Once upon a time, professors in the University of California system accomplished great things... like inventing atomic bombs. Now, they're paid to write complete crap.
Posted on 08/19/2011 2:21:26 PM PDT by mojito
What ended World War II?
For nearly seven decades, the American public has accepted one version of the events that led to Japan’s surrender. By the middle of 1945, the war in Europe was over, and it was clear that the Japanese could hold no reasonable hope of victory. After years of grueling battle, fighting island to island across the Pacific, Japan’s Navy and Air Force were all but destroyed. The production of materiel was faltering, completely overmatched by American industry, and the Japanese people were starving. A full-scale invasion of Japan itself would mean hundreds of thousands of dead GIs, and, still, the Japanese leadership refused to surrender.
But in early August 66 years ago, America unveiled a terrifying new weapon, dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In a matter of days, the Japanese submitted, bringing the fighting, finally, to a close.
On Aug. 6, the United States marks the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing’s mixed legacy. The leader of our democracy purposefully executed civilians on a mass scale. Yet the bombing also ended the deadliest conflict in human history.
In recent years, however, a new interpretation of events has emerged. Tsuyoshi Hasegawa - a highly respected historian at the University of California, Santa Barbara - has marshaled compelling evidence that it was the Soviet entry into the Pacific conflict, not Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that forced Japan’s surrender. His interpretation could force a new accounting of the moral meaning of the atomic attack. It also raises provocative questions about nuclear deterrence, a foundation stone of military strategy in the postwar period. And it suggests that we could be headed towards an utterly different understanding of how, and why, the Second World War came to its conclusion.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
yes.
opportunism.
You could try your whole life, and not distill so much stupidity into so few words.
the war was long over before the A-bombs were dropped...if anything it was the napalming of most of the island months before the a-bombs were dropped that made the Japs finally awaken to the fact it was over as their war making capacity went down the crapper...people always talk about the A-bombs yet dismiss what napalming places like tokyo and other major cities really did to make the japs realize they could not end the war on their terms...
the a-bombs were just the whip cream on the horse sh!t- as the assertion the Russians entering the war forced the Japs hands is just ridiculous 1) the Russians got their revenge by taking japs in manchuria prisoner...2) the japs offered complete surrender right after the second bomb was dropped- not right after the russians entered the mix...
its sort of like these liberal dweebs who somehow want to give jimmah carter credit for negotiating a deal to free the hostages in iran who were sent home, oh yeh- one day after Reagan took office...
It is really a no-brainer.
The war was carried against Germany, only a holding action to protect Australia and New Zealand was waged against Japan.
That was certainly no secret.
Once Germany collapsed Japan was toast and knew it.
That the Russians were about to enter the war against her was a simple recognition of Germany’s final defeat.
Japan accepted surrender because it was finally offered to it on less than unconditional terms.
Because the US and england did not desire russia in the war.
The Mikado was allowed to remain, done deal, Japan surrendered.
What did the Japs strip the north of?
what even more people don’t know and in some cases are willfully ignorant towards is the fact many American POW’s were butchered by camp guards after the enraged jap guards found out the japs had surrendered...
its always been my contention had jap atrocities in WWII been broadcast to the same degree nazi atrocities had most of the population would have committed hari kari out of embarrassment or at the very least had Dugout Doug MacArthur not sold out, japan would’ve been a subservient country for a century...do some quick research on unit 731....
Not necessarily. Better to surrender to the Americans than the Soviets, the territory and human eating colossus. Fear of the Soviets may well have driven the Japanese into the American sphere, A-bombs and all. It's still fair to say that the A-bomb attacks ended the war. The Boston Glob can split all the hairs it wants.
First, by almost every measure, Japan was defeated and almost impotent to carry the battle to its enemies. The Allies were setting plans in place for an acknowledged bloodbath of an invasion. My own Father was on leave from the European Theater but was headed for the Pacific afterwards. What was keeping the war going was the firm Military Government of Japan, and the amply demonstrated Japanese willingness for suicide attacks.
Second, Japan, by this point, probably could not care in the least as to how many enemies it had attacking it. If you know that you are committing suicide as a culture, do you care about how many different uniforms they are wearing? Dead is dead.
Third, the only possible breaking point in the power structure of Japan was the non-governmental Emperor Hirohito. However pro-war he may have been earlier, at this point the Military Government felt sufficiently uneasy about his desires to basically have him under palace arrest (for his own safety). Yet it was through his penumbra of prestige and derived power that the government continued to rule.
This is what adds it up in my opinion that the A-Bomb drops shatter the ongoing blinkered desire to do an all-Japan "Suicide by Invasion" and allowed Hirohito sufficient room in the stunning revelation of a one-bomb equals one-city to do the paradigm shift of acceptable surrender. Hirohito only had to use this sudden two hits to make and broadcast his recording that called for general populace capitulation. My personal opinion is that the entry of the Soviet Union was hardly this kind of incident.
I suspect Uncle Joe would not have bothered to enter the war until the US had paid a very high price for the invasion. The bomb forced his hand.
I’m wondering if we took all the liberal collage professors, put them on a deserted Pacific island and nuked it, would that act as a deterrent for future liberal collage professors??
Define murder. Not just in the context of war, but in any context, military, medical, private, public, whatever: what is murder?
Thank you in advance. It'll help me see the basis of your moral reasoning.
Now, to the rest of it. I think a good case can be made for "combination of factors," including that the Soviets saw their chance (because of the obliterated cities) to jump in and take as much as they could before the war was ended. A "fire sale."
But yes, it was a war crime. The A-bomb was designed to be indiscriminate. The idea was city=target. This is criminal because intentionally indiscriminate killing obliterates moral distinction.
The same judgment may (arguably) NOT apply to the bombing of Tokyo and dozens of other Japanese cities, even though those bombings actually caused many times more deaths, cumulatively, than the two A-bombings,. This could be argued if the case could be made that these firebombing, while hugely destructive, were not intentionally designed to be indiscriminate.
Or of course you can argue for reduced individual moral culpability because of the extreme extenuating circumstances and the insane pressures of war. Actual individual moral culpability is for God to decide, and I'm not one to put one or another man into hellfire.
Or you can try to argue that "OK, it was a war crime, but war crimes are necessary": "have at it", full-blown consequentialism.
But to say "it was not a crime" defies reason, and deprives us of any basis on which to distinguish between justifiable acts of war, and murder.
The historical account is plausible but the extended conclusions are not. The US did not know what the Japanese government was thinking beyond that they were determined to fight on through an invasion. Moreover, if the Russians alone had prompted the surrender, they would have been able to insist on a large role in the occupation of Japan. In that context, dropping A-bombs was both reasonable and necessary to secure a lasting peace.
“Uncle Joe was shrewd.”
No he was not.
“Look at what he did in 1940 after the Ribbentrop/Molotov Pact was signed with Germany...Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, all gobbled up in record time.”
The pact was signed in 1939. In June 1940, Stalin, the guy you credit with enormous foresight, was taken completely by surprise and had left the Soviet Union completely unprepared for the Nazi attack - which ensured that all the benefits of the previous year’s agreement were lost.
“But Churchill and Roosevelt worked out with him that he would break the pact and invade Japan three months after Germany surrendered.”
That was due to the West’s concern over Japan’s fanatical armed forces causing enormous casualties from an invasion force. At the time of the decision, the atom bomb was still untested. Churchill and FDR needed Soviet assistance taking down Japan. How does this credit Stalin with anything?
“Had the hard-liners in the Japanese government succeeded in continuing the war, it’s likely that Tokyo would have been the target of the third atomic bomb later in August.”
Factually false. Tokyo had been incinerated due to a mass aerial US led bombing campaign that culminated on March 10th 1945. It was not on the atom bomb targeting list. Kokura, which was originally the main target versus Nagasaki, would have been next.
http://39th.org/39th/hc/hc_japan_a_bomb.html
Japan’s A-Bomb
”There has been speculation for many years that Japan was working on the A-Bomb. An article appeared in World War II Magazine (July 1995) by Al Hemingway that indicates indeed, that Japan may have exploded an atomic bomb on a tiny islet in the Sea of Japan on August 12, 1945.”
Etc.
What Stalin did not foresee is France falling in six weeks, he wanted war in the West...he got it. But what he wanted was Britain, France and Germany to get into a protracted war of attrition.
Major Point: The Soviets only declared war after and because of the atomic bombings, they wanted to grab some real estate before Japan surrendered to us only.
Due to production limitations the U.S. wouldn't have nuclear material for another bomb until sometime in 1946. So the invasion of Japan would have started in the Fall of 1945 if Japan hadn't surrendered.
Bottom line, we felt guilty after dropping the bomb(s) and because of that did not seek legitimate war justice with the intensity that we did against Germany.
Crazy but true.
As I understood it at the time, Truman had for some time been trying without success to get Stalin to declare war on the Japanese.
With the dropping of the atomic bombs, Stalin did as you say; he decided to get in while he still could.
It was cause and effect. Without the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, Stalin would have continued to play cat and mouse with Truman. But he saw the end and acted.
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