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(...) I think I missed that the first time. It was my understanding that they surrendered about as immediately as could be possibly arranged given the circumstances. Can you restate why you feel they did not surrender immediately? (...) I fear a (...) (23 years ago, 17-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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| | Re: Hiroshima-Was It Necessary?
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(...) No, you said "completely" closed minded, not me. I don't recall saying "completely." (...) Sobs of utter appreciation, my friend, that the Great and Powerful Lar would so generously grace us with his fair hand of understanding. I am beset with (...) (23 years ago, 17-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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| | Re: Hiroshima-Was It Necessary?
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(...) It tends to be obscure, but there was never a decision to drop Bomb 1, a pause, and then a decision to drop Bomb 2. The decision was made to drop two bombs. Were both bombs necessary? Maybe not - they may have eventually surrendered anyway (...) (23 years ago, 17-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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| | Re: Hiroshima-Was It Necessary?
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(...) Oh, that was just sarcasm about the last time you accused me of over-analyzing a situation down to many constituent parts and rating those parts as nigh on irrelevant. Hence the little ';)'. (...) You just hit the nail on the head, didn't you? (...) (23 years ago, 17-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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| | Re: Hiroshima-Was It Necessary?
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(...) Still, my point stands then? Whether or not they were cowardly is irrelevant to whether it was terrorism, yes? (...) !! Sure there is. Attempting to get someone/a group of people to do something by making them respond to terror that you induce (...) (23 years ago, 17-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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| | Re: Hiroshima-Was It Necessary?
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(...) No, at least I don't parse it that way. Feel free to diagram the sentence though, so I can see it! (...) The world is a complicated place. Or would you rather Truman hadn't considered all those factors? You can handle the complexity, I think. (...) (23 years ago, 17-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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| | Re: Hiroshima-Was It Necessary?
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(...) Exactly correct-- my point was that I'm not sure I understand what ends you believe were intended. If the end was "to scare the Japanese" rather than "to have Japan surrender", then yes, I agree that the bombing may have been necessary. I just (...) (23 years ago, 17-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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| | Re: Hiroshima-Was It Necessary?
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(...) In your defense, though, I would assert that it's not necessary (possible?) to be completely moral. However, in a field of several choices, the greatest "net good" outcome is preferable to less "net good" outcomes. We can be criticized after (...) (23 years ago, 17-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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| | Re: Hiroshima-Was It Necessary?
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(...) It would still be cowardly for them to fly their own planes into the buildings because they would be making an unprovoked attack against innocent and unsuspecting civilians on the civilians' home soil during a time when the home nation was at (...) (23 years ago, 17-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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| | Re: Hiroshima-Was It Necessary?
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(...) Isn't that what I said? (...) Now you're the one who's going for the complicated explanation ;) I could draw it out further and say isn't one of Osama's major "justifications" with the US the fact that we dropped the Bomb on the Japanese as an (...) (23 years ago, 17-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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| | Re: Hiroshima-Was It Necessary?
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(...) I think we differ on this. You can't separate ends from means. Here's my view If the end was intended to be moral, but it is achieved by immoral actions (immoral in this usage means bad morals, not amoral) it comes out immoral anyway. If the (...) (23 years ago, 17-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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| | Re: Hiroshima-Was It Necessary?
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(...) Just some minor picking while I try to think about that hole. (...) Dan's referenced site makes the case that it wasn't a "drop one, then decide to drop the other" plan. Both were dropped as part of the same plan, so you should take issue with (...) (23 years ago, 17-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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| | Re: Hiroshima-Was It Necessary?
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(...) Well-- two things. First off, you may be quite right-- I don't really know what our mentality was at the time. Perhaps that was the best information we had available, which would mean that an A-bomb hit MAY have been the only way to show that (...) (23 years ago, 17-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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| | Re: Hiroshima-Was It Necessary?
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(...) Yes, but not for the reasons you state, I think. The hole is that I don't think morality is necessarily tied to these events. Whether or not it was a moral action doesn't matter to whether it was "necessary" or not, unless your ends are (...) (23 years ago, 17-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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| | Re: Hiroshima-Was It Necessary?
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(...) Yes, let's not blur the issue-- what part does being cowardly have in being a terrorist? Let's say they flew their own planes into our buildings. No longer a terrorist action? I don't think whether they/we were cowardly or not is really (...) (23 years ago, 17-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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| | Re: Hiroshima-Was It Necessary?
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(...) no argument there from me - one question though. what if, fearing the canadians, you abandon your land for 30 years? do you still own it, and everything that has been built on it since? it's possible to contend that whoever settled the (now (...) (23 years ago, 17-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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| | Re: Hiroshima-Was It Necessary?
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(...) Aren't you saying that it's not the case that you didn't know that what you hadn't said contradicted what he had said wasn't the case? Dave! (23 years ago, 17-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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| | Re: Hiroshima-Was It Necessary?
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(...) Everything I have ever read about WWII Japanese suggests that there was pretty strong belief that they would likely have fought bitterly to the end had something overwhelming happened to make the entire populace recognize that further fighting (...) (23 years ago, 17-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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| | Re: Hiroshima-Was It Necessary?
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Typo alert! (...) This should say "we have to accept the outcome that they view themselves as good and us as evil as JUST AS VALID as our own finding of the opposite" Too many negatives and I got confused, I guess. Sorry about that, peeps. (23 years ago, 17-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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| | Re: Hiroshima-Was It Necessary?
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(...) Well that's the crux of the hole in my argument. Unless it can be shown that it is NOT a subjective judgement (that is, that it's not just a morally relative judgement), we have to accept the outcome that they view themselves as evil and (...) (23 years ago, 17-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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