Well this has been an interesting thread, but the OP, Halo13, has yet to make a reappearance. How about it, pal, have we adressed any of your concerns?
How can you compare the two? Pear Harbor was a military attack on a military target on an American colony (the yanks stole it from the original owners) while Hiroshima was arguably the greatest act of terrorism in human history, the deliberate murder of over 400,000 people instantly with only two bombs. I’m talking about families, the victims of s11 know a fraction of what the Japanese felt. America, WAKE UP, the universe does not revolve around you, there is no fucking GOD! wake up! You Government is guilty, just like Saddam, just like bin laden, just like stalin, just like that ass-hole dictator/terrorist you used in Chile.
If America uses the nuc’s again, they’ll be starting the next world war, and with a idiotic fuck-wit like Bush in power its all too likely happen. America problem is they don’t appreciate suffering, because they need to suffer more, so they can know for real what war is. My grandfather was a tail gunner in WW2, he was awarded a cross by King George himself, my grandfather knew the HORROR of war, no matter the excuse. Think of the Europeans and Australia in WW2, we lost much larger proportions of people the yanks, and as a result, europe at least is more reluctant to go to war. America didn’t even get touched. Those bitches try to drum up pear harbor, try to compare it to s11 , the two are totally different, before s11 America was last attacked by the british centuries ago. Try having you actual country bombed, not just some ships in a stolen harbor. I’m sick of your war-mongering, hypocrictical, bullshit govt. FUCK THE US GOVT, AND FUCK YOUR BULLSHIT ‘WAR ON TERROR’! What tha fuk is that suppoesed to mean?? I’m might declare war on shame, or greed or some other bullshit meaningless conceptual word a can brand anyone with. US GOVT. YOU ARE THE TERRORISTS, NO BETTER THEN BIN LADEN (who you made, thanx for that pigs). FUK YOU! Oh, and FUK YOUR ‘DUTILESS RIGHTS’ ETHIC, you sick fuks.
PS~ For those Americans who know how ‘evil’ thier shit is, get active, because America is starting to look more like china every day. And get of the symbols, the flags and ribbons for fuk sake. Leave the symbols to the symbol-minded as the American comedian George Carlin once said.
;j
You’re a fool, an as arrogant as I am! Go back to the herd cowardly thinker, if I wanted apologist retoric I would have asked. And for the record, the relatively enlightened man know ‘real politics’ is simple a farce, a palm off, a way of fooling people into thinking they have a say. YOU ARE PITIFUL AND NAIVE. America used to say the had to have Nuc’s before of the reds under our beds, now they have to have nuc’s because of ‘terrorist’ countries, they have even gone so far as to resserect terms like ‘axis of evil’, there never was such a thing as evil, only cruelty.
PS~ Protest effectively? Perhaps your suggesting a little propoganda by act, Anarchist styles. Fuck you gutless prick, I think you’re as ignorant as you are naive. So smoke that.
PS again~ Sorry if I’ve gotten just a little carried away, some of the responces have been intelligent and informative. I thank those who have made constructive contributions to this disscussion (probably more constructive then my own) But I don’t suffer fools gladly, and this is the bitch pit, right? So forgive me for having a whine, i’m an angery anti-capitalist & activist & ethics student and the apologist and the apathy of consumerism is pissing me off no end.
Halo13,
Check yourself. You are way, way out of line. You have not the first clue of what you are talking about.
That is rather remarkable after your moronic thread having been hijacked into a most serious and detailed examination of the events that surrounded August 6 and 9 1945,
Your somewhat silly rant in the OP is understandable; you are but a pup full off idealism and good intentions.
Your last post on the other hand is offensive, stupid and full of uninformed shit for brains conclusions.
Stop while you are ahead there… and oh, before I forget: screw you for being a complete fuckless brain-dead in as much as that you didn’t even acknowledge any of the people who bothered to grace your pathetic little college rant with an in-depth and detailed debate on the dropping of the bombs in 45.
Pathetic!
We all put a lot of effort in this you know. A lot more than you did posting two or three posters in any case,
Therefore: rot and puss all over you, you little piece of thankless and sorry ass excuse for a sex act that had better never have happened.
Now apologize, especially to Whack-a-Mole, Ringo, and Jodi, who all made an effort to help you overcome your ignorance…I guess my points didn’t come across the right way with you in any case so you can leave me out of the apologies
Wow. That was a fun meltdown.
Unfortunately, Halo, you really have no idea what you are talking about. Grow up, come back and talk to us.
“Probably”?
Nice to know he didn’t even bother reading all that useful info everyone posted. It must be wonderful, being able to protest about things that one has nary a clue about.
I think I’ll go protest the Bristish invasion of the Falklands. That sounds like a good cause.
Japan 1: Was just about to surrender, but the US dropped the bombs before it could do so.
Evidence: Some Japanese officials knew the war was unwinnable and wanted to surrender.
Japan 2: Built suicide planes and suicide boats preparing for the invasion. Prepared schoolchildren to fight off the invaders. Had a Bushido Code which likened surrender to complete dishonor. Had a military staff which uniformly believed in the Bushido Code. Was treating its POWs brutally and starved them systematically. Committed dozens of horrible atrocities during the war, including, but not limited to, The Rape of Nanking, The Battan Death March, and Unit 731. Fought to the death on every island in the Pacific - practically to the last man.
Evidence: This was the reality.
Assuming you do not have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight and you think Japan may well fight to the death, what do you do?
[sub]Of course, scaring the begezuz out of Stalin might have been in play for some people[/sub]
Beagle…
You’re a little late to the party there…
Your points have been delt with in some extreme detail, but whatever…you just go on and join the OP in the quadrant that doesn’t read before posting, What the fuck do we care (we who make serious reponses).
This was such a fucking great thread double whammy before the morons had to step in, wasn’t it just!
Sheesh!
…owned by a country Japan was not at war with…
Takes a lot of chutzpah for an Australian to be throwing around that sort of language.
Why? Because there were only two bombs? More people died in Tokyo, or Dresden, or Nanking. To say nothing of the millions exterminated in the camps. World War II was, in general, pretty fucking awful. Why is Hiroshima worse than all the other slaughters commited by every other country involved in the conflict?
Cite? Having your son incinerated by a nuke is worse than having your son incinerated by a 747 in what way, exactly?
Which has what, exactly, to do with anything anyone here hs said?
Hmm… I don’t recall any American president in the last century mudering millions of his own citizens in brutal pogroms, or trying to invade and conquer a neighbor (well, there was that one time with Canada, but that was more than a century ago, and they don’t seem to be holding a grudge. Mostly 'cause they won.) But, as far as Chile goes, guilty as charged. Hey! You finally made a valid point! I’ll bet your parents are pleased as punch!
Puh-leeze. Who are we going to nuke? What nation in the world that we could conceivably come into armed conflict with that we couldn’t pound into a red stain using only conventional arms? Maybe China, except we’re too busy bending over backwards trying to get them to trade with us to bother with nukes.
Riiiight. Like happened to the Australians during the prolonged bombing and brutal occupation by Axis forces during World War II. We don’t appreciate suffering, because every American’s day-to-day life is a song in the park. Remember that scene in Snow White, when she’s skipping through the forest, talking to bluebirds? That’s like a documentary of what life in the US is like for everyone here.
By the way, college-boy, what sort of terrible trouble and turmoil have you gone through that gives you such an enlightened perspective?
I hope to hell that gramps doesn’t have an internet connection, because he’d probably be disgusted by your idiot rantings.
So? The Russians lost more people than every rinky-dink European country combined, and they still seemed plenty anxious to scrap in Poland, Afghanistan, Chechnya, and so forth.
Tell that to the Americans who were in the first boats landing at Normandy. Tell it to the Americans shot down over Germany and Japan. Tell it to the sailors who went down with their ships at Pearl. Tell it to the soldiers buried in anonymous graves in Bataan. Up to now, you’ve just been stupid. Now you’re actually offensive.
You’re raving. This passage makes no sense.
Hey, fuck-stick! Hawaii is part of the United States. The people who live there, today and during World War II, are American citizens Jesus! If they’d bombed San Francisco, would we still not know what being bombed is like, 'cause we “stole” it from Mexico? If they’d bombed New York, would we still not know what it was like because we stole it from the Indians?
Here’s a shocker. I, an American, agree with the preceding paragraph entirely. I’ve been sick of my hypocritical, bullshit government since last November. I don’t much appreciate hearing you whine about it, because I have to fucking live here. And you don’t. So shut the fuck up.
You do know that there’s a “C” in “fuck,” don’t you? What the hell are they teaching you in that college?
Right again, because every time Americans try to exercise their Democratic rights, we run over them in tanks. Also note the way that we keep locking up Christians for practicing their faith. And I’ve lost count of the number of times in the last century we’ve invaded a neighboring country, annexed its territory, and ground the native culture under our heel. Oh, wait. Zero times. How are we becoming more like China again?
Halo, you are an ignorant, narrow-minded jingoist. Please, for the love of all that’s liberal, shut up before you make the rest of us on the left look any stupider.
Great. Just fucking great.
I have to attend a conference next week at a defense contractor that is a target of protests like this one.
I have to be inconvenienced royally, locked down in the building, surrounded by a bunch of fucking halos. I can’t even go somewhere decent for lunch. And they can get violent for supposedly peace loving people. They’ve done significant damage in the past. The posts above, I guess, show just how riled up fucking halos can get in the face of reasoned argument.
Hey, Halo, what do your ethics classes say about breaking things that don’t belong to you?
I’m all for a reasoned debate about the proper level of defense spending, but the surrender proposed by the fucking halos seems to be off the table for debate, in American politics. I think what we’re seeing is the frustration of the politically powerless and friendless.
We live in democracies, all you fucking halos. If you’re small in numbers, it may be because you are wrong.
You actually wasted a post to point out that some of what I said was redundant. Thus, you forced me to make this post pointing out how wholly and utterly senseless your post was.
Sorry, Sparcy, I did read the thread. The real question is: why would you waste time posting about someone else personally without making a single argument?
OH man. I am so embarassed.
Guys, you know I rant about Pinochet a lot, but I am SO not on this guy’s side.
For reals.
Why?
A) You’re reiterating points made far better by others
B) The additions you make are irrelevant
C) I am pissed at a good and solid debate turning into a moron fest after it is concluded
D) I am pissed
E) I felt like it
F) I am in a bad mood
Happy?
You are a waste of bandwidth, apparently incapable of making any arguments except childish insults. Fuck you, Sparky. You are just another internet bully - a real butt kicker safely ensconced behind your monitor.
Now I see how you got such a high post count in a few short months. Stalin: “quantity has a quality of its own.” In your case the quality is shit.
Too bad you’re not happy.
I feel a lot better now that I got all that off my heart.
Whoa there, Beagle.
While I agree with you that Sparc can be irritatingly condescending (even when he is blatantly wrong) to the point where I want to reach through the screen and slap him sometimes, he has not been that way in this thread. In fact, this has been one of the best debates on Hiroshima I’ve seen on these boards. It has been civil and calm (except for an occassional outburst by beatenman and the completely and utterly insane Halo).
Your post, however, indicated you had not been reading the thread all the way through. Your points had been dealt with already, as Sparc pointed out. Sparc already agreed that Truman did not have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight and that ordering the bomb was a fair call for him to make, given the situation, the info available and what was at stake. In effect, your post was superfluous.
Please read the thread all the way through next time to avoid this sort of situation.
People have stories. Let me tell you a little of mine.
When I was seven years old my father had his first (of several) heart attacks. This is not unusual, to be sure. But, like most stories, there is more to it.
See, my father was captured by the Japanese in February of 1942. He was a pilot in the US Navy. Obviously, if you are familiar with military history, this was not a great time to be captured. After all, he would not be released until late 1945 - early 1946.
Anyway, he was one of the lucky ones. His torpedo squadron suffered over 80% casualties - not uncommon for the torpedo squadrons that existed at the beginning of the war.
He was tortured. He had his leg compound fractured by a guard with a rifle butt. The Japenese doctor - who in and enormously selfless act of humanity set his leg - was shot by the Japanese for treason. Later the camp commandant was executed for war crimes.
So, if you are wondering why someone might weigh in a little late with a list of Japanese atrocities - now you know why.
Back to the heart attack, see, my father was starved by the Japanese. Though he was six foot four inches tall, he weighed 130 lbs. when he was released from prison camp. The human heart cannot really withstand that kind of abuse. Again, he was one of the lucky ones - he lived until 1994. This gave him dozens more years than practically everyone in his squadron, and in his prison camp.
He did wake up screaming occasionally when I was a child, but that too went away by the time he died - what a lucky man he was.
Chip
Beagle,
I am sorry to see that your father suffered as badly as he did and I am glad that he still came out alive from that awful conflict that was WWII. I have family as well that suffered in the same war on the same side as your father, it was my grandfather, but still he didn’t suffer as badly as your father and not under the Japanese. Anyway, be that as it may, had you read the thread properly and the linked thread you would have found that I never ever tried to justify anything that anyone did during the war; to the contrary I made a point to clearly denounce the atrocities committed by the Japanese militarists at several injunctions in the debate.
That and that alone is what upset me. It was obvious that you were sniping at me for being an apologist (which again I am not) and that you had not read through the debate properly.
Last, but not least our ancestors suffering will only be all the more useless if we do not examine the facts around what was their suffering, because what point did it all serve if we do not try to learn from it?
And thank you Neurotik, for clearing this out. Me condescending??? Me wrong??? OK, OK I know….
Sparc
I don’t know how the ‘in’ ended up as a part of junctions… that it’s early morning and what-not is my only lousy excuse.