Americans Were Too Delicate to See the Truth

[A-1 (imported)]

Softee,

I would bet that you would not get Harry S. Truman to shirk the so-called blame (http://www.pomperaug.com/socstud/stumus ... rbomb1.htm) for the decision (http://www.pomperaug.com/socstud/stumus ... srhome.htm) to drop the atomic bomb.

In fact, from what I have read, there seemed to have been a concensus to use the atomic bomb among those who knew the most about it and the war-time leaders who responsible for the political and military parts of this thing. In fact, all contributed to the decision, and the one who was charged with providing the information to the public was also charged with maintaining a fair amount of secrecy in the name of national security.

In other words they didn't want Russia to be so scared that they would build one also. Of course, as paranoid as Joe Stalin was, I think that the Russians would have built one, regardless. At the time little did anyone know that Klaus Fuchs of the Manhattan Project was slipping information to the Russians through the Rosenbergs all along.

One can think what one wants but I have it from an excellent source that the Japanese citizens were being trained for hand-to-hand combat right down to the last man, woman and child. It took a cecession of one of the Japanese military inner circle to facilitate the surrender. They were ready to suppress the request of the Emperor of Japan to end the war and fight to the last person to defend Japan.

In other words, the Military was running the show and trying to make it appear that the Emperor was doing it. In the end, loyalty to the Emperor won out and Japan surrendered.

This is one reason why the Emperor was not removed or cited as a war criminal. He was really not the one responsible. He was just in charge.

The Constitutional Monarchy of Japan was not about to surrender because it was composed of mostly military supporters who would not consent to unconditional surrender.

In fact, according one source... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bom ... d_Nagasaki )

"According to some Japanese historians, Japanese civilian leaders who favored surrender saw their salvation in the atomic bombing. The Japanese military was steadfastly refusing to give up, so the peace faction seized on the bombing as a new argument to force surrender. Koichi Kido, one of emperor Hirohito's closest advisors stated that "We of the peace party were assisted by the atomic bomb in our endeavor to end the war." Hisatsune Sakomizu the chief Cabinet secretary in 1945 called the bombing "a golden opportunity given by heaven for Japan to end the war." According to these historians and others the pro-peace civilian leadership was able to use the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to convince the military that no amount of courage, skill and fearless combat could help Japan against the power of atomic weapons. Akio Morita, founder of Sony and Japanese Naval officer during the war, also concludes that it was the atomic bomb and not conventional bombings from B-29s that convinced the Japanese military to agree to peace."

I stand by my oversized statement of "Liberal Guilt" because this is a dysfunctional tendancy to manipulate public opinion by way of guilt about something that we now have absolutely no control over, namely, historical events of 50 years ago and decisions to go to war and to drop an atom bomb that were made under a DEMOCRATIC President.

In retrospect, if you want to be unfair about Bush and the Iraq war, I would like to make this statement.

Every war except The Civil War, Desert Storm and Desert Freedom was started under the watch of a Democratic president, not a Republican president. This includes the Viet Nam War.

Bush is not popular now and it is his own fault, not the fault of something that happened 60 years ago. We cannot change the past.

WHY IS WAR SO BAD...?

BECAUSE...

The ancient historian Herodotus once said: "in peace sons bury fathers, but in war fathers bury sons." Truman decided to bring our soldiers home. I read where one SON-OF-A-BITCH (http://www.seps.org/oracle/oracle.archi ... 1810.10836) said that it was immoral of us to drop the bomb to save our soldiers. (Many of whom, I would remind you, were drafted.) It is bastards like this who should lose their ability to teach our children. I sure as hell do not want this BASTARD teaching my children OR GRANDCHILDREN! He said that we should have 'shared' the losses with Japan. HE IS FULL OF SHIT!

There is only one thing wrong with this theory. Despite being good friends and having a close relationship with Japan right now, Japan did start WWII. In fact, we would have not went to war in Europe without the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

My mother always said that if the old men who started wars had to fight them then there would be no more wars...

...she was probably right, so therefore so was Harry S. Truman. He decided to bring our soldiers home as quickly as possible. Don't you all wish that George W. Bush would do the same?

Regardless of all of that, George W. Bush is doing what he believes that he has to do.

IF you don't like it, then vote for a Democrat who can win next time and do not come up with more of the likes of John Kerry and Howard Dean.

A-1

[SplitDik (imported)]

Once atomic bombs were developed, they were going to be used. I'm very glad they were used early rather than perfecting the technology first and having a nuclear world-wide holocaust.

Note that conventional bombing was also extremely devestating at that time. Tokyo was already flattened to an equivalent degree.

It is worth reviewing whether the second bomb was required, but the Japanese did have time to surrender and didn't.

It is actually important that bad things happen so we have examples to learn from. If Hitler hadn't done what he'd done, then we'd be more tolerant of fascism and racism, if we hadn't dropped the bombs we wouldn't be properly worried about nuclear proliferation, if terrorists hadn't struck the World Trade Center we wouldn't know what they were capable of.

[Blaise (imported)]

I have not read about this topic in a long time--at least a decade, though I bought a recently published book on the bomb and I am reading three recent books about Robert Oppenheimer. I vaguely recall that, after I had read on the topic, I decided that the strategists had good reason to deploy the first bomb, but not good reason to deploy the second—at least not two days after the use of the first bomb.

Again, the first bomb was the uranium bomb, the second the plutonium bomb. The second bomb involved intricate engineering. It was the weapon tested in July 1945. The first bomb did not need testing. Everyone knew that it would probably work.

People like Omar Bradley, Douglas McArthur, and Dwight Eisenhower do not seem to have thought it necessary to deploy the new weapons in order to win the war.

President Truman knew little about the gadget. It seems that no one considered asking his permission to deploy the second bomb. Somehow, it seems that inertia simply drove using the thing. It is the case that fire bombing cities had already set the pattern for attacking civilians.

I do not have time to research the topic just now. I am simply depending on my memory.

It might have been the case that President Truman did not understand that deploying the gadget against a military target would necessarily involve great loss of civilian life or he might have simply not have wanted to acknowledge this to himself. General Groves understood.

The question, I believe, was it proper to use the bomb to keep Russian hegemony out of Japan. I am inclined to understand that as a proper reason to use the damm thing, but one might have used the excuse of saving American lives to justify it.

[Blaise (imported)]

Softee,

I would bet that you would not get Harry S. Truman to shirk the so-called blame (http://www.pomperaug.com/socstud/stumus ... rbomb1.htm) for the decision (http://www.pomperaug.com/socstud/stumus ... srhome.htm) to drop the atomic bomb.

In fact, from what I have read, there seemed to have been a concensus to use the atomic bomb among those who knew the most about it and the war-time leaders who responsible for the political and military parts of this thing. In fact, all contributed to the decision, and the one who was charged with providing the information to the public was also charged with maintaining a fair amount of secrecy in the name of national security.

In other words they didn't want Russia to be so scared that they would build one also. Of course, as paranoid as Joe Stalin was, I think that the Russians would have built one, regardless. At the time little did anyone know that Klaus Fuchs of the Manhattan Project was slipping information to the Russians through the Rosenbergs all along.

One can think what one wants but I have it from an excellent source that the Japanese citizens were being trained for hand-to-hand combat right down to the last man, woman and child. It took a cecession of one of the Japanese military inner circle to facilitate the surrender. They were ready to suppress the request of the Emperor of Japan to end the war and fight to the last person to defend Japan.

In other words, the Military was running the show and trying to make it appear that the Emperor was doing it. In the end, loyalty to the Emperor won out and Japan surrendered.

This is one reason why the Emperor was not removed or cited as a war criminal. He was really not the one responsible. He was just in charge.

The Constitutional Monarchy of Japan was not about to surrender because it was composed of mostly military supporters who would not consent to unconditional surrender.

In fact, according one source... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bom ... d_Nagasaki )

[/i][/b]

I stand by my oversized statement of "Liberal Guilt" because this is a dysfunctional tendancy to manipulate public opinion by way of guilt about something that we now have absolutely no control over, namely, historical events of 50 years ago and decisions to go to war and to drop an atom bomb that were made under a DEMOCRATIC President.

In retrospect, if you want to be unfair about Bush and the Iraq war, I would like to make this statement.

Every war except The Civil War, Desert Storm and Desert Freedom was started under the watch of a Democratic president, not a Republican president. This includes the Viet Nam War.

Bush is not popular now and it is his own fault, not the fault of something that happened 60 years ago. We cannot change the past.

WHY IS WAR SO BAD...?

BECAUSE... Truman decided to bring our soldiers home. I read where one SON-OF-A-BITCH (http://www.seps.org/oracle/oracle.archi ... 1810.10836) said that it was immoral of us to drop the bomb to save our soldiers. (Many of whom, I would remind you, were drafted.) It is bastards like this who should lose their ability to teach our children. I sure as hell do not want this BASTARD teaching my children OR GRANDCHILDREN! He said that we should have 'shared' the losses with Japan. HE IS FULL OF SHIT!

There is only one thing wrong with this theory. Despite being good friends and having a close relationship with Japan right now, Japan did start WWII. In fact, we would have not went to war in Europe without the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

My mother always said that if the old men who started wars had to fight them then there would be no more wars...

...she was probably right, so therefore so was Harry S. Truman. He decided to bring our soldiers home as quickly as possible. Don't you all wish that George W. Bush would do the same?

Regardless of all of that, George W. Bush is doing what he believes that he has to do.

IF you don't like it, then vote for a Democrat who can win next time and do not come up with more of the likes of John Kerry and Howard Dean.

A-1

I never read all of these ejaculations. You seem a tad over the top.

[A-1 (imported)]

Softee,

I never read all of these ejaculations. You seem a tad over the top.

Ejaculations are best read with a BLACK LIGHT... - -

Harry S. Truman was responsible, he didn't say STOP!

He certainly was capable of saying STOP. He fired Dougie MacArthur during the Korean conflict. I'd say that he didn't object, obviously.

A-1

[Patient (imported)]

. . . Japan did start WWII. . .

And all these many decades I have believed that the Nazi invasion of Poland had something to do with it. Where did I go wrong?

In fact, we would have not went to war in Europe without the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

All you need do to make that statement true is change the phrase "in Europe without" to "in Europe on December 8, 1941, without". Despite the opinions of our very vocal isolationist minority we could not long have remained out of the war. In fact, we were not really out of the war in 1941; we had been giving aid and comfort to belligerents for more than two years already.

The Nazi party, in control of the resources of the German nation, was in fact a serious threat to the survival of western civilization. We had to enter the war, if only to keep the battles off the American continents. Hitler was like the farmer who claimed he wasn't really greedy; he didn't want all the land there was; all he wanted was what adjoined what he had. If Hitler had stayed out of Russia and refrained from meddling with his General Staff's decisions Europe might have suffered another Thirty Years War.

[Slammr (imported)]

It's difficult for us to judge, looking at a world sixty years removed from the time the bomb was dropped. We had spent four years fighting the Japanese, losing hundreds of thousands of our young men. The USA took over a million casualties during WW II, including over 400,000 deaths. As we came closer to the Japanese homeland, the Japanese fought harder. Who knows how many casualties we would have sustained during an invasion of Japan.

The Japanese treated our POW's abominably. They regarded us as subhuman. We felt the same about them. They were 'Japs,' not people. I'm not saying we should have felt that way, but that's how we felt. Better a hundred thousand Japanese civilians die than thousands of our soldiers.

Reasons for dropping the bomb:

As it was -- given the terms of surrender we were proposing -- the Japanese wouldn't have surrendered.

Russia was about to enter the war against Japan and would have snatched up much of Japan's territories. Look how much of Europe and Asia they dominated as it was. What if they'd had most of Japan, too.

We wanted intimidate Russia by dropping the bomb.

The invasions of Iwo Jima and Okanawa resulted in some of the highest casualty rates we suffered in the war. We could only expect the same, if we invaded Japan.

Japan would not have surrendered unconditionally. They would have armed their civilians, and we would have had to kill millions of them rather than a hundred thousand or so. As it was, even after dropping the bomb, we had to let them keep their emperor. That hadn't been in the original terms of the unconditional surrender. Even after the Emperor had decided to surrender some of the military attempted a coup to prevent Japan's surrender, preferring to fight to the death, preferring to see Japan destroyed rather than surrender.

Don't think of Japan -- especially Japan of the 1940's with your 21st century American minds. They had different concepts than we do -- or did then. Death before dishonor. It was better to die than be shamed; and surrendering to the Americans was the ultimate shame.

Yeah, they would have surrendered even if we hadn't dropped the bomb -- but at what cost? I can't say; and I don't think any of those criticizing the decision to drop the bomb can either. I'm of the opinion it saved millions of lives, both American and Japanese.

The bomb was only a weapon. We killed many more Japanese in the fire bombings of Tokyo. It wasn't the effects of the use of the bomb that were so horrifying, it was that the nuclear cat had been let out of the bag, and -- once let out -- could never be put back in again.

We could have fire bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing the same number of people and we wouldn't even be talking about it on the board.

I don't think anyone can accuse me of being a warmonger, but I think dropping the bomb on Japan was the right decision.

Our Jesus is the board's authority on Japan. He's lived there and speaks the language. While I lived there for a while, I was never so immersed in the culture.

[Blaise (imported)]

The bomb was only a weapon. We killed many more Japanese in the fire bombings of Tokyo. It wasn't the effects of the use of the bomb that were so horrifying, it was that the nuclear cat had been let out of the bag, and -- once let out -- could never be put back in again.

We could have fire bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing the same number of people and we wouldn't even be talking about it on the board.

[End quote]

Well said. We have questioned the fire bombing. In addition, it has its supporters.

[Slammr (imported)]

And all these many decades I have believed that the Nazi invasion of Poland had something to do with it. Where did I go wrong?

All you need do to make that statement true is change the phrase "in Europe without" to "in Europe on December 8, 1941, without". Despite the opinions of our very vocal isolationist minority we could not long have remained out of the war. In fact, we were not really out of the war in 1941; we had been giving aid and comfort to belligerents for more than two years already.

The Nazi party, in control of the resources of the German nation, was in fact a serious threat to the survival of western civilization. We had to enter the war, if only to keep the battles off the American continents. Hitler was like the farmer who claimed he wasn't really greedy; he didn't want all the land there was; all he wanted was what adjoined what he had. If Hitler had stayed out of Russia and refrained from meddling with his General Staff's decisions Europe might have suffered another Thirty Years War.

Actually, if Hitler hadn't made the stupid mistake of declaring war on the USA shortly after Pearl Harbor, we might have stayed out of the European war -- at least until we had finished off Japan.

Once Hitler declared war on the USA, Roosevelt made the war in Europe a priority. I agree that Roosevelt wanted to go to war against Germany, but without a declaration of war by Hitler, he might have had little support from the rest of the country. We were incensed over the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. The war in Europe had already been going on for two years without intervention from us.

The world was a different place then. We didn't feel that what happened in Europe was particularly important to us. Roosevelt was probably astute enough to realize that it was, but more were concerned with Japan's aggression. That affected our interests in the Pacific and in Asia. It had a greater possibility of affecting our economy than the war in Europe.

Of course, I know all about the USA during WW II. I was five when the war ended.

But, I have read about it since -- and probably seen evey movie made about WW II.

[bobov (imported)]

I strongly second all that A-1 said. I reserve terms like "over the top ... ejaculations" for those who would corrupt the truth with a persistent drip of quibbles, each seemingly minor, whose cumulative effect is to undermine the confidence of the American people. Only the United States is subjected to this creeping cynicism of the left, expressed through a thousand little sneers. The truth is that, if historical judgment is to be framed in ethics, then all people and all nations are wicked, for they all act out of self-interest.

If the left wants to escape accusations of anti-American bias, let them root out the crimes and misdemeanors of other nations. Let them discuss Japanese slave labor camps across Asia, the massacres in Nanking, "comfort women," cannibalism of U.S. POWs, etc. The Japanese, ascendant across Asia, ruled with a cruelty and ferocity recalled by elderly Japanese veterans, but concealed by contemporary Japanese authorities. In fact, the Japanese campaign to whitewash its barbarous occupation of China is the source of increasingly bitter friction between China and Japan. Just this week, a front page article in the NY Times discussed the issue.

The truth is that the suffering visited on Japan was a fraction of that inflicted by Japan on others. It's this miasm of blame-America-first, coupled with willful ignorance of the context of U.S. actions that provokes such "over the top ejaculations." The left's method is to heighten any wrongs or imputed wrongs of the U.S. while exploiting ignorance of events outside the U.S. to make the rest of the world look better than it is.

There has been a conspiracy to conceal history. That history is not the pictures of children with radiation burns the left wants to put on front pages. It's the history of how the Japanese ran their Asian empire and how they fought their war. I'll be impressed if the leftists on this thread want to talk about that.