Lindqvist has divided the book into a labyrinth of 399 short sections that can be read in any number of orders. The author has established 22 entrances into the book and to follow the different themes you have to weave your way backward and forward through the text.
Choose Your Own History Of Bombing Adventure/Bombing Fantasy books = GRATE
― Graham, Monday, 20 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― keith, Tuesday, 21 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― anthony, Tuesday, 21 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― DG, Tuesday, 21 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Aileen Sabraski, Thursday, 9 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Madame, Thursday, 9 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― justin heinzen, Friday, 17 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
Tracer Hand writes (on 8/20/01 no less):I believe there is a moral difference between killing men in uniform in wartime and killing kids going to piano lessons.
I have always agreed with this logic and have never heard a vaguely convincing argument to the contrary.
― gygax! (gygax!), Monday, 11 August 2003 20:06 (twenty years ago) link
― amateurist (amateurist), Monday, 11 August 2003 20:12 (twenty years ago) link
― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Monday, 11 August 2003 20:16 (twenty years ago) link
― amateurist (amateurist), Monday, 11 August 2003 20:17 (twenty years ago) link
― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 11 August 2003 20:21 (twenty years ago) link
"Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.'"
― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Monday, 11 August 2003 21:33 (twenty years ago) link
― Leee (Leee), Monday, 11 August 2003 21:49 (twenty years ago) link
― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Monday, 11 August 2003 21:54 (twenty years ago) link
"Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated."
Maybe you'll catch that on second reading.
Maybe.
― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Monday, 11 August 2003 21:57 (twenty years ago) link
― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Monday, 11 August 2003 21:58 (twenty years ago) link
So you understand that no American lives were saved, as no invasion would have been necessary.
How does that jive with "- it was totally wrong for the us military to value their lives over those of their enemy"?
How were Japanese civilians our enemy?By your logic, doesn't that make 9/11 acceptable, as Osama considers American civilians his enemy?Or is it only Americans that get special privileges on this?
― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Monday, 11 August 2003 22:03 (twenty years ago) link
― gygax! (gygax!), Monday, 11 August 2003 22:06 (twenty years ago) link
This statement is not universally agreed upon.
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Monday, 11 August 2003 22:06 (twenty years ago) link
― oops (Oops), Monday, 11 August 2003 22:09 (twenty years ago) link
Whatever other points might be made, you have to recognize a distinction between acts between two nations at war with one another and acts between two nations not at war.
And you have to recognize a distinction between "the actions of a government" (the US, Japan) and "the actions of an individual who is not, at least officially, sanction by a government" (Osama) -- if you don't, then you may as well call the Okalahoma City bombing "an act of civil war."
― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 11 August 2003 22:10 (twenty years ago) link
― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Monday, 11 August 2003 22:12 (twenty years ago) link
So we have a document which goes against the direct interests of the government that produces it, and is based on the testimony of the people running Japan (and the US military).
What better source is there for deciding this?
Whatever other points might be made, you have to recognize a distinction between acts between two nations at war with one another and acts between two nations not at war.Why?
So it would be acceptable to hijack planes and fly them into the WTC, if the people doing it had the sanction of a government?
And you have to recognize a distinction between "the actions of a government" (the US, Japan) and "the actions of an individual who is not, at least officially, sanction by a government" (Osama) -- if you don't, then you may as well call the Okalahoma City bombing "an act of civil war."I don't consider any of them acceptable, declared "war" or no. Why does a three-letter word make mass murder, whether it's firebombing Dresden, attacking Hiroshima, napalming Vietnamese villagers or slaughtering Iraqi soldiers as they retreat acceptable?
How does the sanction of anyone make the action 'better' or 'worse'? 3,000 people would still be dead, if Saudi Arabia had sponsored the attack. 250,000+ would still be dead, if the Enola Gay had gone rogue.
― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Monday, 11 August 2003 22:17 (twenty years ago) link
― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 11 August 2003 22:18 (twenty years ago) link
― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Monday, 11 August 2003 22:21 (twenty years ago) link
The distinction is there. It's important for a million reasons, not least of which are:
1) War and unsanctioned terrorist attacks -- McVeigh's bombing, the WTC attack -- have different potential responses.
2) War and unsanctioned terrorist attacks -- assuming for the moment that the acts of war in question don't include acts of terrorism (I'm not arguing that's universally or even usually the case, but there doesn't happen to be a word for 'non-terrorist acts of war') -- are precipitated by different motivations, which is after all why we have a word for terrorism in the first place. Terrorist acts are first and foremost emotional: they aim to inspire terror, fear, panic. There's a difference between blowing up a munitions factory and blowing up a convent, and even if you think both are wrong in any circumstance, if you can't see the difference, you're blind.
3) Because distinctions matter. Recognizing distinctions is one of the fundamental functions of rational thought, maybe second only to perceiving causality. If you can't make them, if you allow emotional objections to deny them, you are quite simply incapable of a useful discussion and may as well just hang up a sign that says "I think X," and let everyone ignore you from the get-go.
― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 11 August 2003 22:27 (twenty years ago) link
What's the difference in:
Nineteen Saudi Arabian soldiers hijack US planes and kill 3000 US civilians
and
Nineteen Saudi Arabian civilians hijack US planes and kill 3000 US civilians?
Aren't the civilians still dead? Weren't they a non-threat to anyone's life either way?
The logic behind excusing murder in war is based on self-defense. You kill the other guy because he poses a direct threat to your health and well-being. That simply doesn't exist for Hiroshima, Nagasaki or most other US actions of the last half-century.
(And before it's pointed out, yes, absolutely the same goes for other nations. I happen to be a US citizen, and as such have a vested interest in the actions of my government.)
― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Monday, 11 August 2003 22:28 (twenty years ago) link
― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Monday, 11 August 2003 22:31 (twenty years ago) link
how would the american military have had perfect access to the relevant information abt japan's capabilities and morale etc while the fighting was still going on?
― mark s (mark s), Monday, 11 August 2003 22:32 (twenty years ago) link
The distinction isn't only between the jobs of the people responsible. Hiroshima happened in the context of an existing war which had been raged for years; it was, in broad terms but obviously not specifics, predictable. It was not entirely out of the blue -- i.e. even if Hiroshima was unjustified (and I'm not making an argument that it was, you know), even if that specific attack was a surprise, "Americans attacking Japan" certainly wasn't. It was the latest action in a context of war.
Flying a plane through the World Trade Center wasn't. Blowing up a federal building in Oklahome City wasn't.
I'm not saying you should kill civilians in a war. I'm not saying we should've dropped a bomb on Hiroshima. I'm saying that pretending there's any real parallel between those actions and the World Trade Center bombing, for the sake of some perceived scored point, is asinine.
― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 11 August 2003 22:33 (twenty years ago) link
The key sentence here : assuming for the moment that the acts of war in question don't include acts of terrorism.
That's a false assumption. Modern war is one long act of terrorism. From the Blitz to "shock and awe."
And the events I've mentioned - 9/11 v. Hiroshima, certainly falls under the terrorist banner.
As such, no distinction between them based on 'declared war.'
3) Because distinctions matter. Recognizing distinctions is one of the fundamental functions of rational thought, maybe second only to perceiving causality. If you can't make them, if you allow emotional objections to deny them, you are quite simply incapable of a useful discussion and may as well just hang up a sign that says "I think X," and let everyone ignore you from the get-go.It's not that I'm "ignoring" distinctions, I fail to see a rational distinction based on "declared war."
How does "declaring war" change the acceptability/morality of an action?
What distinction is created by "declaring war"?
How would 9/11 have been different under a declared war?
― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Monday, 11 August 2003 22:35 (twenty years ago) link
― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 11 August 2003 22:36 (twenty years ago) link
― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 11 August 2003 22:37 (twenty years ago) link
― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Monday, 11 August 2003 22:38 (twenty years ago) link
― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 11 August 2003 22:40 (twenty years ago) link
― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Monday, 11 August 2003 22:40 (twenty years ago) link
Howso? I'm not saying Saudi Arabia was responsible for the attacks. But, as the head of the organization and most of the people involved came from SA, it's a shorthand.
milo, just because people realised AFTERWARDS that the war needn't have been fought the way it was doesn't mean that people at the time were involved in some dastardly plot to pursue evil at all costs, knowing that it wasn't necessary
how would the american military have had perfect access to the relevant information abt japan's capabilities and morale etc while the fighting was still going on? Perhaps noting the surrender talk being passed through Moscow?
Or listening to Eisenhower or any of the other people in the military who said it was unnecessary?
Or noting that the Soviets would soon join the war, making an American invasion unnecessary or even less costly should it have had to happen? (Of course, this goes back to the real cause - we needed to show we had the bomb and would use it on a civilian population. Prelude to a Cold War.)
This is a discussion on the "necessity" of the bombing. And, thus far, there has been nothing presented to show it being necessary.
Flying a plane through the World Trade Center wasn't. Blowing up a federal building in Oklahome City wasn't.In all three cases, people were killed who posed no threat to the lives of the people who killed them.
How does the "context of war" change that?
How is there not a parallel? All you keep coming back to is this "context of war," without showing how that "context" excuses or changes any action.
In both cases, non-combatants were killed to serve no purpose outside of "terror." Do you agree?
If so, how does the "context of war" change the events? Unless war mitigates terrorism, there is no difference.
― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Monday, 11 August 2003 22:44 (twenty years ago) link
You state that the "context of war" creates "distinctions."
As asked earlier, what is the point of these distinctions, if not to create different standards for identical actions?
What is the point of "distinctions" and "contexts" here, if not to determine acceptability.
I'm not sure he realizes that I don't even necessarily disagree with him about Hiroshima itself.You don't, not quite.
As I see it, the people who ordered the Enola Gay to attack, and the people who carried it out, are no different from Osama bin Laden and the 9/11 hijackers. Only the former killed many more people.
In both cases, the people involved took actions designed to murder thousands of civilians who posed no threat, in order to serve a political purpose.
I fail to see how any "distinction" or "context of war" mitigates anything.
― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Monday, 11 August 2003 22:48 (twenty years ago) link
Finding it acceptable but disapproving = "we shouldn't have done it, but that doesn't make the Americans war criminals."
Finding it unacceptable and disapproving = "we shouldn't have done it and the Americans involved are war criminals."
― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Monday, 11 August 2003 22:52 (twenty years ago) link
― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Monday, 11 August 2003 22:54 (twenty years ago) link
― oops (Oops), Monday, 11 August 2003 22:55 (twenty years ago) link
― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Monday, 11 August 2003 22:56 (twenty years ago) link
― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Monday, 11 August 2003 22:57 (twenty years ago) link
1) I have not mentioned mitigation. I have not condoned the bombing of Hiroshima. I have not specifically condemned it because I don't feel I'm informed enough to have an educated opinion. My gut feeling is that it was unnecessary -- but I'm not certain I would have been able to determine that in 1945.
2) I could name a thousand types of distinctions that have nothing to do with acceptability -- gender, color, anything perceptible by any sense, and the several-times-mentioned apples versus oranges -- but who has time for that? If you don't get it, you don't get it; if it's inconvenient to the type of rhetoric you want to stick to, you'll pretend not to get it, judging by what Blount implies.
3) The two most important reasons to make a distinction in this case are:
a) intent -- if you automatically lump the WTC bombing and the Hiroshima bombing together, you "pre-win" any arguments about the possible intents or motivations for the Hiroshima bombing. Without doing so, someone could conceivably argue that those who ordered the Hiroshima bombing were motivated by a desire to preserve American life -- whether their actions resulted in that or not, that motivation could be proposed. By equating it with the WTC bombing, you are automatically denying that possibility without bothering to argue it -- Osama couldn't possibly have thought the lives of his people would be preserved by the WTC bombing, and therefore no one could have thought the same for the Hiroshima bombing, QED, la la la. It's lazy, and it's bullshit, and it's beneath anyone of intelligence.
b) Respect. Making the sloppiness of your thinking that evident isn't just an insult to your own intelligence, it's an insult to the intelligence of anyone who would carry on the argument with you.
Which is why I'm done.
― Tep (ktepi), Monday, 11 August 2003 22:57 (twenty years ago) link
― oops (Oops), Monday, 11 August 2003 22:58 (twenty years ago) link
and this statement: As I see it, the people who ordered the Enola Gay to attack, and the people who carried it out, are no different from Osama bin Laden and the 9/11 hijackers.
is so utterly relativistic that we might as well just all go on a killing spree right now because it's the same thing as being born. I'm outta here too.
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Monday, 11 August 2003 23:00 (twenty years ago) link
If you didn't think it was right and proper, you wouldn't find it "necessary." "Necessary" acts as a positive value judgement - an action was "required."
― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Monday, 11 August 2003 23:00 (twenty years ago) link
― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Monday, 11 August 2003 23:06 (twenty years ago) link
How many bombs did they or the USSR think we had then, though?
― publier les (suggest) bans de (Michael White), Tuesday, August 9, 2011 8:24 PM (37 minutes ago) Bookmark
Good question! I think they would have to presume that we could make them fairly quickly, right? Since we'd obviously cleared all of the significant hurdles.
I think the third bomb that was ready to ship out to Japan was the last one we had ready to go.
― Matt Armstrong, Tuesday, 9 August 2011 21:07 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_26253535/barton-j-bernstein-american-conservatives-are-forgotten-critics
― ♪♫ teenage wasteman ♪♫ (goole), Tuesday, 5 August 2014 18:23 (nine years ago) link
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/oct/23/descent-hell/
Two things jump out about this big book. One is that it is unusual to read extensive personal accounts of civilians on the enemy side who suffered in large numbers during World War II. The second is that, at least to judge by the inhabitants of Okinawa, many Japanese civilians, together with their emperor, were unwilling to surrender.The huge US offensive in Okinawa—the only part of Japan where US forces fought on the ground—lasted eighty-two days in the spring of 1945 and cost about as many lives altogether as the atom bombs themselves. The US invading force of 1,050 ships carrying 548,000 men vastly outnumbered the 110,000 Japanese soldiers defending the island. But the Japanese held out with remarkable tenacity, and 77,000 Japanese soldiers and over 140,000 civilians would be killed before the US could declare victory. On the US side, more than 14,000 troops lost their lives, including 4,900 sailors felled by Japanese kamikaze—“divine wind”—suicide pilots, of which there were 3,050. As Hanson W. Baldwin, the New York Times war correspondent, described it, “Never before had there been, probably never again will there be, such a vicious sprawling struggle.”I was thirteen at the time and recall my feelings of pride that American soldiers were yet again beating the fiendish, barely human Japanese. This was bolstered by the press and by super-patriotic films like Wake Island, in which Americans lost but only temporarily. Later, after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a new belief took hold among liberal and leftist Americans: that the reasons given for dropping the bombs—among them, above all, that the Japanese would never surrender unless pulverized—were self-serving and false. Because of this new book I am thinking again.
The huge US offensive in Okinawa—the only part of Japan where US forces fought on the ground—lasted eighty-two days in the spring of 1945 and cost about as many lives altogether as the atom bombs themselves. The US invading force of 1,050 ships carrying 548,000 men vastly outnumbered the 110,000 Japanese soldiers defending the island. But the Japanese held out with remarkable tenacity, and 77,000 Japanese soldiers and over 140,000 civilians would be killed before the US could declare victory. On the US side, more than 14,000 troops lost their lives, including 4,900 sailors felled by Japanese kamikaze—“divine wind”—suicide pilots, of which there were 3,050. As Hanson W. Baldwin, the New York Times war correspondent, described it, “Never before had there been, probably never again will there be, such a vicious sprawling struggle.”
I was thirteen at the time and recall my feelings of pride that American soldiers were yet again beating the fiendish, barely human Japanese. This was bolstered by the press and by super-patriotic films like Wake Island, in which Americans lost but only temporarily. Later, after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a new belief took hold among liberal and leftist Americans: that the reasons given for dropping the bombs—among them, above all, that the Japanese would never surrender unless pulverized—were self-serving and false. Because of this new book I am thinking again.
― Mordy, Friday, 24 October 2014 22:27 (nine years ago) link
Per that last bit, I've noticed hearing more about the sadism and extreme brutality of the Japanese more in recent years, too. They were like a different kind of Nazi, with similar theories of superiority but slightly different means of expressing it.
One of these days I need to read a good book about World War II, one that explained how the Germans and Japanese managed to hook up in the first place.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 24 October 2014 23:22 (nine years ago) link
marriage of convenience - Japan useful to Germany as a counterbalance to Russia and later America etc.
― Οὖτις, Friday, 24 October 2014 23:25 (nine years ago) link
Yeah, but how did it even come about? How often did Germany and Japan cross paths? How did this come up? "By the way, we want to take over the world, you in?"
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 24 October 2014 23:43 (nine years ago) link
I have recently been reading Catastrophe by Max Hastings, which delivers what you are requesting, but for WW1 as an unravelling theatre of death with lots of splendid period flavour. I'd guess there is a similar WW2 type book somewhere. probably try the book thread.
― xelab, Saturday, 25 October 2014 00:15 (nine years ago) link
There was a lot of debate internal to the Nazi party. Germany had a policy of siding with and sending advisors to aid the Kuomintang in their suppression of the Chinese communist party. Hitler thought the Japanese military government were more potent anti-communists, hence the Anti-comintern Pact of 1936, followed very shortly by the second Sino-Japanese War in 1937.
Its easy to forget these days that in 1937, Germany was a serious player in the far east, with the leased territory of Qingdao, trade ports at Hankou, Beihai, and Harbin, and missionaries travelling the interior. Everyone (including America) had their fingers in the Chinese pie at the time. Indeed WWII was as much created by the China grab and post-1918 anti-Communism as it was by resentment over the Versailles Treaty. Germany, or at least Hitler, thought they could get a better deal from Tokyo than Chiang Kai-shek,
― TTAGGGTTAGGG (Sanpaku), Saturday, 25 October 2014 00:23 (nine years ago) link
I'm really skeptical of any "the Japanese would have fought tooth and nail for every inch of Japan" argument - some of them quickly verge into racism, but even the ones that don't seem to assume that "the Japanese," having been programmed for tenacious, relentless civilian defense, would all stay in that mode forever, regardless of whatever else developed, unless what developed was an atomic bomb, in which case they would all switch over to being okay with surrendering. It kinda doesn't compute on its face, but it also just imagines that, had the war continued, it would have been somehow ahistorical and continuous in its progress, nothing changes, the ongoing invasion and the ramping-up of the already-severe deprivations and limitations of civilian life as a result of the water have no effect on the home front.... You'd think even just the Soviets declaring war on Japan would have been a game-changer.
― Doctor Casino, Saturday, 25 October 2014 01:05 (nine years ago) link
The surrender of Japan hinged entirely on the decisions of the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War and the emperor. It was never a matter of the Japanese people being programmed for tenacious, relentless civilian defense, but more a matter of disobedience to authority being so socially unacceptable as to verge on the unthinkable. The people were heartily weary of the war and dreaded being asked to make further sacrifices, but they would have obeyed.
― Scapa Flow & Eddie (Aimless), Saturday, 25 October 2014 01:29 (nine years ago) link
this is a good read
http://whowhatwhy.org/2016/05/25/classic-hiroshima-bombing-gets-hollywood-makeover/
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, 26 May 2016 23:51 (seven years ago) link
i've always found the 'it was necessary to avoid more bloodshed' a convenient yet unconvincing excuse but i haven't done enough reading on the subject.
anything of recommendation on either side of the aisle?
― sorry for butt rockin (Neanderthal), Monday, 17 February 2020 03:50 (four years ago) link
bugger "both sides", if you want to know about the bomb and how decisions on when and where to use it were made you need to check out alex wellerstein, full stop.
― Kate (rushomancy), Monday, 17 February 2020 04:25 (four years ago) link
thanks
― sorry for butt rockin (Neanderthal), Monday, 17 February 2020 04:26 (four years ago) link
a thread from last year, pretty informative:
Today is the 74th anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki. Often overlooked, compared to Hiroshima, as merely the "second" atomic bomb, the Nagasaki attack is far more tricky, and important, in several ways. THREAD pic.twitter.com/UQYoz6ftzN— Alex Wellerstein (@wellerstein) August 9, 2019
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, 10 August 2020 00:35 (three years ago) link