On the slaughter committed by Truman and LBJ...

As we all know, Harry Truman gave the order for the terrorist attack that unnecessarily incinerated 200,000 Japanese civilians and killed tens of thousands more with radiation sickness, leaving a legacy of deformity and sickness that continues to this day in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

We also know that LBJ ramped up the unnecessary and immoral war in Vietnam, which eventually took 50 thousand US soldiers' lives, as well as the lives of 2 million Southeast Asians.

Many democrats are quick to rush to the defense of these two killers, which is fine, you're entitled to do that - I'm just wondering what the reasons are.


I would point out that the Democratic Party of today and that of 50 years ago were quite different. At that time, the party championed the rights of working people, whereas today it is mostly controlled by corporate interests. On the other hand, it was also the party of the blatantly racist Dixiecrats, whereas todays racists are all in the GOP. I don't believe critiquing democrats of decades ago amounts to dissent with the party today (although I most certainly do have problems with the party as it is now constituted)

TWICE which killed, indiscriminately, every man, woman, and child, young and old, friend and foe alike... that is TERRORISM on a MASSIVE SCALE.

we MUST admit to our own faults before the fear of what we are will kill us all.

Hiroshima is the second most horrid word in the American lexicon, succeeded only bu NAGASAKI - Kurt V

peace

(sfexpat2000 this isn't directed at you at all, since i agree 100% with your post ;-)

http://www.doug-long.com

recommended reading...
Gar Alperovitz and the H-Net Hiroshima Debate
http://www.doug-long.com/debate.htm

peace

To see how people here think.

So far the results are encouraging.

I like that people here put ethics above partisanship.

And comparing Truman's decision to end a world-wide conflict in one stroke, to Johnson's escalation of an illegal war is absurd and reactionary.

not world wide.

Um, I think that's more than enough, don't you?

Or would you rather have seen another year of a bloody ground war in an invasion of the Japanese home islands?

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One million citizens probably would have died.

In only vaporizing a quarter million of them.

:eyes:

The Soviets lost 26 million in the war. In the unfathomable numbers of dead, it's very hard to have much sympathy for two cities.

Than a quarter million REALLY DEAD. :eyes:

I suppose you think the only choices available were immediate ground invasion or immediate a-bombing? Come on.

Stalin was a little land-crazy at the end.

Otherwise Japan could have been a satellite nation, a la Eastern Europe.

Funny how "ending the war quickly was for the best" keeps popping up...why is that?

By August of '45, the US had caught on to Stalin's game in Eastern Europe and didn't want the same thing to happen in Japan. However, our agreement with them was that as soon as the European conflict was over, the Soviets would declare war on Japan. It happened and the progress in Manchuria was staggering. That conflict would have been over in 4 to 6 weeks. Once that happened, you probably would have ended up with a Communist north and free south in Japan. Plus a Soviet-doiminated China.

Granted, China went Communist anyway. But it was home-grown communism. A slight improvement over being a colony.

at the time, at least. I don't think anybody expected that progress. They used it in post-war planning, to outline what to expect if the USSR invaded Western Europe.

They always cite the scene in Patton where he wants to arm the Germans and fight the Russians. The fact is, the Red Army in 1945 was the most fearsome military machine in history. It probably would have pushed the Americans to the English Channel in six months.

The whole reason for the "Battle of the Bulge" was Hitler knew that any counter-attack against the Soviets was pointless whereas an attack in the West had at least a tiny chance of success.

...and I totally agree with six months. The Sovs would have kicked our asses off the continent, for keeps.

I must confess near complete ignorence on this subject, but I always under the impression that the Mongols were the fastest army in history.

But they nearly overran Manchuria in a week. That's pretty damn fast! They were fully mechanized, so my money would be on the Sovs being faster than the Mongols.

Here's a good link:

http://www.answers.com/topic/operation-august-storm

what were his other choices? Before posing a false dilemna, you might want to check it out. Or, not.

You lost me there. Please explain. Or, not.

The two events seem unrelated.

against Asian nations. And that they were unconscionable.

You are taking current knowledge of long term effects of radiation, the cold war, the power of conventional atomic bombs and placing them in Truman’s time when it's clear it was not fully understood.


Now what the Japanese did the Chinese. That was unconscionable...

Asian nations? Ah because Vietnamese Culture is soooooooooooooooo similar to Japanese? Not. The two wars are so dissimilar in origin, combat, rational and historical context you have to be completely obtuse to see them as similar aggressive acts on Asian nations.

when they tested the bomb. There was also some knowledge of the effects of radiation exposure. The citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were used as guinea pigs to make certain the amount of carnage that could be produced, but there was no doubt that tens of thousands would die.

As for your other comments, I never said the two wars were similar...

Your question clearly implies that both actions are similar and I think it's clear they aren't.

"The citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were used as guinea pigs to make certain the amount of carnage that could be produced, but there was no doubt that tens of thousands would die."

This statement is a lie. I end this conversation because you clearly do not understand history enough to understand the differences between Johnson and Truman's actions. Which is the main point of my original statement.

You are free to leave in a huff if you like, but they had tested the bomb in the New Mexico desert and had sufficient instrumentation to understand the blast radius, the shock and heat effects, etc. They were aware of the population of the cities being bombed and the fact the the buildings were mostly wood. Unlike most other Japanese cities, Hiroshima had been completely spared from the firebombing (hmm... that's odd since it was a "strategic military target). It was pretty clear that they wanted to study the effects on a population center and didn't want any confusion as to what the source of damage was. They were used as guinea pigs.

And Truman's and Johnson's actions were decidedly different, but certainly wrong..

Truman chose an evil and cowardly way to end a just war.

LBJ chose to escalate and prolong an utterly immoral and unnecessary war.

I'm not capable of evaluating which is worse.


I believe I understand the history in a way you do not. I invite you to go to Hiroshima. Meet the hibakusha who have lived out their years with keloids and scars. Tell them with confidence your puffed-up tales of how America was justified in unleashing the nuclear demon on their families, friends and community.

I don't like it, but apparently the Japanese were committed to fighting on without surrender until they were all dead. Any conventional invasion by the Allies would have resulted in horrendous casualties for both sides. The bombs were awful, I hate them, but ultimately they may have saved more lives.

why do you so unquestioningly accept that historical revisionist spin?

"apparently the Japanese were committed to fighting on without surrender until they were all dead"

I beg to differ. Truman's military advisors disagreed, too.

I'm just saying that what we take for granted as solid historical fact can be just as warped and distorted as the crap that airs on Fox News every night. I might be totally wrong about some of the facts surrounding the bombing. Unfortunately the historical record can be a bit murky.


But it is good to question one's own assumptions sometimes...

Nor is the matter particularly murky; nor is my knowledge of it derived from some Time-Life book skimmed long ago....

But thanks for the self-important declaration.

He was the man responsible for authorizing the creation of the atomic bomb, furthermore I have no doubt that had he been given the same information that HST had about the atom bomb ultimately saving over a million allied lives that he would have authorized its use too. Why not include JFK as a mass murderer as well? he authorized the Bay of Pigs, began the military escalation in Vietnam, and apparently authorized the murder of Diem in Vietnam--so that we could get even more of a puppet government supportive of the US.

and it's impossible to determine what his intentions for its use might have been. He knew the nazis were working on a device, so the Manhattan Project was a wise course of action.


There were only 16,000 "advisors" in Vietnam when Kennedy was killed, and there were signs that he may have intended a pullout. He practically aborted the Bay of Pigs, which was planned before he took office. And political assassinations are not "mass murder". I think JFK's record compares favorably with LBJ and Truman's

FDR was a hard-ass.

He was a hard-ass in terms of pursuing the war to its end. I see no reason to believe he would have slaughtered cities full of civilians for no reason.

He bombed half of Europe to rubble.

He was on board with fireboming campaigns.

He screwed Britain out of their plans to develop a nuclear bomb.

In fact, he basically used Britain's position to take away its Empire prior to the Lend-Lease Act.

FDR in modern parlance...was a bitch.

God bless 'im.

That cannot be compared to mass murder.

Roosevelt didn't have any qualms about firebombing Germany and Japan flat while he was alive, did he?

Why would you think that he'd hesitate to drop the atomics?

as reprehensible as Dresden was, it was POSSIBLE to escape. Not so at ground zero in Hiroshima.

At ground zero in Dresden, there weren't a lot of options.

Than being vaporized before even having a chance to think about it, yes.

Not much, admittedly...

That's more than twice as many as Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined!

You've got some strange logic there.

I've never defended that bombing. But from the standpoint of a person on the ground, I'd rather be on the ground in Dresden than Hiroshima.

Our intention was to kill tens of thousands at Dresden, nothing less.

Dresden. Tokyo. The firestorms in those cities caused more casualties than either atomic bomb. And Dresden, unlike Hiroshima or Nagasaki, had no military targets at all.

Maybe the A-bomb part of it was a show of force to frighten Stalin, who had just declared war on Japan and who had the largest army in the world, but based on the casualty rates from Okinawa it is a safe bet that an invasion of the Japanese islands would have cost the US more than 100,000 lives, and Japan better than 1,000,000.

Maybe a surrender was in the works before the bombs, but even after them there were hardliners who were ready to depose the emperor to prevent the surrender.

I can't fault Truman on that one.

this one. It's just too depressing. :(

is not so bad. I also think FDR since he developed the bomb would have dropped it--given the same information that Truman had, but who knows for sure. Truman, like LBJ had the same group of advisors that FDR and JFK did.

He saved countless American AND Japanese lives by dropping the bombs. The object in war is to win.

I never understand why it is somehow worse to have died in an atomic blast than by a firebomb. We killed more people in Tokyo than we did in Hiroshima and no one blinks an eye.

and the firestorms went out of control. At least in Tokyo, people had a CHANCE to get to shelters, to escape. There was no chance in Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

But it is fair to condemn the firebombing of other Japanese cities as well as the bombing of Dresden.

Indiscriminate mass murder is okay if the victims maintain a fairly low chance of survival?

since it's the opposite of what I wrote?

That strikes me as a minor concession. And you don't appear to be condemning them yourself. In fact, you are basically dismissing them as a misdemeanor compared to the felony of Hiroshima.

knowledge of the Dresden bombing. To this day I don't understand why it was done.

Yes, I think it was an atrocity. I just wish I understood it.

It was a combination of punishment and terrorism. There was very little strategy behind it.

That's why I have a much easier time defending Hiroshima. There was a strategy there to end the war immediately. No one thought that Dresden would achieve anything other than quench a British thirst for some payback.

People in shelters were simply roasted, like so many potatoes buried under a camp-fire. People who shought shelter in water courses, even in school swimmin pools, were boiled alive. The temperatures reached a point in many areas where people's clothing burst into flame without contavt with the fires.

Nor was this in any way inadvertant. It was precisely the effect it was intended to achieve. Given the nature of the assualt, the construction prevelant at the target, and the fire defenses available, no other outcome could have been expected. The weapons employed were napalm and magnesium incendiaries; the construction principally of wood and paper; the fire equipment consisted of hand pumps.

An excellent case can be made the entire bombing campaign, in which this was merely one incident, was atrocious, but the idea the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were exceptionally so is utterly wothout foundation.

Further, discussion of the matter that ignores the previous events of the war, and particularly ignores the conduct of Japanese forces in China, presents a picture falsified by signifigant ommission.

The truth of the matter is that atrocity had been the common coin of events for many years. No means existed, and for that matter no means currently exist, by which a national government wielding its military forces in wholesale atrocity can be effectively assailed, and halted in such endeavor, other than the doing of collossal harm to its citizenry, and that regardless of the fact that in most instances, that citizenry has in daily lives and pursuits, little direct influenc eor responsibility for the actuions of its gocernment. The only criteria by which a judgement can be rendered in such a situation is by the consideration of who began the conflict, and so put others to the necessity of doing what had to be done to halt the thing. There is no foubt whatever that, in the Pacific War, this responsibility rests with the Imperial Japanese government, which had embarked on a course of conquest and atrocity long before it was so foolish as to force the direct involvement of the United States in the matter.

for a number of reasons... sure if you wanna try to reduce it to the crude body count of the day of the event but even that FAILS, as ONE of the EXCEPTIONAL horrors about the weapon used on civilians at Hiroshima and Nagasaki is the DEADLY RADIATION it gives off, reaching even up into the womb and across the generations to keep on killing and maiming long after - in fact to this very day - the initial EXCEPTION. the total for JUST Hiroshima alone is now close to a quarter of a MILLION.

that we obliterated a whole city from a single bomb is the 2nd exceptional thing about this horrific event.

but perhaps the most exceptional horror of these events is that we did it to a defeated and suing for peace nation :puke:

against ALL the advice of our military leaders in theater at the time.

:cry:

peace

than died in both bombings. Truman knew that. Our military knew that. And damn straight the Japanese were counting on that, to gain better terms for their surrender.

So, what's better? Save lives with one swift, decisive, horrific stroke intended to end the war, or unnecessarily prolong a bloody ground war for perhaps another year?

Apparently the bloody ground war, because no nuke was used.

Yeah, that makes sense.

:shrug:

nt

Again, comparing a regional conflict to a world war is absurd.

They were suing for peace. Atomic weapons should have been a last resort, but Truman wanted to use his new toy to scare the Soviets, as he and Stalin were already starting to rachet up the pointless Cold War.

Surrender was hardly imminent and certainly not on our terms.

soldiers in China and Korea.

I wouldn't exactly call that a mere regional conflict.

Which in the Red Army way of doing things...would have resulted in probably 100,000 dead Russians and 2 jillion dead civilians.

They were in it for the duration.

They were told in no uncertain terms that unconditional surrender was the only way to end the war.

On Edit:

And if you insist on calling the Pacific theater a 'regional conflict' in August of 1945, it's because of four years' worth of fighting that kicked the Japanese out of every territory that THEY occupied in a war THEY started. Left to their devices, they'd still be there.

Civilian or military? Which do you suppose held the balance of power in the governing structure?

What is your definition of regional? Do you dismiss the continental theater of China as a mere "regional" conflict?

We lost that many men on training exercises in WWII. The preparation for the invasion of the mainland probably would have cost more men than the entire Iraq War.

Equipped with WW2 equipment, the numbers would be in the tens of thousands.

Look up how many soldiers have lost BOTH LEGS, eyes, etc. The numbers are astonishing.

southern Japan (which we only found out after the bombs had dropped).

We were going to invade with 9 divisions. What do you think would have happened?

Truman was faced with a political decision to drop the bomb. He realized that the American people were sick of the war and wanted it ended. He was also faced with the very real possibility that the Soviet Union would swallow up China if the war continued. In fact, there is strong evidence that Stalin's invasion of Manchuria and the annhilation of the Kwangtung Army had more to do with the surrender than the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan was totally cut off from it's supply of everything. It would have been very simple to continue to blockade it into submission. The figures of 1 million dead were based on the assumption of invasion, which was unnecessary.

LBJ upped the ante to prove his "anti-communism" and found, like the current birdbrain in the WH, that the much vaunted military power of the USA was a figment of the general's imaginations and "those yella' dwarfs with switchblades" as he called them, could beat the crap out of us.

Both are mass-murderers.

I guess people really want to believe that the ending of the "Good War" was also good. Vietnam is just beyond any hope of redemption...

We had no interests there.

For just this once, this thread.

:)

LBJ did what he thought was politically acceptable.

All of them were convinced of the "rightness", "morality", and "justice" of their causes.

End of story.

I think what he did was a terrible crime against humanity, but it wasn't out of a lust to take over Japan. Hitler and Mussolini were madmen, Hitler wanted to take over the world. Hirohito was more of a puppet of the military than anything else. His weakness makes him worthy of contempt, I suppose, but he was not in the league of the European fascists.

I don't fault FDR for that because he felt it would end the war sooner and that is exactly why Truman used nuclear weapons. From the information we had at the time, it was the right option and in retrospect, it still should have been done since the war was not on the verge of ending anyway. All of this crap about how Japan was ready to surrender is pure horse shit.

My statement was that all of the leaders did what they thought was "right", "moral" and "just". Care to refute that?

I don't have time to debate idiots.

How terribly courageous of you. Afraid that you can't defend your position?

and against the rules...

fyi :hi:

peace

The Truman statement criticized deaths in the enemy country only. The LBJ statement criticized the war, which involved many deaths on both sides.

Truman did what he thought was necessary to secure a surrender.
I sometimes wonder how we managed to stop at bombing only two cities. If the surrender hadn't followed soon enough, Truman probably would have authorized more bombings. War is not humanity's finest moment.

Even if the Japanese could have been induced into surrender, it probably would have taken weeks or months to negotiate. In that time, Stalin would have had Manchuria and probably would have been able to turn Japan into Germany.

Truman and his advisors feared that he would take the rest of China. Does that justify the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of civilians?

Considering that millions probably would have died in the Soviets' move to secure Manchuria and take the rest of China.

Tens of millions of people died in the 1930s and 1940s. It's crude, but using this kind of math is legitimate in that conflict. 250,000 deaths may have spared 2 million people - Japanese, American, Chinese, and Russian. And it allowed Japan to have a much easier post-War existence, free of Soviet influence.

In cold hard facts, it was worth it.

It's interesting to note that the Soviets DID give up Manchuria at the end of the war and cooperated with Chiang-kai Shek to form a government.
Which embittered the Chinese Communists who saw it as a betrayal.

It's also very doubtful that the Soviets had much interest in Japan at the end of the war. Japan, unlike Poland, Czechoslavkia, the Baltic States, weren't on it's borders and posed no threat. Also, they gave up their support for the Greek Communists in the civil war there. Truman backed the British and the reinstallation of the monarchy complete with fascists who had collaborated with the Germans.

I'm afraid your hypothesis about sparing millions of lives at the cost of 250,000 is a bit short of facts.

Vietnam and all of our other military juntas of the past 50 years are merely extensions of the myopic foreign policy of Harry Truman.

Japan? It's all a lot of wonderful hindsight garbage to say that Truman could have waited for Japan to collapse under its own weight, but we had no idea that it would if we didn't nuke it.

Except for political reasons. Japan was already crushed. The Japanese feared losing military control of it's own population if the war wasn't continued. They were without aggessive capabilities by the time we nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They were surrounded, cut off from supply, and defenseless.

It was wanton slaughter of civilians.

Why didn't he surrender if he knew there was no hope, if he knew the only possible result was more senseless slaughter of his own people?

Or, does he get a free pass? Is Bush not responsible for the blood of his own troops, during his absurd war?

Japan declared war. They could have just as easily surrendered.

That aspect was played up even more after the war to justify allowing him to stay in power. All the blame was shifted to Tojo, et. al, and being a follower of bushido and an honorable man in many ways, he sucked it up and took the blame.

He was NOT a puppet, he was active in every step of the planning and execution of the war. He perpetuated a losing war to preserve his power, and at the cost of his people, no less.

Tojo took the fall for his emperor, true...but it's not true that the Emperor had no power. If he had said, "the war ends today", you better believe that would have been it. That's all it took when he finally did capitulate, didn't it?

The Japanese have rewritten or ignored much of their wartime history to sanitize themselves. Don't buy into it.

But he was by all accounts a very weak leader, unlike Mussolini or Hitler (which was the main point)

The degree to which the Japanese have distorted things to rehabilitate his image is up for debate, IMO. When you say he was "active in every step of the planning and execution of the war", I think it would be more accurate to say that he was kept apprised of the war's progress, but I don't believe he had a good understanding of tactics or details of what was going on on the ground on the various fronts. They told him what he needed to know, no more, no less. Sounds kinda like Bush!

:silly:

Ya got moxie, UdoKier...I like that!!!

:)

The military didn't "control" him any more than the military controlled Hitler. His word was law.

In fact, the surrender almost failed because of a mutiny of young army officers.

Hirohito should have been held "responsible", but you'll have to take that up with MacArthur and Truman who decided not to hold him responsible. They did give him a "free pass". It is pure myth that he "was a puppet of the military" and had little say. He could have stopped the war at any time and had to give the OK for starting it. It was politically convenient for the American government to try lesser beings for war crimes while letting the boss slide.

As for the mutiny...hard to say how far that would have gone.

They were a little afraid of the "worship" of the emperor and weren't sure if the Japanese would view a war crime trial a trial of a "god." They figured that they could spin the emperor as a puppet to the American people while keeping him in a figurehead role in order to appease the Japanese.

And it worked like a charm so it's really hard to argue.

at the time thought we should accept their 1 condition, which in the end we did and history bears witness to its wisdom, in order to SAVE LIVES...

just THINK how many lives could have been saved if there was no IWO or OKINAWA?



:cry:

peace

I've read many books that cover the issue and from what I read Truman and the rest of the high command felt that Japan was nowhere near surrendering.

Try, "The Rising Sun" by John Toland.

The atomic bomb sucked, so did the firebombings which, if I remember correctly, killed more people than the atomic bombs. You know what else sucked? Iwo Jima, the other ground invasions, The pearl harbor attack, the rape of nanking, the sex slaves taken by the japanese, the Baaton death march, and the japanese imperialist military who wanted to fight to the last man rather than surrender. I can't say I blame Truman for dropping the bomb. I've heard they were trying to negotiate surrender, and I've heard there were people in the military who were doing everything in their power to sabatoge those attempts. Thankfully that was the only time they've ever been used.

The Japanese were dug in on Okinawa in miles of tunnels and bunkers. The mainland was fortified and full of traps and tunnels as well. Low estimates for allied casualties were 200,000 soldiers. I don't like that we dropped the bombs... but I won't twist facts to bolster the argument either. I think Truman did what he thought would win the war and save the most American lives - his ultimate responsibility in a conflict that was started by the Axis powers, not the U.S. Calling it "localized" negates the reality of millions of lost lives on a global level just prior. Far too convenient. And how this differs from the firebombing of Dresden or Tokyo eludes me as well. That's arguing technology - not outcome or even intent. The intent of bombing, and all warfare for that matter, is to kill the enemy until they are demoralized and surrender or they are annihilated. Is the slaughter by the Japanese in the Pacific theater of less moral import because it came at the end of a bayonet or sword? It was certainly more personal if that's what you prefer. How about machine guns? Mortars and grenades? Are these acceptable? Being buried alive? Tortured to death? Asphyxiated in tin sheds in the tropical heat? Ever read The Rape of Nanking? War is bestiality set loose. What part of that is acceptable to you? And what part of it can you deny is effective in its very cruel and real intent? As to the Japanese seeking peace during this period, I recall that we were "at peace" with Japan at the time of Pearl Harbor. In light of this, how do you think these entreaties sounded to our leaders at this time in history? About as hollow as your argument that Truman's decision to bomb was a "terrorist attack," I'd say.

btw - I don't give a rat's ass what party Truman belonged to. LBJ is another matter - he could have pulled the plug on Vietnam and been a hero. It grieves me terribly that he was a Democrat. And I don't use that fact to excuse him either. Try not to conflate very different events in the future and we'll all be better off for it. And you might cool the "terrorist" rhetoric a bit - sounds a little Bushian to me.

TERRORIST attacks.

ter·ror·ism P Pronunciation Key (tr-rzm)
n.
The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.


In this case, against almost entirely civilian populations. You can argue that the bombings were wise or better in the long run, but they were most certainly terrorist in nature.

You conveniently forget that Japan had pretty much run amok in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

Why don't you ask them, if they wish the Japanese hadn't been defeated?

And we certainly could have easily defeated them without resorting to weapons whose PRIMARY TARGET is civilian population centers. Condemning the a-bombing no more excuses Japanese Imperialism than condemning the Iraq war excuses whatever murders and human rights violations Saddam committed (that weren't ginned up by the Bush administration)

You believe they should have been defeated, but not with nukes.

I believe that nukes saved lives. I'm not for them, but if there ever was a time for them, this was it. If they never get used again, I'm all for that.

In both cases, the war's over. It just comes down to whether or not you believe the ends justified the means. But I'm sure Hirohito had no qualms about 'ends justifying the means'. Think about that before you wring your hands over Japan's fate.

I suppose keeping him around was a necessary tool for keeping postwar Japan compliant and was probably a wise decision on MacArthur's part, but my one and only concern is the civilian lives, not the asshole "leaders" or any kind of idiotic notions of nationalism.

And obviously Hirohito didn't give a damn about Japan's fate, either.

He KNEW that every day he prolonged the war would cost civilian lives. Every day, when he woke, he made that decision.

If he'd surrendered a day earlier, wouldn't the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki be unnecessary?

You're absolutely right: asshole leaders bathe in blood. Hirohito did it because he wanted to.

The whole subject of the targeting of civilians in war is the subject for another thread. Up until World War II, western countries had largely given up the practice of attacking civilian centers. World War I rarely came in contact with large population centers.

However, by August of 1945, that arguement was dead. From the Rape of Nanking to the Blitz to Warsaw to Stalingrad to Berlin to Dresden to Rome to Tokyo, civilians were - by and large - considered legitimate targets by all sides. This is unfortunate but to think that the US would suddenly change a policy with the end of the war in sight is prosperous.

I'm trying to imagine the decision you want Truman to make:

"Let's see, millions upon millions of civilians are dead. Millions more are refugees. Nearly all the major cities of Europe are destroyed. Tokyo no longer exists except on a map. The Soviets have sacrificed their own cities as a matter of strategy. So my choice is throw two more cities onto the pile...or risk a few hundred thousand more American lives. America will understand if I am noble and condemn their sons to death to spare Hiroshi....what's the name of that place again?"

http://www.ww2pacific.com/downfall.html

"The original plan was for 9 divisions to attack 3 divisions of defenders. As enemy reinforcements were observed, the size of the invasion force was increased. The final plan had 18 U.S. divisions attacking 11 IJA divisions in defensive positions. Most sources give the advantage to defenders by 3:1, that is, attackers must outnumber defenders by three to be sure of victory. "

They were going to have 11 divisions defending the southern end of the island. According to these guys we need a 3 to 1 advantage to beat them on their own turf. We didn't have anything near that.

This is saying that we probably would have lost.

An invasion of Japan was simply unacceptable, and any means to bring about Japan's surrender short of that had to be employed.

:yourock:

The casualties from the firebombing alone even before land invansion would have been massive, much more then dropping the bomb.

And lets be real here... the Japan you visit and know and love know today with their couchi cue characters and animated dramas etc isn't the same Japan as in 1945... The Rape of Nanking, Bataan death March, sneak attack?

I'd suggest ready McCullough's biography about Truman. The man was anything but excited or eager to drop the bomb you can tell that from his own writings of the time. Truman wasn't * sitting around with this finger on the trigger salivating at the chance for death. He was a lot like many of us here, a person who worked for a living, was a solider himself, had failures he had to own up too.

We're fully in agreement, my friend.

It sounds like you were too young to have remembered either event.

I do appreciate an opportunity to remember history.
(I do this in memory of my father who spent 4 years in the jungles of the pacific.)

http://www.users.bigpond.com/pacificwar/AtomBomb_Japan.html


Do young people need to be told why America used the atomic bomb on Japan?

Is it necessary to acquaint young people in Western countries with the true reasons behind the atomic bombing of Japan? I believe it is for at least two reasons. The atomic bombing of Japan in 1945 appears to be increasingly discussed in many schools as part of that vague subject called either "Social Studies"or "Study of Society and Environment". The real reasons for using the atomic bomb against Japan often appear to be ignored and this can lead to an unfair judgment being passed against the United States.

The second reason is the continuing refusal of successive governments in Japan to disclose to Japanese children the full extent of Japan's war guilt and the appalling atrocities committed by the Japanese military in China and during the Pacific War 1941-45. Allied with this denial, is an increasing push in Japan (a) to claim that Japanese troops invaded China as liberators of the Chinese from Western colonialism and (b) to blame the United States for "forcing" Japan to bomb Pearl Harbor as a desperate response to American embargoes on raw materials needed by Japan. Those who push this line conveniently ignore the fact that between five and ten million Chinese were slaughtered by invading Japanese troops between 1937 and 1945. They also ignore the fact that the United States imposed the embargoes on war-related raw materials in a vain attempt to halt brutal Japanese aggression in China and elsewhere in Asia. This bizarre revisionism appears to be increasingly reflected in letters to newspapers outside Japan.

It is refreshing to see that there are still people with sufficient knowledge of WW II history to challenge this revisionism in the letters columns of newspapers. The Pacific War Web-site also addresses these issues under the index heading "Imperial Japan's Path to World War II".

Please, investigate for yourself. Google "Imperial Japan's Path to WWII"

brings emotional responses from all americans who really lived through it. Be it soldiers who were there, families of those soldiers, those who lived in fear of being drafted, or like myself, protested our involvement, it was a sad chapter in our history. So many have died in wars. I wasn't protesting against the soldiers, or the people of Vietnam, I was saying this is NOT the way.

Today I have friends who lived in Vietnam during the war, trained by our troups. I have listened to their life stories of what it was like
before, during and after. I won't tell their stories, that belongs to them, and I respect that. From my understanding of how they felt....we were colonialist, like the french. You do know, it was Truman who 1st got the US involved in Vietnam.

We just didn't get the chance.

Truman ended a war, LBJ vainly continued and escalated one.

But they were both responsible for countless unnecessary civilian deaths.

LBJ also was much more progressive in many ways than Truman. It's a shame his legacy is so ruined by Vietnam.

prevented surrender AFTER the bombs were dropped.

fyi

peace

think how many lives could have been saved if we had accepted their 1 condition earlier.

peace

Until you have done as much reading about the careful deliberations Truman went through before the use of the atomic bomb as I have, you are in no position to say something like that. Truman truly believed, and was advised to the same effect, that using the atomic bomb would bring about Japan's surrender much sooner than conventional weapons would. Indeed, the months of extra fire bombing and the use of conventional forces to take Japan would have killed many many times more people than the atomic bombs did.

...who continue to believe that our failure to drop the bomb would have resulted in some magical land war in Japan where no civilians would have died. :eyes:

Truman was a great president then and he should be viewed as a great president now.

many would have lived if there was no IWO or OKINAWA.

Thats what our military leaders recomended.

* 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

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

how do you know how much i read :eyes:

peae

You have NO fucking Idea what you are talking about. None.

My Great Uncle was in that fucking war, was a Japanese POW for years, and was near enough to Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped to be badly burned. He and huge amounts of other American Soldiers would have died in a land invasion of Japan. He had no problems with the bomb and coming from someone WHO WAS THERE that's good enough for me.

You on the other hand post a bunch of revisionist bullshit from the comfort of your dorm room.

RL

in the long run despite the fact it killed 200,000 people that nobody will say the majority of which were military lives, if bush had nuked afghanistan after 9-11, killing 200,000 people but killed bin Laden and al-Zawahiri, would those defending truman be so accepting of this action too? It can be said that killing those two and any other terrorists in the area would save lives in the long run...

The war with Japan was total war against another state. Nearly every aspect of Japanese life was militarized to some degree. Moreover, the previous decade had established the fact that civilians were more or less a legitimate military target. All parties killed civilians with little guilt.

The war on terror is not total war, Afghanistan was not in a state of total war with the US, and civilians are no longer considered legitimate targets.