The Logic Off Topic list

><< So actually the atomic bombs, as nasty as they were, actually saved many 
>Japanese and American lives, .....and ended the war and further destruction. 
>Japan went on to economic greatness achieved through peaceful means.
> >>
>
>So maybe we should save some more lives and drop some more, right?

Under the same circumstances? Yes. Should we have blockaded Japan, and 
allowed them to rebuild their military to attack us again, to finish up 
work on their own atomic bomb they were working on at the University of 
Kyoto, while kamakazing us the whole time, and raining thousands of 
explosive carrying balloons on the American mainland (which they did), 
and develop their submarine aircraft carrier to attack LA (something they 
almost finished), and continue developing their homegrown version of the 
ME262 jet?

And meanwhile the war would have become something like North and South 
Korean - a war that has never been signed off on in over 50 years. Maybe 
the blockade would still be going on today. Is that what you would have 
preferred? They would have never given up otherwise. So they would be 
like North Korea or Iraq?

If you're a compassionate person, which you seem to be read up on these 
topics :

- the first bombing of civilians - Japan bombing Shanghai, China

- the rape of Nanking, China - about 300,000 people killed. Women from 
12-70 systematically rounded up, gang raped by 30 men, and then killed, 
contests who could cut off more heads while laughing and joking, babies 
thrown in the air and skewered on swords while laughing

- the sack of Manilla - the Japanese army goes berserk in defeat. Many 
groups of phillipinos were locked in buildings and the building set 
afire, anyone coming out was machine gunned, mothers trying to protect 
their babies and having their hands sliced off and killed anyways.

- the Bataan Death March - one American POW said he had been religious 
before that, but he lost all faith in god and humanity after the 
experience in the camps - for example, an American POW taking a shit in 
an open latrine, and being stabbed from behind and thrown into the pit to 
drown in feces and urine, while the Japanese guards laughed - the 
Japanese general in charge was later executed for war crimes

- the "bridge over the river Kwai" (The real bridge is in Thailand and 
named differently). The Brits and Aussie POWs were decimated by the harsh 
treatment- worked to death

- and the cruel Nazi-like biological experiments performed on live people 
in China - they even took plague virus infested fleas, and air dropped 
them on innocent Chinese villages

Read all that, and see why they say war is hell, and the sooner it ended 
the better.

dchapsk@... wrote:

>I've always been under the impression that the US could have beaten Japan
>without dropping the A-bomb.  Just like we beat Hitler. 
>
>But we had this new toy, and...   "let's see if it works."

It's a little late to second guess that decision, considering that 
the people who made it have been dead themselves for quite some time. 
Dropping the two bombs certainly saved the lives of a lot of American 
soldiers. Also, consider the fact that the conventional munitions 
being dropped on Japan were extremely potent  (including large loads 
of incendiary devices which started massive fire storms in densely 
populated areas where building materials were highly flammable). 
Larger bombers were being used than the ones that had been used in 
Europe. Many more months of similar attacks would have caused a lot 
of death and suffering had the A-Bomb not been dropped. I do think, 
however, that it was wrong to drop two of them in relatively rapid 
succession. One should have been more than enough to send the message.

Then again, there *were* only two A-Bombs at the time. The aftermath 
was shocking enough to prevent their further use (up to this day). I 
shudder to think what would have happened if the world waited until 
more, and larger A-Bombs were available before they were first used 
in a conflict.

On the other side of the coin, I'm quite sure that both Japan and 
Germany would have used the A-Bomb against the US in WWII if they had 
possessed it. Nobody was holding anything back at the time.

Lee Blaske