Even if that were correct (that the goal was only to hit "high value targets"), which it isn't, that still doesn't make all the rest civilians, which is what you claimed before.
Letter of a daying veteran to Bush and Cheney
- Thread starter arauca
- Start date
That is not the issue. Japan was warned of imminent and utter destruction.
No you are trying to rewrite history again. When Japan found out about nuclear weapons, they attempted to build one. But the US beat them to the punch.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_nuclear_weapon_program
Additionally, it took Japan 3 days to reject the Potsdam Declaration and it took them 2 bombs and 9 days to surrender. That is hardly as fast as they could. If Japan would have surrendered as fast as it could, there would not have been a second bomb detonation three days after the initial bomb detonation. And there would not have been a coup d’état to prevent a surrender.
Nice ad hominem . . . but not relevant. It is a distraction.
Indeed, and none of this is in dispute. This not the issue, you are evading the issue. WWII was not an insurgency. It was a war. Your comparison of the Saddam’s response to the Kurdish insurgency to America’s response to being attacked and invaded by Japan is frankly bizarre and a reflection of your cognitive biases. It is not based on reality and reason.
Oh probably for the same reason we keep our most advanced weapons secret today. We don’t want our enemies spying as they did once the existence of a nuclear weapon became known. How do you think the Soviets got their nuclear bomb? By spying and stealing our nuclear secrets. . .
If we would have told the Japanese government that we had nuclear weapons, do you really think they would have surrendered? Do you really think they would have believed us? Did you not read the leaflets? Did they not say we developed a new kind of bomb and explained what that bomb could do?
If there was a good chance they would have surrendered once we told them we had the bomb, why didn’t the immediately surrender after we had proven we had nuclear weapons with the detonation of the bomb at Nagasaki?
LOL, do you really believe that crap? Where is your evidence? You don’t have any because you are making that stuff up. Japan is a small nation. And they had radios, radar, cars and trucks. It didn’t take them even a single day to figure out what happened in Nagasaki. And it wasn’t the generals who instigated the coup d’état. It was junior officers who attempted the coup d’état.
The emperor and his staff knew by August 9 that they had been nuked as the Japanese presented a letter protesting the use of nuclear weapons to The United States on August 10. But the emperor didn’t make the decision to surrender until August 12. And he didn’t announce it until August 15. That is not immediate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic...#Surrender_of_Japan_and_subsequent_occupation
You are makings stuff up again. The US was not running out of money or motivation the conduct the war. If the US was running out of money, why did the US fund the reconstruction of Japan and Europe after the war? Japan had attacked The United States, and invaded American territories in the Pacific including Alaska, Philippines and numerous other Pacific Islands. Without warning, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and destroyed most of the Pacific fleet. You apparently don’t remember FDR’s famous “Day of Infamy” speech. Americans wanted the end of the Japanese government and wanted a peaceful government in its place as noted in the Potsdam Declaration.
http://archive.org/details/FranklinDelanoRooseveltDayOfInfamySpeech
No that is false as has been previously proven. When they knew about the bomb, they attempted to build one. When the US told them we had one in the leaflets, they ignored the warning. And when the first bomb was dropped and it was proven that the US possessed such weapons, Japan didn’t immediately surrender as you have claimed. They protested. It took a second bomb, three days after the first, and more than a week for Japan to surrender.
Oh God, now you are comparing WWII Japan to Vietnam! War is never easy, nor should it be. War is ugly. Nagasaki and Hiroshima were targeted because they were mostly military targets. This may surprise you, but we didn’t have smart weapons back in the days of WWII or Vietnam. The reason we have smart weapons today, is because the US government wanted to minimize damage to civilian populations. So the US has spent billions to develop and deploy smart weapons.
War is never easy on civilian populations. And your assertion that WWII was easier on civilian populations than say Vietnam shows a profound ignorance of both wars. Europe was devastated by WWII. Civilian populations on many of the Pacific Islands were devastated by WWII fighting . . . many Japanese civilians committed suicide.
The bottom line here is there is no valid comparison between what Saddam did to the Kurds and the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan. The circumstances were different. One was an insurgency, one was a war.
Both the US and the Japanese regarded money and morale as serious impediments to an invasion of Japan - the cost was obviously going to be very high, and neither side was sure the US would be willing to pay it. The US was already having increasing difficulty funding the war (the movie "Flags of our Fathers" has dialogue essentially verbatim quotes from US officials re war bonds, if you've seen it), and with victory already essentially completed the difficulty of maintaining motivation in the face of what an invasion of Japan might easily entail was obviously going to be serious.joe said:
The Japanese, remember, knew nothing about the bomb. They were calculating from the reality in front of them. The hardcore generals thought they could survive by attrition, or at least force negotiations (the US was refusing to negotiate surrender, for reasons the Japanese did not understand).
None of those reasons apply. We had an absolute advantage, there was nothing Japan could gain from the knowledge, and everybody was going to find out anyway - the whole point of having an atomic bomb is to be able to tell people you have one. You need a reason to keep them secret. The US had such a reason - and that's where the word "atrocity" begins to apply.joe said:
The US did not tell Japan it had an atomic bomb.joe said:
The Japanese did not "find out about nuclear weapons", and they did not know that that the US had built an atomic bomb. That was the game changer, as the US well knew - and kept secret, until they could drop one on a couple of cities full of civilians.joe said:
I claimed they surrendered as fast as they could - it took more than three days for the Japanese to figure out what had happened to Hiroshima, let alone get their war staff and government to discard their entire strategy in response. Had they known the US had an atomic bomb they might have been able to prepare and adjust faster, of course (yet another reason for secrecy, to preserve the opportunity for the second bomb) - but they were faced with something completely unexpected and difficult to comprehend.joe said:
You can assert that to your heart's content, but you have not yet addressed the comparison made on this thread.joe said:
And to that extent, you have failed to address the criticism of Bush and Cheney launched in the OP and tangentially backed by that comparison.
Hogwash, you need to start getting your history from books and not movies. Money did not play a part in ending the war or prosecuting the war. If the US ran out of money as you have claimed, I will again ask you why did the US spend hundreds of millions more rebuilding Europe and Japan after the war ended? You think the US could spend hundreds of millions more to rebuild Europe and Japan but not a few more to defeat Japan? Really?
How about talking to some people who lived through WWII?
If Japan knew nothing of nuclear bombs, why were they trying to build one? As previously pointed out to you, the Allies (US included) issued surrender terms to Japan in July of 1945. And Japan promptly rebuked those terms. And it was Japan that secretly planned and attacked Pearl Harbor (i.e. The United States) while they were at the negotiating table with The United States.
Yes they do apply. Countries don’t divulge their advanced weaponry to other states for fear that their enemies will develop them. The US knew the Axis Powers were trying to develop nuclear weapons. But the US and its Allies didn’t know how far along the Axis powers were in developing nuclear weapons until after the war had ended.
Hogwash, if Japan didn’t know about nuclear weapons why were they trying to build them? That is just nonsense. They would have known/should have known the US had developed nuclear weapons if they would have read the leaflets the US dropped on them and listened to the radio broadcasts to them by the US. Did the leaflets specifically say atomic bomb, no but they clearly stated the US had developed a new weapons and described its capabilities and the intent to use them if Japan did not surrender.
No you claimed Japan would have surrendered immediately upon knowing the US had nuclear weapons. You are trying to rewrite history again. And that was clearly not the case. Japan knew the US had used nuclear weapons against them, and still it didn’t surrender. If three days after Nagasaki Japan didn’t know it was nuked, why did Japan file a complaint with the US about being nuked on the 4th day? Because Japan knew very quickly that nuclear bombs had been detonated. And it wasn’t until the 6th day that the emperor announced his decision to surrender to his family. And it wasn’t until the 11th day after a nuclear detonation that the emperor ceased hostilities and announced his surrender to the Allies and the people of Japan. And it wasn’t until September 6, the following month that a formal surrender was signed.
You and Billvon raised the issue under discussion here.
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...h-and-Cheney&p=3053809&viewfull=1#post3053809
And now you want to complain that it is off topic?
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Iceaura's argument here is based on idle speculation, so there really isn't anything to discuss. Sure, if we flew some Japanese generals to an island to watch a test, they might have convinced the emperor to surrender.... or they might not have. So what? The US government, having only 3 bombs at the time, chose a course of action to maximize impact to maximize the odds of surrender (and they did debate the issues of leaflets and demonstrations and decided against them). Speculation that there might have been a course of action that could have ended the war with fewer casualties is just speculation and is meaningless either way.
But yeah, there is nothing that relates the atom bombing of Japan with the gassing of the Kurds except for the superficial/simplistic label that both involved WMDs.
But yeah, there is nothing that relates the atom bombing of Japan with the gassing of the Kurds except for the superficial/simplistic label that both involved WMDs.
Speculation not grounded in fact; there is little reason to believe that Japanese forces would have surrendered if circumstances were different. Japanese armed forces subscribed to Bushido. That is why until the emperor surrendered no Japanese commander ever surrendered his forces to the Allies, preferring suicide attacks to surrender. And even after two nuclear detonations and the emperor’s decision to surrender, junior military officers refused to surrender and attempted a coup d’état to prevent a surrender. So there was no reason for the Americans to believe that if they just asked nicely and without detonating the nuclear weapons on Japanese cities Japan would have surrendered. And let's remember Japanese forces were conducting sucide attacks on Allied naval vessels until the emperor announced his surrender on August 15.
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? You might want to reconsider that one. I'll let you take it back.joe said:
They weren't. And they knew nothing about the US bomb.joe said:
They did not know, and were not told, that the US had an atomic bomb. They had no idea the US could drop an atomic bomb on them, until it happened. Period. Full stop.
Irrelevant. If the Japanese were close to developing an atomic bomb - which the US had good reason to believe they could not be, given what was required - then the sooner the US delivered the news of actual success the better. Delays were dangerous. If they weren't, as seemed obvious, then the sooner the US delivered the news of actual success the better - delays prolonged the war. Either way, the secrecy and delays imposed require an explanation, which you seem to be having difficulty laying hands on.joe said:
Perhaps you might take some advice, like from this guy
Here, for example, is one possible explanation for the US surprise-bombing the civilians of Hiroshima with atomic weapons, from a guy who was around when the decision was made:
Richard Feynman said:
No, I didn't. That is about the fifth completely false assertion you have made about my postings here - giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming you just don't shine in the reading comprehension department, please quote, in the future, rather than paraphrasing or telling me what I've posted.joe said:
Although with examples like this that may not help:
As the words "off topic" do not appear in my post, and nothing in my post resembles any such complaint but quite the opposite, and this is the kind of stuff you are filling this thread with, I am forced to speculate on the source of that brand of goofiness and personal attack, to reply at all. And the moderators, who apparently think the nature of your responses as visible throughout this thread, is appropriate material for this forum, will nevertheless in my judgment react negatively to such speculation by me. So - - pass.joe said:
So we might have obtained surrender and the end of the war months earlier than we did, at the savings of much American as well as Japanese misery, and without burning hundreds of children to death and laying waste to one of the world's finer cities for no good reason - an event which has corrupted the US political soul in ways visible right here on this thread, with this lame-ass excuse mongering actually a fair representation of the weakness, self-deception, and consequent rot we have ensconced at the center of our public life.russ said:
The US could have informed the Japanese about the bomb, and such warning would have provided the Japanese with the information that the US had built atomic bombs, and the Japanese had the scientific personnel and abilities to comprehend what that meant, but no way to prevent it.joe said:
That is not speculation. That is the historical record. The US had the opportunity there.
What is speculation is all this stuff about what the Japanese would or would not have done, upon comprehending the situation, due to their being crazy bushido fanatics or whatever. The solid hindsight information we have on that matter is that the Japanese - who had weathered the firebombing of Tokyo and other major cities with huge loss of civilian life, had proven willing to accept very severe destruction without capitulation, had resolved on suicide tactics rather than military surrender upon even the worst defeat in battle - capitulated within ten days of learning about the US atomic bomb.
And it seems that until we lance that boil, we are crippled in our public discussion of the Presidencies of Bush and Cheney.
You mean, after they were bombed the second time. They would not have understood what an atomic bomb could do unless they saw it. No one really did.
Anyway, we were already bombing civilians all over Europe, we killed hundreds of thousands of people firebombing Tokyo. The atomic attack wasn't much different. The moral thing to do in this case was whatever it took to end the war as quickly as possible.
LOL, that is yet another excuse for you not prove your claim. For several days and several posts, you have been unable to produce a shred of evidence to support your claim that the lack of money played a role in the decision to detonate nuclear weapons on Japan. And I again challenge you to explain why the US spent hundreds of millions on rebuilding Japan and Europe through the Marshall Plan if it were so desperate for money as you have alleged.
Yes Japan was working on building a nuclear weapon. Your ignorance and refusal to acknowledge facts and evidence doesn’t make them any less real.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_nuclear_weapon_program
You would like it to be a full stop, it should be. But this gets back to your refusal to acknowledge evidence that is counter to your point of view. This is not the first time this material has been shown to you.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/primary-resources/truman-leaflets/
Leaflets dropped on cities in Japan warning civilians about the atomic bomb, dropped c. August 6, 1945
“TO THE JAPANESE PEOPLE:
America asks that you take immediate heed of what we say on this leaflet.
We are in possession of the most destructive explosive ever devised by man. A single one of our newly developed atomic bombs is actually the equivalent in explosive power to what 2000 of our giant B-29s can carry on a single mission. This awful fact is one for you to ponder and we solemnly assure you it is grimly accurate.
We have just begun to use this weapon against your homeland. If you still have any doubt, make inquiry as to what happened to Hiroshima when just one atomic bomb fell on that city.
Before using this bomb to destroy every resource of the military by which they are prolonging this useless war, we ask that you now petition the Emperor to end the war. Our president has outlined for you the thirteen consequences of an honorable surrender. We urge that you accept these consequences and begin the work of building a new, better and peace-loving Japan.
You should take steps now to cease military resistance. Otherwise, we shall resolutely employ this bomb and all our other superior weapons to promptly and forcefully end the war.
EVACUATE YOUR CITIES.
ATTENTION JAPANESE PEOPLE. EVACUATE YOUR CITIES.
Because your military leaders have rejected the thirteen part surrender declaration, two momentous events have occurred in the last few days.
The Soviet Union, because of this rejection on the part of the military has notified your Ambassador Sato that it has declared war on your nation. Thus, all powerful countries of the world are now at war with you.
Also, because of your leaders' refusal to accept the surrender declaration that would enable Japan to honorably end this useless war, we have employed our atomic bomb.
A single one of our newly developed atomic bombs is actually the equivalent in explosive power to what 2000 of our giant B-29s could have carried on a single mission. Radio Tokyo has told you that with the first use of this weapon of total destruction, Hiroshima was virtually destroyed.
Before we use this bomb again and again to destroy every resource of the military by which they are prolonging this useless war, petition the emperor now to end the war. Our president has outlined for you the thirteen consequences of an honorable surrender. We urge that you accept these consequences and begin the work of building a new, better, and peace-loving Japan.
Act at once or we shall resolutely employ this bomb and all our other superior weapons to promptly and forcefully end the war.
EVACUATE YOUR CITIES.
Source: Harry S. Truman Library, Miscellaneous historical document file, no. 258”
Irrelevant, then why did you ask the question?
This gets back to your steadfast denial of reality. As has been proven to you many times, Japan did have a nuclear weapons program and they were trying to develop a nuclear weapon. And during the war the US didn’t know how far along Germany was or Japan was in their nuclear weapons development. The very reason the US began its nuclear weapons program was because of intelligence informing the FDR that the Axis powers were developing a nuclear weapon. Einstein, a pacifist, wrote a letter to FDR encouraging FDR to develop a nuclear weapon. In the months preceding the detonation at Nagasaki, a German U Boat carrying nuclear materials to Japan had been captured by the US.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_submarine_U-234#Final_voyage
If you think the US had good reason to believe that Japan was not developing a nuclear weapon or was not close to producing a nuclear weapon, where is the proof of that good reason?
None of that makes sense. I again challenge you, if you think the US motivation to finish wrap up the war with Japan was waning, where is your evidence? I have talked to WWII era Americans and I again encourage you to do so. So that you may learn something about the war. I had an uncle who served as a navigator on a B-29 (Superfortress) and flew several missions over Japan. My father served as a Merchant Marine sailing in the Bering Sea during the war, an uncle served as an intelligence officer in Europe. My grandfather was a farmer producing food for the war effort. My aunt worked in a support role for the US Army, they were not demoralized. They had just won the war in Europe and they were winning the war in the Pacific. It was called VE Day, and they celebrated in the streets when VE day was announced. Americans didn’t like the war, it was not something they wanted, but they were determined to finish it and put an end to ongoing world wars. They didn’t want a WWIII.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_in_Europe_Day
I again suggest you do some research on WWII and talk to some people of that era, some firsthand witnesses.
The truth hurts?
I asked you a question. This is what you wrote,
“ Originally Posted by iceaura
You can assert that to your heart's content, but you have not yet addressed the comparison made on this thread.
And to that extent, you have failed to address the criticism of Bush and Cheney launched in the OP and tangentially backed by that comparison." - Iceaura
So if you are not complaining about this line of discussion being off topic, what are you complaining about? I have offered evidence to support my assertions, you have provided none.
Where is your proof that the war could have ended earlier and without a nuclear bomb detonation? Where is your line of reasoning? Where is the evidence to allow a rational person to reach that conclusion? As previously pointed out to you the evidence is overwhelmingly against your stance on this issue.
As pointed out to you many times before, the reason the US used the nuclear weapons on Japan was to save lives. As previously pointed out to you estimates had ranged as high as 11 million lives would have been lost in a land invasion of Japan. The entire war could have been avoided if Japan had not declared war on the US or if Japan had not secretly planned and attacked Pearl Harbor while at the peace negotiation table with the US or if Japan had not rejected the Potsdam Declarations prior to detonation of the nuclear devices at Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The nuclear bombs would not have been built and used during WWII if Einstein, who was a pacifist, had not written a letter to FDR informing him that a such a device could be built and encouraging him to build a nuclear bomb as Einstein believed Germany was building a nuclear bomb. But that is not what happened.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/primary-resources/truman-ein39/
Truth and reason are never lamed-assed.
The first nuclear bomb was assembled on July 13, 1945 and detonated on July 16, 1945 at the White Sands test facility, just a few weeks prior to the nuclear detonation at Nagasaki. Prior to that time, the US did not have a proven nuclear weapon. The US did advise Japan it had a new bomb with devastating power per the previously provided material. But it didn’t convince Japan to halt hostilities or to surrender. As previously pointed out to you on many occasions during this thread, surrender was not something any Japanese commander did prior to the emperor’s announced surrender on August 15. The warrior code, the Bushido Code, didn’t allow for surrender preferring suicide over surrender. And for years, Japanese forces committed suicide rather than surrender and that includes civilians as well as armed forces.
US forces could have informed Japan it had a nuclear devices a few days earlier, but there is no evidence or even reason to believe that it would have ended the war any earlier. In fact it may have made it worse. Japan continued to fight and more died on both sides with each passing day.
The US could have notified Japan a few days earlier that it had a nuclear weapon. But your assertion that Japan would have reacted differently is purely speculation.
No what is speculation are your assertions that Japan would have somehow acted differently if the US had informed Japan that it had nuclear weapons earlier than it did, and that there was no need to use the nuclear weapons on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and that the US had ulterior motives for using the weapons on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. There is no evidence to support any of those notions. Further, Japan capitulated after learning the US had nuclear weapons and the ability to deliver those weapons and after witnessing the power of those weapons with two detonations on their cities. It was more than just learning the US possessed nuclear weapons that caused the emperor to surrender his forces. Do you really think, given Japan’s cultural resistance to surrender and distrust of outsiders, that they would believe the US if it just told them they possessed nuclear weapons? Even after all those things, many Japanese didn’t want to surrender, hence the coup d’état.
War is tragic. In WWII a lot of people died. Millions of people died. Millions were shot, bombed, gassed, burned, stabbed, raped, in Europe and in the Pacific during WWII. You don’t need a nuclear device to get to tragic and horrendous. You don’t need a nuclear device to burn or kill people including children. Those things happened a lot in WWII long before nuclear devices were used. Nuclear devices just make carnage and havoc more efficiently. War is ugly no matter how you slice it, with or without nuclear devices. WWII like all wars before it was tragic and horrific. A lot of things could have gone differently, but they didn’t. And the US was not the ugly monster you want/need it to be during WWII. If the US had to invade Japan without using nuclear weapons, the carnage and human suffering, as proven to you before, would have been much greater than those incurred at Nagasaki and Hiroshima with estimates into the millions of dead and wounded. The US government made a calculated decision that by employing nuclear devices it could ultimately save lives by bringing about the surrender of the Japanese government, and it did.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/04/06/us-japan-history-okinawa-idUST29175620070406
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Absolutely true. Our firebombings killed a lot more civilians than our nuclear bombs, for example.
This is bullshit. The US made the decision because they wanted to win. That's the reason anyone does anything during wartime. Kill kids? If it helps us win, it's OK. Fly airliners into buildings? Kill millions of acres of forest? Poison wells? It's all OK during wartime, because during a war the only morality is "that which makes us victorious."
Once the war is over the victor gets to write the history of it, so as long as you win it's always justifiable. If you lose? Then you are the most evil terrorist-supporting monster of all time.
That's not really true on both counts. For one thing, most wars aren't total war, or world war, like WWII was. Secondly, the winners aren't the only ones writing history. Lots of people write history, and if they can show their evidence, then it's legitimate. It's not like the Japanese aren't allowed to write a history book.
Yes conventional warfare killed, burned more men women and children than nuclear weapons did in WWII. The difference, nuclear weapons could accomplish what used to take weeks and months in a matter of hours.
Of course the US wanted to win the war. That is not the issue. It never was. Japan and its Axis Allies wanted to win too. But they didn’t. At this stage in the war, Japan had lost most of its Navy and airplanes and it was fighting to defend the seat of its government. The historical record show the emperor and his family were fighting to maintain their sovereign right to rule. And there was no question that the US and its Allies were eventually going to defeat Japan at this point in the war. It was just a matter of time and blood. How much time and how much blood it was going to cost? The record shows the US made a calculated decision to end the war in the least bloodless way possible. And the record also shows, the US thought the least bloodless way of ending the war was to use its nuclear weapons to convince Japan of the futility of further bloodshed. And the use of those weapons did end the war in relatively short order.
That is war. It isn’t pretty. It’s war. Japan killed kids, the Axis powers killed kids. Japan sent incendiary devices attached to balloons that drifted across the Pacific and killed American children in the mainland and burnt forests. Yeah, war is not pretty and both sides want to win. Both sides killed kids. That unfortunately is war. People get killed, disfigured, crippled and hurt. Innocent people get killed. That is why war should be avoided whenever possible. But that doesn’t mean it was wrong for the US to detonate nuclear devices at Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The detonations were tragic and unwanted but killed fewer people than a land invasion would have killed. It was the better of two bad options. Unfortunately sometimes we have to choose the lesser of two evils. And that was the case with the atomic bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Life doesn’t always offer us a good choice and a bad choice.
http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=7220
We have been down this road before on this subject. In a totalitarian society that may be true. But we don’t live in a totalitarian state. The facts are there for all to see. Historians are free to write whatever they will on both sides of the fence. Japan is no longer an absolute monarchy. Japanese are free to dispute the record. Americans are free to dispute the record. You and I are free to dispute and discuss the record. And in this case, there are millions of first hand witnesses to WWII on both sides. If you want to use scientific principals and standards, there is no deception here. The histories of these events speak for themselves. You have absolutely zero evidence that anything here has been distorted to favor the Americans and their allies.
You can believe whatever you want to believe. But the historical record, the evidence just doesn’t support those beliefs.
1) For the last time, please: I made no such assertions. Please quit saying stupid Fox News shit like that, and quote me in the future rather than paraphrasing.joe said:
2) You need to look up the word "speculation" in the dictionary. Asserting the existence of alternatives and possibilities that did in fact exist is not "speculation". This is all in the ordinary historical record.
You have made a long series of supremely confident and quite obviously uncertain claims about what the Japanese would or would not have done if they had been informed about the bomb, what would or would not have happened if this or that had been different. These are speculations, and if you are confused about what is meant by that the dictionary is the place to turn.
Yep. Say, eleven days before annihilating civilian populations with one of them. Why didn't they?joe said:
Or back when Truman was first informed that the problems had been solved and the bomb was going to work (they never even tested the Hiroshima design - it was that simple), which would have given the Japanese a few months to ponder their fate. Instead, the US quit negotiating surrender terms and broke off diplomatic communications with Japan, delivering nothing but ultimatums and demands already refused. No chance of Japan surrendering early was permitted.
According to you the Japanese already knew about the power of those weapons, and were trying to build their own. That's not true, but you were the one claiming it. According to me, and the historical record, the Japanese had scientists fully capable of recognizing what having an actual atomic bomb meant, and also were fully capable of appreciating what they would have seen in a scientific paper or demonstration or film or eyewitness at Trinity. So the "witnessing" part might have been avoided, in several different ways, had the US not carefully kept the bomb a secret.joe said:
Dresden and Tokyo took less than a day. They did not force Japanese surrender. Severe devastation by firebomb did not force surrender. The knowledge of the existence of atomic weaponry in US hands forced surrender in less than two weeks.joe said:
Invasion is irrelevant - it was not a choice once the bomb had been developed (it was not the only choice even without the bomb - there was good evidence a short winter's blockade would have collapsed the country), and it is deceptive to the point of dishonesty to pretend it was. The choices were among various ways of ending the war with the bomb.joe said:
The US had five or six options besides invasion, both with and without the bomb. Or we could have had the Japanese choose among their bad options, informed by us. Are you really sure, so sure you are willing to burn children alive for it, that given time and info they would have chosen to sack a few of their cities and suffer for many more months just to see what the bomb damage looked like in real life? The evidence we have is that the news of the bomb might have brought them to unconditional surrender within less than two weeks.joe said:
That is how they acted when they did find out the US had these bombs.
To have established and maintained those two mutually contradictory and self-invalidating positions simultaneously in large numbers of people is proof, if any were needed, of the sheer power of modern propaganda techniques.spidergoat said:
And this illustrates the kind of damage - to reason, to politics, to sane political discourse - defending an event like Hiroshima can do. The invasion of Iraq owes at least some of its possibility to the canards and self-deceptions of Hiroshima's aftermath (the presumption of arbitrary degrees of insanity and evil in enemies, the necessity of whatever we've done, the reflex of any threat whatsoever to national or patriotic self-defense justifying any means whatsoever to remove it, the acceptance of the hypnotist's standard trick of framing as invisible, etc)
The people who saw the bomb at Trinity understood what was going to happen to Hiroshima. There was no reason the Japanese could not have been equally well informed. Some would call it a moral imperative, even.
Which brings us to thread relevance:
So how do so many people in the US come to believe - and hold belief in the face of argument and information - the kind of incoherent bs we see above in the attempted justifications of Hiroshima and (even worse) Nagasaki, the warmongering buildup against Saddam Hussein, the transparently self-justifying houses of cards built on unreality that have backed so many US backed horrorshows planetwide in thsi past century?
OH hogwash. You just don’t like it when confronted with reality.
I suggest you take your own advice.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/speculating
You have repeatedly made claims that are not based on fact or evidence and you have repeatedly denied reality, known facts and the historical record even when proven in this thread.
I have cited the historical record. I have said repeatedly that there is no evidence the US committed genocide or intended to commit genocide during the war on Japan. I have challenged you to support your claims with evidence. For instance, you have claimed that the US dropped the nukes on Japan to save money, because the US was running out of money. Where is the proof? Where is the historical record to support that notion? You don’t have any evidence, because you made it up in order to justify your cognitive biases.
First you deny you are speculating, and then you speculate about other possibilities. You are as bad as the Fox News types you like to complain about. You don’t see the hypocrisy? Second, what evidence do you have that if the US had told Japan it had nuclear weapons a few days earlier it would have resulted in a different course of action? You have zero evidence or even reason to believe that notification would have led Japan to surrender earlier without the need for a nuclear detonation. As has been pointed out to you numerous times, no Japanese commander surrendered his forces prior to the emperor’s surrender. Japanese commanders always committed mass suicide rather than surrender. So you think Japan would have surrendered if the US merely informed Japan that the US now had a nuclear weapon? You are stretching credulity again.
You would be better served if you used your time to educate yourself about the subject matter instead of feeding your biases. As has been pointed out to you repeatedly, Japan secretly planned and executed an attack on the US while the US was at the peace negotiating table (i.e. Pearl Harbor). It was Japan that broke off negotiations. It was Japan that subsequently declared war on the US. It was Japan that invaded Alaska. It was Japan that invaded US possessions in the Pacific including the Philippines.
So yet again your allegations are not consistent with known history. The US and its allies issued one ultimatum, the Potsdam Declaration in which the terms of Japan’s surrender were made known to Japan and it encouraged Japan to surrender. And has been explained to you many times before, it was issued on July 26, 1945 and rejected by Japan 3 days later. A week after Japan’s rejection of the Potsdam Declarations, the first nuclear weapon was detonated. Your claim, “No chance of Japan surrendering early was permitted.” , is clearly wrong. Japan was given the opportunity to surrender and it was encouraged to do so per the previously provided evidence.
Your consistent refusal to recognize reality is not going to change reality. It is not going to change history.
That is true. And you have been repeatedly provided proofs. Japan did have a nuclear weapons development program and it was known to the US. Japan was working with Germany to develop nuclear weapons. The US had confiscated nuclear materials from a captured German U-boat reroute to Japan. All of this is not new; it has been proven to you many times before. It is a matter of historical record. Yet you continue to deny reality because it does not comport with your cognitive biases. I suggest instead of mindlessly running off at the fingers, you go back and reread my last post.
No one is disputing the fact that the Japanese scientists fully understood the power of nuclear weapons. After all, they had a nuclear weapons program staffed by their scientists. Why is under dispute is your assertion that if the US had given notice to Japan that it had a nuclear device, Japan would have surrendered earlier . . . promptly. And you have no evidence to support that notion. As has been repeatedly pointed out to you, given Japan’s distrust of outsiders and deeply embedded beliefs about surrender, it is not a likely conclusion. Even after two nuclear detonations, there was severe disagreement within the Japanese government on surrender (e.g. the coup d’état). Japanese scientists were not empowered to surrender. Japanese political leaders, and specifically the emperor, were then individuals who made the decision to surrender.
You think Dresden and Tokyo bombings were comparable to the devastation in Nagasaki and Hiroshima? I really encourage you to go back to your history books and learn the difference. But if you really believe that, then why are you not complaining about the Allied attacks on Dresden and Tokyo? If Dresden and Tokyo are comparable to Nagasaki and Hiroshima, why are you not arguing that the Allies should have not made those attacks because if the allies had just notified Germany and Japan of those attacks, those governments would have promptly surrendered? The facts are the Axis powers fought to the bitter end. The war in Europe ended a few months earlier and didn’t surrender. Hitler didn’t surrender. Hitler fought to the bitter end and the war in Europe ended with the annihilation of the German state. Based on experiences in Europe, Japan’s distrust of outsiders and cultural beliefs in suicide over surrender and the many and continuing Japan’s suicide attacks, the US had little reason to believe that Japan would have surrendered if it had just tapped on Japan’s shoulder and nicely requested that it surrender.
Hogwash, invasion was very relevant. People were dying by the day. The war was still going on in China. Japan was still attacking Allied forces. Allied forces were still attacking Japanese targets including shipping. Russia had just entered the war against Japan. And the US knew Japan had a nuclear weapons program. As in Germany, it didn’t know how far along the program was for all the US knew, Japan could have already had a nuclear bomb.
Oh, then why have you not produced that evidence? I again challenge you to produce that evidence? And while you are at how about supporting all of your other claims with evidence as you have been repeatedly challenged to do?
As has been pointed out to you before on numerous occasions, you are skipping some important details. Japan surrendered after the US informed Japan of the nuclear weapons and demonstrated their ability to deliver and detonate those weapons did Japan surrender and even then the surrender almost didn’t happen. Japan didn’t surrender just because the US told them the US had nuclear weapons – them pesky minor details again.
You don’t seem to be able to understand the difference between Iraq and Hiroshima. The historical record is not BS. Unfortunately for you, it is reality.