They won't retreat mate. Most of the biggest geopolitical issues of this era were created by redcafe users
Geopolitics
- Thread starter Mciahel Goodman
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They won't retreat mate. Most of the biggest geopolitical issues of this era were created by redcafe users
Ok Adolf. What a load of white supremacist nonsense.
I was being sarcastic about this being a good thing
tbf i've given up arguing against groups of people, there's no point.
But I don't agree with the original thread title about the West getting isolated or whatever. Just that their moral denunciations about foreign countries will carry even less weight than usual.
I think you need to take a step back and relax. When you're not picking up sarcasm that obvious it's a problem.
I was being sarcastic about this being a good thing
tbf i've given up arguing against groups of people, there's no point.
But I don't agree with the original thread title about the West getting isolated or whatever. Just that their moral denunciations about foreign countries will carry even less weight than usual.
Nobody here is arguing that the West are saints though, it's just people are refusing the acknowledge the alternative is much much worse.
You’re welcome to hold your own views in exactly the same way that I am.
But describing the two atomic bombs as a mercy is utterly disgusting.
There are intelligent discussions to be had on the use of the bomb, the timing, ethics, warnings given, and so much more. But describing it as a mercy is abhorrent.
Like the world was all peaceful and loving if it wasn't for those darn western countries.
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It's England for Pav1878 (in case you thought their home country was India).
You’re the one who wrote that the west IS isolated, and then reply that it SHOULD (according to whom, who decides that, you alone?) be isolated, cmon that’s not very serious.
And you’re fighting a straw man here as you really are the only one suggesting that “the west is some pillar of morality”, no one claims that.
given the untold suffering of the entire japanese population was the alternative, the atomic bombs were a Mercy. Sorry if you don't like the word used, but it's accurate. I implore you read on what the actual Japanese plan was in case the Americans invaded.
Wikipedia provides a semi-reliable high level overview though some of it is a bit inaccurate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall#Operation_Ketsugō
How is the Atomic bombs, of which over 100,000 people died, anything other than a mercy when the alternative was, and I quote directly from Japan primary sources:
"The Glorious Death of One Hundred Million"
It's weird how remarkable emotional people get over use of certain terms despite not understanding the context of which they were given.
Surely it can be both that the West has made massive, unforgivable acts during its rise to prominence and also be preferable to the alternative?
This.
This type of post show you can be really smart and really oblivious at the same time.
Why are you limiting this to the past? Western countries are supporting a genocide today.
Since you posted in the Israel chat, let's move it here
What issue do you actually take?
It was literally a fecking binary option - historical documents all show this and support this
Japan fights to the death to every man vs Nukes
Which one is the more merciful option?
Read the damn Harry S Truman documents in Missouri, there were loads of recordings of cabinet meetings where there were discussions of Operation olympic/downfall and multiple cabinet members argued on the point of, "This is too cruel, we need a quicker method that draws less blood." Multiple times draft invasion plans were dismissed by the general staff because, and I quote, "This civilian casualty count is unimaginable and inhumane." The only one who seemingly did not give a shit was Douglas McArthur and well, that comes as no surprise.
And before you contest the Japanese fight to death assertion, reminder that after both nukes dropped, 3/6 of the war council STILL wanted to fight to the absolute death.
"all saints are alike, each terrible country is terrible in its own way"
i can quibble with your points about Nikita K's "we will bury you", or comparing the soviet slaughter in afghanistan to the US occupation there instead of the US slaughter in Korea or Vietnam, or other such things. But just generally I think
1. These "humane" aspects of the west come from its very stable position of dominance and total superiority, not from its innate moral superiority to the east.
2. Ignoring colonial atrocities and genocides, the modern west, starting in the 90s, has no quibbles sentencing literally billions to an unlivable, arid, food-scarce future. If any of the predictions of climate change related damage are true, they will put every genocide to the shade.
Would a Soviet-dominated world be different? Maybe, maybe not. The Soviets were in many cases terrible about the environment. But they were not constrained by the market in the same way, a total change of energy system etc is more possible for a centralised system. Somewhat similar to China, with its massive but plateauing coal use and absolutely insane exponentially increasing renewables.
Referring to the dropping of two atomic bombs as "a mercy" is a bit weird, isn't it?
You present yourself as a very rational guy and your posts about military issues show that you are smart and knowledgeable.
And yet, here you are using words like mercy to describe the brutal murder of entire civilian populations and saying obviously false and emotionally charged numbers, like 100 million dead, to justify this crime.
Where did I support genocide or claimed it is a conspiracy? I mean, what the actual feck? Don't throw around accusations like that if you have nothibg to back it up. I don't support what Israel is doing in Gaza, not at all.
I suppose with the way people are defending the atomic bomb the US shouldn't go to any memorial service anyway and just send a "You're welcome" card to Japan every year on the anniversary.
Regarding the West being "better" than the alternative, ofcourse it looks better than the alternative if you're living in a country that is an ally of the West. They go above and beyond to make lives hell for countries that aren't with them, how can you compare living in one county to another when the dominant group employ crippling sanctions on the other. And don't get my started on "they put sanctions on dictators", the West actively support dictators and murderous groups if they show support for the West politically and economically. I would love for the ones saying "the alternative is worse" to ask people whose family members were murdered by groups or dictators because they were against the West ideals and therefore the supported governments killed them.
What the West do well is that they make the lives of people living in their countries amazing so they can ignore the absolute horrors they are allowing in countries that aren't their friends.
The thing that annoys me the most is this arrogance of believing one side is more virtuous than the other. All powerful humans want to consolidate their power and will make others in their way suffer to keep it. If the West blatantly came out and said this I would have no issue with them. It's not the murdering and plundering that annoys me, it's the virtue signaling.
Regarding the West being "better" than the alternative, ofcourse it looks better than the alternative if you're living in a country that is an ally of the West. They go above and beyond to make lives hell for countries that aren't with them, how can you compare living in one county to another when the dominant group employ crippling sanctions on the other. And don't get my started on "they put sanctions on dictators", the West actively support dictators and murderous groups if they show support for the West politically and economically. I would love for the ones saying "the alternative is worse" to ask people whose family members were murdered by groups or dictators because they were against the West ideals and therefore the supported governments killed them.
What the West do well is that they make the lives of people living in their countries amazing so they can ignore the absolute horrors they are allowing in countries that aren't their friends.
The thing that annoys me the most is this arrogance of believing one side is more virtuous than the other. All powerful humans want to consolidate their power and will make others in their way suffer to keep it. If the West blatantly came out and said this I would have no issue with them. It's not the murdering and plundering that annoys me, it's the virtue signaling.
When we’re doing this bothesideism that the West are as bad as anyone else, does it count that Western countries generally don’t repress their populations, and that people are free to express themselves and live their lives as they please?
“It was a mercy for 150,000-250,000 civilians to die”
No. Just no. It’s not being emotional. It’s not about primary Japanese sources.
Murdering civilians in an instant versus a war that kills double/triple/x the number in an actual war effort with enlisted soldiers… never a mercy.
But you do you man.
Yes, that's true, to a certain extent. But like mentioned they help in repressing people from other countries that aren't their friends. Countries from the other side, Iran, China, Russia, while repressing their own people, don't repress other countries as much. Russia invaded Ukraine and, rightfully, the whole world went mad, but somehow have amnesia over what the US had been doing for decades before.
Like I said, it's lovely when you're on their side but they try to make it as horrible as possible for you if you aren't, even if you didn't do anything wrong.
Not amnesia, just that what Russia is doing is exponentially worse.
Exponentially worse than Vietnam, Iraq, countries in Central and South America?
The thread got merged, but my first post in the old thread was saying "when it comes to foreign policy".
Western foreign policy sucks but at the end of the day, history shows that populations tend to gravitate towards certain Western-like lifestyles. The Eastern European / Central European countries are not reverting back to communism today. The Venezuelan population is increasingly tired of Maduro. The people in Georgia have had mass demonstrations against a ruling party that's showing signs of turning authoritarian. China felt it was necessary to liberalize a bit in the late 70s and 80s.
The process takes slower in some countries compared to others and authoritarian regimes have realized they need to afford a degree of freedom to control their population. But the point is that over and over again people will fight for freedom and you acknowledge that life in Western countries is good.
We can criticize the Western foreign policy and its leaders who make terrible decisions but the Western-esque way of life is still highly desired. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, private property, some sense of political involvement etc. People can continue their local cultural customs and so forth but they want to live free lives at the end of the day.
Maybe I'm not entirely formulating it well but hopefully my point is clear. And sure, people in Western countries also had to fight for their freedom over the past centuries.
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We don't need to go to the past, just yesterday the US sent a few more billions and bombs so israel can continue their genocide. What's happening in gaza is worse than what's happening in ukraine.
It's not just about communism versus capitalism, are Palestinians communists that their life a hellscape because the West supports the country imposing an apartheid on it? I didn't hear residents of Papau New Guinea talk about Karl Marx that Australia supports Indonesia's brutal occupation and raping of it.
And even if you want to make it about communism versus capitalism, what right does one country to have to dictate what form of government others should keep? Was capitalism better for people where it was forced upon them, mostly by deadly force?
Don't you think that lives of Venezuelans and people in other communist countries was much worse because of the sanctions placed on them (is Venezuela a communist country or just socialist)? It was war between two forms of government and one way to win was to make sure the other government suffered and look worse.
I'm not saying communism is better but I don't think you can use examples of countries that are under sanctions to say that it's a bad form of government. I think the answer is quite easy, where you have capitalism but with a socialist safety net.
My point was not specifically on communism vs capitalism, just an example that populations generally don't tend to go back to their previous systems of governance once they've adopted more Western-like lifestyles.
See, this is getting frustrating, because this has nothing to do with emotions, I have no skin in the game, I am not here to defend US "war crimes" or "bad actions." I came name you 20 things that US have done that are actually indefensible and inhumane.
Lineback I/II, Rolling Thunder, Laos/Cambodia Bombings, Contra Affair, United Fruit, 53 Coup, I could go on and on. Simply put, Hiroshima and Nagasaki do not belong on this list.
They are not false and emotionally charged numbers at all and the highlighted part shows there is some severe ignorance on this topic which I will go into.
By 1945 the US had four options to defeat Japan.
1) Diplomatic attempts.
2) Operation Downfall/Olympic - Invasion of mainland Japan.
3) Continue Strategic bombing over years until Japanese capitulation.
4) Nukes.
1) Was already pretty much a non starter. The japanese reached out to the Soviets to negotiate and the Soviets said that their demands were insane. Some feelers were sent to US but the US felt again they were insane demands and quickly gave up on any attempts.
2) This is where your contentions really matter. To highlight the bolded - this was not the case. The Japanese's main fighting force was stranded in China/Mengkuko and Korea, there was no way to bring them back to the home islands. What was left of Japanese Army in Japan were a few professional units, some ragtag militia with rifles and...civilians forced to fight. What would have happened when the US invaded was not soldier vs soldier - it would be civilians (men, women and children) charging into American lines armed with maybe a rifle and fecking bamboo sticks. You think I'm joking? Here are some photos of High school girls and Widows being trained with how to charge Trench lines with Bamboo sticks.
During the battle of Okinawa, this was actually implemented. After it was obvious the Island was military defeated, what was left of the Japanese forces forced civilians to charge American lines with fecking nothing but sticks and stones. They ordered civilians at gunpoint to throw stones at American soldiers from windows, gave grenades and rifles with one clip to the men who had not been conscripted. After the total defeat of Okinawa, Japanese soldiers went around telling families to commit suicide. Those who refused were sometimes rounded up and put in a wooden building and the building set on fire, others were shot by what was left of the Japanese Army. The population of Okinawa was 280,000 pre war. During the battle of Okinawa 240,000 Japanese died. We don't have numbers of how many people were in Okinawa at the time but even so this is a casualty figure that is abhorrent.
There were documented plans, distributed throughout, giving instructions to replicate this when the mainland was invaded.
This was the reality - this is not emotion. The Japanese already did this at Okinawa. This was heavily discussed in the minutes meetings when discussing whether to use the bomb or not. The sheer devastation and civilian brutality seen at Okinawa really impacted the decision to use the bomb. More Japanese civilians died in Okinawa than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
That was one small island. Not even in the main island chain. So the point that a high casualty rate with Soldier vs soldier was the better choice is just absolutely bullshit because the actual Japanese army was stranded across the sea and the Japanese were planning, and had already done so, to send wave after wave of civilians with nothing but sticks and stones and occasionally a rifle against US Marine Divisions. The plan was quite literally, "Fight until we're all dead, or they don't want to kill anymore."
3) This was just continuing what they were doing (which took far more lives than actual Nukes did) and it would cost far more civilian lives.
4) This was what was done.
What would you have done guys? Seriously? Do you genuinely think that Option 2 or option 4 were the better options?
Look, they don't necessarily refer to the ins and outs of Allied decision-making but your use of the term 'mercy'. I think most would agree that war is horrible and decision-makers grapple with several scenarios and the choices that were made can be intelligently debated decades afterwards. But it's your use of the word 'mercy' that posters take issue with it.See, this is getting frustrating, because this has nothing to do with emotions, I have no skin in the game, I am not here to defend US "war crimes" or "bad actions." I came name you 20 things that US have done that are actually indefensible and inhumane.
Lineback I/II, Rolling Thunder, Laos/Cambodia Bombings, Contra Affair, United Fruit, 53 Coup, I could go on and on. Simply put, Hiroshima and Nagasaki do not belong on this list.
They are not false and emotionally charged numbers at all and the highlighted part shows there is some severe ignorance on this topic which I will go into.
By 1945 the US had four options to defeat Japan.
1) Diplomatic attempts.
2) Operation Downfall/Olympic - Invasion of mainland Japan.
3) Continue Strategic bombing over years until Japanese capitulation.
4) Nukes.
1) Was already pretty much a non starter. The japanese reached out to the Soviets to negotiate and the Soviets said that their demands were insane. Some feelers were sent to US but the US felt again they were insane demands and quickly gave up on any attempts.
2) This is where your contentions really matter. To highlight the bolded - this was not the case. The Japanese's main fighting force was stranded in China/Mengkuko and Korea, there was no way to bring them back to the home islands. What was left of Japanese Army in Japan were a few professional units, some ragtag militia with rifles and...civilians forced to fight. What would have happened when the US invaded was not soldier vs soldier - it would be civilians (men, women and children) charging into American lines armed with maybe a rifle and fecking bamboo sticks. You think I'm joking? Here are some photos of High school girls and Widows being trained with how to charge Trench lines with Bamboo sticks.
During the battle of Okinawa, this was actually implemented. After it was obvious the Island was military defeated, what was left of the Japanese forces forced civilians to charge American lines with fecking nothing but sticks and stones. They ordered civilians at gunpoint to throw stones at American soldiers from windows, gave grenades and rifles with one clip to the men who had not been conscripted. After the total defeat of Okinawa, Japanese soldiers went around telling families to commit suicide. Those who refused were sometimes rounded up and put in a wooden building and the building set on fire, others were shot by what was left of the Japanese Army. The population of Okinawa was 280,000 pre war. During the battle of Okinawa 240,000 Japanese died. We don't have numbers of how many people were in Okinawa at the time but even so this is a casualty figure that is abhorrent.
There were documented plans, distributed throughout, giving instructions to replicate this when the mainland was invaded.
This was the reality - this is not emotion. The Japanese already did this at Okinawa. This was heavily discussed in the minutes meetings when discussing whether to use the bomb or not. The sheer devastation and civilian brutality seen at Okinawa really impacted the decision to use the bomb. More Japanese civilians died in Okinawa than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
That was one small island. Not even in the main island chain. So the point that a high casualty rate with Soldier vs soldier was the better choice is just absolutely bullshit because the actual Japanese army was stranded across the sea and the Japanese were planning, and had already done so, to send wave after wave of civilians with nothing but sticks and stones and occasionally a rifle against US Marine Divisions. The plan was quite literally, "Fight until we're all dead, or they don't want to kill anymore."
3) This was just continuing what they were doing (which took far more lives than actual Nukes did) and it would cost far more civilian lives.
4) This was what was done.
What would you have done guys? Seriously? Do you genuinely think that Option 2 or option 4 were the better options?
Which of the 3 realistic options was the most merciful?
When every decision results in a horrible outcome one way or the other, choosing the option that results in the least deaths/civilian casualties is, in my opinion at least, the merciful choice.
How would you have worded it?
I mean, I would have just acknowledged that historical scholarship shows X decision-making scenarios for Allied planners and Y was the rationale for the choices they eventually made.
But without myself calling the atom bombs a mercy. It was a decision they felt they should take given the circumstances and we can acknowledge that it was unfortunately also horrific for Japanese civilians and that's also why we have memorials.
It was horrific, nobody denies that. My entire point is that the alternatives were all exponentially worse.
Mercy is not an absolute, sometimes Mercy is the best choice out of 10 absolutely shit options.
I think we are confusing mercy with the trolley problem.
My point being: I myself would have not used the term 'mercy'.
See, this is getting frustrating, because this has nothing to do with emotions, I have no skin in the game, I am not here to defend US "war crimes" or "bad actions." I came name you 20 things that US have done that are actually indefensible and inhumane.
Lineback I/II, Rolling Thunder, Laos/Cambodia Bombings, Contra Affair, United Fruit, 53 Coup, I could go on and on. Simply put, Hiroshima and Nagasaki do not belong on this list.
They are not false and emotionally charged numbers at all and the highlighted part shows there is some severe ignorance on this topic which I will go into.
By 1945 the US had four options to defeat Japan.
1) Diplomatic attempts.
2) Operation Downfall/Olympic - Invasion of mainland Japan.
3) Continue Strategic bombing over years until Japanese capitulation.
4) Nukes.
1) Was already pretty much a non starter. The japanese reached out to the Soviets to negotiate and the Soviets said that their demands were insane. Some feelers were sent to US but the US felt again they were insane demands and quickly gave up on any attempts.
2) This is where your contentions really matter. To highlight the bolded - this was not the case. The Japanese's main fighting force was stranded in China/Mengkuko and Korea, there was no way to bring them back to the home islands. What was left of Japanese Army in Japan were a few professional units, some ragtag militia with rifles and...civilians forced to fight. What would have happened when the US invaded was not soldier vs soldier - it would be civilians (men, women and children) charging into American lines armed with maybe a rifle and fecking bamboo sticks. You think I'm joking? Here are some photos of High school girls and Widows being trained with how to charge Trench lines with Bamboo sticks.
During the battle of Okinawa, this was actually implemented. After it was obvious the Island was military defeated, what was left of the Japanese forces forced civilians to charge American lines with fecking nothing but sticks and stones. They ordered civilians at gunpoint to throw stones at American soldiers from windows, gave grenades and rifles with one clip to the men who had not been conscripted. After the total defeat of Okinawa, Japanese soldiers went around telling families to commit suicide. Those who refused were sometimes rounded up and put in a wooden building and the building set on fire, others were shot by what was left of the Japanese Army. The population of Okinawa was 280,000 pre war. During the battle of Okinawa 240,000 Japanese died. We don't have numbers of how many people were in Okinawa at the time but even so this is a casualty figure that is abhorrent.
There were documented plans, distributed throughout, giving instructions to replicate this when the mainland was invaded.
This was the reality - this is not emotion. The Japanese already did this at Okinawa. This was heavily discussed in the minutes meetings when discussing whether to use the bomb or not. The sheer devastation and civilian brutality seen at Okinawa really impacted the decision to use the bomb. More Japanese civilians died in Okinawa than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
That was one small island. Not even in the main island chain. So the point that a high casualty rate with Soldier vs soldier was the better choice is just absolutely bullshit because the actual Japanese army was stranded across the sea and the Japanese were planning, and had already done so, to send wave after wave of civilians with nothing but sticks and stones and occasionally a rifle against US Marine Divisions. The plan was quite literally, "Fight until we're all dead, or they don't want to kill anymore."
3) This was just continuing what they were doing (which took far more lives than actual Nukes did) and it would cost far more civilian lives.
4) This was what was done.
What would you have done guys? Seriously? Do you genuinely think that Option 2 or option 4 were the better options?
I think we’re oppositional on the language mate.
“We will unilaterally murder 150,000-250,000 civilians”
Vs
“X amount of your enlisted army will die if you don’t surrender”
If a country chooses to fight, I don’t care if that ‘X’ is 1m soldiers. That country would have chosen to forcibly enlist that fighting force and been an aggressor.
I’m fcuked off by your use of ‘a mercy’. It’s not anything like acceptable. You can’t exterminate men, women and children that aren’t part of a war effort, just because their government planned to mobilise an irrational army.
Also… who the Fcuk were they going to fight?
I’ll happily have a moral debate on the use of The Bomb to end the war, its illustration of how a worse-case end game would look, or anything around the balancing discussion of whether it was valid/uncomfortably permissible.
But describing the killing of up to a quarter of a million civilians as a mercy, I’ll never get on board with.
No quarrel with how you feel about it. But the language is awful.
Some politicians in Israel (and USA!) are using the same logic to argue that Israel should nuke Gaza as well. Just nuke them, get it over with, and prevent more prolonged suffering.
I hope people realize there is a difference between eviscerating 100 thousand innocent people who had nothing to do with the war and a million hypothetical soldiers. What guarantee is there that those millions would've fought rather than not taken arms?
I hope people realize there is a difference between eviscerating 100 thousand innocent people who had nothing to do with the war and a million hypothetical soldiers. What guarantee is there that those millions would've fought rather than not taken arms?
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You do know mercy is an actual word with a definition, right?
Here's what the oxford dictionary says:
"compassion or forgiveness shown towards someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm.
"the boy was screaming and begging for mercy"
an event to be grateful for, because it prevents something unpleasant or provides relief from suffering.
"his death was in a way a mercy"
(especially of a journey or mission) performed out of a desire to relieve suffering.
modifier noun: mercy
"mercy missions to refugees caught up in the fighting" "
I think it's a stretch to fit any one of those descriptions to the atomic bombings of Japan and I don't know why you've chosen to die on this weird hill
A Million? Again, this might seem unbelievable to you but the literal Japanese plan was to hurl every man woman and child capable of walking into American lines, everyone else would commit suicide when the Americans got to them. That was literally what happened in Okinawa, although many didn't obviously commit suicide.
The US ran a shittonne of wargames for Operation Downfall and the lowest estimate they ever got to was 8 Million total casualties either side, most of them being civilians.
As for the highlighted, again in the two instances of actual Japanese Urban centers being fought over, the civilians did charge American lines with bamboo sticks and hurl rocks at them only to face a pretty inevitable death.
That was what really tilted the heads in favour of not going for the invasion of the mainland.