Gyroscopic Investing

Pointedstick wrote: I actually agree with Ad Orientem on this. War is a horrible brutish business, no doubt about it. Better to end it quickly and decisively rather than dragging it out, allowing the misery and death to continue on for an extended period of time.

Can we nuke the Middle East yet?

Libertarian666 wrote:

Pointedstick wrote: I actually agree with Ad Orientem on this. War is a horrible brutish business, no doubt about it. Better to end it quickly and decisively rather than dragging it out, allowing the misery and death to continue on for an extended period of time.

I'm reminded of something Kbg said on this forum earlier this year ago that I felt compelled to save in my "insightful internet snippets" file:

Kbg wrote: Anyone who understands the history of the 100 Years war also understands, that yes you can kill your way out of something. It's not very fun getting there, but there is a point that even humans get tired of the killing and whatever beliefs they had get mellowed by a stronger desire for peace. People can also be "killed" into accepting beliefs previously absolutely anathema to them when those beliefs are no longer worth the cost. The US civil war is a pretty good example of that. War sucks, but the reason we humans do it is because it actually does work at resolving the big differences.

Assuming the war department's projections were correct, then yes, I think it is preferable that 100,000 Japanese died in nuclear armageddon than 3 million Japanese had died in close combat or further firebombing (arguably less humane). If their assessment was not correct, then that obviously changes things.

My understanding of what happened was that Japan was willing to surrender before the bombs were dropped, if they could keep their emperor. The Allies said "Nope. Unconditional surrender or we keep killing you."

If that is correct, then dropping the bombs was nothing but murder of civilians.

It is a popular myth pushed by left leaning historical revisionists. The evidence is at best ambiguous, but most historian doubt the Japanese military was prepared to surrender until they were ordered to by the Emperor. It is also interesting to note that several Japanese historians, widely regarded as revisionist in their own country, have recently published works supporting the bombings as the only way the war could be brought to an end given the intransigence of the Imperial General Staff.

But even if it were true, (which I do not believe), the only way it would hold any meaning from a moral perspective is if Truman knew they were preparing to surrender, which he certainly did not. The bottom line is Japan started that bloody war and we ended it. We ended it in an extremely brutal manner that transformed a hitherto aggressively militaristic Japan into a semi-pacifist nation with a deep abhorrence of war and a very strong humanitarian ethos. The same can be said for Germany, though we didn't nuke them.

A friend in the Navy once told me that the best way to cure a bully of anti-social behavioral issues is to beat the ever living crap out of him. That is probably not always true. But I am pretty sure it is at least sometimes.

Simonjester wrote: possibly related to this discussion.... the Japaneses and the samurai culture used to drive the ww2 Japanese military, was not unfamiliar with the concepts/justification used for the Hiroshima bombing by the west..

i just bumped into this quote in the forward to the "hagakure" "the book of the samuri"

in his famous military treatise Heih? Kadensho (1632), Yagy? Munenori (1571–1646) clarified how a virtuous ruler maintains the capacity to use military force to protect the masses. Thus, he argued, maintenance of a benevolent military government was vital for the wellbeing of the realm. “At times because of one man’s evil, ten thousand people suffer. So you kill that one man to let the tens of thousands live. Here, truly, the blade that deals death becomes the sword that saves lives.” In other words, the way of war was also seen as the way of peace