50,000 Americans Dead in Vietnam for nothing. Question:

Would you be singing LBJ's praises if he had decided to drop H-bombs on Hanoi & other cities, "to prevent the deaths of our men"?



I wonder about this, since so many of us seem to support Truman's decision to incinerate Hiroshima/Nagasaki.

If you support Truman's decision, but oppose the use of nukes since then, I'd be interested to hear why...

Would you have had them dropped on Korea? Iraq?

nukes should only be used to defend major cities from gigantic monsters (should their armor be too strong for our conventional arms) and to protect the earth from gigantic asteroids.

bacon yet. :P

Kill hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in order to save some soldiers who have agreed to fight? Let the people who want to fight fight each other and leave the rest of us alone.

but I was kinda hoping for input from the Truman defenders. My guess is that most of them would oppose further use of nukes, but they defend it in the case of Japan. Is it just because Truman was a democrat and had some good accomplishments under his belt? There seems to be a bit of contradiction there.

very well may have saved my father's life. He was scheduled to invade Japan toward the end of the war. Was stationed in Burma for two years. As it is, he lived to the age of 89

They attacked us and started the war.

none of the military leaders in theater at the time thought they were necessary.

in FACT they thought we should accept their 1 condition to surrender to SAVE LIVES.

just think how many more lives would have been saved if we had accepted their 1 condition in the spring of 45.

to NUKE a defeated, prostrate, trying to surrender nations cities filled with innocent men, women and children with out warning... TWICE is indefensible.

hiroshima is the second most horrid word in the american lexicon succeeded only by NAGASAKI - kurt vonnegut

peace

Man, this is tough!

i was talking to Jacobin :hi:

peace

I have heard EVERY defense of Truman's decision, and I'm not going to assail your position on that. Maybe you should re-read the question.

Weren't over 50% drafted, and weren't many more enlisting, knowing full well they were GOING to be drafted?

This is not a criticism of your basic premise. I'm not weighing in on the Truman decision.

But, you're assessment of civilians vs. willingly participating soliders doesn't have the ring of truth.
The Professor

Truman had good reason to believe that to have sent ground forces through Japan would have resulted in more civilian casualties than dropping the bomb did.

no one thought an invasion would be neccessary since japan was TRYING TO surrender and a militarily defeated nation.


you are repeating the tired and discredited propaganda that was put out at the time.

peace

The use of nuclear weapons against humans is never an option.

The situation facing Truman and the situation facing LBJ bear no comparison.

isn't that against the rules :shrug:

peace

The question at the top of this thread is based on such staggering ignorance of actual history that it blows me away.

Honorable people do disagree on the correctness Truman's decision to drop the bomb, but at the very least you should be able to appreciate that it was an extremely difficult decision in the context of the times. If you think you would have made that decision easily if you'd been in Truman's shoes, then you know very little about the situation facing Truman.

But in the context of the Vietnam era, dropping a bomb most certainly would have begun World War III. That one's a no-brainer.

apparently you think you have ALL the truth :crazy:

Truman committed mass murder by using terrorism and WMD on a defeated nations cities twice filled with hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians.

some wanted to use nukes in vietnam so the question is NOT stupid or idiotic especially now in the era of mini-nukes and folks who want to use them.

we need this debate today and it is certainly NOT idiotic.

peace

And the historical FACT is that there was genuine concern that to send ground troops into Japan would have resulted in far more deaths, including more civilian deaths, than the Bomb did.

For example, Truman had reason to believe that Japanese civilians would have committed mass suicide rather than surrender their communities to Americans.

Whether there would have been more deaths is, of course, speculation, but anyone who understands the history of the bombing appreciates that it was not an easy decision.

Also, remember, at that time only the nuclear physicists really grasped what the Bomb would do. To the non-physicists, for the most part it was just another weapon, albeit a really BIG weapon. The Atomic Bomb didn't become an icon of evil until after WWII. Most Americans at the time would have dropped the Bomb without even thinking about it.

It's very cheap, very self-aggrandizing, very immature, to thump one's chest after all these years and say, "I wouldn't have done that, so I'm better than Truman!"

I can't say what decision I would have made, frankly. I can look back at it NOW and say nobody should ever use the Bomb. But that was harder to see in 1945 than it is now.

Including many democrats (Lloyd Bentsen was all for nuking Korea). It was hardly a "no-brainer" for them. Exactly how is the question based on "ignorance"?

The rationale for Hiroshima/Nagasaki is that it saved the lives of thousands upon thousands of soldiers and civilians. How many countless thousands might have been saved had LBJ made that "difficult decision" in Vietnam?

And as for my being in Truman's shoes - it's never easy to do the right thing, but I hope that that's what I would have done - not dropped the bombs. I most certainly wouldn't have dropped the second.

is when no other country has them.

"Those days are gone forever,
Over a long time ago."

:freak:
dbt

The question was:

"Would you be singing LBJ's praises if he had decided to drop H-bombs on Hanoi & other cities, "to prevent the deaths of our men"?"

I'm serious here. I'm curious about WHY Korea and Vietnam were different, and whether the Truman defenders would defend nuke use in the future. We can debate Truman's decision till we all turn to dust. I'm asking about post-WWII nukes.

Personally, I'm against any use (other than the asteroid scenario) and in fact, I'm almost as bothered by the hundreds of above-ground tests we did, fouling the environment and exposing countless US soldiers to deadly radiation, as I am by the bombings of Japan. How many did they need to set off to figure out that they blow a lot of shit up?

Resurrecting this one for the night crew. :kick: