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Thema: WWII - Conflict from the perspective of young people today |
154 Antworten
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Quote ( Greg Wingerter @ March 5th 2011,18:53:37 )
Quote ( Andrew Watson @ March 4th 2011,14:10:31 )
Pearl Harbour was a military installation though, whereas Nagasaki and Hiroshima were civilian cities, albeit ones affiliated to military bases.
Whilst I can accept some form of "Greater Good" argument for such a terrible act, I think to simply brush-off the biggest single-event extermination of innocent human life in the history of the world as an acceptable and reasonable facet of war is a little one-sighted.
Pearl Harbor was a military instillation yes BUT, Japan slaughtered Hundreds of Thousands of innocent civilians. Phillipines, China, and all islands they took over. Japan was still killing civilians when we dropped the bomb. Lets see kill thousands of Japanese to end a war where their military was killing Thousands of civilians and torturing them. JUSTIFIED
i do not agree.
In order to destroy an evil beast you must become the evil beast you are fighting? Japan has so many people who were not in the fighting, if the roles were reversed and it was Washington DC or San Fransisco that was nuked by the Japanese, from your own point of view you would see it as an unnessisary waste of innocent life who had no say in that war. you can not justify killing that may people because Japanese Military has done the same. You had them on the run, bombing out their factories would of been more appropriate, at least the death toll could of been alot less then several million people. The Japanese Military were killing mercilessly in China in their Sino wars in old blood conflict spanning over 1,500 years which was none of America's business, but just because America saw this happen, it does not mean they should take the same step that fateful day. your country is known as one of the brightest hopes of freedom back in those days, seldom is it deserved these days with Israel, Iraq, Afganistan and Syria but that is for another thread one day.
From another point of view if you think your position is secured in that knowledge, find a survivor from Nagasaki from the outer radius of the nuclear fall out, see how they deteriorate because of radiation poisoning over the years, listen to their story, perhaps if you gave it a chance to actually hear a point of view that isnt written solely by your own american historians, you may have a better understanding of what you may call justified.
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Quote ( Chinmay Dhopate @ March 5th 2011,18:25:00 )
That is why you take out the production power of the enemy. In this case, it was Hiroshima and Nagasaki, two of the biggest industrial centres in Japan.
Take them out, and Japanese war effort is critically damaged. Even if Japan doesn't surrender, it is a very big blow to the military.
You dont have to annihilate the civil population of a city to destroy its industry, but the point is that there wasnt even a military justification for the dropping of the bombs.
Here are few quotes from some of the highest ranking military oficiers of that time on the issue:
" In 1945 Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. " Dwight D. Eisenhower
Norman Cousins, about his conversations with General of the Army, Douglas MacArthur, "When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor."
"The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan." Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
"The use of the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons. The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children." Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to President Truman.
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Very interesting quotes, Peter. They cast an interesting light on the event. I suppose that, for balance, it would be equally interesting to hear quotes from high ranking individuals whose veiwpoint is that the bombings were justifiable in a military sense.
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Interesting Quotes. Now lets look at other words from same people:
Neither MacArthur nor Nimitz ever communicated to Truman any change of mind about the need for invasion or expressed reservations about using the bombs. When first informed about their imminent use only days before Hiroshima, MacArthur responded with a lecture on the future of atomic warfare and even after Hiroshima strongly recommended that the invasion go forward. Nimitz, from whose jurisdiction the atomic strikes would be launched, was notified in early 1945. 'This sounds fine,' he told the courier, 'but this is only February. Can't we get one sooner?'
Another myth that has attained wide attention is that at least several of Truman's top military advisers later informed him that using atomic bombs against Japan would be militarily unnecessary or immoral, or both. There is no persuasive evidence that any of them did so. None of the Joint Chiefs ever made such a claim, although one inventive author has tried to make it appear that Leahy did by braiding together several unrelated passages from the admiral's memoirs. Actually, two days after Hiroshima, Truman told aides that Leahy had 'said up to the last that it wouldn't go off.'
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History of WWII in Poland: -01.09.1939 - Hitler attack Poland -03.09.1939 - UK and France declare war to Hitler (but they didn't help us :( ) -17.09.1939 - Stalin attack Poland from east, without help from west we definitely lose -1940 - Polish were fighting in Narvik and France (but stronger France was defeat faster than us) -09.1940 - Polish pilots from 303. Squadron helped UK in defence of their air. Polish were fighting in 300. 301. and 302. (and other) squadrons -Polish soldier was fighting during the war in Tobruk, Monte Cassino, in the USSR, in operation Market Garden, in Belgium, polish destoyer was fighting Bismarck with other ships and one pilot from 303. Squadron was fighting in the China in the "Flying Tigers" squadron. -1944 - Warsaw uprising - Red Army stopped in the east of Vistula river and they were staying, they attack Germans after uprising broke down -1945 - polish soldiers in Red Army was fighting in Prague and Berlin. Finally, after Jałta Poland was under russian control (I don't suggest that west sold Poland) and Polish weren't invite on Victory Parade.
It's sad, but real history.
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