64 years since Hiroshima...

[00dave]

Personally I dont regard the 7/11 london bombings as particularly major. Not many people killed and a pretty shoddy organisation executing it. More people probably die from drunk driving than a bomb like that. It's sensationalism at it's worst. OK, people were killed by nutters blowing themselves up but in the grand scheme of things it's pretty insignifcant. 9/11 was a few orders of magnitude bigger and the deathcount was accidental rather than intentional in that case (no way they planned to own both buildings like they did).

Meh Im just pissed off that such a "small" thing as terrorism can dictate so much of our lives and foreign policy and national expenditure. Spend it on schools

Que? Where did that come from? Did I miss something?

 

[old.Tohtori]

I've always said that the magnitude of an event is in the personal affection of it.

Parents in WW2? Biggest war in history.
UK resident? 7/11 a major thing.

Etc.

The magnitude of the nukes is no small event and most likely the largest strike we'll see in a while, but i wouldn't put these things on a Top 10 list as it cheapens the events a bit.

 

[00dave]

UK resident? 7/11 a major thing.

More like London resident, I don't think it effected the UK as much as the government wanted it too, I could be wrong though. Pissed me off though, I was on the M4 eastbound that day, and it was a hot day and I had no aircon

Also it was 7/7 not 7/11, thats a type of American shop.

 

[Raven]

A hot day in November?

 

[00dave]

A hot day in November?

Check the edit, not my mistake, Tohtori's.

 

[Raven]

See, it was such a non-day I had forgotten the date too

 

[fettoken]

I've always said that the magnitude of an event is in the personal affection of it.

Parents in WW2? Biggest war in history.
UK resident? 7/11 a major thing.

Etc.

The magnitude of the nukes is no small event and most likely the largest strike we'll see in a while, but i wouldn't put these things on a Top 10 list as it cheapens the events a bit.

True true.

 

[ECA]

Add in the fact the Soviets would have overrun Japan from the north if the Americans hadn't have forced their surrender, means I have very little sympathy for the Japanese. In fact because of the Soviet threat, there's even a argument that the bombs saved Japan from a worse fate (and don't kid yourself more Japanese lives than the bomb victims wouldn't have been lost if the war had gone on into 1946).

I agree with you 100% here.
On August 9th the day of the second bomb was also the day when the USSR broke it's non-aggression pact with Japan ( this occurred before the second bomb (( Nagasaki )) was dropped ) and invaded Manchuria.

While a land invasion by the US would have been bad for both sides it was unlikely the US had the stomach for it ( a major reason why Japan attacked Pearl Harbour in the first place - knowing only Russia could mount a real land invasion ). ( The non-aggression pact was signed in April and Pearl Harbour occured in december ).

When Russia invaded it was in some ways a worse moment than the bombs because Russia could potentially have annexed parts of Japan vs any deal with the Americans. ( long term sovereignty/strategy considerations ).

 

[old.Tohtori]

See, it was such a non-day I had forgotten the date too

And i mixed it together with the 9/11

Anyway, let's not get hung up on that.

 

[ECA]

Really doesn't make a difference tbh. Happened all in one go or over a duration of years, the end result is lots of people died.
The only difference is that most of the people at hiroshima and nagasaki were vaporized in the blast wave, the POWs in Japanese hands were forced to work with no food, in terrible conditions, rife with disease, and constantly beaten by people who believed in a sort of one way bushido respect system ie c*nts. And the Jews in the death camps, well we all know what happened there.

Actually if we view the Japanese treatment of Prisoners under the new vision of the Americans, the Japanese merely were using enhanced interrogation techniques, as we now know sleep deprivation, hunger, and waterboarding are NOT torture!

 

[00dave]

Actually if we view the Japanese treatment of Prisoners under the new vision of the Americans, the Japanese merely were using enhanced interrogation techniques, as we now know sleep deprivation, hunger, and waterboarding are NOT torture!

The difference is that the Japanese weren't interrogating, they were just being cvnts because a warped sense of an old belief. The camp guards seemed to believe in bushido, despite the fact that they were considered useless and not fit for army duty which is why they were guards in the first place. So how they could demand respect from fighting men forced to surrender due to a poor command decision, I don't know.

 

[Ctuchik]

I guess America and what they stand for will pay one day...

unless the rest of the entire world unite and tell them to back down i very much doubt it. and even if they did gang up on US i'm not totally sure US actually would back down.

they have been the single most powerful military nation for so long they probably think they can not lose no matter what.

and if all else fails they still have ~2000 A-bombs scattered around that i'm pretty sure they would use.

 

[Ctuchik]

as we now know sleep deprivation, hunger, and waterboarding are NOT torture!

according to the US, no they are not, because THEY use it to now

unless they are being used on US citizens by a foreign nation that is....

 

[Wij]

A lot of self-righteous bullshit in this thread. I'll avoid.

(except coming in to call it bullshit no callback )

 

[old.Tohtori]

and if all else fails they still have ~2000 A-bombs scattered around that i'm pretty sure they would use.

Last number of nukes was around 30k i think.

Russia holding around 20k.

Russia is a problem since, some haev specualted that half of those nukes might blow up on ground at launch and the other half is dodgy at best regarding guidance.

I'm not saying US can't be beat, what with regarding that even finland has a reserve of around million, million and a half soldiers.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Nevermind, seems my last post is a tad inaccurate, the numbers at 2002 we're more towards;

US: 10,600
Russia: 8,600
UK: 200
France: 350
China: 400
Total: 20,150

Still plenty of nukes, not even all listed in that.

 

[Ch3tan]

unless the rest of the entire world unite and tell them to back down i very much doubt it. and even if they did gang up on US i'm not totally sure US actually would back down.

they have been the single most powerful military nation for so long they probably think they can not lose no matter what.

Hello, China?

 

[throdgrain]

A lot of self-righteous bullshit in this thread. I'll avoid.

(except coming in to call it bullshit no callback )

Quite right. Fucking students tbh.

 

[Tom]

This thread is the long-winded version of "War is not the answer"

Well I'd like someone to tell me what is the answer when faced with megalomaniacs not afraid to use pointy sticks and exploding weapons.

Kind words?

 

[Calaen]

I say fuck em all up. Give everyone a horse and a mace so we can go around and smush people Braveheart style!!!!

 

[old.user4556]

A lot of self-righteous bullshit in this thread. I'll avoid.

(except coming in to call it bullshit no callback )

I like that about FH , to para-quote Denzel Washington, the threads are 90% BS but they entertain me.

YouTube - Newspapers Are 90% BS

(I thought that film was also 90% BS).

I like to start threads that extract people's views, and I love the photojournalism of the original link, it really does get people's political emotions flowing. You could consider the photographs to be propaganda, a photographer can choose to tell a story without uttering a word depending on what he/she decides to photograph.

Hell, the Apollo 11 photographs were so good at the time it's clear they were faked*.




































* possible satire

 

[Jupitus]

I like that about FH , to para-quote Denzel Washington, the threads are 90% BS but they entertain me.

YouTube - Newspapers Are 90% BS

(I thought that film was also 90% BS).

I like to start threads that extract people's views, and I love the photojournalism of the original link, it really does get people's political emotions flowing. You could consider the photographs to be propaganda, a photographer can choose to tell a story without uttering a word depending on what he/she decides to photograph.

Hell, the Apollo 11 photographs were so good at the time it's clear they were faked*.




































* possible satire

That was spooooky - I just watched that film for the first time tonight!

 

[Zenith.UK]

But to think that they actually justified killing civilians that did not do anything. I'd say drop a nuke in New York / Washington D.C and justify it by saying its a preemptive strike to stop further aggressive acts from the U.S government.

That's the thinking behind what happened on a sunny day in September 8 years ago. Look at what happened afterwards. *TWO* countries destabilised, rendition and torture being condoned, increased surveillance of the general public and a general erosion of personal rights and liberties.
Who said terrorism doesn't work? :lol:


I see ECA's original point though. The Holocaust had more people killed but was spread out over a period of years. "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" killed more people in each instant than any other weapon in history.
War crimes are based on atrocity, not the number of people killed. By whatever measure you want to use, the result of the atomic bomb detonations was nothing less than atrocious.

 

[throdgrain]

The Japanese invaded many countries, and murdered and tortured thousands upon thousands of people - civilians, women and children, as well as pow's.

If the Americans had invaded Japan argueably just as many people would have died, and it would have devastated the whole county too, instead of just two bits of it. Plus many thousands of American servicemen would have died in the process.

Fuck 'em I say.

 

[old.Tohtori]

The Japanese invaded many countries, and murdered and tortured thousands upon thousands of people - civilians, women and children, as well as pow's.

Have to say; i'm nto entirely confident that the allied didn't do the same things.

In any case; one nuke, two nukes, suddenly you've done the same.

 

[rynnor]

If the Americans had invaded Japan argueably just as many people would have died, and it would have devastated the whole county too, instead of just two bits of it. Plus many thousands of American servicemen would have died in the process.

Fuck 'em I say.

Thats pretty much it tbh - the experience of the Americans as they worked their way up the island chain towards Japan was that the Japanese troops would fight very hard - most fighting until death and consequently inflicting massive casualties.

There would have been massive civilian casualties in such a high density population - almost certainly far higher than those caused by Hiroshima/Nagasaki.

There was no way the Americans could leave the Emporer in power either - they had to smash Japanese nationalism or they might have wasted their time by having to come back again later.

In some ways Hiroshima may have prevented a more widespread use of nuclear weapons - it showed the true horror and destructiveness of nuclear weapons which probably deterred their use.

 

[chipper]

i think the 2 nukes were a necessary evil better targets could have been found i suppose but they were more a demonstration than anything else.

lets skip forward through the decades if those 2 nukes hadnt been used i really dont think we would be here. we would be in a post apocolyptic world those 2 nukes showed us the horror that these weapons are capabable of and have deterred the world from using them on live targets ever since.

not condoning the use of those 2 nukes all those years ago but i truly believe if they hadnt been used the world would be a far worse place than it is.

 

[cHodAX]

I can't agree, just like the firebombing of Dresden the nukes on Japan were not needed, Japan had all but lost the war and targeting civilians to force a surrender is fucking horrific.

 

[Tom]

I can't agree, just like the firebombing of Dresden the nukes on Japan were not needed, Japan had all but lost the war and targeting civilians to force a surrender is fucking horrific.

No less horrific than the systematic bombing of civilian targets across Great Britain.

Its war, nasty things happen. What would you have done?

 

[cHodAX]

No less horrific than the systematic bombing of civilian targets across Great Britain.

Its war, nasty things happen. What would you have done?

You miss my point Tom, in both instances the war was pretty much won but we decided to launch indescriminate attacks against civilian targets anyway. I am not saying those kind attacks aren't valid in a different context but in these two instances they were unnecessary attacks right at the end of campaigns which were all but effectively won.