[Cincinatus]

The usual second-guessing from armchair generals who have (likely as not) never heard a shot fired in anger. The comments at the end of the review put this guy in his place.

[John O]

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.

[Shadow44]

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.

[KoRn]

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.

[Dilbert San Diego]

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.

[DuncanWaring]

Little Boy and Fat Man saved the lives of tens of millions of Japanese civilians.

http://www.webwizpro.com/1945InvasionofJapan.html

[PGR88]

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.

[beenaround]

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.

[Gaffer]

Unprovoked attacks on sleeping sailors on a Sunday morning.

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!

[Lurker]

Yes and yes. Case closed.

[buffaloguy]

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.

[DuncanWaring]

‘There are no civilians in Japan.”

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.

[fella]

And today more and more westerners are realizing that there is no such thing as a moderate muslim.

[stuartcr]

No civilians = no callateral damage = every bomb dropped, a successful hit.

Very convenient relativism in action.

[SES1066]

As you said, this is 20/20 hindsight armchair revisionism. Yes, the first use of these war-changing weapons is and should be a matter of continuing study but much of what this review reveals is the ‘modern’ revulsion against the Atom Bomb use PERIOD.

I do not know if either author mentioned the following facts, but the horrific ‘conventional’ fire-bomb raids of Dresden in the ETO and Tokyo also ‘melted’ people! The Tokyo raids killed more people than either A-Bomb (I believe), yet those attacks were deemed proper as the Japanese had moved manufacturing down to household workshops.

There is credible evidence that an invasion of Japan could have resulted in a stalemate where the Allies would have so many casualties with so little gain that some, including Britain, could not sustain the cost and would withdraw. We, today, forget how very close to the edge that Britain came to exhaustion in this war. If you read the early Ian Fleming James Bond novels, you realize that the British wartime economic restrictions persisted for more than a decade after the war.

What would have happened then to the nascent Cold War is a study for alternative history and there are many who have written their speculations. What I know is that the death tolls for a non-ABomb scenario seem to exceed the losses of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by magnitudes on both sides.

Of course, every August Anniversary brings these tomes to book reviewers attention and a reprise of this argument. So this will repeat next year and so on as a hook to hang another view that being a victim of an A-Bomb is a bad thing. What a surprise!

[BobinIL]

This is the difference between the total war in WWII and what we are doing today. In WWII the enemies armies were completely and utterly destroyed, their civilian populations were attacked and supplies of food, water and medical supplies were always short or nonexistent. The infrastructure of their cities were completely destroyed and many of them were left homeless. After 4 years of these hardships the will of the people was broken and they would no longer be a threat to any other country for decades. This type of total war has been lost and this is why these police actions we are involved in today last for years and years with no end in site. Because the enemy is not broken.

[fishtank]

Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Paul Tibbets Jr., left, and his grandson, then-Capt. Paul Tibbets IV, pilot the last flyable B-29 Superfortress. General Tibbets was the pilot in command of the “Enola Gay” when it dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945. Now a colonel, the younger Tibbets is the Air Force Inspection Agency commander at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M. Courtesy photo

http://www.militaryavenue.com/Articles/Face+of+Defense-+Grandson+Carries+on+Grandfathers+Service-38701.aspx

"Colonel Tibbets also shared something his grandfather told him about nuclear weapons: “We hope we never have to use nuclear weapons in anger again,” said the elder Tibbets.

“But if you think about it, we use these weapons everyday as a credible deterrent," stated Colonel Tibbets. "We, as a nation, should never forget that.”"

[jerod]

Maybe the question should be this... If the Axis countries had developed the atom bomb first, how many bombs would they have dropped to achieve their maniacal goal of world domination?

It is generally agreed that if these bombs had not been dropped the death toll would have been greater than it was… It also generally agreed that if the world had not been witness to the destruction these weapons created, that the ensuing Cold War would more likely have been a very Hot War. So the actions by Truman ended one war and prevented another much larger and much more destructive conflict.

[Wuli]

The statements that:

"Two studies, by Paul Ham and Craig Collie, based on interviews with survivors"

is clarified down in the text with this line:

"Through interviews with survivors of the nuclear blasts, Ham knits together a reassessment of the politics of 1945"

What it really means is "rewrite" "the politics of 1945".

From this new Leftist assault on history, Allied intelligence was supposed to have infiltrated and understood the sentiments of the residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, from which the intelligence the Allies had on the Japanese military and government, and how much the population would have followed them, would have been altered 180 degrees.

No where in this "reassessment of the politics of 1945" is it said to have found/obtained new (or newly uncovered) "interviews" of the political participants of the day. No, their motives and intentions simply rewritten on the basis of the preconceived notion of the authors that the attacks on Nagasaki and Hiroshima were unnecessary.

The authors obviously believed that ahead of time, and the thoughts of the Nagasaki and Hirsoshima survivors is but a foil, an excuse, for "new evidence" that proves that.

By the way, if anyone need notice the "ultimate results", they only need look at Nagasaki and Hiroshima today, and Detroit in 1945 and today.

here's Hiroshima and Nagasaki:

http://www.photopumpkin.com/photo-blog/hiroshima-and-nagasaki-today/

a Detroit:

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f72_1271699423

[driftless2]

Since the end of WWII there has been two things: (1) no end to the condemnation of the U.S. by leftists for dropping the a-bombs and (2) practically no notice by the same leftists given to the millions of Asian civilians slaughtered by Japanese forces. I’m sorry the bombs had to be dropped, but THEY HAD TO BE DROPPED!!! Try being an American politician explaining to a young widow or mother after her husband or son was among the 100,000 plus serviceman killed in the invasion of Japan why you didn’t drop the bombs that would have prevented their deaths. I’d favor hanging for any American pol who would have assented to such a scenario.

[Species8472]

Hiroshima, 2012:

Nagasaki; 2012

Detroit; 2012

Would someone please tell me who won?