Iran is Coming! -Derail Nuclear weapon discussion

[Don't Panic]

You seem to think war should be nice Pap. The idea is to kill as many of the other fuckers as possible.

But the rules of war are clear that civilians are not to be targets. I know that this rule is broken in all wars, but it still doesn't make it right.

Rules of war?

Nope.

Rule of war: win.

[Loki]

You seem to think war should be nice Pap. The idea is to kill as many of the other fuckers as possible.

No, the idea is to win.

Generally by removing the will of the enemy to keep resisting or by removing their capacity to resist.

One way is indeed to kill as many of the enemy as possible. Not a very efficient way though.

[Azathoth]

You seem to think war should be nice Pap. The idea is to kill as many of the other fuckers as possible.

But the rules of war are clear that civilians are not to be targets. I know that this rule is broken in all wars, but it still doesn't make it right.

That didn't come into effect until the 1949 Geneva convention. During WWII civilians were fair game

[Pappa]

You seem to think war should be nice Pap. The idea is to kill as many of the other fuckers as possible.

But the rules of war are clear that civilians are not to be targets. I know that this rule is broken in all wars, but it still doesn't make it right.

That didn't come into effect until the 1949 Geneva convention. During WWII civilians were fair game

I wasn't really referring to the legal aspect when I replied to Ian, just the point that he appears to think it's ok to kill thousands of civilians when he feels the ends justify the means, while I've also seen him argue that it's wrong for terrorist to target civilians. From a purely moral and ethical perspective, I don't see any difference between the two, as the "rightness" of the ends are in the eye of the beholder in these sorts of things. The H-bombs were the ultimate in shock and awe terrorism, saying "don't fuck with us or this is what you get".

[Gawd]

Hmmm, by the pro-American-murdering-Japanese-civilian logic, 9/11 was a perfectly legit operation.

[Atheist-Lite]

Hmmm, by the pro-American-murdering-Japanese-civilian logic, 9/11 was a perfectly legit operation.

Except a eye for a eye makes the whole world blind and stupid.

[Don't Panic]

Hmmm, by the pro-American-murdering-Japanese-civilian logic, 9/11 was a perfectly legit operation.

(you forgot to blame Mossad)

[Ian]

Uh-huh. Have you any idea how many more people would have died in Operations Olympic and Coronet had the war NOT been brought to an abrupt end?

Should that ever be a valid reason for murdering 200,000 civilians?

What JimC said.

"War is evil. But sometimes it is a necessary evil." - George Orwell

You think Japan would've called it quits over nothing more than threats and wishful thinking? Oh please.

No, I'm asking whether voluntarily killing thousands of completely innocent civilians is ever right in any context. You seem to think it is.

No, I do not think it's ever "right" at all. That's Gawd's line of thinking.

I think the atomic bombings were immoral, abhorrent and exceptionally cruel. But, I think that between 1) that option and 2) the casualties (including civilians, unaviodably) that would have occured during Olympic and Coronet, the first phase of which was only a few weeks away from happening, the a-bomb option was by far the lesser of two evils. In terms of body count, probably by a factor of 10, maybe even 20 times or more. And since notions of some 3rd option are speculative at best, I can accept Truman's decision as an ugly necessity.

In war, there are rarely opportunities for choosing between right and wrong. Those are a rare blessing. Many times, choosing between wrong and very wrong tend to be all there is. An invasion would have been a far less moral choice, and the a-bomb was the only thing that afforded a choice at all. Tokyo had been bombed into ruins four months earlier. Major raids had taken place all through the spring and summer, and all that was happening was more casualties on both sides. Japan's leaders not only weren't surrendering, they were actively preparing the population for the imminent invasion.

Something that just occurred to me: were it not for the a-bomb, my whole family might not exist. My grandfather was a prisoner of war held by the Japanese in 1945. By mid-summer he had suffered severe sunburn and was getting close to the point of starvation. So aside from making millions of casualties in an invasion unnecessary, not to mention freeing up all the occupied people in China, Korea, Indonesia, southeast Asia, etc., a quick end to the war also freed up a great number of prisoners, including my grandfather.

[Clinton Huxley]

I know this will have been raised before but why could Japanese representatives not have been invited to some remote coral atoll to witness it being blown to pieces as a demonstration of the A-Bomb's power, and then invited to think long and hard about surrendering.....?

[Ian]

I know this will have been raised before but why could Japanese representatives not have been invited to some remote coral atoll to witness it being blown to pieces as a demonstration of the A-Bomb's power, and then invited to think long and hard about surrendering.....?

That's the only third option that's worth any speculation, and it's a fair question. I suppose the line of thinking was that the US leadership wanted the war over asap, and they were very skeptical that Japanese leaders would be swayed by the mere threat at all. If it was practical, then it should have been attempted. But who knows the details.

[Svartalf]

I'm not quite sure, as I may be mixing up real history with some alternate history novels I've read, but I think they were... or at least steps were taken to try and get them to surrender without having to actually unleash the new weapon.

[klr]

I know this will have been raised before but why could Japanese representatives not have been invited to some remote coral atoll to witness it being blown to pieces as a demonstration of the A-Bomb's power, and then invited to think long and hard about surrendering.....?

"So solly, you don't have the balls to drop it on us" - one of the responses envisaged by the US when this idea was considered.

... and/or that since the US was apparently losing its resolve, the Japanese should try all the harder to stick it out.
... or it might not have worked (Little Boy wasn't even tested).
... or the Japanese would have refused to believe it was the real McCoy, but instead taken it as some kind of fancy trick.
... or given that the US had fire-bombing almost every Japanese city within range anyway, the Japanese might just have said "meh", or words to that effect. It's not as if the leadership really cared about its own civilians.

The actual responses of the Japanese leadership in the wake of Hiroshima bear out most/all of the above.

[Clinton Huxley]

I know this will have been raised before but why could Japanese representatives not have been invited to some remote coral atoll to witness it being blown to pieces as a demonstration of the A-Bomb's power, and then invited to think long and hard about surrendering.....?

"So solly, you don't have the balls to drop it on us" - one of the responses envisaged by the US when this idea was considered.

... and/or that since the US was apparently losing its resolve, the Japanese should try all the harder to stick it out.
... or it might not have worked (Little Boy wasn't even tested).
... or the Japanese would have refused to believe it was the real McCoy, but instead taken it as some kind of fancy trick.
... or given that the US had fire-bombing almost every Japanese city within range anyway, the Japanese might just have said "meh", or words to that effect. It's not as if the leadership really cared about its own civilians.

The actual responses of the Japanese leadership in the wake of Hiroshima bear out most/all of the above.

Given the magnitude of the situation and despite the above objections, IMO it should have been tried. The Japanese govt were zealots but probably not insane. A-bomb was a game-changer and I think the Japanese would have recognised that.

[klr]

I know this will have been raised before but why could Japanese representatives not have been invited to some remote coral atoll to witness it being blown to pieces as a demonstration of the A-Bomb's power, and then invited to think long and hard about surrendering.....?

"So solly, you don't have the balls to drop it on us" - one of the responses envisaged by the US when this idea was considered.

... and/or that since the US was apparently losing its resolve, the Japanese should try all the harder to stick it out.
... or it might not have worked (Little Boy wasn't even tested).
... or the Japanese would have refused to believe it was the real McCoy, but instead taken it as some kind of fancy trick.
... or given that the US had fire-bombing almost every Japanese city within range anyway, the Japanese might just have said "meh", or words to that effect. It's not as if the leadership really cared about its own civilians.

The actual responses of the Japanese leadership in the wake of Hiroshima bear out most/all of the above.

Given the magnitude of the situation and despite the above objections, IMO it should have been tried. The Japanese govt were zealots but probably not insane. A-bomb was a game-changer and I think the Japanese would have recognised that.

Unfortunately, they were insane. Even after two atomic bombs and the entry of the Soviet Union into the war, it took the intervention of Hirohito to break the deadlock and basically "suggest" that they surrender. And four days later, he had to intervene a second time, because they still hadn't gotten off the pot.

[Clinton Huxley]

Do two, three, four demonstrations, it's still worth it, given the consequences.