The war was won before we dropped the first bomb. It was about flexing our muscles to the Russians. Eisenhower said in 63' that the Japanese were ready to surrender, and that we did not need to drop that bomb killing all of those civilians. Truman's "Bombing Survey" he had commissioned after agreed that they would have surrendered by November, December at the latest. William Leahy also told Truman the bombs were not needed, but later Truman tried to spin it that it saved us an invasion which was refuted by Truman's "bombing Survey" report.
People can try to justify it all they want, but estimations of up to 220k innocent people died because we dropped those bombs. If any country did that today we would demand they be wiped off the earth and any one who made the decision be shot. Since we did it, and we won the war, we act as if the end justified the means. It did not.
(08-07-2017, 10:13 AM)Au165 Wrote: The war was won before we dropped the first bomb. It was about flexing our muscles to the Russians. Eisenhower said in 63' that the Japanese were ready to surrender, and that we did not need to drop that bomb killing all of those civilians. Truman's "Bombing Survey" he had commissioned after agreed that they would have surrendered by November, December at the latest. William Leahy also told Truman the bombs were not needed, but later Truman tried to spin it that it saved us an invasion which was refuted by Truman's "bombing Survey" report.
People can try to justify it all they want, but estimations of up to 220k innocent people died because we dropped those bombs. If any country did that today we would demand they be wiped off the earth and any one who made the decision be shot. Since we did it, and we won the war, we act as if the end justified the means. It did not.
Interesting how you bring up the Bombing Survey as your evidence of why they didn't need to do it (nevermind your Nov-Dec meant 4-5 more months of our people dying) and then ignore the Bombing Survey's estimations of casualties in favor of a much more inflated estimation of 220k.
Also ignoring that the WW2 Japanese were some of the worst people to walk this planet.
Combined with their kamikaze attacks, Pearl Harbor, and the fact that 20 MILLION Chinese civilians died from their actions.
But please, do tell us how really we're the bad guys in that situation, and how they would have (maybe) surrendered after killing our troops for another 4-5 months, and how them just surrendering and not the *unconditional* surrender that we ended up getting would have removed the blight on the world that the Imperial Japan mindset was instead of them biding their time and eventually invading mainland Asia (they had already done it twice in the previous 50 years).
They dropped the bomb just a little over 4 months after the end of Iwo Jima, where the US had 6,821 dead and over 19,217 wounded. Pshaw, what's another 4-5 months of that type of combat in order to let the Japanese go "Our bad, lolz" and change nothing about themselves that was abhorrent.
Just a stupid post. (I don't say that lightly.) You talk about if we did that today... if a country today was doing what Imperial Japan did during WW2, it would have been wiped off the map by every single other country on the planet, and everyone would sleep better for it.
(08-07-2017, 05:39 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Interesting how you bring up the Bombing Survey as your evidence of why they didn't need to do it (nevermind your Nov-Dec meant 4-5 more months of our people dying) and then ignore the Bombing Survey's estimations of casualties in favor of a much more inflated estimation of 220k.
Also ignoring that the WW2 Japanese were some of the worst people to walk this planet.
Combined with their kamikaze attacks, Pearl Harbor, and the fact that 20 MILLION Chinese civilians died from their actions.
But please, do tell us how really we're the bad guys in that situation, and how they would have (maybe) surrendered after killing our troops for another 4-5 months, and how them just surrendering and not the *unconditional* surrender that we ended up getting would have removed the blight on the world that the Imperial Japan mindset was instead of them biding their time and eventually invading mainland Asia (they had already done it twice in the previous 50 years).
They dropped the bomb just a little over 4 months after the end of Iwo Jima, where the US had 6,821 dead and over 19,217 wounded. Pshaw, what's another 4-5 months of that type of combat in order to let the Japanese go "Our bad, lolz" and change nothing about themselves that was abhorrent.
Just a stupid post. You talk about if we did that today... if a country today was doing what Imperial Japan did during WW2, it would have been wiped off the map by every single other country on the planet, and everyone would sleep better for it.
Let's start at the top, the numbers I gave were the high side of the 1945 estimate. Since then that number has been revised up to close to 192k deaths in Hiroshima alone when you account for those who died not just instantly but within a few years from the radiation and such. I get it, people don't like to believe we killed hundreds of thousands of people for no reason but we did. Go back and look at many of the military people involved. They staunchly disagreed with the decision to drop the bombs and found it unnecessary even when weighing potential casualties going forward. Two wrongs don't make it right and the ends don't justify the means. Incinerating civilians in a city is despicable no matter how you want to frame it. You say it's a stupid post but you may want to go and look at a lot of the information around it.
Many people who look at history outside of the U.S. agree it was a barbaric and unnecessary act. We controlled Japan's resources and we could have broke them further if need be. We spent a lot of money and resources developing these bombs and needed Russia to know about their power. We were flexing for Russia, and we had a "reason" we could do it.
Edit: I forgot to mention that Russia's entry into the pacific theater basically crushed Japan's hopes. They had a mutual non aggression pact that basically broke their spirits as they knew they couldn't beat us both. In looking back historically it was actually Russia who won WW2, we just get to collect a lot of the accolades and praise after the fact.
I'm not trying to be a jerk here, but most people know what we as a country has decided is the narrative. Look at the other sources that say we may have not been so right.
(08-07-2017, 09:56 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: I have to say, one of my biggest issues with Japan today is their refusal to acknowledge what they did. I love a lot of things about Japan, e.g., the food, the stationery and pens, the porn. Their inability to recognize what happened in their past makes it difficult for them to truly move on as a culture.
Don't know if you're aware, but the woman who worked to expose the Japanese atrocities basically gave her life to see it brought to light. Iris Chang wrote The Rape of Nanking. She received much acclaim for the book and was a successful writer. She was however, relentlessly harassed by Japanese nationalists and according to some, even American interests who didn't want the real story to be let out of the bag.
It caused her to become paranoid to an extreme degree. Eventually she went insane and had to be heavily medicated. In the end her family could not stop her from taking her own life. What she did in her work took real courage, IMO.
(08-07-2017, 05:39 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Just a stupid post. (I don't say that lightly.) You talk about if we did that today... if a country today was doing what Imperial Japan did during WW2, it would have been wiped off the map by every single other country on the planet, and everyone would sleep better for it.
If you change "what Imperial Japan did" to "what the United States did" would this be any less true?
(08-07-2017, 08:08 PM)CKwi88 Wrote: If you change "what Imperial Japan did" to "what the United States did" would this be any less true?
The victors write history. We had plenty of atrocities on the western front when it came to carpet bombing innocent cities out of fear the Germans might take them.
I dont understand why there are differing opinions on using the a-bombs to end WW2, or people feeling sympathetic towards "innocent" German cities that got leveled.
Would it have been nice for Japan to unconditionally surrender after Okinawa was won? Yes, it would have. Would it have been better to simply have invaded the mainland of Japan, to avoid dropping two a-bombs on the two cities? No. Not at all, even if Russia invaded Japan with us.
The loss of life from conventional means would have been immeasurably worse for the Japanese with far more destruction. Not only that, the amount of American life lost would have been horrific, which ultimately was more important back then and rightfully so. The a-bombs, as destructive as they were, saved far more lives and ruin than what they delivered, and in the process the ultimate goal of the war was achieved. Japan was left with much of it's infrastructure intact while not being occupied by the Soviets as well.
(08-07-2017, 10:33 PM)Millhouse Wrote: I dont understand why there are differing opinions on using the a-bombs to end WW2, or people feeling sympathetic towards "innocent" German cities that got leveled.
Would it have been nice for Japan to unconditionally surrender after Okinawa was won? Yes, it would have. Would it have been better to simply have invaded the mainland of Japan, to avoid dropping two a-bombs on the two cities? No. Not at all, even if Russia invaded Japan with us.
The loss of life from conventional means would have been immeasurably worse for the Japanese with far more destruction. Not only that, the amount of American life lost would have been horrific, which ultimately was more important back then and rightfully so. The a-bombs, as destructive as they were, saved far more lives and ruin than what they delivered, and in the process the ultimate goal of the war was achieved. Japan was left with much of it's infrastructure intact while not being occupied by the Soviets as well.
Any other nation in that circumstance probably would have. Call it stubbornness if you will.
So ingrained in this culture was the belief that suicide or death at the hands of the enemy was preferred over surrender.
Surrender not an option.
As to why it was necessary to drop a second A-bomb was the fact that Japan refused to surrender after the first.
(08-07-2017, 10:33 PM)Millhouse Wrote: I dont understand why there are differing opinions on using the a-bombs to end WW2, or people feeling sympathetic towards "innocent" German cities that got leveled.
Would it have been nice for Japan to unconditionally surrender after Okinawa was won? Yes, it would have. Would it have been better to simply have invaded the mainland of Japan, to avoid dropping two a-bombs on the two cities? No. Not at all, even if Russia invaded Japan with us.
The loss of life from conventional means would have been immeasurably worse for the Japanese with far more destruction. Not only that, the amount of American life lost would have been horrific, which ultimately was more important back then and rightfully so. The a-bombs, as destructive as they were, saved far more lives and ruin than what they delivered, and in the process the ultimate goal of the war was achieved. Japan was left with much of it's infrastructure intact while not being occupied by the Soviets as well.
As for Germany, yes innocent is the correct word to use. Look up things like the Dresden bombing. We flattened a historic city with little to no military value killing 25k innocent civilian people. It wasn't the only time we did it, and in reality we did it because we were simply tired of war and didn't care about civilian casualties at that point late in the war.
As for Japan, I still disagree. They were surrendering we simply didn't want to take it. The bombing survey showed they probably would have surrendered by November which is when we planned for the invasion. If we would have been willing to allow the emperor to be cleared of war crimes, which we ended up letting him be anyways, it would have ended without the use of the weapons. Leahy, Nimitz, Halsey, Arnold, LaMay, MacArthuer, basically every important military figure of the time agreed that either Japanese were ready to surrender, or that it was unnecessary to go that far. Hell even Eisenhower later said that the bombs were unnecessary, a guy who knows the struggles of being a president and a military leader.
War sucks I get it, but we as a country have crossed the line many times in history but have always been in the fortunate position of getting to write our own narrative or cover up for the most part what we did.
(08-08-2017, 09:26 AM)Au165 Wrote: As for Germany, yes innocent is the correct word to use. Look up things like the Dresden bombing. We flattened a historic city with little to no military value killing 25k innocent civilian people. It wasn't the only time we did it, and in reality we did it because we were simply tired of war and didn't care about civilian casualties at that point late in the war.
As for Japan, I still disagree. They were surrendering we simply didn't want to take it. The bombing survey showed they probably would have surrendered by November which is when we planned for the invasion. If we would have been willing to allow the emperor to be cleared of war crimes, which we ended up letting him be anyways, it would have ended without the use of the weapons. Leahy, Nimitz, Halsey, Arnold, LaMay, MacArthuer, basically every important military figure of the time agreed that either Japanese were ready to surrender, or that it was unnecessary to go that far. Hell even Eisenhower later said that the bombs were unnecessary, a guy who knows the struggles of being a president and a military leader.
War sucks I get it, but we as a country have crossed the line many times in history but have always been in the fortunate position of getting to write our own narrative or cover up for the most part what we did.
Agreed. There was no military necessity for dropping the bombs. Even MacArthur, the guy presumably in charge of any invasion, thought it unnecessary. The Japanese high command had already agreed to surrender if the emperor's status could be guaranteed.
From the Japanese side, an equally serious threat was the impending Soviet invasion. The Soviets had already smashed their land army in Manchukuo and, unlike the US, was poised to invade immediately with a very large and very effective army--much more merciless than the US. And they would have held whatever territory they took--possibly the whole of Japan, or half like Korea: then North Japan and South Japan problems ever after.
Until the Soviets turned on them, Japan had been sending peace overtures to the US and Britain through Stalin. The last one got "lost" just before the Soviets invaded Manchukuo.
All the "balance of casualties" arguments--how many Americans and Japanese lives were "saved" by the bomb--arose in the decade after the bombing.
I don't easily fall prey to "both sides do it" arguments. The US was not as bad as Japan or Germany by any stretch. But I am one of those people who thinks that killing innocent Japanese, especially thousands of children, does not balance out the atrocities carried out by their military leaders in other countries. The bulk of these bomb deaths were especially horrible and lingering, emanating in waves from the blast site--people three miles away dying a few days after the drop, then a week later people five miles away, then people six miles away a month later, dropping in the streets and left to writhe in agony because the few available medical facilities were swamped.
(08-07-2017, 10:33 PM)Millhouse Wrote: I dont understand why there are differing opinions on using the a-bombs to end WW2, or people feeling sympathetic towards "innocent" German cities that got leveled.
Would it have been nice for Japan to unconditionally surrender after Okinawa was won? Yes, it would have. Would it have been better to simply have invaded the mainland of Japan, to avoid dropping two a-bombs on the two cities? No. Not at all, even if Russia invaded Japan with us.
The loss of life from conventional means would have been immeasurably worse for the Japanese with far more destruction. Not only that, the amount of American life lost would have been horrific, which ultimately was more important back then and rightfully so. The a-bombs, as destructive as they were, saved far more lives and ruin than what they delivered, and in the process the ultimate goal of the war was achieved. Japan was left with much of it's infrastructure intact while not being occupied by the Soviets as well.
The bolded statement is the key, Millhouse.
The decision to use the bomb was not shaped by potential US causalties, but by the shape of the postwar world. In Asia as in Europe the final months of the war was about whose armies would be occupying what formerly enemy territories.
The Soviets were poised to invade. The US was not. And the US knew Japan was ready to surrender. We were not going to suffer millions of causalities from suicidal Japanese fighting to the end.
But who would receive Japan's surrender if the Soviets invaded?
The bomb enabled to US occupation of mainland Japan and sent a message to the Soviets and the rest of the world.
(08-09-2017, 01:58 PM)Dill Wrote: I don't fall prey to "both sides do it" arguments. The US was not as bad as Japan or Germany by any stretch. But I am one of those people who thinks that killing innocent Japanese, especially children, does not balance out the atrocities carried out by military leaders in other countries.
As a pacifist, I don't see any balancing of the scales on these things. It's all abhorrent.
And also, a reminder that today is the anniversary of the dropping of the bomb on Nagasaki.
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