Unit 731

Energize · 23 Aug 2008 at 08:47

Ben M said:
The allies (well, Americans) can't exactly take the moral highground; they granted some of the people amnesty in return for giving them their results... wow.

I hope anyone else would have done the same, that data was invaluble for medical research, to throw it away would have meant many more people dying for nothing.

gord said:
While I have no doubt both sides committed atrocities I cant imagine we did anything quite like that.

Well I think Hiroshima and Nagasaki would be pretty close on the scale of destruction.

Neoni · 23 Aug 2008 at 08:52

Read this and seen some shocking pictures, that are not on that page

gillywibble · 23 Aug 2008 at 10:00

Biohazard said:
How not?

It is all our history can show us, stretching back a long time.

I appreciate it happens, but I couldn't make someone else suffer like that. Could you?

EvilDreams · 23 Aug 2008 at 10:37

Tefal said:
Over 200 thousand people where killed, by the biological weapons created by unit 731, if you'd read the article you'd have known that.

Wikipedia Article said:
possibly as many as 200,000 casualties by some estimates.

"Possibly" doesn't count.

EvilDreams · 23 Aug 2008 at 10:57

Energize said:
I hope anyone else would have done the same, that data was invaluble for medical research, to throw it away would have meant many more people dying for nothing.

Well I think Hiroshima and Nagasaki would be pretty close on the scale of destruction.

Don't forget Dresden.

RoachycaL · 23 Aug 2008 at 11:24

Reading this kind of stuff makes me feel physically sick - I cant believe humans could knowingly do that to one another.

"MacArthur secretly granted immunity to the physicians of Unit 731 in exchange for providing America with their research on biological warfare. The United States believed that the research data was valuable because the allies had never publicly conducted or condoned such experiments on humans due to moral and political revulsion"

Those two sentences in particular interest me greatly - what makes Japan think they can do stuff like this?

peetee · 23 Aug 2008 at 12:57

what MADE them think you mean? It was war, they were developing weapons and conducting research, its not soso far fetched. Its not like they didnt crash there planes into stuff etc is it

inferno · 23 Aug 2008 at 13:03

I would have supported destroying Japan, they deserved it.

EvilDreams · 23 Aug 2008 at 13:06

The women and children of Japan deserved it?

scorza · 23 Aug 2008 at 13:14

Energize said:
I hope anyone else would have done the same, that data was invaluble for medical research, to throw it away would have meant many more people dying for nothing.

No what they did was disgusting. If they agreed to co-operate the most I'd be prepared to do would be give them life imprisonment instead of being executed. Granting them amnesty was a disgrace.

peetee · 23 Aug 2008 at 13:16

if theyd played hardball with them they could have easily destroyed all the data, something which would have not have been beneficial for anyone.

America would never be able to carry out experiments like these which made the results that much more valuable...

Energize · 23 Aug 2008 at 13:38

scorza said:
No what they did was disgusting. If they agreed to co-operate the most I'd be prepared to do would be give them life imprisonment instead of being executed. Granting them amnesty was a disgrace.

Then they would not have obtained the data and the people would have died for nothing, and many more people that depended on the data would also have died. You have to rule with your head not your heart.

scorza · 23 Aug 2008 at 13:48

Energize said:
Then they would not have obtained the data and the people would have died for nothing, and many more people that depended on the data would also have died. You have to rule with your head not your heart.

My head tells me that Justice > all. The ends do not justify the means.

If I was one of the people who survived unit 731 then I'd be pretty annoyed if the people who did those terrible things got away with it.

German scientists who did similar experiments on live subjects were all tried and punished accordingly. Why not the Japs?

EvilDreams · 23 Aug 2008 at 14:17

Would be interesting to hear what the benefits of said data are/were.

blix · 23 Aug 2008 at 14:21

Pretend you're giving them amnesty, get the info, then execute them. Job done.

uknowist · 23 Aug 2008 at 14:23

blix said:
Pretend you're giving them amnesty, get the info, then execute them. Job done.

aye cant believe they didnt think of that tbfh, not as if they could complain about human rights/laws after what they did :rolleyes:

Greenlizard0 · 23 Aug 2008 at 14:38

uknowist said:
aye cant believe they didnt think of that tbfh, not as if they could complain about human rights/laws after what they did

To extend what you're saying imagine that this happened. Should any situation arise in the future like this, then all results would be immediately destroyed by those that created them. You can't bargan with them for anything you want/need.

Energize · 23 Aug 2008 at 14:50

blix said:
Pretend you're giving them amnesty, get the info, then execute them. Job done.

And then no country or person would trust the USA, and then they would have a problem...

scorza · 23 Aug 2008 at 14:57

Greenlizard0 said:
To extend what you're saying imagine that this happened. Should any situation arise in the future like this, then all results would be immediately destroyed by those that created them. You can't bargan with them for anything you want/need.

And yet that's somehow a more acceptable solution than giving the unit 731 monsters amnesty.

I will also argue that by giving them amnesty you are removing any sort of disincentive to do these horrific things again.