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RE: Remembrance: Hiroshima and Nagasaki - 8/14/2007 6:46:34 PM   
Sinergy


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Estring

quote:

ORIGINAL: kittinSol

Once again thank you for reminding us all of this tragedy. Let's never forget.


Tragedy? It effectively ended the war and saved thousands of our soldiers from dying in an invasion of Japan.


While I can agree that dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima might be somewhat justified in the number of live saved, the United States refusal to meet with the Japanese delegation suing for unconditional surrender until the US had tried a new bomb technology on Nagasaki seems inexcusable to me.

Thats my story and Im sticking to it.  I feel bad for everybody caught in a war.  As Erich Marie Remarque pointed out, the ones who start wars are never the ones who fight and die in them.

Sinergy

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RE: Remembrance: Hiroshima and Nagasaki - 8/14/2007 9:16:36 PM   
caitlyn


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Joined: 12/22/2004
Status: offline 		Dropping atomic bombs on people lacks empathy.
Starting wars for ambition is cold.
Millions dying in these wars disturbs me.

Discussing it after the fact, when our words will not save a single lost life, or alter a single historical event, says nothing about anyone, in my view. If person X thinks the bomb was justified ... person X still isn't responsible for a single death caused by these bombs. If person Y feels sympathy ... person Y hasn't saved a single life taken by these bombs.
 
There is nothing that say person X would make the decision to drop that bomb in 1945, and there is nothing to say that person Y wouldn't make the decision to drop it.
 
It isn't 1945, and judging by the hypothetical, is a bit too much of a leap into the unknown for my tastes.

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RE: Remembrance: Hiroshima and Nagasaki - 8/14/2007 11:06:17 PM   
NorthernGent


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Firebirdseeking

Have you ever heard of anti-Semitism?  if not, look it up  or go to Wikipedia if you can spell it.

You have some fucking nerve saying that the annhiliation of the Jews is open for debate.  Spend some bucks and go visit Dacau or Aushwitz and maybe the smell there will change your small mind.

Firebirdseeking (Jewish, for the record).


See post 95, then come back to me.

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RE: Remembrance: Hiroshima and Nagasaki - 8/15/2007 1:07:07 AM   
meatcleaver


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quote:

ORIGINAL: caitlyn

In closing, I find it highly problematic that people would somehow look down on those in this thread, that are only discussing historical events. This "reveal something about the poster" nonsense, is just that in my view. Most were not even born at the time, and even if they were, were not in a postion to make greater-scale political and military decisions. This discussion says nothing about anyone, other than they are willing and able to discuss a historical event.
 
It is possible to have empathy, while still discussing historical reality. Those that differ with that, might want to look within.


There is an important point here. We in the west have based many aggressive policies on 'civilizing' other parts of the world by pointing out their crimes against humanity, yet we in the west don't have the integrity or the humanity to own the crimes we commited. Hamburg, Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were recognized as crimes at the time by many people and their views were well recorded.

Did dropping the bomb save lives? Some probably but not nearly as many as was claimed would be saved to justify dropping the bomb. You just have to look at how many lives it cost to beat the Japanese back to Japan.

As for Japan suing for peace, this debate will go on. It was a lively debate when I was in Jumior school in the sixties and still is but it most certainly isn't as clear cut as you state, the US ignored Japanese overtures so how it can be said their conditions were unacceptable is beyond me.

< Message edited by meatcleaver -- 8/15/2007 1:09:15 AM >

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RE: Remembrance: Hiroshima and Nagasaki - 8/15/2007 1:15:24 AM   
meatcleaver


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quote:

ORIGINAL: NorthernGent

quote:

ORIGINAL: Firebirdseeking

Have you ever heard of anti-Semitism?  if not, look it up  or go to Wikipedia if you can spell it.

You have some fucking nerve saying that the annhiliation of the Jews is open for debate.  Spend some bucks and go visit Dacau or Aushwitz and maybe the smell there will change your small mind.

Firebirdseeking (Jewish, for the record).


See post 95, then come back to me.


Your biggest sin is discussing an event that has taken on mythic status. You could however discuss the ins and outs of the genocide of the Roma and no one will give a fig. Strange how some historical events become religious in significance and others disappear into history.

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RE: Remembrance: Hiroshima and Nagasaki - 8/15/2007 1:30:22 AM   
lazarus1983


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quote:

ORIGINAL: meatcleaver

quote:

ORIGINAL: NorthernGent

quote:

ORIGINAL: Firebirdseeking

Have you ever heard of anti-Semitism?  if not, look it up  or go to Wikipedia if you can spell it.

You have some fucking nerve saying that the annhiliation of the Jews is open for debate.  Spend some bucks and go visit Dacau or Aushwitz and maybe the smell there will change your small mind.

Firebirdseeking (Jewish, for the record).


See post 95, then come back to me.


Your biggest sin is discussing an event that has taken on mythic status. You could however discuss the ins and outs of the genocide of the Roma and no one will give a fig. Strange how some historical events become religious in significance and others disappear into history.



So much truth in that statement.

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Profile   Post #: 106
RE: Remembrance: Hiroshima and Nagasaki - 8/15/2007 4:02:23 AM   
Firebirdseeking


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Status: offline 		It is you who should read history.  In the middle ages, Jews coule not own land or join guilds in Europe - this was after they were forced out of their Promised Land and into Eurpoe, called the diaspora.  Next, in areas like Russia and what was to be Poland, they were routinely persecuted in pograms - typicallly around Easter - ramdomly killed in events that early on would be precursors for Krystalnacht.  We were blamed for the plague, for killing Jesus, even though it was the Romans who did; and took until the 20th century for a pope to "forgive" us, exonerate us, for a crime we did not commit and for which countless innocents lost their lives.

Your previous post implies we did not have a clue.  How insulting. of course my ancestors had a clue, the same way Native Americans had a clue that they were hated and feared.  It is very hard to fight hatred and fear.

BTW I do not for a moment think that jews were the only people genocided.  Native Americans were; African Americans were, especially by slavery; Cambodians were, and there is one going on in Darfur.  And let us not forget the ethnic cleansing of Bosnia and Croatia.

A small mind blames the victim.  A broad mind tries to understand and combat hatred, fear and racism.

Firebirdseeking, Jewish 

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Profile   Post #: 107
RE: Remembrance: Hiroshima and Nagasaki - 8/15/2007 5:01:59 AM   
kittinSol


Posts: 16926
Status: offline 		You are so keen on respecting the rules here, caitlyn, I am surprised at your objections. The thread you just posted on was dedicated to the memory of the people who died in the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Whilst it's perfectly okay for anyone to interject with their personal view of whether this atomic annihilation was justified, I agree with DesertRat that watching these reactions is blood-curdling. It's a little like watching people spit on the tomb of the deceased at a funeral. And he is absolutely right: it does say a lot about individuals' response to tragedy, about their personal capacity for empathy, and about their humanity level in general.

Plainly, it's about respecting the dead. It's unfortunate, but not altogether surprising, that there is such an incapacity to do so. After all, a "Who won WWII" thread was started nearly simultaneously to this one: in my opinion, a far more appropriate place to spit the venom that's been dripping throughout.

< Message edited by kittinSol -- 8/15/2007 5:19:42 AM >

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RE: Remembrance: Hiroshima and Nagasaki - 8/15/2007 5:14:07 AM   
mnottertail


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Status: offline 		Well, it can be all wrapped up in one tidy package.  War criminals are only from the side that loses, the heros are on the winning side.  That is life.

I believe in KU at war.  I think dropping the bomb was the thing to do regardless, and in fact we did not commit enough atrocities.

Once the war was ended however, we should naught but reflect only on the horror and death, and remember the tragedy and senseless loss of human life.

Ron

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RE: Remembrance: Hiroshima and Nagasaki - 8/15/2007 5:14:42 AM   
kittinSol


Posts: 16926
Status: offline 		I don't think NG denies the holocaust, Firebird. He argues with the numbers that were murdered and believes there were fewer than six millions. Many disagree back with him.

Meacleaver's perfectly correct that the Tziganes' memory seems to have disappeared down the trashcan of history. Though they were not the Nazis' "priority".

I'm not sure whether "Les Bienveillantes" by Jonathan Littell has published into English yet, but don't let it slip by you when it does.

< Message edited by kittinSol -- 8/15/2007 5:18:02 AM >

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RE: Remembrance: Hiroshima and Nagasaki - 8/15/2007 5:16:29 AM   
meatcleaver


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Status: offline 		Far be it for me to defend NG, he is capable of doing that himself but either he didn't say what you are accusing him of or we speak different languages. I can't see where he said the Jews were to blame for the holocaust or that the holocaust is up for debate. From what I understand, he said, that the debate as to whether the final solution was a planned programme or not was still being widely debated in universities. Not that the slaughter of several million Jews and other NAZI victims didn't take place.

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RE: Remembrance: Hiroshima and Nagasaki - 8/15/2007 5:32:51 AM   
meatcleaver


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quote:

ORIGINAL: kittinSol

I don't think NG denies the holocaust, Firebird. He argues with the numbers that were murdered and believes there were fewer than six millions. Many disagree back with him.



Where the difference in numbers might come from is the NAZI criteria of who constitutes being a Jew. A person only needed one Jewish parent to be declared a Jew. Therefore many Christians were declared Jewish because of partial Jewish heritage. This could be why more Jews are claimed to have been murdered than are actually in the censuses.

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Profile   Post #: 112
RE: Remembrance: Hiroshima and Nagasaki - 8/15/2007 5:39:57 AM   
kittinSol


Posts: 16926
Status: offline 		http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-269548/Holocaust

Raul Hilberg died on August 5th:

http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-oe-reich11aug11,0,1824720.story?coll=la-books-headlines

< Message edited by kittinSol -- 8/15/2007 5:47:43 AM >

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RE: Remembrance: Hiroshima and Nagasaki - 8/15/2007 5:45:57 AM   
meatcleaver


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quote:

ORIGINAL: kittinSol

http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-269548/Holocaust

http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-oe-reich11aug11,0,1824720.story?coll=la-books-headlines



I'm aware of those figures but I'm also aware of the arguments as to why they can't be right. I don't claim to know either way. People who make a living studying this can't agree.

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Profile   Post #: 114
RE: Remembrance: Hiroshima and Nagasaki - 8/15/2007 5:49:44 AM   
kittinSol


Posts: 16926
Status: offline 		No they can't agree... Do you think perhaps, considering the scale of the massacre, it has become irrelevant? A loaded question, I fully realise... and maybe not one best discussed on a thread about Hiroshima and Nagasaki (I don't forget whose 'side' Japan was on, and I am, after all, a European Jew).

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RE: Remembrance: Hiroshima and Nagasaki - 8/15/2007 6:00:19 AM   
meatcleaver


Posts: 9030
Joined: 3/13/2006
Status: offline 		A crime against humanity is a crime against humanity and semantics and arguments about numbers are to a point irrelevent. Intent should be an important consideration.

I say intent should only be an important consideration and not the be all and end all because mealy mouthed western politicians always defend themselves by saying their intent to slaughter innocent people wasn't there and their real intent was the best of a bad choice they has to make.

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RE: Remembrance: Hiroshima and Nagasaki - 8/15/2007 6:13:06 AM   
caitlyn


Posts: 3473
Joined: 12/22/2004
Status: offline 		Not so much an objection, as much as I think DesertRat's and your position is a little silly.
 
So, I can post a "we feel your pain" thread on a message board, for people that died forty+ years before I was born, and that makes me a better person?
 
And ... if I choose to discuss it as a historical event on the same board, that says something about me, to people that are basically total strangers?
 
Here, let me make you feel better. I feel really bad about the deaths of people I didn't even know. They may have been really nice people, or they may have been complete assholes, or any combination of the two ... I really don't know, because I wasn't even fucking alive when it happened. I feel even worse for them, than the other countless millions that died, that I also didn't know ... worse than all the billions that have died in all wars, since the beginning of time.
 
There, I feel all superior now, and kSol thinks I'm cool.

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Profile   Post #: 117
RE: Remembrance: Hiroshima and Nagasaki - 8/15/2007 6:21:39 AM   
caitlyn


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quote:

ORIGINAL: meatcleaver
As for Japan suing for peace, this debate will go on. It was a lively debate when I was in Jumior school in the sixties and still is but it most certainly isn't as clear cut as you state, the US ignored Japanese overtures so how it can be said their conditions were unacceptable is beyond me.


Probably because unconditional surrender, has no conditions to discuss ... what with being unconditional an all. This was the policy of the allies in the war, and was not the decision of any one partner. You can not agree with that policy, but will have to take that up with Churchill, Stalin and FDR.
 
It's beyond me also. Japan could have ended the war with two words ... We Surrender.

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RE: Remembrance: Hiroshima and Nagasaki - 8/15/2007 6:25:35 AM   
kittinSol


Posts: 16926
Status: offline 		In "Les Bienveillantes", Littell's main protagonist, Max Aue, describes the extermination of the Jews as:

quote:



Selon certains hauts gradés militaires, la déclaration d'extermination de l'Allemagne faite au peuple juif aurait été en realité "une erreur nécessaire révélatrice de l'incapacité à gérer de manière plus rationnelle de la part des hommes chargés du problème, et plus globalement des politiques." (p 208).



... a 'necessary error'. It shows the absurdist and intellectually desperate mentality of the Nazis. They wanted to kill the Jews, and they desperately sought a rationale for doing it. They never found it.

http://www.cnam.fr/lipsor/dso/articles/fiche/jlittellles_bienveillantes.pdf

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RE: Remembrance: Hiroshima and Nagasaki - 8/15/2007 6:27:02 AM   
kittinSol


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quote:

ORIGINAL: caitlyn

There, I feel all superior now, and kSol thinks I'm cool.



Huh, no.

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