Don't we also have weapons of mass destruction??

Yes, we do. Did we use WMD against our own people or as an agressor in a war?

 

No, and no (to the two questions). Although the USA did use the nuclear bomb on Japan, they were not the aggressor as Japan was the one that declared war.

 

Japanese bombed the Pearl harbor, a military naval base; Americans bombed the Hiroshima, the civilian city. How does these two compare in morality?

 

That's right.

Bombing civilians fullfills almost all the criteria of terrorism, especially on the scale of Hiroshima.

It wasn't that far off 9/11 in many respects.

 

At the time civilains were all game. Both the Axis and Allied forces killed civilians. It was only after WWII that rules of combat involving civilians were innacted. Although in hindsight I do think it was a terrible act.

 

Hiroshima, unlike Nagasaki, was a more or less legitimate military target, as the home of I Forget Which Japanese Army corps.

Japan, like Germany, started the war and carried out a series of reprehensible acts that were clearly against whatever international law existed at the time. Pearl Harbor was a sneak attack, but the Japanese mainland had been bombed repeatedly for three years by that point.

We can argue about the Nagasaki bomb, if you like, but even then, had Japan said "We surrender!" the afternoon of August 6, 1945 would have prevented it.

Terrorism isn't simply the targeting of civilians, but the sneak attack against civilians without warning. Civilians in a state of war, while not "legitimate" targets, are nevertheless targets while the enemy cities support the enemy's war effort.

The London Blitz, for example, represented a heroic effort from British civilians in the face of a terrible enemy, and their courage will last as long as it's possible to record history. But you can't really call it a German war crime.

EDIT - I've thought about this gratuitous comparison to 9/11, and it's probably a little too soon to make those kinds of glib comparisons about moral relativity, when the events are still pretty fresh in our minds. In other words, I think you're a fucking cunt for putting it like that.

 

******************, how did I look at the question and instantly know that this soggy-thinking post came from somewhere in California?MMM!!! Nothing like a weak-s**t, reality-defying moral equivalence for a late night smack.Lord, I hope the terrorists nuke San Francisco first. Just make sure that all the history and social studies teachers are in town and that Landon isn' when it happens.

 

The Iraqi army was a bunch of pussies in the Gulf War, and they signed a treaty to save their country. So yes, we have the moral ground to force the UN to do something. They decided to trade their lives for the right not to have UN weapons inspectors in their country. It was a concious choice that they made at the time. Now, they're whining about.... I say tough ************!!

 

The a-bombing of Hiroshima was without warning.

So you are justifying the German bombings, then you in turn justify the American's bombings of civilian population in Japan. Maybe I will buy it that people didn't know better at that time that it was act of murder. But today i still hear people say nuke this nuke that. Doesn't seem to change that much, does it?

 

I'd like to add a few things to this.

First, back in the day, precision bombing didn't exist. Carpet bombing was all the rage, meaning you'd have to flatten 2-3 neigbourhoods to get one tiny weapons plant. In other words, civilian deaths were more common and definitely higher than nowadays.

Second, The Bomb was only tested once, at Los Alamos, and in that case, it was smaller than the Nagasaki bomb and it was the middle of the freaking desert. Not only was such a high death toll not expected, but since the bomb had only been tested months before, the effects of radiation were still very much unknown.

You're at war with a country for 4 years and you're shocked when they bomb your towns????

 

It was the Imperial Second Army that was headquartered in Hiroshima. Targeting cities is perfectly valid in war, as they are centers of industry, commerce, communication, transportation, etc. And as obscene as it sounds, breaking the civilian population of their will to fight is necessary. Then again, war is obscene anyway.

This may sound simplistic and juvenile, but when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor without first declaring war, the gloves were off. And that's disregarding the Rape of Nanking, Bataan Death March, Manchurian POW camps, the occupation of Korea, etcetera, for which Japan has yet to apologize. You can't punch a man in the pills and then complain if he doesn't fight fair. Beyond that, we killed more people during the conventional bombing of Tokyo.

But I look at it this way. My maternal grandfather was wounded in Liege, Belgium in 1944. He could have gone home with an honorable discharge, but instead opted to return to duty. He might have participated in Operation Coronet, the invasion of Honshu, the main island, in March 1946. And only after Operation Olympic, on the island of Shokaku, in November 1945. No Japanese force of any considerable size had surrendered EVER. There is no solid reason to believe that this would've changed. The War Department estimated US casualties to equal the total-to-date. Effectively take 300,000 dead and double it. My grandfather could have been one of them. And my mother wasn't born until 1948. The bomb may have saved my life. And that's the pity of war. Not who dies, but who doesn't live.

 

Total a-bomb deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki: about 250,000

Estimated US deaths if Japanese home islands had been invaded: 1 million
Estimated Japanese civilian deaths if home islands had been invaded: several million (most likely including a good number of those who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki)

Also, a conventional invasion would likely have led to Soviet occupation of parts of Japan.

In short, large numbers of Japanese civilians were fvcked the minute the first bomb dropped on Pearl Harbor. The bomb was the best thing that ever happened to several million Japanese civilians.


Alex

 

These estimated numbers of death for US and for Japanese are debatable among historians, therefore is moot.

How can you say -- killing you is good for you?

 

The A bomb doesn't even compare to what the sick Japanese military did to the civilians in the Philippines!

 

> First, back in the day, precision bombing didn't
> exist. Carpet bombing was all the rage, meaning
> you'd have to flatten 2-3 neigbourhoods to get
> one tiny weapons plant

Actually it did exist, but it was against our philosophy of war. The British Mosquito could carry a very large bomb-load, was fast enough to elude fighters, and could bomb from much lower altitude. But we (and the British) prefered to bomb from very slow aircraft that had to protect themselves by flying in large groups. Also, weapon plants are very very large. Neighborhoods were hit on purpose because hitting a plant, even with lots of 250lb bombs, does not really do lots of damage. Hitting a skilled metal worker with a 250lb bomb does.

And the US does use illegal weapons of mass destruction, although not very deadly ones. We used CS gas in Vietnam.

Terrorism is simply any style of warfare you consider unfair.

 

Isn't CS gas just tear gas? It wouldn't be illegal then would it ?

 

> Isn't CS gas just tear gas? It wouldn't be illegal
> then would it ?

The 1925 Geneva Protocol forbids the use of
chemical and bacteriological agents in war, including non-leathal ones. It isn't illegal to use it on your own people, as we did in varioud riots and against the Waco Koresh followers. Some states even let you carry personal chemical weapons, like pepper sprays, although only very small amounts.

 

If you had any idea just what the Japanese did in East and Southeast Asia, you wouldn't have to ask that question.

 

I have been to Nanjing and have talked to many survivors of the Rape of Nanjing (Nanjing Datusha). It is horrible to hear what they have to say. There is also a museum in the city regarding that horrible event. More than 300,000 innocent people were butchered and countless more were brutally raped. The pictures I saw and the eyewitness accounts I heard (both read at the museum and heard from survivors) made my heart turn and literally brought me to tears. Definately not the same as reading about it in a history book.

 

Dante, Ludahai, rundboy,

Japanese's brutality is one thing, emulating them in killing cilivians in a batch is another. They are not far apart.

 

Using an unguided weapon from a plane flying 300 mph at any altitude during the night cannot be construed as "precision bombing". The Mossies were fast, but not fast enough. German fighters could STILL easily overtake them --- especially when they have a full bomb load.

Remember the real reason to go with bigger planes --- their production lines were already in place. The Mossie wasn't flown until almost 1941 and wasn't produced en-masse until almost 1942. Skipping much of the vital testing neede for new aircraft in order to get them to the front. Whereas the B-17 had been in the air since 1935. If you can make one thing work, then don't change it to something that may, or may not, work.

I do agree with your assesment as to why we continued to bomb the living hell out of them after smaller planes started to make their mark. One skilled steelworker is more easily killed or maimed than a huge factory...

 

The justification lies in the declaration of War. Why do countries go to war --- expansion (physically or ideologically), defense, and/or control of assets. In all of these, the "civilian" population is part of the war. The "civilian" population allows the war to continue. The war BENEFITS the "civilian" population of the winning country. The benefits can be hard to see, but usually revolve around either freedom or more territory for the "civilian" population. If you declare war, you naturally declare war on the "civilian" population.

People knew that the A-Bomb was going to kill. Those same people knew that the A-Bomb was going to kill a LOT of "civilians". However, were the "civilians" killed by the bomb really innocent?? I'm sure several individuals were, but as a whole the "civilian" population was guilty as hell.

There is a fundamental difference between Japanese brutality and the mass killing of "civilians" caused by the A-Bomb. We killed them --- the Japanese brutalized, tortured, and then killed them.