Remembering Hiroshima

[Mojavpa]

I hope everyone stops a for a moment to remember the horrific slaughter of over 150,000 people in Hiroshima 60 years ago. As we all know, Japan was on he verge of surrending before the bomb was dropped, and many of Trumans top military officials advised against it.

Mojavpa Reviewed by Mojavpa on 08-07-2005. Remembering Hiroshima I hope everyone stops a for a moment to remember the horrific slaughter of over 150,000 people in Hiroshima 60 years ago. As we all know, Japan was on he verge of surrending before the bomb was dropped, and many of Trumans top military officials advised against it. Rating: 5

[ermitonto]

It is truly a tragedy that we didn't try to demonstrate the immense power of that weapon without dropping it on a fucking city full of innocent people. And then dropping another one, just for the hell of it.

May they never be forgotten.

[Beeblebrox.420]

No, they weren't. There was a very good program on the Discovery Channel tonight about the dropping of the Hiroshima bomb. The Japanese were originally considering surrender, but the US dropped the requirement of an unconditional surrender, leading the Japanese government to the mistaken conclusion that we had a desperate agenda for ending the war ASAP, and so they did an about-face. The final decision to drop was made when it became clear that Japan was not going to surrender after all. Was the decision to drop the right one? I dunno. But, it seems likely the war would have gone on much longer if it hadn't been done.

[ermitonto]

How hard would it have been, really, for us to show the Japanese the results of our nuclear testing, or to invite them to watch us test a nuclear bomb? Would they not have become just as aware of its destructive power as they did with the senseless murdering at Hiroshima, and the even more senseless murdering at Nagasaki?

[Beeblebrox.420]

If you were the Japanese Emperor, would you believe from seeing a grainy black-and-white film of the Trinity test that the US actually had a bomb capable of such destruction? Remember that about this time feature film special effects were starting to really come into their own and the capability to fake such footage was beginning to be realized.

[ermitonto]

All right, let's say dropping a bomb on Japan was inevitable. Why the densely populated urban centers? Why do it twice? That's about the stupidest thing to do if you're really concerned about minimalizing casualties.

[Psycho4Bud]

I watched it too! Good program. According to the show, Hiroshima was actually home to the 2nd Japaneese army division. A BIG military town. They estimated that without the bomb, an invasion would have cost 1,000,000 American lives and probably more Japaneese.

[ermitonto]

Please at least give the Japanese the courtesy of spelling their nationality correctly.

[Beeblebrox.420]

Please at least give the Japanese the courtesy of spelling their nationality correctly.

You'd have a point if it weren't for the fact that "Japanese" is NOT their word for themselves, it is what WE call them. It's a distinctly English word. If you want to refer to them properly, call them Nippon or less commonly, Yamato.

[ermitonto]

So? There is still a correct way to refer to them in the English language, and that is "Japanese". If we want to be real technical about it, the Japanese term is 日本.

(P.S. This is post #2,000. Woohoo!)