The passing of another American Hero

[1bad65]

1) To justify the millions of dollars research budget to the cash-starved American people. A cynical financial gimmick and fireshow.
2) To test the effects of a plutonium bomb and a uranium one specifically on a built-up civilian area. An inhuman cynical scientific experiment.
3) To warn off the Russians
Empire building (empire defending? Fair enough but at what price...?)

That's so sad you think that way. The Japanese and Germans were vile, evil 'people' bent on world domination. While I do feel for civilians, the Japanese started that war and committed a TON of atrocities.

Your level of ignorance is as high as the Japanese level of barbarism was back then.

Next time you an old man who was a POW of the Japanese, you tell him how horrible OUR government was.

[lkfmdc]

Another point often forgotten, no one had ever used the A bomb before, they didn't know just how terrible it really was, they had very little idea about the long term effects. In context, at the time it was viewed like every other weapon, just like the firebombs we dropped on white, western civilized Germany.

Any talk about inhumanity, cruelty, etc and you're gonna have to address the fact that 60 plus years later Japan as a society still has not come to terms with it's war crimes (in stark contrast to German society!)

It's worse than that, they still DENY them!

The biological and chemical warfare, the mass ra pe, the forced prosti tution, the attempt to eradicate entire cultures, the prisoner abuse, the list is very LONG

[1bad65]

Also, Truman's relatives said that until the day he died it was common for men to come up to him crying saying they were in Japanese POW camps and thanking him. They would thank him for shortening the war and saving their lives.

If you have read about or seen pictures of these men, it's easy to see that a few days could mean the difference between life and death. To be honest, if it is just pictures, POWs held by Japan look in about the same shape as concentration camp survivors.

[Lucas]

IMO:

Its a tough call guys. We werent there. Sure we can read what was written, see what was filmed, but we werent the men in charge of making decisions.

You HAVE to do something, and often times force is much easier to respond with.

You also have to remember WWII was very unique in the sense that the US was never in that sort of position before. No one was.

Then you also have to factor in the aspect of Government testing, funding, etc.

For me the bottom line is;

It was a great atrocity, from all angles, but it was what happend, how it happened, and thats just how it happened. We can certainly learn from the past, but we can never change it, and rarely can we truly understand what was going on in the mens minds who were making the decisions.

[Drake]

Um, excuse me, but at what point did war become something nice, friendly, and humane?

It's easy to be delusional about how war is or should be when the closest thing you've come to it is watching Saving Private Ryan on HDTV.

[Mr Punch]

You obviously haven't read my posts and don't understand what 'way' it is I think.

That's so sad you think that way. The Japanese and Germans were vile, evil 'people' bent on world domination. While I do feel for civilians, the Japanese started that war and committed a TON of atrocities.

Your level of ignorance is as high as the Japanese level of barbarism was back then.

Next time you an old man who was a POW of the Japanese, you tell him how horrible OUR government was.

I said that if the US govt had used the Japanese atrocities as a reason to drop the bombs it would be perfectly human and forgivable. They didn't. They used bullsh!t excuses which are still accepted world over (and in Japan!) for an evil scientific experiment and cynical financial reasons (and to provide a show for the US people - which is pretty much directly paraphrasing one of the letters in the Hiroshima museum. It is flippant, and obviously didn't factor in there, but the reason of showing the American people something new for their millions of dollars spent is very clearly stated).

The three reasons I've stated are from American High Command's own letters with the UK govt and among themselves. When you accuse me of being ignorant or supporting the Japanese in some way, or even being an apologist, you're being as emotional and subjective as anyone who says the A-bombs were wrong outright - which I've nowhere stated. Fair enough, it's an emotional subject, but please stick with the plot.

Any talk about inhumanity, cruelty, etc and you're gonna have to address the fact that 60 plus years later Japan as a society still has not come to terms with it's war crimes (in stark contrast to German society!)

It's worse than that, they still DENY them!

The biological and chemical warfare, the mass ra pe, the forced prosti tution, the attempt to eradicate entire cultures, the prisoner abuse, the list is very LONG

I know and I did address that. Don't forget you guys, I'm the one that lives over here, works in a conservative countryside junior high school and encounters racism and these attitudes of denial EVERY ****ING DAY. It's wearing fighting it all the time, bit by bit, to change attitudes.

My opinion for you, 1bad, since you seem to have trouble following the argument:

1) The Japanese Imperial Army were unbelievably and unforgivably evil during the war.
2) The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were, in hindsight and in balance, probably the right things to do.
3) The Japanese govt should apologize and offer reparations until they all die and their children should too.
4) The reasons given for the bombings were wrong and are part of a great whitewash revisionist job to cover the real reasons.
5) It is therefore as dishonest as the Japanese lying about their atrocities (note - I'm not saying the bombings are equal to the atrocities - I'm saying the level of dishonesty, emotional and intellectual, is equal).
6) The real reasons should be documented irrefutably before the evidence is lost or forgotten (which it already pretty well is).
7) Point 6 is not connected with any moral judgment about the Japanese actions. They are not the same issue.

BTW, a couple of other random facts;

1) I checked that my wife's relatives had not been in the Imperial Army before I would marry her, fair or not.
2) I can't talk to my one relative (that I know about) who was in the Japanese camps: he was shot in back after the war had ended.
3) I would get fired if any of the people I work with read this.

[Mr Punch]

Um, excuse me, but at what point did war become something nice, friendly, and humane?

It's easy to be delusional about how war is or should be when the closest thing you've come to it is watching Saving Private Ryan on HDTV.

I take it you're not talking to me either, since you're not addressing any of my points, or contradicting anything I said.

I'm not saying war is ever humane. I'm not even saying that lying on behalf of the state is always uncalled-for or unforgivable. I am saying that this continued lie by historians is wrong in this case, because it clearly shows a continuum of bull from successive govts to justify acts that they don't want to take responsibility for and think the public can't handle.

[Drake]

I take it you're not talking to me either, since you're not addressing any of my points, or contradicting anything I said.

I'm not saying war is ever humane. I'm not even saying that lying on behalf of the state is always uncalled-for or unforgivable. I am saying that this continued lie by historians is wrong in this case, because it clearly shows a continuum of bull from successive govts to justify acts that they don't want to take responsibility for and think the public can't handle.

But it really is true... the Japanese would've fought tooth and nail if we hadn't dropped 2 A-bombs. Note, two. The first one was dropped and they still stood their ground. What does THAT tell you?

[Mr Punch]

But it really is true... the Japanese would've fought tooth and nail if we hadn't dropped 2 A-bombs. Note, two. The first one was dropped and they still stood their ground. What does THAT tell you?

That tells me you can't follow an argument either!

There's no way of knowing what they would have done, just as there's no way of knowing as you rightly pointed out, about the horrors of war by watching Saving Private Ryan! It's all speculation. I've given you some well supported reasons why they wouldn't have fought on, and you've just repeated 'But they would have!'! Repetition is not an argument!

And as for them fighting on after the first bomb was dropped, there had been a strict media blackout over Japan for a year - ALL news was government sanctioned, which is why NONE of the foreign complaints and reports on Nanking didn't make the Japanese press and one of the reasons why still now, a lot of people here can shield themselves from the fact that it happened and its magnitude.

Plus it was six days later - what, would you suddenly expect the whole army to just give up without orders!?

[Drake]

That tells me you can't follow an argument either!

There's no way of knowing what they would have done, just as there's no way of knowing as you rightly pointed out, about the horrors of war by watching Saving Private Ryan! It's all speculation. I've given you some well supported reasons why they wouldn't have fought on, and you've just repeated 'But they would have!'! Repetition is not an argument!

And as for them fighting on after the first bomb was dropped, there had been a strict media blackout over Japan for a year - ALL news was government sanctioned, which is why NONE of the foreign complaints and reports on Nanking didn't make the Japanese press and one of the reasons why still now, a lot of people here can shield themselves from the fact that it happened and its magnitude.

Plus it was six days later - what, would you suddenly expect the whole army to just give up without orders!?

Actually, I'm intimately familiar with the horrors of war, thank you.

Sorry, but when we dropped the most devastating single weapon ever seen by mankind on them, and they even had to think about whether or not to give up, that should say something.

[bawang]

does anyone know what feelings japanese people have at americans? i don't understand why they imitate western culture when they were enemies only 60 years ago.
i don't know how a warrior culture in half a century turns into a hedonistic cesspool. i don't understand how they could have transformed so fast.

[1bad65]

But it really is true... the Japanese would've fought tooth and nail if we hadn't dropped 2 A-bombs. Note, two. The first one was dropped and they still stood their ground. What does THAT tell you?

Exactly. And there were still men high up in the government who did not want to surrender even then! Had we not guaranteed not to try Hirohito for war crimes, they would have not surrendered.

Look at the civilian suicides on Saipan. The Japanese Army was preparing civilians to fight to the death or commit suicide if Japan was invaded in the same way they did on Saipan.

By dropping those bombs we not only saved Japanese lives, but more importantly we saved (by most RELIABLE estimates) one million American lives that would have been lost in an invasion of Japan.

[Drake]

does anyone know what feelings japanese people have at americans? i don't understand why they imitate western culture when they were enemies only 60 years ago.
i don't know how a warrior culture in half a century turns into a hedonistic cesspool. i don't understand how they could have transformed so fast.

Because they got blowed up.

[1bad65]

Plus it was six days later - what, would you suddenly expect the whole army to just give up without orders!?

They surrendered 6 days after Nagasaki was bombed! The reason we waited 3 days between bombings was to give them time to surrender OR begin negotiations. They refused, despite being told by their own experts in Hiroshima that we had a new weapon they did not completely understand and that could easily ravage EVERY city in Japan. It was after we did it again, and made it clear we were not going to stop that they opened negotiations and announced their surrender 6 days after the 2nd A-bomb was dropped.

[sanjuro_ronin]

Interesting discussion....

A few "facts" that most would agree with is that the bombs were dropped not only to end the war, put to make a statement to the Russians and to "teach" Japan ( and anyone else listening) a very valuable lesson about waking up a sleeping dragon.

Right or wrong was irrelevant, it just was.