Did we really have to nuke Japan?

[Camp]

Okinawa was a home island of Japan, populated by Japanese....

Nope.

Yes it was. If you want to inform on the history of the Ryuku Kingdom and control of the islands go ahead. The island was a possession of the Japanese since 1872 and they had voting rights for the Japanese Diet. It was technically a part of Japan and while it's citizens were multicultural, they were Japanese citizens.

 

[whitehall]

In order to discuss the matter rationally we have to learn to rely on evidence and our independent judgement regardless of propaganda and political agenda promoted by the (liberal) media. We know from the media's version of history that Nixon was evil and that Truman was a feisty "give 'em hell president" and most of us are too lazy and not independent enough to look at it rationally. It seems that most Americans are against the concept of killing civilians to promote a political outcome but since the "historians" in the liberal media promoted the propaganda that we lived with in schools and culture it seems that Truman's agenda of killing foreign civilians to achieve a political goal was far more popular than the evil Nixon's alleged idea of burglarizing the headquarters of the other political party. Truman's mistakes in Korea, covered up by the "historians" in the liberal media, is an example of the double standard in 20th century political agenda. In the greatest Country in the world real history is out there if you really have the ambition to find it.

 

[Unkotare]

Okinawa was a home island of Japan, populated by Japanese....

Nope.

Yes it was. ....

No, it was not. You don't understand what you are trying to talk about.

 

[regent]

Well we're off to the question of what was the status of Okinawa, and something about Korea so that should be it for this thread.

 

[Camp]

Okinawa was a home island of Japan, populated by Japanese....

Nope.

Yes it was. ....

No, it was not. You don't understand what you are trying to talk about.

Well get in touch with Mitsugu Sakihara because he agrees with with me and disagrees with you. Bunch of other folks agree with Mitsugu too. They all say Okinawa was the 47 prefecture of Japan since the late 19th century.

muse.jhu.edu/journals/man/summary/v021/21.1.sakihara.html

 

[gipper]

If Japan wanted and intended to surrender all it had to do was surrender. It didn't have to go through the USSR or make noises about surrendering; just put up a white flag and it was over. With Hirohito letting his military leaders continue the war while they negotiated with each other as to surrender or not surrender meant the war continued. Somebody in Japan should have been in charge,
The bottom line is that a couple of days after the bombs were dropped the Japanese surrendered. The two bombs and Hirohito saying we should surrender seemed to have done the deed even as the military continued to argue.

Do you think this justifies using the a-bombs?

Well the fire-bombing didn't seem to be doing the trick so the A bombs were used and bingo a couple days later the Japanese surrendered. While today it may seem old hat, but at the time many Americans were worried more about the loss of American lives and not so much Japanese lives. But, even-so, how many lives, Japanese and American, were spared because of the surrender? As I said it was a different time.

I do not believe that is accurate. By the time of the bombings, little fighting was occurring. Japan had no air force or navy left and the army was in tatters.

It is a fallacy that the bombs saved American lives and a terrible insult that it saved Japanese lives. The US had no need to invade the mainland...and for that matter, Okinawa too. Why did the US need to occupy a defeated nation...other than to appease the warmongers??? The war was over. The US won and most of Japan was in ruins. All Truman had to do was accept the one condition and Japan surrenders...thus saving the lives of thousands of innocent women and children. Truman chose to murder those women and children and THEN accept the one condition. No greater war crime has ever been committed.

Lots of imagination and opinions based on faulty data. The Japanese had troops spread out all over Asia that were being recalled to fight off an invasion. We learned during the battle at Okinawa that they employed a tactic of disassembling aircraft and hiding them in the countryside. Many of the 1500 Kamikazes from Formosa that fought at Okinawa were these hidden aircraft. The Japanese had another 7000 of these aircraft in reserve in preparation for the invasion. In addition they had a fleet of 5000 suicide boats prepared.
What this theory of not attacking Okinawa when we did would have done was give Japan time to refurbish, retrain, reinforce and prepare for the coming invasion. There is no evidence or indication that Japan would have surrendered without the use of the bombs. The only feasible alternative would have been the continued use of fire bombing of cities and inflicting even more casualties than the atomic bombs caused. If Japan knew we were out of bombs and were unable to strike another city they would not have surrendered.
The Japanese surrendered because the Emperor believed another atomic bomb was on the way and it was going to be aimed at him.

So...you justify the a-bombs, thus killing huge numbers of defenseless civilians, because the Japanese government would not surrender. I think your justification is immoral, unethical, and tyrannical.

I see little difference between the Nazi death camps and the Rape of Nanking, to what Truman did to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

 

[Unkotare]

[They all say Okinawa was the 47 prefecture of Japan since the late 19th century.
l

Straw man, not in contention.

 

[elektra]

You found something faster with Google, while I have read and own the book? Your idea about being faster is your fantasy.

Do I deny the quote is there, as stated from your link, its not a matter of denial, its a matter of fact that your link is garbage and that quote is not on page 380, as your link states, I quoted the link you gave, with the reference to the incorrect page.

Whoever created the page is a lousy scholar, there is no check for accuracy, most likely whoever cut/paste the quote together did not read the book. First and foremost, page 380 of Mandate for Change talks of the TVA, not Stimson and the bomb.

Hey, I know this might come as a shock to you, but different editions of the books might have different page numbers. Ike really did say the things about the bombing that he said.

Point is, a lot of military men thought the bombing was unnessary.

"It is my opinion that the 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. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was taught not to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."
- Admiral William D. Leahy
Former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

"Careful scholarly treatment of the records and manuscripts opened over the past few years has greatly enhanced our understanding of why Truman administration used atomic weapons against Japan. Experts continue to disagree on some issues, but critical questions have been answered. The consensus among scholars is the that the bomb was not needed to avoid an invasion of Japan. It is clear that alternatives to the bomb existed and that Truman and his advisers knew it."
- J. Samuel Walker
Chief Historian
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

"It always appeared to us that, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse."
- General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold
Commanding General of the U.S. Army

• Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr., Commander U.S. Third Fleet, stated publicly in 1946:
  
  
  The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment. . . . It was a mistake to ever drop it. . . . [the scientists] had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it. . . . It killed a lot of Japs, but the Japs had put out a lot of peace feelers through Russia long before. (See p. 331, Chapter 26)

It is very simply, you do not know what you are talking about. Your claim is unsubstantiated. You linked to site that has false information. I cited the book that your link provides as a source. Facts are facts, and the fact is that whoever wrote what you believe in does not even know where the Eisenhower statement comes from.

Eisenhower completely agreed with the bombing of Japan, to force surrender.

You think you can just run from one quote to another, when the first quote is found not to exist where you claim.

You can not substantiate your Eisenhower claim, yet you move on to others as if you a playing a game of GO FISH.

Eisenhower had a talk with Stimson, in that talk Eisenhower never said Japan was ready to surrender, not once, further Eisenhower than cites Stimson's book, cites the exact page where Stimson explicitly states, nobody objected to the bomb being dropped. So how does Eisenhower reference Stimson's without qualifying Eisenhower's position as to not agreeing.

How does Eisenhower completely change his opinion 13 years later.

Why does Joeb31 choose to link to a page that references the wrong page of Eisenhower's book. I think the answer is simply, the link cherry picked Eisenhower's statements, left critical information out, hence the person than purposely lists the wrong page, so we do not see the part of the statement that was missing.

You links are pure crap, how about linking to the complete Eisenhower statement.

So after providing a link with a partial cherry picked quote, Joeb31 ignores the wrong information and goes on to give another quote from someone else, you know knowthing Joeb31.

Eisenhower knew nothing of the bomb, it was top secret, as in not known, Eisenhower was never told the secret, that Eisenhower stated to completely different things about the meeting with Stimson is proof enough, that your sources will not correctly state where they got the material from is further proof, that you must lie to make a point.

 

[JoeB131]

Emily, does your doctor know you are off your medication?

 

[regent]

Not that it was any of their business, but I wonder how the American people felt in 1945 about the dropping of the bombs?

 

[JoeB131]

Not that it was any of their business, but I wonder how the American people felt in 1945 about the dropping of the bombs?

Probably the same way they felt about rounding up 110,000 Japanese Americans and putting them in concentration camps.

 

[elektra]

Not that it was any of their business, but I wonder how the American people felt in 1945 about the dropping of the bombs?

Yea, how could be, the business of the American People? How did they feel, to end a War we did not start, a war where in the last 3 months before the bombs were dropped over 49,000 American Sons, died.

regent, how is it any of your business how people felt, before you were born?

I wonder how the millions of families felt, who were literally murdered by the Japanese, felt? I be they felt we did not do enough, soon enough.

STATISTICS OF JAPANESE GENOCIDE AND MASS MURDER

Chapter 3
Statistics Of
Japanese Democide
Estimates, Calculations, And Sources*
By R.J. Rummel




From the invasion of China in 1937 to the end of World War II, the Japanese military regime murdered near 3,000,000 to over 10,000,000 people, most probably almost 6,000,000 Chinese, Indonesians, Koreans, Filipinos, and Indochinese, among others, including Western prisoners of war. This democide was due to a morally bankrupt political and military strategy, military expediency and custom, and national culture (such as the view that those enemy soldiers who surrender while still able to resist were criminals).

 

[elektra]

Not that it was any of their business, but I wonder how the American people felt in 1945 about the dropping of the bombs?

Probably the same way they felt about rounding up 110,000 Japanese Americans and putting them in concentration camps.

Yes, most likely, I see you have ran from your post on Eisenhower, is that because your source factually wrong, or was it because the source literally, left the middle of the quote, out, thus cherry picking.
Or is it because you can not google, as fast as I can post facts from Eisenhower's books?

Thus far you have failed to make a reputable, factual post.

Your ideas and thoughts are based on the poor, factually inaccurate, "scholarly", work of others, hence, undefinable. .

 

[elektra]

You link to a website which quotes one of the books I own, can physically read, and you claim your google search gives you more knowledge?

Seeing how I will not use google, how I quote from the books directly, it will take a bit more time to respond than your cut/paste.

Google is not knowledge at all, its an obfuscation of the facts, you could do a search on, "Eisenhower likes blue Goats", and get results.

Stimson came to tell Eisenhower a Top Secret, we have Eisenhower's word? Seems to me there was a big fight going on between Eisenhower and Truman? Yes?

First, you act like the Atomic Bomb was that big of a secret that most people couldn't have conceived of such a thing. People had been speculating about the possibility of atomic weapons since the 1920's.

Second, do you deny that the quote is there? Or are you just saying because I can find something faster with google, that makes a difference?

Anyway, a lot of our military men, Ike and MacArthur, thought the bomb was a terrible idea, which of course, it was.

MacArthur did not like the bomb? Care to back that up like you were not able to back up your Eisenhower claims?

 

[Jarlaxle]

In the end a lot of Japanese, and a lot of Americans survived and lived out their lives. Perhaps the decision always lay in Hirohito's hands and after two bombs he told Japan to surrender and bingo the war was over. The real question: should the emperor have suggested surrender before the fire bombing and before the a bombs, instead of letting the military decide?

Or how about between atomic bombs one and two? He was given every opportunity to surrender but clearly didn't care about his people.

HE was not in charge. the IJA was. their belief was the Americans had only 1 bomb. it would not happen again

Also...advocating surrender had a very real chance of getting Hirohito assassinated! (In fact, even after the second bomb, he nearly was.)

 

[Jarlaxle]

there was no compassion for civilians. they were nothing more than slaves. also we did drop leaflets warning civilians to leave large cities

Truman had so much compassion for Japanese civilians, that he incinerated them on a vast scale for no legitimate reason.

try reading history. its all there

It sure is. I learned from it and you did not.

no you did not. imagine if you will (or can) having a brother who was in the Marines. and he was killed during the invasion. a year later you find out Truman had a weapon that would have saved his and millions and didn't use it. your satified with your borthers death right??

Your post proves you have failed to learn the history. Your entire premise is BS. No invasion was necessary.

Try to understand that Japan was defeated before the bombs were dropped. The war was over. All we needed to do was go home.

You are a truly SPECIAL kind of stupid!

 

[regent]

STATISTICS OF JAPANESE GENOCIDE AND MASS MURDER

Chapter 3
Statistics Of
Japanese Democide
Estimates, Calculations, And Sources*
By R.J. Rummel




From the invasion of China in 1937 to the end of World War II, the Japanese military regime murdered near 3,000,000 to over 10,000,000 people, most probably almost 6,000,000 Chinese, Indonesians, Koreans, Filipinos, and Indochinese, among others, including Western prisoners of war. This democide was due to a morally bankrupt political and military strategy, military expediency and custom, and national culture (such as the view that those enemy soldiers who surrender while still able to resist were criminals).

[/QUOTE]

Not that it was any of their business, but I wonder how the American people felt in 1945 about the dropping of the bombs?

Probably the same way they felt about rounding up 110,000 Japanese Americans and putting them in concentration camps.

Yes, the American people were quite concerned about the Japanese in America at the time and two thirds on the West Coast were indeed citizens, but we didn't take too many chances at that time. Amazing for a concentration camp, however, for the inmates to go on strike, maybe we don't run the correct type of concentration camps?

 

[JoeB131]

Yes, most likely, I see you have ran from your post on Eisenhower, is that because your source factually wrong, or was it because the source literally, left the middle of the quote, out, thus cherry picking.
Or is it because you can not google, as fast as I can post facts from Eisenhower's books?

Naw, I just got bored trying to reason with a crazy person... You really need to get back on your medication

simply put, you are crazy as an outhouse rat and not really worth talking to.

 

[Jarlaxle]

The only argument that the pro-nukers have left is that lots of Americans would have been killed in the invasion of Japan. Can any reasonable sane human really defend that argument? Evidence, that's right, freaking evidence indicates that the Japanese were so desperate to negotiate surrender terms that they turned to Stalin when the idiot that democrats had appointed to succeed FDR seemed clueless. The hangup for surrender negotiations was the promise not to execute the Japanese emperor but Truman was bound by his dead boss's mandate of unconditional surrender and refused to negotiate terms while Stalin was lying to the Japanese about liberal terms of surrender. It's ironic but the one thing the Japanese surrender terms hinged on was authorized after Truman signed off on the incineration of two Japanese cities full of civilians.

An invasion of Japan would have been a bloodbath the likes of which have never been seen Hundreds of thousands of Americans and millions of Japanese would have died. Also, the winter of 1945-46 would have had a mass famine...even with American supplies, it was a lean winter.

 

[JoeB131]

Yes, the American people were quite concerned about the Japanese in America at the time and two thirds on the West Coast were indeed citizens, but we didn't take too many chances at that time. Amazing for a concentration camp, however, for the inmates to go on strike, maybe we don't run the correct type of concentration camps?

Well, no, the problem is that we interchangeably use the terms "concentration camp" (where people are rounded up and held against their will) with "Death Camp" (Where people are systematically exterminated.)

And, no, locking up people for who their ancestors were because we were scared was just wrong. Period.

Dropping an atomic bomb on a country that was already defeated was just wrong. Period.

In our defense, the whole world was doing a whole lot of wrong at that point.