Random Thought Thread Part III: The Thinking

[Alex]

I hear there are moves in Brazil to make their president stand trial for genocide for his handling of Covid and the amount of deaths.

While I find it hard to believe such a protest actually succeeding and him standing trial for war crimes, imagine a world where politicians were actually held accountable for their actions? Now wouldn't that be something?

[RCMerchant]

^ It happened in Nuremberg...except some sneaky Nazis ended up working for the Allies, and many still had their companies and holdings. 

[Alex]

Shame the Japanese war criminals got away with their crimes back then.

[RCMerchant]

^ Yes. But we dropped 2 A-bombs on Japan, and I think all  involved just wanted it over.
I think they got what they paid for, but dropping it on civilians- and I know they murdered civilians-so did everybody.
But we just dropped a big bomb on a major city. And another the next day.
I don't really know what to say about anything.
I DO know by sowing anger and hate into a mind set among others is just f**king lashing out because your life is empty.
I don't know for sure, but it seems to have become a religion to some folks.
" You have created a monster, and it will destroy you."
FRANKENSTEIN (1931)

[ER]

Here at home, Donald Rumsfeld deserved to be held accountable for his inexcusable failures of duty as Defense Secretary; Dick Cheney was probably within the bounds of being a war criminal; and George W. Bush routinely ignored intelligence that ran contrary to his version of how he wanted things to be, costing uncountable loss of life.  At the very least I hope history judges them harshly.

[Alex]

I think dropping the bombs possibly had more to do with being a warning shot to the Soviet Union. They were already grabbing territory in Eastern Europe that went further than the agreements Stalin had made with the west. No one wanted them grabbing more land and having a controlling stake in Japan.

[indianasmith]

My Dad was scheduled to take part in the second wave of the invasion of Japan.  Army intelligence expected America to lose 250,000 to 500,000 troops in a conventional D-Day style invasion of Japan - and to subdue the island, the casualties they would have to inflict on the enemy, based on  Okinawa, Iwo Jima, Saipan, and all the other Japanese held islands we stormed, would have probably been ten times our own losses.
The bomb ended the war at the cost of 100,000 dead.  It sucked for those killed, but in the end, I do believe the  atomic bombs saved more lives than they took.
And one of them was my Dad's.

I'm glad I didn't have to make that call.

[RCMerchant]

^ The deal I have with dropping the A bomb-once- I can understand from a tactical move. It scared the f**k out of everybody. But why Nagasaki? There was no reason to do that.

[indianasmith]

^ The deal I have with dropping the A bomb-once- I can understand from a tactical move. It scared the f**k out of everybody. But why Nagasaki? There was no reason to do that.

After Hiroshima, the USA gave Japan an ultimatum: Surrender within 48 hours or we hit you again.
Japan did not surrender, and we hit them again.
They surrendered the next day.

[lester1/2jr]

it was terrorism, plain and simple

[indianasmith]

it was terrorism, plain and simple

It was WAR.

[lester1/2jr]

Bombing the population to influence the policies of the govt is terrorism

[Alex]

^ The deal I have with dropping the A bomb-once- I can understand from a tactical move. It scared the f**k out of everybody. But why Nagasaki? There was no reason to do that.

The cities that were hit were picked because they had been relatively untouched by the war so far. It was felt that bombing a city that had already been reduced to rubble would lessen the psychological impact of the weapon. If I remember rightly (and I'd have to admit here that my memory is a bit fuzzy here, it has been a long time since we did the Laws Of Armed Conflict (LOAC), as a study in relation to the bombings), both cities were legitimate targets as they were producing war goods or had a large military base... something like that. Certainly, given their own activities in places like Nanking (it was the Rape of Nanking that really set Japan and the US on the course to war) I don't think the Japanese can really complain about what was done to them. If you really want to know more behind the reasons RC, I can look them up for you and send you some links when I have some free time.

[RCMerchant]

^ Like Alex mentioned, I think the fact that Russia was eyeballing Japan in the final months of the war is why the US dropped the bombs. If I recall, Russia and Japan had dealings with  each other back in the early 1900's.

[Alex]

In academic circles there is certainly a lot of debate on what actually caused Japan to surrender, was it the two bombs, or was it that the Soviet Union had broken their non-aggression pact and was rampaging throughout Manchukuo (Manchuria). My own view is that it would have been a combination of factors (these and a few others too).

You are correct about Japan and Russia having been at war previously. Japan shocked the world when it humiliated Russia in 1904/1905, sinking two large Russian fleets. Later (although Russia was by then the USSR), there was the Battles of Khalkhin Gol, an event little known in the west but that set the course of the Second World War even before a shot of that conflict had been fired.

In a completely unrelated issue, is anyone here an expert in faultfinding with printers?