Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Colorado Gold ^ | 8-1-2005 | Don

[Veloxherc]

Bockscar is at Wright-Pat AFB at the Air Force Museum.

I'll be there tomorrow.

[Veloxherc]

Bockscar is at Wright-Pat AFB at the Air Force Museum.

I'll be there tomorrow.

[porkchops 4 mahound]

Are you really that obtuse?

Yes, of frikkin course. killing people is against the Law, both man's and GOD's.

You cannot begin to understand what happened if you can't understand a place beyond Law.

A place called SURVIVAL.

A place called TOTAL WAR.

[porkchops 4 mahound]

Ya think?

[Cyber Liberty]

Dittos in a few weeks. Gonna be cool!

[El Gato]

Yes, of frikkin course. killing people is against the Law, both man's and GOD's.

Actually it's not always. "Thou shalt not Kill" is a poor translation, a better one would have been "Thou shalt not Murder". Many kinds of homicide, such as killing in self defense or killing enemy soldiers during a war, are not murder.

[Charlespg]

The objection is, that the civilians killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not collateral deaths. These deaths were intended, inasmuch as (1) the US chose to use indiscriminate weapons of mass destruction and (2) the US intended that the psychological effect of a butchery of such magnitude would shock the Japanese High Command.

Tell me would you have dropped the Bomb on Berlin to end the the Holocaust ? The Japanese went on a rampage in WWII and did things that we would have hanged the Germans over a dozen times for

I have some sympathy for the individual citizens,but countries that embark on wars of conquest and genocide should be ready for the consequences

Honorable soldiers don't target civilians. George Washington didn't target civilians. Robert E. Lee didn't target civilians.

back then wars were fought by professional armies,and they weren't fighting against Hitler and Co either

[k2blader]

You didn't try it yet, did you. Your cowardice speaks for itself.

[bannie]

I know my professors would freak if I used the term "Jap" in a serious article. It is considered a racial slur.

Those who were attacked by the Japanese lived through something we never had to live through. They have emotions we don't have.

[k2blader]

There's no excuse for being racist.

Period.

[bannie]

Strong people are able to laugh at themselves.

Others whine a lot.

:-) You're strong AND wise.

[Prime Choice]

Didn't read my message yet, did you.

Your arrogance is eclipsed only by your ignorance.

[bannie]

Racist? Naw...they were being attacked and decided to call the enemy a shortened name. The name became a dirty word to them because the enemy elicited feelings of contempt and disgust.

Germans were called Krauts. Racist? Naw...contempt for an enemy who wanted to kill them.

"Exclamation Mark" to trump your "Period."

[k2blader]

I'm sorry for calling you a coward. I shouldn't have. Also, I don't even think you are one.

It's easy to type things on the computer so far away and detached from the souls at the other screens. I think there's a similarity between that and this "Jap" business.

I live in a place where there are many, many Americans of Japanese ancestry. The vast majority weren't around or weren't "of age" during WWII. A much smaller number of them, dying out now, were a part of those who fought against the Nazis in Europe.

One *never* uses the word "Jap" here unless he seriously intends to be derogatory, because to the Americans who happen to look Japanese, it *is* derogatory.

Re. your message: #76? I read it.

[k2blader]

See #134.

[Mrs. Don-o]

As I mentioned in previous posts, the extreme murderousness of the Axis Powers would justify the use of overwhelming military power on our part to destroy their war-making capacities. That this would produce high collateral civilian casualties is pretty horrible, but under the circumstances, inevitable.

All that is quite different from indiscriminate city = target bombing. To deliberately and indiscriminately kill noncombatants is not, properly speaking, an act of war. It is massacre. It is murder.

[meadsjn]

This is a public forum; I don't need an invitation for my opinion. Especially when it's right.

I know my professors would freak if I used the term "Jap" in a serious article. It is considered a racial slur.

You are wrong -- dead wrong. You and your professors have never lived through a total war, as WW-II was, where the very existence of the the US as a nation and the lives and liberties of all the world's people were at at stake. I grew up listening to the stories of both veterans and civilians who did.

The Allied forces and their civilian support (which included damn near every man, woman, and child in the Allied countries) had to be unified in the effort to win on every front. The hearts, minds, and souls of everyone had to be 100% committed to the war effort, and a great part of that commitment was recognizing the the enemy as the enemy, and not as a distant cousin with whom one is having a temporary tiff. Japanese enemy were called "Japs" during the war; German enemy were called "Krauts". There were probably some other more or less flattering terms used, but the point is that the enemy is unambiguously differentiated from "us" and our "Allies". Many of those who lived through those years continued to use terminology from the war years. It was more a case of History, than one of racism.

Some PC pantie-waists existed around those times, but were roundly ridiculed into oblivion, shamed into silence, or occasionally locked up or worse for their treasonous actions.

You may very well experience such a "total war" before you get much older. You, and many, many others, will be changed significantly, forever, win or lose.

[Prime Choice]

I regret our disagreeable exchange as well.

I can appreciate your point of view. I just get infuriatingly stubborn sometimes. (Surprised?)   ;o)

Best wishes.

[Dont_Tread_On_Me_888]

Thank you very much. You help make communicating unjoyable here when one receives a nice compliment like that.

THX!

[stevem]

So, Japan may not have invented "my race is better" since that prize probably goes to some fairly primitive human tribe, but if you think for even one second that the Japanese were not even more racist than the Westerners who fought them, then I do not believe you understand the Japanese.

I think you and I are pretty much on the same page on this. My guess is the Japanese (in the lump) are every bit as ethnocentric now as they were during WWII. I don't think you can turn away from eons of programming in just a generation or two. I also think that in combatant relations, the Japanese in WWII were about as evil as you can get.

I can say after years of sea stories that there is al least one American that hated the Japanese as much as they hated him. I simply don't think it would cause him to torture a Japanese soldier for fun.