Should Truman have dropped the bomb?

[VoteClark]

I think yes. Had he not, more civilians would have died. About 500,000 Americans would have died, not to mention all the civilians in Japan during the invasions.

We also have to count medical costs and pain and suffering. The bombs killed most people instantly. Had conventional bombs and attacks occured we would have had a greater number of wounded. With more of Japan destroyed, we would have has less resources to rebuild and help the surviors and wounded.

What do you think? If you wished to not drop the bombs, what would you have done to end the war against people that believed that surrendering was dishonor to their family, which meant they would die before surrender?

:kick:
J4Clark

[0007]

1. No

Your logic is not good enough.

[Darranar]

2. How not?

I say maybe. If there really were offers of surrender from Japan with the single condition of the emperor remaining in power before the bomb, then it was wrong. But whether that's true or not is unclear, and if it isn't, then yes.

[VoteClark]

3. Explain

[greatauntoftriplets]

4. Read what Dr. Leo Szilard had to say on the issue.

President Truman Did Not Understand
Dr. Leo Szilard, 62, is a Hungarian-born physicist who helped persuade President Roosevelt to launch the A-bomb project and who had a major share in it. In 1945, however, he was a key figure among the scientists opposing use of the bomb. Later he turned to biophysics, and this year was awarded the Einstein medal for "outstanding achievement in natural sciences."
At NEW YORK
Q Dr. Szilard, what was your attitude in 1945 toward the question of dropping the atomic bomb on Japan?

A I opposed it with all my power, but I'm afraid not as effectively as I should have wished

http://www.peak.org/~danneng/decision/usnews.html

[VoteClark]

6. Wasn't Dr. Leo Szilard a pacifist?

Most the designers of the A-Bomb didn't want it to be used. I know Albert didn't. But I see no other way to break the back of a people who refused to surrender. Surrendering and being Japanese was like being a cow and flying. They two just don't go together. I think it would take something this big to end the war. As long as they were willing to die for the cause, and some even tried to die for the cause when they didn't need to, I can't see a better ending to a horrible war.

:kick:
J4Clark

[greatauntoftriplets]

7. Yes, he was a pacifist.

Have you read the interview? He offers some extremely cogent reasons.

[VoteClark]

38. I like Pacifists, but l us face facts, pacifists make horrible Generals

It is like asking the Pope how to have sex. Not the right person to ask.

:kick:
J4Clark

[greatauntoftriplets]

43. That is precisely why pacifists do not become generals.

They have too much sense.

Once again, I suggest that you read the Leo Szilard interview that I linked above.

[bpilgrim]

61. well most of the military leaders in theater didn't agree with dropping it

as well.

as a matter of fact, they said that we should accept japans surrender in order to SAVE LIVES.

sadly we waited until we ran out of nukes to finally 'see the light'

peace

[zoidberg]

95. Source?

A couple maybe, but I have a hard time believing that most were of that opinion. But I'm sure you have a reliable source to back up that claim.

[bpilgrim]

98. here you go...

II: MILITARY NECESSITY. Centrally related to all of this is information we now have concerning the views of top World War II American military leaders. In this connection it is also important to note at the outset that the recent debate, like much traditional literature, has been characterized by a continued unwillingness to confront some of the most significant modern evidence.

The issue of what U.S. military leaders felt and advised occupies four chapters of THE DECISION. A fundamental claim of those who reject views like those cited above is that the use of the atomic bomb was a matter of military necessity. President Truman himself repeatedly stated that he made the atomic bomb decision because his military advisers told him it was absolutely essential to do so.

If so, one would expect to find evidence of this--both at the time and after-the-fact.

(A) The rather stark truth, however, is that with one very "iffy" exception virtually all the important high-level World War II military leaders who had access to the relevant top secret information are on record as stating that the use of the atomic bomb was not a matter of military necessity. Indeed, many repeatedly, forcefully and consistently stated positions which in today's parlance would be termed strongly "revisionist."

An important contention of THE DECISION is that this fact can no longer be ignored or swept under the rug on the basis of one or another speculative theory as to why all these men would say what they did--and say it so regularly and so often, both privately and publicly, even while President Truman held office and was in position to decide issues of great importance to the various services:

...

* In his memoirs Admiral William D. Leahy, the President's Chief of Staff--and the top official who presided over meetings of both the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Combined U.S.-U.K. Chiefs of Staff--minced few words:

he use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender. . . .

n being the first to use it, we . . . adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.

* The commanding general of the U.S. Army Air Forces, Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, gave a strong indication of his views in a public statement only eleven days after Hiroshima was attacked. Asked on August 17 by a NEW YORK TIMES reporter whether the atomic bomb caused Japan to surrender, Arnold said:

The Japanese position was hopeless even before the first atomic bomb fell, because the Japanese had lost control of their own air.

In his 1949 memoirs Arnold observed that "it always appeared to us that, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse."

* Arnold's deputy, Lieutenant General Ira C. Eaker, summed up his understanding this way in an internal military history interview:

Arnold's view was that it was unnecessary. He said that he knew the Japanese wanted peace. There were political implications in the decision and Arnold did not feel it was the military's job to question it.

Eaker reported that Arnold told him:

When the question comes up of whether we use the atomic bomb or not, my view is that the Air Force will not oppose the use of the bomb, and they will deliver it effectively if the Commander in Chief decides to use it. But it is not necessary to use it in order to conquer the Japanese without the necessity of a land invasion.

* On September 20, 1945 the famous "hawk" who commanded the Twenty-First Bomber Command, Major General Curtis E. LeMay (as reported in THE NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE):

said flatly at one press conference that the atomic bomb "had nothing to do with the end of the war." He said the war would have been over in two weeks without the use of the atomic bomb or the Russian entry into the war.

The text of the press conference provides these details:

LEMAY: The war would have been over in two weeks without the Russians entering and without the atomic bomb.

THE PRESS: You mean that, sir? Without the Russians and the atomic bomb?
. . .
LEMAY: The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all.

* Personally dictated notes found in the papers of former Ambassador to the Soviet Union Averell Harriman describe a private 1965 dinner with General Carl "Tooey" Spaatz, who in July 1945 commanded the U.S. Army Strategic Air Force (USASTAF) and was subsequently chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force. Also with them at dinner was Spaatz's one-time deputy commanding general at USASTAF, Frederick L. Anderson. Harriman PRIVATELY noted:

Both men . . . felt Japan would surrender without use of the bomb, and neither knew why the second bomb was used.

Harriman's private notes also recall his own understanding:

I know this attitude is correctly described, because I had it from the Air Force when I was in Washington in April '45.

* On the 40th Anniversary of the bombing former President Richard M. Nixon reported that:

MacArthur once spoke to me very eloquently about it, pacing the floor of his apartment in the Waldorf. He thought it a tragedy that the Bomb was ever exploded. MacArthur believed that the same restrictions ought to apply to atomic weapons as to conventional weapons, that the military objective should always be limited damage to noncombatants. . . . MacArthur, you see, was a soldier. He believed in using force only against military targets, and that is why the nuclear thing turned him off. . . .

* The day after Hiroshima was bombed MacArthur's pilot, Weldon E. Rhoades, noted in his diary:

General MacArthur definitely is appalled and depressed by this Frankenstein monster . I had a long talk with him today, necessitated by the impending trip to Okinawa. . . .

* Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet, in a public address at the Washington Monument two months after the bombings stated:

The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace before the atomic age was announced to the world with the destruction of Hiroshima and before the Russian entry into the war. . . .The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military standpoint, in the defeat of Japan. . . .

* Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr., Commander U.S. Third Fleet, stated publicly in 1946:

The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment. . . . It was a mistake to ever drop it. . . . had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it. . . . It killed a lot of Japs, but the Japs had put out a lot of peace feelers through Russia long before.

* In his "third person" autobiography (co-authored with Walter Muir Whitehill) the commander in chief of the U.S. Fleet and chief of Naval Operations, Ernest J. King, stated:

The President in giving his approval for these attacks appeared to believe that many thousands of American troops would be killed in invading Japan, and in this he was entirely correct; but King felt, as he had pointed out many times, that the dilemma was an unnecessary one, for had we been willing to wait, the effective naval blockade would, in the course of time, have starved the Japanese into submission through lack of oil, rice, medicines, and other essential materials.

* Private interview notes taken by Walter Whitehill summarize King's feelings quite simply as: "I didn't like the atom bomb or any part of it."

* In a 1985 letter recalling the views of Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall, former Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy elaborated on an incident that was

very vivid in my mind. . . . I can recall as if it were yesterday, insistence to me that whether we should drop an atomic bomb on Japan was a matter for the President to decide, not the Chief of Staff since it was not a military question . . . the question of whether we should drop this new bomb on Japan, in his judgment, involved such imponderable considerations as to remove it from the field of a military decision.

* In a separate memorandum written the same year McCloy recalled: "General Marshall was right when he said you must not ask me to declare that a surprise nuclear attack on Japan is a military necessity. It is not a military problem."

There is a long-standing debate about whether or not General Eisenhower--as he repeatedly claimed--urged Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson (and possibly President Truman) not to use the atomic bomb. In interviews with his biographer, Stephen Ambrose, he was insistent that he urged his views to one or another of these men at the time. Quite apart from what he said at the time, there is no doubt, however, about his own repeatedly stated opinion on the central question:

* In his memoirs Eisenhower reported the following reaction when Secretary of War Stimson informed him the atomic bomb would be used:

During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. . . .

* Eisenhower made similar public and private statements on numerous occasions. He put it bluntly in a 1963 interview, stating quite simply: ". . . it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing." (Several of the occasions during which Eisenhower offered similar judgments are discussed at length in THE DECISION .)

much more...
http://www.doug-long.com/ga1.htm

peace

[PATRICK]

406. Seven cities targeted

for the preliminary campaign although after the first two it would have taken some time for the rest. Kyoto was spared by Sec. of State Stimson because he had visited it and was aware of its cultural and religious importance. Modern evidence still shows dictators don't give up until you make the. negotiations were foggy and shut down by them. The Manchurian invasion coupled with the fact that we were already annihilating their paper cities with high casualties seems to support the argument we had other pressing reasons to use the bomb.

In hindsight you can argue against Truman but the Japanese had made 95% of that choice for him. The bomb frankly stole the regular military's thunder and put a lot of awesome tactical power into the president's hands. I note that the generals opposing Truman had political motivation also to criticize him. Does one sense the shift of military power to the President's desk with this act was an element of their concern? Especially since the measures they were already doing were numberwise more devastating to the island populace?

The "humane" blockade bugaboo still comes up. More lives are more quietly lost in those "bloodless" tactics than in violence because the dictatorship does not care. Truman equally felt a negotiated peace was out of the question on our side as well. He believed his justifications were sound.

What would Churchhill have done? Bombs away. What did MacArthur want for the Red Chinese? Bombs away. This same sort of military also became a lot more hawkish on A-bomb use later, didn't they?

Personally, I wish it hadn't been done. I am not sure it was justified.

[Walter_Bowman]

186. A pacifist is someone...

...who values human life and liberty so little that he believes no human life nor liberty is worth fighting for.
(unknown sourse)

[bpilgrim]

189. are you calling the military leaders pacifist, too?

:shrug:

peace

[Walter_Bowman]

191. No, I'm currently referring to the pacifist discussed in the sub- thread.

I haven't read what the general's said yet. Kurt Vonnegut supported it, though. Read "Slaughterhouse 5", where he writes that Dresden wasn't necessary, but Hiroshima was.

[bpilgrim]

197. oh, the off topic distraction, gotcha... btw: Kurt said this...

Hiroshima is the SECOND most horrid word in the american lexicon succeeded only by Hiroshima (parapharsing)

so i have no clue where you pulled that interpertation of Kurts view other than some invented charector that Kurt was good at creating though i am sure he would only have allowed it to pass the lips of a villin.

peace

[Walter_Bowman]

201. Attribute that quote, please? (nt)

nt

[bpilgrim]

205. Kurt Vonnegut - n/t

peace

[Walter_Bowman]

243. Where? Which book/interview? nt

nt

[bpilgrim]

246. look it up yourself

or maybe another DU'er will provide a link i don't have one, sorry.

peace

[curse10]

241. Where in Slaughterhouse 5 does Vonnegut

say that dropping the bomb on Hiroshima was necessary?

[Walter_Bowman]

244. Don't have a copy now (nt)

nt

[bpilgrim]

245. he doesn't

but that doesn't matter to those who play so loosely with the facts.

peace

[bpilgrim]

100. "I can't see a better ending to a horrible war" - how about, ending it

EARLIER and SAVING MORE LIVES?

peace

[Walter_Bowman]

184. That's what the bomb was for (nt)

nt

[bpilgrim]

190. no, that is what the surrender offer was for...

we choose to SHOCK and AWE first, then accept their surrender.

peace

[LearnedHand]

330. Read also...

..."The Making of the Atomic Bomb," by Richard Rhodes, for a more complete history of the whole issue.

On edit: Oops, my HTML sucks!

[Ein]

324. WOW!

"In March, 1945, I prepared a memorandum which was meant to be presented to President Roosevelt. This memorandum warned that the use of the bomb against the cities of Japan would start an atomic-arms race with Russia, and it raised the question whether avoiding such an arms race might not be more important than the short-term goal of knocking Japan out of the war."

Oh wow.

[TreasonousBastard]

5. Instictively, I say no.

But I've read so much that's conflicting, that I really can't say what I would have done at the tme.

Now I'm seeing more Americans argue that we didn't need it, but some Japanese are arguing that it was the only thing that stopped the war.

I doubt the question will ever be settled. It was done, and now the important thing is that another one never be dropped.

[bpilgrim]

99. and history would agree with you...

we must all learn that history if we even hope to achieve your concluding hope.

"It was done, and now the important thing is that another one never be dropped."

peace

[LoverOfLiberty]

8. Someone was going to do it

If not the US.

A better question is should the US have dropped the bombs where we did, on large civilian populations.

[VoteClark]

10. We would not have if we knew how big the bombs were going to be

I agree, knowing what we know now, that we should have dropped them in a less populated area. But we didn't know what exactly it was going to do and if the bombs would actually go off. We only had two bombs, so we had to use them in the correct places as if we only had two shots. We could not drop them on Emporer or the Generals because we needed people to surrender. I think we should have dropped one in a less populated area, and waited for a surrender, then, if that didn't work, drop the other on another area that meant more militarily.

:kick:
J4Clark

[bpilgrim]

103. oh, please... we knew and many warned

this is simply the BS they feed us to keep us QUITE and quite frankly very CHILDISH.

peace

[Violet_Crumble]

159. Of course they knew...

You said the US only had two bombs, which is wrong. The Manhattan Project built three bombs and tested one before the other two were used on Japan. There's no way they didn't know what the outcome was going to be...

Violet...

[Sushi_lover]

9. Howard Zinn says NO

The not-so-impartial historian :)

provided reputable references indicating the Japanese wanted to negotiate a surrender before the 1st bomb. The Japanese initiated discussion but the U.S. ignored those communiques.

There was a faction of Pentagon and military strategists who wanted to use the bomb as a demonstration of power to the Russians.

That faction influenced the huge estimate of expected U.S. troop losses on "island to island" fighting if the bomb was not dropped.

===

we all choose what we want to believe. I have not found disproof of ANY of Howard Zinn's factual material.

[VoteClark]

13. It was the terms of Surrender

Japan wanted to keep a military. And didn't want a US occupation. I also know that they wanted to surrender to the Russians, not the US. What you have to realize is that Japan, attacked the US first.

Would Americans accept a partial surrender from Osama Bin Lauden, or a partial surrender from Hitler, after these people liked millions and millions of people for no real purpose?

Would you allow them a military after what they did to the Chinese? How about the way they treated our troops. Even after our troops were released they died, because they were so gone in starvation.

Troops in line being marched by the Japanese were often killed just for the fun of it. The Japanese even sunk an entire cargo ship full of American captured troops days before surrendering rather than give them up and let them go, because they feared what they would say to the Americans about their treatment.

If you lost all five of your sons, that died for no other reason then for the greed of the Japanese to want US Land, would except anything less than a full unconditional surrender? I would not.

:kick:
J4Clark

[Sushi_lover]

20. U.S. refused to discuss terms of surrender

But after we dropped both our nukes and firebombed Tokyo, then we allowed them to surrender conditionally.

The only condition they wanted was to keep their emperor.

[Zuni]

110. not true

thaqt was not their only condition. In fact, most of the ranking japanese were against even discussing surrender.
Hirohito himself, through his ambassador, in top secret fashion, talked to Stalin about arranging peace talks with the allies.
Even after the bombs, Hirohito withered as to actually surrender. His cabinet was divided totally.
Read Downfall by Richard B. Frank. It shows how much the Japanese were really looking to surrender before the bombs.

[bpilgrim]

114. "Hirohito himself, ... talked to Stalin about arranging peace"

riddle me this than batman... and i am sure you must know the answer since you, and many others, dance so closely around the issue... why DID THEY eventually ACCEPT?

hint: "a ceremonial title only"

same as it ever was... ;->

peace

[VoteClark]

126. When did Stalin become the leader of the United States?

Peace with Russia, great, but guess what, we are the US. Perhaps the Japanese should be making peace with the US, not Stalin the mass murderer.

:kick:
J4Clark

[bpilgrim]

128. the japanese were trying to surrender and looking for allies...

yet we still nuked them to our eternal shame.

peace

[Violet_Crumble]

160. Top secret??

Truman was aware of this top secret desire to surrender at the end of May after Harry Hopkins cabled him telling him that Japan was doomed and the Japanese knew it AND that peace feelers were being put out by the Japanese. Wow, that's like a fair few months before the Potsdam Proclamation. Seems to me that whether or not Japan was wanting to surrender wasn't as big a factor in the bombs being dropped as the fact that the USSR was going to declare war on Japan, and the US didn't want another Berlin-styled occupation happening in Japan...

Violet...

[Zuni]

260. Hirohito

made some overtures to Stalin. But Hirohito never made any of the major decisions and was merely a figurehead in japan at the time. The real power was in the hands of the generals, who were determined to continue the war.
Hirohito NEVER made one attempt before August 1945 to overrule the militarists that ran Japan.

[bpilgrim]

277. that is simply not true and as you said he was only a figure head

so he couldn't have had any control over the generals at the time and could only be seeking peace with the consent of the leaders at that time.

peace

[Zuni]

331. no

He had barely done anything at all about putting controls on the militarists--he was a weak personality, and afraid to rock the boat.
On the other hand he had supreme power, but refused to exercise it.
He made several overtures to Stalin, but at that stage was still willing to go against the militarists--who were still in favor of continuing the war.
Only after Nagasaki did Hirohito except responsibility.

[bpilgrim]

336. yes, he was a figure head and had been since before the meiji restoration

the military were running the show.

peace

[Zuni]

109. exactly

they were not prepared to except anything like surrender terms. The terms they wanted would have basically created a cease fire while the old regime was still empowered, and able to restart the war in a few years.
The Emporer made a few half hearted gestures toward the Russians, but never ever made any major decisions on his own until after the second bomb was dropped on nagasaki. Even then, he was barely able to overcome a deadlock on wether to continue the war in his own cabinet.
3 voted to continue and 3 voted to sue for peace--the emporer finally, after 14 years made a decision to surrender.

[Parche]

385. exactly

Unconditional surrender nothing else
They were not going to surrender even when surrounded by the 3rd fleet
Truman did the right thing

Remember Wake Island
Phillipines
Truk Island

[Loonman]

11. For the 50th time

Yes.

[rman]

12. Japan was on the verge of surrendering

the bomb didn't need to be dropped to end that war.

[VoteClark]

14. See My Previous Post

[ET Awful]

15. No it did not need to be used.

I'll just re-use a post I made on another forum on this exact same topic. MacArthur didn't think it needed to be used, Eisenhower didn't think it needed to be used Leahy didn't think it needed to be used. British intelligence didn't think it needed to be used. Japan was, in fact, attempting to negotiate a surrender prior to the dropping of the bombs. The only sticking point is the US refused to yield (at the time) on the point of eliminating the idea of an "Emperor", which the Japanese would never agree to (and never did, the US yielded on this after we dropped the bombs). With the godlike status the Emperor has in Japanese tradition, this is not surprising. Had the US yielded on this point weeks earlier, the war would have ended almost instantly. . . . (now on to my older post):

Let's see what British Intelligence had to say about the matter shall we?

"We believe that a considerable portion of the Japanese population now consider absolute military defeat to be probable. The increasing effects of sea blockade and the cumulative devastation wrought by strategic bombing, which has already rendered millions homeless and has destroyed 25% to 50% of the builtup of Japan's most important cities, shoud make this realization general"

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...g=5#reader-link

Most historians agree (as the excerpt from this book shows) that Japanese defeat was virtually a surety. There was no need to drop an atomic bomb. None.

General Eisenhower had this to say:

"During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face'. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude..."

and

"...the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing."

Eisenhower (who had a pretty good handle on what was happening in the war) didn't think the use of the bomb was necessary.


Admiral Leahy (Chief of Staff to FDR and Truman):

"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.

"The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."


One of MacArthurs consultants had this to say:

Norman Cousins was a consultant to General MacArthur during the American occupation of Japan. Cousins writes of his conversations with MacArthur, "MacArthur's views about the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were starkly different from what the general public supposed." He continues, "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."

So, if Eisenhower, MacArthur and Leahy (who were certainly privvy to all the same information and intelligence) didn't think it was necessary, how can you believe that it was?

http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm


I find it interesting that there are so many people in this group (who are normally willing to question the official story and actually look at the facts behind the story) have so willingly accepted the text book version of the use of the atomic bomb. Firstly, to whomever it was that said most died instantly, this is not true. More died later from radiation sickness, cancer, birth defects, etc. In fact, the death toll several years later as a direct result of the bombing was DOUBLE what the initial death toll was. To whomever compared this to the bin Laden situation, that is an entirely inaccurate comparison, it would be better to compare it to Iraq and requiring Iraqi's to give up their belief in Allah before we would accept their surrender. To the Japanese (especially at that time), the Emperor was godlike, they could no more give up that institute than the Vatican could the Pope. It just was not going to happen. The thing is the US DID relent on this point later. Had they done it weeks earlier, well over 200 thousand civilian lives could have been saved.

[Muddleoftheroad]

16. Yet again

Of course. It ended the war. It brought peace with Japan. Japan is now a U.S. ally. The proof is in the result.

[ET Awful]

17. And if that logic were used in Afghanistan (for example)

After all, bin Laden attacked first, had we nuked Afghanistan, it would have ended the war instantly. . . .

I find it surprising that ANYONE on this board would condone the use of an atomic weapon against a nation that was ALREADY defeated and posed no further threat to the US.

It seems a bit hypocritical to me that you people (many of you) are in favor of a historical use of nuclear weapons, despite evidence that it wasn't necessary, but you bash Bush for starting an unnecessary war.

This just seems contradictory to me. How can you support one and denounce the other?

[Muddleoftheroad]

18. Already defeated

Last time I checked, to be already defeated you would have had to have surrendered and stopped fighting. Japan had done neither.

As for the use of the nukes, we CAN'T use what we know NOW. We have to put ourselves in Truman's shoes THEN. He listened to his advisors, knew the risks and the rewards and ended the war.

Quick question, if Japan was so ready to end the war, why didn't they surrender unconditionally? Why didn't they surrender after the FIRST bomb?

[ET Awful]

24. Let's say this again

The US did not agree to retaining the institute of Emperor until after the 2nd bomb was dropped.

This is NOT something that was negotiable to the Japanese. The US did agree to this prior to the Japanese surrender, but after the 2nd bomb. Had the US agreed weeks earlier, the war would have been over.

This is much like telling Catholics to give up the Pope or you'd blow them all up. Do you think they'd surrender the office of Pope? No, they would not.

The plain and simple fact (which you obviously failed to see from the lengthy post you apparently failed to read) was that Eisenhower, MacArthur and Leahy ALL disagreed with the use of the bomb, these were all people that were very privvy to all the information available at the time, and they did not think it was necessary.

You cannot ask a nation to give up an institution as old as the nation is. The Emperor is divine in the minds of the Japanese at that time. They could not give up that institution, as it was part of their entire existence.

[Blue_Chill]

29. It was not up to them to decide

The Japanese were slaughtering the Chinese and attacked us for no frickin reason. Unconditional surrender was the only option the deserved, plain and simple. They refused and they got nuked. The rest is history.

[Sushi_lover]

God of Justice or God of Love?

Old Testament or New?

Vengeance or Peace?

In each of these questions (if forced to choose), I'd choose the latter.


(edited to add "if forced to choose")

[Blue_Chill]

32. Oh my

I don't believe a just God would hold what we did in WWII against us. The US played a crucial role in saving the world. Japan attacked us for no reason and dragged the US into the war. Germany and Japan were slaughtering innocents in huge numbers and attacking nations.

They had to be stopped and they were. Result?

Germany - Economic power house
Japan - constitution of peace

[Sushi_lover]

34. I [i]think[/i] you picked the old testament God

Your reference to a "just" God. Does that mean you think of God more as a God of Justice? (as opposed to a God of Love)

[Blue_Chill]

47. Neither

IMHO God would want us to do whats right. In times of peace we must strive to better our fellow man and keep the peace. But in times like those of WWII the right thing to do is to fight.

[Darranar]

116. Off topic...

but several times in the OLd Testament a god of love is portrayed.

[LanternWaste]

71. Japan did attack the U.S. for a reason

Yes. Japan did attack the U.S. for a reason. That reason was the U.S. led oil embargo in response to Japanese aggresion on the Asian mainland in late '39-'41. Whether you or I agree or not with the reason is pretty much irrelevent, as a valid reason did exist.

And that reason has been used previously and since by nations we consider(ed) both allies and enemies. Arguably, that very reason was the factor which motivated the U.S. to attack Iraq in the early nineties, with the justification of coming to the aid of another country used to placate the sensibilities of the "righteous".

As for being "dragged into war", yes. But not by Japan. We had been heading down that road since the fall of France. Roosevelt did everything he could to get us involved, without regard to Japan. Germany was the "enemy" of choice. Lend-Lease, the Destroyer-For-Bases deal on so on. Be aware, America would have gotten involved in Europe sooner or later, with or without the 'push' by the Japanese military forces.

[Muddleoftheroad]

143. Not a valid reason

That's like saying I won't sell you my car, so you can beat me up and take it.

Embargos are a legal way that nations express dissatisfaction with the actions of other nations.

[bpilgrim]

174. what does that have to do with the decision to drop 2 nukes...

"Embargos are a legal way that nations express dissatisfaction with the actions of other nations."

yep, and it is a good way to start a war.

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

176. Good way for a rationalization at least

The post I was responding to was, in effect, blaming the U.S. for causing the war when it was Japan all the way.

No nation is required to trade with another. War is not a legal or legitimate response to an embargo.

I love how you end your messages with peace while rationalizating Japan's war, btw. (If we are going to be criticized for avatars, it seems only fair to criticize your signoff.)

[bpilgrim]

179. in your mind maybe...

the u.s. tried to intice japan into attacking, FDR was very shrewed and it worked.


more...
http://globalfreepress.com/images/perl_harbor/recomondations/


"I love how you end your messages with peace while rationalizating Japan's war, btw."

thank you, but i thought we were talking about OUR decision to NUKE a defeated, trying to surrender nation TWICE.

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

183. Where did we "entice?

I don't see it.

And, again, not defeated and trying is lame.

[bpilgrim]

187. there are 6 pages there... but i guess i should have known better...

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

193. Sorry, link not working for me

So all I can read is what is there.

[bpilgrim]

198. it is an image that i just posted...

too bad you can't see it, you may have learned something

:hi:

peace


more...
http://globalfreepress.com/images/perl_harbor/recomondations/

[Muddleoftheroad]

200. Wow

Military brainstorming. Gee that NEVER happens. This is not a plan, it is a proposal.

[bpilgrim]

207. i think

you have served your purpose, good bye

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

209. Ah how mature

I'm impressed. Not.

[VoteClark]

33. Tell that to Chinese and Troops

How much did you lose from the Japanese? If they came into your home, raped you or your wife, bombed men, women and children in several countries, and said they will commit suicide rather than surrender, what would you do, tell them "I love you"? Their religious beliefs said they should kill you.

:kick:
J4Clark

[Sushi_lover]

35. We nuked rapists?

I thought we nuked civilians in Hiroshima. People who had no or little choice in their countries military aggression. Much like Americans in the WTC, innocents.

[VoteClark]

40. Yeap

We did, we killed lots of Japanese people that raped, killed, murdered, and believed they were supreme beings.

I am not saying that we should target civilians if we can help it. But, the civilians were making the bombs, guns, ships, and feeding the army that was hurting us. Not to mention most of the Japanese troops were now back on the mainland.


:kick:
J4Clark

[Name removed]

104. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bpilgrim]

293. you arrogant SOB

your cartoon world view must make things easier to understand, eh.

peace

[Sushi_lover]

26. why didn't they surrender after the FIRST bomb?

An unimaginable weapon destroys a city. Those surviving don't know what hit them. They are staggering blindly, parts missing, skin melted off and guts exposed. The farther away from the city, the less the witnesses know what happened.

Now which of these witnesses is going to inform the Japanese leadership of the horror of that weapon?

====

The fact is, the war was already over. We had destroyed 90% of their cities. Hiroshima was chosen not because it was a military center (the vast majority of the victims were non-military). Hiroshima was chosen because it was one of the few cities not already leveled.

====

The fact is, the weapon HAD to be dropped to show the Russians what crazy muthafukkas we are with a terrifying weapon. A cruel crime against humanity.

[Blue_Chill]

31. Wrong

The war was not nearly over, the next step would have been the Japanese mainland and that my friend would have been ugly. Truth is I think people had very little empathy for the japanese at the time. They hit us for no reason, and they were slaughtering the Chinese who to this day STILL hold a grudge about it.

It was hard to feel bad for them at the time, they certainly had done nothing to deserve sympathy from anyone.

[bpilgrim]

56. that is not correct

"The war was not nearly over"

talk about revisionist history, they had been tryin to surrender for a months by then not to mention defensless against our bombers.

'They hit us for no reason'

you REALLY need to read a FAIR and BALLENCED history book of that era, you sound like a naive HS student here :crazy:


'they were slaughtering the Chinese'

and i wonder where they learned that from? other imperial powers, maybe?

'they certainly had done nothing to deserve sympathy from anyone'

innocent men, women and children CIVILIANS!

you would FIT RIGHT IN with OBL crew :puke:

they are HUMAN BEINGS.

peace

[Blue_Chill]

102. Oh please try to hide your bias next time

you REALLY need to read a FAIR and BALLENCED history book of that era, you sound like a naive HS student here :crazy:

Oil good enough for them to hit pearl harbor? Perhaps you should rethink yor stance on the Iraqi war then.

and i wonder where they learned that from? other imperial powers, maybe?

Blaming the west for Japans crimes? Sounds like you are pretty fair and balanced yourself huh?

[bpilgrim]

106. lol

comming from you that is rich, thanks for the chuckle.

"Oil good enough for them to hit pearl harbor? Perhaps you should rethink yor stance on the Iraqi war then."

being DENIED access to oil and resources is a grounds for war throughout time, hello...

and you said there was NO reason for them to attack us.

"Blaming the west for Japans crimes? Sounds like you are pretty fair and balanced yourself huh?"

i am not blamming just point out FACTS of OUR history in the apparently futile hope that you might learn something.

thats aight though... there are plenty of lurkers ;->

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

144. Again

You don't have right to OUR property. Your nation doesn't have a right to OUR oil. That's not a valid reason for war.

[bpilgrim]

175. when you cut off a nations life blood

they may think it is...

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

195. Oh, please

That is a rationalization, not an explanation. Japan had no right to trade with the U.S., just as North Korea has not right to such trade right now.

[bpilgrim]

199. i am just trying to point out the facts on the ground...

what do you think we would do if 2 or more nations conspired to cut off our access to oil?

welcome to the REAL WORLD.

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

202. Ah, so you support the invasion of Iraq

Sure sounds like it anyhow. Securing resources from other nations without their permission.

[bpilgrim]

208. nope, but those are the FACTS ON THE GROUND

face it

our actions are even worse since we still had access to the oil but now can't afford it so we are TAKING it... by any means NECESSARY!

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

210. Just like Japan

Which you defend.

[Name removed]

214. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Muddleoftheroad]

216. Nope

You are the one who is confused and now have turned abusive.

[Fescue4u]

407. careful there.

That could be used by the freepers as an excuse to attack the middle east in the next oil shortage.

[bpilgrim]

64. just think how many lives would have been saved IF we had listened to

our military leaders in theater at the time and accepted japans 1 condition in the spring in order to 'SAVE LIVES'...

as you said that decision - finally accepting their 1 condition (after running out of nukes) - has STOOD THE TEST OF TIME.

peace

[VoteClark]

37. Think things all the way through

If half the Japanese population was starving, and you blocked off the food shipments, how many people would have died before they finally surrendered? Half the population could not wait another 4 monthes. Ending the war earily allowed Japan to reconstruct and saved so many more than a land invasion would have.

:kick:
J4Clark

[rman]

48. compasionate mass murder

you make me puke.

[VoteClark]

213. How many people did the Japanese Kill?

How many would they have killed if these people were not supporting them?


:kick:
J4Clark

[Zuni]

262. over 30 million

between 1931 (when they invaded Manchuria) and 1945. The japanese caused at least 30 million deaths, mostly in China but also vast numbers in South east Asia, the Phillipines, Korea. They used biological and chemical weapons, used slave labor, forced women in to prostitution--the list goes on and on.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

274. They Were Wacked Out Racists Like The Nazis

just with different targets.

[bpilgrim]

300. do you have a source...

though i fail to see what that has got to do with not accepting their surrender and nuking 2 cities filled with innocent civilians.

and remember our hands are covered in blood as well.

peace

[Zuni]

332. Yes

Check out Gerhard Weinberg's 'A World at Arms'. Also Japan at War by Ted Cook.
Biological warfare was used by Japanese Unit 731 stationed in Harbin, Manchuria. A Japanese Court even found it to be true just last year in a lawsuit by a victim.
In 'Japan at War: An Oral History' a former chemical weapons troop recounts that there were more than 1000 times that chemical weapons were used in China
Read about Japan's malaysian railroad (1000 slave laborers died per mile), Bataan, Singapore, Comfort Women (Korean sex slaves), Manila, Nanking (the worst of thousands of massacres in China)...the list goes on and on

Why must pacifists try to blame everything on the west--every nation has blood on its hands?

Technically there was no surrender to accept until August 15, 1945.
The terms were 'unconditional surrender'
Remeber in 1918 when Germany was not forced to accept unconditional surrender---perhaps people wanted to avoid the misunderstandings of Japanese ultranationalists.
And further--it is not clear what the japanese would have accepted in return for peace before Hiroshima--anything less than a total reform of Japan and the removal of the militarists would have been unacceptable and it was not clear what they would have wanted.

[bpilgrim]

337. that is not a source... and we used and protected unit 731

not to mention our own experiments on our own people as well.

like i said we have blood on our hands and we might loose(win?) a 'body count' debate.

'Why must pacifists try to blame everything on the west--every nation has blood on its hands?'

this is a pretty narrow topic 'was it right to nuke japan' a defeated trying to surrender nation twice. 2 defenseless cities filled with inoccent men, women and children?

the evidence makes it plain it wasn't neccessary yet if one points that out they some how 'blame everything on the west'

interesting 'conclusion'... now where have i heard that argument before ;->

peace

[Woodstock]

390. He doesn't want to know about that silly stuff called the truth

He just wants to blame America.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

398. Do You Really Need A Link To Know

that the early and mid twentiest century Japanese were racist.

They literally thought there was a hierachy among Asians and the Japanese were at the top and they considered non-Japanese Asians untermenschen which literally means underpeople.

[bpilgrim]

76. and that argument falls apart when you think it all the way through

and realize there was no need for a 'land invasion' or the dropping of the nukes if we had accepted japans 1 condition to surrender as our military leaders recommended back in the spring.

peace

[VoteClark]

225. What was that one condition

Allow the leader that killed 26 million people to go free?


:kick:
J4Clark

[bpilgrim]

240. allow the figure head of state, the emporer, to remain in place

as he was before the war which we finally agreed to and now history has shown to be a wise decision.

btw: he was a figure head before the war as well and had been for a very long time.

the right wing military was running the show and guilty of all atrocities.

peace

[Zuni]

111. not really

Read Downfall by Richard B. frank. Their being on the verge of surrender is a myth.

[Pocho]

19. NO. PERHAPS MANKINDS GREATEST MISTAKE.

.

[qb]

21. If there were a power superior to the U.S.

would you support their bombing U.S. cities to prevent the worldwide destruction and loss of life that Bush's actions are threatening (pre-emptive invasions, global warming, economic mayhem)?

[VoteClark]

28. If you turn it around, turn it around totally

If the United States, and the population, decided to go out and bomb a nation that was neutral in a war, minding its' own damn business, not hurting anyone, would I blame the country for wanting us to surrender completly after a five year war, NO!

That is what Japan did to us. They sent out a force to attack Hawaii, just for the sake of attacking it. Killing many man, women, and children.

So, if you are going to do that, you should pay the penalty.

If Bush went to Japan and just decided to attack it because it looked like a nice piece of real estate, and American said, "yeah! right on" and we continued to attack Japan with our superior weapons and larger army, and willfully and enjoyfully built weapons to assist, would I blame Japan for dropping a Nuclear bomb on New York and LA, no I would not.

Now imagine if we did not drop the bombs. It was the dropping of the bombs on these two cities that has done two things, one, it notified the world what we can do, and second, it prevented anyone from using a weapon on another since.

Gen. McAurther wanted to drop 50 Nuclear bombs on China in the Korean War, because they kept sending in troops. The evidence from Japan is what opponents used to stop it, like Loyd Benston, Secretary of Tresuary and later US Senator, VP candidate with Dukakas.

So what little service it many have been, besides ending WWII earilier, it also prevented WWIII.

:kick:
J4Clark

[Ardee]

162. There are principles that supercede your adrenal inspired hatred

and your rather loose interpretations of history as well.Both targets, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were chosen, not for their military importance (they had none), but because their geography would magnify the destructiveness of the bombs.

The Japanese attacked our largest naval base in Pearl Harbor, despite your attempt to state otherwise, in order to cripple our ability to oppose them, compared to a nuclear attack on two cities with NO military importance.........

There is no evidence that any one else HAD a bomb so your other point seems moot as well, excepting that you seem to say that making the entire world fear us is a good idea(?).

MacArthur was a lunatic who was relieved of his command by Truman before he could start another war, and again, your supposition that our shameful actions, slaughtering innocent civilians, has somehow prevented a third world war makes little sense and is simply unproveable.

In my opinion, as the only nation to have used nuclear weapons on anyone, civilian or military, we have forever shamed our nation....

[VoteClark]

172. You support facism then?

Japanese believed in wiping out the entire white race. They torured millions of CHinese, and assisted the destruction of the Jewish race. DO you think a slap on the wrist was the proper punishment? Or do you think a conditional surrender that allowed war criminals to go free was just fine?


:kick:
J4Clark

[bpilgrim]

181. what does that have to do with us NUKING a DEFEATED NATION twice

that was trying to surrender?

also the japanese did NOT believe in trying to wipe out the white race they believed in COPYING IT ever hear of the Meji Restoration?

look it up...

also look up 'the greater east asian co-prosperity sphere' that is what they were trying to do.

sound familiar?

it should, look to the current day ME situation to refresh your memory.

peace

[Ardee]

325. I normally dont respond to such as you

Calling world war two a slap on the wrist betrays any credibility you might have. But ,in the interest of possibly educating a junior high school student, I wil state simply that allowing the awful actions of others to force you into similarly awful acts is D-U-M-B!
By your specious rationale we were correct in overthrowing Hussein because he tortured his own, better yet ,we should have, by your silly argument nuked Baghdad!

Get a clue........

[Woodstock]

391. Comparing WWII to Iraq is the ultimate absurdity

.

[Skinner]

22. Very tough question.

I am torn.

I believe that killing civilians is morally wrong, and should be avoided to the extent that it is possible to do so. But it is my understanding that in WWII killing civilians was pretty much typical behavior on all sides. It should not have been so, but it was a different time, with different morals, and before smart bombs and precision targeting.

I am not a historian. But I have heard that the conventional bombing of Dresden was even more deadly than the either of the Atomic bombs in Japan. Yet we do not agonize over the morality of Dresden. Which begs the question: Is it morally worse to kill tens of thousands of people with an Atom bomb than with conventional bombs?

Then there is this interesting piece, posted recently on DU, which provides an interesting perspective from one faction on the Japanese side. I think it is worth reading:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=4735&mesg_id=4735

I think the Bombs probably shortened the war, and they probably saved lives. Would we have had the same result if we dropped the bombs on unpopulated areas? There is no way of knowing.

If we had not dropped the bomb, and if the war went on for months or years, with hundreds of thousands of more deaths, would we now be discussing the morality of our decision NOT to drop the bomb?

Unfortunately, morality comes in all shades of gray.

[VermontDem2004]

45. Like you, I am very torn

mostly of the reasons you mentioned. I think the war has been going on for 6 years, over 60% of the male population was in Europe and Japan, people wanted the war to end as soon as possible. But I don't blame Truman for what he did, that was probaly the one of the most, if not the most difficult decision a US President ever had to make.

[bpilgrim]

51. why, the Military Men In Theaterat the time said that to SAVE LIVES...

we should have accepted japans 1 condition to surrender, let them keep their emporer, in the spring of 45.

a decesion that has stood the test of time, we no longer have japanese airplanes flying into us anymore.

to drop that horrid thing on a defeated, ready to surrender nation's two defenseless cities, filled with innocent civilians, without warning will be our eternal shame, which grows worse as we continue to stay in denial.

you raised dresden as somehow being an excuse when the point is the massive death and destruction that can be caused by a SINGLE PLANE carrying a SINGLE BOMB.

there was and is no excuse ESPECIALLY when you expose the BIG LIE - to save lives - since that seems to be the FAVORITE excuse that has been programmed into us since day 1.

peace

[Man_in_the_Moon]

55. Answer this

the point is the massive death and destruction that can be caused by a SINGLE PLANE carrying a SINGLE BOMB

Why does it matter?

Why is One plane worse than One Thousand planes?

Why is one bomb worse than thousands?

Dresden was much WORSE than Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Dresden had NO point other than to show the Soviets (and Stalin in particular) what the combined might of the US and British airpower could do. It served no purpose militarily, it did not hasten the end of the war, it did not 'break' the Germans. Dresden was going to be in 'Allied' hands within a few weeks whether or not it was destroyed by air. You can nominally make the argument that the Atomics used in Japan helped bring about the surrender of the Japanese, you cannot do that with Dresden.

And while you might be right that some elements within Japan were ready to surrender before the bombs were dropped, you cannot make that argument in regards to the Japanese Military, they were still looking for 'terms' that would allow them to stay in power, which is one condition we, the US, were not going to (and did not) allow to happen. And face it the Japanese Military was in control. And looking at Okinawa, the invasion of Japan would have been horrenous to everyone, The US Military, the Japanese Military, and the Japanese citizens themselves. Millions would have been killed on ALL sides.

[bpilgrim]

59. have you heard of, the WAR ON TERROR, WMD?

"the point is the massive death and destruction that can be caused by a SINGLE PLANE carrying a SINGLE BOMB"

>> Why does it matter?

hello...

"Dresden was much WORSE than Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Dresden had NO point other than to show the Soviets (and Stalin in particular) what the combined might of the US and British airpower could do. It served no purpose militarily, it did not hasten the end of the war, it did not 'break' the Germans. Dresden was going to be in 'Allied' hands within a few weeks whether or not it was destroyed by air. You can nominally make the argument that the Atomics used in Japan helped bring about the surrender of the Japanese, you cannot do that with Dresden."

what? the same case is made for dropping the bombs in japan, not to mention it is the bomb that keeps on givin long after it has been dentonated.

the second point i already addressed but will again, the japanese had 1 condition to surrender for many months by that time and when we ran out of nukes we finally accepted their 1 condition which has stood the test of time.

"And while you might be right that some elements within Japan were ready to surrender before the bombs were dropped, you cannot make that argument in regards to the Japanese Military, they were still looking for 'terms' that would allow them to stay in power, which is one condition we, the US, were not going to (and did not) allow to happen. And face it the Japanese Military was in control. And looking at Okinawa, the invasion of Japan would have been horrenous to everyone, The US Military, the Japanese Military, and the Japanese citizens themselves. Millions would have been killed on ALL sides"

no japanese politician, nor military officer, who were running the show, could surrender without that 1 condition being meet, keeping the emporer, which we eventually conceeded, thankfully.

just think of how many LIVES COULD HAVE BEEN SAVED if we had accepted their surrender before okinawa as the military leaders in theater had recommended in order to SAVE LIVES.

you see even though i feel STRONGLY on moral grounds that we should never use such weapons or any others for that matter that TARGET CIVILIANS, i need not even get into that argument when we have our own military leaders in theater at the time pointing out it's missuse.

hope that helps :hi:

peace

[Man_in_the_Moon]

62. So what

IS your point, why is one bomb so much worse than thousands?

And btw you are incorrect when you say 'one condition' and you mean 'maintence of the the Emperor', the conditions the Japanese Military wanted prior to August '45 included the Japanese Military Heirarchy staying in power. Which was something the US (nor the Brits for that matter) was not going to go for. It wasnt until after the use of Atomics and the Firebombing of Tokyo that the Japense Military (and even then not all of them accpeted it) realized that the US was not going to accept them staying in power.

Surrender terms issued by a 'civilian government' with no real power over the country are not terms than could be accepted.

[bpilgrim]

66. the difference between an ATOMIC bomb and CONVENTIONAL bombs

are you joking :crazy: ever hear of radiation?

the japanese were ready to surrender and there was 1 main condition that EVERYONE agreed on and that was the emperor and as i have said repeated our military leaders at the time recommended we accept it TO SAVE LIVES.

'Surrender terms issued by a 'civilian government' with no real power over the country are not terms than could be accepted.'

then why did we finally accept them then :crazy:


sorry pal, but i really on the men who were there and the historical documents to base my decisions on not propaganda but out by OUR side.

some will NEVER accept even one of our crimes in history even one as obvious and horrific as this after all these years.

peace

[FreeperSlayer]

23. YES

Please, read your history. Case closed.

[ET Awful]

25. The case is not closed by that.

If you're going to read your history though, don't read the textbooks supplied by US high schools. Read the ones that actually delve into the history.

Then read the opinions of people who were actually involved (such as those of MacArthur, Leahey, Eisenhower, etc. that I've already posted).

[DemocratSinceBirth]

27. In my Best Ronald Reagan Voice

which as a loyal Dem I hate to use

"Here we go again"

First Japanese perfidy:

They raped half of Asia with thier bogus Asia for the Asiatics campaign which was really a codeword for Japanese hegenomy of over other Asian peoples.

The Bataan Death March where Americans and Filipinos (who the Japanese considered untermenschen) were marched to their death. This was after the Japanese commander promised the American in command his troops would be treated humanely if they surrendered.

In fact during the march to prevent the Japanese soldiers from raping their pubescent daughers Filipino mothers smeared feces on their daughter's faces to make them unattractive.

Don't forget the Comfort Girls. The Japanese willy nilly took Korean women into bondage and used them as their prostitutes

Don't forget the Rape of Nanking.

There was an editorial in the NY Times recently by Nicholas Kristoff who is no rightiwinger and he relied on recently released Japanese archives to reenforce the case for the bombings.

On August 8th after the bombs were dropped an American pilot was shot down.

To stop the torture at the hands of the Japnese he "confessed" that the Americans had another fifty to one hundred atomic bombs.

What was the reaction of the Japanes military to this revelation?

Pause

Pause

They wanted to fight on.

One military leader said they were willing to commit clllective suicide.

The civilian leadership latched on to the bombing and used it as the justification to surrender.

We let them keep the Emperor so he could maintain a sense of continuity in the post war period.

Case closed.

[VOX]

105. Well stated, DemocratSinceBirth. The Pacific War was horrific...

As it pressed on, it became clear that the Japanese warriors, following their Bushido code, would not just quietly surrender.

http://www.worldwar2database.com/html/saipan.htm
...30,000 {Japanese} soldiers held Saipan. The civilian population was indoctrinated that the Americans would rape the women, kill the children and leave no one alive...
<snip>
But on the night of July 7 {1945}, 3,000 Japanese charged in the largest suicide rush of the war. Stunned, the Americans fell back, but quickly recovered and wiped out the Japanese in an all-night fight. {Admiral} Nagumo and his staff committed suicide before giving the order to advance.

All but 1,000 of the Japanese military units were dead, along with 22,000 civilians. The soldiers had pushed or pulled many over cliffs, but most had committed suicide by jumping themselves or by holding onto grenades in the caves. American casualties numbered 16,525.

[Woodstock]

393. Exactly, rezmutt

My father would have been next to die in one of those suicide attacks by the Japanese.

[Woodstock]

392. Amen, DemocratSinceBirth

Well said.

[VermontDem2004]

30. Even though Harry Truman is my favorite President of all time

I do not agree that he dropped the Atomic Bomb, but I do agree with him afterwards when he told his advisors "this bomb should never be used again."

[stanwyck]

63. I admire Truman, but I'm haunted by our

bombing of Japan. I read once that Truman read all the hate mail he received after the bombings. He refused to be shielded from people's thoughts about what he had done. I have never been able to resolve this question. I keep thinking about all those innocent people who died so horribly.

[Superfly]

36. Shit yeah

the purpose of war is to inflict the greatest amount of casualties in the shortest amount of time possible, so that the end of war is quicker.

Dropping the bombs brought a swift and decisive end to the war.

B

[LanternWaste]

75. The purpose and agenda of war...

No. The purpose and agenda of war is to deny the opposition the ability to wage war. (Sun Xsu, Guderian, Eisenhower and Churchill and pretty much said the same thing re: this.)

Your statement may be part and parcel of the total depending on variables such as geo-politics, but is is not complete nor true in every case.

[VermontDem2004]

39. To add to this very interesting discussion-Here is what Truman wrote in...

his Diary

July 25, 1945
We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark.

Anyway we "think" we have found the way to cause a disintegration of the atom. An experiment in the New Mexico desert was startling - to put it mildly. Thirteen pounds of the explosive caused the complete disintegration of a steel tower 60 feet high, created a crater 6 feet deep and 1,200 feet in diameter, knocked over a steel tower 1/2 mile away and knocked men down 10,000 yards away. The explosion was visible for more than 200 miles and audible for 40 miles and more.

This weapon is to be used against Japan between now and August 10th. I have told the Sec. of War, Mr. Stimson, to use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children. Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop that terrible bomb on the old capital or the new.

He and I are in accord. The target will be a purely military one and we will issue a warning statement asking the Japs to surrender and save lives. I'm sure they will not do that, but we will have given them the chance. It is certainly a good thing for the world that Hitler's crowd or Stalin's did not discover this atomic bomb. It seems to be the most terrible thing ever discovered, but it can be made the most useful...

[VoteClark]

42. You prove my point better than me

If someone who is opposed to using it on women and children does so, the reasoning must have been very profound.


:kick:
J4Clark

[VermontDem2004]

41. This is very interesting-President Truman Did Not Understand

Q At the Oak Ridge and Chicago branches of the A-bomb project, was there any division of opinion?

A I'll say this: Almost without exception, all the creative physicists had misgivings about the use of the bomb. I would not say the same about the chemists. The biologists felt very much as the physicists did.

Q When did your misgivings first arise?

A Well, I started to worry about the use of the bomb in the spring of '45. But misgivings about our way of conducting ourselves arose in Chicago when we first learned that we were using incendiary bombs on a large scale against the cities of Japan.

This, of course, was none of our responsibility. There was nothing we could do about it, but I do remember that my colleagues in the project were disturbed about it.

Q Did you have any knowledge of Secretary of War Stimson's concern at this time on the question of using the bomb?

A I knew that Mr. Stimson was a thoughtful man who gave the bomb serious consideration. He was one of the most thoughtful members of the Truman cabinet. However, I certainly have to take exception to the article Stimson wrote after Hiroshima in "Harper's Magazine." He wrote that a "demonstration" of the A-bomb was impossible because we had only two bombs. Had we staged a "demonstration" both bombs might have been duds and then we would have lost face.

Now, this argument is clearly invalid. It is quite true that at the time of Hiroshima we had only two bombs, but it would not have been necessary to wait for very long before we would have had several more.

Q Were you aware then of the attitude of Under Secretary of the Navy Ralph Bard or of the memorandum by Lewis L. Strauss?

A No.

Q So, in effect, there was no concerted opposition to military use of the bomb?

A No, there was none. You see, it would have been impossible for me to go and talk with Lewis Strauss because of the secrecy rules.

Q Do you feel that President Truman and those immediately below him gave full and conscientious study to all the alternatives to use of the atomic bomb?

A I do not think they did. They thought only in terms of our having to end the war by military means.

I don't think Japan would have surrendered unconditionally without the use of force. But there was no need to demand the unconditional surrender of Japan. If we had offered Japan the kind of peace treaty which we actually gave her, we could have had a negotiated peace.

Much more
http://www.peak.org/~danneng/decision/usnews.html

[Northwind]

44. No. Period.

There was good evidence at the time that the Japanese were ready to surrender, without us dropping the A-bomb on them.

The "it saved lives" argument is a lie.

We did not drop the A-bomb to make the Japanese surrender.

We did it to scare the Soviets.

End of story.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

50. Why Did The Some In The Japanse Military Want To Fight On

when they thought we had fifty more atomic weapons?

And why did they fight so ferociously at Okinawa when they lost all land cover?


Facts are stubborn things.

[bpilgrim]

53. they had 1 condition... that we FINALLY ACCEPTED after we ran out of NUKES

not that we couldn't have rapidly made more i suppose but the SHOCK and AWE of the world had been achieved.

no politician, let alone military leader as you pointed out, at that time would have surrendered without that condition being met.

so that is why they accepted as they had been trying to surrender for a long time.

peace

[VermontDem2004]

46. This is a site based on the "decision" that many of you might find interes

ting

http://www.dannen.com/decision/index.html

[AntiBushRepub]

49. If I may..

The Japanese Empire of that era is not the same thing as the country of Japan is now.

If anyone doubts what they were capable of back then, read up on what happened in Manchuria during WWII.

The dropping of the bomb was unfortunate.. but the whole situation was unfortunate anyway... Truman had to decide what would be more of a disaster, and what would be less....

Considering how dedicated they were to fight down to the last man... it's hard to imagine this.. but the LEAST disasterous thing to do was to vaporize the city.. buildings, civlians, women, children... everything.

It's very sad, there's no doubt about it. But the story we'd be talking about today, had we been forced to scrap it out down to the last man standing, would have been much more heartbreaking.

Remember, there was even a failed coup after the second bomb to prevent the surrender.. they were ready for a knockdown/dragout.

Anon

[Kamika]

52. maybe he could have threatened to drop it first?

If he did forgive me, but if he didnt i think it was pretty bad.

[redeye]

54. Lemme understand something

Japanese soldiers murder Chinese civilians. In response, the US Army terrorizes Japanese civilians whose sole fault is having been born in the same coutnry as the Japanese soldiers.

People are not their countries.

[VoteClark]

192. Oh really?

Humm, so who build all the bombs and missles and ammo that killed millions of people? They just appeared, poof, out of thin air?


:kick:
J4Clark

[bpilgrim]

247. we did

poof

peace

[tameszu]

57. No, but that is with a full understanding of

exactly how destructive the bomb was.

Dropping the first bomb was wrong, but possibly excusable, considering the context. The people making the decision didn't fully realize the implications of what they were doing, especially in the midst of all of the other craziness that was going on around them.

The second bomb was almost certainly not necessary, though.

[LawDem]

58. No choice based upon the realities of the time

This is one issue that can only properly be approached from the standpoint of the times in which the decision was made. From a practical standpoint, Truman had no choice. FDR would have done the same thing. Even William O. Douglas, had he been chosen VP in 1944, as supposedly was considered, would have dropped the bomb, his later assertions to the contrary notwithstanding.

WW II was a war of a sort that is almost impossible to understand from today's perspective. It was a true war of national survival. If ever there has been a war that truly placed good against evil in a battle with everything on the line, this was it. This was a war the allies had to win -- had to -- no maybes allowed. And in carrying on the fight, not only did the U.S. send millions of American boys into battle, but we also totally transformed the domestic landscape, as mobilization and support for the war effort became the overwhelming reality of daily life. And as everyone knows, the sacrifices made in America are nothing compared to those made in Western Europe and the Far East.

Given all this, there is no way any U.S. president could have withheld the use of a new weapon that had the capacity of posting a knock out blow to the other side. To have done that, while allied soldiers continued to die in the field, would have been inconceivable under the realities of the time.

The fact that the U.S. was the first country to use the bomb is, in my view, something that will always stain our national heritage. It's original sin, in a non-religious sense. It's a guilt we will always carry with us.

But did Truman have any real choice? No way. It was a done deal the second those bombs were created.

[bpilgrim]

60. not true... the japanese wanted to surrender AND our military leaders

in theater at the time recommended accepting it in order to SAVE LIVES.

he had options yet they choose to SHOCK and AWE the WORLD and they did, to this very day...

peace

[LawDem]

65. I respect your viewpoint, but . . .

I respect your viewpoint, but that's revisionist history and not well accepted at all. Eric Alterman has a good summary of the current views on the subject on his blog (scroll down to Aug. 6).

http://www.msnbc.com/news/752664.asp

(edit for wrong date on Alterman blog)

[bpilgrim]

67. that is not my view point, that is the view point of the MILITARY LEADERS

in theater at the time... OUR military leaders.

and you call that 'revisionist' history, lol

sign of the times i suppose...

i've said it before and i'll say it again, some will never accept any of our crimes no matter how obvious or especially how HORRIFIC even after all these years.

Hiroshima is the SECOND most horrific word in the american lexicon succeeded only by NAGASAKI.

~~~ADMIRAL WILLIAM D. LEAHY
(Chief of Staff to Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman)

"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.

"The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."

- William Leahy, I Was There, pg. 441.

more...
http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm

peace

[LawDem]

69. Beware of the tales old generals (and admirals) tell.

There's no point in going tit-for-tat on whose history is better. That will take us nowhere. Most leading historians disagree with you, but some worthy ones agree. But as you probably know, the information that has come out of Japanese archives strongly indicates Japan still had a lot of fight left in her prior to the bombs falling.

As I'm sure you also know, many military leaders of the time have reported very different feelings than those reflected by Admiral Leahy.

[bpilgrim]

72. yeah, though you direct me to some modern day pundit for the answers...

"the information that has come out of Japanese archives strongly indicates Japan still had a lot of fight left in her prior to the bombs falling."

that is my POINT. no one in japan would have surrendered WITHOUT that condition being met, even if we were ready to drop 50 more nukes as the Kristof NYT article points out but he fails to reveal WHY they finally did surrender even with such an attitude... it was because their 1 condition was FINALLY MEET in secret and it has withstood the test of time as being a WISE decision.

"As I'm sure you also know, many military leaders of the time have reported very different feelings than those reflected by Admiral Leahy."

i am talking about the ones RUNNING the SHOW and i am not aware of 'MANY' other military leaders thinking different other than the one who heading the nuke project.

peace

[DemocratSinceBirth]

83. Modern Day Pundit

I guess that's your way of dismissing an editorialist for one of the world's great newspapers.

By the way Marx was a newspaper columnist too.

[bpilgrim]

85. thats what he is... i rather go by the historical record AND the miltary

leaders who where in theater and in command AT THE TIME.

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

212. Democracy

In a democracy, the military leaders don't get the final say. The president does.

[bpilgrim]

231. ah... just like in a dictatorship

or any other totalitarian state. and i suppose that makes him infalible, eh?

interesting defense...

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

235. You need to take a civics class

The president has the final say, that's why he ends up in that office. He listens to input and that takes ALL of the input and makes a decision. Military leaders are often woefully ignorant of diplomacy and only tend to think about military options.

And no, no one is infallible. However, based on the result, Truman was clearly right on this one.

[bpilgrim]

238. let me get this straight, you support spending more lives and proloning

the war yet at the same time u justify his actions as 'saving lives'?

you may need to take a logic course though i pitty the instructor.

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

252. Saving lives

Well, Japan surrendered. We had a very peaceful transition of power. Japan became an ally and an economic power. So it worked.

Sometimes the lives you save aren't just those lives you save today. Truman secued true peace with Japan.

[bpilgrim]

255. oh, so now you are talking about fictional lives saved vs ones we know

japan had 1 condition to surrender once that was met the war ended which had nothing to do with nuking to cities filled with the innocent and which could have happened earlier as the military leaders in theater at the time recommended, to SAVE LIVES.

if we would have accepted that 1 condition earlier REAL lives that were wasted in lie in real graves today would have been saved as well as those fictional lives you referenced since as even you admit the decision was a successful one letting them keep the figure head emporer in place.

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

265. Japan

Started the war. THEIR condition delayed ending it. That seems pretty clear where the blame lies. Losing sides don't dictate conditions, especially when they started the war.

I admit the WHOLE scenario was a scucessful one. After the bombings, Japan rolled over and THEN truly became defeated. At that point, it worked to be magnanimous.

[bpilgrim]

301. was a defeated nation ready, willing and trying to surrender yet

we NUKED her TWICE against the advice of our own military leaders in theater at that time.

yet some will continue to try and justify any of our sins no matter how horrific or obvious.

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

313. Is that your mantra?

I prefer, "Ohmmmmmmmmmmmmmm."

I also think of nations still at war as NOT having been defeated. Nations willing to surrender are nations that are delaying to get better terms, not nations that are actually doing anything other than delaying.

[bpilgrim]

338. the facts on the ground and lets not forget against the military leaders

advice, you know the ones who were there... at the time... in order to 'SAVE LIVES'

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

346. Funny

How it's OK to take the advice of military leaders here, but then those same leaders get criticized every other time.

Japan was not just a military situation. It was a military, political and diplomatic situation. The guy in charge of all that is the president.

Clearly, the actions HE took worked.

[bpilgrim]

349. how is that funny?

tell it to the men and women and children who died on okinawa how that was funny?

his actions worked? what accepting their 1 condition? i agree, but this thread is about nuking a defeated nation TWICE.

seems to me it wasn't necessary since the war ended not because of the nukes but because we finally accepted their 1 condition.

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

352. I love how you focus on only ONE action

When, in fact, Truman took several in this situation. They included nuking two Japanese cities which made surrender a much more acceptable circumstance for them. You can't take one action without the others. They were integrated.

If you want to focus on Japanese attitudes about surrender, you should check out the island-hopping campaign. Take a look at how well Japanese soldiers and civilians surrendered in those cases.

[bpilgrim]

365. we are talking about our actions at the end of the war.

was it right to nuke a defeated nation, that was trying to surrender, TWICE?

i say, no.

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

377. Defeated nations surrender, they don't negotiate to do so

Nations that negotiate are not yet defeated.

[bpilgrim]

389. wrong, they SUE for PEACE

typically...

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

408. Or they just surrender

And stop the war. Lay down their arms and accept their fate.

Too bad they didn't do that. It would make this debate nonexistent.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

70. Maybe Someone Can Link Nicholas Kristoff's Excellent NY Times

editorial.


An American pilot was shot down on August 8th after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

After being tortured he "confessed" that America had fifty more atomic bombs.

And the loons in the Japanse military wanted to fight on.

The civilian government latched on to the bombings as a justification to surrender.

The Japanese waged aggressive war and lost.

[bpilgrim]

74. the one were he never mentions why the japanese surrendered after pointing

out that they were ready to fight on even if we had 50 more nukes ready to go?

that one?

well, the answer is because we FINALLY accepted their 1 condition as OUR military leaders had recommended we accept all along, let them keep their figure head emporer in order to...

SAVE LIVES

and time has proven them RIGHT...

peace

[MrPrax]

147. Yes the One Condition...the GOP had more!

In Alperwitz's book 'Decision' -- he pointed out that the GOP and Hoover were willing to keep Korea on the table to get them out of Manchuria...never mind the ONE condition the Japanese officially asked for months before the bombing.
But let's face it...the warmongers are hardly going to miss an opportunity to test a new toy
The real question would have been--why a city--some in FDR and Truman's cabinet were calling for it to be used on Mt Fuyijama or some other 'demonstration' site,,,
This topic question is more of the same history 'framing' that answers it'self


more bang for the buck...and more freedom

[LanternWaste]

68. Seems to me that...

One thing I've never been able to get my hands on is any material looking into whether a complete and total embargo of the Islands were ever discussed or not.

From where I sit (deep into hindsight land), it seems to me that an embargo would have been an effective, if not efficient method of starving the country into submission.

Despite all the grandstanding that is often said concerning the Japanese Kamikaze pilots, not only did Japan have less than 250 "qualified pilots" (i.e., a trainee advanced enough in flight school to take off from the runway)from which to draw Kamikaze pilots from but also the oil situation was so critical that for the six days prior to the first atomic bomb being dropped, Japanese air flights were at an absolute zero (no pun intended). In other words, any air opposition to the embargo would have been, at best, minimal.

Naval opposition? What naval opposition? One battleship, three baby-carriers (with 27 qualified pilots between them), seven cruisers and less than twenty destroyers left.

So, in effect, I can't see how an embargo would not have worked. Granted, embargo's didn't become trendy in the West until the late 50's, but it appears to have been a valid strategy which was overlooked.

(Sources used: Paul Kennedy's 'Rise and Fall of the Great Empires' for critical oil situations; Charles Patterly's, "The Air War in the Pacific" for numbers of pilots and servicable aircraft remaining. Charles Patterly's, "The Naval War in the Pacific" for servicable ships of the line remaining- Great research material all if you dig that sort of thing...)

[bpilgrim]

77. ADMIRAL WILLIAM D. LEAHY

~~~ADMIRAL WILLIAM D. LEAHY
(Chief of Staff to Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman)

"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.

"The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."

- William Leahy, I Was There, pg. 441

more...
http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm

peace

[LanternWaste]

82. Our hindsight is qualifiably 20/20

Again, our hindsight is qualifiably 20/20. Many of the U.S Army Air Force commanders in Europe said much the same thing regarding the fire-bombing of non-military targets. According to the Paul kennedy source I cited earlier, by '44 and '45, the air-war over Europe was simply not the most effective means of waging war. As Churchill was asked what after America entered the war, What will it take for the Allies to win? He replies, "The proper application of overwhelming might". There are many, many instances in which our application was, in fact, not proper (or in context, neither the most effective or the most efficient means).

The reason America was hell-bent in using it is much the same reason America used inferior armored fighting vehicles- because we had them. Mistakes were made. American tactics at the beginning of our involvement in the war were, in many cases, downright criminal...

Ah heck, I've got to split and get some aspirin for my g/f. In any case, I've bookmarked this particular discussion and I hope to return to this (and your particular historical interpretation of the events as you seem to be a bit more well-read and civil, despite the fact that I think we fundamentally agree with each other...lol) discussion as soon as possible. Check back later if you're in the mood as I may have "eureka'd" another idea or two re: this...

[bpilgrim]

84. i don't know if i would say 20/20 but certainly better ;-)

this issue is very dear to me as my wife and children our japanese and i have family there as well as i myself having lived and taught for 5 years there.

after reviewing the historical record, in my free time as am am no historian by any means though i do subscribe wholeheartedly to standing on the shoulders of those who have done the research and learning from them, i'm so lazy ;-) , it has become clear to me, especially after following the work and the subsequent debate that has arison from Gar Alperovitz, that the bombs were not necessary to end the war firstly, and secondly the BIG LIE that it 'saved lives' is provably wrong and so i will join all debates here to bring these facts to light.

in a nut shell, it was well known even at that time by our leaders that japan was a defeated and prostrate nation looking to surrender, months before the bombs were dropped, with one condition that most of our military leaders recommended we accept in order to SAVE LIVES.

to look into more details from a real historian i recommend checking out this site that goes into plenty of detail regarding this issue and the work of Gar Alperovitz.

http://www.doug-long.com/debate.htm

i have booked marked this thread and, to borrow a phrase, shall return ;-)

:hi:

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

145. You love those terms

And keep using them, even though they are wrong.

Japan was neither:

a) defeated -- you have to stop fighting for that to be true
or b) prostrate -- they were still bowing down to their emporer and not bowing down in complete surrender.

[bpilgrim]

194. i try to be descriptive...

they were defeated wether you want to admit to it or not - a mental condition? - is irrelevant and by the summer of 1945 simply trying to defend themselves however poorly considering the fact that they were defeated by all practical definitions and could not even muster up any air power to defend their skys.

prostrate save for 1 condition, excuse me, and of course they never wavered on that 1 condition until it was met even after being nuked, TWICE.

think of how many lives, OURS included, IF we had accepted that one condition months before dropping those horrid weapons.

think about it...

peace

[Garage Queen]

73. No.

That "more civilians would have died" line is crap. We did it to save our OWN lives, not THEIRS. We wanted a quick and easy way to end the war, and well, who cares if we obliterate a couple of their cities?Hell, they're just a bunch of little brown people, right? And serves them right for bombing Pearl Harbor, right? Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out...

:nuke:

[bpilgrim]

78. just think how many of our boys lives would have been saved IF

we had listened to our military leader in theater at the time who recommended accepting japans 1 condition in the spring in order to SAVE LIVES.

peace

[DemocratSinceBirth]

81. They Did Surrender Unconditionally

We let them keep the Emperor so the Japanese could have someone to rally around during the post war period.

Also, the Emperor admitted his culpability and became a figure that was respected not revered.

[bpilgrim]

86. the 1 condition was met 'secretly', and has stood the test of time

i put secretly in quotes since it is hard to hide the FACT that japan to this very day still has an emporer.

peace

[slackmaster]

380. Emperor's continued reign was at the pleasure of allied commander

From the First Instrument of Surrender:

"The authority of the Emperor and the Japanese Government to rule the state shall be subject to the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers who will take such steps as he deems proper to effectuate these terms of surrender."

See the full text at http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/wwii/j4.htm

Excellent collection of documents at http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/wwii/wwii.htm

[DemocratSinceBirth]

80. They Didn't Just Bomb Pearl Harbor

They terrorized other Asian people. The Japanese were as racist as the Nazis except they had different targets. They thought they were of a superior culture to other Asians.

They kidnapped Korean women and turned them into unpaid sex slaves or whores.

During the Bataan death march , mothers of Filipino pubescent girls rubbed shit on their daughter's faces so they would be unattractice to the Japanese soldiers and not be rape-bait.

Gimme a break. America is not close to cornering the market on racism and hypocrisy.

I keep coming back to another poster's most poingnant comment about this site

"Some folks at this site are just as reactionary as some of the Freepers but they come from another direction."

[bpilgrim]

88. we didn't just NUKE 2 Cities, Filled with civilians of a DEFEATED NATION

trying to SURRENDER... we were MUCH better at terror on a LARGE SCALE then they were and that is why we WON.

as a matter of fact we are now still in the 'GAME' and have pretty much borrowed japans playbook for 'Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere' but are applying it to the ME.

don't forget VIETNAM either...

peace

[Zuni]

107. huh?

Do you have any idea what a military campaign in Japan would have looked like?
Millions of japanese would have died.

[bpilgrim]

112. let me guess...

you went to american public school right... well you PASS, i guess :evilgrin:

peace

[noonwitch]

79. Yes, but it was still a bad thing

Truman wanted to end the war and save the lives of US soldiers. Dropping the bomb did that. It also unleashed the cold war, although he didn't know at the time that it would. It killed a lot of japanese civilians and caused terrible problems with cancer and birth defects for people who lived in Hiroshima and Nagasaki that survived the blast.

[AntiBushRepub]

87. HBO

I'm not sure exactly accurate any movie is...

However there has been a movie called "Hiroshima" on HBO recently.

It's newly made (last 10 years I would guess) but parts of it have that "old movie" feel, and wherever possible they have used clips of actual video from back then intertwined with it.

For anyone intersted in this thread, it's an interesting movie to watch. I highly reccomend it, I've seen it about 3 times.

Also, I'd like to give props to a point that was made earlier in the thread, we cannot judge this issue on what we know now. We have to judge by what they knew back then.

Also, someone suggested we should have threatened to drop it first instead of just doing it.

In the movie, and I'm sure this part is real because I think I've seen the actual footage. He did do that, but didn't let them know what we had. Something to the effect of, and I'm paraphrasing: "Surrender unconditionally now or you will face complete and utter destruction, save the people of Japan this hardship and surrender now"

Actually telling them "We have an atomic bomb and we will drop it" could have backfired in some way that neither me nor anyone here could predict. War and politics are fickle things.

Amazing how the lives of millions of people all over the world and the course of history would be forever changed by one small group of a few symbols...

E=MC^2

-An

[bpilgrim]

90. actually it cost more lives... and if we didn't accept their 1 condition

it would have cost even more since they were still willing to fight to the end.

the irony of the whole 'It Saved Lives' justification - the only one folks use anymore - is that our OWN MILITARY LEADERS in theater, at that time, recommended we accept their 1 condition, months before, in order to SAVE LIVES.

peace

[BushNixon04]

89. it saved WHITE lives!

We all know those Japanese were rapists and killers! It doesnt matter if THEIR civilians died because they were never fully human to begin with! OUR soldiers NEVER rape or slaughter indiscriminately! WHO CARES if they were going to surrender! WHO CARES if the bombing of Nagasaki was (even IF Hiroshima was debatable) COMPLETELY UNNEEDED?

I wonder how this thread would go if it had been two American cities nuked by the Japanese....

[AntiBushRepub]

91. A little trivia... just for the heck of it.

What was the name of the bomber that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima?

What was the name of the pilot?

What was the name of the bomb itself?

What island did the bomber take off from woth the bomb on board before it dropped it on the city?

[Clete]

92. I know two.

What was the name of the bomber that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima?

Enola Gay

What was the name of the bomb itself?

Fat Boy

[DemocratSinceBirth]

93. Not 100% Right

The bombs names were Fat Man and Little Boy.

Also, that's the title of a great movie with Paul Newman, Laura Dern , and John Cusack.

Paul Newman plays the General in charge of the Manhattan Project.

It has portraits of all the players like Enrico Fermi and Oppenheim.

It's cool to see those guys sitting on a bench discussing physics.


Great movie..

[AntiBushRepub]

94. correct.

Correct on Enloa Gay.

(whom the pilot, Paul Tibbets named after his mother Enola Gay Tibbets)

Correct on Fat Man and Little Boy.

FYI. The general Paul Newman played is General Leslie Groves.

The island the bomb took off from was Tinjan. (pronounced Tin-e-an)

also FYI, the aircraft carrier who delivered the bomb to Tinjan Island (forgot the name) was sunk immediatly afterwards by a Japanese sub on it's way home, taking 800 souls to the bottom.

Also, yeah, Enrico Fermi and Robert Oppenheimer.. Say what you will about ethics, it was a fantastic bit of physics.

-An

[VOX]

97. The USS Indianapolis delivered the bomb. Remember "Quint" in "Jaws?"

That character, played by the late actor, Robert Shaw delivered a harrowing monologue on the subject:

Quint: Ah, well. It's a tattoo. I got that removed.
Hooper: Don't tell me. Don't tell me. Mother. What is it?
Quint: Mr. Hooper, that's the U.S.S. Indianapolis.
Hooper: You were on the Indianapolis?
Martin: What happened?
Quint: Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, chief. It was comin' back, from the island of Tinian to Leyte, just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in twelve minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. Thirteen footer. You know...you know that when you're in the water, chief? You tell by lookin' from the dorsal to the tail. Well, we didn't know. ’Cause our bomb mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent. Huh huh. They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, chief. The sharks come cruisin'. So we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know it's... kinda like old squares in battle like… uh, you see on a calendar, like the battle of Waterloo. And the idea was, the shark would go for nearest man and then and then he'd start poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark would go away. Sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark, he looks right into you. Right into your eyes. You know the thing about a shark, he's got...lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eye. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be livin'. Until he bites ya and those black eyes roll over white. And then, ah then you hear that terrible high pitch screamin' and the ocean turns red and spite of all the poundin' and the hollerin' they all come in and rip you to pieces. Y'know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don't know how many sharks, maybe a thousand. I don't know how many men, they averaged six an hour. On Thursday mornin' chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player, bosun's mate. I thought he was asleep, reached over to wake him up. Bobbed up and down in the water, just like a kinda top. Upended. Well... he'd been bitten in half below the waist. Noon the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us, he swung in low and he saw us. He's a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper, anyway he saw us and come in low. And three hours later a big fat PBY comes down and start to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened? Waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went in the water, three hundred and sixteen men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.

[Muddleoftheroad]

146. Who cares?

It saved AMERICAN lives and, in war, saving the lives of YOUR people matters more than saving the lives of the enemy that has tried to destroy you.

[Violet_Crumble]

164. Obviously you don't...

But I guess a great many other people do care. I care because my grandfather was a WWII veteran for whom an apology from Japan for what it did to the POWs would have been a good thing to have. But because of the bomb, Japan was able to build a history of itself being a victim in the war, so there never was an apology, and as far as I know there hasn't been to this day. And no offence, but Japan NEVER tried to destroy the US. Japan did enough terrible things without making up crap that isn't true about them. Japan was focused on creating their own sphere of influence in the Pacific, which involved taking control of South East Asia and the Pacific Islands, and cutting off Australia as a base for the Allies. Hell, the Japanese didn't even try to destroy Australia, so I find a claim that Japan tried to destroy the US a bit bizarre....

Violet...

[Name removed]

185. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[VoteClark]

220. We must kill our boys instead of the Nazi enablers

It makes sense. I am sure if we send in our troops to die, we would build special tanks and bombs that weaved around the innocent people and only hit the enemy troops.

Why should we choose to save 250,000 US troops when we can kill them and the 200,000 innocent Japanese people that allied themselves with Nazis to take over the world and divid the United States and wipe out all non-whites and subject our people to an evil tryannical government?

I mean what was Truman thinking?!?!

Geez, we should have killed more people. I mean our troops are not innocent young 18 year old boys. They are soldiers that don't have wives, children, or lives. They are not real people like the ones in Japan.
<Sarcasm>

:kick:
J4Clark

[bpilgrim]

223. the BIG LIE

what don't you get about accepting japans offer to surrender and ending the war even EARLIER to save OUR BOYS lives as OUR military leaders in theater at the time advised?

WHY is that so hard to understand and if we go by your logic - saving OUR boys lives - you would think you would be one of the first to get it.

:shrug:

peace

[BushNixon04]

249. your history needs more studying

before you claim the Japanese deserve to be bombed becasue they were "Nazi enablers", I suggest you do a little research about the founding of our very own CIA immediately after WWII under the name "Operation Paperclip" and led by one Gen Reihard Gehlen. Again, you engage in the very same blind dehumanization of the Other. Nice work.

[Woodstock]

396. duplicate post

.

[Woodstock]

397. Obviously you know nothing about what the Japanese did to the Chinese

What a completely absurd thing you just said. Those are some of our parents you are talking about who made those decisions. You are wrong to paint a generation of people who tried to do what they thought was best for everyone - including a lot of suffering Asians who were victims of the Japanese - with such a broad brush.

[kcwayne]

96. Why not disclose to the Japanese

I have never been able to understand why the idea of a demonstration was not given any weight. The argument against this was that if it was a dud, the psychological impact would be lessened, and there was concern over how much time it might take to build new bombs.

I just don't buy the argument. If we had explained to the Japanese that we had a weapon so powerful, we could now accomplish with 1 plane what until then had taken 1000, and that the destruction to their country was going to be unimaginable, they might have listened and surrendered without the need for us to even demonstrate the weapon. If they didn't we could still have dropped the bomb for their review outside of a populated area.

If the weapons had been duds, it would have been 6-9 months max before we had new ones, so I just don't see the need for rushing.

It was especially cruel to drop on Nagasaki without an ultimatum. We simply did not give them the opportunity to surrender after witnessing Hiroshima, which was a crime against humanity in my opinion. Imagine the confusion of the Japanese after the first bomb hit. They actually has soldiers training with white sheets on because they thought it provided protection against the bomb. We should have explained to their leadship what we were doing, and if they still refused to surrender, then use the weapon if we were convinced that we would lose 500,000 men invading Japan.

[AntiBushRepub]

101. The reason for that is...

.. from all the history on this I've studied so far...

They did not have enough HEU or Plutonium at the time to construct any more bombs. They did the trinity test with Plutonium, the Hiroshima bomb was a Unranium 235 fission bomb, and Nagasaki was a plutonium fusion bomb...

Even with the Y-12 facility going full steam and everything they were doing at Los Alamos, it would have been a long time before they had additional weaponized material...

I could be wrong, but has anyone heard the fact that the y-12 facility was, in it's heyday, using something like 25% of the total U.S. electrical power? It was a giant bank of calutrons with magents so powerful they pulled nails out of the walls.

So if they had called our bluff, it all would have been for naught...

We did have the two though, a reasonable argument could be made that we could have demonstrated it once, and if that didn't do the job we take out a city... It's a tough call for us who can't see through the eyes of the people who lived it.

-An

[bpilgrim]

108. we had 2... and shoot he could have at least gave WARNING to the INNOCENT

civilians living there, no?

but all that doesn't matter when you consider that MOST OF OUR OWN MILITARY LEADERS advised against the dropping in the first place. and heres the rub... to SAVE LIVES :wow: and history stands as witness to their wisdom, yet still some will continue to argue, even AFTER being informed of this information so technically we can't call them ignoramouses so i must conclude WILLFUL DENIAL, and we can only speculate on the motivations so i want go there...

with the only 'real' argument left - to 'SAVE LIVES' - these days embraced by the remaining, though vigilant pro-nuke supporters, though there certainly is no sortage of folks willing to hang by that last thread, disproven as it is and some after even being informed of that fact. :shrug:

it is really sad the length some will go to to cover-up our sins because they WILL all come back to byte us one day.

what worries me is that history teaches us that the only way to stop a mad nation on the rampage with 'GOD on THEIR side' is by saturation bombing and then finally NUKING THEM :nuke: as often as it takes :nuke: with 0 warning :nuke: when there ready to surrender :puke:

them dirty JAPS!

well looks like we are sticking to the script, of after laying prostrate and defenseless 'terrorist' even after verifying that fact with INSPECTIONS we 'SHOCKED and AWED' the world again...

but, hey... it's still early in the 'game' right... givem time, right... will show them bastards... over THERE, RIGHT!

:scared:

peace

[nofurylike]

154. wish i'd found this discussion sooner.

you gave reason, humanity, decency, sanity, and evidence another mighty try, bpilgrim.

no waste, certainly. it clarifies the vision of us trying to make a difference. thank you.

keep on :toast:

peace

[bpilgrim]

177. thank you

:loveya:

peace

[VoteClark]

125. RIGHT

I am sure we could say, "Listen you bad people that want to take over the world, we got a really really big bomb and we are going to drop it on you and kill every body. It is so powerful we can wipe out your entire country with one little bomb."

Their reply, "yeah, and we got a mouse that will sneak in a gernade that will blow up all of LA."

Get real, tell the enemy you got all Ace's and he will call you on it.

:kick:
J4Clark

[bpilgrim]

127. the japanese were trying to surrender...

maybee we didn't need to use the super weapon after all is i believe the main point

peace

[U4ikLefty]

139. Don't even try to heap reality on those who don't want to see it.

Some people need to believe in Santa Claus, Apple Pie & America's Goodness...LOL!!! They are the kind that still believe that the Natives "just died off due to illness" or the slaves were "better off than in Africa"...whatcha gonna do?!?

Uh-Oh, now I'm gonna be called an America-Hater...yikes!!!

[bpilgrim]

140. this topic is a pet peeve of mine...

and i will challenge them no matter how foolish they are for they provide an excellent opprotunity to pass the word onto others and besides this is the DU not fox ;-)

:hi:

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

148. Yes, DU

And even on DU many of us still support the bombing. That might give you a clue how out of touch you are with contemporary American thought on this topic.

[U4ikLefty]

151. Hey bpilgrim

how about a toast to being "out of touch...with contemporary American thought". I'm in great company!!! :toast:

[Muddleoftheroad]

167. But small

Very small numbers.

Even on a progressive web site.

[bpilgrim]

211. It's Lonely at the Top

:evilgrin:

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

217. When you get there

Be sure to let us all know. You aren't there now with your defense of tyranny.

[bpilgrim]

224. i am talking about SAVING LIVES something MLK understood very well

i guess you thought it was right for us to kill millions of vietnamese as well, eh?

King didn't.

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

227. That option

Was entirely up to Japan which had not surrendered in the way the U.S. demanded. In war, the losing side usually doesn't dictate terms.

[bpilgrim]

232. 1 condtion

unless you are waging total war which obviously the japanese were not but we apparently were.

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

253. Total war

It sure as hell looks like it to me. Destroying cities. Widespread rape. Abuse and murder of prisoners. Conscripting civilians into corps of "comfort women" to service the troops, sending incendiary balloons out to start forest fires -- not to mention sneak attack and widespread conquest.

They started the war and demanding that one condition cost them hundreds of thousands of lives. Blame it on them, not Truman.

[bpilgrim]

256. and we were victorious...

i guess thats becuse we were better at it then they, eh.

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

266. Wow, you really do come from the hate America camp

To even make that statement. Well, newsflash, that kind of unique thinking is why so many in this nation vote against us.

Ask the Chinese or the Koreans if we were "better at it" than the Japanese.

[BushNixon04]

270. typical response

Someone points out to you that the US won WWII because we were better at the violence and you claim they "hate America first".....gee, that argument sounds familiar....screamed at the Dixi Chicks lately?

[Muddleoftheroad]

285. In context

If he had simply said America was better at war, I would have agreed. He didn't. He responded to my post saying, "Destroying cities. Widespread rape. Abuse and murder of prisoners. Conscripting civilians into corps of "comfort women" to service the troops, sending incendiary balloons out to start forest fires -- not to mention sneak attack and widespread conquest." His response implied THAT was what America was better at.

I find THAT offensive.

[bpilgrim]

311. with us history as well

"the only thing new in this world is the history you don't know" - TRUMAN

your 'avatar' spoke eloquently on the subject i am suprised you are IGNORANT on such matters.

BONE UP!


peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

347. Ignorance

Yours is showing if you are saying America was better at all those things than the Japanese juggernaut that raped and pillaged its way across the Pacific and Asia.

[bpilgrim]

350. war is terror

we won

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

353. Nope

Not at all. War can include terror as one component. War is force of arms, force of will, logistics, etc.

We won on those. The Japanese and the Germans both outdid the U.S. in terror by about a billion to one.

[bpilgrim]

366. try telling it to someone who was there...

war is TERROR

peace

[Name removed]

278. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Muddleoftheroad]

286. Ah, the strawman arrives

You are mixing your wars. We are talking about WWII. You remember, the one where the Japanese attacked us?

[bpilgrim]

340. hmmm... where have i heard that tactic used before?

'blame/hate america first' oh, yeah... never mind.

peace

[bpilgrim]

188. good idea!

:toast:

peace

[Violet_Crumble]

171. That's because...

There'd be some freepers hanging round in threads like this putting in their two cents worth. There's also the others who aren't freepers who just haven't bothered studying the history of WWII and who repeat the same lines over and over while totally ignoring all the evidence to the contrary. Maybe that's a product of the US educational system. No offense, Muddle, but I really don't think you know much at all about contemporary American thought on this topic or how Americans thought about it in the years straight after the war. Here's something from the Journal of Military History written by Barton J. Bernstein called 'Truman and the A-bomb: Targetting Noncombatants, Using the Bomb, and His Defending the "Decision"'.

In ways that Truman probably never foresaw, attitudes changed in later years, and certainly historians have sharply argued since the mid-1960s, and the work of Gar Alperovitz...about the use of the bombs on Japan in 1945. Over the years, the support for the 1945 use of the A-bombs has dropped considerably, and the opposition has grown appreciably. By 1995, when Ferrell was probably completing this useful book, approval had fallen to 59 percent, disapproval had risen to 35 percent, and America was deeply divided - by race, gender, age, and income - on this issue.

In mid-1995, African Americans substantially disapproved (57 percent "anti" and 31 percent "pro") of the atomic bombings of Japanese cities, while whites overwhelmingly (64 percent to 31 percent) approved. A near-majority of American women (47 percent) disapproved of the atomic bombings of Japanese cities and 40 percent approved, while men overwhelmingly (74 percent) approved with only 23 percent disapproving. Young adults divided almost equally (46 percent "pro" to 49 percent "anti"), while the elderly, who lived through World War II, overwhelmingly (80 percent to 15 percent) approved. A near-majority of the comparatively poor (49 percent to 44 percent) approved, while the comparatively wealthy overwhelmingly approved of the 1945 atomic bombings (69 percent to 27 percent).

The only thing I can find to say in support of the bombs being dropped is that if Hiroshima and Nagasake hadn't happened, maybe it would have made it easier for either of the super-powers to use even one their infinitely more destructive bombs during the Cold War. I'm sure the memory of what happened to Hiroshima and Nagasake played a part in those later weapons (some of which could have easily wiped out pretty much all life on earth) only being built for deterrence value...

Violet...

[nofurylike]

158. no, U.... some understand that it is those who have to deceive themselves

about their country's history who really hate that country;

those who so furiously deny the horror of acts such as atom-bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki, committing biological warfare on this continent's First Nations, who cannot face such acts - which facing is our only hope of growing up - who really hate it most of all.

but then, too, that intensity of denial usually is impenetrable.

[jonnyblitz]

113. HELL NO!!!!

I only thought right wingers still thought it was a good thing...

we are talking not one but TWO nukes on CIVILIANS. You can't tell me that was the only option..Please...

[AntiBushRepub]

115. They had no regard for civlians either

The Japanese had no regard for civilian life either....

Ever hear of "the rape of Nanking"?

Of course it was an ugly thing, nobody's disputing that.

They started the war by their ow purposeful doing, with a sneak attack no less...

They fought fiercely, killed countless people...

Tortured and dismembered and murdered countless POWs.

I think it had to do with the rage the country was feeling at the time toward the Japanese.

I think now what the responses will be..

'Just because they killed civlians doesn't mean we should.'
or 'Those people on those cities were not ALL rapists and murderers'

All valid arguments.

Still, at the time the country was well aware of the was crimes commited by the Japanese, and at that time, it was Military vs Military but it was also Nation vs. Nation, People vs People.

Sometimes, particularly in wartime, people have to make decisions they might not like.

The Japanese were training to give all the civlians, women, and children knives and guns...

Did we absolutely have to nuke both cities, well the fact is that Truman went on television right afterwards and said that, failing an unconditional surrender, they would use another one.

They refused, they still fought. US soldiers still died by the hundreds between the first and second bomb.

I think that the bombing of Nagasaki rests much more sqaurely on the heads of the Japanese, more so than Hiroshima.

There was 3 days time in between, during which time Truman stated clrealy that if they did not UNCONDITIONALLY surrender.. they would get hit again.

They toured the ashes of the city.. they knew what would happen..

War is an ugly thing.

-An

[bpilgrim]

118. be we were better at it then them...

obviously, right?

peace

[bpilgrim]

117. well said

:toast:

i think this issue is resurfacing because of the new dangerous direction of old fashoined imperialism this admin of neo-cons have embarked on, not to mention the programming of the discovery channel, and our own GOOD desire to HONOR the men and women who sacrificed so much, MANY times EVERYTHING - 50 MILLION people - that we try in vain to lable it as... the 'GOOD' war.

peace

[AntiBushRepub]

119. Just curious on this one...

What exactly is your issue with the Discovery Channel?

[bpilgrim]

120. no issue...

just calling them as i see'em

peace

[DemocratSinceBirth]

121. The Japanese Had A Little Nuclear Program Of Their Own

http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Gulf/4963jnuke.html

Gee, I wonder who they were preparing this little gem for.

[bpilgrim]

122. a little misdirection never hurt, right?

i believe the question was should WE have dropped THEM... not the other way around, not to mention they never did.

peace

[DemocratSinceBirth]

129. The Link Was Bad

The point was they had a nuclear program and if it succeded they would have used them on us.


http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Gulf/4963/jnuke.html

[bpilgrim]

130. oh

guess that explains why we nuked a defeated, nation trying to surrender.

thanks for clearing that up :hi:

peace

[moondust]

123. Yes, but not on people.

Wiping out an uninhabited Pacific island for all to see should have been sufficient to convince even the die-hard zealots.

[bpilgrim]

124. especially people trying to surrender

:hi:

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

149. Trying to surrender

Is lame. You don't "TRY" to surrender. You either do it or you don't. I'm "trying" to keep my cool in this thread and it ain't working. Next, I will try to will myself back into history so I can speak to Truman personally about this. I guess since I am trying, it's the same thing as actually doing it.

[bpilgrim]

226. but the U.S. would not accept it till we ran out of nukes...

it takes two, one to offer and one to accept...



peace

[Don_G]

131. It Was Necessary At The Time

The military controlled the people and the government at that time and were willing to sacrifice the entire nation to meet "their" ends.

Their means included 60+ years of propaganda and control of a religon over an entire nation knowing that "they" traded 200,000+ Japanese lives for 14,000 Americans at Iwo Jima....

Nagasaki and Hiroshima occurred which effectively converted the average Japanese military unit into a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital until....

Hey, they were good enough to rebuild their country and their economy without much help....

We're stuck with Jethro Bee Bush who dosen't have enough sense to see a fire burning on his buns....

[bpilgrim]

132. oh really...

it was right to nuke 2 defenseless civilian populations of a defeated and prostrate nation trying to surrender.

sounds like something an extremist would say to me.

think about it...

peace

peace

[DemocratSinceBirth]

134. It Really Is Sad That You Are So Entrenched In Your Opinion

that you refuse to listen to any argument that conflicts with your pre-existing beliefs.

[bpilgrim]

135. i am presenting FACTS

and trying to keep the thread on topic.

man in the mirror...

peace

[9215]

133. The question I have on this

topic is for anybody opposed to Truman's decision, a decision I think was the correct one:

If the Axis powers had gotten the bomb, and they were working on it, do you think they would have used it?

[bpilgrim]

136. would they have used it on a defeated, trying to surrender nation, TWICE?

maybe, but we will never know, but let me ask you this... if they had would you have supported it?

peace

[VoteClark]

141. Oh Please!

DO you expect me to buy the notion that Truman dropped the bomb on Japan because he thought it would be fun to see women and children die?

Man, that is so narrow minded it is unbelievable! You were not there, and evidence shows that we won the war. They would have rather died then surrender, how to go about getting people that throw themselves on a blade rather than surrender?

:kick:
J4Clark

[bpilgrim]

142. what?

it was a hypothetical right? and i am sure truman had his reasons, SHOCK and AWE, not to mention that is in fact what happened.

don't blame me for the history you can not seem to cope with.

besides i didn't need to be there to have studied the history as written by folks who were there and or researched the topic.

some will never accept any of our sins no matter how obvious or how much time has passed.

peace

[9215]

315. bpilgrim, I like most of your

stuff, but
"maybe" is really being disingenuous. You know damn well the Japanese or the Germans would have used the bomb if they had developed it first. What, pray tell, do you think they were developing it for?

You are essentially, telling the US that they were not allowed to defend themselves against an enemy that would have and nearly could have used "The Bomb" on us. Nations and people have a right to defend themselves, THAT is what the US was doing and it also not only had a right, but a duty to its people to do it with losing as few lives as possible. The US saved, by some estimates, about 1/2 a million men.

This long, way too long IMHO, topic is one of the glaring weaknesses of bleeding heart Liberalism and should not even be a question seriously entertained by thinking people. The question is viewed through the prism of "Presentism".

[bpilgrim]

339. thank you, but i am simply asking a question...

we can only speculate about the one raised but we do have the historical record for our own behavior and please don't shoot the messenger for stating the facts in such a way that may make it hard for some to hear but are UGLY facts nonetheless.

peace

[9215]

360. Sometimes the answer is obvious as in this case. The Axis

powers would have used any method neccessary to take over the World and you have simply stuck your head in the sand to avoid the unpleasant truth of that. You are the one ignoring ugly truths. In the process you have denied the right of the US to defend itself agains unprovoked aggression.

Your specious concern for the lives of the Japanese lost by the bomb and not that of your countrymen whose lives were saved puts you very close to, if not in, the category of traitor IMO.

[bpilgrim]

367. or we have our own historical record as in this case...

we nuked a defeated nation that was trying to surrender TWICE.

"You are the one ignoring ugly truths. In the process you have denied the right of the US to defend itself agains unprovoked aggression."

what are you talking about? :shrug:

"Your specious concern for the lives of the Japanese lost by the bomb and not that of your countrymen whose lives were saved puts you very close to, if not in, the category of traitor IMO."

whaaat? i said we should have accepted their offer to surrender sooner therefore saveing even MORE lives as our military leaders in theater recomended at the time.

where do you come up with such nonsense :shrug:

peace

[AntiBushRepub]

215. Wanted to respond to this

Quote:>>If the Axis powers had gotten the bomb, and they were working >>on it, do you think they would have used it?

Absolutely they would. They would have used it to annihilate every major city of their enemies.

Remember, Hitlers Germany had a policy of "total warfare" meaning all out war against everybody, civilians included.

Had the Axis gotten the bomb first, I honestly believe the earth would be almost sterile by now, with very little life remaining except in its lowerst forms like insects and bacteria.

No QUESTION they would have used it.. as many as they had, as a first strike weapon, and with impunity.

-An

[bpilgrim]

228. just like us...

accept we were better at it - "total warfare" - than they as history shows.

peace

[9215]

318. I asked the question with eyes rolling

Glad you pitched in. The next logical question when we conclude that Yes, the Axis powers would have used it is did the US have a right to defend itself against a vicious enemy?

There are many other things to consider. I for one think even if the Axis powers were not developing a nuke that we had a right to use it for the simple fact that it saved American GI's lives, which it most certainly did.

When we look at the deathtoll of the target areas for the nuke bombs dropped on Japan the only ones to blame are the Japanese government that started the war.

[bpilgrim]

341. no one is arguing that 'strawman' you just invited... 'can we defend our-'

selves?

of course we can... we are talking about the END of that war where we were defending ourselves and asked was it 'the right thing to do' to nuke a DFEATED trying to surrender nation TWICE. 2 cities filled with inoccent civilians, men, women and children.

let's stay on topic :hi:

peace

[9215]

361. The fact that the nuking saved both US and probably Japanese "innocents"

seems to have been lost on you. Your biggest issue, IMHO, is the aesthetically unpleasing idea of using nukes. You view the issue through the prism of "presentism": 50+ years of knowing what the ramifications of nukes are and expecting people in a desperate deadly struggle in defense of their lives to share this aesthetic.


If Japan wanted to surrender unconditionally (the only acceptable course IMO) then they would have before the nukes as they did after.

[bpilgrim]

368. oh, really? so not accepting their surrender until AFTER we nuked them

TWICE

saved lives?

even though most of our own military leaders in theater at the time advised against it?

interesting...

anyways, the japanese did NOT surrender until we accepted their 1 condition not after the nukes, they would have kept on even if we had 50 nukes, as the recent NYT article points out, that demonstrates to me convincingly that it wasn't necessary not to mention unspeakably horrific, cruel and unusual punnishment, at the cost of even more of our boys lives on the battle field.

remember okinawa?

peace

[DemocratSinceBirth]

137. Stay Tuned

Should Lincoln have responded to the attack on Fort Sumter?

[bpilgrim]

138. for more misdirection...

or off topic posts, eh.

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

150. You don't have to wait

I've already seen people questioning whether Lincoln should have fought that war. Some seem to think war is NEVER OK, even if it save the world or frees a people.

[nofurylike]

152. you mean, like

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.?

[Muddleoftheroad]

163. Freedom

You mean like the Civil War where my race was freed.

Some historical events can't be second guessed.

[dudeness]

153. it was a war crime..

to bomb hiroshima was horrific...but to slaughter thousands in nagasaki with a second bomb was a war crime only forgotten because the victor set the rules of surrender...

[VoteClark]

169. Truman showed restraint with only TWO Bombs.

These were not innocent people. Let me list off a few things they did.

1) They were Nazis, only Asian, instead of White, they believed that all other races should be wiped out.

2) They assisted Hitler in trying to take over the world, and in concentration camps.

3) They killed thousands of young American men, women, and children.

4) They raped, murdered, tortured, and molested, men, women and children in their own homes on an unimaginable scale in China. Grown men, raping little six and eight year old girls.

5) They killed captured American GI's for sport and fun. They treated them less than animals.

6) They invaded the United States first killing American Families

7) They send their own young boys to slam into ships, buildings, and people in airplanes. Cold blooded murder and terrorism.

8) They built guns, ships, ammo, airplanes, bombs, missles, cannons, and anything they could think of to kill, torture, and destroy your family, your cousins, you grandparents, your uncles, aunts, and even parents.

9) They send off balloons with timing devices and send them over to the West American coast hitting towns and cities in California, Washington, and Oregon.

10) They took submarins and battleships and fired on west coast American cities.

11) They invaded every island and people they could, torturing, murdering, and raping innocent people.

I think Truman showed a great deal of restraint in only dropping two A-Bombs. The atroscities alone in contcentration camps of 12 million Jews, Gays,Blacks, and disabled is enough to justify the dropping of three bombs. And in China, the United States, and the Pacific Islands, is justification for turning the entire Japanese Island into a self lighted airport for the Asian Continent.

You can claim these people were innocent. But were they innocent when they build the bullet that was used to pass through a pregant Chinese women. Where they innocent when they build the airplane that dived into a building with women and children in it. Were they innocent when they built a knive that impaled a 18 year boy soldier who fell down because he wasn't given enough water to make the 50 mile march the Japanese troops forced him to make? Where they innocent when they sewn a parachute to attach a bomb that was send to land in an American city?

If these people were innocent why didn't they fight against their emporer and cast him down. Italy did, they strung up their leader and hung him, they said NO, to what they were being forced to do. They knew they were on the wrong side of justice and what was right and took personal responsiblity for their actions. They didn't make excuses and reasons why.

When our boys finally made it to the bunkers of Germans on the coast of Normandy, the Germans ran out of bullets. They tried to surrender. You know what, many were unarmed. But they were shot anyway, why? Because before our guys got up there they walked past the bodies of friends that were smeared all over the beach. Heads, body parts, you name it. The Germans showed no mercy even to the medics that tried to assist them. So if the Germans didn't have enough common sense to surrender before they wasted thousands of our young men before they ran out of ammo, too bad! I would blow you away. You show no mercy, you get no mercy.

You act like a savage and torture, rape, molest, experiment on, and kill millions of innocent people for your religious, ideological beliefs, and sick pleasure, then you should be shown NO mercy, NONE!

Yeah, I don't care if these people wanted to surrender or not. They would have keep on killing, raping, and torturing millions of people as long as they could. It was their mistakes and fear that made them want to surrender. It was not their remorse or repentance. They should pay for their actions. They should have to be stripped of any dignity, power, independance, and freedom they had. But most of all, they needed to be made so hateful, fearful, and disgusted by war that they never ever want to do it again.

That is why Truman did the right thing. He was President of United States. He had to make sure, absolutly sure, that Japan would never ever be able to rise to power and start another war. He did that. It wasn't easy, it wasn't fun, it wasn't fair to the few innocent people that opposed their own goverment. But he had to do it for the security of the Nation, and the security of the world.

He could not set up a demonstration of power, the Japanese would have taken our POWs and moved there.

I would not have taken one more loss of an American soldier if I could help it. The US and world already paid a premium price for the war THEY started.

They way I look at it is NOT the US that dropped an A-Bomb on Japan. I look at it like Japan dropped in on themselves. If they didn't want the US to pound them into little they should not have asked for it. Which is what they did when they killed our people, and assisted Germany in its' war on humanity.

Those two bombs saved millions and millions of lives and ended one of the most wicked and evil governments in the history of the world. It not only was justified, it was justice itself.

:kick:
J4Clark

[bpilgrim]

178. "Yeah, I don't care if these people wanted to surrender or not." - NK

do you know who you sound like, with all of your rightous indination and hate filled fury, not to mention many historical inaccuracies?

just like them, at that time AND just like our current leaders of today.

so i guess you are all for somebody NUKING us considering our behaviour, even if we had reached a point were we were defenseless and willing to surrender.

think about it...

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

180. Clearly

Japan was anything BUT defenseless, since their military had just killed thousands of American troops nearby on Iwo Jima.
And the term "willing to surrender" is just as bogus as "ready to surrender." Both imply theory and not actual fact or action.

[bpilgrim]

203. sorry pal

what happened at the end of the day at IWO? they were defeated practically to a man as they were every where else and afterwards we were bombing them with impunity by the spring of 45...

"And the term "willing to surrender" is just as bogus as "ready to surrender." Both imply theory and not actual fact or action."

i have presented historical FACTS and NOT opinions - something you have not done - that proves my case to any reasonable mind which would probably explain your intransigence.

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

230. How many American lives lost?

Over 6,000 American dead and we had over a 3-1 advantage over them. And thousands more wounded.

The terms "willing" and "ready" are not facts, they are opinion. Only actions are fact. They did not surrender until we nuked them -- twice -- and that's a fact Jack.

[bpilgrim]

239. they did not surrender untill we agreed to their 1 condition...

By February 1945, U.S. troops had recaptured most of the territory taken by the Japanese in 1941 and 1942; still uncaptured was Iwo Jima, which became a primary objective in American plans to bring the Pacific campaign to a successful conclusion.

more...
http://www.nps.gov/gwmp/usmc.htm

the japanese had been trying to surrender for many months by that time and were by all practical purposes a defeated nation yet we did not accept their surrender untill we ran out of nukes that were obviousl not necessary to win the war and sacrificed even more of our boys in the process against the advice of military leaders in theater at the time.

those are the facts the you choose to ignore them many reasonable minds will not and i apreciate the opprotunity to you provide in pointing those facts out, again and again...

thank you

peace

[F.Gordon]

261. Thank you bpilgrim

Everytime I hear the rightwing argument that dropping the bombs on Japan "saved lives" it makes my skin crawl.

I've personally interviewed 5 people that were sent into the Pacific Theatre 3-4 months prior to the "bomb" in prep for the surrender of Japan and the US propaganda was already being written long before the "bomb". It was a done deal. The aussies were doing most of the clean up in the Pacific as much as 4 months prior to the "bomb".

All this Ann Coulter-styled revisionist History makes me crazy!!!

Thanks for putting up the good fight and setting the record straight. Kudos!!!!

[bpilgrim]

379. thank you motivated

and i know exactly how you feel.

i am happy to do it on DU at least the stuff i know a little something about.

i just hope the history proffessors out there are allowed to keep writing and studying for if it wasn't for them i would propably contiue to regurgitate the party line just like the handful here.

i understand and sympathize strongly with why many americans still believe and parrot what they do since i am one of them... but that is why i can also with the ordinary japanese or german people of their time since we all come from the same human race.

whenever one of us forgets that we must do all we can to set them straight lest we continue are terrible trend of self destruction.

"I kno not with nwhat weapons WWIII will be fought with, but i
know WW4 will be fought with sticks and stones" - einstien

peace

[ET Awful]

182. The innocent civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Were not the ones raping and killing.

That would be like Iraq justifying nuking New York because US soldiers there are killing civilians.

The fact remains that over 200 thousand CIVILIANS were killed needlessly. Civlians were INNOCENT. They did NOTHING wrong.

I'm disgusted that anyone that associates themselves with the left in any way would try to justify the wanton massacre of thousands of innocent civilians. Yet you denounce Bush's actions that result in the deaths of innocent civilian deaths.

You support an action that ten years later was still killing innocents. Even today, people are still feeling the effects. There are still people living with birth defects and cancer caused by those bombs. Just this year they added another 5,000+ names to the monument to those who died in Hiroshima. And you call it justifiable.

The majority of the military leaders in the US at the time thought it wasn't necessary.

British intelligence thought it wasn't necessary.

But you try to justify the killing of over 200 thousand innocent civilians.

Disgusting. I certainly hope you aren't indicative of Clark's support base, if so, I'll definitely be looking elsewhere.

[VoteClark]

206. I don't support the Nazis like you do.

That is what I opposed. You think these people didn't know what they were doing? Please, they knew what the bombs, gernades, guns, and ships they built were used for. They knew they started the war and killed Chinese people. They were not stupid.

They supported Nazism. They supported the concentration camps. And yes, many men that had raped and murdered women and children were in those two cites.

I think anyone that assisted and aided the Nazis should be bombed, bombed again, and again, so that nobody ever does it again. I think it is horrible that someone that associates themselves with the left would have any sympathy with supporters of the Nazi party.

You think they should go free after causing the torture and death of 1/2 million Americans and 26 million people world wide!?!?!

Well why don't you pin a medal on them? Great, let the whole world know if you kill and preform human experiements on live humans we will pity you and rejoice in your deeds!

I say NO, NO, NO! You do that, and you will regret it forever, and guess what, they do, NEVER AGAIN, will this human death and destruction be allowed. And if it does, and you take any part in it again, BOOM! You are wiped out, competly, even the people that pack the gun powder and mix the poisen to do it. You are part it, you assist in it, you shall be wiped out and be NO MORE!

:nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke:
to Nazis Facists To the enables To people that bomb America

:nuke: :nuke:
To Racial supremists to rapers of children

:nuke:
To people that preform experiment on Jews

Wipe them all out. For the good humanity, wipe out the beasts that kill and murder for the sake of it.

:kick:
J4Clark

[bpilgrim]

218. i guess you'll be singing the same song when it happens to us, eh?

they were/are HUMAN BEINGS with ruthless leaders, sound familiar?

by the way I would proudly pin a medal on Hirota Koki

1878–1948, Japanese statesman. He graduated from the law school of Tokyo Univ. A career diplomat, he served as ambassador to Russia (1930–32) and as foreign minister (1933–36). He became prime minister in Mar., 1936, and followed army dictates. His regime saw increased military spending, government interference in the economy, growth of aggression in China, and the signing of the Anti-Comintern Pact. He resigned under army pressure in Feb., 1937. Later he was (1937–38) foreign minister and president of the cabinet planning board under Fumimaro Konoye. In 1945 he negotiated to keep the USSR from declaring war on Japan. After the war he was arrested as a war criminal, and in 1948 he was convicted and hanged.

the world could certainly use more men as he.

peace

[VoteClark]

222. Get your facts straight, would you please.

USSR declared war on Japan on August 8, 1945. So please, stop with the Japan warriors are superheroes. Tell that to the soliders that were prisoners, tell that to the Filipinos that were murdered on their own soil. You only have sympathy for the murderers and not the murdered and victims of human toture. Tell it to the victims of the holocost that that they were heroes for supporting the Nazis.


:kick:
J4Clark

[bpilgrim]

229. i am against any and all targeting of civilians...

not just when the 'other guy' does it.

think about it...

btw: members of my family served in all of our wars even in the pacific.
fortunately i did not have to serve during a time of war. BM3

peace

[VoteClark]

236. Now, how do you do that?

I don't know if you know this, but you can't not hit a civilians. Bombs don't know the difference between the two.

I had relatives that fought in the Rev War, the Civil War (the wrong side though), WWI and WWII. The rest, I don't know about. I lost relatives in WWI and WWII. Both were 18 years old. My Grandfather fought the Japanese in WWII. He risked his life everyday. He was an engineer for an airplane.


:kick:
J4Clark

[bpilgrim]

248. remember perl harbor?

thats how...

some civilians will be killed BUT they were not targeted nor the majority.

peace

[Name removed]

221. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[VoteClark]

234. Truman was a Democrat

Oh yeah! Didn't think about that one. So, I think you are the one trying to knock down the Democratic Party. And guess what, that is what you are doing.

I am a Democrat, not a arrougant self-know-it-all that thinks they understand the situtation better then the people that were there at the time.

What Truman did was save the world. What Bush did was just attack innocent people for oil. Big difference.

So if you don't like the Democrats and the Repukes, join the Green Party.

Just ask yourself this, how many relatives did YOU lose in that WAR that the Japanese started? Did their lives count for anything?? Not to you, not stinking bit. You would have killed another 200,000 of you could have.

Democrat doesn't equal stupid.


:kick:
J4Clark

[bpilgrim]

242. he was wrong as many other politicians have been and will be...

the bombs were not necessary to end the war and were AGAINST the advice of the military leaders in theater at that time.

they wanted to save lives by accepting japans surrender which history bears out to be the right thing to have done.

we waited untill we ran out of nukes, prolonging the war at the cost of even MORE american lives - remember that is the thrust of YOUR argument

why is that so hard for you to understand?

peace

[ET Awful]

250. So once again you defend the killing of innocents

YOu have completely failed to tell me how you justify the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese civilians.

You have failed to defend calling me a Nazi lover because I detest the killing of civilians.

I lost several family members in WWII as a matter of fact, I also had a grandfather that was a POW in Germany. Guess what, he thought it was a bad idea too.

You still haven't explained to me how killing 200 thousand plus CIVILIANS is justifiable.

Whether or not Truman was a democrat is irrelevant. You will recall that he wanted the bomb to be used on a MILITARY target and not target CIVILIANS. So, your argument is flawed. Clinton was a democrat too, and I didn't agree with his bombing of an aspirin factory, does that make me non-democratic? No.

You use the tactics of the right. You hurl arguments that are baseless, and because someone is against what was done, you accuse them of loving the enemy. That is a right-wing tactic.

You have utterly failed to demonstrate a rational reason why incinerating Japanese civilians is any different than executing Polish civilians or Russian civilians or any other nationality.

I value innocent lives so I love Nazi's? Great logic there.

By your logic, Iraq would be justified in using nuclear weapons against us. See, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor because we threatened their oil supply (we attacked Iraq to secure an oil supply), so we then nuked Japan to end the war. Now, by your logic, Iraq would be justified in nuking us to end a war. There is no significant difference, save one. . . Japan was already ready to surrender, they just would not give up their Emperor, which is a godlike institution in Japan.

Guess what, THEY NEVER WOULD HAVE SURRENDERED IF THE US HADN'T CONCEDED THAT ONE POINT. That is fact. Nukes or no nukes, that one point is all that was needed to end the war. The only thing that needed to be done in the spring of 45 was for Truman to accept that condition.

You aren't justifying an end to war, you're justifying revenge, and that is not the same thing. You are attempting to justify extracting vengeance. It's obvious from your rhetoric. You have failed commpletely to acknowledge that the vast majority of those killed were civilians. You just try to justify it with "they killed xxxx" . . . that argument doesn't have merit.

You are attempting to justify the murder of thousands upon thousands of innocent civilians by heaping accusations upon their heads that they had nothing to do with.

Should all arabs be killed because a few extremist carry out terror attacks? Should we bomb Riyadh because some of the 9/11 terrorists came from there? Should we kill 200 thousand civilians in revenge? It's the same logic at work.

You are still attempting to justify killing civilians by saying "the Japanese did xxxx." But by doing that you are missing the fact that the civilians had nothing to do with it. In fact, the people that DID do it, for the most part, were unaffected by the bombings.

How do you justify the murder of thousands?

Have you ever talked to a victim of the Hiroshima or Nagaski attack? I have. She was 11 years old when the bomb fell on Hiroshima. I met her in Phoenix, AZ during a High School field trip (her and an Auschwitz survivor on the same day, both very eloquent speakers) She died in '89 of cancer (caused by the attack). She was quite a pretty girl in her youth, but her back and right side (her face was shielded fortunately) were a mass of scar tissue that would make Freddy Krueger cringe. She lost 2 older sisters and a younger brother that day, along with her grandmother. Tell her it was justified.

Civilians are civilians anywhere you go, and killing them is a crime no matter the reason or "justification". The only difference is the uniform the killer wears.

[ET Awful]

251. So once again you defend the killing of innocents

YOu have completely failed to tell me how you justify the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese civilians.

You have failed to defend calling me a Nazi lover because I detest the killing of civilians.

I lost several family members in WWII as a matter of fact, I also had a grandfather that was a POW in Germany. Guess what, he thought it was a bad idea too.

You still haven't explained to me how killing 200 thousand plus CIVILIANS is justifiable.

Whether or not Truman was a democrat is irrelevant. You will recall that he wanted the bomb to be used on a MILITARY target and not target CIVILIANS. So, your argument is flawed. Clinton was a democrat too, and I didn't agree with his bombing of an aspirin factory, does that make me non-democratic? No.

You use the tactics of the right. You hurl arguments that are baseless, and because someone is against what was done, you accuse them of loving the enemy. That is a right-wing tactic.

You have utterly failed to demonstrate a rational reason why incinerating Japanese civilians is any different than executing Polish civilians or Russian civilians or any other nationality.

I value innocent lives so I love Nazi's? Great logic there.

By your logic, Iraq would be justified in using nuclear weapons against us. See, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor because we threatened their oil supply (we attacked Iraq to secure an oil supply), so we then nuked Japan to end the war. Now, by your logic, Iraq would be justified in nuking us to end a war. There is no significant difference, save one. . . Japan was already ready to surrender, they just would not give up their Emperor, which is a godlike institution in Japan.

Guess what, THEY NEVER WOULD HAVE SURRENDERED IF THE US HADN'T CONCEDED THAT ONE POINT. That is fact. Nukes or no nukes, that one point is all that was needed to end the war. The only thing that needed to be done in the spring of 45 was for Truman to accept that condition.

You aren't justifying an end to war, you're justifying revenge, and that is not the same thing. You are attempting to justify extracting vengeance. It's obvious from your rhetoric. You have failed commpletely to acknowledge that the vast majority of those killed were civilians. You just try to justify it with "they killed xxxx" . . . that argument doesn't have merit.

You are attempting to justify the murder of thousands upon thousands of innocent civilians by heaping accusations upon their heads that they had nothing to do with.

Should all arabs be killed because a few extremist carry out terror attacks? Should we bomb Riyadh because some of the 9/11 terrorists came from there? Should we kill 200 thousand civilians in revenge? It's the same logic at work.

You are still attempting to justify killing civilians by saying "the Japanese did xxxx." But by doing that you are missing the fact that the civilians had nothing to do with it. In fact, the people that DID do it, for the most part, were unaffected by the bombings.

How do you justify the murder of thousands?

Have you ever talked to a victim of the Hiroshima or Nagaski attack? I have. She was 11 years old when the bomb fell on Hiroshima. I met her in Phoenix, AZ during a High School field trip (her and an Auschwitz survivor on the same day, both very eloquent speakers) She died in '89 of cancer (caused by the attack). She was quite a pretty girl in her youth, but her back and right side (her face was shielded fortunately) were a mass of scar tissue that would make Freddy Krueger cringe. She lost 2 older sisters and a younger brother that day, along with her grandmother. Tell her it was justified.

Civilians are civilians anywhere you go, and killing them is a crime no matter the reason or "justification". The only difference is the uniform the killer wears.

[zoidberg]

308. We killed more Japanese civilians with regular bombs than the Atom bomb

So why is it that some dead civilians from a Atom bomb is a crime against the humanity but the fire bombing of Tokyo wasn't? If the killing of any civilian is to avoided at all costs, then our entire war against mainland Japan is unjustified.

[ET Awful]

312. Other Attacks on the Japanese Mainland

Were people still dying of cancer 20 years later from those other attacks? Are there still people living with birth defects as a result of thos other attacks?

Did those other attacks result in high rates of cancer of US soldiers sent in as relief even 10-20 years later?

It is never appropriate to target civilians. Though a tragedy, and definitely an act of war, no civilians were intentionally targeted at Pearl Harbor. The Japanese did not attack US Civilians. Very few US non-comabatants were killed.

We targeted a large city with a large civilian population and levelled it. We killed over tens of thousands of people in the blink of an eye, the vast majority of whom were civilians.

Targeting civilians is not acceptable. It doesn't matter who does it. If you attack a military target (say a naval base) and civilians are in the area, it's not pleasant, but it happens. If you target a city with a device that you know will cause massive amounts of destruction and that city is occupied primarily by civilians, then you have committed an atrocity.

[bpilgrim]

237. Welcome to the DU

:toast:

I apreciate your comments here as I am sure many other DU'ers do as well.

There are some who will never accept our sins no matter what BUT i choose to see it as a good way to bring up discussion on a topic that many would rather forget though is sorely needed especially today with our own crew of facist plutocrats to contend with.

I feel the whole nation needs to look again at why we faught that war and what lessons we learned from it the most important being that in the modern world in which we now live if we have another world war there will be NO victors and that it doesn't matter who was right or wrong or brave or honest etc...

"I know not with what weapons
World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones" - Albert Einstein

:hi:

peace

[ET Awful]

296. Thanks bpilgrim

Much appreciated.

[coda]

334. So Ike, MacArthur

and those below were wrong? They were well aware of Japanese atrocities. Were they for risking millions of lives?

The case you build for justification (NO mercy, NONE!) could work if it were punishment for those that committed the atrocities ...not thousands of women and children.

Doesn't the slamming of the WTC make this clear. Doesn't the killing of thousands of civilians (which we found so cowardly) drive the point home?

Doesn't the quotes from people at the top, who were far more informed, give you any pause? Didn't they care about Japanese atrocities? Didn't they care about our troops? Did Ike, MacArthur, Leahy, Arnold, Halsey hate America that much?


I look at it like Japan dropped in on themselves.

LOL! Great quote. Now compare it to Admiral Leahy's



In being the first to use it, we . . . adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.


It's one thing to to be dismissive of bpilgrim, but it's a far different thing to be similarly dismissive of those whom he has quoted.

Very different.

---




Admiral William D. Leahy, the President's Chief of Staff,

and

commanding general of the U.S. Army Air Forces, Henry H. "Hap" Arnold

and

Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr., Commander U.S. Third Fleet,stated publicly in 1946:

"The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment. . . . It was a mistake to ever drop it. . . . had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it. . . . "

[Woodstock]

399. VoteClark, you rock

Great post. No doubt it sailed right over someone's head. Unless you say Japan good, America bad, he doesn't want to hear it.

[nofurylike]

155. it was indecent. and you are not

interested in truth or history.

if you were, you'd have been moved by what many here have presented.

why ask? you can just grandstand here.

[nofurylike]

156. VoteClark, please read this

though it has all been said over and over, so very clearly and well, and not reached your heart, yet.
Conscience
please

Harry S. Truman, Diary, July 25, 1945

We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark.

Anyway we "think" we have found the way to cause a disintegration of the atom. An experiment in the New Mexico desert was startling - to put it mildly. Thirteen pounds of the explosive caused the complete disintegration of a steel tower 60 feet high, created a crater 6 feet deep and 1,200 feet in diameter, knocked over a steel tower 1/2 mile away and knocked men down 10,000 yards away. The explosion was visible for more than 200 miles and audible for 40 miles and more.

This weapon is to be used against Japan between now and August 10th. I have told the Sec. of War, Mr. Stimson, to use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children. Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop that terrible bomb on the old capital or the new.

He and I are in accord. The target will be a purely military one and we will issue a warning statement asking the Japs to surrender and save lives. I'm sure they will not do that, but we will have given them the chance. It is certainly a good thing for the world that Hitler's crowd or Stalin's did not discover this atomic bomb. It seems to be the most terrible thing ever discovered, but it can be made the most useful...

Truman quoted in Robert H. Ferrell, Off the Record: The Private Papers of Harry S. Truman (New York: Harper and Row, 1980) pp. 55-56. Truman's writings are in the public domain.

URL: http://www.dannen.com/decision/hst-jl25.html
Gene Dannen / [e-mail]
*********

EVEN truman could see the atrocity.
and clearly EVEN truman would answer your 'question', "No."
is that over ANYONE'S head?

[nofurylike]

157. an avatar represents something or someone you feel you embody.

like, let's say, a cross.

a cross for christian. not suggesting you embody a god of justice or a god of love or whatever god aspects...

but christ.

i'm not christian, but i do understand that your jesus christ would not have advocated the torturous vaporizing of thousands of innocent women, children, and elderly men. and, for material gain, at that?

if you choose to represent yourself as an embodiment of christ nature, please at least evaluate through christlike eyes.

so, Blue_Chill, for instance, maybe go read back through with your heart earnestly embodying that nature.

sincerely wishing.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

161. Maybe We Should Start A New Thread "Would Jesus Have Dropped

The Bomb"

The Bible also said "There is no greater love than to lay down your life for another man"

Which is exactly what the nearly half a million American who were killed and injured in WW2 did.

Several reasons have been proffered for the use of atomic weapons against Japan, Truman's critics in this thread have ignored them.


Revisionist historians have had fifty eight years to review his actions. Truman had to make his decision in real time.

[nofurylike]

166. and truman decided it must not be dropped on

a civilian population.

read.

it is revisionist to rewrite it otherwise.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

257. I'm Beginning To Believe If Some of The Posters Here

were president they wouldn't have responed to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

After all Hawaii is not part of the contiguous United States and the Japanese really wanted a deal.

This board freaks me out sometimes. I consider myself a garden variety liberal but I am not so alienated from my country that I blame it for all the ills of the world.

Think about this....

Think about this really hard....

Some of you folks ahave created such a cartoon version of liberalism that you lend credence to the attacks of Rush Limbaugh and his ilk.

Get out from behind your computer.... Reach beyond your leftist friends and perhaps you get an idea of how middle Americans think.

[bpilgrim]

258. will turn a blind eye to any american crime no matter how horrible or

obvious.

this thread was NOT about perl harbor it IS about the decision to nuke a defeated nation TWICE that was ready to surrender against the advice of the military leaders in theater at the time 'to SAVE LIVES'

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

267. Defending crimes

You are the one defending crimes and criminals. The Japanese violated every rule of war with impunity and then had the damn gall to make surrender demands. THAT is why the war continued. That kind of insanity is what resulted in the JAPANESE causing the bombs to be dropped.

[BushNixon04]

269. bullshite!

US soldiers in WWII were infamous for torturing Japanese POWs by shoving Coke bottles into their rectums and then shattering the bottles -- for you to condemn one nation's brutality while ignoring your own is nothing short of hypocrisy.

The nature of War is such that every side is seduced by violence. To pretend otherwise is to have reality reduced to a comic book.

[bpilgrim]

273. oh, so you only defend yankee crimes, eh

well i try not to defend ANY crimes by getting at the facts. i guess thats what makes u and me different :shrug:

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

287. I'll let you know when I defend a crime

I haven't done so here.

[Muddleoftheroad]

165. I love this

So now we are required to be totally consistent with our avatars? That's a laugh.

[nofurylike]

168. just not be diametrically opposed to them.

a new thread might help.

long on the reload.

[nofurylike]

170. i must go.

thank you all for the discussion.

[Muddleoftheroad]

173. Judgment

I think how much we agree or why we choose avatars is a personal thing.

[bpilgrim]

204. obviously

like why fox choose 'Fair & Ballanced'

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

219. I have no idea

I don't watch them. You are the one who keeps posting about them.

[bpilgrim]

233. obviously

:evilgrin:

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

254. You are the Fox News fan

Not I.

[curse10]

196. No

People are still dying from the effects of the bomb.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

259. Your take is correct.

The Japanes military, especially the army, was ready to sacrifice ALL of the Japanese people in some final holocaust to preserve "honor". They even attempted a coup to prevent the surrender after the bombs were dropped. The cost of attempting an invasion of the "home islands" would have been titanic in lives, both American and Japanese. The Japanese people believed, to the very end, that they could win the war because of the complete control over the media that the military had and they would have resisted if ordered to.

Should Truman have dropped the bombs? I don't know. Truman and some of our miltary believed that such a shock was necessary to force the Japanese to surrender. Some Japanese politicians were attempting to negotiate secretly through the Soviets, and hints were dropped to the Americans that, handled properly, Japan would surrender. But, these were worded so obscurely that the Americans were reluctant to acknowledge them. And, the fact that the Japanese politicians would have to overcome the military to proceed seemed unlikely.

I had always believed that dropping the bombs was an act of horrible inhumanity. But, after researching both American and Japanese material on the subject, I'm not so convinced.

Alternatives were chancy. "Demonstration" bombs, dropping in an uninhabited place after announcing the demonstration, could fizzle and strengthen the militarists. Simply isolating Japan and bombing them with conventional bombs could give them the opportunity to perfect chemical and biological weapons that they were working on. Also, the Russians had declared war on Japan, and could (unlikely) invade. Beyond that, the allies were sick of the war and wanted it ended.

I don't know the answer to your question. The situation was a lot more complicated than most think it was. I would encourage anyone to look into it. The Canadians produced a great film a few years ago, called "Hiroshima" that took a look at both sides - American and Japanese as pure history. If you can get it, it will certainly give you a good idea of the situation facing Truman.

Knee jerk, Yes/No, answers just don't cut it on the question.

[bpilgrim]

263. it was ok to NUKE a DEFEATED, Nation's Cities filled with civilians TWICE?

while they were trying to SURRENDER against the advice of MOST if not all of our military leaders in theater at the time?!

the supreme irony and horror is that their rational behind their reccomendation of accepting japans surrender was to 'SAVE LIVES' and they would need that institution anyways post surrender to maintain order.

and history shows that it was a WISE decision.

yet you think it was the right decision to prolong the war spend more american lives and coutless civilians?

i guess i just don't get your logic :shrug:

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

268. History shows the whole scenario

You can't remove ONE event and say that was the right decision. The WHOLE process -- dropping the bombs, allowing the emporer, being magnanimous -- ALL led to the peace. Without any one of those events it might not have worked.

I love your Monday-morning quarterbacking. It's so easy to second guess a man who made a hard decision that worked.

[bpilgrim]

271. this thread is about US dropping 2 nukes on a DEFEATED NATION

against the advice of most if not all of the military leaders in theater at that time.

i am trying to stay on topic and be concise.

so... would you drop two nukes on 2 seperate civilian population centers that were trying to surrender but only wanted to keep the office of the pope against the advice of all your military leaders?

peace

[DemocratSinceBirth]

272. If You Feel So Bad About It

call Junichiro Koizumi and tell him you're sorry.

And while you're at it tell him to apologize for

the rape of Nanking

the taking and making prostitutes of defenseless Korean women (comfort women)

the Bataan Death March where American and Filipino soldiers were walked to their grave after their commanding officer was promised they would be treated humanely if they surrendered.

the unprevoked bombing of Pearl Harbor

the brutal occupation of the Phillipines where they raped and plundered

the bombing of Pearl Harbor

[BushNixon04]

275. Pearl Harbor was NOT "unprovoked"

by any stretch of the imagination.

Yeah, those damn Japanese children at Nagasaki must haver peronally been responsible for theRape of Nanking, huh?

[BushNixon04]

276. US Provoked Japan Into Attacking

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/McCollum/

[DemocratSinceBirth]

279. Why Didn't They Warn Us

The Japanese waged aggressive war and lost...


Too bad the losers can't write history.

[BushNixon04]

280. brilliant reponse

You didnt read it, did you? About what I expected.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

291. I'm Unconvinced

One lone scholar doesn't obviate the mass of scholarship on the other side.

I'll leave it my fellow posters to provide the appropriate links.


But, hey, if we provoked them, we should have cut a deal after they bombed Pearl Harbor.

Perhaps we could have let them have Hawaii and use the indigenous female population as unpaid prostitutes to comfort the Imperial Army.

The Japanese were as wack in their racism as Hitler except in another direction.

Losing WW2 was the best thing to happen to the Japanese people.

And the German people.

[bpilgrim]

283. thats what we AMERICANS speaking up and out are here for...

"Too bad the losers can't write history."

and just think it's FREE :bounce:

peace

[bpilgrim]

281. have we called ho chi min yet?

or the countless other people we have oppressed and murdered throughout the world in the past and to this very day?

i don't see any japanese troops outside their country unless called on by US to help us fight our battles :puke:

besides i have already made my peace with the peaceful japanese people and now i am doing my part to try an educate my ignorant american brothers and sisters.

i don't think you wanna go to a body count debate as i have said before we WIN that one too.

peace

[DemocratSinceBirth]

288. Mao Killed 50,000,000

Stalin Killed 20,000,000

Pol Pot Killed 5,000,000

Hitler Killed 12,000,000

When it comes to killers we're pikers.

[bpilgrim]

290. like i said some will never accept responcibility for our own sins

no matter what... just use a little misdirection like a magician and everyone looks the other way.

The Politics of War Criminality

There are, however, large numbers of mass murderers floating around the world. How are the choices made on who will be pursued and who will be granted impunity? The answer can be found by following the lines of dominant interest and power and watching how the mainstream politicians, media, and intellectuals reflect these demands. Media attention and indignation "follows the flag," and the flag follows the money (i.e., the demands of the corporate community), with some eccentricity based on domestic political calculations.

This sometimes yields droll twists and turns, as in the case of Saddam Hussein, consistently supported through the 1980s in his war with Iran and chemical warfare attacks on Iraqi Kurds, until his invasion of Kuwait in 1990, transformed him overnight into "another Hitler."

Similarly, Pol Pot, "worse than Hitler" until his ouster by Vietnam in 1979, then quietly supported for over a decade by the United States and its western allies (along with China) as an aid in "bleeding Vietnam," but now no longer serviceable to western policy and once again a suitable target for a war crimes trial. Another way of looking at our targeting of war criminals is by analogy to domestic policy choices on budget cuts and incarceration, where the pattern is to attack the relatively weak and ignore and protect those with political and economic muscle. Pol Pot is now isolated and politically expendable, so an obvious choice for villainization. By contrast, Indonesian leader Suharto, the butcher of perhaps a million people (mainly landless peasants) in 1965-66, and the invader, occupier, and mass murderer of East Timor from 1975 to today, is courted and protected by the Great Powers, and was referred to by an official of the Clinton administration in 1996 as "our kind of guy." Pinochet, the torturer and killer of many thousands, is treated kindly in the United States as the Godfather of the wonderful new neoliberal Chile.

President Ford and Secretary of State Kissinger, who gave the go ahead to Suharto's invasion of East Timor and subsequent massive war crimes there, and the same Kissinger, who helped President Nixon engineer and then protect the Pinochet coup and regime of torture and murder, and directed the first phase of the holocaust in Cambodia (1969-75), remain honored citizens. The media have never suggested that these men should be brought to trial in the interest of justice, law, and "civilization."

U.S./Western Embrace of Pol Pot

The Times editorial of June 24 recognizes a small problem in pursuing Pol Pot, arising from the fact that after he was forced out of Cambodia by Vietnam, "From 1979 to 1991, Washington indirectly backed the Khmer Rouge, then a component of the guerrilla coalition fighting the Vietnamese installed Government ." This does seem awkward: the United States and its allies giving economic, military, and political support to Pol Pot, and voting for over a decade to have his government retain Cambodia's UN seat, but now urging his trial for war crimes. The Times misstates and understates the case: the United States gave direct as well as indirect aid to Pol Pot-in one estimate, $85 million in direct support-and it "pressured UN agencies to supply the Khmer Rouge," which "rapidly improved" the health and capability of Pol Pot's forces after 1979 (Ben Kiernan, "Cambodia's Missed Chance," Indochina Newsletter, Nov.-Dec. 1991). U.S. ally China was a very large arms supplier to Pol Pot, with no penalty from the U.S. and in fact U.S. connivance-Carter's National Security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski stated that in 1979 "I encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot...Pol Pot was an abomination. We could never support him but China could."

In 1988-89 Vietnam withdrew its army from Cambodia, hoping that this would produce a normalization of relationships. Thailand and other nations in the region were interested in a settlement, but none took place for several more years "because of Chinese and U.S. rejection of any...move to exclude the Khmer Rouge. The great powers...continued to offer the Khmer Rouge a veto," which the Khmer Rouge used, with Chinese aid, "to paralyze the peace process and...advance their war aims." The Bush administration threatened to punish Thailand for "its defection from the aggressive U.S.-Chinese position," and George Shultz and then James Baker fought strenuously to sabotage any concessions to Vietnam, the most important of which was exclusion of Pol Pot from political negotiations and a place in any interim government of Cambodia. The persistent work of the Reagan-Bush team on behalf of Pol Pot has been very much downplayed, if not entirely suppressed, in the mainstream media. The Times has a solution to the awkwardness of the post-1978 Western support of Pol Pot: "All Security Council members...might spare themselves embarrassment by restricting the scope of prosecution to those crimes committed inside Cambodia during the four horrific years of Khmer Rouge rule." We must give the Times credit for semi-honesty in admitting that this is to avoid embarrassing the Great Powers.

It is interesting, though, that the Times finds no real problem in the "dirty hands," and hypocrisy, so apparent in the lengthy support of war criminals, and that it offers no reflections on how "law and civilization" are served if the criminals were protected and supported for more than a decade by the forces of law and order.

more...
http://musictravel.free.fr/political/political3.htm

and there are many more where that can from, remember the native americans who used to populate this land, or the slaves AND i like must recognized courts don't recognize killing by proxy as an excuse.

like i said... you might lose that - body count - battle and if i may gently bring us back on topic... we are talking about Japan and the U.S. decision to drop 2 nukes on 2 defenseless cities populated with innoccesnt civilians.

peace

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

295. Hardly pikers.

The US has been pretty efficient at slaughter

How many Native Americans died through war, dislocation, neglect, due to the efforts of the (white) American government and people?

How many African-Americans died through the slave trade, overwork, disease, neglect, and just plain murder?

The war in Vietnam cost 1-2,000,000 Vietnames lives.

You neglected to note that Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were supported by the US government (and, China).

The US sponsored embargo against Iraq cost 500,000 Iraqi civilian lives.

During the (misnamed) "Cold War" the US used and supplied surrogates all over the world - including Iraq and the Taliban - that cost millions of lives. Angola, the Congo, Cambodia, Vietnam, Guatamala, Honduras, to name but a few.

Pikers? I think not.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

282. re-read my post

I didn't say it was "OK to nuke a defeated nation..". I said that the situation was more complicated than a simple Yes/No answer.

As I said, the Japanese had put out feelers through the soviets, putting forward the idea of keeping Hirohito in power as a way of finding peace. However, those doing so, had to do so in secret and face possible assasination. The Japanese military was opposed to the surrender or negotiated peace under any conditions. They even tried to capture Hirohito to prevent it. And, they came within a hair of pulling it off. And, this was AFTER the even more destructive and inhumane carpet bombing of Tokyo perpetrated by LeMay's. And, it continued even AFTER Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Was Japan defeated? Yes. Did the Japanese government and military recognize this? Yes. Did the Japanese people realize it? Historical records say that they didn't because they were never told the truth, and had no access to the truth. The Japanese army KNEW it was defeated on Okinawa almost from the start of the battle. But, they fought on to the very end at an enormous cost in lives both military and civilian, rather than lose "honor". They ordered their troops to fight to the end and then commit suicide - which they did. They also ordered civilians to fight to the death or commit suicide - which many did.

The Japanese military was fully prepared to do exactly the same thing on the home islands.

To simply state that dropping the bombs was a "war crime" and indefensible, is all too easy, and I used to look at it exactly that way. I still do, to a certain extent, particularly the second bomb.

Perhaps there were workable alternatives. 20/20 hindsight is just that. I'm not trying to justify Truman's decision, just pointing out that there's more to it than a simple, "Ain't it awful." Truman was receiving advice from all directions. There is a lot of good evidence that, in fact, an invasion of "defeated" Japan would have cost many, many, more lives than Hiroshima and Nagasaki did.

All I'm saying is look into it in detail. Then make your judgement. As for me, I'm still undecided.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

284. Addendum:

I DO think that Truman could have, and should have, waited longer. Japan, as a power, was defeated and in the short term, could have been contained and, perhaps, the military could have been made impotent. Having read the history, I doubt it. They were true fanatics who had no qualms about sacrificing themselves and the Japanese as a whole. They had perpetrated war crimes that cost millions of lives in China, Burma, Indonesia, Korea, Vietnam, the Phillipines, etc.

But, waiting may have worked.

[bpilgrim]

292. waited longer? why not accept their surrender sooner?

remember they didn't surrender after the NUKES but after we met their 1 condition.

peace

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

302. Part of the government offered surrender

and there was little evidence that they could bring it about. I think you are underestimating the power that the miltary wielded before the nukes and the loss of power they suffered after them. The cabinet members who supported surrender gained strength after the nukes because the army could offer nothing but suicide. Even after the acceptance of the surrender, there was an attempted coup by the military to prevent it. And, it almost succeeded. Even though Hirohito, and some members of the cabinet, were willing to surrender, the question was, could he? There is abundant evidence to indicate that they may well have failed. They had to have the OK of the army, or at least portions of it.

Look, you and I are probably a lot closer on this issue than you imagine. I believe that the killing of civilians to fight a war as inherantly wrong. I consider the terror bombings of Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo, and other places to be war crimes, with even fewer extenuating circumstances than the use of the nukes. None of the major powers involved in the war were innocent of committing atrocities. All of them had innocent blood on their hands.

To resort to war as a way to solve international problems IS the problem.

[bpilgrim]

306. the MAJOR sticking point was the one condition...

besides our military leaders in theater at the time felt it was the right thing to do so i have to go with their judgement and what played out.

they got nuked, TWICE, still didn't surrender, we FINALLY relented on their one condition, they surrenderd as they had been trying to do.

peace

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

314. It didn't happen that way.

You make it sound as if the Japanese government sent word to the Americans saying that they would surrender if the emperor were allowed to remain on the throne.

That's not what happened. A part of the Japanese cabinet sent word, through a third party - the USSR, that they might negotiate surrender if assurances were given that the emperor was allowed to keep the throne. And, even that is too generous. The actual message was couched in such obscure language and terminology that even that offer could be read several different ways. That was what I meant when I said that Truman and his advisors, should have waited, to obtain clarification, or for the situation to change allowing the civilians in the cabinet to pursue peace with a free hand.

BTW A similar thing occurred in Europe when Himmler (in 1945) tried to negotiate a separate peace with the western allies. The offer was rejected because it left out the Soviet Union, and they didn't believe that Himmler could deliver.

[bpilgrim]

335. we all knew their intentions AND our military leaders advised to accept...

that is the picture we have now after examining the available evidence.

we knew japan was defeated AND that they would not give up the emperor just like the catholics wouldn't give up the pope.

anyways, the question is was it the right thing to do and it would seem apparant after looking at the evidence that it wasn't necessary to secure the surrender of japan ie end the war.

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

354. The picture we have NOW

Not the picture Truman had then. And of course, there is no guarantee YOUR method would work. Just a guarantee that Truman's did. Monday morning quarterbacking is a lot easier than real time.

[bpilgrim]

369. confirms what the military leaders advised then...

that to save lives we should accept their 1 condtion, which we finally did after we ran out of nukes.

peace

[bpilgrim]

289. the japanese surrenderd when their one condition was met...

not because of the nukes, the military would have faught on even if we had fifty nukes as the NYT Kristof has noted, but even the politicians would have as well.

i have provided tons of sources and i am very familiar with this subject and become more so almost daily due to these threads so please don't patornize me by saying i am not informed.

i have presented evidence that shows not only were the japanese ready and trying to surrender but that most of our military leaders in theater at the time advised against the bombs and the accepting of japans 1 condition.

and believe me the people in tokyo knew they were defeated and many japanese knew what happended in tokyo via word of mouth.

my japanese grandfather - by marriage - knew japan would lose on dec 8 1941.

those are the facts and those facts state plainly that the bombs were unecessary.

peace

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

294. "The Japanese were ready.."

Some (not all - the military members tried to derail any talk of surrender under any conditions) members of Hirohito's cabinet were ready. Most of the Japanese people didn't know that they were defeated. And, even if they had, they were still ready to resist after years of unrelenting propaganda. Hirohito was hardly a benign emperor victimized by the military. He actively supported the military throughout his reign and gave his consent to the atrocities committed by the Japanese army. In justice, he should have been tried as a war criminal. The only reason he wasn't was to produce the peace and quiet the population.

Did the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bring about the surrender?
Maybe not directly, but it did shake the faith in the military that made it possible.

I'm not "patronizing" you, I'm stating my opinion.

[bpilgrim]

299. the emperor was a figure head for many years

and had said only what he was allowed to most historians understand this.

though japan would fight to the death to keep him just like many christians would for the pope.

the fact of the matter is that japan ONLY surrenderd when that 1 condition was met so it and i have the weight of the military leaders in theater to back that up not to mention history.

telling me to read up more on the history is what i meant when i said don't patronize me, if you have some new evidence you want to bring to the table it is more then welcome.

peace

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

307. Here's some:

"Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan" - Herbert P. Bix

Shows that Hirohito was hardly a mere "figure head".

"The Battle of Okinawa: The Blood and Bomb" - George Feiffer 2001

Probably the battle that most convinced Truman that an invasion of Japan would cost millions of lives and could last years and influenced his thinking regarding the use of the nukes. BTW, this book is hardly an apolgia for America. The unimaginable brutality of both sides is explored at length with the testimony of American, Japanese and Okinawan survivors. The Okinawan civilians were the greatest sufferers with perhaps 1/3 of the population losing their lives.

"Japan at War: An Oral History" - Haruko Taya Cook & Theordore F. Cook 1992

The Japanese speak for themselves. Soldiers and civilians. What the "average" Japanese experienced throughout the war. And, it contains a lot of evidence that the Japanese people were so propagandized that they either didn't believe they were defeated, or would resist anyway. Also, it gives a damned good picture of what militarism/fascism means to real people.

[bpilgrim]

310. the emprorer of japan was a figure head even before the meji restoration

i don't see how the other books contradict the fact that japan ONLY surrendered when we agreed to her 1 condition.

even OUR OWN military leaders who know about the fight for okinawa beter than anyone or iwo, and the others Admiral 'Bull' Halsey was against it.

sorry but i have read many books that paint a pretty descriptive picture of that war where over 50 million people died and i haven't seen any evidence that discredits the facts i stated above.

so other than war stories please show us something that says nukes were needed for the japanese to surrender according to what i read and history that wasn't the case.

peace

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

317. A figurehead.

Not exactly. It's kind of like saying that Bush is only a figurehead manipulated by the corportations, the neocons, and the religious right. True, to a point. He is not "just" a figurehead. He is a participant. Much of Hirohito's power was given to the military and the industrialists - but he was a participant in that accession. The military had to do more than just give a nod in is direction, they had to get his consent. He wasn't at their command. They could bypass him, mislead him, or simply not carry out his orders, but to be "legitimate" they had to have his consent. He was one of the few non-military Japanese that had access to western media and he did access it. He couldn't plead ignorance of the military's actions and atrocities. He could have stopped them (and, in some cases did). He could have stopped the bombing of Pearl Harbor by refusing to sign the imperial decree.

Some of our military leaders advised against the bombing. Some of the cabinet did also, at least initially. Particularly Stimson.

Again, I am NOT saying that the nukes were necessary. I am saying that, given the history, a pretty good case was made to Truman for using them.

But, I'm afraid we've reached an impasse. I will continue to look into it for my own edification. Let's just hope that we can prevent such a catastrophe from happening again.

[bpilgrim]

342. sorry, that is not historically accurate.

the emperor had been a figure head for many years by the time wwII roled around, the military just exploited him to rule in a totalitarian fashion.

just think of the king and queen of england.

peace

[DemocratSinceBirth]

298. Yamomoto

also knew

"We have awakened a sleeping giant and we will soon feel it's wrath.

That being said....

We agree to disagree....

The woman who cuts my hair just happens to be Japanese. She has been cutting it for nearly twenty years so I know her very well.

I also have a Filipino girlfriend.

If you are married to a Japanese woman you must know that their past is not black and white and they must work hard every day to shake off the racism of their elders.

[bpilgrim]

304. would not tolerate attacking civilians and forced japan to focus on PH

i am more aware of our own racism and evil deeds yet i still fail to see what that has got to do with dropping two nukes on a defeated ready to surrender nation which still failed to achieve their surrender only after accepting their 1 condition.

peace

[carolinayellowdog]

264. Not where he did

Seems to me that the point could have been made by dropping it somewhere other than a major population center, especially doing so twice.

[Robin Hood]

297. Absolutely not!

We are the only nation that has used WMD.

[Muddleoftheroad]

303. Not true

WMD includes gas and that has been used by numerous nations. In addition, many nations have set off nukes. The U.S., thus far, is the only one to use one in wartime.

[bpilgrim]

305. we are the only nation to use nukes, on a defenseless, defeated nations

cities filled with innocent civilians that were trying to surrender, TWICE.

peace

[VoteClark]

320. Why didn't they surrender before they killed all those Americans and

Chinese. Where they waving a white flag. Did they string up their leaders like the Italians?

Did they destroy all their ammunition, weapons, and military equipment?


How exactly were they showing serious efforts to end the war. How come they didn't release you POWs instead of torturing them every hour up the bombing?

:kick:
J4Clark

[bpilgrim]

351. they were waiting for us to accept... remember that was our 'burden'

so why did we wait so long to accept when even our military leaders advised to accept :shrug:

peace

[VoteClark]

326. WMD were used in WWI

Mustard gas a common WMD during the first WW. In addition, about 1/5 soldiers were killed. In some units they lost more people than they had in the unit. The replacments were 1:1 ratio

[suigeneris]

309. No! Here is contemporary proof.

Edited to fix HTML

But first may I state that I appreciate those here who are bucking the tide of unqualified acceptance of our use of the bomb. We should not have used it for moral reasons and it was unnecessary to use it for the practical reason of ending the war. I am surprised and dissappointed that here on DU the orthodox pablum of saving lives on both sides has taken root in minds and hearts as established dogma. It is not so.

I will quote from the UNITED STATES STRATEGIC BOMBING SURVEY, SUMMARY REPORT, (Pacific War)WASHINGTON, D.C., 1 JULY 1946. In its foreward this report states:

The United States Strategic Bombing Survey was established by the Secretary of War on 3 November 1944, pursuant to a directive from the late President Roosevelt. It was established for the purpose of conducting an impartial and expert study of the effects of our aerial attack on Germany, to be used in connection with air attacks on Japan and to establish a basis for evaluating air power as an instrument of military strategy... On 15 August 1945, President Truman requested the Survey to conduct a similar study of the effects of all types of air attack in the war against Japan.

...

The Survey's complement provided for 300 civilians, 350 officers, and 500 enlisted men. Sixty percent of the military segment of the organization for the Japanese study was drawn from the Army, and 40 percent from the Navy. Both the Army and the Navy gave the Survey all possible assistance in the form of men, supplies, transport, and information. The Survey operated from headquarters in Tokyo, with subheadquarters in Nagoya, Osaka, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, and with mobile teams operating in other parts of Japan, the islands of the Pacific, and the Asiatic mainland.

The Survey secured the principal surviving Japanese records and interrogated top Army and Navy officers, Government officials, industrialists, political leaders, and many hundreds of their subordinates throughout Japan. It was thus possible to reconstruct much of wartime Japanese military planning and execution, engagement by engagement and campaign by campaign, and to secure reasonably accurate data on Japan's economy and war production, plant by plant, and industry by industry. In addition, studies were made of Japan's over-all strategic plans and the background of her entry into the war, the internal discussions and negotiations leading to her acceptance of unconditional surrender, the course of health and morale among the civilian population, the effectiveness of the Japanese civilian defense organization and the effects of the atomic bomb.

I'll provide a link to the entire 32 page summary report but will quote the section called Japan's Struggle to End the War, beginning with its conclusion:

Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.

Here is the whole of that section:

JAPAN'S STRUGGLE TO END THE WAR
Japan's governmental structure was such that in practice the Emperor merely approved the decisions of his advisers. A consensus among the oligarchy of ruling factions at the top was required before any major question of national policy could be decided. These factions, each of which had a different point of view, included the group around the Emperor of whom Marquis Kido, the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, was the most important, the ex-premiers constituting the Jushin or body of senior statesmen, and the cabinet. The Army and Navy named their own cabinet ministers, who, together with the two chiefs of staff, had direct access to the Emperor. The cabinet could perpetuate itself only so long as it was able to absorb or modify the views of the Army and Navy ministers, who, until the end, were strongly influenced by the fanaticism of the Army officers and many of the younger Navy officers. The ruling oligarchy considered the opinions of the Japanese people as only one among the many factors to be taken into consideration in determining national policy and in no sense as controlling.

The first definitive break in the political coalition which began the war occurred following our success at Saipan. Ten days thereafter, on 16 July 1944, the cabinet headed by General Tojo fell. This significant turn in the course of Japan's wartime politics was not merely the result of an immediate crisis. Even at that date, elements opposing continuation of the war had found means of applying pressure against the fanatic exponents of Japan's militaristic clique. The original factions who had either opposed war before Pearl Harbor, or gone along, or "retired" in the first phase of the conflict recognized as early as the spring of 1944 that Japan was facing ultimate defeat. By that time, United States determination to fight and her ability to mount over-powering offensives in the Pacific, even before the opening of the European Second Front, had already been demonstrated to many of those who had access to all the facts. The political problem of those who saw the situation was to circulate among other leaders in retirement or outside the government a true picture of the war and then unseat the Tojo government in favor of one which would bring the war to an end.

Rear Admiral Takagi of the Navy General Staff made a study between 20 September 1943 and February 1944, of the war's battle lessons up to that time. Based on analysis of air, fleet and merchant ship losses, Japan's inability to import essential materials for production, and the potentiality of air attacks on the home islands, Takagi concluded that Japan could not win and should seek a compromise peace. His study and a similar one made by Sakomizu of the Cabinet Planning Board documented the fears of the Jushin, and through them of Marquis Kido, that all was not well with Tojo's prosecution of the


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war. With the loss of Saipan, it was possible to build up sufficient pressure to force Tojo's retirement.

The government of General Koiso, who was chosen by the ever-cautious Kido to head the succeeding cabinet, did not have the strength to stand up to the military and was a disappointment to the more enthusiastic peace makers. In spite of original instructions to give "fundamental reconsideration" to the problem of continuing the war, his only accomplishment in that direction was the creation of a Supreme War Direction Council, an inner cabinet which supplied the mechanism through which the problem of surrender was eventually resolved.

The conviction and strength of the peace party was increased by the continuing Japanese military defeats, and by Japan's helplessness in defending itself against the ever-growing weight of air attack on the home islands. On 7 April 1945, less than a week after United States landings on Okinawa, Koiso was removed and Marquis Kido installed Admiral Suzuki as premier. Kido testified to the Survey that, in his opinion, Suzuki alone had the deep conviction and personal courage to stand up to the military and bring the war to an end.

Early in May 1945, the Supreme War Direction Council began active discussion of ways and means to end the war, and talks were initiated with Soviet Russia seeking her intercession as mediator.

The talks by the Japanese ambassador in Moscow and with the Soviet ambassador in Tokyo did not make progress. On 20 June the Emperor, on his own initiative, called the six members of the Supreme War Direction Council to a conference and said it was necessary to have a plan to close the war at once, as well as a plan to defend the home islands. The timing of the Potsdam Conference interfered with a plan to send Prince Konoye to Moscow as a special emissary with instructions from the cabinet to negotiate for peace on terms less than unconditional surrender, but with private instructions from the Emperor to secure peace at any price. Although the Supreme War Direction Council, in its deliberations on the Potsdam Declaration, was agreed on the advisability of ending the war, three of its members, the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister and the Navy Minister, were prepared to accept unconditional surrender, while the other three, the Army Minister, and the Chiefs of Staff of both services, favored continued resistance unless certain mitigating conditions were obtained.

On 6 August the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, and on 9 August Russia entered the war. In the succeeding meetings of the Supreme War Direction Council, the differences of opinion previously existing as to the Potsdam terms persisted exactly as before. By using the urgency brought about through fear of further atomic bombing attacks, the Prime Minister found it possible to bring the Emperor directly into the discussions of the Potsdam terms. Hirohito, acting as arbiter, resolved the conflict in favor of unconditional surrender.

The public admission of defeat by the responsible Japanese leaders, which constituted the political objective of the United States offensive begun in 1943, was thus secured prior to invasion and while Japan was still possessed of some 2,000,000 troops and over 9,000 planes in the home islands. Military defeats in the air, at sea and on the land, destruction of shipping by submarines and by air, and direct air attack with conventional as well as atomic bombs, all contributed to this accomplishment.

There is little point in attempting precisely to impute Japan's unconditional surrender to any one of the numerous causes which jointly and cumulatively were responsible for Japan's disaster. The time lapse between military impotence and political acceptance of the inevitable might have been shorter had the political structure of Japan permitted a more rapid and decisive determination of national policies. Nevertheless, it seems clear that, even without the atomic bombing attacks, air supremacy over Japan could have exerted sufficient pressure to bring about unconditional surrender and obviate the need for invasion.

Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.

Res ipsa loquitur
QED

http://www.anesi.com/ussbs01.htm#jstetw

[suigeneris]

319. Kick - Well worth reading #309

.

[bpilgrim]

348. thanks, good stuff

:toast:

peace

[damnraddem]

316. No answer, just some questions:

1. Were the bombs necessary? Would it have taken 0.5 to 1 million lives to invade Japan, or was Japan about to capitulate anyway?
2. Why the targeting, especially of Nagasaki? Why hit a culturally-important city with little in the way of military targets? Why not target a port such as Osaka, or the capital itself? That other cities had been so heavily bombed that they didn't provide good examples of what the A-bombs could do just doesn't cut it. If the bombs should have been dropped, they should have been dropped on military or political targets.
3. Why not a longer delay between bombs? The 3-day interval looks less like a necessary extra push for surrender and more like a concern that if a second bomb wasn't dropped fast, Japan might surrender before there was a chance to try out the second (and very-different) bomb.

[coda]

378. The targeting of Nagasaki

Kokura was the primary target.

From below:

he(Sweeny) arrived to find Kokura hidden beneath a thick smoky haze that made targeting impossible



Chapter 3:
Nagasaki

The ghosts of Trinity have a dark humor, and nowhere is it more evident than in Nagasaki. This is a town twice unlucky. Bombed as an afterthought when smoke obscured the Kokura primary, it cannot even claim Hiroshima's distinction of being first to suffer atomic destruction. It is like being the second astronaut to walk on the moon. Everyone recalls Neal Armstrong, but ask who was second, and you will only get blank stares. Nagasaki received a full measure of suffering, but it remains "that other" city in the history of the atomic bomb.

Trinity's ghosts toyed with Nagasaki's fate from the very start. A faulty fuel pump and rain squalls near Tinian nearly canceled the flight of Bockscar, the B-29 scheduled to drop Fat Man. But after heated discussions, and a change in flight plan, Bockscar and it's deadly, delicate cargo lifted off into a horizon pierced by lightning. Captain Sweeney and his crew reached their rendezvous point near Japan on schedule, but the rendezvous quickly went amiss. The camera plane briefly appeared and then promptly disappeared in the clouds, and the instrument plane never showed up. After a tense fuel-burning 45 minutes, Bockscar flew on alone to it's primary target, Kokura.



Tinian's weathermen told Sweeny to expect clear skies, but he arrived to find Kokura hidden beneath a thick smoky haze that made targeting impossible. An earlier incendiary attack thus spared Kokura the fate that had befallen Hiroshima, but Nagasaki's death warrant was written in the smoke that swirled below. Sweeny made three fuel-consuming passes over the City without finding an opening. With barely enough reserves to make a friendly airfield, Sweeney swung Bockscar on a southwards arc towards the secondary target, Nagasaki.

[Shanty Oilish]

321. Thoughts, and sources

There's a lot of revisionist history being cited here. The best sources, if anyone cares to learn something to the possible peril of their opinions, are books written prior to the war, going back to around 1924. At that time, Japanese indoctrination had already begun. They were taught that they were a special, superior race, destined to rule the world. Shinto mutated into emperor worship. (Well before 1945, the Emperor had only to command it and the people would have torn the military Staff to pieces.)
As for the emperor being the leader of the nation since the nation began, that's simply false.
As for the oil, that was the immediate reason for the war on America, but they had been gearing up for a war against America for decades.
Certainly by the late twenties, Japan's leaders had set out on a course of imperialistic expansion, with the full endorsement of the people. They were utterly committed and utterly ruthless in this. They occupied Manchuria and Korea and every land they could take, without consideration, indeed without mercy, for the native populations.
In the final months of WW2, military men with "defeatist" notions kept silent or were winnowed out. This when defeat was inevitable and imminent. They had, by then, no regard whatever for their own people. The only Japanese they valued, aside from themselves, was the emperor. And whenever he said surrender, they were going to surrender.
The US, and the "Powers," did not maneuver them into invading their neighbors or initiating a war against the US.
They were collectively responsible for their actions, and collectively responsible for the consequences.

[VoteClark]

322. Very well said Draftcaroline

People don't understand the mindset of the people back then.

:kick:
J4Clark

[9215]

323. I second that

and would like to add that Gore Vidal, someone I respect on most subjects but not this one, likes to point out that the US cut Japanese oil off and this "provoked" Japan, somehow casting the US in a negative light. Well we cut it off because they had become rampaging lunatics of the Asian theatre cutting off the oil was the least we could do to help the countries Japan was poised to take over.

[bpilgrim]

344. and what imperial powers were they trying to replace?

just remember it may be said that they were a quick study ;->

peace

[9215]

362. Are you equating Japanese "Co-prosperity Sphere" fascism

with what was going on in the US foreign policy?


Remember. The Asian countries we liberated invited us with a red carpet and we allied with the Chinese Maoists. Hardly an imperialistic endeavor.

[bpilgrim]

370. i am talking about foreign control and exploitation of south east asia...

not to mention the rest of the world up till japan tried to take the helm in that region. you think we were there as liberators, eh? well it is the same thing they taught their boys and girls, i suppose.

shoot, then look at our record since then as well, not a pretty picture, eh?

peace

[Emperor_Norton_II]

374. Yes, yes, we're all horrible people.

History is pain and anguish and all Right-Thinking People should hold our past in revulsion.

If you are *quite* finished...

[9215]

383. A much prettier picture than what Japan had in store for the region

What is important is that the US "allied", it was an alliance of forces that fought the Japanese and Germans. What these previous allies thought of their former allies ten years or fifty hence is irrelevant.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

357. I'm So Sick Of This Revisionist History I Can Explode

You are right....


We embargoed Japan because they were invading their neighbors willy nilly under their bogus "Asia for the Asiatics" campaign.

The were as wack as the Nazis in their racism just in another direction except their untermenschen were Filipino, Chinese, and Koreans not Jews, Gypsies, and Slavs.

The Japanese were not provoked into war. They were itching to "neutrailize" America just like the Nazis.

[9215]

364. Like the Korean "comfort girls"

Korea really got hammered. They were a literal slave colony of Japan since the 1906 Russo-Japanese War. One of the saddest chapters in human history IMO. Another reason they (at least the South) have alwasy been staunch US allies since their liberation. They had a contingent that fought in Vietnam.

It is sick to contemplate, but I sometimes think about the difference between Japanese and German fascism. The Japanese, to my knowledge, had no "chosen people" (the Jews) for extermination like Hitler did.

[bpilgrim]

372. ever been to the PI?

or any navay port in asia?

and i am glad you mentioned vietnam, seems like they were not ready to trade one tyrant for another, eh. and i am sure we killed far more there then the japanese did, but whose counting who we kill right, they were the ENEMY right?

peace

[9215]

387. You need a chill pill.

You compare whores hanging out at a US Naval base with enslaved, enslaved by the Japanese Imperial Government, "comfort girls"????? You are comparing State sanctioned slavery and rape to prostitution.




The point I made regarding the Koreans fighting in Vietnam for the Americans was in no way meant to suggest that the Vietnam War was a good, or just cause. It was only to show that the South Koreans have been strong supporters of the US since WWII.


You need to chill out and get a grip.


I suggest we cool out and approach this topic, possibly on a separate thread and take it issue by issue.

[bpilgrim]

394. am i?

are bases support and exploit a thriving sex industry and let them fend forthemselves whereas the japanese moved them onbase and provided for them directly.

i don't know, seems simular to me.

as far as brining up vietnam yall are the ones who wanted to start a body count to figure out who was more evil and therefore - i suppose - justify the other getting nuked, twice, even though they were defeated.

i am just playing along, i guess, but the facts remain, we nuked a defeated nations innocent civilians enmass TWICE.

i say it was obviously wrong yet it just goes to show how far some will go to defend ANYTHING done by their OWN gov no matter how horrific but a quick study other nations atrocities.

i wonder what flaw of the human condition that is MNFB?

peace

[DemocratSinceBirth]

401. To Paraphrase Orwell

" Some ideas are so bizzare only an intellectual(or one who fancies himself one) can believe it.


"are bases support and exploit a thriving sex industry and let them fend for themselves whereas the japanese moved them onbase and provide for their safety"

You are conflating prostitution and rape....

I NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD SEE A DEFENSE OF JAPAN'S CAPTURE OF NUBILE KOREAN WOMEN AND TURN THEM INTO UNPAID PROSTITUTES BUT HERE IS THE DEFENSE IN ALL IT'S SHAME FOR THE WORLD TO SEE.

Prostitution was rampant around Clark Air Force Base and Subic Bay but the women were willing participants and many even found boyfriends, sugar daddys , and husbands.

To compare these women to the Korean women captured by the Japanese and forced into sexual bondage is shameful beyond comprehension.

After reading that pornography I have to take a shower....

[DemocratSinceBirth]

395. I Believe The Filipinos Helped Us In The Korean War

cuz of the debt they incurred for their liberation.

The Phillipines were occupied by the

Spanish

American

Japanese

The Japanese were the most brutal by far and the Americans most benign.

[bpilgrim]

371. that's not what FDRs 8 point plan says...

not to mention our history in the region up till that point and since.

looks like many in south east asia wasn't ready to trade one tyrant for another, remember vietnam...

recomendations for dealing with the japanese upstarts...


more...
http://globalfreepress.com/images/perl_harbor/recomondations

peace

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

327. Agree..but

even after Hirohito was prepared to surrender (at last!), some of the militarists still resisted and tried to prevent it. They failed, but not by much. Not disagreeing with you, just adding my thoughts in addition.

I'm also not sure who the "they" were in "They were collectively responsible..". The Emperor, certainly. The militarists, certainly. Shinto, certainly. The Japanese people as whole? I think not. They were brainwashed, dissent was crushed, tyrannized, lied to at every turn, living in a society in which individualism was considered immoral, starved, and convinced that the allies meant to enslave them, or kill them all. In a way, it was "traditional family values" and "patriotism" pushed to it's logical extreme. But, as he finally did, the emperor finally put a stop to it with the surrender and his renunciation of godhood. I find it hard to hold the Japanese people, as a whole, responsible for the calculated actions of the government. Just as I would not hold the American people, as a whole, responsible for the actions of BushCorp and his lackeys.

What I do find reprehensible is the Japanese government's refusal to acknowledge, in a meaningful way, that the Emperor and his government were responsible for the catastrophe that was WWII in Asia. They would rather cling to the notion that they made some mistakes and were merely defeated by superior forces. Many, if not most, Japanese continue to believe that the atrocities that the Japanese army committed were the actions of a few misguided individuals rather than the calculated policy endorsed by the government.

[bpilgrim]

343. broad accusations and generalizations with 0 sources...

i am paticularly interested in the 'revisionist' history you cite in this thread since i am familiar with japans history starting from the meiji restoration which led to the path of a japan styled democray founded on a parliment.

however, to site japans imperial behavior in it's build up to war with the west only will draw comparisons to our own and serve no purpose to answering this threads question.

you also somehow try to imply that the emperor wasn't controlled by the ruling gov since before the meiji restoration which any good history book clearly spells out.

it is certainly true that the totalitarin regime, embodied in the military, certainly exploited tradional religious beliefs and prejudices to revert back to the diefication and worship of the emporer very successfully but it would be false and dishonest not to point out that he was simply a tool employed by the military rulers at the time with great and devestating effect.

to speaking of imperial comparisons, raised by your post, look at what happened in south east asia right after wwII at the hands of their new masters.

now can we get back to the topic of this thread...

was it right to nuke a deafeted nation TWICE against the advice of most of our own military leaders in theater at the time?

i say it was obviously wrong.

and here is a good, up-to-date source on this very subject...
http://www.doug-long.com/ga1.htm

:hi:

peace

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

363. Your argument contradicts itself.

You, on the one hand, claim that the emperor was a mere figurehead controlled by the militarists. On the other, you claim that all the US had to do was accede to the demand that he remain emperor and not be tried as a war criminal.

If that were the case, and the Japanese government was seeking peace, why did they not bypass the "figurehead" emperor and sue for peace? According to your thesis, the emperor was powerless, and could not have opposed the government surrendering even if it meant him stepping down and facing trial. If the military and government realized, and accepted the fact, that they were hopelessly defeated, why did they not offer to meet the demand for unconditional surrender? You place all the onus on Truman while ignoring the Japanese refusal to stop the war by withdrawing their "one demand".

Also, it's interesting to note that most of the sources cited in your link are from conservative Republican opponents of Truman. Nixon? William F. Buckley? MacArthur? Various admirals and generals who had their own reputations to protect.

Having said that, I agree with you that the decision to bomb Hiroshima, with it's cost in civilian lives, as, at best, questionable. (Other, un or less populated areas could have been an alternative). And, that the bombing of Nagasaki was, IMO, probably unnecessary.

[bpilgrim]

373. how? a figure HEAD still had a very important role to play...

as HEAD OF STATE.

think king and queen of england, they are always present for important and historical state functions as was the emperor.

the japanese were trying to sue for peace, they had one condition, they would not give up the figure head institution of emperor, which they NEVER did and is the only reason they continued to fight in those late days of the war, even after being nuked TWICE until we finally accepted.

also i am going by what MOST military leaders, not political stripe, advised back then that in order to SAVE LIVES we should accept japans one condition, which we finally did and history has demonstrated to be a wise one.

peace

[Woodstock]

402. AMEN!

a voice of reason

[sujan]

328. Prof Chomsky is correct

US is the biggest terrorist state in the world.


"Should Truman have dropped the bomb?"

The Japanese come here and bomb the military installations, what does the US do? Drop nukes in civilian centers. Ok, cheer the death..........

[Zuni]

333. The Japanese did FAR more than that

it would be wise to look beyond Chomsky when reading history.

[bpilgrim]

345. howard zinn

another EXCELLENT source :hi:

Excerpt from Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States
covering the period 1945-1960
New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1980
http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/zinn-chap16.html

peace

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

359. It is an excellent source, but it says nothing about the nukes.

That the US found itself a superpower after WWII and misused that power against the aspirations of people after the war is unarguable. But, to extrapolate that into some sort of cabal that manufactured the war against the fascists is nonsense. The Japanese militarists, with the approval of the emperor, were attempting to subjugate Asia. They did so with the utmost brutality. So brutally, in fact, that the Nazi embassy sheltered Chinese civilians and defied the Japanese army during the massacre in Nanking.

Your repeated argument that Hirohito was only a figurehead ignores history. He was an active participant, and advocate, in Japanese aggression in Asia. It's sort of like saying that Bush is only a figurehead of the military/industrial complex and should be excused his participation in the decision making.

[bpilgrim]

375. maybe not there but he does go on record as being opposed to them

as anyone who learns of the history of wwII would be and many intuitively know.

just because you don't know that the emperor was a figure head since before the meiji restoration only reminds me of that quote...
the only thing new in this world is the history you don't know - truman

but it is a fact that most historians acknowldge.

peace

[Woodstock]

386. Agree, bandera

.

[LearnedHand]

329. Watch your use of numbers, VoteClark...

...because that "half million" figure is wrong! Check out the book, "History Wars." It details how that number came to be.

[LeftPeopleFinishFirst]

355. It's easy to say after the fact what you would have done.

I say I wouldn't have, but I don't have the ability to live in that moment. So I don't know what it was like and how they had to choose.

[bpilgrim]

356. you can read about it...

and most military folk at the time advised against it in order to 'SAVE LIVES'

i think history has borne them out since after accepting japans 1 condition the war was successfully concluded.

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

358. Selective memory

You left out the part about how we first nuked Japan into submission. Two nukes went a long way to making the Japanese much more accepting of their fate.

[bpilgrim]

376. no. they did not surrender until their 1 condition was met.

as anyone who knew japan even slightly back then could've told you they would and probably why our own military leaders recognized the need to accept their 1 condition to stop the fighting in order to save lives.

and history demonstrates their wisdom to this very day.

peace

[slackmaster]

381. Japan's condition was accepted only with a very big caveat

The Emperor and the entire Japanese civil government were subservient to the Supreme Commander for the Allied Forces. Hirohito and all of the rest could have been removed in an instant at the pleasure of the Supreme Commander.

That is not the condition the Japanese were demanding before the atomic bombings.

[bpilgrim]

382. their condition was met and that ended the war.

obviously, as victors we could have reniged anytime after that...

peace

[Woodstock]

384. For the 50th time, yes, Truman made the best decision

I agree, VoteClark. And please count the wounded American soldiers into the carnage of dead Americans. And please, let's not forget what Japan did to the Chinese. And other countries. The suicide attacks by the Japanese were utterly devastating American soldiers just prior to the decision to drop the bomb - the Japanese were not ready for surrender, despite what the revisionists here insist. Truman made the best decision given the circumstances. I guess we'll have to weigh in on this subject every week? I'm not going to turn on him then, either.

[bpilgrim]

388. so you agree on nuking a defeated nation TWICE

even though MOST military leaders at the time disagree with you?

interesting...

how many lives would have been saved if we accepted their surrender in the spring of 45?

peace

[Woodstock]

400. You've strewn the same red herrings about, what, 50 times

to the exact word in this thread alone

1 + 1 still doesn't equal 3

[bpilgrim]

404. how is the japanese being a defeated nation, trying to surrender a 'RED H'

considering the topic of this thread?

i have to repeat myself to the many post that express ignorance of that fact.

peace

[DemocratSinceBirth]

403. How Many Lives Would Have Been Saved If The Germans

and Japanese didn't go ape shit with their racial purity campaigns?

[bpilgrim]

405. more than 50 million, but does that mean the innocent civilians were

punished in hiroshima and nagasaki? is that how you justify it?

peace

[Lastgasp]

409. Absolutely! Truman did what he had to do. n/t