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Mel Mudkiper posted:If the idea of entering the age of atomic warfare isn't terrifying to you I do not think its something you can be convinced of in an argument. I would be less terrified of the age of atomic warfare if we didn't already have a predisposition toward annihilating civilian centers.
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Aug 7, 2015 02:31
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VitalSigns posted:None of those officers were high up, and they went ahead despite not getting support from anyone important. That coup was never going to succeed against the Emperor, and there's no evidence that without the bombings anyone of consequence would have joined them. In the Japanese military when lower ranked officers carry out a coup there's usually backing from the upper levels but want clean hands. This exact same scenario pretty much played itself out in 1936 as well.
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Aug 7, 2015 02:32
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-Troika- posted:Here's what's indefensible revisionism: claiming that the Japanese were the victims in the entire situation in any way. Mabye they shouldn't have spent years raping and murdering their way across literally half of China, which, by the way, the Japanese government still hasn't apologized for or acknowledged to this loving day. I remember when schoolchildren in Nagasaki raped a bunch of Chinese women. Congratulations on justifying the 9/11 terrorist attacks by the way: every civilian is 100% complicit in the crimes of their government.
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Aug 7, 2015 02:33
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If the Allies had lost the war, most everyone involved with the strategic bombing campaigns would have been executed for war crimes. World War II was a conflict where the distinction between civilians and combatants was effectively erased in a series of decisions by both sides.
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Aug 7, 2015 02:33
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Typo posted:But then your problem isn't with bombing Hiroshima per see, it's with the invention of atomic weapons period Yeah and the fact that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the only uses of them in a war is what makes Hiroshima and Nagasaki uniquely immoral to some people. Frankly, if nukes were being dropped in a war every few years Hiroshima and Nagasaki would probably not have a unique visceral reaction for me.
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Aug 7, 2015 02:34
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Typo posted:The atomic bomb has conveniently twisted the narrative of the war in post-war Japan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre#Japan quote:On August 15, 1995, the fiftieth anniversary of the Surrender of Japan, the Japanese prime minister Tomiichi Murayama gave the first clear and formal apology for Japanese actions during the war. He apologized for Japan's wrongful aggression and the great suffering that it inflicted in Asia. He offered his heartfelt apology to all survivors and to the relatives and friends of the victims. That day, the prime minister and the Japanese Emperor Akihito pronounced statements of mourning at Tokyo's Nippon Budokan. The emperor offered his condolences and expressed the hope that such atrocities would never be repeated. Iris Chang, author of The Rape of Nanking, criticized Murayama for not providing the written apology that had been expected. She said that the people of China "don't believe that an... unequivocal and sincere apology has ever been made by Japan to China" and that a written apology from Japan would send a better message to the international community.[18] Typo posted:this might actually be a serious answer because a number of people refuses to believe japan did anything wrong because how could the land which gave us naruto and anime girl dating games be bad? So you say this but as I've said before on these forums my experience is nearly 100% people rabidly insisting that the Japanese are a nation of fascist, pedophilic subhumans who we should have nuked off the face of the earth. I mean, Japan's relationship with its past and present is bad enough that you don't need to make hyperbolic statements like the first quote that can be refuted with a loving 5 second google search. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be a joke or if its serious but either way the Japan hateboner thing isn't funny anymore icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 02:38 on Aug 7, 2015 |
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Aug 7, 2015 02:34
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VitalSigns posted:Are we actually arguing that conventionally firebombing entire cities with the express intent of killing hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children was anything other than a horrific crime against humanity? Oh yeah I'm not trying to justify poo poo like Dresden. I see that as a different situation from Hiroshima or Nagasaki, which were heavily militarized, industrial urban centers. Anyone who has a problem with nuking them but is fine with deploying WW2-era strategic bombing technology instead isn't morally superior, they're just uneducated about the state of the art at the time.
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Aug 7, 2015 02:35
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This poster loves police brutality, but only when its against minorities!
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VitalSigns posted:I remember when schoolchildren in Nagasaki raped a bunch of Chinese women. But the US does have the moral obligation to end the war as fast as possible to Japanese troops can't go on raping people in China
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Aug 7, 2015 02:36
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Typo posted:In the Japanese military when lower ranked officers carry out a coup there's usually backing from the upper levels but want clean hands. You mean that both coups failed? That doesn't seem to be a convincing point that the Japanese would have continued to fight: it sounds like the opposite.
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Aug 7, 2015 02:36
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-Troika- posted:Here's what's indefensible revisionism: claiming that the Japanese were the victims in the entire situation in any way. Mabye they shouldn't have spent years raping and murdering their way across literally half of China, which, by the way, the Japanese government still hasn't apologized for or acknowledged to this loving day. See my above post
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Aug 7, 2015 02:37
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True the bomb was terrible the better option it would have been to setup a blockade to win the war and let the Japanese die of natural causes like starvation... far more humane!
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Aug 7, 2015 02:38
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DeusExMachinima posted:Oh yeah I'm not trying to justify poo poo like Dresden. I see that as a different situation from Hiroshima or Nagasaki, which were heavily militarized, industrial urban centers. Anyone who has a problem with nuking them but is fine with deploying WW2-era strategic bombing technology isn't morally superior, they're just uneducated about the state of the art at the time. Who are these people who are supposedly A-OK with the firebombing of Dresden and Japan? Finding the atom bomb uniquely odious doesn't mean you disregard everything else. Nanking was wrong, Dresden was wrong, Holocaust was wrong. Most actions taken during a war are wrong. Its been 70 years. We can acknowledge that this is not a question of moral scales. As long as we were the least horrible that doesn't make us the good guys. WWII was a global tragedy of human death and suffering. Nobody was clean.
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Aug 7, 2015 02:38
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So what did the guy actually apologize for? Some vague and ambiguous stuff about "well, bad stuff happened" or specifically "Rape of Nanking we are sorry"
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Aug 7, 2015 02:38
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I feel like the discussion of whether or not the Japanese would have surrendered or fought to the last man in a land invasion misses part of why the Hiroshima and Nagasaki is so upsetting to many people. And it worked really well and no one has done it since. Ta-daaa~
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Aug 7, 2015 02:39
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I like the sound of the People's Republic of Japan  
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Aug 7, 2015 02:39
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VitalSigns posted:You mean that both coups failed? Both coup failed because the emperor himself came out against them. In the final vote to decide on whether to surrender or not, the vote was tied until the emperor broke it. The point is that even after the Atomic bombs the Japanese were pretty close to fighting on.
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Aug 7, 2015 02:40
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DeusExMachinima posted:Oh yeah I'm not trying to justify poo poo like Dresden. I see that as a different situation from Hiroshima or Nagasaki, which were heavily militarized, industrial urban centers. Anyone who has a problem with nuking them but is fine with deploying WW2-era strategic bombing technology instead isn't morally superior, they're just uneducated about the state of the art at the time. Except the military industrial centers weren't the target and weren't a big concern. If they were, we would have destroyed them already. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were good targets for the atomic bombing because their relative strategic unimportance had left them mostly intact. Typo posted:But the US does have the moral obligation to end the war as fast as possible to Japanese troops can't go on raping people in China The Soviet Union's invasion of Manchuria and total defeat of the Kwantung Army had already assured that before the surrender even happened. There's no reason to think that the bombings sped up military defeat in China, you're grasping at straws.
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Aug 7, 2015 02:41
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Who are these people who are supposedly A-OK with the firebombing of Dresden and Japan? Finding the atom bomb uniquely odious doesn't mean you disregard everything else. The difference between Nanking/Holocaust and Dresden/Hiroshima is that you can at least claim that the latter two was done on the basis of winning the war. Whereas the former two had either no or negative impact on the military situation for the side which committed it.
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Aug 7, 2015 02:42
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VitalSigns posted:
Manchuria isn't the rest of China
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Aug 7, 2015 02:42
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Chomskyan posted:What do you think? Was it a bad thing to vaporize hundreds of thousands of civilians or is it hunky dory to commit war crimes? Debate and discuss. lol, your entire statement is stupid. "hundreds of thousands" of people were not "vaporised". I imagine quite a few, but saying HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS is just retarded. War Crime? What law was broken? What court ruled this? Oh, just you screaming in your basement? lol I'm fine with the nuclear bombing of Japan. It meant our grandparents didn't have to die taking that dump.
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Aug 7, 2015 02:42
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Who are these people who are supposedly A-OK with the firebombing of Dresden and Japan? Finding the atom bomb uniquely odious doesn't mean you disregard everything else. You're twisting my words. I said: quote:Anyone who has a problem with nuking them but is fine with deploying WW2-era strategic bombing technology isn't morally superior, As in, strategic conventional bombing of valid military targets in Nagasaki and Hiroshima would've been no less destructive to civilians than the nuke, going by the examples of German cities that were loving levelled in an attempt to get at their industrial centers. I'm not talking about firebombing Toyko's paper shantytowns or whatever, that has no strategic value and is purely a terror tactic, I agree. But that's irrelevant to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So propose an alternative. Don't bomb military targets at all in those two cities? Do bomb them? With what? efb by typo
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Aug 7, 2015 02:44
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Typo posted:The difference between Nanking/Holocaust and Dresden/Hiroshima is that you can at least claim that the latter two was done on the basis of winning the war. Whereas the former two had either no or negative impact on the military situation for the side which committed it. Ok, do you believe there was any action of massive violence taken by the Allied Forces that could be argued as purely vestigial to the war effort?
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Aug 7, 2015 02:45
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DeusExMachinima posted:You're twisting my words. I said: How am I twisting your words? You said quote:Anyone who has a problem with nuking them but is fine with deploying WW2-era strategic bombing technology isn't morally superior, I am asking who these people are
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Aug 7, 2015 02:46
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Ok, do you believe there was any action of massive violence taken by the Allied Forces that could be argued as purely vestigial to the war effort? Vestigial in retrospect, or considered vestigial when the decisions were made?
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Aug 7, 2015 02:48
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I guess the answer to your question Mel is: everyone who thinks we should've invaded or blockaded instead, because that's how that would've been enforced. With lots of things that explode. Thennn no, not vestigal in the same sense. VVVV
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Aug 7, 2015 02:48
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Typo posted:Vestigial in retrospect, or considered vestigial when the decisions were made? vesitigial in whatever element you consider Holocaust or Nanking to be vestigial
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Aug 7, 2015 02:48
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Mel Mudkiper posted:vesitigial in whatever element you consider Holocaust or Nanking to be vestigial Then no, it's pretty obvious for instance that sending Jews to the camps meant massive amounts of rail transportation don't go to the war effort, killing them rather than using them as slave labor was senseless etc. Bombing Dresden at the time did seem like something to shorten the war.
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Aug 7, 2015 02:50
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DeusExMachinima posted:I guess the answer to your question Mel is: everyone who thinks we should've invaded or blockaded instead, because that's how that would've been enforced. With lots of things that explode. I always wonder if those people are naive enough to think that there would be fewer casualties than the 40,000 that got vaporized if we got into a land war in Japan. The nuke ended things quick and much cleaner than an invasion would have, nukes dont rape, angry PTSD soldiers sure as gently caress do though.
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Aug 7, 2015 02:51
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If nothing else they seem to have stymied further usage of nuclear weapons, which is definitely good (especially if we did that dumb poo poo like nuking China during the Korean War).
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Aug 7, 2015 02:51
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Typo posted:Then no, it's pretty obvious for instance that sending Jews to the camps meant massive amounts of rail transportation don't go to the war effort, killing them rather than using them as slave labor was senseless etc. Ok, what about the rapes of Berlin by the Soviet Army as one example? Just to be clear, I am absolutely not trying to compare them on a scale to Nanking or the Holocaust. Objectively Holocaust and Nanking were the greatest atrocities of the entire war and I cannot imagine anyone would argue that. I just find it a little concerning that you seem to be suggesting every decision or action the allies made during WWII was always justified as trying to win the war.
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Aug 7, 2015 02:57
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the nuke didn't end things, soviet troops capturing the entire japanese army in china and shipping them off to siberian prison camps never to be seen again ended things
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Aug 7, 2015 02:58
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Ok, what about the rapes of Berlin by the Soviet Army as one example? I don't think the rape of Berlin nor every single decision made by the allies in WW2 were justified. I do think strategic bombing of civilian centers were justified however, it was a total war. The losers gets annihilated. you do what you could to win.
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Aug 7, 2015 03:00
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icantfindaname posted:the nuke didn't end things, soviet troops capturing the entire japanese army in china and shipping them off to siberian prison camps never to be seen again ended things Yeah, this didn't happen. The Kwantung Army wasn't anything like "the entire japanese army in china". And they didn't even capture the entire Kwantung Army, they got half of it at best.
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Aug 7, 2015 03:00
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:Yeah, this didn't happen. The Kwantung Army wasn't anything like "the entire japanese army in china". By summer 1945 the best units in the Kwantung army had already being shipped back to the home islands to defend it against the American invasion anyway.
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Aug 7, 2015 03:02
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Typo posted:it was a total war. The losers gets annihilated. you do what you could to win. So, if Germany had won the war, you think the mass murder of Soviet civilians to root out partisans would be acceptable? What about conditions for POWs, including Americans captured by the Japanese? What about the Japanese internment? You can't really say might makes right 10 seconds after saying finishing a tirade about Japan and Germany being morally bankrupt
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Aug 7, 2015 03:02
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icantfindaname posted:So, if Germany had won the war, you think the mass murder of Soviet civilians was acceptable? No, I don't quote:What about conditions for POWs, including Americans captured by the Japanese?
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Aug 7, 2015 03:04
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Typo posted:I do think strategic bombing of civilian centers were justified however, it was a total war. The losers gets annihilated. you do what you could to win. This gets to what is really the philosophical core of the debate then doesn't it. Is it moral to commit acts of extreme violence in the sincere belief doing so prevents a greater malevolent force from commiting acts of extreme violence? And frankly, I am not sure there is a consistent answer to it. EDIT: I can think of cases where I say yes, and cases where I say no
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Aug 7, 2015 03:04
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icantfindaname posted:the nuke didn't end things, soviet troops capturing the entire japanese army in china and shipping them off to siberian prison camps never to be seen again ended things No it didn't. The issue with the soviets is that the Japanese were trying to negotiate through them since they were still neutral. This rapid entry into the war cut off the ability to negotiate. However neither event was sufficient in and of itself and the collapse represents the totality of circumstances facing Japan as things escalated rapidly throughout the early weeks of August.
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Aug 7, 2015 03:05
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Is it moral to commit acts of extreme violence in the sincere belief doing so prevents a greater malevolent force from commiting acts of extreme violence? Yeah, pretty much.
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Aug 7, 2015 03:05
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Typo posted:No, I don't The internment of Japanese and brutal handling of suspected partisans by the Germans were absolutely things done with the intention of winning the war
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Aug 7, 2015 03:06
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