


This!  If I have to die, death by nuke is the way to go.  

Well, if you're on ground zero, that is.  There were many thousands who slowly died from massive internal and external injuries, being burned alive in the firestorm, trapped by rubble and slowly dying of lack of food or water... not to mention the radiation poisoning!  How they died is significantly less awesome.

All that said, nuking Japan to end the war was the right thing to do.  An invasion of the Japanese core islands would have cost far more lives than the nukes did, and it would have caused far more damage too.  And despite what many people think, the Japanese were _*not*_ going to just roll over and surrender.  Women and children were being trained to use spears, knives, guns... whatever they could find, to fight the US invasion to the death.  Yeah, they'd be no match for the veteran US infantry, but they'd fight anyway.  An invasion of Japan would have killed millions of Japanese civilians.


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## Thatch (Apr 24, 2010)

Tycho said:


> words



War analitics of the time estimated, that an invasion of japan would cause about 1,5 million casualties for the allies. Now ,if you were a military leader, what would you rather sacrifice to end the war, a couple tens of thousands enemy civilians, or over a million of your own troops?


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## Tycho (Apr 24, 2010)

szopaw said:


> War analitics of the time estimated, that an invasion of japan would cause about 1,5 million casualties for the allies. Now ,if you were a military leader, what would you rather sacrifice to end the war, a couple tens of thousands enemy civilians, or over a million of your own troops?



I look at those numbers with a skeptical eye.  It's not difficult to make figures fib.

I personally do not hold as vehement a position against the killing of civilians in warfare as SOME other people - they are ultimately part of the pillar that supports the fighting men in any military.  Total war, as brutal and horrific as it is, has the potential to cut wars much shorter than they would be otherwise - the phrase "It is good that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it" (something like that) applies in such a case.  Total war also offends the sensibilities and morality/ethics of most modern human beings - the psychological burden a soldier carries home after a war is already great, you can imagine how being party to the killing of women and children, in whose faces he might see the faces of his own loved ones, can tax the mind.  

Vietnam had more than a few cases of this, as the Viet Cong were known to employ "innocents" and had numerous boys under the age of 18 (*well* under sometimes) in their ranks.  American soldiers committed atrocities due to the paranoia that these VC tactics inspired - you simply could not know who had a weapon pointed at you, who would reveal your position to a VC squad.  It is no fault of the soldiers, really - this is something the VC was very deliberately doing, both for the purposes of propaganda and psychological warfare.

It may have saved the lives of many a soldier but the horrible taste that the bombings leave in my mouth will never cease to be.  War is a very terrible thing, and atomic war is utterly horrifying.  I would not wish death upon our soldiers or theirs, honestly, but they were fighting men, prepared to fight and die.


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## Thatch (Apr 24, 2010)

Tycho said:


> but they were fighting men, prepared to fight and die.



Common misconception. Many amercain soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan aren't prepared to fight, let alone to die (shellshock, anyone?). The british are full professional now, but they had the same kind of conscripts at the time of WW2. Those are no Special Forces we're talking about, but people like you an me, who were needed to be quickly conscripted, showed how to use a gun and sent to the frontline. Most will feel migh and mighty when they're holding a gun, but suddenly find themselves only human once the bullets fly by.
Though to be fair, there were A LOT of people ready to fight AND die, but preferably only after taking most of the enemies with them.

And to be honest, I don't see the big difference people set between normal and nuclear warfare. You still kill and/or maim people with it, there's no place to feel any more moral, just because you aren't being efficient (ie. using nuclear warfare).


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## Xipoid (Apr 24, 2010)

Just a little heads-up to anyone wondering about being killed in a nuclear attack:

The world of nuclear war has taken a very efficient mentality. Everyone want the cheapest bomb with the largest effect. That leaves you with weapons in the 250-800 kT range being air burst. That means the fireball never touches (or comes that close to) the ground, where you would be, so no "instant vaporization". You are left only with options that are far less than painless. Short-lived if you are lucky.


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## Tycho (Apr 24, 2010)

szopaw said:


> And to be honest, I don't see the big difference people set between normal and nuclear warfare. You still kill and/or maim people with it, there's no place to feel any more moral, just because you aren't being efficient (ie. using nuclear warfare).



With the terrible efficiency nuclear warfare has, you face the issues of the complete dehumanization of thousands upon thousands of war casualties *magnified*, turned into statistics at the simple drop of a bomb.  It's not a pleasant thought, it can't be an easy decision to drop a bomb or launch a missile - at least I hope that it isn't.  To fight with rifle and bayonet, to see who you are killing, is something that would help PREVENT future wars (one might think) - I don't think many truly enjoy the prospect of ending a life.  To press a button and receive reports on paper of casualties and destruction - it makes warfare easier than it should be, perhaps.  Killing large amounts of people should not necessarily be an easy thing, not physically nor psychologically.


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## Kommodore (Apr 24, 2010)

Tycho said:


> The bombs were not necessary.



If the firebombings of Japan (that killed far more people than the nukes did) were unable to bring the total surrender of Japan, what makes you think that anything less than fear of total destruction would subdue them? It is one thing if thousands of bombs burn a city killing hundreds of thousands, it is another thing entirely when one bomb levels a city doing similar damage. It was before anything else a _psychological_ weapon aimed not only at the Japanese but as you mentioned the Ruskies as well. Japan was considering the terms of a conditional surrender, but there was no way in hell they were going to unconditionally surrender without first trying to defend their homeland from invasion. 

Experience had shown time and time again that the Japanese were not much for surrender. Do you _really_ think that they would just roll over and let their Homeland be occupied without a fight? That is ridiculous. They would have fought tooth and nail until they could fight no more, and in the meantime hundreds of thousands of Americans and Japanese would be dying. You may look skeptically on the figures they gave, and I do agree they seem a little inflated. However, this is one of those occasions where I would defer judgment to someone who has a little experience in the field. Their numbers may be off to be sure, but _we_ have no clue by how much and certainly can't put up a more accurate number. The point is, Japan would have been invaded, and it would have killed a lot of people. 

A lot of people that did not need to die. Suppose for a moment that the invasion of Japan would only kill as many Japanese as the bombs did. A ridiculous assumption but let's assume it anyway. In that scenario thousands of Americans would still have to die to make Japan surrender unconditionally. Why would any sane leader send his troops to die when he had a weapon that could win the war for him with no cost to his own troops? You can't seriously expect a general or a president to consider the lives of the enemy over those of his own troops, especially if they have been fighting a total war for years. 

No, the bombs may not have been needed to take Japan and force it to surrender. An invasion could have done that. What the bombs did was end the war then and there with no American casualties, and you could ask for nothing better as a general or national leader.

@Xipod I was under the impression that lower yield, less efficient bombs were still considered for strategic applications, area of denial and the like. Have they dropped that bomb design and simply stuck with more efficient bombs?


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## Azure (Apr 24, 2010)

auzbuzzard said:


> Actually the two parties agreed to fight together. Well, surely the Xi'an incident did most of the job but both were fighting for the life and death of the nation.
> 
> I don't think the gov would cover this story. It doesn't need to.


Your history class is probably so hopelessly edited and censored it's a joke. No offense or anything, but the Chinese are pretty well know for their revisionist tendencies about the recent past.


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## Thatch (Apr 24, 2010)

Tycho said:


> With the terrible efficiency nuclear warfare has, you face the issues of the complete dehumanization of thousands upon thousands of war casualties *magnified*, turned into statistics at the simple drop of a bomb.  It's not a pleasant thought, it can't be an easy decision to drop a bomb or launch a missile - at least I hope that it isn't.  To fight with rifle and bayonet, to see who you are killing, is something that would help PREVENT future wars (one might think) - I don't think many truly enjoy the prospect of ending a life.  To press a button and receive reports on paper of casualties and destruction - it makes warfare easier than it should be, perhaps.  Killing large amounts of people should not necessarily be an easy thing, not physically nor psychologically.



How many generals are fighting with a rifle and a bayonet? You're confusing the button pushers with common footsoldiers. Giving an order and recieving a report on casualties IS their war. The only thing they have to care about, is for the statistics to be favorable for them (in any meaning, strategical and political). And that's why nuclear warfare was used only in WW2 till now - the statistics were unfavorable. 
So, as you see, nuclear warfre isn't one bit easier than standart warfare. You still kill the enemy, and worry not to have your own people killed. It just costs less per kill


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## Telnac (Apr 24, 2010)

Xipoid said:


> Just a little heads-up to anyone wondering about being killed in a nuclear attack:
> 
> The world of nuclear war has taken a very efficient mentality. Everyone want the cheapest bomb with the largest effect. That leaves you with weapons in the 250-800 kT range being air burst. That means the fireball never touches (or comes that close to) the ground, where you would be, so no "instant vaporization". You are left only with options that are far less than painless. Short-lived if you are lucky.


Uh, no.  That may have been true with the WWII bombs (I know there were airburst but I don't know at what altitude they were detonated at.)  But modern nukes (other than tactical nukes) always have the fireball hitting the ground.  They detonate a few miles up, but with megaton class warheads, the fireball simply has a much larger radius than that.  The fireball hitting the ground has a secondary effect: it destroys even hardened targets.  You can make a concrete bunker mounted on oversized shock absorbers that can withstand the concussive force of a nuclear blast.  No material on Earth can stand up to a nuclear fireball.  It simply vaporizes everything.


CommodoreKitty said:


> @Xipod I was under the impression that  lower yield, less efficient bombs were still considered for strategic  applications, area of denial and the like. Have they dropped that bomb  design and simply stuck with more efficient bombs?


Nope.  A fair number of our nukes are tactical nukes, designed to be  fired from anything from a tank to a shoulder-launched missile.  I  believe the arms deals have cut down a lot of those type of nukes.

As for efficiency, they're still very efficient.  They're just *tiny!


*


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## Azure (Apr 24, 2010)

Szopaw stop posting stupid generalized shit. PLEASE.


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## Kommodore (Apr 24, 2010)

Telnac said:


> Nope.  A fair number of our nukes are tactical nukes, designed to be  fired from anything from a tank to a shoulder-launched missile.  I  believe the arms deals have cut down a lot of those type of nukes.
> 
> As for efficiency, they're still very efficient.  They're just *tiny!
> *


I was under the impression that fission weapons were inherently inefficient in terms of their mass-to-energy ratio, and released a great deal of (ionizing?) radiation and reducing it's destructive yield. I know that some strategies for nuclear war took advantage of this to irradiate rather than outright destroy an area, which would effectively create an AoD for an enemy. Tactical nukes would be used for, well, tactical operations; destroying fleets or armored formations and the like. I don't know if they still use 'inefficient' bombs for _strategic_ use, though.


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## Xipoid (Apr 24, 2010)

CommodoreKitty said:


> @Xipod I was under the impression that lower yield, less efficient bombs were still considered for strategic applications, area of denial and the like. Have they dropped that bomb design and simply stuck with more efficient bombs?



In short, MT bombs are overkill. No one needs such a huge bomb except as a psychological weapon. Not to mention, there are diminishing returns on effectiveness as you increase yield.




Telnac said:


> Uh, no.  That may have been true with the WWII bombs (I know there were airburst but I don't know at what altitude they were detonated at.)  But modern nukes (other than tactical nukes) always have the fireball hitting the ground.  They detonate a few miles up, but with megaton class warheads, the fireball simply has a much larger radius than that.  The fireball hitting the ground has a secondary effect: it destroys even hardened targets.  You can make a concrete bunker mounted on oversized shock absorbers that can withstand the concussive force of a nuclear blast.  No material on Earth can stand up to a nuclear fireball.  It simply vaporizes everything.



To my knowledge, no one really builds bombs in the MT range anymore. Not to mention, using the fireball of a nuclear bomb to destroy a hardened target seems a bit silly. There are far more practical weapons for that purpose. I won't deny the physics behind using them in that way, but I question them being used in such a manner. I've yet to see anything that suggests that approach, but if you have sources I'll gladly look them over.





CommodoreKitty said:


> I was under the impression that fission  weapons were inherently inefficient in terms of their mass-to-energy  ratio, and released a great deal of (ionizing?) radiation and reducing  it's destructive yield. I know that some strategies for nuclear war took  advantage of this to irradiate rather than outright destroy an area,  which would effectively create an AoD for an enemy. Tactical nukes would  be used for, well, tactical operations; destroying fleets or armored  formations and the like. I don't know if they still use 'inefficient'  bombs for _strategic_ use, though.



Fission bombs do generate radiation, but that is around 15% of their total energy release (5% immediate, 10% delayed). They cannot quite reach the same yield as thermonuclear devices. In any case though, it really depends on what you are trying to do.


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## Torrijos-sama (Apr 24, 2010)

To each their own, and Japan and Germany started it all by having to stick their dicks in the World's Peanutbutter.


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## Thatch (Apr 24, 2010)

AzurePhoenix said:


> Szopaw stop posting stupid generalized shit. PLEASE.



It's useless to post anything else, the thread will die in a couple pages anyway.


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## Telnac (Apr 24, 2010)

Xipoid said:


> In short, MT bombs are overkill. No one needs such a huge bomb except as a psychological weapon. Not to mention, there are diminishing returns on effectiveness as you increase yield.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yes and no to all that.  We haven't built any new nukes in eons, but that may be changing... and ironically enough b/c the new nuke that was proposed is a small tactical bunker buster nuke.  I can't recall if it was approved or not; it was proposed under Bush so I'd be surprised it that wasn't given the green light.

Yes, we have conventional bunker buster bombs, but they aren't big enough or powerful enough to destroy the type of hardened targets that Iran, North Korea or even the USA have for our most secure locations.  Nor are they powerful enough to attack targets deep in the caves of Afghanistan.  NORAD, for instance, is built underneath a mountain simply because it would require nuke after nuke after nuke to carve away enough of the mountain to destroy it. 

God forbid we ever need to use nuclear bunker busters, or any nukes at all!

As for MT class nukes, most of our nukes are of the fission-fusion-fission design.  This design uses a sphere of U-235.  At the center of that sphere is a Deuterium-Lithium compound.  Surrounding the U-235 are high sped explosives, and surrounding all that is a shell of U-238 (aka depleted Uranium.)  When detonated, the explosives implode the sphere of U-235 to trigger a fission reaction.  The shell of U-238 helps the explosion compress the U-235 but more importantly, the U-238 reflects the slow neutrons generated by the U-235 reaction back into the reaction, making it more energetic and efficient.  All that generates enough heat to further compress a Deuterium-Tritium core at the center of the sphere of U-235, which triggers nuclear fusion.  

The fusion actually adds very little energy to the explosion, but what it does add is what gives the design it's oomph: fast neutrons.  Those neutrons are moving fast enough to split U-238, and there are enough of them to completely split any remaining U-235 and all of the U-238 shell.  A neutron bomb is simply this same design without the U-238 shell.

This design yields MT class nukes with little increase in mass.  For nearly the same size and weight of a 100kT nuke, we can get a 5MT nuke.  It can be used to make nukes as big as 20MT.  We & the Soviets have built multi-stage nukes in excess of 20MT, but they were never weaponized.


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## Xipoid (Apr 24, 2010)

Telnac said:


> As for MT class nukes, most of our nukes are of the fission-fusion-fission design.



Do you have any literature on the current stock of the U.S. nuclear weapons?


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## Tycho (Apr 24, 2010)

Xipoid said:


> Do you have any literature on the current stock of the U.S. nuclear weapons?



I would be shocked if any accurate literature saying how much kaboom there is in the USA's modern nuclear arsenal is even available to the civilian world.  Such literature would make arms limitations deals with Russia far too transparent for the government's liking, I would think.


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## Kommodore (Apr 24, 2010)

Xipoid said:


> Do you have any literature on the current stock of the U.S. nuclear weapons?


http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Weapons/Wpngall.html

There appear to be ~300 weapons with a yield greater than 1Mt out of an "active stockpile" of 5,700 weapons, as opposed to the 3,600 or so "active strategic" weapons (the number I often hear cited). So it appears that most of the arsenal is comprised of smaller warheads.


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## Pawl (Apr 25, 2010)

kyle19 said:


> Though alot of people died from radiation burns. There were thousands that were buried in their wooden houses and burned alive by the fire that razed the city.
> 
> And read the book Hiroshima, it's a really good nonfiction book with personal accounts of survivors.




Loved that book. Made me change my point of view on the whole subject. Although I thought it was fiction  :\


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## Telnac (Apr 25, 2010)

CommodoreKitty said:


> http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Weapons/Wpngall.html
> 
> There appear to be ~300 weapons with a yield greater than 1Mt out of an "active stockpile" of 5,700 weapons, as opposed to the 3,600 or so "active strategic" weapons (the number I often hear cited). So it appears that most of the arsenal is comprised of smaller warheads.


http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/nukes/nuclearweapons/nukestatus.html

Federation of American Scientists seems to agree with you.  I guess my information is quite old, then.  I mainly researched nuclear weapons when I was in college, back in the early 1990s.  I guess we had a lot more of the larger bombs back then, right after the Cold War ended.

Ah, verified!
http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/start2/index.html

The Start II treaty banned the heavy ICBMs that would carry MT class nukes, so the only ones we still have are designed to be dropped from bombers.

Apologies for the info that's nearly 20 years out of date!


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## Xipoid (Apr 25, 2010)

Telnac said:


> http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/nukes/nuclearweapons/nukestatus.html
> 
> Federation of American Scientists seems to agree with you.  I guess my information is quite old, then.  I mainly researched nuclear weapons when I was in college, back in the early 1990s.  I guess we had a lot more of the larger bombs back then, right after the Cold War ended.
> 
> ...




Your information was insightful regardless. I don't think any of us made the distinction between warheads and devices though.


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## Tewin Follow (Apr 25, 2010)

The civilians murdered had nothing to do with the war.

It was disgusting.


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## Fenrir Lupus (Apr 25, 2010)

Rather than being so elaborate and using big letters, you could have said Hiroshima and Nagasaki were military targets, and that we dropped leaflets on them warning that we were going to destroy those cities with bombs, so the citizens should evacuate.  (before the first one, it was just "bombs," but before the second one we switched them to reference what happened in Hiroshima.

Was it a terrible thing?  Sure.  We gave plenty of warning though.  Thread over.


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## Telnac (Apr 25, 2010)

Harebelle said:


> The civilians murdered had nothing to do with the war.
> 
> It was disgusting.


The same could be said for the tens of millions of civilians killed by conventional weapons on all sides of WWII.  Dropping the bombs was a horrific act that killed hundreds of thousands of people to prevent other horrific acts that would have likely killed millions.


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## Surgat (Apr 25, 2010)

Tamok123 said:


> It says in the article how many soldiers would have died.
> 
> And soldiers dying is the same as a civilain dying, the soldiers have families, sons, daughters, and a life beyond the war. Soldiers are civilians put in olivedrab, there is no difference. Your total disregard of human life disturbs me.
> 
> ...



Actually, there is an important difference between a soldier and a civilian: the soldier is trying to kill other people, and the civilian isn't. 

It's like being in a fight with someone. Punching your opponent in a fight is justifiable; punching a bystander isn't. Likewise, killing a bunch of enemy soldiers on the battlefield is justifiable; killing non-combatants isn't.


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## Kommodore (Apr 25, 2010)

Surgat said:


> Actually, there is an important difference between a soldier and a civilian: the soldier is trying to kill other people, and the civilian isn't.
> 
> It's like being in a fight with someone. Punching your opponent in a fight is justifiable; punching a bystander isn't. Likewise, killing a bunch of enemy soldiers on the battlefield is justifiable; killing non-combatants isn't.


This isn't necessarily true. World War 2 was a total war and everyone was involved with the war effort in some way. A civilian population is a pool a belligerent nation can pull money, bodies and other resources from. The civilian is not actively killing people, no, but he is helping his nation be better able to do so. An indirect contribution but a significant one nonetheless. There are also psychological consideration to take into account, if civilian populations repeatedly get attacked, they will be less willing to continue a war. It makes perfect sense that civilians would be targeted in a war the scale of ww2.


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## Surgat (Apr 25, 2010)

CommodoreKitty said:


> This isn't necessarily true. World War 2 was a total war and everyone was involved with the war effort in some way. A civilian population is a pool a belligerent nation can pull money, bodies and other resources from. The civilian is not actively killing people, no, but he is helping his nation be better able to do so. An indirect contribution but a significant one nonetheless. There are also psychological consideration to take into account, if civilian populations repeatedly get attacked, they will be less willing to continue a war. It makes perfect sense that civilians would be targeted in a war the scale of ww2.



That someone makes an indirect contribution to a war effort doesnâ€™t make the enemy nation justified in killing them. The fact remains that they arenâ€™t attempting to kill. The way someone contributes to a war effort determines what youâ€™re justified in doing to them, not the amount they contribute. A civilian is not the part of a nation which is ultimately problematic to its enemy in a war; they arenâ€™t responsible for what soldiers do with whatever they produce. The soldiers are the problem.  

Killing civilians, even ones doing things that indirectly help a war effort, is like prosecuting gun manufacturers for crimes committed with their products, or prosecuting an ER doctor who treated a career criminalâ€™s an aid to whatever crimes he committed following his visit. 

Many civilians during that war probably didn't even have a choice in whether or not they were going to indirectly contribute to their nation's war effort, either. If all of the jobs available are in some way going to benefit the military and its operations, the choice is to indirectly benefit them or starve.

The possibility of demoralizing the enemy is particularly not relevant. Youâ€™re still harming a third party to achieve some goal of yours, and for something to do with them which they have no control over. In addition, thereâ€™s no evidence showing that bombing civilian populations actually demoralizes soldiers. 

If some guy on the run from the law, for example, it might be expedient for police to the wanted individualâ€™s family in jail and for the government to threaten to inflict some form of harm on them unless he turns himself in (and follow up on that threat if he fails to do so). However, nobody would say that would be justified.


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## Kommodore (Apr 25, 2010)

Surgat said:


> Youâ€™re still harming a third party to achieve some goal of yours, and for something to do with them which they have no control over. In addition, thereâ€™s no evidence showing that bombing civilian populations actually demoralizes soldiers.



Whether or not they have control over their situation is not relevant, nor is the fact that they are a neutral "third party" in terms of being a direct threat. The fact remains that harming a nation's civilian populations impairs said nation's ability to wage war against your people. This can take the form of direct and tangible harm to the war effort, like reducing the number of people eligible to be drafted or killing those who would otherwise pay into the war effort via bonds, taxes, etc. ; or it has the possibility of demoralizing the enemy. Of course there is no data to support this assertion either way (though I would point to the atomic bombs as possible support) but the logic is sound. And even if there was no psychological damage associated with civilian bombing, the tangible benefits from doing so provide more than enough of a reason to attack civilians. 

A nation's primary obligation is to its _own_ citizens. If bombing the civilians of an enemy nation can reduce the amount of effort it takes your nation win the war, then it is prudent for you to do so.


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## Surgat (Apr 25, 2010)

You kind of just ignored my arguments up until the last paragraph. 



CommodoreKitty said:


> A nation's primary obligation is to its _own_ citizens. If bombing the civilians of an enemy nation can reduce the amount of effort it takes your nation win the war, then it is prudent for you to do so.



It doesn't matter if it's more prudent to kill the opposing nation's civilians. Except for the bit about demoralization, I was commenting on the morality of attacking non-combatants for a war effort, and the expedience of doing so was not in dispute. 

A nation has some obligations to citizens of other nations. For example, a government is unjustified in conquering them and looting their resources or land, even if it benefits it benefits its own people.

Like an individual, it needs moral justification for harming individuals in others. 

An individual would need justification for taking something out of a store, such as "I purchased the item," or for punching someone else, such as "he attacked me." It doesn't even matter if it would be prudent for him to do so. Why wouldn't a government would need moral justification for killing citizens of another country, like "those people were shooting at us?"

Obligations to other people don't just disappear when a bunch of people group together and form institutions such as states. People don't cease to have any common interests just because they belong to different countries, even when they're fighting.


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## Kommodore (Apr 25, 2010)

Surgat said:


> You kind of just ignored my arguments up until the last paragraph.


I did no such thing. I took issue with your statement that not being directly involved in a war exempted you from being a legitimate target. Your examples were in support of this point, and I did not need to address the examples if I instead made a direct counterpoint; that counterpoint being that the moral obligation is not to the citizens of other nations but to those of your own.

You say that a country needs a moral justification to attack civilians, I say that justification is simply "if we do not kill them more of our people will die." You already agreed that attack civilian targets accelerated the end of a war, the question then becomes how many of your people need to die in a war that has been dragged out to justify _not_ attacking the civilians? To take this example to an extreme, if killing one civilian of an enemy nation could save two of your combatants in the long run, what would the "moral" thing be to do? You say that no matter what degree of indirect support the civilians offer they can never be a target, I say that the moral obligation lies with protecting your people first and protecting the civilians of an enemy nation second.

A nation only has obligations to the citizens of other countries insofar as it aids the nation in question. If, for example, nation A was experiencing an acute water shortage, and nation B had an abundance of water, nation A is morally obligated to see to it that its people's needs are met. This may or may not call for an invasion of nation B, but the point is that protection your own people is moral justification enough to harm others, at least to a certain degree. This is not to say any given nation should simply _take_ whatever it needs whenever it needs it, if for no other reason than the fact that it would be treated as hostile by everyone else. But if it comes down to _your_ people dying or _their_ people dying, I should think the answer would be obvious.


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## Telnac (Apr 26, 2010)

Face it, some people just can't grasp the concept of _*total war.*_  No major industrialized nation has fought a war in the same way we fought WWII since, well, WWII.  When you're fighting a war to determine whether or not your nation even _*exists*_ at the end of it, then there simply are no rules.  Civilians are working in a factory to build warplanes.  The factory is in a giant bunker carved from the side of the mountain so no bombs can hope to damage it.  Homes, schools are stores nearby serve as a place the workers can live their lives.  What to do, if you _*must*_ stop the production of those warplanes at all cost?

Bomb the homes.  Blow up the schools.  Kill anyone and everyone you can.

When your survival is on the line, morality simply doesn't exist.


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## auzbuzzard (Apr 26, 2010)

Interestingly, one of my school project on hold is about this. Were gonna act out The warcrime court and we the group will be Kapan and the class be Chinese. Any suggestions for it?


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## TashkentFox (Apr 26, 2010)

Telnac said:


> Face it, some people just can't grasp the concept of _*total war.*_  No major industrialized nation has fought a war in the same way we fought WWII since, well, WWII.  When you're fighting a war to determine whether or not your nation even _*exists*_ at the end of it, then there simply are no rules.  Civilians are working in a factory to build warplanes.  The factory is in a giant bunker carved from the side of the mountain so no bombs can hope to damage it.  Homes, schools are stores nearby serve as a place the workers can live their lives.  What to do, if you _*must*_ stop the production of those warplanes at all cost?
> 
> Bomb the homes.  Blow up the schools.  Kill anyone and everyone you can.
> 
> When your survival is on the line, morality simply doesn't exist.



So you're saying it would have been morally justifiable for the RAF to drop anthrax on Germany? (when told that it would have killed everyone in Central Europe, Churchill quietly dropped the plan)


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## Kommodore (Apr 26, 2010)

auzbuzzard said:


> Interestingly, one of my school project on hold is about this. Were gonna act out The warcrime court and we the group will be Kapan and the class be Chinese. Any suggestions for it?


I would imagine you would be covering the Japanese invasion of China specifically which iirc is a little different in nature than the US bombing of Japan. Both targeted civilians but the US wasn't invoked in any active imperialist ventures*. I mean you could justify attacking civilians to reach your military goals, but on several occasions the Japanese killed civilian targets even when it didn't give any military benefit, Nanking probably being the most well known example of that. In Japan's defense I suppose you could say that they needed the resources of China to... invade China, but that really doesn't justify things like Unit 731 and the like. A legitimate "justification" being defined as doing something that would ultimately save Japanese lives. I just don't see how any of that could have achieved that goal. I think it will be a very one sided debate. You would have to make an argument justifying imperialism as a valid foreign relation policy for a nation in order to have any hope of evening that debate out. 

*Yes the US has had its fair share of imperialism I am not denying that, but it wasn't really present in WW2.


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## Kit H. Ruppell (Apr 26, 2010)

CommodoreKitty said:


> *Yes the US has had its fair share of imperialism I am not denying that, but it wasn't really present in WW2.


 
 We could have controlled so much, if only we'd played our cards differently. Now we're reduced to playing hide-and-seek with Tusken Raiders. How miserable.


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## Kommodore (Apr 26, 2010)

Kit H. Ruppell said:


> We could have controlled so much, if only we'd played our cards differently. Now we're reduced to playing hide-and-seek with Tusken Raiders. How miserable.


That kind of imperialism is dead now, replaced with economic and cultral imperialism. It takes a vast amount of rescources to station troops around the world and a lot of effort to integrate entire regions into your own, with not a lot of benefit if anything goes wrong. Which it would. 

Post WW2 the US accounted for half of the world GDP as Europe was in ruins and Asia (as a whole) had not yet reached a level of industrialization similar to the west. iirc. You do not need to actually control territories when you have that kind of economic power over people. Things would be even _worse_ for the US today had it actually conquered territories it fought for in ww2 (this is of course excluding the small pacific islands). Just look at the backlash from the "Americanization" of the world and how that has helped our relations with the more belligerent regions of the world. This would be ten times worse if we actually took the territories. 

Besides, most of the territorial gains that would have been a boon for the US would have been in Europe anyway. That certainly would never have worked.

In other words the reason we have been reduced to "playing hide-and-seek with Tusken Raiders" is not because we failed to seize territory at the ed of WW2, but because we have been really stupid as a country for the past 50 years or so in a lot of things.


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## Kit H. Ruppell (Apr 26, 2010)

It's common knowledge that the 50s was the least intelligent decade of the 20th century.


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## Surgat (Apr 27, 2010)

CommodoreKitty said:


> I did no such thing. I took issue with your statement that not being directly involved in a war exempted you from being a legitimate target. Your examples were in support of this point, and I did not need to address the examples if I instead made a direct counterpoint; that counterpoint being that the moral obligation is not to the citizens of other nations but to those of your own.



Well, you didn't state that point explicitly.



> A nation only has obligations to the citizens of other countries insofar as it aids the nation in question.



Not really. National borders aren't some magical lines that determine who has rights you need to respect and who doesn't. 

It would be wrong for one individual to haul off and punch another; why wouldn't it be equally wrong for a bunch of individuals to gang together and attack someone from outside their group, or for someone to get someone else to do it?

Also, everybody is usually worse off if they only look out for themselves or their own group. This is why people do things like follow rules and place a high value on things like fairness and impartiality. A â€œwar of all against allâ€ wouldnâ€™t be any more beneficial for people if they behaved that way in groups or with governments than if they did as individuals.

Just look at climate change. It could negatively impact every nation on the planet in multiple ways, and if it melts the frozen methane at the bottom of the oceans, we'll probably go extinct. To avert these outcomes, governments have to limit things like carbon emissions, but this can negatively affect their domestic industries, so they can't get much done to solve this problem, even though it's more serious. 

There's also the example of nepotism. When people prioritize their family members over qualified applicants for a job, they help their family. However, they screw over their own businesses and shareholders by foregoing more qualified individuals, and because managers will usually treat family member employees differently than other ones. Aristocracies can develop if it happens in government, and those tend to be stagnant societies.


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## Kommodore (Apr 27, 2010)

Surgat said:


> It would be wrong for one individual to haul off and punch another; why wouldn't it be equally wrong for a bunch of individuals to gang together and attack someone from outside their group, or for someone to get someone else to do it?



And I would agree that it would be "wrong" for one individual to go up to another individual and give an unprovoked attack. The net result of such an action is at its best one person being severely hurt and the other not being any better for it, or at the worst both being severely injured. If, however, one individual attacks another and this _benefits_ the attacker, things get more complicated. Once again using an extreme example to illustrate a point, say that person A and person B are trapped in a desert. Say person A has the only food, and it is enough to get one, and only one, person to safety. What is the moral thing for person B to do? Sit down and die? Some would say yes. Others would argue, however, that person B would be morally justified in taking the food from person A if it meant he could live. 

The point of that example is not to come to a conclusion on what _is_ the moral thing to do but rather to illustrate that morals get fuzzy once certain lines are crossed. Where these lines are and how fuzzy the morals get depend on several factors but they exist nevertheless. To tie this in to the bombings of Japan, what would be the moral thing for the US to do: save the lives of Japanese civilians at the cost of American lives, or save American lives at the cost of Japanese lives? Like the two men in the desert, one person stands to lose but the other stands to gain. Why is it more or less moral for person B to die as opposed to person A? For Japanese to die as opposed to Americans? 



> Also, everybody is usually worse off if they only look out for  themselves or their own group.


Which is why I said "insofar as it aids the nation in question." If being an aggressor to every neighbor around you hurts you more than it helps you, then obviously it is in your best interest to avoid such conflicts. With respect to what I said about the obligations of a nation; a nation has an obligation to its citizens before anything else. If a course of action hurts its citizens more than it helps them, it can be argued that the "morally correct" thing to do would be to go with the course of action that would do the least harm. 

Now I don't want to get too much into climate change because I know how it has a tendency to take over threads, but I have to say that nations do not act on climate change because there is no scientific proof on its effects. 

Now, let me be perfectly clear by what I mean when I say "no scientific proof." It is obvious that human activity affects the climate, specifically to raise the temperature. This is not up to debate. What _is_ up to debate, however, is the affect on the planet such a rise in temperature would have. In the past it has taken cataclysmic events like Flood Basalt Eruptions or asteroid impacts to raise the Earth's temperature enough to release oceanic methane. Humans have not, and will never, raise the Earth's temperature that much. We are left with models, guesses really, on what the effects of a raise of "x" degrees would be on the climate, and that is not good enough to shape entire economies. In other words, there is no real proof and what affects global warming will have, and so no tangible reason to drastically change policy aside from getting "the green vote." 

Anyway, bringing it back to reality: I don't see how your example of nepotism relates to international politics. Certainly a business that hires underqualified employees will suffer in the open market, but how does this relate to bombing civilian targets? Seizing foreign lands?


----------



## Telnac (Apr 27, 2010)

TashkentFox said:


> So you're saying it would have been morally justifiable for the RAF to drop anthrax on Germany? (when told that it would have killed everyone in Central Europe, Churchill quietly dropped the plan)


Nothing in war is morally justifiable.  You're always making the best choice from a list of morally repugnant choices.  So, especially in the context of a total war, what can lead to victory with the least cost of lives is the path that should be chosen, with preference being to keeping your people alive.  In a limited war, collateral damage should be avoided... but in total war that is simply no longer a priority.

Dropping anthrax on central Germany would clearly not achieve that goal.  Not only would it keep the German war machine alive, (since it does no damage to industrial facilities, and Germany can always being in slaves from Poland to replace dead or dying German workers), as you said... the damage wouldn't be contained to Germany.

Firebombing Dresden, on the other hand...


----------



## CrazyLee (Apr 28, 2010)

capthavoc123 said:


> Hiroshima and Nagasaki were both highly industrialized *cities* that provided a significant portion of materials and finished products for the Japanese military. They were definitely targets of significant military value.


Yes, but they were still cities, with civilians. You can argue all you want about how the citizenship supports the war effort, but they aren't holding weapons so I feel it is morally wrong to kill them. Kill the ones charging at you with weapons, but don't kill the ones without weapons.

And what about children? They're not helping with the war effort, why should they die too?



capthavoc123 said:


> Conservative estimates had the casualties at 200,000 Japanese and American military and civilian deaths in an invasion and occupation, and realistic estimates placed the numbers somewhere above 500,000, with the high estimates going up to a million. This of course does not account for property and environmental damage.


Estimates. No one would have known how many would have really died.



capthavoc123 said:


> This is really a telling display of your naivete when it comes to war. In ANY type of war that takes place in a populated area, whether it's a bombing campaign or an invasion, civilians are ALWAYS killed in higher numbers than soldiers. The only way to avoid civilian deaths is to fight in a remote location or to not have a war in the first place.


Of course civilians die in war. I know that full well. However, there's a difference between civilians dying on accident due to warfare, and civilians dying because they were targeted directly.

In one case, the deaths were unavoidable. In the other, they were deliberate.




capthavoc123 said:


> They started the war, they massacred Chinese/Korean/Pacific Islander civilians, they viewed us exactly the same way, etc., etc., etc. Point is, you're looking for a racially-biased motivation when there's really no evidence of such.


You forget this was in the past and most white Americans looked down on anyone non-white and non-American. Look at European immigrants in New York turn of the century. And you obviously haven't heard of the camps in California that Japanese-Americans were forced to live in during WW2. Interestingly, no Germans or Italians were forced to move into camps. True, the Japanese felt the same way about Americans, but then again, back then the Japanese thought they were better than EVERYONE. Just like the Nazis.

One can only wonder what would have happened if Japan and Germany won. Since Nazis thought they were superior to all, they probably would have gone to war with Japan to kill the evil yellow-skins, and the Japanese, being strongly national and proud of their Japan-ness, would have attacked Germany. And Italy would have been run over by both.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wonder why they chose the cities they did rather than a military target, somewhere far away from major civilized society.

The whole reason the Japanese surrendered after the nuking was because the Japanese were scared shitless afterwards. The American military was like "Tokyo's next if you don't surrender."

This makes me think it would have been more effective dropping the nukes in a remotely populated area, on a base in a remotely populated area, or on an island. Somewhere where the Japanese could see the damage, at least. Then, once the Japanese were done shitting themselves in fear, and changing their pants, the US could threaten to nuke a Japanese city. Since it was the display of such a powerful bomb that scared the Japanese into surrender, it would have made sense to detonate the bomb in a place that would minimize civilian casualties.


----------



## Flam.jp (May 1, 2010)

Disgusting, VERY DISGUSTING thread ever.


----------



## Tycho (May 1, 2010)

Flam.jp said:


> Disgusting, VERY DISGUSTING thread ever.



Step 1: Learn to speak/type better English.

Step 2: Explain yourself and your statement.


----------



## Azure (May 1, 2010)

CrazyLee said:


> Yes, but they were still cities, with civilians. You can argue all you want about how the citizenship supports the war effort, but they aren't holding weapons so I feel it is morally wrong to kill them. Kill the ones charging at you with weapons, but don't kill the ones without weapons.
> 
> And what about children? They're not helping with the war effort, why should they die too?
> 
> ...


Yeah uh, you're pretty dumb.


----------



## foxmusk (May 2, 2010)

the atomic bomb and everything more powerful should have never EVER been created. it's become the downfall of the world.


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## TashkentFox (May 2, 2010)

HarleyParanoia said:


> the atomic bomb and everything more powerful should have never EVER been created. it's become the downfall of the world.



But you do have to remember that if the threat of nuclear war hadn't been hanging over the world from the 1950's to the 1980's WWIII would almost certainly have broken out between the East and the West and hundreds of millions of people would have been killed.


----------



## foxmusk (May 2, 2010)

TashkentFox said:


> But you do have to remember that if the threat of nuclear war hadn't been hanging over the world from the 1950's to the 1980's WWIII would almost certainly have broken out between the East and the West and hundreds of millions of people would have been killed.



hundreds of millions, really. REALLY.

HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF TRILLIONS.


----------



## Tycho (May 2, 2010)

HarleyParanoia said:


> the atomic bomb and everything more powerful should have never EVER been created. it's become the downfall of the world.



Fuck the atomic bomb.  Bio-warfare.  Superviruses from hell, anyone? Stuff that makes AIDS look like a fucking common cold and doesn't need stupid superstitious rapist spearchuckers and promiscuous idiots to spread.


----------



## foxmusk (May 2, 2010)

Tycho said:


> Fuck the atomic bomb.  Bio-warfare.  Superviruses from hell, anyone? Stuff that makes AIDS look like a fucking common cold and doesn't need stupid superstitious rapist spearchuckers and promiscuous idiots to spread.



my point though, is that ever since the a-bomb exploded onto the scene (lol), it became a constant battle to one-up the other. a-bomb, h-bomb, bio-warfare, magnet bombs, LHC, we opened up a can of worms that has turned science into creating the biggest destruction.


----------



## Tycho (May 2, 2010)

HarleyParanoia said:


> magnet bombs



What? You mean EMP bombs?



HarleyParanoia said:


> LHC



OK, now I know you're just trolling.


----------



## foxmusk (May 2, 2010)

Tycho said:


> What? You mean EMP bombs?
> 
> OK, now I know you're just trolling.



i think that's what they were called, yea.

and no, i threw LHC in there because, had we not ever made a-bombs, i bet that would have never come to thought.


----------



## Scruffaluffagus (May 2, 2010)

I feel bad for Einstein. He wanted to make something that would better the world and people's lives and then that came out of it. Then from the a-bomb sprung all the others and here we sit.

Plus, that LHC is really frikken spooky.


----------



## Tycho (May 2, 2010)

HarleyParanoia said:


> i think that's what they were called, yea.
> 
> and no, i threw LHC in there because, had we not ever made a-bombs, i bet that would have never come to thought.



You gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette, and I don't think a-bombs and the LHC are involved with one another anyway.



Scruffaluffagus said:


> Plus, that LHC is really frikken spooky.



OH COME ON, IT'S NOT A FUCKING DOOMSDAY DEVICE.


----------



## foxmusk (May 2, 2010)

Tycho said:


> You gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette, and I don't think a-bombs and the LHC are involved with one another anyway.
> 
> OH COME ON, IT'S NOT A FUCKING DOOMSDAY DEVICE.



but, still, you can't agree that we MIGHT be going in the wrong direction with science? and i'd say that had to start somewhere...WW2 was the birth of darker science, focusing on destruction and invisible killers.

and doomsday or not, the thing can fuck up shit real bad.


----------



## Scruffaluffagus (May 2, 2010)

Tycho said:


> You gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette, and I don't think a-bombs and the LHC are involved with one another anyway.
> 
> 
> 
> OH COME ON, IT'S NOT A FUCKING DOOMSDAY DEVICE.



Never said it was a doomsday dewvice, it's just spooky to think that ONE thing can go wrong and we get a mini black hole. That's spooky as hell. 

Like, you ever see that old horror serial "The Crimson Ghost"? He carries aroung this laser called a Cyclotrode, and that's basically what the LHC makes me think of.

...inb4 LHC am not a lazar.


----------



## Tycho (May 2, 2010)

Scruffaluffagus said:


> Never said it was a doomsday dewvice, it's just spooky to think that ONE thing can go wrong and we get a mini black hole. That's spooky as hell.
> 
> Like, you ever see that old horror serial "The Crimson Ghost"? He carries aroung this laser called a Cyclotrode, and that's basically what the LHC makes me think of.
> 
> ...inb4 LHC am not a lazar.



First off: http://www.livescience.com/environment/060919_black_holes.html

Hawking radiation means THERE WILL NOT BE A BLACK HOLE DISASTER AT THE LHC.

Second: What the whorebitchshitfucksdfkhafkdsf does a fucking shitty horror serial have to do with real world science? Fuck, that's like citing Doctor Who in a missive about the possibility of time travel.


----------



## Scruffaluffagus (May 2, 2010)

Tycho said:


> First off: http://www.livescience.com/environment/060919_black_holes.html
> 
> Hawking radiation means THERE WILL NOT BE A BLACK HOLE DISASTER AT THE LHC.
> 
> Second: What the whorebitchshitfucksdfkhafkdsf does a fucking shitty horror serial have to do with real world science? Fuck, that's like citing Doctor Who in a missive about the possibility of time travel.



It doesn't have anything to do with it really, just felt like putting that out there. Yeah, citing Doctor Who in that situation would be stupid. Everyone knows Donnie Darko is the way to go.

Also, I don't really care how much logic and science can go into stuff. Fear is primordial and is beyond logic. Like, everyone knows that there aren't monsters in the closet, but for as long as people think back, that has been a prevalent fear in children and some adults alike. We know there is nothing in there, we've checked it like, twelve times. But we lay in bed and still get that creeping sensation and never want to look at the closet door.

In short, logic and fears don't go hand in hand.


----------



## Tycho (May 2, 2010)

HarleyParanoia said:


> but, still, you can't agree that we MIGHT be going in the wrong direction with science? and i'd say that had to start somewhere...WW2 was the birth of darker science, focusing on destruction and invisible killers.



Science is going where it needs to go and where it has always been destined to go.  The only "wrong" direction with science is full reverse.



HarleyParanoia said:


> and doomsday or not, the thing can fuck up shit real bad.



NO IT CAN'T.  That's just fucking absurd.  Unless you're a subatomic particle in Switzerland your life is not being jeopardized by the LHC.


----------



## Kommodore (May 2, 2010)

Oh FFS LHC can't do a damn thing it does not have enough energy to produce any of the theoretical things we think might possibly be bad for us. God sometimes I want to strangle the media for propagating this stupid LHC doomsday shit. Being scared of the LHC has more to do with stupid than it does fear. 

And seeing as how ww1 killed 20million, and ww2 killed 70million, it is not a stretch to say that ww3 would have killed a 100 or more million people if it had been fought. Maybe, maybe not, certainly is a possibility. But nukes arguably stopped that from happening. Nuke are not bad in and of themselves. A bomb just chillin in a silo is not hurting anybody, and you need to recognize the difference between a bomb that has exploded over a population center and a bomb just sitting somewhere. 

Science has not gone in a wrong direction, and there is nothing wrong with nukes.


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## Tycho (May 2, 2010)

CommodoreKitty said:


> A bomb just chillin in a silo is not hurting anybody, and you need to recognize the difference between a bomb that has exploded over a population center and a bomb just sitting somewhere.



Well, as long as the damn thing isn't leaking or being pillaged by money-hungry corrupt military personnel (HI RUSSIA).


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## Kommodore (May 2, 2010)

Tycho said:


> Well, as long as the damn thing isn't leaking or being pillaged by money-hungry corrupt military personnel (HI RUSSIA).


Well I mean yeah, the point was more that the bomb is not the problem but the misuse of it is. In that sense it is like any other weapon. A scary,  continent-sinking weapon, yes, but a weapon nonetheless.


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## Xipoid (May 2, 2010)

Wow


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## KirbyCowFox (May 2, 2010)

Godzilla was a metaphor of the power of the bombs, without them we wouldn't have what the majority of macro furs base themselves on.


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## 8-bit (May 2, 2010)

Tycho said:


> Bio-warfare.  Superviruses from hell, anyone?



Oh murrr *massages nipples*


----------



## Mayfurr (May 3, 2010)

CrazyLee said:


> This makes me think it would have been more effective dropping the nukes in a remotely populated area, on a base in a remotely populated area, or on an island. Somewhere where the Japanese could see the damage, at least. Then, once the Japanese were done shitting themselves in fear, and changing their pants, the US could threaten to nuke a Japanese city. Since it was the display of such a powerful bomb that scared the Japanese into surrender, it would have made sense to detonate the bomb in a place that would minimize civilian casualties.



The problem was that at the time the US only had _three_ nuclear weapons - and one (Trinity) was used to test the plutonium implosion design used for the Fat Man bomb dropped on Nagasaki. The Little Boy uranium implosion bomb design that was dropped on Hiroshima _had never been tested_. Use one on a demo-test in Tokyo Bay, and you've only got one left until you build more in several months, assuming that the Little Boy bomb would have not turned into an embarrassing squib... and even it if HAD worked the Japanese leadership might just as well have said words to the effect of "Very pretty, but I bet you don't have the balls to use it for real..."

From a strictly military perspective, the idea (I surmise) with atom-bombing Japanese cities was to prove to the Japanese the following:
* We've got the technology for the bomb,
* We've got the means to deliver it,
* We've got the *will* to use it, and
* *We've got more where that came from.*

Anything less would not have been militarily or politically credible.

That said, I'm in two minds as to whether the atom-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were morally justified. Yes, there were fewer casualties in the bombings than in the proposed invasion of Japan (not to mention that conventional firebombing of other cities like Tokyo generated more casualties than the atom bombings), it was probably a better end than slowly starving Japan out via a naval blockade, and the war DID end, but still... I dunno. Considering that one of the key stumbling points to Japan's surrender was the fate of the Emperor, and that the Emperor was still kept in place after the surrender, one wonders whether if the "unconditional surrender" might have worked if it had been slightly less unconditional with respect to Hirihito... 

I suppose at least we have two live examples of what happens when you DO use nukes - hopefully that will give people pause to consider never using the damn things in anger ever again.


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## Tycho (May 3, 2010)

8-bit said:


> Oh murrr *massages nipples*



*turns fire hose on you*

Sick bastard.


----------



## Telnac (May 4, 2010)

*sighs*  It seems history simply isn't being taught any more.  "OMFG, nukes are EVEEEL!!1!  We'z so bad for making thems that wheese know has a right to surviv!"  (A bit of a strawman, but sadly not a far stretch from the attitude of half the posters here.)

Simply put, nukes ended WWII and saved at least a million lives (and likely more) at the cost of a few hundred thousand.  MAJOR EVIL vs EPIC EVIL.  Take your pick.

Nukes kept the Cold War from becoming WWIII.  And yes, a conventional WWIII would have made WWII look like the Grenada in comparison.  (Oh wait, does anyone under 30 even know about Grenada?)

Pakistan and India have gone to war again, and again, and again... until they both got nukes.  They still _*hate*_ each other... but even when they were at the brink of yet another war, they backed down.

Now, I don't support every country nuking up.  Nutcases like Kim Jong Il would probably use nukes just because they felt like it any given day.  But in the hands of responsible regimes, the existence of nuclear weapons has done far more to promote peace than to promote destruction.  It may not be politically correct, but Mutually Assured Destruction is a damned good incentive not to be the idiot to launch the first strike!


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## TashkentFox (May 4, 2010)

Telnac said:


> Nukes kept the Cold War from becoming WWIII.  And yes, a conventional WWIII would have made WWII look like the Grenada in comparison.  (Oh wait, does anyone under 30 even know about Grenada?)



Yes I do know about Grenada (you naughty boys) but anyway, yes, I agree, if the threat of nuclear holocaust hadn't been hanging over the heads of the worlds leaders East Germany would probably have staged an invasion of West Berlin and everything would have gone to hell in a handcart. If WWIII was fought with regular 1940's weapons of war it would have dragged on for decades with neither side really making any gains, military victory for either side would have been utterly impossible and the end would only come when the economic planners in the Soviet bloc made a big enough mistake for their economies to collapse in on themselves.


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## Mayfurr (May 4, 2010)

Telnac said:


> Now, I don't support every country nuking up.  Nutcases like Kim Jong Il would probably use nukes just because they felt like it any given day.  *But in the hands of responsible regimes,* the existence of nuclear weapons has done far more to promote peace than to promote destruction.  It may not be politically correct, but Mutually Assured Destruction is a damned good incentive not to be the idiot to launch the first strike!



And what exactly *is *a "responsible [nuclear-armed] regime"? 

*One that's never used nukes?* That eliminates the USA.

*One that pledges "no first use" of nukes, no matter what?* That eliminates all the nuclear armed states except China.

*One that's never exported nuclear weapon technology?* That eliminates the USA and the UK (who routinely swap nuclear tech with each other) for a start...

*One that's never launched an attack or invaded another country since they obtained nuclear weapons? *Again, that eliminates the USA (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan), Russia (Afghanistan), the UK and France (the Suez crisis in the 50s), India and Pakistan (with each other), China (attacking Vietnam in the 70s), and Israel (most of its neighbours every five damn minutes it seems like). 

*One that has signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty?* Goodbye India, Pakistan and Israel.

Or is "responsible [nuclear-armed] regime" simply code for "_a nuclear-armed regime that the USA approves of, no matter what their actual behaviour_"?

The only responsible nuclear-armed regime I can think of is South Africa, who built nukes then _voluntarily disarmed_ themselves completely of the damn things.


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## Atrak (May 4, 2010)

There were two bombs, actually.


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## Kommodore (May 4, 2010)

Mayfurr said:


> And what exactly *is *a "responsible [nuclear-armed] regime"?



I disagree with your criteria for what makes a responsible nuclear power.


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## lilEmber (May 4, 2010)

Could of dropped one bomb in the water and/or on unoccupied land, would of done the same thing; show that they had more than one, and that they were willing to detonate them.

But they wanted to test the weapon live, even if the war had ended before they made a single nuke the USA would of probably detonated them in one of the many wars that followed, just to test them live.

The entire pacific war in WWII between the US and the Japanese was pointless, the US created an embargo on them and forced them into a corner, and cut off their metal trade contract to boot due to "rust". The Japanese declared war, sent a fleet to Hawaii, and the USA was even warned by Australia's long-range radar about the fleet, meaning it wasn't a "surprise attack", they ignored all the warnings so they'd go down in history as entering the war without making a preemptive strike. 

As the war in Europe ended and the war in the pacific carried on they seen how Russia was starting to become stronger, they didn't fear the Japanese anymore since they had literally destroyed all their air and sea fleet, leaving nothing but troops left. The US realized they could save a couple thousand US soldiers, stop the war, test the nukes live, and shove their new weapon in the face of every other country (especially Russia) therefore putting themselves at the top of the worlds super-powers even to this day.

There were many reasons behind dropping the bombs, the fact that they did it on civilian occupied cities rather than empty land or sea wasn't to save lives or simply end the war asap.


----------



## Ð˜Ð²Ð°Ð½ (May 4, 2010)

Yep, the US totally didn't put the embargo on Japan because of their rampant imperialism, and it definitely wasn't because of Japan's unprovoked invasion of China. And the whole point of the Pacific War most certainly wasn't to put down Japan's expansionistic plans to establish a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere based on the Showa Emperor's divine right to rule.

And of course the Attack on Pearl Harbour was completely justified; it's not like Japan wanted to eliminate the United States Navy as a threat to their plans to seize British and Dutch colonies in South Asia and the Pacific.



So I don't know where you're getting your facts about the Pacific Theatre, but the Empire of Japan did_ not_ attack Pearl Harbour because they were mad about a trade embargo, and they certainly did _not_ declare war. By dropping the bombs, America saved more than "a couple thousand" soldiers, in fact it says right in the OP that [SIZE=+1]250,00(0?) [/SIZE]American soldiers were expected to die on Kyushu alone, plus however many civilian casualties would result. Don't forget that every Japanese man, woman and child was being fed propaganda that was preparing them to fight tooth and nail for their homeland should the Allies invade. We can talk all day about how horrific they are/were, but the atomic bombs were definitely the lesser of two evils.

Pull your head out of your ass. Japan was not quite the victim you think it was.


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## Azure (May 4, 2010)

Ahahahah. Newf. Wow.


----------



## Telnac (May 4, 2010)

Mayfurr said:


> And what exactly *is *a "responsible [nuclear-armed] regime"?


  Simple: a regime who isn't controlled by a lunatic who routinely threatens to wipe entire nations off the face of the Earth.  I.e. _*not*_ North Korea or Iran.


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## lilEmber (May 5, 2010)

Easog said:


> the atomic bombs were definitely the lesser of two evils.


Yes the absolute most powerful and destructive thing we as a human race has ever developed and more than likely ever will develop. The power of about six-plus suns detonated in the heart of (large pop) civilian (not military) cities is certainly lesser than that.


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## Ð˜Ð²Ð°Ð½ (May 5, 2010)

Harmony said:


> The power of about six-plus suns


?


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## Surgat (May 5, 2010)

Telnac said:


> Nothing in war is morally justifiable. You're always making the best choice from a list of morally repugnant choices



This is a few days late, but whatever. 

You can justify a nation engaging in defensive war, or soldiers (when theyâ€™re attacking other soldiers at least), since thatâ€™s just self-defense. Hardly anyone has a problem with that. There are of course plenty of other justifiable practices in war too, like accepting soldierâ€™s surrendering. 

Besides, after you said that, you immediately went on to apply morality to war, and to try and justify the bombings with utilitarianism:



			
				1781171 said:
			
		

> So, especially in the context of a total war, what can lead to victory with the least cost of lives is the path that should be chosen...






Telnac said:


> *sighs* It seems history simply isn't being taught any more. "OMFG, nukes are EVEEEL!!1! We'z so bad for making thems that wheese know has a right to surviv!" (A bit of a strawman, but sadly not a far stretch from the attitude of half the posters here.)
> 
> Simply put, nukes ended WWII and saved at least a million lives (and likely more) at the cost of a few hundred thousand. MAJOR EVIL vs EPIC EVIL. Take your pick.



It seems history wasnâ€™t taught back in your day either, because you donâ€™t seem to be aware that Japan was trying to get a peace agreement (other than unconditional surrender, of course), and Japan wasnâ€™t that much of a threat to the existence of the nation once it was isolated, pushed back into its mainland, and experiencing political instability. Also, the whole point of the whole failure to accept a surrender with conditions and bomb-dropping was to intimidate the Soviets (you can't seriously think they cared about their soldiers). 



Telnac said:


> Nukes kept the Cold War from becoming WWIII. And yes, a conventional WWIII would have made WWII look like the Grenada in comparison. (Oh wait, does anyone under 30 even know about Grenada?)





TashkentFox said:


> Yes I do know about Grenada (you naughty boys) but anyway, yes, I agree, if the threat of nuclear holocaust hadn't been hanging over the heads of the worlds leaders East Germany would probably have staged an invasion of West Berlin and everything would have gone to hell in a handcart.



Instead, it led to the two empires fighting proxy wars and propping-up brutal dictatorships favorable to themselves (in the short run at least), _and_ they still almost had a nuclear exchange on two occasions anyways. That's not really an improvement. 



Telnac said:


> Simple: a regime who isn't controlled by a lunatic who routinely threatens to wipe entire nations off the face of the Earth. I.e.*not*North Korea or Iran.



Anyone who points nuclear weapons at any country is threatening to wipe it off the map.


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## lilEmber (May 5, 2010)

Easog said:


> ?


Just so we're on the same page here: a nuclear explosion's temperature is about six (or more) times the temperature of our suns core. I believe the two we're talking about were six times hotter, but I could be wrong about that.


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## Mayfurr (May 5, 2010)

CommodoreKitty said:


> I disagree with your criteria for what makes a responsible nuclear power.



So what is _*your*_ criteria then?



Telnac said:


> Simple: a regime who isn't controlled by a lunatic who routinely threatens to wipe entire nations off the face of the Earth.  I.e. _*not*_ North Korea or Iran.



Oh, so does that mean you'd be quite happy for countries like Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Egypt, Turkey, Burma, Indonesia, Columbia, Venezuela and even Cuba to go nuclear then? Can't recall any of them threatening the elimination of entire countries...

How about Japan? Australia? (Believe it or not, the Aussies _were_ chasing nukes for a while - that was the main reason they let British nukes blow up bits of the outback.) Germany? Poland?

How about if a country only _occasionally_ threatened to wipe a nation off the face of the earth? What about "only" a city? *What is your threshold for an "acceptable" threat of nuking another country?*

And how many countries have Iranian armed forces started wars with over the last fifty years? None. (The Iran-Iraq war was started by Iraq.) And how many countries have US armed forces started wars with over the last fifty years?  At least three...

*There is no moral justification for certain nations to permanently retain nuclear weapons while loudly proclaiming other nations should be prohibited from having them.* If nukes are bad for countries that don't have them, they're bad for those who do - and if they're good enough to justify countries keeping them, why should others be denied these security benefits?

The argument "we're a responsible nuclear power, they're not" is simple arrogant and hypocritical self-justification for the status quo - especially when the Non-Proliferation Treaty _obliges_ nuclear states to disarm in exchange for non-nuclear states swearing not to nuke up.


----------



## Mayfurr (May 5, 2010)

Surgat said:


> Anyone who points nuclear weapons at any country is threatening to wipe it off the map.



Exactly. A "responsible nuclear weapon power" is an oxymoron - because being responsible with nukes is _not tooling up with nukes in the first place._


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## Azure (May 5, 2010)

Mayfurr said:


> Non-Proliferation Treaty _obliges_ nuclear states to disarm in exchange for non-nuclear states swearing not to nuke up.


Well, we all know exactly how this pile of shit worked out, don't we? Nukes are pretty horrible weapons, but they're never going away, all lip service from the current administration included. I don't like them, but that never stopped shit anywhere ever.


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## Telnac (May 5, 2010)

My knowledge of history is quite intact.  Yes, Japan was seeking terms for surrender... but it'd be a conditional surrender.  Conditional surrender of Japan was unacceptable because the lessons of WWI and the failure of the Treaty of Versailles were quite fresh in the minds of the leaders of the day.  Nothing short of completely changing Japan's militaristic government and society was going to guarantee that Japan wouldn't be resurrected as a military power like Germany was in the 1930s and later trigger WWIII.  Even today, a lot of nations (most notably China) are nervous about Japan having more and more control of its own military destiny.

As for non-proliferation, Mayfurr, actually yes I'm perfectly comfortable with more countries nuking up... so long as they aren't run by nutcases who threaten to destroy entire nations.  That's an opinion I'm likely alone in having, but it's my opinion nonetheless.  Like 'em or hate them, nukes have done more to prevent the deaths of millions since the end of WWII than anything else.  If the USA and the USSR were nuke-free after 1945, you can bet WWIII would have happened a decade or two later.

So I agree with you that we're hypocrites in saying that we're allowed to have nukes but the vast majority of other nations (even friendly & stable ones) aren't.  I don't want Iran and North Korea nuking up, and I'd be concerned about some other nations with less stable regimes (including Pakistan, btw) having them just because I don't want them to fall into the hands of nut cases who'd use them even in the face of certain annihilation.  But given that no two nuclear powers have directly gone to war with each other, I really believe that nearly every nation having at least a few nukes would go a long way to securing world peace.

Yeah, it's be nice if we all threw away our nukes, tanks, warships, warplanes and did a planet-wide group hug... but it'll never happen.  A worldwide Mexican standoff, on the other hand... might just permanently end war.  Might.


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## virus (May 5, 2010)

I don't support any sort of bullshit motive. The nuke was dropped for political reasons. 

America, lets keep forgetting about the hundreds of thousands of native genocide for this "land of freedom." Lets forget about the civil war. 

All keeps the washing machine occupied except the complete lala land of WW2, who cares. "Yay we became a superpower -ego trippin 70 years later-" ; Still can't get off the high horse. Fuck.

Oh well the iceland volcano is a lurking dragon that'll rattle up the reality again.


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## TashkentFox (May 5, 2010)

Mayfurr said:


> Oh, so does that mean you'd be quite happy for countries like Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Egypt, Turkey, Burma, Indonesia, Columbia, Venezuela and even Cuba to go nuclear then? Can't recall any of them threatening the elimination of entire countries...



Kazakhstan used to posess nuclear weapons, they willingly gave them up about a decade ago.


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## Get-dancing (May 5, 2010)

They started it, they lost it, ha!


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## TashkentFox (May 5, 2010)

Get-dancing said:


> They started it, they lost it, ha!



Somehow, I knew you would say that GD.


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## Get-dancing (May 5, 2010)

Yes well, :G sometimes you gotta' say it how it is.


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## Tycho (May 5, 2010)

Telnac said:


> A worldwide Mexican standoff, on the other hand... might just permanently end war.  Might.



*theme from The Good, The Bad and the Ugly plays as world leaders eyeball each other with their fingers hovering over big red buttons*


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## CrazyLee (May 7, 2010)

Mayfurr said:


> From a strictly military perspective, the idea (I surmise) with atom-bombing Japanese cities was to prove to the Japanese the following:
> * We've got the technology for the bomb,
> * We've got the means to deliver it,
> * We've got the *will* to use it, and
> * *We've got more where that came from.*



Which is why I question if there wasn't a target they could have dropped it on that would have had little civilian death.

Wasn't Japan's surrender due more to the Soviets entering the war in the Pacific theater and beginning an invasion of Japan? From what I've read dropping the two nukes didn't make the Japanese surrender immediately anyway, because they weren't happy with the terms of surrender. The terms of surrender would have caused the Emperor to lose a lot of his power and he didn't want that.


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## Bianca (May 7, 2010)

this thread, tl;dr

summary: if you think it was a bad move to drop the bombs you're a dumb weeaboo.


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