Theos-Talk Archives (September 2001 Message tt00270)

Obviously, you know very little about WWII, and Japan fighting in it.

The Fire-Bomb raids we conducted all over Europe and Japan were
directed at burning out everyone, the military, the factories, the
home factories (of which Japan had a lot), and the population in
general. Those were millions of very small bombs designed to create a
fire storm that consumed everything flamable below.

Bart is certainly right in this case, you are totally wrong.

I am a veteran of the U.S. Navy from the Korean war. I have been over
to Japan 6 years after the bomb was dropped. I talked with naval
officers who were training to do the invasion of Japan when the bomb
ended the war. My branch of the Navy was the Anphibs, those who
ferried the troops and tanks to the beach, and left them there while
we went back for more, and ferried them in in waves.

We had LSTs, long narrow ships with flat bottoms that had a bow door
and a ramp that would go right up on to the beach, open the bow door,
lower the ramp, and 10 to 15 tanks or trucks would roll off the ship
onto the beach, firing as they went.

They were reconfiguring these ships to have a couple of 5 inch guns on
them, with ammunition, and go up on the beach, and sit there till they
were knocked out.

Based on the resistance we encountered going into Iwo Jima, and
Okinawa, the Navy estimated that it would take 3 to 5 invasions of 1
million men each to get a toe hold on the Japanese mainland. That is
of our troops. The Japanese civilliand would be right in the way.

When the Japanese did surrender, we stipulated that they should place
a white flag on each bunker, gun emplacement, entrance to a tunnel,
etc.

They ran out of white cloth around Tokyo Bay, and took bed sheets and
tore them up for flags, and went next to men and women's undergarmets,
and then to some of their kimonos.

Some of the officers that I talked with, who went in to Tokyo with the
first troops, said that it looked like a snow storm had hit the
region.

I assume you haven't done any research at all about this, so check the
data on the tunnels and bunkers at Iwo Jima. It was the same with
Tokyo Bay. Check out Tokyo Bay on the maps. At the head of the bay,
where Tokyo is located, there is a long "C" shaped beach, good for
landings, and there is one continual citie from Tokyo, through
Yokohama, Yokosuka, Kamakura, Kobe, Osaka, Nagoya. Lots of civilians
to get hurt in a conventional invasion.

I visited Nagasaki in 1953, It was a nice sea port, and almost just
under the place where the bomb went off was a large Mitubishi Steel
Mill, and it was in a nice little round valley.

The Bomb finished off what the fire-bombing had missed. Hiroshima was
a major port on the waterway between the main island, and a large
southern island.

Tokyo is on a large flat plain to the north of those two places.

The two bombs killed a very limited number of people. Far fewer than
we would have lost in OUR military personel, if we would have needed
to invade the country. You can estimate THEIR military from the
statistics on IWO JIMA, and the number of civilian casualties that
would have happened had we needed to invade would have been
astronomical.

With all the home factories that there were in Japan, there was no way
to separate the civilian targets from the military targets. I assume
from your message that you have never been to a city that an
on-the-ground military operation has passed through.

You, in my opinion, have absolutely no idea what you are talking
about.

Dennis

----- Original Message -----
From: Majorinc, Kazimir <kmajor@public.srce.hr>
To: <theos-talk@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2001 1:34 PM
Subject: Re: Theos-World - US Karma


> Bart wrote:
>
>
> > > f) Using the A-bomb twice on Japan;
> >
> > Which, in the long run, caused a LOT fewer Japanese deaths
than an
> >invasion of the mainland (the only other reasonable alternative).
Or,
> >are you saying that death by a bigger bomb is somehow worse than
death
> >by a bunch of smaller bombs?
>
> Bart, you are right about most things you write, terrorists do not
care
> about American sins from past, and if violence against burglars,
robbers
> and similar is justified, then there should be no doubt about
violence
> against terrorists. It seems that people call on ahimsa only against
strong
> and dangerous enemies, but never against small local criminals.
However,
> justifying A-bomb is to much, Bart. Both small and big bombings of
> civilians are forbidden, invasion is - if army is strong enough,
possible
> without bombing of civilians - and if it is not possible, it is not
> possible and period. Everything more than that is officially
classified war
> crime. Real motive is much simpler, it is - we will kill your
daughters so
> you give up from killing our soldiers. Understandable, but not less
criminal.
>
> I think that every philosophical system that pretend to explain
things in
> their deepness, as theosophy do, should offer clear and unambiguous
answers
> on ethical questions like those recently discussed on this list.
>
> ---------------------------------
>
> Kazimir Majorinc, Zagreb, Croatia
> http://public.srce.hr/~kmajor
> M e r c y o f C h a o s
>
>
>
>
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http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>