Subject:
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Re: Vote against/for...
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 12 Nov 2002 12:56:29 GMT
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Viewed:
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965 times
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"Pedro Silva" <el_gordo@netc.pt> writes:
> Actually, the bomb was dropped to scare the Japanese, thus ending
> the war. I don't see that as terrorism, though - terrorism implies
> a much more prolonged chain of events than a couple weeks in August
> '45.
The two atomic bomb raids were not the only US bomb raids on Japan
during the second world war. US low level incendiary bomb raids
started much earlier. The aim of the night time bomb raids were the
civillian population, which largely lived in houses composed out of
wood and paper. Some estimates indicate that these fire bomb raids
killed as many civillians as the two atomic bombs combined, but over a
much longer time span. The bomb raids were designed to lower enemy
morale and productivity.
Some quotes:
"Estimates of economic damage ecpected indicate that incendiary
attack on Japanese cities may be at least five times as effective,
ton for ton, as precision bombing [...] However, the dry economic
statistics, impressive as they may be, still do not take account
of the further and unpredictable effect on the Japanese war effort
of a national catastrophe of such magnitude- entirely
unprecedented in history." -- Office of Scientific Research and
Development recommendation, Fall '44
"There are no innocent civilians. It is their government and you
are fighting a people, you are not trying to fight an armed force
anymore. So it doesn't bother me so much to be killing innocent
bystanders." -- General Lemay
"The entire population of Japan is a proper military target [...]
There are no civilians in Japan." -- 5th Air Force Weekly
Intelligence Review, July '45
(Quotes from Michael Sherry, "The rise of American Airpower", Yale
University Press, New Haven, Conn., 1987.)
I think that this is closer to terrorism.
Fredrik
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Vote against/for...
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| (...) I know that. I was referring to the use of the two bombs as part of a larger conflict - they were not a terrorist act themselves, IMHO. (...) It is not terrorism, but it is close. The name for it is "total war", a concept that was born in the (...) (22 years ago, 12-Nov-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
| | | Re: Vote against/for...
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| (...) And I think that war is hell, and that when you're in a *war*, that it truly is an 'us and them' scenario. There is no denying that the 'politic', the 'intelligencia' and the 'people' have to be 'on-side' in order to fight and maintain a war (...) (22 years ago, 12-Nov-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Vote against/for...
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| (...) Actually, the bomb was dropped to scare the Japanese, thus ending the war. I don't see that as terrorism, though - terrorism implies a much more prolonged chain of events than a couple weeks in August '45. Terrorism is ETA in Spain, IRA in (...) (22 years ago, 12-Nov-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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