[plug] [OT] Goodbye, Columbia

[Nos Doughty]

> >
> > The worst and most horrendous war crimes, in the history of life on this
> > planet, were committed by the USA, in Hirohima and Nagasaki.
> >
>
> What a load of bulldust! What about all the allied lives that were saved
> by this action.

Really, how many would that be? Estimates?
The historical record shows that japan was not only prepared to surrender,
but had asked Russia to step in and refferee.  Their requirement was that
they keep their emperor. The USA bombed them because they wanted an
unconditional surrender, then when they got that after Hiroshima, they let
the japanese keep their emperor anyway.

Hmm...

Or perhaps you feel that a european life was worth more than a japanese one?

It is also, an unreasoned argument. The lives that may or may not have been
saved has no bearing on whether Hirohima and Nagasaki were war crimes (which
incidentaly, they clearly were).

Oh, btw, why not listen to those that dropped this miraculous life-saving
bomb....

Here is the Chairman of the wartime Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral William
D. Leahy:

  It is my opinion that the use of the barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and
Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The
Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender....
  Bomb is the wrong word to use for this new weapon. It is not a bomb. It is
not an explosive. It is a poisonous thing that kills people by its deadly
radioactive reaction, more than by the explosive force it develops.

  My own feeling is that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an
ethical standard common to barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to
make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and
children.

I suspect we will not hear this sort of self-examination from the likes of
Colin Powels and Dubya.

> Free software an free speech, I guess they go together.

Yeah, freedom is nice isn't it.... while you are enjoying your free speech
and your free software, consider how free those innocent men, woman and
children in Iraq will feel when the bombs blow them into little
fragments....

Please notes the freedoms accorded in the following excerpt from the below,

Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous
acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a
world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and
freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of
the common people
 ---   Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Preamble, Paragraph 2


Nos