| |
Mr Alan
|
Smegma,
I did read the posts, but I have no idea what you mean by your last post, since you never provide specifics about this "strawman" claim (but please spare us the details).
Personally, I think we should let this topic fade into the sunset. We can argue "what ifs" ad infinitum, and speculate about what people like Truman were really thinking, but I don't think there are any absolute conclusions to be reached in this matter.
And what does this have to do with Thailand's participation during WWII?
|
Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 5:37 am on Sep. 7, 2003
|
|
Smegma
|
Quote: from Mr Alan on 5:37 pm on Sep. 7, 2003
....since you never provide specifics about this "strawman" claim (but please spare us the details). ......
And what does this have to do with Thailand's participation during WWII?
"Spare US?" LOL. Are you starting to have delusions of grandeur? "US"! 5555 Or is it another case of Sybil? You are funny.
I pastedrecently in another thread the link to MrJoe's post discussing the straw man thing. I guess you missing it proves you really don't read the posts -you would have noticed the link.
Anyway, if you do not know but still want to find out what the straw man strategy is, you could do two things: 1) some instrospection and think about how you debate. There is your answer. 2) Alternatively, use the search engine -like I did a few days back when I provided the link. There are very few posts with "straw man" in them. Finally, if you do not care to know, then do not even bring it up. Oh Sorry, I forgot you were talking on "their" behalf.
Are you really asking what does this have to do with Thailand's participation during WWII? I mean, are you looking for an answer? Or it is just a rhetorical question? Let me know because last time we discussed your rhetorical questions you got a bit tense and edgy. But maybe you really asking .... though I still find it difficult to believe that you are looking for an answer.
P.S.: btw, if you also don't have a clue about either Sybil or yourself for that matter ... well, use the search engine.
|
Bangkok Women : Meet Sensual Bangkok Women
Posted on: 7:44 am on Sep. 7, 2003
|
|
fastmover
|
Quote: from Mr Alan on 6:37 pm on Sep. 7, 2003
...We can argue "what ifs" ad infinitum, and speculate about what people like Truman were really thinking, but I don't think there are any absolute conclusions to be reached in this matter.
Oh man! Don't you get it? People love jawboning about history. Thats why this thread is 12/13 pages long!
Say...how about the fire-bombing of Dresden so late in the war....?
No? Then back to Thailand and the Japanese.......
'.....A Special Assembly of the League was held in February 1933 (17 months after the Japanese invasion of China). 40 nations voted that Japan was to blame for the war and should withdraw. SIAM ABSTAINED. Only Japan voted against it.......'
'......Instead of pulling out of Manchuria, Japan walked out of the League. In March 1932, Japan invaded Jehol, the Chinese province next to Manchuria......'
'.........The League suggested economic sanctions, but nothing was done because America (Japanís main trading partner) was not a member of the League, and because Britain wanted to keep trading with Japan. The League did not even stop arms sales, because it feared that this would make Japan declare war...........
Strange bed partners! Its always about P4P!
|
Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 7:55 am on Sep. 7, 2003
|
|
Smegma
|
Quote: from Mr Alan on 5:06 pm on Sep. 7, 2003
http://www.doug-long.com/hiroshim.htm
I guess you don't even read fully your own references 
BTW, part 2 of your reference is even more interesting reading than the 1st.
I quote from there:
** "It didn't take long after the atomic bombings for questions to arise as to their necessity for ending the war and Japan's threat to peace. One of the earliest dissents came from a panel that had been requested by President Truman to study the Pacific war. Their report, The United States Strategic Bombing Survey, was issued in July 1946. It declared, "Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945 and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated." (Bernstein, ed., The Atomic Bomb, pg. 52-56)."
That was the conclusion of a USA panel working for President Truman! WOW! And only a year later, when it could be argued that emotions were still running high and being impartial may have been more difficult. On the other hand, they had the benefit of being close to the events timeline and having access to recent information.
** "In 1948 Sec. of War Henry Stimson published his memoirs, ghost-written by McGeorge Bundy. In them Stimson revealed, "It is possible, in the light of the final surrender, that a clearer and earlier exposition of American willingness to retain the Emperor would have produced an earlier ending to the war". Stimson and Bundy continued, "Only on the question of the Emperor did Stimson take, in 1945, a conciliatory view; only on this question did he later believe that history might find that the United States, by its delay in stating its position, had prolonged the war." (Stimson & Bundy, pg. 628-629).
Robert Butow has affirmed Stimson's position: "Secretary of War Stimson has raised the question of whether an earlier surrender of Japan could have been achieved had the United States followed a different diplomatic and military policy during the closing months of the war. In the light of available evidence, a final answer in the affirmative seems possible, even probable." Butow continues, "Although it cannot be proved, it is possible that the Japanese government would have accepted the Potsdam Proclamation immediately had Secretary Stimson's reference to the imperial structure been retained. Such a declaration, while promising destruction if Japan resisted, would have offered hope if she surrendered. This was precisely Stimson's intention.""
Another quote: "It is likely Dwight Eisenhower was right when he said of the atomic bombings of Japan, "it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing." (Ike on Ike, Newsweek, 11/11/63)"
|
Bangkok Girls : Meet Sexy Bangkok Girls
Posted on: 8:45 am on Sep. 7, 2003
|
|
fastmover
|
Let's flip history.
If Japan had the bomb FIRST (and a viable delivery method), would they have used it to end the war early against the Americans?
Target cities say, Seattle and Dallas.
My guess? Absolutely and without remorse.
|
Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 10:09 am on Sep. 7, 2003
|
|
cmore
|
I think that Pearl Harbor is all you need to figure out the answer to your question. Peace
|
Bangkok Women : Meet Beautiful Thai Girls
Posted on: 10:14 am on Sep. 7, 2003
|
|
Mr Alan
|
Smegma,
Yes I did read the link about the strawman and I did read the entire article I quoted about Japanese surrender.
I don't agree with your analysis my use of the strawman argument, which is actually a strawman argument itself that you are trying to use against me. What you failed to state in any of your posts is exactly how my statements fit the strawman argument. You just made the claim and then posted a reference to fallacies of other people using such techniques in an argument. Instead of providing details, you often resort to personal attacks against me.
I quoted the article about the Japanese surrender for the facts it contained about the difficultly of getting the Japanese to unconditionally surrender, even after Nagasaki. Just because that article "referred" to other panels that believed (after the fact) that Japan ěprobablyî would have surrendered (again no certainty) by November of 1945 (instead of August 1945) without the bomb is irrelevant to the points I made. That panel was a group of people who have their own opinion and also have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight that Truman did not have. And that opinion was based upon a different surrender scenario (and not immediate unconditional surrender) than Truman wanted. The whole issue of the Emperor and unconditional surrender was not perfectly understood at the time.
I would probably agree that if unconditional surrender was not a requirement, and if Russian occupation of Japan was acceptable (with the probable created on a Communist Western Japan, much like the division of Germany), then perhaps the atomic the bomb on Nagasaki ěmightî have been avoided. Whether the Japanese (in hindsight) would have preferred such an alternate ending to WWII is also debatable.
I guess it's all debatable, but I thought that it was supposed to be debated in the Z forum. I try to not post in this thread, but some things I cannot let pass without a response.
|
Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 10:52 am on Sep. 7, 2003
|
|
fastmover
|
Quote: from cmore on 11:14 pm on Sep. 7, 2003
I think that Pearl Harbor is all you need to figure out the answer to your question. Peace
True, but in retrospect we all now know the particular upgrade in horror over conventional weapons the atomic bomb offers. I just wonder if history was flipped if there would be the same kind of 'soul searching' that the Americans have put themselves thru, by the Japanese.
My feeling is that there would not, which in its own way justifies the American first use.
The evil justifies the means.
|
Thai Girls : Meet Active Thai Girls
Posted on: 11:05 am on Sep. 7, 2003
|
|
Mr Alan
|
Smegma seems to take me to task for quoting facts from an article and then not automatically agreeing with the opinions quoted in that article (even when those opinions contain disclaimers such as ěprobablyî). Such a line of reasoning by Smegma is rife with logical fallacies.
But getting back to whether the US was justified in using the atomic bomb, the various people or groups quoted are looking at the issue from different points in time (not to mention from different ideologies).
President Truman made the decision without complete understanding of the importance of Japanese Emperor (believed by Japanese to be descended from God) and how this would impact a demand for unconditional surrender that did not mention anything about the continuation of the Emperor afterwards.
The panel that had been requested by President Truman to study the Pacific war (The United States Strategic Bombing Survey) had the benefit of detailed investigation of all the facts after the war ended and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved. The panelís conclusions are based on the ěprobabilityî of obtaining a less than completely unconditional surrender by November 1945 (instead of the unconditional surrender that occurred in August 1945).
President Eisenhower made his statement in 1963, 18 years after the fact, and influenced by revisionist scholarship of the era.
But here is another opinion that relies on even more recent scholarship, this time from Japanese historians:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
by Nicholas D. Kristof
New York Times Op-Ed Columnist
"While American scholarship has undercut the U.S. moral position, Japanese historical research has bolstered it. The Japanese scholarship, by historians like Sadao Asada of Doshisha University in Kyoto, notes that Japanese wartime leaders who favored surrender saw their salvation in the atomic bombing. The Japanese military was steadfastly refusing to give up, so the peace faction seized upon the bombing as a new argument to force surrender.
"We of the peace party were assisted by the atomic bomb in our endeavor to end the war," Koichi Kido, one of Emperor Hirohito's closest aides, said later.
Wartime records and memoirs show that the Emperor and some of his aides wanted to end the war by summer 1945. But they were vacillating and couldn't prevail over a military that was determined to keep going even if that meant, as a navy official urged at one meeting, "sacrificing 20 million Japanese lives."
The atomic bombings broke this political stalemate and were thus described by Mitsumasa Yonai, the navy minister at the time, as a "gift from heaven."
Without the atomic bombings, Japan would have continued fighting by inertia. This would have meant more firebombing of Japanese cities and a ground invasion, planned for November 1945, of the main Japanese islands. The fighting over the small, sparsely populated islands of Okinawa had killed 14,000 Americans and 200,000 Japanese, and in the main islands the toll would have run into the millions.
"The atomic bomb was a golden opportunity given by heaven for Japan to end the war," Hisatsune Sakomizu, the chief cabinet secretary in 1945, said later.
Some argue that the U.S. could have demonstrated the bomb on an uninhabited island, or could have encouraged surrender by promising that Japan could keep its emperor. Yes, perhaps, and we should have tried. We could also have waited longer before dropping the second bomb, on Nagasaki.
But, sadly, the record suggests that restraint would not have worked. The Japanese military ferociously resisted surrender even after two atomic bombings on major cities, even after Soviet entry into the war, even when it expected another atomic bomb ó on Tokyo."
You can see the complete article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/08/05/nyt.kristof/
|
Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 2:29 pm on Sep. 7, 2003
|
|
Smegma
|
Whatever MrAlan ....
I will stick to debating these matters with the other reasonable and at least half-smart guys in the forum.... (and this doesn't mean I agree with them). I would rather debate with guys who follow a logic reasoning line in these matters and who READ. Guys who know their history and are not just playing catch up. Guys like 3cazzi, tsonoqua, expatchuck, liftoff, francodepazzi, craigoz, humblestudent, phantomV, hermanolobo, the machine, padawan, kaisersoldaten, and many others.... Eventhough I may not agree with them, at least these guys know what they are talking about and they DO READ before attempting to sound smart or make fool of themselves -which comes easily to you, though you fail to notice ... unless ....
So ... Lets ignore each other from now on. If you agree ... show it by not even responding to this post. If not, do your usual silly reply routine.
You and I trying to debate something is a waste of time for all parties involved: you, me and the other bros who read the forum. No need to get into the detail of why. Lets just ignore each other in serious matters, and keep ourselves to addressing each other only on humorous matters -if at all. I hope for the sake of everybody else that you are willing to go along. If not, I will be happy to take you to Pussy-Pirate school. I will teach you well so that you graduate with honors.
|
Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 4:20 pm on Sep. 7, 2003
|
|
| |
|
