Hiroshima and Nagasaki... warcrimes?

[Ando]

A lot of Americans alive today wouldnt be here now if they didnt use the bomb. Also Russia could have gained a lot more territory in the pacific which wouldnt have been a good thing.

Its was the right decision IMHO.

[HaEn]

A lot of Americans alive today wouldnt be here now if they didnt use the bomb. Also Russia could have gained a lot more territory in the pacific which wouldnt have been a good thing.

Its was the right decision IMHO.

Now comes the clincher; I happen to agree with you. it DID shorten the war and it DID save U.S. service men lives. But . . . .right or wrong the bombing of civilian targets can really not be justified by reason of necessity. As has been said before: History is written by the Victors. HN.

[POW]

Hiroshima and Nagasaki... warcrimes?

Yes!

[Caldric]

If Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been destroyed by German A-bombs, it would have been a war crime , but naturally, since it was done to shorten the war and "save" hundreds of thousands of lives, by the U.S. it was a necessary(sic) and justified(sic) action . HN

I do not know how much I would believe this Haen, consider that there were no trials for the Bombing of cities against Germans. However if the Germans had the bomb I doubt we would be to worried about it right now.

[POW]

I do not know how much I would believe this Haen, consider that there were no trials for the Bombing of cities against Germans. However if the Germans had the bomb I doubt we would be to worried about it right now.

What if fiction! Although I can understand the US gouvernment wanted to save as many lives of US soldiers as possible, the bombing if Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a crime in my humble opinion. Caldric, you are moving on thin ice.

[Roberto]

There aren't any "legal" principles internationally, Mr. lawyer, because sovereign states make the laws; this is not to say that there might not be moral or other operating principles, however.

I know that's one of your articles of faith, Mr. Smith.

You don't have to repeat that fathomless nonsense over and over again.

When you have a quiet moment, think about whether prevailing legal opinion, which considers the common will of a community of sovereign nations (the conventions and acknowledged principles and customs that make up international law) to override the will of one single sovereign nation (national law), is not a logical consequence of the very powers of sovereignty that you believe in.

No, it's not, Roberto. Not without creating a higher sovereingty to enforce the law, which is to say world-government.

The sovereignty, to the extent it is required at all, is the common will of a community of sovereigns, expressed through conventions or through the observance of certain customs and principles over a given period of time.

The existence or not of an organ speaking for this sovereignty is irrelevant to the sovereignty being in place and to its legislative powers.

Also think about what you will do when the government of the sovereign United States of America rules that all "Anglo-Saxon Celts" must disappear from the face of the earth.

Wow! Looks like the "gor is getting oxed."

Don’t hide behind bullshit, Smith.

Answer the question.

Roberto, you seem to think that just because a nation is sovereign that it necessarily means it is a tyranny.

Roberto sure feels sorry for people who can write such fathomless nonsense.

In your worldview a tyranny isn't possible with some community of nations all with empty platitudes about human-rights.

Well, the taking over of a community of nations by the kind of morons Smith looks up to is far less likely than the taking over of a single nation by such morons, which makes the supervision of the individual by the community a workable solution for assuring compliance with the principles of international law.

I record that Smith considers human rights to be “empty platitude”.

Which means he also considers himself to have none.

Which means that he considers the power of state entitled to do with him whatever is deemed to serve its “political needs”.

Interesting.

You seem to discount that perhaps the greatest source of potential tyranny today is the notion of "crusading against tyranny" or establishing a defacto totalitarian system to crush "totalitarianism."

I’ve seen no evidence to that.

Maybe Smith can demonstrate that this “greatest source of potential tyranny” (emphasis mine) exists outside his own mind.

As we're at it, how can the exercise of the power of sovereign states be "tyranny" by your reasoning, Mr. Smith?

Sorry, but you can't get there without creating some higher sovereignty.

The fundamental principles of human behavior established by express or tacit ethical agreement among civilized nations require no "higher sovereignity" to be in place.

Who looks for a sovereignty, however, can find it in the community of civilized sovereign nations acknowledging and abiding by the ideals of humanity developed since antiquity, which have thus become customary international law and to a large extent been also codified in multilateral treaties and conventions. International law attributes the same legislative value to custom as Anglo-Saxon Common Law does.

A Constitution is a different animal entirely than international agreements that Superpowers try to enforce upon weaker states, whether signators or not.

Well, agreements “that Superpowers try to enforce upon weaker states” exist only in the minds of Smith and his ilk, and if a constitution were required for state aggressions against the individual to be considered illegal, dictatorships who cleverly do without one could never be in breach of any law.

Which theory, unless we want to accept the premise that the individual is just clay in the hands of a state that can mold it or dispose of it as it sees fit, doesn’t exactly make sense, does it?

What exactly was so criminal (or whatever other term Smith may want to use instead, true to his creed that sovereign states can commit no crimes) about demanding unconditional surrender of a nation that had engaged in wars of aggression and annihilation, broken almost every treaty it was bound to and slaughtered millions of unarmed non-combatants outside the scope of what can be deemed acts of war, Smith has so far been unable to explain.

[One of Smith’s unpalatable and meaningless rhetorical speeches that I won’t bore the audience responding to.]

Instead, I’ll ask Smith to cut out the bullshit and provide a clear, concise and intelligible answer to my question.

Sure, sovereign states can legally demand any terms they want, as they are the law--or demand no terms at all, as with the Allied Unconditional Surrender--but then they should not whine about "Crimes Against Humanity" either.

Why not, Mr. Smith?

Because it is pure hypocrisy.

Where’s the hypocrisy, Mr. Smith?

If you subdue a terrorist by force rather than negotiate with him, does that make trying him for his acts of terrorism hypocritical?

Why would the understandable unwillingness to negotiate with a lawbreaker preclude its being judged on account of its violations of international law?

Break what law? No one can unilaterally make the law to be broken, except a Sovereign.

Well, international law is not made “unilaterally”.

It consists of agreements among sovereign nations expressing the common will of such sovereigns, and of customs and principles that this community manifests its will to adhere to by applying them over a given period of time.

It thus comes into being not “unilaterally”, but through multilateral declarations of will.

As Dan noted earlier, a contract requires consent. Versailles was a "Yellow Dog Contract," or does Roberto disagree with that?

The validity of any contract requires the contracting parties’ free will, which apparently wasn’t present at Versailles.

But then, Nazi Germany didn’t merely break the Versailles Treaty, did it?

Also broken were just about all treaties and conventions that the Reich had entered into at one time or the other, as well as rules and principles of customary international law that Germany had observed and adhered to before the Nazi government decided otherwise.

As I said, the term [crime] implies the violation of rules to be abided by.

Again, who defines these violations of the rules?

The rules themselves.

Whether the apologists of unlimited state power like it or not, the legislative power of individual nations has limitations arising in particular (according to general legal opinion) from the fundamental principles of human behavior that have crystallized in all civilized nations on the basis of ethical agreement.

Hence international law has precedence over national law if the latter conflicts with the former, according to prevailing legal opinion.

Hence an individual nation cannot validly make laws that go against said fundamental principles, namely such that allow or encourage murder in general or under certain circumstances.

But the National Socialist government didn’t even make such laws. Instead it broke the provisions of German criminal law that remained in force and according to which alone those involved in Nazi crimes were tried by West German courts.

Interesting theory, but how does Smith know that the dilemma was a "false" one?

Because I see no reason for why the troops had to home before Christmas besides propaganda. Truman did not have the same political mandate as FDR had.

Was it an issue of "home before Christmas", Mr. Smith?

Well, what was it an issue of, then?

Forcing the surrender of an aggression-prone military enemy, the alternative being to allow it to recover and strike again, as I said.

While it is questionable whether that required an invasion of the Japanese homelands, let us look at what the alternatives would have implied. Aside from the enormous casualties that ongoing conventional bombing would have caused, the following aspects must be considered:

a) Civilian casualties from malnutrition and disease: Obviously significant casualties would have accrued, had the war been prolonged several months, from malnutrition and disease, especially as antibiotic treatment for tuberculosis and other bacterial infections was not available to Japanese civilians at that time.

b) Japanese military casualties in bypassed areas: In the Central Pacific, many of the islands the Japanese expected the US to attack were bypassed, and the garrisons left to wither and die. Prolonging the war would have resulted in even greater suffering for these soldiers, and for any civilians unfortunate enough to be on the same islands.

c) Civilian casualties in Japanese-occupied areas, namely the savage mistreatment of civilians in Japanese-occupied China and French Indo-China. These areas were still in Japanese possession at the time of the Japanese surrender. Prolonging the war would have prolonged the agony of these civilian populations.

As we can see, there were plenty of good reasons to bring the war to an end, and to do it quickly.

Which doesn’t justify an attack on a defenseless civilian population in violation of the Hague Rules of Land Warfare, however.

And which, while it may make the bombing of Hiroshima look like the lesser of inevitable evils assuming that there would have been no other way to achieve a quick surrender, would by no means “justify” the perfectly unnecessary bombing of Nagasaki.

Besides, I have criticized and pointed out what Germany SHOULD have done MANY times.

From the point of view of legality and humanity, Mr. Smith?

No, from my point-of-view.

Who cares for your point of view, Smith, tainted as it is with warlord thinking and apologetic imbecility?

Every crime has its own "merit".

Again, we are not talking about statutory crimes, my friend.

Of course not.

The killing of non-combatants in violation of the Hague and Geneva Conventions was not a crime.

Even less so was the killing of non-combatants outside the scope of anything that may be deemed acts of war, for no other reason than their belonging to an ethnicity viewed as harmful and parasitical by the moronic heads of a moronic state.

If that ethnicity were Smith’s “Anglo-Saxon Celts” and the state were the USA, Smith would not see the killing as a crime either, would he?

There are no historical frames of reference and now none are needed.

I'll explain on hand of an example what Smith considers "frames of reference".

I will say: "The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were war crimes because they constituted attacks on a defenseless civilian population with weapons of mass destruction."

Smith will say: "The gassing of hundreds of thousands of people by the Nazis at the concentration/extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau [assuming he doesn't deny that it occurred at all] was not a crime but the legitimate exercise of the power of a sovereign state, no different from the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki."

I think I'm not the only one willing to tell Smith where he can stick such "frames of reference".

Yeah, depends on whose ox is being gored, doesn't it, Roberto...

I'd say my example makes out exactly the opposite.

I don't think it does unless you can make out some kind of "uniqueness" argument, that gassing one's enemies is qualitatively worse than irradiating them.

Poor Smith.

Who said a difference resided in the killing method, Mr. Smith?

That is perfectly irrelevant.

The qualitative difference was between mass killing in order to achieve a legitimate military objective on the one hand and mass killing in pursuit of a moronic ideological-political objective on the other.

A better comparison would be Auschwitz and the Gruesome Harvest, because we would not get lost in the polemics of "military objectives."

In this respect the difference resides in the amount of criminal energy involved in either case, as already explained on another thread. It’s one thing to expel people from their homes without regard to what will happen to them, another to take them to a given place and slaughter them there.

Besides, another word for Sovereignty is Freedom.

Exactly.

Freedom of thought and speech, which helps the work of objective historians.

Also freedom of nonsense, which "Revisionists" are entitled to.

Just because you might disagree with an idea (assuming that you even looked at it) doesn't make it wrong or "nonsense."

No. But when it is at odds with evidence and logic and doesn’t stand up to reasonable arguments and questions, as is the case with Smith’s contentions, the term “nonsense” is perfectly justified.

And an ideologically motivated propagandist who for two years has tried to sell "Revisionist" cream cheese on this forum shouldn't lecture anyone about "historical methodology".

I would say that with a few exceptions I know more about historiography than anyone else on the forum, as it is one of my hobbies.

Maybe so, but none of that knowledge shows on this forum when it comes to Smith's articles of faith. What is more, his professed knowledge of the rules and principles of historiography only makes his violation thereof in support of an ideological agenda look all the more miserable.

Says you! You have hated me since I defended the integrity of Ted O'Keefe--yeah, you disagreed with him. Big deal.

Poor Smith is really one of the sorriest creatures that I have ever come across.

As he well knows, I used to make a distinction between him and the erstwhile editor of the “Journal of Historical Review”, who has about as much integrity as the Pope has a sex life.

But Smith’s endless repetition of always the same beaten “Revisionist” nonsense eventually made me realize that he was no better than Mr. O’Keefe.

But agreeing-to-disagree is something that is foreign to your nature, Roberto.

Not at all, Smith.

It just takes something worth agreeing to disagree with.

I have seen nothing from you so far that would comply with this requirement.


The audience may have noticed that I skipped a substantial part of Smith’s nonsensical ramblings and replied only to those that I considered to have a minimum entertainment value.

This was done in order to avoid boring the audience, in which I hope to have succeeded.

[Roberto]

What is the difference between killing millions of Jews and killing hundreds of thousand of Japanese civilians?

Is it the numerical amount?

The quantitative difference is certainly significant.

Is if the method of killing?

The method of killing is completely irrelevant.

Is it the organisational structure?

What do you mean by that?

Is it the motives / ideology behind the killings?

The main qualitative difference resides therein. It is one thing to kill unarmed non-combatants in pursuit of a legitimate military objective, another to kill them out of ideological-political considerations and outside the scope of anything that may be considered acts of war.

Is it racially based?

The Nazi mass murder of the Jews was mainly due to the race/ethnicity of the victims. The inhabitants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on the other hand, were targeted not because they were Japanese but because their death was expected to bring about the surrender of a military enemy.

I look forward to Scott Smith and Roberto offering their opinions on this.

Smith's opinion is quite simple: killing unarmed non-combatants in pursuit of a military objective is the same to him as killing them out of ideological-political considerations related to their race/ethnicity, and expelling people without regard for their fate he sees as no different from taking them to a given place and slaughtering them there.

This is understandable insofar as he considers either atrocity the perfectly legitimate exercise of the power of a sovereign state. Smith is convinced that the power of state is not limited by any of the fundamental principles of human behavior that have crystallized in all civilized nations since the dawn of civilization and especially in the course of the last two centuries.

Which means that, if the sovereign United States of America should one day decide that "Anglo-Saxon Celts" like Smith will be wiped out, Smith will diligently hang himself so as to save the government unnecessary expenses.

[HaEn]

Roberto: >>>>>>The Nazi mass murder of the Jews was mainly due to the race/ethnicity of the victims. The inhabitants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on the other hand, were targeted not because they were Japanese but because their death was expected to bring about the surrender of a military enemy.<<<<<<

You let me down Councelor, wasn't this the sort of statement the justification for wiping out 'undesirables' in the 3rd Reich ? i.e Jews ? "bringing about the surrender of the enemy" (yes I know that military was not in this equation).
HN.

[witness]

I think there is quite a difference between the"military enemy'' whose
threat is real and some imaginary ''conspiring enemy'' which is just a result of somebody's paranoid ideations.

[Roberto]

Roberto: >>>>>>The Nazi mass murder of the Jews was mainly due to the race/ethnicity of the victims. The inhabitants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on the other hand, were targeted not because they were Japanese but because their death was expected to bring about the surrender of a military enemy.<<<<<<

You let me down Councelor, wasn't this the sort of statement the justification for wiping out 'undesirables' in the 3rd Reich ? i.e Jews ? "bringing about the surrender of the enemy" (yes I know that military was not in this equation).
HN.

I don't remember having seen any statement in this direction.

And even if there had been one, it would have been somewhat less than honest, because not even the maddest Nazi could in all seriousness have expected any of their opponents to give in to any of their demands on account of the massacre of Jews, gypsies, mental patients and other "undesirables".

So I don't see your point.

I also don't understand what this "Councelor" crap is supposed to mean.

Just in case you didn't read my posts and think that I consider the nuclear bombings to have been justified: I don't.

I consider them criminal, though less so both in quantitative and qualitative terms than the Nazi genocide.

[Caldric]

I do not know how much I would believe this Haen, consider that there were no trials for the Bombing of cities against Germans. However if the Germans had the bomb I doubt we would be to worried about it right now.

What if fiction! Although I can understand the US gouvernment wanted to save as many lives of US soldiers as possible, the bombing if Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a crime in my humble opinion. Caldric, you are moving on thin ice.

Well that is your opinion, I happen to disagree with it. Hindsight is 20/20.

[Scott Smith]

I think there is quite a difference between the"military enemy'' whose threat is real and some imaginary ''conspiring enemy'' which is just a result of somebody's paranoid ideations.

I definitely agree. But is it your opinion that the Germans had no grievances against the Jews whatever?

[Roberto]

I think there is quite a difference between the"military enemy'' whose threat is real and some imaginary ''conspiring enemy'' which is just a result of somebody's paranoid ideations.

I definitely agree. But is it your opinion that the Germans had no grievances against the Jews whatever?

1. What grievances does Smith think the Germans had with "the Jews"?

2. And what grievances could have possibly justified the planned and systematic mass murder of millions of people?

[Scott Smith]

I think there is quite a difference between the"military enemy'' whose threat is real and some imaginary ''conspiring enemy'' which is just a result of somebody's paranoid ideations.

I definitely agree. But is it your opinion that the Germans had no grievances against the Jews whatever?

1. What grievances does Smith think the Germans had with "the Jews"?

You tell me. But I asked witness what he thinks.

2. And what grievances could have possibly justified the planned and systematic mass murder of millions of people?

NO, of course not; that would be reductio ad absurdum. I would never advocate punishing the innocent.

[Roberto]

1. What grievances does Smith think the Germans had with "the Jews"?

You tell me.

None at all, apart from the fact that "the Jews" as a coherent body collective exist only in the minds of "Revisionist" morons.

But I asked witness what he thinks.

The very idea of asking such a question is instructive enough.

2. And what grievances could have possibly justified the planned and systematic mass murder of millions of people?

NO, of course not; that would be reductio ad absurdum. I would never advocate punishing the innocent.

"Punishing", Mr. Smith?

For what?