Travellar,
>>>
civvies, were building weapons for uncle Hiro.
>>>
>>
That was exactly the justification.
>>
No it was not. It was raciism and burgeoning 'war fever' as a convenience for disparity of treatment of another ethnic phenotype. Do NOT kid me
mister.
The relevant Articles Of The Hague Convention-
>
Art. 23.
In addition to the prohibitions provided by special Conventions, it is especially forbidden -
To employ poison or poisoned weapons;
To kill or wound treacherously individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army;
To kill or wound an enemy who, having laid down his arms, or having no longer means of defence, has surrendered at discretion;
To declare that no quarter will be given;
To employ arms, projectiles, or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering;
To make improper use of a flag of truce, of the national flag or of the military insignia and uniform of the enemy, as well as the distinctive badges
of the Geneva Convention;
To destroy or seize the enemy's property, unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war;
To declare abolished, suspended, or inadmissible in a court of law the rights and actions of the nationals of the hostile party. A belligerent is
likewise forbidden to compel the nationals of the hostile party to take part in the operations of war directed against their own country, even if they
were in the belligerent's service before the commencement of the war.
Art. 25.
The attack or bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are undefended is prohibited.
Art. 26.
The officer in command of an attacking force must, before commencing a bombardment, except in cases of assault, do all in his power to warn the
authorities.
Art. 27.
In sieges and bombardments all necessary steps must be taken to spare, as far as possible, buildings dedicated to religion, art, science, or
charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals, and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not being used at the time
for military purposes.
It is the duty of the besieged to indicate the presence of such buildings or places by distinctive and visible signs, which shall be notified to the
enemy beforehand.
Art. 28.
The pillage of a town or place, even when taken by assault, is prohibited.
Article 50
No general penalty, pecuniary or otherwise, can be inflicted on the population on account of the acts of individuals for which it cannot be regarded
as collectively responsible.
>
www.yale.edu...
ABSOLUTELY PROSCRIBE ANY ACTION REMOTELY SIMILAR TO THE 'DEHOUSING' ATTACKS ON CIVILLIAN INFRASTRUCTURE EXECUTED BY ALLIED AIRPOWER AT ANY POINT IN
WWII.
Since both parties (USA and Japan) were Hague signatories and neither contracting party stated it was intending to abjur from binding agreement as
covered by the List Of Plenipotentiaries 'prenup'-
>
Article 1.
The Contracting Powers shall issue instructions to their armed land forces which shall be in conformity with the Regulations respecting the laws and
customs of war on land, annexed to the present Convention.
Art. 2.
The provisions contained in the Regulations referred to in Article 1, as well as in the present Convention, do not apply except between Contracting
Powers, and then only if all the belligerents are parties to the Convention.
Art. 8.
In the event of one of the Contracting Powers wishing to denounce the present Convention, the denunciation shall be notified in writing to the
Netherlands Government, which shall at once communicate a duly certified copy of the notification to all the other Powers, informing them of the date
on which it was received.
The denunciation shall only have effect in regard to the notifying Power, and one year after the notification has reached the Netherlands Government.
>
www.yale.edu...
_The United States Of America and all it's armed forces are subject to war crimes trials for extreme abuse of civillian noncombattants throughout
WWII_.
>>
The people truely running Japan would not have felt the effects of hunger you suggest, and a cursery review of such pleasure lands as North Korea
reveal that starving people can hold out much longer than the 6 months you suggest. Deliberately starving a people to death for 10 years or more,
instead of taking action to end the war as quickly as possible, cannot be considered "merciful".
>>
You look at Katrina and you think again.
You REALIZE that there is _Not A Damn Thing_ you can do to prevent attacks up agriculture by airpower. The fields. The farms. The storage silos and
processing facilities.
And then you apply a little _Lesser Evil Logic_ between /burning to death/ civillians in the tens of thousands. And similar attacks on their food
stores and transport/distribution systems.
Korea starves because she chooses to, one day at a time, misinvesting her political and economic wealth on wartoys.
If we chose to MAKE THEM SUFFER an artificial famine, the period between deprivation and nation collapse would be WEEKS, at most.
Don't believe me?
No cows, no chickens, no rice fields, no processing, no power distribution to handle requests for reserve stocks of anything.
>>
so, you are saying that the Japaneese were really just misguided children? Funney, everything I've ever seen of what was going on in Japan at the
time indicate "fascist regiem" was a closer definition.
>>
Japan in 1930 had a population of 73 million in the home islands. The U.S. in 1944 had a population of 138 million.
Japan _could not_ sustain herself on existing intra-national resources and was desparate to 'secure' (thieve) from other states by exploiting
Hitler's European war.
That said, her desparation was indeed childlike for she nominally attacked the U.S., as an 'adult' government, for denying her what she needed to
sustain any reasonable war effort: Iron, Oil and Machine Tools.
By attacking us, she lost access to those things while irrationally believing that she could fight a war against a nation with almost twice her
populace, 100 times her land mass and 6,000 miles distant.
As a means of expediting her war, she used an attack method which not only DID NOT bridge any of those major geostrategic shortcomings but which also
amounted to a stab in the back against _fellow human beings_ whom she /assumed/ were too base or uncaring to feel a _common sense of betrayal_ at an
unjustified military attack.
In this, Japan displayed the behaviors of children everywhere which is principally an inability to define the full scope of resource/power disparity
'in the details' of their relationship with the world.
And also a sense of projectionism and displacement by which arrogance and pride substituted for a reasoned self analysis as to both the likely
emotional impact and physical consequences deriving from her actions.
See, Want, Take/Do.
Only children employ that kind of insouciance as a substitute for rational cognition from experience. And so war is the most base of childlike
instinctive behavioral responses to resource driven (overpopulation, 90% of the time) stress.
Never mistake innocence for kindness. Wolves and Children are both some of the most innocent of playful base creatures.
>>
No need to copy us at all, nope, nosiree! I'm not going to waste time posting links to Soviet Nukes, or any of the wars fought since then.
>>
Statistically, we skipped at least two major wars by virtue of having a Carthaginian polarization of world power blocks, each armed with nuclear
weapons.
OTOH, since the Soviet Union has ceased to exist, we have been involved in two major theater wars and now a third conflict which is shaping up to be
much like the 'alliance system' precursors (young turk regional powers, wanting to prove themselves, involve much older, more internecine-twisted
allegiances in their battles) to WWI.
EVEN IF we keep the next war conventional, do not think that it will be any prettier than that first great shared debacle of human militarist endeavor
was.
>>
Wow, you say 500,000 killed during attacks on industrial centers during war compares with 11 Million killed for "not fitting the desired mold", or
20+ Million killed to establish complete control of all aspects of a nation?
>>
Yes. That is exactly what I am saying. Because YOUR argument is tantamount to saying "We only apply promisory conditions of humane treatment when
the threat is such as to warrant our behaving in case we lose..."
We were NEVER in a position to 'lose' WWII. Certainly by the /end/ of the war, we KNEW we held all of the cards on both strategic position. And
WMD.
Where you do not need to waste effort in butchery, you do not. That is the gift and the demand of a morally upright nation led by responsible leaders
who are not afraid to put a HUMAN FACE to conflict. Separate from any temptation to demonize 'based on what the other guy did'.
You OTOH, will put us all at risk of shared blame by creating an analogy whereby those who could not, IN ANY WAY, effect Hitler's or Stalin's view
of eugenics and governance. Are responsible for their actions.
Welcome to Osama's world.
>>
Thanks for not including the Chineese, last estimate I saw on thier post WW2 activities was over 30 Million.
>>
How ironic. The Chinese have entire /rafts/ of anecdotal phrases and sayings which include:
"The dragon rests high on the mountain and watches the two tigers fight on the slopes below..."
"Sit peacefully by the river and watch the corpse of your agitated enemy float by..."
But my favorite is too stories that are collectively stated as 'The Emperor's Mercy'.
One day, a thief came into the grounds of the Forbidden City and stole one of the carp (Goldfish) from the Emperor's ponds. Caught, he swallowed the
fish and was brought before the Emperor to be given a suitable form of death penalty (for to be even /in/ the City was a capital offense).
Looking at him, the Emperor smiled. Saying: "Wait 24hrs for this to pass and then let him go."
The guards were astonished but loyal and took junior away to 'sit it out'. Meanwhile, the Emperor's chamberlain whispered in his ear of the unwise
nature of showing weakness before the common man.
And the Emperor laughed and said "I have many fish. If he repeats his story, 90 percent of those who listen will never believe him. The 10% who do
will understand...I give mercy because I can afford to CHOOSE."
In another day, another emperor had brought before him a poor craftsman who had built a fantastic flying machine. Little more than what we would call
a kite today, it still gave it's rider the ability to surveil lands all around for half a days march and to signal the approach of armies with signal
lamps or mirrors, twice as far.
Smiling, the Emperor asked if the man had shown this wonderful invention to anyone else. And when the man said only his family had even seen it and
they did not believe the importance of his 'contraption'.
The Emperor smiled again, sadly, and said he full well understood the value of this device and asked that the man await his decision on a reward.
As soon as the man was gone, the Emperor ordered his chamberlain to have him and all his family killed, immediately.
Shocked and horrified, the chamberlain asked /why/ for this was but a humble man doing his best, on his own time, to provide a great gift to his
Emperor.
And the Emperor nodded and said, "But understanding it's principles, do you think you could build one? I have just completed the Great Wall at
countless loss in life and money. If I gave that man the rich wealth he truly deserves, the Mongols would be across it in less than a day..."
Looking across he then said: "Be glad I trust you more than him."
THAT is wisdom. Sparing life because you are The Emperor. And can increase your status by showing you can afford to do so.
THAT is power, slaughtering where you must, irrespective of outside views, because wisdom tells you that there is no room for compromise. Because you
don't have the resources to be kind.
WWII in the pacific should never have been fought as an island hopping adventure in blood-for-dirt microoffenses that bought us NOTHING we intended to
hold onto.
Indeed, the only conquerages worthy of consideration in the entire Japanese expanded sphere of control were Guam and Wake. Either of which would have
let us initiate B-29 raids _with mines_ without ever wasting the months of (logistical=resource) failure attempting to 'buy off the Chinese' to
build airfields over The Hump for West->East attacks.
Indeed, given we chose not to prosecute War Plan Orange in bringing the Japanese to battle and they had little more than small unit warfare tactics
with which to hold onto their swampland cesspits, ALL of the PTO campaign could and should have been won with torpedoes and mines.
Killing off Japan's Maru fleet until she either decided she was willing to forego further humiliation as a child among adults.
Or we could shift the mass of forces necessary for ONE massive invasion instead of a series of 5-10-20K losses on BFE places like Guadalcanal, The PI,
Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo and Okinawa.
>>
I'd reccomend you check with more sources, and some that don't take the view of "America bad, America bad!". Saying that bombing Japaneese cities
wasn't neccisary or justifiable during World War Two is revisionist history at it's worst. Saying the US is evil for not deciding it was wrong of
us to go to war is insulting. Saying the Japaneese didn't pose any real danger to us or anyone else is pure fantasy.
>>
And I recommend you grow up and start studying war as an exercise not in political CYA double speak after the vae victis fact. But an expression of
moral objectivity vs. logistical necessity that is obvious when you look at it, for what it is.
Again, contrary to populist notions of who was 'The Greatest Generation':
WHEN THE TRUTH IS RECOGNIZED FOR WHAT IT IS, WE ARE BETTER THAN THAT.
We have to be.
Because we cannot blame Japan for losses we took /after/ they attacked U.S. Losses that never would have been incurred (300,000 casualties in the
Pacific) had we chosen to act like adults dealing with little rabidly dangerous children.
And we're done here.
KPl.
LINKS-
Japanese Prewar Demographics
en.wikipedia.org...
U.S. In 1944
www.infoplease.com...
[edit on 20-1-2006 by ch1466]
[edit on 20-1-2006 by ch1466]