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Thread: Is this true?

  1. #16
    I'll take two... CPU's BBA's Avatar
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    Hey...the last time we used them...it was Ok...whats your beef
    WINDOWS 2000....Need I say more!


  2. #17
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    It seems to me that the first and last times we used these munitions it wasn't about flexing muscle it was about expediting the Japanese surrender to stop more protracted and horrific loss of life fighting on the island of Japan.
    I'm not a particular fan nuclear weapons , although I was rated to work on F-111's near the closing days of the Cold War , (dating myself) , but you 've got to know that we don't have this stuff sitting in silo in Kansas , they probably have the hardware pretty close at hand , not to say we would necessarily use them , but it's still a cold war mentalitiy of deterence.
    We didn't drive all the way over there to bomb aspirin factories , we came to punish the bad guys. And we aren't about to show too much weakness in front of all our new found freinds either , some of these guys are still on the "bad girl and boys list" from last Christmas if you follow my meaning.
    We have some very capable leaders in the current admin. and I believe they are following a prudent path in this situation , and none of these men are cowboys , they are real pro's. Many are ex-commanders and civilian Defense Dept. leaders , they take their mens' lives very seriously and also the lives of their enemies. And if you read a little about them you will find that they too are not big fans of the" Battle Feild Nuke" scenario.
    "Chins Up " We have a long ways to go on this one !

  3. #18
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    It seems to me that the first and last times we used these munitions it wasn't about flexing muscle it was about expediting the Japanese surrender to stop more protracted and horrific loss of life fighting on the island of Japan.
    Okay, yeah... thats just what they TOLD us. Its a lie though. Recent exploration into the history of the bombings shows something completely different. At the time, the quotes were that 500,000+ American lives would be lost in an invasion of Japan. That is complete fiction. The actual numbers would have been closer to 24,000 - 40,000 lives, which is nothing compared to the 200,000 lives taken PER bombing in Japan. The reasons for dropping the bomb were much more political. There were at LEAST two more reasons for dropping the bomb. One of them, the less influential of the two, was that it was somewhat of an experiment, to find out the effect the bombs would have on human life, and a city's infrastructure. The main reason the bomb was dropped, however, was because we KNEW there was going to be bad blood between the Soviet Union, and the United States, after World War II. Dropping the bomb was our way of saying to Stalin, "back off, buddy... or we'll kick your ****." It was our first move in the cold war.

    -Jim

  4. #19
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    Also to add to what card_magic is posting.

    To say we.... (A) bombed the Japanese because (B) we would have suffered huge losses in an invasion.... shows a complete lack of logical thinking.

    The Japanese were all but defeated in the weeks preceding the the use of nuclear weapons. They didn't have the resources (fuel, supplies, ammunition, etc.) to mount any type of major offensive attack hence they were no real threat. Heck, Japan is a island for petes sake. Their economy is a trading economy. It required outside support (imports of oil, metals, etc,) to survive and we had totally cut off that support. Why not just blockade them? There was absolutely no law, rule, or commandment that stated we had to invade them yet for some reason, this is what anyone will tell you when you ask why we bombed them.

    We did not have to invade them therefore the possible losses to our forces for an invasion is not a logical reason to have bombed them.

  5. #20
    Ultimate Member U-96's Avatar
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    What else can cause this much destruction? Collapsing mountains, fun stuff like that...
    The BLU-82 Commando Vault "Daisy Cutter" would be a start - also known as "the pallet bomb", it was used for clearing chopper LZs in Vietnam and for scaring the bejesus out of entrenched Iraqi troops in the Gulf War.

  6. #21
    I'll take two... CPU's BBA's Avatar
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    Gee...I'm sure glad we have all these WW2 experts here.

    I only hear this kind of **** from treehuggers. From the military sources...Japan could have defeated our fleets. They were in many countries that had resources to use. ( the Jap's werent just an island. )

    We won the war by only a few decisive circumstances, because we pulled the stops.

    The fact is, they messed up by attacking the world, so don't blame the US.
    WINDOWS 2000....Need I say more!


  7. #22
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    I only hear this kind of **** from treehuggers. From the military sources...Japan could have defeated our fleets.
    Woah there... whats up with the generalizations, here? I am not a "treehugger." I'm just pointing out that there were more reasons for dropping the bomb than just to save the lives of some American GIs. And why would you believe everything the military has to say? If the military wants to use the bomb, they are going to say what needs to be said in order to get their way. You can't just blindly follow what they have to say. Simply as a matter of National security, the military WILL lie to us, and WILL withhold information. They can't go around telling everyone what they did, and why. Sure, maybe the military DID quote 500,000+ American lives lost in an invasion. But, Truman's top advisors were quoting figures that were just fractions of that amount. Do you think Truman could have justified to the American people, the use of the bomb, if he told us that it would only be saving 40,000 American lives, but would be taking 400,000 Japanese lives? This is not to say that the decision to drop the bomb was right, or wrong. Although I have opinions on that, I'd hate to be labeled a "treehugger" because I don't like things that blow up really big. All I'm saying is, there were more reasons, and don't take what your high school-level, American written history book has to say at face value.

    -Jim
    Last edited by card_magic; 10-10-2001 at 10:25 AM.

  8. #23
    Senior Member gyoung's Avatar
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    I agree with BBA here (but not his name calling or labelling).

    400,000 or 40,000 it didn't matter, they dropped the bomb for many of the reasons you stated, but they ALSO dropped the bomb to save US soldiers from having to invade Japan. I believe that this still was the main reason. If you are fighting a war with another foe and you can save any of your troops but the tradeoff is massive casualties on the other side, I think you decision is clear (not easy, but clear). Truman knew how many people were going to die, but he made the hard decision. It was more important to bring our boys home.

    It would have been a horrific battle to have tried to invade Japan. Remember for years after the war the some Japanese on remote islands thought the war was still going.

    So you are right, but you are also wrong.

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