26 Mar 08
3 edits
Originally posted by FMFDepends on what your definition of 'we' is.
You misread my post.
"We" in my post does not include the Allied planners. "We" were fed a perspective on the A-bombing of Japan. It lasted until the true facts were known. I am not talking about hindsight here. You didn't understand me and/or my writing was unclear. Here it is again:
Japan was beaten. Utterly beaten in mid-1945. It wasn't going ns getting to the truth of this matter, than I am all for it, and proud of it.
How Clintonian.
Not all Allied planners 'knew'. Not all were of the same opinion. No argument from me at all that many of the planners had good reason to beleive that Japan was all but done at the time. That doesn't matter. It wasn't their decision to drop the bomb. It's more realistic to think they were dropped because the president wasn't convinced enough to keep the bomb at home and invade with ground forces.
Alternately, we could think it was to scare the Russians. Who already had spies in the Manhatten Project.
26 Mar 08
Originally posted by MerkActually that's a good one. It stings!
Depends on what your definition of 'we' is.
How Clintonian.
But to be fair to me, you didn't understand my post (or I wrote it badly, whichever). "We" referred to you and me, as it were, and did not include the Allied planners. Your response was based on your misinterpretation of what I was saying and , I suppose, made your dismantling of my view entirely valid. The word "we" was the key to it.
I shall try not to bring comparisons to Clinton upon myself again. Ouch!
26 Mar 08
Originally posted by Sam The Shamyou'd need to change your avatar from a b-52 to a flower, then.
Totally sorry, it was a serious error in judgement and not like us at all. We realize now that we were way out of line and over reacted in a most unbecoming and unfair manner. We feel just terrible, and beg your pardon most humbly. We will take great pains to assure you that it will never happen again should we ever go to war with Japan in the future, ...[text shortened]... egious mistake on our part that should never have happened. We certainly do feel silly about it.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Flowers
26 Mar 08
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2008/03/25/bipartisan_primary_blues?page=2
""Back in 1944, the Democratic Party's leaders, knowing that President Franklin D. Roosevelt was in such frail health that he was not likely to live out his next term, decided that the choice of vice presidential nominee was too important to let go by default to the current vice president, Henry Wallace.
They proposed that little-known Senator Harry Truman be put on the ticket instead, and FDR went along with it. You would have to know what a dingbat Henry Wallace was to realize how the smoke-filled room saved this nation from disaster.
26 Mar 08
Originally posted by zeeblebotOriginally posted by whodey
i haven't won an absolute zinger yet 🙁.
For example, I suppose the Jews could have sat around saying what horrible people the Germans where after WW2 and how the Germans owed them something and continued to believe that they could not accomplish anything until the Germans payed them what was due them. ...
Originally posted by zeeblebot
instead, they went and stomped on the palestinians.
Now that was an absolute zinger in my book.
As for your comment about bold and italics, it actually hurt my feelings ever so slightly and made me feel self-conscious. So I didn't want to give you the satisfaction.
26 Mar 08
Originally posted by MerkWhy is it more realistic to think that Truman believed that it would cost a million lives to invade than to think that he was essentially firing the first shot in the cold war?
Depends on what your definition of 'we' is.
How Clintonian.
Not all Allied planners 'knew'. Not all were of the same opinion. No argument from me at all that many of the planners had good reason to beleive that Japan was all but done at the time. That doesn't matter. It wasn't their decision to drop the bomb. It's more realistic to think they were dropped ...[text shortened]... ould think it was to scare the Russians. Who already had spies in the Manhatten Project.
He certainly wouldn't have been the only person at the time to realize that the "million(s)" estimate was bogus.
26 Mar 08
Originally posted by Sam The ShamFinally! Thank you very much. Apology accepted. Hey, the Japanese people and I really appreciate you being so grown up about all this. I know its hard to come clean....
Seriously, we're really, really sorry and it won't happen again. Promise.
What else do you want?
🙂
26 Mar 08
Originally posted by FMFAll I can say is what I have been told. This comes from taking a course in college about WW2 as well as the history channel covering such topics and all I can say is that it was conveyed to me that millions of lives would have been lost had the war continued as it was. Now if new evidence has said otherwise but I have not as yet been presented with it. Do you have a web site that covers this particular topic?
[b]Why do these urban myths persist?
Years go by. The archives are opened up. New evidence becomes available. What we know changes. Then we have 'what we used to think' and we also have 'what we now know'.
Japan was beaten. Utterly beaten in mid-1945. It wasn't going to take "millions upon millions" of lives to finish off the war on Japanese soil. Allied plan ...[text shortened]... t a World War to end, how else could the U.S. demonstrate its new capability to the U.S.S.R.
Also, if what you are saying is true, which is that the US used the bombs for other reasons than to save lives and shorten the war, what then are we left with? I think perhaps the US could have used them for the same reasons that I provided which was to convey to her enemies that the US should not be messed with or the unthinkable might happen. Either that or they simply enjoyed killing the Japanese.
27 Mar 08
Originally posted by FMFTo be honest I am not well versed with the "Missile Gap". Can you elaborate?
What are your thoughts on the "Missile Gap"? Don't tell me you still believe there was one even though we now know - thanks to the declassification of countless official documents - it was a myth deliberately fostered by the U.S. government?
27 Mar 08
Originally posted by HumeAI guess you'd have been in favor of an American surrender in December of 1941.
Nice comeback. My guess is that id you spent a day in guantanamo you would feel differently.
Or perhaps if everyone you knew in the world was in Hiroshima when the bomb dropped... Mother, father, brother, sister, wife, son, daughter, best mate, colleagues, bakers, grocers... you get the picture.
I know I'd rather go through an eternity of pain than see my family and loved ones murdered.