Justice and an Illegal war. - Page 5

I agree 100% more people would have die by not useing the NUKE at last some one who knows about history and do's not make up his own well said

And I should have said that in my reply.
I did not deliberately ignore Pearl Harbour - I was replying to the term nuke them.

An evil act by one side, is not scrubbed out by an equally opposite evil act.

This may sound Utopian but history proves that tit-for-tat reprisals, do not
bring about a solution.

Pearl harbour was an evil act.
The dropping of those bombs in Japan though componded the evil act of Pearl
Harbour.

First of all, do not insult my intelligence, here.

Second, you used the words nuke them - you didn't say that you used these words in jest, so I take it that your suggestion to nuke them was forwarded
as a serious option to this forum.

I am well aware of the attacks on Hallabja in 1988 by Saddam Hussein when he murdered 5,000 Kurds.
The USA did nothing about those attacks IN 1988 !
The international community stood by as this act of genocide took place.
If SH was a bad man in March 2003 or on Sept 11th 2001 : he was most certainly a bad man in Hallabja in 1998.
So my all seeing friend - if we know he was a bad guy and he had WMD in 1988, why didn't the international community do something them ?

The first gulf war wiped out SH's arsenal of WMD.
This is the fact - the intelligence agencies told the US and British goverments
that WMD capability had been destroyed in 1991.

You're the one who needs to wake up.

The Japanese resolve was unyielding. They apparently had been brainwashed into thinking the race would be wiped out and the women raped and and demoralized.
I am sure it was a hard decision to make to kill 200,000 or risk invasion and the loss of a couple million.
There is also the consideration of the Soviets entrance into the war in the Pacific and the possibility they would have occupied a part of Japan.

The Kamikazes were only a small part of their effort.The US basically cut off part of the Pacific Islands by going around them. Each island invaded cost many lives and huge effort.
The Japanese were not going to just give up. They were prepared to fight to the last person standing.
My father was in the Phillipines during the war and told me some of what happened after he had a few beers. He rarely spoke of it.Pretty bad stuff.

"Approximate" Quote from that time and place. "And when you see Saint Peter tell him all is well another Marine sir reporting ,I've done my time in Hell".

War is not about who is right. It is about who is left.

__________________
Dope,when training and talent just aren't enough.

The Japanese resolve was unyielding. They apparently had been brainwashed into thinking the race would be wiped out and the women raped and and demoralized.
I am sure it was a hard decision to make to kill 200,000 or risk invasion and the loss of a couple million.
There is also the consideration of the Soviets entrance into the war in the Pacific and the possibility they would have occupied a part of Japan.

The Kamikazes were only a small part of their effort.The US basically cut off part of the Pacific Islands by going around them. Each island invaded cost many lives and huge effort.
The Japanese were not going to just give up. They were prepared to fight to the last person standing.
My father was in the Phillipines during the war and told me some of what happened after he had a few beers. He rarely spoke of it.Pretty bad stuff.

"Approximate" Quote from that time and place. "And when you see Saint Peter tell him all is well another Marine reporting Sir ,I've done my time in Hell".

War is not about who is right. It is about who is left.

__________________
Dope,when training and talent just aren't enough.

You say the "The USA did nothing about those attacks IN 1988 !" what about the UN It was not up to the USA to disarmed him then ????
so your saying they should have then but not later BTW that wa sbefore he invaded another county and beofre the UN ask him to disarmed

"intelligence" sorry i must have missed it, i thougth any one with a BRAIN would realaize a joke that may be the problem in your case

you say in one breath the USA shoud ahve disarmed them before invading another counrty yet not now what has change the out cry after he invaded was every where what if they tried before

I just didn't want people to get the impression that the Japanese were innocent. There is a group that views Japan as the victim in WW2. The dropping of the a-bombs caused a great loss of life. If one allied soldier's life was saved by preventing an invasion then I believe it was worth it. Most don't know it, but the bombs were actually dropped as a demostration to the Soviet Union. We wanted to show what power we had at our disposal.
The nuke'em theory is just an off the cuff remark and it scares the hell out of me. I hope it never comes to that point.

By the Spring of 45, Japan was already pretty much defeated, devastated by fire bombings, the Japanese were starving, there was not even enough oil to launch an attack off the mainland. There were the hard core right wingers in the military who favoured fighting until a "million deaths with honour" and were against surrender at any cost; but, they maintained that stance even after the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The moderates in the government including Emperor Hirohito were seeking a way out of the war as early as June of 45, and discussed potential avenues for peace through neutral Sweden, Soviet Union, and Switzerland. The only condition was the continued existence of the of Imperial Throne. Japan's position was proposed to Truman during the Potsdam Conference, and that given this condition Japan would likely surrender. Truman, favoured dropping the bomb. Bye the way, the US did allow Japan to keep her Imperial throne in the end anyway they just favoued a military end to the war over a diplomatic one..and they wanted to test their new 2 billion dollar weapon.

To be clear, I'm not claiming Japan a victim or denying Japan's role in WWII. But I do think the desire to use the bomb on a civilian population or the politics driving that desire blinded the decision makers to any other possible avenues to cap off a war that was already pretty much over and was one of history's most dire mistakes. I also think this decision, 60 years ago and the US's present arsenal of nuclear weapons or investigation into the possibility of low level nukes, or nukes in space, pretty much undermines any moral authority it claims on the WMD issue.

I didn't think you were, but I just wanted others to not think that. I believe the bomb was dropped as message to the Soviet Union. We wanted to show them the 'big stick' that we had. The slow realization of the Japanese to surrender only provided the excuse. I'd even read that since the US spent something like 4 billion developing the bomb, that to not use it would be considered a waste. That is a chilling thought process.

We did allow the Japanese to keep the Imperial throne. The US demanded unconditional surrender. The throne issue was but one item the Japanese wanted. The Japanese were trying to avoid occupation. We we did allow them to keep the Imperial throne. After the war he was no longer viewed as deity.

Absolutely correct, Bikerman. Clearly, there can be no denying that the Japanese launched a brutal and unprovoked war upon their neighbors, resulting in tremendous bloodshed and suffering. Additionally, no one would deny that even by the summer of 1945, the Hawk segment of the Japanese political and military establishments were quite vocal, and that there remained a willingness to fight among much of the population.

It's these two nasty facts which permitted one of the most bizzarely effective smoothing-over efforts of the modern era: even today, it seems the majority of the US's population doesn't question the logic behind the official justification for the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks.

The facts are that by August 1945, the war against Japan had been reduced to a seige situation, and the enemy was extraordinarily debilitated foe. Firebombings intended to "wipe [Tokyo] of the map" had killed thousands in days, wounded more, and rendered roughly a million homeless and jobless.

A full naval blockade had been in place, and industrially, Japan had ground to a halt.

As early as late 1944, the formation of a new Japanese cabinet, headed by Baron Suzuki and featuring Shegenori Togo, had engaged Japan in a major debate to move towards peace negotiations.

Famously, a July 1945 entry in President Truman's handwritten diary refers to at least one telegram from Emporer Hirohito requesting peace. From Truman's diary, 7/18/45, recalling a dinner with Winston Churchill: "Discussed Manhattan (it is a success). Decided to tell Stalin about it. Stalin had told P.M. of telegram from Jap Emperor asking for peace." A 8/3/45 entry in the journal of Walter Brown, an aide to Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, states that Truman and his aides "agreed Japs looking for peace." (sources below)

Again, this hardly indicates that an uncontested peace offer was being plainly and publically laid on the table -- there certainly was a fiercly defiant Hawk contingent of Japanese officials insisting upon a fight to the end, but the suggestion that Japan, as a whole, was a nation singularly committed to mass murder-suicide -- in the face of vanished resources and complete tactical defeat -- and was therefore only subdued by instant mass genocide, remains one of the biggest fish stories of all time. The leadership of the Japanese government was fighting to overcome dissenters and promote a peace plan, and ultimately, an acceptance of Potsdam.

The bombings, like most major military operations before and after it, served a number of purposes. One was ending combat with Japan. Another, clearly, was flexing our considerable technological and destructive muscle on the eve of the Cold War, and at the expense of hundreds of thousands of civilian lives.

I've always found the self-righteous mythology of the scenario devastatingly sad.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/...,2302127.story
http://www.doug-long.com/hst.htm

Another interesting point is that while the US hated the Nazis, the American soldier didn't hate the German people. The Japanese were another case. The US hated the Japanese with a vengeance. Most likely from the Pearl Harbor attack, and also from the prevailing racial sterotypes at the time. The Japanese were viewed as an enemy that had to be completely destroyed by any means necessary. I can understand the logic of using the bombs if it would prevent an invasion. But I think the bombs were used as a demostration to the Soviets and to accelerate the ending of the war to keep the Soviets out of Japan.
My only problem with your analysis is this. If there were people who wanted peace, why did they wait till they were defeated to come forward. They should of spoken up in 1931 when Japan invaded China. When the B-29's began appearing over their cities, they should have spoken out. I think the majority of Japanese people supported the war until it was apparent all was lost. I still have thoughts on the use of the bombs, but I also realize that it was ultimately brought about by their own actions.

The dove contingent I'm referring to, for the sake of the A-Bomb argument, was a momvement within the Japanese administration to confront and acknowledge their defeat at the hands of the Allies in late 1944. Though there might have been a slice of Japanese soceity opposed to the war at the get-go in the early '30s, they clearly weren't a great influence on anybody, and I don't know too much about them.

As for the 1944 defeatist-doves, there's debate as to why they didn't work more agressively to achieve their aims. The assumption is that there were big cultural blockades -- it's been suggested that the surrender movement felt that it needed to handle the military establishment very gingerly; the more powerful admirals and generals were very nearly delusional by that point -- some sort of reprisal wasn't out of the question.

The other tricky issue was whether "unconditional surrender," as dictated at Potsdam, would include dismantling the Imperial throne -- something even the doves, apparently, were not willing to cede.

To be clear, though, the defeatist dove movement wasn't a traditional peace movement; its intent was to avert the obliteration of Japan.

They may have feared what the military people would do to them. The throne issue is a red herring. The main problem was that Japan wanted to avoid occupation. They thought that it was dishonorable. Some were actually pushing for peace with the US but continue the war in China. Obviously, neither were acceptable alternatives.

There was undoubtedly a division of opinions, as you suggest. The anti-occupation/honor-concerns contigent probably formed the most stringent opposition to the doves; any group still advocating agression (e.g. against China) were certainly on the out by the end of July, when a full US naval blockade was in place, oil importing halted, and all but Manchuria more or less in the bag (Stalin, of course, was knocking on that door).

There certainly was a component -- likely a majority -- which was disgusted by the notion of surrender and occupation.

The dove contingent of July 1945, however, had set the preservation of the throne as the minimum baseline for acceptance of a peace proposal -- occupation was a given. Under those conditions, the war cabinet had actually agreed to accept the Potsdam demands, according to Togo's notes, only to overturn shortly thereafter. Baron Suzuki had apparently been persuaded to postpone a ruling.

The subsequent publication that the cabinet had dissmissed Potsdam off-hand was an unfortuntate mischaracterization.