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Did he see the thousands of incinerated civilians? Fact is, the Japanese were ready to surrender and no such invasion was ever going to be necessary.
“It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons. My own feeling is that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages.”-Admiral William Leahy, top military aide to President Truman
“It wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing . . . to use the atomic bomb, to kill and terrorize civilians, without even attempting [negotiations], was a double crime.”-General Dwight D. Eisenhower
To add/
Those bombs could have been dropped on military targets or off the coast rather than on mostly innocent non combatants in downtown Hiroshima and Nagasaki, an action that still would have brought about an immediate end to the conflict.
I brought this up once before but I think it's timelier than ever.
The last above ground nuclear test was 1962...54 years ago. People blithely throw around the idea of nuclear war like it's just another military option without understanding just what the hell they're talking about.
We need a heavily publicized nuclear test. Build a pretend town. Live-stream it around the world, then blow it up. Yes, it would violate all sorts of treaties. Yes every liberal alive would scream...who cares. Once you start getting polls like these, where 59% of the public backs dropping a bomb on Iran, then you realize people don't understand what they're talking about when it comes to nuclear war.
This country needs a slap in the face about the power and devastation of nuclear weapons.
The point of no return is when they have built 3,000 more centrifuges to enrich the unranium up to 90% for a nuclear device to be operational. Today, they only stand at 3.5%.
Just a few months ago, the enrichment rate was 20% - that batch (and most of Iran's 3.5% LEU) has been handed off to Russia. And according to the IAEA - who has a pretty impressive track record in these matters - 4,000 centrifuges have already been dismantled at Natanz.
Any Nuclear bomb that is dropped (sent) just makes the next one all that much easier.
It is beyond doubt that the next nation to use a nuclear weapon will be a pariah nation for a lifetime. Understand the desire for a radical nation not to have nukes but nuking someone to stop nukes is like cops beating people up to stop crime - it does not work and only makes the problem worse.
Japan was heavily dependent on imports for oil, which we had cut off after they declared war on China. The only source of oil in the region was in the Dutch East Indies. The Japanese knew we would declare war on them if they invaded, so they attacked us to try and cripple our naval strength. Then, they were free to secure the oil they needed.
However, we took back the East Indies, and we had decimated their shipping even before then. So, had Japan somehow discovered a new source of oil in the meantime? Because if not, they had absolutely no way to project force against us. They were more or less trapped on the main islands. They say millions of Americans could have died in an invasion of Japan, and that's probably true, but there was no reason to invade. Without oil, they didn't present any kind of threat to us. We could have simply laid siege to them using our air superiority and waited them out.
But of course, unlike Roosevelt, Truman was extremely anti-Communist, and since both the Germans and the Japanese were clearly on the way to defeat at that point, he saw Russia as being our next enemy. The atomic bombings make perfect sense if you assume they were actually intended to intimidate the Soviet Union into backing down in Germany and Eastern Europe.
Like I said, it was a different situation back then. Iraq is another complicated issue. Now, we just have this endless war, and xxx times more Civilian casualties nobody wants to talk about.
We worry about a nuclear Iran, while contemplating nuking Iran. It's too Orwellian to contemplate.
Indeed it is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mighty_Pelican
What kind of nukes are we talking about though? The so called tactical nukes that confine themselves to the battleground or a predefined area, or the strategic nukes capable of wiping entire cities off the map?
The US doesn't have tactical nuclear weapons per se, as those were all removed from inventory and dismantled in the 1990s.
However, variable yield warheads can achieve the same results as a tactical nuclear device, by simply limiting the kilo-tonnage.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jambo101
To add/
Those bombs could have been dropped on military targets or off the coast rather than on mostly innocent non combatants in downtown Hiroshima and Nagasaki, an action that still would have brought about an immediate end to the conflict.
The Japanese 2nd Army was headquartered in Hiroshima. Ever meet a survivor of the 2nd Army?
I brought this up once before but I think it's timelier than ever.
The last above ground nuclear test was 1962...54 years ago. People blithely throw around the idea of nuclear war like it's just another military option without understanding just what the hell they're talking about.
We need a heavily publicized nuclear test. Build a pretend town. Live-stream it around the world, then blow it up. Yes, it would violate all sorts of treaties. Yes every liberal alive would scream...who cares. Once you start getting polls like these, where 59% of the public backs dropping a bomb on Iran, then you realize people don't understand what they're talking about when it comes to nuclear war.
This country needs a slap in the face about the power and devastation of nuclear weapons.
You are right people have forgotten what devastation a nuclear blast can cause,I'm sure todays nuclear weapons are much more powerful than those of the 60s, heres an interactive map showing the blast radius of various nuclear bombs= NUKEMAP by Alex Wellerstein
Using one of these devices on Iran is going to have the potential to have other countries start firing off their own nuclear weapons,end result? Mutually assured destruction. https://www.armscontrol.org/factshee...ponswhohaswhat
Those bombs could have been dropped on military targets or off the coast rather than on mostly innocent non combatants in downtown Hiroshima and Nagasaki, an action that still would have brought about an immediate end to the conflict.
Says the Monday morning QB's without a clue. My Dad fought the Japanese for 3 years and they almost killed him twice. They were still a formidable enemy and the warrior cult military was still in control of the government. To surrender was death for them so they were not motivated to stop fighting at all. It took the atomic bombs to finally get the Emperor to demand peace. And of course back channel assurances that the Emperor would remain in place.
But just stop with the revisionist history lessons.
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