Cyprus-Forum.com

[Novus]

Ever hear the story about the Rape of Nanking?

Actually no, what's it about?

It was attrocities committed by the Japanese army and apllauded by the Japanese populace that was so horrific even the Nazi witness from Germany was horrified.
The rapes of women, infanticide, rapes of babies (not an exageration) and mass killings of civllians numbered into the hundreds of thousands and maybe half a million....and this is just one city.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_of_nanking

This link has very gruesome and disturbing pictures. Don't open if you are squeamish.
http://www.centurychina.com/wiihist/njmassac/rape.htm

[Novus]

I think the Americans showed remarkable restraint in only dropping two bombs..They could have done a lot more damage and killed far more civilians.

So, if in the future any nation with nuclear weapons just dropped one or two of their nuclear bombs on another nation and killed thousands of innocent civilians to end a war, or even to prevent a war from starting in the first place sometime in the future, like Iran for instance, then that would be OK by you Conners and Novus. Just where does one end with the justification and excuses. As my old girlfriend use to say,"excuses are like assholes, that everybody has one".!!

The dropping of the bomb in Japan was necessary when looking at all the aspects or the case. It is not something I ever want to be repeated, but if there is ever another war and the dropping of a nuclear bomb killing a hundred thousand people will save a million or two lives, then I would be all for it.

War is inexcusable, but once you are in an all out one, it is either win, surrender or die. Japan was showing they were not going to surrender and were willing to die.
If we invaded and it took more than a month to win, how many hundreds of thousands of innocent civillians would have died from famine? ....and they expected it to go on for six months at best so millions would have likely died from hunger alone. Are you suggesting we should have attempted that path instead?

Now of course saving Japanese lives was not the reason we dropped the bombs. The reason we dropped the bombs was to save hundreds of thousands of American lives, but that alone is justification enough and people who are critical of the US action always seem to ignore that it was not just American lives that were saved by dropping the bomb.

I'm just wondering if the USA would have dropped the "bomb" on Germany had it been ready before the Germans surrendered in 1945, being they were Europeans, but the fact the Japan bombed Pearl Harbour in 1941 unprovoked, it was going to be "payback time" to those "Japs" come what may.!!

Of course we would. The reason we spent billions building the bombs in teh first place was because of Germany. We had every intent to drop the bomb on them and if they did not start to lose terribly when they did and the war continued, damn skippy Berlin would have been a glowing pile of rubble.

[Oracle]

I think the Americans showed remarkable restraint in only dropping two bombs..They could have done a lot more damage and killed far more civilians.

So, if in the future any nation with nuclear weapons just dropped one or two of their nuclear bombs on another nation and killed thousands of innocent civilians to end a war, or even to prevent a war from starting in the first place sometime in the future, like Iran for instance, then that would be OK by you Conners and Novus. Just where does one end with the justification and excuses. As my old girlfriend use to say,"excuses are like assholes, that everybody has one".!!

The dropping of the bomb in Japan was necessary when looking at all the aspects or the case. It is not something I ever want to be repeated, but if there is ever another war and the dropping of a nuclear bomb killing a hundred thousand people will save a million or two lives, then I would be all for it.

War is inexcusable, but once you are in an all out one, it is either win, surrender or die. Japan was showing they were not going to surrender and were willing to die.
If we invaded and it took more than a month to win, how many hundreds of thousands of innocent civillians would have died from famine? ....and they expected it to go on for six months at best so millions would have likely died from hunger alone. Are you suggesting we should have attempted that path instead?

Now of course saving Japanese lives was not the reason we dropped the bombs. The reason we dropped the bombs was to save hundreds of thousands of American lives, but that alone is justification enough and people who are critical of the US action always seem to ignore that it was not just American lives that were saved by dropping the bomb.

I'm just wondering if the USA would have dropped the "bomb" on Germany had it been ready before the Germans surrendered in 1945, being they were Europeans, but the fact the Japan bombed Pearl Harbour in 1941 unprovoked, it was going to be "payback time" to those "Japs" come what may.!!

Of course we would. The reason we spent billions building the bombs in teh first place was because of Germany. We had every intent to drop the bomb on them and if they did not start to lose terribly when they did and the war continued, damn skippy Berlin would have been a glowing pile of rubble.

Novus on that basis then, do you think the US needed to re-establish its superpower status by carrying out this spectacular PR display?

After all everyone was in awe about Britain's "achievement" at Dresden (whether intended to be such a phenomenal "success" or not) .... and the US may have felt it necessary to show the Brits what they could do too!

[Novus]

The principal justification for obliterating Hiroshima and Nagasaki is that it "saved lives" because otherwise a planned U.S. invasion of Japan would have been necessary, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands. Truman at one point used the figure "a half million lives," and Churchill "a million lives," but these were figures pulled out of the air to calm troubled consciences; even official projections for the number of casualties in an invasion did not go beyond 46,000.
In fact, the bombs that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not forestall an invasion of Japan because no invasion was necessary. The Japanese were on the verge of surrender, and American military leaders knew that. General Eisenhower, briefed by Secretary of War Henry Stimson on the imminent use of the bomb, told him that "Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary."

by Howard Zinn
The Progressive magazine, August 2000

YOu are so clueless I can see why others say you are an idiot.

There was no one "official" estimate of casualties and the 49,000 figure you cite was for just the FIRST 30 DAYS. Some official projections cited figures of 1.5 million after 90 days. After the war we discovered we way underestimated the Japanese forces and materiel available to them so any low figure would have been sorely mistaken. They had thousands of planes hidden along the coasts ready for kamakaze attacks that we did not even know about.
The Japanese were definitely not on the verge of a surrender. The military powers in control made sure of that and even after the first bomb dropped they tried their hardest to prevent it.
Eisenhower was not an Asian theater commander and IIRC was still in Europe. Eishenhower, even if he did say that, we not knowlegable about the situation because he was on the opposite side of the world. I doubt Eishenhower knew about Japan's intent to use nuclear "dirty bombs" and biological weapons during an invasion.

[Novus]

I think the Americans showed remarkable restraint in only dropping two bombs..They could have done a lot more damage and killed far more civilians.

So, if in the future any nation with nuclear weapons just dropped one or two of their nuclear bombs on another nation and killed thousands of innocent civilians to end a war, or even to prevent a war from starting in the first place sometime in the future, like Iran for instance, then that would be OK by you Conners and Novus. Just where does one end with the justification and excuses. As my old girlfriend use to say,"excuses are like assholes, that everybody has one".!!

The dropping of the bomb in Japan was necessary when looking at all the aspects or the case. It is not something I ever want to be repeated, but if there is ever another war and the dropping of a nuclear bomb killing a hundred thousand people will save a million or two lives, then I would be all for it.

War is inexcusable, but once you are in an all out one, it is either win, surrender or die. Japan was showing they were not going to surrender and were willing to die.
If we invaded and it took more than a month to win, how many hundreds of thousands of innocent civillians would have died from famine? ....and they expected it to go on for six months at best so millions would have likely died from hunger alone. Are you suggesting we should have attempted that path instead?

Now of course saving Japanese lives was not the reason we dropped the bombs. The reason we dropped the bombs was to save hundreds of thousands of American lives, but that alone is justification enough and people who are critical of the US action always seem to ignore that it was not just American lives that were saved by dropping the bomb.

I'm just wondering if the USA would have dropped the "bomb" on Germany had it been ready before the Germans surrendered in 1945, being they were Europeans, but the fact the Japan bombed Pearl Harbour in 1941 unprovoked, it was going to be "payback time" to those "Japs" come what may.!!

Of course we would. The reason we spent billions building the bombs in teh first place was because of Germany. We had every intent to drop the bomb on them and if they did not start to lose terribly when they did and the war continued, damn skippy Berlin would have been a glowing pile of rubble.

Novus on that basis then, do you think the US needed to re-establish its superpower status by carrying out this spectacular PR display?

After all everyone was in awe about Britain's "achievement" at Dresden (whether intended to be such a phenomenal "success" or not) .... and the US may have felt it necessary to show the Brits what they could do too!

Not at all.
Before the war America was an emerging super power, but I am not sure one can say we were a super power yet.
It is kind of odd that people would think we had anything to prove to England. If we wanted to we could have made England our bitch even before WWII, so no need to impress them IMO.

[Magnus]

Ever hear the story about the Rape of Nanking?

Actually no, what's it about?

It was attrocities committed by the Japanese army and apllauded by the Japanese populace that was so horrific even the Nazi witness from Germany was horrified.
The rapes of women, infanticide, rapes of babies (not an exageration) and mass killings of civllians numbered into the hundreds of thousands and maybe half a million....and this is just one city.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_of_nanking

This link has very gruesome and disturbing pictures. Don't open if you are squeamish.
http://www.centurychina.com/wiihist/njmassac/rape.htm

Thanks for this, it was an interesting read but could you please explain how it relates to the Hiroshima bomb? I can see the reference to Japanese expansionism and atrocities, but I can't understand how a conflict between Japan and China affects the USA.

[Novus]

Ever hear the story about the Rape of Nanking?

Actually no, what's it about?

It was attrocities committed by the Japanese army and apllauded by the Japanese populace that was so horrific even the Nazi witness from Germany was horrified.
The rapes of women, infanticide, rapes of babies (not an exageration) and mass killings of civllians numbered into the hundreds of thousands and maybe half a million....and this is just one city.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_of_nanking

This link has very gruesome and disturbing pictures. Don't open if you are squeamish.
http://www.centurychina.com/wiihist/njmassac/rape.htm

Thanks for this, it was an interesting read but could you please explain how it relates to the Hiroshima bomb? I can see the reference to Japanese expansionism and atrocities, but I can't understand how a conflict between Japan and China affects the USA.

Same question posed to you. What do paper cranes years later have to do with if it was necessary to drop the bomb on Hiroshima?

Japan during the war showed their ability to be brutal and have no regard for civillian lives. If we had to have invaded, that same little girl might have starved to death anyway because her government would have been feeding the army with her food instead of her.

People think of Japan as an innocent peaceful society and today they are, but the truth is just 70 years ago they were still brutally medieval.

[GorillaGal]

why debate something that already happened? nothing can be done to take it back. there will always be two sides to this story. the main thing is that we accept it, respect it, and never do it again!

[Svetlana]

.....because we all want to be 'Monday morning Quarterbacks'!

(Explanation available from GG on request!)

Lana

[Novus]

why debate something that already happened? nothing can be done to take it back. there will always be two sides to this story. the main thing is that we accept it, respect it, and never do it again!

"Those that do not learn history are doomed to repeat it."