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Post by toby on Jun 3, 2011 16:27:56 GMT
I'm not much of a believer in "coincidences".
Toby comments.:- How do you explain Prince William getting married on the eve of Beltane ? Also getting married on the same day as Hitler got married to Eva ?
Coincidence ??
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Post by ♫anna♫ on Jun 4, 2011 4:40:12 GMT
anna posted.:-Terrorism, by whoever against whoever, doesn't work! Toby comments.:- I does work though ! Look at IRA members sitting in the House of Commons. The IRA came out victorious after their Terror Campaign ! What you should have said is that Terror does not work when you have an implacable opponent ! Hi Toby! I'm not familar with the story of IRA members sitting in the House of Commons and whether or not they were directly or indirectly involved with terrorism.
I suppose it could be argued that the terrorist attack on the King David Hotel in Jerusalem against the British and the suicide terrorist attacks against French and American troops in Lebanon were examples of "successful terrorism".
History is a long and winding road sometimes and even if a terrorist or criminal act appears to reach a short term goal in the long run there will be a whiplash effect, subtly, gradually or suddenly.
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Post by toby on Jun 4, 2011 12:18:16 GMT
gg posted.;-The terrorism came when they bombed Pearl before there was a declaration of war.
Toby comments.;- it could be argued that the earlier USA blockade of Oil and Petrol reaching Japan was also a declaration of war !
I find it rather sad that people who know nothing of the Japanese are so quick to blame them for WW2, anybody who has even a limited understanding of the Japanese mentality of that era knows well that they had no other option than to fight. You back an animal into a corner and it will attack you even if you are much larger, that's what the Japanese did.
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Post by toby on Jun 4, 2011 12:22:05 GMT
anna posted.:-I suppose it could be argued that the terrorist attack on the King David Hotel in Jerusalem against the British and the suicide terrorist attacks against French and American troops in Lebanon were examples of "successful terrorism".
Toby comments.;- A lot of US Marines were killed in that one massive blast in Lebanon and Eisenhower ordered a speedy withdrawal. The US Marine Commander must take 99% of the blame for it was he who allowed the troops to bunk down in a Hotel whereas they would have been much safer in their foxholes, more spread out and uncomfortable but alive.
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Post by Ben Lomond on Jun 4, 2011 12:43:11 GMT
Sorry, Anna, but you really have no argument. Your thinking on this is too vague to make any impact on the subject matter, and so unwilling are you to accept that you might just be wrong that you keep on digging a deeper hole. Remember what they say about people in deep holes.
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Post by ♫anna♫ on Jun 5, 2011 6:01:53 GMT
gg posted.;-The terrorism came when they bombed Pearl before there was a declaration of war. Toby comments.;- it could be argued that the earlier USA blockade of Oil and Petrol reaching Japan was also a declaration of war ! I find it rather sad that people who know nothing of the Japanese are so quick to blame them for WW2, anybody who has even a limited understanding of the Japanese mentality of that era knows well that they had no other option than to fight. You back an animal into a corner and it will attack you even if you are much larger, that's what the Japanese did. Hi Toby! Glad someone on this thread has some knowledge of the complexity of history.
A wounded animal in a corner is even more dangerous. And vengeance is a human emotion that makes things even more dangerous.
The atomic bomb as a threat only may have some merit, but using it on defenseless civilians doesn't.
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Post by ♫anna♫ on Jun 5, 2011 6:05:31 GMT
Sorry, Anna, but you really have no argument. Your thinking on this is too vague to make any impact on the subject matter, and so unwilling are you to accept that you might just be wrong that you keep on digging a deeper hole. Remember what they say about people in deep holes. Dearest Ben, My thoughts and opinions on this are very consistent. Call it a moral force or karmic repercussions or whatever! Negative actions bring sooner or later negative results! Perhaps some believe that if a criminal commits a crime and isn't caught he wins something. I disagree with this viewpoint.
Back to whether or not the atomic bomb ended WW2.. I don't have a need to retreat to what you call "vague arguments".
Hirohito came very close to being kidnapped by Japanese military leaders, who wanted to prevent the surrender speech and continue the war! So what's to stop someone from stating that Hirohito's escape from the putschists ended the war?
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Post by toby on Jun 5, 2011 10:52:53 GMT
Anna posted.:-The atomic bomb as a threat only may have some merit, but using it on defenseless civilians doesn't.
Toby comments.:- The Russians constructed the most powerful Hydrogen Bomb and it was calculated that three of them dropped over England would be enough to finish us off as a Country, they called these Bombs Tsarbombs. The only way we could respond to this very real threat was to assure the Russians that they too would be wiped out. This is the MAD policy or,' Mutually assured Destruction '.
All this of course was stopped by Maggie and Ronnie and I reckon most people don't know what a massive debt of gratitude we owe them !
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Post by toby on Jun 5, 2011 10:57:40 GMT
anna posted.:-Those who lost non combattant family members to the intentional civilian bombings often became embittered and no longer supportive of the resistance and even betrayed it. Not because they supported or liked Hitler, but because in their embittered state of mind they began to fight a "private war" against the powers they held responsible for killing their loved one( s ).
Toby comments.:- Quite correct ! Let us not forget the Germans had the services of the secod greatest Orator of the 20th.Century, that was Dr. Goebbles and his speech to the German Nation in winter 1943 in Berlin was a masterpiece, the theme of course ,'Wollen Sie Der Totale Krieg ??' Even Germans who disliked the National Socialist Regime were moved by this sort of propaganda to re-double their efforts to win the war !
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Post by toby on Jun 5, 2011 10:59:48 GMT
Ben posted.:-Remember what they say about people in deep holes.
Toby asks.:- I don't remember what they say.
I do know about the unfortunate case of a deaf and dumb chap falling into a deep hole and when they eventually found him they saw that he had worn his fingers to the bone shouting for help.
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Post by ♫anna♫ on Jun 7, 2011 4:46:19 GMT
Our history specialists may be aware of the fact that Hirohito wanted to end the war with a surrender in the spring of 1945. He had his supporters, but he was quite aware of the fact that he risked being kidnapped or murdered.
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Post by DAS (formerly BushAdmirer) on Jun 8, 2011 22:56:41 GMT
Looking back on WWII history.....
America had invaded Okinawa just south of Japan. The military losses there were staggering. This is when Japan resorted to the Hari-Kari suicide bombing tactic (attacking American ships in the invasion fleet). These attacks were very effective and somewhat inhuman.
President Harry Truman had a difficult decision to make. He could either order an invasion of Japan itself or he could try the Atomic bomb strategy.
A Japan invasion could have cost a million or so U.S. military casualties. There would have been many more hari-kari suicide attacks on ships supporting such an invasion.
Truman decided to roll the dice with the A-Bomb. It was successful.
In my book, that makes Truman one of our best ever Presidents (despite the fact that he was a Democrat).
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Post by toby on Jun 9, 2011 22:01:19 GMT
Bush admirer posted.:-A Japan invasion could have cost a million or so U.S. military casualties. There would have been many more hari-kari suicide attacks on ships supporting such an invasion.
Toby comments.:- I saw an article that mentioned close to 2 Million !
I know that the casualties would have been enormous, the Russians lost around a Million soldiers in the attack on Berlin alone.
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Post by arizonavet1 on Jun 12, 2011 19:26:35 GMT
Welcome back ArizonaVet! The atomic bomb was used almost exclusively to target civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and was thus a terrorist attack! Saying that using the atomic bomb against civilians ended the war is saying essentially that "Terrorism works!" Something I'm not willing to agree to! Killing civilians only motivates retaliation!
True Japan was militarily in a hopeless position and Hirohito was looking for a way to end the war. In Hirohito's discussions with military leaders his main argument for surrender was Russia's declaration of war and invasion of Manchuria after the atomic bombings-and not the atomic bomb!
Japan was totally defeated-true! Had the atomic bomb been developped by the US at the peak of Japan's power I believe Japan would have found a treacherous "Rosenberg" to help them build the atomic bomb and retaliate and WW2 would have become an atomic holocaust. Hello my amiga's....Anna & GG... Anna, it was not a terrorist attack in any form Both were bona fide military targets.... During World War II, the Second Army and Chugoku Regional Army were headquartered in Hiroshima, and the Army Marine Headquarters was located at Ujina port. The city also had large depots of military supplies, and was a key center for shipping. Wikipedia Kure was the home base of the largest battleship ever built, the Yamato. There is still the one of the bases of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) located there, its former center became the JMSDF Regional Kure District. While there is a hospital as a building of the Marine Self Defense Force, there are Escort Flotilla (Destroyers), Submarine Flotilla and the Training Squadron in the Kure District. I don't need to quote Wikipedia to know the military (Naval) significance in Nagasaki....I was stationed there in 1961. During the Meiji period, Nagasaki became a center of heavy industry. Its main industry was ship-building, with the dockyards under control of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries becoming one of the prime contractors for the Imperial Japanese Navy, and with Nagasaki harbor used as an anchorage under the control of nearby Sasebo Naval District. These connections with the military made Nagasaki a major target for bombing by the Allies in World War II Wikipedia And yes it most obviously DID influence Emperor Hirohito to announce the surrender....after the death of 80,000 citizens & sailors & soldiers.... 3 days later... Not knowing how many more bombs we had..... KNOWING that Tokyo & his royal palace were obviously "next" on the Americans hit list... must have made Russia totally pale in consideration. Many American military & leaders, with the unbelievably rare clearance to know... actively fought to have the bomb dropped on Tokyo... I'm very proud of our country for opting to bomb the military targets over the temptation to avenge the horrible pain, suffering and genocide, visited on our soldiers and Filipino civilians. It has been estimated that over 100,000 casualties in American servicemen were saved by dropping the two bombs... Who wouldn't have done the same as we did...we didn't owe Japan squat at that point.
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Post by ♫anna♫ on Jun 12, 2011 20:20:14 GMT
President Harry Truman had a difficult decision to make. He could either order an invasion of Japan itself or he could try the Atomic bomb strategy. Really BA! Saying that Truman only had 2 choices is ridiculous!
There were many other options. The atomic bomb could have been used on a Japanese military base or even on Mt. Fuji where no one lived just to warn the Japanese what kind of bomb the US developed.
Nuking civilians is a very bad, dangerous and evil precident to make! No one should approve of the mass killing of civilians, regardless of their nationality or the "leaders", who claim to be their rulers. The "pro nuke civilians opinion" is also a danger to US security!
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Post by Liberator on Jun 12, 2011 22:11:03 GMT
The irony about nuclear weapons is that having developed them, they are so powerful that fear of using them has quite probably prolonged every war since. I do not think that we can readily apply modern attitudes to the situation at the time. After all, it was just a bigger sort of bomb as far as anybody knew at the time but not big, dirty and common enough then to be world-threatening. It wasn't the only case of bombing civilians on both sides and civilians involved in war production are always going to be targets. They may not want to support their country any more than do conscript soldiers, they may even be POWs and slaves, but if their place of employment is strategic, then they are going to come under fire.
There's the nature of Japan itself to take into account too. Everybody knows the effects of Nazi and Soviet propaganda but Japan was way further off the wall, run by a generation brought up by parents who had lived at the end of centuries of blind military obedience and death cult. Australian hospitals had a terrible job trying to stop wounded POWs from killing themselves for the Emperor. From the ninja tradition, Japan invented the suicide bomber in the form of kamikaze. Any kind of landing would have been met with guerilla resistance at all stages.
The only feasible tactic I can imagine with a people so thoroughly convinced of death before defeat had to the shock and awe of total demoralization and it had to involve a weapon never known before. Large parts of the cities were still of traditional cardboard construction and could have been fire-bombed but that would not have had the same effect (and would have been just as much of a war crime).
Hirohito did not even admit defeat. Japanese being the language it is, more precise about politeness than anything else, he contrived to suggest that the war was not necessarily being prosecuted in a way wholly conducive to Japanese interests and a new policy was in order.
Somebody told me once that most science-fiction is about Japan. There's some truth in it. Parts of both Yukio Mishima and Long the Imperial Way (about the 1936 invasion of China) read like something Isaac Asimov dreamt up.
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Post by DAS (formerly BushAdmirer) on Jun 12, 2011 23:35:09 GMT
Anna - You do make a good point. However, WWII was a brutal war. The Germans were bombing London daily. The allies were bombing Dresden and other civilian centers. The goal on both sides was to inflict maximum pain in hopes the citizens would rise up against their own governments.
Truman made tough decisions but it seems to have worked out OK. Japan did surrender a few days later. That's the important thing.
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Post by Liberator on Jun 13, 2011 1:54:15 GMT
I think Anna is making a double mistake of anachronism and of assuming everybody was playing war by the rules as a sort of game. Japan's attitude to even its own strict rules was that it is not the keeping or breaking that matters, it is the getting caught. They always have been masters of calling bluffs and lying their head off knowing that to counter the lie would expose the counterer to loss of face.
In effect, the USA out-Japaned the Japanese. They were morally wrong, but I don't believe that the morally right thing, perhaps to announce a demonstration of this new terror weapon and then threaten to use it, would have worked. They were dealing with a totally different mindset hardened by what Yukio Mishima regarded as a 'westernized' perversion of traditional Bushido.
There is a scene in A Man Called Horse where the English slave threatens with a spear. The Amerindian walks up to him until the spear is into his chest and then walks off in contempt. It was not in the English culture to kill an unarmed man - and what if he did anyway? Who would avenge the warrior? Amerindians lived too close to Nature to bother about giving the other side a sporting chance. Perhaps the right cultural compromise would be to throw the spear away and wrestle to death, or to make it clear that he will fight spear against spear.
That seems to me the WW2 situation, not that these people were savages or uncivilized, but that they are one of the very few almost free from Biblical influence (Christian or Moslem) with a warrior culture wholly alien to us where death was no big deal.
They might as well have been dealing with a Central America that never fell to Spain with modernized Aztec culture in control, a culture that launched wars purely to kill a requisite number off or the gods regardless of which side they were on. Germany was an aberration from 'western' cultural values that most Germans basically held. Japan was itself, untouched by anything from outside except what they had adopted from China. It's not even certain who the Japanese are. Their language has been described as Central Asian with a Polynesian accent, their own history dissolves into legend around 600CE, they must have come into the islands from the South or West because they never displaced more ancient people in the North. They got there by water, yet have no maritime tradition (not much point when the only place to go is a hostile China).
It's not a case of moral issues, it's one of cultural practicalities. I was looking for a book I read published in the mid-80s by a former British POW of Japan, called something like The Next Hundred Years War. He had actually got friendly with a guard, who'd told him that the War was Japan's hundred-year plan to protect itself from the world by being on top of the world. As he was leaving, he asked the guard, now a POW, where that hundred year plan stood now. The answer; "Ninety-five years to go".
According to him, Japan had three hundred-year plans for world domination as safety (a sort of national paranoia now passed to the USA?), two requiring war. The peaceful one of economic war has been successful so far, even if it has creaked a bit recently. They may still be on track.
That is another thing about East and West: while West demands ever more monetary return over ever shorter periods and to Hell with investment long-term, East has a far less immediately individualistic outlook that is prepared to invest for a long term that really is long. Even if Japan's known history is no longer that England's, it shares the same sense of deflected history that England takes to pass through Romans, Greeks and the Bible, none of which had anything to do with either Anglo-Saxons or native Britons. In Japan's case, that deflected history is China's back to 600BCE as something like a unified empire, and 2,000 years before that as a common culture
Frankly, I don't think that Japan could have been defeated in any other way or been amenable once it was without far more bloodshed, and I don't think they really have ever been 'defeated'. If science-fiction ever gets true about Imperial Solar or Galactic Spaceways, you can bet that the Eperor concerned will be in Tokyo.
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Post by ♫anna♫ on Jun 13, 2011 4:36:18 GMT
Anna - You do make a good point. However, WWII was a brutal war. The Germans were bombing London daily. The allies were bombing Dresden and other civilian centers. The goal on both sides was to inflict maximum pain in hopes the citizens would rise up against their own governments. Truman made tough decisions but it seems to have worked out OK. Japan did surrender a few days later. That's the important thing. Dearest BA! It's true the allies were foolishly bombing Dresden and Hitler was foolishly bombing London, BUT this in no way induced the civilians to rebel against the war effort. I can find no precedent where terrorism truly works and doesn't have a boomerang effect! The atomic bombing ( and other mass intentional bombings ) of non-combattant civilians in all scenarios is wrong and evil!
If Hirohito's recorded surrender speech had been discovered by the Japanese putschists when they occupied the Imperial Palace it would have been destroyed and it's a miracle that Hirohito escaped capture.
Please read the first part of this thread. Hirohito's main argument for ending the war when talking with military leaders was Russia's declaration of war, which occured after the atomic bomb attacks. "Radio Moscow" was absolutely right in it's one broadcast where these facts were revealed. Japan's last desperate and slim hope was a neutral Russia agreeing to help negociate an end to the war!
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Post by ♫anna♫ on Jun 13, 2011 5:55:09 GMT
Welcome back ArizonaVet! The atomic bomb was used almost exclusively to target civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and was thus a terrorist attack! Saying that using the atomic bomb against civilians ended the war is saying essentially that "Terrorism works!" Something I'm not willing to agree to! Killing civilians only motivates retaliation!
True Japan was militarily in a hopeless position and Hirohito was looking for a way to end the war. In Hirohito's discussions with military leaders his main argument for surrender was Russia's declaration of war and invasion of Manchuria after the atomic bombings-and not the atomic bomb!
Japan was totally defeated-true! Had the atomic bomb been developped by the US at the peak of Japan's power I believe Japan would have found a treacherous "Rosenberg" to help them build the atomic bomb and retaliate and WW2 would have become an atomic holocaust. Hello my amiga's....Anna & GG... Anna, it was not a terrorist attack in any form Both were bona fide military targets.... During World War II, the Second Army and Chugoku Regional Army were headquartered in Hiroshima, and the Army Marine Headquarters was located at Ujina port. The city also had large depots of military supplies, and was a key center for shipping. Wikipedia Kure was the home base of the largest battleship ever built, the Yamato. There is still the one of the bases of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) located there, its former center became the JMSDF Regional Kure District. While there is a hospital as a building of the Marine Self Defense Force, there are Escort Flotilla (Destroyers), Submarine Flotilla and the Training Squadron in the Kure District. I don't need to quote Wikipedia to know the military (Naval) significance in Nagasaki....I was stationed there in 1961. During the Meiji period, Nagasaki became a center of heavy industry. Its main industry was ship-building, with the dockyards under control of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries becoming one of the prime contractors for the Imperial Japanese Navy, and with Nagasaki harbor used as an anchorage under the control of nearby Sasebo Naval District. These connections with the military made Nagasaki a major target for bombing by the Allies in World War II Wikipedia And yes it most obviously DID influence Emperor Hirohito to announce the surrender....after the death of 80,000 citizens & sailors & soldiers.... 3 days later... Not knowing how many more bombs we had..... KNOWING that Tokyo & his royal palace were obviously "next" on the Americans hit list... must have made Russia totally pale in consideration. Many American military & leaders, with the unbelievably rare clearance to know... actively fought to have the bomb dropped on Tokyo... I'm very proud of our country for opting to bomb the military targets over the temptation to avenge the horrible pain, suffering and genocide, visited on our soldiers and Filipino civilians. It has been estimated that over 100,000 casualties in American servicemen were saved by dropping the two bombs... Who wouldn't have done the same as we did...we didn't owe Japan squat at that point. Hola Amigo! You usually have a good "batting average" on the issues, but not here!
There was no need to nuke Japanese civilians or invade Japan either. The blockade was reducing the Japanese military potential to a pre industrial revolution level. No fuel for ships, tanks and planes. No fuel to run the factories! Not much left, other than the samurai sword.
I'm baffled? Can someone explain to me why so many otherwise intelligent and sensible people believe that the US had only these 2 choices in dealing with Japan? 1 ) Nuke civilians. 2 ) Start a costly invasion of Japan.
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