In defense of Harry S. Truman and the decision he had to make.

[MohRokTah]

It's easy to now, 71 years after the fact, criticize the use of the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The effects of the bombs were horrendous.

But if you take it out of the context of late July, 1945, you are mistaken completely in your criticism.

The US had just fought the most horrible conflict ever known to man in the European theater of war, and that was only half of the picture. Japanese soldiers ran into enemy fire to die by the hundreds on every island invasion we made in the Pacific. There was never any guarantee we could persuade Tojo and the militarists to surrender.

Estimates at the time were that as many as 100,000 American troops could die in an invasion of the main island of Japan. Troops that had been fighting in Africa, Italy, and Europe for years were preparing to be shipped to the Pacific.

Harry S, Truman had the most difficult decision of any human being in the history of homo sapiens, and even then he had no clue about the horrendous effects of an atomic weapon.

I will defend to my dying day, this courageous and brilliant Democrat.

He made the CORRECT decision.

[Press Virginia]

1. Yes. He most certainly did.

More people would have died in an invasion on both sides.

[MohRokTah]

5. I say this with skin in the game.

My grandfather was a SeaBee awaiting the invasion of the main island at the time.

Furthermore, I grew up with a friend whose mother was a Japanese citizen at the time and who had left Hiroshima on the day of the bombing.

It was horrible, but the entire fucking war was horrible and it had to come to an end!

[47of74]

21. Yeah me too

My Grandpa was in the Pacific Theater during World War II and probably would have been in any invasion force so I might not be here now if Truman hadn't done with he did.

Interesting side note: he met Tōjō after the war while the former General was imprisoned at Sugamo Prison and witnessed the hangings of several Japanese war criminals. He was not happy about Shrub's idiocy in Iraq, having been through war he was against more of the same.

[braddy]

33. My dad had started the war fighting the Japanese, later doing interdiction on German shipping and

subs of off South America, and then D-Day, and then was having to ready himself for Japanese and the Kamikazes again.

[Agnosticsherbet]

2. Hindsight is always 20/20...

Because it is easy to sit here at our leisure and judge the past.

[tavernier]

3. And yet people want that job so badly.

i will never understand politicians.

[stone space]

4. Sorry. can't defend genocide. (nt)

[MohRokTah]

6. Claiming it was genocide is ridiculous. eom

[stone space]

8. Oh, silly me!

Claiming it was genocide is ridiculous. eom

"They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks"--Isaiah 2-4

IN THE KING OF PRUSSIA: THE TRIAL OF THE PLOWSHARES 8 takes us back to 1982 with Emile de Antonio's portrayal of the Plowshares 8 civic disobedience at General Electric's nuclear weapons plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. The group included Molly Rush, co-founder of the Merton Center. Posting of this cliip celebrates the April 13 visit of Martin Sheen, who plays the judge in the movie, to Pittsburgh, Pa and the Thomas Merton Center. YOU CAN'T HUG A CHILD WITH NUCLEAR ARMS!!!

The Hammer Has to Fall

Charlie King

A Review of the Plowshares Movement through 2012

A history of the Plowshares movement from 1980 to 2012, compiled from the records of many friends by Ardeth Platte OP and Susan Crane.

[MohRokTah]

9. Yes, claiming it was genocide is the height of falsehood. eom

[Press Virginia]

11. The word does not mean what he thinks it means.

[MohRokTah]

12. Given that more than 120 million people of Japanese descent still live in Japan, ...

he has no clue what that word means.

[TeamPooka]

18. I don't think that word means what you think it means. nt

[mwooldri]

19. Ridiculous.

Whether the dropping of the atomic bomb brought more benefit than the destruction it wrought is something that will be debated long after I have left this world. However to say that the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were genocide is way wide off the mark.

After all the B29s and their carpet bombing did far more damage than the two nuclear bombs.

I do believe Japan was ready to surrender before Hiroshima and the nuke was unnecessary but genocide... no.

[Bucky]

7. There's also the problem of no one blaming the Japanese leaders fort their role

Commentators constantly iterate that Japan was essentially defeated by the summer of 45. But the Big Six committee who had to make that call refused to acknowledge how dire their military situation was.

Of course Ike famously said the 2 bombs weren't necessary but Truman had a responsibility to end the way quickly. And it wasn't just Japan wishing to avoid a partition there like what was developing in Germany.

A better solution was available in1945 but there's simply no way Truman could have considered another option

[MohRokTah]

10. He had two bombs in the entire arsenal.

He gave them three days.

After their refusal to surrender after three days, he had to prove Hiroshima was not a fluke.

By using the last bomb in the arsenal three days after the first, he also intimated that a bomb would drop every three days until they DID surrender.

It was a bold move, it ended the war, and it saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

[Bucky]

34. That feels like a good argument, but the documentary record doesn't support it

The Japanese army and the Big Six knew by the end of that same day that what happened at Hiroshima was an atomic bomb. There were established lines of communication between the US and Japan (through the Swedish embassy in Moscow, if I recall correctly) so that the Japanese could have offered any number of messages to end the carnage before or after Hiroshima. What they had was a political structure that, due to internal dynamics, didn't allow them to surrender.

What is clear from the records of their deliberations is that they were still more worried about Russia invading their homeland than about the a-bomb. I strongly recommend reading Racing the Enemy to get a clear picture of the hows and whys of the surrender and of the cultures in Washington, Tokyo, and Moscow that led up to the two bombings.

[LostOne4Ever]

13. Using nuclear weapons (and primarily against civilians) will always be indefensible. NT

[MohRokTah]

14. But only 71 years after the fact. eom

[LostOne4Ever]

16. No it was wrong then too. nt

[MohRokTah]

23. Completely disagree.

I will fight your ill informed viewpoint with every fiber of my being.

[Scootaloo]

29. I'll take General MacArthur over yourself, thanks

MacArthur’s views about the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were starkly different from what the general public supposed …. When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor.

[Bucky]

35. and yet seven years later that same MacArthur got fired by that same Truman...

for, in part, wanting to use the atomic bomb against North Korea. There is much to admire about Douglass MacArthur and his service to the country. He is not a reliable or objective source for judging anything that Harry Truman did. They loathed each other.

I strongly recommend reading Racing the Enemy by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa if you want to get an informed, nuanced view of what happened and what was or wasn't justified in 1945

[Bucky]

40. You're doing fine with just using logic

I understand and actually kind of support the people who choose to misunderstand Truman's decision. I think they lack empathy for Truman's situation and as a history teacher, I have to fault them for getting the interpretation wrong and deliberately misunderstanding the dynamics that Truman had to work with. Obviously someone calling Hiroshima "genocide" is not have a serious conversation with you--at least not a serious discussion about a historical event.

But that said, the people who passionately oppose nuclear arms have been a vital voice in the world coming to see the evil that these weapons do. That has created a moral center that has helped a world that's rotten with nukes avoid having a nuclear detonation against any targets since 1945. I never argue with success. The interplay of nuclear weapons and the fear of what they can do has ended major wars as a global concern--or at least kept the tiger in the cage for 70 years.

[roamer65]

15. It's May, not August.

What's done is done, thank God they haven't been used in warfare since.

[stone space]

17. Fuck Nuclear Genocide! (nt)

[Hoyt]

20. Even if one accepts that, one nuke was enough. Japan was badly beaten already. They weren't a threat

any more than Iraq, probably less.

[Bucky]

36. But of course Truman's job was also about making sure Japan wouldn't be a future threat

The fascist government and ideology had to be ended. They were worried about fighting Japan a generation later if they simply ended with a negotiated peace instead of a full surrender and reconstruction of Japanese government. This was absolutley the lesson they'd learned about Germany. How you end one world war has everything to do with whether or not you have to fight a new world war a couple of decades later.

[Hoyt]

43. Well, we didn't nuke Germany -- can't help but believe the fact Japanese are Asian had something

to do with it. Fact is, we are the only country that has nuked innocent people, and then we go ape if some other country wants to develop a nuke.

[Lee-Lee]

45. Maybe you should learn some history before jumping right to racism

Because when you make ignorant statements like this you undermine real arguments about places where racism really was a factor by pointing the finger and calling racism where it wasn't an issue.

Germany surrendered on 8 May 1945. Our first nuclear test wasn't done until 19 July 1945, and the two operational bombs were not ready until after that.

Racism had nothing at all to do with the decision to not use nuclear weapons against Germany- they literally surrendered months before operational nuclear weapons even existed at all.

[Hoyt]

51. Would you take Eisenhower's opinion:

Gen. Dwight Eisenhower 1963: “the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.”



The nuking of Germany was never a serious consideration long before the bomb was ready, Japan was always the target.

[Lee-Lee]

57. Germany was never considered because targeting discussion started in spring 1945

When it was already clear Germany was defeated and was a lot closer to surrender than Japan.

Prior to that the only informal discussion were about what country could possibly learn from it and develop their own if it was used on them, and they knew Germany was a lot more advanced on that front than Japan.

As for McArthur- his statements came also at a time when the Army and Air Force were in a tight battle for budgetary priorities with the USAF all but insisting ground forces were obsolete in the atomic age, and even the retired Army Generals advocated for the legitimacy of ground forces and one must frame his comments on the geopolitical context of the US in that period.

You also have to take into account his entire arguement- he argues that not dropping the bomb could have allowed fighting to continue and allowed moves that kept the Soviets out of Manchuria- and keeping Soviet gains to a minimum was te more important consideration to him when opposing the bomb. The Soviets didn't enter the war on Japan until after Hiroshima, and McArthur felt they would have not entered so fast and if the bombs hand not been dropped and, had that been so, the Soviets wouldn't have occupied Machuria. This allowed Soviet occupation of a wide area, including of North Korea that then set up their own Communist puppet regimes and that led to the Korean War.

Was he right in that the Soviet entry into the war could have been delayed and thus that wide swath of land not ended up in Communist hands? Maybe. But that was his real reason for opposing the bomb and it was entirely hindsight by 1963z

[Hoyt]

58. No, targeting and planning started long before.

[Lee-Lee]

62. No, it didn't- you clearly don't have a clue

Here is a well cited summary with timelines- and lots of cites of it sources so you will be able to dig into source material as deep as you wish:

http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/10/04/atomic-bomb-used-nazi-germany/

Serious targeting planning didn't happen until spring 1945. It is worth noting that before then Roosevelt actually asked if use against Germany would be possible in the wake of the Battle of the Bulge, but was told for a host of reasons it would be very difficult from a logistical and planning standpoint.

You can't just invent new history to fit what you want to be the motivation.

[Bucky]

48. This is why you have to study facts before arguing

Germany surrendered in April. The bomb wasn't ready until June. But the entire reason for developing the atomic bomb was to use it against Germany. The first dissent against the bomb from within Los Alamos was the fact that they didn't think Japan's atomic bomb research had gotten off the chalkboard yet.

The history of the war shows pretty clearly that when weapons became available, the combatants would use them. The lack of understanding of the long term effects of nuclear weapons at the time probably means that American commanders would have started looking for a way use the bomb in Germany, had it been available a few months earlier.

The difference would have been in how it was deployed. In 1945, the fight against Japan was an air war, but Germany was a ground war. At atomic bombing would most likely have targeted one of the Nazis redoubts in Bavaria, targeting military installations. In Japan, what was targeted was industrial capacity. To protect their industrial production from American bombing, the Japanese had scatter-sited their production facilities out among civilian populations, thus rendering neighborhoods into bombing targets.

[Hoyt]

91. The plan was in place for over a year before, they ruled out Germany. Considering the time, and way

minorities were viewed, treated and Japanese interned, it's hard to believe that did not have something to do with it. When Eisenhower says the bombs weren't necessary, you have to wonder the motivation. That's the unsanitized history.

[MosheFeingold]

90. Nonsense

Most of the Manhattan Project people were Jewish and specifically desired the "gadget" to be used on the Nazis, and the Nazis were the original target. It just didn't get finished fast enough. Oppenheimer talks about this at length in his book, and it is corroborated by a number of sources.

And while Hiroshima and Nagasaki were down the list for strategic targets (and full of civilians, just like many a German down that was reduced to rubble or firebombed using conventional weapons), they were nonetheless part of the Imperial Japanese war machine.

[MohRokTah]

94. We would have nuked Germany.

Had we completed the nuclear bomb prior to Germany surrendering, you're damned straight we would have nuked Germany! We would have nuked Germany first because Germany was the top priority!

[xmas74]

96. Germany was always first at bat.

It was over for them in April but the bomb wasn't ready until June. Germany was always the plan.

[Marengo]

42. Over a million soldiers, under arms, in the China theater at the time of surrender Hoyt...

Care to argue they were harmless?

[Hoyt]

46. I know, and Vietnamese and Iraqis were threat to us too. There's always some BS argument for killing

[Marengo]

68. Ah, so fuck everyone in territories occupied by Japanese forces...

The Japanese were such kind, benevolent masters.

[Hoyt]

73. Yeah, our segregated troops, internment of Japanese, etc., indicate we were morally superior.

[Marengo]

74. LOL! Please cite allied atrocities on the scale of the Imperial Japanese

Forces. Let us contrast and compare our treatment of a defeated Japan to how Japan treated the territories it occupied. So, yeah, all things considered the United States maintained the moral high ground.

[Hoyt]

76. We are talking about the end of the war and whether it was necessary to nuke them. Even Eisenhower

felt it was not.

[Marengo]

80. Did Imperial Japanese forces surrender prior to the bombings?

As for Eisenhower's opinion, it was just that. He was not in the position to make that decision.

[yeoman6987]

83. Without our intervention, Europe would have been screwed.

Without our intervention in Japan, Asia would have been screwed. Easy to say what could have been done 71 years later. We saved a ton of people.

[Hoyt]

88. By the time we decided to kill innocent Japanese, they were no threat to anyone. They were worse

off than Iraqi's military when we invaded. As Eisenhower said, it was not necessary to drop that bomb, I mean bombs. I'll believe him.

[jberryhill]

82. The Chinese? Who were shooting at us a few years later?

Yes, fuck the Chinese all the way back to the Yalu River.

I'm supposed to feel badly about the Chinese circa 1945-55?

We needed to keep them healthy in order to kill us in Korea or something?

[Marengo]

87. And what of China circa 1931-45? The same China that fought Japan virtually alone...

Until Pearl Harbor. The same China that lost at least 20 million in a war of naked imperialist aggression. As for the Korean War, if not for the expansionism of Japan, I think it likely it never would have occurred. The dynamic of China in 1950 was quite a bit different than in 1945. Not only that, but if the Japanese had left China alone, the Guomindang, for all its faults, would likely have prevented communist domination.

[Bucky]

50. (ha ha, the Russians sure made 'em look that way!)

It took the Soviets like three weeks to roll through the Kwangtung army. By the time Japan surrendered, the Reds were landing on some little islands just north of Japan. By Lenin's beard, Uncle Joe was ready to occupy Japan, or at least the north half of it. Americans didn't plan to land on Honshu until March of 1946. Stalin's timetable was set for the fall of 1945.

(of course Stalin had technically said he wouldn't occupy Hokkaido at Potsdam, but who knows how long he would have dragged out withdrawal negotiations once a divided Japan was part of the Cold War)

[Marengo]

65. 1,385,000 excluding Manchuria, and as I remember the Soviets had little interest...

In extending operations beyond that region in China. The Kwantung army by that point had been largely stripped of its best personnel and equipment, however even if it hadn't the only likely change in the outcome would have been heavier Soviet casualties. Japanese forces in the other regions of occupied China in 1945 were more than capable of causing considerable harm on a local level at least.

[Vogon_Glory]

22. The Racist, Militarist Leadership Had Plenty Of Chance To End The War

The racist, militarist leadership of Imperial Japan had plenty of chances to end the Pacific War before either flight of B-29s dropped their payloads.

The historically-illiterate "peace" activists of today decrying the use of nuclear weapons owe it to themselves and the tens of millions of victims of Imperial Japan's cruelty to go back and research what sort of regime launched the Pacific War, find out how it behaved, and why it didn't end the war months or years earlier, and stop assisting the Japanese right-wingers STILL covering up the atrocities of Imperial Japanese forces.

[question everything]

24. Several years ago there was an excellent program called The War

(I think). It followed WWII. Until then, I was not sure about the dropping the atomic bomb. But it was clear that the Japanese were not going to surrender. That the next logical step was invading Japan which would have cost us a loss of ten of thousands of soldiers. Since then I agree with your opinion.

[Nye Bevan]

25. I just wish the atomic bomb had been ready a couple of years earlier.

Germany may well have surrendered with just the threat of us dropping one on Berlin. Millions upon millions of deaths, of combatants and Holocaust victims, would have been avoided.

[DemocraticWing]

26. Blowing up children while they play is good, you see

Now we just send drones to pick them off one by one instead of doing it all it once.

Liberalism is working!

[JDPriestly]

27. Thanks. In addition, there was no TV, no internet and the US was attacked by the

Japanese in Pearl Harbor. Communication was not what it is today. Nor was information so available, so readily shared.

We just cannot judge the decisions that were made during WWII by today's standards and with today's knowledge.

The Japanese kamikazi pilots were wreaking havoc in the Pacific theater and the war in Europe had ended.

We had all kinds of strategic concerns at the time. There were so many hungry, suffering people, and the Japanese continued to fight. I am not justifying the decision. I am explaining what my parents told me. I was born in 1943 before the end of WWII. My father was a pacifist, but he explained to me why we wanted to put an end to the war in the Pacific. Kamikazes were no joke. It was time to end the war.

Japan is our ally now. The decision to use the atomic bomb is, viewed retrospectively perhaps wrong. I'm not sure because I don't know all of the considerations. At the time those who had to make the decision, made the best one they could. They did not have the advantage of satellite photos or the technology we have today. It seems strange to us today, but they were trying to save lives.

[Bucky]

37. Read "Racing the Enemy" by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa

It's hard to say if Hiroshima & Nagasaki were the right decision, but given what Truman knew and the communications he was getting from Tokyo through diplomatic channels, it was probably the best decision he could have made.

What modern critics of the decision to bomb tend to forget is that it wasn't Truman's job to stop the war. It was his job to end the war. How people assess his decision today is really more of an empathy test.

[JDPriestly]

86. Hiroshima was a horrible event, but the decision to drop the bomb

was a rational one given Truman's understanding of the course of the war.

The people all over the world wanted the war and the killing to end.

There was a great inability in Japan to admit that it was over, hence the Kamikaze pilots. That ended with the dropping of the bomb.

Fanaticism is a horrible thing whether it is religious or cultural, and it can occur and take root anywhere. Fortunately it rarely takes a grip on an entire nation. That is an unusual phenomenon.

In the period from about 1860 through 1929, we went through rapid social and economic change with the industrial revolution. Our industrial and political leaders (worldwide) pretty much refused to deal with the fact that social and economic change require political change.

We are now moving into an era of automation. We will again face the necessity to change our political organization. Will we meet that challenge? Or will we try to pretend it isn't happening and fanatically hang onto our old religious and social beliefs?

That is a central question in this election year. The health care insurance system we now have, for example, is based on the idea that people have jobs and the income from the jobs, the fruit of their labor as individuals, somehow pays for their healthcare either through an employer's insurance program or payments that the insured can afford to make through Obamacare. That will not work in a time in which personal income is not defined by work. And that time is coming. It won't be right away, but it is coming.

[Trust Buster]

28. There were tens of thousands of Allied POW's and civilians imprisoned in slave labor camps

across Japan and China. If we would have invaded Japan proper, the Japanese would have done to them before retreating what they did in the islands. Executed them all. In the islands, as the Allied troops were approaching, one of their favorite methods was to set prisoner barracks on fire and then machine gun the burning prisoners to death as the fled the building. Presumptuous fools who are ignorant of history wish to retroactively condemn ten of thousands of Allied POW's and civilians to death in order to make a political point. Gee, how humane of you.

[jberryhill]

30. First, it's Harry S Truman

President Truman had no middle name. The letter S was his middle name. It is not an abbreviation.

Second, what would have been the purpose of invading the mainland? Japan had no ability to project power.

[Lee-Lee]

47. Tens thousands of US POW's and other nations slave laborers being starved and worked to death

Inside mainland Japan is one reason to not just sit back. My grandfather among one of the latter group who was disappeared into a Japanese labor prison, shipped away and never heard from again.

The fact that they were still pushing 100% of effort into the fight.

The massive amount for forces they had in mainland China.

[jberryhill]

61. And the North Koreans were more reasonable?

[Lee-Lee]

63. There was no "North Korea" then

And if you are framing this in the context of why the bomb wasn't used against North Korea- there was no danger of the war growing much larger in WWII with the introduction of atomic weapons, that landscape was changed dramatically by 1950.

[jberryhill]

70. The Japanese had little ability left to project military force

...and the Soviets could have productively engaged themselves there, as they did in Afghanistan ultimately leading to their demise, thus avoiding generations of Soviet rule in Eastern Europe.

At that stage of WWII, there was nothing "growing much larger".

Why was it not necessary to fight North Korea to an unconditional surrender?

[One_Life_To_Give]

77. Wasn't possible regardless desirability

MacArthur was of a mind to force NK to unconditional surrender, but China had other ideas about having a democracy on their border. And it also risked drawing the Soviet Union further into the conflict. The choice was more like accept something less the total surrender or win WW3.

While in Aug 45 their ability was limited the desire was still there with the leadership. It would have become a continuing police action. Within 10 years we might have been right back at it.

on edit:

The sooner the Americans come, the better...One hundred million die proudly.

- Japanese slogan in the summer of 1945.

Japan was finished as a warmaking nation, in spite of its four million men still under arms. But...Japan was not going to quit. Despite the fact that she was militarily finished, Japan's leaders were going to fight right on. To not lose "face" was more important than hundreds and hundreds of thousands of lives. And the people concurred, in silence, without protest. To continue was no longer a question of Japanese military thinking, it was an aspect of Japanese culture and psychology.

- James Jones, WWII

[Marengo]

81. Odd how so many ignore the 1.3 million troops in the China theater...

At the time of surrender. As if they were all admin or supply clerks who could do no harm.

[jberryhill]

84. It would have been nice to have had the Japanese in China in August 1950

Fat lot of gratitude we got from the Chinese.

[Marengo]

93. Sure, as Imperial Japanese rule was oh-so progressive and beneficial...

They had every right to occupy China, for its own good you know.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

95. There was no way Operation Olympic would not have taken place

If for no other reason than to keep the Soviets out.

[MisterP]

31. I presume you mean the invasion planned for 1946

[blackspade]

32. Your defense of the Party is noted....

But your evaluation is just another opinion.

It happened, but I will not sweep the mass murder of civilians, in a failed effort to turn the public against continued conflict, under the rug of Party affiliation.

[Bucky]

38. Can you elaborate on what you mean by that?

What do mean by "in a failed effort to turn the public against continued conflict"?

[blackspade]

67. Bombing civilian targets was thought to be an effective way...

To demoralize and turn the civilian population against their leaders who led they're counties to war.
It is a strategy that has failed every time up to and including our current foreign misadventures.
During WWII we firebombed numerous cities in Germany and Japan resulting in 100s of thousands of civilian casualties. In Japan we even chose to bomb civilian infrastructure, cultural heritage sites, and population centers rather than military targets to terrorize the population into surrender. The atom bomb was just another expedient weapon of terror.

It was a losing strategy. These kinds of attacks ends up hardening the population against the attacker rather than the other way around.

[metalbot]

100. I think Japan demonstrated the complete opposite of your point

"It was a losing strategy. These kinds of attacks ends up hardening the population against the attacker rather than the other way around."

Our occupation and rebuilding of Japan was arguably the most successful effort of its type in history. I don't see how you could argue that our bombing hardened the civilian population against the US, at least using Japan as a data point.

[blackspade]

102. As a way of ending the war yes, it was a losing strategy .

Same thing in Germany.

Post war reconstruction was a whole different circumstance.

[Odin2005]

39. Trying to have a reasonable discussion with Hate-America-Firsters is a futile act.

The "Evil Empire" dropped The Bomb and so it was bad, that sums up the whole of these people's thinking.

[Bucky]

41. Discussion is never a futile act

frustrating, sure, but not futile

[Adrahil]

54. The problem is, it is RARELY an actual discussion. NT

[alarimer]

44. Yes, it's impossible to have a discussion with people who think we can never do wrong.

It was a complex decision that was also about showing off to the world (the Soviets primarily) that we could kill anyone anywhere.

[stone space]

55. "Hate-America-Firsters"? Did you get that from the National Review?

Hate America First

by Adam Wolfson

September 1, 2004 8:21 AM

America hatred is a first principle. The latest hubbub over John Kerry’s medals and Purple Hearts is a distraction from what really matters about his past. We should focus not on Kerry’s admirable military service but on his words and deeds as an antiwar activist–and what this reveals about the state of liberalism today.

The key to this larger, more important story is found in an interview John Kerry gave on NBC’s Meet the Press on April 18, 1971. Kerry was asked–regarding his claim that our policies in Vietnam were tantamount to genocide–”Do you consider that you personally as a Naval officer committed atrocities in Vietnam or crimes punishable by law in this country?” Kerry answered straightforwardly, “Yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free fire zones…. I took part in search and destroy missions, in the burning of villages.”

snip------------------------------

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/212057/hate-america-first-adam-wolfson

[Odin2005]

89. Guilt by association is a logical fallacy.

[moriah]

49. Yet we have a responsibility to make sure those are the last two atomic weapons used in war.

People lived in fear of a nuclear war for decades but we'd just had one -- by ending the war with nukes, it became a nuclear war.

Which is why I'm astounded that Trump could ever suggest ENCOURAGING countries to develop their own nukes. It's bad enough with India and Pakistan at a nuclear stalemate, but I had to blink my eyes twice to make sure I wasn't hallucinating when he actually suggested Saudi Arabia should become a nuclear power.

We all know Israel has nukes, but they have been extremely secretive about their program, yet haven't been forced into a corner enough to use them. We all know that any other country becoming a nuclear power there will destabilize the region, and while Saudi Arabia may have often been the enemy of our enemies, they aren't our friends, and money from their country's dissatisfied radicals is a major source of terrorist funding. They don't need nukes.

The world doesn't need nukes, period.

[pangaia]

52. Having read through most of the posts here so far,

I can understand why you support Hillary Clinton.

[auntpurl]

53. I agree.

My grandfather fought in Iwo Jima. He never spoke of what happened there, or any of his WWII experiences. Not one word, to anyone. When I asked my grandmother, she told me she asked him once, soon after he got back home, and he said, "What happened there should never be spoken of. War isn't human." And that was it.

So many more people would have died without those bombs. It was the least awful choice of a horrific situation.

[GOLGO 13]

56. Harry saved American lives.

That's all I care about.

[dembotoz]

59. watched a show on pbs last night about suicide attacks by japan towards the end of ww2

they were gearing up for the invasion.

would have been a real blood bath for both sides.

no doubt it save many AMERICAN lives....and that is what harry was paid to do

he made the best choice available to him

[tonyt53]

60. I'm standing right beside you!!!!! My dad (first Marine landing of WWII on Guadalcanal)

said the Japanese would have never surrendered. At least another one million Japanese civilians would have died very easily. I have also heard estimates of more than quadruple that 100K american troop lives.

[arely staircase]

64. I think the fact that they didn't surrender after the first one give you a pretty

good idea as to how serious the Japanese warlords were about not surrendering.

However, the horror of those weapons should have the whole human race convinced they should never be used again.

[hunter]

66. The U.S.A. didn't build just a few bombs, we built huge bomb factories.

"Fat Man" was the first of more than 500 bombs like it.



These bombs were taken out of service in 1953, replaced by better bombs.

Do the fucking math. The U.S. had a new awesome weapon and certain elements of both our elected and military leadership were itching to see what these bombs would do to a living city.

Plans to invade Japan evaporated with the Trinity test. After that the plan was to drop a few A bombs on Japan every month, until they
surrendered or there was nothing left of them.

Fortunately Japan surrendered, and the genocidal maniacs and Dr. Strangeloves of the U.S.A. were denied their dreams.

[MohRokTah]

69. There were exactly TWO bombs in existence before Hiroshima

The only other device was detonated in a test.

It would be months before we would have enough fissionable material for another bomb.

Again, you fail the test of context for the timing of the event.

[hunter]

71. Oh bother. Like I said, do the math.

Trinity test, July 1945 to removal of service in April 1953.

That's at least 5 atomic bombs a month, not even accounting for the pause in production immediately following the war's end to transfer operation of Hanford from DuPont to General Electric, and to address safety concerns that had been overlooked in the heat of wartime.

History is the shit that actually happens. In war there are no good guys, there are only those who are not so bad.

The U.S.A. is not an especially nice nation, and we are narcissistic about our World War II experience. The facts are that we were largely beyond the reach of Japan's and Germany's war machines. Simple distance.

Had we shared the geographical proximity to Axis forces as the Soviet Union or China I suspect we would have folded like France.

Before Hitler went meth-head insane, quite a few U.S. Americans were intrigued by his ideology, and they supported him. The undercurrents of racism, fascism, and authoritarianism are strong in the U.S.A.. You even see it here on DU, every day.

The U.S.A. was "neutral" in the worldwide chaos leading up to the war up until the very last minutes. We didn't especially care what Asians did to other Asians, we only cared about the control of Asian resources like oil and rubber. The rise of the Nazis didn't disturb us greatly until they became a vicious and a serious threat to our beloved England and "Nordic" Europe.

My grandfather was an Army Air Force officer in World War II. My wife's uncle was killed by the Nazis in France. My father, and my wife's father both served in the U.S. military, and veteran benefits paid for their college educations. That doesn't mean I have to get all rah-rah patriotic about anyone's wartime atrocities, especially those of my own nation.

There's no justice to be found in war. People make up lots of stories to make war less repulsive, and glorify their own participation in wars.

The success of the Trinity bomb meant there would be no conventional invasion of Japan. Nobody was "saved." A lot of people died.

[MosheFeingold]

72. I was in the European Theatre

And being a native German speaker (and a Jew), it was highly unlikely they would have moved me over from Europe to the Pacific because I had plenty to do even after V-E day.

But I read with great concern the articles (knowing they were edited to make it look easier) about the grinding island-hopping we were having to do to move in on Japan.

I was a week late for D-Day, but that slog through France was plenty for me, and the Germans weren't even holding their own land yet.

I remain firmly convinced that the decision to nuke Japan saved a million American lives, and probably 5 million Japanese.

And Japan would have ceased to exist as a viable country, leaving a giant vacuum to be filled by China and the Soviets, which, at the time, were no prize. Each actually slaughtered more people than Hitler dreamed about.

[LexVegas]

75. Needs no defense. Absolutely correct decision. nt

[JPZenger]

78. The second bomb should have waited

I believe the first bomb was needed. The invasion of Japan would have cost millions more lives, which was the alternative. I wish a target could have been chosen that had a higher degree of military value vs. civilian residents.

The dropping of the second bomb should have waited, to have given the Japanese more time to respond. Two weeks of delay would not have hurt anyone, and the surrender then might have occurred before the second bomb was used.

[4139]

79. Japan invaded China in 1931... 3-4 million Chinese soldiers 20 million Chinese civilians died

Yes it was the right decision

[jberryhill]

85. And had we let the Japanese finish, we wouldn't have to fight Chinese and Koreans OR Vietnamese

...for decades after.

I mean, oh, gosh, let's make sure on Memorial Day to remind those who lost loved ones in Korea that "We saved the Chinese for you."

[GummyBearz]

92. Criticize it?? I celebrate it. My grandfather was in the pacific

He was a grunt storming beaches. Mainland Japan was one less island he had to invade to stop the war of agression the Japanese started

[xmas74]

97. My grandpa was a ranger

Third battalion. He was In North Africa and then Europe. If things had gone any longer or the huge land invasion had gone through would he have been sent? Who knows. Maybe I wouldn't be here today.

Hindsight is always 20/20.

[MohRokTah]

98. Every unit in the ET was on standby for transfer to the Pacific after Germany surrendered.

So yeah, your grandpa would have been shipped in for a dangerous landing on Honshu.

[xmas74]

99. And he had already been a POW once.

Captured in Italy. Cisterna decimated the 3rd Ranger Battalion. At least he lived.

Rangers are tough but how many who were already exhausted from the AT and then the ET would have been prepared to ship to the PT? I don't know. I wonder if it would have been too much.

[tonyt53]

101. My dad was in the first US island landing of WWII on Guadalcanal

he rarely spoke about it, but said when the Navy dropped them off, they left them. they thought the Japanese would overwhelm them. They had no idea the condition of the Japanese troops still there. The US military also did not know that the Japanese were planning a landing with reinforcements on the opposite side of the island. Dad said that they were brutal and fought as they were dying. After recovering from wounds there, he made two more landings, with the last being on Iwo Jima, and wounds there ended his combat efforts. He said that there was no way the Japanese would have surrendered without dropping both bombs. First hand experience told him better. He hated them until the day he died. Easy to stand back now ans criticize it, but to have lived it lends a bit more than standing back 70 years later and looking at it.

Truman made the right decision. Estimates of 100K to ten times that in American troop lives lost. Multiply that by at least five for Japanese civilian lives lost. Truman made the right decision.

[Larkspur]

103. My uncle, who served as a recon pilot in the Pacific in WWII, felt the same way.

While on ship, he and his mates feared the kamikaze pilots. He said the Japanese government knew that they were losing the war and they still trained pilots to use kamikaze tactics. He could never forgive the Japanese for that and like your data, he hated the Japanese to his dying day.

My mother, who served stateside in the Army in WWII, tole me that if Truman had not used the atomic bombs but ordered an American invasion, a la Normandy type, on the island of Japan and hundreds of thousands of Americans died, he would have been impeached.

[tirebiter]

104. Not that I probably woulda been against it