Did we really have to nuke Japan?

[Mojo2]

I don't buy it.

They no longer had a navy or air force to project their armies.

A simple food and trade embargo would have sufficed (enforced by our unchallenged navy).

There was no reason to even attack the Japanese mainland.

I think it was a bunch of sick and demented fucks that wanted to demonstrate the power of their new toy to the communist USSR.

Admiral William Leahy – the highest ranking member of the U.S. military from 1942 until retiring in 1949, who was the first de facto Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and who was at the center of all major American military decisions in World War II – wrote (pg. 441):

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 because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.

The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. 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 not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.

This country is being run by murderous sociopaths.

Can Air Power Alone Win a War

 

[saintmichaeldefendthem]

I don't buy it.

They no longer had a navy or air force to project their armies.

A simple food and trade embargo would have sufficed (enforced by our unchallenged navy).

There was no reason to even attack the Japanese mainland.

I think it was a bunch of sick and demented fucks that wanted to demonstrate the power of their new toy to the communist USSR.

Admiral William Leahy – the highest ranking member of the U.S. military from 1942 until retiring in 1949, who was the first de facto Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and who was at the center of all major American military decisions in World War II – wrote (pg. 441):

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 because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.

The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. 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 not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.

This country is being run by murderous sociopaths.

Hi, The2ndAmendment.

Not too long ago, I was arguing pretty much the same thing. We devastated their fleet, ejected them from the Pacific Islands, bombed their infrastructure into military insignificance, and had them on their knees. That's all true.

But watching Pearl Harbor with my family on December 7th change my mind, not because of anything in the movie, but because I began to contemplate what Japan had done over the last several centuries leading up to Pearl Harbor. Their ruthless military conquests, their harsh treatment of civilians, and the atrocities they committed rivaled only by Nazi Germany left a deficit of justice that needed to be paid.

Historically, I look at how God suffers great injustice, cruelty, and despotic systems for decades and even centuries, but eventually brings it to a crushing end. It's what happened when the Israelites took Canaan, and there are many more examples. Japan had iron fisted control off and on of Siberia, Eastern China, the Koreas, and the Pacific Islands. Their cruelty is the stuff of legends and people had been crying out against their injustice for too long for a just God to ignore.

So rather than looking at Hiroshima as direct reciprocity for Pearl Harbor, it makes more sense to see it through the context of a long history of atrocities, massacres, torture, and suffering inflicted by the Empire of Japan. It was an evil empire that needed to be crushed to end its reign of terror on the Pacific rim. And crush them we did.

And what was the result? Japan has now, for the last 70 years, been a peaceful nation, a democracy that seeks economic success not through conquest but through free trade and capitalism. It's hard to second guess history, or to credibly claim that there would have been a similar result if we didn't bring them to the point of absolute, unconditional surrender.

So as recently as a week ago, I've changed my mind on Hiroshima. I think it was necessary and I think they deserved it.

Again, the bombs being dropped had nothing to do with Japan giving up, or "revenge." Of course many Americans then and now saw it that way.

It had everything to do with the USSR and their encroachment into the region. Again, they were absolute bullies, and they were certainly testing America's resolve. Stalin, rightfully so, knew the American people would not be able to stomach another long drawn out war. He took advantage of that, and he certainly wanted those very valuable trade routes (yes oil.)

The USSR was working some clandestine type of agreement with Japan, who was all too willing to some how save face. At the very least, they would not have to surrender to the United States. That in itself could be sold as a victory.

Stalin, for all intents and purposes, was basically asking Truman, "what they hell are you going to do about it?"

I am not sure if we know what sort of a sick tyrant Stalin was. So, the choices for this country were:

> Allow Japan to surrender to the USSR even after we fought the war and so many died.

> Start up a long drawn out HOT war with the USSR (we probably would have won, considering all of our factories were in working order and we did not lose half the men or hardware the USSR did and why Patton wanted to start it with them). Of course that would have meant 10s of thousands more young American men dying.

> Drop the bomb, and forcing the USSR to back off. The USSR called the bluff after the first drop and after the second drop they were not sure how many we had, so they backed off invading Japan, who became an "American ally" upon their surrender.

Those are the choices. Which one of the 3 would you have made?

Again, there were no choices that were good. I do not believe the Japanese people "deserved" it. I mean innocent women and children and elderly people etc etc are like most citizens in every country. They have little to no clue or care what is happening in some distant land.

However, this is the tragedy. There are different horrifying stories in every war. Thousands of them. Every single war has them, and it is very tempting to demonizing a group of people, a religion, or a race. I do it. It is not right.

Unless you are talking about insidious hypocrites like the American left wing piece of godless shit that is.

You didn't understand my post at all. It's not about what criteria caused President Truman to use nuclear bombs, it's about the longer term justice by which Japan received just reciprocity for centuries of horrible war crimes. In Korea, a nation I spent a year in, there is still deep seated pain and anger over the Japanese occupation that went from 1910 to 1945, when we freed them from Japanese tyranny. It's difficult without writing a whole book to convey the depth of suffering Japan inflicted on its neighbors. The civilian lives in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were certainly regrettable, but it pales in comparison to what Japanese did to civilians in the countries they occupied, from torture to outright holocaust. Japan had an ass kicking coming to it and we were the ones to mete it out.

So, killing all those civilians wasn't a military objective? Just for the visceral pleasure of revenge?

You really think in tiny circles, don't you? I wasn't talking about the reasons the U.S. bombed Japan. In fact, that was made clear in the second sentence of the post you quoted and didn't read or didn't understand. Try to extend yourself a little better. Not saying you're stupid, I'm saying you're not using your intellect.

 

[The Irish Ram]

I understand things just fine, Unk. You're playing Risk, and Battleship with WW2 soldier's lives.
What would you have suggested we do to stop Japan? Keep in mind that being nuked once had no effect on their resolve.
How much longer would you be willing to let our soldiers die if they didn't need to, in a war they didn't ask for, at a rate of over 500 a day to spare the enemy? Include your son or daughter or daddy in the death tolls on Aug. 10th, 11th, 12.......... How many more young American lives would you have forfeited in an effort to be politically correct and spare our enemy the agony of defeat? A month more? Another year? 500 more Americans a day for 6 months? You play at war. They died in war. Second guess that.

What if it was a military objective? So? Was the objective obtained? Did it end the war?

Wake Island was the visceral pleasure of revenge. Bombing any or all of Japan to get them to surrender was an effort to end the death of Americans.

 

[DigitalDrifter]

This is an argument that appears will never be settled, and will live on.

I wish people would just let it go and move on.

 

[Unkotare]

Japan had an ass kicking coming to it and we were the ones to mete it out.

So, killing all those civilians wasn't a military objective? Just for the visceral pleasure of revenge?[/QUOTE]

You really think in tiny circles, don't you? I wasn't talking about the reasons the U.S. bombed Japan. In fact, that was made clear in the second sentence of the post you quoted and didn't read or didn't understand. Try to extend yourself a little better. Not saying you're stupid, I'm saying you're not using your intellect.[/QUOTE]


It was a yes/no question. Stop ducking.

 

[Unkotare]

I understand things just fine, Unk. ....

Sure doesn't seem that way.

 

[The Irish Ram]

It's called patriotism. Don't expect you to get it. Poor Japan, huh?

 

[Unkotare]

It's called patriotism.

What is?

 

[Jarlaxle]

Load it on a submarine. (They had at least three subs with four times the range required.)

Naval blockade, moron.

Maybe you have not heard, but a submarine can do this really neat thing: it can travel BELOW the surface! Despite the blockade, subs still got through.

 

[Unkotare]

Load it on a submarine. (They had at least three subs with four times the range required.)

Naval blockade, moron.

Maybe you have not heard, but a submarine can do this really neat thing: it can travel BELOW the surface! Despite the blockade, subs still got through.

You are a fool.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Load it on a submarine. (They had at least three subs with four times the range required.)

Naval blockade, moron.

Maybe you have not heard, but a submarine can do this really neat thing: it can travel BELOW the surface! Despite the blockade, subs still got through.

You are a fool.

The fool here is you, you refuse to read SOURCE Documents that prove that Japan had no intention of surrendering and refused after 2 atomic bombs.That when the Emperor ordered the surrender anyway that the Army attempted a Coup to stop the surrender.

 

[The Irish Ram]

It's called patriotism.

What is?

You don't think I get what you're talking about. You're playing armchair General. The OP was questioning America's political correctness in the war against Japan. Should we have dropped the bomb? Yes. Why? Because it saved my Dad's life. He came home to marry and raise a family. We weren't at war with the Japanese military. We were at war with Japan. And every square mile of Japan had soldiers in their war that were supported by those people that were bombed. The days when people would picnic around the battlefields where soldiers fought and killed each other, no longer applied with the advent of the airplane. I'm pretty sure Japan knew that and felt losing non-military members of their society was worth the risk. Even when they were warned. We needed to drop a bomb on Japan to stop Japan from killing us some more.

A better question for the op would be, did Japan really need to bomb Pearl Harbor?

 

[Unkotare]

Load it on a submarine. (They had at least three subs with four times the range required.)

Naval blockade, moron.

Maybe you have not heard, but a submarine can do this really neat thing: it can travel BELOW the surface! Despite the blockade, subs still got through.

You are a fool.

The fool here is you, you refuse to read SOURCE Documents that prove that Japan had no intention of surrendering and refused after 2 atomic bombs.That when the Emperor ordered the surrender anyway that the Army attempted a Coup to stop the surrender.

Your straw man also says you're a fool.

 

[Unkotare]

[ We weren't at war with the Japanese military. We were at war with Japan....

So the goal was to kill civilians? Women, children, the elderly?

 

[saintmichaeldefendthem]

Load it on a submarine. (They had at least three subs with four times the range required.)

Naval blockade, moron.

Maybe you have not heard, but a submarine can do this really neat thing: it can travel BELOW the surface! Despite the blockade, subs still got through.

You're not talking to an intelligent person. He sounds like a teenager or just a very stupid man.

 

[Unkotare]

You're not talking to an intelligent person. ...

No need to introduce yourself every time you post.

 

[whitehall]

Japan was a defeated country. It's once powerful navy was left with a couple of submarines and little or no surface ships. It's army was defeated on every front. The clinically insane remnants of the Bushido empire were desperate to negotiate terms with the US but Harry Truman was following orders from his deceased former boss and the clinically insane holdouts in the FDR administration and he refused to negotiate so the Japanese went to Stalin who promised them everything. The biggest issue in the Japanese negotiations was the preservation of the Emperor and the promise that he would not be executed. Ironically that promise was kept after Truman authorized the incineration of two Japanese cities. While the Japanese thought they were negotiating peace terms with Russia (who was a US ally) they were jolted into reality with entire cities destroyed with a single bomb. The use of the Atomic bomb was a hideous example of how degenerate human beings had become in a mere four years.

 

[Jarlaxle]

Stupid post! ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

[saintmichaeldefendthem]

Japan was a defeated country. It's once powerful navy was left with a couple of submarines and little or no surface ships. It's army was defeated on every front. The clinically insane remnants of the Bushido empire were desperate to negotiate terms with the US but Harry Truman was following orders from his deceased former boss and the clinically insane holdouts in the FDR administration and he refused to negotiate so the Japanese went to Stalin who promised them everything. The biggest issue in the Japanese negotiations was the preservation of the Emperor and the promise that he would not be executed. Ironically that promise was kept after Truman authorized the incineration of two Japanese cities. While the Japanese thought they were negotiating peace terms with Russia (who was a US ally) they were jolted into reality with entire cities destroyed with a single bomb. The use of the Atomic bomb was a hideous example of how degenerate human beings had become in a mere four years.

So....after 150 years of atrocities against its neighbors and attacking Pearl Harbor, Japan is the victim?

 

[The Irish Ram]

[ We weren't at war with the Japanese military. We were at war with Japan....

So the goal was to kill civilians? Women, children, the elderly?

The goal was to win the war that Japan started. We did that. To the tune of 500+ American lives a day. Be sure to watch the movie Unbroken, then weep for Japan.

The real question Unk is why did Japan put their women, children, and elderly at such risk, and declare war on a nation that was minding it's own business? Almost like their eye was on the big prize at the expense of their own women, children, and elderly. Stop trying to make the U.S. the bad guys. Japan was the bad guy.