VJ day

The attitude to animals in this country bothers me.

One doesn't need a halo to care for the suffering of people , just respect for human life no matter skin colour or nationality

Your problem Anniebach, is that you can't abide anyone having a differing opinion to your own.

It is a matter of opinion, about the dropping of the bombs in Japan, it was terrible but brought a swift end to the war.Also terrible was the non nuclear blanket bombings of Dresden. also terrible was the endless bombings in London and other places in Britain during the Blitz, dropped by Germany and resulting in the horrible deaths of thousands of people, children and babies.It was generally, a terrible war, and we had to do all we could to bring it to an end.

That's very rude, roses.

Do you not agree that nuclear bombs are different?

Of course nuclear bombs are different, and as I have said already, it is a matter of opinion about those dropped on Japan, but I guess it doesn't matter to the dead, those women who ended up in bits and the headless children pulled out of burning rubble in the Blitz, or indeed in Dresden.
on keeping a nuclear deterrent, yes, I think we should, as it is exactly that, a deterrent .

It's so easy to say here ' I care about the suffering of people ' when you haven't lived through the horror of a war, and as if nobody but you does care about the suffering. during the Second World War nobody could judge anything with hindsight, it was real and happening in the here and now and also there was no reason to think we would actually win it.The Japanese soldiers were barbaric both with any prisoners, with local people they came across( in Burma for example) and with the carnage that their kamikaze pilots caused.The jury is out, as to whether the nuclear bombs should have been used, but it's in all our interests that we retain a nuclear capability.

It is a common attitude, rosesarered

"Do you not agree that nuclear bombs are different?" Every advance in weapon technology is different to what came before. Even the bow and arrow was a terrible weapon when compared to hitting someone with your fist You could attack from further away, send an arrow deep into flesh and vital organs where the injury could not be reached to wash it, add poison to the tip to kill anyone horribly if they survived the first trauma.

The atom bomb was a big single step, with horrendous results. It could affect many people at once, and be carried forward to the next generation, but it was only different to previous weapons in its extent and scope. If we condemn the use of it (as it appeared then) to end a war in which enormous numbers of people died or suffered greatly, that is just a condemnation extended from the use of blanket bombing, incendiary bombs, poison gas, massacres of whole villages, and all the other acrtions of war.

Do you not agree that insisting that others must agree with you is overbearing?

I have already said that of course nuclear weapons are different.

No it isn't roses. Russia is threatening Denmark because they said they would have NATO capability on their soil in the form of US warheads.
It's not in Denmark's interests.

Roses did agree, Elegran, so I do not see the point in telling me I am being overbearing.

If that is what you mean Elegran?
All comments on here are just our own opinions, none of us need to agree, or try and change anyone's feelings on a matter.

djen, if you are a member of CND that is fine, but that doesn't mean anyone who isn't is either wrong headed or heartless.

Conventional weapons are pretty awful too, but we can't get rid of everything or we would be walked over by other nations.

Haven't called anybody heartless. In fact you are the one who keeps insulting people.

www.globalresearch.ca/the-real-reason-america-used-nuclear-weapons-against-japan-it-was-not-to-end-the-war-or-save-lives/5308192

It's worth putting a link to Eloethan's link again, for anyone who missed it. It shows how many of the highranking US officials did not agree that dropping nuclear bombs on Japan was a good idea, as they were ready to surrender anyway.
The reason they did not surrender before the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima was because they were asked to surrender unconditionally.
After the Nagasaki bomb, they surrendered on condition they could keep the Empire.
If that condition had been allowed, Hiroshima would not have been necessary.

As said in the OP my dad was in Burma at the time. He did not return to the UK until May 1946, as he volunteered to go back to Nigeria with the West African troops he had trained and taken out to Burma to fight the Japanese. He wanted to explain himself what had happened to those who never went back home. I only found this out after he died, and before my mother died three months later. I knew he'd been in Burma, but he never talked about it to us.

I think since the war Japan has been very coy and retisent about their ten year rampage throughout the Far East, to the point that they are almost being thought of as victims of a war started by America! They were most certainly victims of their own fanatical government as were the Germans, but America didn't start the war in the F.E, they were in fact attacked without provocation. The idea for this was to destroy the American fleet thus enabling Japan to continue with it's Empire building without any meaningful opposition. Luckily the American aircraft carriers were at sea on exercise and so missed being a part of this destruction and we're able to regroup and assess the full seriousness of what had happened.
Yes Japan was on it's knees, but no way prepared to surrender, the Japanese scorned surrender, for them even the suggestion was totally dishonourable and you were expected to commit suicide sooner than surrender, that is why they treated POW's so shamefully, they despised them for surrendering, they were considered worse than the lowest of the low and were treated accordingly. Japan would have fought to the last person standing, they had to be stopped, and to suggest that America dropped those bombs as some sort of experiment, I find deeply shameful.

Agreed.

Not true, if you read Eloethan's link. Certainly those without a say in the deployment of the bombs thought that Japan was ready to surrender.
People like MacArthur, Eisenhower and the commander of the US navy off Japan.

Well, again we must agree to differ. This is turning into a pointless conversation, as let's face it none of us have access to any archives to confirm or deny who said what to who, or the exact state of the mindset of the Emperor of Japan and his evil military hierarchy. We only think we know. All I do know is that the Empire that Japan created was, along with Nazi Germany, the most evil regime of the 20thC, and I think most if not all of those invaded countries, because that's what they were, and China in particular would agree. Surrender was something that Japan despised, to them it was an unspeakable action of cowardice, hence like POW's, the peoples of those conquered countries were subjected to the most appalling barbaric treatment, men, woman children babies , think Japan think IS.

Yes, it's a bit pointless as you obviously have not read Eloethan's link which does say who said what to who.

Why are you still so bitter and anti the Japanese? My dad was in Burma, but he had Japanese friends. Not from the war, obviously, but children of those who fought in the war, to whom he talked and wrote. He didn't carry on blaming people who did what they were told.

Think Japan, think IS? So who do you suggest we drop nuclear bombs on now to stop that war?

Your dad wasn't killed five weeks before you were born, your dad also wasn't a POW. Both mine were, and the past in both cases has a long arm.

I feel we must all agree to differ here, we are not going to come to any compromise.

DJ You are a fearless fechter and not inclined to loss of self-confidence, so I don't know why you are so quick to feel insulted or hurt when someone comments on your utter certainty that you have the right side of every difference of opinion.

"Do you not agree that insisting that others must agree with you is overbearing?" was put to you in exactly the same form as your question "Do you not agree that nuclear bombs are different?" You did not seem to like the question, although it did not accuse you specifically of anything.

If you took it as meaning that you are overbearing, then presumably you recognise that you can be overbearing. My question was put no more strongly than yours, but you saw no need for it. Your posts are often very forceful, and I for one do see some of them as unnecessarily overbearing.

As Queen Victoria said of Gladstone, you do tend to address us as though we were a public meeting. We are not a reluctant politician being harried by an interviewer to confess his sins.

Wouldn't it be lovely if the whole of mankind cared for each other. Sad to say that's never going to happen. There will always be evil people and we have to have a deterrent.
I always liken this scenario to the bully in the playground. If he/she knows that you are going to fight back, they think twice.
Very simplistic, I know, but you have to protect yourself and let people know that you are prepared to.
,

It may be simplistic ( often the beauty of a thing IMO) but it's true as well.

What puzzles me is what scenario could you imagine in which you released a bomb?