Did we really have to nuke Japan?

[SAYIT]

America dropped two bombs and the war ended days later.
Had Truman not dropped the bombs, some posters today would be holding Truman responsible for every casualty after August 14. A lot of young Americans lived full lives because of Truman's decision.

Some of those posters wouldn't even be alive because their grandfather died in a costly invasion and never met their grandmother. That's what happens when history is rewritten.

An invasion rendered unnecessary by the fact that Japan was attempting to surrender.

No they were not as evidenced by my already linked source documents all Japan offered was a ceasefire in place with a return to Japan of all land seized since the start of the war.

How many times have you and I done this? You post the link to your source documents, I find the documents showing the Japanese cables intercepted by the U.S. showing them reaching out to the Soviet Union to end the conflict, thus making any invasion or nuclear bombing unnecessary, and you resort to quibbling over semantics.

No, Gunny's evidence says the Japs were not surrendering but rather offering the Soviets a ceasefire (which would have had no bearing on our prosecution of our conflict with Japan). I wonder why you must lie and distort the facts in order to make your case that America is "evil?" Could it be they just do not support your conclusion?

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

An invasion rendered unnecessary by the fact that Japan was attempting to surrender.

Oh, is that what they were doing while we were dropping leaflets on them and begging them to avert disaster?

Yes, they were reaching out to the Soviet Union to surrender because they knew when the Soviets entered the Pacific theater they were done for. The U.S. had intercepted communications from the Japanese making this fact clear. It's the reason that Eisenhower said that nuking them was unnecessary and evil.

Some people have an irresistible need to make America seem "evil" by twisting history to satisfy that need.

Like future President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of Allied forces?

No ... like you.

Well I'm taking the same position as Eisenhower, Herbert Hoover, and many other conservatives of the time.

"...the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing." - Dwight D. Eisenhower

"The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul." - Herbert Hoover

"When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor." - Norman Cousins

"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." - William D. Leahy

So you're saying that these men are twisting history.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

America dropped two bombs and the war ended days later.
Had Truman not dropped the bombs, some posters today would be holding Truman responsible for every casualty after August 14. A lot of young Americans lived full lives because of Truman's decision.

Some of those posters wouldn't even be alive because their grandfather died in a costly invasion and never met their grandmother. That's what happens when history is rewritten.

An invasion rendered unnecessary by the fact that Japan was attempting to surrender.

No they were not as evidenced by my already linked source documents all Japan offered was a ceasefire in place with a return to Japan of all land seized since the start of the war.

How many times have you and I done this? You post the link to your source documents, I find the documents showing the Japanese cables intercepted by the U.S. showing them reaching out to the Soviet Union to end the conflict, thus making any invasion or nuclear bombing unnecessary, and you resort to quibbling over semantics.

No, Gunny's evidence says the Japs were not surrendering but rather offering the Soviets a ceasefire (which would have had no bearing on our prosecution of our conflict with Japan). I wonder why you must lie and distort the facts in order to make your case that America is "evil?" Could it be they just do not support your conclusion?

If you actually read the cables it shows that Japan was reaching out to the Soviet Union as an in-between for them to surrender to the United States conditionally. Conditions which were later met after the nuclear bombs, and which could have been agreed to beforehand so that there was no reason to vaporize those innocent civilians. Furthermore, the only one talking about America being evil is you. Was Truman evil? No doubt. Harry Truman was not America, however.

 

[regent]

Histories of the bombing indicate Japan had two groups working, one to continue the war and the other to surrender. These two groups could not agree and the war continued. After the second bomb, the emperor called the groups together and in effect told them to surrender and after some hassle they agreed. It was the bombs and the emperor that ordered the war ended, and Japan to endure the unendurable. Japan did not have to go through Russia to surrender, it had only to surrender,

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Histories of the bombing indicate Japan had two groups working, one to continue the war and the other to surrender. These two groups could not agree and the war continued. After the second bomb, the emperor called the groups together and in effect told them to surrender and after some hassle they agreed. It was the bombs and the emperor that ordered the war ended, and Japan to endure the unendurable. Japan did not have to go through Russia to surrender, it had only to surrender,

Obviously incorrect, because that is what they were trying to do. Their conditions were refused until after the bombing and were then accepted. Truman was bound and determined to bomb them.

 

[SAYIT]

Some of those posters wouldn't even be alive because their grandfather died in a costly invasion and never met their grandmother. That's what happens when history is rewritten.

An invasion rendered unnecessary by the fact that Japan was attempting to surrender.

No they were not as evidenced by my already linked source documents all Japan offered was a ceasefire in place with a return to Japan of all land seized since the start of the war.

How many times have you and I done this? You post the link to your source documents, I find the documents showing the Japanese cables intercepted by the U.S. showing them reaching out to the Soviet Union to end the conflict, thus making any invasion or nuclear bombing unnecessary, and you resort to quibbling over semantics.

No, Gunny's evidence says the Japs were not surrendering but rather offering the Soviets a ceasefire (which would have had no bearing on our prosecution of our conflict with Japan). I wonder why you must lie and distort the facts in order to make your case that America is "evil?" Could it be they just do not support your conclusion?

If you actually read the cables it shows that Japan was reaching out to the Soviet Union as an in-between for them to surrender to the United States conditionally. Conditions which were later met after the nuclear bombs, and which could have been agreed to beforehand so that there was no reason to vaporize those innocent civilians. Furthermore, the only one talking about America being evil is you. Was Truman evil? No doubt. Harry Truman was not America, however.

Really? In post #154 (about an hour ago) you stated "It's the reason that Eisenhower said that nuking them was unnecessary and evil" but Eisenhower never said that ... it was you attributing your "evil" to him.

 

[SAYIT]

Histories of the bombing indicate Japan had two groups working, one to continue the war and the other to surrender. These two groups could not agree and the war continued. After the second bomb, the emperor called the groups together and in effect told them to surrender and after some hassle they agreed. It was the bombs and the emperor that ordered the war ended, and Japan to endure the unendurable. Japan did not have to go through Russia to surrender, it had only to surrender,

Obviously incorrect, because that is what they were trying to do. Their conditions were refused until after the bombing and were then accepted. Truman was bound and determined to bomb them.

You can spin all you like, had the Japanese surrendered unconditionally they could have avoided the bomb.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

An invasion rendered unnecessary by the fact that Japan was attempting to surrender.

No they were not as evidenced by my already linked source documents all Japan offered was a ceasefire in place with a return to Japan of all land seized since the start of the war.

How many times have you and I done this? You post the link to your source documents, I find the documents showing the Japanese cables intercepted by the U.S. showing them reaching out to the Soviet Union to end the conflict, thus making any invasion or nuclear bombing unnecessary, and you resort to quibbling over semantics.

No, Gunny's evidence says the Japs were not surrendering but rather offering the Soviets a ceasefire (which would have had no bearing on our prosecution of our conflict with Japan). I wonder why you must lie and distort the facts in order to make your case that America is "evil?" Could it be they just do not support your conclusion?

If you actually read the cables it shows that Japan was reaching out to the Soviet Union as an in-between for them to surrender to the United States conditionally. Conditions which were later met after the nuclear bombs, and which could have been agreed to beforehand so that there was no reason to vaporize those innocent civilians. Furthermore, the only one talking about America being evil is you. Was Truman evil? No doubt. Harry Truman was not America, however.

Really? In post #154 (about an hour ago) you stated "It's the reason that Eisenhower said that nuking them was unnecessary and evil" but Eisenhower never said that ... it was you attributing your "evil" to him.

Oh, I'm sorry, he used the word "awful." Regardless, you're still the only one talking about America being evil.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Histories of the bombing indicate Japan had two groups working, one to continue the war and the other to surrender. These two groups could not agree and the war continued. After the second bomb, the emperor called the groups together and in effect told them to surrender and after some hassle they agreed. It was the bombs and the emperor that ordered the war ended, and Japan to endure the unendurable. Japan did not have to go through Russia to surrender, it had only to surrender,

Obviously incorrect, because that is what they were trying to do. Their conditions were refused until after the bombing and were then accepted. Truman was bound and determined to bomb them.

You can spin all you like, had the Japanese surrendered unconditionally they could have avoided the bomb.

And you can provide cover for unnecessarily bombing innocent people all you like, but Truman is a monster precisely because he demanded the one thing he knew the Japan wouldn't do for peace. In other words, he didn't want peace until he could demonstrate the bomb to the world. That is despicable, and if any country had done anything remotely similar to the United States we would still be denouncing the evil of such an act to this day.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

America dropped two bombs and the war ended days later.
Had Truman not dropped the bombs, some posters today would be holding Truman responsible for every casualty after August 14. A lot of young Americans lived full lives because of Truman's decision.

Some of those posters wouldn't even be alive because their grandfather died in a costly invasion and never met their grandmother. That's what happens when history is rewritten.

An invasion rendered unnecessary by the fact that Japan was attempting to surrender.

No they were not as evidenced by my already linked source documents all Japan offered was a ceasefire in place with a return to Japan of all land seized since the start of the war.

How many times have you and I done this? You post the link to your source documents, I find the documents showing the Japanese cables intercepted by the U.S. showing them reaching out to the Soviet Union to end the conflict, thus making any invasion or nuclear bombing unnecessary, and you resort to quibbling over semantics.

All that Japan offered was a ceasefire with a return to November 1941 start positions. You know it, I know it and anyone that reads the link knows it. That is not an offer to surrender.

 

[SAYIT]

No they were not as evidenced by my already linked source documents all Japan offered was a ceasefire in place with a return to Japan of all land seized since the start of the war.

How many times have you and I done this? You post the link to your source documents, I find the documents showing the Japanese cables intercepted by the U.S. showing them reaching out to the Soviet Union to end the conflict, thus making any invasion or nuclear bombing unnecessary, and you resort to quibbling over semantics.

No, Gunny's evidence says the Japs were not surrendering but rather offering the Soviets a ceasefire (which would have had no bearing on our prosecution of our conflict with Japan). I wonder why you must lie and distort the facts in order to make your case that America is "evil?" Could it be they just do not support your conclusion?

If you actually read the cables it shows that Japan was reaching out to the Soviet Union as an in-between for them to surrender to the United States conditionally. Conditions which were later met after the nuclear bombs, and which could have been agreed to beforehand so that there was no reason to vaporize those innocent civilians. Furthermore, the only one talking about America being evil is you. Was Truman evil? No doubt. Harry Truman was not America, however.

Really? In post #154 (about an hour ago) you stated "It's the reason that Eisenhower said that nuking them was unnecessary and evil" but Eisenhower never said that ... it was you attributing your "evil" to him.

Oh, I'm sorry, he used the word "awful." Regardless, you're still the only one talking about America being evil.

I see. So I point out at it was you who referred to America as "evil" (note the quotes in all my posts), you who attributed it to Eisenhower to give it weight, and now having been caught at your little game you simply claim you meant "awful" and try to dump your lie on me. My references to the term "evil" were all directly related to your bogus use of the term. Yours.

 

[The2ndAmendment]

The better question is, why didn't we nuke Stalin before the USSR had nukes themselves? He was 10x worse than Hitler.

 

[Theowl32]

The better question is, why didn't we nuke Stalin before the USSR had nukes themselves? He was 10x worse than Hitler.

Logistics and politics made that all but impossible. Patton wanted us to go to war with Stalin. He knew they were very vulnerable, and he knew they were no friend to the US. He knew much of our hardware was there, he knew we had mass production capabilities with all of our war factories in tact, and he knew the USSR army was very weakened.

However, they were still very capable, and unlike Japan they still had a very strong navy and they were very capable of defending Moscow. Which meant heavy American losses.

The bottom line is the moronic, American hating typical left wing piece of lying commie shit poster Kennedy thinks the country dropped the bombs on Japan for the hell of it. That is his pathetic disposition. The interesting thing (the pathetic thing) is how he actually thinks he is oh so smart with that type of thinking.

It is so fashionable and imperative for pieces of shit like him to belong to the little clubs they belong to, to blame America for everything. If he even attempted to compliment America and acted thankful in any away for all of the opportunities this country has given him, he would be shunned by his like minded commie losers. There are no bigger annoying sacks of shit than these pieces of commie propaganda pushers. They are nothing but pawns.

Hey Kennedy, you are a fucking moron. You are a fucking loser. You lost this debate a long time ago you unappreciative piece of lying shit.

In case I have not made myself clear enough......FUCK YOU.

 

[gipper]

America is the greatest nation to ever exist. This is due to its foundation of limited government and maximum individual liberty.

However America has been poorly lead by a criminal gang known as politicians, for some time.

Truman was without a doubt a war criminal. Dropping those bombs on a defeated and defenseless nation, killing scores of women, children, and old people can only be considered a terrible crime against humanity.

 

[martybegan]

martybegan

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.

It was a weapon, the US spent billions developing it, it was going to get used no matter what. No one really knew enough about it to think it was anything else than just a big regular bomb, because one had never been detonated in anger before.

Plus, if we didn't use it, we probably would have needed or not been able to refuse soviet assistance in the invasion. Want to imagine the cold war with a North ans South Japan?

The danger is ignorance and revisionist history like yours. Read what the government scientists were worried about as they advised the President


geeze!

Yes, there was the chance they talked about with the atmosphere igniting, however most of their opposition interestingly occurred when Germany was defeated. They also were mostly not against detonating it, but wanted a demonstration. The fact that the Japanese Military still wanted to fight after one of its cities was incinerated shows you how well a demonstration was going to work.

And as for the claim of "revisionist history", go fuck a camel dainty.

 

[martybegan]

America is the greatest nation to ever exist. This is due to its foundation of limited government and maximum individual liberty.

However America has been poorly lead by a criminal gang known as politicians, for some time.

Truman was without a doubt a war criminal. Dropping those bombs on a defeated and defenseless nation, killing scores of women, children, and old people can only be considered a terrible crime against humanity.

And yet our bombing conventionally of Germany and Japan was OK somehow?

They were not defenseless, and they did not think they were defeated.

 

[gipper]

America is the greatest nation to ever exist. This is due to its foundation of limited government and maximum individual liberty.

However America has been poorly lead by a criminal gang known as politicians, for some time.

Truman was without a doubt a war criminal. Dropping those bombs on a defeated and defenseless nation, killing scores of women, children, and old people can only be considered a terrible crime against humanity.

And yet our bombing conventionally of Germany and Japan was OK somehow?

They were not defenseless, and they did not think they were defeated.

No...total war is ALWAYS wrong...and your jumping to conclusions based nothing, lacks intelligence.

 

[The Irish Ram]

Some of those posters wouldn't even be alive because their grandfather died in a costly invasion and never met their grandmother. That's what happens when history is rewritten.

An invasion rendered unnecessary by the fact that Japan was attempting to surrender.

Oh, is that what they were doing while we were dropping leaflets on them and begging them to avert disaster?

Yes, they were reaching out to the Soviet Union to surrender because they knew when the Soviets entered the Pacific theater they were done for. The U.S. had intercepted communications from the Japanese making this fact clear. It's the reason that Eisenhower said that nuking them was unnecessary and evil.

Some people have an irresistible need to make America seem "evil" by twisting history to satisfy that need.

Like future President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of Allied forces?

Yes, just like Eisenhower. While the Supreme Commander didn't confront Truman with his "concerns" before the bomb was dropped, when election time came around they were on opposite sides of the fence. You're using campaign rhetoric to write history, just like Eisenhower used it against the opposite party.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

America dropped two bombs and the war ended days later.
Had Truman not dropped the bombs, some posters today would be holding Truman responsible for every casualty after August 14. A lot of young Americans lived full lives because of Truman's decision.

Some of those posters wouldn't even be alive because their grandfather died in a costly invasion and never met their grandmother. That's what happens when history is rewritten.

An invasion rendered unnecessary by the fact that Japan was attempting to surrender.

No they were not as evidenced by my already linked source documents all Japan offered was a ceasefire in place with a return to Japan of all land seized since the start of the war.

How many times have you and I done this? You post the link to your source documents, I find the documents showing the Japanese cables intercepted by the U.S. showing them reaching out to the Soviet Union to end the conflict, thus making any invasion or nuclear bombing unnecessary, and you resort to quibbling over semantics.

All that Japan offered was a ceasefire with a return to November 1941 start positions. You know it, I know it and anyone that reads the link knows it. That is not an offer to surrender.

Surrendering with conditions is still surrendering. Eisenhower and MacArthur understood that, why don't you?

 

[Theowl32]

America is the greatest nation to ever exist. This is due to its foundation of limited government and maximum individual liberty.

However America has been poorly lead by a criminal gang known as politicians, for some time.

Truman was without a doubt a war criminal. Dropping those bombs on a defeated and defenseless nation, killing scores of women, children, and old people can only be considered a terrible crime against humanity.

Gipper, what you do not know is there was no real choice.

The USSR was starting to flex their muscles upon becoming a super power. The Cold War began with the USSR in February of 1945 at conference of yalta.

By August of 1945, it was clear Stalin wanted control of the trade routes in the Far East. The same routes Japan dominated for nearly half a century. Yes, oil was the product and it was the main reason Japan wanted to control all of those shipping lanes.

Stalin, by 1945 was clearly desiring to dominate the world. There was an obvious clandestine agreement happening between Japan and the USSR. Japan was being enticed to surrender to the USSR. At that time, the US and the USSR were no longer allies. History even writes it that way.

So, the choices for Truman and the US were dubious at best, and dropping the bombs was really the only sensible option to give you an idea of paradoxical options he had.

Either, get into a long drawn out war with the USSR over control of the region, allow the USSR to run roughshod over the US and allow Japan to surrender to Stalin after we wasted so many American lives, or drop the bombs and force Stalin to back off and thereby prevent a full scale hot war with the USSR which would have cost us another 50000 lives if not more.

Btw there was no way the American people could stomach another long drawn out war with what they thought at the time was our ally.

Those are your choices Gipper. What do you do? Do not give me a hippy peace love answer. This is Stalin we are talking about. A megalomaniac if there was ever one. What choice do you make? Allow the Japanese to surrender to the USSR after we fought them and she'd our blood? Just let that happen? You have any idea the political fall out? What do you do Gipper? There were only 3 choices. What do you do?