Goonersworld

EliteKiller wrote:

LMAO wrote:But not when it occurred can't ex post facto

and that's the great escape ... things that occurred in history under different circumstances are what they are ... good, bad, indifferent you can't change them or blame their descendants ... otherwise you have the crazy situation where we'd be suing for historic events ... so cue the Democrats wanting to pay slave reparations (even though slavery ended 100 years ago) ... no doubt the Zulu's will be suing the Brits soon even though that war was over 100 years ago - oh wait they already are ..... guess those Japanese are in with a shout after all .... how about Dresden, or Baghdad do you think those residents have a claim?

as you so rightly say ex post facto law utter madness ...

EliteKiller wrote:

Phil71 wrote:I knew a man many years ago who had been in a Japanese pow camp. He told me of some of the horrors he had witnessed.

The one that sticks in my mind was about an Australian prisoner who had escaped and been recaptured. The camp commandant ordered that he be strung up in the yard by his hands. He left him hanging there for two days before finally calling the whole camp out to watch the spectacle. One of the particularly cruel guards slit the man’s belly open, and tugged out a piece of his gut, before enticing one of the stray dogs that hung around the camp to grab it. The camp watched as the dog pulled the man’s entrails out all over the yard.

So dropping Nuclear Weapons on innocent women and children (and stray dogs) was a reasonable response?

There have been untold stabbings in London this year ... should we use tactical nukes on Ealing?

I'm taking the piss of course, but even if you accept that Hiroshima was justified and I don't, there is no excuse at all for the second 'test' on Nagasaki ... that's a war crime under any modern definition ... it's just lucky for the US that the winners write our history ...

Genghis Khan must have been a great family man, at least 16m of us are direct descendants of his today, that whole "Warlord mass rapist tag" that's just bad press coverage ...

EliteKiller wrote:The UN Definition of War Crimes includes:

• making the civilian population or individual civilians, not taking a direct part in hostilities, the object of attack;
• launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated;
• making non-defended localities and demilitarized zones the object of attack;

Hard to argue that the dropping of a Nuclear Weapon on a civilian target does not breach all three of these 'rules' .... yes it was a different time, yes the Japanese had done terrible things, however if you accept that the killing of women and children to theoretically prevent the loss of soldier's lives is an acceptable act? where do you draw the line? Is rape OK if it will stop the next village from fighting? is beheading of children OK to stop parents fighting? is bombing civilian targets ever acceptable?

Only one Country has ever used Nuclear Weapons and they did so at very the first opportunity they got .... did their action save soldiers lives, quite probably. Does that make this act of mass murder justifiable? probably not ....

So should the USA apologise for murdering 10's of 1000's of civilians .... well why not? They can couch the apology to say "what we did we deemed necessary"and yet still say "we're terribly sorry for the death and suffering we caused" .... no loss of face to anyone .... it's just a shame political arrogance prevents it ......

Pat Rice in Short Shorts wrote:

EliteKiller wrote:The UN Definition of War Crimes includes:

• making the civilian population or individual civilians, not taking a direct part in hostilities, the object of attack;
• launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated;
• making non-defended localities and demilitarized zones the object of attack;

Hard to argue that the dropping of a Nuclear Weapon on a civilian target does not breach all three of these 'rules' .... yes it was a different time, yes the Japanese had done terrible things, however if you accept that the killing of women and children to theoretically prevent the loss of soldier's lives is an acceptable act? where do you draw the line? Is rape OK if it will stop the next village from fighting? is beheading of children OK to stop parents fighting? is bombing civilian targets ever acceptable?

Only one Country has ever used Nuclear Weapons and they did so at very the first opportunity they got .... did their action save soldiers lives, quite probably. Does that make this act of mass murder justifiable? probably not ....

So should the USA apologise for murdering 10's of 1000's of civilians .... well why not? They can couch the apology to say "what we did we deemed necessary"and yet still say "we're terribly sorry for the death and suffering we caused" .... no loss of face to anyone .... it's just a shame political arrogance prevents it ......

Why is anyone concerned about apologies??? Brits who bombed Dresden and other cities to dust apologize for winning WWII? Apologize for colonialism and the slave trade? This whole notion of rewriting and judging history based on norms of our time vs past times is simply idle hypocrisy.

Pat Rice in Short Shorts wrote:Bombing and killing civilians was indeed the norm in WWII.

What is the point of apologizing for events that nobody alive was responsible for? History is to learned from not revised nor viewed through today’s lenses. All it is feel good bs IMO. The problem beyond the futility is that it is more about deciding than healing.

Phil71 wrote:The bombs were dropped to end the world war.

It worked.

StLGooner wrote:

Phil71 wrote:The bombs were dropped to end the world war.

It worked.

So can we then make the argument that we actually saved lives overall?