Magnus213

iTrader: (1)

(It's Magnus) but yeah, sorry ddsboi if I wasn't clear- I didn't mean that it's ok we have the bomb but not ok for those countries mentioned. I do not forget that we invented it and, shamefully, dropped it on civilians not once but twice. I mentioned Iran and N. Korea because those are the most notable countries today that have developed/are developing nuclear power and have unstable rulers and/or relations with the US that make them very frightening and potentially dangerous.

tC4italy

My bad
I'm tipsy

ModelAXb

Has anyone ever heard the figures the government estimated of how many casualties America could have suffered if we wouldn't have dropped the bombs? If we would have had to invade Japan like we did Normandy, the government figured up to a million U.S. soldiers. I also agree that the world would be better off without the atom bomb at all but, im not sure about you, but I can't fathom those kinds off losses. That would have almost been an entire generation. Just something to think about. People have to start facing reality, the world isn't a nice place.

Magnus213

iTrader: (1)

Germany was defeated, it was pretty much only the Japanses Emperor who refused to yield despite the obvious truth that he was fighting a losing battle. I don't think it would have come to a full-scale invasion of Japan.

ModelAXb

At the time did we know that?

Magnus213

iTrader: (1)

Hmm. I honestly don't know. 'Tis a good question.

ddsboi

Still, Soldiers know what they were putting their lives ion the line when they sign up or are drafted. Those innocent civillians didn't sign up to put their lives on the line . . . I'm talking from a Human point of View, not an American point of View . . .

web

And this all stems down to the underlying problem of politics. We could not reason with the Japanese and their attack on Pearl Harbor was not going to go unmatched. Sure, we could have dropped bombs left and right and had an all out war, but the point of the A-bomb was not to kill off hundreds of thousands of people, it was to basically stick a knife in the chest of the Japanese government/military. It was a quick strike with unrelenting terror. This was the U.S. flexing its muscles.

You figure, the Japanese dropped let's say about 2-300 bombs via their plane attacks on Pearl Harbor. This was out of no where that they flew in and began killing innocent Americans. Men, women, and children were not spared. I grew up on an Air Force base in Italy and can understand how this would turn the hearts of soldiers into ice. The 2 bombs that we dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima were to be a collasal impact on the Japanese government. Come to find out, less than 24 hours after the second bomb was dropped, Japanese government/military officials got the point and surrendered.

I do agree that it would be much "easier" of a time if we did not ever create the A-bomb and now plutonium-rich nuclear bombs, but the fact that we did has helped us arrive to where we are today. The sad thing is that we couldn't have any assumption of what would have happened in the past if we never used the A-bomb, but the fact that we did is reality.

The U.S. and other countries of military power will always reign high when it comes to wars. I just feel sorry for the countries that have to battle each day, simply for survival, to have to live in a world where military muscle outweights human survival.

evilBOXevil

I don't know what to say about the idea of nuclear bomb dropping being good, or whether one religion is (or has been) more violent than another- but what I do believe is that every freakin' religion on earth seems to lead to killing somebody eventually...and it's not the religions themselves.

None of these religions, whether it's islam, judaism, christianity, or whatever, teaches that killing is good. They all teach that killing is bad. What happens is that power hungry assheads twist the religions to fit their own greed. This is why countries that have some sort of system for separation of church and state are the only ones worth living in.

Islam in itself is not bad at all. But it is part of their religion to have the land governed by the islamic code above all else. This as an idea is great, except that god doesn't seem very interested in performing his own checks and balances. so it's left up to people to judge and carry out the will of "god". This obviously has never worked, but somehow people always have 'faith' that it will.

Not ripping Islam exclusively here. Christians don't exactly seem to be turning the other cheek, either. And as far as the whole judaic "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" idea---keep living this way and you'll discover that as long as 2 people are alive, eventually one of them is going to kill the other.

Magnus213

iTrader: (1)

I think that the root of this lies in the fact that religion is, for many people, their most passionate belief. You can push a pious person in other aspects and either their patience or religious upbringing will cause them to maintain composure; threaten, however, the very heart of that composure, and people will kill and be killed for what they believe most strongly in. I honestly do not think I could refuse the offer of being a suicide bomber if I lived in the circumstances of those who make the choice; look at the rhetoric:

Pros:
1. Rewarded with (many, forget the number) virgins in heaven, eternal glory, forever a hero.
2. Have a golden opportunity to destroy who you see as oppressors and savages-- you hate these people with incredible zeal.

Cons:
1. You have to die in this life.

Of course, my train of thought pulls attention toward the difference in wealth, leadership, government type, culture, etc. etc. that distinguish Americans from Middle Easterners at the pedestrian level.