Then avoidable becomes a meaningless term. Congratulations. I will agree all deaths inflicted by a country’s military are avoidable. Whoop-de-freaking-do.
Now forgive me while I say a mental word of thanks to Bomber Command and Arthur Harris.
I’m sure your opinion would have been a great comfort to the toddlers we set on fire.
Just out of curiosity, were the rapes and murders in Nanking avoidable as well?
The whole ‘they did this’ vs ‘they did that’ argument is meaningless. I fucking hate arguments that always boil down to, ‘well, Japan raped Nanking so the bomb is justified’. Like you can decide on some sort of standard for pecking order as to how evil actions are? Japan’s actions in WWII are well-known and reprehensible. Less well-known - but equally reprehensible - is the mass rape and other war crimes committed by French troops in Morocco, Russian troops in a variety of places, Canadian troops in Leonforte, US troops in Italy, etc etc. Guess what, war sucks. If you want to debate these acts, feel free to do so, but do it in another thread. These factors are *completely separate **and irrelevant *to the issues of why the war was fought or if the bomb needed to be dropped or not.
xtisme, you’re correct in that the US never joined the League of Nations because they never ratified the Treaty of Versailles. The racial equality pledge was to be part of the League’s Charter. The US vetoed it under pressure from Great Britain, which was under pressure from Australia and the White Australia policy (i.e., restricting non-white immigration).
Easy way to win a battle against any Diogenes commanded military. Bring along a toddler into combat with each unit, as he’ll support surrendering rather than being a “coward” and engaging that unit.
I disagree with this. That’s exactly what it was. The intent was to demoralize the Japanese by causing as much physical and emotional suffering as possible, and that meant intentionally killing their chiildren.
Even if I was to accept this specious assertion that it wasn’t the intent, it also wasn’t Timothy McVeigh’s intent to bomb a day care center. That doesn’t really make any moral difference, though, does it?
Yes to the questions about the blockade. As to ground operations, it depends on exactly what you mean. Nothing that hurts civilians would be justified, but simply moving on the ground to get to a military target is fine.
Of course.
Because part of war means you set toddlers on fire, because the toddlers are the enemy. Every single Japanese man, woman, and child was the enemy in the war, even the ones who didn’t directly fight, even the ones who were opposed to what their government was doing. That’s what total war is.
Of course you can, as is ridiculously obvious.
Otherwise there is no way to tell if the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were any worse than jaywalking.
Regards,
Shodan
Then please explain, if you are serious, how the Allies could have compelled the Japanese to avoid it.
This is completely unsustainable, especially in a situation where military and civilians live closely together. And your raising of any civilian above any military personnel for protection shows scant lack of sympathy for the conscripts of dictatorships. I guess they are more worthy of dying than the supporters of said dictator who use their influence to stay out of the military.
Even if it was “disingenuous and inaccurate” before (which it wasn’t), it isn’t now.
Asked them nicely.
Suggested it would be sporting of them not to.
Told the Chinese to move to a different country and stop being killed.
We had the choice of killing 100,000 people with an atomic bomb. Or of prolonging the war and ending it a “honorable” way like an invasion or a blockade - which would have killed several million people. As for going home and not fighting, they tried that in 1938 and the result was Hitler overran Europe and killed tens of millions.
Maybe it’s my lack of principles, but I think killing 5,000,000 people is worse than killing 100,000.
Then total war is evil.
They couldn’t have.
To be fair, Little Nemo, under Diogenes’s restrictions there couldn’t have been an invasion. There is simply no way of doing it without knowingly hurting civilians, and as he has said, nothing that hurts civilians is justifiable.
So no invasion of the home islands. No island hopping. No action against Imperial Japan at all.
I don’t think we had to fight at all. We should have just gotten out of the Pacific and fucked off back home after V-E Day.
Apparently Dragon Ash does not agree.
Regards,
Shodan
Correct.
I think this is a false choice. Japan was no threat to us. If we’d just left, nothing more would have happened. Not to us anyway.