:joker: You're ridiculous, never change :love:

I promise <3

No.......your wrong it's well documented and supported by masses of witness testimony.

The Japanese were brutal to their prisoners... not in doubt ..a fact !!!

I don't know why you don't know this it's universally accepted that the Japanese acted in this way. :puzzled::puzzled:

Well ...let's just hope Japan never gets into a warlike posture again and has a War with Britain which we lose and the Japanese become our occupiers..

You might have reason to change the tone of your post...:xyxwave:

I'm not disputing their actions. I'm disputing your point that it is just part of their inherent make up. Feel as though I've made that specific point about 3,000 times in the last 3 pages.

I'm not disputing the events took place, I'm disputing it's because they were Japanese.

yes you've made the same point over and over again, which is frustrating to everyone who keeps telling you that your point has nothing to do with the topic of Japan in WW2.

yes, we get it, you don't like generalizations, you object to the idea of condemning individual Japanese people. but we are discussing nations. you keep trying to make it about individuals.

You don't seem to understand the difference.

Sorta relevant to the thread, maybe not, but Japan I believe is the most ethnically homogenous country in the world, something like 98-99% of the people who live in Japan are ethnically Japanese

Yes they had the power to takeover China
before World War 2 started

You could say that about any country.

It doesn't make economic sense of Japan to go to war with anyone, they would gain nothing from it. No point in painting Japan as a boogeyman when there isn't any danger of them going to war with us. How many Japanese products do we use in our day to day lives? How many TVs, Mobiles, consoles, tablets etc come from Japan? Why would they go to war with one of their biggest consumers?

Your 'point' is illogical. There is as much chance of Japan starting a war with us as Germany suddenly deciding to don the Nazi colours again and try to finish what they started, both are extremely unlikely.

The cruelty of the Japanese, although not literally hard-wired into their DNA, was hard-wired into their psyche. Their actions were as a result of hundreds of years of their culture. No one's surely going to dispute that. But we must not accuse them of cruelty, and when they refused to apologise to the few remaining survivors even after all that time, we said, okay. Hirohito, who was emperor of Japan when they were starving, beating, working and torturing our prisoners to death, died an old man, still emperor, comfortable in his own bed... and we say, okay. And yet... the BBC make one joke about Hiroshima and they're summoned to the Japanese embassy where they demanded the BBC apologise... and they DID!

We are required to forgive and forget. We're required to see the good in people now. However, it seems we're still required to continue to beat ourselves up over our colonialist past, a past way before anyone alive now. Forget he German and Japanese atrocities, committed within the living memory of some. But continue to be contrite about our own past. This country gave my family a home after the war when they arrived here broken and penniless, but the face of Britain people still wish to expose is the colonising aristocracy of a time gone by.

Forgive the Germans and the Japanese by all means. But never forget what they were once capable of.

But would we be any different if we lived under the same government as they did back then? I don't think we would be. We would be the same, just doing what we can in fear of our lives.

I also don't think any country was innocent when it came to cruelty in WW2, like I said before we demonised them as much as they demonised us. I doubt we treated PoWs any better but since we were the victors I'm guessing such cases were glossed over when it came to the history books.

Either way nothing justifies Hiroshima or Nagasaki, the bombing of cities is cowardly and the willful murder of civilians is the ultimate cowardice, especially considering that Japan was on the ropes. We played a part in killing thousands of civilians and damning generations of innocent people yet to be born to crippling illnesses and disease. Nothing justifies that response and it's no surprise that we're apologetic to Japan to this day over it. How many government and Army officials that would have been behind Pearl Harbour and the torturing of prisoners were in those cities compared to innocent civilians?

but countries did behave differently in WW2, and it's not fair to say that we're all the same, because we aren't all the same, and we weren't back then either.

I don't understand why some people keep insisting that we were. All countries were not all the same, Some countries behaved horribly, like awfully, and horrifically, and other countries did not reach the same levels of depravity. Why are some people trying to re0write history and say we are all equal?

Sorry, but no, not all countries are equal. Some countries are worse than others. We are not all equal.

And saying that all countries are equal or capable of the same things is denying that some countries behaved more admirally than others, and it's not fair to take away the fact that some countries did show more bravery and behaved with more dignity and were more admirable than others.

I think it's disgraceful to say that the USA or UK was just as capable of being as horrible as Japan and Germany. We weren't and we aren't.

It's basically saying we only did the right thing by CHANCE, and that any country could have been as evil.


No. It wasn't by chance. We did the right thing because that's who we are, and we deserve credit for that.

You're very wrong to compare the British treatment of prisoners to the treatment meted out by Germany and especially Japan.

You forget how many millions of civilians suffered and died at the hands of the Nazis and the Japanese. And not just suffered and died... were tortured, or worked to death, then shot when they were no longer needed. Women, children, treated like animals. I don't condone the use of nuclear weapons, but I truly believe in this case, it was for the greater good. And had the Japanese - or the Germans - had nuclear weapons, do you think they would have hesitated for one minute to use them against us?

Really Dezzy, I respect you very much, you know that. But I have to say you need to look into the actions that led to Hiroshima. Unless you feel that the only humans that are worth anything are Japanese.

And before you say we're right to be apologetic to the Japanese, please... take some time to read some prisoners' accounts of their life under the Japanese. How these men, mostly dead now, woke up screaming night after night, remembering the horrors they saw and were put through. And then we can talk more if you want. But right now, I don't feel like you are in charge of all the facts.

What we did to Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not admirable, honourable, brave or dignified. It was pathetic, cruel and cowardly. It was a complete atrocity. Japan wasn't innocent either but what's worse? The torturing of PoW's or the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children plus causing mass biolgical ailments for generations to come? Japan did some terrible things but what we did to those two cities can never be justified.

I think nuclear bombing Japan twice is a gigantic step too far regardless of how the Japanese chose to treat prisoners of war. Disagree with me by all means, but I don't think any amount of reading personal accounts of torture would change my mind about that - the actions of the Japanese military towards prisoners of war do not justify causing hundreds of thousands of deaths and causing damage to generations of people and irradiating entire cities.

It was NOT cowardly to save 1 million American lives by putting an END to that HORRIBLE WAR!

how dare you.

1 Million Amwrican lives or even 1 more would have been a WASTE on a war that we didn't start and we didn't want but we DAMN SURE WERE GOING TO END!

We wanted an END TO IT!

and don't you dare call any soldier or airman a COWARD for wanting an end to it. America sacrificed FAR MORE than its share of sons in that war. SO don't you dare say we were cowards. America was NEVER cowardly in that war, and you only have breath in your lungs BECAUSE of those American lives that died for you. Americans died for your survival, how dare you say we were the cowards.

No one's saying nuclear weapons are the way to go. But you should remember that this came at the end of five years of war. Britain was almost on its knees... and it wasn't just POWs the Japanese tortured and killed, which is why I suggest you should look more into it. I think that if they knew then what we know now about the bombs they dropped, it would have been different. But it's okay to say that in hindsight. At the time, we and the other allies, were desperate for a solution.

Trying to apportion blame is futile. However, I am proud of Great Britain's actions in WW2, given the length of time they'd been fighting and the cost to the country both financially and in terms of lives. And I say that as the child of holocaust survivors who happen to be German, and not Japanese. But it's the same meat and different gravy to me. Something had to be done about Germany and Japan or the world as we know it today would be very different.

Which is why I said look more into it. It wasn't just a couple of POWs.

Like I said to Dezzy, if they'd known then what we know now... it would have been different. Germany gassed 6 million of my people, and people still whine about Dresden being bombed, despite the fact Jewish slave workers who could have been killed any minute were cheering while the bombs dropped.

It's all well and good sitting in the comfort and safety of a home other people died to keep free, and say we were wrong.

"Japan did some terrible things but what# we did to those two cities can never be justified. "


Yes but those Atomic Bombs got finished
with Hitlers Science men - who then became USA Citizens
it was a Rush as the Americans wanted real Big Tests done
before Russia built theirs

Isn't that what history is about? If you can't look at things objectively 70 years after the event, and reach a conclusion based on right or wrong, then the old line about failing to learn from history, means were bound to repeat the same mistakes, holds true.

Why isn't the goal to be better, rather than at the same level?

We could argue about the ifs and buts all night but at the end of the day, we had the atomic weapons, they didn't and we chose to use them when we were already winning. We could have won without them, we didn't need to harm two cities full of innocent people and damn their children to lives filled with suffering and pain.

How would you feel if you or your family was maimed and/or killed for no other reason than because your government went to war with a country with Atomic Weapons? You wouldn't get any say in the matter but you'd pay the price for it anyway. The people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki paid the price of their government's actions for no other reasons than where they lived.

Nothing can ever justify going after civilians in my eyes, it's just pathetic. Hell, those bombs killed PoWs too.... What we did to those innocent people is beyond justification.

can't look at history objectively? you won't even let us look at history PERIOD without bitching about terminology and semantics. :nono:

Look who's talking.

and we don't have to try to be better, We're already better. That's the point you don't understand. You don't understand how good you have it dude.

I'm well aware it wasn't just a couple of POWs. Of course it's all good and well for me to say I think it's wrong to nuclear bomb innocent civilians, I didn't live through World War II, but my opinion is that it was wrong to do so. I would hate to see another nuclear bomb be dropped anywhere in the world ever again. Looking at pictures and reading interviews with hibakusha in Japan is just tragic on so many levels; these people are outcast in society for something that they had nothing to do with, I don't know how anyone can say that people deserve to be nuclear bombed, I mean it's just cruel. Obviously at the time emotions were running high and the war had been long and arduous and this was America's big secret weapon coming to fruition but to me it just came across as the ultimate muscle flexing exercise in modern history, it was unnecessary and vicious.

I know....I know.....Calm down !!!! I was talking Hypothetically, I know currently Japan doesn't pose a serious threat to the UK or NATO or any Superpower..

My point was that I'm glad they don't pose a threat because I for one, based on their strange philosophy that being taken a prisoner makes you unfit to be treated as a human being and subsequently fair game for mis-treatment abuse,rape,torture an death.....would not want to be around if they were to become our conquerers.....

I would prefer to take my chances with the German armed forces any day

I want the people that think all countries are equal to actually go live in some other countries.

Go live in Russia, or Cuba, or China, or any communist country, and then come back and tell me that we are all the same, that we are all equal. :joker:

You have no idea what you are talking about.

We are not all equal, we are better.