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Mar 16th, 2004 05:04 PM

The_Rorschach

I see Glowbelly, thank you. There were just too many hypocritical angles to this question, so I wasn't sure which one concerned you most.

Oh, and I picked Samoa because of its lack of aggressive history with other nations. Good looking out though, as far as hypotheticals go, they were not the best nation I could have named, but they were convenient for the time.

Personally, nations are sovereign powers answerable only unto their constituants as I see it, thus I don't have a problem with any other nation stockpiling biological, chemical or fissionable weaponry. I think every country should have them, we'd have world peace as a result of strategic stalemate - in theory anyway.

Besides, American has broken every treaty it has engaged with the exception of the Space Exploration Pact. That track record alone I think discredits us as a world police proponant.

Mar 16th, 2004 09:52 AM

Zhukov

This "article" was written in 1997, keep that in mind. After 9/ll the Russians pulled their heads out of their arses and managed to find them all. Except one. My original post was meant to say '200' instead of '2'.

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6 million Jews and roughly 5 million non- Jews

My Communism makes me recognise all the countries that were attacked by Hitler as part of the Holocaust. THUS, all Polish dead, soldiers and all, and all Soviet dead, Soldiers and all, count as Holocaust material. HENCE, the USA, not attacked by Hitler, does not count as Holocausian.

Actualy, I am bullshiting. This post and the last one.

Only 2 suitcase bombs?!? El Blanco picked it up. 9 Mill Poles?! Why aren't books dedicated to them?!?! They only managed a paltry 5 mill.

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I find it sad that so many people say this. It will eventually happen. Be happy

This will never happen under the current system. Wars are a natural part of capitalism. This was meant to be my big give away. I wasn't bizzare/funny enough, obviously.
It's nice to see people listen to me when I joke, and ignore me when I am serious. I suppose you all think everything I say is crazy anyway, so I shouldn't be surprised. I'm off to kill myself now.

Mar 16th, 2004 09:04 AM

Pub Lover

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Rorschach

A country, like say, Samoa?

As I live in New Zealand the whole 'Nuclear Weapons' issue occurs everytime we enter into economic talks with the US, granted I just scoff & decry the far-rights attempts to corrupt my fair nation, so my knowledge & opinion is far from accurate & reasonable, but I thought Samoa was covered by the 'Treaty of Rarotonga'; the treaty that created the 'South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone'.

Or did you simply pick the island nation for it's perceived innocuous nature?

Mar 16th, 2004 12:19 AM

Ant10708

Zhokov I was always taught that it was roughly 11 million people killed in the Holcaust. 6 million Jews and roughly 5 million non- Jews. It even said this in the Holocaust museum thing I went to. Am I wrong? If I am can someone provide me with a link? I hate when people only mention the jews and leave out the 5 million others or more, since I don't know if Zhokov is right or not.

Mar 15th, 2004 09:09 PM

Bobo Adobo

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Originally Posted by ScruU2wice

where you can find out the type of technology japanese were making.

Most of what I heard about Japanese ww2 Tech. was on the history channel. They always have womething about ww2 everyday.

They should change that channels name to just the "War Channel", thats all I ever see on their.

Mar 15th, 2004 06:36 PM

ScruU2wice

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In late September, Alexander Lebed, Russia's former chief of national security, repeated his assertion, first made earlier in the month, that Russia may have 'lost' up to 100 1-kiloton 'suitcase-sized' nuclear bombs.

See, Zhukov said that they made 2 this says 100 now if this was a conversation in real life how could you say either one was right or wrong

I meant more that if your in a conversation and people are just pulling things outta no where and the information might be totally askew and you can't just ask them to them to tell where they got there info from. It's not like there dictating a research paper, but that's not what this topic is about :/...

Mar 15th, 2004 05:43 PM

El Blanco

http://www.acronym.org.uk/dd/dd19/19nukes.htm

Thats the first article on suitcase nukes on Google. A great place to read about weapons tech and tactics is Federation of American Scientists. Kind of hard to navigate, but thats because it is such a wealth of information.

Mar 15th, 2004 05:23 PM

ScruU2wice

Isn't it hard to remove nuclear weapons, anyways. It's kinda like everyone's got a gun pointed at each other and everyone is trying to convince the others to put them down if they'll put theirs down. It would require a certain amount of trust.

I think Achimp has a good point with the clash of cultures and what one may say is right, might be what another says is evil. But, I think this question has everything to do with morals.

Another thing that no one seems to touched on is the survivors of the blast who faced hardships for their own people and how they were the first ones to face the affects of the radiatioctive bomb. I know that this affect couldn't have been forseen but this might have been one of the most horrible affects of the bombing and should be weighted heavily on the conscience of the US.

Alotta of what anyone argues on this topic has to do with a deal of assumption. I'm not trying to poke at anybody but you can't say for sure that the US would win the war if they hadn't wont the war, and on the other hand you can't doubt that a considerable amount of americans would be saved by not having a mainland invasion. Just how many lives, is the gray area that no one can definative answer to. That's exactly what makes this a difficult topic to argue for either way.

The only thing I keep getting kinda bugged about is where all this information is coming from... Like where did you read about the suit case bombs and where are the figures of how many people were killed in certain invasions and where you can find out the type of technology japanese were making. I know that you can't cite every single bit of information you give, but i get frustrated when I'm either using some of it in a debate and people just shoot it down by asking where it did you get that information, or when some of my points contradict another persons.

Mar 15th, 2004 04:40 PM

El Blanco

But the thing is, what if those countries don't while we do?

I know we are big and bad and can still do a lot of damage, but why squander such an advantage?

Mar 15th, 2004 04:06 PM

glowbelly

ror:

no. i'm saying that it's hypocritical for the us to limit other countries development of nuclear weapons while we invest a bunch of money into developing better ones for ourselves.

i think if we're going to limit development in other countries, that we should do the same in our own.

do you see what i'm sayin?

Mar 15th, 2004 02:48 PM

El Blanco

Quote:

A land invasion was never necessary because the Japanese power structure had been collapsing for some years when the decision was made to use the nukes. We should have used Fabius' strategy of the Second Punic War: keep your eye on the enemy but never engage them. A study was done in 1945 that concluded that the Japanese empire would have collapsed within another six months of sustaining all their forces in their territorial holdings. Absolutely no blood was necessary; they were spread out too thin to last for much longer.

So, you would rather we just sat back and watched as Japan ate itself. Ya, that wouldn't have led to military coups, riots and civilian deaths. I'm sure they would have just made the transition peacefully. Its not like its a society with a tradition of ritualistic suicides or anything.

Or, they would have gotten desperate and lashed out ferociously at our fleet( ever heard of a kamikaze?) in a final act of defiance. More death and estruction.

And in either scenerio, I'm sure the Russians would have been glad to step in a take a foothold amidst all the chaos. Is that a better situation? [/quote]

Mar 15th, 2004 02:27 PM

The_Rorschach

Just out of curiousity Glowbelly, are you saying that if it were another country besides the United States possessing either nuclear and ballistic aresenals attempted to limit retention of the same within other countries, you would support them because they had no experience using such weaponry in the past?

A country, like say, Samoa?

Mar 15th, 2004 11:58 AM

Sethomas

I find the argument that the bombs saved more lives than they ended to be utter bullshit. A land invasion was never necessary because the Japanese power structure had been collapsing for some years when the decision was made to use the nukes. We should have used Fabius' strategy of the Second Punic War: keep your eye on the enemy but never engage them. A study was done in 1945 that concluded that the Japanese empire would have collapsed within another six months of sustaining all their forces in their territorial holdings. Absolutely no blood was necessary; they were spread out too thin to last for much longer.

Kurt Vonnegut made the point that while the bombing of Hiroshima is a highly contestable point, the bombing of Nagasaki was a deafening proclamation "Fuck you, dirty yellow bastards!" and nothing more. What I find interesting is that while around 200,000 civilians died in the nuclear bomb droppings, it's estimated that over a million civilians died in the constant fire storms we unleashed upon Tokyo.

Mar 15th, 2004 08:50 AM

AChimp

The world needs nukes to protect us from meteors.

Mar 15th, 2004 12:06 AM

Zhukov

I don't fel like getting into this argument, but...

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Have you seen the films where they show Japanese women and children practicing with bayonets? A land invasion would have probably been the shitstorm to end all shitstorms.

Have you seen the films showing German women and chldren larning to use panzerfausts? How many Allied soldiers were lost in the invason of Germany? Over a million? I'm asking a qustion here, not making a point.

Of coure, I am against the use of the A - Bomb.

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Holocaust killed 6 million Jews and 6 million others, not to mention the war that surrounded it.

Well, it was at least 9 mill Poles and many more Russians, so you are a bit low. It doesn't matter, really.

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Russians actually produced several "suit case nukes".

They made two, and one's missing!

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in an ideal world, they would all be taken away from every country on earth. it makes me sad that this will never happen.

I find it sad that so many people say this. It will eventually happen. Be happy :/

Mar 14th, 2004 10:16 PM

El Blanco

Quote:

Originally Posted by mburbank

We didn't even attempt a demonstration. We could have invited the Japanese to watch as we obliterated an atoll.

And then what when they told us to go fuck ourselves? There was an attempted coup by the military even after we dropped the first bomb (thats why we didn't know the government was actually surrendering before the second bomb). What makes you think dropping it on some deserted island would let them know what kind of devestation they would be facing?

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We could have dropped the bomb on a rural section of Japan.

Name a rural section of Japan that doesn't play a vital role to their economy.

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We chose to drop the bomb on a city.

That were major centers for producing military equipment. If the bombs didn't force a surrender, which was a realistic possibility, at least their defenses would be weakened for an invasion.

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We chose to obliterate non combatants, the elderly women and children. We did this for among other reasosns to impress upon the Russians that we were more than willing to use the bomb on civillians.

And to stop the single most destructive conflict in human history. That was the primary reason. Scaring the Russians was bonus points.

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We are, to date, the only nation that has used a nuclear weapon on another nation. We have never even attempted to examine the ethics of this act. To this day, the very idea of even looking at the question at the Smithsonian caused a public relations disaster.

Yes, because there aren't thousands upon thousands of pages on every angle. Universities all over America don't still hold symposiums debating the use of the A-Bomb. And Truman didn't agonize over the use and have heated edebates amongst his advisors and put it all down in his diareies that have been published for everyone to view.

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If, and almost certainly when Nuclear weapons are used against civillians again, we will have been the ones who opened that door. No matter how many lives it may have saved in the long run (and that is always pure speculation) the United States set the precedent for atomic warfare, the wholesale destruction of life in a single, easy moment.

And now we know the dangers of it.

Would you have prefered we held off and let the Russians launch theirs or put us in a spot where we had launch our next gen nukes without first hand knowledge of their horror?

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We had other options and we chose not to pursue them.

What were they?

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I think our use of the Atom bomb is without a doubt the worst thing we ever did as a country,

Some would say the obliteration of the Indians, but I'll bite.

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and is perhaps the worst thing mankind has ever done. I mean that quite seriously. In the scope of history, very little time has passed since the day we destroyed Hiroshima. The ripples from that stone in the pond are still spreading.

Holocaust killed 6 million Jews and 6 million others, not to mention the war that surrounded it. This eventually led to the current conflict in the most volitile areas in the world. Thats was horrible and still has ripples that affect the entire world.

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Our current adminstration is actively persuing the developement of so called 'mini' nukes,

That idea has been around a long time, in fact, its documented that Russians actually produced several "suit case nukes".

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a sure indication that the idea that just possessing these weapons is a deterent in and of itself is already fading and being replaced by an idea that nukes could be tactical, just another level of battlefield ordinance.

The dark side of progress. I'm sure people said the same thing of machine guns, tanks, and aircraft.

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Wether or not this is a pandora's box that would have been opened by someone sooner or later, we will always be the nation that opened it.

And we have to live with it and deal with it. We also have a responsibility to make sure it never happens again.

Mar 14th, 2004 08:03 PM

Helm

There are atrocities on all long wars. Yes. Does this fact mean that we should not be so hard on war atrocities? I do not understand where you're going with this. I think dropping the bomb was in many ways the only thing the US could do (bobo explains better than I could) but that doesn't make it a GOOD thing. It makes it a profitable thing for the Allies at that certain historical situation. Those are not the one and the same. Much in the same way I would consider it a necessity to kill someone who is trying to kill me in self-defense, but still not consider my action a GOOD action.

My point is not a big one, but it's a point I needed to make.

Mar 14th, 2004 07:57 PM

Helm

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I dissagree because war is war and there are war crimes and when you discuss aspects of the war after the war has ended you're making moral judgements that can and should be discussed in a moral framework rather than in a WE ARE AT WAR WE DO WHATEVER IT TAEKS TO WIN framework you know what I'm saying ha ha you have no position but I like you cause you're a chimp which is close to ape and ape shall not kill ape as the saying goes right guys?

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Mar 14th, 2004 07:17 PM

AChimp

Ah, but they do. There are rules to war, or at least everyone talks about how there are.

It's hard to sympathize with an enemy who seems to break every rule in the book, though. Nobody can imagine our side intentionally destroying hospital ships, killing medics or sending POWs to their deaths in labour camps and yet Axis forces did all of these things and more.

It's easy for people to assume that there's an unwritten code for what can and can't be done, because all we can relate to is what our own culture would dictate. What happens if the enemy's culture says that it's best to kill everyone who surrenders? How do you hold to your principles in the face of something like that, when you're the one the gun is being pointed at?

Long wars inevitably turn into a gray mess where all that matters is that your side loses the least.

Mar 14th, 2004 07:13 PM

Bobo Adobo

The war could have dragged on for maybe even a decade, the japanese were on the verge of discovering and perfecting major technoligical brackthroughs at the time. These included being able to launch a 100% sub-marine based offensive(including aircraft carrying subs), and Jet fighters that could easily outmatch allied planes. They also were developing the first attack helicopters.

In the end the allies would still would have won, since they would have been reinforced with with men fighting on the european front. it would have taken a lot longer, and a lot more deaths so all in all I think the bomb had to be dropped. Maybe not in Hiroshima, but it had to be dropped.

Mar 14th, 2004 07:05 PM

da blob

Ah - ha. It's war, so morals don't enter into it. Interesting - not surprising, unfortunately.

Mar 14th, 2004 06:58 PM

AChimp

This isn't about a philosophical debate where everyone can sit down and talk about what's right and what's not. It was a war, plain and simple. You end up making decisions that you'll have to live with later.

What would the costs have been if the war had dragged on for another six months? A year? Two?

If, rather than dropping atomic bombs, the Allies had formed an impenetrable blockade around Japan instead, everyone would be talking about what a shitty, reprehensible idea that was because millions of Japanese starved to death.

Mar 14th, 2004 05:46 PM

Helm

Quote:

No, because in the end, it probably saved more lives than deaths that resulted from it.

I can't even being to explain how much I dissagree with this statement. It's arguable if it's true in the first place (speculative) but even if it's true, should morality be judged on the basis of damage v.s. profit? I think not.

Mar 14th, 2004 04:44 PM

ScruU2wice

Yeah, maybe our world is scared of using nuclear weapons now, but this was the case with world war I where several countries made alliances and lines were drawn. No one started the fight because they were afraid of taking on a team of nations.

Just because that no country is radical enough to use an Nuclear weapon yet, doesn't mean their never will. But on the other hand I think the invention of nuclear and atomic bombs was innevitable because the US had greatly underestimated the nuclear capabilities of the USSR during the cold war meaning that the Russia was also developing a nuclear program parallel to America's. However the credibility of this and tons of other information about the bomb is questionable

Mar 14th, 2004 04:10 PM

AChimp

It's interesting to note that at the beginning of WWII, the bombing of civilians was considered barbaric by all sides. The Nazis opened that door with Hitler's proclamation that he wanted no stone atop another to remain in Britain.

Mesobe is right, though. The Japanese government held out through two bombs. They didn't surrender immediately after the first attack, nor immediately after the second attack. I've even heard that the Japanese even tried a conditional surrender before they gave up completely. Now undoubtedly, there was a big push to surrender right away after they realized what an atomic bomb was, but the people making the decisions still thought they could prevail. I think that alone is an indicator of how long they could have held off a conventional land invasion.

As Max has stated, too, the use of the bomb was partly political (to show the Russians the potential consequences of getting greedy in Europe), but I disagree that the ethics and other options were not considered. The U.S. army spent years developing the bomb and thought about whether or not they would actually use it and where. The scientists working on the project actually petitioned Truman NOT to use it after the Manhattan Project was successfully tested. They knew it was going to be a big bomb, but they had no idea of the actual destruction it could cause.

The locations for the bombings was carefully chosen for dozens of reasons. One of the main factors in the decision was the effect on morale. They also wanted an area that had enough infrastructure to deal a substantial blow to the Japanese war machine and so that they could fly over afterwards and get a really good idea of the its true destructive powers on an inhabited area.

The Japanese would have simply laughed at the bombing of an atoll or rural area and then claimed they could withstand whatever we threw at them.

I think the use of the bomb was a necessary evil, and the images of the actual result of its use against people is probably one of the biggest deterrents of its use against more people in the future.

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