Luckiest/Unluckiest man in world dies

[WARF]

I don't understand... first we bomb them... then we applaud him for living... next thing you know we will have Bin Laden putting metals around the necks of 9-11 survivors...

[Seshmeister]

I think you mainly bombed them as a big experiment and to scare the Russians so why not.

[LoungeMachine]

I think you mainly bombed them as a big experiment and to scare the Russians so why not.

I never understood why they needed to drop them on civilian populations in order to "test" or "scare the russians"

Could have dropped them NEAR Japan [but far enough away as to not cause damage] and succeeded in both objectives.

Japan would have been scared into surrendering, russia would know we could do it.

But incinerating children from 30,000 ft?

[VanHalener]

...There have only ever been 2 nuclear bombs used in anger in the history of the planet and they were both dropped on this guy.

And he's got cold steel in his eyes to prove it.

I'd bet both times he went, "Whew, that was close."

[sadaist]

"He was elated when President Obama pledged (in a speech in Prague last year) to abolish nuclear weapons,"

Inspired, Mr Yamaguchi painstakingly penned a letter to the President. "I was so moved by your speech in Prague," he wrote. "I devote the rest of my life to insisting that our world should abandon nuclear arms."

So 63 years of a life of "agony", seeing hundreds of thousands of his countrymen, friends, family die & be sick, and the destruction of two cities and he only decides that the world should abandon nuclear weapons after a speech read by Obama?

Four years ago, he spoke to the UN in New York, where he pleaded with the General Assembly to fight for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

Oops, apparently wasn't the speech Obama read. Ah shucks, let's give him credit for it anyways.

His exposure to so much radiation led to years of agony. His wife died in 2008 of kidney and liver cancer.

And his exposure to radiation caused her death exactly how?

Considering she would have had to have been in her late 80's or early 90's, that's not too bad.

the blast temporarily blinded him, damaged his hearing and inflicted horrific burns over much of the top half of his body.

Three days later, he was back in his home city of Nagasaki, 190 miles away, explaining his injuries to his boss

Couldn't have been all too "horrific" if he was back at work in three days. Not saying he didn't get burns, but why preface them with "horrific"? To make the case that nuclear weapons are bad? They can hurt you? Wow. Thank goodness someone let us know finally.

[Va Beach VH Fan]

I never understood why they needed to drop them on civilian populations in order to "test" or "scare the russians"

Could have dropped them NEAR Japan [but far enough away as to not cause damage] and succeeded in both objectives.

Japan would have been scared into surrendering, russia would know we could do it.

But incinerating children from 30,000 ft?

Both cities were military ports, as well as industrial feeders for the war....

Unless I'm mistaken....

[Seshmeister]

There are 2 big clues IMHO.

Both cities were largely untouched by conventional bombing. All the major industrial areas had been bombed to fuck which implies they were either saved for nuking, not significant militarily or both.

The Japanese were not given a chance to react to the first bomb and a different type of bomb was used/tested just a few days later at Nagasaki.

It's a grey area and disputed amongst different historians but I think it's at least very suspicious whether it was necessary especially the second bomb. It was different times though and of course 100s of thousands of civilians were killed in conventional bombing raids on Japan and Germany.

[Nickdfresh]

I think you mainly bombed them as a big experiment and to scare the Russians so why not.

And the fact that the US (and Commonwealth) might have suffered upwards of a million casualties if they had invaded the mainland in "Operation Downfall"--not too mention that the Japanese military authorities could have given a fuck about their people and were ready to fight to the last school kid...

Operation Downfall was the overall Allied plan for the invasion of Japan near the end of World War II. The operation was cancelled when Japan surrendered after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet Union's declaration of war against Japan...

Japan's geography made this invasion plan obvious to the Japanese as well; they were able to predict accurately the Allied invasion plans and accordingly adjust their defensive plan, Operation Ketsugō. The Japanese planned an all-out defense of Kyūshū, with little left in reserve for any subsequent defense operations.

Casualty predictions varied widely but were extremely high for both sides: depending on the degree to which Japanese civilians resisted the invasion, estimates ran into the millions for Allied casualties[1] and tens of millions for Japanese casualties.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall#Estimated_casualties

[Seshmeister]

Well that's always been the standard line but I don't see why they wouldn't have surrendered without killing 250 000 civilians especially since they got to keep their emperor which had been the sticking point in negotiations anyway.

[sadaist]

Well that's always been the standard line but I don't see why they wouldn't have surrendered without killing 250 000 civilians especially since they got to keep their emperor which had been the sticking point in negotiations anyway.

You are assuming that they were reasonable, which they were not. These are the people that had Kamikaze pilots. Nick is right. As gruesome & horrible as the bombings were, they actually saved lives. I'm sure we all wish there was a different way, and unfortunately hindsight is always 20/20, but it happened the way it did and ended the war.

Another result of those bombings were that they were so devastating, and everyone saw what happened, that to date it has not been done again. Not bad for nearly 3/4 of a century with multiple countries having the technology, and many other wars breaking out along with all the leadership changes we've seen.

[Blackflag]

encountering the walking dead of Hiroshima, whose melting flesh hung from them like "giant gloves".

Holy shit.

[GAR]

I hope them Japs nuke Russia for the example we had to show of them. Those two bombs cost millions and millions of dollars.

[Nickdfresh]

Well that's always been the standard line but I don't see why they wouldn't have surrendered without killing 250 000 civilians especially since they got to keep their emperor which had been the sticking point in negotiations anyway.

Unfortunately though, there was almost no contact between the Allies and the Imperial Japanese at any level. And the Soviets, who had negotiated a sort of pact of nonbelligerence with the Japanese in 1941 ignored Japanese efforts to approach them as an intermediary to claim War and roar into Manchuria during "August Storm." (Something the US had previously wanted the Soviets to do, but then began to regret as they were now in a position to aid Mao, and to start rolling up Japanese territory they really didn't deserve).

Factions of the officer corp of the Imperial Japanese Army attempted a coup in which they would essentially control the Emperor and continue the War even after the bombs had been dropped and their garrison in China was rolled up. They weren't really all that concerned with the Emperor as much as the Emperor was, and I do think MacArthur was often a short sighted prick (his planning would have led to large casualties initially, even if the Japanese began to buckle). But attributing the bombs to "scaring the beJesus out of the Soviets" is a bit hard to really support beyond speculation. Certainly, there were fears that the Soviets might start to carve up parts of Japan and ultimately demand an occupation space in a War they barely really took part in. But I'm not sure they could have done much besides occupy a few islands as the Soviets didn't have the amphibious capability, and even know the Soviet armor ran roughshod over the Japanese Army in Manchuria, they also began to suffer embarrassing setbacks on some Pacific islands...

[Seshmeister]

Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote in his memoir The White House Years:

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.

Other U.S. military officers who disagreed with the necessity of the bombings include General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy (the Chief of Staff to the President), Brigadier General Carter Clarke (the military intelligence officer who prepared intercepted Japanese cables for U.S. officials), and Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet.

"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.

[Seshmeister]

If you accept that the mass indiscriminate killing of men women and children is justified in order to shorten a war then you are accepting that it is always justified.

Anyone fighting a war for whatever reason is trying to win it and therefore by definition is trying to shorten it.

Logically then you can't argue morally against the attacks of 9-11.