Hiroshima & Nagasaki: moral acts?

[Jason McCullough]

For reference the next time you get involved in a "it was evil to nuke Japan" argument, here's a summary of what the alternative would have been. Ok, ok, they might have just up and unconditionally surrendered, but I've seen nothing to convince me of that. Mind you, the below is for Olympic; god only knows what Coronet, the invasion of the main island, would have involved.

http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/arens/chap1.htm

Here's the complete set of plans.
http://fas.org/irp/eprint/arens/

General Marshall gave Truman an estimate of approximately 40,000 U.S. casualties for Operation Olympic.(9) After hours of discussion, Truman approved further planning for Olympic, with an execution date of 1 November 1945. Operation Coronet, if needed, would be conducted in March 1946.
.....
Admiral Nimitz would be in command of all the naval forces. The operation would be the first time that the two major Pacific fleets, Admiral William F. Halsey's Third Fleet and Admiral Raymond Spruance's Fifth Fleet, operated together. The number of ships involved in Olympic would be the largest ever gathered for a military operation.(15) The invasion force would include 14 fast aircraft carriers, 6 light aircraft carriers, 36 escort carriers, 20 battleships and over 1,300 troop and cargo transports.
.....
The number of ground forces to be landed in the first four days of the assault would total approximately 436,486. Follow-up forces would number 356,902. With air support personnel of 22,160, the numbers topped 800,000 for Operation Olympic.(13) Should it be found that the fourteen divisions allotted to the Sixth Army were insufficient to capture and hold southern Kyushu, that army would be reinforced at the rate of three divisions a month from X+30 by the units earmarked for Coronet.
.....
In comparison, the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific theater of operations to date was Okinawa, were 182,000 men assaulted the beaches. In the European theater, the largest amphibious assault occurred on Sicily, were 170,000 troops landed. The historic D-Day landing at Normandy in June 1944 had an assault force of 150,000 men. Olympic thus would be the largest amphibious operation in history. The area to be occupied in southern Kyushu totaled about 3,000 square miles.

From another page:
http://fas.org/irp/eprint/arens/chap5.htm


Based on the terrain and the Japanese defensive preparations and strategy, the battle for Kyushu would have resembled the battles of the central Pacific instead of the campaigns in the Philippines. With the casualty ratios of those battles applied to Operation Olympic, the estimate for U.S. casualties would have been 94,000 killed and 234,000 wounded. The total casualty estimate of 328,000 equates to 57 percent of the U.S. ground forces slated for Olympic. On the Satsuma Peninsula, the V Amphibious Corps casualty estimate would have been 13,000 killed and 34,000 wounded, or approximately 54 percent of the Marine force. This casualty estimate for VAC is made without any additional Japanese forces moving into the 40th Army's zone. Add to these estimates the results of kamikaze attacks against transports, and the battle for Kyushu would have been devastating to the American people.

By comparison, the U.S. suffered a grand total of 300,000 casualties in the entire war up to that point.

[Michael Fortson]

I seem to remember reading that the firebombing of Tokyo caused massive civilian casualties compared to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. It's been awhile though, my memory is fuzzy.


It's all pretty upsetting. The whole thing is inexcusable on all sides :/ we can be so inhuman.

[Jason McCullough]

Yeah, I think the Tokyo and Dresden firebombings are far more indefensible.

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/07/rauch.htm

[Anonymous]

"For reference the next time you get involved in a "it was evil to nuke Japan" argument, here's a summary of what the alternative would have been."

Uh, yeah, ground invasion was the only alternative. Ever heard of a blockade? Japan is an island nation. The US and Soviet navies could have cut it off from the world until they cried "uncle-san."

[Jason McCullough]

A quick scan of google shows 50% of the population living in rural areas at the time, so they had a lot better food production capability than everyone thinks. Also, would a Japan where the emperor literally had to force the pro-war faction to surrender (they were still pushing for defense after being nuked twice) give a damn about the blockade?

[Anonymous]

Food, yes.

Fuel and steel, rubber and other warmaking necessities, no.

[chet]

It's all pretty upsetting. The whole thing is inexcusable on all sides :/ we can be so inhuman.


Maybe we should have said pretty please? This is pathetic.

Blockade? Are you f'ing kidding. This isn't cuba, we were at war with these people, we should have enacted a blockade so we could have lost more sailors?

Bunch of damn history revisionists. yes america was bad. we are terrible. Everything we have ever done is worse than anyone else. Japan was a golden civiliztion, it was like we destroyed ancient greece.

[Erik Andersson]

Maybe we should have said pretty please? This is pathetic.
[...]
Bunch of damn history revisionists. yes america was bad. we are terrible. Everything we have ever done is worse than anyone else. Japan was a golden civiliztion, it was like we destroyed ancient greece.

Cynical aren't you? Saying "pretty please" wouldn't have stopped that Japanese, that's for sure. But adding that it is pathetic to think that massacres are inexcusable on all sides seems a bit harsh.

"Not-as-bad-as-the-enemy" is not necessarily the same thing as "good". Maybe it is a bit nasty to drown cities in napalm, or is it pathetic to think so?

[Michael Fortson]

[edited with what I should have posted to begin with (and would have, had I better known the author's tendencies)]



It's all pretty upsetting. The whole thing is inexcusable on all sides :/ we can be so inhuman.


Maybe we should have said pretty please? This is pathetic.

Way to misinterpret. What's pathetic is your eagerness to invent whatever sentiment you need to line up with your own personal list of hate-ons so you can fire off a retort.



<snip>...</snip>

Bunch of damn history revisionists.

1) I'm not a revisionist
2) I didn't even tell you what I think about anything specific
3) You're a fucking tool for being so quick to insult people for posting their opinions


yes america was bad. we are terrible. Everything we have ever done is worse than anyone else. Japan was a golden civiliztion, it was like we destroyed ancient greece.
... the drama, the drama. I used to have this really great drama queen icon someplace... maybe I should dig that up again

[Ben Sones]

Uh, yeah, ground invasion was the only alternative. Ever heard of a blockade? Japan is an island nation. The US and Soviet navies could have cut it off from the world until they cried "uncle-san."

I think you are underestimating the strength of the Japanese navy. You speak of this blockade as though it would be easy, or even possible. At the time, I don't think the issue was quite so clear cut.

[Jupiter Jones]

hmm. I'd talk to the Chinese and the Philipinos and get their input before it is decided what is "inhuman".

[Bub, Andrew]

I don't really see it as a moral issue. It was a new technology, one that was poorly understood and it was a brutal and long war against a brutal and implacable foe (I don't mean that as a Japanese slur, they didn't follow any International law. Ask China and SE Asia what I'm talking about). The questions I've always wondered about was...

1. Why civilian targets?
2. Why two exactly? Wasn't wiping one city off the face of the Earth enough?

I haven't studied this, so I'm genuinely curious.

[voltaic]

1. Why civilian targets?

Both were industrial targets. So by bombing them, we were strategically destroying Japan's ability to make war. Kind of like the blockade someone else mentioned but without having to starve millions of people (Oh the humanity!)


2. Why two exactly?

We threatened three. First took out Hiroshima. They didn't say anything in response. So we hit target number two (actually Nagasaki was a secondary target... the primary target that day was obscured by cloud cover). Then they said something resembling "we give up!" Apparently they weren't excited that our third target was threatened to be Tokyo itself. Not that we had a third nuke (we didn't) but the bluff worked.

[Met_K]

Heh, and people think those atom bombs were bad... just look what you can do with a hydrogen bomb like Castle. Had it existed in '45, talk about Bye Bye Japan.

[voltaic]

Hearing war-mongering on the news from the strangest places makes me think we haven't learned anything yet as a species, and I've seen nothing to make me think we ever will.

You sound like a Star Trek afficianado. Oh, our poor species hasn't learned anything, all we do is kill each other in horrible ways! I'm sure bemoaning our sad state on an internet forum will enlighten the world immediately.

Humans are inherently bad. We do not come forth from the womb with a halo chanting the praises of altruism. Rather, survival is our only instinct. If that requires survival at the expense of others, then this is what we are born with so why not follow it? Selfish, evil arrogance is the heart of humankind. It will never be removed, it will never be evolved from. It can only be tamed.

[chet]

ciparis, ummm got your point and you are missing mine.

WWII was one of the few times in our history that the war effort was pretty clear. There were aggressors and we were defending the world from aggressors. Don't bother joining noam chomsky or some other idiot and tell me I am wrong, it was all a secret plan for the USA to rule the world.

Do you stop a gun toting maniac by saying you are going to run up and stab him with a butter knife?

Do you all forget, that the allies go from being guys sitting around with their wives eating burgers to losing 4+ years of their lives, and risking their lives and many losing them, to see horrors of forced marches and mass killings? Once you decide you are going to conquer the world, sorry if I don't think you should be handled with kid gloves. Both axis powers left at the end did not listen to diplomacy in the past, had set the world on end and ignoring military casualties, caused 10s of millions of civilian deaths and hundreds of millions of civilians to suffer. Going up and knocking on the emperor's door was not going to get their attention.

So give me a break. You want to equate world war II with Vietnam. Go ask any WWII vet what they thought of dropping the bomb.

Chet

[Mark Bussman]

If I recall correctly Hiroshima was chosen partially becuase it was relatively undamaged from the conventional bombing campaign. This allowed better assesment of the atomic bomb's effectiveness. And yes, it was an industrial target also, though the details of what was made there escape me now.

[Jason McCullough]

'Fuel and steel, rubber and other warmaking necessities, no.'

I wasn't aware existing tanks, fighters, and infantry divisions disintegrate without rubber imports. The fuel embargo might have worked, but it would have taken a long-ass time.

[Jason McCullough]

1. Why civilian targets?

Both were industrial targets. So by bombing them, we were strategically destroying Japan's ability to make war. Kind of like the blockade someone else mentioned but without having to starve millions of people (Oh the humanity!)


2. Why two exactly?

We threatened three. First took out Hiroshima. They didn't say anything in response. So we hit target number two (actually Nagasaki was a secondary target... the primary target that day was obscured by cloud cover). Then they said something resembling "we give up!" Apparently they weren't excited that our third target was threatened to be Tokyo itself. Not that we had a third nuke (we didn't) but the bluff worked.

Depressingly, it turns out that the "strategic bombing" like this of WWII had virtually no effect. They surrendered becuase they thought we'd kill anyone, not because of factory loss.

Dresden was completely unnecessary; that's what hindsight gets you.

Edit: I meant "everyone", not "anyone".

[Alan Dunkin]

Read Operation Downfall by Richard Frank.

--- Alan

[Michael Fortson]

pointless debate removed; see first reply to Chet (http://www.quartertothree.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=17064#17064) for all that needed saying

[Anonymous]

We dropped the 2 bombs is short succession because we wanted Japan to think that we had an unlimited supply of them. Had we dropped one, waited 3 months, dropped another, waited another 3 months, etc... it was thought that the Japanese would be able to figure out just how hard it was to make these bombs.

The Japanese knew they couldn't win by offensive messures, but they still thought they could win a stalemate through staunch defense. It was essentially Saddam's philosophy from the Gulf War: make an invasion so costly that the invaders will sue for peace and give you some concessions.

Make no mistake, the Japanese were ready to surrender long before the atomic bombs were dropped. The problem is, they wanted a conditional surrender. They wanted to keep onto their Chinese holdings, retain their Emporer, and be allowed to maintain their armed forces. Truman wanted unconditional surrender, including occupational forces, complete disarmament, and a brand new Japanese constitution. The only way for Truman to get what he wanted was with The Bomb. The Japanese thought losing was bad enough, they weren't about to give up their Emporer and their constitution without a massive hamer to convince them.

[chet]

ciparis - next time then why don't you just kick in how much you love christmas in your posts? Then we will know, you were just mentioning your love for christmas and not commenting on anything dealing with any posts.

Chet

[Erik Andersson]

Do you stop a gun toting maniac by saying you are going to run up and stab him with a butter knife?

Yes, how do you stop him? Do you put him on fire, do you threaten to kill his kids, do you try to reason with him? The question is what you consider to be justified (and effective) in the situation at hand. I certainly don't think it is an easy question.



So give me a break. You want to equate world war II with Vietnam. Go ask any WWII vet what they thought of dropping the bomb.

But do the WWII vets have the Answer to the ethical question? I don't think you should equate any war with another, but it is interesting to compare the effects of similar actions in different wars.

Firebombing (= dropping tons of napalm) is not a very nice thing.
The workers in Tokyo might have been an "industrial target" but both they and their families were human beings. Did they really deserve to be boiled to death in an inferno of burning flesh. Was it justified? I don't claim to have the answer to this question but I would never label it "good" under any circumstances.

As for the comparison, the firebombings during WWII were accepted (by the western world at least) because of what the Japanese and the Germans had been responsible for. When firebombing was used in Vietnam the result was very different however.

As for the result in Sweden I can say that politicians who had been great admirers of the US suddenly started to participate in demonstrations and started to view anything the US did with great suspicion. And I'm sure it probably caused a lot of intellectuals to start overlooking the crimes of Soviet & Co. I suppose a lot of people felt "betrayed" somehow. That is the price you might have to pay for using terror against civilians.

[Bub, Andrew]

I don't really buy the "strategic" argument. You don't use an Atomic Bomb to knock out factories. The Atomic Bomb is an exclamation point. We could have dropped it on some remote part of Japan and still proved the point.

I really do think one was probably enough, we just needed to say "Tokyo is next" with number two. How long did we wait before Little Boy? I'm thinking if it was a short time, well, that was probably an immoral act.

[Michael Fortson]

pointless debate removed; see first reply to Chet (http://www.quartertothree.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=17064#17064) for all that needed saying

[Reeko]

And I'm sure it probably caused a lot of intellectuals to start overlooking the crimes of Soviet & Co. I suppose a lot of people felt "betrayed" somehow. That is the price you might have to pay for using terror against civilians.

Yes, thank goodness the civilized nations are around to demonstrate against us bloodthirsty barbarians. I guess the Swedes needed something to do after 7 years of aiding the Nazis without having the balls to publicly commit to their side.

Avoiding civilian casualties is a relatively recent invention. Civilians have always been recognized as the base of power for your enemy and, as such, were generally considered fair targets. In the Pacific theater, the US was fighting an enemy who refused to give in to superior military might. The only way to defeat Japan was to make their military leaders' decisions irrelevant. Hence, the decision to make war on the people of Japan.

[chet]

I will leave ciparis with the last word on what a great debator he is as he wants to post publicly then tell me to "BACK OFF" in a private message. HE HAS TO HAVE THE LAST WORD!! Nice. So i will give it to him.

Erik, that was my point. You can't compare the dropping of the atom bomb to much else. Because it doesn't equate to the vietnam war where the reason for the war and the US being there were questionable. The reaction between the two are pretty far apart as well.

The one answer we do know - was it effective? Yes.

It is hard for people to believe anything could be clear cut - allies vs axis, there had to be something the allies did. WE NEED GUILT!! Sometimes it just doesn't work that way and some people really are that evil.

Chet

[Michael Fortson]

Eh, no, actually my intent was to take this dispute out of the public forum in the hopes that we could cool things off. If you want to choose 2 words out of a lengthy PM as a summary and bring it back in here, I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

[chet]

Since cip is now crying in a private message that I CAN NEVER MESSAGE HIM AGAIN, I will clarify here.


I seem to remember reading that the firebombing of Tokyo caused massive civilian casualties compared to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. It's been awhile though, my memory is fuzzy.


It's all pretty upsetting. The whole thing is inexcusable on all sides :/ we can be so inhuman.

I know you are dim. So i bolded your point for you. I am saying, that america's actions were not only excusable they were justifiable.

You then want to cry you were talking about war in general - which again is my point. Few times in history have sides been drawn so clearly and so widely.

But this is all wasted on you. You are another great debator who will just say - "that is not what i was saying, i was saying doom is the genesis for mmogs" You keep good company.

Chet

[Michael Fortson]

:shock:

[Erik Andersson]

Yes, thank goodness the civilized nations are around to demonstrate against us bloodthirsty barbarians.
I think it is important for Americans to remember that what we foreigners see the effects of is mainly the foreign policy. The "intellectuals" see the similarities between Soviet treatment of Eastern Europe and American treatment of Latin America and so on. Since some people desperately want to believe that there has to be a "good" side and they have already identified the bad one (USA) it's natural for them to disregard evidence reports of the terror in Soviet and elsewhere as capitalist propaganda.



I guess the Swedes needed something to do after 7 years of aiding the Nazis without having the balls to publicly commit to their side.

A troll, but I guess I should make some kind of comment. Sweden sold wares (mainly steel) to the Nazis. American companies (such as IBM) also sold wares to the Nazis. It's just business after all, you know the talk about the only concern being the profit of the stockholders.
Sweden didn't join the war, but the USA didn't join the war before it was attacked, did it (and yes, I do know about the aid to the British, I'm just trolling back)?

If Sweden would not have sold the steel the Nazi war machine requested then the country would have been conquered. (My grandfather was sent to the border with a Mauser rifle and three bullets.) This is what happens when you don't have the power to defend yourself. Instead Germany had to conquer Denmark and Norway to prevent the British from attacking Sweden.

Besides, Hitler wasn't the main concern. After five centuries of warfare with Russia it was pretty clear who the real enemy was. Hitler admired Scandinavians, Stalin hated everybody. Stalin also attacked the only country the Sweden had a moral obligation to aid, Finland. And that's where the Swedish aid went. Finland fought with the German troops against Soviet.

It's so confusing everything, Hitler bad but Stalin not good? Moral questions too hard to anlalyze. Brain overheating.

[Michael Fortson]

pointless debate removed; see first reply to Chet (http://www.quartertothree.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=17064#17064) for all that needed saying

[chet]

cip, i understand you must have some crazy reading problem. While it could be considered reading between the lines - i just suggest you go back to my post. That line between the two you have an issue with - was that directed towards you? Did you talk about blockades? Did you?

Now think. Try. Think. line 1, response to you. line2, response to whoever mentioned blockades. line 3, response to general hippie love fest feel of the posts. And yes, your post fits that but is not directly addressing it, why else would you post it. Are you going to post in the thread about sound problems with battlefield 1942 how you love your video card?

It is called context. In the context of the thread, my post was appropriate, as was yours - for a complete hippie idiot.

Chet

[Sean Tudor]

You know I look at threads like this and wonder if American Democracy isn't that far removed from Soviet Communism.

Brainwashing is well and truly alive in this world.

[Michael Fortson]

So Chet, I'm wrong for taking exception to your post attacking sentiments I didn't voice, because although you confirm that your comment was in fact directed towards a group including me, that direction was not directly and/or solely indicated by your use of the quote?

uh-huh :wink:

I really wasn't going to reply anymore, but that was just too amusing :)

[Anonymous]

What a great service this Chet guy does for his hosted websites, haunting their forums and chasing readers away by harranguing them about being idiots, historical revisionists, morons, etc. no matter how hard they try to bury the hatchet or simply avoid his constant streams of ill-informed bile.

Amusing shit. I'm sure mom&pop corner stores would love it if their landlords performed a similar service for customers... Sitting in the corner at all hours and yelling at people, calling them idiots.

Yeah, baby!

[chet]

Cips, I was leaving the choice to you of if it applied to you or not. But as you have repeatedly asserted, you are in that group.

That is why you take exception, which is rather confusing.

Either you would see the post wasn't directed towards you because you decided to post just some general, all humanity is evil post, or it was directed towards you because you were posting about the topic at hand.

Which is it?

Chet

[Ben Sones]

Avoiding civilian casualties is a relatively recent invention. Civilians have always been recognized as the base of power for your enemy and, as such, were generally considered fair targets.

Actually, the concept of civilians as a base of power for your enemy is also a fairly recent invention. Blame France for that one. Prior to the French Revolution, civilians had little to nothing to do with wars. Armies were typically composed of professionally trained career soldiers and/or mercenaries, who would fight the career soldiers and/or mercenaries of the enemy. If civilians happened to get in the way... well, shit happens. But killing off the peasantry was generally not considered to be rational military strategy.

After Napoleon did his tour of Europe, introduced the world to the concept of nationalism, and primed the continent for both World Wars (thanks, France!), most nations rewrote the book on military policy.

Bub: dropping an atomic bomb on the uninhabited countryside would absolutely not have had the same effect as dropping it on a population center. Even after Hiroshima, Emperor Showa refused to surrender unconditionally. It took Nagisaki and the Soviet Union signing on for the war in the Pacific to change his mind. It seems unlikely that bombing a field in the Japanese countryside would have done the trick.

[Aszurom]

Well, let me relate a little tale...

One of the guys in town I do computer work for is an elderly guy who served in the army during WW2. He was in the pacific for the entire duration of the war, and from the stories he tells, God must have really wanted to keep him alive pretty bad. I've heard Vietnam stories and seen the movies and such - but the shit this guy tells me about fighting the japanese in WW2 makes my hair stand up.

First off, you're not in hedgerows in France here. You're in jungle that's so thick you can walk five feet away from your buddies and never find them again. The places were jammed full of birds, monkeys, and all sort of other critters that were raising hell all the time, so the first indication you had of spotting the enemy is when you bumped into one. Furthermore, every island was a beach assault - and they made Omaha D-day in Private Ryan look pretty by comparison from what he said. The Marines got the worst of it, but the Army hit their fair share of beaches right along side them - and sometimes alone.

So, you'd sail up, hit the beach and charge into the machine guns. Hide behind a stack of your dead buddies and toss grenades and pray a lot. If it was a real bad day, the Japanese navy was in town and THEY'd start shelling the beach behind you - so you had it coming from both sides. Frank was a scout, so it was his job to sneak up the side of the battle and see what he could see, then call the navy's 16" guns down on it. More often than not, however, he ended up right in the middle and had to call fire almost on top of himself.

After they'd cleared the pillbox city on the beach, they'd set up a base camp and then his squad played "point man" for getting them from the beach to whatever hill they had picked out as an objective. He told me about a buddy of his that swore this one hill was absolutely crawling with Japanese, so they called a ton of artillery down on it... when they went up to clear the place out, they found that they'd killed a few hundred monkeys. The guy earned himself the nickname "monkeyshines" and it stuck with him until the end of the war... in fact, he was one of the only other guys from the area here that did come back with Frank from the pacific.

Once they spotted a patch of bannanas off the side of the trail, so they decided to shimmy up the tree and grab some. As soon as they got their hands full, some Japanese walked right out of jungle to their side and into the clearing - scaring the shit out of both parties. One of the guys yelled "GRENADE!" and whipped a bannana at them. Apparently "grenade" is a word that's pretty universal in any language, so they must not have noticed it was a bananna and dove - which gave the guys time to pick up their rifles and put up a fighting retreat back into the jungle.

Occasionally, they'd get a couple of prisoners captured. They drew straws to see who had to march these poor guys all the way back to the base camp. It was utterly dangerous, because the islands were crawling with the enemy and the only clear path was the one you'd been on for the past five minutes. There was no such thing as "securing an area"... wherever you were, that was secure, but anything 5 minutes back the trail could be hot again. Thus, a lot of these prisoners made it about a half mile before "trying to escape" and needing to be shot.

Being Army guys, they had the job of digging out the remnants of enemy forces and occupying villages after the Marines had moved on. From what he said, we were greeted by the locals as saviors from the treatment of the Japanese. We behaved ourselves, but their previous hosts hadn't - or as he put it "we could have raped every woman in town and still been gentlemen by comparison it seems."

Frank's last mission of the war was the occupation of Osaka. He and five of his buddies were the first white men into town, and they said there wasn't a Japanese in sight - they'd see curtains move, but that was about it. They were in town a week before they saw a woman for the first time there. The people were very afraid and starving - one night he caught a man who had sneaked into the Army compound to steal food out of a trash barrel. He flipped him in and popped the lid on, and sat on it until the MP's could get there to take him off the base. Technically he was supposed to shoot the guy, but he knew the desperation they had just to get something to eat. Apparently life in wartime Japan hadn't been too rosy for the civilians. They seemed almost relieved to have the whole thing over, even if they did lose.

So, when I asked him about "the bomb" he said "well, you do what it takes - and by God that's what it took. We could have fought years more and they'd have never given up... we had to prove that there was NO winning possible, no stalemate, no holding their ground. We had to show the emperor that he was dead at any time we decided to do it, and that finally convinced him. Do I pity them? The kids... everybody else? Fuck 'em. They got what they had to have to stop them, and stopping them was the whole point."

I left out a lot of what he said, and honestly there was quite a bit of it with tears in his eyes even after 50 years... but those are the highlights. Until you actually sit down and talk to someone who was there, I don't think you can be an armchair historian and debate right and wrong.

[Michael Fortson]

Cips, I was leaving the choice to you of if it applied to you or not. But as you have repeatedly asserted, you are in that group.
Oh good lord of pedantic bullshit.

Where's the damn "ignore" button on this forum?

[Aszurom]

Hint... it's not the "post reply" one.

[Anonymous]

"Do I pity them? The kids... everybody else? Fuck 'em."

Charming. How exactly is this attitude better than "raping everyone in town?"

Raping someone or melting their face with atomic fire, which is worse?

[Ben Sones]

Until you actually sit down and talk to someone who was there, I don't think you can be an armchair historian and debate right and wrong.

Unfortunately that's an unavoidable fact of existence: one day we will have to rely on armchair historians or on nobody, because everyone that was there will be dead. People smile at the old chestnut about learning from history or being doomed to repeat it, because surely that only applies to ignorant pre-modern societies. But it doesn't, and I see examples of people that have obviously failed to learn from history every day. Some of them are in the current US administration.

Long story short: archair historian debate has its merit, because ultimately that's the only way future generations are going to remember our history.

[Aszurom]

Anon - grab your balls and put your name on your stupidity. You knew you were saying something ignorant when you chickened out.

Ben - True, you won't be able to talk to these guys... but their diaries and such will tell the tale. I do wish there was more of an effort to interview "the average GI" in some video record rather than leaving it a story for the "upper echelon" to tell from a distance. I don't like impersonal history, so I'd much rather read a biographical piece or a diary myself.

[Michael Fortson]

He told me about a buddy of his that swore this one hill was absolutely crawling with Japanese, so they called a ton of artillery down on it... when they went up to clear the place out, they found that they'd killed a few hundred monkeys.

that was hilarious :)

[Michael Fortson]

Hint... it's not the "post reply" one.

Yeah... I know. Sorry.

[Ben Sones]

I don't like impersonal history, so I'd much rather read a biographical piece or a diary myself.

I think most historians would agree with you... ;)

[Anonymous]

And just to be clear, let's remove the layers of abstractions from this. What is being justified here is the incineration, poisoning, skin-torching of non-combatant babies, old folks, women, kids, followed by years of cancers of all sorts, deformed births, radioactive fallout travelling for miles spreading cancer and disease on further women and children and old folks ON PURPOSE. We knew what we were doing. That is what is being casually justified here as "well, beating 'em fair and square would've been tough, so we 'did what we had to do.'" We purposely set out to torch old men and women and babies, to poison the land for years, to maim and mutate a population indiscriminately. That is what is being bragged about here with such pride and defended as if it were a second coming of the Constitution.

The level of carnage and brutality we are talking about here is biblical in proportion. This goes beyond slaying everyone and salting the earth. This is not 'just another bomb.'

[Jason McCullough]

Armchair historians need sources, and that old guy is a hell of a source.


What is being justified here is the incineration, poisoning, skin-torching of non-combatant babies, old folks, women, kids, followed by years of cancers of all sorts, deformed births, radioactive fallout travelling for miles spreading cancer and disease on further women and children and old folks ON PURPOSE.

At its time of use, The Bomb was just a really big bomb. You're retroactively applying the taboo against it we've since developed.

[Aszurom]

And that provides the validation for invading Iraq... maybe?

Yeah, we're talking about a horrible weapon here. It's been 50+ years since anybody has actually seen the use of one, so maybe our horror is a bit understated. I honestly hope that the world never ever gets to see the aftermath of it again - but I'm pretty confident that sooner or later, someone is going to use one.

We survived the cold war... the tension is over, and now that the pressure of "utter global annihilation" is pretty much vented, do we have too passe an attitude about the bomb? It's really easy to say "Just nuke those arabs and get it over with." It's VERY easy to conceive of them nuking each other while we sit back and try to contain their conflict to their region. However, at what point do we say "you can't be trusted with that weapon, you probably would use it, thus we must remove your ability to obtain it"?

That's how I look at the current situation. If they can honestly prove that Saddam is trying to make one or buy one, then we need to prevent that by whatever means necessary. However, there is also the faction that believes that he could never get one and that this is a trumped up charge to instill public support into what would elsewise be a Napoleonic campaign by the USA.

So which is it? And are we better safe than sorry even if we are wrong?

[Bub, Andrew]

Yeah, what Jason just said. It's one thing to look at data or photos from some test and quite another to actually use the bomb. It was a bomb. It was the biggest bomb ever and it could end the horrible war. Given the context of 1945... of course you use it.

Now, once used the world irrevocably changed. Your outrage is a product of that change.

[Ben Sones]

The level of carnage and brutality we are talking about here is biblical in proportion. This goes beyond slaying everyone and salting the earth. This is not 'just another bomb.'

And yet, that's exactly what it was. Conventional bombing campaigns--which is what the Allies would have employed if they didn't have the atomic bomb--were just as devastating. They just took longer. Remember that we are talking early fission bombs here--the Hiroshima bomb was small potatoes compared to the destructive power of later hydrogen bombs.

During the invasion of Poland, the Germans bombed and shelled the city so intensively that, according to the Poles, "at one time 700 fires were raging simultaneously." The Germans made a film of the destruction of Warsaw, which they entitled "Baptism of Fire" and sent all round the world with the object of terrorizing neutrals. The "silent raids" on Barcelona in 1938 killed several thousand people in a couple of days.

I'm not saying that it was nice, or that it was good. I am saying that this level of death and destruction and loss of innocent life was inevitable from the moment that a bunch of nationalistic freakos decided to take over the world. You act as though this all could have been avoided, that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagisaki is the moral equivalent of knifing an innocent bystander on the street. If the Allies had to invade the Japanese mainland, the casualties would have been worse, and conventional bombing would have killed just as many "innocent" civilians. Your argument implies that there was a better option... so what was it?

Or, as George Orwell put it:

"Contrary to what some of my correspondents seem to think, I have no enthusiasm for air raids, either ours or the enemy's. Like a lot of other people in this country, I am growing definitely tired of bombs. But I do object to the hypocrisy of accepting force as an instrument while squealing against this or that individual weapon, or of denouncing war while wanting to preserve the kind of soceity that makes war inevitable."



This contemporary need to make Japan the victim in this scenario is disturbing, for the "doomed to repeat history" reasons I mentioned above.

[Anonymous]

"This contemporary need to make Japan the victim in this scenario is disturbing,"

I am not making "JAPAN" the victim in this scenario, I am making a city full of civilians who had little choice about where they were born the victim.

We did a horrible thing. We did a thing that cannot be justified. Whether or not there was another choice is an entirely different issue.

I cannot think of any end in existence which would justify nuking, setting on fire babies and children by the thousands.

[Alan Dunkin]

I can; the justification of starving, killing, and otherwise wiping out large quarters of Japan through a year-long naval blockade and/or invasion, which would have wiped out huge droves of the population.

Which is would have been better: the use of two atomic bombs on cities still contributing the war effort and the deaths of tens of thousands and the end of the war through sheer horror or years of blockade and invasion, which probably would have caused a million casualties or more and much more long-term devastation of Japan?

Believe it or not, like it or not, the justification is quite obvious. The need to end the war was there. The need to use the most horrifying weapon in the history of mankind was evident to end it. The requirement to use it, not in some far-flung demonstration out at sea where it was useless, but on a major industrial/commercial center -- irregardless whether or not it had children in it -- that had practically been untouched until then -- was obvious.

--- Alan

[wumpus]

Battlefield 1942 needs a nuke.

[Jason McCullough]

Artillery is pretty close; the radius it'll kill infantry at is amazing.

[voltaic]

Depressingly, it turns out that the "strategic bombing" like this of WWII had virtually no effect. They surrendered becuase they thought we'd kill anyone, not because of factory loss.

Dresden was completely unnecessary; that's what hindsight gets you.

Edit: I meant "everyone", not "anyone".

It is probably true that they surrendered because of the mass death. My point was that Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't picked because they were population centers; they were picked as strategic industrial/military targets.

Also, remember that besides the Trinity project we had very little idea what the actual effects of "the bomb" would be. Someone could probably argue that it was because of what the world learned in these two events that kept anyone from using a nuke for the next 55 years.

[chet]

Hint... it's not the "post reply" one.

Hehe, I am still giggling as I type. That was Your Best.Post.Ever

[voltaic]

Make no mistake, the Japanese were ready to surrender long before the atomic bombs were dropped. The problem is, they wanted a conditional surrender. They wanted to keep onto their Chinese holdings, retain their Emporer, and be allowed to maintain their armed forces. Truman wanted unconditional surrender, including occupational forces, complete disarmament, and a brand new Japanese constitution. The only way for Truman to get what he wanted was with The Bomb. The Japanese thought losing was bad enough, they weren't about to give up their Emporer and their constitution without a massive hamer to convince them.

August 6 - Hiroshima. August 9 - Nagasaki. August 10 - offer of unconditional surrender. I don't agree that the Japanese were all so ready to surrender at any level (and there is nothing besides speculation to supoprt this view). But they certianly acted fast after 240,000 deaths.


And just to be clear, let's remove the layers of abstractions from this. What is being justified here is the incineration, poisoning, skin-torching of non-combatant babies, old folks, women, kids, followed by years of cancers of all sorts, deformed births, radioactive fallout travelling for miles spreading cancer and disease on further women and children and old folks ON PURPOSE. We knew what we were doing. That is what is being casually justified here as "well, beating 'em fair and square would've been tough, so we 'did what we had to do.'" We purposely set out to torch old men and women and babies, to poison the land for years, to maim and mutate a population indiscriminately.

So what exactly makes a soldier's life worth less than a civilian? 240,000 soldiers is preferable to 240,000 civilians? How many soldiers do equal one civilian? How hypocritical to claim that we can't place value on any life, and then to formulate this very kind of comparison.

edit: Let's bring up alternatives to the bomb, in this scenario. Someone else has said it, but it needs to be said again. Would anyone who is against the use of the nuke in WW2 argue that blockades and conventional war are better? How are 1 million lives lost slowly, through attrition, disease, and starvation better than a quarter million lost through a single event? Certainly not just because it has the word "nuclear" in it?

No doubt the same people who claim Hitler was the worst mass-murderer in history. Yeah he killed 12 million over 10 years. But Stalin killed over 30 million in 30 years. I think these people have a problem with the quickness of the killings. It's better to starve 1000 over a year than kill 10 in a minute, or some bizarre logic.

[Brad Grenz]

August 6 - Hiroshima. August 9 - Nagasaki. August 10 - offer of unconditional surrender. I don't agree that the Japanese were all so ready to surrender at any level (and there is nothing besides speculation to supoprt this view). But they certianly acted fast after 240,000 deaths.

Exactly, I've had people argue that Japan wanted to surrender, but didn't know how to do it. They sure figured things out quick after the second bomb hit.

[Brian Rucker]

My grandfather was on a destroyer that would have been a part of Operation Olympic. In fact, we have one of the flags from the flagship of that fleet at my folk's house (they were en route at the time).

He wasn't nearly as sanguine about the A Bomb as that other old vet. Of course, his war experience was different and I suspect after seeing a bunch of buddies die and living through the sort of hell that was described above your own sense of propriety would be effected. When your life's been revolving around 'him or me' for that long it's bound to shape your perceptions of the world.

I can't speak to the morality of the A-Bomb issue. That many of its inventors went on to get involved in the disarmament movement says more than I could. That the army was so facinated by its new weapon that it kept testing and improving it, and various right-wing politicians lobbied for its use in many wars, also says quite a bit. Most importantly, we have recognised in hindsight that nuclear weapons are horrific which is why they've never been used in anger since WWII. Anyone that should dare to use one preemptively would be destroyed. End of story. Nobody, not even freakish Middle Eastern dictators, fail to understand that point.

However, the use of bombers to blanket bomb cities in WWII had little to do with direct physical damage to industrial infrastructure. There was alot of that too but hitting Dresden, among many other places, was the prosecution of a theory that vast civilian casualties would demoralize the opposition and cause an industrial collapse due to that. After the war studies were done showing the failure of bombing civilian targets. Just like the British, Germans simply bucked up and worked harder. Production actually was much higher than anyone predicted.

I don't think the discussion of the morality of these acts is a bad idea especially in light of what's to come. Getting an answer we can live with might be harder.

[Anonymous]

Aside from the simply callous posts by an individual or two, there are a number of posts that seem strikingly nonchalant. How many people really have an "aww, screw them" attitude?

It's one thing not to feel like you need to dwell on something or serve penance, to think it was either terrible and avoidable or terrible but unavoidable; it's quite another thing so simply not care.

[Michael Fortson]

Oops, previous Guest poster was me.

[wumpus]

It's one thing not to feel like you need to dwell on something or serve penance, to think it was either terrible and avoidable or terrible but unavoidable; it's quite another thing so simply not care.
I wouldn't say I don't care. Ruminating on the past is useful to a point but we passed that point about thirty posts ago. Our time is better spent on what's happening here and now. What are we gonna do, pretend we're The Watcher and go back and rewrite history "What If" style?

http://www.lofficier.com/whatif.htm

[chet]

Wouldn't the people who really didn't care be the ones not posting in this thread?

I won't quote anything so we can all just guess what this is in reply to.

Chet

[Michael Fortson]

Too true, you can't change it, unfortunately. But I think it helps to have a clear idea how you feel about something. Which is what I was curious about.

Would make an interesting poll :)

choice 1: monstrous and unaviodable
choice 2: monstrous and avoidable
choise 3: fuck em, they all deserved to die

any other choices that would belong there?

[Anonymous]

Hey, you guys should check out the book, "War Without Mercy" by John W. Dower. It goes into a lot of detail about race hatreds, propaganda, and death in WW2 Pacific.

Total death toll for the Japanese was about 2.5 million (a little over 3% of their population). Tokyo firebombing deaths: 97,000. Hiroshima 140,000. Nagasaki 70,000. Other cities: 86,000.

I find two of the more horrifying incidents listed in the book are the atrocities committed by both sides the day/night before surrender (August 15th). The Japanese executed 8 captured American fliers on the 15th, something they had been doing routinely since March, and the US threw together one final massive incendiary raid on Tokyo with over a 1000 planes (828 B-29s), some of which hadn't even returned to base before Truman announced Japan's surrender.

Now that's hate, baby.

[Michael Fortson]

Yeah Chet, "not care" wasn't a good enough description. Better words didn't come to mind... I was trying to put words to the general disregard for the nature of it. Lack of... <scratches head>... empathy?

[Michael Fortson]

Shady: ugh. How much did that last raid contribute to the total for the fire-bombing? A significant percentage? I have no idea how long that went on or how many raids it took.

[Sean Tudor]

I can; the justification of starving, killing, and otherwise wiping out large quarters of Japan through a year-long naval blockade and/or invasion, which would have wiped out huge droves of the population.

This may be so. But if I was an American I certainly wouldn't be proud of the fact that my country is the only country to date to have used nuclear weapons - and on a civilian population at that.

How ironic that it was the United States - defender of the free world and the worlds greatest democracy.

The parallels with the Ancient Roman Empire are uncanny.

[wumpus]

Wait a second. The Japanese introduced the world to the concept of Kamikaze bombers, and we're inhumane?

Imagine the prospect of fighting an entire civilization that is seemingly willing to kill themselves, if necessary, to kill you. I think that's the context that the bomb was used in. Plus the bomb was a new and relatively unknown combat technology then; there wasn't yet the stigma attached to it we have today.

[Sean Tudor]

Imagine the prospect of fighting an entire civilization that is seemingly willing to kill themselves, if necessary, to kill you. I think that's the context that the bomb was used in. Plus the bomb was a new and relatively unknown combat technology then; there wasn't yet the stigma attached to it we have today.

That's very true. But I am sure after the initial testing the US scientists had a fair idea of the magnitude of destruction from a nuclear bomb.

Let's be thankful that it was an airburst and not a groundburst nuke. Otherwise Hiroshima would have been uninhabitable for the next 100 years or more.

[chet]

But if I was an American I certainly wouldn't be proud of the fact that my country is the only country to date to have used nuclear weapons - and on a civilian population at that.

How ironic that it was the United States - defender of the free world and the worlds greatest democracy.

Sean, feel free to read some of the posts in this thread. The civilian casulties would have been similar in many different scenarios. And in case you haven't noticed Sean, we haven't used them since.

Proud? Maybe i missed that. Understanding, yes.

But feel free to read in more america bashing, and save me the time and don't say that isn't what you were doing.

I guess we should have just run at the dug-in enemy, knowing it was certain death. Hell that would make a good movie... maybe have it star mel gibson?

Chet

[Sean Tudor]

But feel free to read in more america bashing, and save me the time and don't say that isn't what you were doing.

No just frustrated at the typical mightier than thou attitude that a lot of Americans have towards other countries.


I guess we should have just run at the dug-in enemy, knowing it was certain death. Hell that would make a good movie... maybe have it star mel gibson?

No thanks - we don't want to watch another turkey from Mel.

[Bub, Andrew]

Sean, you know what my Grandfather did during WWII? Patrolled the Australian coast killing Japanese 2-man subs. See, the Allies feared Australia would fall to Japan and they predicted Japan could invade and take the continent (at least the urban points) in less than 4 months. After keeping Aussies safe he helped to systematically take the islands North of your homeland... from New Guinea to Malaysia, to the Phillipines ... and he was really glad he didn't have to go to Japan too.

You owe my family a...

Nah, just yanking your chain here. Just always wanted to spout that kind of BS argument. I think any country that developed the Atom bomb would have used it if during a time of war. The world should be pretty damn pleased it wasn't Japan that did so, or Germany, or the USSR. Let's not forget the unprecedented rebuilding effort and money the US gave Europe and most of Asia, the biggest benefactor being Japan, as well.

I'm not proud of Fat Man and Little Boy, but I understand why they were dropped. And since my grandfather would have been part of the invasion, I'm pretty glad he got to come home and make my mommy.

[wumpus]

Hold on. I need to wipe a tear from my eye.

[Anonymous]

"Imagine the prospect of fighting an entire civilization that is seemingly willing to kill themselves, if necessary, to kill you. "


Imagine the prospect of a civilization that is seemingly unwilling to risk its own troops to get what it wants militarily when it can carelessly bomb civilian wedding parties, civilian convoys, and even allied presidents of foreign nations (Karzai) instead, and shrug its shoulders afterwards saying "civilian casualties are inevitable."

Then imagine the prospect of a civilization that imposes criminal prosecution on their bombers who accidentally kill white Canadian soldiers, but don't do anything when the people killed are brown Afghanis...

Imagine that... Maybe John Lennon was on the wrong track!

[Anonymous]

In case that link wasn't entirely clear; seems like the use of nukes in Japan to avoid American casualties has an analog in current events: bombing civilians in Afghanistan in order to avoid taking casualties and pissing off the folks back home.

Who said we HAD to invade Japan, anyway? The closest Japan got to the US was Pearl Harbor (where they bombed military targets, funnily enough). It isn't like Japan was at our doorstep, threatening our "homeland security." Maybe should have just gone the fuck home if the only way we could figure out to beat them was by commiting war atrocities.

[Brad Grenz]

This may be so. But if I was an American I certainly wouldn't be proud of the fact that my country is the only country to date to have used nuclear weapons - and on a civilian population at that.

How ironic that it was the United States - defender of the free world and the worlds greatest democracy.

The parallels with the Ancient Roman Empire are uncanny.

What the hell do you know, Dundee? Save the Roman Empire BS for when we enslave your entire continent. I'm with Bub, if it had to be anybody, I'm glad it was the US. You think the world would be a better place had Germany nuked London? Or Japan had nuked Sydney? Or Honalulu? Or the Soviets had nuked the fuck out of Western Europe and China? Hell yeah, we did it first, and we did it twice to prove we could do it again. It's that legacy that has kept any conflict since from going nuclear. Defenders of Democracy and Leaders of the Free World? Damn strait. It's a reputation we've damn well earned.

I'm getting sick and tired of all the wishy-washy-whiny, second guessing, nay-saying, moral superiority crap. If your country (not just yours, Tudor) could keep up with us, then you might be making these kinds of hard decisions too. Until then all you jealous, impotent nations can get over yourselves.

[chet]

One of the reason the US has such an issue with civilian casualties and collateral damage - the other side in the fighting can't have collateral damage, because all they have is targets. Go ask someone from Kuwait if the Iraqis caused any collateral damage when they attacked.


Chet

ps. Get your own free email address @afghanwedding.com at evilemail.com

[Michael Fortson]

Imagine the prospect of fighting an entire civilization that is seemingly willing to kill themselves, if necessary, to kill you.

Heh, that sounds spookily familiar. Holy war, anyone?


off topic, I just saw an old Simpsons and discovered a quote that I want to put into my sig: "Oh yeah? Well you can cram it with Walnuts, ugly!".

[voltaic]

This may be so. But if I was an American I certainly wouldn't be proud of the fact that my country is the only country to date to have used nuclear weapons - and on a civilian population at that.

How ironic that it was the United States - defender of the free world and the worlds greatest democracy.

You're right. It would have been better for Germany to get it first. That way the entire continent of Europe could have been obliterated (including the poor goddamned children) and the US could have gone for the underdog-come-from-behind victory. Then you'd be proud of our achievements. But instead, we were first and we bombed some other poor bastards back to the stone-age, and it was because we are pompous immoral white folk with no regard for anything but our own benefit.



That's very true. But I am sure after the initial testing the US scientists had a fair idea of the magnitude of destruction from a nuclear bomb.

How sure are you? Most of them (those learned physicist guys) were still debating whether a bomb of this magnitude would vaporize the entire atmosphere of the earth. That is, if it actually went off at all. Your personal certainties are only in hindsight.


Let's be thankful that it was an airburst and not a groundburst nuke. Otherwise Hiroshima would have been uninhabitable for the next 100 years or more.

So you are glad that we used an airbust, which itself expanded the area of damage dozens of miles? But what about all the people who would have lived if it had blown on the ground? Don't you care about them? An airburst does so much more damage it is nearly unfathomable to blow strategic nukes on the ground. What are you some kind of death-loving warmonger?

[voltaic]

Who said we HAD to invade Japan, anyway? The closest Japan got to the US was Pearl Harbor (where they bombed military targets, funnily enough). It isn't like Japan was at our doorstep, threatening our "homeland security." Maybe should have just gone the fuck home if the only way we could figure out to beat them was by commiting war atrocities.

You can't possibly be serious.

Are you serious?

No way... really, is this what you meant to say?

[Brad Grenz]

Who said we HAD to invade Japan, anyway? The closest Japan got to the US was Pearl Harbor (where they bombed military targets, funnily enough).

You're familiar with the Rape of Nanjing? Yes, the Japanese were so very discriminating with their violence. So much so it even disgusted a Nazi who took it upon himself to protect as many of the civilians there as he could. He even wrote a letter to Hitler complaining about the behavior of their "allies". Even Nanjing was more directed than the bomb carrying balloons Japan released into the jetstream. The only people killed in the continental US as part of WWII were a family camping in Oregon. They stumbled across one of these weapons which detonated. Don't think the Japanese wouldn't have bombed the shit out of our cities if they could have reached them. They went after military targets at Pearl Harbor because the most important thing at the time was to cripple the US's ability to wage war against them.


It isn't like Japan was at our doorstep, threatening our "homeland security." Maybe should have just gone the fuck home if the only way we could figure out to beat them was by commiting war atrocities.

No, you're right. Next time we'll just pack up and let them decimate the populations of China, Korea, etc. You're right. A couple hundred thousand Japanese lives were worth far more than tens of millions of civilians in the Asia mainland.

Hey, Genius! If all we cared about was the security of the American homeland we could have sat back and let Hitler and Hirohito take over the Eurasian world. Could have made a lot of money selling to both sides of the war effort too. Unfortunately for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, what Germany and Japan were doing was WRONG. And it had to be STOPPED.

[Anonymous]

"what Germany and Japan were doing was WRONG. And it had to be STOPPED."

Germany is a separate issue.

Japan, we wanted to control it to use it as a base for protecting our asses from Stalin. It's not about WRONG, it's about imperialism.

[Brad Grenz]

Japan, we wanted to control it to use it as a base for protecting our asses from Stalin. It's not about WRONG, it's about imperialism.

So, we probably paid them to bomb Pearl Harbor too, right? You're a pathetic, coward, you know that? Remember that every time you hit the submit button on an anonymous reply. Wouldn't you time be better spent throwing bricks through locally owned McDonald's fanchises as part of some anti-globalization "protest"? Or maybe you can work up some really scathing puppets...

The New World Order is coming, and it's real, and despite what you've read in High Times, it isn't inherently evil.

[Sean Tudor]

I'm getting sick and tired of all the wishy-washy-whiny, second guessing, nay-saying, moral superiority crap. If your country (not just yours, Tudor) could keep up with us, then you might be making these kinds of hard decisions too. Until then all you jealous, impotent nations can get over yourselves.

Thanks for such moderate comments Brad. I didn't take you for a flag waving American patriot (or should that be parrot) but I now officially stand corrected.

If this is representative of the sort of attitude that exists in the US today then it is no wonder that the US is looked upon with disdain and suspicion by the rest of the world.

The United States likes to exude this thin veneer of fatherly affection for the rest of the world. And yet when it comes to that almighty American Dollar the US will do anything to protect itself whether that be through market protection or military action.

Take Australia for example. Our Prime Minister commits to providing troops and support for the current US military actions. We're probably the only country apart from Britain that actually supports renewed US action in Iraq.

We didn't have to do that yet we did. We then ask the US to participate in a free trade agreement with Australia in agriculture. Oh boy what a mistake. 50,000 lobby groups in the US scream no free trade agreement effectively forcing your government to abandon the free trade agreement with Australia.

Effectively the US has given us a big fuck you. I am sure if Australia had large oil reserves then President Bush would come snivelling at our doorstep with his free trade agreement signed, sealed, and delivered.

It is that sort of hypocrisy that really colours our opinion of the United States Of America. And now President Bush has the gall to release the "National Security Strategy of the United States of America" which effectively mandates the invasion of any country as the US sees fit.

All of this smacks of Empire building. America is not always right, they shouldn't always poke their nose in other peoples business, and they are not the centre of the universe.

These are my opinions and at least I have the balls to post these under my name and not anonymously. Flame on.

[voltaic]

The United States likes to exude this thin veneer of fatherly affection for the rest of the world. And yet when it comes to that almighty American Dollar the US will do anything to protect itself whether that be through market protection or military action.

I'd be willing to bet a dollar (pun intended) that most of the world is pretty concerned about the strength of the US economy as well. The whole world was pretty excited about protecting Kuwait's oil resources, not just us. I believe that if other nations would stop asking for our help for almost every little thing, then we wouldn't be forcing our "help" in for those few times when it isn't wanted.


All of this smacks of Empire building. America is not always right, they shouldn't always poke their nose in other peoples business, and they are not the centre of the universe.

This is true. Vote libertarian, all you US citizens! Get our goddamned noses out of other peoples' business, bring our armies home, and open up free trade for all nations. Christ we may as well try it, it hasn't been done yet (not being cynical, BTW, I do actually believe this).

[Ben Sones]

Imagine the prospect of a civilization that is seemingly unwilling to risk its own troops to get what it wants militarily when it can carelessly bomb civilian wedding parties, civilian convoys, and even allied presidents of foreign nations (Karzai) instead, and shrug its shoulders afterwards saying "civilian casualties are inevitable."

So the use of force is better justifiable if one "pays the price" in friendly casualties? I'm sorry, but your logic escapes me. If you are implying that in a time of war, America places a higher value on the lives of its troops than on the lives of the enemy... well, yeah. I suppose that's true. If it weren't, it would make it kind of difficult to fight back, wouldn't it?

[Anonymous]

"You're a pathetic, coward, you know that? Remember that every time you hit the submit button on an anonymous reply."

Tee hee.

[Bub, Andrew]

We didn't have to do that yet we did. We then ask the US to participate in a free trade agreement with Australia in agriculture. Oh boy what a mistake. 50,000 lobby groups in the US scream no free trade agreement effectively forcing your government to abandon the free trade agreement with Australia.

I see. So Australia's participation in a war against Iraq is contingent on an agricultural free trade agreement? What about the billions in aid we send to Australia (and the rest of thr world) each year? What about the unfair tariffs you place on US goods imported in? There's more, you know.

Sean, I understand your position, I lived abroad for a couple years (Singapore) and got into plenty of arguments over the US's actions worldwide. The US isn't necessarily a force of good in the world. Propping up the Saudi's, Qatar, some of Latin America, etc., is absolutely deplorable. But no other country does more good in the world than we, and I hate to see that ignored.

[Anonymous]

August 6 - Hiroshima. August 9 - Nagasaki. August 10 - offer of unconditional surrender. I don't agree that the Japanese were all so ready to surrender at any level (and there is nothing besides speculation to supoprt this view). But they certianly acted fast after 240,000 deaths.

Exactly, I've had people argue that Japan wanted to surrender, but didn't know how to do it. They sure figured things out quick after the second bomb hit.

I know this is a bit off topic from where the post has gone, but I wanted to clarrify things a little.

My use of the term "surrender" wasn't completely accurate. But Japan was indeed trying to end the war long before The Bomb was dropped.

In mid-1944, the Japanese started communicating to the U.S. through Russian ambasadors to try to work out an end to the war in the Pacific. Ya see, the war was turning against them, and they wanted to hold onto the resource areas they had gained, so they knew it was time to stop the fighting. By this time, Truman was already screaming about unconditional surrender, so the Japanese calls for a cease fire were refused. Every time Japan sent another request for a cease fire with conditions, Truman once again sent a reply saying that nothing short of unconditional surrender would be accepted.

That takes us back to Japan thinking that the only way to finally convince the U.S. to accept a cease fire was to make an invasion so costly that we had no choice. It was 2 different ways of thinking. Japan wanted an honorable cease fire that allowed them to hold onto some of the gains they made during the war. The U.S. wanted to remove Japan's ability to wage further war, fullful their promise to China to remove all Japanese occupational forces, and yes, to establish U.S. military bases to keep a handle on Russia. Since the Japanese couldn't accept an unconditional surrender, the war was going to continue until either the U.S. accepted a conditional surrender or the Japanese were finally convinced that they had no hope of forcing a cease fire.



(keep in mind, all this information comes from my WWII history class. So no, I haven't spoken to WWII vets who told me this is true, so I can't say how accurate it is. But that's the thing with history; it's written by the victors)

[Chris Nahr]

What about the billions in aid we send to Australia (and the rest of thr world) each year?

I've seen this claim made repeatedly but I'm not aware of any American aid sent to other Western nations since the Marshall plan. Please break down exactly what "billions of aid" the USA is sending "each year" to any country whatsoever, other than to Israel and developing countries (which are supported by every other wealthy nation as well).

Unless of course you're using "aid" as a synonym for American troops stationed overseas, in which case Iraq is about to receive a lot of American "aid"...

[Brian Rucker]

On U.S. foreign aid from the Washington Post (5-31-02 "O'Neill Urges Aid In The Developing World But Treasury Chief Resists Aid Target")

"Still, the two took issue with each other today when Bono reiterated his pitch for rich countries to spend 0.7 percent of GDP on aid, in accord with a decades-old international agreement that Washington has never ratified. U.S. aid spending currently totals about about $10 billion, or 0.1 percent of GDP, and even if that is increased by 50 percent, as President Bush has proposed, the United States would still spend less on aid than almost any other wealthy nation, as a proportion of its economy."

[Ben Sones]

Who said we HAD to invade Japan, anyway? The closest Japan got to the US was Pearl Harbor (where they bombed military targets, funnily enough). It isn't like Japan was at our doorstep, threatening our "homeland security." Maybe should have just gone the fuck home if the only way we could figure out to beat them was by commiting war atrocities.

If you are suggesting that the Japanese limited their attacks to military targets and personnel in WWII, then I think you need to hit your history books.

As I said, I don't think anybody was or is happy about Hiroshima and Nagisaki, or about the deaths of innocent babies. Whether or not the rest of the civilians killed in the attacks were "innocent" is a matter of speculation on your part; certainly they were working to support the Japanese war effort, and both the Allies and the Axis had engaged in intensive bombing campaigns against "civilian" targets prior to August of 1945 in an effort to eliminate the enemy's industrial capabilities. The fact that you strongly protest the use of the atomic bomb in Japan but not, say, the bombing of Dresden suggests that your reaction is an emotional one based on the modern stigma attached to nuclear warfare rather than a coherent moral protest.

In any event, war and physical violence present a sticky problem when it comes to ethics, which by necessity are based on rational human interaction. I think most people would agree that it is wrong to kill, is it not then wrong to kill even in defense of your own life? If killing innocents is to be avoided no matter what the cost, as you say, could the Japanese have created an invinceable army by strapping a baby to the chest of every soldier? Surely no person of good moral character could ever fight such an army, given the prospect of the loss of innocent life.

You claim that the current US military doctrine of minimizing friendly casualties is morally indefensible, but is it not the primary responsibility of our government to protect the life and liberty of its citizens? You seem to think that it isn't "fair" to bomb targets remotely, without providing the enemy with means of retailiation. All I can say is that the US did not initiate the conflict in Afghanistan, nor did the Allies initiated the conflict with Japan. The deaths of Japanese and Afghani citizens could have been easily avoided had Japan of Afghanistan made their own decisions on the basis of sound moral principles. It is not the duty of our government to allow enemy combatants the opportunity to kill American citizens merely to keep the losses of war "equitable."

[Erik Andersson]

You know I look at threads like this and wonder if American Democracy isn't that far removed from Soviet Communism.
Actually I think that threads such as this highlight one of the primary differences (maybe even the most important one) between American Democracy and Soviet Communism: the freedom to discuss these issues without fear of the Thought Police. Enjoy it while it lasts people, never take it for granted.


Brainwashing is well and truly alive in this world. Of course it is.


"Still, the two took issue with each other today when Bono reiterated his pitch for rich countries to spend 0.7 percent of GDP on aid, in accord with a decades-old international agreement that Washington has never ratified. U.S. aid spending currently totals about about $10 billion, or 0.1 percent of GDP, and even if that is increased by 50 percent, as President Bush has proposed, the United States would still spend less on aid than almost any other wealthy nation, as a proportion of its economy."
A couple of years ago the only countries who spent more than 0.7% of GDP were Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands. I hope you will join the club soon.

[Ben Sones]

My use of the term "surrender" wasn't completely accurate. But Japan was indeed trying to end the war long before The Bomb was dropped.

In mid-1944, the Japanese started communicating to the U.S. through Russian ambasadors to try to work out an end to the war in the Pacific. Ya see, the war was turning against them, and they wanted to hold onto the resource areas they had gained, so they knew it was time to stop the fighting. By this time, Truman was already screaming about unconditional surrender, so the Japanese calls for a cease fire were refused.

This is essentially my understanding. Keep in mind that "holding on to resource areas" means that they wanted to maintain sovereignty over all the territory that they conquered during the war. I'm not really surprised that this didn't fly with Truman (or any of the other Allied leaders, for that matter)--it was an unreasonable demand. If Saddam Hussein had offered to end the Gulf War on the condition that he retain his military power and control of Kuwait, for instance, I don't think anyone would have taken him seriously. Opposing Japan's campaign of imperialist conquest was the whole point of going to war with them; allowing them to keep the territory that they conquered would have been an irrational basis on which to end the conflict.

[Chris Nahr]

On U.S. foreign aid from the Washington Post (5-31-02 "O'Neill Urges Aid In The Developing World But Treasury Chief Resists Aid Target")

Yes, that's the old issue of America's stinginess towards third-world countries. I don't really want to get into that topic here, especially since I feel that much of the comparatively generous aid offered by European countries tends to disappear in Swiss bank accounts owned by local dictators...

But the truly bizarre claim that I've repeatedly seen, and that was just now repeated by Andrew Bub, was that the USA was still spending billions of dollars in aid to Western countries (including Australia) every year. Except for the post-war Marshall plan and America's well-known support of Israel, I don't know of any American aid going to Oceania or Europe. From over here this sure looks like a big fat propaganda lie... or does anyone have actual figures and references?

[chet]

"Still, the two took issue with each other today when Bono reiterated his pitch for rich countries to spend 0.7 percent of GDP on aid, in accord with a decades-old international agreement that Washington has never ratified. U.S. aid spending currently totals about about $10 billion, or 0.1 percent of GDP, and even if that is increased by 50 percent, as President Bush has proposed, the United States would still spend less on aid than almost any other wealthy nation, as a proportion of its economy."

A couple of years ago the only countries who spent more than 0.7% of GDP were Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands. I hope you will join the club soon.

While I hate to go against the learned statemen bono, until the the other countries mentioned spend the percentage of their budget that we do on their military so we don't have to be the international police, I would suggest he not whine like some 17 year old protestor smashing a Starbucks window and yelling how he wants no police and would welcome anarchy.

Chet

[Alan Dunkin]

In mid-1944, the Japanese started communicating to the U.S. through Russian ambasadors to try to work out an end to the war in the Pacific. Ya see, the war was turning against them, and they wanted to hold onto the resource areas they had gained, so they knew it was time to stop the fighting. By this time, Truman was already screaming about unconditional surrender, so the Japanese calls for a cease fire were refused. Every time Japan sent another request for a cease fire with conditions, Truman once again sent a reply saying that nothing short of unconditional surrender would be accepted.

Your argument is somewhat flawed by the fact that FDR died April 12, 1945. What Truman would have been screaming about before then is pretty inconsequential.



(keep in mind, all this information comes from my WWII history class. So no, I haven't spoken to WWII vets who told me this is true, so I can't say how accurate it is. But that's the thing with history; it's written by the victors)

There's a shocking concept -- completely untrue, too. I guess you didn't learn too much about history after all.

--- Alan

[Brian Rucker]

Actually, we spend a pretty insane amount of money on the military. In fact, we spend nearly as much as the entire world combined. The numbers cited in the article, by the way, aren't Bono's but numbers provided by the reporter.

Just, for fun, imagine how the world might be different if we split the difference on our defense budget and foreign aid spending. How different would the world be and our place in it?

I suspect anyone even thinking of offering harm to the U.S. would get the crap beaten out of him by his own countrymen.

[Bernie_Dy]

I guess we should have just run at the dug-in enemy, knowing it was certain death. Hell that would make a good movie... maybe have it star mel gibson?


If you didn't know this, that movie was made: Gallipolli. If you did already know (and I'm betting you did), then great jab, Chet. :)


Who said we HAD to invade Japan, anyway? The closest Japan got to the US was Pearl Harbor (where they bombed military targets, funnily enough). It isn't like Japan was at our doorstep, threatening our "homeland security."

Actually, this was done too. The Japanese managed to get some submarines near America and attacked an oil field in Santa Barbara and a fort in Oregon. They also launched a massive balloon attack designed to float bombs into America (targeting only military installations, I'm sure :wink: ). Fortunately for the US, none of these attacks did much damage. But given the attitudes of the time, I can see how Americans might have been a little concerned.

As for Pearl, it wasn't like Japan had too many other US concentrations of civil targets to choose from in the middle of the Pacific.

I don't think nukes are nice either, but instead of saying it shouldn't have been done, how about going all the way back and saying Japan could have prevented it all by not allying with Germany?

[Anonymous]

In mid-1944, the Japanese started communicating to the U.S. through Russian ambasadors to try to work out an end to the war in the Pacific. Ya see, the war was turning against them, and they wanted to hold onto the resource areas they had gained, so they knew it was time to stop the fighting. By this time, Truman was already screaming about unconditional surrender, so the Japanese calls for a cease fire were refused. Every time Japan sent another request for a cease fire with conditions, Truman once again sent a reply saying that nothing short of unconditional surrender would be accepted.

Your argument is somewhat flawed by the fact that FDR died April 12, 1945. What Truman would have been screaming about before then is pretty inconsequential.



(keep in mind, all this information comes from my WWII history class. So no, I haven't spoken to WWII vets who told me this is true, so I can't say how accurate it is. But that's the thing with history; it's written by the victors)

There's a shocking concept -- completely untrue, too. I guess you didn't learn too much about history after all.

--- Alan

FDR was the first to call for unconditional surrender (actually, the phrase was coined by McCarther). Truman carried on the phrase when he was sworn in. Sorry for the slip of the tongue there. The Japanese had indeed been talking about a cease fire in mid-1944 though.

And I was a bit harsh in my statement about history. I was just trying to get across that everything I was talking about came from a few books and a class I had taken a few years ago. Also saw a bit about it on the History Channel (one of the reasons I still pay for cable). But I couldn't verify it with first hand knowledge or anything. Nor have I seen photographs of the communications from the Japanese government, seen interviews with Russian diplomats, etc. Didn't mean to imply that the history books were written for American propoganda.

[Erik Andersson]

While I hate to go against the learned statemen bono, until the the other countries mentioned spend the percentage of their budget that we do on their military so we don't have to be the international police, I would suggest he not whine like some 17 year old protestor smashing a Starbucks window and yelling how he wants no police and would welcome anarchy.

I suppose we could fund an aircraft carrier or two with those 0.85% or whatever it is we spend, but is that really what you want? I don't know how many percent the US spend on the military, but I wouldn't mind if you took 0.6% away and used it for more peaceful aid, and it's me you're protecting, aren't you? It's not like there is an invasion threat against the US mainland in the next thirty years or so.

[Jason McCullough]

'The U.S. wanted to remove Japan's ability to wage further war, fullful their promise to China to remove all Japanese occupational forces, and yes, to establish U.S. military bases to keep a handle on Russia.'

This throws in "bases against Russia" like it was more than a twinkle in someone's eye.

[Bub, Andrew]

Actually, this was done too. The Japanese managed to get some submarines near America and attacked an oil field in Santa Barbara and a fort in Oregon.

"Hollywoooood! (sob)"

[chet]

Just curious erik. Do your police spend less money to deter more crime?

Please don't start sounding like the 13 year old hippie kid talking about a world without cops, man that would be cool! Yeah, until the big guy comes into his house and takes his x-box and his weed and drinks all his snapple.

An honest question, would the world be as stable as it is now - if the USA was not a super power and acting as the world's police force?

Chet

[Erik Andersson]

Please don't start sounding like the 13 year old hippie kid talking about a world without cops, man that would be cool! Yeah, until the big guy comes into his house and takes his x-box and his weed and drinks all his snapple.

I'm not talking about a world without cops, I'm talking about a world were the US spends slightly less on military and slightly more on peaceful and constructive aid. Is it 13 year old hippie stuff? Maybe, but I don't think it's the same thing as anarchy.



An honest question, would the world be as stable as it is now - if the USA was not a super power and acting as the world's police force?
Chet
I think that a world under Soviet leadership would have been pretty "stable" as well. Note that I'm not saying that this is a good thing. I don't think I have said that I hated the USA or the role it plays in the world. But I don't necessarily agree with the politics and the priorities.

[voltaic]

I'm not talking about a world without cops, I'm talking about a world were the US spends slightly less on military and slightly more on peaceful and constructive aid. Is it 13 year old hippie stuff? Maybe, but I don't think it's the same thing as anarchy.

Much of our military budget is logistical and deployment money. So when we send big bad army guys to pass out food and humanitarian aid, well that is military spending done in a humanitarian cause. That's certainly not all of it, but it also isn't the case that every military dollar goes into killing people.

By the way you can thank our military spending for the internet and many other modern technology also.

[Michael Fortson]

Some of our attempts at stabilizing things have met with questionable results, and others have backfired. We aren't consistently good at it yet... many times we seem to just play mix-up-the-stones with which particular enemy we need to worry about now.

Long term military forces (bases etc) seem to be more succesful and predictable at stabilizing a region than supporting this faction or that faction in a remote area with overt or covert aid, which we seem to do too much of.

[Sean Tudor]

I see. So Australia's participation in a war against Iraq is contingent on an agricultural free trade agreement? What about the billions in aid we send to Australia (and the rest of thr world) each year? What about the unfair tariffs you place on US goods imported in? There's more, you know.

I wasn't aware that the US sends aid to Australia ? Do you have any more information ?

As for tariffs (unless I am mistaken) I thought that was in place to stop Australians from buying foreign goods to keep our balance of trade intact ?

[Sean Tudor]

Some of our attempts at stabilizing things have met with questionable results, and others have backfired. We aren't consistently good at it yet... many times we seem to just play mix-up-the-stones with which particular enemy we need to worry about now.

The US is well known for its military disasters but that is basically because their participation rate has been reasonably high in the last 50 - 60 years.

Look at what we have : Korea, Vietnam and Somalia to name three. It was well known amongst Australian military units serving in Vietnam that the American forces were disorganised and poorly trained. This is a very sad reflection of the US military leaders of the time but it is also a result of conscripting troops who had little or no interest in the military and were forced to fight.

[Jason McCullough]

Yes, the U.S. spends crap on aid, but I have to say that the history of foreign aid isn't particularly encouraging. It all gets diverted into the pockets of local kleptocrats.

[ydejin]

My point was that Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't picked because they were population centers; they were picked as strategic industrial/military targets.

My understanding is that in fact Hiroshima and Nagasaki had very little of industrial or military significance. They were picked in large part because they were largely intact and had not been hit by major bombing raids previously. They hadn't been hit previously because there was nothing of military value there. The story I got was that there was little of military value because both Hiroshima and Nagasaki had large Christian Japanese populations and they weren't "trusted" as much as the rest of the population. A side effect of the dropping the atom bombs was to wipe out almost all of Japan's Christian population.

Can any of our historians confirm or deny this story?

[junior allen]

If this is representative of the sort of attitude that exists in the US today then it is no wonder that the US is looked upon with disdain and suspicion by the rest of the world.

The United States likes to exude this thin veneer of fatherly affection for the rest of the world. And yet when it comes to that almighty American Dollar the US will do anything to protect itself whether that be through market protection or military action.

Take Australia for example. Our Prime Minister commits to providing troops and support for the current US military actions. We're probably the only country apart from Britain that actually supports renewed US action in Iraq.

We didn't have to do that yet we did. We then ask the US to participate in a free trade agreement with Australia in agriculture. Oh boy what a mistake. 50,000 lobby groups in the US scream no free trade agreement effectively forcing your government to abandon the free trade agreement with Australia.

Effectively the US has given us a big fuck you. I am sure if Australia had large oil reserves then President Bush would come snivelling at our doorstep with his free trade agreement signed, sealed, and delivered.

It is that sort of hypocrisy that really colours our opinion of the United States Of America. And now President Bush has the gall to release the "National Security Strategy of the United States of America" which effectively mandates the invasion of any country as the US sees fit.

All of this smacks of Empire building. America is not always right, they shouldn't always poke their nose in other peoples business, and they are not the centre of the universe.

These are my opinions and at least I have the balls to post these under my name and not anonymously. Flame on.

The only thing I feel like saying in this thread is that this notion of "American foreign policy" somehow equaling "American public opinion" seems endemic among citizens from other countries, and is completely wrong.

I can assure you that your general American, to the extent he thinks about Australia at all, thinks about Elle McPherson, Crocodile Dundee, the Outback Steakhouse, AC/DC and some of the crappiest beer brewed on the planet. And that's about it. Whether that's good or not is another, seperate question: the point is, this country is huge and it's citizens are generally concerned with their day-to-day lives, few of which concern trade policies with Australia or what your prime minister is saying about Iraq.

junior allen

[Michael Fortson]

That exclusively inward focus is stifling. I find that most people I see in the U.S., due to simply spending very little time outside of the U.S., lack the experience to even recognize it, let alone regard it with the appropriate (in my opinion) loathing.

[Jason McCullough]

Stifling my ass; there's just not much of an economic need to learn about other countries when your neighbors are Canada and Mexico.

[Sean Tudor]

That exclusively inward focus is stifling. I find that most people I see in the U.S., due to simply spending very little time outside of the U.S., lack the experience to even recognize it, let alone regard it with the appropriate (in my opinion) loathing.

Yes my thoughts as well. A good American friend of mine who I have known for 15 years served in Vietnam and has been living in Australia since then. He noted on his many visits back to the US just how ignorant his friends were about the world outside of the USA.

He also commented that people from other countries were far more aware of the outside world than the average American. For a formerly British colony they certainly have changed. 8)

Of course this is a generalisation. Maybe most American tourists who visit here are loud rednecks and represent only 0.01% of the population ? :roll:

[Brian Rucker]

I think, in general, it's fair to say that Americans have priorities other than figuring out what's going on in the world. We're comfy. We're the good guys. 'Nuff said. Fair international trade practices, or human rights issues for that matter, don't get nearly as good ratings as 'A Mother's Nightmare - News at 11' or confrontational infotainment political shows.

[Michael Fortson]

Yes indeed. But as they say, ignorance is bliss. There's little motivation for a person to challenge their own assumptions about what is important or relevant (or entertaining), lacking sufficient experience to provide contrast.

Although even with that contrast, I've seen plenty of people still stick to what is familiar as what is best. To each his own; at least it was a choice.

[hido]

Allow me to recommend a few books on warfare in the Pacific:

With The Old Breed
Flags Of Our Fathers
Ghost Soldiers

Read these and then revisit this discussion.

[Alan Dunkin]

My understanding is that in fact Hiroshima and Nagasaki had very little of industrial or military significance. They were picked in large part because they were largely intact and had not been hit by major bombing raids previously. They hadn't been hit previously because there was nothing of military value there. The story I got was that there was little of military value because both Hiroshima and Nagasaki had large Christian Japanese populations and they weren't "trusted" as much as the rest of the population. A side effect of the dropping the atom bombs was to wipe out almost all of Japan's Christian population.

Can any of our historians confirm or deny this story?

I am a historian. Hiroshima, among other things, was the home of 2nd Army HQ, served as the defense command for the southern area of Japan, was a rallying point and assembly area for many divisions, and housed a lot of communications facilities for the necessity of defense. Nagasaki is a large seaport, and had ordnance and ship-building capacity among other things. I believe it is also called the "Gateway to China."

--- Alan

[Brian Rucker]

A rerelease of "Atomic Cafe" is out for anyone interested. It's been described as the nuclear "Reefer Madness" as it surveys the cultural impact of atomic weaponry during the late 40's and 50's - with a very dark sense of humor. In it are many period interviews including one with someone (a scientist or a general, can't remember which) saying quite clearly that the targets were indeed selected because they were pristine sites and the effects could be better determined there. It's just a matter of fact comment.

While the other issues of targeting might be true odds are that the most prime military or industrial targets were both elsewhere and already pretty well picked over.

[Troy S Goodfellow]

Even if Hiroshima and Nagasaki had some military significance (no great task in a total war situation), they were certainly not prime military targets - if they were they would have been hit earlier. The atomic attacks were certainly intended to be more demonstrations than military strikes because the bombers were sent in alone - there was to be no doubt that this weapon did the damage.

That said, there was no taboo against atomic weapons at the time. Their destructive potential was suspected, but in a time of war there was never much serious consideration that it not be used beyond a few isolated instances. Weapons and tactics acquire meaning only through historical circumstances. Chemcial weapons were not taboo until WWI, Atomic weapons until the late 1940s. American military plans considered their use in "conventional" wars quite often. MacArthur was not alone in wanting to use them on China.

Troy

[Bub, Andrew]

Good call TSG, I was going to mention WW1 and Mustard gas earlier but spaced on it. Sometimes weapons are moral until they are used. The devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was horrifying, what US aid troops found there afterward (fallout, radiation poisoning, etc.,) was far more horrifying.

[Met_K]

Actually, I'd argue that the taboo about atomic weapons didn't come around completely until the mid-50's. The late 40's were starting to show some resistance to them, but once Bravo was dropped, you had basically two reactions: "Hot damn! This'll show those commies" and "Um, fuck." But even then, you could argue that total taboo to nuclear weapons -never- came around until the Soviet collapse, or else you would've seen both sides disarming their weapons earlier.

Once Russia dropped the big bomb in '61, you could call that another turning point as to the international community becoming more antsy towards atomic weapons. The France test, the various other nations' tests, etc.

Again, if there was an actual taboo, the international community would be alot more forceful about it's stance on nuclear weapons. As is, you have a whole lot of people who are more up-in-arms against chemical and biological weapons than nuclear weapons. You can survive a nuclear blast, but there's not much the normal, everyday person can do to survive a precise tactical burst of certain chemical weapons.

[Jason Becker]

I don't know if this has been posted before since I just started reading and didn't want to go through 100+ posts. Some say/believe the bombs were also about showing the Russians what we possed(bluffing some since they didn't have any more unranium/ or plutonium to make more at the time.

[Alan Dunkin]

Actually, I'd argue that the taboo about atomic weapons didn't come around completely until the mid-50's. The late 40's were starting to show some resistance to them, but once Bravo was dropped, you had basically two reactions: "Hot damn! This'll show those commies" and "Um, fuck." But even then, you could argue that total taboo to nuclear weapons -never- came around until the Soviet collapse, or else you would've seen both sides disarming their weapons earlier.

Not really, because there were restrictive arms treaties way before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The taboo probably started with in the late 50s and early 60s (and most positive aspects quickly died with the Cuban Missile Crisis). In the late 1940s and 1950s the US government had suddenly scrambled into an arms race because of its perception that the Soviet Union could build more and bigger bombs than the US could, which in reality it couldn't (and the US strike capacity was plain awful) -- not for a long time (the missile gap was a similar issue). With the advent of extremely powerful hydrogen weapons, and short- and medium-range ballistic missles, thinks didn't look so peachy, but was okay for the continental US in general (after Cuba), bad for the allies. When ICBMs were developed and tested by both sides, well, that was the nail in the coffin.

Sure, MacArthur wanted to use the bomb on China (so did the Soviets), but even throughout the 1950s the administration had serious considerations of using it. The administration wanted to use or lend the use of two tactical yield bombs to the French for use against the Vietnamese when the French were on the verge of losing Dien Bien Phu in 1954 (Operation Vulture).

--- Alan

[Met_K]

Not really, because there were restrictive arms treaties way before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The taboo probably started with in the late 50s and early 60s (and most positive aspects quickly died with the Cuban Missile Crisis). In the late 1940s and 1950s the US government had suddenly scrambled into an arms race because of its perception that the Soviet Union could build more and bigger bombs than the US could, which in reality it couldn't (and the US strike capacity was plain awful) -- not for a long time (the missile gap was a similar issue). With the advent of extremely powerful hydrogen weapons, and short- and medium-range ballistic missles, thinks didn't look so peachy, but was okay for the continental US in general (after Cuba), bad for the allies. When ICBMs were developed and tested by both sides, well, that was the nail in the coffin.

Sure, MacArthur wanted to use the bomb on China (so did the Soviets), but even throughout the 1950s the administration had serious considerations of using it. The administration wanted to use or lend the use of two tactical yield bombs to the French for use against the Vietnamese when the French were on the verge of losing Dien Bien Phu in 1954 (Operation Vulture).

The problem with what you're stating is that it indicates that no taboo still exists, which is my original point. Countries still actively research and develop nuclear weapons; They still actively test nuclear weapons; And some still actively stockpile nuclear weapons.

Like I said before, if there truly was a taboo, that would not be happening. There's a big difference between a shun and a taboo. Chemical/biological weapons are taboo; Nuclear weapons are shunned.

The only people who practice chemical weapons anymore are petty third world countries who have about as educated a population as Assbackwardville, Alabama. Most have dictators. Most are in constant states of turmoil, and the others are repressed. (And please, for the love of God, notice the phrasing. PRACTICE. Asian Extremists PRACTICE chemical weaponry, whereas the United States simply developes and supplies said extremists/countries with said weapons. :lol: )

Whereas -everyone- and their dog are trying to become nuclear still.

[Jason McCullough]

There's a taboo on use, not development.

[Met_K]

Tell that to India and Pakistan.

[voltaic]

The problem with what you're stating is that it indicates that no taboo still exists, which is my original point. Countries still actively research and develop nuclear weapons; They still actively test nuclear weapons; And some still actively stockpile nuclear weapons.

Like I said before, if there truly was a taboo, that would not be happening. There's a big difference between a shun and a taboo. Chemical/biological weapons are taboo; Nuclear weapons are shunned.

I agree. There are a number of good reasons to do nuclear research in non-military applications, for example nuclear power (electricity) and medicine. On the other hand, there's pretty much only one reason to manufacture nerve gas.

[Alan Dunkin]

Nuclear weapon development continues on a number of levels, depending on what you're looking at, even in the US. We do it to check up on the stockpile readyness, validate supercomputer testing, and develop new concepts, among other things. I imagine within 20-30 years we'll be testing nukes in space again. For about ten years now the military has been developing a nuclear version of the thermobaeric bomb used earlier this year in Afghanistan for deep underground, hardened bunkers.

The taboo in general is that to develop is bad, to actually have is worse, especially if you're a third-world nation. If we actually fought said nation in the last ten years and manage to have no-fly zones over it, well, that's a big no-no. Generally I'd have to say the US is very concerned and scared over nuclear proliferation that doesn't occur inside of its own borders. There's sound reasoning in there, but man, it doesn't make the US look very good.

--- Alan

[James Gutierrez]

A couple of years ago the only countries who spent more than 0.7% of GDP were Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands. I hope you will join the club soon.

I don't see why foreign aid as a percentage of GDP is a useful metric as opposed to absolute dollar amounts. A bag of wheat from the US isn't worth any less to the recipient just because we can afford it more easily.

[Chris Nahr]

I don't see why foreign aid as a percentage of GDP is a useful metric as opposed to absolute dollar amounts.

For the same reason that taxes are set as a percentage of income, not as an absolute amount of dollars?

[Michael Fortson]

Sticking with a percentage makes all the difference when you're comparing relative importance or effort. If you want to substitute something for a percentage of GDP, straight dollars isn't a fair trade. Dollars per-capita would be, when comparing nations of similar technology levels; then you can keep whatever benefits you gain from local efficiency out of the picture. But that might end up being the same thing (or worse) :)

[James Gutierrez]

Sticking with a percentage makes all the difference when you're comparing relative importance or effort.

I understand that, my point is that comparing relative effort is just a rhetorical abstraction, useful for internet debates maybe, but not meaningful to a starving child. What's important is the end result. Iceland could send off 25% of its GDP to foreign aid and it still wouldn't feed, clothe, or aid more people than the US does. Whether you're talking about foreign aid from a humanitarian perspective or as a policy tool to influence opinion, what's important is how many people you reach and how effectively you aid them, not the effort you expended to do so. Not to mention the fact that aid as a percentage of GDP completely ignores how effectively that aid is allocated and how efficiently it is distributed.

Foreign aid is not an international contest of virtue. It's about solving real problems, some of which may not be helped by throwing money at them. Determining aid expenditures by some arbitrary percentage of GDP seems to me like a naive and inefficient way of addressing these problems.

[Jason McCullough]

'Foreign aid is not an international contest of virtue. It's about solving real problems, some of which may not be helped by throwing money at them. Determining aid expenditures by some arbitrary percentage of GDP seems to me like a naive and inefficient way of addressing these problems.'

Yes, but what percentage of consumption you're willing to give up is a pretty good proxy for how much you care about it.

That being, the vast majority of aid programs have performed atrociously. The ones that do work are quite cheap, being things like simple vaccinations, but mostly aid just gets funneled into the pockets of dictators.

[Michael Fortson]

Sticking with a percentage makes all the difference when you're comparing relative importance or effort.

I understand that, my point is that comparing relative effort is just a rhetorical abstraction, useful for internet debates maybe, but not meaningful to a starving child. What's important is the end result. Iceland could send off 25% of its GDP to foreign aid and it still wouldn't feed, clothe, or aid more people than the US does.
I don't think it's rhetoric at all. I think dismissing the response to your initial argument by trying to focus attention back on an emotional subject like a starving child, is.

The point was made that some people in the world (as idividual citizens) are contributing more than others. It's a fact, and it's a fact that improving that would not necessarily be a bad thing. But you're the one asking the question...

I don't see why anyone would feel the need to challenge such a universally accepted, logical basis of measurement used in a simple comparison. Unless they felt the need to defend something... but pursuing that one is going to be tough. Good luck :) It's basic statistics... inferring a parameter (total aid produced) through statistics from a smaller sample (a country).

As for this application of that model, it's the same idea as supporting your government: everyone is expected to do their part, and the total contribution grows as a static percentage of a growing population, which is reasonable because the demands of supporting that population also grow along with the population. This also applies to social services: as the general population increases, so does the number of needy and destitute.

You could have much less substantive arguments about efficiency in producing that GDP to begin with (as I already pointed out), or try (as you just did) to bring up efficiency in distribution, but those are both minor compared to your central argument that we shouldn't be using a statistic (like GDP) to infer a parameter (support) of the population at large. Which is simply incorrect.

The only significant argument I would expect someone to be making is to debate the level of social support that is appropriate to begin with. That would be worth arguing. And we already have that argument here in the U.S. regularly, about our own society.

[James Gutierrez]

I don't see why anyone would feel the need to challenge such a universally accepted, logical basis of measurement used in a simple comparison.


I'm not saying that the measurement is illogical; what I'm saying is that the comparison is irrelevant. Take the .7% of Sweden vs. the .1% of the US. I can only see two implications of this comparison:

1. The implication that Sweden is a more generous nation than the US, since they give up more of their income. To which the Americans reply that, beginning with rebuilding the world economy after WWII and continuing through today, they have given more than the rest of the world put together. All of which is just chest thumping and not really meaningful, hence my "rhetoric" comment above.

2. The implication that the US should increase its foreign aid to match the relative amount given by Sweden. I'm not arguing that the US shouldn't give more aid. What I'm arguing is that setting an arbitrary target and then figuring out where to spend it is absolutely the wrong way to go about allocating aid. Of all of the situations of deprivation in the world, there is a subset that can be solved through foreign aid. There is a further subset of those situations where the political environment exists to effectively deliver that aid. Once those situations have been identified (theoretically, obviously it is an imperfect world), they need to be prioritized according to humanitarian and foreign policy criteria. Just saying that we need to throw more money into the pot seems naive to me.

Consider also that, despite any statistical normalizations, in the end it's the absolute dollars that matter. An extra .1% for the the US is an extra $10 billion being thrown into some of the most politically unstable regions of the world, places where food is power and where tracking the final disbursements of aid is difficult at best. Sweden probably can't change the balance of power in Central Africa; the US certainly could, and these things have been known to come back and bite us.



As for this application of that model, it's the same idea as supporting your government: everyone is expected to do their part, and the total contribution grows as a static percentage of a growing population, which is reasonable because the demands of supporting that population also grow along with the population. This also applies to social services: as the general population increases, so does the number of needy and destitute.


Sorry, wrong. You fail to take into account economic advancement. Europe has a larger population now than in 1950, but we don't send aid there any more. For statistics on the world population as a whole see this UN report on development (http://www.undp.org/hdr2001/chapterone.pdf). A relevant excerpt:



The magnitude of these challenges appears
daunting. Yet too few people recognize that
the impressive gains in the developing world in
the past 30 years demonstrate the possibility of
eradicating poverty. A child born today can expect
to live eight years longer than one born 30
years ago. Many more people can read and
write, with the adult literacy rate having increased
from an estimated 47% in 1970 to 73%
in 1999. The share of rural families with access
to safe water has grown more than fivefold.
Many more people can enjoy a decent standard
of living, with average incomes in developing
countries having almost doubled in real terms
between 1975 and 1998, from $1,300 to $2,500
(1985 PPP US$)

[Michael Fortson]

I don't see why anyone would feel the need to challenge such a universally accepted, logical basis of measurement used in a simple comparison.


I'm not saying that the measurement is illogical; what I'm saying is that the comparison is irrelevant. Take the .7% of Sweden vs. the .1% of the US. I can only see two implications of this comparison:

1. The implication that Sweden is a more generous nation than the US, since they give up more of their income. To which the Americans reply that, beginning with rebuilding the world economy after WWII and continuing through today, they have given more than the rest of the world put together. All of which is just chest thumping and not really meaningful, hence my "rhetoric" comment above.

You're right, bringing up static historical events with a fixed cost (reconstruction) in a discussion of ongoing, current needs is pure rhetoric. It's about as asinine as refusing to pay for your child's lunch today because you paid for a doctor's visit last week. People (especially Americans) screw that one up alot. You can indeed ask questions and have discussions like "okay, how to we amortize the cost of reconstruction fairly, if at all, and were those debts agreed to, was it an investment we chose to make regardless of the likelihood of repayment because we throught it was necessary, or were the debts forgiven if it was indeed a debt, or how exactly should repayment be made if at all, how to you measure that repayment over time, when is it finished", etc... but what we're arguing here is how to deal with the ongoing daily cost of that meal and other needs, right now.


2. The implication that the US should increase its foreign aid to match the relative amount given by Sweden. I'm not arguing that the US shouldn't give more aid. What I'm arguing is that setting an arbitrary target and then figuring out where to spend it is absolutely the wrong way to go about allocating aid. Of all of the situations of deprivation in the world, there is a subset that can be solved through foreign aid. There is a further subset of those situations where the political environment exists to effectively deliver that aid. Once those situations have been identified (theoretically, obviously it is an imperfect world), they need to be prioritized according to humanitarian and foreign policy criteria. Just saying that we need to throw more money into the pot seems naive to me.

Consider also that, despite any statistical normalizations, in the end it's the absolute dollars that matter.

Of course the total support required is important.

You know, James, you opened this can of worms by calling into question the concept of measuring a nations contribution to that total support required as a percentage, evenly distributed throughout the world based on whatever critiera. And you're (still) mixing your arguments. You're right, determining how much aid is needed/appropriate/helpful, aka total support required, is absolutely needed, let alone dealing with how to administer that correctly. Nobody argued that, and it's already been mentioned before you brought it up. Citing that obvious fact in an attempt to support your other ludicrous assertion gets you nowhere.

An extra .1% for the the US is an extra $10 billion being thrown into some of the most politically unstable regions of the world, places where food is power and where tracking the final disbursements of aid is difficult at best. Sweden probably can't change the balance of power in Central Africa; the US certainly could, and these things have been known to come back and bite us.
This is where your central argument gets used, and it is massively inapplicable in this confused entangling of facts. Once you determine the total support required, you don't have to worry about "upsetting the balance" - if you've done your job right in determining that total support required, then it works. If it doesn't work, then you've failed in your goal of determining total support required to begin with, and nothing else. This all still has nothing to do with how the population of the world should bear that burden.




As for this application of that model, it's the same idea as supporting your government: everyone is expected to do their part, and the total contribution grows as a static percentage of a growing population, which is reasonable because the demands of supporting that population also grow along with the population. This also applies to social services: as the general population increases, so does the number of needy and destitute.


Sorry, wrong. You fail to take into account economic advancement. Europe has a larger population now than in 1950, but we don't send aid there any more.

Yes, my use of the word "static" in an attempt to be concise would need to be adjusted if you're comparing micro time-periods to macro ones. That ratio would in fact not be completely static over history since other modifiers determine the current ratio of cost to population to begin with. It is still expressible as a ratio of current population, and despite modification by other variables it still grows with the population.

Taxation rates vary over time as well based on the needs (expenses), per-capita and fixed-cost, of the government. It is still inarguably proportional to the population over time, and used (as it was if you care to keep it in context) as an argument to demonstrate the similarity of the population-related growth of total support required to the population-related growth of total tax revenue (since you didn't seem to be getting it) it is entirely appropriate (sorry, right). That population is not the sole measure over time of calculating that total support required is an obvious fact, the pedantic citing of which still does nothing to support your central argument of how to distribute the cost of that total support required amongst society. (and yes, I'm totally aware of the irony of my using the word pedantic anywhere in this argument... color me bored :)).

One last time, to refresh your memory... this is your statement that is being argued:

I don't see why foreign aid as a percentage of GDP is a useful metric as opposed to absolute dollar amounts.

One of these statements matches the concepts in your statement:

1 "I don't see why my federal income tax as a percentage of my income is a useful metric as opposed to the dollar amount of the total federal budget."

reply:
1 They are, and have always been, separate topics, James. You can't argue how much of the total tax burden you should bear by challenging the total federal budget; whatever the outcome of that discussion, your portion of that burden will still be a percentage of your income.

..or perhaps you meant:
2 "I don't see why my federal income tax as a percentage of my income is a useful metric as opposed to the dollar amount of what I'm contributing, which should be the same for every citizen, or at least the fact that I contribute twice as much as Joe should be considered, despite the fact that I make 1,374 times as much as he does."

reply:
2 Yes, well you can take that up with the IRS. One general idea is that people's time and effort is valued equally, and however much they are fortunate to have made, it is still expressed as a percentage of effort, and is extracted as such. But regardless of that, I don't care if you choose something like a flat rate based on population to distribute the cost of social aid (although it would be as dramatically unfair as flat-rate taxation without regard for means). It still leads you to a measure of contribution expressible as a proportion. Now if you're suggesting that Delaware and California should be making an equal contribution to federal revenue regardless of income or population, well then I hear they're making a new state that might interest you...

Anyway these are some pretty basic principles which you'll never change by arguing, and if you still don't get it (not being facetious; you asked the question that I and others have answered), I'm through trying. Cheers :)

[James Gutierrez]

but what we're arguing here is how to deal with the ongoing daily cost of that meal and other needs, right now.


Actually, this whole discussion (and the subject of my point 1 above) began with Bub's assertion that the effort and money that the US spent on reconstruction aid after WWII offset the negative moral implications of dropping the atomic bombs. I'm not sure that such a moral accounting is justified, but if you are going to make it then I would argue that the proper measurement on the "good" side of the ledger is what the US actually accomplished with the aid, not what it could have afforded to spend based on GDP.

Foreign aid as a percentage of GDP fails to measure the success or appropriateness of a foreign aid policy because it completely ignores the effects of that aid. The goal of foreign aid policy is to deliver aid, not to achieve equity among donor nations. If Country A feeds 10 million people and Country B feeds 10 thousand then I would say that Country A has a more effective foreign aid policy. Whether A achieved that result because it is very rich or because it spent an enormous percentage of its GDP on aid is irrelevant.

As far as determining levels of current aid, your analogy with taxes is fundamentally flawed. Taxes are coerced by a central authority who then has sole discretion over their disbursal. Foreign aid is spent by sovereign nations on a case by case basis, determined by their individual economic and political situations. To suggest that the US should simply commit to $70 billion a year and then work backward to decide how to spend it seems both politically unwise and economically inefficient. Again, absolute numbers matter and there is clearly a point of diminishing returns. Look at all of the billions sent to Africa in the past 40 years with dismal results. Would sending an extra 10 or 20 billion have made a proportionate difference? I'm not arguing that the US shouldn't spend more on foreign aid, simply that how much more should be determined by our national priorities and the most effective way to address them, not by matching an arbitrary percentage of GDP.



Once you determine the total support required, you don't have to worry about "upsetting the balance" - if you've done your job right in determining that total support required, then it works. If it doesn't work, then you've failed in your goal of determining total support required to begin with, and nothing else.


Your flaw here is the same as with the taxes analogy. There is no single, global figure of support required. It is different for each nation based on their own foreign policy aims and relationships with the potential recipients. The US has vastly different political interests and responsibilities in the Middle East than, say, Japan and would likely arrive at a correspondingly different value for total support required.



Anyway these are some pretty basic principles which you'll never change by arguing, and if you still don't get it (not being facetious; you asked the question that I and others have answered), I'm through trying. Cheers :)

If I'm being so uniquely obtuse about this, then why hasn't the US ratified the .7% agreement? And, no, you haven't answered my question: Why is matching a target fraction of GDP a more useful way of determining foreign aid expenditures than setting goals and determining the absolute dollar amounts required to meet them?

[Bub, Andrew]

Actually, this whole discussion (and the subject of my point 1 above) began with Bub's assertion that the effort and money that the US spent on reconstruction aid after WWII offset the negative moral implications of dropping the atomic bombs. I'm not sure that such a moral accounting is justified, but if you are going to make it then I would argue that the proper measurement on the "good" side of the ledger is what the US actually accomplished with the aid, not what it could have afforded to spend based on GDP.

I didn't mean that only because I don't feel the Atomic bombs and their use were "immoral", given that they were a new technology and that a vicious war was afoot. But a Japanese colleague did once tell me that the Japanese (in general and of his generation - which would be the 60's generation) don't blame the US for the bombs. He was taught that they ended the war, brought aid and rebuilding, shook the Imperial power doctrine Japan had been following to it's knees and the US presence afterward was a boon because it prevented China and other Asian powers from stepping in and taking a humbled Japan.

Off topic, is the Truman doctrine (in Europe and Japan) unprecendented in war? Had nations ever, literally, rebuilt a defeated nation after a war before? I'm only asking because I think not, but acknowledge that some of you are way ahead of me here.

[Michael Fortson]

<looks at watch> oh well :) You know, James, you began this with a statement:




A couple of years ago the only countries who spent more than 0.7% of GDP were Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands. I hope you will join the club soon.

I don't see why foreign aid as a percentage of GDP is a useful metric as opposed to absolute dollar amounts. A bag of wheat from the US isn't worth any less to the recipient just because we can afford it more easily.

Which of course is complete and utter hogwash, being a mix of an obvious fact with an absurdly unrelated conclusion. Frankly I wouldn't usually reply with any sort of seriousness to such an out-of-touch statement.

But since you seemed to not understand how population or income has anything to do with measuring relative contributions, I made an effort to explain. And your reply was basically a series of pedantic challenges of obvious minor differing details of analogies, details that have no impact on the relevance of the analagies in illustrating the intended concept.



The goal of foreign aid policy is to deliver aid, not to achieve equity among donor nations. If Country A feeds 10 million people and Country B feeds 10 thousand then I would say that Country A has a more effective foreign aid policy. Whether A achieved that result because it is very rich or because it spent an enormous percentage of its GDP on aid is irrelevant.
Obviously the goal of a foreign aid program is to deliver aid. You can measure and contrast the impact on the world by the amount spent, but you can not measure relative participation by it. Erik was making just such a comparison. You challenged it. You were wrong.


As far as determining levels of current aid, your analogy with taxes is fundamentally flawed.
No. If you need to see something with a fundamental flaw, try looking at your original post. The tax analogy was used as an aid because you refused to acknowledge the relevance of of GDP in a simple comparison of contributions of different nations. The entire point is to illustrate the relationship between the size of the global population, the total cost of providing reasonable humanitarian aid to it, and the individual share of the capable population in providing that total. The differences in details are irrelevant to the overal analogy; what you mention as flaws are in fact obvious details that do not effect the integrity of the analogy.


Again, absolute numbers matter and there is clearly a point of diminishing returns. Look at all of the billions sent to Africa in the past 40 years with dismal results. I'm not arguing that the US shouldn't spend more on foreign aid, simply that how much more should be determined by our national priorities and the most effective way to address them, not by matching an arbitrary percentage of GDP.


(switching subjects alert... now you aren't talking about making a comparison between nations, you're talking about deciding how much we should be spending... but since I followed you down this path the last time, I may as well finish... we don't really disagree here anyway) I think you said that before, and I answered it before. I agree completely that it should not be an arbitrary number. It has to be a bottom-up, goals-based number, but it can certainly be done (at least roughly) globally, which allows you to then arrive at a GDP value that would allow you to meet those goals.

So it is in fact plausible.

But whether or not such a global-cooperation-minded approach is something we should be trying now, I don't know... we can't even let our own official agency make it's own decisions (congress directly assigns most aid through earmarking USAID's funds, removing the aid agency from the decision-making process). But then again maybe that's a good sign that a more international body needs to be involved.... who knows.


Your flaw here is the same as with the taxes analogy. There is no single, global figure of support required.

What, there's no math in the world? Of course there is a single global figure.. that's what you get when you add up the total estimated needed expenditures. It's assumed (god, you'd hope they would) that the UN (or whatever body or forum) would do this before the participating nations in that body would propose a GDP figure to begin with. I do not necessarily support .7%, since I have no idea how they reached that number in the first place.


If I'm being so uniquely obtuse about this, then why hasn't the US ratified the .7% agreement? And, no, you haven't answered my question: Why is matching a target fraction of GDP a more useful way of determining foreign aid expenditures than setting goals and determining the absolute dollar amounts required to meet them?

I think you are being uniquely obtuse :) in a pleasant enough manner. I apologize for my own snipiness. I'm afraid my patience has run out, as it tends to do shortly before bed. The answer is: before you can arrive at a relevant GDP figure, it's assumed that you have already reviewed the goals and determined how much it will cost to achieve them. It's not an either/or. But of course, as noted above, that is not your original question at all, but I don't mind answering an unrelated question if you choose to steer the conversation there.

Similarly, I don't know why we wouldn't have ratified the ".7% accord" thing. I don't know how it was produced and wouldn't say (without knowing more) whether I think we should ratify it. Some possibilities I would guess on why it hasn't been:
- we don't agree with the figure and we're refusing to accept the outcome of a democtratic forum we participated in (bad)
- we weren't invited to be a part of the process (or refused to participate for some other political reason) and don't feel obligated to adhere to any conclusion we weren't a party to (neutral)
- we don't think it's an international issue to begin and refused to participate in any such discussion (unfortunate)
- it wasn't produced by any sort of forum to begin with, and was more of an arbitraty political statement by someone seeking to generate attention

[Jason McCullough]

MARK 12:41-44 NKJ
41 Now Jesus sat opposite the treasury and saw how the people put money into the treasury. And many who were rich put in much.
42 Then one poor widow came and threw in two mites, which make a quadrans.
43 So He called His disciples to Him and said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury;
44 "for they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood."

[James Gutierrez]

But since you seemed to not understand how population or income has anything to do with measuring relative contributions...
[edit]
You can measure and contrast the impact on the world by the amount spent, but you can not measure relative participation by it. Erik was making just such a comparison. You challenged it. You were wrong.


You're missing my point. Remember when I said:



I'm not saying that the measurement is illogical; what I'm saying is that the comparison is irrelevant.


My entire point is that measuring relative contributions is a pretty meaningless exercise. All it accomplishes is to allow Swedes to claim that they care more about the world than Americans on internet forums. Fine. In the real world, it fails on what I would consider to be the most important tests of a policy metric:

1. It fails to measure past effectiveness. To the extent that the goals of foreign aid are to provide humantarian assistance and/or further foreign policy aims, I would argue that the perspective of aid recipients is much more relevant than that of other donor nations. I would further argue that recipients are more concerned with absolute amounts of aid received than with relative parity among donor nations.

2. It fails to offer useful guidance as to future levels of funding. We've been round and round on this, but essentially I believe that foreign aid spending should be determined by the humanitarian and political goals of the individual nation and the cost of meeting those goals, not by trying to maintain parity among donor nations.




(switching subjects alert... now you aren't talking about making a comparison between nations, you're talking about deciding how much we should be spending... but since I followed you down this path the last time, I may as well finish... we don't really disagree here anyway)


Actually, I was following you when you said "but what we're arguing here is how to deal with the ongoing daily cost of that meal and other needs, right now." Anyway, the reason I followed this path was to argue that comparisons between donor nations is not useful in setting the foreign aid policy of an individual nation, and if it's not then of what use is it?

As far as the rest, our main point of contention is the existence of a global figure. In my view, the problem is not the math involved (very funny :)), but selecting the terms to sum. Would European nations agree to include the $1 billion that the US sends to Israel?

I agree that in any particular instance where the goals of donor nations are closely aligned, Afghanistan for example, then determining contributions relative to GDP is a reasonable approach. In this case, your tax analogy is valid because you are apportioning the burden of achieving a single goal, not determining which goals to achieve. Using this approach to determine/compare the entire foreign aid policies of nations is not, in my view, a realstic or reasonable approach.



I do not necessarily support .7%, since I have no idea how they reached that number in the first place.


Isn't it possible that the nations that came up with this figure did so with an eye toward their own foreign policy goals and responsibilites? Why does it follow that when the US performs the same analysis, it should arrive at the same percentage?

[James Gutierrez]

MARK 12:41-44 NKJ
41 Now Jesus sat opposite the treasury and saw how the people put money into the treasury. And many who were rich put in much.
42 Then one poor widow came and threw in two mites, which make a quadrans.
43 So He called His disciples to Him and said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury;
44 "for they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood."

Well, by that measure, Jesus was the least virtuous of them all since he theoretically could have given an infinite amount. It's a fine measure of the virtue of the widow, but evidently Jesus didn't base his own donation policy on the relative contributions of others.



Luke 9:16 Then he took the five loaves and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed them, and brake, and gave to the disciples to set before the multitude.


Should we chide Jesus for not repeating this miracle until the whole world was fed? Is it possible he had his own reasons for deciding what and how much to give and wasn't concerned with matching the relative contributions of someone else?

[Jason McCullough]

As long as we know you're on the opposite side from Jesus here. ;0

[Erik Andersson]

My entire point is that measuring relative contributions is a pretty meaningless exercise. All it accomplishes is to allow Swedes to claim that they care more about the world than Americans on internet forums. Fine. In the real world, it fails on what I would consider to be the most important tests of a policy metric:

So what you are saying is that measuring relative contributions is pretty meaningless if you want to find the "absolute" result? I agree completely. If you are also trying to say that Sweden is insignificant compared to the USA then I agree yet again. But if my tax money only gives me boasting rights on message boards then I suppose they could be better spent elsewhere.



1. It fails to measure past effectiveness. To the extent that the goals of foreign aid are to provide humantarian assistance and/or further foreign policy aims, I would argue that the perspective of aid recipients is much more relevant than that of other donor nations. I would further argue that recipients are more concerned with absolute amounts of aid received than with relative parity among donor nations.

Receivers are more interested in how much they recieve rather than how many people contributed? News to me.

A percentage of GDP doesn't say anything about how effective the aid is, but I don't know if you are trying to say that it is more effective to give less money or what your point really is.



2. It fails to offer useful guidance as to future levels of funding. We've been round and round on this, but essentially I believe that foreign aid spending should be determined by the humanitarian and political goals of the individual nation and the cost of meeting those goals, not by trying to maintain parity among donor nations.


I agree that it is the goal itself rather than the exact percentage that is important. But somehow I think it is reasonable if the wealthier nations pay more.



As far as the rest, our main point of contention is the existence of a global figure. In my view, the problem is not the math involved (very funny :)), but selecting the terms to sum. Would European nations agree to include the $1 billion that the US sends to Israel?


I don't know what that sum actually pays. Is it used to fund schools or something?



Isn't it possible that the nations that came up with this figure did so with an eye toward their own foreign policy goals and responsibilites? Why does it follow that when the US performs the same analysis, it should arrive at the same percentage?

Yes. It was a conspiracy involving Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands.

[James Gutierrez]

So what you are saying is that measuring relative contributions is pretty meaningless if you want to find the "absolute" result?


I'm saying that relative contributions as a percentage of GDP is meaningless in any discussion of foreign aid policy as a whole. The only place it would have any bearing whatsoever is in a discussion about a particular instance of aid where all of the parties involved agreed with the goal and the cost of meeting that goal.



I agree completely. If you are also trying to say that Sweden is insignificant compared to the USA then I agree yet again.


Heh, well I certainly never meant to imply that Sweden was insignificant or give any offense. If I have, I apologize.



But if my tax money only gives me boasting rights on message boards then I suppose they could be better spent elsewhere.


No, your tax money, in an absolute sense, presumably does good things around the world and you should feel justified in paying it. What I'm saying is that the fact that a larger portion of your tax money (yes, I'm substituting tax revenue for GDP here) than mine goes to foreign aid is not a very useful piece of information. You tell me, what meaningful conclusion do you draw from the fact that Sweden spends .7% of its GDP on foreign aid and the US spends .1%? I asked the question before and so far the only answer I've gotten is that evidently Baby Jesus loves Sweden more.



Receivers are more interested in how much they recieve rather than how many people contributed? News to me.


Either you're being sarcastic here or I'm not following you. Yes, it seems obvious to me that people who receive aid are primarily interested in how much they receive: whether or not they eat, the hospital gets medicine, whatever, rather than the relative GDPs of the donors.



A percentage of GDP doesn't say anything about how effective the aid is, but I don't know if you are trying to say that it is more effective to give less money or what your point really is.


My point is that a percentage of GDP doesn't say anything useful at all. I've said it before: I'm not arguing that the US shouldn't give more aid. I think it's possible, and in fact probable, that we should. I'm simply saying that the premise that we should give more and the question of how much more are not at all related to the fact that Sweden et al. give .7% of their GDP.



I agree that it is the goal itself rather than the exact percentage that is important. But somehow I think it is reasonable if the wealthier nations pay more.


Pay more of what? You are hypothesizing the existence of a big Global Aid Tax that gets distributed by a wise and benevolent overseer. (I'd nominate Johan Freeberg, being Swedish and all. :)) Foreign aid policy is determined by individual nations in accordance with their own foreign policy goals. Again, should the wealthier nations of Europe be required to match US contributions to Israel according to their GDP? Should the US have been required to match Soviet aid to its client states during the Cold War?

[James Gutierrez]

As long as we know you're on the opposite side from Jesus here. ;0

Yeah, I'm in Santa Claus' corner all the way. Seriously, I don't follow. Jesus didn't feel compelled to match the widow's contribution according to his own capacity presumably because he had his own priorities. That's exactly my argument.

In any case, before Tom comes in and lays down a theological whuppin' I'm going to back away slowly and admit that I'm way out of my depth as far as religious discussion. In fact, I probably shouldn't even be in the pool. So I hereby concede all current and future points related to, concerning, or brought up by Jesus Christ.

But not that bastard Buddha...

[Jason McCullough]

As long as we know you're on the opposite side from Jesus here. ;0

Yeah, I'm in Santa Claus' corner all the way. Seriously, I don't follow. Jesus didn't feel compelled to match the widow's contribution according to his own capacity presumably because he had his own priorities. That's exactly my argument.

In any case, before Tom comes in and lays down a theological whuppin' I'm going to back away slowly and admit that I'm way out of my depth as far as religious discussion. In fact, I probably shouldn't even be in the pool. So I hereby concede all current and future points related to, concerning, or brought up by Jesus Christ.

But not that bastard Buddha...

Are you consciously trying to miss the point? The ethical worth of a gift depends on the size of the gift, compared to the status of the giver.

[Erik Andersson]

We obviously have a different perspective on the issue, I see it on the individual level and you see it on the national level. Percentage of GDP is a relevent metric if you want to know if an individual, no matter what country he or she lives in, gives an equivalent amount of money to foreign aid. It's obviously not a perfect one.

Sweden spends 1% of GDP on foreign aid, but that is only 2 billion USD. The US can (and does, I suppose) give a lot more in absolute numbers, and will obviously have a larger impact. With your reasoning it seems meaningless for an individual to give any money whatsoever unless he is Bill Gates.

(I saw that Luxembourg and Denmark also had reached the 0.7% goal)

[Jason McCullough]

*whacks head on table, gives up*

[Michael Fortson]

hehe :)


Beer!

[voltaic]

Off topic, is the Truman doctrine (in Europe and Japan) unprecendented in war? Had nations ever, literally, rebuilt a defeated nation after a war before? I'm only asking because I think not, but acknowledge that some of you are way ahead of me here.

It was more or less the standard policy of Ancient Rome.

[voltaic]

Well, by that measure, Jesus was the least virtuous of them all since he theoretically could have given an infinite amount. It's a fine measure of the virtue of the widow, but evidently Jesus didn't base his own donation policy on the relative contributions of others.

He gave his human life to save our sorry asses. Is that not enough for you?

[Tom Chick]

It was more or less the standard policy of Ancient Rome.

Yeah, but they copied it from Alexander the Great. :)

In fact, I'd say empire building pretty much requires this approach.

-Tom

[Michael Fortson]

In fact, I'd say empire building pretty much requires this approach.

-Tom

Hehe... very good point.

[James Gutierrez]

Are you consciously trying to miss the point? The ethical worth of a gift depends on the size of the gift, compared to the status of the giver.

No, I got your point. Unfortunately it is so simplistic that it's not very useful. It completely fails to consider whether or not the gift should be made in the first place. Foreign aid policy is a continuous series of decisions as to whether the money is better spent abroad or at home.

In any case, I've said all along that if the Swedes or Dutch or whoever wants to claim that they are more virtuous based on their aid contributions relative to GDP that's fine with me. But to me that's just rhetoric. It doesn't mean that they've done more good in the world, and it certainly doesn't mean that the US should match their relative contributions.

[Michael Fortson]

The average Scandinavian, through their individual tax contributions which are distributed by their government, is currently contributing a hell of a lot more in direct aid than the average American is through their government.

That make everyone happy? :wink:

[James Gutierrez]

We obviously have a different perspective on the issue, I see it on the individual level and you see it on the national level. Percentage of GDP is a relevent metric if you want to know if an individual, no matter what country he or she lives in, gives an equivalent amount of money to foreign aid. It's obviously not a perfect one.


I completely agree. My argument is that knowing that equivalence or disparity, whether between nations or individuals, is not very useful. What conclusions do you draw from that information? The obvious implication in this case is that the US should spend more on foreign aid. Ok, fine. Tell me where and why there instead of on domestic problems -- that's a real argument. It's also one that I suspect I would agree with you on more often than not. What I don't agree with is the idea the the US GDP has any bearing on the question.



Sweden spends 1% of GDP on foreign aid, but that is only 2 billion USD. The US can (and does, I suppose) give a lot more in absolute numbers, and will obviously have a larger impact. With your reasoning it seems meaningless for an individual to give any money whatsoever unless he is Bill Gates.


Sorry, but that's not my reasoning at all. Where did I say that anything was meaningless? Enough with the analogies and parables, my argument is very simple and specific: Comparing foreign aid expenditures as a percentage of GDP does not lead to any useful conclusions.

[James Gutierrez]

The average Scandinavian, through their individual tax contributions which are distributed by their government, is currently contributing a hell of a lot more in direct aid than the average American is through their government.

That make everyone happy? :wink:

Sure, I'm happy. I'll also concede the argument as soon as you tell me how that information is useful in any way except to make Scandinavians feel good about themselves.

[Michael Fortson]

As they well should. I think pretty much everyone here thinks it is relevant and useful information. Except you. Just enjoy your uniqueness I guess :D

[James Gutierrez]

Well, by that measure, Jesus was the least virtuous of them all since he theoretically could have given an infinite amount. It's a fine measure of the virtue of the widow, but evidently Jesus didn't base his own donation policy on the relative contributions of others.

He gave his human life to save our sorry asses. Is that not enough for you?

If I were Christian, it would be. On the other hand, with a miniscule fraction of his ability he could also have given us all x-ray vision and a lifetime supply of doritos, but he didn't. According to Jason, that makes him less ethical than the widow who gave everything she had.

[James Gutierrez]

As they well should. I think pretty much everyone here thinks it is relevant and useful information. Except you. Just enjoy your uniqueness I guess :D

Ok, so I'm an idiot. Enlighten me, answer the question I posed countless posts ago, and explain to me exactly how that information is useful.

[Michael Fortson]

Sorry James, not worth it. You just have a different opinion than other people.. that doesn't make you an idiot :p

[Jason McCullough]

Are you consciously trying to miss the point? The ethical worth of a gift depends on the size of the gift, compared to the status of the giver.

No, I got your point. Unfortunately it is so simplistic that it's not very useful. It completely fails to consider whether or not the gift should be made in the first place. Foreign aid policy is a continuous series of decisions as to whether the money is better spent abroad or at home.

In any case, I've said all along that if the Swedes or Dutch or whoever wants to claim that they are more virtuous based on their aid contributions relative to GDP that's fine with me. But to me that's just rhetoric. It doesn't mean that they've done more good in the world, and it certainly doesn't mean that the US should match their relative contributions.

You might have brought up "foriegn aid isn't necessarily good" a lot earlier then. This is the first time you've mentioned it!

[James Gutierrez]

You might have brought up "foriegn aid isn't necessarily good" a lot earlier then. This is the first time you've mentioned it!


Sorry Jason, but for someone who accused me of consciously trying to miss the point, you're being a little thickheaded here. I thought it was obvious enough that money spent on foreign aid is money not spent elsewhere. In fact without that assumption, the whole discussion is pointless. If the money can't be spent elsewhere, then why .7% instead of just 100%?



*whacks head on table, gives up*


Sonny Bono already tried that.

[James Gutierrez]

Sorry James, not worth it. You just have a different opinion than other people.. that doesn't make you an idiot :p

Evidently, though, I share this 'unique' opinion with at least a few members of the US congress, state dept, etc over the last 10 years, since we haven't exactly jumped on that .7% bandwagon. Given the arguments, or lack thereof, that I've seen here, I wouldn't expect us to any time soon.

[Michael Fortson]

Well, no... it's not the .7% accord that people here unanimously disagree with you on.

You seem to think that the fact that we haven't ratified the .7% agreement somehow supports (to the point of indisputable conclusion) your assertion that any comparison based on GDP is meaningless.

A person can make a comparison without suggesting that we perfectly match someone else. You have taken an extreme view of the entire concept of making the comparison.

I've seen objections made to ratifying .7%, and they uniformly state that the goal should be based on objectives not _just_ a GDP figure. Which is an effective (if grossly obvious) argument that also unfortunately dodges the harder (and perhaps more important to the people asking) implied question of why we aren't spending that much... which there are also simple replies for, although it opens us up to a more lengthy discussion.

Getting back to the subject, one point in simply making a comparison that shows such a wide variance in contributions is that it is a good illustration to suggest that we aren't currently finding and approving enough projects. Which is news to nobody. It's not just a binary "they're meeting the accord and we're not". We already know we have backed off way too far on aid, and subsequent budgets will probably double last year's budget within a couple of years. Just because we already know we aren't doing enough doesn't remove merit from someone using a statistic showing an extreme difference to suggest that we aren't doing enough.

O'Neil wants to do alot more than we are. His only comment, made repeatedly in direct replies to questions about ratifying that agreement, implied that the agreement was produced as a top-down reactionary approach rather than realistic bottom-up appraisal by stating only that he thinks we should move forward based on bottom-up appraisals of projects instead of picking a number and filling it. And as an aside, his reply was incomplete and smacked of rhetoric. A better reply in my opinion would include "yes, we've looked at that and we don't think we need to spend _that_ much more, and certainly not all at once because of an imposed obligation, but we are increasing our spending... we will go at our own speed and approve projects as we think we ought to"... which isn't as good of a sound bite but accurately reflects what we're doing anyway. But I digress.

The .7% accord is only one of your arguments, and that is not the one that I pointed out that everyone here disagrees with you on. It's your assertion of the complete irrelevance of making any such comparison as the one Erik made, from which among other things one can ascertain "they're spending 7 times what we are based on abilities", which can be effectively used to imply that we could do more. Which you yourself don't disagree with. It's such a simple thing it feels goofy even arguing about it :)

[James Gutierrez]

Well, no... it's not the .7% accord that people here unanimously disagree with you on.

You seem to think that the fact that we haven't ratified the .7% agreement somehow supports (to the point of indisputable conclusion) your assertion that any comparison based on GDP is meaningless.

A person can make a comparison without suggesting that we perfectly match someone else. You have taken an extreme view of the entire concept of making the comparison.


Well, I would point out here that the quote that I originally replied to was Erik's:



A couple of years ago the only countries who spent more than 0.7% of GDP were Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands. I hope you will join the club soon.


Nevertheless, I agree that that just needlessly narrows the discussion, so...



The .7% accord is only one of your arguments, and that is not the one that I pointed out that everyone here disagrees with you on. It's your assertion of the complete irrelevance of making any such comparison as the one Erik made, from which among other things one can ascertain "they're spending 7 times what we are based on abilities", which can be effectively used to imply that we could do more. Which you yourself don't disagree with. It's such a simple thing it feels goofy even arguing about it :)


You're right, I do agree with that implication. However, I don't think that 'we could do more' is a useful conclusion to draw; if we couldn't do more then what's the point of the debate? Just as every dollar spent on foreign aid is a dollar not spent on other programs, we can obviously spend less on other programs and spend more on foreign aid. In my mind, any debate on foreign aid should take "Could we?" as a given and begin with the question "Should we?". That's what I disagree with: not necessarily the conclusion that we should, but that this premise logically leads to that conclusion.



I've seen objections made to ratifying .7%, and they uniformly state that the goal should be based on objectives not _just_ a GDP figure. Which is an effective (if grossly obvious) argument that also unfortunately dodges the harder (and perhaps more important to the people asking) implied question of why we aren't spending that much... which there are also simple replies for, although it opens us up to a more lengthy discussion.


Exactly. And the GDP figure just as unfortunately dodges the real questions as well. It's a soundbite statistic that ignores any differences betweeen nations' goals and situations in order to imply a simplistic conclusion. In fact, I would say that from the point of view of someone arguing for more aid spending such a statistic is not only useless, it's actually harmful. Not only does it fail to provide a reason why we should increase spending, but it sets up a big fat strawman for the opposition.



Just because we already know we aren't doing enough doesn't remove merit from someone using a statistic showing an extreme difference to suggest that we aren't doing enough.


Well, to me, a statistic that suggests something that either we already know or that can be more strongly argued another way is pretty useless. There's a serious debate to be had about why, how much, and where we should spend foreign aid. I don't see how this statistic furthers that discussion.

[Jason McCullough]

I'm amazed that you've managed to create a 100 post thread based on your political refusal to understand math.