quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: How can a country stand idly by while such things happen without coming across as "imperialistic"?
Well, if you believe that the US government was really sitting there thinking "We have to stop Saddam. He's being just too gosh darn evil to his neighbours and the people who live in Iraq itself. It will cost us, but we must do this selfless act, just to help them", then you can't.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
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posted
I'm not just talking about this particular war, but ideolgy plays a large part of the public support needed to sustain any conflict on that scale.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
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"Based on what we know now, were the bombings justified?"
I'd still have to say no, because, when you respond to a massacre (or, rather, when you strike back at an imperialist aggressor for sinking your precious battleships when you would have been happy to stay on the sidelines and let said aggressor continue its reign of terror unabated) with two hideous bloodbaths of your own and then later tack on some cop-out story that you were first and foremost engaged in the war to bring a halt to the humanitarian crimes perpetrated by your enemy, how are you any different from the slaughterers? But more than that it's a question of emotional detachment: I'm not a survivor of a Japanese death camp. My family wasn't murdered at Nanjing. It's impossible for me to feel anything other than sorrow for the inhabitants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The bombings weren't justified in my (non-Chinese) eyes, but maybe they were in yours, in which case nothing I can say will ever change that.
The US is currently being acused of "Imperilsm" for the war in Iraq and it's always pointed out that we dont intervene in other countries where atrocities happen every day....
I think that attitude stems from the fact that, when you do intervene in other countries, it's always out of some motivated self-interest (Bosnia excluded) and never out of commiseration for the plight of the people in them.
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-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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Not exactly. Yes, the US leadership always tacks on some bullshit reason to placate those that scream over the financial costs of the war but the people actually engaged in the fighting sure arent risking their lived for oil or enforcments of UN sanctions: not that we'll ever see a financial profit from these wars- Iraq included. The Bosnia mess should have been averted two years prior o our involvment but many in congress pointed out that there was no public support for involvment and that we'd be spending billions (and risking US lives) with no financial return. I'm sad to say that the US only became directly involved in stopping the conflict once public support was roused by horrifing new stories every night nad once the slaughter was compared with that of the Nazis.
The people that really make the diffrence are out there- giving everything- for the ideal of helping others and making a bad situation better.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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The US military was in NO position to oppose either Japanese or German forces before 1942. There was a buildup of forces underway but the existing units were typically undermanned, undertrained, and using mostly obsolescent equipment. In fact, most operations that occured before 1943 were limited in scope and done more as an annoyance than an attempt to inflict true damage on enemy forces. While we were supplying both the Chinese and British with arms we were attempting to remain out of the conflict itself while preparing for the probability of war.
It is funny, but AT&T at the time was actually wanting the US to side WITH GERMANY because of its vast interest financially in providing services to the Germans.
But, to say that the US is evil because of the A-bombings is misguided. War is WAR. There are no innocent combatants on ANY side. There are those who will do evil in any armed force as there are also those who will not do evil. The goals of a military in war are to kill people and break things. The sad thing is that KNOWING this, there are those who would STILL subject their own people to war in order to maintain their own power and further their own megalomaniacal aims.
-------------------- I am the Anti-Abaddon. I build models at a scale of 2500/1
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"...the people actually engaged in the fighting sure arent risking their lived for oil or enforcments of UN sanctions..."
Well, no. They're doing it because they were told to. And it's what they get paid for.
And yet, the Vietnam conflict clearly demonstrated the folly of going to war without public support. Soldiers dont vote for Bush because they're told to- it's because they feel a sense of pride in what they're doing.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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quote:Originally posted by WizArtist: In fact, most operations that occured before 1943 were limited in scope and done more as an annoyance than an attempt to inflict true damage on enemy forces.
So the Blitz was merely an "annoyance"? I'm sure Coventry will be thrilled.
quote: But, to say that the US is evil because of the A-bombings is misguided. War is WAR. There are no innocent combatants on ANY side.
The people living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were combatants?
And thank god we've cleared up Sept 11. It wasn't a terrorist strike. Al Quaeda were merealy attacking enemy combatants.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
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posted
I�m afraid that I have to accept that if I were president of the US in August 1945, I probably would�ve ordered at least the first bomb to be dropped. The US had already sustained 1 million casualties (killed and wounded) in the war. Truman had a weapon, developed at the cost of several billion dollars, that had the potential of immediately forcing the Japanese to surrender at the cost of no further American lives. His primarily responsibility was to the American people, not to innocent Japanese noncombatants, so he took the chance that the bombs would force surrender, even if he couldn�t be sure. Of course, the Japanese might have surrended before the end of 1945 even without the bombs or invasion because of starvation, blockades, the destruction of all major cities, and the Soviet declaration of war, but who knows if they would have? Truman certainly couldn�t be sure. He wanted the war to end as quickly as possible. Furthermore, Japanese civilians were already being killed at a rate of tens of thousands per air raid, so the possibility of killing more with fewer bombs (and fewer US aircrews at risk) might have seemed an attractive proposition rather than an inhibitor.
My father lived through the war in Japan. He has told me he believes the bombs were necessary to end the war. In 1975, Hirohito said in his one and only press conference that the atomic bombings �had to happen.� Militarists were willing to fight to the bitter end, so shocking either them or Hirohito himself into stopping the fighting was necessary.
-------------------- When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum
Registered: Oct 1999
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posted
One of my uncles was a Bataan survivor though he didn't live long (or very comfortably) after. War is by it's very nature a hiddeous and horrific atrocity. It's supposed to be. That's why they call it war. That's why it's supposed to be a last resort. Which plainly it wasn't in Iraq.
Which would be, for those who don't grasp this, the irony given that this was Alfred Nobel's very personal guilt-driven motivation for creating these awards (funded as they were by the very profits of war). Somehow I doubt we'll ever see a Cheney Peace Prize.
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quote: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by WizArtist: In fact, most operations that occured before 1943 were limited in scope and done more as an annoyance than an attempt to inflict true damage on enemy forces. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So the Blitz was merely an "annoyance"? I'm sure Coventry will be thrilled.
I think he was refering to US operations. Despite the US habit of playing down British involvement in the war; after all, we all know the US won WWII single handed, with no help whatsoever from the Commonwealth and Empire or anyone else . I notice there are now textbooks for US schoolchildren that have WWII running from 1941-45. Not US involvement, but the entire war. And they wonder why we get pissed off with them.
I would have dropped the first bomb certainly; the need for the second is more debatable (Basically, I agree with Masao's post above).
-------------------- "I am an almost extinct breed, an old-fashioned gentleman, which means I can be a cast-iron son-of-a-bitch when it suits me." --Jubal Harshaw
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
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"War is WAR."
While this may burst your admittedly very thin bubble, there are also RULES in war, and those rules are written for a reason.
"There are no innocent combatants on ANY side."
No, but there ARE innocent NON-combatants, aka CIVILIANS, on EVERY side.
"...the Vietnam conflict clearly demonstrated the folly of going to war without public support."
Only in its later years, though. The war went on for half a decade before protests (which themselves arose out of the strengthening civil rights movement) grew loud enough to be heard in DC, and popular approval didn't really begin to erode until 1969. But that's yet another topic.
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quote:Originally posted by Wraith: So the Blitz was merely an "annoyance"? I'm sure Coventry will be thrilled.
I think he was refering to US operations. Despite the US habit of playing down British involvement in the war; after all, we all know the US won WWII single handed, with no help whatsoever from the Commonwealth and Empire or anyone else . I notice there are now textbooks for US schoolchildren that have WWII running from 1941-45. Not US involvement, but the entire war. And they wonder why we get pissed off with them.
I would have dropped the first bomb certainly; the need for the second is more debatable (Basically, I agree with Masao's post above). [/QUOTE] Man, what are you talking about? is that really how you view the US?
Anybody in the US that's ever watched an hour of History Channel (more properly called the WWII channel) would have Britan's role in WWII forever drilled into their skulls and etched on their retnias. I can recall documentaries on the british decoding the Enigma devices as far back as elementary school.
I've certainly never seen any textbook refer to WWII as running only during US involvment and never anything that "downplayed" British involvment at all. Lose that chip on your shoulder: if anyone's countries have their participation downplayed it's Australlia and Canada. They get zero credit...even in the movies.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
. I notice there are now textbooks for US schoolchildren that have WWII running from 1941-45. Not US involvement, but the entire war. And they wonder why we get pissed off with them.
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