Nuking the Japanese. Cool or not cool?

[alkeiper]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

If they just wanted a big boom, they would have dropped it off the coast or a mountain. Instead, they dropped both on civilian populations. It might be useful to note that these bombs were developed by scientists who knew exactly what they were doing, not retards looking for boom-booms.

Which goes virtually unseen. It took the Japanese a day just to figure out what the heck happened to Hiroshima. This isn't 2011 where the footage goes live on CNN. The population got its news by radio then. You think a nation of kamakaze pilots is going to accept their government going on the air and saying "they have a really big bomb so we quit"?

 

[snuffbox]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

A nation of kamakaze pilots?

 

[Byron The Bulb]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

Literally every single Japanese person was a psychotic fanatic willing to die for the cause and the only way to get through to them was atomic annihilation. Imperial Japan was a despotic horde that thought with a hive mind.

 

[alkeiper]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

Look, I'm not certain it was the right decision. But given the circumstances of the time it was entirely defensible.

 

[snuffbox]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

Anything is defensible vs. a nation of kamakaze pilots

 

[BurningPirateShipSex]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

This thread is becoming the #1 choice for "Worst TSM discussion ever".

 

[Gary]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

This thread is becoming the #1 choice for "Worst TSM discussion ever".

It's still not as bad as the Carmilla Bing thread.

 

[Mattdotcom]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

At least you could maybe masturbate to something in the Carmilla Bing thread.

Atomic Wounds - 53min Documentary

I stand corrected.

 

[alkeiper]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

Anything is defensible vs. a nation of kamakaze pilots

I don't mean to demean the Japanese as a culture of savages. But their government had already issued a death before dishonor order imploring their citizens to commit suicide rather than surrender. 10,000 died at (I think) Okinawa. They had given every reason to expect they were willing to die for their cause.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

Anything is defensible vs. a nation of kamakaze pilots

I don't mean to demean the Japanese as a culture of savages. But their government had already issued a death before dishonor order imploring their citizens to commit suicide rather than surrender. 10,000 died at (I think) Okinawa. They had given every reason to expect they were willing to die for their cause.

Add another zero. Even Iwo Jima had 18,000 dead.

That is just the army too. There were another 100,000+ civilians killed at Okinawa.

 

[alkeiper]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

Anything is defensible vs. a nation of kamakaze pilots

I don't mean to demean the Japanese as a culture of savages. But their government had already issued a death before dishonor order imploring their citizens to commit suicide rather than surrender. 10,000 died at (I think) Okinawa. They had given every reason to expect they were willing to die for their cause.

Add another zero. Even Iwo Jima had 18,000 dead.

I'm just considering civilian suicides, not total military.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

Anything is defensible vs. a nation of kamakaze pilots

I don't mean to demean the Japanese as a culture of savages. But their government had already issued a death before dishonor order imploring their citizens to commit suicide rather than surrender. 10,000 died at (I think) Okinawa. They had given every reason to expect they were willing to die for their cause.

Add another zero. Even Iwo Jima had 18,000 dead.

I'm just considering civilian suicides, not total military.

Gotcha. Misunderstood.

 

[Vitamin X]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

It might be useful to note that these bombs were developed by scientists who knew exactly what they were doing, not retards looking for boom-booms.

Yeah but the people who were in charge of the decision to use the bombs, well...

 

[Jingus]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

Literally every single Japanese person was a psychotic fanatic willing to die for the cause and the only way to get through to them was atomic annihilation. Imperial Japan was a despotic horde that thought with a hive mind.

I hear they planned to kidnap General MacArthur, assimilate him into their inscrutable ranks, and rename him Locutus.

Yeah but the people who were in charge of the decision to use the bombs, well...

Right. Even if the scientists had any idea about exactly what the radioactive side effects would be (which is a big if), the military and government decisionmakers sure as hell didn't understand that shit.

Also, this "civilian target" thing is kinda misdirected. Every city had a huge civilian population. Including Tokyo and all the others where we blew up a whole shitload of civilians with conventional bombs. (Hell, one of the reasons they chose Hiroshima as a possible target was because the plentiful rivers made it a bad target for our horrifying firebombing tactics which had been so effective in killing more people than the nukes eventually did.) Nagasaki and Hiroshima weren't some pacifist cities with no strategic value, they had army depots and naval vessels in the ports and a number of factories producing war materials.

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

They weren't targeted for strategic value. They wanted a high civilian death toll.

 

[Jingus]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

It wasn't that simple. If their only goal was to murder as many people as possible, they could've dropped it on downtown Tokyo (well, at least the part that we hadn't already burned down). A big reason for the choice of targets was simply because they hadn't been thoroughly bombed already. They wanted a relatively pristine urban area that they could obliterate, to show the bomb's power. Hiroshima and Nagasaki had barely been touched by the war mostly because they were relatively unimportant. You're right, they didn't have much strategic value, compared to other targets. But those other targets had already been bombed flat. The entire point of the bomb was (and it hurts to say this phrase) basically a shock-and-awe tactic. It wasn't an actual strategic weapon, because we only had two of the damn things. The whole plan was to cause as much terrifying damage with the two bombs we had, and then hope like hell that the Japanese military didn't call our bluff afterwards. And to do that, the bombs had to be dropped on cities which weren't already in ruins; and to do that, we had to pick cities with a lesser military presence, because all the real strategic targets were already smoking craters.

 

[BurningPirateShipSex]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

It wasn't that simple. If their only goal was to murder as many people as possible, they could've dropped it on downtown Tokyo (well, at least the part that we hadn't already burned down). A big reason for the choice of targets was simply because they hadn't been thoroughly bombed already. They wanted a relatively pristine urban area that they could obliterate, to show the bomb's power. Hiroshima and Nagasaki had barely been touched by the war mostly because they were relatively unimportant. You're right, they didn't have much strategic value, compared to other targets. But those other targets had already been bombed flat. The entire point of the bomb was (and it hurts to say this phrase) basically a shock-and-awe tactic. It wasn't an actual strategic weapon, because we only had two of the damn things. The whole plan was to cause as much terrifying damage with the two bombs we had, and then hope like hell that the Japanese military didn't call our bluff afterwards. And to do that, the bombs had to be dropped on cities which weren't already in ruins; and to do that, we had to pick cities with a lesser military presence, because all the real strategic targets were already smoking craters.

Everything you wrote seems to confirm CWM's point.

 

[Jingus]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

I'm explaining, not excusing. It was a horrible thing, there's no denying that. But the alternatives, once again, were even worse. Either we killed a whole shitload of people with those two bombs, or we killed ten or twenty shitloads of people with thousands and thousands of other bombs.

 

[Agent of Oblivion]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

Y'know, if the main reason why we nuked 'em was to preserve the lives of AMERICAN SOLDIERS, why not nuke every other country we've been at war with since?

The only justification of nuking a country is simply that we were at war, and when one wants to actually win a war, it involves fucking annihilating the enemy as quickly and horribly as possible. That's it. Spare me the political motivations against Russia and the cuddly lifesaving excuses. It was a new bangbang that'd fuck 'em up good.

 

[Agent of Oblivion]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

The poll is TIED. THIS IS WHY THIS NATION IS IN GRIDLOCK

 

[alkeiper]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

Y'know, if the main reason why we nuked 'em was to preserve the lives of AMERICAN SOLDIERS, why not nuke every other country we've been at war with since?

Because several other countries now have the capability of retaliating.

 

[Agent of Oblivion]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

Like Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, and Afghanistan? I'm not saying we SHOULD, obv.

 

[alkeiper]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

Like Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, and Afghanistan? I'm not saying we SHOULD, obv.

Korea was an option until the Soviets got the bomb. Both Korea and Vietnam were backed by the Soviet Union of course, which did have nukes.

Iraq and Afghanistan present a different problem. There we're dealing with civil wars/power vacuums. You can't convince central leadership to surrender because there isn't any. The bomb becomes effective only as a tool of genocide, which benefits no one.

 

[BruiserBrody]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

I hear they planned to kidnap General MacArthur, assimilate him into their inscrutable ranks, and rename him Locutus.

During the siege of Bataan, MacArthur was warned that when he was captured he would be publicly executed in Tokyo.

It wasn't that simple. If their only goal was to murder as many people as possible, they could've dropped it on downtown Tokyo (well, at least the part that we hadn't already burned down). A big reason for the choice of targets was simply because they hadn't been thoroughly bombed already. They wanted a relatively pristine urban area that they could obliterate, to show the bomb's power. Hiroshima and Nagasaki had barely been touched by the war mostly because they were relatively unimportant. You're right, they didn't have much strategic value, compared to other targets. But those other targets had already been bombed flat. The entire point of the bomb was (and it hurts to say this phrase) basically a shock-and-awe tactic. It wasn't an actual strategic weapon, because we only had two of the damn things. The whole plan was to cause as much terrifying damage with the two bombs we had, and then hope like hell that the Japanese military didn't call our bluff afterwards. And to do that, the bombs had to be dropped on cities which weren't already in ruins; and to do that, we had to pick cities with a lesser military presence, because all the real strategic targets were already smoking craters.

Everything you wrote seems to confirm CWM's point.

Except that the US military did their best to warn the Japan Civilians to get out before the nuclear assault.

 

[snuffbox]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

They did?

 

[Byron The Bulb]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

Iraq and Afghanistan present a different problem. There we're dealing with civil wars/power vacuums. You can't convince central leadership to surrender because there isn't any. The bomb becomes effective only as a tool of genocide, which benefits no one.

Uhm, dead terrorists benefit everyone.

 

[BruiserBrody]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

They did?

On August 1, 1945, five days before the bombing of Hiroshima, the U.S. Army Air Force dropped one million leaflets over Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and 33 other Japanese cities warning that those cities were going to be destroyed within a few days and advising the residents to leave to save their lives. One side of the leaflet had a photo of five U.S. bombers unloading bombs and a list of the targeted cities. The other side had the text. The English version of the leaflet is included in an article at the CIA website, "The Information War in the Pacific, 1945," by Josette H. Williams. OWI stands for Office of War Information:

Front side of OWI notice #2106, dubbed the "LeMay bombing leaflet," which was delivered to Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and 33 other Japanese cities on 1 August 1945. The Japanese text on the reverse side of the leaflet carried the following warning:

"Read this carefully as it may save your life or the life of a relative or friend. In the next few days, some or all of the cities named on the reverse side will be destroyed by American bombs. These cities contain military installations and workshops or factories which produce military goods. We are determined to destroy all of the tools of the military clique which they are using to prolong this useless war. But, unfortunately, bombs have no eyes. So, in accordance with America's humanitarian policies, the American Air Force, which does not wish to injure innocent people, now gives you warning to evacuate the cities named and save your lives. America is not fighting the Japanese people but is fighting the military clique which has enslaved the Japanese people. The peace which America will bring will free the people from the oppression of the military clique and mean the emergence of a new and better Japan. You can restore peace by demanding new and good leaders who will end the war. We cannot promise that only these cities will be among those attacked but some or all of them will be, so heed this warning and evacuate these cities immediately."

(See Richard S. R. Hubert, "The OWI Saipan Operation," Official Report to US Information Service, Washington, DC 1946.)
___________________________________________________________

Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_warnings_did_the_US_give_Japan_before_they_dropped_the_bomb_on_Hiroshima#ixzz1Gy83dGbw

 

[snuffbox]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

lol

 

[alkeiper]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

I know snuffbox will attack it. Those leaflets don't really mean anything to me either. They're too vague to be of any use. I mean, 35 cities?! Were tens of millions of Japanese people suppose to just congregate in the meadows?

 

[BurningPirateShipSex]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

Dropping leaflets (which are not only vague, but probably indistinguishable from other US propaganda) still didn't give the US the authority to start vaporizing people.