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Bill[_12_]

Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 4/15/2017 1:06 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 15 Apr 2017 12:06:47 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 4/15/2017 11:40 AM, wrote:
On Sat, 15 Apr 2017 10:20:03 -0400, Keyser Soze
wrote:

That's not the point. We also kill lots of innocent civilians.

War in general tends to affect the innocents the most. The Union army
was one of the first to use that tactic in our history. WWII was the
first war where all sides intentionally targeted civilians although it
started in the Spanish Civil war with the bombing of cities. I suppose
all civil wars involve killing civilians when you get down to it.
WWII was the real turning point though. The first bombing of London is
widely believed to be an accident but after that, it was on. Terror
attacks on cities became the norm. The US put a sharp point on it when
we nuked two with minimal military value but the die was cast before
that.

My younger son and I were talking just this morning about the use of the
atomic bomb in WWII. He's a 35 year old college grad and I was really
surprised at how little he knew of some of the details of what led up to
and what was done in WWII. For his generation, this is all ancient
history. The conversation started because he told me he didn't think we
should have used the bomb on Japan.

He knew very little about what led up to Pearl Harbor. He didn't know
about oil embargos placed on the Japanese due to the horrific things
done to the Chinese by Japan. Nor was he aware of the torture done to
our own POW's during the war. The Japanese engaged in horrible war crimes.

He also didn't realize that until Roosevelt died, Truman didn't even
know of the Manhattan Project or the fact that we had developed the
bomb. He didn't know that we were only a few months ahead of Germany in
it's development.

To get an accurate and clear answer as to the use of the A-bomb on
Japan, go ask a surviving WWII vet .... or even a senior civilian who
was an adult at the time.

If you are saying nuking a non-military target made us feel better
about the inhumane things the japs did in the war, I agree. When I
watch those old documentaries, I want to nuke the *******s again but
lets not confuse vengeance with military necessity.
Our bombing during the war was as much a terror tactic as a military
one. It wasn't even particularly effective. The Germans still had a
very impressive weapons production rate going until we actually
started putting soldiers on the ground in Germany.
We had been bombing them for a years when the V-1, V-2 and ME-262 were
built and deployed.
On the other side I only have to point at Russia. In spite of a siege,
bombing, famine and general terror going on in Leningrad, they still
had tanks rolling off the line a few miles away.

All I am saying is anyone involved in WWII, military or civilian back
home, welcomed any opportunity to finally end the wars, even if it was
only by a day or two. The nation was desperate for the war to end but
the Japanese culture did not allow for surrender. It's us, the
following generation and the next that start questioning if it was right
to drop the A-bombs, but we are nothing but Monday morning quarterbacks.
None of us can put ourselves in our previous generation's shoes,
regardless of how much we read about it.

And I totally disagree with your terror tactic versus military. Indeed,
the bombing of Japan was purely a terror tactic to convince the Japanese
to surrender. You've already acknowledged that LeMay had half of Japan
burning anyway but they still wouldn't quit. He also regularly dropped
millions of leaflets warning Japanese citizens of impending bombings.
There is debate if a warning about the two A-bombs was given however.

My uncle spent 4 years in the South Pacific as a shooter. Went to
Guadalcanal under the first blackout of WW2. Woke up the day the Japanese
surrendered in a Philippine hospital from a grenade induced coma. He
figured "The Bomb" saved his life. As he a would have had to fight on the
home island of Japan, and at least 150,000 US soldiers would have died. He
said the worse thing that would happen would have been a prisoner of the
Japanese. So pretty much a no quarter fight. When he arrived in
Guadalcanal there were still marines strapped to posts that had been used
for bayonet practice.