Posted on 08/06/2015 8:52:11 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Please see my post # 23.
what about the war with Japan was not finished by Truman’s action?
The US strategy was not to engage in a total war and not to seek the total destruction of Japan, but to use precision application of force to make the Japanese military regime surrender, and then use McArthur and western advisors to finally open Japan to the west and reconstitute Japan’s government and economy.
This was an effective end to the war. Since 1946 the US-Japanese alliance has served both of our nations to contain China and Russia and preserve western (and Japanese) interests in the western Pacific
The Purple Hearts awarded today were made for the estimated casualties from the invasion of Honshu. We will probably never run out.
“When your own top military officer, who has lived and studied among your proposed enemy (Yammamoto) says you can’t win the war ... maybe listening to him would be a good idea.”
Isn’t it interesting how much trouble we took to take him out?
(See my perpetual tagline)
Please compare and contrast the atomic bombing of two cities, and the incendiary bombing of over two dozen cities. Do you see any moral distinction between, let us say, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and the incendiary bombing of Tokyo?
Actually I believe there were 2 bombs, a list of 6 industrial targets, and Hiroshima had the best weather for a mission on August 6
So does that justify dropping the a-bomb on civilians? Unfortunately, yes. When the Allies found themselves in a war against two foes who had murdered millions of innocents and would gladly murder many millions more, their hearts became hardened. I would think that would be the natural result of any people engaged in a war with ruthless enemies. Kill or be killed.
How could the leaders of America justify one hundred thousand more dead servicemen because they invaded Japan (and killed many more enemy civilians than died from the atomic blasts) instead of dropping the bombs?
Again, the Allies found themselves in war against foes who wanted to annihilate them. Their response had to be as equally or more ruthless.
“Since 1946 the US-Japanese alliance has served both of our nations to contain China and Russia and preserve western (and Japanese) interests in the western Pacific”
While I agree that what you say is true, had the second part of my ‘plan’ had been carried out then we would not have had to worry about Russia nor China.
“This was an effective end to the war.”
Except perhaps for the weak prosecution of their war criminals afterwards.
The U.S. killed more civilians in the firebombing of Tokyo than in the attacks on Hiroshima or Nagasaki. But nobody condemns them for that.
“The Purple Hearts awarded today were made for the estimated casualties from the invasion of Honshu. We will probably never run out.”
OK, thanks, but perhaps you responded to the wrong post?
Just read Richard Frank’s book “Downfall”, it covers the last several months of the Pacific War and goes into detail everything. We had to drop the Bomb.
One wasn’t enough. It took two.
Compare the death toll and damage from conventional and fire bombs dropped on Germany to that of the final 2 atomic bombs dropped on Japan
From Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo
The US Strategic Bombing Survey later estimated that nearly 88,000 people died in this one raid, 41,000 were injured, and over a million residents lost their homes. The Tokyo Fire Department estimated a higher toll: 97,000 killed and 125,000 wounded.
And this from Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki
In August 1945, during the final stage of the Second World War, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The two bombings, which killed at least 129,000 people, remain the only use of nuclear weapons for warfare in history.
....”I don’t think we have anything to apologize for and should not be doing so”....
Exactly!.....Japan started it with the bombing of Pearl Harbour, killed two thousand five hundred Americans injured another one thousand so lets not forget that....
.....Did Japan care when they were killing hundreds of people in the war?.... Have they said sorry? ...
We were right right to drop the bomb, it stopped the war all over Asia....Had to be done it was the only way to stop them.... Even ‘after the first bomb’ was dropped they didn’t give up.
Yes, that’s correct.
...”The notion that good ends justify evil means is a moral theory condemned”...
Ummm...
God command the extermination/genocide of the Canaanites, women and children included...... God did not order the extermination of these people to be cruel, but rather to prevent even greater evil from occurring in the future.
In 1 Samuel 15:2-3, God commanded Saul and the Israelites,.....
“This is what the LORD Almighty says:..... ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”
God knew what the results would be if Israel did not completely eradicate the Amalekites. If Israel did not carry out God’s orders, the Amalekites would come back to “haunt” the Israelites again and again.
God ordered similar things when the Israelites were invading the promised land.... (Deuteronomy 2:34; 3:6; 20:16-18)
....to the Canaanites, God commanded,...... “However, in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them — the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites — as the LORD your God has commanded you...... Otherwise,..... they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the LORD your God” .....(Deuteronomy 20:16-18).
The atomic weapons used on Japan were fission bombs. Yields of about 15 and 20 thousand tons (20KT) of explosive apiece.
A Hydrogen bomb, or fusion weapon, such as the weapon tested on Bikini Atoll had a yield of 15 million tons (15MT) of explosives. That is an explosive power a thousand times greater than the atom bombs used on Japan. The Bikini Atoll test vaporized only a small part of the island and created a modest size crater. You can't flatten whole islands with atomic weapons.
Even after the second mushroom cloud, there was still a faction in the Japanese military that refused to say “Uncle”.
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