'Murica 9/11

Plus the Japanese killed 250,000-300,000 in Nanking before the war. They were sick fucks.

you forgot to mention all the people they raped

MFW i get rapped from 2inch

Ha, there's no doubting that.

jesus christ all these replies

"we didnt start the fire"

Great logic I see,
"Oh, they cut off our trade. Let's not stop doing really bad shit, let's go bomb the fuck out of a naval base of a country exponentially bigger and more powerful than we are! That'll show them!"

We took away the bullies toys and told him he'd get them back when he stopped being a dick, and the little fucker kicked us in the balls, so we kicked back. Sounds reasonable.

Oh, and you forgot that China was asking for help because the Japanese were the most brutal, cruel, unforgiving, and sick fucking warriors, and China could barely hold themselves up. They turned women into rape servants, and the children into slaves, and mutilated and tortured the men.

In all honesty, the Japs were much worse than the Nazis.
The Nazis had only the goal of slaughtering the Jews, who were considered to be the reason for everything wrong in Germany. Cruel? Yes. But the difference is that they were about efficiency.
The Japs were just mutilating, enslaving, raping, and the like. They had a sport of tossing babies in the air and impaling them with their bayonets.

I agree completely.

But one change. The Nazi's didn't just want to slaughter Jews, they wanted a perfect society. The mentally/physically retarded, gypsies, blacks, jews, et cetera were all targetted because they were "impure." The Jew thing was because they were associated with Germanies problems, and gave a common hate for quite a bit of the country and made them more united in their cause (the enemy of my enemy is my friend). It's my belief (although I'm not quite sure of the morality or anything) that if the Germans succeeded in WWII, they would have quickly turned and killed the Japanese, did a societal cleansing (even more massive genocide and the nudering/spading of those with "worse" genes), and we would be living in a much better place. Sick as the Nazi regime was, and as bad as the road to get their was (even though it was much faster than ours), their ultimate goal was actually the goal of all of humanity since we began. A perfect, peaceful, utopian world.

so because we didn't go and say "Hey lets just not do anything about the massacre of Nanking and let Japan conquer all of China, connecting Japan's and Hitler's forces that would completely wipe out all of Europe, and wait till they come beat us up next :)" we're the ones at fault?

AND another thing, didnt the bombings of Japan happen some 60-70 years ago? no body who has any recollection of the war is alive today.. and 9/11 happened 11 years ago. Big difference in time passed. And we also offered a term of surrender to the Japanese, and they said no. Japan had in fact, enlisted every single able-bodied person, man, women, and child, to fight to the death against American troops. So to minimize American deaths, WHICH should be the governments focus anyways, we bombed 2 cities.

I know it sounds terrible, but the nukes saved more lives than it ended. If the war raged on, millions of civilians could have died during a ground assault.

It couldn't have been settled by sending troops to raid the cities? All innocents had to die? You know the old tale of 2 wrongs don't make a right, that's what america didnt do. Japanese did something wrong lets not get overlook that, something very wrong but you have to admit it does seem kinda "iffy" what america did.

No side was innocent. Nobody.
And I think we didn't send troops because we wanted to test our bombs, which makes it all the worse.

I like that first statement of yours. That is the approach everyone should be taking towards this idiotic flame war.

we weren't testing our bombs. That's what Los Alamos was for.

True, wasn't exactly a test, more like a display of power. I think we wanted the russians to fear us.

Halleluja, finally some sense in here.

>comparing pearl harbor to the only 2 atomic bombs dropped ever in history on the same country

lel

Yeah, but it's ok because Pearl Harbor was American and Hiroshima wasn't.
[/sarcasm]

Human life is not a resource, guys. It can't be traded.

From a colder view, it really can be. Every human has a certain worth, and some are worth more than others. Some are more intellectual, athletic, less prone to disease. They are, from a cold a scientific view, worth more to the human species. And if you categorize them, then each one is only worth a specific value, and can be traded.

But the pearl harbor compared to japanese bombing, we took away more values. It's arguable, and likely, that it saved more than it killed, but we can never truly know how history would have turned out.

Fine, let me rephrase that.
One cannot treat human life as a resource without turning into a monster and murderer.
How about that?

You cant compare pearl harbour to a nuclear blackmail to a government using its citizens as hostages


-Hey, do you accept our ridicule surrendering conditions?,no?, ok we kill 100k civilians, you still dont accept our conditions?, I can do this whole day long
That sounds like terrorism to me

Oh it was terrorism, no denying that. But in the end, it's what we had to do.
The Japanese had such a strong sense of honor, if we had just killed the military, they would have trained the civilians. They would have kept fighting until they had absolutely nothing, and would be left even more devastated.
We did commit terrorism, but we did it so we could end the bloody war.

Terrorism is so often used because it's so effective. The government and military is powerless to the masses, and if you scare them, then the government and military is weak.

terrorism is never acceptable in war, even if it is for a greater good , the japanese had the opportunity to strike the west coast with biological weapons but the generals stopped the plan because they thought it was unethical for warriors to do so

I didn't say it was good, I just said it's the only way we saw to end the war. There was nobody in the right, there never is in war. Regardless of why you fight or how you fight, you're killing people.

It's my opinion that the Japanese should have struck the west coast with biological weapons. It would have been the best way for them to win. The difference, once again, is their pride. We didn't have that.

Yet oddly enough, they considered that to be unethical, yet not the rape or the sex slaves. Their honor in battle only extended to the warriors.

In all honesty if America didnt drop the bombs Japan wouldnt of stopped attacking The usa. The usa did tell them before hand this was going to happen.
But any way you look at it some one is the bad guy

that's what i'm saying

Not only that but we warned them before we nuked the first city, we offered peace after the first city. Yet they still refused to surrender.

Japanese reporters were pretty eager to find out what the official government response was going to be, and consequently they bugged Japanese Premier Kantaro Suzuki nonstop for a statement. Eventually, Suzuki caved in, called a news conference and said the equivalent of, "No comment. We're still thinking about it." The reporters had to go back unsatisfied, the Japanese government eventually came to a decision and told the U.S., and everything worked out fine.
Japanese reporters were pretty eager to find out what the official government response was going to be, and consequently they bugged Japanese Premier Kantaro Suzuki nonstop for a statement. Eventually, Suzuki caved in, called a news conference and said the equivalent of, "No comment. We're still thinking about it." The reporters had to go back unsatisfied, the Japanese government eventually came to a decision and told the U.S., and everything worked out fine - Cracked.com

tl; dr
It may have been an error in translation on the response of the japanese government.
America doesn't sweat the small stuff

normally i dont respond to peoples comments in debates cause they usually don't lead to anything pleasant

but please elaborate on the 'aimed at a school' part.
you are aware in the 1960's there were no targeted missiles or bombs right?
It was all just basic math being used on the spot by the engineers and pilots.
I really feel as though the bombs were dropped in the same sloppy manner that all bombs were dropped

And besides, wouldn't an atomic bomb not really matter where it was dropped? Even if it weren't dropped on a school, the radiation would still have killed everyone in it, that or the shockwave could have crushed the school.
But that's just my guess, I make no claim to being an expert on weaponry.

You're absolutely right with that.
It's like dropping a building on a guy, doesn't matter where you hit him at all.

Are you kidding me or are you this uneducated? Hiroshima and Nagasaki were specifically chosen BECAUSE they had two of Japan's largest military bases and the US actually WARNED the citizens to leave
www.hiroshima-spirit.jp/en/museum/morgue_e12.html

One was for the center of their navy, the other the center of their army.

Doesn't justify dropping nukes on inhabited cities in any way.

What about the Chinese civilians they slaughtered by the millions? or does that not count?

Didn't you hear what he said? CIVILIANS. I am pretty sure they were the ones who paid the price. That is the problem.

Ah your right, we shoulda just given them a slap on the wrist and say " don't slaughter people"

Wrong person to respond to.

balls

also the original plan was to not drop the bomb on civilians but on military bases

They were dropped on military targets.
Problem is, they were a little oversize in yield, so they killed a ton of civilians, too.

We also warned them and told them we will drop nuclear bombs if they didn't surrender.

So you compare genocide, to dropping a nuclear war head?

I was talking about war crimes, not genocide.
Warsaw, not Auschwitz.

We head the full right to.

The right to slaughter >150.000 civilians?
You had not. There is no such thing.

You're an idiot. Tell me, what gives any human being the right to decide who gets to live and who gets to die?
Were they horrible to the chinese? Yes. Do I think the bombs were the quickest means to an end? Yes.
But never confuse that with us having the right to choose who gets to live.

We did help the Chinese, we cut off trade with Japan, which caused the to attack us. Two wrongs don't make a right, but leveling two cities is better than having the two countries fight to the last man, woman, and child until one nation is completely eradicated. The Japanese weren't going to surrender otherwise.

With the Red Army converging on them, hell yes they were going to surrender.

The Red army only started fighting on the eastern front after the U.S. assured them that they would have Japan defeated quickly. And even then, they only were interested in taking land, they weren't willing to devote soldiers to pockets of resistance after already losing over 10 million soldiers KIA, and many more MIA to Germany. The Russians simply weren't interested enough in Japan to lose more troops to take it.

"At the Tehran Conference (November 1943), Stalin agreed that the Soviet Union would enter the war against Japan once Nazi Germany was defeated. At the Yalta Conference (February 1945), Stalin agreed to Allied pleas to enter World War II's Pacific Theater within three months of the end of the war in Europe. The invasion began on August 9, 1945, precisely three months after the German surrender on May 8 (May 9, 0:43 Moscow time)."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_War_(1945)#Summary

"The Soviet-Japanese War of 1945 (Russian: Советско-японская война, lit. Soviet-Japanese War), began on August 9, 1945, with the Soviet invasion of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. The Soviets terminated Japanese control of Manchukuo, Mengjiang (inner Mongolia), northern Korea, southern Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands. The rapid defeat of Japan's Kwantung Army was a significant factor in the Japanese surrender and the termination of World War II.[6][7]"

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet-Japanese_War_(1945)

1) Don't use Wikipedia as a source, it can be incorrect a lot of times, although I don't see a problem with what you quoted

2) Yeah the Russians contributed. There were hardly any ground troops in the land Russia seized from Japan, but it would have added a bit of a fear factor that they're back to their original size. I was saying that the Russians weren't going to attack the Japanese mainland though, and as long as the Russians and Americans were to scared to attack the mainland, why should they surrender? They hadn't lost a war in over 3,000 years, and weren't ready to ruin their record. Plans had actually been made, and were beginning to be carried out, for every able bodied man, woman, and child of age to take up arms to defend their homeland to the last man standing.

The Americans estimated that to end total Japanese resistance would take the lives of 5 million Americans, 6 years, and the almost complete annihilation of the citizens of Japan. You said earlier (don't feel like getting out the textbook yet) that the Soviets had over 1 million Soldiers that were attacking. The Russians would have never bothered to commit the troops to the mainland after losing over 10 million of their 20 million strong army to the western front. They simply couldn't afford it, as the population itself was already spread very thin without even more losses.

But i'll give you that it was a contributing factor, in that it added a sense of hopelessness, and an inability to escape after the bombs were dropped.

" There were hardly any ground troops in the land Russia seized from Japan"

Completely wrong. The Kwantung army was the absolutely largest the Japanese had and it was defeated/decimated by the Soviets within three days.

Don't berate me for my sources when you don't even give yours and on top fail that hard.

Sorry I was in a rush when I was posting earlier. I meant compared to the homeland where there were massive amounts of militias (IE ground forces) the Kwangtung army was insignificant, but you're right, I should have clarified.

As for my source, it's a series of textbooks and general knowledge. Pretty hard to give a link to a textbook. Sorry.

The Kwantung army was over a million men strong. It was anything but insignificant, in fact, it was Japan's greatest asset in defying the Potsdam agreement.

Source is not the same as link.
Name the book and author, if you've got a camera make a shot of the page.
Or just ditch them if they really state what you said here.

"In March 1945, there was only one combat division in Kyūshū. Over the next four months, the Imperial Japanese Army transferred forces from Manchuria, Korea, and northern Japan, while raising other forces in place. By August, they had 14 divisions and various smaller formations, including three tank brigades, for a total of 900,000 men"

"In addition, the Japanese had organized the Patriotic Citizens Fighting Corps, which included all healthy men aged 15 to 60 and women 17 to 40 for a total of 28 million people, for combat support and, later, combat jobs. Weapons, training, and uniforms were generally lacking: some men were armed with nothing better than muzzle-loading muskets, longbows, or bamboo spears; nevertheless, they were expected to make do with what they had.[25]
One mobilized high school girl, Yukiko Kasai, found herself issued an awl and told, "Even killing one American soldier will do. ... You must aim for the abdomen"

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall

"The Kwantung Army had over 600,000 men in twenty-five divisions (including two tank divisions) and six Independent Mixed Brigades. These contained over 1,215 armored vehicles (mostly armored cars and light tanks), 6,700 artillery pieces (mostly light), and 1,800 aircraft (mostly trainers and obsolete types; they only had 50 first line aircraft). However, the Kwantung Army was far below authorized strength; most of its heavy military equipment and all of its best military units had been transferred to the Pacific front over the previous three years. "

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Manchuria

meh, wikipedia is more specific than my book.

It wasn't insignificant, I said it was insignificant COMPARED to the hostile civilians on the mainland which was every able bodied man woman and child in the country.

I don't have a camera, sorry. I'll go get my book in about an hour or so and then post the comment. You have your facts right, but you're failing to recognize how hostile the civilians of Japan were to its enemies. If the Russians started raping their women, they would have fought harder until there was nobody left to fight the Russians

The slaughter kind of stopped when they surrendered and the war in the Pacific ended...

No, it didn't. Cold war, SU-Afghanistan, Iran-Iraq, Iraq-Kuwait, US-Iraq, US-Afghanistan, US-Iraq 2, all direct consequences of WW2.
The slaughter was started in 1916 and continues until today.

You make a good point, but all of those things are due to the war as a whole, not the singular fact that the US nuked Japan. The war was going to end one way or another, and although calling the use of nuclear weapons a necessary evil sounds bad, it actually caused fewer deaths than a land invasion of Japan would have.

Actually, that string of violence goes all the way back to 1916 and the US entering WW1.
It's mindboggling how that one decision fucked up the entire 20th century into a single bloodbath and still echoes in bloodshed today.

Yes, but it was not the nukes that made that invasion unnecessary, it was the once again the Red Army deciding the course of the war when they turned on Japan. Fucking Soviets and their steamroller of an army.

How in God's name do you see 1916, and specifically the US involvement, as the starting point for the clusterfuck that was the 20th Century?

1914, 1871, 1905. All those dates make more sense. In 1917, the actual year the US joined, the Russian Revolution makes more sense.

The US is probably, in fact, the least responsible of the Great Powers for the clusterfuck. The blame rests almost squarely on Europe and its imperialistic warmongering and insane continental power struggle, that only seems to have stopped in 1945.

I want to clarify one thing: Though this string of violence is not the US governments fault alone in any way, they have caused it.

Easily explained, but lengthy.
In 1916, WW1 was all but over. All sides were practically bankrupt, starved on resources, approval of the citizens was lower than ever, hell, French soldiers mutinied by the companies. All that was left to do was sign treaties to restore the pre-1914 status quo. The war to end all wars? It could have been that way.

Then, practically out of nowhere, the US forsake their policy of isolationism and enter the war, causing the Germans to take Lenin out of his exile in Switzerland, give him a few millions of Mark and send him to Russia to overthrow the Romanov Tsar and get the Russian Army off the back of the Germans.
Desperate and dangerous plan, but it works. Doesn't help the Germans though, they have to surrender in 1919 and get hit with the crushing inhuman cruelty that is the Versailles dictate, robbing them of their gold reserves, forex, industry and even parts of infrastructure and agriculture in one fell swoop while piling incredible debt on them they now have no means left to repay at all.
Hundreds of thousands starve to death, depression, hyperinflation, you know the story, all a perfect breeding ground for the violent socialist regime that finally manifested in Hitler to usurp power, while in the meanwhile formed Soviet Union Stalin succeeds Lenin.
NS Germany invading Poland was a conflict over border territory started in 1919 by Versailles treaty, and that is how WW2 is started. >50 million casualties later, the remaining superpowers USA and USSR seamless go from WW2 into Cold War, China becomes socialist/communist, so do Korea and Vietnam despite US interventionary wars, later the Soviet Afghan war, US agencies funding the Mujaheddin who 9/11 is attributed to, therefore sparking wars in Afghanistan and Iraq yet again.
The first US-Iraq war was a direct consequence of the Islamic revolution in Iran against the US-puppet Schah and the deal with Saddam Hussein leading to the Gulf War and Iraq's invasion in Kuwait.

Firstly, how does returning the 1914 status quo solve the problem? All you've done is made sure that WWII will happen for the same stupid reasons WWI did once Europe decides it wants power more than peace again.

The US did not forsake isolationism out of nowhere. The Germans resumed Unrestricted Submarine Warfare and promised Mexico land in America if they helped Germany, neither of which are the actions of a nation about to give up and negotiate for peace. More importantly, the Russian Revolution began before Lenin returned to Russia, and the assertion that he was funded by Germany has little to no evidence, especially considering he was a minor figure living in Switzerland, whose main support was from a small party in Kerensky's new Provisional Government.

Furthermore, in April 1917, when the US joined, contrary to looking for negotiations, both sides were escalating the war. The French Nivelle Offensive, which caused the mutinies, was already scheduled before the Americans joined. American involvement did not make WWII any more a probability than a negotiated peace, creating a peace in which Germany was unsatisfied and angry, as opposed to Germany, Britain and France all being unsatisfied, each with old and new grievances that still required absolving by any means necessary. Or alternatively, the respective powers would have continued as doggedly as they had after the supposedly unbearable years of 1915 and 1916 until one side was just as utterly beaten, except that side would likely have been the conservative imperialistic Austro-German side instead of the liberal imperialistic Anglo-French side influenced by an anti-imperial Woodrow Wilson.

Another settlement which would have failed. There was no way to create one that would not, as no matter what it was, someone would be unsatisfied.

How does ending the war bring peace? Is that really what you just asked?

Oh, but it is. Negotiations have to be made from the position of highest strength possible. Any government willing to negotiate peace treaties or even surrender first shows and flexes muscles to get better terms.
That also very nicely explains the divergence between military command aiming to do exactly that and the soldiers thinking they have bled enough.

There is no way a progressive, educated and wealthy nation like pre-1914 Germany falls victim to a socialist dictatorship. Versailles dictate turned Germany effectively into a backward, bitterly poor third-world country and isolated it on an international scale, the prime victims of socialist regimes. To quote French major general Ferdinand Foch: "This is not Peace. It is an Armistice for twenty years.".
What a prophet, eh?

There is no way one can impose such a monstrosity as Versailles dictate on a nation out of a situation of stalemate.
And who tipped the 1916 stalemate? There you have your answer.
US intervention in WW1 is the original cause of WW2. All that happened afterwards until 1939was reaction to Versailles dictate.

Whether the Germans funded Lenin or not is besides the point. They returned him to Russia out of necessity brought upon the the US offensive. We know how it played put and how many million lives it cost.

Unsatisfied governments are irrelevant when they tremble before the wrath of irate citizens. And yes, with companies collectively going into mutiny, that was exactly the scenario in 1916.

You're very fixated on the French army mutinies in 1917:

They were not, in fact, as widespread as one would think, in no way threatened to collapse the French military, and, most importantly, the soldiers' grievances were addressed. None of the methods of placating them included peace feelers.

Furthermore, there is no need for Nazi Germany to rise for a Second World War to happen if you have a negotiated settlement. Instead of being replaced by revanchism over the First World War, the underlying tensions that sparked WWI will work as a catalyst for the second time. If nothing is resolved by Round One, Round Two becomes inevitable.

Once again; American intervention in no way acted as the catalyst for the 20th Century being a bloodbath of insane proportions. Europe's long-standing rivalries and general propensity for violence were what assured the bloodbath of both world wars.

US intervention led to Versailles. Versailles led to WW2.
I don't understand how one can argue against a causality so evident.

I'm not arguing with that assertion, which is true. I'm arguing with the assertion that without US intervention WWII, the Soviet Union, the Sino-Japanese War and other bloodbaths would not have happened, which is untrue.

The first quote only illustrates that the Americans were the only rational voice at Versailles. A negotiated peace without them would thus have been even more likely to leave both parties angry and unsatisfied instead of one, as both were still ruthlessly intent on pursuing their war aims.

Once again, not arguing Versailles didn't cause WWII as we know it. With a negotiated peace, Alsace-Lorraine would likely have still stayed as a territorial sticking point, along with the Balkans and Eastern Italy instead of being switched for Poland and Czechoslovakia.

Last statement; still not arguing with that. Versailles caused WWII as we know it, but WWII would have happened, US intervention or not.

Yes, with a negotiated peace treaty, Germany would most probably not have fallen into socialist dictatorship.
What they got, however, was Versailles dictate.

"In his book The Economic Consequences of the Peace, Keynes referred to the Treaty of Versailles as a "Carthaginian peace", a misguided attempt to destroy Germany on behalf of French revanchism, rather than to follow the fairer principles for a lasting peace set out in President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, which Germany had accepted at the armistice. He stated: "I believe that the campaign for securing out of Germany the general costs of the war was one of the most serious acts of political unwisdom for which our statesmen have ever been responsible."[41] Keynes had been the principal representative of the British Treasury at the Paris Peace Conference, and used in his passionate book arguments that he and others (including some US officials) had used at Paris.[42] He believed the sums being asked of Germany in reparations were many times more than it was possible for Germany to pay, and that these would produce drastic instability.[43]"

"French historian Raymond Cartier states that millions of Germans in the Sudetenland and in Posen-West Prussia were placed under foreign rule in a hostile environment, where harassment and violation of rights by authorities are documented.[55] Cartier asserts that, out of 1,058,000 Germans in Posen-West Prussia in 1921, 758,867 fled their homelands within five years due to Polish harassment.[55] In 1926, the Polish Ministry of the Interior estimated the remaining number of Germans at less than 300,000.[citation needed] These sharpening ethnic conflicts would lead to public demands to reattach the annexed territory in 1938 and become a pretext for Hitler′s annexations of Czechoslovakia and parts of Poland.[55]"

Poverty and breakdown of structure plus a future conflict.
Look at it any way you like, but Versailles is nothing else than the blueprint to WW2.

Yes, because they are incredibly important to understand the situation.

"On or about 8 June the military authorities took swift and decisive action: mass arrests were followed by mass trials.[3] Those arrested were selected by their own officers and NCOs, with the implicit consent of the rank and file.[1] There were 3,427[1] conseils de guerre (courts-martial), at which 23,385 men were convicted of mutinous behaviours of one sort or another;[3] 554 men were sentenced to death;[1] 49 men were actually shot;[1] and the rest sentenced to penal servitude.[3] In 1983, research by Pedroncini documented 2,878 convictions to hard labour and 629 death penalties. According to Pedroncini, only 43 executions were carried out and can be solidly documented. The lack of rigor in repressing the mutinies provoked adverse reactions among some of the French Army's divisional commanders.[8] General Pétain and French President Raymond Poincaré, on the other hand, made it their policy to mend rather than to aggravate the French Army's morale."

"Whatever the figure, along with the deterrent of military justice, General Pétain offered two incentives: more regular and longer leave; and, at least for the time being, an end to grand offensives – "until the arrival of tanks and Americans on the front".[1] Pétain still launched limited attacks with massive artillery pounding on a few German strongholds, like fort La Malmaison, which were taken with minimal French casualties."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Army_Mutinies_(1917)

The mutinies were crushed with force, not addressed and debated out of existence.

It was the tip of an iceberg, the beginning of the end. ~25.000 soldiers deserted and mutinied against their command for putting them into a war they could not win.
As the quote above shows, it was promises of "Wunderwaffe" and US intervention that kept them fighting instead of rebelling.

Mutinies or not, WWII was going to happen with or without intervention.

I'll concede that the war may have ended earlier without US intervention, but it doesn't change the fact that US intervention only changed how the bloodbath happened, not caused it.

Returning to the 1914 status quo, which would have been impossible (see both sides' rejection of Wilson's "peace without victory" and repeated refusal to send out proper peace feelers), does not bring peace. It brings an armistice. It's a temporary agreement that the respective alliance blocks will try again later, with better weapons, since they were unable to solve their issues this time around.

The Germans never had an intent of sending peace feelers to anyone except the Russians after the February Revolution. They were going to prosecute the war in the Wets to the bitter end for the same reason the Brits and French were; they had lost too much for it to end in a stalemated negotiation. It wasn't until their armies were collapsing and their people literally overthrew the government that the Germans agreed to negotiation, and the collapse of the German armies was the result of American intervention, without which the 1918 German offensive would have still ended in a stalemate instead of a full-on reversal. The German people likely would have fought on if only one condition had been fulfilled, but since they were both clearly losing and starving at the same time, peace came about.

That quote by Foch? He said it was an armistice because he thought the Allies were being too lenient with the Germans.

The tipping of the stalemate hastened the end of the war by clearly giving one side the edge, instead of leaving them both at relatively equal strengths, hammering at each other until forced by casualties and cost to negotiate a peace that was unsatisfying to both sides and left both with the capability to wage the war again.

The Russian Revolution was going to happen without Lenin. It happened without Lenin. The Petrograd Soviet and Provisional Government were never going to co-exist; all Lenin did was speed up the descent into Civil War, and thus speed up the end of the war with Germany, which then speeded up the end of the war in the West.

You're making this awfully easy for yourself. So what exactly were the great underlying issues? What would have made all of Europe choose war over peace once again?
You Americans seem to think we Europeans are nothing but a bunch of warlike savage tribesmen currently on each others throats.
I can guarantee you though, we love life and peace just as much as you do.

The German government and generals didn't. You completely misunderstand their role in this war. But as I said, when actively opposed by the collective citizenry, they become irrelevant. Again, it's the mutinies that are perfectly illustrating what would have happened.
Bottom line: WW1 was not sustainable. Even with hardliner governments and generals having total control over their respective populace, the nations war efforts would have crumbled one by one. WW1 would have ended in a stalemate with or without negotiations.

Yes, Foch wanted to completely cripple and destroy Germany so they could not fight back against that monstrosity that is Versailles dictate.
His quote perfectly illustrates two things: the cruelty of Versailles not just being a German imagination, and the ruthlessness of the Entente when it came to destroying their enemy even after surrender.

"hammering at each other until forced by casualties and cost to negotiate a peace that was unsatisfying to both sides and left both with the capability to wage the war again. "
You contradict yourself. If they are forced to negotiate a peace they do not want it means they have no more capability to wage war.
If they are left with the capability to wage war, they are not forced to negotiate a peace they do not want.

Fact is, Lenin took over and history took a turn for the worst.
Without the US intervening, Lenin would most probably have died in his exile and Russia would have gotten another chance.
Again, I'm not saying the US are at fault, only that their intervention was the cause.

Lenin was headed for Russia before the US even intervened, his train being approved 6 days before the US declared war. US intervention in no way affected the outcome in Russia, even in 1919 when US troops took Vladivostok and the Communists still won. Once WWI began and the February Revolution got underway, the Soviet Union was going to happen, Americans or not.

The capability to wage war here does not mean the capability to continue waging the war, but instead the capability to rebuild and rearm the military to war-making status, as Germany did when Versailles was cast aside in the 30s. In a negotiated peace, both sides would rearm from a strong base, instead of one side (Germany) rearming from essentially nothing.

The underlying issues for WWI included such things as nationalist aspirations by ethnic groups in the Balkans and Austria-Hungary, an increasing current of nationalism in Germany, Britain, Russia and France, the constant power struggle of Europe over dominance of each other, the rapid increase in German power since 1870 that included whipping up a virulent wave of French revanchism by annexing Alsace-Lorraine, the continued collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

None of those issues are resolved by a return to the 1914 status quo, and a negotiated peace leaves governments and people on both sides unsatisfied with the result. For both sides, it becomes "10 million people dead for minor changes? This is ridiculous." As for what made all of Europe choose war over peace again? The same things as in our timeline; time and anger. Those unresolved issues still need to be dealt with, and eventually people's memories of the war will no longer be a deterrent against the national desire for resolution and promises of a different war, one where new technology will bring victory quickly.

As for "Americans seem to think we Europeans are nothing but a bunch of warlike savage tribesmen currently on each others throats," I am in fact European, and have thus studied more than my fair share of European history. Europeans are not savages, but the last 70 years have been the first time in European history that we have not had a continent-wide explosion, or even Great Power war, for this long due to having less say over our matters, nuclear weapons, and having so comprehensively destroyed ourselves in 1914-1945 that the idea of killing for your country no longer inspires Europeans to the extent it did back then. Of course we love life and peace, but there's no denying we have a long history of destroying both.

No. WWI was not sustainable, but there was no way that it would end war, and there's no way that a lack of US intervention would have prevented the Soviet Union or WWII.

You seem to know a lot more on the topic than I do, so I'll take your word for it. It's really a pleasant surprise to find someone that's willing to support their arguments with facts and history rather than "lolz ur a fag" though so thumbs for you :)

Don't do that. Always question and research yourself. You wouldn't believe how easily one is fooled otherwise.

"It's really a pleasant surprise to find someone that's willing to support their arguments with facts and history rather than "lolz ur a fag" though so thumbs for you"
That is a wonderful compliment. Thank you very much!

It was either that or Operation Downfall which would result in the deaths of countless Americans and Japanese, both military and civilians. They were training women and children to hide under the beaches strapped with mines.

Also, the Tokyo Fire Bombings killed at least 124,711 people, injured a million, and left a million homeless. You don't care about that, though.

Operation Downfall had a projected 1 million casualties for the US alone. Many more casualties on the Japanese side were expected.

The slaughter never stops. You can burn parts of forest to prevent huge wildfires, though.

"You don't care about that, though."
What makes you even think that?

Yes, that war would leave heaps of corpses on both sides. Didn't stop the US from provoking Japan though, so they must have been okay with that. Root of the whole madness, if you think about it.

Burning civilians to spare your invasion forces, what's that called again? Oh yeah, terrorism. How these people can speak of honour and not choke to death on their own words, I will never know.

"You can burn parts of forest to prevent huge wildfires, though."
You're insane.

I'm going on a limb and saying you are a dumbass with his head so far up his ass he has no clue how the real world works.

You are often given a choice between killing a dozen or killing a thousand. The 150k we killed at H and N was nothing relative to what the Japanese did to China, nothing relative to what the Germans were doing, nothing relative to what WOULD have happened if we took the alternative. We chose the lesser of the evils you twat.

By the way, US didn't provoke Japan. Japan was committing horrific war crimes by raping and slaughtering Chinese innocents and enslaving anyone who couldn't fight back as sex slaves for their soldiers. Chinese begged us for help, so we stopped trading with Japan and told them to stop or we'll continue to have them cut off. But instead of saying "okay, we'll stop, we were bad." they decided to attack us. A country a couple dozen times bigger and stronger.

What exactly is an invasion force? Last time I checked innocent US civilians were drafted against their will. That "invasion force" was unwilling volunteers that HAD to be their, not WANTED to be there. If we went inland, those "civilians" would have quickly strapped bombs to their chest and started charging with pitchforks. It would have been God Damn bloody.

Those were over 150.000 human beings you're so casually dismissing here.
Also, by that logic it would have been okay to nuke a small US city if it had stopped the Iraq war. That's just nonsense.

I am well aware of the Japanese crimes of that time. Does not excuse the American ones in any way, though.
Oh hell yes, the US cornered the Japanese until they thought attacking " A country a couple dozen times bigger and stronger. " was preferable to the status quo.

"That "invasion force" was unwilling volunteers that HAD to b"
Do you even think what you're writing or are you just hitting random keys?

No, because nuking a small US city would lead to a large-scale nuclear war, not the surrendering of the U.S. The casualties of that situation would be ~a billion if I were to estimate.

American crimes? We were at war. Relative to anyone else we were pretty freaking kind at war. Still are. Fire bombings, yeah, that was pretty sick. But everyone did it back then. It's not like we were any worse than EVERYONE else. Included Austria. So don't attack us. Compared to tactics of war employed in WWI and others in WWII a nuclear bomb is pretty kind as well. Cancer, radiation burns, or sudden vaporization sure beat burning to death in your wooden house knowing that nobody will come (or even try to) save you or your loved ones.

They violated a treaty when they built massive battleships to wage war on the U.S. Combined with the whole "China is begging for help" thing, we decided to CUT OFF TRADE. Read that sentence for a second, cut off TRADE. We didn't attack them, we didn't corner them, we cut off trade to steel and iron and such until they went back into the terms of our treaty (dismantle some oversized warships). They decided to attack us instead. That gives us a complete excuse for going to war. What were we supposed to do? Wave the white flag and give them their supplies to build big ships to come kill us with?

And yeah, you obviously don't know anything about the U.S. in WWII though.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_the_United_States#World_War_II
Forced draft based on a lottery system in times of war where we didn't have enough troops. Almost all countries had/have that. What do you think they're going to do? "Oh we're all out of troops, better just hope they don't attack us now! That wouldn't be fair!"

So you mean nuking a country without nuclear weapons themselves is ok, but nuking someone who can answer in kind isn't?
Dude, your morals are like Spongebob. Stupid, oddly colored and full of holes.

"a nuclear bomb is pretty kind as well."
I refuse to take wild guesses what is worse, firebombing or nuking inhabited cities. Both are wrong, despicable and repulsive war crimes.

Yes, the cut off in trade was justified, if not exactly the most prudent course of action.
You forget Japan was just supposed to open the gate for the US to enter the war against Germany in order to protect their investments in Britain and France.
Thing is, the US also sold weapons to Japan's enemy China. By international law, that is an act of hostility. Try weaseling out of that.

I know exactly what a draft is, I was drafted myself not too long ago.
I was merely pointing out that "unwilling volunteers" is just as much nonsense as "living corpse" and you failed twice to recognize that. lol.

Let's see your source for "by international law, that is an act of hostility."

And my morals are full of holes? You do realize you just compared nuking one country to end a war and save millions of lives to having a nuclear holocaust across the world killing well over 1/7 the human population for no reason, right? And then you say that we shouldn't have given China weapons, even though if we didn't we wouldn't have gotten involved, and Japan would have easily conquered a large majority of Asia, murdering many more than the Pacific Theatre ever did. And you say that you'd rather us not have nuked Japan, even though the only viable alternative to it, would be to multiply the death toll by factors over 10 on both sides.

You live in Austria, you are not drafted like U.S. soldiers were 50 years ago. Before 1973 (i think) if we needed soldiers, we could force men under the draft to go to war. And it's US law that all able bodied men MUST sign the draft or go to prison and pay a fine something like 500k. ~10% of the army was inducted this way. It's not like they joined the army, "gonna kill me some Nazi's and Japs!" Dumbass.

I will not read through all of the Geneva Conventions to find that one single paragraph.
Which means I have to drop my claim. Well played, man, well played. :/

That it was conceived as as a hostile act and breach of neutrality however shouldn't be too far a stretch of imagination. Apart from that, US volunteers actively fought the Japanese forces in China.
I did never even say it was bad or the US shouldn't have because I don't make these evaluations, all I said was that it was a provocation against Japan and escalated into a full blown war, which is nothing but fact.

" You do realize you just compared nuking one country to end a war and save millions of lives to having a nuclear holocaust across the world killing well over 1/7 the human population for no reason, right? And then you say that we shouldn't have given China weapons, even though if we didn't we wouldn't have gotten involved,"

I did not. I am only responsible for what I say, not for what you understand.

"only viable alternative to it, would be to multiply the death toll by factors over 10 on both sides. "
Wrong. Japan surrendered because the Soviets turned on them with an army of 1,5 million men and ten-thousand tanks and artillery pieces, not because they lost two harbor cities.

"Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service."
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conscription

That's exactly what happened to me. I wasn't sent to war, thank the gods, but I was conscripted all the same.
"It's not like they joined the army, "gonna kill me some Nazi's and Japs!" "
Don't you dare denying there were heaps and loads of those guys as well.

As I said earlier, the Russians deployed that many forces to the area, but they weren't really willing to commit them to die. They were used simply as a "don't fuck with us, look how many soldiers we have" even though Japan would have seen right through that. And if you can't put two and two together about Japan surrendering days after the second bomb was dropped, I don't know what's wrong with you.

There are SO many horrible things that the United States has done in its existence. Why you think this is important, I don't know. If you want something from the WWII era, why not pick the Dresden bombing, or unless you just have a grudge against Americans, the Batan Death March, the Nazi Concentration Camps, the SOVIET concentration camps, the Rape of Berlin, the sieges of Stalingrad and Leningrad, the Rape of Nanching, the Chinese Civil war, the Blitz, the Spanish Civil War, the overthrow of Iran, the Eradication of Jews and other minorities in Germany, or the Winter War of 1939.

America was a good boy in WWII, we hardly did anything inhumane compared to the other large powers involved, so why are you singling us out?

"America was a good boy in WWII"
Oh hell no. Not outside of Hollywood. Half of France still hates you nearly as much as the Germans for bombing first and asking questions later and not caring for getting it wrong.

Why am I talking about the nuclear bombs on Japan?
You may want to check the content again. When I read it, it didn't say Auschwitz or Stalingrad or Warsaw.
I don't have a grudge against Americans and would discuss any of what you listed just the same, but here the bombs are the topic, aren't they?

I've been to France and Germany. Neither of the countries really give a shit. Germans were actually finishing development of their nuclear weapons system, they know they have no room to talk. Of course that's tiny compared to the whole Holocaust thing.

Anyway, the developers of the bombs even admitted they never forgave themselves for what they did, they had no idea what it was capable of. They also said they had no idea if it would even burn up the entire atmosphere, though. So I'd say that just testing the bomb was a bigger dumbass move than anything in Human history, we could have annihalted humanity completely.

"You don't care about that" meaning nobody makes a fuss about the civilians killed in those attacks even though they added up to more than half of the deaths of the atomic bomings.

Provoking Japan? They wanted to invade our homeland and destroy us. They would stop at nothing short of assured destruction to do that. It was in their culture at the time. We responded to the attacks on Pearl Harbor. We were in a war of attrition. What do you think we'd do?

The difference between the bombings and terrorism in the US is that they killed civilians to save so very many more.

I used the metaphor to mean that in certain situations you have to sacrifice life to save more life. In case you didn't know, the process of controlled burns is real: " Controlled burns are reportedly 'the most effective treatment for reducing a fire’s rate of spread, fireline intensity, flame length, and heat per unit of area' according to Jan Van Wagtendonk, a biologist at the Yellowstone Field Station."

Because it's not within the topic of the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

You completely misrepresent the situation.
Japan did everything in their power to avoid even just upsetting the US because they knew just how dependent and vulnerable by a simple trade embargo they were.
Up until the point the US froze Japanese accounts, held their ambassadors, issued said trade embargo and started trading weapons with China, which is to be considered an act of hostility according to international law.
Then the Japanese for some reason thought a two fronts war was still preferable to fighting a China backed up by the US, granting the US the entry into the war against Germany they had gambled for so long.
It was a game of politics and interests, as it always is.

Bullshit. The bombs saved nothing. With the Red Army turning on Japan, they would have surrendered all the same. The real reason to drop these bombs was to show some muscles to the Soviets before the war was over.

You cannot fucking honestly compare burning some scrubs and undergrowth to nuking inhabited cities.
You are insane.

Sure, it's not within the topic, but it's ONLY the nukes you critics are against. If it was just more firebombing you wouldn't have known about it.

Japan was island hopping right to Hawaii with KNOWN, CLEAR intentions of a war with the US. Unlike you, fortunately, the government was smart enough to realize that eventually there would be a war. Isolationism was strong at the time, so people wouldn't support a war unless we were attacked. Therefore, the US had to allow Japan to make the first move in order to rile up support. Underhanded? Hell yes. But war is never fair.

I cannot believe you'd think that the Red Army could have just come in to save the day, only if you had no idea of Russian and Japanese history. Stalin sent wave after wave of millions of men against Germany, costing more lives in the Eastern Front than any other combined. When you have that level of willingness of sacrifice against an enemy training every last man, woman, and child to die for their country, you'd have quite possibly the most horrific invasion the modern world has ever seen, moreso than Operation Downfall.

Thanks for the repeated ad hominem. It's an analogy. Get over it.

You're playing a game of guessing. There is no way in hell you could know what I do or do not know. Stop that nonsense, will you?
I am not against nuclear bombs, they have their however limited uses.
What I am against is the slaughter of innocents, be it with the sword in crusades, with bayonet in Nanking, with guns in Katyn, with hunger in Ukraine, with phosphorus-bombs in Dresden or with nuclear bombs in Hiroshima.
I don't care who did it, how or for whatever supposedly noble reasons. If the innocent suffer, I despise it.

"Therefore, the US had to allow Japan to make the first move in order to rile up support. Underhanded? Hell yes. But war is never fair."
You mean governments are never fair, sacrificing >2000 loyal soldiers in a gambit to protect their financial interests. But you admit it, and that I have to give you credit for.

You're implying that invasion had to be fought at all. You overestimate the Japanese potential for resistance at that point a great deal. Japan was crumbling under US forces alone even before the Soviets marched against them.
It wasn't losing two harbors that broke their back, it was another army of 1,5 million men declaring war against them. The nukes were plain unnecessary.

There is no analogy between burning undergrowth and burning humans.

You're an ideological person in a cynical world. You can't save everyone. This isn't a movie.

Governments can be fair. Some points they are fair, and some points not. War doesn't have rules, only things you shouldn't do lest you get retaliation. I do not admit governments are never fair. That's ridiculous generalization.

The invasion had to be fought. After repeated attempts for peace, Japan was still hostile. It doesn't matter about who could win or lose. The Russians were going to win. It's that your average country surrenders when it knows it is doomed, like Germany did, after their capital taken and leader dead. But every last person was at least trained to sacrifice their lives. It was in their culture.

The analogy holds true. Sacrifice some to save a lot.

Why can't you just complain about Japan's, Germany's, Russia's, or China's atrocities in World War II and throughout history? The loss of life was a hundredfold and there was no moral goal.

Idealistic, not ideological. BIG difference.
And I can't transform the world into an Utopia, true. Still, I want to make it a bit better.

It's not a generalisation, it's a definition. Governments are by definition institutions of monopolised violence, therefore nothing but a shade of violent tyranny.

"But every last person was at least trained to sacrifice their lives. It was in their culture." And losing two harbors was the only thing that made them change 3000 years of self-sacrificial culture within a week and prevented the entire nation from commiting collective kamikaze, is that what you're saying?
Bullshit. How can you even believe that?

There is no analogy. Violence only breeds hatred, desire for revange and further violence.

"Why can't you just complain about Japan's, Germany's, Russia's, or China's atrocities in World War II and throughout history?"
Are you trying to weasel out of this by pointing fingers at others and changing the topic? Last time I checked the content, it didn't say anything about Germany or Russia or China.

Right, my bad.

I cannot believe you would think that. Governments are by definition institutions to provide leadership, protection, stability, etc. of the people. Can you honestly call yourself idealistic and believe that the very thing that allows you civilization is nothing but violence?

I can believe it because they were trained for an invasion. Not total annihilation without a fighting chance.

Analogy: "A similarity between like features of two things, on which a comparison may be based"
Two things: Dropping atomic bombs, intentionally starting preventative fires.
Comparison: Sacrificing lives to save many more; sacrificing acreage to save much more.

I'm trying to say you're bitching about this primarily because America did it. You don't care about the atrocities other countries committed.

"I'm trying to say you're bitching about this primarily because America did it. You don't care about the atrocities other countries committed."

Try to say what you want, believe what you want, I don't even give a damn any more.
I got flamed and baselessly insulted for voicing an opinion, some faggot called me "Nazi lover" because I disagreed slaughtering civilians is morally right. I mean what the fuck is going on in that idiot's head? Whatever.

The idiocy and hypocrisy of you people is mindboggling. I'm no stranger to internet culture, imageboards or even shitstorms, but this is just poor by any standard.

That it turns out to be I was right all along and a simple trip to fucking wikipedia would have done you all a world of good is just the icing on the cake.
Really, I don't even wanna see this anymore.
You faggots can all go to hell collectively.

"I ran out of argument. You all are faggots. I quit."

Okay.

Yes, you all are faggots. You especially.

"I'm trying to say you're bitching about this primarily because America did it. You don't care about the atrocities other countries committed."

You're the one who has to prove his unfounded claim, faggot. Do it. And we'll continue this.

Haha, that's just a side note. Think about it though. What about all the other atrocities other countries commit? Every country in its past has done something horrible.

Anyway, prove I'm a cockloving faggot. I'm enjoying this.

I can still agree with you that the atomic bombings of the cities were absolutely horrifying and atrocious acts. So we can share ground there.

I don't care for Hiroshima and Nagasaki because the US did it, I care because civilians and innocents were killed.
The same goes for Nanking. The same goes for Dresden, Katyn, Warsaw, Auschwitz, Kolyma, My Lai and all crimes against defenseless, innocent victims you could possibly name. And hell yes, 9/11 is among them, too.
I don't care about countries or wars, the people of this world are more important to me. Without them, there are no countries, there is no society.
A crime against innocents is a crime against us all because who the hell would guarantee us we're not the next in line?

Meh, I can't prove you're a faggot any more than you can prove I'm a US-hater.
Stalemate.

That is not the definition of government. A government without the monopoly of violence is not a government at all.
Believe it or not, it is true. I couldn't call myself idealistic if I believed in the forceful coercion of people and the systematic violation of their rights and freedoms.

"Japanese leaders had always envisioned a negotiated settlement to the war. Their prewar planning expected a rapid expansion and consolidation, an eventual conflict with the United States, and finally a settlement in which they would be able to retain at least some of the new territory they had conquered.[20] By 1945, Japan's leaders were in agreement that the war was going badly, but they disagreed over the best means to negotiate its end. There were two camps: the so-called "peace" camp favored a diplomatic initiative to persuade Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union, to mediate a settlement between the Allies and Japan; and the hardliners who favored fighting one last "decisive" battle that would inflict so many casualties on the Allies that they would be willing to offer more lenient terms."

"By the end of January 1945, the Japanese were suggesting peace terms.[22] These proposals, sent through both British and American channels, were assembled by General Douglas MacArthur into a 40-page dossier and given to President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 2, two days before the Yalta Conference. Reportedly, the dossier was dismissed by Roosevelt out of hand—the proposals all included the condition that the emperor's position would be assured, if possibly as a puppet ruler; at this point the Allied policy was to accept only an unconditional surrender.[23]"

No intention to die fighting anywhere. No intention to die at all.
I wish I had found that article that when this shitstorm started. I'd have torn you clowns into shreds and pieces.

Seems I forgot to state the source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_japan#Divisions_within_the_Japanese_leadership

There. In black and white on wikipedia. It's even on fucking wikipedia!

Anyone reading this, what's your fucking excuse for flaming me while not knowing this?

You're being wholly ridiculous.

That's what the poitical leaders were saying. The military wanted nothing but war. The military attempts to prevent the emperor from capitulating are an indication that Japan was not about to fold. The U.S. asked Japan to surrender before the dropping of the first bomb, and yet we got no response after the first bomb, thus as a result, we dropped our last atomic bomb on Nagasaki, resulting in Japan's full surrender.

EVEN AFTER Hirohito made the tape of his speech of surrender, to be broadcast the following day, a group of diehard military officers attempted a coup and tried to snatch the tape. General Mori of the Imperial Guards was murdered in the coup (he refused to divulge the location of the tape), the plotters were unable to find the tape, and the coup failed. Japan was in the grip of fanatics, not some "peace" camp.

"By the end of January 1945, the Japanese were suggesting peace terms."

You must be stupid or illiterate.

The Japanese leadership was controlled by the military, who did not want peace terms. Please read my post correctly.

"By the end of January 1945, the Japanese were suggesting peace terms."

They had physically, actually and truly offered peace terms.
What do you not understand?

Maybe that the military was going to stage a coup if they had been enacted. You think that governments are violence. Why don't you actually apply that and realize that the people making the nice claims are not the government, but the people who "guarantee violence" like you said before?

"Metonymy ( /mɨˈtɒnɨmi/ mi-tonn-ə-mee) [1] is a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metonymy

In this case, "the Japanese" is a metonymy meaning "the Japanese government".
Nice try though, you're clearly intelligent and a quick thinker.

I understand what you're saying, it's just that the Japanese government sued for peace, while the people trying to overtake them for control of Japan was the military, who were willing to keep on fighting.

"Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition.[1][2] Common definitions of terrorism refer only to those!! violent acts which are intended to create fear!! (terror), are perpetrated for a religious,!! political!! or, ideological goal; and deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants (civilians)."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism

It fulfills all the criteria.
I'd say dropping nukes on inhabited cities is among the worst kinds of terrorism there is, when you consider the radiation.

It doesn't even matter who I am. Who I am changes nothing about the bombs.

As a warleader, I would rather have millions of innocents on the enemy side die than lose one of my men and have to write home to his family about how he died, and think what could have been done to save him

but im not a general

Thank the Gods for that.

I'll have to agree with you there. The goal of a general should be to save as many people as possible, with an emphasis on the innocent. I like how old empire war was conducted. Collateral was rare, usually only soldiers got killed. If I were to give it a number I'd say saving two innocents is worth losing one soldier. But that's assuming it's a rare occurance and I have a large pool of soldiers.

That is complete nonsense. One cannot buy or sell human lives. People are not a resource.

You are a master troll.

Sometimes, yes.
Not here, though.

Sure.

no matter what there was gonna be death if they didnt surrendered we just chose the path that let less americans die

if we didnt nuke them and make them surrender theres always the chance that japan would have attacked us again killing our civilians..

killing other people civilians>our civilians dying.

considering japan didnt surrender when we gave them and opportunity before the bombing of hiroshima and before we bombed nagasaki and they still didnt. we had to be sure that america wasnt going to be attacked again. its like having an expensive piece of art in a case, so no one would touch it, then followed by security guard to make sure no one would touch it.

Japan was crumbling and the Soviet Red Army was about to turn on them as well.
The bombs were not necessary in any way, shape or form.

Lol, someone must have misclicked and given me a +1.
Fix it, guys, would you? Looks kinda strange among all the red.

we still had to confirm that they would attack us again we had to make sure. even though they were loosing and they were about to fall apart they still could have attacked us. you never know. idk if youve ever seen zombieland (cant believe im quoting this movie) rule #2 double tap. even though you've shot them they still could be alive, shoot them again just to be sure.

Did you just compare Japan to a zombie?

i did not at all. your a fucking idiot if you think that.

"we still had to confirm that they would attack us again we had to make sure."
"rule #2 double tap. even though you've shot them they still could be alive, shoot them again just to be sure."

You did.

i compared our tactic to a quote from zombieland, because your too stupid to see why we bombed japan so i dumbed it up for you, you fucking idiot. i never said Japanese people were zombies. delete your account and kill yourself.

you are, perhaps THE most retarded human being i have ever seen on the internet, you deserve those red thumbs

Do you have anything to say worth listening to as well or just that baseless drivel?

what about the millions of lives on both sides saved in the avoidance of operation downfall

Didn't need to nuke two cities for that.

It was their only option at the time.

That's not quite so clear.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#Debate_over_bombings

There's a lot more defending it than criticizing it... They said it saved upwards of a million lives.

"As the United States dropped its atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, 1.6 million Soviet troops launched a surprise attack on the Japanese forces occupying eastern Asia. "The Soviet entry into the war played a much greater role than the atomic bombs in inducing Japan to surrender because it dashed any hope that Japan could terminate the war through Moscow's mediation", said Japanese historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, whose recently published Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan is based on recently declassified Soviet archives as well as US and Japanese documents."

That's the bit I meant. I find it irritating that you instinctively seek out the opinions of people that were involved and had a strong political agenda over peer-reviewed, scientific research.

Unless it prevents the annihilation of millions.

It's the lesser of the two evils.

terrorism is never acceptable, and using enemies civilians as potential hostages to make your impositions be accepted neither

Thank you. That's exactly what I struggled to say.

Not even that gives you any right.

What country are you from?

Austria. Why do you ask?

Oh you mean the country that helped the Nazis? How about the country that started WWI? Or how about in Vienna when you Austrians decided to kill more than 700 innocent handicapped children? Oh wait Hitler was actually Austrian wasn't he? You Austrians joined the 3rd Reich and helped massacre MILLIONS so please don't start lecturing us about bombing two military bases. Yes they were military bases located in the city and you know what? We warned the people. We begged them to get out because we didn't want to kill innocents, but the bombs had to be dropped. Why? Because everyone just wanted the war to end.

Going back to World War 1 your arch duke was assassinated and you went to war with the Bosnians who had agreements with other countries that you knew about. So way to drop the fucking ball on that one Austria

That was awesome bravo good sir

Are you just trying to hold me accountable for crimes that happened when not even my parents were born yet?

Try harder next time.

Most American's parents weren't born in WW2 either.

I never blamed the American people. I blame the US government for the orders they gave and the lives that these orders have cost.

And if you look at his wording, he never blamed you specifically, he only blamed Austria.

He obviously tried to shame me into silence, didn't he?

I wouldn't call it shaming you, but I can see where you're coming from. He was just pointing out that America isn't the only country that has committed atrocities, as many people on this site tend to believe.

Definitely tried shaming there LOL. He said "You Austrians" grouping him in there. It would have been better if he didn't group him into the statement.

>I wouldn't call it shaming you,

Turns out he did exactly that.

It's funny cuz I wasn't talking about that comment. Drop this it's pointless.

"He was just pointing out that America isn't the only country that has committed atrocities, as many people on this site tend to believe."

I am sure as hell not one of them. I am well aware of the list of crimes my fellow countrymen and their governments have committed over the centuries, but I refuse to feel any guilt for them, simply because I had no part in them and I don't expect anyone to handle these matters any differently.

Many Americans feel the exact same way about the atomic bombs. Saying that you personally think it was wrong changes nothing. Not many Americans care, it was 67 years ago. I'm just saying.

"Not many Americans care, it was 67 years ago."
And that's the fucking problem. Not realizing and caring about the mistakes of the past dooms us to repeat them. I don't want to see that shit happen all over again and I bet you don't either.

"Saying that you personally think it was wrong changes nothing."
That's my greatest fear, actually. Seeing the world go through the same horrors over and over again despite better knowledge.

There's a difference between not realizing and not caring. I never said that Americans didn't realize our "mistake" that preserved American lives. That's all America cares about: self preservation.

And I should have phrased my last post better. By "not caring" I meant that we don't feel any guilt for the crimes that our ancestors committed, like you said. Trying to prove that our decision was "wrong" is pointless. It worked for the benefit of America, and like I said, that's all that this country cares about. It happened in the past, there's no way of changing it.

" you went to war with the Bosnians who had agre"

Also it was Serbia, you pretentious, self-important snob.

Oh the hypocrisy of your words

Yeah Bosnia and Serbia. You really are pathetic. Austria is responsible for so many more atrocities than the states and yet you have the audacity to stand here and criticize anyone? Keep bitching

Care to explain what you mean or just sit there and arbitrarily berate me?

Yes, I criticize atrocities. Why shouldn't I?
Butthurt that here American ones are the topic or what exactly is your problem?

Are you just blind to your own hypocrisy or just fucking retarded?
"you pretentious, self-important snob."
Isn't that what you called me? Now you want to bitch like you're the victim? LMFAO you pathetic piece of trash.
"Yes I criticize atrocities,"
- Unless they have to do with YOUR country. Fucking dumbass.
Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones. Grow the fuck up kid. My point is that every country has done something bad, (what your country did is worse) and yet you fell like making Americans feel guilty or bad. You know what? I don't give a shit. We had our reasons for dropping the bomb, you had your reason for helping Nazis mass murder millions of innocent people.

The difference is I don't chastise people for things there county did and try to run around like a little bitch who pretends do know what he's talking about. You want to give my country shit when we're not bothering anyone don't be surprised when someone digs up your own skeletons then you stupid fuck

Want to talk about Austrian atrocities? Sure, go right ahead, the list is long, bloody and shameful even way before 1938. Where do you wanna start?
Our Celtic history? Crusades? Napoleonic wars? Or go right into WW1 and 2?

I'm not living in a glasshouse, I've never committed an atrocity and I refuse to feel guilty for things happening before my birth. I throw as many stones as I feel I have to throw.

All I want to accomplish is that people recognize crimes and mistakes as such.
You ask why? Why the hell not?!
I don't give a damn about making people feel bad or guilty unless they were personally involved, I have no gain from that.
What I want is people to realize what is wrong and steer away from it.

That's all. You really think that makes me a bad person?

before you make yourself look any dumber than you already have

Go to hell.

Yeah of course, I am so butthurt right now. I am so mad in fact I'm tearing out my lower jaw and beating my monitor with it. Oh God, how very butthurt I am. You clearly are the greatest troll of all times, considering how mad I am.
I am so extremely unfamiliar with speaking publicly and venture an opinion, oh god, all these people disagreeing with me and thumbing me down is really getting to me.
I am so butthurt, I may just have to go become an hero.


lol

Then what would you have done?

Not dropped the bombs obviously.
Also, not provoked Japan into attacking in the first place.

1) To end the war what would you have done (I didn't ask what you wouldn't have done)

2) What was the provocation?

1) Waited. Japan was starving in every sense of the word. Their war effort would have collapsed in relatively short time. Captured intel showed they were already consulting about surrendering.
Also, had the Allies not ruled out diplomatic solutions at Potsdam, the entire war would have been shorter and less horrible.

Of course, it's easy to say these things after 70 years of analyzing, isn't it?

2) Freezing Japanese assets and accounts in the US, holding Japanese ambassadors and halting the essential exports of iron ore, steel and oil which Japan was utterly dependent on for no reason at all.
Also weapon trades with China, a nation at the time being at war with japan, which is by the way a definitive hostile action by international law.

Well, actually the reason was to provoke Japan into attacking so the US could finally got to war with Japan's ally Germany.

The thing about waiting was that the Japanese government didn't care (the consultation about surrendering, as far as I know, was only as a last resort) much about their civilians; they were prepared to use them as soldiers until the end - and then surrender when all hope was lost. So many were brainwashed into thinking that losing to America was a fate worse than death millions on both sides would have died if there were a land-based invasion (the second most popular option that America was considering).

But yeah, you're right about the analysis part - not one country had 70 years to think so they acted more hastily.

Although the freezing of assets, etc. was a hostile (and mostly unjustifiable) action it still didn't warrant an attack that involved the death of people - just maybe diplomatic action on their part.

Honestly, you have had the best argument I've heard yet, so credit to you for not giving the same old arguments I hear over and over.

Yes, governments tend to do that. The German did, the Soviet did, the Japanese did, the British and French did in WW1, actually, that's common practice if you look at it.

"So many were brainwashed into thinking that losing to America was a fate worse than death" What do you expect from a government desperate to stay in power? Again, that's the most common course of events in such situations.
Partly the Allies' fault in that case due to their Potsdam Declaration agreeing with one another they will accept nothing but total and unconditional surrender.
Turned out to be quite a barrier to an earlier end for nothing but narcissist glory-seeking.

As I said, it's easy to say these things today. At the time, that knowledge would have been invaluable. So yes, mistakes were made and atrocities committed on both sides. Again, as it always is in war.

Yes, diplomatic action would have been the right answer to these hostilities, though Japan was in a terrible spot. Long story short, nobody gave a damn about them, those who did dared not help them or even speak up because there was a damn war going on with Japan's ally fucking over future US allies (also with China and The Soviets were pissed, too), and Japan had nothing to put pressure on the US with.
Next step up the ladder is a military attack, and unfortunately, they decided to go for it.

Thank you for that credit at the end. I really try to be factual and reasonable.
Just because I disagree with the common opinions does not mean I'm some bigot with a hateful personal agenda.

It was not my intention to portray the Japanese as poor victims and innocent all together, because they sure as hell were not. The atrocities committed by Japanese troops and officers in China are unforgivable and the fact the modern Japanese government denies they ever happened is a disgrace. Also their treatment of POWs needs no mentioning.
But I was under the impression the topic were the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan, not Japanese war crimes, correct me if I'm wrong, so I focused on those.

The US did nothing to avoid the war either, on the contrary, escalating the conflict in any way they could with said weapon trades with China.
"even if it did cost the lives of "innocent" Japanese civilians."
Well, "the wanton destruction of cities, towns and villages, and any devastation not justified by military, or civilian necessity" is a definitive war crime.
Not only is it morally absolutely despicable, it is a direct violation of international law.
Just because there is no practical way to hold the US accountable does not mean they are above the law and can do whatever they feel like.

Neither China nor French Indochina were American business, now were they?
You are absolutely right Japan was a violent aggressor, but up to the diplomatic sanctions were very careful not to even just upset the US in any way.
Looking strictly at those two nations, it was the US to take the first steps of hostility towards the other.

""bystander" country that was forced into a war they didn't want."
Of course not. Though they had maneuvered themselves into a desperate situation and took what they thought was their only option they had avoided for good reason until that point. Doesn't make it any better, I agree.

"The Soviets were at war with them for like 3 months before we nuked."
Not only did you misunderstand me, you fucked up the dates badly.
Soviets started their invasion on 9th of August, 3 days after Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima and the very same day Nagasaki was nuked.

considering that the US essentially rebuilt japan into the thriving, populous country with one of the largest economies in the world seems to make it better. Nazi lover

Oh really? I wasn't aware of that. How many of the dead did it revive?

No, my friend. You seem to love the Nazis; at least you're in favor of their methods.

when you read a textbook, and see figures like Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun, do you think that the world they lived in is a completely different world than today? No its not, it may be further in the future but it remains the same planet with the same types of people, there will ALWAYS be war, famine, diseas, genocide, slavery and other shitty things

Those times are long gone, true; though the atrocities are as inexcusable as modern ones.

werent you the one who argued that those who dont learn from history are doomed to repeat it, so how can you say that shit like that wont happen again

How can I not?

you seem to think the world can be full of flowers sugar and sunshine don't you? the world is a SHITTY SHITTY place, millions die of disease, starvation and other causes every day. You need to realize that PEOPLE DIE thats that. The world has been full of unjust atrocities by countless forms of government throughout antiquity. Certainly you realize that your government is actually responsible for more wars and deaths than mine. So maybe you should remain quiet, let the past stay in the past and heal instead of reopening old wounds, and CERTAINLY not criticize other countris like yours hasent committed any

Yeah, and because the world is such a bad place we absolutely have to nuke cities, too, don't we? Do you have arguments, too, or just these empty platitudes?

"So maybe you should remain quiet, let the past stay in the past"
You'd like that, wouldn't you? I say no, fuck you. I'm the first to admit horrible mistakes and atrocities were committed in my country and by my fellow countrymen, but that does in no way mean you get to hide your nations mistakes and crimes.

These wounds need to be opened, cleaned and properly stitched before they can heal, if you excuse that metaphor. All of them.

Wow you are the most bleeding hearted faggot ive ever fucking seen. In case you dont know that was 70 fucking years ago. We don't have to hide the "crime" that we nuked a city , because the rest of the world rightfully believes and acknowledges the fact that that was THE best possible solution to end the war, ive seen your arguments against operation overlord and quite frankly they're fucking ludicrous. According to your standards you would rather have had Millions more die on both sides just because it would have been "fair". Well all is fair in love and war, ever heard of that. Besides, the fireboming of tokyo and dresden were FAR FAR worse. It also is so nice of you to display gratitude to the country that saved yours from TWO extremist governments, Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, without the US (and england) you WOULD not have the freedom to even use the internet so maybe you should stop acting like the US is the greatest butcher of all time and shut your ignorant face. (The spanish killed hundreds of millions during their colonization of the Caribbean and mesoamerica are you going to get all butthurt about that too?)

Now that's a pile of bullshit if I ever saw one. Fail upon fail upon fail.

" In case you dont know that was 70 fucking years ago."
70 years ago, yeah, so is the Holocaust and the Soviets starving ~10 million Ukrainians to death.
So the people that were killed are back alive now and all is ok, or what is your argument? Fucking idiot.

" ive seen your arguments against operation overlord an"
Overlord. Yeah, sure. Fail. Get your shit together, would you kindly?
If you would have paid any attention to what I said you'd have understood by now what I mean with "The path of the lesser evil was left long before Pearl Harbor."

"Well all is fair in love and war, ever heard of that."
I'm sure that was what the Japanese thought in Nanking, too, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Gratitude? Without the fucking US meddling in European matters there would have been no WW2, there would have been no Soviet Russia, even 9/11 and the wars following it are a direct result of the US failing to stay out of WW1 in 1916.
Nice job fucking up the entire 20th century into a single massacre, yeah, and then you want gratitude?

All that shit happened long before either of us were even born, so I owe you nothing.
And if I did, it would sure as hell not be gratitude.

Yeah, point fingers at the Spanish, because that changes everything about the nuclear bombs on Japanese cities, of course.
Had you an attention span longer than a 2x4 lego brick you'd have noticed that hell yes, I do condemn every and any act of aggression and violence.
Though if you care to check the content you may notice the topic isn't exactly the Spanish conquest of the Caribbeans and Americas.

also, as a kind gesture, im not arguing FOR the use of nuclear arms or FOR the death of thousands of people, i don't believe that any large group of people should be annihilated. Im just saying that you are wrongfully judging and condemning an action that was the best possible solution to end the war. Yes the war with japan could have been avoided, but what, at the deaths of millions of chinamen? And we kind of did choose the best option on dealing with the japanese, creating an embargo vs just declaring war was in fact a good idea at the time. However they jumped off of a fucking cliff and went and bombed pearl harbor, which sealed japan's fate. Also (kind of) Nazi Germany could have been avoided by not punishing them so harshly after WW1 but England and more heavily France demanded maximum penalties and Wilson just couldnt persuade them, so thats what happened. As for the middle east, England and the rest of Europe's colonization of Africa and the middle east sparked all the unrest and created the muslim brotherhood (the hand in all modern terrorist activities), and when they left, instead of creaing a government, they just created a dictatorship with a dictator that they could trust to let them do whatever the fuck they wanted there.

I find myself agreeing with much of what you said here, though not everything.

As I explained, the US were the prime reason why the Entente HAD to ruthlessly plunder and enslave Germany and actually could do so in the first place.

Also no, the modern unrest and terrorism in the middle east goes back to the Soviet-Afghan war, when US agencies hired tens of thousands of islamic mercenaries to fight the Soviets, Osama bin Laden and his warband among them.
Yes, it's true, believe it or not but bin Laden was on the US payroll in the 80s.
When the Soviets cut their losses and left, the USA did exactly the same, abandoning their former allies in a completely destroyed, havocked Afghanistan with no infrastructure, full of minefields and UXO and in a civil war on top.

That's when the US-founded and financed Mujaheddin turned around and wanted vengeance for being betrayed.
They didn't suddenly become terrorists, they had been terrorists all along and were getting paid for exactly that by the US.
All they did was stopping to terrorizing Soviets and starting terrorizing Americans.

The command structure of all those terrorist organisation? Installed and payed with US money. Their strategists and technicians? Trained by US specialists.
Their radio equipment and everything else not low-tech? Made in USA.
The stinger missiles they are shooting down US helicopters with? Courtesy of the USA.

Don't blame Europe for a conflict the US are responsible for.
That's an idiotic thing to do.

i know ALL about the funding america gave towards the rebels in afghanistan, but that was just arming them, if you look at ALL of the unrest in the middle east, not just the more recent stuff you will realize that there has been unrest in the middle east for well over a hundred years. Why? because european nations were colonizing the fuck out of EVERYTHING, even china. The muslim brotherhood was founded against this and its widely believed that the brotherhood was behind the assassination of Ferdinand = WW1 Also im sorry i confused overlord and downfall, my fucking mistake i thought downfall but typed overlord. Also the LOANS? are you fucking serious were responsible for a bankrupt europe because we gave them LOANS?? No, no no no that could not be more wrong, yes we sold them a dick ton of arms in war profiteering, and dont say we should have had laws against that at the time because at that point there was no such thing. We were selling to both sides until the germans (who were getting fewer supplies due to being landlocked) decided to start torpedoing the shit out of our shipping. Yes we may have given and used war BONDS but not Loans, and i dont see how its our fault for giving LOANS/BONDS and europe not having enough money to pay back, thats entirely europe's fault for borrowing money they couldnt pay back (what weve been doing recently =() And (as you mistakenly beleive) the US government is NOT responsible for private industry, at least not as much at that time. Woodrow wilson DID want to relax penalties on Austria and Germany but England and France would not have it, dont say they were fucking forced too because of debt because thats bullshit and you know it, they were pissed because of the millions of their boys lost in the trenches. Europe brought WW2 on THEM FUCKING SELVES, gooday

you dont know shit about history do you? president woodrow wilson was the one trying to appease for lighter convictions on Austria and Hungary after World War I, but NOPE europe just HAD to punish the shit out of them, thrusting Germany into poverty creating the stagnant quagmire ripe for cruel dictators like Hitler to arise. As for the 70 years ago comment, it was LONG before i was born so why should i care? And for the end of your comment, "yes, i condemn every act of violence" what do you? open textbooks and read articles on slaughters and say "THOSE PEOPLE ARE MONSTERS IM GLAD THEYRE DEAD" you just have to let that shit go, in the end you have no power over anything in this world and you have to just accept it for what it is and try to see the good in life instead of being such a pessimist. NTW the japanese were slaying the chinese in the MILLIONS before we entered the war, thats like condemning someone for nuking the nazis

Says the one confusing Downfall and Overlord, lol.

Oh, spare me that bullshit. You know why the US entered WW1?
Because in 1916, the war was practically over. French soldiers deserted and mutinied by the companies, England was all but bankrupt, the Russian front had completely broken down. The only thing preventing Germany and Austria from completely overrunning all their enemies was the fact that they were just as beaten and broken as the Entente.
Complete stalemate. The only thing left to do was count the losses, sign treaties saying everything was back to pre-1914, pack up stuff and go home.

That was a huge fucking problem for the US, because that meant they would never see the huge sums of money they had loaned Britain and many of its allies for the war again. So what did Mr. Woodrow Motherfucker Wilson do?
He went on a massive raid and tipped the stalemate.

"president woodrow wilson was the one trying to appease for lighter convictions"
That's a great fucking thing to say when simultaneously calling in the Entente's loans that could realistically only be paid by mercilessly crushing and plundering Germany, isn't it?
So instead of the world realising what a senseless horror war truly is in 1916, we got the foundation for the next, even greater one in 1919, including the dictators, acts of tyranny and following wars that actually last until today.
Nice job breaking it, Woodrow. That man had the opportunity to send the strongest signal against war there ever was and instead opted to turn the entire 20th century into a single bloodbath.

Hello, that was me (the previous post) so please respond to me if you want to continue debating.

I just did. Please let us stay mutually respectful, though.
I'm here to trade factual arguments, not petty insults.

Sounds like someone is still a little butthurt from losing WWII

Saddened that it had to be fought at all.
It was completely avoidable.

Gtfo moralfag

Any reason I should even acknowledge you?

not trolling i'm serious

Holy hell, I think this is the biggest shit storm ever caused by a single comment. It took me 4 minutes and 57 seconds to reach the end of the purple lines.

how slow were you scrolling? I was gonna read all the comments but then I saw how many there and I said "fuck that"
mfw people wanna read it all

Chinese sources list the total number of military and non-military casualties, both dead and wounded, at 35 million.

Just a minor correction

You summed up my American history course. Good Job

> We we we we we

But one thing that I always found interesting ,was the fact that they did it to save american lives.

I know they were warned to leave, and they wanted to minimize casualties to civilians, but isn't it saying that the value of an american life is greater than that of a Japanese one?

All life is equal, but we did that to more or less save a bunch of american lives.

Just something I've thought about.

During a war, you do value the lives of your country men more than that of your enemies. Thats why its war. If you value'd the enemy the same as your own people, you wouldn't be able to kill them. It's extremely difficult to win a war without acting to preserve your troops.

i imagine casualties would have been higher on both sides had we invaded. the only ethics/moral issue i have with the bombing is that we killed civilians, not soldiers. There's a debate to be had about that i'm sure, but i still think we did the right thing anyway, not that it matters now.

Hats Off to You. Free Ice cream for you!

Didn't America pretend to have a 3rd nuke before Japan surrendered?

I heard about that too but I don't think it was ever proven. Most likely we did have a 3rd nuke but that kind of information was never released.
I think

That's weird. I took history last year and from what I learned there were only 2 nukes. 1 named fat man and the other one named little boy, or something like that.

I'm taking history 1302 and I don't think we even talked about that yet
mostly the jamestown and some early civilization
not much on japan or the island hopping

Oh. Well you have a long way ahead.

I was stating the cold facts, don't really have a interest in conspiracy theories.

That isn't proven. Even if Roosevelt did know about it there was no way he would be able to convince Congress to declare war on Japan without them actually attacking us.

That's half true. The US wanted to join WW2 VERY badly to help Europe but the government would not allow it. They knew the Japanese fleet was headed towards America but lost track of it and could not predict if a attack was coming so they basically just said "fuck it" and ignored the fleet.

well its obvious, japan saw 4 ways to invade. West (China which they already Invaded) North (The Soviet Union which was too Powerful) South (Australia which was owned by The U.K. and also was too powerful) so the only way was East... the U.S.

>America and Coalition invades Iraq in 1992, Iraqi army wiped out, mass bombings destroy most infrastructure.
>Osama Bin Laden warns America that dire consequences will result from this violation of Iraqi sovereignty.
>Bombs parking garage of World Trade Center.
>Damn Americans still won't learn their lesson.
>9/11
>Saved millions of lives compared to releasing biological weapons in America, and give America oil to help them out, very nice to them considering what they had done and continued to do (btw, it included torturing POWs)

truth hurts, i guess its why this man is being thumbed down...

implying the Gulf War was only Americans (UN was involved) invading Iraq and not an act to stop The invasion of Kuwait by Iraqi troops.
Implying Osama was a good "voice"of Iraq.
Implying the release of bio weapons didn't happen and torturing POWs did.

If your going to spur shit out expect to be shut down.

What about the fact that you used a weapon of mass destruction twice on civilian targets?

What about the fact they were all prepared to fight to the death anyway?

That is their governments fault.
We had given them warning before each bomb was dropped.
They did not surrender until the second bomb was dropped.
Honestly, we had a much smaller chance of success if we sent our troops in because they had over one million troops waiting for us.(the number might be wrong but the statement is still mostly true)
Just saying.

Have you considered that Al Qaeda might be using the exact same argument for justifying 9/11?

1. That had nothing to do with a war so it does not count.
2. All soldiers in the towers if any were there at all were of duty at the time.

1. They might see it as a war. Have you considered that? Gulf war, constant invasions of their countries, perceived persecution in america, etc.
2. Not exactly relevant. It wasn't intended to kill soldiers, it was intended to send a message, i.e. "leave us the fuck alone or this will keep happening".

Plus, I wasn't aware that war was a valid excuse for murdering 100,000+ civilians.

And you are blind to the fact that they wouldn't just have their soldiers camping all along the coastline.
They had their soldiers all over japan.
Honestly why are we even arguing about stupid shit like this.

I'm making a point that justifying hiroshima and nagasaki can be compared to al qaeda justifying 9/11.

And you would be right.
I was never justifying it.
Desperate times call for desperate measures right?
Hell, our president even went into tears after the successful testing of the atom bomb during his speech because he knew we would have to use it.
All I'm saying is that you can't just act like some country OTHER than us didn't do something just as bad if not worse than that.

of course its a war, both sides agree on that
not a traditional war, but the war on terror is a war never the less
US talks about the war on terror all the time.
A war need to parties
the western civilization on one side and the Muslim extremist's on the other

Al'Qaeda is the most known terrorist organization (or freedom fighters in their eyes) to they are the other side of the war.

This is just a war that have no boarders, no land, no native country.
This war is about a way of life, were two civilizations struggle for dominants

fyi, not saying that you are wrong, but i had to correct the impression most people have that the world is not at war, because we most certainly are.

I stated that there was no war on terror at the time of 9/11. Immediately afterwards we did declare a war on terror. But before 9/11 we were not at war.

*off

Also their soldiers were NOTORIOUS for their "fight to the last breath" attitude.
We knew we were going to lose a lot of men if we sent them in.

Refer to comment #371 just below

They don't bitch because America helped rebuild there country along with Europe. And they have monuments so can we.

*their

As I said, the other option was to invade. Would you rather civilians die all over the country in numerous bombing raids plus thousands of troops on both sides, or a quick and decisive blow on one or two cities?

It wasn't our fault they had too much pride to surrender after the first bombing.

Fuck the civilians. War is just that, fucking war. You do whatever you can to further the detriment of your enemy.

What about the 15 million Chinese civilians that died because of the Japanese occupation during WWII? That's what we were working to stop. They attacked us first.

There were probably soldiers there too.

There were, hence why we targeted Hiroshima and Nagasaki 'cause those were major military and industrial centers in Japan.

You are my new best friend for actually getting that.

I'm a big history buff and it irks me when people don't understand.

I could understand some of the hate if we had bombed Tokyo, which was and still is Japan's biggest city.

But no, we bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki; two cities (with low populations) that helped fuel the Japanese war machine.

I know what you mean man.
You have to get all the facts before you just start pointing fingers.
I think that it"s just because the USA is the global superpower.
If we weren't all the hate would most likely be directed towards that one.
Plus, EVERY SINGLE COUNTRY has committed VERY terrible acts.
Even if they were kept hidden.

I couldn't have typed that much. nor found sources to back up what i was saying. Come over here bro. I want to hug you.

I'm just a supporter of the idea that you have to know a subject before you can argue about it :)

One of the interesting parts of history is that we'll never know exactly what would have happened if we had done something differently... That being said I think the bombs we dropped on Japan served two major functions:

1. It wiped out military installations that were vital for the Japanese military to be able to retaliate or really to continue fighting a war in general, especially considering that WWII was essentially over in Europe, leaving allied troops fully available to wage war on Japan.

2. It acted as a demonstration of the force that the US was willing to use to end WWII, and it did so while inflicting a minimal amount of civilian casualties.

And as a sub fact, I personally think it was more humane to drop the bombs directly on the cities, offering a relatively quick death to many of the victims as opposed to a nuclear detonation off-shore that would still have produced a radioactive cloud powerful enough to cause radiation poisoning and cancers much more prevalent than in the actual aftermath (kind of a morbid point, but I'd rather a quick death than prolonged suffering).

Since OP hasn't replied yet I thought I'd share why I think about the subject. Which is that the Japanese government with the state of mind they were in more than likely wouldn't have been intimidated by anything except a show of force on their homeland. Plus the logistics of arranging such a display, along with convincing Japanese military observers to attend such a showing, would of been mind boggling. This also goes along with the fact that they'd only been able to test the atom bomb once before and didn't quite understand its full power yet. The cleared island idea isn't a bad idea just not a very sound one.

Well put! Sorry it took me so long to respond, I posted that comment before I left work and then headed home.

Plus, the Japanese didn't surrender after we had bombed the first city. They kept on fighting, even after a second chance.
They had too much pride.

but the Japanese started it, in fact we were still negotiating with them to stay out of the war when they bombed pearl harbor. also the alternative was a mass invastion of japan and based on how the Japanese fought tooth and nail to defend nameless islands it would cost as many or more lives to invade.

but yes war is bad, so we ended what they started. then there was no more war, we even helped the rebuild.

Know the difference? you are kidding right? it's all about perspective. 9/11 was an act of war, as the murderers who did it really believed they were taking part in the sacred war to free the world from the impure non-believers. It may not be war for you, but it obviously was for them.

War isn't normally declared by mass killings of people. It's declared usually due to terrorism. It's not considered war until you've been attacked (a.k.a. terrorized) and declared war on another nation or willingly involved yourself.

I don't see how that contradicts what i said...

No one gives a fuck about the Japanese slaughtering thousands of innocents at pearl harbor..
We offered them to surrender, they said no.
When you get hit, you hit back harder.

FUCK YEAH 'MURICA

hitting back harder and killing ~250.000 civilians (neither nagasaki nor hiroshima had remarkable military objectives, or represented a threat in any way) are two different things.

They didn't know the bombs would be that brutal. beside could had hit the hardest by invading, using air strike and capturing towns; could had taken years but the onslaught would had been great.

"The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan." Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Source: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0806-25.htm
i'm tired of hearing the same bullshit again and again. It is morally undefendable, and the second bomb being droped three days later than the first was an act of genocide as japan had no real time to assimilate the bomb's effect. I have nothing against america, but i consider hiroshima and nagasaki bombings as crime wars, and i'm pretty sure if the axis had won, the worst of the punishments would have been given to manhattan project responsibles.

You source sounds a bit bias and it claims all these facts without any sources. It just looks like a college report and the student forgot the most important part of the assignment, the sources.

If you really want to know something at this point i don't care. I didn't drop no bombs. In fact my ancestors didn't drop no bombs. My parents are Mexican, my grandpa is french and my other grandpa was a ginger gringo with no pass. so /t/hread

sources? i mean, does the fleet admiral designated to the pacific and in charge of the fucking fleet need any sources?

But...

'Murica...

And also, "we offered them to surrender and they said no" it's like i stop you in the street and ask you to give me all of your money. I don't think you'd give me would you? but maybe if i pointed a gun at you you would think twice. Its the same

well said sir!

I've never gave a fuck about 9/11, but today i saw 3 post or more about 9/11, and with the third one i realiced that today was 11th of september... So, yeah... Each country has their own problems, why caring too much?

I agree. In the US we moved on from it, it's everyone else that seems to act like Americans still care about it like it happened last year. It's just gotten ridiculous

Read This: screechingkettle.blogspot.com/2011/10/putting-todays-wars-in-perspective. html

This.

It's funny 'cause the actor who plays House is English.

I think thats the joke

Why the hell is everyone arguing about us nuking Japan? They brought us into a war we didn't want to be in that killed hundreds of Americans every month.

It was either nuke them, or invade, and invading would have gotten a lot more people killed, Japanese and American alike. we even had an invasion planned which would have been almost 5x larger than D-day. We even got the Soviets to help us by invading from the north.

The U.S. wouldn't have needed the second bomb if Japan had just surrendered after the first one.

Learn your history, dipshits.

Hiroshima was major command and control site as well as an embarkation point for all of its military operations out side of Japan. Nagasaki was major naval base and ship building center from where Japan was already starting to rebuild its conquered and destroyed navy that was sunk by Inferior still floating still fighting American Navy. American Marines took every Japanese island the ever set a boot on so in that respect you're full of shit. Also i think you're misunderstanding our bitching as honoring and remembering terrible events in our countries history. Much like Bloody Sunday in Ireland.

Japan, moral? Now I'm calling bullshit. They were long gone from the age of the samurai when WW2 rolled around. The WELL documented cases of brutality and torture on POWs and the civilians of the lands they occupied is far from "moral". The U.S. at least rebuilds a place they fuck up, often improving it. And the estimated cost of life for atacking the island of Japan would have been 1.5 million, just for the U.S.

The word morale does not equal the word moral.
Morale means will to fight.

the way he worded it hinted at the meaning i assumed he had

Nah, he just can't into grammar.

i'll concede to that

i agree completely, but this is the internet. nobody cares. hurts what's left of my soul.

this is true. If America invaded Japan the results would have been similar to Germany in the spring of 1945. Millions of German civilians died in the last few months of the war.
No-one is supporting nuking Japan but the alternative would have been far worse

this

too bad there are idiots who still think otherwise.

you are telling me that if you give a warning you can kill millions of people and its totaly ok?

they weren't millions