I had a summer hire ( read: 20 yr old white southern male) wish me a "Happy Nagasaki" day.
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Anyone wish you a 'Happy Nagasaki' day?
- Thread starter MudGrrl
- Start date
He's suburban too.MudGrrl said:I had a summer hire ( read: 20 yr old white southern male) wish me a "Happy Nagasaki" day.
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That's great! 
Event that hurried the end of WWII was a good thing... but I prefer the classic "Happy V-J Day" myself later this month.
But... you should be worries about this:
WSJ: Scholar Warns Iran's Ahmadinejad May Have 'Cataclysmic Events' In Mind For August 22
Tue Aug 08 2006 10:22:35 ET
In a WALL STREET JOURNAL op-ed Tuesday, Princeton's Bernard Lewis writes: "There is a radical difference between the Islamic Republic of Iran and other governments with nuclear weapons. This difference is expressed in what can only be described as the apocalyptic worldview of Iran's present rulers."
"In Islam as in Judaism and Christianity, there are certain beliefs concerning the cosmic struggle at the end of time -- Gog and Magog, anti-Christ, Armageddon, and for Shiite Muslims, the long awaited return of the Hidden Imam, ending in the final victory of the forces of good over evil, however these may be defined."
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "and his followers clearly believe that this time is now, and that the terminal struggle has already begun and is indeed well advanced. It may even have a date, indicated by several references by the Iranian president to giving his final answer to the US about nuclear development by Aug. 22," which this year corresponds "to the 27th day of the month of Rajab of the year 1427. This, by tradition, is the night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to 'the farthest mosque,' usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back (c.f., Koran XVII.1).
"This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary of the world. It is far from certain that Mr. Ahmadinejad plans any such cataclysmic events precisely for Aug. 22. But it would be wise to bear the possibility in mind."
Event that hurried the end of WWII was a good thing... but I prefer the classic "Happy V-J Day" myself later this month.
But... you should be worries about this:
WSJ: Scholar Warns Iran's Ahmadinejad May Have 'Cataclysmic Events' In Mind For August 22
Tue Aug 08 2006 10:22:35 ET
In a WALL STREET JOURNAL op-ed Tuesday, Princeton's Bernard Lewis writes: "There is a radical difference between the Islamic Republic of Iran and other governments with nuclear weapons. This difference is expressed in what can only be described as the apocalyptic worldview of Iran's present rulers."
"In Islam as in Judaism and Christianity, there are certain beliefs concerning the cosmic struggle at the end of time -- Gog and Magog, anti-Christ, Armageddon, and for Shiite Muslims, the long awaited return of the Hidden Imam, ending in the final victory of the forces of good over evil, however these may be defined."
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "and his followers clearly believe that this time is now, and that the terminal struggle has already begun and is indeed well advanced. It may even have a date, indicated by several references by the Iranian president to giving his final answer to the US about nuclear development by Aug. 22," which this year corresponds "to the 27th day of the month of Rajab of the year 1427. This, by tradition, is the night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to 'the farthest mosque,' usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back (c.f., Koran XVII.1).
"This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary of the world. It is far from certain that Mr. Ahmadinejad plans any such cataclysmic events precisely for Aug. 22. But it would be wise to bear the possibility in mind."
The scientists behind the Manhattan Project certainly didn't think that it was necessary to demonstrate the power of the atom bomb on civilians, nor that it would hasten the end of the war anymore than a simple demonstration of the capacity of the bomb on an uninhabited island.
Old Man G Funk said:
The nice thing is that not a single Allied soldier died as a result of such a hairbrained scheme...
If the irony of that statement is lost on you....then I am truly sorry for you and your offspring.... :nonono:N8 said:
maybe we should nuke iraq?N8 said:
wrong country that starts with an "i"...narlus said:
Yeah, That they don't have them yet.N8 said:
What a fvcking sh1t article. And N8, your supposition that the use of nuclear weapon on civilian population was 'a good thing' is sickening. You present yourself as ex-military, someone who likes to think he knows about the history of war, then you know how disingenuous it is to state that the bomb 'hurried' the end of the war by more than a matter of hours. Equally sickening is the implication that the life of single GI is worth the deaths of thousands of Japanese. Maybe you should fvck off to Israel. They like opinions like that over there.
..ran.Changleen said:
Yeah, and Japan was looking to surrender even before the first bomb was dropped according to some.N8 said:
http://members.aol.com/essays6/abomb.htm
Changleen said:
Perhaps you would have prefered to fire bomb Japanese cities (which had far greater death tolls than the two nukes we dropped)? With the war ending when it did, it not only saved Allied lives but it also ultimately saved millions of Japanese civilian lives but forcing them to surrender before a full scale invasion was launched.
Some humanitarian you are.
:nonono:
There was no full-scale invasion in the works. Japanese cities were already being fire-bombed. Japan had no way to fight back, and their oil line had just been cut. They were dead in the water and looking to surrender. We wouldn't let them surrender.N8 said:
Do you really think it was about Japan? It was about rattling the sabres and showing how tough we were to the Russians.
Invasion was being planned but the Allies were hoping not to have to do it. Yes, the Russians were a factor and yes we should have let Patton drive to Moscow.Old Man G Funk said:
studied this exact thing in college, and while we'll never know the exact cause for Japan's surrender, the a-bomb was at best just part of the reason. the actual destructive power was relatively low compared to what we have now, and we'd actually done more damage to Tokyo during the firebombing with conventional weapons/bombers. Japan had also lost its only hope of negotiating a settlement when the USSR entered the war against it (which occured right between the 2 atomic explosions).Old Man G Funk said:
Thank you Mr. Bonaparte.N8 said:
Funny how when we use WMD on someone it becomes a holiday...
Yeah... riiiiight.... just like it was over for the 20k Japanese Army troops on Iwo Jima... they were cut off from resupply, stuck on an island 8 square miles in size, and had no hope of beating back the Allies.. and yet...Changleen said:
It took almost 6 weeks and nearly 7,000 US dead and to secure the island.
Changleen said:
And no one was going to tell them to stop... neither on Iwo nor the home islands (see Battle of Okinawa)... This was the Allies experience with the Japanese military when the decision was made to drop the A-bombs. Even then, one didn't do the trick... it took two to force the surrender.
N8 said:
If you are saying that ,you are happy that an atomic bomb was dropped on civilians, then you must have a mental problem ! It is hard for me to understand how anyone can link the events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the term "nice thing".
Dork.seismic said:
I am happy that the war ended with a decisive Allied victory. ABombs or not.
This type of argument sounds great, until you realize that it only takes one party to surrender. If Japan had wanted to surrender, all it had to do was lay down its arms. It didn't, and it suffered the consequences. I've had the a-bomb argument on this forum and others too many times for me to get too deep in on this one.Old Man G Funk said:
If I need to, I'll start cutting and pasting old posts, but that's all...
n8 sits around his house swilling Budweiser and humming the theme song to Team America.
Once the order came to surrender, that's exactly what happened. Japanese prison camps were turned over and the guards did what they could to protect the prisoners and help them until allied troops arrived.Changleen said:
Not entirely true. You need to be able to surrender to someone, and terms need to be set out. Also, if you say to someone, "I surrender," and that someone says, "I didn't hear you, so I'm going to continue bombing you," there's not much you can do.MikeD said:
but the leaders didnt, so it becomes a moot point, until nukage happened.Changleen said:
in a way, i think japanese leadership in wwii was disconnected from reality. had they been more aware, they would have blinked before.
but they werent, and thats the central issue.
like the "lets drive against the wall" chicken game where a guy dies. you can say "he would have turned..", but since the wall happened first (even though there was plenty opportunity before), it becomes almost irrelevant.
Once again, they needed to be able to surrender to someone and were looking to avoid "unconditional" surrender. It's naive to think that only nuking their civilians, twice, is what got them to surrender. There was much more going on, like posturing between us and the Russians.ALEXIS_DH said:
That's why starting wars sucks, and losing them is even worse.Old Man G Funk said:
Japan was putting forth conditions for its surrender, and the US did not want to accept them. The US wanted, and got, unconditional surrender.
Had Japan laid down its arms unilaterally, and the US had continued to bomb it, you'd have a moral point. It didn't surrender, and again, it paid the price.
The a-bomb is a red herring; Dante has brought up the main point that while it was quite dramatic, and intended to intimidate the Russians (a great thing to do, by the way, not some super-consipiritorial evil), it was small potatoes compared to the devastation wrought with conventional weapons.
Why do people care how many planes we used to destroy a city?? The effect was still the same.
Had Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened with firebombs, they'd be a forgotten historical footnote. People bring up Dresden all the time, true, but they seem to forget about Tokyo and the rest of Japan that was incinerated by non-atomic means.
MD
I think you're ignoring reality if you reckon the A-bombs weren't what got the Japanese to surrender. You are also naive to think that the US weren't going to use them at the earliest possible oppurtunity and to use them to kill as many Japanese people as possible. They shot their quiver and if they'd have had 10 then 10 would have been dropped.
Curtis LeMay made no bones about his bombing campaign. He deliberately targeted civilians. Hiroshima was chosen because it was a relatively open area in the south of Japan where the bombs effects would be greatest. Nagasaki was chosen as a secondary target after the original target of Kokura was covered by cloud on the 9th. The hills surrounding Nagasaki contained the blast somewhat and damage wasn't as great as in Hiroshima. The principle was the same in both places, drop the bomb on the middle of the city to cause maximum casualties.
The experiences of Okinawa (and to a lesser extent Iwo Jima) made the dropping of the A-bomb inevitable. Truman would have lost very little sleep over it I'm sure. Despite dropping the bombs there was no guarantee that they were going to make the Japanese surrender. Of course it was hoped that that would be the case but invasion plans for Kyushu were well advanced in any case. I believe given the American experience of the Pacific War the rationale behind dropping the bomb was mostly 2-fold. End the war and/or kill as many Japanese as possible. Worked a treat and as much as it pains me to agree wih N8, in the long run more lives were saved. But I don't wanna hear the Allies claiming the high moral ground. There's none to be claimed here.
Curtis LeMay made no bones about his bombing campaign. He deliberately targeted civilians. Hiroshima was chosen because it was a relatively open area in the south of Japan where the bombs effects would be greatest. Nagasaki was chosen as a secondary target after the original target of Kokura was covered by cloud on the 9th. The hills surrounding Nagasaki contained the blast somewhat and damage wasn't as great as in Hiroshima. The principle was the same in both places, drop the bomb on the middle of the city to cause maximum casualties.
The experiences of Okinawa (and to a lesser extent Iwo Jima) made the dropping of the A-bomb inevitable. Truman would have lost very little sleep over it I'm sure. Despite dropping the bombs there was no guarantee that they were going to make the Japanese surrender. Of course it was hoped that that would be the case but invasion plans for Kyushu were well advanced in any case. I believe given the American experience of the Pacific War the rationale behind dropping the bomb was mostly 2-fold. End the war and/or kill as many Japanese as possible. Worked a treat and as much as it pains me to agree wih N8, in the long run more lives were saved. But I don't wanna hear the Allies claiming the high moral ground. There's none to be claimed here.
The only reason the US didn't want to accept them was because we wanted an excuse to use our new weapon. Doing it once might have been acceptable. Doing it twice was completely gratuitous. It only served to show that we really had the capability to make multiple bombs like this and the will to use them repeatedly. Yet, that message was not aimed at the Japanese.MikeD said:
I haven't forgotten about Tokyo being firebombed or any of the other cities, and I don't condone those actions either. Our planes were mostly free to roam about and the firebombing actions were unopposed. We simply firebombed civilians because we felt like it.
Also, the a-bomb is not a red herring when people actually have the temerity to say, "Happy Nagasaki Day."
Did we really need unconditional surrender? Could a workable solution have been achieved without bombing civilians haphazardly?
Spare me the moralising tone, our lot were just as bad. Australian soldiers in particular were notorious for not taking prisoners. Americans routinely sent the skulls of dead Japanese back to the folks at home. We have nothing to be proud of.dhbuilder said:
Except that the Japanese were beaten and they knew it. They were trying to surrender before the first bomb was dropped. You live there. You work at a school, right? Is that what they teach students? That only the overwhelming might of the a-bomb, dropped on them twice, was what led to surrender?valve bouncer said: