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If war broke out tomorrow.... - Fittisize - 7th March 2004
Quote:What you're essentially saying is that dropping the bomb was the worst thing we could have done, but you can offer no plausable alternative to it.
Fighting the war without dropping the bomb would have indeed been a better alternative...the body count could have possibly (but not likely) rang up as high as the number killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but they wouldn't have been *innocents*. 500,000 deaths of soldiers who would die fighting for their country, or at least knowing that fighting could have very well brought about their demise, compared to 500,000 (or more? how many in total died from the a-bomb droppings?) innocent bystanders...
If war broke out tomorrow.... - Fittisize - 7th March 2004
Quote:ABF: What did you do, copy a textbook?? That may very well be the longest post in TC history!
I disagree. I remember way, way back when in the Perfect Dark Countdown thread demon made a post that was like, at least twice as large as that one....
If war broke out tomorrow.... - Dark Jaguar - 7th March 2004
And I myself have made posts longer than this whole thread before, most of them unintelligable gibberish, and one my analysis of the Zelda storyline.
If war broke out tomorrow.... - A Black Falcon - 7th March 2004
Quote:ABF: What did you do, copy a textbook?? That may very well be the longest post in TC history!That was ~6 800x screens long. I know that Weltall and I have bested that in some of our political "duscussions"... :)
And ... well I'm currently reading a book about WWII and am taking a class about Japan 1860-now, so... oh and last fall I read about half of a lengthy book about the American occupation in Japan after WWII. Very good book...
And yes, as I said if their leaders had ordered them to fight to the death many people would have done so and personal reservations or certain defeat were beside the point. This is a good question that we cannot come up with a definitive answer to. It didn't happen, after all... :) But still the question -- how much would it have taken for Japan to surrender -- is a good one. Maybe we should wait a few months, I'm sure I'll know more by the end of this class I'm taking... :) But based on what I know now it is a tough one. As I said militarists were falling but still clung to some power until the A-Bomb gave the peace side enough strength to act... I don't know, it might have taken something on the magnitude of Hiroshima to give the peace side enough strength to act. But still... I think that maybe Hiroshima (as I said Nagasaki was a waste and served no purpose) could have been avoided. Yes, dropping one in some uninhabited (or close to it) area of Japan wouldn't be quite as big a statement, but it would be one once they figure out the destructive potential of the weapon... I do think that had we just waited the militarists would have held on to enough power to force us to attack Japan in an attack that would lead to mass casualties on both sides, but did we need to blow up a CITY? I think the answer is no. It might not have been quite as good a statement but it'd still be a great one and would have saved the world a lot of trouble... and if (when given enough time -- 3 days is NOT enough!) that didn't work, THEN consider using it on an inhabited city, now that they'd know the true power of the weapon (saying 'we have a weapon of unimaginable power' isn't very useful when no one has any conception of what this thing can do...) and still refused surrender. But I think that that might have destabilized the government enough. But we'll never know for sure of course.
Quote:What? We cut off supplies. Therefore, we in some way deserved to get attacked? Because of that we share the blame? That's absurd. They had choices, as you said. They could back down or lash out. They made the wrong choice, completely of their own volition. And they paid dearly for it.
No. We cut off supplies so we knew that an attack was virtual certainty. And we had signs -- the attack hardly came out of the blue. As I said we had cut their oil so they had a small window of a few months to act before their oil supply grew very low and some kind of decision was forced. And given that militarists were in control a peaceful solution and some kind of withdrawl was quite uniikely. So Roosevelt knew that this would likely lead to war... because they would not back down or see reason. Well for the majority of course. Some Japanese had really looked at the USA and seen that behind the apparent softness was a great nation and knew that Japan could never hope to win a long war, but the majority opinion was that of our weakness and Japanese 'moral superiority' that would lead them to victory against the soft Americans. And then of course Pearl Harbor... as I said it should not have been a surprise. We knew in the day or so prior that Japan would attack somewhere. The Phillipines were expecting assualt, and Guam... Pearl was far out and wasn't expecting anything, but still (basing this on said WWII book I read) there were things that should have shown it... a warning from Washington that attack was coming was blocked by poor reception and didn't get to Pearl Harbor until after the battle started, that radar station assumed that the Japanese planes were an expected flight from California and not an enemy force, other Japanese messages clearly marking Pearl Harbor were unread in the intercepted communications part of the decoding operation, etc...
And yes a surprise attack was not the way you shouid start a war but as I said Japan in recent history had done it multiple times before so it was hardly a tactic that we did not expect them to use.
Quote: Do you remember the massive German backlash there was in the First World War?
Yeah, they were all baby-killing Huns, right?
Quote:It also bears noting that much of America's action for a good deal of our involvement was against Japan. Until D-Day, there really wasn't a huge American presence against Germany. For most of the war Japan was our nemesis. When we were finally able to start throwing our weight around in Europe, Germany collapsed pretty quickly. They weren't the immediate threat to America that Japan was. Racism? Yeah, that had something to do with it. But the fact that Japan was much closer to home and for a while practically knocking on the door, coupled with their coward's attack against us while in peace talks doubtless made Americans far more pissed at the Japanese than we were with Hitler.
Hmm. I disagree. We did not focus on Japan ahead of Germany. Look at the invasions in North Africa in 1942 and Italy in 1943 before Normandy in 1944... actually for a while we were thinking HItler first, then the Japanese. We did change that and start island-hopping while acting in Europe as well, but still I would say that we focused more on Germany than Japan. Of course the fact that Germany had England and Russia also fighting them hard while only China and some British on the south and west edges were fighting Japan had an impact too, but we decided for a while to more slow Japan than put on a full assualt... I think that's why it took as long as it did. But I'd say that we were able to fight that two-front war pretty effectively, with plenty of emphasis on both fronts the whole time to be able to do more than just hold the line...
If war broke out tomorrow.... - Great Rumbler - 7th March 2004
That was hilarious, DJ! :D
If war broke out tomorrow.... - Weltall - 7th March 2004
Fittisize Wrote:Fighting the war without dropping the bomb would have indeed been a better alternative...the body count could have possibly (but not likely) rang up as high as the number killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but they wouldn't have been *innocents*. 500,000 deaths of soldiers who would die fighting for their country, or at least knowing that fighting could have very well brought about their demise, compared to 500,000 (or more? how many in total died from the a-bomb droppings?) innocent bystanders...
...That is likely the most ridiculous thing I've ever read here that wasn't posted by ABF. :hmm:
I would think the ideal would be to prevent as many deaths as possible, regardless of who they were. And, as I said before, since I am an American, I would vastly prefer the course that results in less Americans dying. After all, the Americans were fighting for my benefit, while the Japanese were fighting, at least, in spirit, to kill me and defeat my country. I don't get why differentiating between the two is so difficult. It works the same way of how you value the lives of your family over those of strangers... in this case, strangers who are out to get you. If I had to kill five people to save someone I loved, especially if they were out to kill that person, I'd do it twice if I could.
If war broke out tomorrow.... - A Black Falcon - 7th March 2004
One misconception -- 500000 is all the deaths from American bombing. Hiroshima was about 100,000-150,000 immediate casualties (ie not counting the thousands of later deaths from radiation poisoning), and Nagasaki 30-40 thousand or so... the rest of those were from conventional bombings, including the Tokyo firebombing that was early in our bombing campaign and killed between 80,000 and 100,000 people.
World War II was probably the worst and least moral war ever fought. Tens of millions of innocent civilians died. And only a tiny fraction of the people who killed those civilians were punished... including of course virtually none of the Allied ones because we won so we wouldn't persecute ourselves!
And Weltall it's because of what we said. Killing enemy soldiers? Okay, they were directly threatening you so I can see why you'd do that. But civilians are not... and it's not like killing them will make the people you are killing want to give up it will just harden their resolve especially in a state like Japan at that time. The goal should be the fewest casualties, and of the casualties the fewest civilians (an invasion wouldn't have been a great alternative here either of course because huge numbers of civilians would have died in that too, by accident or in mass attacks against the Americans that the Japanse would do...). Just because those people hated America because they were told to doesn't make it okay to kill them! They have the right to life too, and it should be our responsibility to find the best way out. We didn't really do that here. We took the easy way, with no casualties for us but massive ones for them... that is more palpable to Americans but objectively not any more moral than having large casualties for both sides. I cannot believe that there was no way to avoid mass slaughter on a scale never before seen.
If war broke out tomorrow.... - Weltall - 7th March 2004
A Black Falcon Wrote:One misconception -- 500000 is all the deaths from American bombing. Hiroshima was about 100,000-150,000 immediate casualties (ie not counting the thousands of later deaths from radiation poisoning), and Nagasaki 30-40 thousand or so... the rest of those were from conventional bombings, including the Tokyo firebombing that was early in our bombing campaign and killed between 80,000 and 100,000 people.
World War II was probably the worst and least moral war ever fought. Tens of millions of innocent civilians died. And only a tiny fraction of the people who killed those civilians were punished... including of course virtually none of the Allied ones because we won so we wouldn't persecute ourselves!
And Weltall it's because of what we said. Killing enemy soldiers? Okay, they were directly threatening you so I can see why you'd do that. But civilians are not... and it's not like killing them will make the people you are killing want to give up it will just harden their resolve especially in a state like Japan at that time. The goal should be the fewest casualties, and of the casualties the fewest civilians (an invasion wouldn't have been a great alternative here either of course because huge numbers of civilians would have died in that too, by accident or in mass attacks against the Americans that the Japanse would do...). Just because those people hated America because they were told to doesn't make it okay to kill them! They have the right to life too, and it should be our responsibility to find the best way out. We didn't really do that here. We took the easy way, with no casualties for us but massive ones for them... that is more palpable to Americans but objectively not any more moral than having large casualties for both sides. I cannot believe that there was no way to avoid mass slaughter on a scale never before seen.
...I'm glad you hate fighting, come to think of it. The idea that you might ever lead or command combat men... it would frighten me to the depth of my soul to fight under the command of someone who would gladly send me and possibly millions of my comrades to their certain death just to ease his own conscience about enemy civilians. Someone who would gladly see MORE people die and prolong the devastation of war for God knows how many years just to ensure that more uniformed Americans die as opposed to civilians. It's even worse when this comes from someone who lacks the fortitude to fight for his country himself.
If anyone ever wonder why I actually hold personal animosity to liberals while just being able to agree to disagree with other groups of people, it's because of people who think like this.
If war broke out tomorrow.... - Fittisize - 7th March 2004
Ah, the death of a uniformed officer is much more, um, what's the word I'm looking for here? Anyways I've said it before in this thread: soldiers know what they are getting into, they signed up (well, some of them) to fight for the death. Civillians don't deserve to die over something they aren't fighting for...
I'd hate to have you ever lead a combat or battle. "Instead of killing off their army, why don't we just bomb their cities and kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people?" "Makes sense to me!"
If war broke out tomorrow.... - A Black Falcon - 7th March 2004
Where do you get the idea I think a ground invasion would be a good alternative? Overall it probably would have led to even more civilian casualties, especially considering the character of Japan at the time!
If war broke out tomorrow.... - Fittisize - 7th March 2004
More?? You're crazy
Carazy.
If war broke out tomorrow.... - A Black Falcon - 7th March 2004
That was a response to Weltall of course.
And what do you mean? How wouid a ground invasion lead to fewer than 200,000 civilian deaths? Oh okay add tens of thousands if you want to include all the radiation poisioning deaths later on, but it was under 200,000 immediate deaths... a ground invasion could get VERY messy if Japanese leaders wanting peace hadn't quickly gotten power. And many, many civilians would die because they would attack the American troops... as I said, no matter if they could win or not...
For a model, see Okinawa and expand it to a huge scale. That was a very real possibility had we invaded.
Quote:I'd hate to have you ever lead a combat or battle. "Instead of killing off their army, why don't we just bomb their cities and kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people?" "Makes sense to me!"
Standard operating strategy on all sides in WWII.
If war broke out tomorrow.... - Dark Jaguar - 7th March 2004
Thanks GR!
Vote for Urkel!
If war broke out tomorrow.... - Darunia - 10th March 2004
I'd hate to have you ever lead a combat or battle. "Instead of killing off their army, why don't we just bomb their cities and kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people?" "Makes sense to me!"
You speak as though their entire army would be tightly clustered and unprotected. Like sitting in a field, or on a camping retreat. If it'd have been feasible to take out the army, I'm sure it would've been done---but you know that in reality, armies are scattered and protected more so than many cities.
If war broke out tomorrow.... - alien space marine - 11th March 2004
To be honnest I understand why the U.S nuked them , You had fought a exhausting war in europe and you had defeated the Japanese but they wouldnt quit and were so desperate they began training women for combat which was Taboo for them. The nuclear strikes may saved more lives preventing years of warfare and casualties . unfortunately it also pushed the Russians to rush in and get armed with as many nukes as possible.
If war broke out tomorrow.... - Dark Jaguar - 11th March 2004
Haha, I hadn't noticed that little thing there. I was suggesting just bombing some place they could all see and then bombing a city if it didn't work, but it does look like ABF is actually suggesting they "bomb the army" as though the Japanese would actually group it all and tell everyone where it is.
If war broke out tomorrow.... - Great Rumbler - 11th March 2004
Hirohito: Alright, Mr. American President, I have moved all of my troops to a large open field!
Truman: Hey, sounds good to me!
If war broke out tomorrow.... - Nick Burns - 11th March 2004
Wow ABF, You need to get your facts straight.
The ONLY REASON the Japanese surrendered was because we nuked them. The leaders of their military forced the men of Japan to fight by threatening to kill their families. They were all prepared to literally fight to the last man. Yes, the number of human casualties was high, but they killed 75% of the POWs they captured, military and civilian. What we did was better for their country anyway, if almost all the men of Japan died in conflict, there would be very few true Japanese living today. And if we didn't use the bombs and invaded Japan like intended, then alot of Japan's natural history would have been destroyed, and there would be no guarantee they we would have won. The Allied soldiers of the pacific theatre where used to open-terrain fighting, not close-quarters city fighting. Japan and German cities where very different in the fact that Japan's cities are large and cramped, easily hiding millions of troops in buildings with civilians.
And before you reply to this, answer me this ABF: If you where fighting back then, and someone gave you the choice of dropping a bomb, or going in with your friends to fight without the nukes, would you go in and risk your life and possibly never see your family again (wife and kids), or would you want to go home and live out the rest of your days happily with your loved ones?
If war broke out tomorrow.... - A Black Falcon - 11th March 2004
Quote:The ONLY REASON the Japanese surrendered was because we nuked them. The leaders of their military forced the men of Japan to fight by threatening to kill their families. They were all prepared to literally fight to the last man. Yes, the number of human casualties was high, but they killed 75% of the POWs they captured, military and civilian. What we did was better for their country anyway, if almost all the men of Japan died in conflict, there would be very few true Japanese living today. And if we didn't use the bombs and invaded Japan like intended, then alot of Japan's natural history would have been destroyed, and there would be no guarantee they we would have won. The Allied soldiers of the pacific theatre where used to open-terrain fighting, not close-quarters city fighting. Japan and German cities where very different in the fact that Japan's cities are large and cramped, easily hiding millions of troops in buildings with civilians.
The ONLY REASON? And you know this how? You do know that not the ENTIRE Japanese goverment was all for fighting to the death, right? By late in the war there was a side wanting peace. The Emperor didn't really come around until Okinawa was lost, but at that point he did start moving towards peace. As I detailed before (and as you say) the problem was that the militarists were in control. And as I said before, the question was how much it would take to get them out and let the Emperor move for peace... was the nuke needed or would have some diplomacy, late in the war (ie before the nukes), have done the trick? A "test" near Japan? With how badly they were doing the peace group was gaining strength for sure...
If war broke out tomorrow.... - alien space marine - 11th March 2004
You cannot forget that Japanese military philosophy at the time conciderd surrender or peace as a sign of cowardice and dishonnor infact soldiers were orderd to commit suicide rather then be captured,Japan had been militaristic for centuries and their own pride and arogance prevented them from seeing reason.While there was definently some who wanted to end the war the ones in charge wouldnt untill they got their asses burned too the ground.
I think the Nuking regretably was inevitable,It was to show that those Japanese zealots had zero chance of winning and if they didnt call it quits they would be wiped out off the face of the earth one by one and be remeberd as idiots and fools for not surrendering.
If war broke out tomorrow.... - Nick Burns - 11th March 2004
A Black Falcon Wrote:The Emperor didn't really come around until Okinawa was lost, but at that point he did start moving towards peace.
Common misconception that is in put in many school textbooks: The emperor had nothing to do with the surrender. It was that choice of most of the CO's after their families where killed. Even then, there where those who sought to take the pre-made surrender recordings to continue the war (thus forcing the president to drop a third atomic bomb on TOKYO). Go watch the history channel before you post again. Its your kind that are a disgrace to this country.
If war broke out tomorrow.... - A Black Falcon - 11th March 2004
That's the traditional way of thinking -- that they never would have surrendered any other way. Sorry that I've been reading some newer books that are a bit more contraversial on their views on the end of the war...
ASM you say nothing I didn't say already, in some of my long posts. I acknowledged that Japan was extremely militaristic. I said that their constitution was rigged so that when it wanted to the people on top could easily take over and Japanese society, as a 'do as your superior says no matter what' society in every way, was an easy one for a military clique to take over, especially when they are closely connected to some of the biggest industrialists...
But as I said, in 1945 it was obvious that they had lost. A book we're reading for class is a biography of Hirohito. It's a contraversial one. It says that contrary to the popular belief, Hirohito was a strong leader who had a lot of power. He wasn't just a pawn of militarists, he WAS a militarist. He was brought up to be one by a military clique and he grew up to be one. And he believed that Japan would win, strongly. The book says that Hirohito didn't really start thinking about peace until after Okinawa was over... most other governments would have surrendered well before then, but as we have established Japan had a unique character. Still there WAS a peace side, including the crown prince, and the Emperor by the time Okinawa ended had realized that the war probably had to be ended. And as I said the main conflict was the peace group, now immesurably stronger (it would have gone absolutely nowhere without the Emperor's support), versus militarists.
And as I said, the big unanswered question is what it would have taken to dislodge them. After reading this book, and another one about postwar Japan, I think that the nuke was not needed. As I said timely diplomacy (possibly as little as assuring that the Imperial house would not be destroyed) or maybe a test not on a city could possibly have done it (if given time to go through the process). But of course I'm liberal and the books probably are too so you probably won't pay much attention to me...
And Weltall I don't get how you continue to think that I wanted us to invade. I just don't.
If war broke out tomorrow.... - Great Rumbler - 11th March 2004
Hindsight's always 20/20...
It's easy to sit back 60 years later and say "That wasn't necessary". Think about this though: If Truman had dropped out two atomic bombs, our ONLY two atomic bombs, somewhere isolated and the Emperor still refused to surrender, then what? And it's easy to say "I read a book about the emperor and I know that he would have surrendered after something like that", but the president didn't have the luxury of know what the emperor would or would not do. There was a chioce: Use the nukes in such a way that the Japanese would have no choice but to surrender, or risk an all out ground invasion which would have cost countless lives, destroyed the country, and be faced with the possibility of a war we couldn't win. There weren't any history books to read to try and find what the right chioce was, there weren't any autobiographies that said how far they would have to go to get a surrender. Truman chose to drop the bombs and end the war.
If war broke out tomorrow.... - A Black Falcon - 11th March 2004
GR we had four A-Bombs. I believe we had one more left... not absolutely certain, but I think we had one more left.
And you're right that living it doesn't give you as many options as speculating for a long time. And you need to take into account that they didn't really know what was going on in Japan exactly... or they probably would have tried more diplomacy a bit sooner and maybe done a assurance for the Emperor (though that was contentious because some said that that would leave the militarist structure in place -- we rectified that by making the Emperor powerless in the constitution we wrote...)... but they had a lot of other things and probably didn't see Japan nearly as close to surrender as information suggests it possibly was.
Oh, if the militarists had kept power and we had invaded it would absolutely have been a bloodbath. As I said the people may have had misgivings but if they had been asked to fight and die, or commit suicide by the millions, they would have done it... which is why I said that invasion was no alternative. The question was how we could get a stubborn nation to surrender without invasion... and Truman took the safest way out, the way most certain to lead to a quick surrender. Other means probably would have worked but it would have meant working with the Japanese leaders in some fashion, and given we were in a war with them it's very possible that we didn't make enough efforts that way...
And then of course we ran out of time, and the Soviets entered the war. We couldn't let them take any more land so we had to end it really fast and we just used the bomb.
If war broke out tomorrow.... - Great Rumbler - 11th March 2004
Quote:GR we had four A-Bombs. I believe we had one more left... not absolutely certain, but I think we had one more left.
I'll have to look again, but I'm pretty sure the one we dropped on Nagasaki was our last one.
If war broke out tomorrow.... - A Black Falcon - 11th March 2004
Anyway one was probably enough (why drop TWO to show them that the A-Bomb works? One'd be enough I think...) so even if that WAS last you'd have one more...
If war broke out tomorrow.... - Dark Jaguar - 11th March 2004
Well GR, keep in mind the idea is to drop one where they can see it, and THEN drop one on a city if that didn't do it. That MIGHT have been the better thing to do, though there's a chance that had they only seen it, while we were giving them time to surrender, they would have been rationalizing it within themselves since no one actually died and figure they could deal with such a weapon. That time to surrender might just be used to build up their courage to a point that when a city was bombed, they would still not surrender because they are no longer surprised. They likely figured that, and while there's a CHANCE simply showing the power before actually using it against them could work, I think they figured into that sort of psychology and decided their best bet was to attack them and put the fear into them. Why drop 2 you may ask. The second was to show that we had more than 1, and nothing more really. To show that that wasn't a fluke, and that it wasn't an accidental meteor. For example, how long do you think it would have taken for us to figure out it was a terrorist attack if rather than 4 planes being hijacked and crashed, they only crashed 1 of them? I remember that some thought after hearing of the first one, for a bit, that it was just some terrible accident. It's to show proof that it was certainly a planned attack and not some freakish event of nature (considering the sheer amazing power, and their mindset, they may assume we Americans are lying and claiming a fantastical event of nature as their own doing). Now, the thing is, it's clear that at the time they thought it was their only option to drop it directly onto some major cities, and it's clear they were convinced they needed to show them that it was truly them and not a freak accident of nature like a meteor. However, it's not clear that they needed BOTH bombs to hit cities. Perhaps they could have bombed a city and open country within view of another city. They would have to be far apart, but then one last thing. It's possible the Americans had thought the Japanese, trying to convince themselves of it being a natural disaster, would assume the sightings of the blast out in an unoccupied area were actually just people seeing the city blast, or at least that's what everyone would be told by the higher ups. Since humans back then were just as intelligent as we are now, you can't put it past them that they would think of these sorts of psychological elements of the attack. Indeed the very nature of the attack WAS psychology. No, it's clear that America after some thought was convinced that if they were going to use the bombs to end the war, the only sure way to do it was the one they chose, the rest were fraught with chances the Japanese would either not be afraid after seeing a demonstration and given time to think about it or the Japanese thinking it was a natural disaster of epic proportions. This was the only way to put a quick fear into them that would get them to surrender without much time to think about it and convince them that it WAS in fact humans who caused that massive catastrophe. Indeed, since they most likely had backups (remember GR, they DID have to test this weapon many times before actually using it, so they had more), they were merciful only in the sense that they ONLY used what they had figured they needed to, and didn't use ALL their bombs.
If war broke out tomorrow.... - A Black Falcon - 11th March 2004
Did you people read my long posts?
If war broke out tomorrow.... - Nick Burns - 12th March 2004
Dark Jaguar Wrote:Well GR, keep in mind the idea is to drop one where they can see it, and THEN drop one on a city if that didn't do it. That MIGHT have been the better thing to do, though there's a chance that had they only seen it, while we were giving them time to surrender, they would have been rationalizing it within themselves since no one actually died and figure they could deal with such a weapon.
That MIGHT have worked, If you could find a spot anywhere near there that wasn't heavily populated. That and the fact is that we didn't have the money at that time to take such a gamble. And if we did nuke it for show, who's to say that some nuteral countries wouldn't retaliate?
If war broke out tomorrow.... - alien space marine - 12th March 2004
They couldnt take any risks , so they blasted two cities to make sure that there would be no doubt in the minds of the Japanese that the U.S had the power to obliterate them and the resources too continue to do it and it was no bluff.
If war broke out tomorrow.... - Dark Jaguar - 12th March 2004
Well, actually nuking the cities would have gotten the same retaliation if that was to occur. I'm not sure that's an issue per say, but the rest of what I mentioned sure are issues.
There is ALWAYS an unoccupied area. I don't think you realize how truly massive our planet is relative to us. Humans are spread OUT everywhere, but are you even comprehending the sheer gaps between cities? You've only seen places with the human touch. You've never gone too far from a road, I think at least, most people haven't. Try driving into the country, and THEN walking out into the vastness for a while. I can promise you that if you kept it up, no one would EVER find you for a LONG time, until eons from then some archeoligists say stuff like "We assume this device, which we label a "backpack", was designed as a form of punishment.". Sure there's plenty of space to bomb nothing, and considering how big a nuke's explosion is, they'd see it. Keep in mind the other problems I thought of.
If war broke out tomorrow.... - Darunia - 12th March 2004
I'll have to look again, but I'm pretty sure the one we dropped on Nagasaki was our last one.
Good thing that they didn't know that.
If war broke out tomorrow.... - Great Rumbler - 12th March 2004
That was kind of the point. :)