Posted on 08/06/2015 8:52:11 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
RE: What goes unsaid in these discussions is the politically IMPOSSIBLE position that deciding NOT to use the atomic bomb would have put President Truman in at the time.
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Who woulda thought that a one time small town Haberdasher could have stopped a war that killed millions with one fateful decision?
Actually, despite the supposed Japanese peace overtures via the Soviets and the likely effects of the sea blockade of Japan, he really didn’t know what would ultimately be required to compel the Japanese to lay down their arms, to surrender unconditionally. When he made the decision to drop the bomb, Operation DOWNFALL was still on.
Truman, I would argue, was duty bound to try the bombs whether or not they worked (that is, made the Japanese surrender) so that he could honestly tell the American public he had tried everything in his power to get the Japanese to surrender before ordering the Operation OLYMPIC landings (Phase 1 of DOWNFALL) scheduled for November 1945.
“The objective of warfare is to accomplish some goal (like winning the war) and then move into the future as peacefully as possible.”
I still like General Patton’s thoughts on the matter. The politicians always get in the way of total victory.
I also dislike Genghis Khan’s idea to let the women and children live so that they could breed more evil.
“You’d be surprised what sort of issues are the direct concern of the general staff. They learn to consider those sort of things in the War College. We learned to think that way once we were allowed to send officers the British Admiralty School.”
And that ‘solution’ has not worked throughout history.
Probably, but it would have been difficult for the USSR to get there in force. No big navy and their other route required crossing all of Siberia.
I am advocating warfare. Not murder.
The atom bombs NIP the JAPS in the nick of time.
That is simply not true. Britain trades with the US. The US trades with Japan. We even have a budding relationship with the Vietnamese, while the Chinese do not. The Japanese are despised by the Chinese to this day. Those who treat the defeated with dignity and respect and help them recover can meet later in friendship and trade.
The only time this hasn't worked is in the Middle East. Of course, they still remember the Crusades.
So, who on earth won the war?
Same here. My Dad's division was part of the 3rd and later the 7th armies, making the long slog across Europe from D-Day to the Ruhr Valley. He never talked much about his experiences, but did say the second-happiest day of his life was hearing the news that the bombs had fallen and the war was likely over, which would spare him and his friends another amphibious assault on enemy-held ground. So he was able to come home and marry the girl he left behind, which was the happiest day of his life.
I find it ironic that you should mention Britain. Other than 9/11 and other attempts since 9/11, Britain and Japan are the only two countries on the planet which have attacked the USA and Britain did it twice. Why are they our supposed ‘friends’?
Don’t say Mexico because Texas was not a state when Mexico attacked a then possession of Mexico.
Both Britain and Japan are countries which should be our bitter, untrustworthy enemies.
Yes, Chinese hate Japanese because they remember the Nanjing massacre and I do not blame the Chinese. The Japanese showed their brutality not only to Nanjing residents but to our troops, too, a la “The Bataan Death March”.
However, we do all have our opinions. ;-)
“No. If the intent was the indiscriminate killing of the innocent, then the means is just a technical detail. It doesn’t matter whether you kill them with incendiaries or nukes, with a bomb, abortion or a baseball bat.”
The “intent” was to strike military targets in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as destroying the Japanese will to resist. The civilian deaths were “collateral damage”. In terms of intent, the firebombings of Tokyo, Dresden and other cities were less defensible. Note that even today, there is unavoidable collateral damage in military conflict. Are our soldiers “murderers”? I think not.
(As an aside, war in biblical times was typically in many ways much more barbaric than today.)
Personally, I think the decision to drop the bombs was a good one, for reasons given many other places in this thread.
You might also want to reflect on the fact that nuclear weapons, bolstered by the effects of their actual usage, have probably saved countless millions of lives since WWII by preventing another world war.
That policy provided some guidance to the United States, resulting in keeping their emperor out of a nuclear blast.
I was answering the question "Why didn't we nuke Tokyo?", not designating our closest friends.
Thank you.
“resulting in keeping their emperor out of a nuclear blast.”
You missed my point. ;-) The emperor is the one who could have stopped/prevented the whole Pearl Harbor attack/war with the USA. That is exactly why he should have been nuked. However, because he was not nuked then he should have been hung with the rest of the war criminals and Japan should have become, as I said before, either a vast wasteland or a shallow sea. ;-)
Instead, they let him live, keep his post and prosper and later for Japan to prosper while competing with the USA on the economic/financial world level. How has Toyota/Honda, et al, helped USA automobile manufacturing?
How have Japan’s electronics and computer companies helped the USA economy?
How many USA jobs have been lost because we ‘helped’ Japan after WWII?
Politicians have always prevented total victory in all wars. Simply because Britain did it does not mean that the USA should do it. I repeat, Britain should be considered to be our enemy.
In fact, the best approach and should be the policy of the USA gov’t that we simply have no ‘friends’ in the world and treat every other country on the planet as enemies.
I never said that I agreed with the way they settled all of that. I just stated the reasons they did it they way they did.
Because, strangely enough, he was the least objectionable of all the Japanese leaders around. And it would have resulted in us being forced to bomb Japan to rubble. When the emperor died in 1989 there were a number of suicides by people who thought it was an honor to die with their emperor.
And.....why are there still Japanese who lived on the islands still alive? Why are the Japanese islands still there? Why were the Japanese islands not atom-bombed off of the planet so that they would be at worst a vast wasteland/pile-of-rubble or at best a shallow sea?
Because you do what you have to do in war and then you stop.
“Because you do what you have to do in war and then you stop.”
Please do not include me in those ‘yous’. That is not the way I would do it. I would win the war and obliterate the offensive ones off of the planet so that there would be no possible recurrence. ;-)
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