America, the only country to use nuclear weapons. Did they save lives?

OGEvilgenius said:

They would have accepted if the term requiring the Emperor step down was removed.

Were the lives worth this one detail? I don't think so.

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Fuck them. They don't get to set the terms. Why would America compromise on anything in that situation? How could Truman sell a compromise to the American people after Iwo Jima, Tarawa, and Guadalcanal? Nobody in America was in a mood to compromise, and I don't blame them a god damn bit.

"Was that detail worth the lives..." Ask them.

OGEvilgenius said:

They would have accepted if the term requiring the Emperor step down was removed.

Were the lives worth this one detail? I don't think so.

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The terms were unconditional surrender. Japan had been reduced to an utterly binary choice:

-submit
-die

As a state and people and culture, they were pushed by their leaders awfully close to going all-in with option b.
Maybe that is why so many postwar Japanese felt gratitude toward Americans. The shock and awe created by those two bombs certainly ended the war without the need to invade the Home Islands. And it is the nature of history that we are denied a definite look at how it might have played out if if if. Jmo. cn

doublejj said:

If you've ever been in an infantry unit, with your boots on the ground, facing a determined enemy, and there was another way, you wouldn't even be asking this question!

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That isn't true at all.

I not only ask that question, I don't believe for a second the BS being pushed about it. There was no need to kill all those civilians. It was a massive terrorist attack and I was a terrorist every minute that I wore that uniform.

You're playing pretty fast&loose with the definition of terrorist there, abandon. cn

Nuclear weapons are genocidal. Empires come and go but we only get one earth.

When mutually assured destruction is the military policy, you have to wonder if these people are committed to defending the country or just to destroying humanity.

cannabineer said:

You're playing pretty fast&loose with the definition of terrorist there, abandon. cn

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No, America has been doing that for years.

[video=youtube;KMbN5P-90AE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMbN5P-90AE[/video]

abandonconflict said:

Nuclear weapons are genocidal. Empires come and go but we only get one earth.

When mutually assured destruction is the military policy, you have to wonder if these people are committed to defending the country or just to destroying humanity.

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I think we've moved away from MAD as the principal doctrine of deterrence. Neither side has an arsenal large enough any more. A good book to read on topic is Twilight of the Bombs by Richard Rhodes. cn

Well you can charge that hill, abandon..........but, If I can call in artillery, I will!.........
Good luck with your plan!

doublejj said:

Well you can charge that hill, abandon..........but, If I can call in artillery, I will!.........
Good luck with your plan!

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Nobody is charging any hills.

abandonconflict said:

That isn't true at all.

I not only ask that question, I don't believe for a second the BS being pushed about it. There was no need to kill all those civilians. It was a massive terrorist attack and I was a terrorist every minute that I wore that uniform.

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Then do us a favor and just eat a bullet ya fucking pansy.

should have saved the nukes for our wars today. would love to drop one over seas and finish things up!

Mindmelted said:

Then do us a favor and just eat a bullet ya fucking pansy.

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So you think veteran suicide is a good thing?

Mindmelted, please desist from suggesting that a sitemate's suicide is to be desired. (ref: deleted posts) cn

abandonconflict said:

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That reminds me of a Gandhi quote that you once posted that went both ways.

Padawanbater2 said:

What was the ultimatum?

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Surrender... We didn't just go out and nuke them. We went over to Japan in battleships and fought our way to/through them. When they wouldn't surrender we dropped our new tech.

fb360 said:

Surrender... We didn't just go out and nuke them. We went over to Japan in battleships and fought our way to/through them. When they wouldn't surrender we dropped our new tech.

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Yeah, we basically did. We had the war won, they were cornered, and then the Soviet army joined in, they were begging to be allowed to surrender but the US had a fascist fucking policy of unconditional surrender and would not accept Japanese surrender conditions to keep their emperor alive who they considered a Shinto god. Not that it really mattered, the fire bombing of Tokyo was even more destructive. The nukes were just scarier.

abandonconflict said:

Yeah, we basically did. We had the war won, they were cornered, and then the Soviet army joined in, they were begging to be allowed to surrender but the US had a fascist fucking policy of unconditional surrender and would not accept Japanese surrender conditions to keep their emperor alive who they considered a Shinto god. Not that it really mattered, the fire bombing of Tokyo was even more destructive. The nukes were just scarier.

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No we didn't... You should educate yourself before arguing fallacy.

We fought many battles with the Japanese, resulting in many American deaths, before we nuked them.

edit: @bold
Are you fucking kidding? You mean WAR? They decided to kamikaze some of our ships in Pearl Harbor, we declared war and proceeded as so. Americans died fighting for their opportunity to surrender. We gave them time and their opportunity, they chose to say no. Moreover, if they hadn't finally came to get a grasp on reality after the nukes, we would have killed all of them.

cannabineer said:

I think we've moved away from MAD as the principal doctrine of deterrence. Neither side has an arsenal large enough any more. A good book to read on topic is Twilight of the Bombs by Richard Rhodes. cn

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Bear, you are wrong about the size of the arsenals. Both Russia and the US could make the rubble bounce for several weeks. MAD, as a doctrine of deterrence against being the first to drop the bomb is still in place even though the cold war has wound down. Russia knows and the US knows that a completely debilitating response to a first strike is almost certain.

abandonconflict said:

Yeah, we basically did. We had the war won, they were cornered, and then the Soviet army joined in, they were begging to be allowed to surrender but the US had a fascist fucking policy of unconditional surrender and would not accept Japanese surrender conditions to keep their emperor alive who they considered a Shinto god. Not that it really mattered, the fire bombing of Tokyo was even more destructive. The nukes were just scarier.

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Glad to see you at least got something right in your post.