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Dunc
Level 3 dot.orger
Joined: 02 Feb 2012
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 Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2012 10:25 am Post subject: |
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| John Honney wrote: | The Americans knew the bomb would work as it had been tested three weeks before it was used on Hiroshima.
Obviously the Japanese would want to re-write history a bit but records of the time (including all that went on from Midway to Saipan) indicated the Japanese would fight to the death or commit suicide to avoid "being eaten" by the invaders. Most historians say that the loss of life at Hiroshima and Nagaski is less than would, at the time, have been expected had the war had to run to a conventional end. It was also uncertain just how advanced the Japanese nuclear program was.
Perhaps there might have been some element of callousness (as with the carpet-bombing of German cities towards the end of the war in Europe) but I doubt any allied soldier/airman/sailor of the time was upset by how the war was finished. |
This traditional, western take on events makes no mention of the 1.6M embittened Russians who had just marched into Manchuria before the bombs were dropped. This cut off Japan's last economic lifeline. Neither does it point out the fact that Japan was already a nation of starving families and ruined morale.
Yet, why would it? 'History' is written by the victors. In the west it makes much more sense for us to say Japan could only be defeated by the bombs, and also to write out the Russians. It doesn't take much research to realise there is always another view.
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1 Bobby Hazell
Level 3 dot.orger
Joined: 02 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2012 12:54 pm Post subject: |
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Good work DM, Dunc and John.
Dave, I'm a little surprised with the way you treat these (so called) historians' suppositions on the impossible to genuinely calculate 'deaths saved' as objective fact.
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DAVEf
dot.org vip
Joined: 02 Feb 2007
Posts: 21332
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| Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2012 2:30 pm Post subject: |
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| 1 Bobby Hazell wrote: | Good work DM, Dunc and John.
Dave, I'm a little surprised with the way you treat these (so called) historians' suppositions on the impossible to genuinely calculate 'deaths saved' as objective fact. |
Maybe I've studied it a bit more deeply than those you choose to side with?
I'm no war-monger (probably leaning quite heavily towards being a liberal pacifist) but I would rather accept what has been passed down (in written and film form) from the time than more recent "opinion" designed to make war/nuclear weapons/Americans etc seem "bad" (which they are but that's not the point).
Whatever, I bet the solders who had to slog from Normandy to Berlin (and the families of those that didn't make it all the way) would have quite happily welcomed a nuclear device dropped on Berlin (obviously not feasible but .. ) and I'd take you back to the available knowledge of the time which showed that Germany had shared its nuclear technology with Japan and there was no evidence at the time that the Japanese program had badly stalled so there was still a very real perceived threat from a desperate and fanatical enemy.
And that independent commentators put Japanese suicides on Taipan at anything from 10-25 000 (mostly civilian). To assume that the Japanese would have rolled over and quit (especially when so many less-fanatical(?) Germans didn't) seems either naive or a too-easy modern view.
Obviously we see things differently now but I'd bet there were plenty in the US and UK who would have happily dropped a string of A bombs throughout Japan as a means of simple revenge (and those I have known who fought the Japanese would almost unanimously have welcomed such a thing even though it would, in retrospect, have easily been labelled a "war-crime. At least that was avoided. |
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John Honney
Level 4 dot.orger
Joined: 06 Feb 2007
Posts: 3918
Location: Manila, The Philippines
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| Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2012 4:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Dunc wrote: | | John Honney wrote: | The Americans knew the bomb would work as it had been tested three weeks before it was used on Hiroshima.
Obviously the Japanese would want to re-write history a bit but records of the time (including all that went on from Midway to Saipan) indicated the Japanese would fight to the death or commit suicide to avoid "being eaten" by the invaders. Most historians say that the loss of life at Hiroshima and Nagaski is less than would, at the time, have been expected had the war had to run to a conventional end. It was also uncertain just how advanced the Japanese nuclear program was.
Perhaps there might have been some element of callousness (as with the carpet-bombing of German cities towards the end of the war in Europe) but I doubt any allied soldier/airman/sailor of the time was upset by how the war was finished. |
Yet, why would it? 'History' is written by the victors. |
I think you're line here is quite correct and one could argue, your attributing the above quote to me proves your point!!
That particular quote drips DAVEf and I am sure when the history of the world is written, then he should be properly credited....but I get your drift fella!
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Dunc
Level 3 dot.orger
Joined: 02 Feb 2012
Posts: 1436
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| Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2012 4:29 pm Post subject: |
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Ha! Apologies, deleted the wrong quote marks.
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1 Bobby Hazell
Level 3 dot.orger
Joined: 02 Feb 2007
Posts: 2301
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| Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2012 4:37 pm Post subject: |
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| DAVEf wrote: | | 1 Bobby Hazell wrote: | Good work DM, Dunc and John.
Dave, I'm a little surprised with the way you treat these (so called) historians' suppositions on the impossible to genuinely calculate 'deaths saved' as objective fact. |
Maybe I've studied it a bit more deeply than those you choose to side with?
I'm no war-monger (probably leaning quite heavily towards being a liberal pacifist) but I would rather accept what has been passed down (in written and film form) from the time than more recent "opinion" designed to make war/nuclear weapons/Americans etc seem "bad" (which they are but that's not the point).
Whatever, I bet the solders who had to slog from Normandy to Berlin (and the families of those that didn't make it all the way) would have quite happily welcomed a nuclear device dropped on Berlin (obviously not feasible but .. ) and I'd take you back to the available knowledge of the time which showed that Germany had shared its nuclear technology with Japan and there was no evidence at the time that the Japanese program had badly stalled so there was still a very real perceived threat from a desperate and fanatical enemy.
And that independent commentators put Japanese suicides on Taipan at anything from 10-25 000 (mostly civilian). To assume that the Japanese would have rolled over and quit (especially when so many less-fanatical(?) Germans didn't) seems either naive or a too-easy modern view.
Obviously we see things differently now but I'd bet there were plenty in the US and UK who would have happily dropped a string of A bombs throughout Japan as a means of simple revenge (and those I have known who fought the Japanese would almost unanimously have welcomed such a thing even though it would, in retrospect, have easily been labelled a "war-crime. At least that was avoided. |
Plenty more subjective opinions presented as fact there. What you have studied is a point of view of Japanese intentions, German's shared knowledge and the state of the Japanese program at the time. 'Experts' and supposed facts are trotted out in all sorts of scenarios to justify horrendous actions, the fact that you have chosen to believe them in this situation is your prerogative but please don't try and tell us it is they are cast iron, unshakable facts. You present it as though it is a proven mathematical formula that more lives would have been lost fighting, it is not.
Let's hope Iran doesn't lean on such a morally flimsy excuse for such destruction or we're all f***ed.
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"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality" - Martin Luther King, Jr. |
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we are back
Level 2 dot.orger
Joined: 26 Jun 2011
Posts: 528
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| Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2012 10:15 pm Post subject: |
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I hate WAR, only decent people get the worst of it.
People who start it are ok, they fly to other countries looking for Asylum.
Iran leader will be in UK, claiming asylum in few years time mark my word. |
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DAVEf
dot.org vip
Joined: 02 Feb 2007
Posts: 21332
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| Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2012 1:02 am Post subject: |
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| 1 Bobby Hazell wrote: | | DAVEf wrote: | | 1 Bobby Hazell wrote: | Good work DM, Dunc and John.
Dave, I'm a little surprised with the way you treat these (so called) historians' suppositions on the impossible to genuinely calculate 'deaths saved' as objective fact. |
Maybe I've studied it a bit more deeply than those you choose to side with?
I'm no war-monger (probably leaning quite heavily towards being a liberal pacifist) but I would rather accept what has been passed down (in written and film form) from the time than more recent "opinion" designed to make war/nuclear weapons/Americans etc seem "bad" (which they are but that's not the point).
Whatever, I bet the solders who had to slog from Normandy to Berlin (and the families of those that didn't make it all the way) would have quite happily welcomed a nuclear device dropped on Berlin (obviously not feasible but .. ) and I'd take you back to the available knowledge of the time which showed that Germany had shared its nuclear technology with Japan and there was no evidence at the time that the Japanese program had badly stalled so there was still a very real perceived threat from a desperate and fanatical enemy.
And that independent commentators put Japanese suicides on Taipan at anything from 10-25 000 (mostly civilian). To assume that the Japanese would have rolled over and quit (especially when so many less-fanatical(?) Germans didn't) seems either naive or a too-easy modern view.
Obviously we see things differently now but I'd bet there were plenty in the US and UK who would have happily dropped a string of A bombs throughout Japan as a means of simple revenge (and those I have known who fought the Japanese would almost unanimously have welcomed such a thing even though it would, in retrospect, have easily been labelled a "war-crime. At least that was avoided. |
Plenty more subjective opinions presented as fact there. What you have studied is a point of view of Japanese intentions, German's shared knowledge and the state of the Japanese program at the time. 'Experts' and supposed facts are trotted out in all sorts of scenarios to justify horrendous actions, the fact that you have chosen to believe them in this situation is your prerogative but please don't try and tell us it is they are cast iron, unshakable facts. You present it as though it is a proven mathematical formula that more lives would have been lost fighting, it is not.
Let's hope Iran doesn't lean on such a morally flimsy excuse for such destruction or we're all f***ed.
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I've studied it from diferent angles and different perspectives.
All you've done is go "nah, nah" in an attempt to prove your (modern) preferences.
It isn't about who is right or wrong in our discussion but how people felt at the time. And there is plenty of evidence available to read and watch. All you have to do is read and watch it. I have (and spoken to people who lived through it). Try it and you might change your views but as it is you seem to have an opinion that pleases you and have little interest in changing it. Your loss. |
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Dunc
Level 3 dot.orger
Joined: 02 Feb 2012
Posts: 1436
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| Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2012 11:42 am Post subject: |
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| DAVEf wrote: | And your knowledge of history understands that the Allies should not have used the A bomb but tried to finish off Japan by invasion despite all the extra American (and Japanes) lives, that would have cost.
And I ask that as someone who has never been the biggest fan of the USA (but does know his history).. |
This is what your argument is based on, it is pure conjecture and ignores key facts of the time which in my eyes makes it an unreliable justification.
| Quote: | I've studied it from diferent angles and different perspectives.
All you've done is go "nah, nah" in an attempt to prove your (modern) preferences.
It isn't about who is right or wrong in our discussion but how people felt at the time. And there is plenty of evidence available to read and watch. All you have to do is read and watch it. I have (and spoken to people who lived through it). Try it and you might change your views but as it is you seem to have an opinion that pleases you and have little interest in changing it. Your loss. |
Everything you have written here can apply to you. There are two sides to the argument and you are being just as closed minded, if not more so, because you are blindly following the status quo.
As a final point, I would be very hesitant to trust anything filmed or written in the 40's, or in the post war years as there is an obvious agenda.
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1 Bobby Hazell
Level 3 dot.orger
Joined: 02 Feb 2007
Posts: 2301
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| Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2012 2:39 pm Post subject: |
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| DAVEf wrote: | | 1 Bobby Hazell wrote: | | DAVEf wrote: | | 1 Bobby Hazell wrote: | Good work DM, Dunc and John.
Dave, I'm a little surprised with the way you treat these (so called) historians' suppositions on the impossible to genuinely calculate 'deaths saved' as objective fact. |
Maybe I've studied it a bit more deeply than those you choose to side with?
I'm no war-monger (probably leaning quite heavily towards being a liberal pacifist) but I would rather accept what has been passed down (in written and film form) from the time than more recent "opinion" designed to make war/nuclear weapons/Americans etc seem "bad" (which they are but that's not the point).
Whatever, I bet the solders who had to slog from Normandy to Berlin (and the families of those that didn't make it all the way) would have quite happily welcomed a nuclear device dropped on Berlin (obviously not feasible but .. ) and I'd take you back to the available knowledge of the time which showed that Germany had shared its nuclear technology with Japan and there was no evidence at the time that the Japanese program had badly stalled so there was still a very real perceived threat from a desperate and fanatical enemy.
And that independent commentators put Japanese suicides on Taipan at anything from 10-25 000 (mostly civilian). To assume that the Japanese would have rolled over and quit (especially when so many less-fanatical(?) Germans didn't) seems either naive or a too-easy modern view.
Obviously we see things differently now but I'd bet there were plenty in the US and UK who would have happily dropped a string of A bombs throughout Japan as a means of simple revenge (and those I have known who fought the Japanese would almost unanimously have welcomed such a thing even though it would, in retrospect, have easily been labelled a "war-crime. At least that was avoided. |
Plenty more subjective opinions presented as fact there. What you have studied is a point of view of Japanese intentions, German's shared knowledge and the state of the Japanese program at the time. 'Experts' and supposed facts are trotted out in all sorts of scenarios to justify horrendous actions, the fact that you have chosen to believe them in this situation is your prerogative but please don't try and tell us they are cast iron, unshakable facts. You present it as though it is a proven mathematical formula that more lives would have been lost fighting, it is not.
Let's hope Iran doesn't lean on such a morally flimsy excuse for such destruction or we're all f***ed.
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I've studied it from diferent angles and different perspectives.
All you've done is go "nah, nah" in an attempt to prove your (modern) preferences.
It isn't about who is right or wrong in our discussion but how people felt at the time. And there is plenty of evidence available to read and watch. All you have to do is read and watch it. I have (and spoken to people who lived through it). Try it and you might change your views but as it is you seem to have an opinion that pleases you and have little interest in changing it. Your loss. |
You have spoken to people who survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki ?!! And they agree with you?!!!!!!!!
And your point about 'how people felt at the time' shows how your 'evidence' is very much one sided, how did the people of Hiroshima 'feel at the time'?
Dave, like any argument/discussion of this sort, there are two sides with very differing evidence, supposition and perspectives. Unfortunately you, as always, are trying to claim your beliefs (and that's what they are) are The Facts, whilst employing your standard technique of claiming your opponent's psyches to be barely above infantile/playground level once you have realised that they are not going to agree with you. It's your way of strengthening your belief of Being Right. Fair do's, but whether you like it not this is an incredibly complex, highly subjective matter.
I'm not being flippant when I say about Iran (or whoever) using the logic that less people will die if they send a nuke to a small European City were they to feel under threat of invasion. Would that be right? I doubt it would be to you, but it might be to them, so it would appear that all roads lead to point of view, perspective and SUBJECTIVITY.
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"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality" - Martin Luther King, Jr. |
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rblockells
dot.org legend
Joined: 15 May 2007
Posts: 12967
Location: london
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| Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2012 2:51 pm Post subject: |
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It's FEWER people,not LESS people.
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