On Mon, 02 Sep 2013 11:03:24 -0700, Gunner Asch
wrote:

On Mon, 02 Sep 2013 20:02:04 +0700, Miguel wrote:


Save a million lives? Yes, I remember that bit, it was utter bull****.
Japan at the time of the surrender was flat on their ass. All the talk
of fighting in the street... the people couldn't even find enough to
eat.
How do I know? Well my uncle was generous enough to pay my way over
for a three year visit.

What year did you visit? You obviously werent there in the 1940s

Nope. the guys that visited in the early 40's didn't enjoy what one
might term as a lavish style of living :

http://www.theabsurdreport.com/2007/...f-japan-plans/

1945 Invasion of Japan Plans

Yup, the estimated casuality figures seemed to be commonly known about
the time that the bombs were dropped, I believe officially released as
excuse for dropping the bombs. And, I might comment that people in the
U.S. were glad that the war was over, regardless of how or why. I
might also comment that at that time you would likely have had a hard
time finding anyone who would have objected to killing another hundred
thousand, or so, of those devils.

I was in Japan from the early 1950's and I can tell you for sure that
the talk of the Japanese population "fighting in the streets" as it
was alleged that they would (in order to justify the millions of
causalities) is pretty far out. The average Japanese citizen was doing
well just to keep his head above water, to say nothing of fighting
fixed battles. Their navy and air force was pretty much destroyed, you
will remember, I'm sure, that a year earlier they were unable to
support their troops in the Philippines.

You also need to remember that Japanese anti weapon laws date back to
1588 when the Shogun Hideyoshi decreed the "Sword Hunt," and banned
possession of swords (weapons) by the lower classes, so there are no
weapons in civilian hands, nor any experience in using weapons. Hard
to work up a lot of enthusiasm for charging the U.S. Marines with your
Missus' kitchen knife.

But the point is, not what we did then, but what are doing now?
Moaning and groaning about gassing, what was it? 3,000 Arabs?

I find it ironic that while the U.S. Government says that "Texting in
cars and trucks causes over 3,000 deaths and 330,000 injuries per
year", you don't hear a peep, but a few foreigners gas each other and
the Ethernet is full of weeping and crying.

But I suppose that deflects attention from the very real domestic
problems :-)
--
Cheers,

Miguel