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How the hell is that what I said?

it was an example paraphrasing your position.

Yet you continuously attempt to portray the USA as uniformly bad throughout this thread...

wrong. I attempt to show that the US foreign policy has been almost uniformly bad for the world since WWII. of course tehre are also various other shortcomings about the US which I dont mention here - but many positive things as well.

and yet I think you're rabidly out of sorts with your opinion of the USA. I really really hate it when I see the stereotype of the rabidly anti-American European acted out, because more often than not I'm more than prepared to agree with many Europeans on the utter foolishness -- criminal, even -- of certain US foreign policies.

this is typical. what you should think about is the following:

what if the crazy rabid anti-American Europeans are actually right to a significant extent? what if the US "patriots" are in fact, insane pro-American nationalists, and the people called "unpatriotic" in the US are, in fact, US patriots who are not nationalistic ENOUGH?

funny thing is, this is not new in history either. it was much the same in Nazi Germany in the mid-30s.

...and then I'm forced to the defend the USA from this kind of, well, bigotry.

what you should think about is our comparative knowledge of world history. do you think you have a better idea of what the US (and other major nations) did in the 20th century than I do?

So now here's a question: who's the clear aggressor in WW2, Pacific theater?

Japan.

through your own argument of retaliation being morally understandable, gave the USA a carte blanche to do whatever it takes to defeat Japan in the war, considering they were attacked first?

No. check my statement. it says "millions of casualties". all Japan did was attack a few military targets at an offshore military base, with a couple thousand - military - casualties. thats two orders of magnitude less.

Drastic, risky, and destructive, definitely, and the pesky pacifistic scientists gave their usual warnings; but it'd just cause roughly the same results as firebombing campaigns or vicious street-to-street urban fighting; better yet, same casualties for the Japan, may be more, but less for "us," and we'd gain a lot of geopolitical power.

you probably aren't familiar with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_Site?

Until it sank in, holy shit, this is not just a bomb, this is Death, the Destroyer of Worlds. We just changed everything.

that's your invention. there is no reason to think that any of the responsibles for the atomic bombings changed their point of view (most didnt, at all) just because of the destruction. they expected it.

I don't know. Do you know?

I do know, because I have a much better idea of world history. Japan was on the verge of surrender before the bombings already. that is confirmed by MANY independent reports from different authoritative people. the bombs were directed primarily against Stalin and not against Japan.

That's the thing. What you want to do, after to figure out what was going on, is to try and stop it from happening again, not pointing the finger: look, the USA doesn't even know it did this. What a horrible country.

well, you see, in order to stop something from happening, you must first understand what is causing it. I dont think most Americans understand that.

he USA is a place where when half the country's youth was drafted to Vietnam for no decent reason whatsoever, the other half were singing protest songs in San Francisco.

protests against the Vietnam war, in its early years, were nowhere close to 50% of the population. 5% would be a better estimate, and even that is probably exaggerated.

how about Germany? Do German kids come out of their history classes aware of the intricacies of history? I'd bet on no.

not really, but they have a better general idea of world history since German history classes and media are in general much less propagandistic than American ones.

if anything, I remember from a few years ago a very clear lesson from my AP US history class was that the European immigrants who came over fucked over the natives really, really bad. Over and over again. And they fucked over the black slaves really, really bad. Over and over again. And they attacked Mexico on flimsy pretexts, Spain on flimsy pretexts. And we were taught that. Nobody happens to pay attention to history class, that is all.

European colonial history is, obviously, about as savage and brutal as the history of US foreign policy, if not more. it's just that ist much older and not present anymore nowadays.

Great, brainwashed Western position. Quite a way to portray the opposition.

thats a fact, whether you like it or not. i am yet to meet a single American who would be able to defend a position significantly different from mine on US foreign policy in post-WWII 20th century. it's all a question of knowledge and logic.

As an OT: what academic field are you in? It's quite interesting you'd do a lot of precise mathematical arguments.

i have a MSc degree in CS and a Bachelor in Mathematics.

Again, why should nuclear weapon usage in 1945 makes light of anti-nuclear sentiment in 2008?

the point is how it is perceived today. and, very much to my regret, it is STILL not recognized as an error, much less as a war crime. sadly, this must make one
assume that the US would not have any trouble doing the same again, given sufficient propaganda effort. and THIS is really scary, since it may ultimately
simply lead to a total nuclear war and the demise of modern civilization.

The USA is -not- a monolithic, static entity. People change, leaders change;

the problem is that the foreign policy doesnt change! if you paid attention, you would have realized that the US foreign policy under Clinton was not much less aggressive and mischievous than that under Bush. the reason is simple: the people driving it in the background dont change with the administrations. its still largely the same corporations, military-industrial complex, large industry figures, etc.

But the WW2 blame game has to stop. It has nothing to do with this.

see above. you need to understand a few key facts of WWII to go on. if you are living in an illusory world already regarding that - almost ancient history for some from today's standpoint - you have little chance of understanding contemporary politics.

And to answer your question below (the last one) right here: if this is not
what you were trying to say, then what is your argument trying to achieve?

my central argument, in simple words:

US foreign policy is fucked up and might with a good chance lead to a WWIII, with hundreds of millions dead. also, the perception of the world and world history that the majority of US population has, is fucked up (courtesy to decades of brainwash).

that clear enough?

That the decision to use nuclear weapons against Japan was complex, and it wasn't necessarily a heroic,
pure decision?

it was simply a war crime.

I would not use that to start arguing that it, in your own words, made the US's
"current policy look very, very bad." I don't buy that.

I could prove that in EXTREME detail. taking dozens of specific conflicts, both WWII and post-WWII, and going deep down in historic materials to show you, time after time, that you don't have a clear picture of what the US foreign policy is all about. but, honestly, its a lot of work, and I am busy. typing posts like this already takes up more free time than I have. so I sincerely recommend you to take initiative into your own hands, throw away your prejudice, and read up in MUCH DETAIL on some historic post-WWII conflicts with US participation.

How about including the statement I quoted just above, the one with the US policy? Or in the first page, with cold-bloodedness
and cruelty?

which statement?

WanderingKnight said it, and I agree with him. Essentially: everyone did this and that, so let's
use history to learn what that means; not using questionable premises to establish the morality or immorality
of an act just to further your own agenda.

Premises like the number game.

thats a meaningless statement. what does it mean - "use history"? history is not more and not less than using that very "numbers game" to verify stuff for yourself.

It was a war crime back then?

it was one back then - Geneva convention - and it still is one today:

"Noncombatants [...] shall in all circumstances be treated humanely".

News to me. It was wrong? Against what alternatives?

against all of them. i dont really see an alternative which would have been more cruel to the Japanese civilian population. maybe drop a couple more nuclear bombs after they had surrendered? or something...

but in choices of kill them (nuclear), kill them
(invasion), kill them (firebombing/air raids), or kill them (starvation), what's the difference?

thats totally inadequate to the reality of the situation. read my posts above. a valid alternative would have been for example to accept Japan's repeated offers for a conditional surrender.