saquigley@watdaisy.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) (01/16/84)
This is a flame, but I decided it would be more appropriate in net.politics as it is directed at most of net.politickers, especially the americans ones. Not being an american, I am very angered by americans' vision that anything furthest away than 1 meter (pardon me, 1 yard) from their noses is not worth looking at. A few recent events have made me especially angry. The first one is the US public outrage at the killing of those marines in Lebanon. Hear this, there is a WAR going on in Lebanon, and it has been going on for YEARS. Anybody who enters this area stands a very good chance of being killed especially if they are representatives of what is considered to be a hostile influence. Those marines who were killed were not exactly blue cross workers, they were not innocent civilians, they were a hostile (for some) military presence and it is not surprising at all that they were targets. In this war thousands of innocent civilians have been killed and the american public never really cared until their own "boys" got killed themselves. Now, as Brooke Shields tearfully said "these boys are just like us" or something like that. This is true, and it is also true that marine recruits are often people who do not have many other opportunities in life, so I feel very sad that they did get killed and I can understand that the US public could be outraged by the fact that they were not given adequate protection (how much protection is "adequate" in a war?) but as I understand the public reaction people were outraged that people DARED killed americans. Well this might be news, but there is nothing sacred about americans: each one of their lives is worth exactly one life of any other person on the earth no less, but especially no MORE! The second event that angers me recently, but which is directly related to the first is the big fuss that is made at election time and which seems to occupy americans' minds so much that they fail to notice everything else. Yes, JJ went to Syria to save one good american black man. That was very nice of him (or very awful depending on who you listen to). At the same time Mr K was off with his commission making recommendations which except for one, if they are followed, will mean that hundreds or thousands more people are going to be killed in Central America. The one "human" recommendation that aid in El Salvador be tied to improved human rights was rejected by the administration. Your president is giving interviews saying in a sirupy voice that he will bring democracy and peace to central America and that governments will be elected "by ballot and not by gunpoint" while at the same time rejecting the only recommendation that would have shown his good will, and endorsing recommendations calling for more aid to Honduras in the form of arms; who is he fooling? the majority of the US population it seems. Is anybody listening? no, your "intellectual" segment of the population is off somewhere else debating whether JJ should have gone to Syria or not, or about which of the insipid democrats will win the nomination which won't make any difference in the world as America loves RR which has shown once again that the US is great even if that means invading a little island which could possibly not defend itself in the first place. RR will get in again because Americans want to believe that they are the greatest people in the world and he is the one who will feed them that garbage the best. That's all there is to it. And then you wonder why americans are hated everywhere in the world...... Sophie Quigley (and don't tell me to get the hell out of this country, I already am)
parnass@ihuxf.UUCP (01/18/84)
x
In a series of seemingly random flames maligning Americans1,
Sophie Quigley asserts:
"Another fact showing how self-centered americans are
is the furor and controversy that surrounded this whole
TDA story."
Don't judge my character, nor that of my fellow countrymen,
by the presentation of this or any other television show.
She continues:
"... Another thing which I find interesting is that
there hasn't really been a sense of guilt in America
about either the bombings of Hiroshima or Nagasaki,
like there has been in West Germany about the holocaust
....."
You are confused. The United States was at war with Japan.
The Germans2 were systematically murdering innocent civili-
ans, in an attempt to completely annihilate a people. Most
of my grandfather's family (mother, father, brother, etc.)
were murdered in an extermination camp during the holocaust,
how about yours?
"Now Hiroshima can be defended intellectually by
jugling [sic] numbers judiciously ......"
Rather than trying to appeal to your intellect, I shall
present a simple argument: It was "them or us."
My father was in the U.S. Army force being readied to invade
Japan, an operation that would have been very costly in
Allied lives. If Japan hadn't surrendered, my father would
have likely been a casualty, and I wouldn't be here to edu-
cate you.
__________
1. The word "Americans" will be capitalized in this
submission, current fads not withstanding.
2. We now call them Nazis, so as not to offend current
Germans.
--
============================================================================
Robert S. Parnass, AT&T Bell Laboratories, ihnp4!ihuxf!parnass (312)979-5760 alan@allegra.UUCP (Alan S. Driscoll) (01/18/84)
From: parnass@ihuxf.UUCP (Robert S. Parnass, AJ9S)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: flame on America
"... Another thing which I find interesting is that
there hasn't really been a sense of guilt in America
about either the bombings of Hiroshima or Nagasaki,
like there has been in West Germany about the holocaust
....."
You are confused. The United States was at war with Japan.
The Germans2 were systematically murdering innocent civili-
ans, in an attempt to completely annihilate a people.
Gee, Robert, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that those were
*innocent* Japanese *civilians* we dropped the bombs on.
Alan S. Driscoll
AT&T Bell Laboratoriessaquigley@watdaisy.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) (01/19/84)
I did say that Hiroshima can be defended, yes, the US was at war with Japan, and the germans were developping their own nuclear bomb, so it made a lot of sense for the US to drop it on Hiroshima. But Nagasake? this is the one I was complaining about and to which you didn't respond. I would like to hear your (or anybody's) defense of Nagasake.
saquigley@watdaisy.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) (01/19/84)
Correction to my previous comment. The fact that the germans had been developping their own nuclear bomb during WW2 had nothing to do with the bombing of Hiroshima (except that the bomb used on Hiroshima was a product of the bomb-building race between the germans and the US) as Germany had already capitulated when the US dropped their bomb on Hiroshima. Does anybody know more about the development of nuclear arms in Germany, how far they did get before it was stopped?
holt@parsec.UUCP (01/22/84)
#R:watdaisy:-641800:parsec:40500012:000:1669
parsec!holt Jan 21 10:23:00 1984
"Gee, Robert, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that those were
*innocent* Japanese *civilians* we dropped the bombs on."
Alan S. Driscoll
AT&T Bell Laboratories
Gee, Alan, correct me if I'm wrong, but I though that we Americans were
being chastised in the original note for not responsibly policing our
government's actions. Do you think that the Japanese or German people of
World War II were any less responsible for their government's actions?
A sad but true fact of life on this planet is that if you live in a country,
you should be prepared to take the consequences of your country's actions.
When the United States uses military power in the Middle East, the aggrieved
parties there retaliate with what power they possess. In other words, they
bomb American Embassies in neighboring countries, or they blow up American
servicemen. The British can tell you about IRA bombs. Are you ready for
Islamic Holy War bombs in the US? The reason that the US and the USSR never
openly accost each other, is because neither is prepared to accept the expected
retaliation from the other. (Thank goodness!)
It seems to me that the original note points to the root of the problem. That
is, that the majority of the American public sits at home, watches prime time
tv, and ignores the actions of their government (and the possible
repercussions thereof).
I've written to Reagan telling him of my displeasure with some of his policies
and my approval of others. Have you?
Dave Holt
{allegra,ihnp4,uiucdcs}!parsec!holt
It's a damn good thing we live in a Republic and not a Democracy...
Let's see, now where did I put my TV guide?...david@randvax.ARPA (David Shlapak) (01/24/84)
Okay, try this defense of Nagasaki on for size...
By mid 1945, the USAAF (United States Army Air Forces) had bombed
almost all of urban Japan to ashes and rubble. Still when, for
example, US Marines assaulted Iwo Jima and Okinawa they found no
evidence that the Japanese government or people had lost any of their
will to fight (check out the casualty statistics on both sides...they'll
curl your hair even if you're bald). By August of that year, it had
become apparent to the Allied high command that an invasion of the Jap-
anese home islands would be necessary in order to get Tokyo out of the
war. This final assault would undoubtedly have cost one million American
lives and between five and fifteen million Japanese.
Enter Little Boy and Fat Man.
After the Hiroshima detonation, there is evidence that a peace feeler
was sent by some element in the Tokyo government via neutral Sweden.
Unfortunately, translation delays and other difficulties apparently
snafu'd its transmission to US authorities until after the Nagasaki
attack.
The feeling after Hiroshima was that the Japanese still hadn't gotten the
message (and many of them hadn't---a substantial portion of the War Cab-
inet wanted to continue hostilities AFTER the second atomic attack), so
the Nagasaki bomb was dropped. Bingo...message received.
My personal belief is that the use of the atomic bombs against Japan
were the most unintentionally merciful acts ever perpetrated by a
combatant in modern warfare...by forstalling the necessity for an
invasion of the home islands, ten million lives were probably saved...
NINE MILLION of them Japanese.
So trip me no guilt about Hiroshima and Nagasaki...the nuclear genie was
out of the bottle when Fermi pulled the switch in the squash court
and the U of Chicago and nothing is ever going to put it back in.
I only agree with Jon Schell on one thing...we can never learn how to
unmake 'em, so we damn well better learns to live with 'em...or die
trying.
No cheers this time 'round....
--- dasal@ames-lm.UUCP (Al Globus) (01/26/84)
*Innocent* civilians - there ain't no such thing in total war, such as WWII. Frankly, I'm quite satisfied that anyone thinking of attacking the U.S. as the Japanese did in 1941 knows that we can and will nuke 'em into the stone age. To avoid this fate, they can simply not attack us. Easy enough. Besides, we'd rather buy their TV's.