Hiroshima...

[Terran]

I wish there was more pictures on that site.

[EvilNed]

It happens. It was a war. This isn't a fantasy world; people die, and always will. Getting worked up about it is useless. Especially when they have no love for you, either. As I said: No, you're not going to end something like WW2 without ending lots of lives. However, this is NOT an excuse for you not to have any sympathy or not to recognize a tragedy when you see one. Perhaps it's just todays people. They're used to seeing war from behind a television screen. I thought we washed away with your kind of mentality during the 40's. Apparently not. I guess then, as a species, we learned nothing.

[Terran]

As I said: I thought we washed away with your kind of mentality during the 40's. Apparently not. I guess then, as a species, we learned nothing. Well it says he is from florida....maybe hes in his 80's .... Ooooh big burn, Florida Seniors!

[MikePizzoff]

I'm not pointing any fingers, but I find it slightly amusing, in the ironic sense, that some people will be like "Hiroshima? Who cares. It was so long ago. People die all the time." but will also be all "9/11! NEVER FORGET!" ... I know one was done IN a war and one STARTED a war... but it doesn't change the fact that both incidents involved many innocent people.

[Tricky]

What was the solution to the war in the pacific then?its ok arguing that they shouldnt have dropped the bombs but im not seeing any suggestions as to how else would they have brought an end to the war?should they have gone ahead with the land invasion of mainland japan?levelled the country with more conventional bombs?diplomacy clearly wasnt going to work...

[SymphonicX]

This thread has descended into a farce. We shouldn't all be bitching about this. Here's some bottom lines for you all: Hiroshima was a dark patch on humanity, as was WW2. Many innocent people died and regardless of the reason, we should be mindful of that. There is no trivialising anyone's involvement in WW2. And this situation has never had anything to do with 9/11 so comparisons should end. The 2nd World War is over and so are the events of 9/11, time to progress.

[Yojimbo]

What was the solution to the war in the pacific then?its ok arguing that they shouldnt have dropped the bombs but im not seeing any suggestions as to how else would they have brought an end to the war?should they have gone ahead with the land invasion of mainland japan?levelled the country with more conventional bombs?diplomacy clearly wasnt going to work... You make some very good points and certainly I do not have a better solution to ending the conflict than the one that was executed. As I have previously stated, my own grandfather was slated to go into combat with the United States Army Air Corp and probably would have died if the bomb had not been dropped. I do think, however, that some compassion is due for what had happened to the innocent civilians who were bombed in Hiroshima, in spite of their enemy status at the time of the bombing. I do not feel that the two - that is, belief that the war could not have been ended otherwise, and the feeling of compassion for the civilians who ended up becoming the victims of this solution -- are mutually exclusive. I do not equate compassion for suffering with feelings of guilt. By way of example, I feel no personal guilt for what occured at Dachau and Treblinka, however do feel a great amount of sadness for the suffering that the victims of the concentration camps went through. Similiarly, I feel compassion for those who were killed by the Chinese government at Tianamen Square, yet no guilt for their deaths. My heart goes out to the villagers at My Lai for their suffering, yet I personally am not guilty for what occured there. Again, I am not attempting to make anyone feel guilty about the atrocities of a war which occured before they were born, a war which they themselves had no involvement in. Yes, indeed, we should not live in the past, but it is not necessary to live in the past to feel compassion for the suffering of people, be they our contemporaries or our predecessors. Yes, there is not that much in common between 9/11 and Hiroshima. But in both circumstances people who did not deserve to die were killed. Can we not be saddened by wholescale loss of life without political sentiments entering into the equation?

[Usumgal]

You've all really been that badly brainwashed haven't you. The japs sucker punch us at Pearl! The entire japanese populace was being trained so that in case of an invasion, the only other option, every single man woman and child would be a threat! And you wanna talk about how sick all of this is? Ask any chinese person about what the japs used to do to their POWs. The sick experimants that were even too sick for the nazis! Imagine being a chinese POW in -30 degree weather, and having you arm dipped in warm water just so a japanese "scientist" could pull your skin off like a glove just to see what would happen! Thats the people you're mourning! A culture that not only attacked us and SIDED WITH NAZI GERMANY but did that type of sick crap? Yeah. Poor them.

[Yojimbo]

You've all really been that badly brainwashed haven't you. The japs sucker punch us at Pearl! The entire japanese populace was being trained so that in case of an invasion, the only other option, every single man woman and child would be a threat! And you wanna talk about how sick all of this is? Ask any chinese person about what the japs used to do to their POWs. The sick experimants that were even too sick for the nazis! Imagine being a chinese POW in -30 degree weather, and having you arm dipped in warm water just so a japanese "scientist" could pull your skin off like a glove just to see what would happen! Thats the people you're mourning! A culture that not only attacked us and SIDED WITH NAZI GERMANY but did that type of sick crap? Yeah. Poor them. By stating that I feel compassion for those who suffered in Hiroshima, I am not excusing the atrocities committed by the Japanese war criminals during world war II. Certainly they did many horrible things that are inexcusable. To feel compassion for people who have suffered, in any event does not immediately mean that I have been brainwashed. While you are entitled to your opinions, I take exception to your use of racial pejoratives and find the use of the term "Jap" personally offensive and request that you refrain from such terms of hatred in the future. There is no need to racially insult people here. Can we not discuss our differences in opinion without degenerating into this sort of silliness? It is exactly rhetoric such as yours which will end up getting this thread locked down, and it is hatred, in the end, that will cut off constructive dialogue.

[EvilNed]

You've all really been that badly brainwashed haven't you. The japs sucker punch us at Pearl! The entire japanese populace was being trained so that in case of an invasion, the only other option, every single man woman and child would be a threat! And you wanna talk about how sick all of this is? Ask any chinese person about what the japs used to do to their POWs. The sick experimants that were even too sick for the nazis! Imagine being a chinese POW in -30 degree weather, and having you arm dipped in warm water just so a japanese "scientist" could pull your skin off like a glove just to see what would happen! Thats the people you're mourning! A culture that not only attacked us and SIDED WITH NAZI GERMANY but did that type of sick crap? Yeah. Poor them. You're judging an entire society for what a few of them did. Now, hmm. Where else have I heard that? Oh yeah, the nazis did exactly that. Again. Have we learned nothing... And Tricky, I'm not saying that the bombs shouldn't have been dropped. I'm just saying it was a huge loss of human life and a severe tragedy. They could have warned the citizens, of course. They could have blockaded Japan. But then again, blockading Japan wouldn't work because Russia was already ready to invade. Infact, Russias invasion plans were already close to being commenced. Had the war dragged on for another month, the red army would have stepped ashore in Japan and I guess the US would have little choice but to follow suit. Ahk. Yojimbo said it best. There's no need to feel the guilt. But at least value human life.

[Khardis]

You're judging an entire society for what a few of them did. Now, hmm. Where else have I heard that? Oh yeah, the nazis did exactly that. Again. Have we learned nothing... And Tricky, I'm not saying that the bombs shouldn't have been dropped. I'm just saying it was a huge loss of human life and a severe tragedy. They could have warned the citizens, of course. They could have blockaded Japan. But then again, blockading Japan wouldn't work because Russia was already ready to invade. Infact, Russias invasion plans were already close to being commenced. Had the war dragged on for another month, the red army would have stepped ashore in Japan and I guess the US would have little choice but to follow suit. Ahk. Yojimbo said it best. There's no need to feel the guilt. But at least value human life. Wow i never considered that... so the nukes ended somehting like 300,000 lives whereas a land assault and an invasion would have given us 1 million American deaths on top of 1 or more millions of Japanese deaths which would have been followed up by an invasion of the USSR which would have massacred Japanese on the scale that japanese murdered Chinese and South asians or the Nazis massacred Jews, homosexuals, retards, catholics, and other threats to the Aryan nation. the Nukes were the best option indeed, it spared Japan Russias invasion.

[EvilNed]

Wow i never considered that... so the nukes ended somehting like 300,000 lives whereas a land assault and an invasion would have given us 1 million American deaths on top of 1 or more millions of Japanese deaths which would have been followed up by an invasion of the USSR which would have massacred Japanese on the scale that japanese murdered Chinese and South asians or the Nazis massacred Jews, homosexuals, retards, catholics, and other threats to the Aryan nation. the Nukes were the best option indeed, it spared Japan Russias invasion. It also spared Japan of becoming a north/south scenario ala Korea and Germany.

[Neil]

Please play nice folks... We're talking about a pair of the most horrific events in history. For what ever reason they occurred, right or wrong, they were truly horrible events which I don't think any of us can begin to imagine... People views will differ as to how justified they were etc - fair enough. Please don't force this thread to be closed...

[mista_mo]

I was just joking with my prior comment Yojimbo..at least in the context of the present discussion anyway :P I was actually in a discussion with some friends the other day about this. One is in the mind set that civilian losses are a necessary by product of war- basically, **** happens. It's a hard thing to grasp though, 300,000 dead is a large number, and the majority of them were civilians, but the targets were military centers; bases and manufacturing areas. It wasn't an attack taken lightly by the administration either, they had to weigh so many things before they dropped it, but the prospect of invading japan was daunting. estimated casualties 1,000,000 plus (not just American though, i kinda get the sense that people are forgetting the other allied nations here) just for the allied side. In this case, as has been said before, using the weapons was necessary, as they weren't going to surrender. But you all know that. And too Usumgal: Those experiments weren't known until after the war, and the general population was unaware of their happenings. Sure, the Japanese were royal cocks (and when I say Japanese, i mean the military/government that endorsed such extreme measures) but the general population is not to blame for this. Propaganda played a hell of a part in this war, and they were subject to it just as much as everyone else.

[Usumgal]

NIP, since they used to be Nipaneese and they even called themselves NIP. Look at Pat Morrita, The Hip NIP. So NIP it is. For you people to compare 9/11 with These two wartime bombings?! 9/11- we were at peace going about our daily lives when Rashid and his buddies decided to hijack planes and without warning slam them into us! Nagasaki and Hiroshima - We were at war with Japan. ALL of Japan. They knew this. They caused this! You think the people that died at pearl suffered any less?! Were their deaths any less permanent?! You know how many young americans lost their lives because of them? Their whole culture at the time was re-immersing itself in the samurai honor system ( thus the success of the kamikaze ). Their emperor did this on pupose, fed the old samurai tales to the youth years in advance so when they decided to attack us they would have those tales in their mind, be longing for honorable deaths. So honorable that they sucker punched us! They planned on this for decades because we forced them into the modern world most of a century before. So they brainwashed their civilians so when those civilians became soldiers they would stop at nothing. So we stopped at nothing. Heroes like General Patton would be disgusted to read things like this. Sympathising with an enemy over their casualties! You've gotta be joking