Yes, exactly, just like Republican Congressman Peter King who is conducting investigations only on the domestic Muslim terrorist threat over here, but having it pointed out to him that he actually supported terrorists over there in the form of the IRA.

Open thread for night owls: In London, Rep. Peter King defends own support for terrorism

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/...-defends-own-support-for terrorism?via=blog_1

 

Everytime you kill a terrorist you will create a new one from his family, maybe more than one, you cannot win a war against insurgents using conventional tactics and doctrine, they will always dictate the pace of the war, they can slow down regroup and rearm, even change tactics on you.

The war in Afghan will end only when the Taliban decide to come to the peace table, and they have the capacity to go a lot longer than the ISAF.

 

The United States DoD is flat-out wrong. It should go and find a dictionary.

Terrorism refers to any and all tactics whose purpose is to create terror.

 

And what is let's say burned into my brain about that fire bombing is Robert McNamara's of it when he said they started out first being stunned and nearly ecstatic over the "success" of the mission and the fire storm it caused in Tokyo.

But then a creeping realization began to take root and his joy gave way to the truth he finally blurted out loud; "My God, we're war criminals."

I've used this really simple question dozens of times around here to illustrate what you just said.

Name any place, any country, any time in human history where military or police force alone successfully stopped terrorism?

Also you might be able to appreciate. We had a US Congressman, Peter King, appear before Parliament in London the other day. He thought he was there to advise them on how to deal with domestic Muslim terrorists which he is sure all Muslims are.

But one of the MP's actually had him there to point out that he is one of the best known supporters of terrorism there is when it comes to excusing and supporting the IRA.

But if the US cut off all aid and support to both Israel and Palestine I bet it would not take long for Israel and Palestine to reach a peace agreement. And I've been advocating for just that for decades.

Here's where I see the flaw of the "we saved millions of lives we otherwise would have lost if we had invaded Japan" theory which someone has confirmed their father was told after the war by the Japanese themselves.

The problem with that is what the Japanese people and military did was what their emperor told them to do. Just like when he told them to surrender after the bombings. He could have and would have done the same thing before the bombings but the emperor ran out of time.

And part of the reason Japan ran out of time is because of the other things you mentioned including the Soviet Union who many felt would be intimidated by the US's new weapon if they saw a demonstration of it. And that is part of what motivated Truman's decision.

Now admittedly I haven't read all books you have but it is a subject of interest to me and I've seen nothing to counter what I saw in the World At War, which is simply that we will probably never know if it was necessary to drop the atomic bombs or not because there was a lot more involved in the decision than just making Japan surrender.

Also I can never accept the argument that we were justified in dropping the bomb because of all the atrocities Japan committed. That's like torturing terrorists in order to combat terrorism. And the problem with that is we've told ourselves and the world we are better than our enemies. So the "they deserved it" argument doesn't fly with me either.

 

Thank you. I'd have never been able to stop laughing long enough to point out terrorism is terrorism even if the government does it.

 

The dictionary definition is not a legal definition by any stretch of the imagination. The US DoD is one of the only agencies that has defined what terrorism is to their thinking. Not one international organization has defined terrorism: not the World Court; not the United Nations; not the International Court of Justice.

So you are free to apply any definition that you would like.

Two other organizations define terrorism, but they also have no legal authority in international law.

The FBI defines terrorism thusly:

​

The Arab League to Suppress Terrorism, definition:

 

Yes, I know that others were killed also, but the Jews were the focus of the history class!

 

One of my closest friends is Jewish, and she has said before that she finds it offensive that only the Jews should be remembered as the main targets of the holocaust. It's just one of those things in life that becomes stuck in the public's mind.

 

This answer is the closest to the truth. Stalin was massing troops for an invasion of Japan. In the anti-communistic hysteria of that time (and the years to follow), it was felt necessary to dramatically, and quickly end the war. The Hiroshima bomb was a uranium enriched bomb, guaranteed to work. The Japanese were encouraged to use that horror as a means to surrender. The military meanwhile, was very anxious to test the plutonium bomb used on Nagasaki. It was not altogether certain that it would work and they were happy to test it in this way. The Hiroshima bomb was justified on geopolitical grounds. Had the Soviet invaded Japan, it is unlikely they would have easily been persuaded to leave. The Nagasaki bomb was almost certainly unnecessary and a means simply for the military to 'test' an device not certain to work. I think the Japanese would have come to their senses given enough time after Hiroshima which would have had the effect of ending the war and also keeping the Soviets at bay. The Nagasaki bomb accelerated that Japanese decision but was almost certainly unnecessary from either a strategic or geopolitical vantage point. Almost no one knows or discusses the Soviet aspect of this end to WWII.

 

It is completely unnecessary to use "hypothetical" or "theoretical loss of lives" regarding to probable invasion of Japan to explain our urgency to end the war.

Throughout the summer of '45, plenty of proof and evidence existed of the loss of lives ACTUALLY occuring EVERYDAY that the japanese fought on against all odds. No Theorizing Needed. Real people, civilian and uniformed, were dying every minute the war stretched on. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Korean slaves were dying; starving or beaten to death... God only knows how many chinese were dying as the needlessly continued. It's very clear that the Japanese leadership held no value for human life, not even their own. Their cult-of-death had little room for compassion.

With allied POWs dying in japanese labor camps, and with sailors (and soldiers) under constant threat from kamikaze attacks which continued right up to August 15, 1945, a real urgency existed for Harry Truman to end the war.

Please explain how someone could place more value on the lives of the japanese that died on the two bombings than those who were dying at the hands of the japanese everyday the war continued needlessly.

 

UNITED STATES STRATEGIC BOMBING SURVEY SUMMARY REPORT (Pacific War)

UNITED STATES STRATEGIC BOMBING SURVEY
SUMMARY REPORT
(Pacific War)

WASHINGTON, D.C.
1 JULY 1946

Certain of the United States commanders and the representatives of the Survey who were called back from their investigations in Germany in early June 1945 for consultation stated their belief that, by the coordinated impact of blockade and direct air attack, Japan could be forced to surrender without invasion...

it seems clear that, even without the atomic bombing attacks, air supremacy over Japan could have exerted sufficient pressure to bring about unconditional surrender and obviate the need for invasion.

Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.

http://anesi.com/ussbs01.htm

 

I am surprised it took you so long to pull out this antiquated report. You're certainly aware that this survey supports the wisdom of using the bomb. http://anesi.com/bomb.htm :

The United States Strategic Bombing Survey reports do not state or even suggest that the use of the atomic bomb against Japan was unwise. On the contrary, a careful analysis of the USSBS findings supports the wisdom of using the bombs.

I suspect that you know little of the implications of waiting until november or december for the Japs to surrender. Were you aware that 100,000 chinese, in japanese controlled areas, (mostly civilian) were dying each month in 1945? And this is just the tip of the iceberg, as Richard Frank points out in Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire. He concluded that each month that the war continued in 1945 would have produced deaths "upward of 250,000 people, mostly asian but some westerners."

Do you justify the deaths?

 

Here is the thing people, ALL IS FAIR IN LOVE AND WAR, the sooner people realize this the sooner we will the fucking war on terror. The Rules of War make no sense, unless everyone follows them. That's why we lost Korea and Vietnam. Why should we be called baby killers, when they send women and children booby traped to where our trops are at. Hitler and the Emporer of Japan, would have Nuked us if they had had the chance, believe it. Both countries were working on their own a-bombs besides germ and chemical warfare weapons, as someone mentioned earlier,we just got there first. What we did was perfectly the correct answer, to an unprovoked I say again unprovoked attack, on our country. Is hawaii anyless part of the U.S., because it's not in the continetal 48? This is part of the reason why the world is so fucked, because organizations like the U.N. sit there and try to negotiate, with physcopaths and sociopaths, when what they really need is a bullet in the head. Here is something to really think about, How Many of those jews, cripples, gay, gypsies,and chineese could have been saved if america had entered the war earlier.
The only thing people like that, aka meglomaniacs that want to rule the world, is someone hitting them harder with a bigger stick. They laugh and lie at negotiations, just like the terroists today. What we should have done was nuke Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, and leave it alone. They will never surrender and will never stop. So it comes to if you can't beat them join them, we can beat them, but we don't have the guts to use the weapons at our disposal. This didn't happen 60 years ago, because nobody back then was a pacifist, like so many today are. The world is not a better place, with all this namby pamby, I can't say that I might offend someone, PC bullshit. It is worse, because morons like Bin Ladden see this as the weakness it is. Wake up people, lets stop the , Pussifiacation of America (to quote Dennis Leary), and get back to the top where we should be.
Originally Posted by Sundaybazar
Yes but was the use of nuclear weapons justified..... secondly the amount of innocent people getting killed in both Japan and after 911 speaks volumes, and that leads to more enimity and hostile attitude towards the americans.




True, but they attacked with conventional weapons, and "we" were losing... so we used weapons of mass destruction to destroy that nation....

 

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...sary-to-end-wwii/story-e6frg8nf-1226084256784

Interesting read. The authur uncovers some interesting information.

Truman did not authurize either bombing and stop the nuking of Tokyo.

The nuking, was not a major factor in the surrender.

Is this a true story? Got me.

 

Excuse me, you stupid fuck?

Refute one single thing I said. Oh right, you can't, because I just listed HISTORICAL OCCURRENCES.

Oh, and freethinker is just as much of a stupid douche as you are. Both of you are absolutely pathetically immature for middle aged people.

Neither of you are intelligent and if he's a freethinker well then so are members of cults.

 

People!
We dropped the bombs. At the time, Truman believed it was the best thing he could do. I would have done it as well. My theory is, when you are in a fight to the death, and you get your opponent down, you finish it. As quickly and as painlessly as you can.

WWII was unique in our history. Japan and Germany were committing atrocities beyond anything imaginable in modern history. Senseless cruelty that did not further their goal; the rape and murder and calculated genocide they conducted was truly horrendous.

The allies weren't totally innocent, but the reality is, we stopped a bunch of truly horrific crap that was going on. Softies who want to make love with enemies to avoid sinking to their level miss the point; when a bully punches you in the nose you can run and hide-and next time he'll punch you twice; or you can stand up and have at it. Clinton didn't get that. We'll never know for sure, but I firmly believe 9/11 would never have happened if he had done his job when the embassies were bombed.

Someone said, you kill a terrorist and all you do is create 2 more. Bullshit. Kill a terrorist, then kill his two replacements, and do not stop until the terrorists call uncle. I've always said, negotiations in war are best initiated with a Marine boot on the neck of your opponent.

So go hug a terrorist if you must. But don't whine about it if the terrorist explodes in your arms.

 

Whether or not it was painless depends on your point of view, doesn't it?

 

There is actually a great deal of doubt, despite the party line fantasy that has been fed to Americans for the past 60+ years.

You, also, can be accused of that, with even more validity.

 

Party line? You have to be joking, the "bomb" was developed and delivered by the party that you adore.

My ancestors did a lot of bad shit, but I don't deny it.

But neither of our ancestors really matter at this point, we have not used a nuclear weapon since and I'd venture to say that we probably won't again.

 

What about the Alamo? I think we should give remembrance where remembrance is due. hehehe lol! No but seriously, everyone is different and deals with things differently, so no one is right or wrong. :rose: