Talk:Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki/Archive 1

message: This page was protected because of TDC's ignorance of the three revert rule and his refusal to back his actions with more valuable argumentation than the above or "an edit war? BRING IT ON, my little monkey". 
I therefore ask for more comments on user conduct: Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/TDC Get-back-world-respect 00:27, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Protection

message: Once the page is unprotected it should be mentioned that the administration of Hiroshima estimates the number of casualties, including those killed by long-term effects of the radiation, at 237,062. Get-back-world-respect 14:36, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Even a person like you who does not want to know it can do a google search for news that are reported worldwide. Get-back-world-respect 07:07, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Long-term Casualties

message: Once the page is unprotected, another criticism of the U.S. decision should be added.  The U.S. knew, as Japan did not, that the U.S.S.R. would attack Japan three months after V-E Day (as agreed to at the Yalta Conference but, I think, not publicly disclosed at the time).  Operation Olympic was tentatively planned for November 1945, so there was no rush about dropping the bomb.  The U.S. could have waited a couple weeks.  With the Soviet declaration of war, any Japanese hopes of Soviet mediation would have been dashed, and the largest army in the world would have attacked Japanese forces in Manchuria.  That might have prompted a surrender.  If not, the bomb could have been tried later in August. JamesMLane 13:51, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: The alternative of a brief delay

message: According to a docudrama on Hiroshima coproduced by the CBC and NHK, the use of the word mokusatsu was ambiguous purposefully. The military faction demanded unequivocal support from the civilian government so the government answered something like "In response to the military faction's demands for an answer to the Allies' insistance on unconditional surrender, we give 'mokusatsu'". This is ambiguous. Were the government ignoring the Allies, thus satifying the military, or were they answering (ignoring) the military, thus asking the Allies for time? If Prime-Minister Suzuki had been negotiating with other Japanese, it would have been a brilliant choice of words, but unfortunately the Americans misinterpreted (not unreasonably) by thinking the contempt was directed towards them. This is the how docudrama presented this story. I'm sure other interpretations are possible, but this one strikes me as plausible. Vincent 01:54, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Mokusatsu]] 

message: The phrase "recent historical research" is inappropriate in an encyclopedia as what is "recent" changes over time but what is written in an encyclopedia should remain accurate. Furthermore, the research is not sourced but presented as if it was generally accepted.
The precise reasons why the bombings were a war crime according to international conventions need to stay. Please stop confusing your own beliefs with neutral evaluations. Get-back-world-respect 07:02, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a ridiculous argument.  Article George W. Bush says he is the president. VV 07:06, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: While the article about Bush will certainly be changed as soon as another President is elected, even you will not tell me that any one will rush to an article once research cited is not "recent" any longer. Get-back-world-respect 07:11, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The same might be said of current obscure offices.  And how quickly in Wikitime will this research become non-recent?  It is blindingly obvious you simply want to minimize it because it doesn't fit your prejudices. VV 07:31, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I have opposed the word "recent" everywhere I saw it. As the research is not sourced, there is not even a way to guess when it will become non-recent. It would be easiest and most appropriate to just give the year it was written. And you have no right to revert everything just because you do not like a minor part. Get-back-world-respect 07:42, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: With another user, I might not.  But you have been harassing me, and I'm not going to take the time out to sort which of your edits are POV-pushing and which not.  Although I actually did on the penultimate revert. VV 07:51, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: You are disqualifying yourself. Get-back-world-respect 08:14, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Recent Historical Research" 

message: How does one become non-anonymous on this site, I've been to the main page and whatever means exist to sign up, are not immediately obvious.  On the subject of whether the dropping of the bombs should be classified as terrorism, it has been dismissed as opinion.  I am unwilling to dismiss it so as such per se.  Certainly it the dropping is just called terrorism, then it is mere opinion or name calling, however if a definition of terrorism is referenced and an argument made applying the terms of that definition to the facts, then it is not opinion, but an argument to be responded to on the merits.
We don't want wikipedia to have the dryness of a dictionary, but rather a cutting edge of the academic debate.  If an argument is without merits, it will easily be debunked.
:Just click "login or sign up" in the corner, give a username and a password, and an email address and click "Create User", I think it is. Something like that. --Golbez 06:42, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)
:Thanx, now I am no longer anonymous, I think, testing.--Silverback 07:04, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  becoming non-anonymous 

message: "Some have claimed that the Japanese were already essentially defeated, and therefore use of the bombs was unnecessary. No American military leaders took expressed this position during the war, but several did in later years, among them U.S. General Douglas MacArthur, later President Dwight Eisenhower , Fleet Admiral William Leahy, and Admiral Ernest King, US Chief of Naval Operations."
;Saying they didn't express that position is misleading, since it implies that they held it at the time, which is incorrect. MacArthur was gung-ho for his invasion to the end, Eisenhower was busy in Europe and didn't have an opinion, and the Navy people were shifting to opposing the invasion because they thought (probably correctly) that their program of blockade & bombardment would force Japan to surrender about as fast, with far less loss of American lives. 
;—wwoods 22:40, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: It's inaccurate to state that none of them expressed that opinion during the war.  Eisenhower was consulted in July 1945 and advised against using the bomb for precisely this reason.  JamesMLane 01:18, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: "Took" is misleading. As you speculate yourself that Eisenhower "did not have an opinion", we simply cannot know the opinion of every single one of them. We can only know that none of them was known to have opposed the bombings. But as the new source indicates, even that is wrong? Get-back-world-respect 23:47, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Military opinion 

message: To begin with what looks like an easy one: I assume that the multiple unexplained deletions of the "Statements of witnesses" link are simply by-products of blind reverts by people who don't like some other edit and can't be bothered to read what they're reverting.  Given that no one has so much as mentioned the link on this page, and given that -- when I take the novel approach of actually looking at the site linked to -- I find that it contains useful information at a greater level of detail than is appropriate for the article (the exactly correct circumstance for an external link), I think it should be in the article. JamesMLane 03:14, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Statements of witnesses

message: THE ATOMIC BOMBINGS OF HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI
by The Manhattan Engineer District, June 29, 1946.
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext96/abomb10.txt
This might be a nice link to mention. Where are we on the page protection front ? Rama 17:09, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Report by The Manhattan Engineer District