Happy Nuke Day

It WAS still a military target. Hiroshima is a port city, and a manufacturing center. And they weren't making and shipping baby aspirin.

Dresden too, btw. Goebbles biggest propaganda success of the war was to convince the world the Evil Allies bombed a helpless city that had nothing to do with the war. In reality Dresden was a marshalling center for shipping war materiel and supplies to the eastern front. Perfectly legit military target.
http://www.afa.org/magazine/oct2004/1004dresden.asp

That assumes that the second act is "wrong".

Nuking them wasn't wrong. If it was then that means you must think any bombing of them was wrong. Let's not forget the target list for the A-Bombs was small precisely because we firebombed almost everything else. We killed a hell of a lot more people through firebombing then we did with those two bombs.

Both targets were still military targets.

Why do you believe that the people of Hiroshima or Nagasaki were innocent?

That's an odd question.

Do you think that the people of Detroit at the time were innocent?

That's an unfair question. The people of Detroit have never been innocent.

The people of Cleveland are downright unholy and wicked though.

U.S. civilians were innocent during World War II.

Japanese and German civilians were not innocent in World War II.

For the simple reason that Germany and Japan STARTED THE WAR!

If you start the war, you are the guilty party and you are choosing to expose your civilian population to attack.

The people of Cleveland have a Cheesecake Factory. They can't be all bad.

So the civillians of Japan were guilty of being exposed to attack? Is that what they were guilty of?

Do you really think Fritz the Farmer or Hoshi the Housewife really had any say in starting the war? The war was started because a couple of assholes decided they had the biggest dicks in the world and the little guy suffered for it, the same as every war ever fought.

I'm sure not all (even most) civilians had a say in whether to start the war or not.

But they played a part in supporting a society and culture that did start the war.

One thing people tend to do is absolve the "people" of any real responsibility for their governments actions (whether democratic or dictatorship).

There are very few dictatorships that can survive without the open support of a large segment of their population.

"evil leaders" can only take a nation so far. Hitler for example. He tapped into what was widely seen as a deep seated yearning and desire among the German people to avenge their humiliation in World War I.

But that desire was there already. And the German people had a responsibility for it.

I felt the same way years ago, but in all fairness, I don't think there was all that much known about the effects of nuclear weapons.

As a few others have already said, the Japanese had already lost the war. It was only their inflated egos and need to save face that kept it going on as long as it did. Nuking two cities give them no choice but to surrender.

So Ward Churchill is right. The people killed on 9/11 had it coming because they continued to support their govenrment and pay taxes that lead to dead brown people.

If Farmer Fritz or Housewife Hoshi had it coming, so did Stocktrader Steve or Policeman Paul.

There is no guilty or innocent in war. Only combatants, non-combatants...winners, and losers.

Unfortunately, some non-combatants are legitimate targets. If the Germans or Jappanese had wiped Detroit from the face of the Earth, it would have been legitimate. Detroit was cranking out Sherman Tanks by the freighter load.

The fire bombing of Dresden was a bad thing. Dropping the nukes on the Japs were bad things.

I'm not saying that they weren't necessary, but that doesn't mean they weren't bad.

Don't try to make it all just and good vs. evil. It was all bad.

:dildo:

I am so hard right now.

If we had not dropped the nuke first who would have been? Most likely Germany? Japan? So was it better to have it dropped here...or there?

Me, I gotta say it is over and done. Plus they are still getting even with their Jap cars.

Just to be clear, I believe that the Jappanese proved themselves to be savages during WWII. Evil little mother fucking SAVAGES!

Even as a whole, they made the Nazis look like fuzzy little kittens in comparison, and I'm not totally convinced that it's not genetic.

But the idea that some simple Jap civilian fisherman at the time who never hurt anybody deeeeSERVED to be microwaved is fucking nuts.

True. They didn't know all the effects of the bombs. One of the first plans was to use them on the beachheads and then march American troops through ground zero in the invasion of Japan. Thank God they didn't pull that off.

People believe wrongly in those cases.
Their interpretations are less valid.

Indeed. I heard a story about a guy who walked through Hiroshima the day after the attack and was only there a few hours that died of cancer ten years later.

So, there's as much validity to believing that Elvis is alive as believing that he's not?

If they want to believe it, who does it hurt if they do? Won't change my opinion that he's dead as a doorknob.

I didn't say it would hurt or that they shouldn't be allowed to believe it. I said that they're wrong. Objectively and entirely wrong.

Why are you disagreeing with me?

You know, don't you, that Housewife Hoshi was 100% ready to pick up a garden rake and beat the first US soldier ashore to death with it?

and I'm not suggesting she wasn't. But I disagree with Dayton's assertion that Housewife Hoshi or Farmer Fritz had it coming simply because they were Japanese or German and their government started a war anymore than Stocktrader Steve or Policeman Paul had it coming on 9/11 simply because they're American and their government was fucking around in the Middle East.

The only people that had it coming were the people that actually decide to start a war. Everyone else is a victim, even if they wear a uniform or work in a factory.

Actually, I agree. The only reason civilians are a legitimate military target is because they man the war materiel factories, rail yards and docks. Granted they may or may not not want to, they may be required to under threat. But the factories, railyards and docks are legitimate targets no matter who's occupying them. And the great lack of real, meaningful "precision" bombing meant the only way to destroy the factory was to obliterate the 2 or 3 square miles it sat in, even if there were apartment blocks and playgrounds there.

I guess you don't understand morality the way I do? Of course not, you find it absolute...

The only reason I find fault with it is that there's no actual "war" going on; war should be an extension of diplomacy not diplomacy in and of itself, which is effectively what terrorism is...I'd have much more respect for Al-queda and its ilk if there was legitimate negotiating with them (prior to attacks) rather than after.

You're the one saying you're not pacifist - frankly I actually am, up and until the point where someone attacks me...then gloves are off and there's no such thing as a "fair fight". I've strangled people, kicked them in the balls, hit them with bottles, whatever is handy when it comes down to that...I've always given people pleanty of opportunities to avoid conflict, but if they choose to use force...

That is how I feel about warfare, it isn't some "gentleman's game" its kill the fuckers as thoroughly as possible and get our boys back home.

Especially THAT war. WWII was the very definition of "total war."

So, the only difference between war and terrorism is a period of negotiation beforehand?
I don't think so.

Ridiculous. There is no wrong. There is merely another opinion.

And one person's interpretation being unequal in validity to another's is inherently unsocialistic