Hiroshima: What would you have done?

[T_i_B]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1539275,00.html

The 60th anniversary of the dropping of the first atomic bomb falls a week today. The occasion will be marked by a torrent of prose from those who regard the destruction of Hiroshima and of Nagasaki three days later as "war crimes", forever attaching shame to those who ordered them.

By contrast, there will be a plethora of dismissive comment from pundits who believe the nuclear assault saved a million allied casualties in 1945, by causing Japan to surrender without an invasion of its mainland.

Those who today find it easy to condemn the architects of Hiroshima sometimes seem to lack humility in recognising the frailties of the decision-makers, mortal men grappling with dilemmas of a magnitude our own generation has been spared.

In August 1945, amid a world sick of death in the cause of defeating evil, allied lives seemed very precious, while the enemy appeared to value neither his own nor those of the innocent. Truman's Hiroshima judgment may seem wrong in the eyes of posterity, but it is easy to understand why it seemed right to most of his contemporaries.

[Uroboros]

1. I think it's true...

..that it was mostly done as a show of force toward the Soviet Union. We knew toward the end of the war; even while the Russians were fighting on our side, that thy would be the next "enemy" we had to defeat. It's exactly the same reason the US cozied up to all those Nazi's after the war was over.

Japan wasn't going anywhere. They're a series of islands with limited resources. We could have blockaded them and they would have surrendered in short time.

[MercutioATC]

2. Wasn't Germany closer to atomics than the Soviet Union?

I think it was a pre-emptive strike to show Germany that we could just as easily hit them.

[Spinzonner]

3. Say what ?

Germany had already surrendered in May 1945.

Doesn't anyone know history anymore ?

[MercutioATC]

4. Damn. You're absolutely right. I don't know what I was thinking.

:blush:

[ptolle]

28. messages

IMO- If the nuclear strikes on Japan were intended as a message for anyone it was for the Soviet Union. I think it had become abundantly clear to the western leaders that the soviets intended to continue and broaden their hold on eastern europe, and that there'd be contention if not outright conflict for global hegemony in the years following the War.In terms of tactical or strategic needs they were unnecessary. We had the Japanese home islands bottled up and could have with minimum threat to our personnel imposed an almost total blockade.Then the question becomes whether or not Japanese casualties inflicted by a blockade would have exceeded those of the nuclear strikes.My main objection is that they made the unthinkable part of future strategic consideration.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

14. But even after 2 atomic bombs,

There was a military coup attempt when the Emperor decided to surrender. They wanted to keep fighting. And I'm pretty sure they were already blockaded - submarines sinking all kinds of shipping.

I don't agree with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but I'm also not in Truman's shoes, so it's hard to say what I would have done.

[bpilgrim]

23. they still didn't surrender till their 1 condition was agreed to, finally

what would you do if every military leader in theater at the time said they were NOT necessary and we should accept japans 1 condition in order to SAVE LIVES?

peace

[Rufus T. Firefly]

44. Great point.

That slipped my mind. We were so fixed on "unconditional surrender" we wouldn't allow them to keep the emperor...then after 2 atomic bombs we say "Okay." So in a way, they DID succeed despite the bombs.

[RamboLiberal]

46. Blockade - the U.S. Navy was paying a heavy price

from kamikaze attacks. A blockade would've been a bloody affair for the sailors on those ships.

The firebombing of Japanese cities was as horrendous as the bomb.

And the Japanese military with their Bushido code was not surrendering.

And I think what was seen in Hiroshima and Nagasaki did horrify world leaders enough that even though we came close, neither we or the Soviets used it again.

Unfortunately I really believe that restraint is wearing off here with many of these damn neocons. And that there also may be some rogue nation or terrorists who will be tempted to use the bomb or a nuclear contaminated bomb.

A couple years ago I worried that India and Pakistan came to the brink.

[LaurenG]

5. My father was in that war

He was in the Philippines trying to stay alive. He was very grateful that the war was over after that day. He never believed in attacking the population of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. His ship was hit by a Kamikaze so he had personal experience with the lengths people fighting wars would go to. He called those bombs the war enders.

[Greeby]

6. Maybe it was necessary, in the big picture

Would we all be against nuclear weapons if we hadn't seen what they do?

[T_i_B]

19. Well it is kinda amazing

that they have not been used in combat since then.

And I think that we can all hope that we never have to use them ever again, regardless of whether we think that it was for the better that they were used in 1945 or not.

[Botany]

7. The bomb saved millions of lives .......

...... although hitting Nagasaki was wrong ....


I heard a POW speak years back and he was beaten daily by one guard .....
the day after the bomb was used he said the guard wanted to be his friend.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

15. The bombs were dropped where they were for a reason.

They were going to help prepare for the invasion, because the US wasn't sure they'd surrender. And we know at least Hiroshima was bombed precisely because it hadn't been bombed before, which is rather sick.

There would have been thousands more civilian casualties if it hadn't been dropped. Civilians were being trained to attack soldiers with spears, for God's sake.

It's hard to know what the right decision was...although it's hard to defend bombing civilians with an atomic weapon. But what we did to Germany was just as bad with conventional weapons. The firebombing of Dresden was planned for high civilian deaths. First the bombing concentrated on destroying water mains, then there was a design to the incendiary bombing so there would be a firestorm.

[Igel]

8. I've known a few men that were scheduled to be in the first

and second wave of troops landing in Japan. Strictly speaking, I mostly knew their kids.

The first wave was expected to be completely destroyed; the second wave, mostly.

It's easy to sit back 60 years after the fact and say those men should have died, and their kids and grandkids never be born, so that others would have lived, and other kids/grandkids be born.

[Conservativesux]

17. Glad we dropped the bombs. Saved millions more lives then it took.

My dad would have been in the first waves to take on the mainland Japanese islands.

I am DAMN glad Truman decided to blow the hell out of the same people that were sticking sharpened bamboo sticks in human and pig fecal waste, to make sure that when they stuck a GI he would probably die of baterial infection, if not the wound.

Having said that, I am glad that Japan is in our camp now.

To you A-holes who think dropping the bombs were a mistake or wrong, go read out the warrior code of Bushido, in practice at that time.

They could not, would not give in until we made them think we could destroy them all with this new weapon.

[bpilgrim]

22. NONSENSE - imagine how many lives would have been save IF we had accepted

japan's 1 condition in the spring of 45 instead only after we ran out of nukes with the soviets on the doorstep.

i can not believe that so many folks believe NUKES save lives, NUTTS!

peace

[Captain Hilts]

25. I'd a dropped it.

I, too, know folks that were training for the invasion. Okinawa was a small taste of what invading the mainland would have been like.

I don't know about the second bomb, however. But I defintely would have dropped the first.

[bpilgrim]

9. every Military Leader in Theater then said the Bomb Wasn't NECESSARY

the japanese were defeated and suing for peace.

* In his memoirs Admiral William D. Leahy, the President's Chief of Staff--and the top official who presided over meetings of both the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Combined U.S.-U.K. Chiefs of Staff--minced few words:

(T)he use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender. . . .

(I)n being the first to use it, we . . . adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children. (THE DECISION, p. 3.)

more...
http://www.doug-long.com/ga1.htm

"Hiroshima is the 2nd most horrid word in the american lexicon succeeded only by NAGASAKI" - Kurt Vonnegut

peace

[neverforget]

43. Suing for peace? When were they suing for peace?

This doesn't sound like "suing for peace" to me:

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=17&ItemID=8229

--snip--
That question weighed on their minds when the Potsdam Declaration arrived (July 27-28), calling on them to surrender unconditionally or face immediate destruction. Yet they rejected the four-power ultimatum, feeling as former prime minister and navy "moderate," Admiral Yonai Mitsumasa, said to his secretary on July 28, "There is no need to rush."

Domestic political considerations drove Japan's decision-makers. Ultimately, what mattered most was where each of them, and the institutions they represented, stood as a result of an unconditional surrender.
--snip--

Accepting the Potsdam Declaration would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Instead, they responded with silence. It's the Japanses government who is responsible for the lives of their people. They could have ended this war at any time. Instead they chose to keep fighting and when asked to surrender, they responded with silence. They were not suing for peace.

The Japanese were a defeated people long before Hiroshima because they had no navy and their industries had been turned to rubble along with many of their cities. The responsibility for surrender was with the Japanese Government and they had every opportunity to surrender before the bombings. Instead they chose to fight on because of foolish pride and their code of honor. Most any other nation would have realized that they were beaten when their navy had ceased to exist and their opponent was bombing their cities and shelling their coastline at will.
My questions to you then are these:
Why didn't the Japanese surrender before Hiroshima?
Why didn't they accept the Potsdam Declaration instead of rejecting it?
If they were suing for peace as you state, why not accept the Potsdam Declaration?

[phantom power]

10. I don't think there's any way they would have *known* what it'd be like.

The guys who developed the bombs had seen the tests in person, but hardly anybody else had. It's one thing to hear numbers, "thus-and-such a blast radius", etc, but those bombs were so far and above anything humans had ever use before, I don't think anybody could have really gotten that magnitude of destructive power until they actually saw it in action. It's just human nature.

Regardless, I also agree with the assessment that hundreds of thousands of additional lives would have been lost (American and Japanese), if we'd have been forced to assault Japan using conventional forces and tactics.

[bpilgrim]

20. imagine how many would have been saved if we'd accepted their 1 condition

in the spring of 45?

peace

[Lydia Leftcoast]

11. I wonder if an off-shore demonstration would have been just as

effective. Supposedly, an atomic blast is pretty impressive, just as a light show.

I've heard that the U.S. dropped the Nagasaki bomb only because they were afraid the Soviets would think they had only one bomb. The idea was to keep the Soviets guessing about how many bombs they had.

By the way, Nagasaki was not the original intended target on August 9. The planes were headed for Kokura, which has since been merged into the city of Kita-Kyushu. However, Kokura was clouded over, so the pilots were told to check out Nagasaki, the first alternative target. Nagasaki was bright and clear, so their good weather doomed them. :-(

[Hell Hath No Fury]

12. That's what I have always thought...

My Mom was a teen during WWII and has always vigorously defended the use of the bomb. I have argued with her that we should have at least had some sort of display that the Japanese could witness -- and then offer them the one chance to surrender. Mom always tells me that I wasn't there at the time, and that the bombs were the only thing that were going to stop Japan.

I still feel they should have at least had one chance to see what lay in store for their countrymen if they did not surrender....

[Lydia Leftcoast]

13. Having read lots of Japanese accounts of the last days of the war, I

know that people were universally malnourished, even starving, with many living literally in rubble. The only thing that kept them going was the idea pounded into their heads for the past 15 years that they had to fight to the death for the emperor or else be forever shamed.

When the emperor finally came onto the radio and told everyone to stop fighting, they did so with great relief, except for some of the more propagandized youth.

In contrast with Iraq, NOT ONE American G.I. was killed by Japanese during the Occupation. Once the Japanese people realized that the Americans weren't going to slaughter or enslave them, they just gave in out of sheer exhaustion.

I believe that the Hiroshima bombing was a cold-blooded experiment. I've read accounts of the last days of WWII in Japan, and everyone was puzzled as to why Hiroshima never received the massive firebombings that most other Japanese cities of its size were subjected to. (Some cities as small as 100,000 were hit.)

The reason was that the U.S. wanted to drop the bomb on an untouched city so that researchers could see exactly what damage an atomic bomb did on a populated area without having to sort out damage from previous conventional bombs.

[Conservativesux]

18. Your Mom was correct. We only had two bombs, so we could not waste

them by using them as a "display".

It was wartime (a real war), and millions of people were killed and maimed already in both Europe and Asia, both soldiers and civilians.

The war had to be put to an end, and the bombs SAVED millions of American _and_ Japanese lives.

If you think the Japanese were so great back then, maybe you should read up on what they did in China during the 1930's, such as the book, The Rape of Nangking".

It will put a chill up your spine to read about thier "experiments" on the human lab-rats they tortured to death and poisoned.

[bpilgrim]

21. we could not waste the bombs by not indiscriminately murdering civilians

:crazy:

it amazes me that folks can fall for the line that NUKES save lives, what utter NONSENSE. :puke:

peace

[neverforget]

24. You know the Japanese were given the Potsdam Declaration on

July 26th and the Japanese response was mokusatsu or "kill by silence"?

http://www.njahs.org/nh/nhvxvn1.html

--snip--
Under the time constraints of wartime conditions, such collaboration was a luxury. Translations could easily be literal, failing to convey the intention of the words. A notorious example is the response by the Japanese government to the Potsdam declaration of July 26, 1945, which defined the terms of “unconditional surrender” demanded by Allied forces.

Hoping Russia would intervene to soften the terms, Japan’s Supreme Council decided to buy time. Rather than reply immediately, Premier Suzuki announced their intention to mokusatsu –meaning they hoped to “kill the silence,” or quietly ignore the declaration, while awaiting more favorable developments.

According to the Truman Library archives, “the English translation became ‘reject,’ and took it as a rebuff. Years later he remembered, ‘When we asked them to surrender at Potsdam, they gave us a very snotty answer. That is what I got….They told me to go to hell, words to that effect.’”

The result? The use of the first atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

--snip--

What were the more favorable developments that they were waiting for? Their cities were being firebombed, their navy had ceased to exist and their people were starving! Yet the military government of Japan was waiting for more favorable developments? They wanted to surrender alright but only after one last victory in which they would get more favorable terms.

[bpilgrim]

30. they had 1 condition

which we finally accepted and has stood the test of time... if only we had accepted it earlier.

peace

[neverforget]

32. Or if they had just surrendered before we dropped the bombs....

but they didn't....

[bpilgrim]

36. unconditional surrender seems a weak excuse to NUKE civilians over

TWICE, no-less, until we ran out and with russia on japan's doorstep before we finally relented.

that policy seems to me to be as extreme as UBL's.

peace

[neverforget]

39. so why didn't they surrender before the bombs were dropped?

every day they let pass more people were killed finally culminating in 2 of their cities being nuked and the Soviets invading Manchuria and the Kuril Islands. Why didn't they surrender before this time? It's not like they didn't have enough time....

[bpilgrim]

41. they had 1 condition that anyone who knew japan knew must be met

or we would have faced at fight to the last man, again, and is why every military leader advocated to accept it earlier in order to SAVE LIVES.

imagine how may could have been saved if we had no iwo jima or okinawa...

peace

[neverforget]

42. Are you implying that the Japanese were trying to surrender in early

1945 at the time of Iwo Jima and Okinawa?

[rayofreason]

38. and they had no intention to do so...

even after Hiroshima.

http://www.warbirdforum.com/end.htm
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/4770028873/ref%3Dnosim/annals/002-3907408-6806462

It took Nagasaki and a botched coup attempt to end the war.

[rayofreason]

34. Magic and history

You are wrong about Japan's "1 condition". This idea spread because of an incomplete release of "Magic" in the 60's. The complete, unedited release in 1995 of "Magic" newsletters - better know by the name "Ultra" - show that the Japanese were prepared to fight to the bitter end to preserve the imperial system as it existed at the time, a system that was still killing hundreds of thousands of asians in occupied countries each month. They had stockpiled huge resouces in Kyushu (which they correctly identified as the invasion target), so Operation Olympic would have been a bloodbath that would have made Okinawa look like a schoolyard brawl. Dropping the bombs ended the war, but only just. A militarist coup attempt almost succeded in stopping the broadcast of Hirohito's speech (this was the subject of a History Channel show).

As the facts are known it is even more clear that dropping the bombs was absolutely the right thing to do.

[bpilgrim]

37. no military leader in theater at the time agree with you...

they all said it wasn't necessary.

* Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet, in a public address at the Washington Monument two months after the bombings stated:

The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace before the atomic age was announced to the world with the destruction of Hiroshima and before the Russian entry into the war. . . .The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military standpoint, in the defeat of Japan. . . . (THE DECISION, p. 329; see additionally THE NEW YORK TIMES, October 6, 1945.)

more...
http://www.doug-long.com/ga1.htm

peace

[Captain Hilts]

45. NO ONE wanted the Army Air Corps to end the fight.

The navy and marines had been slugging it out and then the Army Air Corps finishes it off?

No way most commanders would have wanted anything to do with that. You can bet MacArthur wanted to stroll ashore in Japan wearing a feather boa and smoking his pipe, not read about it in the paper.

In other words, don't discount inter-service rivalries.

And, by the way, this thing was so secret that the bomb project was even kept out of the hands of army ordnance.

[Conservativesux]

29. A-Bombs were a surpise weapon. I didnt imply that it would work again.

Its a different time now and I dont like all the nuclear weapons the world has.

Clear?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

48. I KNOW what the Japanese military did in China

I translated a book about it that is based on interviews with both survivors and perpetrators. The Jpn high command decided to save money and supplies by not providing sufficient food for the soldiers, telling them to "live off the land," which in a crowded country like China meant looting and stealing from the peasants.

Naturally, the peasants resisted, and the Japanese killed them. By the time the Japanese reached Nanjing, they were used to killing any Chinese civilian who resisted or even annoyed them or simply was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The military commanders back in Tokyo told their troops that it "didn't matter" what they did with prisoners.

The book I translated tells of an escalating orgy of violence as the army heads from its coastal landing point toward Chiang Kai-shek's capital.

So yes, the Japanese military did commit atrocities, but the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not.

[Captain Hilts]

26. YES!

This is what the fellow - whose name escapes me right now Leo Slizard ??? - whose name is on the patent for the bomb was going to discuss with Eleanor Roosevelt. His appointment to talk to her was for the afternoon FDR died, so he never got to see her.

But after Truman spoke to her about the bomb in June she always said, "I always worried about that second bomb..." I think even she would have dropped the first. Her correspondence that spring has references to it being okay to bomb civilians because civilians contribute to war efforts. I think she knew what was coming.

[bemildred]

16. Wait? Japan was not going anywhere at that point. nt

[liberalpragmatist]

27. There's an interesting article in TIME magazine from this past week

The professor - I can't remember his name - argues that the real debate we should be having is over the US decision to accept civilians as legitimate targets in wartime. The precedent had already been set by the firebombings of Dresden, Tokyo, and other cities (of those, Dresden, of course, was totally militarily unnecessary).

The point is that by that point, the US had already killed hundreds of thousands of civilians - many as collateral damage, many others as the result of deliberate firebombing that killed nearly as many as the A-bombs did. Now, in many cases, maybe that was necessary, given the life-or-death situation we found ourselves in vis-a-vis Japan.

Personally, I reluctantly believe that dropping the A-bomb on Hiroshima was necessary as horrible as that sounds. I do wonder if a demonstration could have worked, but given the relatively few bombs we had it may not have been militarily possible. And it's always possible - even probable - that the Japanese would have assumed we were bluffing.

I'm less convinced by the dropping of the bomb on Nagasaki. Some sources credibly claim that without a second bomb, the Japanese would not have ended the war, believing there was only one. Others argue that the Nagasaki bombing was simply a demonstration against the Soviets. Still others argue that it was unjustified and simply the inertia of the military-industrial complex. I don't know what to think about that one right now.

[bpilgrim]

31. that's a good point about civilian targeting

also the a-bombs where much different then conventional slaughtering techniques as it was the bomb that kept killing long after it's initial SHOCK-n-AWE, reaching right up into the womb and across the generations to kill and maim.

as far as it being 'necessary' to use on a defeated people who were suing for peace against all wishes of our military leaders in theater at the time, as they voted to accept japans 1 condition - in order to SAVE LIVES, is the ultimate fallacy perpetrated and perpetuate by 60 year old propaganda. it is time for us to learn the truth and spread the word before we use more nukes, in order to 'SAVE LIVES', of course.

see latest debate here...
http://www.doug-long.com/debate.htm

psst... pass the word :hi:

peace

[ovidsen]

33. The precedent for Dresden and Toyko was London.

The 1940 blitz, which left 43,000 dead. (Thanks, Hitler)

IMO, in nearly all cases, the wholesale slaughter of civilians is indefensible. But Hiroshima (not Nagasaki) may be that rare exception.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

49. The March 1945 firebombing of Tokyo killed more civilians than

the bomb at Hiroshima, and it was meant entirely to terrorize the civilian population, because the bombs were dropped on the old part of the city, which had no military targets but was made entirely of wooden houses crammed close together in narrow streets.

Tourists often notice that Tokyo has few old buildings. There's a reason for that.

[bpilgrim]

50. the official Hiroshima death count is almost a quarter MILLION people

over 230k (check hiroshima gov website)

remember this is the bomb that keeps on killing long after the initial shock-n-awe.

peace

[rayofreason]

35. Wrong?

Truman's decision is not "wrong in the eyes of posterity" - it was right then, and as the evidence is fully evaluated, it is right now.

[bpilgrim]

40. BARBARIC is more like it...

* In his memoirs Admiral William D. Leahy, the President's Chief of Staff--and the top official who presided over meetings of both the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Combined U.S.-U.K. Chiefs of Staff--minced few words:

(T)he use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender. . . .

(I)n being the first to use it, we . . . adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children. (THE DECISION, p. 3.)

more...
http://www.doug-long.com/ga1.htm

fyi

peace

[atim]

47. What is after HIROSHIMA - MANHATTAN PROJECT II

The Black Budget Report: An Investigation into the CIA’s ‘Black Budget’ and the Second Manhattan Project
11/23/2003 (Revised 02/05/04)

© Michael E. Salla, PhD
Center for Global Peace/School of International Service
American University
Washington DC

The CIA has the unique legal ability among all US government departments and agencies to generate funds through appropriations of other federal government agencies and other sources “without regard to any provisions of law” and without regard to the intent behind Congressional appropriations. <2> Every year, billions of dollars of Congressional appropriations are diverted from their Congressionally sanctioned purposes to the CIA and DoD based intelligence agencies without knowledge of the public and with the collusion of Congressional leaders. The covert world of ‘black programs’ acts with virtual impunity, overseen and regulated by itself, funding itself through secret slush funds, and is free of the limitations that come from Congressional oversight, proper auditing procedures and public scrutiny.

the CIA black budget is annually in the vicinity of 1.1 trillion dollars – a truly staggering figure when one considers that the DoD budget for 2004 will be approximately 380 billion dollars. <90> This suggests that the vast size of the DoD in terms of its personnel, weapons systems and research into ‘conventional weapons systems’, is dwarfed by something that in funding terms is almost three times larger than the entire conventional military system funded by the DoD budget. The vast size of the estimated CIA ‘unofficial’ black budget is strong evidence of a collective effort by the CIA and DoD associated military intelligence agencies and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to fund a network of highly classified projects so large in scope that they collectively dwarf the original Manhattan project conducted at Los Alamos National Laboratories during the Second World War. <91> Since the original Manhattan project aimed to develop an atomic bomb for use in the war against Nazi Germany, it can be inferred that the network of projects funded by the CIA’s black budget aims to develop a range of advanced weapons systems and intelligence capabilities for use against an adversary whose existence and identity still remains classified. <92> I will henceforth refer to this network of highly classified projects as the second Manhattan Project - ‘Manhattan II’ is the ultimate beneficiary of the CIA’s ‘unofficial’ black budget.
http://www.american.edu/salla/Articles/BB-CIA.htm#Abstract

[ladeuxiemevoiture]

51. War is hell. Just ask the Chinese.

I'm sorry it had to happen, but it did. The Japanese started hostilities, so it's their own fault.

[bpilgrim]

52. "The Japanese started hostilities, so it's their own fault." - profound

sounds like something the neoCONs would say.

read what our military leaders in theater had to say about it at the time...
http://www.doug-long.com/ga1.htm

more...
http://www.doug-long.com/debate.htm

peace

[bpilgrim]

53. "THE DECISION TO USE THE ATOMIC BOMB" - THE H-NET DEBATE

for an up-to-date, scholarly analysis of the decision please visit this site...
http://www.doug-long.com/debate.htm

In these times with the neoCONs at the helm I believe it is critically important to understand how politics and not military necessity played a role in our decision to nuke and indiscriminately kill a defeated and suing for peace nation's cities, civilian population centers, filled with men, women & children, young and old, friend & foe alike, TWICE.

it fills me with dread that even today, after 60 years, even on DU, that so many people still reflexively repeat the old propaganda that NUKES 'save lives'.

but don't take my word for it, read what our military leaders in theater at the time had to say about it saving lives...
http://www.doug-long.com/ga1.htm

more...
HIROSHIMA: WAS IT NECESSARY?
http://www.doug-long.com

psst... pass the word :hi:

peace

[neverforget]

55. I asked you this in a post above (#43) but you haven't responded

and I am interested in your response.

This doesn't sound like "suing for peace" to me:

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=1...

--snip--
That question weighed on their minds when the Potsdam Declaration arrived (July 27-28), calling on them to surrender unconditionally or face immediate destruction. Yet they rejected the four-power ultimatum, feeling as former prime minister and navy "moderate," Admiral Yonai Mitsumasa, said to his secretary on July 28, "There is no need to rush."

Domestic political considerations drove Japan's decision-makers. Ultimately, what mattered most was where each of them, and the institutions they represented, stood as a result of an unconditional surrender.
--snip--

Accepting the Potsdam Declaration would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Instead, they responded with silence. It's the Japanses government who is responsible for the lives of their people. They could have ended this war at any time. Instead they chose to keep fighting and when asked to surrender, they responded with silence. They were not suing for peace.

The Japanese were a defeated people long before Hiroshima because they had no navy and their industries had been turned to rubble along with many of their cities. The responsibility for surrender was with the Japanese Government and they had every opportunity to surrender before the bombings. Instead they chose to fight on because of foolish pride and their code of honor. Most any other nation would have realized that they were beaten when their navy had ceased to exist and their opponent was bombing their cities and shelling their coastline at will.
My questions to you then are these:

Why didn't the Japanese surrender before Hiroshima?

Why didn't they accept the Potsdam Declaration instead of rejecting it?

If they were suing for peace as you state, why not accept the Potsdam Declaration?

[bpilgrim]

56. they had 1 condition

to keep their emperor.

Japan would have never surrendered if that 1 condition wasn't agreed to and is why every military leader in theater at the time recommended we accept it in order to 'SAVE LIVES' but we were insistent on unconditional surrender, which was against the norm, but finally relented after we ran out of nukes and russia was on her door step... we couldn't afford another divided country.

Imagine how many lives could have been saved if we had accepted before iwo jima or okinawa :cry:

peace

[neverforget]

58. So why didn't they say "let us keep our emperor and we'll surrender?"

They could have done this at anytime BEFORE the bombings or when their cities were being firebombed one city at time.

[bpilgrim]

59. they did, but we didn't relent until we ran out of nukes and russia invade

we DEMANDED unconditional surrender till then.

peace

[neverforget]

63. So the Japanese surrendered when they realized that ALL HOPE

of any negotiated settlement with the US was gone because the Soviets had invaded. They were trying to get some kind of surrender through the Soviets but Stalin had other plans.

Here's the Japanese reply of August 10:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pacific/timeline/timeline2.html

August 10: The U.S. finally receives the Japanese response to the terms outlined in the Potsdam Declaration. The one condition the Japanese insist upon is that the declaration should not "prejudice the prerogatives of His Majesty as a Sovereign Ruler." It is not a simple request to retain the emperor as a figurehead leader, but a demand that the U.S. give the emperor substantive power over a post-war U.S. occupation and any reforms.

That is way more than we were willing to give them for good reason. Hirohito approved of the war of aggression which Japan launched and what he wanted at the end was to have his cake and eat it too (still retain power while being Emperor).

Earlier in the thread you said they were suing for peace. No they weren't. They wanted to negotiate a surrender on their terms because they thought they had one last victory in them. They wanted the battles to be so bloody that we would give them more favorable peace terms.

[bpilgrim]

64. once their 1 condition was accepted, they surrendered

then the emperor was able to speak from a position of authority and speak to his people directly - for the first time ever - and tell them the war was over and get ALL to lay down their arms, despite a very radical tiny minority in the military, who still refused (they never listened to him anyways, why start then, i suppose :shrug: ) and the Chrysanthemum Throne remains to this very day as witness to the wisdom of our decision to let it remain, unbroken, the worlds oldest monarchy.

we see how bad iraq is today... imagine what japan would have look liked if we didn't finally come to our senses.

no one here can defend nuking a defeated, suing for peace nation's cites filled with INNOCENT civilians, please :cry:

peace

[neverforget]

65. Suing for peace? Really? Peace loving Hirohito?

http://www.time.com/time/asia/asia/magazine/1999/990823/hirohito1.html

Like his other oblique calls for restraint, this was politely ignored. It was hardly an imperial order. With the first victories of Pearl Harbor, Singapore and the Philippines, Hirohito was swept along with the tide of national euphoria. Three years later, however, defeat was staring Japan in the face. In January 1945, Prince Konoe, a former Prime Minister (and grandfather of early-1990s Prime Minister Hosokawa) appealed to the Emperor to put an end to the war. He refused. And here Hirohito's responsibility for the conflict deepened. If he didn't start the war, he continued it. For almost a year, in the face of gathering defeat, he urged his generals and admirals to gain one last victory in order to secure decent peace terms. During that period an additional 1.5 million Japanese were killed.

[bpilgrim]

67. yes and Hirohito was a sock-puppet to the military and simply ceremonial

in actual power (like the british monarchy) for many years by that point never the less his word to the people, while never heard directly before their surrender and always filtered through official channels, was scripture to many japanese and key to securing the peace.

as history stands witness, we can all imagine how much more horrible it would have been if we, in the end, didn't finally hadn't submitted to his authority over his own people and grant japan her 1 condition.

do you feel unconditional surrender justified NUKING a defeated nation against the wishes of all our military leaders of that time who recommended accepting their one condition in order to /save lives'?

the ultimate horrific irony is that their actual recommendation has been twisted to support just the opposite of their views... true the wanted to save lives but certainly NOT by using NUKES, which is absurd on it's face but even more so once you get beyond our 60 year old PROPAGANDA.

think about it, before answering, please...

peace

[neverforget]

69. Accepting their one condition at the time meant keeping Hirohito in

on the throne WITH POWER. We wouldn't accept that. In the end, we let him stay but only as a figurehead who was subject to the Allied Occupation Authority which was General MacArthur.

Having said all of that, I feel that nuking Japan was unnecessary. However, it was the responsibility of the Japanese Government to end the war which they could have done at anytime.

[bpilgrim]

71. we DID keep him on the THRONE... and it remains the oldest monarchy

the emperors ceremonial role in gov affairs has a long history in japan, ask (or read) any knowledgeable historian on Japan and you will get the same answer, his role, especially during wwII, was largely ceremonial, so your point is mute.

so, you "feel that nuking Japan was unnecessary." yet "it was the responsibility of the Japanese Government" to get us to accept their one condition before they dropped it?

do you realize how barbaric UNCONDITIONAL surrender is, all by itself, let alone using nukes, TWICE?

are you trying to rationalize TERROR?

if not, what are you disputing in the facts i am relating? or are you just having trouble accepting what our political leaders DID? I can certainly understand that.

:shrug:

peace

[neverforget]

73. I am disputing that you seem to think that keeping the Emperor

on the throne WITH POWER, which is the condition the Japanese wanted, is the same as what we got them to surrender too which was a figurehead subject to Allied Authority. Also, for an Emperor that had no power as you suggest, how come the Japanese military listened to him when they wanted to keep fighting? Please explain that.

I am not trying to rationalize terror. Don't even go there. I am in this debate because of my love of history, not for any rationlization of terror. I am actually offended you said that........

Please read:

http://www.time.com/time/asia/asia/magazine/1999/990823/hirohito1.html

Like his other oblique calls for restraint, this was politely ignored. It was hardly an imperial order. With the first victories of Pearl Harbor, Singapore and the Philippines, Hirohito was swept along with the tide of national euphoria. Three years later, however, defeat was staring Japan in the face. In January 1945, Prince Konoe, a former Prime Minister (and grandfather of early-1990s Prime Minister Hosokawa) appealed to the Emperor to put an end to the war. He refused. And here Hirohito's responsibility for the conflict deepened. If he didn't start the war, he continued it. For almost a year, in the face of gathering defeat, he urged his generals and admirals to gain one last victory in order to secure decent peace terms. During that period an additional 1.5 million Japanese were killed.

The fateful imperial staff conference in August came only after the atomic bombs, the fearful fire-bombings, the strangling submarine blockade and the Soviet Union's entry into the war. At last, the Emperor cast a deciding vote for surrender and later made his memorable broadcast to Japan's people about "enduring the unendurable." It was the first unequivocal decision he had made since 1936.

Just a month later the semi-divine Emperor, in striped trousers and a morning coat, reluctantly handed his top hat to an aide and entered General Douglas MacArthur's reception room at the refurbished American Embassy to begin what amounted to his re-incarnation. Accepting responsibility for the war, he offered to abdicate or do whatever else was necessary. But MacArthur wanted him to stay. In the first of 11 meetings between the Emperor and the new American Shogun, the two men worked out an odd but intense collaboration. The U.S. general flatly resisted colleagues who felt that Hirohito should be tried as a war criminal. Above all he wanted a peaceful occupation. The Emperor who finally stopped his generals from continuing a last-ditch war was surely the man who could keep his subjects peaceful. The Emperor agreed.

The decision remains debatable. With 20-20 hindsight, modern critics have pointed out that Hirohito bore almost as much responsibility for the war as Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, who was sentenced to death by the war crimes tribunal. More than 3 million Japanese--military and civilians--had died in a war waged in the Emperor's name. To exonerate him completely cast doubt on the entire proceedings and has done much over the years to deepen Japan's collective amnesia about the crimes of its military. At the time, however, the decision seemed prudent to the American occupiers (myself among them), faced with the task of governing, indeed re-modeling millions of Japanese who had only recently seemed ready to fight to the death against invasion.

[bpilgrim]

74. The Emperor of Japan and the Imperial Institution

Japan’s imperial institution, the oldest hereditary monarchy in the world, was already in existence when Japan emerged into recorded history and has since been perpetuated in a predominantly male line of descent. Although the emperor has almost always been regarded as the titular head of the national government, the most striking feature of the office through most of Japanese history has been the tendency to emphasis instead the emperor’s role as chief priest in the indigenous Japanese religion, Shinto, and to delegate most of the effective powers of government to OTHERS.

...

Modern Period (1868-1945)
The leaders of Meiji Japan engaged in 20 years of pragmatic political experimentation to redefine the imperial institution. With the proclamation of the Constitution of the Empire of Japan on 11 February 1889, the emperor became a constitutional monarch in a centralized unitary state that was to exercise greater political power than any previous form of government in Japan's history.

According to the constitution, the emperor was "sacred and inviolable," and sovereignty rested with him as the head of the Japanese empire. He commanded the armed forces, declared war, made peace, and concluded treaties; he had emergency powers to maintain public order and declare a state of siege. All laws required the emperor's sanction and enforcement.

Paradoxically, however, the supreme authority accorded the emperor in the constitution, and the other efforts made to bolster his centrality to the Japanese polity, were not accompanied by real political power. In fact, the system was designed instead to preserve the emperor's political immunity while he served as the sacrosanct basis for rule by others, namely, the ministers of state and the chiefs of the armed forces. The emperor's primary political role from 1889 to 1947 was to ratify the policies and personnel decisions reached by his government leaders and to put the seal of the imperial will on political decisions they had forged, not to actually make decisions or dictate policy himself.

more...
http://www.embjapan.dk/spotlight/Emperor_history.htm

there is no validity to your claim that japans emperor was anything other than a figure head and then demanding ultimate power in defeat.

and no one is arguing that his ceremonial role was not important to the avg people of japan, i am talking about his ACTUAL power in GOV.

so please, can we move on from that mute 'point'?

also, i am very sorry if i offended you, but I am only trying to point out how your MSG comes across considering the facts of the matter. i, too, have a great respect for history and this tragic period especially.

peace

[dback]

54. I have been to Hiroshima and stood among the ruins

And I have also taught high school history classes about what Japan did to Korea, and to China during the Rape of Nanking.

I would've dropped the bomb, but not on a civilian target like a city that still had children in it (though most of them had supposedly been evacuated to the countryside). And I would not have dropped a bomb on Nagasaki afterwards.

I say this as a hardcore peacenik, who saw the devastation wrought by the bomb in Hiroshima. But after studying the horrors the Japanese inflicted on people during the war, I have become convinced that there was no easy or good way to end the war without heavy casualities in the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) on all sides.

Now, was the dropping of the bomb worth the subsequent arms race? That, I cannot say.

[bpilgrim]

57. no military leader in theater at the time agree with you...

they all said it wasn't necessary and from everything i have read, i agree with them.

http://www.doug-long.com/ga1.htm

peace

[Lisa]

60. I'd have to recuse myself -- friends of our family lived there

If I'd been working for the Allies of the time (dubious but not impossible, since some North Americans of Japanese descent who'd joined the military and/or intelligence services were let out of the internment camps) -- that would have been quite the dilemma.

Arguably, if I'd been already been involved with target selection, this was just another hit with potential civilian casualties -- but still, given the best guesses about what would happen, I really don't think I could have made that decision. Even if it meant saving Allied lives.

Interestingly, my dad (an avid hard SF fan) knew immediately from the description of the bombing what the weapon must have been. Nuclear weapons had been discussed by physicists and science fiction writers years before Trinity and Hiroshima. Dad had been released from one of the BC internment camps and was on his way to Ontario, when he got off the train in Winnipeg and saw the headlines in the paper (must have been a day or so after the Enola Gay dropped the bomb). When he reached Ontario, his friends met him at the station, very agitated, asking if he knew anything about what kind of bomb it was, and whether he thought their family would be okay.

He did just about the only thing he could, under the circumstances. He lied.

[bpilgrim]

61. nisei "Go for broke!"

100th Battalion, 442nd Infantry

It is important to recognize the contributions of the Japanese Americans who served in the U.S. Army's 100th Battalion and 442nd Combat Infantry group. History speaks for itself in documenting that none have shared their blood more valiantly for America than the Japanese Americans who served in these units while fighting enemy forces in Europe during World War II. The records of the 100th Battalion and 442nd Infantry are without equal.

Because young Japanese men of the second generation were often eager to fight against the Axis Powers Japanese-American units were created in the Army. In order to eliminate the confusion that might arise in the Pacific, the nisei units were to be employed only in the Mediterranean and European theaters of operation. The 442nd Infantry Regiment was the largest nisei unit. Fighting in Italy and southern France, the unit was known for its bravery and determination, as reflected by the unit motto, "Go for broke!"

...

These Japanese American units suffered an unprecedented casualty rate of 314 percent and received over 18,000 individual decorations. Many were awarded after their deaths for bravery and courage in the field of battle. Among the decorations received by the 100th/442nd soldiers were one Medal of Honor, 52 Distinguished Service Crosses, 560 Silver Stars, 28 Oak Leaf Clusters to the Silver Star, 4,000 Bronze Stars and 1,200 Oak Leaf Clusters to the Bronze Star and, perhaps most telling of the sacrifices made by these gallant soldiers, 9,486 Purple Hearts. The 442nd Combat Infantry group emerged as the most decorated combat unit of its size in the history of the United States Army. For its service in eight major campaigns in Italy and France, the 100th Battalion and 442nd Regimental Combat Team earned eight Presidential Unit Citations.
more...
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/army/100-442in.htm

what our military leaders at the time thought about hiroshima, nagaski and the final decision...

THE DECISION TO USE THE ATOMIC BOMB:

There is a long-standing debate about whether or not General Eisenhower--as he repeatedly claimed--urged Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson (and possibly President Truman) not to use the atomic bomb. In interviews with his biographer, Stephen Ambrose, he was insistent that he urged his views to one or another of these men at the time. Quite apart from what he said at the time, there is no doubt, however, about his own repeatedly stated opinion on the central question:

* In his memoirs Eisenhower reported the following reaction when Secretary of War Stimson informed him the atomic bomb would be used:

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. . . . (THE DECISION, p. 4.)

* Eisenhower made similar public and private statements on numerous occasions. He put it bluntly in a 1963 interview, stating quite simply: ". . . it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing." (THE DECISION, p. 356.) (Several of the occasions during which Eisenhower offered similar judgments are discussed at length in THE DECISION (pp. 352-358).)

more military quotes...
http://www.doug-long.com/ga1.htm

thanks for sharing :hi:

peace

[Lisa]

66. and also, the Heart Mountain draft resisters

I firmly believe that Japanese-Americans showed their courage in many different ways. One group volunteered to fight with the US armed forces. Another group (which until recently didn't have as much public recognition) tried to advocate for the constitutional rights of US citizens. The implications of this didn't become evident until the civil rights movement, the Vietnam era, and the current protests against the "USA PATRIOT" Act.

People interned in the US detention camps were given a loyalty oath to take, even if they were US citizens. (This didn't happen in Canada -- my parents, who were interned in British Columbia, have said that they really felt sorry for the Japanese-Americans. When I was a kid, I asked why this was such a big deal, since it was only a piece of paper -- and my mom, who was born in Canada, burst into tears and said that treating citizens with suspicion, the same way as they treated foreign nationals from a hostile country, was WRONG. And since I've watched the whole mess unfolding with Maher Arar, I now understand why this was so shocking and deeply hurtful to her. I'm sorry it took so long, Mom.)

Some of the Japanese-Americans said that it was wrong to draft people who were in internment camps. It wasn't that they were against the concept of a draft -- in fact, many of them were quite willing to help defend their homeland (the United States). What they objected to was that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights had been brushed aside in order to incarcerate them, and now they were going to be subject to the draft, as if they were free citizens. And that they were going to be encouraged (implicitly and explicitly) to kill, and die, to demonstrate their loyalty.

A lot of Japanese people had moved to North America because they wanted to live in a democratic society. They were passionate about the Constitution -- and terribly disappointed when they found out that it didn't protect them. And that human rights are conditional on your agreeing to do whatever the government tells you.

Some of the people who agreed to take the loyalty oath were worried that any dissension could be used by the "freepers" of the day to argue that "Japs are traitors". But a few of the draft resisters said that they would continue their acts of civil disobedience, because to do otherwise would dishonor the Constitution. If you think that discussions at DU can get emotional, imagine how things were in the internment camps!

The story of what happened is discussed here:

http://www.pbs.org/itvs/conscience/
http://www.resisters.com/

[bpilgrim]

68. can you imagine the neoCONs apologizing to Japanese americans?

it would NEVER happen and will always appreciate the clinton administration for at least acknowledging the crime and asking for forgiveness and is what i love about america... we can admit our mistakes and correct them or at least strive, too after lots of nudging for her active citizens.

the Nisei experience is another example of the indomitable human spirit imbued with a strong sense of freedom and honor that every american should be taught in our textbooks along with the many other of her minorities struggles for freedom & justice.

i understand that many times justice comes too slowly or often not at all for many but as long as we remember and continue to speak out we can affect change and is what inspires me to keep informed and pass the word.

as i am fond of saying... thank GORE he 'invented' the INTERNETs ;->

again, thank you very much for sharing your story, it's what makes DU great :toast:

peace

[Emendator]

62. No

The bombings weren't necessary. Neither was an invasion of Japan.

[BamaLefty]

70. Dropped Those Mofos...

Damn, it is pretty obvious that dropping the boyz helped.

[bpilgrim]

72. this is not a trivial matter, yet many see this as such...

and is what really scares me about our future.

fyi: the only thing those 'boyz' helped was accelerating the nuclear arms race and brought man kind on the brink of destruction ever since and the clock is very close to midnight.


http://media.globalfreepress.com

goodnight, sir...

peace

[Ian_rd]

75. There was no need ...

... to drop the bomb on a civilian population. The U.S. could have dropped it at sea on naval vessels, simply off the coast of Japan, or any number of ways to illustrate the power of the new weapon while making it clear that the next attack would be on the mainland.

The Japanese would have been insane not to surrender after that. And if they didn't, well, we could drop them on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, but we would have at least given the Japanese government (and our own) a chance to save the lives of countless innocent people.

[bpilgrim]

76. indeed

peace

[Admiral Scheer]

77. One of the best decisions of the war...

Dropping the atomic bombs ended the war and saved countless lives on both the allied side and japanese side. All other concerns are secondary.

[bpilgrim]

78. no military leader in theater at that time agree with you, Admiral

"THE DECISION TO USE THE ATOMIC BOMB" - THE H-NET DEBATE

for an up-to-date, scholarly analysis of the decision please visit this site...
http://www.doug-long.com/debate.htm

psst... pass the word :hi:

peace

[Admiral Scheer]

81. dont be so sure about that........

A couple hundred thousand allied troops, sailors, and airmen would agree with me....

All these morality time travelers who b*tch and cry about Hiroshima and Nagasaki need to take a flying leap because they are clueless.

[bpilgrim]

82. i am simply quoting them

maybe it was a conspiracy, eh?

peace

[Admiral Scheer]

83. I dont do the the conspiracy thang....

...the tin hats dont seem to fit....Besides, I still cant get anybody to believe that the space aliens from the planet Zion teamed up with the mossad and cia to bomb the WTC with B-52's(disguised as 767's)........

If the a-bombs saved just (1) Allied soldier's life, then they were worth dropping.

[number6]

79. I would not have murdered civilians..so

no I would not have droped an ATOMIC BOMB on a CIVILIAN CITY !!

[Admiral Scheer]

84. nobody seems to...

...have had a problem with dropping thousands of tons of bombs on places like Dresden, Hamburg, Berlin, or <<pick a city>>>...


...like the wise man once said: you mess with the bull, and sometimes you get the horns....

[hiaasenrocks]

80. I would have done exactly what we did. No doubt about it.

That decision saved countless lives on both sides. It seems to me the hand-wringing over this is quite obviously people regretting the lives lost at the bomb sites, and that's perfectly understandable...to a point. Many more humans would have died without the dropping of the bombs, but there seems to be little concern over that by those who oppose the action.

At this point in my life, having had this discussion dozens of times, I have little interest in listening to the same old tired arguments against the decision. Heard it all. Over and over again. There is little worth to their position.

I'm glad we did it.