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From: scw@cepu.UUCP (Stephen C. Woods)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: Amir
Message-ID: <385@cepu.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 15-Oct-84 12:50:01 EDT
Article-I.D.: cepu.385
Posted: Mon Oct 15 12:50:01 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 17-Oct-84 06:16:14 EDT
References: <270@mhuxt.UUCP> <858@ihuxx.UUCP> <1166@pyuxn.UUCP> <276@mhuxt.UUCP> <271@digi-g.UUCP> <296@digi-g.UUCP>
Reply-To: scw@cepu.UUCP (Stephen C. Woods)
Organization: VA Wadsworth Med. Center; LA CA
Lines: 70
Summary: 

In article <296@digi-g.UUCP> amir@digi-g.UUCP (amir) writes:
>In article <> thill@ssc-bee.UUCP (Tom Hill) writes:
>>
>>Amir,
>>    About my ignorance on the bombing during WWII?  I still feel that
>>you have neglected to read the articles that were posted after your
>>article came over the net.  If you had read them (and mine, for that
>>matter) you might understand that several of us believe the bombing of
>>the two Japanese cities [...]Tom Hill
>
>It seems that you have neglected to read others and mine.  I mentioned it 
>once and I will mention it again.
>
>I said that 450,000 people dying because of one bomb, is not my idea of 
>saving lives.  The point has [...], that is the final word or situations
>in the world change so much every day that there is no way one can say I never
>surrender.

It doesn't matter how you die, dead is dead.  Constantly Japanese dead where
on the close order of 10 times total Allied casualities (in particular total
Japanese dead for the Okinawa campagin were 450,000 dead, total Allied 
casualities were 50,000 (5,000 dead 45,000 wounded). Best estimates for Allied
casualities for Olympic (remember this was just the FIRST phase of conquest)
were 10,000 dead 90,000 wounded. This impiles 1,000,000 dead Japanese. In
additon the Japanese didn't defend Okinawa has strongly as they could have,
they were conserving strength for the defense of the 'Homeland'.

>Secondly there was already internal resistance to the war by the people, as is
>the case of any war that takes too long and costs alot of lives and money.

Bullshit, the military clique was totally in control. And they were quite
willing to fight to the last man, woman and child in Japan.

>There is noway that the Emperor of Japan could have stuck to his promise
>of never surrendering, if not pressured from outside sources, he would
>have been forced by the internal forces to do so.

It wasn't the Emperor, it was the Militarists (in particular the Army high
command).  And in any case they seemed do be doing a good job of holding on.

>The history is full of people who said 'never' and ended up doing 'it'.
>
>The president of Viet Nam said 'never' to the Viet Congs and look at it now.

That's Viet-Cong (There is no 'plural' form of nouns in Vietnamese). Yes,
look at it now, after we sold them down the river for a few 1E6 $ worth of
ammo/supplies.

>The president of Korea said 'never' to the communists and look at it now.

Yes, look at it (them actually) now, compare and contrast North and South Korea.

>Your good old Ronnie said 'never' to cut backs as he is saying now, but look
>at his cutbacks now.

Beg pardon, what does this have to do with the subject under discussion?

>To sum it all up, I say that the conventional war which would have ended the
>war very soon, would have costed much less lives than mass murder that happened.

Sorry, but in this case you're wrong, the Japanese were quite willing to and
capeable of fighting on to the bitter end.  If you don't believe that just
look at what happened in Germany in the last months of the war, everyone there
(well almost everyone) KNEW that they had lost, that there was NO WAY in Hell
to win, but they kept on fighting. Do you think that the Japanese (with their
additional espirit of Bushido) would have done no less?
-- 
Stephen C. Woods (VA Wadsworth Med Ctr./UCLA Dept. of Neurology)
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