Back to the main page

Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: [OT] Black & white matters (was Re: Fw: Want a new Limb?)
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2000 11:50:33 +0200
According to Deirdre M. Brooks, at 16:21 on 17 Aug 00, the word on the
street was...

> Like Hiroshima - Hiroshima and Nagasaki are nasty things, but I think
> that a study of history will show that it may have been a more desirable
> (not desirable as such) option than pushing conventional warfare into
> Japan.
>
> Those two bombs may have saved more lives than they took. In other
> words, "this isn't a black and white matter."

Absolutely. Bomb a few cities just so you can see what this new weapon
actually does, no matter that the Japanese are already thinking hard about
calling it quits anyway...

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Imagine doing just what the Big Bang did
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

GC3.1: GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+@ UL P L+ E? W(++) N o? K- w+ O V? PS+
PE Y PGP- t(+) 5++ X+ R+++>$ tv+(++) b++@ DI? D+ G(++) e h! !r(---) y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 2
From: Spike spike1@****.freenet.co.uk
Subject: [OT] Black & white matters (was Re: Fw: Want a new Limb?)
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2000 11:27:27 +0100 (BST)
And verily, didst Gurth babble thusly...
> According to Deirdre M. Brooks, at 16:21 on 17 Aug 00, the word on the
> street was...
>
> > Like Hiroshima - Hiroshima and Nagasaki are nasty things, but I think
> > that a study of history will show that it may have been a more desirable
> > (not desirable as such) option than pushing conventional warfare into
> > Japan.
> >
> > Those two bombs may have saved more lives than they took. In other
> > words, "this isn't a black and white matter."
>
> Absolutely. Bomb a few cities just so you can see what this new weapon
> actually does, no matter that the Japanese are already thinking hard about
> calling it quits anyway...

Couldn't agree more...
Who cares if the targets of these scientific tests are cities teaming with
civilians who have nothing to do with the war, and probably civilians not
even FROM the enemy country... As long as you get some scientific data that
you can use to build a bigger weapon, that you can also test on the same
poor sods...

--
______________________________________________________________________________
| spike1@*******.co.uk | "Are you pondering what I'm pondering Pinky?" |
|Andrew Halliwell BSc(hons)| |
| in | "I think so brain, but this time, you control |
| Computer Science | the Encounter suit, and I'll do the voice..." |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Message no. 3
From: Sean Edwards edwars2@*******.com
Subject: [OT] Black & white matters (was Re: Fw: Want a new Limb?)
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2000 14:05:59 EDT
>Those two bombs may have saved more lives than they took. In other
>words, "this isn't a black and white matter."

>Absolutely. Bomb a few cities just so you can see what this new weapon
> >actually does, no matter that the Japanese are already thinking hard
> >about calling it quits anyway...

If they were thinking so hard about ending the war anyway then why did the
US need to drop two bombs before the Japanese ended it? These drops,
although they did provide useful experimental data, were not meant as
tests... the US did plenty of other testing to determine what these things
could do. Several people have been talking about this like it was a very
easy decision for the US, but it was NOT. Even after a great deal of
deliberation and establishing that it would save lives in the long run
(which it did... if you think otherwise then you need some history lessons)
it was still an extremely difficult decision to make. The US has done some
horrible, unjustified things in the past, and its military has done even
more, so it's natural to think that a horrific act falls into such a
category, but it does not.

________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com
Message no. 4
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: [OT] Black & white matters (was Re: Fw: Want a new Limb?)
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2000 20:33:42 +0200
According to Sean Edwards, at 14:05 on 18 Aug 00, the word on the street
was...

> If they were thinking so hard about ending the war anyway then why did the
> US need to drop two bombs before the Japanese ended it?

You're not listening, I think. The Japanese were thinking about
surrendering already, a decision which the atomic bombs might have speeded
up, but probably not by all that much. IOW, the US didn't _need_ to drop
them at all -- the Japanese might have surrendered in a month instead of
in a week (or however long it was, I can never remember the actual dates).

As for why it took them so long to actually surrender, look at Japanese
culture: Surrendering Is Not Done -- you die before you surrender, doing
otherwise puts you almost beneath contempt. (As an aside, this is also why
they treated Allied POWs the way they did.) This kind of belief makes it
very hard to just throw the towel into the ring even when you're losing
the most devastating war in history.

> Several people have been talking about this like it was a very easy
> decision for the US, but it was NOT. Even after a great deal of
> deliberation and establishing that it would save lives in the long run
> (which it did... if you think otherwise then you need some history
> lessons) it was still an extremely difficult decision to make.

I'm not disputing that it may have saved lives, but what I am saying now
is that everyone who truly believes the arguments that you just used (and
plenty of others -- all Americans, it looks like -- did as well), also
needs some history lessons... About people like Curtis LeMay, for example.

As for how hard a decision it was, that's what everyone says after the
fact. Actually, I have a feeling it was more a decision along the lines
of, "If we don't use them now, we'll never have the chance, so let's go
for it." After a war like that, what with the carpet bombing and fire
bombing raids that destroyed much of Germany and Japan and all, I have
some trouble believing that dropping one bomb is a difficult decision to
make...

> The US has done some horrible, unjustified things in the past, and its
> military has done even more, so it's natural to think that a horrific
> act falls into such a category, but it does not.

The winners decide what is criminal, that is the core of this debate if
you ask me. Had Germany and Japan won World War II (highly unlikely even
if the US hadn't intervened) they would probably have done something like
put Churchill on trial for bombing Berlin and killing lots of German
civilians. In the real world, however, because the Allies won the war,
they can say that killing a few million or so civilians in bombing raids
was a necessity and not a crime, even though deliberate attacks on
civilians are war crimes, if I'm not mistaken...

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Imagine doing just what the Big Bang did
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

GC3.1: GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+@ UL P L+ E? W(++) N o? K- w+ O V? PS+
PE Y PGP- t(+) 5++ X+ R+++>$ tv+(++) b++@ DI? D+ G(++) e h! !r(---) y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 5
From: Sean Edwards edwars2@*******.com
Subject: [OT] Black & white matters (was Re: Fw: Want a new Limb?)
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2000 16:08:09 EDT
> If they were thinking so hard about ending the war anyway then why did
the
> US need to drop two bombs before the Japanese ended it?

You're not listening, I think. The Japanese were thinking about
surrendering already, a decision which the atomic bombs might have speeded
up, but probably not by all that much. IOW, the US didn't _need_ to drop
them at all -- the Japanese might have surrendered in a month instead of
in a week (or however long it was, I can never remember the actual dates).

As for why it took them so long to actually surrender, look at Japanese
culture: Surrendering Is Not Done -- you die before you surrender, doing
otherwise puts you almost beneath contempt. (As an aside, this is also why
they treated Allied POWs the way they did.) This kind of belief makes it
very hard to just throw the towel into the ring even when you're losing
the most devastating war in history.
- - - -

I wouldn't say that I'm not listening... perhaps coming to different
conclusions though :). I think you've pointed out one very excellent reason
for dropping the bombs, and one which I meant to mention earlier. Surrender
was, for the most part, not an option with the Japanese. The leaders (some
of them at least) were looking for a way to end this but they had no clear
way of doing it while still adhering to their cultural beliefs and retaining
their honor in the eyes of the people. The bombings provided an "excuse" of
sorts for them to use to end the war.

________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com
Message no. 6
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: [OT] Black & white matters (was Re: Fw: Want a new Limb?)
Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2000 11:18:34 +0200
According to Sean Edwards, at 16:08 on 18 Aug 00, the word on the street
was...

> I wouldn't say that I'm not listening... perhaps coming to different
> conclusions though :). I think you've pointed out one very excellent reason
> for dropping the bombs, and one which I meant to mention earlier. Surrender
> was, for the most part, not an option with the Japanese. The leaders (some
> of them at least) were looking for a way to end this but they had no clear
> way of doing it while still adhering to their cultural beliefs and retaining
> their honor in the eyes of the people. The bombings provided an "excuse"
of
> sorts for them to use to end the war.

And in which way would firebombing a few more cities (with much the same
effect, though not as long-lasting in terms of cancer, leukemia (sp?)
etc.) not have had that result?

What the Japanese wanted was a peace treaty to end the war, so they could
avoid losing face, but the Allies didn't want to settle for anything less
than total surrender. In a way, that shows to me that they hadn't learned
much from 1919 (though they did do it better this time round).

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Imagine doing just what the Big Bang did
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

GC3.1: GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+@ UL P L+ E? W(++) N o? K- w+ O V? PS+
PE Y PGP- t(+) 5++ X+ R+++>$ tv+(++) b++@ DI? D+ G(++) e h! !r(---) y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998

Further Reading

If you enjoyed reading about [OT] Black & white matters (was Re: Fw: Want a new Limb?), you may also be interested in:

Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.

Thwap!