60 Years Ago This Week

[FloridaDragon]

Is the focus of this discussion the morality of using the atom bomb to kill "civilians" or the morality of killing civilians to begin with? Don't forget we were already bombing the hell out of their cities by the time the a-bombs fell. Take for example the fire bombing of Tokyo on March 9-10th 1945, which resulted in 16 square miles of Tokyo being destroyed and over 100,000 dead. Just about the same effect of an atomic bomb but it took a lot more planes and a lot more bombs.
It is hard to ever justify the killing of civilian populations but it was a standard all the major powers of WWII commonly practiced. If the a-bombs had not been dropped more Japanese would probably have died from the bombing of the cities BEFORE any invasion anyway. Doesn't make it right but, being an American through and through, better them then a million of our troops to invade.

[djacq75]

Originally Posted by tw

Kamikaze was about defense - not an offensive strategy.

Yes, I realize that. "Their idea of an offensive was a kamikaze attack" was meant as a pointed, sarcastic statement.

[djacq75]

Originally Posted by FloridaDragon

Is the focus of this discussion the morality of using the atom bomb to kill "civilians" or the morality of killing civilians to begin with? Don't forget we were already bombing the hell out of their cities by the time the a-bombs fell. Take for example the fire bombing of Tokyo on March 9-10th 1945, which resulted in 16 square miles of Tokyo being destroyed and over 100,000 dead. Just about the same effect of an atomic bomb but it took a lot more planes and a lot more bombs.
It is hard to ever justify the killing of civilian populations but it was a standard all the major powers of WWII commonly practiced. If the a-bombs had not been dropped more Japanese would probably have died from the bombing of the cities BEFORE any invasion anyway. Doesn't make it right but, being an American through and through, better them then a million of our troops to invade.

To take this in order:

1. The annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are worse than that of Tokyo not because they were atomic, but because they were undertaken when peace was at hand, meaning those who lost their lives there lost them even more senselessly than those lost up to that point. But I will readily grant that the whole war was a senseless bloodbath the U.S. should've abstained from entering.

2. Yes, it was the policy of all sides in WW2 to roast civilians alive by the thousands. One conclusion that might be drawn from this fact is that describing WW2 as a "good war" in which we, on a white horse, faced down fascist evil, on a black horse, is essentially bullshit. Oddly that conclusion, intuitive though it is, is not a popular one.

3. "Our" troops? They were Roosevelt's troops. The idea that the government protects any of us via war is kneejerk imbecility. The truth is exactly the other way around; we save their bacon from their enemies--at least those of us gullible enough to follow their cynical call to arms.

[xoxoxoBruce]

WTF, I thought my reading comprehension was pretty good but I must have been wrong.
I thought I just read you believe the United States should not have entered WW II. Again I must be mistaken.

[tw]

Originally Posted by djacq75

To take this in order:

1. The annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are worse than that of Tokyo not because they were atomic, but because they were undertaken when peace was at hand, meaning those who lost their lives there lost them even more senselessly than those lost up to that point.

Again I return to the important questions. What did Truman know? What did he think Japan knew? Remember, America was about to embark on an invasion of Japan that was estimated at up to ½ million American casualties. It demonstrates what their (American) perspectives were. To judge, one must first define 'their' perspective. Even having been asked those same questions that Kennedy asked, then would Truman have dropped those bombs? Yes. Again, you may think peace was at hand. But Japan gave America no reason to believe that to be true.

Talk is cheap. Without some action to demonstrate talk as something more than fiction, then talk has no merit - no integrity especially in a war so violent. Especially when we again take a most dominant American perspective. Japan was talking peace while ‘Pearl Harboring’ America. Don’t ever forget how powerful that American perspective was back then. Always appreciate why that was a most powerful 'smoking gun'. It is why America was so empowered as to even consider ½ million American casualties to achieve 'unconditional surrender'. Peace was not at hand IF one considers the American perspective.

So tell me who is good and who is evil. Just another jab at the naive (children) who view and decide in terms of good and evil.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by tw

Talk is cheap. Without some action to demonstrate talk as something more than fiction, then talk has no merit - no integrity especially in a war so violent.

Is it just me or is tw channeling George Bush? From his perspective Iraq makes sense. America's WW2 Presidents had already proven their willingness to spend lives at this point. It was now time to stare down our commie allies by showing them what a bunch of bastards we really were.

[djacq75]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

WTF, I thought my reading comprehension was pretty good but I must have been wrong.
I thought I just read you believe the United States should not have entered WW II. Again I must be mistaken.

OK, let me simplify it for your dyslexic mind.

Fuck World War 2.

Better?

[djacq75]

Originally Posted by tw

Peace was not at hand IF one considers the American perspective.

So tell me who is good and who is evil. Just another jab at the naive (children) who view and decide in terms of good and evil.

The German "perspective" was that the Jews were in the way of stopping Bolshevism. If we are simply going to trade crazed ideological or nationalist perspectives, there's not much point debating because there is no common frame of reference.

Reality is not a competition between subjective "perspectives." The sort of arguments pro-warriors make these days are like Kantianism gone haywire.

As for good and evil, there is a fundamental error almost everyone on earth who believe that there is a difference between good and evil make. There is a sort of irrational, subterranean belief that if your enemy is "evil", that is sufficient to make you "good" regardless of what you are actually doing. This belief is the source of nearly every war in modern times. All one has to do to be given a blank check to practice limitless evil with the approval of one's own conscience is to prove that one's enemy is evil.

Now that is a fairly good moral-philosophical-political racket, and the masses usually do fall for it. Anyone capable of genuine reflection does not.

[tw]

Originally Posted by djacq75

The German "perspective" was that the Jews were in the way of stopping Bolshevism.

And yet that is not the point of Hilter's Mein Kopf. Hitler's underlying points were to subver the intelligent Germans (intellectuals and merchant class), play up to the ignorant (as Rush Limbaugh does today), and then create an enemy that the simple minded would understand - the Jew. Hitler's agenda was about recruiting the simple minded into extremism for the greater glory of his Nazi party. This Hitler did better than those early Nazi's before him.

Hilter had a purpose for the Jew - to use the Jew in a game of "them verses us" so that Hitler could recruit the simple minded to his growing party of 'Brown Shirts', etc.

The only part I am not answering here is why Hitler so craved this power. From his book, he is more concerned as to why Germany lost the first WW rather than a hate of Bolshevism.

Originally Posted by djacq75

Reality is not a competition between subjective "perspectives." ....
As for good and evil, there is a fundamental error almost everyone on earth who believe that there is a difference between good and evil make. There is a sort of irrational, subterranean belief that if your enemy is "evil", that is sufficient to make you "good" regardless of what you are actually doing.

You have failed to comprehend how the more informed people actually view the world. 'Good verses Evil' is how we channel - redirect - the little people. Great leaders tend to confess in their memoirs about a conflict more in terms of differing interests. Indeed the Civil War was not about slavery. However to simplify a war down to something that the 'less intellectual' could comprehend, then slavery became a Civil War rallying cry. Those evil southerners who enslaved black men - they must be evil.

Meanwhile almost all southerners had no slaves - therefore were not evil. So we forget to tell that to the little people.

Civil War was more about a complex set of disagreements between Northern and Southern states. A conflict that almost broke out ten years earlier in Congress had not some great men found a compromise (I believe this is one chapter of Kennedy's Profiles in Courage).

Those reasons of 'good verses evil' are for the naive. There is no good and evil. There are power brokers with strongly differing opinions and perspectives. Indeed, Japanese in WWII assumed they had a right to build an empire just like Europeans and Americans. Japanese would have avoided war had the US, et al cut off their oil. So, in the Japanese perspective, an evil US was denying the Emperor of "Japan's rights to oil". Ergo - Pearl Harbor.

Ever been to the Arizona? Many tourists are Japanese. What is rarely admitted: USS Arizona represents a Japanese glory. Understand perspectives. Pearl Harbor, to many Japanese today, was not an evil surprise attack. It was a great Japanese victory. This perspective is quite difficult for Americans to comprehend. Again, differing perspectives that, this time, do not result in war.

But war is due to differing perspectives – a total breakdown at the negotiation table. The purpose of war: to take that dispute back to a negotiation table. Hopefully with two parties who now have different perspectives. "Good verses Evil" is a myth about war; promoted so that 'cannon fodder' will make that frontal assault "for the greater glory of god and country". But a myth about 'good verses evil' lives on.

Don't tell an 18 year old. Otherwise he will not be a good soldier. And yet notice how 'good verses evil' becomes nonsense once we define the real purpose of war - to return the conflict to a negotiation table. "Good verses Evil' are only myths for those who don't understand the purpose of war.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by djacq75

OK, let me simplify it for your dyslexic mind.

Fuck World War 2.

Better?

War is bad, peace is good. OK, most Americans would agree with that, except UG and the administration in Washington. However, not everyone in the world feels that way.

The reality is there are people that would harm us in unspeakable ways, given half a chance, that's why the Constitution provides for the military to defend our borders. I believe the last time this happened was WWII, all subsequent wars do not qualify.

So if you want to rail against the misuse of the military, pick any other war.

[djacq75]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

The reality is there are people that would harm us in unspeakable ways, given half a chance, that's why the Constitution provides for the military to defend our borders. I believe the last time this happened was WWII, all subsequent wars do not qualify.

So if you want to rail against the misuse of the military, pick any other war.

The Axis Powers--even assuming they had the intent--didn't have "half a chance." The United States was not conquerable. The Germans couldn't manage to cross the English Channel, for Christ's sake!

As far as Japan goes, they did not attack the American homeland--they attacked a military base in a stolen colony after a good deal of intentional provocation. They were not about to land in San Francisco and rape everyone's sister.

WW2 is not the most justifiable American war--when looking at the global picture, and setting aside grade-school nonsense about how Hitler was uniquely evil--it is the least justified. A war in which Hitler, Tojo, Chiang, Mao and Stalin all met ruin at one another's hands was a fantasy almost too good to be true. But it would've been true had we not screwed it up, just as we always manage to do when interventionists are in power.

[wolf]

With the US in the war, the Germans couldn't cross the English channel. They probably would have otherwise.

[djacq75]

They intended to invade Britain in 1940. The U.S. entered the war in December 1941, by which time the British had whipped the German Air Force.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Yeah, right.......no way Hitler ever could have beat Britian.

[tw]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Yeah, right.......no way Hitler ever could have beat Britian.

Aired originally in Sept 2004, this PBS documentary called Battlefield Britian discusses this desperate attempt to keep Britian from being invaded. It is also airing on some PBS stations tonight 1 Mar 2006. Details by going here and then clicking on the entry for:
Battlefield Britian
This hyperlink for those nearby The Cellar. Others should select their own PBS stations at http://www.pbs.org .