[email protected] (cave fish) wrote in message news:<
[email protected]>...
> First, the Enola Gay exhibit? Nothing wrong with that. A museum's role is put important artifacts
> and items on display. You want details, read a book.
>
> -----
>
> My feeling about Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Morally unjustifiable but I have the benefit of
> hindsight, Truman didn't.
...
>
> Yet, why do I think Hiroshima/Nagasaki--or Hirosaki--bombings were unjustified?
>
> 1. One argument says invading Japan would have led to casualties upward of 5 million lives, that
> as horrible as the bombings were, on balance they saved lives by ending the war more quickly.
> The problem with this argument is it's taking estimates as fact.
No, we're taking the estimates as estimates, part of the information available to Truman to make his
decision. That estimate does not inlcude Chinese casualties which were _estimated_ to be about
10,000/day at the time of the bombing. The Japanese had a huge army in Mainland Asia.
>
> 2. Another issue concerns unconditional surrender as the ONLY option. Did United States really
> need Japan to surrender unconditionally?
No and this may have been an obstacle. If the US had made it clear that the Emperor would be spared,
then Japan might have surrendered earlier.
> Did United States need Japan to surrender at all? If invasion of Japan would have cost over a
> million American casualties or if it entailed the used of nuclear bombs, would it not have been
> more sensible to negotiate a conditional surrender? Or, a cease-fire with a Japan already
> virtually isolated and destroyed?
The US did not need Japan to surrender in August, 1945. Our Chinese allies did. For that matter, so
did the Japanese.
> ... And, what was left of the Japanese navy, it's most prized military asset? What had happened to
> its airforce or airfarce?
Their million man Asian army was still mostly intact.
>
> If not for revenge, how about to ensure longterm safety in the region by bringing Japan to its
> knees? This is not a bad argument but did it justify nuclear bombs? Also, was Japan really a
> future threat in the region even without surrendering?
I think the Chinese thought so.
>
> Japan, near the end of the war, had no viable navy or airforce. Its soldiers, streteched from
> Siberia to Southeast Asia were on their last legs. 90% of transport ships carrying supplies were
> routinely sunk by US planes. Japanese soldiers were exhausted and demoralized. They were on the
> defensive and retreat in China where the Nationalists and Communists were regaining major
> territories.
I think you underestimate the japanese Strength in Asia. Thos Chinese victories were being bought at
a ver high price.
> Japanese had been terribly mauled by vastly superior Soviet troops in Manchuria. Japan was a goner
> whether it surrendered or not.
Ending the war befor the Soviet Union captured and annexed more Asian territory was another
consideration. COnsider also the casualties in the Russo-Japanese theater.
> ...
>
> 3. Another argument is simply ends justify the means. Let's assume that invasion by conventional
> means would have led to exceedingly high casualties. Therefore, whatever it took to lower that
> casualty is justified. This sounds morally untenable. While it's true that extraordinary means
> are often taken to achieve certain ends, there are certain rules, even in war. What was the
> Geneva convention about? Why the law forbidding the use of poison gas? Even in war, there has
> to be a modicum of rules, such as not bombing hospitals, etc. And, what does it say about
> American fighting men that they would prefer an entire city be indiscrimately slaughtered so
> they themselves could live?
That they are human. Besides, IMHO a soldier's life is no less precious than a civlians. Soldiers,
unless they willfully engage in criminal acts, are also innocent victims of war. Having the means by
which to defend themselves (even when that is possible) does not make them less innocent.
> ... Indiscrimate massacre of everyone to save soldiers' lives is never justifiable.
Arguable. Life is life.
> ... I would say Churchill's bombing raids against Germany were more justified out of simple
> revenge because of ******'s bombing against British civilians.
Which were initially an accident and never approached the severity of the Allied raids. According to
the estimates that were available when I first researched the matter (c 1973) German civilians
killed in a single day at Cologne exceeded all Brittish casualties during the entire BOB. Oddly
enough. it seems that casualty sestimates have been revised downward over the last 30 years, as much
as by a factor of ten. I do not know the basis.
...
>
> 4. The implication of defending Hirosaki bombing is we could and should do it again if a similar
> situation arises.
Indeed. That was the cornerstone of MAD and also NATO's doctrine in Western Europe.
> Suppose a nation attacks US out of the blue, causing military casualties in the 1000s. US wages
> war and breaks the back of that nation but the nation will not unconditionally surrender. Pentagon
> estimates that US casualties will be high so we decide to bomb two civilian targets. If one
> defends Hirosaki, he would have to defend this scenario. I think it's crazy.
No because
1) Conventional weapons are now much more effective
2) We know more about the long-range effects of nuclear weapons.
3) Strategic doctrine has changed. Sparing civilians has become
a priority. In WW II it was an afterthought, at best.
>
> 5. ... which brings us to the subject of when should use of atomic weapons be justified?
First use, IMHO, only when the user faces anihilation of their civilian population. The Israelis
know that if Israel were to be defeated in a conventional war, most of their civilian population
would be murdered. If faced with such a defeat and they could save their people by using nuclear
weapons against the aggressors then that could be justified.
--
FF
