I don't want this to be a political thread about the merits of taking action against Syria.
I just want to ask a question that genuinely perplexes me:
Why is a poison-gas attack worse than any number of other kinds of attacks?
If Assad had "only" bombed the hell out of Douma and killed half its citizens, including kids and women, how outraged would world leaders be? Because that basically is what Assad has been doing the last several years - killing tens of thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of his own countrymen. But the world only really got outraged when poison gas was used.
I certainly am NOT defending the use of poison gas (obviously). I just am perplexed about why bombings and other methods used to murder thousands elicit little more than a shoulder shrug but poison gas is the red line that demands military response from other nations.
Gas isn't as controllable, kills totally indiscriminately, and the way that people die is horrific.
I don't want this to be a political thread about the merits of taking action against Syria.
I just want to ask a question that genuinely perplexes me:
Why is a poison-gas attack worse than any number of other kinds of attacks?
If Assad had "only" bombed the hell out of Douma and killed half its citizens, including kids and women, how outraged would world leaders be? Because that basically is what Assad has been doing the last several years - killing tens of thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of his own countrymen. But the world only really got outraged when poison gas was used.
I certainly am NOT defending the use of poison gas (obviously). I just am perplexed about why bombings and other methods used to murder thousands elicit little more than a shoulder shrug but poison gas is the red line that demands military response from other nations.
All is fair in love and war; until it isn't.
Conventional | Gas |
You can see a bomb | You can't see gas |
You can hear a gun fire | You can't hear gas |
Can kill you instantly | Can inflict tortuous pain |
Prognosis can be ascertained | Unknown physiological effects |
I certainly am NOT defending the use of poison gas (obviously). I just am perplexed about why bombings and other methods used to murder thousands elicit little more than a shoulder shrug but poison gas is the red line that demands military response from other nations.
Sounds like the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Anyway, I understand the initial question. What is going on in Syria has been horrific regardless of the gas attacks, but now the use of gas is a bridge too far?
That being said....
Because as a global society, we've become desensitized to guns, missiles and bombs over the last century. Gas attacks are rare enough that they still sell newspapers.
And to this end, I think gas is a bright line that we're able to draw in an area (international law) with extremely few bright lines. Talk to 100 political scientists, and you'll get 100 answers about how smart it is for a country to restrict its own future behavior with international treaties, and 100 answers about whether international law is truly law without a single, consistent enforcement body. But I think gas is one of those things that we can all agree is against whatever laws we have, and its able to serve as a rallying cry to unify enforcement of those laws against bad actors, thereby implicitly serving as evidence as the strength of those otherwise often ineffectual institutions.
Interesting points about nukes in Japan in WWII. We justified it because:
*Japan wasn't going to surrender to us any time soon
* The cost of us invading would have been horrendous
* The number of Japanese lives lost in Nagasaki and Hiroshima were a fraction of the total Japanese and American deaths predicted from an invasion.
Not saying it was right or wrong to drop nukes, but that's the math/logic behind it.
Chemical weapons (such as gas) are against the Geneva Conventions, as well as many other international laws of war.
This along with Syria signing several international treaties saying they will not use chemical weapons. With the US as a permanent UN security council member, it's duty is for international peace and security. Larry LeBlanc could provide the nuances.
Interesting points about nukes in Japan in WWII. We justified it because:
*Japan wasn't going to surrender to us any time soon
* The cost of us invading would have been horrendous
* The number of Japanese lives lost in Nagasaki and Hiroshima were a fraction of the total Japanese and American deaths predicted from an invasion.
Not saying it was right or wrong to drop nukes, but that's the math/logic behind it.
Interesting points about nukes in Japan in WWII. We justified it because:
*Japan wasn't going to surrender to us any time soon
* The cost of us invading would have been horrendous
* The number of Japanese lives lost in Nagasaki and Hiroshima were a fraction of the total Japanese and American deaths predicted from an invasion.
Not saying it was right or wrong to drop nukes, but that's the math/logic behind it.
The nuke was necessary against an absolute brainwashed country literally thinking they had a God on their side.
Maybe. But were two of them necessary? And was it necessary to drop them in the middle of major urban centers where a maximum number of civilians would be killed?
Just asking questions. These are very complex issues for me and I will admit I do not have ready answers for either side of the debate. Any answer is problematic.
War sucks.
Maybe. But were two of them necessary? And was it necessary to drop them in the middle of major urban centers where a maximum number of civilians would be killed?
Just asking questions. These are very complex issues for me and I will admit I do not have ready answers for either side of the debate. Any answer is problematic.
War sucks.
Well, the second bomb is still a debated topic, I think in the end it comes down to the fact that Japan didn't surrender after the first bomb. They actually kept preaching victory and battle. And while they were dropped in major urban centers, the silver lining (albeit a small one) is that neither one was dropped on Tokoyo.
I could be wrong on this but I seem to remember that Hiroshima was home to a military base, and Nagasaki was not the initial target, but a secondary target that was hit because the primary target was inaccessible. It was a secondary target due to munitions plants and a shipyard.
It was not indiscriminate targeting of civilians.
Well, the second bomb is still a debated topic, I think in the end it comes down to the fact that Japan didn't surrender after the first bomb. They actually kept preaching victory and battle. And while they were dropped in major urban centers, the silver lining (albeit a small one) is that neither one was dropped on Tokoyo.
I could be wrong on this but I seem to remember that Hiroshima was home to a military base, and Nagasaki was not the initial target, but a secondary target that was hit because the primary target was inaccessible. It was a secondary target due to munitions plants and a shipyard.
It was not indiscriminate targeting of civilians.
Easy answer. When the machines take over we don't want the gas around.
But in seriousness, I think gas was banned because it was easy to ban due to its relatively low effectiveness. It is easy (at least was when gas was used) to equip soldiers against its effects.
It was easy for countries to say "look we care and we aren't evil" when really it was more of a "eh, this stuff is unpredictable and doesn't really work well anyways" deal.
And since it has been banned for going on 100 years, it has been bestowed a stigma that it is worse than anything else, when that really may or may not be true. I don't know, and hope to never find out.
Maybe. But were two of them necessary? And was it necessary to drop them in the middle of major urban centers where a maximum number of civilians would be killed?
Just asking questions. These are very complex issues for me and I will admit I do not have ready answers for either side of the debate. Any answer is problematic.
War sucks.
Yes they did, for all sorts of reasons including we didn't totally know what the power of the weapons were and if you drop it in the middle of a field it doesn't have the psychological impact to say "no seriously, you should probably quit". Whether it really matters or not, we attempted to limit the damage by air bursting the nukes about 1000 feet off the ground as opposed to letting it ground burst where the damage/death would have been at least 10x worse.
I am pretty sure that doing this actually increases the damage radius of the blast. I don't know if that was well understood at the time, but I would guess they knew that.
There is a difference between low level air burst and high level air burst. Low level air burst, with the right munition type would increase the blast radius (typically under 500 feet) and example of this is the MOAB and the BLU-82. Anything over 500 feet (at least with conventional weapons so I'm extracting here a little) and the air burst method actually starts reducing the effectiveness of the munition (it's a density of air thing)
My recollection was there were only some backchannel efforts by a few for a 'limited' surrender in the aftermath of Hiroshima. The US rightly demanded a full and unconditional surrender. That's exactly what was signed on the deck of the Missouri. And immediately thereafter, the greatest benevolent superpower in the history of the world showed both mercy and compassion in the countless steps she undertook across the entire world. I wish more truly understood that.
WWII was not some nuanced geopolitical arm wrestling match. Genuine evil needed to be destroyed at all cost, both in Europe and the Far East. Some will correctly argue that Stalin wasn't dealt with but practically speaking that wasn't really possible. There was no appetite for that but Truman did what he could, given the circumstances.
Sadly, every day there are fewer Americans alive that truly understand the complete and total sacrifice that was necessary. All of us alive today have our fathers, grandfathers and perhaps even great grandfathers to thank plus those mothers, grandmothers and great grandmothers that often sacrificed everything in support of their efforts. Same goes for our friends overseas who can NEVER repay the debt they have to this country.
No wars (or crimes) are moral. Some are just.
I am pretty sure that doing this actually increases the damage radius of the blast. I don't know if that was well understood at the time, but I would guess they knew that.
My recollection was there were only some backchannel efforts by a few for a 'limited' surrender in the aftermath of Hiroshima. The US rightly demanded a full and unconditional surrender. That's exactly what was signed on the deck of the Missouri. And immediately thereafter, the greatest benevolent superpower in the history of the world showed both mercy and compassion in the countless steps she undertook across the entire world. I wish more truly understood that.
WWII was not some nuanced geopolitical arm wrestling match. Genuine evil needed to be destroyed at all cost, both in Europe and the Far East. Some will correctly argue that Stalin wasn't dealt with but practically speaking that wasn't really possible. There was no appetite for that but Truman did what he could, given the circumstances.
Sadly, every day there are fewer Americans alive that truly understand the complete and total sacrifice that was necessary. All of us alive today have our fathers, grandfathers and perhaps even great grandfathers to thank plus those mothers, grandmothers and great grandmothers that often sacrificed everything in support of their efforts. Same goes for our friends overseas who can NEVER repay the debt they have to this country.
Mostly correct. Consider that an explosion is spherical with the bomb at the center. If you detonate on the ground, half of the "blast sphere" is absorbed by the ground.
With that said, the decision to detonate Little Boy at 600 meters was made with little, if any, regard to death/injury. In other words - and this is where it gets confusing, not to mention difficult to explain - there was the obvious contemplation that maximizing physical damage would have a correlative effect on death/injury, but strategically, detonation at altitude was strictly for the purpose of maximizing physical damage/destruction, with - at best - indifference given to potential civilian casualties.
To the butler's question, the goal of damage/destruction, not casualties, being the primary goal is pretty apparent when you look at the strategy behind the five potential targets identified: Hiroshima (major military HQ), Kokura (munitions plant), Nagasaki (naval ordnance), Yokohama (aircraft mfg and oil refining) and Niigata (steel/aluminum plants)... notably missing: the three largest cities in Imperial Japan -- Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya (combined population in excess of 10,000,000). Also corroborating this are the facts that a) the fourth largest city Kyoto, population ~1,000,000, was originally on the target list but was replaced with Nagasaki, population 250,000, and b) fifth largest Yokohama, also ~1,000,000, was also dropped from consideration. (Niigata remained a potential target, but was neither among the Enola Gay's nor Bockscar's primary or secondary targets.)
If the purpose of the nuclear bombings was to maximize death/injury, then Allied leaders made a huge error in narrowing the primary and secondary targets to four cities that had a collective population of 900,000.
As the proud son of a WWII vet - my dad, who unfortunately has been gone since 1998, fought in the Battle of the Bulge - I agree with every word of this outstanding post. Well done, glow.
You certainly are right about the level of sacrifice. I explained to my kids how thousands upon thousands of young men who weren't even drafted volunteered to serve, how major corporations shut down their operations so they could make equipment for the war effort, how professional athletes interrupted their careers, how women put their lives on hold to work in factories or as medical personnel, how the war pretty much dominated everything going on in America and abroad (as it should have).
One of the most incredible half-hours of my life was when my son, who was then 9, did a telephone interview with my father about his WWII experiences. I had helped prepare the questions but Ben asked them all. I was on the extension and listened to my father's careful, thoughtful, sometimes painful recollections. He never liked to talk about the war, and to hear this was very powerful and emotional for me.
The summer before my dad died, a bunch of us from our family went to the Holocaust memorial in DC, and I could see how it affected him (and me). A few years after he died, my kids and I watched Ken Burns' incredible documentary about the war, and I got tears in my eyes on more than one occasion.
I am not one who likes to "romanticize" anything - especially anything as brutal as war - but I agree wholeheartedly with what you say in your eloquent post.
My recollection was there were only some backchannel efforts by a few for a 'limited' surrender in the aftermath of Hiroshima. The US rightly demanded a full and unconditional surrender. That's exactly what was signed on the deck of the Missouri. And immediately thereafter, the greatest benevolent superpower in the history of the world showed both mercy and compassion in the countless steps she undertook across the entire world. I wish more truly understood that.
WWII was not some nuanced geopolitical arm wrestling match. Genuine evil needed to be destroyed at all cost, both in Europe and the Far East.
...
Sadly, every day there are fewer Americans alive that truly understand the complete and total sacrifice that was necessary. All of us alive today have our fathers, grandfathers and perhaps even great grandfathers to thank plus those mothers, grandmothers and great grandmothers that often sacrificed everything in support of their efforts.
My recollection was there were only some backchannel efforts by a few for a 'limited' surrender in the aftermath of Hiroshima. The US rightly demanded a full and unconditional surrender. That's exactly what was signed on the deck of the Missouri. And immediately thereafter, the greatest benevolent superpower in the history of the world showed both mercy and compassion in the countless steps she undertook across the entire world. I wish more truly understood that.
WWII was not some nuanced geopolitical arm wrestling match. Genuine evil needed to be destroyed at all cost, both in Europe and the Far East. Some will correctly argue that Stalin wasn't dealt with but practically speaking that wasn't really possible. There was no appetite for that but Truman did what he could, given the circumstances.
Sadly, every day there are fewer Americans alive that truly understand the complete and total sacrifice that was necessary. All of us alive today have our fathers, grandfathers and perhaps even great grandfathers to thank plus those mothers, grandmothers and great grandmothers that often sacrificed everything in support of their efforts. Same goes for our friends overseas who can NEVER repay the debt they have to this country.
My recollection was there were only some backchannel efforts by a few for a 'limited' surrender in the aftermath of Hiroshima. The US rightly demanded a full and unconditional surrender. That's exactly what was signed on the deck of the Missouri. And immediately thereafter, the greatest benevolent superpower in the history of the world showed both mercy and compassion in the countless steps she undertook across the entire world. I wish more truly understood that.
WWII was not some nuanced geopolitical arm wrestling match. Genuine evil needed to be destroyed at all cost, both in Europe and the Far East. Some will correctly argue that Stalin wasn't dealt with but practically speaking that wasn't really possible. There was no appetite for that but Truman did what he could, given the circumstances.
Sadly, every day there are fewer Americans alive that truly understand the complete and total sacrifice that was necessary. All of us alive today have our fathers, grandfathers and perhaps even great grandfathers to thank plus those mothers, grandmothers and great grandmothers that often sacrificed everything in support of their efforts. Same goes for our friends overseas who can NEVER repay the debt they have to this country.
There was backchanning going on prior to Hiroshima in discussion of a "limited surrender," which added several conditions to the Potsdam Declaration's terms, but as I recall, nothing material was communicated between the time Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed.
Incidentally, the Supreme Council (basically, Japan's "War Cabinet") was literally in a meeting discussing the possibility of ending the war (accepting the Potsdam Declaration's terms) at the moment Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki. Even with the knowledge that Nagasaki was just hit by another atomic bomb, the Council's vote to accept Potsdam was 3-3, and even the three voting in favor were doing so under the premise that they would add a condition (to guarantee the Emperor's position).
I have been a WWII junkie for years, and even today, I'm still learning new things. But early on, I came to the realization - which has only been fortified as time goes on - of the great sacrifice that was made by nearly all Americans, with many making the ultimate sacrifice, in order to not only ensure the American way of life, but to prevent the entire world from succumbing to evil. It doesn't take much to vision what the entire world may look like today if WWII went a different way... we see pockets of it here and there today, but our grandparents and great-grandparents fought to ensure that such evil would be anomalies, not status quo.
And yet, even today people reduce themselves to accusations of "evil" and "fascist," truly ignorant to what those terms actually mean.
My recollection was there were only some backchannel efforts by a few for a 'limited' surrender in the aftermath of Hiroshima. The US rightly demanded a full and unconditional surrender. That's exactly what was signed on the deck of the Missouri. And immediately thereafter, the greatest benevolent superpower in the history of the world showed both mercy and compassion in the countless steps she undertook across the entire world. I wish more truly understood that.
WWII was not some nuanced geopolitical arm wrestling match. Genuine evil needed to be destroyed at all cost, both in Europe and the Far East. Some will correctly argue that Stalin wasn't dealt with but practically speaking that wasn't really possible. There was no appetite for that but Truman did what he could, given the circumstances.
Sadly, every day there are fewer Americans alive that truly understand the complete and total sacrifice that was necessary. All of us alive today have our fathers, grandfathers and perhaps even great grandfathers to thank plus those mothers, grandmothers and great grandmothers that often sacrificed everything in support of their efforts. Same goes for our friends overseas who can NEVER repay the debt they have to this country.
I am the grandson of a WWII vet who earned a purple heart from a Japenese Kamizake attack on his ship. I understand the total sacrifice.
And WWII was a just war, if there ever was one. I agree that the enemy was evil, and that the allies were fighting for a good (democracy and liberation of the oppressed). I never suggested otherwise.
But that doesn't mean we can't question the tactics used in battle. The end does not justify all possible means. The systematic removal of Japanese-American citizens into concentration camps was morally reprehensible. As I said before, the use of nuclear weapons is a morally difficult thing for me to grapple with. I see both sides to the argument. This is not black and white to me.
While the war was just, it is our right, nay, our duty, to question and object to immoral tactics used to wage it. Let us not conflate the two issues.
I am the grandson of a WWII vet who earned a purple heart from a Japenese Kamizake attack on his ship. I understand the total sacrifice.
And WWII was a just war, if there ever was one. I agree that the enemy was evil, and that the allies were fighting for a good (democracy and liberation of the oppressed). I never suggested otherwise.
But that doesn't mean we can't question the tactics used in battle. The end does not justify all possible means. The systematic removal of Japanese-American citizens into concentration camps was morally reprehensible. As I said before, the use of nuclear weapons is a morally difficult thing for me to grapple with. I see both sides to the argument. This is not black and white to me.
While the war was just, it is our right, nay, our duty, to question and object to immoral tactics used to wage it. Let us not conflate the two issues.
Honestly, one of the biggest overlooked impacts that led to victory in WWII was the British holding out in 1940. If the British had lost any number of key engagements (Dunkirk, Battle of Britian, North Africa) Defeating the Nazi's would have become incredibly difficult and probably would have doubled the length of the war if not more. The world owes a lot to the British.
I am the grandson of a WWII vet who earned a purple heart from a Japenese Kamizake attack on his ship. I understand the total sacrifice.
And WWII was a just war, if there ever was one. I agree that the enemy was evil, and that the allies were fighting for a good (democracy and liberation of the oppressed). I never suggested otherwise.
But that doesn't mean we can't question the tactics used in battle. The end does not justify all possible means. The systematic removal of Japanese-American citizens into concentration camps was morally reprehensible. As I said before, the use of nuclear weapons is a morally difficult thing for me to grapple with. I see both sides to the argument. This is not black and white to me.
While the war was just, it is our right, nay, our duty, to question and object to immoral tactics used to wage it. Let us not conflate the two issues.
I am the grandson of a WWII vet who earned a purple heart from a Japenese Kamizake attack on his ship. I understand the total sacrifice.
And WWII was a just war, if there ever was one. I agree that the enemy was evil, and that the allies were fighting for a good (democracy and liberation of the oppressed). I never suggested otherwise.
But that doesn't mean we can't question the tactics used in battle. The end does not justify all possible means. The systematic removal of Japanese-American citizens into concentration camps was morally reprehensible. As I said before, the use of nuclear weapons is a morally difficult thing for me to grapple with. I see both sides to the argument. This is not black and white to me.
While the war was just, it is our right, nay, our duty, to question and object to immoral tactics used to wage it. Let us not conflate the two issues.