Text 5515, 100 rader
Skriven 2004-11-30 23:31:00 av FRANK SCHEIDT (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av LEE LOFASO
Ärende: Breaking News!
======================
-=> Quoting Lee Lofaso to Frank Scheidt <=-

 >JH>Lee doesn't give a damn about war crimes in WWII, that's old news.
 
 >LL>All who committed war crimes should be brought to justice, regardless
 >LL>of the war in which those war crimes were committed.
 
 >JH>He is only interested in anything that will put the US in a bad light
 >JH>TODAY.
 
 >LL>American soldiers who commit war crimes dishonor America.  As such,
 >LL>it is those American soldiers who put "the US in a bad light TODAY."
 
 >FS>It took place sixty years ago, true, but OTOH that *was* a war
 >FS>crime on a massive scale.  The defensive shooting by that Marine
 >FS>was not a crime of any sort.
 
 >JH>Have to disagree with you on Dresden.  We did not start the practice of
 >JH>war on an enemy's civilian population.  The Germans and Japanese are bot
 >JH>guilty of that.  Just as we were accused of unrestricted submarine warfa
 >JH>when it was the German U-boat wolf packs that perfected that little twis
 >JH>were forced into a position of total warfare because it was the only way
 >JH>break the will of the German people to support their government, and jus
 >JH>with the atom bomb, it ultimately cost FEWER lives lost than would have
 >JH>occurred otherwise.
 
 >LL>The Allied bombing of Dresden killed more innocent civilians than
 >LL>those killed by atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  That
 >LL>counts as one heck of a war crime.  Actually three, given that the
 >LL>atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were war crimes.
 
 FS>Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were legitimate military targets.

 LL> Japan was ready and willing to surrender weeks before we nuked
 LL> Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  However, we were not willing to accept
 LL> anything less than an unconditional surrender.  Knowing an
 LL> unconditional surrender would mean their deaths, Japanese military
 LL> leaders could not accept a surrender on those terms.

Japan was *not* willing to surrender prior to our use of the 
atomic bomb.  Records uncovered after their surrender made it 
clear that the military wanted to fight to the death and the 
Emperor himself was only slightly ambiguous about that goal.  
Invasion of Honshu would have resulted in a blood bath!
 
 FS>Destroying those two cities, though it cost many thousands of Jap
 FS>lives, was well worth it since it saved many *hundreds* of
 FS>thousands of lives, both Jap and American.  ... and *best* of all
 FS>-- it kept *me* out of the South Pacific!

 LL> Why was it more important to have a handful of Japanese military
 LL> leaders executed rather than murdering over a hundred thousand
 LL> innocent Japanese civilians?

Huh?  Kindly rephrase that ... I don't follow it ...

 LL> Dropping atomic bombs saved no lives, given that Japan was ready
 LL> and willing to surrender weeks before.  

Not so!  see above ...

 LL> Militarily, Japan was already
 LL> soundly defeated.  Dropping atomic bombs on Japanese cities gave us no
 LL> advantage, and only served to antagonize the Japanese people, as well
 LL> as the world.

What it *did* do was to finally galvanize the Jap Emperor to 
*quit*.

 LL> Oh sure, dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki decreased the
 LL> overpopulation problem.  Dropping those atomic bombs also killed a lot
 LL> of annoying bugs, such as termites, locusts, and politicians.  Nike
 LL> was also able to set up shop after those a-bombs cleared some land. 
 LL> Japan also got lots of publicity, publicity it hasn't seen since
 LL> Godzilla wiped out Tokyo.  And just think of all the free stuff we gave
 LL> to Japan after we dropped them a-bombs.  Stuff like bandaids and animal
 LL> crackers. Not to mention a bunch of foreign aid in the form of US
 LL> dollars. 
 
So?

LL> As a nation, we should be ashamed of ourselves for having nuked two
 LL> Japanese cities, thus ending the lives of over a hundred thousand
 LL> innocent civilians.  

Actually "Hiroshima Day" should be a day of *national* 
*celebration* in the USA!!!!

 LL> Not to mention the hundreds of thousands more
 LL> who died as a result of radiation poisoning in the decades since.
 LL> Notice that no other nation on Earth has dropped nukes on cities.
 LL> There is a reason why.

Because *we* have more of them ...

... Cannibals don't eat clowns because they taste funny.

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