Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I would like to think there was another option than dropping a nuclear bomb on innocent people.
A socialist run North Japan and a free South Japan, just like Korea? Remember, we had a treaty with the Soviet Union and as co-belligerents they were entitled to partly occupy captured territory. Installing a puppet government would've been a foregone conclusion, just like Germany.
Starvation of millions on Japanese?
These were certainly alternative options. Were they good ones?
[quote=Dd714;25514382]I mean seriously, are we even having this debate? - there was no surrendor plans, period
Quote:
It's unrealistic. Nothing supports it, not their culture at the time, not their combat history, not the vaugue cease fire overtures to Soviet itermidiearies that people are interpreting as calls for surrendor, nothing! It's fiction, a fantasy! Unless they were shown we could turn their country into a glass sheet with impunity. That we did.
Becaaaauuuse, there is much to debate from a political point of view but more importantly an ethical one as well. Atomic weapons, far more devastating than what was deployed in Japan, remain the Sword of Damocles hanging over our heads and it behooves every nation to consider and reconsider, repeatedly the events that led up to and after their first and so far only use.
As for your argument that there weren't any plans for surrender, there wasn't a "plan" but as I have pointed out above, there was a desire. The argument about their combat history is a non sequitur because once they accepted defeat their combat history became a moot point because they ultimately did surrender, in toto.
Your arguments are based upon the same prevailing stereo-types about Japanese culture adopted by individuals, not unlike yourself, whose limited experience with Japanese culture cast the Japanese in a fairly one-dimensional characterization rather than those who understood the excruciating complexity of Japanese society men in the War Dept like Joseph Grew and State's Joseph Grew.
Now besides that fact that you have yet to rebut the evidence of Japanese surrender initiatives other than to say that they were fiction despite the official documents of the Soviets, the Japanese foreign ministry and intercepted communications, you accused another contributor of cherry picking quotes. Here again the fact remain that the leading members of the U.S. military did not believe that the atomic attack was either moral or necessary. That list of leaders included Admiral William D. Leahy, Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Under-Secretary of the Navy, Ralph Bard, Rear Admiral L. Lewis Strauss, Gen Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, General Carl "Tooey" Spaatz, General Claire Chennault,
BAR, flamethrower, and medics (which the Japanese specifically targeted). If you had one of those roles in the Pacific Theater, you might as well put a target with a bullseye on your back.
Now besides that fact that you have yet to rebut the evidence of Japanese surrender initiatives other than to say that they were fiction despite the official documents of the Soviets, the Japanese foreign ministry and intercepted communications, you accused another contributor of cherry picking quotes. Here again the fact remain that the leading members of the U.S. military did not believe that the atomic attack was either moral or necessary. That list of leaders included Admiral William D. Leahy, Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Under-Secretary of the Navy, Ralph Bard, Rear Admiral L. Lewis Strauss, Gen Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, General Carl "Tooey" Spaatz, General Claire Chennault,
Everything is a rerun at this point, and I did rebut it:
Explanation of dismissal of what has been interpreted as Japanese surrendor initiatives in post #90, and touched on in other posts, I think another poster in #89 also dismissed the validity of it.
Explanation of dismissal of the few (a definitve minority) of leaders that disagreed with boming in another post to another user, don't have time to look it up. Obviously I can fill up several pages, probably a bible sized volume, with leaders that supported the bombing.
The hand wringing you see from some Americans about the nuclear bombings doesn't exist in Japan, just like similar hand wringing doesn't exist in Germany over the Dresden fire bombing. American guilt is a funny thing.
The hand wringing you see from some Americans about the nuclear bombings doesn't exist in Japan, just like similar hand wringing doesn't exist in Germany over the Dresden fire bombing. American guilt is a funny thing.
It's funny isn't it? It's an American obsession, an American trait, to feel guilt about it's past - Indians, slavery, and even an event that by all historical accounts saved lives in the long run and ended a world war.
In some ways that's a good thing. It indicates a free society and free people with individual and varied and open views, always questioning themselves and authority. Contrast this to Japan - who will pass over the attrocities and war crimes it committed in WW2, to the extent that it's expunged from childrens school books, or with Spain and Portugal - do they dwell on it's contribution to slave trade or it's mistreatment of South American indians? Try to discuss that in public and get blank stares.
On the other hand, and to the extreme, it becomes a negative propoganda machine. And we've seen it here. People assume the atomic boming is evil without knowledge of historical events leading up to it.
People assume the atomic boming is evil without knowledge of historical events leading up to it.
Yeah, a lot of ignorance here.
If people at least had all the information I could respect that they came to an informed position.
Instead we are getting regurgitated talking points about how the Russians were negotiating a peace, but then you mention the Manchurian war....*crickets* and blank stares.
You mention 80,000+ chinese civilians dying a month.....you are told "it's irrelevant".
Oh well, this is why any thread starting in the politics forum and coming over here should just be shunned in the future. You can't have an honest, factual debate with uninformed people that have already made up their minds.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
