****Official Argue about the Atomic Bomb Thread******

[taterguy]

The Hiroshima Anniversary isn't for another couple of days but I like to get an early start on things.

So was it justified or not?

[pleah]

1. Not! Why would it ever be justified? n/t

[taterguy]

3. Well, one theory is that it saved lives by preventing an invasion

If, hypothetically, that was true; how would you feel about it?

Would it be worth the lives lost during an invasion to not drop it?

[pleah]

21. Imo, no. n/t

[TheWraith]

37. It's not hypothetical at all.

There's no plausible scenario under which the use of atomic bombs killed more people than a full-scale invasion. The total casualty count from the two bombings was around 220,000 dead. Even the low-end estimates for a full scale invasion of the Japanese home islands ran north of 800,000 dead, and the more pessimistic ones into the millions. Saying that it's hypothetical that it killed fewer people than an invasion is like saying it's hypothetical that global warming is bad.

[taterguy]

102. The hypothetical is whether or not the US had to invade

Here's one fact I didn't know:

The original B-29 raids were flown at low altitude and the planes were stripped of guns to give them more time in the air.

The Japanese still didn't have the means to defend themselves.

So who knows how long the war would have lasted? Regardless of whether or not we dropped the Bomb.

I'm not saying I know the answer, just that it's debatable.

[pocoloco]

22. How about if you were in the boat about to hit the beach??

Expected casualities were 1 million!

[JonLP24]

25. Ok

I know I only said I'll say one thing but I gotta ask this. How about if you were child in school expected to be instantly vaporized?

[pleah]

29. So, you'd drop a bomb that would kill 6 million? Nice. :(

[Hugabear]

67. American lives are worth more than Japanese lives

Yep, look at all the American lives that we saved by not invading Japan. All we had to do was kill a few hundred thousand Japanese.

[WildEyedLiberal]

107. And you really think a few hundred thousand Japanese would not have died during an invasion?

British civilians were fully prepared to take up arms to defend their homes against the expected Nazi invasion in 1940; do you think that Japan would have been any different? Do you think that a full-scale invasion and conventional bombing campaign would have been more merciful or resulted in fewer Japanese casualties?

[TheWraith]

76. Where did 6 million come from?

The casualties were 80,000 and 140,000 respectively. You don't get to make up history to suit your argument.

[Statistical]

88. What imaginary bomb killed 6 million people? n/t

[billh58]

90. Although this is

from WikiPedia, I have seen similar numbers referenced elsewhere:

"According to the US Department of Energy the immediate effects of the blast killed approximately 70,000 people in Hiroshima and 40,000 in Nagasaki. Estimates of total deaths by the end of 1945 from burns, radiation and related disease, the effects of which were aggravated by lack of medical resources, range from 90,000 to 166,000. Some estimates state up to 200,000 had died by 1950, due to cancer and other long-term effects. Another study states that from 1950 to 1990, roughly 9% of the cancer and leukemia deaths among bomb survivors was due to radiation from the bombs, the statistical excess being estimated to 89 leukemia and 339 solid cancers. At least eleven known prisoners of war died from the bombing." {Emphasis added}

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki

[pleah]

103. So, after 65 years if they drop another bomb that there

would only be a couple thousand die? People are still dying from the first bomb.

[Statistical]

104. People are still dying but the rate of additional deaths is asymptotically approaching 0.

Even using the most generous calculations the atomic bombs in WWII resulted in roughly 200,000 casualties. A small fraction of those killed by conventional bombing conventional bombing which would have continued to "soften up" the enemy prior to any invasion.

More casualties would occur today but that is simply due to population density it still wouldn't approach 6 million. Maybe a million. Still uses the potential casualty count today to condemn actions 60 years ago is kinda foolish.

Anyone making a claim of 6 million causalities is simply resorting to hyperbole.

[Gman]

42. I'm rather glad they dropped the bomb

My dad was on a ship waiting to go invade Japan when the dropped the bomb. Although many DU'ers may think it would not be a bad thing, I may not be here typing this right now had the bomb not been dropped and we invaded Japan.

[Oregone]

43. If thats the only consequence of preventing those 6 million deaths...

I could seriously live with that. Why now, don't so thoroughly convince us now it was a bad idea!

[WildEyedLiberal]

108. Wow, aren't you a charmer

:puke:

[JTFrog]

117. Good riddance to that one, for sure! n/t

[Bill McBlueState]

84. similarly,

we can imagine various Japanese people who might be contributing to DU today had their parents survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As bad as the bombings were, I don't really miss people who never existed.

[asdjrocky]

2. Every year it's the same.

People start out talking nice, then there's yelling and screaming. Uncle Melvin still won't talk to me, and my cousin Tito still has a scar from that plate Dianna threw.

No way I'm going back there.

[BeGoodDoGood]

4. Hiroshima

We had 7,000 killed taking the 8 square miles of Iwo Jima.

Goddamn right it was justified.

Walt

[taterguy]

6. Who is this "we" that you speak of?

[BeGoodDoGood]

28. We

"We" was mostly the United States Marine Corps and the United States Navy.

Walt

[Joe Fields]

93. don't be so disingenuous

You know goddamned well who the "we" is.

[zipplewrath]

24. It's comlicated

We lost alot of folks taking Iwo, and it isn't clear it was necessary to take it, nor to continue to attack "defeated" forces that remained. Siege may have been a better strategy, or by passing the island altogether. I suspect ultimately, these questions won't be openly argued until the "greatest generation" is dead and gone. There are still similar discussions to this day about major civil war battles.

Similarly, the necessity of using the atomic bomb, and the degree to which it was known at the time, may not be truly hashed out until those potentially "saved" by that act are long dead and out of the conversation.

I do hope that those that discuss it, do remember the physical and mental state of the country at the time. It was very tired of war, everyone knew someone who had died, often vastly more than one. Gold stars abounded, as did red stars. And people had lived under rationing for several years. Every broadcast, every movie, every paper had "war news" first and foremost. And the dislocation of families was as extensive as this country had known to that date. It wasn't just the soldiers, but there were mass migrations of people here to "man" the factories and fill washington with the clerks needed to fight the war. We may decide in the future that there were better options, but it may have always been a hard sell to those living through it. And many who had to make the decision knew little if anything about nuclear power, energy, or chain reactions. It was just another big bomb to them, no different than the hundreds of thousands we had already dropped.

[BeGoodDoGood]

26. 3rd Battalion, 24th Marines

I was in 3rd Battalion/24th Marine Regiment in the late 80's and on into Desert Storm, where we deployed to Saudi Arabia.

At our Marine Corps Ball in 1989 we had the commanding officer from Iwo. I Co/24. landed with 225 Marines and sailors. It received 75 replacements. Seventy-six Marines and sailors left the island. That is just about 100% casualties. Our former C.O. was wounded twice. He refused to be evacuated.

More recently 3/24 was the last Marine battalion to leave Iraq.


Recently I visited the National Museum of the Marine Corps. We talked t0 a Marine who landed on Iwo. He was the only survivor of 40 in his platoon. He was in 1/24. They relieved 1/25, which lost 750 out of 900.

Nuke the Japanese? Can we not get past this? Yes. They brought it down on themselves.

Walt

[Oregone]

31. "They brought it down on themselves"

So all the "http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0201-05.htm">Little Eichmanns" of a nation are equally culpable for their leaders' actions and deserving of punishment and death?

[BeGoodDoGood]

34. You seem to hate.......

You seem to hate the people who made your very life possible.

If you watch the movie, "The Great Raid", you'll see that as the Japanese were clearly losing the war, the high command ordered that all POW's be executed.

In the Phillipenes, over one hundred US Army POW's were oredred into bomb shelters that they had built. The Japanese then flooded the shelter with gasoline, lit it, and then shot the Americans as they tried to flee the flames.

Nuking them seems to have cured them of trying to kill Americans.

Walt

[Oregone]

38. Oh, I seethe with hatred of all those who did anything for me

Do you at least take that strawman out for dinner before bedding down with it?

Little Eichmanns...hehe. I guess Ward was right after all.

[BeGoodDoGood]

46. Straw men Burn

"Do you at least take that strawman out for dinner before bedding down with it?"

You don't even deny it. You hate the people who died to make your life possible.

7,000 Marines and sailors died on Iwo Jima in an attack that began on 2/19/1945. Several thousand sailors died on ships fending off Japanese attacks.

Fighting on Okinawa beginning on 1 April was even more bloody.

Based on that, the Truman administration had no choice. Anyone who loves this country will see that.

Walt

[Oregone]

48. You are attacking me by saying I hate people, and fabricating this fantasy

Have you ever read about Logical Fallacies. If you read about them, it may help you argue coherently

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/

Hey...I bet everyone who doesn't agree with you HATES people who make their life possible!

Come on now...thats crazy talk.


"Anyone who loves this country will see that."

I'm an expat. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

If it takes love to see a truth, Id suggest its not really true at all.

[BeGoodDoGood]

55. You Scoff at and Denigrate

You make light of, denigrate, and scoff at, the many thousands of men who died for you.

You've made that plain. I don't have to do much but C/P your comments.

Me now, having been a member of India Company, Third Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, and contemplating that the unit once had --100%-- casualties - I have a different take on things. Meeting the commanding officer, hearing those figures from him, hearing how machine gun bullets pierced his shirt sleeve and how mortar fragments embedded themselves in his leg - that will do that.

This is my Military.com profile:

http://www.military.com/profile/member-profile-bio.html;jsessionid=2AD60FEE0204A497868A80596398DB55.sfpweb10?member_id=21587916

The Japanese sowed the wind. They reaped the whirlwind, and no safe, unengaged moron will ever change that.

Walt

[Oregone]

56. Uhhh...you don't have much respect for the millions that were slaughtered in Japan

"This is my Military.com profile"

Which means jack shit to the discussion at hand. I don't care if you strapped yourself naked to Little Boy and lived to tell the tale

[BeGoodDoGood]

62. Uhhh...you don't have much respect for the millions that were slaughtered in Japan

"Uhhh...you don't have much respect for the millions that were slaughtered in Japan"

Correct.

I wouldn't give a lance corporal for the lot of them.

They were products of a culture that would line men up and machine gun them. They were products of a culture that would set men alight with gasoline. They were products of a society that would make sex slaves of Korean women and make them serve 40 men a day.

Nuking them seems to have made them see the light.

But you are doing your straw man act again. They were not slaughtered. Their armed forces resisted us and gave us the one option.

Walt

[Oregone]

63. After all, they were all just Little Eichmanns, not worth a single lance corporal's life

I think we both get the point. Have a good night.

[BeGoodDoGood]

65. Correct

"After all, they were all just Little Eichmanns, not worth a single lance corporal's life"

Exactly.

They thought it was fine to make women sex slaves and to burn prisoners alive.

I wouldn't trade the whole crew for one lance corporal.

You try and make fun of me, but you only demonstrate your own unworthiness.

Who are you to tell that lance corporal's mother otherwise?

Walt

[Joe Fields]

94. I see you have no understanding of history.

I have to wonder just how old you are, and where your viewpoint comes from.

[MyNameGoesHere]

118. I stopped getting my history lessons from movies after watching

Gone with the Wind.

[madinmaryland]

5. Isn't your bicycle atomic powered, Francis?

:shrug:

[taterguy]

9. Bike is powered by food, prepared using electricity that comes from a coal plant

Color me self-righteous.

:shrug: yourself

[JonLP24]

7. I'll say this and this only

I don't think either was justified but I can understand the argument for 1. Not 2. The second one was just plain overkill and not necessary IMO.

[Synicus Maximus]

8. Absolutely, It saved tens of thousands of lives on both sides.

[Pirate Smile]

10. You should include a poll.

IMHO :)

[taterguy]

11. I should

But I won't.

[Parche]

12. YES it was

AND YOU ARE TOO FUKIN EARLY

[taterguy]

15. You're a fucking time Nazi

[izzybeans]

19. Good thing they weren't keeping time like Imperial Japan

You would have had to drop a bomb on their ass.

[malaise]

13. Butter please

:popcorn:

[Bonobo]

14. Why bother. Every year the defenders defend and say it was necessary.

But "regrettable".

"Bad card in a bad deck" etc.

They say "Nanking". They say "Invasion" They say "My Uncle would have died" and they say "Different times"

I always say that you cannot accept it, that you must repudiate it. That we must not be monsters or we are defending nothing of value.

Then they say the above and we repeat.

I will not dscuss this year.

[taterguy]

18. You just discussed it

[Parche]

27. it was necessary

the pow's would have died at Ofuna etc......., almost 50,000..........and most of them were saved because of the bomb....

They were not going to surrender, the Army had control, and they would have fought to the end, you say no....but I say a big YES, it was necessary.....

[BeGoodDoGood]

33. Wake Island

When the Japanese captured Wake Island they stripped the 1,000 + Marines and construction workers naked. They wired their hands behind their backs and commenced to execute them all with machine guns.

Orders from Tokyo said to hold off.

Most of the Americans were moved to north China, where they were used as slave labor until the end of the war.

98 civilian workers were kept on Wake and used as slave labor there. When the US Navy appeared ready to invade 2 years later, those workers were all executed. Their memory is now confined to a few yellowed photographs.

The Japanese commander was identified (he tried to conceal his identity). He was executed for war crimes.

The Japanese people got exactly what they deserved. Their desire for mass murder now seems somewhat amelioriated.

Walt

[Oregone]

45. You mean people commit attrocities in war? No fuckn way?

Thats crazy shit. Go call King David....he will be outraged...outraged I tell you!


"The Japanese people got exactly what they deserved"

For a minute there, I thought you were citing military war crimes, not screaming about what the Little Eichmanns were up to

[BeGoodDoGood]

69. You

You stick up for the Japanese and I will stick up the Americans.

Walt

[Oregone]

Dude...the war is over. No reason to keep dehumanizing people

I just took a huge bong hit in your honor. Chill out

Peace

[undeterred]

16. Nice post, Hitler.

[WinkyDink]

17. No. And the only "pro" argument ever proffered is one that uses a prediction/an assumption as fact.

[Dark]

82. And the other side doesn't?

They assume it wasn't necessary.

I don't like it, but it made the japanese realize they had no chance, and kept the entire island from fighting us tooth and nail.

Also, the devastation from conventional bombings could have been much worse as we took the islands.

[WinkyDink]

113. The "not needed" side isn't trying to defend the FACT of the horrific slaughter of civilians.

[rucky]

20. I've learned to stop worrying and love the bomb.

[Oregone]

23. Yes, it was justified. The winner writes the rules

Might is right, and all that jazz.

[IndianaGreen]

30. How many American POWs were killed in the atomic bombings?

Some around here won't care about the Japanese dead, or the horrific arms race that began with the atomic bombings, but they might care about dead GIs.


The Lonesome Lady crew                 The Taloa crew

Book Review: Genbaku de shinda Beihei Hishi
(Secret History of the American Soldiers Killed by the Atomic Bomb) by Shigeaki Mori　　

This book is a culmination of many years of research done by Mr. Mori, who studied materials offered by other researchers, including Messrs Keiichi Muranaka and Toru Fukubayashi. He listened to many eyewitnesses and sought information on the POWs who were in Hiroshima. The interrogation records on them carried out in Hiroshima were all destroyed in the Atomic Bombing. However, a few interrogators survived. Mr. Mori himself had also succeeded in a difficult search of some bereaved families of the victims, using the US telephone directories. He knew that the families were given no information at all about their loved ones. He finally contacted nine out of twelve families, and could register the victims with their photos at the Prayer of Peace Museum in Hiroshima.

Captain Cartwright, the pilot of the Lonesome Lady lost six of his crew in the Atomic Bombing, but survived because he was interrogated in Tokyo. After the war, he obtained a Ph. D. of Agriculture and, when he came to Japan for an academic conference, he once visited Hiroshima. But, without knowing anyone then, his trip ended up in a sad experience of leaving Hiroshima as if fleeing from the spot. Later he exchanged letters with Mr. Muranaka and Mr. Mori for years. The villagers where his plane crashed sent him back some remains of the aircraft. Eventually he felt like meeting these people, and in 1999, he revisited Hiroshima with his wife and his son, and Mr. Matt Crawford , the commander of the bomber veterans association. Guided by Mr. Mori and Muranaka, he stood at the related sites such as the Memorial set by Mr. Mori at the former HQs where they were A-Bombed, and met the local people, who had surrounded the parachuted crew, and the person who interrogated one of them. Mr. Cartwright wrote about these experiences in his book, “A Date with the Lonesome Lady: A Hiroshima POW Returns.” (Earkins Press, Austin, Texas 2002). It was translated by Mr. Mori as “The Bomber Lonesome Lady: American Soldiers killed by the Atomic Bomb.” (NHk Pub. 2004)

In the summer of 2005, Mr. Mori hosted us in Hiroshima. The Imperial War Museum of London and the UK Lottery sponsored a project for high school students, “Their Past, Your Future,” in commemoration of the 60th Anniversary of WWII. Students of seven schools, who won the essay contest, embarked on a trip to the former sites of the war in Europe or Asia. Twenty-four students and four teachers of Cheney School, Oxford, accompanied by four members of the Museum and one from the Big Lottery, came over to Thailand and Japan. Attendance on the group in Japan was coordinated by a former British POW Mr. William Rose, his son Graham with his wife Takako, Mr. Trever Underson with his wife Chizu, who was working then at the Education Board of Tenryu village, where Mr. Rose had been forced to labor at the Tenryu Dam construction site. After the program in Tokyo arranged by POW Research Network Japan, I accompanied the group to Hiroshima. Through the arrangement and guide by Mr. Mori, the group had a meaningful time of learning, and went down to Tenryu village for staying with the villagers. In Hiroshima, they attended the Memorial Peace Ceremony, visited the museums, met and talked with local high school students, and listened to Mr. Mori as he talked to them about his experience as a hibakusha. Mr. Mori’s sincere efforts for positive action touched our heart, knowing he was continuously fighting with the ill health-conditions caused by the Atomic Bomb radiation and fear of cancer. He also introduced an e-mail sent by Mr. Cartwrite that memorable morning, in which he expressed his wish for the abolition of nuclear arms.

http://www.us-japandialogueonpows.org/HoroshimaPOW.htm


POWs who died in the Atomic bombing of Hiroshima

The one lesson from Hiroshima and Nagasaki is that never again shall the world see the use of atomic weapons. American's insane doctrine of threatening the planet with nuclear holocaust must be buried deep underground so that it never rises again.

Our plutonium facility at Oak Ridge was designed to produce thousands of atomic bombs, far exceeding what would have been needed to defeat Japan and Germany. It is obvious that Oak Ridge was intended to produce a massive stockpile of atomic bombs to be used to terrify a postwar world into submission to American imperialism.

[Oregone]

32. "They brought it down on themselves"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8874474&mesg_id=8874629

[IndianaGreen]

35. Like we brought down 9-11 on ourselves

Some will argue that 9-11 was blowback for the bad things we did in Middle East.

I would argue that none of the WTC casualties had anything to do with our Middle East policies, anymore than the people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki had anything to do with the crimes of Imperial Japan. Japan was run by a military dictatorship which had suppressed a peace movement years before, much as Hitler had gotten rid of the German Left before the Holocaust.

[Oregone]

36. Teehee

Did you notice my "Little Eichmann" post?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8874474&mesg_id=8874721

And yes, Id more likely agree with you.

[BeGoodDoGood]

40. Bush and Now Obama

I would have no problem in saying that the Bush/Cheney crime cabal has committed war crimes, if not as blatant as pouring gasoline on people and seting them on fire - which the Japanese did.

I would have no problem in saying that the Obama Administration is not much better.

But nuking the Japanese seems to have definitely cured them of trying to kill Americans in large numbers.

Walt

[Oregone]

41. So if nuking Americans would cure them of killing Afghanis, its justified for an Afghani to do?

Check please!

[BeGoodDoGood]

49. Today

"So if nuking Americans would cure them of killing Afghanis, its justified for an Afghani to do?"

I don't see why not.

The United States of 1945 is gone forever. The United States that provided a Marshall Plan to our defeated enemies is as far away as the planet Vulcan.

But what is really gone is an engaged populace that cares for the honor of the country.

You certainly do not.

Walt

[Name removed]

52. Deleted message

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

[BeGoodDoGood]

57. What it means is.........

What it means is that we need to stop acting as bad as the Japanese did.

Walt

[Oregone]

61. Walt, as long as we keep whitewashing foreign policy and appealing to patriotism and honor...

not a whole lot is going to change. The winner writes the rules, and in a few decades, all our exploits will be widely recognized as justified (as long as we keep winning)

[BeGoodDoGood]

64. Winning

"not a whole lot is going to change. The winner writes the rules, and in a few decades, all our exploits will be widely recognized as justified (as long as we keep winning)"

We are not winning.

We didn't even win WWII. Because it wrecked the USA that Washington and the framers founded and gave us Blackwater, the national security state and war without end.

Walt

[Bonobo]

58. He clearly hates America or he wouldn't say that.

I cannot believe this poster is saying America should be nuked. And he calls himself an upright American, a veteran no less!

:puke:

[BeGoodDoGood]

66. Nuked

"I cannot believe this poster is saying America should be nuked. And he calls himself an upright American, a veteran no less!"

I am a veteran, a graduate of Parris Island and Brown Field OCS as well.

I didn't say that America should be nuked. I said Afghanis had as much right to attack us as we have to attack them. Our policies are horrible, they fly in the face of everything the country ever has stood for.

The Japanese, through their resistance to us, and their heinous and cruel culture, brought down nuclear weapons upon themselves.

Again - we had 7,000 killed taking 8 square miles of Japanese territory. Using nuclear weapons was the clear choice. It ended the war with much less American loss of life, and perhaps less Japanese life too.

Walt

[Bonobo]

74. You are unwittingly betraying your duplicity.

That is what you are doing.

You = The Japanese, through their resistance to us, and their heinous and cruel culture, brought down nuclear weapons upon themselves.

Equals

"The Americans, through their resistance to Afhanistan (Iraq, Russia, China, whatever) , and their heinous and cruel culture, brought down nuclear weapons upon themselves."

[Name removed]

75. Deleted message

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

[Bonobo]

78. You worship an ideal. Keep up with it.

If it props up your own conscience and sense of the world, who am I to try to deflate it?

End of discussion, soldier!

[NutmegYankee]

39. Justified

But hey - why discuss it as both sides are fully entrenched and un-yielding.

Typical response:
<Feign Outrage Here> Blah Blah <Use gross mis-characterizations here> Blah Blah <use some made up history here> Blah Blah <Nasty Ad Hominem Attack here>

WooHoo! Another August down!

[morgan2]

44. Great invention or greatest invention?

[cherokeeprogressive]

47. Two Democratic Presidents thought it was...

Truman even stated unequivocally that he'd use it again under the same circumstances.

[Oregone]

50. Two elected Democratic presidents thought NAFTA was a good idea

Clinton, and Gore (elected but not "kinged").

So...er, then it must be.

[cherokeeprogressive]

53. So you're comparing the signing of a trade agreement with the decision to drop the atomic bomb.

I'm not seeing it.

[Oregone]

54. No

Im examining the notion that if two Democratic presidents agree on something, then it is therefore true

[Baclava]

51. It doesn't matter what we think - the aliens engineered us to evolve into bomb makers

Probably outlawed in their own civilization.

Maybe plutonium is like crack to them and we are the suppliers.






hey - it was just a thought

[IndianaGreen]

59. Whitewashing Hiroshima: The Uncritical Glorification of American Militarism

Whitewashing Hiroshima: The Uncritical Glorification of American Militarism

by Gary G. Kohls, MD

Back in 1995, the Smithsonian Institute was preparing an honest but aggressive display dealing with the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Amid much right-wing reactionary wrangling, from various ultrapatriotic veterans groups all the way up to the Newt Gringrich-dominated Congress, the Smithsonian was forced to eliminate that painful but historically important part of the story – the Japanese civilian perspective. So again we had another example of powerful politically conservative ultrapatriotic groups influencing public policy – and messing with history because they didn't have the courage to face up to unpleasant historical truths.

The historians did have a gun to their heads, of course, but in the mêlée, the media and the public overlooked a vital historical point. And that is this: The two bombs did not have to be used to end the war and there wouldn't have been a bloody American invasion of Japan. American intelligence, with the full knowledge of President Truman, was fully aware of Japan's desperate search for ways to honorably surrender weeks before the order was given for the American-led nuclear Holocaust that was Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

American intelligence data, revealed in the 1980s, show that a large-scale US invasion (planned for no sooner than November 1, 1945) would have been unnecessary. Japan was working on peace negotiations with the Allies through its Moscow ambassador in July of 1945. Truman knew of these developments because the US had broken the Japanese code years earlier, and all of Japan's military and diplomatic messages were being intercepted. On July 13, 1945, Foreign Minister Togo said: "Unconditional surrender (giving up all sovereignty) is the only obstacle to peace." Truman knew this, and the war could have ended by simply conceding a post-war figurehead position for the emperor, a leader regarded as a deity in Japan. That concession was refused by the US; the Japanese continued negotiating for peace; and the bombs were dropped. And, ironically, after the war, the emperor was allowed to remain in place. So what were the real reasons for 1) the refusal to accept Japan's offer of surrender and 2) the decision to proceed with the bombings?

Shortly after WWII, military analyst Hanson Baldwin wrote: "The Japanese, in a military sense, were in a hopeless strategic situation by the time the Potsdam demand for unconditional surrender was made on July 26, 1945." Admiral William Leahy, top military aide to President Truman, said in his war memoirs, I Was There: "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. My own feeling is that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages." And General Dwight Eisenhower agreed.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/kohls1.html

[Dogmudgeon]

60. 65 years of perspective and we're still arguing pro-v-con?

Anyone who wants to know how it transpired can find out fairly easily: the pros, the contras, the inhuman calculation and the human cost.

From my own perspective, it seems that the term "the fog of war" is an understatement. No one really comes off clean except the victims and survivors.

Arguments are not necessary except among some trivial issues that are still unresolved. I don't consider myself an expert, and will listen to all well-informed points of view.

If there's ever a case outside the Holocaust where we need to apply "Never Again", the actual use of the atomic bomb is that case.

--d!

[Initech]

68. hmmmm...

[hunter]

70. If God didn't want the USA to drop the bomb...

... He would have changed the laws of physics.

The bomb dropped on Nagasaki was a test. We wanted to know what a plutonium bomb would do because we were already well on our way to building hundreds more of them. The reactors at Hanford were built big, big enough to fight a full scale nuclear war with Germany... and later the Soviet Union, if it came to that.

Best to know what a plutonium bomb does when you drop it on a living city while we still had the chance. We were crazy about the bomb.

[Oregone]

72. And if he didn't want the Jews to burn in ovens, he would of made fire cooler

But, he didn't, so he must of wanted that.


Joke, right?

[hunter]

80. Manifest Destiny.

The USA would be the World Empire, not Germany, not Japan.

Like a Ronald Reagan "God Bless America!"

The German and Japanese versions of Racism and Nationalism lacked the hybrid vigor of our own.

[Sta au]

71. I don't think our war against Japan was justifiable period.

America more or less provoked Japan due to our embargo.

[BeGoodDoGood]

73. War With Japan

War is (or can be) about markets.

We had economic issues with the Japanese. President Roosevelt was looking ahead 50 years.

We definitely had a strong national interest in opposing Japanese expansion.

And - they didn't have to attack us. That was their choice.

Walt

[Dark]

83. You've got to be fucking kidding me.

They declared war.

They were committing war crimes, and allied with hitler. An embargo was the right thing to do.

WTF are you smoking?

[Sta au]

85. We provoked the war

The Japanese committing war crimes is irrelevant, it was something we shouldn't have involved ourselves with in the first place. Also we weren't at war with Hitler at the time, it was a European problem. Sure it was alright to talk about how bad those regimes were. But war is never the answer to solving the world's problems.

Besides which, the war could have easily been handled by the nations that were actually at war with the Axis. We just joined because our president wanted a war for war's sake, the same was true for the first world war. We needlessly wasted american lives involving ourselves in something that we shouldn't have been involved with in the first place.

[WolverineDG]

112. The Chinese & Koreans thank you for making them irrelevant, Neville

:eyes:

And until the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, an embargo was likely all we were going to do in either theater of war.

As for the Brits & the French "easily handling" the war with the Axis, ARE.YOU.FUCKING.KIDDING.ME??????

Britain was on its last legs, the French had already caved. The Russians were holding their own, but really wanted & needed the western front to be a bit more active than it was until June 6, 1944.

I also don't consider any American life lost during WWII to have been "needlessly wasted." Without their sacrifice, our world today would be a much different, and darker place.

dg

[Joe Fields]

96. Oh, for god's sake.

[hack89]

111. And why did we impose an embargo in the first place?

does the violent invasion and occupation of China come to mind? The embargo was to save lives.

[HEyHEY]

77. We should also have an official "argue about the Nanjing massacre" thread

[begin_within]

79. OK. Japan deserved Hiroshima and Nagasaki for what they did to China.

I'm sorry about all the civilian casualties and all that, but I still hate Japan for the Nanjing Massacre and Unit 731. And they've never apologized to anyone, and even have a small monument to Unit 731! When I think about that I'm glad Japan was punished in a big way. Though WWII and the Sino-Jap war were not directly related, at least Japan got some comeuppance. Too bad Ishii and the real criminals didn't get it though.

[HEyHEY]

81. They still allow textbooks denying the Massacre too.

[Bonobo]

89. That is simply not true.

http://www.wellesley.edu/Polisci/wj/China/Nanjing/nanjing3.html

[HEyHEY]

91. Yes, pardon me, I meant downplay the massacre

[Bonobo]

92. Not going to argue with you, but it is a vast difference.

They admit to slaughtering 200,000 people and in some textbooks, more.

I don't think it is as big a lie as the US convincing all its citizens, even the "left wingers' that Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Vietnam, etc. were all for the good of saving the world.

Talk about bullshit stacked deep.

[HEyHEY]

97. The chinese say around 3 million were killed

Nanjing is a big arsed mess.

[Bonobo]

98. They are probably both exaggerating.

Wouldn't that be the likely truth?

It took Nazis years to kill millions. It ain't that easy. It's an industrial job.

[NutmegYankee]

99. Took years because they had to hide and dispose of the bodies.

A random slaughter however takes mere weeks. Rwanda for instance...

[Bonobo]

100. Oh, good point. nt

[Statistical]

106. Starvation is an effective killer.

The Soviets killed couple million in Ukraine in a single year (with very little effort).

Japanese troops routinely burned fields, and killed livestock. This wasn't the actions of a few rouge soliders it was an deliberate systematic extermination very similar to what the Nazi did. The only difference was the method and reason. The Japanese wanted the land to expand a Japanese empire. Chinese weren't really humans (at least not on the level of Japenese people) and were talking up valuable land. Extermination to make room for Japanese colonies was an accepted public policy.

With food supply greatly diminished mother nature takes care of the rest especially when you consider the multiplying effect of malnutrition with poor sanitation as a result of ongoing war effort and destruction of infrastructure.

[HEyHEY]

115. Yeah, likely

Let's face it the Chinese government ain't exactly known for being honest.

[verges]

86. The thread? Certainly justified.

This argument comes up every year. Beginning this thread a few days early is completly justified.

[Warren DeMontague]

87. If there hadn't been a World War II, it never would have happened.

Feel free to follow the chain of blame and consequences and draw your own conclusions.

[era veteran]

95. Good one Tater

I, not being God am not sure. I don't like the deaths of anyone much.

[old mark]

101. Yes, it was. Yes, it saved lives...the Japanese didn't surrender till days after the

SECOND bomb destroyed Nagasaki, and even then there was resistance and a last minute attempt by Japanese officers to stop the surrender and fight to the death of every last person in Japan. Look at the casualty figures as the US got closeer to the Japanese home islands - on some like Iwo Jima, nearly every Japanese soldier died rather than surrender, and many of the civilians committed suicide after killing their children.

Estimates of a half-million dead,just US troops,and an invasion that would have lasted into the 1950's argue that the bomb saved lives.

mark

[AzDar]

105. Hey... they started it.

;)

[county worker]

109. I was born in May of 1946. In all the years that I have listened to this debate I have learned that

no one ever changes their mind on it.

The one thing I can say is that it happened and I hope it never happens again. My dad was in training for the invasion of Japan at Fort Riley Kansas when my mom went to visit him. He had spent four years in Europe fighting the Nazis and because of the bomb he did not have to fight in Japan. I was conceived on my mom's visit to Ft Riley.

We will never know how things would have turned out without the bomb being dropped. We do know what was being planned and based on the past 10 years we had a pretty good idea what the outcomes would have been.

I don't take seriously the postings of people here at DU who had no skin in the game back then. It's just too easy to take some moral high ground not having to deal with what the world had to deal with from 1936 to 1945.

[WinkyDink]

114. I have changed my mind over the years.

[inna]

110. It was one of the greatest crimes against humanity ever committed.

[krispos42]

116. How could we not?

How could any President or any military leader, after nearly four years of total war, after seeing the state of warfare change drastically since 1939, after seeing air raids kill tens of thousands in a single city in a single night... how could they not do it? How could Truman not use the nuclear bombs to bring the war to a screeching halt?

Americans were furious with Japan after Pearl Harbor. The Japanese were, after all, of an inferior race and a backwards country... how DARE they take us on! And how DARE they win victory after victory in the Pacific after sucker-punching us on Oahu!

I think that was a big part of it... the Japanese attacks and victories, and then their never-say-surrender warrior culture, made them a formidable enemy. And the soldiers, sailors, and Marines that had to fight their human-wave attacks, their die-gloriously-for-the-emperor suicide attacks, and their nearly universal no-surrender attitude made seeing them as anything but ruthless unstoppable killing machines impossible. They also had to see the sheer brutality with the way the Japanese dealt with civilians ("comfort women") and POWs (slave labor, target practice) also meant that the combat Americans didn't have a whole lot of compassion available... it was way to likely to get you killed.

Also, this was Total War. Not a police action or a humanitarian mission. And we didn't have overwhelming military superiority. It was a battle to the death between two nations of comperable military power. And under such circumstances the line between civilian and military populations gets very blurry, for nearly everything the civilian population does in some way supports the nation's war effort. For example, over 30,000 civilian merchant marine sailors were killed in the Battle of the Atlantic during World War Two by German U-boats.

Nowadays, with overwhelming US military superiority and super-advanced, high-precision surveillence and guided weapons, we can reasonably expect minimal civilian causalties to achieve military victory. We don't need 50 B-24s dropping unguided bombs from thousands of feet u[ to try to maybe hit a train depot. We need one (1) B-52 with a couple of dozen 2,000-pound GPS-guided bombs with accuracy of about 10 feet.

[slackmaster]

119. Less Filling!

:popcorn:

[LWolf]

120. Wholesale obliteration of life and environmental destruction

cannot be justified.

[Urban Prairie]

121. Would the Japanese have used the A Bomb

If they had developed it first?

I think they would just as the Germans under Hitler definitely would have.