Steve Ryfle on "The Whitewashing of Godzilla" (spoilers)

[Shisa Caesar]

Wrong. Japan had a million soldiers on the mainland. The citizens were being trained to fight and even armed with bamboo spears, of all things.
The people would have done exactly what the war criminal Emperor told them to, and even he wasn't ready to surrender unconditionally before the bombs were dropped. And on legitimate military targets, btw. Hiroshima and Nagasaki both had legit targets there.

Nope. Japan were beginning plans to surrender way before the A-bombs because they were loosing and there was no coming back. And one of the big reasons for this was because the people were beginning to freak out and the people in charge were in fact afraid of a rebellion.

If we are going to look at history we got to look at all information. Looking at certain pieces ignoring others is not history, that's just a story.

It is unfair to second guess with the benefit of hindsight. WITH THE INFO THEY HAD AT THE TIME, they made the right call.
You can claim that it was just a test on live people, but that is an outright lie, made up by conspiracy idiots decades later.

Any deaths are regrettable, but the Japanese made their own beds, and they got to lay in them. They were the ones who raped and maimed and slaughtered totally defenseless civilians for years, and resisted to the last man and refused to surrender. There was little reason for the Americans to assume an invasion of their homeland would be any different.

This isnt about whether they deserve it or not this is about what happened.
Japan was completely wrecked from all the normal bombing that was done. And this type of bombing could have continued, there was no real tactical reason for dropping A-bombs. Japan was done and over. The A-bomb was kicking an enemy when he was already knocked down.

[Rodan]

We had no idea about who could be trusted or not and that created internment camps, again because of informational ignorance of the day. Show me a war that has no innocent collateral damage and I'll be surprised. Do I feel bad for the innocent? Sure I do but unjust as it may seem today it was justifiable AT THAT TIME. So let's leave the Monday morning quarterbacking off the table, and let's not forget that in spite of all that, Japan has been one of our stronger allies since then.

See, I still take issue with that, because, while you've provided some of the factors that led to the decision (and of course there were factors that helped justify it in the minds of decision-makers at the time), that doesn't mean we have to look back on it weighing those same justifications equally. They were born out of fear of an impending cold war and a desire to show strength, possibly out of misinformation on Japanese offensive, out of the real weight of being responsible for the lives of your own drafted soldiers when you have the ability to more quickly force surrender, and most certainly out of ignorance and dehumanizing sentiments that would allow such an action in the first place.

Here's the thing: We look back on history with scorn and shame all the time, even if we can understand the different circumstances and mentality that would have affected Americans at the time. That we do not look back on the A-bomb with the same sobriety and guilt is, in my opinion, disgusting.

The best argument to be made for them is among those cited above: the weight on leaders to keep their own men safe when they had the ability to more quickly end the war. Japan was our enemy. But even in war, we've agreed, globally, that certain actions are tolerable and others are not (however strange that may seem). When America decided to drop the A-bomb, it was with the intent to seek civilian casualties. We annihilated two entire cities instantly (to say nothing of the generations' of poisoning and other side effects). That's a war crime. Taking the lives of enemy civilians was more desirable than riding out an impending surrender involving only armed forces. It was deemed so because, at the time, we viewed them as sub-human.

And that's all assuming it was even justified in terms of numbers (as in predicted soldier casualties to reach surrender), which is heavily, heavily contested and certainly mixed with motivations to flex muscle at Russia and other countries approaching nuclear armament.

It's something that should never have happened once. That we did it twice is unconscionable.

Any deaths are regrettable, but the Japanese made their own beds, and they got to lay in them. They were the ones who raped and maimed and slaughtered totally defenseless civilians for years, and resisted to the last man and refused to surrender. There was little reason for the Americans to assume an invasion of their homeland would be any different.

The scores of Japanese women and children incinerated and poisoned by the bombs did no such thing. You do not target civilians for the actions of (portions of) a nation's military. That's the text-book definition of an international war crime. That shouldn't even be up for debate.

That Japan was on the wrong side of World War II is also not up for debate, but that doesn't justify the use of the bombs at all.

[Godzilla21]

[quote="]

Nope. Japan were beginning plans to surrender way before the A-bombs because they were loosing and there was no coming back. And one of the big reasons for this was because the people were beginning to freak out and the people in charge were in fact afraid of a rebellion.

If we are going to look at history we got to look at all information. Looking at certain pieces ignoring others is not history, that's just a story.

This isnt about whether they deserve it or not this is about what happened.
Japan was completely wrecked from all the normal bombing that was done. And this type of bombing could have continued, there was no real tactical reason for dropping A-bombs. Japan was done and over. The A-bomb was kicking an enemy when he was already knocked down

[/quote]

Not to burst your bubble but the Japanese were not beginning plans to surrender. Google search on Kyushu in 1945. The Japanese were amassing millions of soldiers in preparation of an American invasion. They were prepping 1,000s of planes for kamikaze missions. They were drafting civilians into service. They were not going to go down without a fight.

We can debate whether using the bomb was right or not all day. But to say Japan was going to lay down is wrong. Millions of lives would have been lost with an invasion.

[kgmovie]

The scores of Japanese women and children incinerated and poisoned by the bombs did no such thing. You do not target civilians for the actions of (portions of) a nation's military. That's the text-book definition of an international war crime. That shouldn't even be up for debate.

That Japan was on the wrong side of World War II is also not up for debate, but that doesn't justify the use of the bombs at all.

Well said.

[Legionmaster]

"Only a Sith deals in absolutes."

Nuking Japan can be both a tactical necessity and a wartime atrocity, and most of the people involved in those incidents viewed it that way.

Also in hindsight, seeing how utterly devastated those two cities were was likely the largest contributing factor to the lack of nuclear war since, and nukes very quickly became far more powerful than those two bombs.

Dropping the bombs or not is not a moral battleground for us to determine who has the ethical upper hand today. That's petty bickering using a stance on a historical event none of our parents were alive to witness.

Being totally opposed to war means you will be crushed and conquered. Being a warmonger means you will have nothing left to rule. As with anything else in the political theater, military might is a balancing act that walks a thin line between necessity and atrocity. It's both aspects at the same time. That is reality.

[Legionmaster]

"S.H.I.E.L.D. takes the world as it is, not as we'd like it to be."

Maybe I'll start working that one in too. And also get some Robert Redford repellent.

[HannibalBarca]

"Only a Sith deals in absolutes."

That one never fails to make me laugh.

[kgmovie]

"Only a Sith deals in absolutes."

Nuking Japan can be both a tactical necessity and a wartime atrocity, and most of the people involved in those incidents viewed it that way.

Also in hindsight, seeing how utterly devastated those two cities were was likely the largest contributing factor to the lack of nuclear war since, and nukes very quickly became far more powerful than those two bombs.

Dropping the bombs or not is not a moral battleground for us to determine who has the ethical upper hand today. That's petty bickering using a stance on a historical event none of our parents were alive to witness.

Being totally opposed to war means you will be crushed and conquered. Being a warmonger means you will have nothing left to rule. As with anything else in the political theater, military might is a balancing act that walks a thin line between necessity and atrocity. It's both aspects at the same time. That is reality.

This is the truth.

I think the discussion here is more interesting than anything I've read on this board in months.

[Legionmaster]

This thread has been a great example of having a healthy debate without resorting to flaming and personal attacks. Though there have been a few lapses in civility (ie calling Ryfle an "idiot" and jabs at personal views), this is for the most part how the board should always be.

What are you lookin' at, butthead?

[Legionmaster]

Legionmaster quoted from Star Wars, Captain America, and Back to the Future all in one day.

Marry me.

Gay marriage was just legalized in Pennsylvania today. So I guess this is just fate.

Also, I got you this:



I recently saw in a movie that you're supposed to give this to your partner to show your love.

[Shisa Caesar]

Not to burst your bubble but the Japanese were not beginning plans to surrender. Google search on Kyushu in 1945. The Japanese were amassing millions of soldiers in preparation of an American invasion. They were prepping 1,000s of planes for kamikaze missions. They were drafting civilians into service. They were not going to go down without a fight.

We can debate whether using the bomb was right or not all day. But to say Japan was going to lay down is wrong. Millions of lives would have been lost with an invasion.

Preparations for surrendering does not mean they surrendered the second the idea was brought up.

[tymon]

EDIT: Nevermind, not opening that can of worms. All I'll say is that resorting to an atrocity as a "solution" or "necessity" is just plain despicable no matter how you slice it, and I'd like to think that we, as a species, could evolve past this "ends justify the means" bullshit.

[Pacfanweb]

The Japanese had an especially bad reputation for their general treatment of POWs and civillians in WWII. Many estimates put the death toll from the Rape of Nanking far above that of the dual atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I don't believe it's really possible to conclusively say one way or another that the bombings were provably immoral or unnecessary.

The US holds suspects indefinitely and tortures them in its ongoing dubious War on Terror. It spies on its own citizens and on all countries around the world. We lock up our own citizens during war if they are of the wrong ethnic background. We invaded Iraq, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. We fire bombed and nuked cities full of innocents in Japan, and we waged a fundamentally unjust war that put Vietnam in ruins.

I don't really believe it's possible to conclusively say one way or another that nuking the US would be provably immoral or unnecessary.

(Do you see how insane this sounds? Either you're opposed to the murder of civilians, or you're not.)

Nice strawman. Or strawmen.

First off, WWII was total war. Tell me this: How was the Hiroshima bomb, which killed about 75-80k people, any different than the fire bombing of Tokyo, which killed over 100k? Are the people in Hiroshima any more dead because it only took one bomb? IMO, people are applying what we know about today's nuclear weapons and acting like what they will do is what happened to Japan. It's not. A MOAB today will devastate as large an area as the Hiroshima bomb did, which is about one square mile. (minus the radiation, of course)

Second: Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were legitimate military targets. Hiroshima had industrial targets, not to mention military headquarters. Nagasaki had Mitsubishi, and naval yards. And how were these two cities any less legit a target than Tokyo or any other city in Japan or Germany that got bombed?

Third: The US does capture TERRORISTS and torture them for additional intel. I don't have the slightest problem with that, since it saves American (and other innocent) lives. Terrorists aren't even really fighting for or against anything, they just randomly kill with no end in sight and no goal in mind. What do they even want, besides infidels dead?

Plus: I don't recall American soldiers raping and pillaging their way through Iraq and Afghanistan. I don't recall American soldiers in ANY war going around conquered cities and raping and killing families, finding pregnant women, making bets what sex the babies were and then cutting the baby out to see. I don't recall any American soldiers having beheading contests whose scores were reported on in the papers back home. I don't recall the Americans enslaving thousands of women and forcing them to be unpaid prostitutes and shipping them around to their different military bases to be "used".
I don't recall the Americans having a Unit 731. (that the war criminal Emperor knew about and authorized)

So don't come here with this crap about the US torturing freaking TERRORISTS for info and act like it's anywhere near the scale of atrocities committed by Japan.
And don't act like the Japanese didn't use WMD's (gas) in WWII in China, either.

Again, it is regrettable for ANY deaths to occur, but in a war like WWII was, this is just what went on. And again, with the information that they had AT THE TIME, there was no reason for the US to think that Japan was even anywhere near surrendering. In fact, there was plenty of info to the contrary. It's easy for everyone to go back and look now, and find other evidence now that the entire situation has been analyzed for 70 years. But Truman didn't have Google. He had what info he had, and he had what evidence of the Japanese fighting spirit he had. You really can't fault his decision.

And I have a hard time with the revisionist historians that want to make the Japanese out as victims, when they perpetrated war crime just as heinous, and more numerous over the course of the war. Google some of the examples I listed above, and see for yourselves. I am not at all saying they "deserved" it, because of their own war atrocities, I am merely saying it is hard for me to accept that the Japanese are somehow victims when they committed atrocities that far outweigh the atomic bombings, in a way THEY started.

[Shisa Caesar]

The Japanese had an especially bad reputation for their general treatment of POWs and civillians in WWII. Many estimates put the death toll from the Rape of Nanking far above that of the dual atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I don't believe it's really possible to conclusively say one way or another that the bombings were provably immoral or unnecessary.

The US holds suspects indefinitely and tortures them in its ongoing dubious War on Terror. It spies on its own citizens and on all countries around the world. We lock up our own citizens during war if they are of the wrong ethnic background. We invaded Iraq, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. We fire bombed and nuked cities full of innocents in Japan, and we waged a fundamentally unjust war that put Vietnam in ruins.

I don't really believe it's possible to conclusively say one way or another that nuking the US would be provably immoral or unnecessary.

(Do you see how insane this sounds? Either you're opposed to the murder of civilians, or you're not.)

Nice strawman. Or strawmen.

First off, WWII was total war. Tell me this: How was the Hiroshima bomb, which killed about 75-80k people, any different than the fire bombing of Tokyo, which killed over 100k? Are the people in Hiroshima any more dead because it only took one bomb? IMO, people are applying what we know about today's nuclear weapons and acting like what they will do is what happened to Japan. It's not. A MOAB today will devastate as large an area as the Hiroshima bomb did, which is about one square mile. (minus the radiation, of course)

That's the whole point... how can you miss the point of the bad thing about a nuclear weapon?

[tymon]

And I have a hard time with the revisionist historians that want to make the Japanese out as victims

The Japanese military and government (ya know, the ones responsible) were not innocent. The hundreds of thousands of civilians, the "collateral damage"? *They* were innocent. That's the distinction, and it's not a hard one to grasp.

If someone commits a crime, you punish him, not his entire community, even if you see some cold, reptilian "tactical advantage" in doing so. Obviously, a war between two nations is infinitely more complex than that, but logic and principle should not be thrown out the window just because the stakes/variables are multiplied.

[Rodan]

So, here's the thing: Indiscriminate war does not grant moral amnesty to the indiscriminate murder of civilians. That's why definitions for international war crimes have been agreed upon. War may be an atrocious reality and, sometimes, necessity, but even within that realm nations have agreed upon moral boundaries and the right to try and condemn those who violate them. It's strange to think of any of it in terms of degrees when death is death, but it's important that these distinctions exist to hold nations and individuals responsible when they abuse the conflict.

This is the definition of an international crime against humanity established shortly after World War II:

"Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated".

And an international war crime, the possibilities for which include:

*murder, ill-treatment or deportation of civilian residents of an occupied territory to slave labor camps
*murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war
*the killing of hostages
*the wanton destruction of cities, towns, villages, or any devastation not justified by military necessity

It's a crime against humanity. As a war crime, it's only remotely arguable under the last point; to have done so twice in succession is certainly beyond excusing. And the deaths weren't the collateral damage of a smaller military target: civilians were the targets. They paid for it even generations later by way of radiation poisoning and birth defects.

We condemn actions in history that would have seemed, at the time, justifiable in our teachings all the time. Slavery, internment of Japanese citizens, treatment of Native Americans -- all these and more are presented in American history with a tone of, yes, understanding that it was the culture so as not to condemn individuals, but on the whole with unabashed scorn. It's important that we're able to do so so that, moving forward, we have a clear eye on what's acceptable and what's not to be repeated. Why this one action has escaped such treatment is beyond me, but what gets me is that, at the heart of it all, it's impossible to condemn a city full of innocent civilians while still thinking of them with humanity.

The bombs were actions as wrapped up in hatred and dismissal as the internment of Japanese citizens or any other ugly racist events in U.S. history. The necessity of even one bombing is debatable, and is predicated on trading civilian lives for military ones. It most certainly meets the definition of a crime against humanity, and most likely a war crime as well.

Why is it okay to condemn all other blemishes of our past, yet this one must be treated with measure?

[tymon]

^Exactly.

[Mecha-SpaceGhidorah]

Third: The US does capture TERRORISTS and torture them for additional intel. I don't have the slightest problem with that, since it saves American (and other innocent) lives.

And what of the ones who turned out not to be terrorists, there was a woman (her name escapes me) who was held in a black site. Her children disappeared with her, they were later found (years later, if I recall correctly). What she may or may not have done is not a matter of issue, but her children were taken too. It simply is not as cut and dry as you're making it out to be.

Terrorists aren't even really fighting for or against anything, they just randomly kill with no end in sight and no goal in mind. What do they even want, besides infidels dead?

I'd call that a straw argument as much as what you called Jomei's to be. Some do just want to kill, but many truly believe they are ridding the world of an evil; they aren't mindless killers, they've been disillusioned and brainwashed (for lack of a better term). It most certainly doesn't justify their actions, but to say that they kill as nothing more that non-human robots is a boldfaced lie.

[three]

alright it's been like 3 days so lets try this again.

one bomb: necessary evil. calling it unncessary is a product of the times as much as the reverse is true (and odd thing to say -- elaboration time). four years into the worst war in human history, one america didn't want to be in, we're faced with the japanese homeland. for those who do know: the japanese had as good a propaganda machine as any, and a coup attempt to overthrow the emperor was foiled/failed, so nobody was gonna surrender. if that's still hard to believe, the japanese rejected unconditional surrender leading up to the bombs. there is little doubt that had a mainland invasion been attempted, not only would we fight soldiers, but civilian casualties would mount as well, fearing the raping, pillaging, sharp - toothed american monsters. that image caused people on islands leading to japan to jump off cliffs into the ocean, to commit suicide, and to murder their children out of MERCY.

now, considering that, added to the fact that we were a nation tired of war, and that we had seen too many of our men die, i can see how at that time the justification was simple: we're ending this NOW, we're saving OUR MEN.

we can condemn the actions taken of individuals or groups while still seeing them as necessary. the first bomb was necessary. one would have convinced anyone it's done, over, give up. two was a message to someone else, and that one IMHO, as a student of history, is one we should be really hammered over, because that one was not for japan, or to end a war: that one was an "i've got my eye on you" to the soviet union at the expense of innocent lives, and even thought the first bomb was an assault on innocents, it was a war move, NOT a "proving a point" attack with no end in sight. if you study it, you're going to come to this conclusion (and yes, i'll tell you exactly what you should think if you do your homework):

that this was a horrible, terrible crime.

that it was at least justified to the people at the time.

it is condemnable on every level

it was necessary to end the war when it did.

you can argue till you're blue in the fact we could have just invaded the japanese mainland and lost soldiers, but each is a son not coming home, or a brother, or a father. when you're at war, your guys are the top priority: not the other guys. if you somehow think the nature of war has changed and civilians just don't die now, you're making the mistake of focusing on numbers and not the big picture: that this was no worse than a drone strike that kills a family by mistake today. it's war. surprisingly enough even a good number of japanese simply accepted that this was part of the fact that they decided to fight us (though that does not serve as justification). i believe we can end that discussion there, or at least i'll end my own involvement, as i cannot see it any other way than i already do (whether that is a fault or not i don't care, but you may form your own decision on that matter separately).

[Pacfanweb]

And I have a hard time with the revisionist historians that want to make the Japanese out as victims

The Japanese military and government (ya know, the ones responsible) were not innocent. The hundreds of thousands of civilians, the "collateral damage"? *They* were innocent. That's the distinction, and it's not a hard one to grasp.

If someone commits a crime, you punish him, not his entire community, even if you see some cold, reptilian "tactical advantage" in doing so. Obviously, a war between two nations is infinitely more complex than that, but logic and principle should not be thrown out the window just because the stakes/variables are multiplied.

Things were different then. Period, end of story. The atomic bombs and their results were no different than the bombing of any other city in any other country. And we were at war with Japan. Not their military, not Tojo or Yamamoto or Hirohito....JAPAN. That means their people, too. Just like they were at war with us, and if they could have bombed the US mainland, they certainly would have.

The precedent had been established. Every single major combatant bombed cities that had mostly a "civilian" population.....but were they, really? How many people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki worked in military manufacturing? Not like they were all farmers and bankers. In wartime, most civilians are supporting the military effort with their jobs.

But the point is, that is the way things were done in WWII. There was no such thing as a smart bomb, no such thing as taking out specific targets. What they called "precision bombing" back then, we call carpet bombing now.

What you cannot do, is go back and apply today's morals and information (that leaders did not have then) to yesterday's events and declare anything a "war crime". The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was no more a war crime than the bombing of Tokyo or any other Japanese city, or Dresden, or London, or the Holocaust, or the Rape of Nanking, the Bataan Death March, or Berlin, or Stalingrad, or Poland, etc., etc., etc.

Every single nation involved in the war committed atrocities. Some worse than others...a LOT worse. But that was the way things were done, in a total war like WWII. So you cannot single out one or two events and claim them to be some terrible war crimes, especially when there is a LOT of evidence that said events actually shortened the war.

You CAN argue that point, about whether the Japanese were going to surrender anyway. You'd be wrong, but it's at least a legitimate debate. The US leadership had no idea at all that the Japanese might surrender.....they did not get to name their terms. It was the Allies' terms or nothing. But the invasion was going to happen, and the Japanese were going to fight. There was zero, ZERO reason to believe they wouldn't have AT THE TIME, and based on how they fought defending islands, we could only assume they'd fight that much harder defending their mainland. Now some people, with the luxury of time and many investigations, think maybe they'd have surrendered....but the point is, that was not known to the Allies at the time, therefore it's kind of hard to go back and second-guess them with info they did not have.