WSJ: Hiroshima - Nuclear weapons, then and now.

opinionjournal.com ^ | August 5, 2005 | Editorial

[OESY]

Today--or August 6 in Japan--is the 60th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, which killed outright an estimated 80,000 Japanese and hastened World War II to its conclusion on August 15. Those of us who belong to the postwar generations tend to regard the occasion as a somber, even shameful, one. But that's not how the generation of Americans who actually fought the war saw it. And if we're going to reflect seriously about the bomb, we ought first to think about it as they did.

...No surprise, then, that when news of the bomb reached Lt. Fussell and his men, they had no misgivings about its use: "...We were going to live."...

What about Japanese lives?... Since the ratio of Japanese to American combat fatalities ran about four to one, a mainland invasion could have resulted in millions of Japanese deaths--and that's not counting civilians....

Also true is that the threat nuclear weapons pose today is probably greater than ever before. That's not because they're more plentiful--thanks to the 2002 Moscow Treaty (negotiated by John Bolton), U.S. and Russian arsenals are being cut to levels not seen in 40 years. It's because nuclear know-how and technology have fallen into the hands of men such as A.Q. Khan and Kim Jong Il, and they, in turn, are but one degree of separation away from the jihadists who may someday detonate a bomb in Times or Trafalgar Square....

Looking back after 60 years, who cannot be grateful that it was Truman who had the bomb, and not Hitler or Tojo or Stalin? And looking forward, who can seriously doubt the need for might always to remain in the hands of right? That is the enduring lesson of Hiroshima, and it is one we ignore at our peril.

[TomasUSMC]

Estimates were 1 million allied casualties to conquer the home islands.

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I wonder what the estimates are for when the muslim terrorists get the bomb?

Nuke Tehran and then demand unconditional surrender, before they do the same to us.

[TomasUSMC]

liberals would rather have our own soldiers die than us dropping the bomb on the Japanese. Its war. Kill or be killed.
And I cringe to think that anyone would rather have our own soldiers die than us dropping the bomb on the Muslims. Its War -Kill or be killed

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Anyone not willing to rewind the clock to a 1945 sense of urgency will likely condemn us to failure and acceptance of the enemy's terms and the enemy's definition of "peace

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Exactly

Tagline:

Semper Fi

[elbucko]

However, the killing of civilians was certainly part of the U.S. strategic intention.

No it's not, never has been and never will be. The fact is that non-democratic newly industrialized societies tend to spread their manufacturing throughout the populace. I have seen the classified pictures of Tokyo after the fire-bombing. The forest of drill presses and other machinery that did not burn in the firestorm is remarkable in their numbers. Just about every household in Tokyo was making something that the Japanese military could use. Democracies do not tend to do this. They will try and locate defense industry as close to labor as possible, but not in residential areas. However, the leaders of militaristic country's know that democracies tend to choke on the idea of bombing civilians. Even those who are running a lathe and making artillery shells in their living room. Your statement regarding the strategic intent of the US is extremely ignorant.

No, the US in the Pacific and the British in Europe are not guilty of war crimes. The blame for collateral damage, civilian and property, falls upon the Japanese and the Germans themselves. The moral is: Don't start what you can't finish, but if you do, all the blood, including your own, will be on your hands.

[TomasUSMC]

And you sit fat, dumb, and safe in your comfortable seat, separated by 60 years from the worst war in history, and are willing to condemn at least 5 million citizens of Japan and tens or hundreds of thousands of Americans. Easy to say someone should die from your chair, isn't it?

[TomasUSMC]

Really? Hmm, tell that to the American children who were killed by japanese bombs.. I'm sure if they were around to argue their case with you, you'd have a much better insight..

[TomasUSMC]

The problem is that killing hoards of civilians is not the answer.

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war is H E L L.

We dropped thousands of leaflets telling them to get out of the city, they didn't, to bad. To bad YOU think killing hoards of civilians is not the answer. Actually it works quite effectively. Usually it takes one example, sometimes it takes many. It tends to wipe out the enemy now and forever. Now if the enemy doesn't want to be wiped out now and forever, they first:

Shouldn't start the war

and second:

If they wish to curtail the process of their own elimination, they should surrender so they don't get wiped out now and forever.

Otherwise, when faced with an enemy like the Japanese or Germans of WW2 or the Muslims of today

THEY WILL WIPE YOU OUT NOW AND FOREVER.
ITS CALLED KILL OR BE KILLED.
Just because you don't believe in it don't mean it ain't gonna happen to you.

Kinda like HELL.

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[elbucko]

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were crimes against humanity....

You're at it again, 1stFreedom. You have a personal reason for the position you hold. You should recuse yourself if you can't be intellectually honest.

[TomasUSMC]

It's easy to condemn a city and it's inhabitants to death from a distance. But what if this were your city?

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Well lets see, if I were japanese: I would have thought, dude, we should have left those skiny white flat assed round eyed Americans the hell alone. They don't play. We tried to sucker punch them, then intimidate them by torturing their prisoners. And they kept coming..... and now look what they have done. Maybe we should surrender before they kill every last one of our dumb yellow slant eyed rice eating butts.

If I were japanese that is.

[TomasUSMC]

but it's hard to see how invasion would have made the USA more safe.

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The Russians wanted Japan.

Japan still had the ability to wage war with submarines and Kamikazes.

And we did not know if the Japanese could also make an A-bomb.

We wanted Peace and that could not be had with a militaristic Japan still fighting us. We would have had to continue to maintain millions of troops to "contain" them.

So we took care of the problem in the quickest most efficient way possible. Too bad President Bush didn't do the same thing back in September of 01 by using Nukes. This whole War on Terror would have been over one way or the other by the end of the month.

[TomasUSMC]

The USA forces (as far as I know) have strained every muscle to protect civilians, even under the most desperate circumstances

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That type of war fighting gives you the same result we got in Korea and Vietnam.

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[Mrs. Don-o]

You wrote: "Just about every household in Tokyo was making something that the Japanese military could use... running lathes and making artillery shells..."

You've brought up an important point that seriously complicates the idea of civilian immunity: what the heck can you do when the enemy essentially conflates the civilian population with the military?

This is an ever-present factor in Iraq: the fact that the murderous thug factions all use homes, hotels, schools and places of worship as arms caches, recruiting, training, and logistical-support areas, as well as launching attacks from and within residential neighborhoods, always using the whole surrounding non-combatant population as--- in effect --- "human shields."

That certainly makes the thugs, themselves, directly morally responsible for the collateral casualties.

I don't think that completely obviates any responsibility to try to protect noncombatants, or to avoid objectively indiscriminate destruction. I do keep in mind that Eisenhower and Leahy were opposed to using the bomb (Eisenhower personally argued with Truman about it). Leahy said it and using other WMD such as germ bombs, was unbefitting a civilized country), and no less a personage than Curtis "Bomb them Back to the Stone Age" LeMay said the bomb was unnecessary to force Japan to surrender. MacArthur agreed the act was unnecessary.

They knew the war was over.

I don't regard them all as being "extremely ignorant."

[jpsb]

"Estimates were 1 million allied casualties to conquer the home islands. Thank God for the bomb."

Bump! The Japanese casualties would have been unimaginable. Woman and children figthing machine guns with sticks, thank god, US troops were not forced to slaughter an entire nation.

[stboz]

Count it as progress that the U.S. has seen fit to forebear the further use of nuclear weapons, so far.

If we are attacked by Al-Queda with nukes, I hope our hestiance will not cause us to not use nukes to destroy an enemy who is bent on destroying us. Political correctness be damned.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Hm?

[elbucko]

(Eisenhower personally argued with Truman about it).

Yes, but Eisenhower's concern was about whether the a-bomb would work. Ike had seen a lot of experimental weapons in the European theater, he had seen a lot of them fail or not achieve their strategic objective, the "Dambusters" comes to mind. Eisenhower was afraid that the a-bomb would be a dud, or not as effective as it was.

and no less a personage than Curtis "Bomb them Back to the Stone Age" LeMay said the bomb was unnecessary to force Japan to surrender. MacArthur agreed the act was unnecessary.

You are taking the quotes to support your position out of the context in which they were said. I know the context and MacArthur and LeMay did not condemn using the bomb to shorten the war and achieve an "unconditional surrender".

I don't think that completely obviates any responsibility to try to protect noncombatants, or to avoid objectively indiscriminate destruction.

That statement tells me that you have little actual knowledge of how the military thinks or is run.

[jpsb]

The Battle of Okinawa is distinguished among battles, yet often unrecognized when referring to the great battles of the Second World War. Over 250,000 people lost their lives. Approximately 150,000 Okinawans, about a third of the population, perished.(1) At the battle's end, somewhere between a third and half of all surviving civilians were wounded.(2) No battle during the Second World War, except Stalingrad, had as massive a loss of civilian life. The stakes were high. The Japanese, determined to fight to the last man, almost achieved their objective, but in defeat 100,000 Japanese combatants died rather than surrender.(3) In the end, fewer than 10,000 of General Mitsuri Ushijimas's Thirty-Second Army were taken prisoner.(4)

http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/okinawa/default.aspx

Now imagine repearting this but one a far far larger sacle with an invasion of the Japanesse home island. The loss of life would have been horrific on both sides. The Bomb, saved millions and milloins of lives.

[Mrs. Don-o]

(I wrote) I don't think that completely obviates any responsibility to try to protect noncombatants, or to avoid objectively indiscriminate destruction.

(You wrote) That statement tells me that you have little actual knowledge of how the military thinks or is run.

President Bush has stated repeatedly that our military in Iraq is straining every muscle to protect noncombatants, and avoid objectively indiscriminate destruction. So, is he wrong?

[elbucko]

So, is he wrong?

No! But I don't think that Truman was wrong either.

[elbucko]

Ie, I'm not into groupthink...

I don't think this is quite true. You're either a pacifist, a Japanese -American, a Democrat, or ignorant of what you speak. In the end, they're all some form of "group".

[elbucko]

(I wrote) I don't think that completely obviates any responsibility to try to protect noncombatants, or to avoid objectively indiscriminate destruction.

You know, lady, in all my training, I was never encouraged, nay, but always discouraged to the point that it was almost my duty to sacrifice myself for the good of the civilians around me and now you have the nerve to imply that this is not done as a matter of course in the US military.

SHAME ON YOU!

You're ignorance renders you almost not worth a soldiers life.