Posted on 08/02/2014 8:08:59 AM PDT by Kaslin
Yeah, after that imagery, how many V-1s and V-2s were launched? The V bombings ended when the firing positions were overrun, they weren’t halted by Allied bombing raids. Although to your liking, hundreds of Allied planes were destroyed in the effort, mostly by AA guns. And that even after they scoured the AARs.
Well, that's part of the beauty of the PC blockade plan. We would have never had to fight the Korean war, South Korea would have never emerged, the whole peninsula behind the Iron/Bamboo Curtain. If the blockade took long enough, the Viet Minh would have owned all of Vietnam so we would have been spared that as well.
If they starved, we did not kill them.
Their government chose not to surrender.
If they do not surrender, and we simply blockade them, their deaths are on the hands of the Japanese leadership.
Interesting & thanks, but if that figure of 20 million is correct, then it certainly confirms my claim that A-bombs were the most merciful way possible to end the war, quickly.
But a 20 million number also assumes a US willing to maintain its 1945 war effort indefinitely -- keeping 12+ million in the military, suffering daily casualties, piling on a $billion per week in new debt, for weeks? months? years?.
And that was a time when 12 million soldiers equated to 30+ million today, and a $ billion was real money -- about $70 billion in terms of today's GDP.
So, having amphibiously invaded many Japanese strongholds in the Pacific, as well as landings in Western Europe, the US would now just sit back and wait for Japan to "see reason" and negotiate a less-than-unconditional surrender?
And all this to avoid using a new weapon (A-bomb) whose short & long term effects nobody then understood?
I think President Truman would not have survived politically if it could be charged that he delayed victory by even a day, much less weeks or months, in order to prevent problems nobody, including Truman, then anticipated.
And the subsequent Allied deaths are whose responsibility? The geo-political changes in a drawn out end, whose responsibility? Korea lost, Japan partitioned, whose fault? No, the stupidity of not using the bomb is manifestly evident in hindsight. As evident as it was when the decision was made.
That you had none was self-evident in the first post. You did go on however.
I used to feel exactly the same as you up until a few years ago regarding this topic,
I don't doubt it, but like your arguments today, that 'feeling' was based on emotion, not the facts in evidence.
It's important to remember, first, that the entire death toll for WWII was in the neighborhood of 75 million, most of them civilians, and most though far from all, killed by Axis powers.
In Europe the number of Allied civilians killed by Hitler's bombings roughly equaled the number of German civilians killed by Allied bombings.
In Japan, US bombing killed 350,000 civilians, but at the same time 7.5 million Chinese civilians died in Japan's invasion of the mainland.
A second point to remember is: after the war many war-crimes trials were held, but none for the "crime" of bombing civilians.
At the time, all sides recognized that as military necessity.
Finally, today's standards may be different -- I don't know for sure -- but the whole idea of "Mutual Assured Destruction" with nukes was/is -- if you nuke my civilians, I'll sure as h*ll nuke yours.
No, it was based on what I was taught, read, etc.
I love WWII-era airplanes and was always interested in the topic. I still prefer watching films from the ‘40s, WWII documentaries, listening to music from that era, etc.
I used to absolutely love the airshow at Sussux, NJ every year; got to sit in B-17 one time.
If I could afford a plane for personal transport I think it would be a B-25.
It always made logical sense to me that the atomic bombs needed to be dropped to convince Japan to surrender as soon as possible.
Maybe 8 or 10 years back I had read the bio of JD Rockefeller, Sr, “Titan”. I loved the book, as I’m into entrepreneurialism. I never suspected a thing about any conspiracy theories; in fact, reading that book really convinced me that there was no such thing.
Ah, if I only didn’t find out what I found out.
None of which influenced the outcome. To much 'light' as it were for the 'shadowy' organizations. One-world types, sure, influenced the use of the bombs, no. Exist today, sure, and probably have too much influence as a result of how we fight today. Had all the battles we joined since WWII been fought like WWII the world would be a better place.
Different estimates put the total WWII death toll higher or lower, but here is a typical estimate.
It shows a total of Axis power civilians killed: 1.7 million -- one million seven hundred thousand.
The total of Allied civilians killed was 26.7 million.
That's a ratio of 16 to one, and most likely explains why Allied leaders were not over-eager to prosecute themselves for "war crimes".
PieterCasparzen: "His words would have been found to be morally repugnant to I would think most of America’s founders."
Our Founders were realists.
They did not tolerate loyalists to Britain, drove many thousands out of their homes to Canada & elsewhere.
Yes, they were generally quite civilized about it, but our Founders never faced enemies as murderous as the Axis powers' leaders.
PieterCasparzen: "...keep removing generals for not “achieving results” until you find one that will do whatever it takes, morality be damned."
The war's results speak for themselves -- one million seven hundred thousand Axis civilians died, twenty six million seven hundred thousand Allied civilians died, at least according to this tabulation.
So what, exactly, is the purpose of all your ridiculous hand-wringing?
I'll repeat, first: the civilian death toll (about half a million) from German bombings of Allied civilians -- mostly in the first half of the war -- roughly equaled the civilian death toll from Allied bombings of German civilians, mostly in the second half.
Second, nobody in those days considered bombing civilians a "war crime".
Nor would "bombing civilians" be a war-crime today, in the event of a nuclear WWIII -- that is the whole premise behind "Mutual Assured Destruction", which kept the peace ever since.
Finally, my understanding of "international law" (whatever that is) today says civilians must not be the primary target.
It also says that civilians must not be used as "human shields".
But I don't know what "international law" says to a country whose enemies disobey all other "international laws"!
First, you did not address the first comment of mine that you cited, right ? I mean, the morality of the statement, independent of numbers.
When one says “there are no innocent civilians”, that rationalizes just going up and killing non-combatants en masse.
Aren’t we Americans against our innocent American civilians getting killed by our enemies during wartime ?
Ok, now you cite chart of deaths, and America shows up as having zero civilian casualties. And you cite that as justification for American planes firebombing civilians, I guess to make up for the “other Allies” civilian deaths. I’m not a citizen of “Allied” or “the world”, I’m a citizen of the United States.
17.5 million Allied deaths were in Communist China and the Communist USSR. Slightly over 7 million were in Poland and Yugoslavia, two countries that for decades after the war were not American “allies”. Technically during the war they were all “allies”. The remaining Allied countries show a total just over 1 million.
As far as which specific countries did the killing, I’m sure you’ll agree that the US and UK took the lead on those numbers, as aerial mass bombing and aerial firebombing leaders.
But let’s say that we have this disparity, the other side killed several times more civilians than “the Allies” did.
Aren’t we taught at a young age that just because the other person commits a crime, that does not justify our committing the same crime ?
Now you commented that the Allied leaders might not be over-eager to prosecute themelves. But why would they not prosecute the enemy leadership for their war crimes of ordering civilian killings ? I mean, we could have prosecuted them and not our leadership, and said our killings were of “military necessity”, so they would not be prosecuted. Not prosecuting the enemy leadership for targeting civilians for killing does not look good, IMHO. Did our leadership think they did not have a good case ? Did our leadership think that some of them might wind up getting held accountable in a like manner ? The elites who make these decisions don’t seem too eager ever to actually do right by “the masses”, even though that is whose interests they profess to have at heart. “The masses” were the ones on the receiving end of the mass killings; no one much calls them heroes. They’re just part of the 20th century mechanized warfare nameless faceless masses who fell as intentional targets based on their residence.
Would George Washington condone the firebombing of a city ?
Killing more Axis civilians does nothing to right the wrong of killing so many Allied civilians. Neither sides’ civilian dead are really paid any honor. Everyone from the leftist history professor to Hitler himself seems to say “they got what they deserved”. Thanks, new world order !
The idea of killing innocent bystanders is what today’s “terrorism” is based on, which I think we all agree we “don’t like”.
The only difference, of course, is that the terrorist is not a uniformed military soldier. Now, we’d like to say that he is an enemy combatant so we can fight him under the rules of military conflict. But if we call him a military soldier, his killing of innocent civilians is that of a military soldier killing innocent civilians.
Yuck, I don’t want to say it’s ok for military soldiers to kill innocent civilians in that case.
After we “think” about this for a while (and no one has to respond), which way are we going to make our moral stand on this issue ? Is it morality that depends upon the situation and we’ll decide situation as it arises ?
Saying that we “care” about some huge number of them that “would” starve in the future, so therefore we are firebombing hundreds of thousands of those same people, in order to save those who “would die” because their leaders “would never surrender” is new world order logic, like global warming. A hypothetical future massive problem that we can only solve by a distasteful draconian present day solution called for by our dear leaders.
A) the future starvation is speculative especially in terms of degree
B) we had no way of knowing when Japan’s leadership would surrender, we could only speculate
We would not be under any obligation to see to their welfare until they surrender.
When and if they surrender is up to them.
We are responsible for the actions of our own military, however.
Washington’s Order Against Profanity
The General is sorry to be informed that the foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing, a vice hitherto little known in our American Army is growing into fashion. He hopes that the officers will, by example as well as influence, endeavor to check it and that both they and the men will reflect that we can little hope of the blessing of Heaven on our army if we insult it by our impiety and folly. Added to this it is a vice so mean and low without any temptation that every man of sense and character detests and despises it.
(Signed,) George Washington
P.S. But it’s fine to firebomb London indiscriminately and kill thousands of limey civilians. After all, they killed thousands of our civilians. Then they’ll surrender faster.
You can’t stop can you? The ones firebombed are dead, the one that may starve aren’t. The moral imperative is to save the vast numbers that may die because of the gov’t intransigence. To do otherwise is condemning them to death when the means exist to save them.
Japanese government intransigence is not our moral or any other type of responsibility.
Enemy civilian deaths not directly resulting from our military attacks are not our fault, in any sense of the word.
We actually don’t allow aiding and abetting the enemy. Aiding the enemy civilians is not our concern.
It is our responsibility if our military under orders attacks civilians.
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