Should the US issue an apology to Japan for using the A-bomb?

[Delano]

Poll question: Should the US issue an apology to Japan for using the A-bomb?

Of course this is a hypothetical that assumes we have a non-reactionary progressive in the White House and a congress actually willing to do such a thing. Farfetched, I know...



I think everyone is very familiar with the arguments for and against. I'm just looking for the numbers here, not a flame war. If you want to discuss the issue, please start abother thread about it. As for this thread, just answer the question! :)

Should the US issue an apology to the people of Japan for using the A-bomb to kill 300 thousand civilians at the end of WW2, as well as a condemnation of any future use of atomic weapons?


There is no choice for "other". I really just want the numbers, not a bunch of treatises on either side of the issue.

Should the US issue an apology to Japan for using the A-bomb to kill 300 thousand
civilians at the end of WW2?


Here's a link to a discussion thread I started:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1770011

[number6]

1. yes, definitely

:nuke: 70,000 men women and children in each city
plus those who died later from radiation poison ....

[JuniorPlankton]

2. Why is it that killing the Japanese civilians is OK

by not the Iraqis?

Both are heinous crimes!

[number6]

its not

its one thing to drop a 1000lb bomb from a B-25
to destroy a factory, if you try your best to hit it
and miss killing civilians is one thing

to purposely kill civilians to bring about surender
is murder, there was only one known outcome
of dropping a nuke on a civilian city - massive civilian
casualties ..murder

[kysrsoze]

42. While I disagree with hitting civilians, you should all know this

I watched a great documentary on Iwo Jima. Japanese soldiers were told by their superiors to NEVER surrender because the U.S. would kill all of them anyway. Over 5K soldiers were killed in that battle and at least 8K were wounded. They were faced with Japanese soldiers who would come out feigning surrender, then one would bend over while another went to fire the machine gun strapped to his back. They had to fight for the last square mile of that Island, after which the commanding officer was never found.

Faced with the prospect of invading Japan and seeing THOUSANDS of soldiers killed on both sides along with Japanese civilians, I don't think we had much of a choice because the emperor had no intention of surrendering. I feel awful about so many civilians being killed, but in the end there likely would have been many more deaths.

[theboss]

56. What is stunning about the Japanese is the rate of surrender

I think the Japanese had something like 18K on Iwo Jima and around 1500 surrendered or were captured. They meant "fight to the last man" when they said it.

[Delano]

3. I'm not surprised at the rresults so far, but...

nobody at least thinks we should condemn future use?

Scary.

[scarletwoman]

6. You didn't offer the option of "Yes" to apology AND condemn future use

I would have voted for that one if you had. With only one vote possible, I had to go with "yes" to the apology.

And I must say, I find it shocking and disturbing that so many people think that the slaughter of thousands of civilians could in any way EVER be acceptable!

sw

[Delano]

8. That's exactly what choice #1 says "Yes to BOTH".

And I'm not shocked at all. DU is not nearly as "hard left" as many people like to decribe it as. It's just vvery partisan democrat. Nothing wrong with that - just a fact. Hell, I'm a partisan democrat myself, just not so partisan that I can overlook a president's crimes simply because we are in the same party.

If a republican had dropped those bombs, I would bet the farm that the numbers would be reversed on this poll. A lot of us grew up in loyal democrat families with the mantra that Truman was a great president and he did what he had to do to end the war and save 100K American lives, because the Japanese were fanatics who would fight to the last man.

I spent many years living in Japan and have visited both ground zeroes. The Japanese are much more forgiving than I would be...

[scarletwoman]

16. My DUH! I didn't really put together the poll question w/ your intro.

I see what you're saying about loyalty to a Dem president, but to me, it's much more a matter of people's unexamined and unquestioning acceptance of the justifications for dropping the dropping the Bomb that have been pounded into our consciousness from the day it happened.

I was born in '49, the "America is the good guy" thing has been promulgated all our lives, but I started questioning that at a fairly early age when, in grade school, I somehow got my hands on a modest little book full of horrific photographs of the Japanese victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was indescribable and it seared my soul to see these images. for a long time I wept whenever I thought about it, I still do.

I stopped listening to the self-righteous justifications about the decision to drop the Bomb right then and there. I refused to believe that inflicting such horror on my fellow human beings could EVER be justified.

Not til years later did I come to understand the REAL reasons behind that decision, the truth that all the propaganda was designed to cover up. It was all for show, to keep the Soviet Union in line. An utterly cynical, morally bankrupt, and RACIST rationale to sacrifice thousands of innocent lives for geostrategic supremacy.

It disgusts me to see people still seeking to justify it. It is not now, nor ever was, justifiable. It was a wholly evil act.

sw

[freetobegay]

4. No!

[Worst Username Ever]

5. No

WW 2 was the last really "just" war... the only reason I don't think we should apologize for the bomb is that had we not dropped it, and the invasion of japan took place, they predicted over 1 MILLION dead. It would have put Normandy and the Island Hopping campaigns to shame. However evil the bomb is, it was the lesser of two evils in that case. At least I believe so.

[scarletwoman]

7. Propagand bullshit.

Learn the REAL history, not the propagandized rationalizations for a truly massively heinous act.

The Japanese were already sending out signals about their willingness to surrender BEFORE the bombs were dropped. The only sticking point was that they asked that Emperor be allowed to retain a strictly symbolic office. The Allies were insisting on "unconditional" surrender, including deposing the Emperor. Notice that this one condition WAS eventually allowed, the Japanese still have their Emperor.

The decision to drop the A-bomb was based on the desire to strike fear into the SOVIET UNION. It was NOT a strategic necessity regarding the war with Japan.

sw

[Frangible]

28. Japan BARELY surrendered after the nukes

Read up on how Japan surrendered after the nukes-- the military performed a coup and wouldn't even let the emperor surrender. It was almost a fluke he actually could even then.

The nukes did win it and were used well.

[Delano]

9. You can discuss this here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1770011

[tomreedtoon]

10. Okay, IF...

I think it would be fine if the United States apologized for the use of nuclear weapons in Japan...IF the Japanese would apologize for the creation of Pokemon, their insistance that Japanese women have to speak in squeaky, high-pitched child-like voices, and their unwillingness to allow tons and tons of American rice to enter Japan and provide this staple food at a price the average Japanese person can afford.

Seriously, at this point, what would either side's apology do? The damage is done. And it's not as if we haven't suffered enormous guilt for using the atomic bomb. (Witness the fact that this poll exists.) An admission of guilt would do nothing but allow certain people to nod and smirk. It would mean more if we vowed to do better in the future. (Perhaps we could start by actually electing a President who wanted to do better.)

[Delano]

13. The Japanese would not nod and smirk.

Culturally, they don't act that way. In fact, few countries are anywhere near as cynical and sarcastic as our own, from my experience. They would accept the apology gracefully and applaud it as a positive step toward world peace. If you think they would nod and smirk, you haven't spent much time in Japan.

As for the rice issue, Japan has various ways to protect its domestic rice producers. I personally am glad they do. Without such protectionism, domestic farmers would have to sell their farms, and in no time the whole countryside would be covered with suburban sprawl, real estate prices would fall, and an integral part of Japanese culture going back a thousand years (the "tanbo") would be lost forever. Also, among themselves, there is a conventional wisdom that foreign rice "isn't as good" as Japanese rice. That also makes it harder to sell. Japan has very few raw materials it can produce domestically. I think it would be advisable to grant them some protectionism on one of those scant few products.

[Spider Jerusalem]

11. Sure...

as soon as Japan issues apologies to China, and Malaysia, and the Philippines, et cetera...

[Jim Sagle]

12. Revisionist, pro-fascist rubbish.

[Delano]

14. Japan was never "fascist"

nor was it a democracy. It was a very unique kind of empire. They never extolled the values of Mussolini's fascism.

[Spider Jerusalem]

46. No, not fascist...

the Japan of the 1930's and '40's was, in essence, very similar to the shogunate that existed prior to the restoration of the Emperor Meiji to the throne in 1868. A group of powerful militarists led by Tojo (who could in a sense be thought of as latter-day samurai, like the Tokugawa) ran things, and Hirohito was their puppet.

[Jim Sagle]

72. Very true. But in the immediate post-war period, most of the Americans

yammering about the "immoral A-bombings", were not liberals but pro-fascist conservatives who were sorry that FDR and Truman had defeated the Axis.

[number6]

30. you furgot to say that this poll ain't nuthin but a piece of.....

;)

[Jim Sagle]

73. Thank you for saying it so I didn't have to.

:thumbsup:

[number6]

74. your welcome

;)

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

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

[Delano]

17. Wow.

Your insight is remarkable. You've added SOOO much to the discussion. Is this how you always win friends and influence people?

[Baclava]

18. No way...

I love mushroom clouds...they make the sky so purty....

[theboss]

19. When is that apology for Nanking coming?

Then we can talk about this.

[Delano]

21. There is a sizeable movement in Japan to do just that.

They are also fighting against the ruling party's constant omission of Japanese atrocities from school textbooks. I know what you are saying, what Japan did to Asians is horrible.

At least you're not resorting to the specious argument "what about Pearl Harbor?"

Yes, Japan owes China and the Korreas a BIG apology, and Bush's Puppy-dog Koizumi needs to STOP paying tribute to the war dead and war criminals at Yasukuni Shrine. Even most Japanese are against it, but he still never fails to do so.

[BlueStateGirl]

23. No one ever talks about that. Over 380,000 Chinese civilians

were murdered.

http://www.tribo.org/nanking/

[Delano]

25. It's the same as Abu Ghraib.

Abu Ghraib is a big deal because WE did it.

We are a third party to Nanking, so why should WE ber screaming about it. Beijing is certainly within its rights to ask forr an apology.

There's nothing wrong with introspection, finding our own mistakes, and learning from them. I thought that was what made us different from the "My Country, right or wrong" repukes. Guess I was wrong...

[BlueStateGirl]

33. You aren't wrong. But I don't see anything wrong with being

equally as outraged about Nanking, even if we are only a 3rd party.

We ought to apologized for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
And Japan ought to apologize for Nanking.

[Delano]

38. Sounds fine by me.

And Japan can apologize for starting the damn war in the first place!

In a way, it's good that they did. If they hadn't I wonder what Asia would look like today?

The ongoing conflicts between Japan and her colonized nations would have probably prrevented the economic dynamos of the last half century...


...and WE would still be making TVS here in the US!

[theboss]

39. I frankly don't think we have anything to apologize about

I think Hiroshima was the right thing. But I think we can at least debate.

There is no question that happened in Nanking is evil and they won't discuss it.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

36. Actually, there is discussion of the WWII atrocities

within Japan. A few years ago, I translated a book written by a Japanese journalist who interviewed survivors of the Nanjing Massacre and all the "smaller" massacres that led up to it. The well-known author Shusaku Endo has written about medical experiments conducted on Allied soldiers.

Of course, this is about as popular among the Japanese equivalent of freepers as discussion of the My Lai massacre or the Christmas bombing of Hanoi is among American freepers. When a Japanese veteran being interviewed for a magazine confessed to raping a Chinese woman and killing her baby, he started getting death threats.

But anyone who thinks that the Japanese people aren't aware of the WWII atrocities (as Nicholas Kristof stated when he was NYT correspondent in Tokyo) has never read the titles and headlines on a Japanese newsstand. The apologists are constantly writing articles saying either that there was no Nanjing massacre or that it was "only" 5000 people.

The Japanese prefer to focus on their own considerable sufferings during WWII (all major cities flattened except Kyoto, Nara, and Kanazawa), just as you'll find more Americans angry about 9/11 than remorseful for the Abu Ghraib prison tortures.

As far as the atomic bombs are concerned, the firebombing of Tokyo (the east side of the city, a 200-year-old residential area made up of closely packed wooden buildings was deliberately targeted, creating a firestorm that killed at least 100,000 in a single night) actually killed more people at once, but there is something cold-blooded about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Unlike other major cities, Hiroshima was deliberately left untouched so that scientists could see the full effects of a bomb on an intact city. It was chosen because it stands on a river delta surrounded by high hills, so that whatever damage the bomb caused would spread out on the flat river delta but be hemmed in by the hills.

The bombing of Nagasaki was completely unnecessary and was aimed mostly at impressing the Soviets and proving that the U.S. had more than one bomb. In fact, Nagasaki was not even the original target but the alternative target. The intended target, Kokura, now part of the merged city of Kita-Kyushu, was clouded over, so the plane made a run over Nagasaki, found clear skies, and dropped their bomb.

They destroyed one of the most historic cities in the country, ironically the one that had been the sole open port during the centuries of isolation and the one that was most receptive to Westerners and Western ideas after the abolition of the Shogunate.

[theboss]

40. Comparing Abu Graid to Nanking is insane

I'm not dismissing Abu Graid. It should be a big deal in this country. But let's keep some perspective.

[bpilgrim]

45. but comparing iraq to japans imperial policies of wwII are not

Arthur Schlesinger, perhaps the most respected mainstream American historian, had ample reason to recall the attack on Pearl Harbor as the bombing of Iraq began. FDR was right to condemn the Japanese attack as a date that will live in infamy, Schlesinger wrote, but now it is Americans who live in infamy as their government adopts the policies of imperial Japan, he added, as the first bombs fell on Baghdad.

more...
http://blog.zmag.org/ttt/archives/000032.html

guess who also used the term ILLEGAL COMBATANTS to justify their torture harsh imprisonment and executions... JAPAN in NANKING.

it was very hard for them to tell the 'bad-guys' from the civilians... used to use their hair-cuts, tans, posture and other assorted 'signs' to help them track them down.

peace

[Delano]

51. That's a false argument.

Like the rightwingers saying that the left is "equating Abu Ghraib with 9-11". Nobody's doing that.

But if I kill my own wife, I've just done a much greater crime than voting for Bush, which enables him to kill 6000 Iraqi civilians, right? But that doesn't mean the murder of one person is comparable to Bush's genocide. Nobody's equating the crimes, just calling for some introspection and holding ourselves to higher standards.

What WE did in Abu Ghraib is MUCH worse than what WE did in relation to 9-11 (very little) , but 9-11 is still the greater atrocity.

[theboss]

55. Huh?

I'm not following.

I do agree that we need to hold ourselves to a higher standard. And the crimes at Abu Graib are horrible and people should be punished. In fact, people are being punished. What I don't agree with is that there should be some sort of national flagellation over it.

I think there are things we should apologize for as a nation: Native American abuse, slavery, whatnot. I don't think the atomic bombings are one of those things.

And I do think Japan as a nation should beg forgiveness for its national policy of rape, torture, and enslavement of Asia during the 1930s.

[RC]

20. This was 60 years ago.

Japan attacked us. So tell me again how this pertains to Iraq?
What does partisan politics have to do with anything in 1945? Things really were different back then. We were fighting Fascist over seas, not voting them into our government offices.

[Delano]

24. It has very little to do with Iraq or partisan politics.

So what?

[DrWeird]

22. Should Osama apologize for 9-11?

I once read that if they hadn't destroyed the WTC, up to a million Arab GIs would have died in the invasion of the US.

[number6]

29. great dark humor, I shouldn't laugh at that but I did

me bad, btw Japan should apologize for their crimes as well
Pearl Harbor, China, Korea, anything else..

and the 1 million deaths in a invasion is unproven ....

[Zolok]

26. Have the Japanese ever apologised for treating the Chinese

about as well as the Nazis treated the Jews?

No offense to any delicate sensibilities here but apologies are sometimes cheap and cheap mouthed IMHO.


www.chimesatmidnight.blogspot.com

[Frangible]

27. Nope

Japan targeted civilians for genocide as well, and even tried biological warfare against US civilians which was met with very limited success due to their poor deployment method (balloon).

Japan had to be stopped, and nuclear weapons did exactly that.

BTW-- firebombing Tokyo killed more people than the nukes did. But to most people, dying to firebomb is appearently "OK" and no one even remembers this.

We also firebombed Dresden, Germany, specifically targeting civilians.

Total war sucks, but Japan and Germany had to be stopped.

[Delano]

31. In a firebombing, you migght have a chancce to escape.

In an a-bombing, you're vaporized, or hideously burned, or radiation-poisined. Many who thougght they were fine were shocked to see their hair fall out and uncontrollable blood diarrhea days later. Personally, I'll take a fire-bombing where I can at least have some hope to run for cover. There was no cover in Hiroshima or Nagasaki. You also gloss over the fact that Tokyo was about ten times larger than Hiroshima or Nagasaki, hence the higher casualty numbers from the prolonged and repeated firebombings. A majority of the populations of both cities was killed in the A-bomb attacks.

To the US's credit, I believe that we did drop flyers warning that a new, terrible weapon was to be used and that they should evacuate. Unfortunately, local autthorities told the people to ignore the "foreign propaganda"

[Frangible]

34. Heh, what cover?

Their houses were made of rice paper. Arson was a severe capital crime in Japan at the time.

Dead is dead, how are the people from firebombing any less dead than those from the nuke?

I just don't get that.

[Delano]

35. No, there were caves and underground shelters that people ran to.

The houses were wood. Many with ceramic tile roofs. Only some partitions are made of rice paper. Maybe you should learn a bit more about Japan before you start making distorted claims...

A much higher proportion of the population in the A-bombed cities was lost than was lost in the firebombings of other cities. That is a fact.

Again you gloss over the tens of thousands of walking dead who lingered on for days, weeks even years with radiation poisoning causing the most terrifying maladies. A person who survived the firebombings would most likely at worst have a bad cough or a broken limb.

[Frangible]

44. Really?

31 square miles of Tokyo were destroyed and 88,000-200,000 people died. But I guess their deaths don't matter because it was a "mere" firebombing. Maybe we should do away with the murder charge for killing someone with fire, since it obviously doesn't matter.

A person who survived the firebombings would most likely at worst have a bad cough or a broken limb.

Perhaps you should find out some information on burn victims. In addition to the deaths there ~100,000 injuries as well. "Bad cough" indeed.

"The prostitutes who hung out by the riverbank jumped into a nearby pond," she recalled. "But the pond was boiling so they all died."

Rinjiro Sodei, a professor of American politics at Hosei University, labels LeMay "the executioner of Tokyo." "It was a systematic bombing designed in such a way that no one could escape," Sodei says. "It was really aimed at mass killing." The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey records from the time lend credence to his claim. They conclude that "probably more persons lost their lives by fire at Tokyo in a six-hour period than at any time in the history of man."

But oh well... I guess none of their deaths matter, since it was only fire.

[Delano]

48. 200,000 out of Ten million

as opposed to 150,000 out of 300,000 in Hiroshima.

I know what you're saying, but the firebombings were more property damage than human loss. The A-bombs let nothing and no-one standing.

What is that saying about "the grim mathematics of war"?

And I never said that the deaths in Tokyo don't matter. The majority here seem to think that the deaths in Hiroshima & Nagasaki don't matter.

All I'm saying is that the firebombing was morally less of a crime because there was a Chance to escape, and the majority of people in the areas being firebombed did escape.

The majority of people within 2 miles of ground zero in Hiroshima were vaporized.

Like I said, if I was in a country under attack, I'd rather take my chances with a firebombing than an a-bomb. Call me crazy...

[TexasMexican]

53. Death is Death

I dont think I would care if I were dead, if I were one of the 200,000 of 10,000,000 or if I were one of the 150,000 of 300,000.

Dead is Dead regardless of how you got there.

[TexasMexican]

41. Sometimes I think Chemical Weapons are the lesser evil...

I support the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

That being said I read a news article about 2 days ago how the US was destroying more of its stockpile of VX gas, and that got me thinking about some stuff.

While its hopefull that we will never have to use our WMD to destroy the world like we thought we were going to during the Cold War, wouldnt it be preferable to have more chemical weapons and less nuclear weapons.

If we are going to target and kill civillian population centers wouldnt chemical weapons be a better, atleast it wouldnt leave the area radiated, there wouldnt be radiactive fallout, and it would probably be easier to clean up by whatever survivors are left.

Save the nukes for the hard military targets.

[redqueen]

32. Many of the posts saying 'no'

seem also to be saying that since governments do evil things, you have to kill lots and lots of the civilians to stop them.

Is there really no better way to resolve conflict?

[TexasMexican]

37. sometimes violence is the answer

[redqueen]

43. Notice I mentioned civilians

I did not say that we must melt all weapons and become Quakers. I understand military action is sometimes necessary and that's all well and good.

However, I do have a serious problem with murdering civilians.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

47. To "Japan". No. To the people of Japan. Yes.

Having done rather extensive study of the Pacific War and the Japanese Government of the time, and, as much as I hate to say it, I doubt that the government of Japan would have surrendered without the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima. Even after Nagasaki, it was touch and go whether they would actually surrender, and a military coup almost took place to prevent it.

I cling to the belief that a "demonstration" bomb would have been effective if dropped in an uninhabited area, so I believe that the people of Japan should be apologized to. But, "Japan", referring to it's government and contolling military, should not be apologized to. They were hardly "victims" with clean hands.

Note: Before condemning Truman, one must realize that the "government" of Japan was under the control of the military until the bombings. The "stop the war" civilians were overridden by the military that believed in a sort of glorious Armagedon of fighting off the invaders with spears and rocks. The civilians only succeeded by acknowledging that there wasn't much "glory" to be found in being incinerated city by city.

[Delano]

49. Funny you mention "armageddon"

The scientists working on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos were not certain that exploding the firrst test bomb wouldn't cause a chain reaction consuming the entire atmosphere, killing every living thing on earth. The fact that they chose to take such a gamble is supreme arrogance and a crim e against humanity in and of itself, IMO.

Who the hell are THEY to gamble with OUR Earth? What nerve!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

57. I couldn't agree more.

It's interesting that many of the scientists involved in the Manhattan Project deeply regretted what they had done.

[tritsofme]

50. Nope, Truman is a hero.

The Japanese were determined to fight to the last man, I think that President Truman dropping that bomb, and hence saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of American GIs makes him an American hero.

My father was slated to go to the Pacific shortly before the bombing, and he has always said that ending the war early through use of the atomic bomb may very well have saved his life.

My father though a great man was a staunch Republican, and the only Democrat he ever voted for was Harry Truman.

[Massacure]

52. The U.S. shouldn't apologize

However, they should do everything in their power to prevent nuclear devices from being used again.

The Japanese didn't want to surrender, and civilians were starting to train with anything they could get their hands on. The Pentagon thought they would end up having to continue to loose another million men to take the home islands of Japan. No one can accurately gauge what would have happened had the A-Bomb not been used, however, it would have been bloody. Truman made a decision based on the best information he had.

[evil_orange_cat]

54. they should apologize to us for starting the war... and china (nanking)

If anything, they should be thankful to the US because under democracy and a free system, they have become one of the top economic powers in the world. Truman made the right call. Using the bombs lead to the unconditional surrender, which probably saved over a million lives (on both sides) because an invasion wasn't necessary.

[Delano]

59. That's a damn big "probably"

And Saddam "probably" would have nuked New York if we hadn't annexed Iraq, right?

Same logic, same amount of evidence that either scenario would have ever happened.

Fact is Japan was trying to negotiate a surrrender and Washington wouldn't hear of it. They wanted to scare the Russians (they only scared them into making their own bomb) and keep them out of Japan (that part was a noble goal)

I love all these "probably's" that get thrown around... Most of us who have lived in Japan feel differently. You can't just write people off as statistics as easily when you know them, and you learn the history from their perspective. The people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki did NOTHING to deserve being roasted and vaporized -NOTHING.

My uncle died in the Pacific war - captured and killed by the Japanese, but the only reason we know this is because of a kind Japanese man who was his friend from before the war who worked at the Libnrary of the National Diet and was kind enough to find out for us what had happened. My uncle's ffamily didn't begrudge the Japanese people for what happened.

In spite of that loss, we should have sued for a cease-fire and surrrender without the A-Bombs being used - or at least we should have demonstrated it to their leaders on some uninhabited island. There had to be a way to avoid that atrocity, but Truman (against the advicce of many of his generals, I might add) didn't even bother to try and find a way - he just wasn't INTERESTED. He was going to use his new bomb come hell or high water...reminds me of another genocidal maniac of recent history...

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

62. Hate to disillusion you.

"Fact is Japan was trying to negotiate a surrrender and Washington wouldn't hear of it."

The fact is that the Japanese attempts to "negotiate" were, at best, ambiguous. They were making attempts through the Soviet Union, which would have no part of it. Also, the peace feelers had to be kept secret from the military in the cabinet, who would have quite literally assasinated them. Without the support of the military the "negotiations" were useless.

That Truman was trying to "scare the Russians" was partly true, but he was also trying to get them into the war.

I agree that a "demonstration" bomb might have worked, but there were pitfalls there also. They didn't know the bomb would work - it's one thing to set one off from a tower, quite another to to drop it - which could have had the opposite effect portraying the Americans as ineffective and desperate. And, they only had two bombs. The point of the whole thing was to convince the Japanese militarists that they had no chance - that the U.S. had hundreds (if not thousands) of the horrible things.

The previous poster is quite right. An invasion of Japan would have cost millions of lives. The Japanese military was determined to fight to the end, even if it meant the destruction of all the Japanese people.

BTW the Japanese military killed far, far, more civilians in China, Indonesia, the Phillipines, IndoChina, than the bombs killed.

This isn't an apology for the use of the bombs on civilians, it's just history. Also, the fire bombings in Tokyo and Osaka were much more destructive and killed far more people.

[0007]

58. Absolutely!

[Mick Knox]

60. OF COURSE NOT n/t

[Curious Dave]

61. Since we all but forced Japan to attack us

in the first place by denying them access to resources (esp oil from the East Indies), I'd say we owe them a apology at the very least. I know people will counter by saying this was done in respect to Japan's aggression in China and elsewhere, but Japan's crimes do not justify our committing crimes of our own.

[Delano]

63. I agree that the A-bombing was wrong, but...

to say that we "forrced" Japan to attack us at Pearl Harbor was a bit of a stretch. They were under sanctions for valid reasons.

By your logic, America was "all but forced" to attack Iraq, because they wouldn't give us OUR oil.

Japan owes PLENTY of apologies. But what we did with the a-bombs was an unprecedented horror. Saying that more people died in the holocaust, or the firebombings, or Dresden, or whatever is a deception, IMO.

[Curious Dave]

65. I really hate it....

"By your logic, America was "all but forced" to attack Iraq, because they wouldn't give us OUR oil."

I really hate it when someone presents me with a logical counter argument that I can't instantly refute! :)

Off the top of my head I'd have to counter by saying that Iraq wasn't refusing to sell oil, if anything we were trying to make it difficult for them to sell oil. And if they did stop selling oil... Well, unlike Japan in 1941 we have energy alternatives to oil from a single source. In 1941 our actions were placing Japan in an energy stranglehold.

[theboss]

68. So we should have given them the oil to take Australia?

I figured this would be the "Sanctions First" crowd. Japan only needed oil to fuel its war machine.

Are you saying we should have supplied them? Remember Japan had been in the invasion business ten years by the time Pearl Harbor happened. They invaded Manchuria in '31.

[Violet_Crumble]

71. Japan planned to take Australia?

I thought their intent was to cut off communication and trade between Australia and other Allies, which accounts for things like the bombing of Darwin and stuff. But I could be wrong and there could be some documented Japanese invasion plans around. Do you know if they exist? I'd be interested to see a plan for invasion that would have been the slightest bit realistic....


Violet...

[T Town Jake]

64. Harry Truman was a hero of mine...

...and he was a "give 'em hell" Democrat. I'll stand with him. My vote was NO.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

66. No choice for me - I would like to just vote 'no'

without the other comments you added to both 'no' choices.

[x-g.o.p.er]

67. No. Japan should apologize for the Rape of Nanking,

Their Imperialistic, warmongering government that tried to enslave most of Asia and the Pacific Rim,, and then they should apologize for bombing Pearl Harbor and dragging us into a war in which hundreds of thousands Americans died.

WE should apologize? Fuck no, they should apologize, and then be grateful we picked them up, dusted them off, and rebuilt their country, without prosecuting their emperor for war crimes.

They sewed the wind, then reaped the whirlwind.

Truman was right then, he's right today, and he'll be right 100 years from now.

[Zynx]

69. That action saved both sides from potentially much worse slaughter.

War's not a pretty business and the atomic bombs were hardly the worst thing that we did.

[bpilgrim]

70. popular wartime propaganda

* 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:

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. . . .

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. (THE DECISION, p. 3.)

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

peace