Hiroshima: the Crime that keeps on paying

Wasting your time, dude.

 

I accepted your unconditional surrender long ago. LOL

 

I read the quotes from the Military personnel that you mentioned. It did not change the facts of the situation.

BTW, we blew up a nuke in the New Mexican desert on July 16, 1945. So, obviously dropping on in Nevada would have had no more effect then the test. Ten days later, they issued the Potsdam Declaration. It order Japan to unconditionally surrender or face prompt and utter destruction. That is what is called a line in the sand. Once it was issued, there was two ways that Japan was going to surrender. One is after the dropping of the bombs, and the other was invasion of the Japanese Islands. Why? Because an unconditional surrender would have called for them to "the elimination "for all time of the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest", That would mean giving up their Emperor. Something the Japanese people would never do. Once that decree was given, and the Japanese responded to fight to the end, there was no going back. By delaying their surrender, the Japanese people were able to keep their Emperor in place. I believe that MacArthur was correct in the situation. A surrender of the Japanese could have been brokered under the same terms that were eventually finalized before the Potsdam Declaration. But after it was issued, there were only two solutions to bring about their surrender. One was the nukes and the other was invasion.

Please, remember that the statement that I have been answering did not only deal with the dropping of nukes on Japan, it also dealt with the invasion. The statement was that neither were necessary. A statement that was not true after July 26, 1945. Now, are we done?

 

The military leaders were almost unanimous in their statements that the invasion was not needed and that Japan was ready to surrender. YOU think the invasion would have been necessary. THEY didn't. I will go with them.

How are you not getting this?

 

Your telling me that the Japanese People would have agreed to the terms of the Potsdam Declaration? They would have allowed their Emperor to be removed from power? If you, Nimitz, Eisenhower or Lemay believed that then none of you know anything about the Japanese People! I believe MacArthur was correct on this issue.

 

And I believe the greatest military minds of the time knew far more about this than you

 

This is one of my favorite quotes but there are many more like it.

In his memoirs Admiral William D. Leahy, the President's Chief of Staff--and the top official who presided over meetings of both the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Combined U.S.-U.K. Chiefs of Staff--minced few words:

[T]he use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender. . . .

n being the first to use it, we . . . adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children. (See p. 3, Introduction)
Privately, on June 18, 1945--almost a month before the Emperor's July intervention to seek an end to the war and seven weeks before the atomic bomb was used--Leahy recorded in his diary:


It is my opinion at the present time that a surrender of Japan can be arranged with terms that can be accepted by Japan and that will make fully satisfactory provisions for America's defense against future trans-Pacific aggression. (See p. 324, Chapter 26)

But hey....what does he know.

 

In addition to saving millions of lives by ending WWII, since those two bombs were dropped there has been no more world wars and the number of people dying in wars has fallen dramatically.

Why do you want so many people to die in war? Maybe you would prefer going back to when wars were fought by tens of thousands hacking each other to death and the entire population of the loser either murdered or enslaved. By your messages that is what you want to return to in pre-atomic warfare.

Anytime you read or hear of someone condemning the USA ending the war with Japan by two atomic bombs you will ALWAYS find that person otherwise rages hatred and contempt towards the USA and previous generations of Americans in general. It isn't about atomic bombs, it is about those who think it is original and enlightened to hated the USA and Americans at the core in motivation if all their messages and statements about the USA and our history is examined.

 

I think this quote from you is hilarious.

"Anytime you read or hear of someone condemning the USA ending the war with Japan by two atomic bombs you will ALWAYS find that person otherwise rages hatred and contempt towards the USA and previous generations of Americans in general."

I posted the quotes of the greatest military minds this country has ever had saying that very thing. Who knew they all hated america! LOL

 

As much as General Westmoreland insisting North Vietnam was defeated and would surrender at any time. The Japanese military had no intentions of surrendering them or ever. The Japanese did not surrender as nothing was dishonorable and cowardly than to surrender. That was at the heart of Japanese culture and society for thousands of years. Their plans to fight to the last Japanese was massive and even our best estimates would have cost at least 1 million American and 10 million Japanese lives - and that is if all worked perfectly AND we employed mass starvation of the Japanese population to try to limit to just that many deaths.

Germany was always going to surrender too - and never did. Generals basically always lie claiming they other side is about to give up - and in every major war they have always been wrong.

 

You quote a lunatic who twice wanted to go to total nuclear war with the USSR and was a sociopath who got his rocks off firebombing cities killing hundreds of thousands. The atomic bombs put all generals out of the killing business, nor more newspaper stories glorifying them for battle victories and no more a chance to become president.

Eisenhower fought Germany to total defeat in Berlin. He became President. MacArthur and the others did not get a chance to totally defeat Japan by land fighting all the way to the center of Tokyo - so MacArthur did not become president.

Americans will elect generals president who win wars. Americans will not elect generals who didn't. No American general won the war against Japan. Scientists did - and saved, minimally, over 10 million lives and hundreds of millions more by no world war ever since.

Generals are in the killing business. Read up on General Pershing. Even after the exact time and date set for Germany's surrender in WWI, he ordered one more attack of extremely high casualties just to get one more absolutely pointless victory. One last chance to be in the killing business for the glory of it. When asked why, his reason was he wanted to take a hot bath in the town the Germans held that day - though the surrender effective day already announced to be the next day. Yet he is counted as a hero general, because he won.

And your generals you quote including not only wanting - twice - total first strike nuclear war with the USSR, but also to go to nuclear war against China over Korea.

 

I await your evidence. I see none but your opinion. Again you are simply making the argument that a nuke should be dropped upon declaration of war with any country. I mean you do want to save american lives....don't you?

 

Really? Ever hear of the Jap treatment of prisoners or their behavior in China. I'm sick of you libs bellyaching.

 

The fact that I answered every point in your previous reply should be a fairly good indicator that I didn't miss it.

Your request that I provide a cite for every single word that I post is unreasonable and unrealistic. If you have no way to argue against the facts that I post, certainly feel free to stay silent. I am more than happy to correct erroneous statements without any reply back from the author. But if you try to blame your silence on my refusal to fulfill an unreasonable request, that will make you look silly.

Your claim that I have not answered your questions is patently untrue. I have answered all of your questions.

 

What happened 8 days after that private conversation? (Hint: I mentioned it several times, and provided a link to the Wikipedia page dealing with that topic.)

 

The Nevada test? So what. Leahy and many others said the bomb was not needed.

 

Japan had our claim that we had destroyed the city with an A-bomb almost immediately after we attacked Hiroshima.

On August 7 they had a reliable report from their own people that a single bomb had destroyed the entire city.

When they finally decided to surrender on the evening of August 9, they were able to notify us by the morning of August 10.

A gap as short as three days was not intended. But there was nothing that would have prevented Japan from surrendering in that amount of time had they actually chosen to do so.

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Unfortunately the bombs were not ready just after Pearl Harbor.

Yes, if the bombs had been ready then, we should have.

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We certainly hoped that our possession of the bombs would intimidate Stalin into acting human, but that was not the reason we used the bombs against Japan.

We always measure the effects of a new weapon when we first use it. But those measurements are not the reason why we use new weapons.

The conclusion that the military aspect was unneeded came only in hindsight. No legal system and no reasonable system of morality requires people to act on knowledge that is only available in the future.

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Alperovitz commits academic fraud. He litters his books with misleading text that makes it sound like people said the opposite of what they did say.

Hasegawa is a outstanding historian though. I heartily recommend him. Sherwin is fine too.

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I don't think any of those military leaders (except Ike maybe) opposed what rkhames said there.

These military leaders were making conclusions in hindsight. rkhames was describing the situation as the US saw it during the war when the bombs were being dropped.

Two very different things.

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Hiroshima might have been the biggest military target in human history. It was a huge military center with tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers, and was the headquarters in charge of defending half of Japan.

Hard to see what sort of military target would have been more important.

Nagasaki was an industrial center with huge weapons factories. Perhaps not quite the biggest military target left standing, but big enough. And Nagasaki was only an alternate target. Kokura Arsenal was the primary target.

Any military targets more important than Kokura Arsenal?

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That is incorrect. The entire point of dropping the bombs was because we were at war with Japan and we wanted to force them to surrender.

Hindsight is easy. Too bad Truman didn't have a time machine so he could travel into the future and gain knowledge not available to him in the present.

 

If we can not trust the opinions of the greatest military minds of the day.....why should we trust yours? YOUR hindsight is very easy....it is just a lot less informed than theirs.

 

Wrong again Skippy. If your pretending to be ignorant, it's working. On July 26, 1945, Harry S. Truman, Winston Churchill and Chiang Kai-shek issued the Potsdam Declaration. It called for the immediate unconditional surrender of all Japanese forces, and for the Emperor to advocate. The Emperor's Imperial Family Line dates as far back as February 11, 660 BC. There was absolutely no way that the Japanese People would agree to any surrender that forced those terms. So, Japan reached out to The Soviet Union. This was because the USSR had a neutrality pact with Japan, and they were not a party to the Potsdam Declaration. They did not know the Stalin was about to start a new phase of the war. The Japanese response was delivered by the Prime Minister at a press conference. The one word response was interpreted by the US to mean "kill with silence" or "to ignore". What was actually meant was "no comment".

So was, the bombs necessary? No, prior to the Potsdam Declaration. After is questionable. If we had not issued the declaration. If we had not misinterpreted the Japanese response. If Japan had not put their trust in the USSR to broker a surrender, and if the USSR had not been secretively been plotting their own attack on Japan. But that is a heck of a lot of if's. The beauty of studying history is that you have the benefit of hindsight. Truman did not. All he knew was the facts that he was presented with. I think Churchill expressed the sentiments behind the declaration:

http://www.azquotes.com/quotes/topics/potsdam.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potsdam_Declaration

 

WHERE have I ever said we shouldn't trust their judgement? Are you hallucinating posts from me that aren't really there?

All I ever said was that we should keep in mind that views that are reached only in hindsight, were not available during the war when the bombs were being dropped.

That is incorrect. I am much better informed than they were.

 

All you are doing is ignoring all anyone posts. lie about what they/I post and make a stupid absolute and irrelevant statement.

 

Lets agree on the fact that you are perfectly correct and that I am silly . Just stop quoting me please, because each time you do, I start thinking that you came up with some sort of an answer to my questions and somehow are waiting for my reaction. Meanwhile – all the best.

 

And what do you guys say about United States Strategic Bombing Survey conclusion?

The report also concluded that: "Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Strategic_Bombing_Survey
http://www.anesi.com/ussbs01.htm#pagei

P.S. (I always knew that all US Generals are lunatics )

 

You have yet to present any evidence other than insult. And that is easily dismissed.

 

The Japanese DID agree to an unconditional surrender. To say they would not without a atomic bomb is just not supported by the facts according to the greatest military minds of the time. But we do have your opinion.