Talking about projected casualties from invasion vs. casualties from the bombs is not an argument for or against the decision that was made. That discussion is called "lessons learned;" and it would seem we've all learned a lot since not a single one has been dropped on any other people since.
― TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 14:17 (seventeen years ago) link
― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 14:21 (seventeen years ago) link
― M. White (Miguelito), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 14:25 (seventeen years ago) link
tom i was under the impression that a- and h-bombs aren't being dropped/fired because of strategic wargame type issues, rather than a firm moral resolve that melting the flesh off children is not "the done thing" any more.
― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 14:30 (seventeen years ago) link
Plus it's bluff anyway since the abundant natural resources in the Middle East in general make nuking an economic no-no.
― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 14:32 (seventeen years ago) link
The reason why this debate occurs is that the answer to what Truman believed to be true is inaccessible. The fact that he said he believed it is not enough, since we all know that in such matters any leader would willingly lie about his motives. In light of this, there is no answer to this debate and can't be. Even hindsight is not always 20/20.
― Aimless (Aimless), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 14:35 (seventeen years ago) link
xpost
― M. White (Miguelito), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 14:37 (seventeen years ago) link
― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 14:38 (seventeen years ago) link
and as stated various times, "more died in tokyo" -- but anyway what's *your* estimate of US fatalities in an invasion of japan? if not half-a-million, perhaps a quarter-of-a-million. would a US president destroy a japanese city to prevent this? in mid-1945 yes he certainly would. innocent japanese and germans died in greater numbers for less direct purposes.
― EARLY-90S MAN (Enrique), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 14:39 (seventeen years ago) link
How fortunate for you that your parents/grandparents were not Japanese civilians. How unfortunate for the Japanese civilians that "we" learned a lesson at their expense.
To paraphrase the character of William Parcher in "A Beautiful Mind" (one of the characters imagined by John Forbes Nash), your conviction, it turns out, is a luxury that can only be enjoyed by those on the sidelines.
I still feel that the link Tom posted is completely relevant to the thread, it's just that I see it as one that undermines the entire premise that the bombs were necessary to end the war.
― shorty (shorty), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 14:41 (seventeen years ago) link
― EARLY-90S MAN (Enrique), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 14:43 (seventeen years ago) link
― TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 14:45 (seventeen years ago) link
― TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 14:47 (seventeen years ago) link
Of course no one has an answer to this, nor do I need one. Since Truman is the one for whom "the buck stops here", and it was his decision that caused this debate, I believe the heavier burdon of proof to fall on the "yes" decision. Albert Einstein "said that he was sure that President Roosevelt would have forbidden the atomic bombing of Hiroshima had he been alive". So why is it that everyone wants to believe Truman's motives but not those of others like Eisenhower, Leahy, MacArthur, Zsilard and Einstein?
― shorty (shorty), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 14:56 (seventeen years ago) link
― EARLY-90S MAN (Enrique), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 14:58 (seventeen years ago) link
― TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 15:00 (seventeen years ago) link
Exactly! MacArthur was anything but peace loving, and even he was opposed to the use of the bombs. Since he was in charge of the Pacific war, and subsequently Japan's occupation, I find his opinion on the matter to be highly relevant.
― shorty (shorty), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 15:03 (seventeen years ago) link
you really need to read Rise of the Vulcans! Armitage is a piece of work all right, but he comes of positively rosy compared to the rest of that generation. thousands of Vietnamese owe him their lives, personally, post-Saigon
― geoff (gcannon), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 15:07 (seventeen years ago) link
Why FDR made unconditional surrender his policy and why, apparently, Truman followed it, is something I never can quite fathom.
― M. White (Miguelito), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 15:13 (seventeen years ago) link
I agree with your statement M. Ironic that "we" allowed them to retain the Emperor after dropping the bombs anyhow.
― shorty (shorty), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 15:19 (seventeen years ago) link
Supporters also point to an order given by the Japanese War Ministry on August 1, 1944. The order dealt with the disposal and execution of all Allied POWs, numbering over 100,000, if an invasion of the Japanese mainland took place.[36] It is also likely that, considering Japan's previous treatment of POWs, were the Allies to wait out Japan and starve it, the Japanese would have killed all Allied POWs and Chinese prisoners.
Father John A. Siemes, professor of modern philosophy at Tokyo's Catholic University, and an eyewitness to the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima wrote:
"We have discussed among ourselves the ethics of the use of the bomb. Some consider it in the same category as poison gas and were against its use on a civil population. Others were of the view that in total war, as carried on in Japan, there was no difference between civilians and soldiers, and that the bomb itself was an effective force tending to end the bloodshed, warning Japan to surrender and thus to avoid total destruction. It seems logical to me that he who supports total war in principle cannot complain of war against civilians."[37]
Japanese government did not decide what terms, beyond preservation of an imperial system, they would have accepted to end the war; as late as August 9, the Supreme War Council was still split, with the hard-liners insisting Japan should demobilize its own forces, no war crimes trials would be conducted, and no occupation of Japan would be allowed. Only the direct intervention of the emperor ended the dispute, and even then a military coup was attempted to prevent the surrender.
One of the most notable individuals with this opinion was then-General Dwight D. Eisenhower. He wrote in his memoir The White House Years:
"In 1945 Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. 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."[47][48] Other U.S. military officers who disagreed with the necessity of the bombings include General Douglas MacArthur (the highest-ranking officer in the Pacific Theater), Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy (the Chief of Staff to the President), General Carl Spaatz (commander of the U.S. Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific), and Brigadier General Carter Clarke (the military intelligence officer who prepared intercepted Japanese cables for U.S. officials),[48] Major General Curtis LeMay,[49] and Admiral Ernest King, U.S. Chief of Naval Operations, Undersecretary of the Navy Ralph A. Bard,[50] and Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet.[51]
Curtis Le May??!!
Others have argued that the U.S. should have waited a short time to gauge the effect of the Soviet Union's entry into the war. The U.S. knew, as Japan did not, that the Soviet Union had agreed to declare war on Japan three months after V-E Day, and the Soviets did indeed attack Japanese forces in Manchuria, Sakhalin Island, and the Kuril Islands on August 8, 1945. This represented the loss of any possibility that the Soviet Union would serve as a neutral mediator for a negotiated peace, as well as the entry into combat of the Red Army, the largest active army in the world. Because no U.S. invasion was immediately imminent, it is argued that the U.S. had nothing to lose by waiting several days to see whether these events would convince Japan to surrender without use of the atom bomb. Historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's research has led him to conclude that the atomic bombings themselves were not even the principal reason for capitulation. Instead, he contends, it was the swift and devastating Soviet victories in Manchuria that forced the Japanese surrender on August 15, 1945.[54]
― M. White (Miguelito), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 15:25 (seventeen years ago) link
Your intelligence is staggering Timbit. So I disagree with you, with research and citations, and that makes me "a goddamed fucking idiot (that) aught to learn to read".
I would say that your childishness simply proves my points, but that would not be fair to those that disagree with me but use rational discourse and research to do so.
― shorty (shorty), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 15:35 (seventeen years ago) link
Sherman justified his brutalizing of the South by implying that it would shorten the war and thus actually minimize the final Southern tally of suffering and a man like Le May did very much the same with regard to his approach in Asia, though he did admit that, had the U.S. lost, he fully expected to be tried as a war criminal. Without 20/20 hindsight, it's vey hard to gauge how one's decisions will affect the future, and strangely, whether a leader depends on popularity, aquiescence or elections, he or she must sometimes pay attention to popular grievances in formulating the policies of war and peace - see Koizumi and the shrine (I have seen the ugly side of Japanese nationalism with their strident flags and bullhorns in the streets of Tokyo) or Truman's echo of the angry and often racist sentiment of 40's American men on the street to beat the hell out of 'the Japs', and to merely say that they should hold themselves to higher standards is, though sometimes commendable, sometimes terribly easy when the actual responsibility doesn't actually weigh upon one's shoulders.
― M. White (Miguelito), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 15:47 (seventeen years ago) link
You're an absolute fool and I'll not repeat myself any further on this thread. You infuriate me with your pompously worded and completely, COMPLETELY redundant additions to this thread. You are in no way genuinely interested in discussing the topic or perusing what's already been said long ago because you came here to make incredibly dull observations about the sanctity of human life and fell self-righteous. You're actually a pretty terrible excuse for a sentient being and I am sick of reading posts by people like you. Fuck off and die.
M. White: OTM.
― TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 15:50 (seventeen years ago) link
M, once again I can agree with your statement. As one who has also studied 'clio's craft', I know that it is unfair for me to use Western 21st century values to judge a person who was in control of one of the most powerful nations 60 years ago. However, what I can do is read the opinions of his contemporaries and do my best to objectively (not possible, I know) use that information as if they were a jury of his peers, so to speak.
― shorty (shorty), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 16:05 (seventeen years ago) link
― TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 16:11 (seventeen years ago) link
-- TOMBOT (tombo...), September 27th, 2006.
It really shouldn't be this way, but you can't begin to imagine how much it pleases me that I have infuriated such an apparently belligerent person as you Tom.
I also simply can't resist pointing out the humour in the following statement: completely, COMPLETELY redundant additions to this thread That's hilarious man! Well said.
It's also funny that you claim that I have brought nothing to the conversation, yet it is you that is ranting and swearing.
So Tom, admit it. You're also one of those who still thinks the weapons of mass destruction will be found in Iraq aren't ya.
― shorty (shorty), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 16:19 (seventeen years ago) link
― gear (gear), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 16:19 (seventeen years ago) link
― Mr. Que (Mr.Que), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 16:24 (seventeen years ago) link
I completely agree gear.
― shorty (shorty), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 16:25 (seventeen years ago) link
― M. White (Miguelito), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 16:26 (seventeen years ago) link
― TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 16:28 (seventeen years ago) link
So does he just need to tip a few right now then?
― shorty (shorty), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 16:28 (seventeen years ago) link
― M. White (Miguelito), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 16:38 (seventeen years ago) link
That explains a whole lot.
Having any luck with that drink recipe yet M? ;)
― shorty (shorty), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 17:14 (seventeen years ago) link
― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 18:13 (seventeen years ago) link
um, if roosevelt allowed the bomb to be made in the first place why would he have forbidden it to be used against a country we were still at war with?
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 18:13 (seventeen years ago) link
― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 18:15 (seventeen years ago) link
*Yawn*
― M. White (Miguelito), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 18:19 (seventeen years ago) link
― Young Fresh Danny D (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 18:20 (seventeen years ago) link
Seriously, why are you people even talking to this person? I'm completely floored.
― Allyzay lives aprox. 200 feet away from a stadium (allyzay), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 18:29 (seventeen years ago) link
― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 18:34 (seventeen years ago) link
― Allyzay lives aprox. 200 feet away from a stadium (allyzay), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 18:36 (seventeen years ago) link
― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 18:39 (seventeen years ago) link
Squirrel, don't you have any huffing to do?
― M. White (Miguelito), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 18:40 (seventeen years ago) link
― mookieproof (mookieproof), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 18:42 (seventeen years ago) link
http://www.bookmice.net/darkchilde/japan/japan/bonds1.jpg
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 18:47 (seventeen years ago) link
xposts
I wonder if there's was a war stamp discount on larger amounts? Maybe, 60 bullets for $1.00.
― M. White (Miguelito), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 18:48 (seventeen years ago) link
― TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 18:51 (seventeen years ago) link
― TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 18:53 (seventeen years ago) link