this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
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Singling out the US from WW2 seems odd. It was the one with Nazis, you know? Also during that war Japan did some absolutely despicable shit, like Nanjing massacre, there were the Nazis which, yeah no need to explain that one, USSR had their own massacres and "forced relocations" of peoples, there was the fascist Italy which at least in Africa did awful shit, Croatia had Ustaše and their own holocaust, Lithuania same deal, don't remember off the bat what horrible shit Brits did but knowing Brits you know there's something there, Finland had horrific prison camps for Soviet prisoners...
Looking at WW2 and coming to the conclusion that the US specifically is bad is weird. There's so much fucked up shit done by almost everyone.
Also tbh I've never really understood what the big difference between using nukes and just bombing the absolute shit out of a population with conventional weapons is. Nowadays the difference is that you don't want to trigger a nuclear exchange, but that wasn't really a case then. One difference is that it's new and different weapon, but that's not very concrete. Radiation and lasting effects is more concrete, but also, unexploded shit manages to still kill people. You'll have horrific after effects from conventional weapons too.
This is something I've never understood but would be glad if someone explains. It's often just said as self-evident thing but I've never seen the argument spelled out. Might help me change my mind about it if someone does.
You have no intentions of changing your mind...
If you can't tell the difference in "just bombing" and what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki... well that says more about you than anything else.
It's sorta hard to learn about the argument or the difference when people outright refuse to spell it out.
Of course my opinion says things about me. But like I said, I don't see the big difference to conventional weapons. That's why I'm asking you to explain it to me ffs
What happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki wasn't worse than Dresden, Tokyo, or several other bombings (especially Cambodia in the Vietnam war). They are notable in terms of being a nuke, but in terms of damage overall unremarkable.
This is my feeling too. With the number of killed and the destruction they caused they don't seem that different from conventional weapons.
I'm not sure what makes the nukes worse and this guy just outright refused to even explain it to me since they didn't feel likely they'd manage to convince me. Kinda infuriating, especially when I'm genuinely interested in understanding the argument.
A lot of focus is in those bombs and generally the complete destruction of conventional weapons is glossed over or even ignored. Especially when it was the allies targeting civilian infrastructure.