Posted on 03/12/2015 7:17:13 PM PDT by daniel1212
I'm going to comment on the ethics of nuking Japan. This is one of those perennial issues that America-bashers constantly raise. There are two extremes we need to avoid: "my country right or wrong," and "blame America first." For me the war has a personal dimension. My late father was a WWII vet who served in the Pacific theater. He was radio operator in the Air Force. His squadron conducted reconnaissance over Japan. He had some interesting stories to tell: i) He trained on B-17s in Alaska, then flew on B-29s in Florida. ii) Our pilots discovered the jet stream. They exploited the jet stream as a tailwind, making the planes fly twice as fast. The Japanese figured we must have some secret technology to make our planes so fast. iii) One time their plane crash landed on lift-off. The cause was sabotage. iv) One time he saw ball-lightning form on the outside of the plane. v) One time a window blew and the gunner was sucked out of the plane. vi) My father knew a day before that we were going to drop the A-bomb on Japan. Not because he was in the loop. He was a lowly staff sergeant. It was accidental. He and some buddies were joking with a high-ranking officer on base about dropping that new-fangled A-bomb on Japan. The officer's reaction was horrified–not because it was in bad taste, but because he was in the know. Because his facial reaction as a dead giveaway, he went ahead and told them that, as a matter of fact, they were planning to nuke Japan the very next day. Of course, my dad and his comrades were severely admonished to keep that to themselves. I'll begin by reviewing the standard argument for nuking Japan:
In World War II the Japanese military fought with a ferocity that made al-Qaeda look casual and uncommitted. In Okinawa, the Japanese hurled more than 1,000 kamikaze suicide bombers at the American fleet, and tens of thousands more kamikazes readied to defend the Japanese home islands. Japan still held huge swathes of Chinese territory, where unrelenting war and mass-scale atrocities had already cost more than 10 million Chinese lives.Just as disturbing, recent American experience in Saipan and Okinawa had illustrated the extent to which the Japanese civilian population would suffer in any further close combat. By some counts, up to one-third of the total civilian population of Okinawa died during the American invasion, many by suicide as parents killed children, then themselves, rather than fall into allied hands. At Saipan, Japanese civilians committed suicide by the hundreds — sometimes cutting their own children’s throats — persuaded by Japanese propaganda that Americans would commit unspeakable atrocities against civilians. Assuming similar behavior during an invasion, estimates of additional Japanese casualties ran into the millions — with American casualty estimates wildly varying but certainly no less than hundreds of thousands.Faced with the twin realities of inevitable Japanese defeat and staggering civilian and military casualties, the allies did the right thing: On July 26, they issued a surrender demand, the Potsdam Declaration. The Japanese rejected it, the atomic bombs followed roughly two weeks later, and the war ended.As the horror of World War II begins to fade into distant memory, it’s imperative that we not let the Left control the narrative. Already in pacifist Christian circles, I’ve seen historically illiterate professors and pundits condemn the Hiroshima bombing with greater ferocity than they condemn the rape of Nanking, much less Japan’s years-long reign of terror in China.
http://www.nationalreview.com/node/355313/print
I'll also quote a few statements by Curtis Lamay which gives an idea of how military advisers at the time viewed the conflict:
We’re at war with Japan. We were attacked by Japan. Do you want to kill Japanese, or would you rather have Americans killed?
From his autobiography, also requoted in Rhodes, 'The Making of the Atomic Bomb', p. 596
As far as casualties were concerned I think there were more casualties in the first attack on Tokyo with incendiaries than there were with the first use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The fact that it's done instantaneously, maybe that's more humane than incendiary attacks, if you can call any war act humane. I don't, particularly, so to me there wasn't much difference. A weapon is a weapon and it really doesn't make much difference how you kill a man. If you have to kill him, well, that's the evil to start with and how you do it becomes pretty secondary. I think your choice should be which weapon is the most efficient and most likely to get the whole mess over with as early as possible.
The World at War: the Landmark Oral History from the Classic TV Series , p. 574
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Curtis_LeMay
From early on he argued that, "if you are going to use military force, then you ought to use overwhelming military force. Use too much and deliberately use too much... You'll save lives, not only your own, but the enemy's too."
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/bomb/peopleevents/pandeAMEX61.html
The point isn't that we necessarily agree with him, but in assessing the morality of nuking Japan, as well as the morality of those responsible, we need to take their intentions into account–instead of simply imposing our own viewpoint onto the issue. i) There were some notable critics of the war. Eisenhower and MacArthur opposed dropping the bomb. However, Ike was a political rival who ran against the Truman administration, and MacArthur had an ax to grind with Truman. ii) The problem with alternate history is that, as a matter of fact, we never get a chance to find out how that would have played out. Since the counterfactual alternatives were never tried, we don't know how well or badly they would have fared in comparison with what we actually did. Even if successful, the alternatives would still prolong the war effort, leading to more American dead and wounded. Even in a best case scenario, how many US soldiers should we sacrifice to spare Japanese civilians? And, of course, you could have a worse-case scenario for American soldiers and Japanese civilians alike.
iii) I also expect that Hirohito had a very sheltered upbringing. That would leave him terribly out of touch with reality. It would take something spectacular to shock him into awareness. I'm reminded of The Last Emperor in the Forbidden City. True, that's China rather than Japan. But I presume that in both cases, the royal family had little exposure to the outside world, much less the modern Western world.
iv) One fresh perspective comes from John Wheeler, the renown physicist who worked on the Manhattan project:
When Wheeler learned the news, he was devastated. He blamed himself. “One cannot escape the conclusion that an atomic bomb program started a year earlier and concluded a year sooner would have spared 15 million lives, my brother Joe’s among them,” he wrote in his memoir. “I could—probably—have influenced the decision makers if I had tried.”
http://nautil.us/issue/9/time/haunted-by-his-brother-he-revolutionized-physics
What's striking about Wheeler's lament is that he essentially reframes the discussion. He thinks we should have dropped the bomb sooner! He laments the fact that we didn't develop it faster and deployed it sooner so that we could have ended the war earlier. The sooner WWII ended, the more lives that would save for all parties concerned.
Moreover, that seems to shift the hypothetical to possibly dropping the bomb on Germany. At least for starters.
How many were killed Fire Bombing Tokyo and Dresden?
Dead is dead, no matter how they were killed.
Those two Democrats, FDR and Truman really hated the Japs. FDR imprisons Japanese American Citizens and Truman Nukes Japanese Nationals.
That is the universal consensus here, vs liberal sites and media.
So many were made that no more were needed to be made until the first Gulf War, and even then the only reason they had to make more (they bought another 9,000) was because the government had lost track of where they were stored and couldn't find them.
There was a point in between when the government had them cleaned and re-ribboned because of their age.
95% of Americans don’t know the real decision chain that really pushed the USA to drop the bomb, and here is the short version:
The Potsdam Declaration involved Churchill, FDR and Stalin, and part of the agreement required that after Hitler defeat within some increment of time the Soviets would aid in the fall of Japan.
The allies could see there was an on-going Soviet land-grab in Eastern Europe —that Stalin almost certainly would not simply leave after Hitler’s final defeat. They realized that heavy Soviet aid in the fall of Japan would likely result in a divided Japan —an Eastern version of what befell Germany, with a half-century division of the whole country, a Berlin airlift, etc., etc.
In other words, a Japanese version EXACTLY what we see to this day in the divided Koreas:
An accelerated US victory would provide a much greater chance of totally excluding Stalin from Japan, which is how it played out (aside from the loss of Sakalin and some minor islands immediately north of Hokkaido).
There were military and moral questions that came into play in the Atomic Bombings, but in the end the most compelling factors came from international POLITICS.
You’re probably never going to read this again.
Sound reasoning all. Which is scorned by those who swallow liberal fantasy about the nature of man and means of dealing with it. Likewise they condemn Biblical wars.
Maranatha!
Not only, but was reported to say (profanity excised), "We are going to have to fight them sooner or later.... Why not do it now while our army is intact and the damn Russians can have their hind end kicked back into Russia in three months? We can do it easily with the German troops we have if we just arm them and take them with us."
Not to mention that American soldiers were extremely eager to get home ASAP. They had no illusions about the romance of war by that point, they were just glad to be alive.
Indeed, The Poles would have helped, but in reality it likely was too late. FDR should have only helped the Soviets enough to keep Germany from advancing, the people from starving.
And conservative Christians will board the next shuttle to Venus.
I am probably alive because of the Bomb.
My father was in the Navy and was crew chief on a PBY. They were pretty slow aircraft compared to a zero. They probably would have been sent to pick up downed pilots or do reconnaissance in the invasion of Japan. He had orders and was 2 weeks from shipping out to Okinawa when the bomb was dropped. My uncle was a marine and not so lucky. He survived but only after Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Tarawa, and if my mother remembered correctly, Palau.
In time they might be issued to liberal who felt persecuted by fellow soldiers.
A very reasonable addition to the reasons at least. But they fed the Bear too much before that.
We usually see this sort of thing in August or thereabouts.
Certainly see the contrast here versus liberal forums!
My grandfather joined the Marines in 43, a few months after his first wife died. After completing training he was assigned to the 6th Marine Division and landed on D-Day at Okinawa. He was 35 years old when he waded ashore.
When historians estimate the loss of civilian life at Okinawa there should be adding a footnote or two. First Okinawan culture was still distinct from Japanese culture at the time of the battle. Evidence of this comes from a tale my grandfather told of capturing some Japanese soldiers hiding among the Okinawan populace. He was alerted of their presence by the Okinawans. Second, about half the island was undefended. A sizable portion of Okinawan civilians did not evacuate behind the infamous Surri line and were “captured” by the Marines assigned to take the north end of the island. Keep this in mind when you hear about civilian deaths of about one third of the population. Now extrapolate that to what would have happened on the main islands of Japan, where every inch would have been contested. It is difficult to imagine.
Americans rarely talk about the British contribution to the battle. Many British ships (English, Australian and New Zealand flagged) took part and were attacked by kamikaze along with the America fleet.
Further, Churchill committed the Empire to the invasion of Honshu, Operation Olympia, along with the Americans. Britain estimated they would suffer about 500,000 casualties. This is on top of the estimated 1,000,000 American dead, missing and wounded. Japanese casualties would have been horrific.
The NappyOne
I really don’t understand your response.
Please clarify. I’m a bit slow on the uptake tonight.
BTW - What time does the Shuttle to Venus leave?
I haven’t packed a thing.
Thank God. Sad that so many died however, but wars as this were and are necessary. But now, in fighting against God then liberal America has made itself a loser.
True, but it was posted today on a forum i happened to look at, and has resulted in many insightful intelligent comments.
It's a great pity that when the odd bit of liberal thinking seeps through it's mostly on the RF! The last place it should be!
Still...best site by far!
My Dad served in the South Pacific as a Signalman in the Navy during WWII.
He served on a Sub Chaser, a Destroyer and a Military Tug that recovered beached Landing Craft off Okinawa during the Invasion.
He turns 92 Next Week.
What i meant was that just as FDR ordered the interment of Jap-Americans due to the threat they potential posed, liberal elites see conservatives as an even greater threat to the utopia they imagine they are creating (at the ex$pense of others), with themselves alone reigning as demigods.
Thus if they would like to place us on Venus, while in reality they progressively work even more to penalize and silence such by other means.
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