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Yah. Of course Japan had to rebuild the cities - the two we nuked, & all the others we firebombed. They didn't have a choice - the interior of Japan is unsuitable for infrastructure - all their big cities, comms, transportation, energy, health, government, population centers, manufacturing - it's all on the edges of the islands - where there's flat ground to work with.
The firebombing campaign did raze most of the built-up areas of Imperial Japan to the ground. It was designed to do that, because IJ manufacturing was tied into the same built-up areas as the military, ports, bases, government compounds. If everything is collocated, it's impossible to attack only one segment of the entities there.
Nagasaki was about 40% destroyed (buildings flattened or significantly damaged). Hey war brings destruction. Total war brings total destruction. Such was the terrible reality of World War II, such was the acts that both sides, allies and axis, engaged in. Conventional fire bombing in Japan as you probably know killed more civilians than the atomic bombing.
It's important to note that Japan had a way out - surrender. They finally chose that way after the second atomic bomb and in doing saved millions (based on invasion estimates) of both Allied and Japanese lives. And then we helped them rebuild. Those in China and the rest of Asia, occupied by Japan, didn't have a way out. They surrendered, and were still massacred en masse by the Imperial Japanese Army....
Yup. Nanking surrendered to the Japanese and in the weeks following the capitulation there are estimates that something like 300,000 Chinese soldiers, civilians, young and old were murdered. US total casualties, combat and accidental were in the 400,000 range on all WWII fronts.
On 9 August 1945, Kokura was earmarked as the original target for the second atom bomb to be dropped but it was obscured by cloud and smoke from earlier firebombs. After circling the city three times, with bomb doors open, the B-29 bomber 'Bockscar' gave up and flew to its reserve target, Nagasaki.
Here was a city of culture: temples, shrines and 19th-century houses overlooking a deep harbour, the city which inspired Madame Butterfly and is known as the 'Naples of the Orient', on the western edge of the Japanese archipelago. The A-bomb exploded at 11.02am, killing 74,000 people, most of them women, children and the elderly in a traditionally Catholic area. The Urakami Cathedral, which had taken three decades to build, was flattened in three seconds.
That reminds me of one of my favorite examples of “American exceptionalism” How we get away with operating a place like Gulagtanamo which we deliberately planted on the soil of one of the last vestiges of Stalinism on earth — Cuba — and then proceed to regularly lecture other countries about human rights.
Go figure.
Cuba should be annexed. Communists don't know how to manage that country. That's prime real estat and good soil to grow imported fruits.
Quote:
Originally Posted by southwest88
Of the US? We installed (@ British prodding) the last Shah of Iran, probably put in the wrong guy. The Brits reneged on their commercial/diplomatic promises to Iran, & consequently provoked the election of a strongly nationalist PM.
We - the US, the CIA specifically - overthrew the PM, reinstated the Shah, but he wasn't a nationalist who embraced the people of Iran. He embraced & fomented the economic & political elites who went along with him & his admin, & crushed all the rest. That didn't last nearly as long as you might think it would.
I don't seem much difference between the mullahs and the previous rulers. THe shah was at least secular though and persian women wouldn't have to cover up with arab hijab.
I'm surprised the combo of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution and Japan-America Security Alliance (and subsequent agreements) hasn't come up more. It was a neat little arrangement for postwar Japan, defanging it in the eyes of the allies, while allowing it to pour funding that would have gone to defense into developing the country economically. It worked out well for Japan in most ways, so why mess with what isn't broken?
Cuba should be annexed. Communists don't know how to manage that country. That's prime real estat and good soil to grow imported fruits.
I don't seem much difference between the mullahs and the previous rulers. THe shah (of Iran) was at least secular though and persian women wouldn't have to cover up with arab hijab.
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Yah, annexing Cuba was discussed in Congress after the Spanish American War. Cuba was apparently too much, & we let them go. We kept Puerto Rico though - it must have been felt to have been easier to chew. & we hung on to the Philippines, although we did have to fight off an insurrection there for a couple of years.
The UK put in the first modern Shah of Iran. He was a professional soldier, & a tough old bird (he came up through the ranks, I believe). He ran a tight ship. The last Shah was weak - we probably should have put in (if we were going to do that for the UK in the first place) his sister, who apparently was the real Mensch of the children. The Shah we put in was much too far out of touch with the ordinary people in Iran - & he gave his intelligence agency free rein to smash any Communists they found. The problem was, to run amok, SAVAK (the intel agency) simply found Communists everywhere, under every bed & in every closet. It was a nice racket, while it lasted. Utterly destructive of the spirit of the country, & directly counterproductive of good government - but when the money comes rolling in, what's a guy to do?
I honestly wouldn't let japan off its leash. They would rape asia again if they could. They are the british of asia. They do provide, a good buffer against communist party of china and people's liberation army.
free tibet!
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It was the best of times,
