The Atomic Bomb: It Was Always Right

Townhall.com ^ | August 2, 2014 | Larry Provost

[Jim Noble]

If you don’t like war, don’t start one

Hamas has (repeatedly) declared war on Israel. Last year, they announced that they would open "the Gates of Hell" to allow Israel to be destroyed.

OK.

The cure for this is not a cease fire.

The cure is to give them the war they crave, and give it to them until they don't want it any more.

[Sparklite]

“After Germany bombed Pearl, Japan then declared war on us.”

Was that when John Belushi was president?

[Vendome]

Don’t start one with America, at least.

Unless you are of such high moral understanding that losing your position and maybe your life would be good for your fellow country men, since the USA loves to kick ass, as we send them some U.S. Male and afterward we’ll smile, buy the survivors drinks and ask “Hey, can we just get along now?” And then we rebuild the place.

[Vendome]

One bomb to turn the place into Dresden seems more efficient than sending thousands of planes to do it and lose thousands of Americans.

[Dilbert San Diego]

What is the alternative to X and Y that I am obviously missing? It seems to me that X was dropping the bombs, which we did, and Y would have been a conventional invasion of Japan. What was Z; what was the other alternative to bring the war to a conclusion?

[Vendome]

They weren’t yellow anymore after we dropped the bomb.

We turned em charcoal gray....

[tiger63]

Had not the A bomb been used and the invasion which was already planned to begin with MacArthur in charge. Most of us elder folks, their would be children and grandchildren would not exist the fathers to be would have been killed. Of course some of these bleeding heart liberals and “feel gooders” would not be around either and that would have been a plus.

War is messy and many die, including women and children. Nations need to think hard before starting a conflict. The result is never good and never has been.

[Vendome]

Thought he was the U.N. ambassador but, you may be right...

[TigersEye]

Thanks. Those were three of the most famous examples but I believe there were many others like them.

[noinfringers2]

I read your critique and wonder where were you and what was your war standing as to use of the bombs. I was up front on Leyte preparing to get the job(end of the war) done.

[xone]

I think they stand out because Japan could not win when they were fought. We had everything we needed during them, although during Peleliu and Iwo, fast attack carriers left the scene early reducing the numbers and types of aircraft suited for close support. Likely because of the impending Okinawa op and the fact that the defenses would have to be reduced by the artilleryman, engineer and finally the infantryman. I guess they were too stupid to see that had they remained, the Japanese would have been ‘easily’ rooted out by their actions.

[MHGinTN]

Their Magic Thinking prevents them from reasoning things through.

[SpeakerToAnimals]

I had a history teacher at a high school tell me we fought the Germans, not the Japanese in WWII. Sad.

[TalBlack]

“Mass murder is never right. Just BC we were in the winning side is not an excuse for not holding war crimes.”

As far as I can tell war IS mass murder. Slaughter. Butchery. Killing is killing.

[21twelve]

Firebombing of German cities too. The deaths from the firebombings over the years killed far more civilians than the two bombs did.

The story is that an Allied bomb hit the barn of some farm near a German factory. That gave Hitler the excuse to send his V2 to London, as we had started attacking “civilians”. Not sure how true it is.

After the fighting on Okinawa(?), with Japanese civilians killing themselves, and military fighting to the death, many thought it would be the same on Japan. Lots of dead on both sides. But mainly Japanese.

[BulletBobCo]

Bookmarked

[TigersEye]

Iwo Jima was shelled by air and naval bombardment for three days covering the entire island and yet we still had 26,000 American casualties, including 6,800 dead. It’s hard to imagine that a single ant could have survived the bombardment but the Japanese did and fought like hell for 35 days.

[Alberta's Child]

Your post goes to a very basic point about the whole debate over the apparent "two courses of action" available to the U.S. in 1945.

The argument that "the U.S. had to drop atomic bombs on Japan because an invasion of the Japanese mainland would have cost [thousand/millions/etc.] of lives of U.S. military personnel" is predicated on the assumption that an invasion of the Japanese mainland would have been necessary, or even a legitimate option at all.

I contend that there is a very unhealthy relationship between a citizen and his government when you have millions of servicemen who are willing to engage in this kind of military action just because some @ssholes in Washington, D.C. think it's a good idea. There is no principle of liberty in a free nation that would ever compel someone to follow orders like this without even being reflective about what was really at stake.

There's a reason why the same "Greatest Generation" that fought World War II oversaw the subsequent military debacles in Korea and (even worse) Vietnam, and was part and parcel of the moral and social collapse of America that began in the 1960s. Most of the leadership from that "Greatest Generation" was anything but.

[PieterCasparzen]

A comparison to a Roman siege is absurd. It wouldn’t have been the siege of an army it would have been the siege of an entire nation. In the meantime, as their population died from mass starvation and rampant disease, they would have continued work on their own atomic bomb.

Siege of a blockaded island nation.

They were farming, their rice paddies were not bombed.

Just think if civilian cities were not bombed, civilians could go on with life normal except for rationing. Without the massive air attacks on civilian centers, there would be no particular reason for a rise in disease. They would have had no way to leave port, had no airplanes as the last of the kamakazis crashed. Every airfield runway bombed. The areas around the airfields could be swept clear of equipment by air power. Any reconstruction activity at airfields, bomb it.

Airplanes need runways to take off from.

Strafing and bombing their air forces on the ground.

Instead of thousands of bombers, build thousands more fighters and small ground attack bombers. With over 20 Essex class carriers, we could have kept whole fleets surrounding Japan, nothing in, nothing out. Gradually sweep the nation clear of all anti-aircraft arms. Could take 20 years, but would cost very few lives.

To take the small islands, you put all your forces to the task of one island, massive overwhelming force.

Which, of course, is our present doctrine.

Common sense, why risk lives on your own side when you can present massive overwhelming force at one key point. You just move from key point to key point, annihilating organized military operations and command and control.

Once the civilians realize their military is gone, they happily surrender.

This is how our last few operations have been conducted; we did not play cat and mouse and drag out the whole thing. The drag out nowadays is accomplished by a 10-year occupation of the country after the war proper is long over.

The civilian population simply needs time to think in a case where leaders won't surrender but the war is lost. Waiting is necessary. As months go by and they contemplate their next move and realize they don't have one; they realize they can't inflict any harm on the besieging forces, the siege will never end, they will simply be a neutered, cut off country until they surrender. It may take 20 years of that, but sometimes, waiting is what is needed. I think the Japanese nation would at some point have had a moment of satori, had we taken that somewhat eastern tactic of "waiting" and denied them the brave suicidal death of a final struggle for their soldiers, while also avoiding mass civilian casualties.

The concept of "total war" is a very 20th century, new world order, concept, and it's main purpose is to influence the public mindset by having the threat of total war hanging over the heads of the population.

[Pelham]

“It would have been long-term but very inexpensive, especially in terms of American lives.”

A long-term fight would have seemed very expensive to the American GIs who were killed or maimed doing the fighting.

The American casualty rate in August 1945 was running 7,000 a week. Just 12 more weeks of war would have generated 84,000 American casualties, about equal to that of Hiroshima alone.

The Japanese fought harder as the war approached the home islands. In Okinawa civilians had been recruited to fight and they committed mass suicide as the island was conquered. American war planners understood that the fight for the home islands would be even more intense and the casualty rate would be even higher.

“There was no urgency to any ground invasion.”

And this is known to you how, exactly?

“Japan could have been blockaded at that point and the rest of its air forces and naval forces destroyed.”

This was the situation at Okinawa. I suggest that you read up on the fight for Okinawa and see how “easy” that went despite the Japanese being cut off from supplies.

“It was all over, but the Japanese war lords would not recommend surrender yet.”

I read an interesting article in the Rafu Shimpo on one of the atomic bomb anniversaries, it might have been the 50th. The day after Hiroshima the Emperor convened his war council. To discuss surrender? Of course not. He wanted to know how soon Japan could have its own bomb to drop on the American invaders.

But the Nagasaki bomb took the air out of this bravado. The Japanese had no idea of how many bombs that we had but figured out that the first one wasn’t a fluke. And that we would keep dropping them until we ran out or reloaded. Fortunately for all involved the Emperor and his warlords saw the light once it appeared to them in the form of mushroom clouds and they surrendered, something unimaginable only days before.