Posted on 08/13/2012 7:59:17 AM PDT by Cincinatus
‘There are no civilians in Japan.” This was the judgment of a US Air Force intelligence report produced before the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during August 1945. The meaning was clear. The global conflict that had raged since 1939 had become a total war. London, Coventry, Berlin, Dresden, Tokyo and many other cities had all suffered “strategic bombing”. The leading participants in the Second World War did not view civilian population as pure collateral. By 1945 they were the principal targets.
The bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9 respectively were the ultimate expressions of total war. Little Boy and Fat Man were exploded over cities that had scant military value and were inhabited by large numbers of ordinary people, whose lives and properties were dramatically and cruelly destroyed. The broad military and political aim was supposedly to shock Japan into agreeing “unconditional surrender”.
But did the means – 180,000 total dead and wounded on the days that the bombs were dropped and tens of thousands more later as a result of radiation poisoning – justify the end of bringing the Second World War to a close? Was it necessary, indeed, to drop the bombs at all?
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
The only problem with dropping the two atom bombs was that we didn’t have any more of them.
Japan attacked us unprovoked. They gave up all right to exist at that time and exist now only because of our mercy.
I would have gladly nuked mecca, medina and the capitals of all moslem countries after 911. Islam attacked us and has given up all rights to exist.
Did the Imperial Japanese really need to invade China and commit the variety of atrocities and human rights violations either? Didn’t think so.
This is a garbage editorial, the bombs saved millions of lives, and prevented Stalin from a land grab in Hokkaido and installing a Communist puppet state.
I wonder if the writer contemplated, or even preferred an all out invasion of the Japanese home islands with millions being killed on both sides, having the war last perhaps another 5-10 years.
Liberal comedian Jon Stewart addressed this on his show one time.
Sometimes he tries to be serious, from what I hear.
Anyway, he said that we should have dropped the bomb offshore, to show the Japanese how powerful it was, then tell them that the next one was coming their way if they didn’t surrender.
I’ve heard versions of that liberal view over the years, that the Japanese would have surrendered if they knew what would happen, without us having to use the A-bomb.
It’s easy to be liberal, and engage in revisionist history, from the world headquarters of Comedy Central in Manhattan.
I like to point out to liberals, that a good Democrat, President Truman, is the one who made the call to use the A-bomb.
Little Boy and Fat Man saved the lives of tens of millions of Japanese civilians.
http://www.webwizpro.com/1945InvasionofJapan.html
Even after two bombs being dropped “onshore” there was a faction within the Japanese Army that attempted a coup on the eve of the Emperor’s surrender announcement attempting to prevent the surrender.
See “The Last Mission”.
I watched a Chinese movie called “NANJING!” this past weekend. You can guess what it was about, and the Chinese view of Japan’s behavior in WWII.
The unspoken truth is:
1) The Emperor needed the USA to drop the A-bombs. It gave him the cover he needed to overcome Tojo and the fight-to-the-death faction of general running the Gov’t
2) The Japanese thank God it was the Americans and it wasn’t the Chinese who developed the A-bomb in WWII, because Japan would not exist today if that had been the case.
What I was taught in school (1950’s), before the liberals changed history was the invasion of Japan would have cost the lives of approximately 500,000 allies.
We didn’t start the war but we sure as hell ended it and we could have won every war since then and in 1/3 the time it took to win WW2 (only 3.5 years)if we showed the same committment to winning as we did in WW2.
The only country libs want the A bomb dropped on is Israel.
Rape and murder of the Korean “comfort girls”.
Beheading of prisoners of war.
Submarine attacks on hospital ships.
Arming of civilian women and children for final homeland defense.
Suicide pilots flying bomb-laden death machines.
Slave labor camps for prisoners.
Beatings, murders, enslavement of Bataan US prisoners..
This list goes on for quite a bit. How is dropping an atomic weapon any different. Wringing of hands accomplishes nothing. Outcome? You can bet your ass Japan dropped its imperialist conquering attitude very quickly!
If we had 20 bombs it might have worked - but picture a scenario where the first bomb went off as planned and the second one was a dud. Fighting would have continued fighting - with many more dead on both sides - and an uncertain outcome. People forget we weren't 'holding back' like we did in Vietnam - we were fighting World War II with everything we had - and - for much of the war - it was a toss up.
The first bomb demonstrated what the bomb could do, but the Japanese didn't get the message, so it took a second bomb and a second destroyed city for them to get the message.
Yes and yes. Case closed.
And some liberals point to this as one of America’s “war crimes”. Some liberals say that America is the only country to use nuclear weapons in a war, thus America is uniquely evil, or some such thing.
It is a fact that America is the only country to use nuclear weapons, but, as liberals tend to do, it over-simplifies the history of World War II to focus on those two bombings, and ignore everything else which led to that point.
The Knights of Bushido: A Short History of Japanese War Crimes.
Truman asked for a an estimate of both sides casualties for the planned invasion. The numbers were 2 million American dead, 6 Million Japanese dead with unspecified number of Japanese deaths from disease and starvation. The Japanese civilians were being armed and trained to fight with old rifles and in some cases pointed sticks. It was a mass suicide plan.
My father was waiting to get on a train for San Francisco to be shipped to Japan to fight in the mountains where most of the fighting would occur. He was told that it would extremely difficult to survive the battles. The first bomb was dropped and he was told to stand down.
A friend of mine was ordered to write his last letter home. A Marine, his unit was to be in the first wave of the invasion and he was told that it surviving the action would be impossible. The next day he was told of the first bomb.
Truman’s decision was a humane one, the best possible decision that could be made.
He was packed and waiting to board a troop transport when the first bomb was dropped.
This wasn't just an idea; it was actually fairly close to the truth.
The Japanese had decentralized their industrial production to the extent that many private homes had a lathe, a drill-press or a milling machine, and thus became a legitimate target.
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