no mushroom cloud at anytime is reasonable
http://0.media.collegehumor.cvcdn.co...-glitch-15.gif

Going off the subject here...but NO! Dropping atomic bombs on two cities in Japan and killing innocent men, women, and children by the tens of thousands is NEVER "reasonable".

It was an atrocity that history will look on very badly.

If they did that to me and my family I'd get the most famous lawyer in the country and sue every one of those agencies involved for millions of dollars. Especially with that video footage right there as evidence.

Yeah, man, this shit is completely new!

http://baltimorecitypolicehistory.co...HER_Raid_2.jpg

If a nuke kills many less people in a much more humane way than no nuke... a mushroom cloud becomes very reasonable.
The same way choking someone to death is bad, but choking a gunman in a school to death is very reasonable,

It shortened the way by years, greatly reduced the number of casualties that would have results if the bombs were not dropped and allowed the US to wrap things up before the axis had similar destructive capabilities. The error was allowing the war to begin in the first place, not ending it in the fastest least deadly way possible.

Sorry Jesse, but that looks nothing like the paramilitary shit I just saw (complete with machine guns) laying siege to a citizen's home and bringing them out like criminals, patting them down, and then going through their private residence.

I don't know how you can even think that is the same.

Yes, if there is a shootout or a criminal holed up and the police are trying to get him out...then yes they would use the force in your picture. A few cops with normal guns.

NOT what appeared to be about 20 guys in military fatigues with automatic weapons raised and pointed at a citizen as the people are being forcibly taken from their homes and searched for absolutely nothing.

Ron Paul was right. He said after he was unable to win the nomination for President: "I had no idea it would be this hard to sell FREEDOM to the American people"

It's a disgrace. And so is the "it's okay" attitude that you and others have towards it.

The cops in that video were doing their job.

They were looking for a criminal for had killed three and hurt dozens with a bomb, shot and killed a police officer, kidnapped someone at gun point and stolen an SUV. The entire nation was holding it's breath. The police officers went door to door with weapons drawn.

I don't understand why people fear the police so much. If this shit happens in my hometown, I want my house to be the fucking police forward headquarters. Last year my hometown was evacuated due to the propane fire on a train, and one of the checkpoints was a few hundred feet from my house. I kid you not we bought doughnuts and made them coffee all night long, multiple nights. In fact, they weren't even police officers - they were unpaid volunteer "community service officers" from a neighboring city.

When this shit happens you bend over backwards for those who are trying to protect you. When your hometown has mad man running around in it and the police are banging on your door with their firearms drawn you had best do what they say.

But they were suspect. You just assume they aren't. You assume they are local citizens minding their own business. The police have just seen dozens killed and wounded by a bomb, a police officer shot, and someone kidnapped. They don't know if these people are local citizens or if they the bomber's friend hiding them or a terrorist cell or what they are walking into.

That has already been proven to not be true. The generals in charge of the war are on record saying the war was already over. The Russians were coming in from the other side and the Japanese were scared of them and were offering to surrender.

Do some research. Some of this stuff just became declassified about the surrender of Japan in the last few years. It's pretty outrageous what our govt. did.

Firebombing killed a lot more people really.

The reason the nuke stands out is because one nuke killed fifty thousand, where with the firebombing it took much more effort - 300 planes dropping hundreds of tons of bombs. In one such attack 100k were killed and another 100k wounded. Two hundred and eighty thousand (280,000) buildings were destroyed in one firebombing attack.

Yet all we talk about is the nuke.

Please show me videos from Boston of people being forcefully taken from their homes and personally searched and not just homes being searched and cleared in search of domestic terrorists that terrorized a city for multiple days.

Also, please point me to the people who were arrested because they had their homes searched and the police found something other than a bombing suspect.

All of that militarization has also existed for decades. It's called SWAT. The equipment list just expanded when cities were handed billions in grants thanks to post-9/11 hysteria. Blame the Bush administration and Congress for that. I believe close to $100 billion was doled out to local police forces in the years immediately following 9/11.

Last time I checked, even though my own city has similar equipment, I never see it out roaming the streets. You don't see it in Vegas, either. Boston citizens didn't see it until last week.

I would expect to see it out roaming the streets if people were setting off bombs in the city.

Nazis were just "doing their job" as well

It doesn't matter what knee-jerk reaction was going on to an incident.

You DON"T do that in the United States of America (at least you're not supposed to).

This is the kind of thing I was taught in school that "Bad" countries did. Not the U.S.A.

But go ahead and think the way you do. I will continue to think that it was total and complete bullshit, just like being searched like a criminal at the airport is. I don't like living that way and I think it's un-American. Just my personal opinion.

The cops weren't even the ones who found the suspect! :1orglaugh

Hey, I'm still trying to figure out why we have to take off our shoes at the airport because one guy had a failed bomb, but there have been dozen of school shootings in the same time period and nothing has changed.

I also read that they are delaying people being able to carry pocketknives on planes again. Last time I checked we've had fortified cockpit doors for close to a decade.

So don't take me as a freedom hater. I just happen to believe that the world isn't black and white and there are different responses to different situations.

Now if I start hearing stories about people who had their homes searched getting arrested two weeks later because their house smelled like weed during the search... or they had some lines of coke laid out on the coffee table, or anything else, then I will call BS on everything.

this is not correct at all.

japan went to russia to try for a conditional surrender, russia blew them off because of the alliance we had with russia, japs tried to weasle away from being the aggressors in the pacific, thatand their aggression is why we demanded unconditional surrender.


our generals never ever said the war was over until that surrender was signed. what they did say was that the japanese had lost every battle but still had not and would not surrender.

I am only going to entertain your thoughts this one time...

But I do have to wonder if while they were busy searching houses they were also busy searching the areas around houses... things like oh, I don't know, boats with tarps...

and the nuclear bombs most certainly shortened the war, we were merely months away from an invasion of mainland japan.
\

operation downfall was the plan.

lol yea...embarrassing...

You're wrong. I watched a special on Showtime just a few weeks ago showing archived footage of the Generals in their own words saying that the bomb was not needed.
Truman wanted to drop it to prove a point.

Do some research. Don't believe what we were taught in school about it.

Evidence of...just what exactly...Police Officers doing a job in the way they are trained to do?

Land of Laws? Laughable. US is a country of expediences and necessities these days.

The Japanese were showing zero signs of surrendering at the time the bomb was dropped and we were preparing to invade Japan and up to 1,000,000 casualties was predicted for us and millions more for the Japanese. The bomb saved lives and BTW the A Bomb did not kill as many people as our fire bombings had killed in Japan and in Germany.

We can always count on US leadership for one despicable act after another. And people wonder why we are the object of attacks for so long.

Russian ships have moved into Iranian southern ports. China has taken off the gloves. Obama has given Israel the greenlight for Iran. Night everyone.

If nukes can save lives and end wars, why were they never used again? Funny how that works.

"Saving" 1,000,000 blood thirsty American soldiers was not worth what was done to a few hundred thousand innocent civilians in Japan. You are completely delusional and totally propagandized to even try to justify that.

Dying is an occupational hazard when you're a soldier. It should not be when you're a civilian.

Some of you are honestly disgusting human beings, and I use the term "human beings" loosely.

lol, you watch a showtime special and tell me to do research?

please, i have a degree in military history from one of the top colleges on the planet and you're suggesting a showtime television show is more valid?

here, i don't read japanese and i am sure you don't either, but here's the emporer's words in english re: the bomb



russia THEN invaded manchuria day later

i can really go on & on with reams of facts on this.

a direct nuclear assault on the mainland v. an indirect assault on manchuria and showtime thinks the bomb didn't amount to anything-

don't let revisionist history shows on television try and change history for tv ratings.

also, read truman's autobiography, he goes into detail about his decision.

:)

that's not what happened. hindsight is 20-20, you are making the honest mistake junior historians make, you are looking at the past through rose colored glasses of the current.

proper recounting of history requires you look at the events in the light of the times of the event. and the fact is civilian targets were fair game in ww2. we tried it the other way when we 1st entered the war, but that didn't work. we didn't start it, we weren't the only ones, all sides did it.

I have to congratulate the US forces for their speedy apprehension of those two terrorists, that having surveillance cameras everywhere is a great thing, however intrusive it seems to be. To be able to identify those two within 24 hours was brilliant. Lessons have to be learnt each time anything like this happens, lots of good and bad things can be worked on. What saddened me after the final terrorist was captured, was the world news coverage showing thousands [of mainly youngsters] out on the street, shouting USA, USA, like it was a Ryder Cup victory (remember them?!), turning a grave situation into it a carnival atmosphere, police cars roaming, honking their horns in appreciation. This also seemed to be explained by the fact it was 420 day, they were all stoned ? cops too.

The American reaction to such events tends to be different from anywhere else around the world, the National Guard on the streets, a no-fly zone, that every senator claimed their post contained Ricin, Louisiana closed down highways and harbours because someone accidentally left a briefcase near a post office. Obama desperate to appear on tv to petrify a nation as if aliens had landed and nuked New York. After Twin Towers idiot Bush told the word America was at war. The whole point of terrorism is to terrify, and America is brilliant at being that. And having most of the population armed didn't do much good, that should shut a lot of pro-gunners up.

Those who read that British ex-Prime Minister Thatcher died the other week, should note how she reacted when the IRA attempted to kill her in 1994, they blew up the hotel, five died, many injured, and she was very lucky to escape the blast. Next morning, 9.30am, she strode out and acted as if nothing had happened. Again, when the IRA bombed the City of London, enormous destruction, yet 36 hours later the whole area was opened for business as usual. These things need to be played down when they can, or the terrorists really are winning [in America].

Treat Tsarnaev as a criminal, not a terrorist, throw him in with the rapists, killers and not very nice people, don't make him special, by putting him in a quasii-prisoner of war detention camp, or killing him and making him and his brother martyrs.

Robbie,

Stick to your arguments about the modern police state, I disagree with you about them but they do have some validity. Your arguments about how WWII ended are totally invalid (even if you saw them in a Showtime special), anyone who has done a fair amount of reading about the war, lived through it or spoken extensively with people who did has come away with the same conclusion.... The bombs were horrific weapons and that is precisely why they ended the war years before it would have ended otherwise.

Germany was in the process of developing equally sinister weapons including long range gas weapons, nukes and biological weapons. Japan had zero interest in surrender and Germany was using Japan as a buffer to buy time for their R&D. It almost worked. They made the tragic mistake of losing many of the worlds best scientists simply because they happened to be Jews and that is primarily the reason we reached the nuclear age before Germany did. That lead to the quick surrender of Japan, isolation of Germany and end of the war.

Killing 60,000 people at once in a big blast is much better than killing hundreds of thousands via hand to hand combat and drowning over the course of a few years. The same logic applies to Watertown. Inconveniencing a whole town for a day is far better than cleaning up body parts for the next several years. The message is simple. Bomb anything and we will capture or kill you in 48 hours. It's a much better message than the one we used to use, bomb something and we will invade a country that had nothing to do with it.

Just curious if you have seen the series by Nial Ferguson "war of the worlds"? its a 6 part series so is a little long but since you have a degree in military history and have an interest in it I wonder what you make of it, he goes over many of your points. If you haven't seen it It's a good watch on the nature of the 20th century conflicts.

heres a link to the youtube playlist if your looking for something to watch.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=q5AbQ...6CE7D51E1F77B5

I agree with this. Every news station was all over this for the next few days and still is. The UK had a ban on terrorist news. Sort of hurts that freedom of speech thing but overall it is a great idea. Why let the next nutbag get all jonesed over how he is going to be famous.

Robbie is right, I'm learning about it in history class right now. They knew Japan was going to fold but Truman wanted to bomb them anyway to send a message to Stalin.

I dont know, it really is the best way to handle the situation. Stop everything like after 911, they grounded all planes very quickly so nothing was in the sky.

Yes and yes

Good post, and really does explain the 'problem' I have with people here saying it's ok, it's just the police's job etc. I'm not from the US (UK here) so haven't experienced the environment that makes it natural for me to roll over and believe that patting down civilians and barking at them when they are clearly NOT the suspects the police are looking for is perfectly acceptable behaviour. 'rolling over' being my interpretation, based on what I'd put up with, not an insult to those with a different POV.

Maybe that's why I was called on being a keyboard 'tough guy' for stating how I see it, but yeah, environment sets your belief system, and having the police here in the UK act the way they do sometimes is bad enough that it gets my back right up, hence my 'shock' at seeing the procedure in that video, and inability to grasp why some people think it's acceptable.

Either way there's fuck all I can do about a past event, and I believe that everyone is free to believe what they choose to, so I'm gonna practice what I preach - or attempt to anyway, and read but not post :winkwink:

None of that makes it acceptable. Dropping atomic bombs on civilians is not acceptable no matter how someone tries to spin it or write it in the history books.

Man will always find a way to justify his horrific actions and senseless murder of others.

Solid post. :2 cents:

i will certainly tune in to this, thank you, no i have not seen it.

there is a lot of controversy right now surrounding this view on the surrender.

did you know who came up with this view? oliver stone.

as i pointed out above, the emperor DID react to the bomb, in fact, he said enough, we will sign the surrender