Would you have used the atom bomb on Japan in WWII if you were Prez?

And yet we gave them exactly what they wanted. Oh and the Korean war ended under many conditions

 

anybody that finds this subject interesting would likely enjoy Killing the Rising Sun by O'Reilly.

A little dry but informative and goes on at length regarding this particular subject.

 

The Korean War never ended.

 

And thus my point

 

Exactly, just like WW I. Not ending wars is always a mistake.

 

They fought until after both A-bombs though.

If that is true, it was rather foolish of them to refuse to surrender until after we nuked them twice.

That surrender offer came only after both A-bombs had been dropped.

No. We didn't.

It doesn't make much difference, since they didn't ask for this "one condition" until after both A-bombs had been dropped. But in fact we expressly denied their request.

That Leahy quote from years after the war that you always refer to would count as such.

"The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons."

No. We expressly refused Japan's request.

We did not allow WWII to end thusly.

Wrong. Japan was still refusing to surrender.

Wrong. Wartime strikes on military targets are not genocide.

No. The reason why we attack a country that we are at war with is to force them to surrender.

Wartime strikes on military targets are not genocide.

When you are at war, it is necessary to attack the enemy.

No. When you attack a country that you are at war with, that has everything to do with that country.

It is impossible to follow up on fictitious events, on account of them not actually existing.

No. The war continued because Japan refused to surrender.

Truman had no control over that.

We didn't need a war to do that. All Truman needed to do was whisper it in Stalin's ear.

They requested that one thing, only after both A-bombs had been dropped.

No we didn't. We denied their request and prepared to drop the third bomb on Tokyo.

Japan caved in and surrendered with no terms of their own a few days before Tokyo would have been nuked.

The third A-bomb would have been identical to the Nagasaki bomb.

Sometimes when a military target is attacked, there is collateral damage.

No it isn't.

If Japan did not want us to continue attacking them, they should have surrendered.

No snake oil.

Had the war continued just a few months longer, 10 million Japanese civilians would have starved to death.

Other Asian civilians were dying at a rate of a couple hundred thousand a month under Japanese occupation.

And the invasion of Japan was predicted to kill up to a million Americans, with millions more maimed and wounded. Japanese fatalities from the invasion would have numbered in the millions.

We could have showered Russia with dozens of A-bombs.

Some historians speculate that. It's kind of hard to prove.

It is clear though that having the Soviets declare war on them undermined Japan's hope to have the Soviets help them escape the war without surrendering.

No. The roadblock before that was that Japan was set on a scheme where they hoped the Soviets would help them escape the war without surrendering.

After both A-bombs were dropped, Japan did offer to surrender with a request for the Emperor. But note that this was only after both A-bombs had already been dropped.

Also, Japan's request was that we guarantee that Hirohito would retain unlimited dictatorial power. We did not grant that request.

The A-bombs killed a lot more people. Most Japanese civilians fled their cities when a huge mass of US bombers headed in their direction. No one was fleeing a single bomber or a handful of bombers.

Perhaps the Japanese people would have learned to flee cities when a single bomber approached too, but it would have been easy for us to make them routinely flee cities with a single empty bomber in that case.

More precarious, perhaps. But also destined to not erupt into outright war.

No. The reason why we attack a country when we go to war is because we want to force them to surrender.

That is incorrect. When the A-bombs were dropped, Japan was refusing to surrender.

Perhaps you could explain how a squad of Japanese fighter planes chased the second A-bomb away from Kokura Arsenal.

Japan had two million well-armed and well-trained soldiers waiting to oppose our invasion.

No. Terrorism involves targeting civilians. The A-bombs were dropped on military targets.

And Japan was not defeated. They were still refusing to surrender when the A-bombs were dropped.

 

Yeah - I am pretty sure there would have been no humungous international reaction.

What, an horrible crime? At least, Japan had the decency to attack PH's military installations exclusively. Furthermore, I thought that by now everybody would know that the delayed declaration of war was a bureaucratic error on their part.

Yeah and maybe one day that's the way war will be waged on you - and when it'll happen, I'll remember you this post of yours.

When someone want to kill his dog, he accuses it as having rabies. Japan was down on the ground - whatever they were building for war on the atomized centers of population would have been pathetic. Japan was beaten. It was just a delusion, a facade they were maintening.

And how does it feel to be a nation which practices extra-judicial torture? I guess it feels pretty tame after uselessly killing hundred of thousands of civilians.

"Lawfully"? What about Morality?

Doesn't mean they were not vanquished.

It takes quite a level of insecurity to see elder people, women and children as military targets. I guess you would have supported the Nazi Holocaust, that is defensible with the very same arguments you used.

Looks like you are trying to convince yourself. Somewhere deep down you still have a heavily suppressed conscience for shows. I think.

Millions? Why stop there? Since it has about as much chance to happen anyway, I personally would go with billions instead. It will wow the fools even more. After all, the bigger the lie...

No one had any idea? Why don't you just ask the same guy who invented these "millions of American deaths" figures?

 

Double post

 

That's some incomprehension about what the Emperor of Japan is. You think the guy had any authority? he was a living logo, that's what he was. Like the English royal familly but more remote still. He opposed the war from the first day. What ruled Japan at the time was a military junta, that was about to be brought down.

PS; You own propaganda was no better than the Japaneses'.

 

So you are another person posting messages of total bigotry towards the Chinese for which millions more civilians being killed by the Japanese would have been just fine with you, plus you would be fine with our POWs Japan was holding being tortured and murdered would have been fine with you too. As president you would also have no problem with hundreds of thousands of American casualties and over 100,000 killed, plus apparently actually also would have wanted to kill millions of Japanese both in firebombing and invasion.
In this all, the generals who wanted war with Russia might also get their way over China. Definitely if you were president NO country should have been so foolish as to been an ally of the USA given you total willingness to ignore our Chinese allies being slaughtered.
Like so many other messages expressing their hatred of the USA, you of course make excuses for the Japanese attacking Pearl Harbor and deny the mass slaughter of civilians in every territory they invaded and conquered.

 

I didn't knew the atomization of civilians somehow resurrected these Chineses and US POWs. Glad you caught those who perpetued it, and that were hiding in H and N.

That invasion was totally bogus. There are three improbable things that you still hold as hard facts:
1- The US would have been forced to occupy Japan.
2- The Japaneses, every one of them, were agreeing with the war and were ready to fight to the death. Funny, we don't see any regrouping of such-minded Japaneses after the capitulation - my conclusion is that they have been greatly over-estimated.
3- Deaths would have been in the millions, if not the billions.

That's three things built on quicksand, Jake. You can't make those who know a bit about WWII japan with ease.

I might surprise you here, but Japan didn't exactly attack Pearl Harbour just to have a ball about it. There were reasons for it.

 

No invasion was necessary. All that was required was to wait a few weeks. Clearly the Japanese were NOT willing to fight until the last man as they did NOT do that. We should have listened to the military experts. And they said we did NOT need to drop the bomb

 

That all remains false every time you spam the same message to avoid actually responding to any messages.

Once again, the "Japanese" did not surrender, the Emperor did after narrowly avoiding his being placed under arrest by the military to prevent him from ever doing so. If the Emperor of the Japanese intended to surrender they would have when we offered terms of surrender, which were rejected.

 

Do you have the same attitude towards people you know as you claim you would have had towards our Chinese allies of "I don't care how many more of you die?" With allies like you would have been, what is an enemy?

Even those at the time who later claimed they opposed using the atom bomb all agreed to the massive levels of casualties - as do Japanese historians - so basically you are claiming that everyone then was wrong and YOU know what the future mind of the Japanese Emperor would have been - and that it was going to be exactly opposite what it actually ways. But you just keep on posting messages about some fantasy history to support hatred of the USA and Americans.

 

No the Japanese surrendered. If the emperor surrrended and the japanese people did not follow him the war would have continued. You can post false claims all day and i will just correct you.

 

You message is nonsensical.

 

All of your posts are nonsensical.

 

Once again, I didn't knew that the atomizing of Japanese civilian somehow resurrected these dead Chineses (for whom you really don't give a sht anyway).

If you knew anything about WWII Japan, you would know that what the Emperor thought was irrelevant.

 

I researched the subject more after the reply you quoted from me. It was the Soviet declaration of war that caused the Japanese surrender. I strongly, strongly recommend reading the article I reference in my post below. Afterwards please let me know your thoughts. The source also compares devastation of nuclear and conventional raids. The nuclear bombings were not the most destructive by any measure except, again, only 1 bomb. The bombings were almost irrelevant to the Japanese strategic goals at the time except in the sense of serving as a way for the emperor to save face at the end.

 

The poll numbers are interesting. Over 70% say nuke 'em with more than 20% saying don't nuke 'em.

It reminds me of the opinions prior to the invasion of Iraq where the numbers were similar with over 70% saying invade and slightly more than 20% saying don't invade. Today we know that the 20-percenters were correct and the 70-percenters were wrong.

The same was true of the Vietnam War. The minority that opposed the war were correct while the majority that favored the war was wrong.

Some will mislabel us as "peaceniks" or "leftists" but that's a false moniker. As a Vietnam War veteran that often hangs out with other combat veterans we're often the last ones that want to go to war because we know the human price that's paid.

 

Not 100% accurate. While the Emperor was predominately symbolic he still carried a lot of weight with the people. The political and military leaders would have found it almost impossible to disregard a direct Imperial decree.

 

And yet Hirohito never wanted war - even when Japan was winning. If he had any real political clout, the US would have entered WWII a bit later.

I would qualify the Emperor's ascendency on its people as bigger than the English royals, yet more limited in effectual power.

From his Wikipedia article:

At this point, the Emperor astonished all present by addressing the conference personally, and in breaking the tradition of Imperial silence left his advisors "struck with awe." (Prime Minister Konoe's description of the event.) Hirohito stressed the need for peaceful resolution of international problems, expressed regret at his ministers' failure to respond to Baron Hara's probings, and recited a poem written by his grandfather, Emperor Meiji which, he said, he had read "over and over again":

The seas of the four directions—
all are born of one womb:
why, then, do the wind and waves rise in discord?

Can we settle for 90% accurate?

 

Most likely the very same poeple. They'll never learn.

 

Yes, 90% is a good number to settle on. By convention the Emperor didn't address many issues but we also know that when he took the unprecedented step of addressing the Japanese people on the radio announcing the surrender of Japan there was no way for the political or military leaders to not comply.

Once again I believe that the Potsdam Declaration demanding the "unconditional surrender" was a mistake. Although we secured the unconditional surrender ultimately wisdom prevailed that allowed the Emperor to remain as the symbolic head of Japan. If that was something we knew was necessary then it should have been noted in the Potsdam Declaration because it was a key point in the continued resistance to surrender by Japan.

 

I would add Hippie to that last of factual names.

The nuke was a very important, and very dominant show of force to our enemy. A great part of history and a big middle finger to those who want to destroy us.