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#31
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#32
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Subject: Enola Gay: Burnt flesh and other magnificent technological
achievements From: "Mark Jones" Date: 12/13/03 2:20 PM Pacific Standard Time Message-id: . net "Peter Aitken" wrote in message r.com... 1) We could have dropped the bomb in a lightly populated area to show the Japanese that we had it and hopefully scared them into surrender. Note that Hiroshima and a couple of other cities were spared conventional bombing so the effects of the A-bomb could be studied - rather cold blooded don't you think? Not even slightly. Truman did the right thing. And if the Japanese ( or the Germans) rise again as a cruel and hostile aggressor nations we will be back. And this time no more Mr. Nice Guy. Arthur Kramer 344th BG 494th BS England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany Visit my WW II B-26 website at: http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer |
#33
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Please keep this crap out of rec.food.cooking. Thanks.
[RFC removed from Newsgroups line, followups set to talk.politics.misc] -- Mark Shaw contact info at homepage -- http://www.panix.com/~mshaw ================================================== ====================== Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish. - Euripides |
#34
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This revisionist bull**** keeps surfacing always from the 'usual
suspects'. most of them weren't around during WW2 and don't know anything about how things were back then. I had an uncle - gone now - who would have led his tank company ashore in March of 46 on Honshu. There were no combat tasks for his company after three days. Why? They would have all been wiped out by then. He was damn glad the bombs were dropped. That meant he was going to live. He'd already been through Saipan and Okinawa. Okinawa was where his M4 was hit by a Jap AT shell. He lived through that, too. Locate a book named "Operation Downfall" if you want to find out what the invasions of Kyushu and Honshu would have been like. Read 'Typhoon of Steel' or one of the other excellent books on Okinawa to see what that battle was like. Then ask yourself - would you have been ready to send your men in to repeat that - twice? Remember, Truman had been in combat in WW1. It's the simplest thing in the world to Monday-morning-quarterback, to say 'they should have done this - once you know all the facts. Would I have dropped the bombs? Damn right I would - they invaded MY country - I was born in Alaska and was living there when the Japs invaded the Aleutians. FWIW I wouldn't trade the life of a single American for a hundred enemies' lives - not then, not now. Walt BJ |
#35
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One wave would drop high explosive to destroy buildings. Later
waves might have more anti-personnel oriented weaponry to kill the firemen fighting the fires, while delayed HE might be designed to sink deeper into the ground before exploding, thus rupturing gas and water lines, for more This sounds somewhat like Dohet's philosophy. Douhet suggested three waves of bombers seperated by 30 minutes. The first wave dropped HE to knock down walls, or entire buildings. Wave 2 carried incendiary to set fire to what was not knocked down. Wave 3 carried chemical weapons to prevent the fire fighters from being able to extinguish the fires. BUFDRVR "Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips everyone on Bear Creek" |
#37
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On 13 Dec 2003 17:53:47 GMT, "Emmanuel.Gustin" wrote:
Stephen Harding wrote: : In reading your defense of the American use of the atomic bomb, and : the refutation of some of the lefties claims of the evil nature of : American leadership (over the entire history of the nation), I thought : perhaps you weren't quite the anti-American ideologue I'd pegged you as. And you were right -- I am not an anti-American ideologue. I do condemn and resent, however, those -- on the left; but also people on the right, like you -- who somehow want to lump together the historical decision to use the bomb against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with the intentions of the current US governments to develop nuclear weapons that are explicitly intended for first-strike use in limited warfare. Different context, different leaders, different goals and different consequences: Let us decide each case on its own merit. Truman's decision, seen in the context of 1945, was an understandable one, rationally defensible and morally not worse than many other acts perpetrated in this war, by friend and foe alike. It is very hard to attach any kind of approval to this decision; but perhaps it is sufficient to say that certainly most of the arguments that are used to condemn it don't survive closer scrutiny. The Bush nuclear policy is not defensible, not on moral grounds and not on grounds of self-interest. It is a prime example of ideology-driven boneheadedness. It is an example of individuals with far more information than you have making rational decisions based on US National Security. So sorry that you Japanese Ubermench do not run Washington (but not for lack of trying). Al MInyard |
#38
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#39
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Emmanuel.Gustin wrote:
Stephen Harding wrote: : In reading your defense of the American use of the atomic bomb, and : the refutation of some of the lefties claims of the evil nature of : American leadership (over the entire history of the nation), I thought : perhaps you weren't quite the anti-American ideologue I'd pegged you as. And you were right -- I am not an anti-American ideologue. I do condemn and resent, however, those -- on the left; but also people on the right, like you -- who somehow want to lump together the historical decision to use the bomb against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with the intentions of the current US governments to develop nuclear weapons that are explicitly intended for first-strike use in limited warfare. Different context, different leaders, different goals and different consequences: Let us decide each case on its own merit. Interesting observation, given that I don't believe I've ever made a statement on this NG in support (or condemnation) over current Bush nuclear strategy or policy, and certainly not using 1945 WWII context to justify modern nuclear policies. You seem to be the one tending to "lump" all conservatives in one negative grab bag. Truman's decision, seen in the context of 1945, was an understandable one, rationally defensible and morally not worse than many other acts perpetrated in this war, by friend and foe alike. It is very hard to attach any kind of approval to this decision; but perhaps it is sufficient to say that certainly most of the arguments that are used to condemn it don't survive closer scrutiny. The Bush nuclear policy is not defensible, not on moral grounds and not on grounds of self-interest. It is a prime example of ideology-driven boneheadedness. I'm not up on the details of current Bush nuclear thinking. I feel any "expansion" of the possible use of nuclear weaponry is generally not a good thing. There may be tactical value in their use, e.g. as "bunker busters" going after Bin Laden in the caves of eastern Afghanistan, but the political baggage of their use makes it not worth it IMO. Best to leave nukes in the "too terrible to use" category of last ditch national defense, although humanity is almost certainly doomed to experience their use by *someone* at *some* time again. I just hope it will not be the US that uses them for a third time. SMH |
#40
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"Stephen Harding" wrote in message ... Emmanuel.Gustin wrote: Stephen Harding wrote: snip The Bush nuclear policy is not defensible, not on moral grounds and not on grounds of self-interest. It is a prime example of ideology-driven boneheadedness. I'm not up on the details of current Bush nuclear thinking. I feel any "expansion" of the possible use of nuclear weaponry is generally not a good thing. There may be tactical value in their use, e.g. as "bunker busters" going after Bin Laden in the caves of eastern Afghanistan, but the political baggage of their use makes it not worth it IMO. Best to leave nukes in the "too terrible to use" category of last ditch national defense, although humanity is almost certainly doomed to experience their use by *someone* at *some* time again. I just hope it will not be the US that uses them for a third time. I am not sure that Mr. Gustin has accurately portrayed the situation vis a vis the research into the feasibility and usefullness of the potential new small nuclear weapons. From what I have read, the impetus behind this research is to investigate their potential for use in a rather small niche, which you accurately indicated is the destruction of very deep/hard critical targets, especially those related to WMD's. Some claim that it is going to be possible to develop a weapon that could be used against such targets with relatively little collateral damage--relative, that is, to the alternatives. These a (a) strike with a non-nuclear penetrator, which may or may not be successful, and even if it is may result in significant downwind contamination (it would not be able to neutralize chemical agents, for example); (b) conventional ground attack to seize the objective, again with the potential of significant downwind contamination, not to mention the attendant casualties accompanying the combat operations. A small nuclear weapon *may* offer an alternative to these options that eliminates the potential of downwind contamination while also ensuring that the strike accomplishes its primary objective of destroying the target. Granted, that is a big "may"--which is why the R&D effort is required, to determine the feasibility of the option in the first place. Lest anyone think that such an R&D effort is a concrete committment to production and deployment of such weapons, they should be reminded that the US has conducted numerous R&D efforts that never resulted in weapons deployment. As to the relationship between this new effort and Hiroshima/Nagasaki--there is none. For gosh sakes, if we wanted to go out and start hurling nukes around at targets willy-nilly, we could do so right now--we already maintain weapons that have selectable yields as low as point-three kilotons, according to the Nuclear Weapons Archive. How many of them have we used in anger? How many cities have we nuked post-1945? None. Brooks SMH |
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