Day of Trinity

[Dr Mordrid]

July 16, 1945: the first atomic bomb was exploded near Alamogordo, New Mexico

The United States tested the first atomic bomb this day in 1945 near Alamogordo, New Mexico, and the following month dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, hastening the end of World War II.

[az]

You failed to mention "killing hundreds of thousands of people and sentencing as many to lives in agony". This is not a day to celebrate. It is a day to mourn.

[Dr Mordrid]

It's a day to remember, both for the carnage it led to and the even larger carnage it prevented.

[az]

the even larger carnage it prevented.

You know very well this claim is disputed, to say the very least. I won't discuss this further, because frankly I can't do that while staying polite enough for this thread not having to be closed or moved.

[TransformX]

With all due respect: http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_...a_and_Nagasaki better die from the bomb than by one of the massacres brought by the Nazis and their collaborators. Most of the bomb's death toll was immediate.

Also, might want to check this table:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_W...ies_by_country
Look how many civilian casualties China suffered during WWII.

[az]

So? Do I go around celebrating ANY of the atrocities that were committed during the "Third Reich"? Of course not, because I, like 95% of germans, condemn them.

EDIT: Maybe I'm not quite sure what you are getting at, so if I jumped to conclusions, I apologize. So, what DO you mean?

[Brian Ellis]

az:

TX: do two wrongs make a right?

ALL WAR IS EVIL.

[TransformX]

I mean that the atomic bomb was a very very rude awakening call to the rest of the world. It cost great many lives, but far less than the deaths brought before it, only this one had such a shock factor "hand of god", that it made other killing cease.
It's a very far fetched comparison but sometimes a good spanking does far more and far better than a thousand words and 'educational' punishments do. Apparently, two bombs killing many hundreds of thousands accomplished more than tens of thousands of rifles killing millions.

[ZokesPro]

When Pandora's box was opened, so the legend goes, all the evils of the world were unleashed. In horror, the box was quickly closed, but it was too late. That wasn't the end of the story however. A final look in the box revealed one last thing which still remained. 'Hope'.

What we should remember is the destruction that was caused by opening Pandora's box. We should remember in the hope that what was revealed will never be used again for evil.

At least, that's what I think.

[TransformX]

What we should remember is the destruction that was caused by opening Pandora's box. We should remember in the hope that what was revealed will never be used again for evil.

At least, that's what I think.

Tell that story to president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad...

[az]

Nicely said, Zokes!

TX: I never denied that there had been greater bloodshed before, because that was not the topic of this thread. And do you really think the bombings did serve as a "last warning" of sorts? A glance at the world as it is now suggests otherwise.

[TransformX]

It started the cold war etc. but it also brought fear of quick, unstoppable and unescapable annihilation. Without the fear of the atomic bomb, I believe we'd see African sized massacres as in Darfur and Rwanda in other places as well. The world doesn't really care about Africa.

Edit: just to be clear, if not for the fear of nuclear retaliation, we would have seen far more aggression.

[cjolley]

...And do you really think the bombings did serve as a "last warning" of sorts? A glance at the world as it is now suggests otherwise.

On the other hand nothing even slightly comparable to the scale of WW2 has happened since.
Why? Because the USA and USSR never dared to have a real war. A non-nuclear post WW2 world would have included a massive invasion of western Europe by the USSR and resulting transcontinental scale war with the USA. I don't see how there can be any doubt about that.

PS What TX said.

[az]

And you think it was necessary to kill hundreds of thousands of people for that? If there had been a warning, one could still have stated an example, without killing so many civilians and forced labor workers.

[TransformX]

And you think it was necessary to kill hundreds of thousands of people for that? If there had been a warning, one could still have stated an example, without killing so many civilians and forced labor workers.

Now that's a BIG if.
IF they thought the U.S had the balls to do it.
IF they thought the U.S had a bomb small enough to be carried all the way.
IF that wouldn't compromise the U.S ability to drop such a bomb.

Thinking about it, one bomb wasn't even enough, they needed two!