erolyn wrote: I dunno, North Korea kinda worries me. Kim Jong Il is a scary evil man (although if I was a man and my name was Kim I might be evil, too), and he's threatened the U.S. and (I think) China with nuclear weapons more than once. And I'm sure lots of other people would LIKE to blow us up, and would not hesitate to do so if they ever got their hands on some missiles (sp?).
Nah, the U.S. is too vast, what are they going to do after they fire 3, maybe 5 missles? The retalitory factor would destroy any nation, minus maybe China.
As far as the atomic situation, let me put it this way:
Adolf Hitler died on April 30th, 1945, on May 7th, Germany surrendered to the Allies unconditionally. On June 5th, Allies divide up Germany and start running the government, all this time Japan is still fighting everyone. The three largest Allied powers issued the
Potsdam Declaration, which demanded that the Japanese Empire surrender immediately or face "prompt and utter destruction." on July 26th. On July 28th, Radio Tokyo broadcase that Japan would not surrender and continue to fight, and that they had not responded to the allies terms for surrender. In order to end the war, either Japan had to be invaded or we had to see who lasted longer; both of which cost more in human lives than anyone should have to pay. There were estimated 2 million soldiers defending the main island, an invasion or a siege would have been bad. We dropped the first bomb on August 6th, 1945 almost 3 months after Germany surrendered.
Also, you must think about the Soviet Union. At the time, we were an uneasy ally.
The enemy of my enemy is my ally This was the case with the soviet union. During the time after WWII, the soviet dictator would kill millions of his own citizen through terror, deportation, and concentration camps. He was interested in expansion as well. Two days after we dropped the first bomb(August 6th), the Soviets declares war on Japan and invaded Manchuria. On August 9th, we drop the second bomb. 5 days after that, Japan finally agrees to an unconditional surrender.
About 250,000 people died from the bombs. The toll in lives from Japan and Russia would have been much
much higher in any other situation. Do some research and see what happened to POW's and citizens, the cost of a longer war was deemed to high a price to pay. I tend to agree, they didn't even blink when we bombed Tokyo and killed over 100,000. War is aweful, but more people are alive now because of that decision.
Archived topic from Anythingforums, old topic ID:361, old post ID:3707
with him or me.