Google| Subject | Re: Clobberin' Time... |
| From | James Trory |
| Date | 09/17/2001 08:07 (09/17/2001 02:07) |
| Message-ID | <kp2bqtgve8kmk87i87f0obidu1kk2pkqq8@4ax.com> |
| Client | |
| Newsgroups | rec.arts.sf.starwars.misc |
| Follows | James W. King |
| Followups | James W. King (7h & 55m) |
We've secretly replaced the Pacific Ocean with Folgers crystals. Let's see if James W. King notices:
Oh horse shit, and you know it. How can you justify killing over 300,000 (possibly 400,000) civilians to save the lives of a couple of thousand soldiers? If you're going to spin that shit about civilians being unfortunate casualties of war, may I remind you that soldiers' specific duties are to die for their country in a time of war. That's what they're there for. To fight and to die. Now I'm not saying that's a good thing, but there's no way of knowing how long the conflict with Japan would've lasted had America not dropped the A bomb, but I'm willing to bet another 500,000 allied soldiers were not about to perish. A human life is a human life, no matter whose it is. Considering the fact that Germany had surrendered, as had Italy, and Russia was on the side of the allies, that leaves few people for the Japanese to turn to. With France, Holland, and other European countries liberated, and the support of America, I'm sure Great Britain and its friends would've beaten Japan fairly swiftly, even despite the fact that Japan is known for it's "never surrender" mentality. I'm still of the opinion that America dropped the bomb to warn the Russians and to test the thing out on "living people".James TroryJames W. King
Rakelle (<A HREF="mailto:celaeno@shavenwookie.nospam.com
">celaeno@shavenwookie.nospam.com</A>): "Hiroshima. Nagasaki. And you don't know that a government has knowingly sponsored this."
Drew Stile: "Please don't compare Hiroshima to this. That was war, this was not."
James Trory (<A HREF="mailto:j_trory@yahoo.com">j_trory@yahoo.com</A>): "Civilians are civilians. 320,000... 400,000... They're still dead, and countless others suffered severe, deadly affects from radiation poisoning. Don't you dare tell me that because it was war it was okay."
It was not a matter of its being "okay" as it was *pragmatically necessary* to prevent untold more deaths of one's own side's soldiers.
PS: I also admire America's insistance that Japan apologise for WW2 and yet there's no apology from America.
And unfortunately, that's what war is all about: deliberating exacting such a cost in human lives and property destruction of the enemy to the point that he is compelled to finally surrender.I see what you're saying, but we're talking about hundreds of thousands of people here. In one go. Who you can't really class as "military targets". Am I not right in assuming that one code of war is to minimalize civilian casualties wherever possible. In the case of Tuesday and the scramble to get two fighter jets out to shoot down the second plane that, unfortunately, did hit the WTC, that decision was a correct one. Thousands of people would've survived if the second tower hadn't have been hit, for the cost of a few hundred who would've died anyway (though I don't take that lightly either). But trading in five thousand soldiers for 400,000 civilians just doesn't sit right with me.
Moreover, civilians are not merely innocent civilians in times of war if/when they're contributing to the war effort by way of working in factories and in industries that produce war materiel, munitions, food and supplies necessary for the sustenance and maintenance of the war machine. Moreover, if civilians actually support the aims of their government and don't oppose it, then they are acting in accord with their government's war aims just the same.That's called patriotism. Nobody stopped America getting involved in the Vietnam war, even though it was none of their goddamn business to do so. Would it have been okay for your enemies in the jungle, had they been capable of doing so, of flattening New York? Or Boston? Or Washington? After all, the people living in those cities were not innocent civilians, right? Because they were not opposing their governments war aims to such a degree that it halted the war. Though I admit I have nothing to support this, I'm sure I'm correct in assuming that there were plenty of factories and civilians in those factories producing arms and supplies for the troops.
Also, what evidence do you have to support the notion that Japanese civilians *where* in support of their government's actions? I'm pretty sure the POW camps in Japan were not common knowledge to the Japanese people. If you haven't noticed already, in a time of war, governments are very selective of what they tell their people.
Such a wayward country's leaders willfully accept the consequences of fomenting war, including the risk, if not probability, that they're also making their populace's subject to collateral death and damages incurred both in the fog of war and as the result of deliberate targeting of strategic targets (around which civilians might live).The bombing of two cities in Japan were not merely "deliberate targeting of strategic targets around which civilians might live". They were the deliberate targeting of highly populated civilian locations, the bombing of which were designed to scare the Japanese government into surrender. Over 300,000 Japanese were not "accidently" killed because they were living near a military target. Yes, civilians get caught up in war and they die. The bombings of London and Birmingham in the UK by Nazis planes killed a lot of people, but like you say, they were living near factories and military targets and we all have to accept those consequences. But targeting civilians themselves is just plain wrong.
-- James "Give me some sugar, baby!"
09/11/2001-
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