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ORIGINAL: NorthernGent

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ORIGINAL: atursvcMaam

i try to listen to what is said

Me too......."this great nation has a legacy of helping the world progress...can we really stand by and allow despotic regimes to continue unabated?"......roughly translated as "we're going to bomb them and you'll thank us for it later".

But, the actions are more important.......they're free to spin the invasion of Iraq any which way they like....but actions speak louder than words.

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ORIGINAL: popeye1250

Mia, I don't want "the govt" *telling me* ANYTHING!
They're the fucking *hired help* not Management!
THE PEOPLE are the Management.
I want them *LISTENING* to *THE PEOPLE* and doing what we tell THEM to do!
When I vote for someone I'm sending them to Washington to represent MY wishes not theirs or the wishes of special interest groups or lobbyists or corporations.
The People are not the reason that we are $9Trillion in debt!
We are in so much trouble because our govt stopped LISTENING to The People long ago and took up the standard of corporations, lobbyists and corruption.
"Congressman" and "Senator" are not "leadership" positions they are "Messenger" positions!

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ORIGINAL: DomAviator

Absolutely not, the govt doesnt tell me everything and thats how it should be. Thats why there is "classifiication" and "sensitive compartmentalized information" and "need to know" and "plausible deniability" etc... The publics "right to know" is bullshit. Its just like all those yahoos that assemble outside "Area 51" trying to find "the truth". Honestly, I would like to drop napalm on them as what they are doing is against national security!  Ya know what goes on at the Groom Lake Test Site? I do... Secret shit thats none of the public's fucking business! Standing on those ridges with a camera trying to snap a glimpse of something in the name of truth can get american pilots killed and destroy billions of dollars of research. Another example - whether or not WMD's were found in Iraq and in what quantities... Thats not our business. The people who need to know are in the loop. The people who dont need to know get "the Mushroom Treatment" - ie keep them in the dark and feed them a steady diet of horse shit. Thats the way it is, thats the way it always has been and thats the way it should be... and before Bush gets blamed for "secrecy and lies" remember that FDR, a democrat, pulled off the Manhattan Project which was the biggest coverup and covertly funded project in US History....

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Absolutely not, the govt doesnt tell me everything and thats how it should be.

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Thats why there is "classifiication" and "sensitive compartmentalized information" and "need to know" and "plausible deniability" etc... The publics "right to know" is bullshit.

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Ya know what goes on at the Groom Lake Test Site? I do... Secret shit thats none of the public's fucking business!

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Another example - whether or not WMD's were found in Iraq and in what quantities... Thats not our business. The people who need to know are in the loop. The people who dont need to know get "the Mushroom Treatment" - ie keep them in the dark and feed them a steady diet of horse shit.

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Thats the way it is, thats the way it always has been and thats the way it should be... and before Bush gets blamed for "secrecy and lies" remember that FDR, a democrat, pulled off the Manhattan Project which was the biggest coverup and covertly funded project in US History....

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Glad you said arguably,seems to me we were in both instances fighting global total war in which our foes had shown both a propensity and willingness to ignore the tenets of "civilised'warfare at place in those days.The listing of war crimes by the Governments of both Germany and Japan are far too numerous to name here,suffice it to say these are not IMO dark pages in American history of which there are many infamous entries.

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ORIGINAL: slvemike4u

At Casablanca the Allied powers set the condintions for peace being Unconditioal surrender.The Japanese Government was forewarned of the coming apocalypse , militant factions of that Government sought to hold out for better terms....these were not forthcoming.There were also Geopolitical reasons for using the Bomb,now surely a case can be made that we shouldn't have, but this would fall far short of any assertion of "war crimes" has You originally asserted

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There were also Geopolitical reasons for using the Bomb,now surely a case can be made that we shouldn't have, but this would fall far short of any assertion of "war crimes" has You originally asserted

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ORIGINAL: Alumbrado

Japan had openly and clearly rejected surrender, and Russia had entered the war on Japan...no way Stalin would have stopped at 100,000 dead.

As I said, I don't trust either the government or the conspiracy theorists.

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In 1945, advocates for peace persuaded the emperor to appoint Suzuki Kantaro to Prime Minister as a successor to the previous Koiso. Kantaro's appointment was a plea for peace as Kantaro was used as the figurehead of the peace cabinet. Mid 1945 saw Suzuki's initiation of peace. A letter was drafted to the Russian government asking that they mediate end-war terms between the U.S and Japan. However, the letter was to be in vain, as the U.S, England, and Russia were already holding talks among themselves, and were pessimistic of Japanese peacemaking intentions. This can partially be attributed to the political instability that was the Japanese conflict between the military and the statesmen, and partially due to President Truman's lack of desire to show mercy to the Japanese. At this point the Atomic Bomb had already been developed and tested, and Truman knew militarily there was no way the U.S would lose the war. Pride ran deep on both sides of barbed wire fence. The Japanese military refused to give up what they'd won thus far in battle, and the U.S refused to end the war and let them keep it. The U.S wanted an unconditional surrender, period. The Potsdam Declaration, a set of terms drafted in Germany by the U.S, England, and Russia, was proposed to the Japanese and was evidence that the U.S was now unwilling to except any negotiations.

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ORIGINAL: celticlord2112

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ORIGINAL: Alumbrado

Japan had openly and clearly rejected surrender, and Russia had entered the war on Japan...no way Stalin would have stopped at 100,000 dead.

As I said, I don't trust either the government or the conspiracy theorists.

The Atomic Bomb and Japan's Surrender - The Great WWII Debate

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In 1945, advocates for peace persuaded the emperor to appoint Suzuki Kantaro to Prime Minister as a successor to the previous Koiso. Kantaro's appointment was a plea for peace as Kantaro was used as the figurehead of the peace cabinet. Mid 1945 saw Suzuki's initiation of peace. A letter was drafted to the Russian government asking that they mediate end-war terms between the U.S and Japan. However, the letter was to be in vain, as the U.S, England, and Russia were already holding talks among themselves, and were pessimistic of Japanese peacemaking intentions. This can partially be attributed to the political instability that was the Japanese conflict between the military and the statesmen, and partially due to President Truman's lack of desire to show mercy to the Japanese. At this point the Atomic Bomb had already been developed and tested, and Truman knew militarily there was no way the U.S would lose the war. Pride ran deep on both sides of barbed wire fence. The Japanese military refused to give up what they'd won thus far in battle, and the U.S refused to end the war and let them keep it. The U.S wanted an unconditional surrender, period. The Potsdam Declaration, a set of terms drafted in Germany by the U.S, England, and Russia, was proposed to the Japanese and was evidence that the U.S was now unwilling to except any negotiations.

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the newspapers of the following morning reported that the government had decided to ignore the Potsdam Declaration. I protested without delay to the Cabinet when it met, pointing out that the report was at variance with our decision of the preceding day. What had happened, I learned, was this. There had been held in the Imperial Palace, after adjournment of the Cabinet the day before, a conference for exchange of information between government and high command. This was a routine weekly meeting without special significance, and I had been absent because of more important business. One of the military participants in that meeting, as I heard it, had proposed the rejection of the Potsdam Declaration; the Premier, the War and Navy Ministers and the two Chiefs of Staff had hastily assembled for consultation in a separate room, and the Premier had been persuaded by the more militant elements to that course. He then stated at a subsequent press conference that the government had decided to ignore the declaration, and this announcement it was which the press had played up so sensationally. It was only after the affair had developed to this point that I first knew of it; despite my thorough dissatisfaction with the position, there was of course no way of withdrawing the statement released by the Premier, and things had to be left as they stood. In the result, the American press reported that Japan had rejected the declaration, and President Truman in deciding for use of the atomic bomb, and the U.S.S.R. in attacking Japan, referred to the rejection of it as justification for their respective actions. The incident was thus a deplorable one in its embarrassment of our move for peace, and was most disadvantageous for Japan. 

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The Declaration was thus an ultimatum falling short of a demand for unconditional surrender, since it  included  guarantees that ordinary Japanese soldiers would not be interned indefinitely; that Japanese industry would not be eliminated and Japan would be given access to raw materials; and that the occupation would not be indefinite and the main Japanese home islands would eventually regain their sovereignty. In addition, the Declaration placed the blame for pursuing the war on "self-willed militaristic advisers" rather than the Emperor. While falling far short of guaranteeing the status of the Emperor as formal head of state in the postwar government, this assignment of war guilt at least suggested the possibility that the Emperor could be retained.

The intial response of the Japanese Government to the Declaration was mokusatsu,  

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Emperor Hirohito and his chief political adviser, Kido Koichi, stuck with the militarists and insisted on continuing with preparations for final battles on the home islands even in late June, when all organized resistance on Okinawa had ended, and an estimated 120,000 Japanese combatants (including Koreans and Taiwanese) and 150,000 to 170,000 non-combatants lay dead. U.S. combat losses in the battle of Okinawa were approximately 12,520 killed and over 33,000 wounded. With time accelerating and their sense of the urgency of the situation deepening, Hirohito responded to this defeat by forcing the army and navy leaders to agree to the idea of an "early peace." But he still gave no indication that he was thinking in terms of an immediate surrender, let alone proposing peace to the nations he was actually fighting.

Into the month of July, the leaders of the imperial armed forces clung to the idea that as Allied lines of supply and communication lengthened, their own forces would do better on the homeland battlefields. But by this time Japan had virtually no oil, its cities were in ruins and its navy and naval air capability virtually non-existent. It is unclear at what point Hirohito abandoned the illusion that his armed forces remained capable of delivering at least one devastating blow to the enemy so that his diplomats could negotiate a surrender on face saving terms. But six months of intensive U.S. terror bombing of the Japanese civilian population had forced him, the Court group, and the government to take into account not only their huge losses of men and materials, but also food shortages and the growing war-weariness of the Japanese people. How could they lead and preserve their system of rule after peace returned?

That question weighed on their minds when the Potsdam Declaration arrived (July 27-28), calling on them to surrender unconditionally or face immediate destruction. Yet they rejected the four-power ultimatum, feeling as former prime minister and navy "moderate," Admiral Yonai Mitsumasa, said to his secretary on July 28, "There is no need to rush." 

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ORIGINAL: celticlord2112

Japan wanted to end the war.  Truman decided to kill 100,000 people before allowing Japan to end the war.

When all the points and counterpoints are done, that is the historical record.

Truman was wrong.  Dropping the bomb was unnecessary.  Causing 100,000 needless deaths....yes, that counts as a war crime.

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ORIGINAL: celticlord2112

Japan wanted to end the war.  Truman decided to kill 100,000 people before allowing Japan to end the war.

When all the points and counterpoints are done, that is the historical record.

Truman was wrong.  Dropping the bomb was unnecessary.  Causing 100,000 needless deaths....yes, that counts as a war crime.