I\'m chiming in a bit late, but I still want to throw my hat into this one regardless.
Without America, there wouldn\'t be alot of things. Such as fast computers (hey M$ was good for somethi.......wait, they don\'t make computer ), England, France and most, if not all of Europe will be speaking German right now. We saved Europes ass in WWI and WWII. Without it, Europe would have lost. That\'s what I find funny. All these countries hate us be we saved them from being destroyed or taken over. Our men died for them and that\'s the thanks we get?
Wrong. You think we joined WWII just to save Europe? Let me put it this way, in a few years once all of Europe was theres, who do you think was next? You think Africa posed a massive threat to their massive military build up? Germany tried fighting a war on two fronts and without our intervention, it was definitely possible that Europe would have falled and Germany could have steam rolled right over Russia, joined their allies in occupying China, and then built a massive naval force to come and take the US out. It\'s all highly possible and to assume that we did it for anyones benefit other than our own is insane.
Our men died when our best interests were realized many years after the war had started.
Actually, we wouldn\'t be speaking Japanese. The only reason the US got into the war was because we were bombed and it was a wake up call that the Nazi\'s were going to get Europe and go after us.
Don\'t forget that we brought this entire thing upon ourselves. We cut off Japan\'s oil supply crippling their entire country and then had a good laugh about it from hundreds of miles away believing that we were untouchable with our naval fleet at anchor. When the life blood of a country is gone, there\'s no choice but force when there\'s a possibility that a GREAT victory could turn the possibility of victory in your favor.
Civilians are NOT Combatants
That\'s a given, but in war, especially with so many new weapons that are bent on the idea of mass killing, it\'s unavoidable. You have to admit, for every ally we accidentally nail, we hit a thousand times more of the enemy and today there are still accidents, but there are far fewer thanks to the advances of technology. Just think about how we used to wipe out entire platoons of troops because of a misguided mortar or napalm bomb and how much less it happens now. The advent of the media makes the small accidents that much more massive in comparison to the propaganda released in the thirties and forties speaking of the war.
As for the two bombs on Japan, why couldn\'t the reasoning be for both possibilities? We save troops and demontrate our strength to Russia in one fell swoop. As to why a populated area, it\'s to show JUST how destructive it could be. Seeing a ball of fire wipe out a tiny town is hardly as impressive as seeing that same ball of fire wipe out a massive city and kill thousands of people. It\'s just simple cause and effect analysis, nothing more.
I love my country and I love the freedoms that we stand for and although I do believe our foreign policy is utter garbage, I still don\'t feel its my place to totaly bad mouth it when I don\'t personally do anything about it. I don\'t vote and I don\'t participate in legal matters and I honestly don\'t care about them, but I do respect them when they deserve it.
