70 Years Since Hiroshima by Magonsdaughter

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_War_%281945%29

At the Tehran Conference in November 1943, Stalin agreed that the Soviet Union would enter the war against Japan once Nazi Germany was defeated. At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, Stalin agreed to Allied pleas to enter World War II's Pacific Theater within three months of the end of the war in Europe. On July 26, the US, UK and China made the Potsdam Declaration, an ultimatum calling for the Japanese surrender which if ignored would lead to their "prompt and utter destruction". The invasion began on August 8, 1945, precisely three months after the German surrender on May 8 (May 9, 0:43 Moscow time).

The US already knew ahead of time when Russia would attack. I'd say it was a very timely message to Russia.

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Sunday, August 9, 2015 11:23 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:

Quote:
The only explanation that makes sense to me is that the USA used the atomic bombs to warn off RUSSIA. By agreement with the west, Russian forces were invading Manchuria. However, they were also storming down the Kamchatka, and had made landfall on the Kuril Islands.

The US dropped the bomb on Hiroshima three days before the Russians started invading Japanese territory. How then can the atomic bombs have been to 'stop the Russians in their tracks' when the first one was dropped before Russia even joined in the war?

It's not personal. It's just war.

Did China build thousands of H-bombs? No, the hundreds that China already has are sufficient to destroy the world.

Did Europe build thousands of H-bombs? No. Europe is richer than China and could pay France to build them, but France has already more than enough to destroy the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_nuclear_weapons_stockpiles_an
d_nuclear_tests_by_country

Then why did the USA build more than 70,000 nukes? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_the_United_States

Can't blame the 70,000 on the Russians because America went crazy building A-bombs, and then H-bombs, long before Russia built it's first one. I happen to know the reason.

I know building America's bombs was very expensive. I dare say it is a very, very profitable business when you include missiles, Trident and Typhoon submarines. The more bombs made, the more money made. But if America only made 250 or 300 H-bombs like France or China that would interfere with business. There needs to be some justification to never stop building H-bombs. Lucky for American business, Russia exists.

Threaten Russia with nuclear holocaust (which America did very loudly and constantly starting in 1945) and Russia would build nukes for protection. For every nuke the Russians built, America built another one. As fast as Russia builds, America builds faster and the profitability goes toward infinity. Except nothing on Earth last forever.

The H-bomb profits only stop when either Russian or American government can't afford to pay. It would have been nicer if either country had stopped when it had enough H-bombs to destroy the world. But that would have been too sensible, too moderate, and too unprofitable.

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Monday, August 10, 2015 2:02 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
If it's Nazi propaganda, like what you posted, I won't even bother watching to see if I disagree.

You know it's propaganda w/o having seen it?

Why do you reject things out of hand? Are your braynz so fragile that you can't stand to listen to something different? Your hold on reality .... your ability to figure things out on your own ... so delicate that you're afraid of something that you haven't heard before?

Sheesh, what a tool.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Monday, August 10, 2015 8:37 AM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
In other words, the US did NOT have the ability to target Russian nuclear launch sites with high-altitude bombers: the bombers simply didn't have the accuracy.

Haha, you dimwit, when dropping nukes you don't have to be pinpoint!

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Remember this whole 'first strike' strategy was reserved for the scenario where the USSR invades Western Europe ...

Which means it's NOT a 'first strike', it's a defensive response. Jeeze - can't you understand the simplest words you use?

Sigh, try to keep up. From the article I linked to and posted from before:

"The ability to destroy all of an adversary's nuclear forces, eliminating the possibility of a retaliatory strike, is known as a first-strike capability, or nuclear primacy."

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Monday, August 10, 2015 9:22 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:

Haha, you dimwit, when dropping nukes you don't have to be pinpoint!

Sigh, try to keep up. From the article I linked to and posted from before . . .

It's not personal. It's just war.

I know why Einstein wrote his famous A-bomb letter to Roosevelt. He feared what Hitler would do with the Bomb. I know why Oppenheimer led A-bomb physicists. He feared being only a pencil neck geek. I know why Stalin built A-bombs. He feared America would bomb Russia. Americans certainly talked about it enough.

I know why internet commentators are thin skinned: they fear not being taken seriously.

I even know why General Curtis LeMay bombed Hiroshima. He was building a personal empire that he ruled for 20 years after Hiroshima. He said “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 the so-called innocent bystanders.”

Curtis LeMay also said “Native annalists may look sadly back from the future on that period when we had the atomic bomb and the Russians didn't. Or when the Russians had acquired (through connivance and treachery of Westerns with warped minds) the atomic bomb - and yet still didn't have any stockpile of the weapons. That was the era when we might have destroyed Russia completely and not even skinned our elbows doing it.” https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Curtis_LeMay

LeMay delivered the first SAC Emergency War Plan in March 1949 which called for dropping 133 atomic bombs on 70 cities in the USSR within 30 days. Air power strategists called this type of preemptive strike, "killing a nation."[26] However, the Harmon committee, released their unanimous report two months later stating such an attack would not end a war with the Soviets and their industry would quickly recover. This committee had been specifically created by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to study the effects of a massive nuclear strike against the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, within weeks, an ad hoc Joint Chiefs committee recommended tripling America's nuclear arsenal, and Chief of Staff Vandenberg called for enough bombs to attack 220 targets, up from the previous 70
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_LeMay#Strategic_Air_Command

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Monday, August 10, 2015 9:39 AM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
If it's Nazi propaganda, like what you posted, I won't even bother watching to see if I disagree.
You know it's propaganda w/o having seen it?

Why do you reject things out of hand? Are your braynz so fragile that you can't stand to listen to something different? Your hold on reality .... your ability to figure things out on your own ... so delicate that you're afraid of something that you haven't heard before?

Sheesh, what a tool.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

What amazes and worries me is that you CAN'T see that it's propaganda. Yes I twigged that it was propaganda pretty quickly, with the cover photo of charred bodies, the provocative use of the word 'Holocaust', the emotive music, the one-sided hyperbolic narrative, etc. So after about a minute I stopped watching and did some research and found the 'Hellstorm' website the video came from, and watched a couple of minutes of another video, which I posted here. This video basically praised Hitler and the Nazis, blamed the Jews for starting the war, etc. The usual Nazi bullshit. That you would post videos from such a source, and then stand by it, is a new low for you Sig.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Monday, August 10, 2015 10:02 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Killing Japs didn't bother me very much at that time. I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal. Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing. But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you're not a good soldier.

General Curtis LeMay on the morality of his firebombing campaign www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/bomb/peopleevents/pandeAMEX61.html

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Monday, August 10, 2015 11:12 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
What amazes and worries me is that you CAN'T see that it's propaganda. Yes I twigged that it was propaganda pretty quickly, with the cover photo of charred bodies, the provocative use of the word 'Holocaust', the emotive music, the one-sided hyperbolic narrative, etc.

Were any of the picture fake? Was what they said untrue?

Wasn't it the case that some people hiding in basements were liquefied into a greasy film a few feet thick? Didn't other people just glow and then vaporize? Weren't people swept into the firestorms by the hurricane-force winds? Weren't civilians specifically targeted, using tactics, times, and sequences designed for maximum kill?

What parts were inaccurate?

If there were a film about Vietnam ... say, Hearts and Minds ... which showed all of the things that the videographers COULDN'T show on night-time TV ... would you say THAT was propaganda too?

If there was a film about Jews in concentration camps detailing all of the horrors there, is THAT propaganda too?
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/nazi-concentration-camps/

If there was a video about the "Russian invasion of Ukraine", which focused on the weeping women and dead children, would you call THAT propaganda? (Sorry, no link. No video available)

I pointed to the video BECAUSE it was emotive. People might "know" the "facts" ... so many hundred thousand dead, so many women and children ... so many buildings destroyed ... but not FEEL what it really means. And that's your problem:

If information - even historically factual, archival information - arouses emotions in you that you reject .... not because it's inaccurate or inhumane but because it arouses uncomfortable feelings ... then you reject the entire narrative as "propaganda".

You filter "truth" and "propaganda" not on the basis of whether or not it's accurate, reflective of reality, factual, or truthful, but on whether or not it makes you feel comfortable or not. That's the point that KIKI was trying to make: You're so propagandized, you don't even realize that you're propagandized. Hardly the kind of person that I'd trust to judge whether or not something is "propaganda".

Here's a thought: Try screening the information that you get on whether or not it is FACTUAL, not on the basis of whether or not it's congenial to your POV. YES, you'll come across information that is biased by selection, but at least YOU won't be the one biasing your data.

And that's the point: You can't make good decisions without good data, and you can't get good data if you're busy screening most of it out because you don't "like" it. The world isn't Facebook. Reality doesn't bend to what you "like" or "don't like"

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Monday, August 10, 2015 12:25 PM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
What parts were inaccurate?

You're going to stand by the accuracy of your Nazi film are you? That's fine. I'm not even going to watch it. But I am going to repeat my challenge to you to back up your claims with something other than propaganda films.

Quote:
You filter "truth" and "propaganda" not on the basis of whether or not it's accurate, reflective of reality, factual, or truthful, but on whether or not it makes you feel comfortable or not.

You're right, I don't feel comfortable watching neo-Nazi propaganda, much less spreading it on the internet as 'the truth'. Again, that's the difference between me and you.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Monday, August 10, 2015 1:03 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

And you (of all people) calling something propaganda doesn't make it so. The claims, from the film, in order:

Germany was subject to carpet bombing (saturation bombing, terror bombing).

The Churchill plan, [as described to the House of Commons on June 2, 1942] "German cities will be subject to an ordeal the like of which has never been experience by a country in continuity, severity, and magnitude ... to achieve this end there are no lengths of violence to which we will not go".
http://theahi.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Ford-Morality-of-Oblitera
tion-Bombing.pdf

[archival [pictures of dead civilians on the streets, many of them stripped of clothing by the explosive force, riddled with holes by shrapnel or lying in pools of blood]

Cities bombed: Hamburg, Berlin, Nuremberg, Darmstadt, Cologne, Stuttgart, Wurzburg ...

"After bombing a city, the air forces quickly returned, hoping to catch rescuers in the open"

[film of a city burning intensely at night, and anti-aircraft smoke puffs in the sky, with phosphorous ignition to help targeting]

"Thousands of small fires would join to create a vortex of flame"

[film of building burning intensely, over the sound of flames a man can be heard screaming hysterically]

Rescuers rushed to free those trapped underground

[photos of obliterated cities, parts still smoking]

"When rescuers finally broke through to underground bunkers, they often found scenes of unimaginable horror. In some shelters, broken water mains had slowly drowned the occupants. Ruptured steam pipes had boiled alive other screaming victims."

[stills and films of exploded or burned out basements]

"Some bunkers contained only dozens of log-like shapes, charred and shriveled to only a quarter of their original size"

[stills of bodies, mostly charred, with occasional pieces of clothing remaining]

"In still other cellars, only a powdery gray ash remained"

[more stills of street-level victims, in cars, on balconies]

"Rescuers who entered some bunkers found floors covered up to a foot of greasy fat. The victims had been rendered down to a dark liquid."

[still of charred bodies in a liquid]

"When word fist filtered to the outside world..."

[stills of newspaper headlines of the day, "Allies order terror bombing", "Allies to step up terror bombing"]

I hope you get the point. Everything is either actual archival footage or direct quote. Nothing inaccurate. Your problem with it isn't that it's inaccurate, it just that it paints a picture that you don't like.

So you plug your ears and go "Nyah nyah nyah, I can't hear you".

What are you, a child? A coward?

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Monday, August 10, 2015 1:15 PM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Killing Japs didn't bother me very much at that time. I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal. Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing. But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you're not a good soldier.

General Curtis LeMay on the morality of his firebombing campaign www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/bomb/peopleevents/pandeAMEX61.html

That the Nazis and the Japs would've tried Allied leaders for war crimes in revenge for bombing their cities goes without saying. I don't think we should judge the morality of the acts by what would have been the verdict of Nazi and Imperial Japanese courts though.

There's an interesting idea here - and this general touches upon it - about the morality of war. That any action that kills large numbers of civilians is seen as automatically immoral (even if it helps win the war against an enemy as evil as the Axis powers, and thereby saves Allied servicemen's lives). But when it comes to killing hundreds of thousands or even millions of enemy soldiers, young men whose only crime is being brainwashed by their repressive governments into thinking that they are fighting a just war in defence of their homeland - that is seen as perfectly OK.

I can understand the need for international criminal courts to see this as black and white, but I don't think WE should think of this as a black and white issue. For me the loss of an 18 year old German farmboy conscript can be just as sad and tragic as the loss of a 50 year old German civilian. It can in fact be much more tragic - maybe the 18 year old German farmboy was peace-loving, never hurt anybody in his life, and never wanted to go to war, while the 50 year old civilian was an enthusiastic Nazi party member, and cheerleader for war, who helped round up the local Jews for the Gestapo. Yet by conventional reckoning killing the Nazi civilian is a moral crime, while killing the farmboy soldier is perfectly fine.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Monday, August 10, 2015 1:51 PM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Sig, here's an idea. Why don't you put forward some evidence that ISN'T neo-Nazi propaganda, and we'll work from there?

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Monday, August 10, 2015 8:29 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

You insist on calling facts - archival filmography, direct quotes, historically documented lists of cities bombed - propaganda.

I have an idea. Why don't you address the facts, instead of clinging to your delusions?

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Monday, August 10, 2015 9:04 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:

There's an interesting idea here - and this general touches upon it - about the morality of war. That any action that kills large numbers of civilians is seen as automatically immoral (even if it helps win the war against an enemy as evil as the Axis powers, and thereby saves Allied servicemen's lives). But when it comes to killing hundreds of thousands or even millions of enemy soldiers, young men whose only crime is being brainwashed by their repressive governments into thinking that they are fighting a just war in defense of their homeland - that is seen as perfectly OK.

I can understand the need for international criminal courts to see this as black and white, but I don't think WE should think of this as a black and white issue. . . .

Let's make it black and white for you. General Curtis LeMay had a plan in 1949 to kill Russia with a sneak attack. This plan was made before Russia had even tested an A-bomb. I'm hopeful that you will sense why LeMay was not given permission to destroy Russia, but you might disappoint me.

LeMay delivered the first SAC Emergency War Plan in March 1949 which called for dropping 133 atomic bombs on 70 cities in the USSR within 30 days. Air power strategists called this type of preemptive strike, "killing a nation." However, the Harmon committee released their unanimous report two months later stating such an attack would not end a war with the Soviets and their industry would quickly recover. This committee had been specifically created by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to study the effects of a massive nuclear strike against the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, within weeks, an ad hoc Joint Chiefs committee recommended tripling America's nuclear arsenal, and Chief of Staff Vandenberg called for enough bombs to attack 220 targets, up from the previous 70.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_LeMay#Strategic_Air_Command

Try to keep in mind that General LeMay already had enough bombs, planes and crews to kill Russians by the millions. Also important to keep in mind, America is not at war with Russia. It is a sneak attack that could've happened in May 1949, except the Joint Chiefs told LeMay "NO! YOU IMMORAL BASTARD! WE NEED MORE A-BOMBS BEFORE A SNEAK ATTACK ON RUSSIA SO THAT IT IS A CLEAN AND COMPLETE KILL FROM WHICH THERE WILL BE NO POSSIBLE RETALIATION AGAINST AMERICA OR ITS ALLIES" or words to that affect.

LeMay was willing and able to do what he had not been allowed to do in Japan. He was going to destroy a nation. It would be a sneak attack a million times bigger than Pearl Harbor, 'A Date Which Will Live in Infamy'.

General Curtis LeMay is General Jack D. Ripper in Dr Strangelove (1964) http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/DrStrangelove

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Monday, August 10, 2015 9:10 PM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
You insist on calling facts - archival filmography, direct quotes, historically documented lists of cities bombed - propaganda.

I will post the video again. Watch 2 minutes starting at 1:45, and then tell me that it's not propaganda, and that you're completely happy with it as a source.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Monday, August 10, 2015 9:32 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Not only do you not discuss Signy's actual post - you substitute an entirely different video.

Now THAT'S a strawman! KUDOS! Goebbels would be proud!

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Monday, August 10, 2015 9:58 PM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

A different video from the same website, and made by the same people, yes.

So kiki, you're happy with a neo-Nazi website as a source?

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Monday, August 10, 2015 10:25 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

I examine content to see if it's factual. That's the only thing that counts.

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Monday, August 10, 2015 10:37 PM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

What about the Hellstorm video that I posted. Do you consider that to be factual?

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Monday, August 10, 2015 11:14 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Why does that matter to THIS DISCUSSION?

Anyway, you've made many, many claims, which have proven untrue or irrelevant. I'm not going to waste my time discussing anything with you until you come up with something worth discussing.

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Monday, August 10, 2015 11:24 PM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
Why does that matter to THIS DISCUSSION ?

I'll answer that one for you - No, the Hellstorm video I posted is blatant Nazi propaganda.

Now back to Sig's video. You seem strongly convinced that it is 'factual'. Why is that? You know a lot about the WWII bombing of Dresden?

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Monday, August 10, 2015 11:36 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

You seem strongly convinced that it is 'factual'. Why is that? You know a lot about the WWII bombing of Dresden?

Yes.

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Monday, August 10, 2015 11:43 PM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Then you should have a lot of facts at your disposal. Why rely on a source that spews Nazi propaganda?

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Tuesday, August 11, 2015 12:01 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Still avoiding the actual topic?

You've made many, many claims, which have proven untrue or irrelevant. I'm not going to waste my time discussing anything with you until you come up with something worth discussing.

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Tuesday, August 11, 2015 6:45 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

It's just plain commonsense in the military that war is about military force and nothing else. When the number of dead is large enough, you win. There is really no practical value bothering yourself with who is killed. Dead civilians or soldiers, it is all the same in the number. That number is the military's only responsibility.

A-bombs are very important to this commonsense view of war. Win the war in a single day. The unconditional surrender and the paper work of a peace treaty will follow in a week or two.

As a reminder, General Curtis LeMay was in charge of bombing Hiroshima. Two decades later, he was quoted: “My solution to the problem would be to tell [the North Vietnamese Communists] frankly that they've got to draw in their horns and stop their aggression or we're going to bomb them into the Stone Age. And we would shove them back into the Stone Age with Air power or Naval power—not with ground forces.” Mission With LeMay: My Story (1965), p. 565.

While he was running for Vice-President, in an interview two years after the publication of this book, General LeMay said, "I never said we should bomb them back to the Stone Age. I said we had the capability to do it. I want to save lives on both sides."; reported in The Washington Post (October 4, 1968), p. A8. Many years later LeMay would claim that this was his ghost writer's overwriting. General LeMay did not feel it was his responsibility to read his own book before it was published.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_LeMay#Vice_presidential_candidacy
.2C_1968

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Tuesday, August 11, 2015 12:06 PM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
Still avoiding the actual topic?

No kik, I'm not going to give a video from a neo-Nazi website the time of day. If you and Sig can't understand that, that says more about you than it does about me.

What do you suppose, these guys at the neo-Nazi website decided to take a break from spewing Nazi propaganda, to make a serious, balanced and well-researched documentary?

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Tuesday, August 11, 2015 2:10 PM

JONGSSTRAW

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:

What do you suppose, these guys at the neo-Nazi website decided to take a break from spewing Nazi propaganda, to make a serious, balanced and well-researched documentary?

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Tuesday, August 11, 2015 5:00 PM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

The production is very slick... but it still immediately stank of bullshit. No surprise to me to see Sig and kiki lapping up propaganda after the Ukraine thread - however Nazi propaganda is a new development for them. Shows how far they've sunk I suppose. Rubles well spent, Mr Putin.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Tuesday, August 11, 2015 6:17 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:

Rubles well spent, Mr Putin.

I was reading a book about Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atom bomb. It was fear that made possible the crime that was committed against Oppenheimer in 1954 - a hysterical, irrational fear of the Soviet Union.

So demented were Oppenheimer's enemies that, even after what they described as his "unfrocking" - the official decision that he did indeed pose a risk to national security - they insisted he was on the brink of defecting to the Soviet Union and so must continue to be followed and bugged wherever he went, a permanent target for a paranoid FBI. More money had been spent eavesdropping on his conversations, he once joked, than on the atomic bomb itself.

Peace in 1945 made him a national hero and a powerful voice in Washington, but he was also increasingly anxious about America going immediately into Cold War. His qualms made him enemies. He asked too many questions. Can these particular politicians and generals (Oppenheimer knew them personally) be trusted with these particular weapons? How can you stop an arms race? Would a war fought with H-bombs be worth winning?

Eventually, the particular politicians and generals from WWII that Oppenheimer knew had very unsound character and poor judgment either retired or self-destructed. Oppenheimer was (to use an old communist term which seems fitting) rehabilitated, as John F Kennedy welcomed him to the White House and Lyndon B Johnson gave him a medal. America was sorry, and America was embarrassed. Especially nice was that America stopped building too many H-bombs every year and stopped too goddamn many test explosions in the atmosphere.

“There are no secrets about the world of nature. There are secrets about the thoughts and intentions of men.” -- Interview with Edward R. Murrow, A Conversation with J. Robert Oppenheimer, 1955

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Wednesday, August 12, 2015 12:35 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

I had to watch it just out of curiosity. Well I'll say this, it's probably the finest made piece of pure lies and bullshit I've ever seen. Brilliant in its production quality and florid narration, it's easy to see how brainless gullible idiots are duped into believing it.

The production is very slick... but it still immediately stank of bullshit. No surprise to me to see Sig and kiki lapping up propaganda after the Ukraine thread - however Nazi propaganda is a new development for them. Shows how far they've sunk I suppose. Rubles well spent, Mr Putin.

Any evidence for your claims? No, of course not. There never is.

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Wednesday, August 12, 2015 12:43 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/firebombing-of-dresden

February 13, 1945 : Firebombing of Dresden

On the evening of February 13, 1945, a series of Allied firebombing raids begins against the German city of Dresden, reducing the “Florence of the Elbe” to rubble and flames, and killing as many as 135,000 people. It was the single most destructive bombing of the war—including Hiroshima and Nagasaki—and all the more horrendous because little, if anything, was accomplished strategically, since the Germans were already on the verge of surrender.

Among the conclusions reached at the February 1945 Yalta Conference of the Allied powers was the resolution that the Allies would engage in concerted strategic bombing raids against German cities known for war-production and manufacturing, in an effort to bring the Nazi war machine to a crashing halt. The tragic irony of the raid on Dresden, a medieval city renowned for its rich artistic and architectural treasures, is that during the war it had never been a site of war-production or major industry. Both Allies and Germans alike have argued over the real purpose of the firebombing; the ostensible “official” rationale was that Dresden was a major communications center and bombing it would hamper the German ability to convey messages to its army, which was battling Soviet forces at the time. But the extent of the destruction was, for many, disproportionate to the stated strategic goal—many believe that the attack was simply an attempt to punish the Germans and weaken their morale.

More than 3,400 tons of explosives were dropped on the city by 800 American and British aircraft. The firestorm created by the two days of bombing set the city burning for many more days, littering the streets with charred corpses, including many children. Eight square miles of the city was ruined, and the total body count was between 35,000 and 135,000 (an approximation is all that was possible given that the city was filled with many refugees from farther east). The hospitals that were left standing could not handle the numbers of injured and burned, and mass burials became necessary.

Among the American POWs who were in Dresden during the raid was novelist Kurt Vonnegut, who conveyed his experience in his classic antiwar novel Slaughterhouse Five.

Article Details:
February 13, 1945 : Firebombing of Dresden

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Wednesday, August 12, 2015 12:48 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-dresden

Bombing of Dresden

From February 13 to February 15, 1945, during the final months of World War II (1939-45), Allied forces bombed the historic city of Dresden, located in eastern Germany. The bombing was controversial because Dresden was neither important to German wartime production nor a major industrial center, and before the massive air raid of February 1945 it had not suffered a major Allied attack. By February 15, the city was a smoldering ruin and an unknown number of civilians—estimated at somewhere between 35,000 and 135,000–were dead.

Contents
Bombing of Dresden: Background
World War II and Area Bombing
Bombing of Dresden: February 1945
Bombing of Dresden: Aftermath

Bombing of Dresden: Background

By February 1945, the jaws of the Allied vise were closing shut on Nazi Germany. In the west, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s (1889-1945) desperate counteroffensive against the Allies in Belgium’s Ardennes forest had ended in total failure. In the east, the Red army had captured East Prussia and reached the Oder River, less than 50 miles from Berlin. The once-proud Luftwaffe was a skeleton of an air fleet, and the Allies ruled the skies over Europe, dropping thousands of tons of bombs on Germany every day.

From February 4 to February 11, the “Big Three” Allied leaders–U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt (1882-1945), British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874-1965) and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin (1878-1953)–met at Yalta in the USSR and compromised on their visions of the postwar world. Other than deciding on what German territory would be conquered by which power, little time was given to military considerations in the war against the Third Reich. However, Churchill and Roosevelt did promise Stalin to continue their bombing campaign against eastern Germany in preparation for the advancing Soviet forces.
World War II and Area Bombing

An important aspect of the Allied air war against Germany involved what is known as “area” or “saturation” bombing. In area bombing, all enemy industry–not just war munitions–is targeted, and civilian portions of cities are obliterated along with troop areas. Before the advent of the atomic bomb, cities were most effectively destroyed through the use of incendiary bombs that caused unnaturally fierce fires in the enemy cities. Such attacks, Allied command reasoned, would ravage the German economy, break the morale of the German people and force an early surrender.

Germany was the first to employ area bombing tactics during its assault on Poland in September 1939. In 1940, during the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe failed to bring Britain to its knees by targeting London and other heavily populated areas with area bombing attacks. Stung but unbowed, the Royal Air Force (RAF) avenged the bombings of London and Coventry in 1942 when it launched the first of many saturation bombing attacks against Germany. In 1944, Hitler named the world’s first long-range offensive missile V-1, after “vergeltung,” the German word for “vengeance” and an expression of his desire to repay Britain for its devastating bombardment of Germany.

The Allies never overtly admitted that they were engaged in saturation bombing; specific military targets were announced in relation to every attack. However, it was but a veneer, and few mourned the destruction of German cities that built the weapons and bred the soldiers that by 1945 had killed more than 10 million Allied soldiers and even more civilians. The firebombing of Dresden would prove the exception to this rule.
Bombing of Dresden: February 1945

Before World War II, Dresden was called “the Florence of the Elbe” and was regarded as one the world’s most beautiful cities for its architecture and museums. Although no German city remained isolated from Hitler’s war machine, Dresden’s contribution to the war effort was minimal compared with other German cities. In February 1945, refugees fleeing the Russian advance in the east took refuge there. As Hitler had thrown much of his surviving forces into a defense of Berlin in the north, city defenses were minimal, and the Russians would have had little trouble capturing Dresden. It seemed an unlikely target for a major Allied air attack.

On the night of February 13, hundreds of RAF bombers descended on Dresden in two waves, dropping their lethal cargo indiscriminately over the city. The city’s air defenses were so weak that only six Lancaster bombers were shot down. By the morning, some 800 British bombers had dropped more than 1,400 tons of high-explosive bombs and more than 1,100 tons of incendiaries on Dresden, creating a great firestorm that destroyed most of the city and killed numerous civilians. Later that day, as survivors made their way out of the smoldering city, more than 300 U.S. bombers began bombing Dresden’s railways, bridges and transportation facilities, killing thousands more. On February 15, another 200 U.S. bombers continued their assault on the city’s infrastructure. All told, the bombers of the U.S. Eighth Air Force dropped more than 950 tons of high-explosive bombs and more than 290 tons of incendiaries on Dresden. Later, the Eighth Air Force would drop 2,800 more tons of bombs on Dresden in three other attacks before the war’s end.
Bombing of Dresden: Aftermath

The Allies claimed that by bombing Dresden, they were disrupting important lines of communication that would have hindered the Soviet offensive. This may be true, but there is no disputing that the British incendiary attack on the night of February 13 to February 14 was conducted also, if not primarily, for the purpose of terrorizing the German population and forcing an early surrender. It should be noted that Germany, unlike Japan later in the year, did not surrender until nearly the last possible moment, when its capital had fallen and Hitler was dead.

Because there were an unknown number of refugees in Dresden at the time of the Allied attack, it is impossible to know exactly how many civilians perished. After the war, investigators from various countries, and with varying political motives, calculated the number of civilians killed to be as little as 8,000 to more than 200,000. Estimates today range from 35,000 to 135,000. Looking at photographs of Dresden after the attack, in which the few buildings still standing are completely gutted, it seems improbable that only 35,000 of the million or so people in Dresden at the time were killed. Cellars and other shelters would have been meager protection against a firestorm that blew poisonous air heated to hundreds of degrees Fahrenheit across the city at hurricane-like speeds.

At the end of the war, Dresden was so badly damaged that the city was basically leveled. A handful of historic buildings–the Zwinger Palace, the Dresden State Opera House and several fine churches–were carefully reconstructed out of the rubble, but the rest of the city was rebuilt with plain modern buildings. American author Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007), who was a prisoner of war in Dresden during the Allied attack and tackled the controversial event in his book “Slaughterhouse-Five,” said of postwar Dresden, “It looked a lot like Dayton, Ohio, more open spaces than Dayton has. There must be tons of human bone meal in the ground.”
Article Details:
Bombing of Dresden

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Wednesday, August 12, 2015 1:14 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

I'd be surprised if kids today didn't believe this was an accurate portrayal of the aftermath of mid 1940's.

Seriously.....

I don't have any kids. It's not my fault your kids are fucking dumb. :)

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Wednesday, August 12, 2015 8:29 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I'd be surprised if kids today didn't believe this was an accurate portrayal of the aftermath of mid 1940's.

Seriously.....

I don't have any kids. It's not my fault your kids are fucking dumb. :)

Do Right, Be Right. :)

There is the warning label. South Park always begins with a scene that reads: The following program contains coarse language and due to its content should not be viewed by anyone. Can't kids read?

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Wednesday, August 12, 2015 8:31 AM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
Any evidence for your claims? No, of course not. There never is.

Still stubbornly defending a propaganda video from a neo-Nazi website. Good old kiki.

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/firebombing-of-dresden

http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-dresden

Hooray! These articles are much better than Nazi propaganda, and can form a basis for discussion.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Wednesday, August 12, 2015 8:55 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/firebombing-of-dresden

http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-dresden

Hooray! These articles are much better than Nazi propaganda, and can form a basis for discussion.

Perhaps it is now your turn? Start the discussion.

Maybe you could claim that killing anyone, anywhere, anytime, using any method is permissible in war? Or, maybe you will be a little softer by claiming the boundary between a just act of war and a war crime is very fuzzy or fluid and that no one can tell where it is, except the victor? Unless you're general or politician at least 100 years old, you're too young to be a victor, but you can claim status as their spokesperson or unpaid public defender.

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Wednesday, August 12, 2015 8:14 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
conjectures - not facts

First of all - it was Russia that won WWII in Europe. Without the eastern front sapping resources Germany would have been in a much stronger position vis-a-vis the allies.

False.
Hitler was winning all 5 fronts in the War until America entered. The Russians had been there all along, and Hitler was barely sneezing while overrunning them. While still winning on every front they fought on. The Russians were not winning then, even with the American's supplying materiel to the allies, before declaring War.

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Wednesday, August 12, 2015 9:42 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
I had to watch it just out of curiosity. Well I'll say this, it's probably the finest made piece of pure lies and bullshit I've ever seen. Brilliant in its production quality and florid narration, it's easy to see how brainless gullible idiots are duped into believing it. -JONGSSTRAW

The production is very slick... but it still immediately stank of bullshit. No surprise to me to see Sig and kiki lapping up propaganda after the Ukraine thread - however Nazi propaganda is a new development for them. Shows how far they've sunk I suppose. Rubles well spent, Mr Putin.- KPO

Any evidence for your claims? No, of course not. There never is.- KIKI

Nope, there never is.

Gentlemen ... and I use the term advisedly, since you behave like 6-year-olds ... I actually looked up every claim made in the first half of the video.

Did Churchill really say what he said? Yes, according to what I found, he did.

Were the cities bombed which were claimed? Yes, they were.

Were people really rendered down to fat, instantly ignited, or slowly charred? It's a little hard to deny the evidence because there are photos, but ... yes, they really were, according to documented eyewitness accounts. (I've tested crematoria and medical waste incinerators, and I can tell you it's all about temperature, time. and oxygen content. But I digress...)

Were multiple runs made? Were open spaces bombed? Yes, and yes.

The problem that you're having with the video isn't because it's inaccurate or untrue. The ONLY problem that you have with the video is because it reveals the horrors of war visited on a civilian population ... a population you deem worthless. And you'd like to keep it that way.

But let one hair of a Kiev citizen be harmed, and there is no length of outrage too great!

Biased, much?

Yanno, you should really read Slaughterhouse 5. It addresses in fictional form what the video addresses with real pictures.

But, wait! If you start reading it, pretty soon, you'll be saying that Slaughterhouse 5 is propaganda too!

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Wednesday, August 12, 2015 11:24 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Still stubbornly defending a propaganda video from a neo-Nazi website. Good old kiki.

troll

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Wednesday, August 12, 2015 11:34 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

" I actually looked up every claim made in the first half of the video."

Silly you. You still think they're interested in facts. Their inability to support their own claims, or refute the claims of other based on FACTS is complete. And they stopped even pretending to post on-topic a long time ago and resorted to pure and total trolling.

FACTS are their enemies, not their friends.

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Thursday, August 13, 2015 2:05 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Apparently they run screaming from facts, with their fingers in their ears.

It's a funny mental picture!

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Thursday, August 13, 2015 10:14 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

What was innovative about Hiroshima was that General Curtis LeMay could destroy a city 6 hours flying time away in his silk pajamas.

Back in Washington D.C., General Leslie Groves had to sleep in his office on a cot while waiting for a teletype message from the Pacific island of Tinian that his bomb worked as designed.

In time the technology was greatly improved. A city could be killed an hour after the decision was made. Almost no waiting for the Generals!

Truman delayed the start of the Potsdam summit by two weeks in the hope that the bomb could be tested before the start of negotiations with Stalin. The Trinity Test of July 16 exceeded expectations. On July 26, Allied leaders issued the Potsdam Declaration outlining terms of surrender for Japan. It was presented as an ultimatum and stated that without a surrender, the Allies would attack Japan, resulting in "the inevitable and complete destruction of the Japanese armed forces and just as inevitably the utter devastation of the Japanese homeland".

Japan attempted to save face -- Japan's willingness to surrender remained conditional on the preservation of the imperial institution; that Japan not be occupied; that the Japanese armed forces be disbanded voluntarily; and that war criminals be prosecuted by Japanese courts. The Japanese never believed they would get those demands, but those were worth asking for.

Under the 1943 Quebec Agreement with the United Kingdom, the United States had agreed that nuclear weapons would not be used against another country without mutual consent. General LeMay decided differently.

At Potsdam, Truman agreed to a request from Winston Churchill that Britain be represented when the atomic bomb was dropped. General LeMay decided differently.

William Penney and Group Captain Leonard Cheshire were sent to Tinian, but found that LeMay would not let them accompany the mission. All they could do was send a strongly worded signal back to the head of the British Joint Staff Mission, Field Marshal Sir Henry Maitland Wilson because General LeMay decided differently. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasak
i#The_bombing

The bizarre part is that asshole General LeMay was left in charge of dropping atom bombs for Two! More! Decades! Perhaps that is no more bizarre than leaving that asshole J. Edgar Hoover in charge of the FBI for five decades. J Edgar didn't have nukes, so I guess it was much safer than the case with LeMay.

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Thursday, August 13, 2015 4:34 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

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Thursday, August 13, 2015 4:35 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

One of the best movies ever made.

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Thursday, August 13, 2015 4:41 PM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
Perhaps it is now your turn? Start the discussion.

I've already commented and spoke my mind on various things including the Allied air campaign in general, the Dresden bombings specifically, the bombings of Hamburg (which were just as devastating as the Dresden bombings - yet not fixated upon anywhere near as much), and also the question of the morality of war, civilians vs. military fatalities etc.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Thursday, August 13, 2015 9:35 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:
Quote:
Perhaps it is now your turn? Start the discussion.

I've already commented and spoke my mind on various things including the Allied air campaign in general, the Dresden bombings specifically, the bombings of Hamburg (which were just as devastating as the Dresden bombings - yet not fixated upon anywhere near as much), and also the question of the morality of war, civilians vs. military fatalities etc.

Yes, we know: It's all Nazi propaganda!!

BWAHAHAHAHA!

*wipes eyes, walks away still laughing*

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Friday, August 14, 2015 4:10 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Dr. Strangelove: Major Kong Rides The Bomb 1080p

Major Kong is a rube, a hick, the wrong character to choose for explaining the decision to nuke Hiroshima. The man really making the decisions about what day bombs drop is not Truman. It is General Curtis LeMay. LeMay's trademark cigar is stuck in the mouth of General Jack D. Ripper in Dr Strangelove (1964) http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/DrStrangelove

Curtis LeMay bombing Japan, as told by Robert McNamara, a retired Secretary of Defense, in The Fog of War (2003).

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Friday, August 14, 2015 6:25 AM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Yes, we know: It's all Nazi propaganda!!

BWAHAHAHAHA!

No, the Nazi propaganda was YOUR contribution (thanks again for that by the way), but luckily before you came to the thread there was a discussion on Dresden, Hamburg etc. that was more sensible.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Friday, August 14, 2015 9:05 AM