Why Obama Will Strike Iran

Wallet · Feb 20, 2011

Quote from OPTIONAL777:

That is one opinion.

Here is another:

http://www.spectacle.org/696/hiroshi.html

Chairman of the wartime Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral William D. Leahy:

"It is my opinion that the use of the 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....

Bomb is the wrong word to use for this new weapon. It is not a bomb. It is not an explosive. It is a poisonous thing that kills people by its deadly radioactive reaction, more than by the explosive force it develops.

My own feeling is that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to 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."

Further from the link where the above quote is posted:

On certain issues, we are taught not to think, either with the brain or with the heart. It is possible for an Admiral Leahy, who was fully formed before the bomb, to react before it like a human being; but for many in our generation, the bombing of Hiroshima is a pre-existing fact as unassailable as the stone lions on the steps of the New York Public Library; it is harder to re-examine something that has always been, than something that has just happened. I have always admired, and still admire, Harry Truman, who did the best he could, and who said, after a hand-wringing session by Oppenheimer: "Don't you bring that fellow around again. After all, all he did was make the bomb. I'm the guy who fired it off."

Sitting at Harry Truman's desk, behind the sign which said, "The buck stops here," one would be hard put not to use a major, curious new weapon, against people who had murdered civilians and prisoners of war. Having made the decision, he is shrouded in, and protected by, history; it was done, the war ended, and almost no-one cried out; it was done, so it was rightly done. But, if you take a step back, and examine the events of 1945, you learn a few things:

* The Japanese had already asked the Russians to intercede for them and had indicated they would surrender if allowed to keep their emperor. We proceeded to drop the bomb while calling for unconditional surrender; immediately afterwards, we made peace on terms allowing them to keep their emperor.

* It is hard to know, of the many causes men allege, which are their real motives, which are subsidiary, which are trivial or meaningless. But there were people who said at the time that the bomb would send an assertive signal to the Russians.

* The selection of Hiroshima was made because the city had not been bombed, and we would learn more about the effects of an atomic bomb upon a virgin city.

* There was profound racism against the Japanese, and one wonders if we would ever, under equivalent circumstances, been able to bring ourselves to use the bomb against the Germans.

* The idea of dropping a demonstration bomb, or of dropping the bomb upon a large uninhabited area, was considered but rejected. The fear was that a pre-announced bomb might lead the Japanese to move POW's to the site (which they might have done), while a dud under those circumstances would have been a huge embarassment. But no-one has definitively explained why the bomb had to be dropped on a place of little strategic significance, inhabited mostly by civilians.

* The second device was dropped on Nagasaki only days afterward, before the Japanese even had assimilated what had happened at Hiroshima. They certainly would have surrendered without the necessity of a second bomb.

* The estimate that the invasion of Japan would have cost us a million casualties is ludicrous and not based on anything. The studies done at the time and presented to the president showed that the soldiers killed would have been about 5% of that number. The fact that the Japanese were already trying to surrender when we dropped the bomb--and that we ultimately gave them the terms we first refused--makes the allegation that we would have had to invade Japan particularly ridiculous.

* There were even those who believed, in a tortuous example of one extreme of bomb thinking, that we must drop the bomb to show the world how horrible it is, so that we may never drop the bomb again.

Another way of placing the bomb in perspective is to think like this:

If you have a terrible weapon in your hand, the morality of tool use should demand that you not consider using it until you are in extremis. Were we in extremis? The evidence listed above indicates we were not. We had won the European war, were ahead of the game in men and material and our Russian ally was ready to enter the war against Japan.

If we were not in extremis, the only remaining rationales for use of the bomb were murderous vengeance, detached sadistic curiousity, or amoral realpolitik, none of which are foundations upon which we want to build our humanity.

Even if we were in extremis, there would still be a moment to ask the question: what do I become if I use this weapon? Because if the behavior in self-defense makes us no better than the enemy, what is left to defend? At that point, we are no longer defending democracy, or liberty; we are defending me against you, and saying that it is better to be the torturer than to fall to the torturer. At that moment, justice tears out its own lights; if I allow myself to die, it is not fair; if I murder to live, it is not fair. While some would rather be a living murderer, there are others who would prefer to be a dead human. Sometimes survival is nothing to be proud of, as many discovered in Auschwitz.

If you look with the heart, no other conclusion is possible: it would be better for us, for our humanity, if we had not done it. And we still would have won the war.
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Interesting view, I'm not sure I buy into the belief that Japan thought they were defeated and ready to surrender, My take on Japan's rational into the war was to stalemate the USA by crippling it's pacific fleet and making the cost of concurring Japan too high, thus leaving them to conduct their affairs in Asia as they saw fit, which included terrorism on China. I do not believe they ever thought they could actually win the war. Our sanctions denying them the raw materials (oil) they needed for their war machine, forced their hand.

A large percentage of Japanese military committed suicide rather than being captured. To their credit, their determination was resolute, to the end.

I would have to say they way they brought us into the war (Pearl Harbor) played a major role in Truman's decision.

Mercor · Feb 20, 2011

Quote from OPTIONAL777:

By that reasoning, it would have been good if Lincoln had gotten a nuclear bomb and just nuked Atlanta, killing women and children, and ending the war sooner and thus "saving lives" of both union and confederate soldiers...

Thanks, you always make it easy...
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We had been bombing populated cities in Japan for 3 years, including firebombings. killing many citizens. Dropping a nuke from a causality point of view was not a huge escalation.
It was only the difference of one bomb compared to 1000's of bombs to do the same damage.

Remember war is fought to win. If Lincoln had a weapon he could end the war with I doubt he would have used it on Atlanta. he would have dropped it on Confederate forces.

The nuking of the Japs was not a military attack but an attack to break the will of the politicians and create a lack of confidence between the them and the public.

OPTIONAL777 · Feb 20, 2011

"If Lincoln had a weapon he could end the war with I doubt he would have used it on Atlanta. he would have dropped it on Confederate forces."

Doesn't make sense to me that you would support the use of a nuke in one situation and not in another if the goal was to end the war and nuke was the best possible option available. You are suggesting that Truman's intentions to end the war were different than Lincoln's desire to end the war as soon as possible.

The war with the rebellious south was not a military war, but rather it was a war to break the will of the politicians and create a lack of confidence between the them and the public.

War is just the process, not the reason, and while I believe no one hated the war more than Lincoln, if Lincoln saw a way to end the war quickly with less bloodshed, I don't know why he would do something different than Truman did...unless you are suggesting that Lincoln was a real humanitarian...and Truman was not.

Quote from Mercor:

We had been bombing populated cities in Japan for 3 years, including firebombings. killing many citizens. Dropping a nuke from a causality point of view was not a huge escalation.
It was only the difference of one bomb compared to 1000's of bombs to do the same damage.

Remember war is fought to win. If Lincoln had a weapon he could end the war with I doubt he would have used it on Atlanta. he would have dropped it on Confederate forces.

The nuking of the Japs was not a military attack but an attack to break the will of the politicians and create a lack of confidence between the them and the public.
More...

OPTIONAL777 · Feb 20, 2011

I was just trying to show that opinions do vary on the issue. Most people in America following the war grew up thinking that it was the slam dunk "right" thing to do, but I tend to believe it is just as possible that it wasn't really the right thing to do. Not saying I know what was the right thing to do...but I am inclined to believe the net gain of a more expedient end to the war level came with a price that the US one day will end up paying dearly for.

One other factor, given we had just achieved victory over Germany, the allied forces if called upon would likely have joined fully in the war with Japan...something else that Truman likely knew.

Quote from Wallet:

Interesting view, I'm not sure I buy into the belief that Japan thought they were defeated and ready to surrender, My take on Japan's rational into the war was to stalemate the USA by crippling it's pacific fleet and making the cost of concurring Japan too high, thus leaving them to conduct their affairs in Asia as they saw fit, which included terrorism on China. I do not believe they ever thought they could actually win the war. Our sanctions denying them the raw materials (oil) they needed for their war machine, forced their hand.

A large percentage of Japanese military committed suicide rather than being captured. To their credit, their determination was resolute, to the end.

I would have to say they way they brought us into the war (Pearl Harbor) played a major role in Truman's decision.
More...

T_Geithner · Feb 21, 2011

Obama is a pussy-ass.

Lucrum · Feb 21, 2011

Quote from OPTIONAL777:

By that reasoning, it would have been good if Lincoln had gotten a nuclear bomb and just nuked Atlanta, killing women and children, and ending the war sooner and thus "saving lives" of both union and confederate soldiers...

Thanks, you always make it easy...
More...

What a load of crap, even for you.
I simply stated an indisputable fact. Bombing Nagasaki and Hiroshima ended the war period. Contrary to your cited opinion.

BTW, the bombing was an act perpetrated by a Democrat, along with the internment camps the bleeding hearts are still crying about.

Quote from OPTIONAL777:

One other factor, given we had just achieved victory over Germany, the allied forces if called upon would likely have joined fully in the war with Japan...something else that Truman likely knew.
More...

The allies were ALREADY "joined" in the war against Japan.
Would it kill you to open a history book?

377OHMS · Feb 21, 2011

Quote from Lucrum:

BTW, the bombing was an act perpetrated by a Democrat, along with the internment camps the bleeding hearts are still crying about.
More...

This pretty much the main reason I have Optional777 on ignore. He is perfectly comfortable twisting the truth 180-degrees out of whack and running with it.

The Klu Klux Klan was a democratic organization.

The democrats dropped the nuclear bomb on japan.

The democrats imprisoned anyone in California with japanese ancestry on purely racial considerations for the duration of the war.

T_Geithner · Feb 21, 2011

"Why Obama Will Strike Iran "

Obama will do no shit like that. Not only because he's too weak, but also because America can't deal with the chaos that will come as a result of it.

benwm · Feb 21, 2011

It would be lunacy for America to strike first. Or for Iran.
If war is inevitable, let them start it, THEN bomb the shit out of them.
Not before.

Hopefully it doesn't come to that and the Iranian people follow the others in the region and bring down the government.

Nothing to stop the US doing everything they can to support Iranian opposition groups, then at least you'll have an ally in the region if it does come to war.

Just my three cents worth.