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#1
08-30-2010, 10:08 PM
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If the Japanese weren't 'ready to surrender', why did they approach the Soviets with an offer which was essentially the same as the one eventually agreed? Repeating the same tired arguments doesn't make them any more valid. This 'saving of lives' argument may have seemed plausible at the time, but more recent historical research, (partly assisted by access to previously-classified material) has shown how little real evidence there is to support it. The fact is that neither of us can know for sure what the outcome would have been without the A-Bombings of Japan, but this doesn't prevent us looking at what we do know about the situation, and making an informed guess. This needs to be based on evidence, not repeated assertions. Incidentally, a significant proportion of the civilian 'suicides' on Okinawa were actually murders, carried out on military orders by the Japanese forces, on a population they considered 'inferior', and possibly untrustworthy. This would have been unlikely to occur on the mainland, even if they had been in a position to continue fighting. Not that they were... 
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#2
08-30-2010, 11:35 PM
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There have been war crimes on any side and even before 2nd World War ethnical cleansing was common. Especially the USA is a good example for that when it comes to literally eradicating native life completely. But the point really is that no one really knows what would have happend if the bombs didn't fall. Not to mention that no one knows what would've happened if Hitler actually used them. Same for the V1 or the jet engine fighters etc. - so much technological advance came through the war, even blood infusions and stuff like rubber! We can only accept these little "facts" we know of. The second world war shouldn't be turned into fantasy. So I really, strongly, wonder if these bombs could even bring anything of value to the game. They are far to powerful and are actually rendering the game itself useless. Air combat isn't about mass destruction of civillian life, heck, no game should be about it. That is like making a game about rape of women - it's a crime and shouldn't be the selling point of any game out there. To me, air combat always was the cleanest side of the war. But the very same thing Hitler was despised for, taking innocent lives over his cause, happened in these days of the first RAF bombing runs or the two atomic bombs etc. If the bombs really do get added people will mod them. You can imagine the scenarios people will come up with for such a weapon, can't you? I'm unsure if the game should allow such mass destruction. There was and is absolutely NO reasonable target for the use of such bombs. And remembering 9/11 makes clear that it doesn't even take an atomic bomb to turn a whole country into hell - I don't think these weapons do belong into the realm of modern developed society as they are a weapon of inferiority and cruelty and not a weapon of reason and logic.
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#3
08-31-2010, 12:19 AM
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"The defeats of 1944 had cost the Germans 1.8 million men killed. In the first five months of 1945, whilst Speer was encouraging his Fuehrer to one last show of resistance, 1.4 million German soldiers met their deaths, 450,000 in January alone. Nor does this include the tens of thousands of civilians who fell victim to Allied bombing. To describe the destruction of Germany in 1945 in the language of the Holocaust is both obscene and inaccurate. This was a war, not a massacre of the innocents. It may have felt like a slaughter to those on the receiving end, but this was an effect of the means used, not the ends intended. The Western Allies broke no law of war that had not been breached by the Wehrmacht a hundred times over. The Red Army behaved barbarically in the territories it occupied, but the Soviets did not perpetrate a genocide. Nazi Germany had challenged three of the greatest industrial powers on earth. It had taken them five long years to bring their industrial might fully to bear. But now their war machines were fully assembled and in the first five months of 1945 they cut their way into the territory of Germany with truly horrendous effects. The Allies waged war with a volume of firepower unlike that ever used in any previous conflict. The results were nightmarish and would have been even worse but for the fact that the policy of 'Germany first' meant that the Nazi regime was destroyed before the atomic bomb was ready for use." That is an extract from "The Wages of Destruction - the Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy" by Adam Tooze, who's an economic history lecturer at Cambridge (, England). The comments I made in my last post, about Hitler's motives, are also based on this book. The late-war destruction of their cities came because the German government wouldn't surrender when it was hopeless, preferring to keep fighting almost to the last man, putting as high a human cost on the nations they'd attacked as possible in the hope of getting a better position at the negotiating table. The Allies needed to get Germany to surrender as soon as possible, because every day of war had a huge cost in Allied lives, and bombing the cities was a legitimate if tragic way to try to force a surrender. (This is true of Germany; I don't know about Japan, or their negotiations with the USSR.) There is no comparison with the German policy of enslaving the populations of the territories they conquered and then working and starving them to death or gassing them in concentration camps.
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#4
08-31-2010, 01:52 AM
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The book you quoted is, to say it nicely, worthless. First of all Adam Tooze, being a brit, certainly is highly motivated to stay neutral, right? Further there is no excuse to counter something cruel with something even more cruel. That'd be like if the native americans now literally blow up the whole US to get their revenge. You will probably agree that this is not how intelligent humans should act. Also it just creates more pain and thus gives birth to terror (something the brits also adopted and developed during the 2nd world war, read up on it if you like). This also reminds me of the killing of tons of stingrays by fans of "crocodile hunter" Steve Irvin. Even if something tragic happens this isn't your free ticket to cause even more tragedy to "seemingly" solve the problem. No one really knows what's best. Not for the world, not for humankind, not for himself even. I am VERY sure of that. We don't know if it would've been better for the Germans to never exist, for the now Americans to never travel to their continent and killing every native they could find, we don't know if it was a good idea to re-establish Isreal in the middle of an islam part of the world etc. We don't even know if it's good for humans to exist in the first place, given what they've done to the earth. Also, why you make it your policy to judge Germany over what happened to the jews in an airplane simulator to me is a mystery and I can only assume you have reasons that are beyond logic. Would you make the same statements if Hitler would've embraced the jews and integrated them into the army? Most of them would've fought for him as well. There have been many jews in the military, even in leading positions! What if it would have been "just a plain war"? Killing innocents is always a crime and it is NOT excusable at all. That's implied by the term "innocent" alone. Babies, children, women, elderly people, people that are in resistance groups or just "bearing with it" while not believing into some goals... you really must have an easy life if you can judge everyone that easily and only see the numbers. Yes, killing the jews was a bad thing and quelling political opposition as well. But if you look at modern scenarios or even the cold war and all that angst the americans had... it's scary, yes, humans are scary, but I see parallels and we all have fear within us sometimes. This is not an excuse for cruelties against civilians and innocents though. You can't kill countless innocent people just to bring down a single person you may dislike, even if s/he's a criminal! And speaking of numbers, as an economist (oh yeah, we know that these guys really do know their stuff right?  ) you only see the numbers. But numbers aren't everything. Nature never thought of numbers but if you'd be strict and apply numerical logic it'd mean we are WAY too many humans anyways. Imagine 7 billion people living the modern lives we live, it's just not possible. But what solution is there? Dangerous mindset right there...So let's not just see the numbers - instead let's only see this as a simulation game and be responsible of what can be done with it and what shouldn't be done with it. Personally I see no benefit in missions that have the aim to slaughter many thousands of civillians and cripple them for genererations, eventually even for eternity unless their families genes get repaired by science in the future somehow. This said I'm sure this whole topic is useless. People shouldn't argue about the freaking war anymore (unless you're like 90 years old). It's history. Atomic weaponry is stupid and unnecessary. It polutes the world, kills everything but the target (unless your target are civillians which makes you not better than Hitler) and could in fact destroy the world. The same goes for biological weapons and chemical weapons. How anyone sane can find excuses for using these is a mystery to me and in fact reminds me of someone who's name started with H who also found a number of excuses for a witchhunt on a "race" he disliked. To me there are no races, only animals. We are not better than a whale or a snail or a jew, colored people, white people or whatever. The war sure was different but that is no excuse for brainwashing the new generations and justifying something as atomic, biological and chemical weapons. In the end it's all up to the devs anyways. I'm just saying that embedding a weapon like an atomic bomb should be a decision the developers should really think about VERY carefully. Not only will it cause a huge media uprise, no, it'll turn the game into something despicable. What's next to the use of atomic weapons? Gas? chemical bombs? Biological warfare? I don't like it. And if you're really willing to kill off a whole civilian city just to win a war I suggest you visit a doctor as soon as possible. If all the global leaders of today had that mindset, given our modern weapon technology we, the whole earths population, would be gone in less than a month.
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#5
08-31-2010, 03:39 AM
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There is a lot of revisionists and apologists around concerning the motives of the allied bombing campaign. It makes it more comfortable when we look back at WWII if we can pretend it was a tactical military bombing campaign that just happened to go on for 5 years.
The allied leaders at the time had no illusions as to what its purpose was, first and foremost destroy the moral of the German people. They felt it was justified at the time, but changed their mind later in the war. This is Winston on the topic: Quote:
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#6
08-31-2010, 04:41 AM
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Splitter
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#7
08-31-2010, 06:35 AM
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Definitely the Germans in the SCW, Poland, Belgium Holland and France before the BoB had shown no qualms about bombing and strafing civilians though mainly for short or medium term tactical advantage. Ironically the German's never really planned for strategic 'terror' bombing and had no real aircraft suitable for it early in the war. Nazi terror campaigns seemed to feature a lot more hangings and concentration camps than bombings. Whilst this failure to plan is often cited as a reason for failure of the "blitz" history has shown time and again that "shock and awe" style campaigns, whilst giving the side attacking a warm fuzzy glow, tend to stiffen rather then weaken resistance. Even with 4 engined bombers and longer range fighters it seems unlikely the "blitz" would have forced Britain to capitulate. Note Churchill however was a proponent of long range bombing of Germany right from the start of hostilities.
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#8
08-30-2010, 11:54 PM
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On "carrot and stick": The US gives more in foreign aid than any other country. As a matter of fact, losing a war to the US ensures a large amount of aid for many years to come lol.
But I guess we are not giving enough. We are still evil and tantamount to Nazis in the eyes of many in the world. I mean, Bono says we're not giving enough so it must be true. Let me also ask; Do you think Iran is seeking nuclear power simply to supply their own energy needs? Do you think Iran will use their nuclear capability to develop weapons? Once they develop nuclear weapons, do you think they will use them to threaten their neighbors or the world's oil supply? Do you think they would make good on their threats to bomb Tel-Aviv? Does it appear sanction are working? Or is Iran just misunderstood? Is their leadership just striving for world peace? Iran is now a nuclear power. The short estimate is that it would take about three months to develop weapons. It is highly likely that Israel will "de-nuke" Iran some time before the end of this year. The US will not back Israel, our present leader is no friend of Israel (that should make some of you rejoice). Russia and China will seek to condemn Israel, but the US will still block any serious repercussions with it's veto power in the Security Council. Or does Israel need to wait to be bombed and retaliate? Maybe they should just wait until it is confirmed that Iran has nuclear weapons? Maybe Israel should give the Palestinians everything they want....do you think that would solve the problem? I wonder if the Israelis realize that they have been abandoned.....again. So much for "never again" lol. Splitter
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#9
08-31-2010, 12:15 AM
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#10
08-31-2010, 01:06 AM
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Of course, I think most Israelis would liken a mushroom cloud over Tel-Aviv as an attempt at genocide so your analogy holds true too. Unless of course there really is no threat to Israel and this is all just US propaganda..... Splitter
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