US Hypocrisy.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki cost roughly 180,000 lives, if memory serves, but ended a war that had something along the lines of 60,000,000 causalities ( again going by memory here. ) So cherry picking roughly 0.003% of those deaths to take a moral stand about... Well that is kind of hypocritical.


Not sure about that one.My personal opinion is the war was already at it's end and the dropping of those bombs was a political statement to the U.S.S.R. more than it was to justify a quick means to an end and save lives.

www.doug-long.com...

Originally posted by Sinny

Originally posted by eriktheawful

Originally posted by Sinny
reply to post by eriktheawful

 

Indeed, but two points to remember about the US and Nazi Germany is the fact the Higher ups in the US were funding them, and their expansion got to the point, where the US needed to get involved before they swallowed the entire globe.

Links and source please. You know how that works. Especially since you said in your post "is the fact", so no conspiracy theory links, actual proof instead.

It's no secret that there were groups in the US that supported Nazi Germany, but I've not seen anything showing that the US government officially supported them at all.

I could easily claim that Ireland was supporting Germany at the time.......and considering how vast the internet is, I bet if I dig hard enough I could find a link somewhere stating that.

Doesn't make it true however (being of Irish / Scottish decent myself, I'd be disappoint to learn that).

Still doesn't change my opinion of what the US should do right now.

Well, to quote my self, I said "US Higher ups".. and you just openly admitted that your self, whats the use in links?

True: Life is an illusion......the Internet more so......

History is written by the victors and those that want to make themselves look good. If we stop believing in our own history though, then we're left with nothing but speculation and conjecture......it becomes whoever you wish to believe more (which actually seems to be more and more the case in today's world).

Which some people have fun with and love. Others hate it.

Me? I think speculation is fun. I hate arguing about it. I've got much more important things to do (like the laundry and cleaning the kitchen, which I'm avoiding by writing this post) than argue over speculation.

Oh, and making beer. That is MUCH more important that arguing about it. I think we should all just go home and make beer, then get together and share it. Much more fun than hating each other's countries or calling each other bullies, Nazis, etc.

reply to post by Sinny


Some like to say that this was orchestrated by the US but there doesn't seem to be any evidence of that. Assange is a self made playboy. He looks more and more desperate as he tries to weasel out of his predicament. He is still playing the "poor Brad Manning" card hoping that public opinion will somehow get him off the hot seat. Of course it won't work, either for him or Manning. It is obvious to everyone that Assange cares deeply about Assange and is trying to make Assange a hero. He has already sacrificed clueless Brad but will continue to try and use him as long as it may help his case. Alas, his 15 minutes of fame has passed and he is again just an accused sex offender who has now also violated GB law.
He will likely stay in the embassy until Ecuador tires of him or has no further use for him. Maybe he has already seen an eviction notice and that is why he is so nervous.

Of course, the evil US is behind all of this as they are behind all bad that happens in the world. All other countries try to do only good but the US forces them to be bad, too. I keep asking people why there is more immigration to the US than emigration from the US if the US is so bad. Do you have an answer?

Originally posted by Hefficide
reply to post by Sinny

 

Selective history is a bad thing Sinny... England doesn't have a sterling history at all regarding warfare. It was the nation that perfected the idea of Empire in the modern world and engaged in travesties globally. Of course a girl from Ireland knows these things, and they should strike home.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki cost roughly 180,000 lives, if memory serves, but ended a war that had something along the lines of 60,000,000 causalities ( again going by memory here. ) So cherry picking roughly 0.003% of those deaths to take a moral stand about... Well that is kind of hypocritical.

hypocritical
Definition
hy·po·crit·i·cal[ hìppə kríttik'l ]
ADJECTIVE
1. falsely claiming high principles: showing, originating from, or of the nature of hypocrisy

Source for definition

~Heff

I have a Master's Degree in History. The VAST majority of professional historians across the world attest to the idea that the US's use of nuclear weapons had little or nothing to do with defeating the Japanese and had EVERYTHING to do with proving to Russia that we not only had a nuke...but that we had more than one of them.

The Japanese Navy had already suffered a CRUSHING defeat in the Leyte Gulf (the largest naval operation in the history of humanity) where they lost 4 carriers, 3 battleships, and 10 cruisers. The Japanese made a final Naval and Air stand when the last warship of the Japanese military 700 plane Kamikaze mission prior to the US invasion of Okinawa. After the raids at Kure the Japanese still had 19 destroyers and 38 submarines...all of them sitting ducks without fuel and no supply of oil in sight.

We had the Japanese completely landlocked and ALL of their steel, oil, and gasoline supplies cut off. In fact, the Japanese started asking us for terms for their surrender at the end of January 1945 which we for the most part ignored.

By the time we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima on August 6,1945 the Japanese Navy had been reduced to a single badly damaged battleship (the Nagato) which Japan did not have the steel to repair, nor the fuel to move it. We had also established air supremacy over Japan and had begun dropping steel beams and rocks on them because we had bombed them so extensively we no longer had anything to drop on them that exploded until our ships and airbases could be resupplied in another 30 days and had constructed a fully operational air base on the island of Okinawa.

Despite the fact that the Japanese have been diligently trying to surrender to the US for the last 7 months...and despite the fact that they didn't have any functioning airplanes, ships, or tanks we decided to vaporize about 80,000 civilians...and then do it again a scant two days later.

Bear in mind...this is the FIRST TIME in history that the world had ever seen a nuclear bomb detonate. The Japanese weren't even 100% sure WHAT HAD HAPPENED TO THEM. It would be the material equivalent today of a foreign power like China or Russia hitting us w/ a nationwide EMP attack...and then proceeding to nuke New York and LA, as we would already be reeling from an attack which left us paralyzed as a country and which we were completely unable to understand what really even happened. Think about...what would you do...turn on the TV to hear that none of your electronics would work anymore? Indeed...the first internal reports of the bombing at Hiroshima were disregarded as being either an exaggeration or even a psyop by the US Intelligence agencies because it was not believed that even an atom bomb could possibly cause the type of destruction that was being described. Hirohito actually had to send out people to observe it first hand and then come back and report to him.

...not that it would have mattered anyways...the Japanese had already been trying to surrender to the United States for the last 7 months.

The whole point was in showing the world that we not only had nukes, but that we could apparently make them at will.

Of course, your high school history textbook never really went into that thorough of an explanation. It's kind of embarrassing to tell your children that we killed a quarter million civilians just to prove that we were tough guys to the Russians.

It's much easier to just create the myth that we did it to "save lives" and "bring an end to the war sooner".

Originally posted by pteridine
reply to post by Sinny

 

Some like to say that this was orchestrated by the US but there doesn't seem to be any evidence of that. Assange is a self made playboy. He looks more and more desperate as he tries to weasel out of his predicament. He is still playing the "poor Brad Manning" card hoping that public opinion will somehow get him off the hot seat. Of course it won't work, either for him or Manning. It is obvious to everyone that Assange cares deeply about Assange and is trying to make Assange a hero. He has already sacrificed clueless Brad but will continue to try and use him as long as it may help his case. Alas, his 15 minutes of fame has passed and he is again just an accused sex offender who has now also violated GB law.
He will likely stay in the embassy until Ecuador tires of him or has no further use for him. Maybe he has already seen an eviction notice and that is why he is so nervous.

Of course, the evil US is behind all of this as they are behind all bad that happens in the world. All other countries try to do only good but the US forces them to be bad, too. I keep asking people why there is more immigration to the US than emigration from the US if the US is so bad. Do you have an answer?

The "poor Bradley Manning" card.... Bloody Nora! At least some ones defending that poor PATRIOTIC, HERO of a man!

reply to post by milominderbinder


Aha. Brilliant. Could you please refer Slayer69 to that comment, he may need a history lesson him self

reply to post by milominderbinder


Can you link that information (IE the Japanese military and government trying to surrender to the US for 7 months starting in January of 1945) ?

I'd like to read about it. As a history major with a Masters degree, I'm sure you'll be able to point me to the sources, and I would find the read very interesting. Thanks in advance.

reply to post by Sinny


...and now for a brief musical interlude

"America Is" by The Violent Femmes


Lyrics:

America is
America is
America is
America is
America is the home of the hypocrite
America is the home of the hypocrite
America is the home of the hypocrite
American dream so f-f-full of it

Look at the indians
look at the blacks
look at the figures
look at the facts
check out the facts
the facts not the lies
when you find out
big surprise

America is the home of the hypocrite
America is the home of the hypocrite
America is the home of the hypocrite
American dream so f-f-full of it

check out the indians
check out the blacks
check out the figures
check out the facts
check out some facts
check out the facts not the lies
when you find out
it's a big surprise right between the eyes

America is the home of the hypocrite
America is the home of the hypocrite
America is the home of the hypocrite
American dream so f-f-full of it

american dream is only a dream
no desperation limit
new desperation level
even though my nose don't work
I smell trouble I smell trouble
no desperation limit
new desperation level
murder, mureder in the goverment
say you're sorry
say you're sorry
no desperation limit
new desperation level
turn the key
turn the lock
nationalism
you can suck my..
no desperation limit
new desperation level
watch the worl's progressin'
everywhere
aggresion, aggresion
aggresion, aggresion
aggresion, aggresion

reply to post by milominderbinder


Garbage....

Here is something people always over look when discussing the Bombings.

It is widely known that the US was destroying a city a day with conventional bombing. When they heard about Hiroshima the Japanese assumed it was just yet another one of their cities to be destroyed by conventional means.

Remember it was a secret weapon. Up until that time the A-Bomb was just a theory

It wasn't until the reports came in of strange effects that it caught the Japanese attention. The Japanese actually didn't know that in fact Hiroshima was destroyed by the "A-bomb" they didn't really understand what had happened. By the time they really got a handle on the situation it was too late we dropped the second.

After the second it was sianara.


Japanese realization of the bombing

The Tokyo control operator of the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation noticed that the Hiroshima station had gone off the air. He tried to re-establish his program by using another telephone line, but it too had failed.[34] About twenty minutes later the Tokyo railroad telegraph center realized that the main line telegraph had stopped working just north of Hiroshima. From some small railway stops within 16 kilometers (10 mi) of the city came unofficial and confused reports of a terrible explosion in Hiroshima. All these reports were transmitted to the headquarters of the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff.

Military bases repeatedly tried to call the Army Control Station in Hiroshima. The complete silence from that city puzzled the men at headquarters; they knew that no large enemy raid had occurred and that no sizeable store of explosives was in Hiroshima at that time. A young officer of the Japanese General Staff was instructed to fly immediately to Hiroshima, to land, survey the damage, and return to Tokyo with reliable information for the staff. It was generally felt at headquarters that nothing serious had taken place and that the explosion was just a rumor.

The staff officer went to the airport and took off for the southwest. After flying for about three hours, while still nearly one hundred miles (160 km) from Hiroshima, he and his pilot saw a great cloud of smoke from the bomb. In the bright afternoon, the remains of Hiroshima were burning. Their plane soon reached the city, around which they circled in disbelief. A great scar on the land still burning and covered by a heavy cloud of smoke was all that was left. They landed south of the city, and the staff officer, after reporting to Tokyo, immediately began to organize relief measures.

Its called the Fog of War

Also don't forget most of them didn't know the Japanese were as bad off as they were until after they surrendered and in fact those are all statements after they investigated just how bad of a position Japan really was and after they found out how horrible the atomic bombs effect were.

Nobody knew it was going to be that horrifying. Remember it was a secret new weapon, unproven complete with all the mysteries of splitting the atom and releasing that amount of radiation. Up until that point they had no real idea if Japan was going to surrender unconditionally or not. Notice below the date of the last Kamikaze attack? Yeah there was still some fight in them


Hindsight being what it is it's easy to be armchair generals 64 years after the fact.

Last Kamikaze Attack

Last Kamikaze Attack

Rear Admiral Matome Ugaki, the second in command of the Combined Pacific Fleet, directed the last official kamikaze attack, sending some "Judy"s from the 701st Air Group against the Allied fleet at Okinawa on August 15, 1945.

interesting factual perspective

Japanese leaders, many demonstrating little concern for the suffering of their own people, had already witnessed U.S. firebombing and often near-total destruction of 64 cities without ending the war.


The U.S. had shown it could level Japanese cities almost at will in the months preceding Hiroshima. Whether the U.S. did so with hundreds of bombers or with one plane and one bomb did not fundamentally alter the strategic situation in the eyes of Japanese leaders.

Even Army Minister Korechika Anami’s startling announcement on August 9 that he had intelligence indicating that the U.S. might have more than 100 additional atomic bombs and that Tokyo would be the next target did not change the views of members of the War Cabinet who remained deadlocked 3-3 over whether to simply demand retention of the emperor system or to add three additional conditions

reply to post by Sinny


The true hypocrisy exists within those individuals who don't comprehend the fact that The United States is just the sword that is swung by the International Banksters who own and control their own $heople Nations as well.

That means yours too Sinny If we were to cease to exist, The game would continue to be played and the show would without a doubt go on. Yes, it really is that simple. ~$heopleNation

Originally posted by Sinny
The "poor Bradley Manning" card.... Bloody Nora! At least some ones defending that poor PATRIOTIC, HERO of a man!

"Patriotic hero?" How about "easily manipulated victim of Assange?" I can accept the latter. That doesn't justify Brad's actions and he will be held responsible. Outrage by the easily offended will not save either from the consequences of their actions. Assange's desire for fame and importance has claimed Brad as a victim and Julian will make many speeches pretending to care about him. The speeches will be designed to keep Assange in the public eye to satisfy his ego.

I had to find out what "bloody nora" meant; perhaps it was a British courtesan who lost her head to some Queen of Hearts. Now for something completely different..... askville.amazon.com... "It was those Cockneys again.
The ‘Nora' is not a woman's name but a form of the word ‘horror'.
The phrase started off as "flaming horror" (or "flipping/bloody etc horror") as a cry of dismay/disbelief.
In the normal Cockney manner, the final ‘g' and the opening ‘h' were dropped to produce something that sounded like "flamin-orror" and that in turn over the years became "Flamin' Nora!"...or "Bloody Nora" as a stronger alternative.
So Nora wasn't a person at all but the result of an accent."

Fancy that!

I see that several people wanted to give a context for the bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and I think that's important...

Originally posted by Sinny

Part of that context is that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not military installations, they were cities filled with civilians. Our government killed civilians on a massive scale to achieve political goals. If there was ever a text book example of state-sponsored terrorism, this is it.

Did it work? Obviously it did. Was it the right thing to do? Probably in some people's minds it was, but I find it ethically problematic to say that the ends justify the means, especially when we are talking about mass murder... Standing up for what is right by doing something that is wrong is hypocrisy.

The main problem I have with the OP:

...soldiers who, by the way, are by majority, cold blooded killers.

As a former US Marine, I think it's fair to claim that I had contact with quite a few people from the US military. Yet somehow during five years of military service (four of which were during the Iraqi War and one of which I was in Iraq) not a single person I knew killed anyone. Only a couple of them even fired their weapons at all.

So was my experience a statistical anomaly, or is the OP making a gross generalization?

Fact - only a fraction of military units ever deploy to the Middle East.
Fact - US Marines are especially combat-oriented, which is reflected by the mantra "every Marine is a rifleman," but a quick look at the list of occupations in the Marine Corps makes it clear that the majority of Marine occupations have virtually nothing to do with combat:

en.wikipedia.org...

Then there's this study done during WW2, which concluded that only 15-20% of US infantrymen would attempt to kill the enemy at all, even if it meant putting themselves in mortal danger:

greatergood.berkeley.edu...

In short I think the OP had some good points in this thread, but I think the assessment of the US military is WAY off.

Originally posted by pteridine

Originally posted by Sinny
The "poor Bradley Manning" card.... Bloody Nora! At least some ones defending that poor PATRIOTIC, HERO of a man!

"Patriotic hero?" How about "easily manipulated victim of Assange?" I can accept the latter. That doesn't justify Brad's actions and he will be held responsible. Outrage by the easily offended will not save either from the consequences of their actions. Assange's desire for fame and importance has claimed Brad as a victim and Julian will make many speeches pretending to care about him. The speeches will be designed to keep Assange in the public eye to satisfy his ego.

I had to find out what "bloody nora" meant; perhaps it was a British courtesan who lost her head to some Queen of Hearts. Now for something completely different..... askville.amazon.com... "It was those Cockneys again.
The ‘Nora' is not a woman's name but a form of the word ‘horror'.
The phrase started off as "flaming horror" (or "flipping/bloody etc horror") as a cry of dismay/disbelief.
In the normal Cockney manner, the final ‘g' and the opening ‘h' were dropped to produce something that sounded like "flamin-orror" and that in turn over the years became "Flamin' Nora!"...or "Bloody Nora" as a stronger alternative.
So Nora wasn't a person at all but the result of an accent."

Fancy that!

Aha. I really want to scream at you for your comments on Manning, but you've brightened up my day with your brief history on "Bloody Nora!" Aha.

reply to post by SLAYER69


I'm still confused to how the history behind the bomb ties into your very first post on this thread? Your comment under the pik?

reply to post by Sinny



Hiroshima and Nagasaki although regrettable and tragic were no worse than what was already transpiring by conventional 100 bomber raids firebombing Japan into submission. The use of a new weapon with hindsight being 20/20 should have been avoided but at the time in was simply thought of as a simpler, easier and faster way of eliminating Japanese resistance. 1 Bomber - 1 Bomb - 1 City

Also, my other link proves that Japan was not trying to surrender as was claimed by the other poster for 7 months beforehand. Revisionist often regurgitated malarkey. I Also, noticed many here still refuse to acknowledge the fact that Japan [Whether provoked or not] were responsible for their own actions on Dec 7th and all the preceding atrocities in China, Korea and elsewhere.

They started it years before Pearl and Hiroshima.

Originally posted by Kang69
reply to post by frazzle

 

The Constitution. Franklin and Jefferson had some pretty neat ideas.

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin

If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them (around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.-Thomas Jefferson

This is why you hear the saying "the founders are rolling in their graves." We have a Central Bank today, and with the Patriot Act, NDAA, and NDRP people are wondering what's happening to this country.

I just had to throw this in here:

Give me control of a nations money supply, and I care not who makes it’s laws. Mater Amschel Rothschild, founder of the Rothschild banking dynasty.

I like many of the things said by Jefferson and Franklin, as well, however none of them were actually verbalized in the constitution so their ideas had no effect on the outcome of what is known as the rule of law ~ merely opinions of the day.

Jefferson wasn’t even in town during the debates, he was conveniently overseas parlaying with the French government as our de facto ambassador. Yes Franklin did sign, but not without expressing disapproval of many aspects of the final draft, so if it weren’t for the fact that he was 81 years old and in very poor health at the time and even required help to write his signature, that itself would smack of hypocrisy.

I guess the thing that I find most hypocritical about Americans today with regard to the Constitution is the fact that other than for two or three of the actual signers, most people wouldn’t even recognize the names of those they venerate as founding fathers, much less know anything about their motivations.
www.archives.gov...

Without the antifederalists, there would BE no Bill of Rights. No one venerates them ~ or knows much about them or what they said. They're the ones rolling over in their graves, laughing at us. You can almost hear them saying "toldjaso".

The object of arguing about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is a moot point for me. Answering one horrible act of genocide with another as a poster stated earlier, is an act of hypocrisy in and of itself. The bombings were in essence a statement not to mess with the United States by showing what power we had at our disposal. America couldn't just go and perpetrate an act of revenge on the same scale as Pearl Harbor - America had to go many steps beyond and level two cities, killing hundreds of thousands of people.

reply to post by SLAYER69


Ahh, in that case I suppose the severity of the bomb rests on your own morals and ethics.

It certainly goes against mine, maybe not your tho, aye marine?

Forensics threw out any trace of Assange's DNA from 1 of the 2 condoms.

He isn't charged with any current sexual offence. Wanted only for interrogation, which Sweden's own laws allow to be carried out out of Swedish borders.

The 2 Women Anna Ardin / Sofia Willen themselves initially didn't seek rape complaint.

They reported to a Police Station to ask if it was possible to request a STD HIV test be conducted on Julian Assange under any applicable judicial provisions.

Nothing to do with rape charges.

Bradley Manning - the US Military violated its own UCMJ laws and court martial procedures.

The Collateral Murder video showed that the US can and happily do break Geneva Convention by loopholes.

FOIA request for the video from Thomson Reuters was as if non-existent to the upper rank of US Military.

Originally posted by Rubicant13
... America had to go many steps beyond and level two cities, killing millions of people.

Uh, maybe want to do some research. If you took the highest estimated dead from both attacks, about 250,000 people were killed.

That's alot, but not "millions".