2 cents, Read your history, or better yet listen to it. The Japanese made it VERY clear via both written and spoken messages to the rest of the World that it would fight to the last man if the US invaded. They PROVED this to be true at Iwo Jima, Guadal Canal, etc. They fought to the very last soldier. Surrender was WORSE THAN DEATH for them. I do not support the use of nukes for any reason except deterrence and retaliation against a first strike. However, there IS a reason Hiroshima/ Nagasaki were nuked. The alternative was believed to be far worse. Jay
yeah except everybody knows that if u can make one, u can make 2... its more about do they have a few or a few hundreds... in any case, its pretty well documented what the state of negotiations was at the time u know... its not like japan hadn't already surrendered via the appropriate diplomatic channels... why dont u run a search on what macarthur had to say for instance http://faculty.washington.edu/kendo/macarthur.html there is not a single piece of evidence pointing to the need to RUSH to nuke yet another town, other than the fact that the Japanese "unconditional" surrender was already on the table, and therefore this 2nd test (plutonium bomb effects on man) was bound to become impossible ("undefendable") very quickly...
not nagasaki... i can imagine its hard for u to swallow, but do read your history too, whereas hiroshima can be debated in terms of post-war objectives etc, there is not an ounce of justification for rushing to bomb nagasaki, not one of your great military men to say that this was a militarily sensible objective, and for good reason... on the other hand, lets not be naive, full-scale human experimentation of such weapons WAS in any case necessary at some point, to get on top of all the parameters and post-deflagration emergency measures, handling of secondary effects etc before the Soviets could http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_atomic_bomb_project#Important_Soviet_nuclear_tests (a few years is not a v.long time here...) and sadly this was the most 'acceptable' way to test and maintain a strong lead for the US... don't forget truman was under a lot of domestic pressure... if he had decided against the advice of his military advisers to go ahead and use the nukes, nagasaki in this context would only make a marginal difference in human lifes terms, to be balanced against the strategic lead it could give america viz understanding effects & devising countermeasures... if u have to do it, might as well make it worthwhile... and at this level there are no mr nice guys
You gave the wrong link. The correct link is here: http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm (WHO DISAGREED WITH THE ATOMIC BOMBING?) On top of that list is Eisenhower. We all know that Eisenhower was a liberal who knew nothing about commanding an army in a large scale war. It was easy for him to say that the atomic bomb was not necessary. MacArthur was not even in the loop. He didn't know about the atomic bomb until it was already used. Seriously, there is a tendency for people to change their opinion years after the fact, and then mistake the later opinion as their original opinion. When Eisenhower wrote his memoir, Soviets already had the atomic bomb, and he was already president. On one hand, there certainly was a "buyer's remorse" on the atomic bomb, especially because the whole world was under the shadow of a nuclear showdown. On the other hand, Eisenhower needed to appear more statesman-like and less warrior-like. So I'm pretty certain that in the late 50's he held the opinion that the atomic bombs should not have been used in Japan. However, I seriously doubt that it would have been his opinion in 1945. In any case, this is an example that good people can have honestly opposing opinions on an important matter, and both sides can be patriotic. The right's attack on liberals just because some of them are opposed to violent means of politics should also be directed at Eisenhower and MacArthur.
i take your point on the intricacy of domestic politics, demonstrations of patriotism, hindsight effect etc but as regards macarthur from the links we've provided (mine leads to yours: check macarthur's views on hiroshima & nagasaki) ~~~GENERAL DOUGLAS MacARTHUR MacArthur biographer William Manchester has described MacArthur's reaction to the issuance by the Allies of the Potsdam Proclamation to Japan: "...the Potsdam declaration in July, demand[ed] that Japan surrender unconditionally or face 'prompt and utter destruction.' MacArthur was appalled. He knew that the Japanese would never renounce their emperor, and that without him an orderly transition to peace would be impossible anyhow, because his people would never submit to Allied occupation unless he ordered it. Ironically, when the surrender did come, it was conditional, and the condition was a continuation of the imperial reign. Had the General's advice been followed, the resort to atomic weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki might have been unnecessary." William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964, pg. 512. Norman Cousins was a consultant to General MacArthur during the American occupation of Japan. Cousins writes of his conversations with MacArthur, "MacArthur's views about the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were starkly different from what the general public supposed." He continues, "When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor." Norman Cousins, The Pathology of Power, pg. 65, 70-71. in any case, agree that macarthur's views are just one man's views... my point is we have yet to see a proper military justification for NAGASAKI, and no matter where u look, there isn't any... its just not good enough to try and sweep the issue under the carpet by lumping it together with the already fragile rationale for the hiroshima bombing...
Go ahead and revise history in any means necessary to demonize the United States. Keep in mind that as China rises, many Chinese will also think like you do, and make their children angry about what the Japanese did to the Chinese in WWII. What do your revisionist historians say to that?
?? they already do and there is no doubt in anybody's mind that japan is at fault here... and will pay the price until it properly addresses the grievances... do u believe that u've just justified the 1st death at nagasaki here? do others' wrongs make america's wrongs right? http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19217 extract: "Walt deplores Americans' failure to understand foreign hostility. American leaders and much of the public, he charges, suffer from "historical amnesia," fostered by "US textbooks and public rhetoric" which portray America's international role as "uniformly noble, principled and benevolent." " plse tell us more about revisionism...
There was a complete split between the major decision makers as to whether they should surrender or not. The belief was that America could not have that many bombs, so they should continue the fight. Even when the Soviets broke the neutrality pact, the Japanese scoffed at this fact. Once the second bomb fell on Nagasaki, the Emporer decided that this could go on no longer. There had been enough bloodshed at the hands of the Japanese by that point. To argue waiting for their reply rather than driving the point home is something you do not do in a war. Especially a war that saw as much bloodshed as WWII.
Ya see..what we have here is a failure to communicate....WAR is a BAD thing....what happens when diplomacy fails and WAR takes hold???? BAD things.....So once War is declared, 2 sides take the field and they use everything and anything at their disposal....The Japs had superiority in the pacific seas at one point, the Americans countered that and took air and sea superiority away....the Japs were in BIG trouble because America, being a war manufacturer, was making huge ships every month and were heading toward their enemies....what can Japan do since they had very little bombs and ammo left? They decided to fly explosive laden planes into giant American Ships....Now, they could have waited and not done that...they could have seen whether or not these new ships were up to snuff....but they had an idea, we were at war, and they used surprise and ingenuity to their advantage.....So...Along comes the Americans who narrowly beat Germany to the big Bomb and they now have an advantage, ingenuity and an awesome weapon....and your point is they should not have used the 2nd bomb ....but that makes no sense when 2 sides are at war and trying to WIN...In addition, by waiting further to use your advantage ( the Bomb)...you run the risk that the other side will come up with a plan to mitigate or stop your advantage.....this is why Wars are bad and they try to avoid them because things get broken