Wake Up America

[kcmcdonald]

If America sucks so much, then why are you still here? If I hated a place that much I sure as hell would not stay there.

Yes, why are you still in america. Becaue you make the most money in this country, because you don't get killed for disagreing with the Govt. because we have the best health care, because we have the best higher education. No, if not these reasons then why? You know Canadas just north the border and alot of them hate us just as much as you do, but guess what i bet if offered the chance for the opportunity that america offers most would take it. You took it and turn your back on it,

For shame:coffee3:

 

[Bry]

Be careful with your 0s , KC. You just said they predicted a loss of over a billion US soldiers at Kyushu. And you clearly don't know the history leading up to the use of the atomic bombs. It is generally recognized by historians that the use of atomic bombs was completely unnecessary, and that the administration knew it was unnecessary.

"Careful scholarly treatment of the records and manuscripts opened over the past few years has greatly enhanced our understanding of why the Truman administration used atomic weapons against Japan. Experts continue to disagree on some issues, but critical questions have been answered. The consensus among scholars is that the bomb was not needed to avoid an invasion of Japan and to end the war within a relatively short time. It is clear that alternatives to the bomb existed and that Truman and his advisers knew it."

The author of that statement is not a revisionist; he is J. Samuel Walker, chief historian of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Nor is he alone in that opinion. Walker is summarizing the findings of modern specialists in his literature review in the Winter 1990 issue of Diplomatic History.

http://www.ncesa.org/html/hiroshima2.html

 

[tim_duncan2000]

But they weren't actually there though. They can just speculate and come up with their theories and whatnot.

 

[Bry]

how about you take more than five minutes to actually read that article, and then we'll talk about it.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

Bry, I'm glad we used it to demonstrate to the world the dawn of a new american century! All that crap is speculation.

 

[Bry]

"all that crap is speculation"

Well, why didn't you say so? History is irrelevant speculation, therefore we cannot be held responsible for our actions! Great!

Shock and awe and 210,000 civilians in the flash of an instant. What better way to announce the beginning of a new American century?



Hiroshima:

Population

The estimated pre-bomb population was 300,000 to 400,000. Because official documents were burned, the exact population is uncertain.

Deaths

With an uncertain population figure, the death toll could only be estimated. According to data submitted to the United Nations by Hiroshima City in 1976, the death count reached 140,000 (plus or minus 10,000) by the end of December, 1945.

Health card holders

Persons qualifying for treatment under the A-bomb Victims Medical Care law of 1957 received Health Cards; holders as of March 31, 1990, numbered 352,550.

Nagasaki: estimates 70,000 dead before the end of 1945.

 

[kcmcdonald]

Bey, you're right it was 1 million projected losses. Not 1 billion, my bad.
However it still is relevant in the fact that we saved millions of lives by dropping the bomb. Can you dispute that?

 

[Ralph Wiggums]

Wow. It still amazes me how badly people here take things completely out of context. It appears that if the general tone of a statement made here disagrees with someone’s philosophy, they pounce on that person, disregarding the actual true moral of the story. If you cannot accept the fact that every country does bad things, then I guess there is no getting through to you. Your minds are apparently closed to very obvious history lessons.

The point I am trying to make is very few nations have proven to be above the fray when it comes to atrocious behavior. Believing otherwise is to turn a blind eye on a history that does tend to repeat itself.

If you only read what you want to read in my previous statement, and glaze over anything that would counter your argument, then fine. It would be hysterical if it weren’t so scary that people here can only read bites of an entire post, and cannot or will not digest the whole message. Then take the parts out that make their ‘argument’ stronger. The only thing is, if you could fully understand what was being said, you would realize there is no argument (well I guess there will always be someone that will disagree with facts). If you want to keep attacking me for something you apparently did not read to its actual conclusion and intent, go ahead. Your attempts at carrying on your version of a normal discussion must have you thinking if he’s not 100% with us, he must be 100% against us. There ARE positions that can be middle of the road. ‘This is not a black and white world, the colors are all swirled’ -Anon-

The statement

If America sucks so much, then why are you still here? If I hated a place that much I sure as hell would not stay there.

apparently is meant to infer that it is YOU that do not have tolerance for any others than people that think like you. Who made you custodians of who should be allowed to stay in this country. If you don’t like having conversations with people of differing opinions, perhaps you are asking the wrong person to leave. This country was founded on Freedom that was forged out of the open debate of differing opinions.

You must have missed the lead-in of

While I agree with you that we do live in one of the best nations around, I do have to disagree with this statement

when you were getting upset over your not paying attention that I really do not have anything against this country. I love it as much as you claim to. I happen to choose not to endorse the sitting President. Which as you all have said is my American given right, but then act as if I have committed one of the gravest sins against humanity by speaking my opinions against his policies. A lot of you have said that the people on the left like to have it both ways. Pot, kettle, black. If someone cannot remember and point out their countries flawed past (as I pointed out in the previous post), one is doomed to repeat it. I was merely pointing out the flawed statement from sitarro of pretending that this country does not have its share of baggage. To ignore the truth is the same as distorting it.

Just because someone is not pleased with the current Administration’s policies, does not mean they love this country any less or more than you do. They are just seeing things that are going wrong in what used to be normal to them. When they can’t understand why the president will not release documents every previous administration had no issues with releasing, they wonder what gives him the right. Executive privilege? Over non-security related issues? It is that arrogance that has people on all sides of the political spectrum disenfranchised, not just the left. If you happen to think the country is better off with W, that’s your right. Some don’t think it is better off, and they have the same prerogative to voice their dissent as you do. It does not make them a negative person to point out what they see as flaws in the government. They are only someone striving to make a change for what they perceive for the better. Does their differing opinion give any of you the right to tell them to leave the country, especially when it WAS founded so people with opposing views could live together? If the level of intolerance exhibited here is any indication of how you treat others in your ‘real’ worlds, I truly do pity you.

 

[tim_duncan2000]

Who made you custodians of who should be allowed to stay in this country. If you don’t like having conversations with people of differing opinions, perhaps you are asking the wrong person to leave.

I didn't tell you to leave. I was just wondering why you stay here if you hate all these things about this place.

 

[Bry]

Originally posted by kcmcdonald
Bey, you're right it was 1 million projected losses. Not 1 billion, my bad.
However it still is relevant in the fact that we saved millions of lives by dropping the bomb. Can you dispute that?

Yes, in fact I did dispute that, and not only dispute it but turned it on its head. Did you read the article I gave you a link to? I can lead you to the information, but I can't make you read it. At a certain point one must ask if your blindness is self-willed.

From the article:

Over the last decade, scholars of very different political orientations, including Barton Bernstein, Rufus Miles, Jr., and John Ray Skates, have all separately examined World War II U.S. military planning documents on this subject. These documents indicate that if an initial November 1945 Kyushu landing had gone forward, estimates of the number of lives that would have been lost (and therefore possibly saved by use of the atomic bombs) were in the range of 20,000 to 26,000. In the unlikely event a subsequent full-scale invasion had been mounted in 1946, the maximum estimate found in such documents was 46,000.

Even these numbers, however, confuse the central issue: If the war could have been ended by clarifying the terms of surrender and/or allowing the shock of the Russian attack to set in, then no lives would have been lost in an invasion. Fighting was minimal in August 1945 as both sides regrouped, and the most that may be said is that the atomic bombs might have saved the lives that would have been lost in the time required to arrange final surrender terms with Japan. That saving lives was not the highest priority, however, seems obvious from the choices made in July: If the United States really wished to end the war as quickly and surely as possible--and to save as many lives as possible--then as Marshall had pointed out as early as June, the full force of the Russian shock plus assurances for the Emperor could not be left out of the equation.

Moreover, if we accept Stimson's subsequent judgment that "history might find" that the decision to delay assurances for the Emperor "had prolonged the war," then, as historian Martin Sherwin noted in the October 10, 1981, Nation, the atomic bomb may well have cost lives. Why? Lives were lost during the roughly two-month delay in clarifying the surrender terms. Many historians believe the delay was caused by the decision to wait for the atomic test at Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 16, and then, the bombs' use on Japan in early August. Several thousand American soldiers and sailors died between Grew's initial May 28 proposal to clarify the "unconditional" terms and the final surrender on August 14.

so, in summation, not a billion, not a million, but 20 - 26 thousand. And evidence indicates that not only was the end of the war NOT accelerated by the bomb, it was actually DELAYED for months while the development of the atomic bomb was completed, costing the lives of thousands. In the last months of the war, it was commonly believed (including by Truman as explicitly expressed in his diary) that the only thing holding Japan up was the US demand for unconditional surrender: Japan didn't want to give up their emperor. At potsdam, (one day after the first atomic test in New Mexico) Truman removed the section of the agreement that would have allowed Japan to keep their emperor. Less than a month later, the 6th of August, the Hiroshima bomb was dropped one day before the Soviets officially entered the war. and surrender came on the 14th of August with promises that Japan could keep their emperor.
Read the article, KC. What you think happened couldn't be farther from the truth.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

Originally posted by Bry
"all that crap is speculation"

Well, why didn't you say so? History is irrelevant speculation, therefore we cannot be held responsible for our actions! Great!

Shock and awe and 210,000 civilians in the flash of an instant. What better way to announce the beginning of a new American century?



Hiroshima:

Population

The estimated pre-bomb population was 300,000 to 400,000. Because official documents were burned, the exact population is uncertain.

Deaths

With an uncertain population figure, the death toll could only be estimated. According to data submitted to the United Nations by Hiroshima City in 1976, the death count reached 140,000 (plus or minus 10,000) by the end of December, 1945.

Health card holders

Persons qualifying for treatment under the A-bomb Victims Medical Care law of 1957 received Health Cards; holders as of March 31, 1990, numbered 352,550.

Nagasaki: estimates 70,000 dead before the end of 1945.

Your inferences and interpretations of my statement are illogical and unfounded. Using the bomb was a huge and monumental decision. It allowed us to win the war quickly and save Allied lives. It was a war. It was not a picnic. Your corrosive memes are toxic to the realm of logic.

 

[Bry]

Originally posted by rtwngAvngr
Your inferences and interpretations of my statement are illogical and unfounded. Using the bomb was a huge and monumental decision. It allowed us to win the war quickly and save Allied lives. It was a war. It was not a picnic. Your corrosive memes are toxic to the realm of logic.

You didn't read the article either, did you? The history is not so much speculation as it is comparing the records and writings of the people involved at the time, and those records and writings clearly indicate that the bombs were not necessary to end the war, nor were they believed by the president and his administration to be necessary to secure the end of the war. In fact, the end of the war was delayed and American lives were lost, in order to complete the development of the bombs and use them to negotiate a more favorable end to the war vis a vis the Soviet Union.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

Yes. but the number of lives that WOULD HAVE BEEN lost to take japan through traditional warfare is, in reality, unknown and unknowable. Your house of cards is on the floor. How about a game of "52 card pickup"?

Bry, your cool and smart, even though you're a lib!

 

[Bry]

what we have is a failure to communicate. What I'm saying is that an invasion was not necessary without the bombs , and the administration knew it. Dropping the bombs had nothing to do with the Japanese surrender. It only effected the subsequent negotiations with the Soviet Union.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

Originally posted by Bry
what we have is a failure to communicate. What I'm saying is that an invasion was not necessary without the bombs , and the administration knew it. Dropping the bombs had nothing to do with the Japanese surrender. It only effected the subsequent negotiations with the Soviet Union.

you cannot say that with 100% certainty that an invasion would not have been necessary. Sorry. I don't buy it. You're proposed ending to the events is just a hypothesis. You're treating it as if it was fact.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

Bottom line: put ifs in one hand and enriched uranium in the other, and see which one fills up first.

 

[phadras]

idiot!!!! My god,, do you know the number of casualties at Iwo Jima.... And the near islands to Japan.. Good lord you are a moron... The decision to drop the bomb was one to end the war quickly.. The bushido code of the Japanese would have them NEVER SURRENDER IDIOT!!!!!

This kind of moronic view of historical events is what the stupid historical relativism is alll about.. My family lost all the men on my mothers side all in the Pacific save one..... He ( my grandfather waiting to invade Europe in England) was sent home just before the D-day as he was the sole male remaining alive (see Saving Private Ryan) These after the fact attempts by members of the EXTREME LEFT like yourself to rewrite the past in your own viewpoint are INSULTING AS HELL to those of us who nearly lost all to the fascist Japanese.. Get your shit straight.. History is NOT LIVED IN A FRIGGIN LEFT WING TEXTBOOK.. It is lived and died by REAL HUMAN BEINGS JERK!!!!

 

[sitarro]

phadras ,
My condolences to the losses your family endured , I too lost an Uncle in the Pacific . Another Uncle was killed by the Germans in Italy . I wouldn't be writing this today if my Father wouldn't have made it out of his P-51 when his engine caught on fire over England .
I think the most important part of the article that Bry suggested we read (Yes Bry I read all 5 pages ) was at the very end .

"Emotional issues were also at work. Time and again, the question of whether dropping the atomic bomb was militarily necessary has become entangled with the quite separate issue of anger at Japan's sneak attack and the brutality of its military. The Japanese people have an ugly history to confront, including not only Pearl Harbor but the bombing of Shanghai, the rape of Nanking, the forced prostitution of Korean women, the horror of the Bataan death march, and the systematic torture and murder of American and other prisoners of war."

Go to the web sites such as www.cnd.org/njmassacre/index.html and take a look at the photographs that document the Japanese handiwork in China during the Nanjing massacre .300,000 men , women , and children massacred . 20,000 raped . The photograph of the naked woman with a shaft of some kind shoved into her genetalia really speaks volumes about the barbaric treatment of the Japanese army .
The fact that Japan used biological warfare and that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were where most of their war machine factories were located never came up in that article . Why bring up those facts . The point is that a huge number of Americans had family members killed by the Japanese . The attack on Pearl Harbor , unlike September 11, 2001 , remained very much in the minds of Americans for years. What I am really amazed with is how many diaries and letters have been found by these "expert historians" . I've never known a single person in my life that kept a journal or a diary , and none have held on to mail for 60 years .
Ralph . . . You brought up slavery , my ancestors were enslavened , raped and pillaged by the British in Nova Scotia . They then were seperated from their family members and thrown on seperate boats to relocate while watching the British torch their homes . I hate that this happened to them but I am sure that they would feel that the sacrifices they endured were worth it for the betterment of their children who were lucky enough to be born in the United States . I would be surprised to know that the ancestors of black Americans would think their sacrifice wasn't worth it . I certainly don't condone slavery but that was the norm of the day . You can't look at it with todays wisdom and understand what was happening in those years . Every race on this planet has been enslavened at one time or the other , blacks have been lucky enough to parlay it into major amounts of cash and consideration . I could bitch for the rest of my life about the British and I will never get a shilling out of them . You can keep dragging that old slavery card up but the fact remains . . . blacks are the biggest sellers in the music industry , Tiger Woods is the number 1 golfer in the world , Oprah is the most successful self made woman , Serena Williams #1 Tennis player , Most of college and professional basketball and football players are black , top comedians , top movie draws , etc. . . I think it is a little meaningless to hold on to that history like it happened yesterday . Take a look at the site I mentioned earlier and tell me again that we have done the same . I'm sure David will come in about now and bring up the photographs of Iraqis that Americans have brutally murdered , sorry David , it's not the same thing . We did not purposely bomb civilians . We didnt rape , torture , experiment on , or behead civilians .

 

[jimnyc]

Phadras - Please chill out a bit with the namecalling. I know you feel strongly about the situation but attacking in such a manner won't make anyone see your point of view any differently.

 

[tim_duncan2000]

Regardless of what people have said about what we know now and all the stuff about how Japan was going to surrender, there are still some things I don't understand.

1) Why didn't they surrender after the first one was dropped?

2) With all that we heard about how hard they fought and how they often fought to the death (as well as those stories about Japanese soldiers who didn't believe the war was over and did not want to get out of their caves), they were just going to surrender? That doesn't sound right.

3) What would a demonstration of the A-bomb do? I just don't see what that accomplishes.