Nuking the Japanese. Cool or not cool?

[still fly]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

Yes it did

 

[BruiserBrody]

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.

Had the US started the War aggressions I'd have more of a bleeding heart. War sucks.

 

[snuffbox]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

The giveaway for the above leaflets being wholly ridiculous should be their title, "LeMay bombing leaflet"

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

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.

Also because in every other war we are talking about thousands of American soldiers dead. In the invasion of Japan we are talking about potentially millions. The scale is not comparable.

 

[The Metal Maniac]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

I don't think the number of potentially dead Americans plays a role.

Even if America somehow stood to lose 50 million troops during, well, any war after WWII, for them to use the bomb in any of those conflicts would've resulted in massive American *civilian* casualties, when they were bombed in retaliation.

It's no coincidence that the only time nukes were dropped on people was when only one country in the world knew how to build them.

 

[AA484]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

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.

This is pretty much my sentiment exactly.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

I don't think the number of potentially dead Americans plays a role.

Even if America somehow stood to lose 50 million troops during, well, any war after WWII, for them to use the bomb in any of those conflicts would've resulted in massive American *civilian* casualties, when they were bombed in retaliation.

It's no coincidence that the only time nukes were dropped on people was when only one country in the world knew how to build them.

I agree. What I meant was even in 1945, I don't think they would have used them if the projected casualties for an invasion were going to be a few thousand.

 

[The Metal Maniac]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

Yeah, I totally misread what you were saying. My mistake.

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

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.

This is pretty much my sentiment exactly.

When you fight a war you should be targeting military targets as much as possible. Massacring civilians isn't always effective and even when it is it leads to future problems that just aren't worth it.

 

[Byron The Bulb]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

The giveaway for the above leaflets being wholly ridiculous should be their title, "LeMay bombing leaflet"

I wonder if they had to tell him that the leaflets themselves were explosive in order to get him to sign off on the plan.

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

I just wish the plan to use bats had worked out. Flying rodents are awful.

 

[Byron The Bulb]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

Also the "well it was a WAR what do you expect??" line of reasoning is basically the exact same thing that's trotted out today to defend torture and whatnot. The whole point of ethical/moral standards is that you're not supposed to suddenly compromise them as soon as it becomes expedient to do so.

 

[Edwin]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

I dunno that moral/ethical standards come into The Bomb specifically, given that it was just another thing slaughtering the Japanese. What was special about the nuke was that it was a single thing that could fit in one plane, instead of hundreds and hundreds of bombs dropping out of multiple planes. "New bangbang" sums it up well.

 

[KOAB]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

New Gangbang iondedd

 

[Jingus]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

I dunno that moral/ethical standards come into The Bomb specifically, given that it was just another thing slaughtering the Japanese. What was special about the nuke was that it was a single thing that could fit in one plane, instead of hundreds and hundreds of bombs dropping out of multiple planes.

Damn your succint summarizing skills! That's pretty much what I've been trying to say for several pages now. American forces were already doing practically identical destruction to practically identical cities. Whether that destruction was caused by one bomb or a thousand makes no difference to the dead bodies on the ground. The only way that the results of the A-bomb were more horrific than what we were already doing was the radiation factor; and as has been pointed out several times, even the Manhattan Project scientists who built the bomb had very little idea of what effect that radioactive fallout would have. And, let's face it, that's just one extra item on the long checklist of ways that you can horribly mutilate someone with a bomb. You think that the hospitals and mortuaries of Tokyo weren't filled with the hideously deformed shells of thousands upon thousands of burned children after our extensive firebombing of that city?

 

[BruiserBrody]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

Mini American Flags for all!!!


See you next year for TSM's Killing Gook babies in Nam - cool or not cool?

 

[BurningPirateShipSex]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

I wouldn't simply say that the A-Bomb was "just another thing", full-stop. The point of the bomb was not just that it was one bomb as opposed to hundreds, but that it, in one go, could cause far more death and destruction within a limited time period than a sustained bombing campaign. Which is to say, that the US bombing campaign as a whole probably killed more people than the two A-Bomb drops, but that the A-Bomb is more remembered, and more controversial, because it killed massive amounts of people within days.

I'm sure that the nuclear scientists, Oppenheimer et al, probably didn't know the full effects of nuclear radiation on a civilian population ; that doesn't excuse their actions or culpability for them. At best, they'd be found guilty of negligence.

 

[Jingus]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

The point of the bomb was not just that it was one bomb as opposed to hundreds, but that it, in one go, could cause far more death and destruction within a limited time period than a sustained bombing campaign.

Those two points are pretty identical.

Which is to say, that the US bombing campaign as a whole probably killed more people than the two A-Bomb drops, but that the A-Bomb is more remembered, and more controversial, because it killed massive amounts of people within days.

There's no "probably" about it, the conventional bombs definitely killed a lot more people. Once again, I go back to the firebombing of Tokyo: the infamous March 10th raid saw more dead bodies on the ground than either Hiroshima or Nagasaki did. In one day. That's why I keep saying the A-bombings weren't really worse: because there's plenty of statistical proof that they were not. Of all the awful genocidal shit done in WWII, those two bombs really were just another item on a very long list. And not even at the top of the list, when compared to the sheer numbers of millions and millions of civilians who were systematically murdered by various faction.

I'm sure that the nuclear scientists, Oppenheimer et al, probably didn't know the full effects of nuclear radiation on a civilian population ; that doesn't excuse their actions or culpability for them. At best, they'd be found guilty of negligence.

"Be found guilty"? You seriously think that the technicians should've been tried for war crimes? You're gonna have a long list of people to condemn, if you want to say that consistently about every person who ever invented a weapon which was more powerful than the ones already existing at that time.

And once more: there is no "probably" here. Get that word out of that statement. They didn't know. As late as just ten years prior, some doctors were still trying to sell tinctures of emissive radium as medicine. The true effects of radioactive fallout from nukes didn't become apparant until after we'd already used the damn things on people; it was impossible to know beforehand that they would have that effect.

 

[snuffbox]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

Stop with the "they didn't know" canard.

 

[Jingus]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

Stop with the "they didn't know" canard.

Why? It's true.

 

[BruiserBrody]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

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.

This is pretty much my sentiment exactly.

When you fight a war you should be targeting military targets as much as possible. Massacring civilians isn't always effective and even when it is it leads to future problems that just aren't worth it.

You are right in that it doesn't always work, but it was effective in this case. It did cause Japan to surrender, and although the Japanese might not be happy about the bombings they have been one of the closest American allies ever since. They hated the Americans far more before the bomb than they did after.

 

[snuffbox]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

Stop with the "they didn't know" canard.

Why? It's true.

No, it's not. Again: scientists not retards. They knew what they were doing and they deliberately targeted civilians. Twice.

It's cool, though, because Curtis fucking LeMay dumped a bunch of garbage on Japan beforehand.

 

[Jingus]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

No, it's not. Again: scientists not retards. They knew what they were doing and they deliberately targeted civilians. Twice.

Why are you conflating two different arguments into one? The scientists who designed the bombs had precisely nothing to do with the cities chosen for obliteration, that was all a military decision. I'm talking about the scientists' knowledge of the effects of radioactive fallout on a human population. Of which they demonstrably knew jack shit.

It's cool, though, because Curtis fucking LeMay dumped a bunch of garbage on Japan beforehand.

Yeah, because I totally said that absolved all guilt. Oh wait, no, I didn't say a single word about LeMay or the leaflets. Pay attention.

 

[vivisectvi]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

Whatever. Dagon was a great movie.

 

[alkeiper]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

Yeah, we targeted civilians. It was one of the more shameful elements of World War II on all sides. First off, I don't see why the scientists should carry culpability. "Will this harm the civilians we drop it on?" Well yeah, its a fucking bomb.

As far as the ethos of targeting civilians, the fourth Geneva Convention set rules against total war and targeting civilian populations. Its verboten now. But the rules were different in 1945. Make no mistake about it. The japanese people dealt with incredible hardship. So did the Germans, as the brutal mass rape of Berlin is rarely talked about either. But we completely overwhelmed the Japanese militarily and they refused to capitulate. The war had to end somehow. And if we invaded Japan itself we risked getting involved in a brutal guillera war.

I hope it never happens again. I do not think we should ever use nuclear weapons again. I'm not even sure using them in 1945 was the best move. But it was an ugly war, people were going to die in any scenario.

 

[ViciousFish]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

The British killed 42,000 civilians in Hamburg in a week. There's no way they could justify doing that now.

The world today and the world during World War 2 are very different places.

 

[snuffbox]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

They couldnt justify it then, either.

 

[NoCalMike]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

I don't quite buy the "they didn't know" line.....I think it might be closer to "They didn't know for 100% certainty" or "We need to do more testing before we fully know" but the government was probably just concerned with the fact that it made a very big bang. The more things that come out about our government pertaining to military operations over the years (and every other government for that matter) the more it just seems like once a certain decision is made and decided on, they just quite frankly don't give a flying fuck about ramifications, it will all just be "sorted out later"

The use of the A-bombs is an entire separate issue then the fact that they were dropped on civilians, causing mass innocent death. The A-bombs weren't the only instance of targeting civilians either. It wasn't like we were dropping it on a military installation of kamikaze planes fueling up to get ready for an attack.

 

[Jingus]

Nuking the god damn japs. Cool or not cool?

I don't quite buy the "they didn't know" line.....I think it might be closer to "They didn't know for 100% certainty" or "We need to do more testing before we fully know" but the government was probably just concerned with the fact that it made a very big bang.

Oh, I can believe that they didn't care if it had any bad side effects. This was the same era where we rounded up the god damn japs and herded them all into internment camps. They were seen as being less human than even the freaking Nazis. So I can totally buy the generals saying "what do you mean, it poisons the land and the air and the people? That's fucking awesome, drop more of them!" But the fact is that the scientific knowledge of the radioactive side effects was very limited at best. You don't know what a weapon is going to do to people until you actually see what it does to people, and we certainly weren't gonna test it on a bunch of Americans first.

The use of the A-bombs is an entire separate issue then the fact that they were dropped on civilians, causing mass innocent death. The A-bombs weren't the only instance of targeting civilians either. It wasn't like we were dropping it on a military installation of kamikaze planes fueling up to get ready for an attack.

There weren't any big 100% military targets. They were all mixed with civilians. Those military installations were usually right next to, or worse, right in the middle of the cities. Today, we've learned from horrific days like that and try not to do things like blow up an entire mosque just to get the dozen combatants hiding inside it. Back then, it was much more of a "fuck it, kill 'em all 'til they surrender" Total War mindset. And the use of the a-bombs didn't differ much from the use of conventional bombs in that regard.

Oddly, there was a tiny little bit of cultural sensitivity shown in choosing nuclear targets. One of the early possibilities was Kyoto, which was the Imperial capitol of old. That one was decided against for reasons of traditional or historical importance. It'd be sort of like if a terrorist today had a nuke in America, and decided that blowing up Washington DC is probably not a great idea, and wiped out Cleveland instead. I have no idea why they even cared about that, but they did; similarly, the Emperor's palace in Tokyo was labelled strictly off limits during bombing runs of that city (although the firebombs were so disgustingly effective, half of it burned down anyway).