61 years yesterday, and still no apology.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Ming
Obviously the Fire Bombing of Toyko wasn't enough...

Hind sight is a wonderful thing. Who knows if another option might have worked. However, in the end, it did work.

We were being environmentally freindly. Fire bombing releases vast quantities of CO2 whilst NUCULAR bombs create their devastation without need for inefficent and polluting chemical processes.

Heck we should be lauded.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by LordShiva


That's true, too. Land invasion was out of the question.

I agree that there was a strong case to be made to do something like the atomic bombing in order to finally end the war. But I've seen documentaries and photographs and whatnot, and I can't help thinking that there just might have been some other option that ended up being rejected simply because the administration was gearing up for the Cold War.

If there had been no atomic bombs available, and they had been desperate to avoid a ground invasion, they probably would have continued the Submarine blockade, which was already well underway. It undoubtedly would have taken more Japanese civilian lives than the A bombs did.

[Spec]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp


Speaking as a British citizen and using the example of WW2, I'm still going to be laughing at that comment several weeks from now.

Ok, my comment was a bit too general. Was is good for BUSINESS, in general.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=2851

or

http://economics.about.com/cs/macroeconomics/l/aa032003a.htm

Spec.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Spec
Ok, my comment was a bit too general. Was is good for BUSINESS, in general.

That's stupid. Those links don't prove anything.

The more economic and business links between two countries, the lower the chance that they go to war. FACT!

[Spec]

Originally posted by LordShiva


The more economic and business links between two countries, the lower the chance that they go to war. FACT!

Now that has nothing to do with it.

Germany's economy was down the drain after WW1, but whenl they started to prepare for war and, against the Treaty of Versaille, (if I'm not mistaking) started to rebuild an army, the economy boomed, same for the States, or anyother country. War is only bad for the economy if you lose.

Look at Russia's economy during the cold war. It was a super power.

Spec.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Spec
Germany's economy was down the drain after WW1, but whenl they started to prepare for war and, against the Treaty of Versaille, (if I'm not mistaking) started to rebuild an army, the economy boomed, same for the States, or anyother country. War is only bad for the economy if you lose.

GDP = Consumption + Investment + Government Spending - Taxes + Exports - Imports

Obviously, if government spending goes up, the economy improves. And military spending is a form of government spending.

[Kuciwalker]

That's very similar to the broken window fallacy.

[PLATO]

All I have to say on the subject is this:

1.) Japan was heavily fortified and an invasion would have been a bloodbath for everyone.

2.) There were thousands killed, not millions.

3.) The use of nuclear weapons saved much of whatever was left of Japan's infrastructure. If the war had continued, the devastation would have been much worse.

4.) The Tokyo firebombings cost more lives than the use of nuclear weapons did.

5.) No apology is necessary as the bombings were totally consistent with how both sides were prosecuting the entire war.

6.) .0000001/10 for a troll.....000000001/10 for doing your homework.

[Ecthy]

Originally posted by Spec
Germany's economy was down the drain after WW1, but whenl they started to prepare for war and, against the Treaty of Versaille, (if I'm not mistaking) started to rebuild an army, the economy boomed, same for the States, or anyother country. War is only bad for the economy if you lose.

No it didn't. The German economy during the 30s' armament was based heavily on debts and massive spending, it was going to be doomed by 1942 or something. It was an economy that was made for war and war only. And war didn't help the economy either.

Even if there are cases where war made the economy boom (only examples I can think of is the US during both WWs), you'd have to prove that the people who started the war knew so in advance and were 100% certain. The American economic benefits from both world wars were rather random without hindsight, no person of the time could foretell the advantage. (This is where the left fails, commies always seek out the guy who benefits and blame him for being responsible)

The notion that "war is good for the economy" is 1. untrue and 2. not related to the topic at all.

As far as the bomb goes, it might have been an atrocity according to international law of the time (targeting civilians), but if you look on a picture larger than legal only, you'll notice it was a pretty reasonable idea both at the time AND with hindsight. If an extremely gruesome one anyway. But EVERYone agrees to this, the only question at hand is are you willing to think deeper than what your guts tell you.

[Spec]

Originally posted by PLATO
.0000001/10 for a troll.....000000001/10 for doing your homework.

No troll was ever intended, and I never made any home work on the subject, so I deserve 0/10 on that one.

Spec.

[Jaguar]

The most commonly cited statistic for civilian casualties in Hiroshima and Nagasaki is 210,000.

There were 150,000 civilian dead at the battle of Okinawa alone, plus 100,000 more Japanese soldiers and 12,000 American soldiers. The Soviet Operation August Storm, which attacked Japanese holdings in Manchuria, caused somewhere around 90,000 combined military casualties. The firebombing of Tokyo caused another 100,000 civilian casualties or so. The conventional operations in early to mid-1945 make the atomic bombings look like a drop in the bucket.

[Q Classic]

Er... where are you getting the 210k figure? As best as I can tell, that would only include the very obvious instant/very-short-term resultant deaths, and wouldn't take into account the much harder to gauge long-term resultant deaths stemming from the fallout due to the blasts.

[Ecthy]

210k had died by december 1945. Long ter mcancer deaths not included, as reason dictates. How'd you estimate the numerical effect of the nuclear radiation on cancer death toll over decades?

[Jaguar]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#Post-attack_casualties

Section 2.4

I don't know the science, but it wasn't much. It seems that radiation either killed you in three months, or not at all. The estimate is "hundreds" of long term deaths.

[Ecthy]

Well Jaguar, there's always the cancer effect, but it's impossible to compute, as it still is today. The Chernobyl disaster 'officially' killed just a handful of people, but cancer rates and fatalities did increase, yet noone has a formula to compute the effect.

The "dying of radiation" thing is a rather short term problem though.

I'm just remembering - cancer comes from long term impact of radiation. I think the 2 bombs we speak of had relatively low half life, so my cancer theoretizing might be totally unnecessary... any physicists around?