This is a photo of a aircraft carrying submarine, similar to the one that was used to drop fires in Oregon's forests. Note the size of the sailors standing beside the conn tower!!!
Posted on 05/20/2006 8:33:39 PM PDT by tbird5
Deliberately targeting civilians is widely considered terrorism nowadays, but during World War II both the Britain’s Bomber Command and the United States Army Air Force deliberately targeted civilians.
The British philosopher A. C. Grayling, in his new book Among the Dead Cities: The History and Moral Legacy of the WWII Bombing of Civilians in Germany and Japan (Walker, $25.95), points out that the two air forces combined killed perhaps 600,000 German civilians and another 200,000 Japanese. He makes the case that at least by our current standards we were terrorists, and it logically follows that the attacks were war crimes. In an age of political terror, when it is urgent to come up with a persuasive distinction between legitimate and illegitimate violence, it is hard to overstate the importance of the questions Grayling raises.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanheritage.com ...
I'll repeat what I just said, only this time read it slowly so you can understand what I'm saying.
They were fanatical in that they thought of their emperor as a god. The emperor was not willing to surrender when Japan was clearly beaten, therefore the people were not willing to surrendur either. When we showed the emperor that we could literally destroy the entire country, by dropping the bombs, he finally realized that surrender was his only option. He finally surrendered, and the people, following the instructions of their "god", stopped fighting. They most certainly were not docile. They were, however, fanatical in following the wishes of the emperor.
Hope that explains it.
you need to go research Japan's biological weapon it developed --- and used --- on China.
Japan was months away from bombing San Fransico with cholera and plauge (clay bomblets with infected fleas) when we nuked them.
Bred the diseases to be antibiotic resistent, in fact.
Parts of China are still uninhabitable.
Things were very close to total disaster. We don't like to think that, though.
Okaaaaayyyy....I guess we are going to hear about the Triads next...yup, we did our darndest not to hurt German industry.
This played out in Europe, where the RAF did night area bombing, and the USAAF primarily bombed industry in daylight raids.
Obviously, LeMay's approach in the Pacific was more in line with Trenchard's theories.
The key to analyzing all of this is the the concept of proportionality, which dictates that the loss of life and property incidental to a military attack must not be excessive in relation to the military advantages expected to be gained.
I would say the RAF's area bombing had little military value. LeMay's firebombing was the most effective way to target Japanese targets given the wooden construction of their buildings, but the collateral damage was very high in proportion. Plus LeMay's intentions were more in line with Trenchard.
The A-Bombs clearly gained a huge military advantage compared to the loss of life. Plus, the fact Japan failed to surrender after Hiroshima suggests their resistance was very high.
We cannot compare wars of the past with the capabilities of today. If it took 1,000 B-17s and 10,000 dead civilians to destroy an enemy target in 1944, that is the standard. Not the fact that today a single airplane can take out the same target and only risk those civilians who are actually within the confines of the target.
We also cannot compare reality (the Japanese did surrender and end the war as a result of the A-Bomb) with theory (if only we had really asked nicely they would have given up).
And let's not forget some advocated bombing the concentration camps to put them out of commission, knowing it would result in a large number of civilian deaths.
Let me provide this analysis:
We were the good guys. They were the bad guys.
Maybe I'm completely naive about this, but how the hell was Japan going to drop a bomb on San Francisco? Did they have some kind of super-duper-long-range bomber program that I'm not aware of?
because he went on the radio and ask them to.
That is the rationale for knocking down the World Trade Center Towers.
There is debate that if the Japanese knew that they could keep their monarch they would have surrendered.
You should talk to someone who lived in places like Cologne, Hamburg, and Bremerhaven during World War II -- I think it would be a fascinating experience.
I presume you are being deliberately dense for rhetorical purposes.
And dropping atomic bombs was the only way to do that?
I'm asking who "they" is in the context of this discussion because "they" apparently don't fit the same clear national identities that our enemies had in World War II.
Or we could have invaded the Japanese mainland and most likely have seen hundreds of thousands of American troops killed. Perhaps you would have liked that better.
No. That's why we'll be justified when we ultimately have to bomb muslim cities. The precedent's been set. And not just in WWII.
Not really. Some Japanese scientists knew what had hit them, and had suggested the idea earler in the war. But the Japanese military never took it seriously or undertook a project to build one. After Hiroshima there was some talk of putting together a project to build one, but there was no industrial capacity to do so. Consider the time and effort the USA put into the Manhattan Project. There was no possible way they could start at that point and do so. Additionally they had no unranium to process anyway, since their only source was Manchuria, and we had them blockaded.
Another myth is that Germany was seriously pursuing the bomb. There is a little more truth to that, but the Germans were experimenting with heavy water. In other words they were looking at fusion, not fission. Since you can't have a hydrogen bomb with an atomic bomb first, they were barking up the wrong tree. In any case they never got much in the way of resources because Hitler distrusted "damned Jewish physics".
This is a photo of a aircraft carrying submarine, similar to the one that was used to drop fires in Oregon's forests. Note the size of the sailors standing beside the conn tower!!!
Generally ditto to most of your comment that Japan was practically defeated as a threat to the United States and allies after many of their sources of raw materials was taken from them. Also, Japan started their expansion into Southeast Asia and their war against the United States AFTER the United States stopped giving them resources such as oil and iron ore (the United States was hardly neutral before the attack on Pearl Harbor).
There is debate that if the Japanese knew that they could keep their monarch they would have surrendered.
And if Hitler and the Nazis were allowed to stay in power they might have surrendered earlier as well.
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