Real World Event Discussions

70 Years Since Hiroshima

POSTED BY: Magonsdaughter
UPDATED: Saturday, August 8, 2026 10:26
VIEWED: 23968
PAGE 11 of 16

SIGNYM

Friday, August 14, 2015 9:49 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Yes, we know: It's all Nazi propaganda!!

BWAHAHAHAHA!

No, the Nazi propaganda was YOUR contribution (thanks again for that by the way), but luckily before you came to the thread there was a discussion on Dresden, Hamburg etc. that was more sensible.

It's not personal. It's just war.

There was, as far as I can tell, very little (if any) untruth in the video. All of the facts lined up.

How does that make it propaganda??

Oh, do you mean the emotional tone?
The tone which induces one to look on mass civilian incineration with something akin to horror?
The tone which makes one question the stories of Plucky Londoners, Brave RAF Pilots, and Obdurate Churchill Battling The Hordes?
The tone which questions the mass extermination of women and children as a pathway to victory?
The tone which puts your perceived allies on the same moral yardstick as your perceived enemies, and judges both by their actions?

THAT propaganda?

Many years ago this forum had an extended discussion on how you can get some people to exterminate an entire group. The first step is to DEHUMANIZE the enemy. Call them ... Nazis. Call them Russians. Or Japs, or gooks, or cockroaches, or towel-heads. Call them the evil enemy. Call them something that allows you to tell yourself that they're not really people.

Man, you just jump into that with both feet, don't you? You see any attempt to humanize others as some sort of "propaganda". You don't even realize that you, yourself, are responding to deeply-embedded propaganda (which, by the way, you reveal every time you post that evil little tagline of yours). You've taken a (deserved) beating in this thread. One of these days, you might even learn.

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

SECOND

Friday, August 14, 2015 11:35 PM

Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire (Paperback) by Richard B. Frank, page 255, 257, 258

The meeting pursued Oppenheimer’s themes of “psychological factors in target selection” and “use against military objectives.” These tied initially to the expected power of the bombs, which remained uncertain. By this time, estimates projected that the uranium bomb, code-named “Little Boy,” might be equivalent to 5,000 to 15,000 tons; the plutonium bomb, “Fat Man,” was “anybody’s guess: 700, 2,000, 5,000 tons,” as one writer noted. It was agreed that confining use to a purely military objective would diminish the full impact of the weapon and that “it should be located in a much larger area subject to blast damage.” The minutes further show that the desired “psychological objectives” not only concerned Japan but also were hoped to be “sufficiently spectacular for the importance of the weapon to be internationally recognized when publicity on it is released.”

A second point concerns the deliberate decision to target large numbers of noncombatants. The men who unanimously concurred with the description of the target experienced no sensation that their choice vaulted over a great divide. This moment culminated a long policy-making process that had begun with stubby bombs wiggling down from the Kaiser's zeppelins and bombers in World War I, then incubated as a theory between the wars, first tried by Axis nations in Asia and Europe, and then brought to a crescendo by Britain and the United States in Europe and finally against Japan. But its implications were understood and acknowledged in the uneasy cosmetic formulation dutifully recorded for posterity. The target description squared with the evolution of American bombing doctrine that persisted in demanding that the intended aiming point must be a legitimate military objective (“a vital plant”). But while Stimson observed that “we could not concentrate on a civilian area,” these men admitted their deliberate design that the atomic bomb should do more than lay waste to a war production facility. As Barton Bernstein observed, these men ‘‘all knew that families—women, children, and even in the daytime, during the bombing attack, some workers—dwelled in ‘workers' houses.’ ”

SIGNYM

Saturday, August 15, 2015 12:11 AM

Do you see the people of LPR/ DPR shelling civilians in Kiev?

Unlike you, I don't condone killing Kiev Ukrainians en masse. And I don't condone it when they do it to others.

Once more, facts escape you. Apparently, so do ethics.

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

RAHLMACLAREN

Saturday, August 15, 2015 1:30 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Unlike you, I don't condone killing Ukrainians en masse. I just don't condone it when they do it to others.

Sure. Prove that G did.

When. Where.

Cite it. One exact post.

For my curiosity.

En masse? At what number does that start.

Fire bad; tree pretty.

ETA uh... something.

Find here the Serenity you seek. -Tara Maclay

SIGNYM

Saturday, August 15, 2015 1:53 AM

It's very simple: He refuses to acknowledge its seriousness. A few tsks-tsks, and then goes on to pound on the topic of some phantom Russian invasion (again). As if there's any sort of moral equivalence between killing 6000+ people and destroying 10,000+ civilian structures and displacing millions, versus ... whatever the heck he claims Russia is doing (which so far seems not to have resulted in loss of life).

It's the same lack of rationality which drives KPO to call anything which presents the mass incineration of German civilians as "Nazi propaganda". Because it interferes with his war-lust and his excuses for supporting mass killing.

SAME MORAL YARDSTICK.

Something you, G, THUGR, and KPO refuse to employ. Lack of critical thinking, and absolute lack of ethics. Stop thinking with your hormones. Use your brains once in a while, if at all possible.

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

SECOND

Saturday, August 15, 2015 4:07 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Stop thinking with your hormones. Use your brains once in a while, if at all possible.

A little history lesson for you. If Japan had NOT been nuked, Japan was NOT to be invaded by America. You hear over and over again that nukes were the only reason Japan was not invaded. It is the common understanding, but it is NOT true. There were other excellent reasons for America to NOT invade Japan – reasons you have not heard unless you read the book which received the Truman medal – Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire. www.trumanlibrary.org/news/bookawrd.htm

Operation Downfall was the codename for the Allied plan for the invasion of Japan near the end of World War II. The planned operation was abandoned when Japan surrendered following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet declaration of war. The operation had two parts: Operations Olympic and Coronet. Set to begin in October 1945, Operation Olympic was intended to capture the southern third of the southernmost main Japanese island, Kyushu, with the recently captured island of Okinawa to be used as a staging area. Later, in spring 1946, Operation Coronet was the planned invasion of the Kanto Plain, near Tokyo, on the Japanese island of Honshu. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall

This is the part you don't hear about the invasion of Japan, but you should:

Admiral Nimitz had concurred explicitly with Operation Olympic in a message on April 28, but “after further experience in fighting against Japanese forces,” he effectively withdrew his support. In a May 25 message to King, noting the slow progress of fighting on Okinawa against prepared defenses—notwithstanding overwhelming and unprecedentedly heavy air and sea support and artillery firepower—Nimitz stated that “it would be unrealistic to expect that such obvious objectives as southern Kyushu and the Tokyo Plain will not be as well defended as Okinawa." He emphasized the powerful and accelerating effect of the air and sea blockade and concluded:

Quote:
Unless speed is considered so important that we are willing to accept less than the best preparation and more than minimum casualties, I believe that the long range interests of the U.S. will be better served if we continue to isolate Japan & to destroy Jap forces & resources by naval and air attack.

This message had been sent “eyes only" to King, a category reserved for the most sensitive personal communications that would not be seen by anyone but King and Nimitz, save for a handful of discreet communications personnel or trusted staff officers. There does not appear to be any evidence that King shared it with any of his Navy subordinates or the other members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, much less Truman. But King knew that he now possessed the power to halt the invasion by informing the President that he and Nimitz no longer supported it. If the Navy broke the consensus, American strategic planning would at a minimum be tossed into turmoil, and Truman would likely veto the invasion.

Looming over all of these factors that influenced Marshall and King was one other: the profound uncertainties of military operations in the distant future. Thus, while it is clear that Marshall and King molded the presentation to Truman in ways that raise troubling questions, they no doubt believed at the time that they were simply guiding decision making down a path of prudence—a path future developments could change. Starting about two weeks after the June 18 meeting, radio intelligence vindicated this caution by beginning to expose the startling fact that Japanese strength on Kyushu and before Tokyo was burgeoning at a furious pace, kicking over all the assumptions behind the earlier casualty estimates and posing a threat to the viability of the whole Downfall plan. Thus, though the casualty estimates at this meeting were inconclusive, they became obsolete. Truman’s conference with the Joint Chiefs of Staff was by no means the last chapter in Am

SIGNYM

Saturday, August 15, 2015 4:37 AM

Quote:
You mean the Holocaust? Where Germans exterminated more of their own citizens than their enemies (they created) did?

Yes, we all know about that: Germans did a great job of exterminating Communists, Roma (gypsies), the feeble-minded, etc in addition to Jews. Many also know that the Germans starved Leningrad, and killed almost a million. Somewhere between 20-30 million Russians were killed in the war.

It was terrible, heinous, and the Holocaust specifically was completely without rational purpose. It was sadism let loose by policy: how to think of new and better ways to kill your victims. Kind of like ISIS today, but much more extensive. I think we can all agree on that.

The question is, in fighting such an enemy, what depths of gratuitous violence are YOU willing to countenance?

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

SECOND

Saturday, August 15, 2015 6:13 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

The question is, in fighting such an enemy, what depths of gratuitous violence are YOU willing to countenance?

There were revenge killings of Germans all the way into 1950.

The official positions of the German government and the German Red Cross are that the death toll resulting from expulsions ranged from 2 to 2.5 million civilians.

At least 473,013 are confirmed deaths of Germans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_%281944%
E2%80%9350%29#Research_tracing_individual_fates_by_the_German_Red_Cross

Ordinary people killed German civilians. It was payback.

RAHLMACLAREN

Saturday, August 15, 2015 9:15 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by G:
Quote:
Originally posted by RahlMaclaren:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Unlike you, I don't condone killing Ukrainians en masse. I just don't condone it when they do it to others.

Sure. Prove that G did.

When. Where.

Cite it. One exact post.

For my curiosity.

Thanks Rahl! She can't of course site any such thing, she can only keep her lie to herself going by creating another fiction, or even more lame, some flimsy negative: "well he never said he didn't want to kill them..."
Her denial to herself and to the board knows no bounds.

"If you're not with us, you're against us."

If you're not against it, you must be for it. (This twisted logic seems familiar somehow. Like akin to something from 2002.)

Signym almost hit it.

Quote:
"You concede that the USAF bombed and firebombed much of Japan. You concede that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not serve to "shorten the war", but was instead a warning shot across the Russian bow."

Unless people go back and edit their posts, no one specifically mentioned in this thread (as of this time stamp) Operation Meetinghouse, the firebombing of the city of Tokyo, which killed more people than Hiroshima. By that ITL (Insane Troll Logic) we are all for it. Except for me, since I just mentioned it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo

"The Operation Meetinghouse firebombing of Tokyo on the night of 9 March 1945 was the single deadliest air raid of World War II,[2] greater than Dresden,[24] Hiroshima, or Nagasaki as single events.[25][26]"

War in mass generalization is bad!

Frell the Bern!

Find here the Serenity you seek. -Tara Maclay

SECOND

Saturday, August 15, 2015 11:51 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by RahlMaclaren:

Unless people go back and edit their posts, no one specifically mentioned in this thread (as of this time stamp) Operation Meetinghouse, the firebombing of the city of Tokyo, which killed more people than Hiroshima. By that ITL (Insane Troll Logic) we are all for it. Except for me, since I just mentioned it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo

Back on page 2, Robert McNamara, a retired Secretary of Defense who also planned the Japanese bombing in his younger days, mentioned Toyko at 2:45 into the video of The Fog of War (2003). He says other useful things in the same video.