Russian leaders call for international investigation into US atomic bombings of Japan

[KingCharlemagne]

69. Like I said, it's a damned good question and I'm not well-enough versed in the period to

give you any kind of satisfactory answer. I mean, I can tell you that there had been conferences (Tehran in 1943, Yalta and Potsdam) where the Allies discussed and made plans for the invasion of the Home Islands. I can also tell you that allied war planners had made estimates of allied and Japanese casualties. But doing so doesn't really answer the question you pose but instead begs it.

I do think that the Korean sex slaves and Chinese and Vietnamese peasants and proletariat who were brutalized by the Japanese may have felt like only a full Japanese surrender would make things right. I don't think it's silly and dishonest to consider that. Or maybe I'm just a bit slow on the uptake this New Year's Eve night.

As for protecting against the mass starvation of Japanese civilians, I meant that only as a consideration of any sort of quarantine strategy and not as a rationale for a conventional invasion. As we found out with our sanctions on so-called dual use items on Iraq during the 90s, doing so can have unforeseen and reprehensible consequences (preventable deaths of some 500,000 Iraqi children not least among them).

You have raised some damned important questions; I only wish I could give you better answers to them.