Would you have used the atom bomb on Japan in WWII if you were Prez?

This is par for the course.

 

If the bomb saves American lives....why don't we always us it?

 

Eisenhower was focused on the war with Germany, not Japan. Those military leaders actually involved in planning the invasion of Japan and even who dropped the atomic bomb favored doing so. One expert Vegas sites as opposing the dropping of the atom bombs actually instead wanted to also drop atom bomb on Tokyo too. Another cites wanted to drop atomic bombs on China and Russia. Still another wanted to use atomic weapons against China.

On occasion, Eisenhower spoke almost cavalierly about using nuclear weapons. In 1955, he told a reporter: "Yes of course they (nuclear weapons) would be used. In any combat where these things can be used on strictly military targets and for strictly military purposes, I see no reason why they shouldn't be used just exactly as you would use a bullet or anything else." When Eisenhower suggested to Winston Churchill's emissary Jock Colville that "there was no distinction between 'conventional' weapons and atomic weapons: all weapons in due course become conventional," Colville recalled, horrified, "I could hardly believe my ears."

The only issue he raised had nothing to do with Japan or killing Japanese. His only concern was how it might affect our relationship with Russia - meaning he wanted to remain allies with Stalin and the USSR - for which on other threads Vegas and other opposing having dropped the bomb claim any President who wants a friendly relationship with the leader of Russia is a traitor and committing treason.

In general, Eisenhower had become indifferent to lost American lives and instead approached the war from global diplomatic views and also to share the world with the USSR - why he would not follow Churchill's advocating that the Americans and UK allies just continue up "the soft underbelly of Europe thru Greece and Eastern Europe - thus cutting of the USSR capturing Eastern Europe (as it did) and then no massive casualties of D-Day and fighting all across Western Europe would have been unnecessary. Thus his opposition to using the atom bomb on Japan had nothing to do with ending the war or humanitarian reasons. Rather it was his goal of wanting the USA and USSR to have friendly relations and believed dropping the bomb would make Stalin more adversarial.

Eisenhower wanted to be pals with Stalin, one of the greatest mass murderers of all time. Yet the same member on this thread claiming Eisenhower is right is posting on other threads Trump wanting a good relationship with Putin is "treason" and grounds for impeachment. In short, a member you rarely had intellectual integrity in messages and just will recite whatever he believes is the trendy Democratic viewpoint regardless if it exactly contradicts other messages.

The proof is in the result. The goal of dropping the atom bomb was for Japan to surrender without another American casualty and with Japan giving up the condition that the military and Emperor would still control the government of Japan. The ONLY concession we made was promising not to put the Emperor or his relatives on trial for war crimes - a promise we kept to the outrage of some people concerning distant relatives who had engaged in mass atrocities including against Chinese civilians.

 

We there is a universally agreed deal that for any country that will not develop nuclear weapons we in turn will never use nuclear weapons against them.

I also don't think you understand the difference between those two atomic bombs and modern nuclear bombs. It is the difference between a grenade and a 500 pound iron bomb. We had actually done more damage and killed more Japanese in firebombing cities. But 1 single explosion of such power shocked the Emperor. How could he and his family hide from those?

Again, he believed we had hundreds of atom bombs we were going to immediately drop on Japanese cities if he did not immediately surrender - followed rapidly by thousands more for which within days, weeks at the most, all Japanese would be dead, ie "utterly destroyed." In a sense, dropping those two atom bombs was a very successful bluff. It worked.

If Japan was going to surrender if we did nothing, why doesn't ISIS surrender when we do nothing? Why don't countries surrender when the other side does nothing, as you claim doing nothing is a certain way to victory? BUt I forget that you are a neocon who believes that all wars and war staging such as the 70+ year old Cold War should be perpetual and ideally we would still be at war with Japan to this day.

 

We can use any size of nuclear weapon we want. We have a vast arsenal. You can't defend it now.....or then

 

I would have used the first one. I'm not sure I would have used the second.

 

Should we have used them in Afghanistan and Iraq?

 

Never mind the inanity of the question itself.

 

The second one was used to indicate that the first one was not the only one we have ready to go.

Implying we could keep dropping them at our whim.

 

Dresden was a disgusting chapter in world history...ANY unnecessary killing of civilians and destruction of historic cities is despicable.

 

But maybe we only had the two. Lol

 

Killing on a much larger scale was done with these nuclear weapons...Firebombng cities full of civilians was also pretty brutal. When the Japanese hit us at Pearl Harbor the attacked a military base...What we did in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden and other places was unnecessary in my opinion.

 

It did not matter how many we have but what the Japanese was under the impression we have and dropping two in the short time gave the impression we have many bombs in our stock pile.

 

Should we have done that in Afghanistan. Yes or no?

 

That nice that you think it was unnecessary but so was using prisons of war for medical experiments and letting your troops do mass rapes of such cities as Nanking or forcing tens of thousands of women into sexual servicing of their troops or.......

 

Oh good....I'm glad we had a good reason to kill all those women and children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki

 

We could not, of course, but the Japanese did not know that.

The Japanese already knew they could not defend themselves from our bombers, but were ready to tough it out; the use of nuclear weapons indicated we had the capacity to not just defeat them, but annihilate them, from the air.

 

Several incendiary raids killed more people and destroyed more property than either atomic bomb; in those terms the only difference was the number of aircraft it took to inflict the damage.

Welcome to modern, total war.
Don't poke the bear and then cry about how much it hurts when he mauls you.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were both military targets, used in Japan's war efforts against the US.

Was it more or less necessary than the casualties sure to be suffered on both sides during an invasion?

 

If the cost of dealing with them otherwise would be many hundreds of thousands of American lives and even more Afghanistan civilians yes indeed.

The Afghanistan situation is not similar and there is zero need to used nuclear weapons at the most a few non-nuclear mobs might be call for.

But under a similar situation that we was facing in the 1940s with the Empire of Japan using nukes should be consider.

As I had said over and over without those two bombs there is a good chance I would never had been born with my father to be not surviving WW2.

 

What if your dad was shipping out to Afghanistan?

 

Lol hundreds of thousands of American soldiers that would likely had been killed otherwise and their offsprings that would never be born is more then enough reason to killed all those women and children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and by doing so end the war and the dying on both sides.

 

Correct, as a great many more would have died, absent the bombing.

 

Killed? By waiting for two weeks? What would they die of....boredom? Lol

 

Yes indeed they was going to stand down and take back all the weapons and explosives they had been passing out to their old people and children if we had just waited a few more weeks.

They was so ready to surrender that when the Emperor made his recording after the bombings stating that they would surrender part of his security troops try to stop it by seizing both the Emperor and the recording.

 

Well we have your opinion...general Curtis lemay disagreed with you....but what did he know. Lol