Dropping the two atomic bombs was not only justified, it was extremely wise.
It ended the war quickly, saved the lives of many American soldiers and pacified Japan completely. Furthermore it sent a message to the USSR that could not be mistaken and which ultimatly lent much of the world an uneasy peace that has lasted longer than any such period in the known history of humanity.

It also opened Pandora's box, but this was always going to happen any way so we can be thankfull that it was the USA that first used the atomic bomb and not the USSR.

On a side note to this, does anyone in personal philosophy, such as a down to earth, actual radioactive killing and years of reprocussion situation, like generations of deformed babies and cancer and still the Japanese have never recovered from this have any effect upon your minds of that ill-fated desicion? It was not just victims of THAT fated day, but NOW still?

Possibly ONE bomb to make a point. The second was just abject cruelty, experiment, and a lack of cultural understanding (which we are SO guilty of even now).

I see this dropping of the bombs as ignorance in a time of such. After all we subjugated our own to atomic fallout not knowing its effects. But now, knowing what it meant, to coldly say, this was the best thing to do.. is so lacking in humanity, because it was not YOU it happened to and 50 years later YOUR babies are not born deformed, you arent dying of radioactive illnesses, and it was not on your land. WE were not melted down where we stood, but no wonder we are so paranoid about others having that bomb. The United States of America is the only nation to have ever used an atomic bomb against another, and we did it twice. WE ARE aggressors and atomic killers, NOONE ELSE HAS DONE IT, despite their capabilities. You say WE are RESPONSIBLE with arms?

What if India.Pakistan just says in a moment of clarity, well if we drop an atomic bomb or two on the US it will save thousands of lives because they are a big threat to world peace the way they are going, trying to invade all of the Middle East and take all the oil? Will we say, well, it was the best thing because we were a global threat and they saved millions of lives worldwide? NO. But it would be true. They would have effectively thwarted our imperialist offensive and crippled a governmnent that sees itself a an empire. Its due to happen sooner or later. ( I know , hard to believe but Im sure the Greeks, Romans, Spanish, Ottomans never saw it coming either) Eventually someone gets sick of your load and has the capability to take you out, especially if you overextend yourself in wars.

Its so easy to talk about an atomic bomb on the sidelines. Its also easy to talk about war when its not HERE, and YOUR house is not just gone and your whole family killed. Americans have had it very lucky, you thought 3,000 was something?
You tout the 'goodness of war', I swear, it will be a different day when you actually experience war on you own ground, and hopefully its not atomic, as 'it saved million of lives' from the American threat. Iraqis have lost at least 10,000 if not more in our 'liberation'. So silly, slap happy pro-war americans. It will be a sad day when you get it that its not oh-so-strategic and cold when someone drops a bomb on america. That will be a call to reality check of the sickness that has pervaded our society for quite awhile, in that its ok as long as its somebody else who pays the price.

Artemise



The second bomb was probably more important than the first since it demonstrated clearly that the USA was perfectly willing to continue to use its nuclear weapons, despite their horrible destructive capability.

The single most important thing to have, in order to win a war, is the will to do what must be done. The United States had to demonstrate the extent of its new fire power, but it also had to demonstrate that it had the will to use it, and not just once.

In Europe, the USAF and the RAF did much the same thing when they fire bombed Dresden. They destroyed an entire German city, killing more people in that one attack than in any other single attack in the history of the world, and yet there were no military targets in Dresden. On the contrary, the city was full of refugee's.
The allies destroyed it because it would soon be 'liberated' by the Soviets and they would see first hand, both the extent of the fire power of US and UK conventional forces, as well as their will to use it.

It is this destruction and death, upon which we build our civilisations. The USA is no different than any one else in that it had to go through with the second world war as best it could, doing what it had to do, not only to win the war, but also to win the peace.

That I today can say it was the right thing to do, is not my endorsement of using nuclear weapons. It is my opinion on the choice that was made at the time.

They did not know then what we know now, so it is unfair to hold them accountable based on our knowledge.

This will come as no surprise to anyone that I concur 100% with Artemise's assessment of our callousness in paying lip service to justify mass murder.

Some of us do not confuse right and wrong with expediency. There is still a guidebook that our society dusts off and quotes when it suits its frame of mind. That guidebook still says "Thou shalt not kill." And it does pre-date WWII by a few years.

While it is unavoidable to kill in times of war, killing is still wrong; hence, the more killing done, especially in the case of unarmed people, the more wrong it is. And that is why we, as a "good" people, must eschew starting wars and using the very weapons against others that we would forbid them to use in the first place. It seems to me our society brands as "cowardly" those who attack unarmed, non-combatants. At least we did on 9/11/2001.

If we consider ourselves far too sophisticated or clever to be bothered with Sunday school lessons, we should not be surprised when the enemy du jour dispenses with any such minor technicalities in its own moral/religious guidelines.

("Let him who is without sin cast the first stone" was also irrelevant to George W. Bush when he decided to invade Iraq without the support of the UN Security Council.* Isn't it easy to brush principles aside when there is something a leader clearly wants to do! Isn't self-righteousness dangerous in so many cases on the world scene! Maybe that's why it's called self-righteousness, because others seem unconvinced that it is righteous at all.)

What's so hard about using the word "wrong" when it is wrong?

And this whole concept of "Well, it was okay then because..., but don't get the idea that I'm for nukes now," what could be more self-serving?
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(*That's right--still no connection established between the attacks on 9/11/2001 and Iraq. Still unfound are the weapons of mass destruction--that was a big "whoops" if you were an innocent Iraqi during the invasion--but don't expect an apology from the Great White Father running the United States right now. Apologies constitute an admission of--that's right--being wrong. It was George's bad, but hey, we all make mistakes, don't we? It's only a matter of degree, right? I just keep forgetting why he's supposed to be such a swell leader.)

Wow, so much fto address ....

First, not one, but two posters both asserted that the potential for Germany to use the Bomb on the Allies played into the decision to drop the Bomb on Japan. This is a most curious factor, since the Third Reich had surrendered 2 months before! I am stunned that nobody has bothered to correct such an obvious error. sigh...

Second, the attempt to talk about whether something was moral, but refuse to allow consideration of the ethical value of civilian lives versus military lives. Mind boggling.

Third, the continued insistence that neither Hiroshima nor Nagasaki were were legitimate military targets, even though it has been established in this thread, as well as the previous thread, that they were. Both were defended, which clearly invalidates the 'war crime' claim based on the "undefended status." Both had short AND long term military significance, not to mention the military necessity of defeating Japan.

Fourth, no mention is made of why the Soviets rolled over the Japanese in Manchuria, save to attribute it to battle hardened, well equipped veterans. Well, a substantial portion of the Manchurian forces had already been withdrawn to Japan...

Fifth, no mention is made of the food and transportation system in Japan. The Army Air Force was about to shift its targeting to wipe out Japan's transportation system. Had such a shift taken place, massive starvation would have descended upon Japan, as its already depleted food supply couldn't have been moved to where it was needed. This is important, because the same inability to transport food would have been present after a surrender, since the infrastructure would be gone. Millions would have died AFTER a surrender had the transport bombing taken place. As it was, mass starvation was narrowly averted.

As I've stated before, many times, the bombing was morally justifiable. It was justifiable based upon the best information they had at the time, and it is justifiable in hindsight as well, with the clear understanding that "war is hell."

I find the "end justifying the means" question to be inappropriate, because it presupposes that the means itself is immoral. In this case, either the Bomb itself is immoral, or the attack on the cities was immoral.

The Bomb is no more (or less) immoral than any other weapon, it is merely much more powerful, as an individual weapon. I have yet to see anybody who has stated or implied that a 250lb firebomb is immoral, yet as has been stated repeatedly here and elsewhere, the firebombing of the Japanese cities killed more civilians than the atomic bombs. Why not condemn the individual firebombs? This phisophical assumption that the Bomb itself is evil (just like, to some, guns are evil), is unsupportable in light of the failure to attack firebombs as well.

As for the morality of bombing a city containing military targets, that is also ignored, as the assumption behind the "ends means" question is that bombing any city is immoral. Given the short shrift by most to the question of military targets in both cities, I can only conclude that they share that assumption.

Soldiers (as far as I know) join the military with the expectation that they might be killed some day. Civilians do not go into civilian life with the expectation that they will be shot at or bombed. That's what makes attacks on civilians worse.

Any loss of life is a tragedy. But show me a soldier, sailor, airman, etc., who says "Well, I didn't know I was going to be shot at" and I'll show you a fool or a person with mental problems.

The issue stands. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were primarily civilian centers, and the military had flown recon over the cities, so it couldn't claim ignorance.

If countries were so concerned about the loss of the lives of soldiers they wouldn't send them to war.

Use of the atomics is rationalized, but it was still wrong. And just because the Geneva Convention didn't have it down in black and white didn't make it any less wrong. It is amazing to me that so many who are so quick to condemn attorneys who stretch the law almost beyond recognition to suit their objectives are just as willing to say "it wasn't written down" to justify wholesale slaughter of innocents.

Paladin Elspeth



But what does that mean?

Thou shalt not kill.

When attacked, do not defend yourself?

Denmark had never fought a war since 1864 when the first world war broke out. When Germany began to simply draft Danes from Denmark, this country looked on helplessly because it did not have the courage to defy Germany.

When Germany invaded us in 1939, we did nothing to defend ourselves. Had it not been for the UK and the USA, then I would either be speaking German or Russian today.

Sometimes, you have no choice but to kill. Sometimes, for all your best intentions, others will choose to wage war against you, and when that happens you only have one choice if you wish to survive and that is to fight back. Denmark should have fought back during the first world war. We should have stood up to the Germans and made them pay for taking our citizens.
We didn't though, so two decades later they simply walked into our country and took it.

When war is upon you, then there is no morality. You must kill or be killed. If that requires you kill another man then that is what you must do. The fact that he is armed, or not is besides the point. Whether or not he can defend himself is besides the point. There is no civilisation, or chivalry when you are faced with the choice of having to kill an enemy or have him kill you. For all the laws and rules of war, the reality is that war is the absence of order. The Geneva convention is ignored. Christian morality is ignored. Civilians are slaughtered regardless and the only way you can win a war is to be stronger, harder and faster than your enemy.

It is much like hunger. If you take people and deprive them of water and food, it will only take them three days to act like savages. It is the same with war. You can avoid it, condemn it, call it muder or what ever you will. But when it happens, then you will only have one choice in your mind. To kill or die.

Destroying Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the right thing to do, because it was the best way to reduce the loss of life and bring the war to and end whilst demonstrating to the Soviet Union the consequences of starting another war. It had to be done. From the moment the USA had the atomic bomb, there was no other alternative.


editted to add;



In a time of war, soldiers are much more valuable than civilians because civilians cannot defend themselves. Its always sensible to conserve one's military force.

moif,

It is one thing to defend yourself and to deliver a measured response. It is quite another to work concertedly to utterly devastate the other, to go beyond the point of self-defense or simple revenge. To kill a man for killing your mother is revenge. To kill the man, then rape and kill his mother or his kid is beyond the pale.

Dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was also beyond the pale if we are honest about it. These actions went far, far beyond "collateral damage."

(So many on this debate forum condemn the actions of soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison because they were specifically meant to be demoralizing to the prisoners. Some of the soldiers, I am sure, had it in their minds that "this is for September 11th, you miserable (fill in the blank)." Never mind that these Iraqis had absolutely nothing to do with September 11th. But these soldiers were "defending freedom," remember? As a result of their actions, they have gained lifelong enemies of Iraqis who weren't our enemies to begin with. But gosh, these soldiers were "defending themselves" and the other soldiers, right?)

So many in the military want to go that extra mile and punish, humiliate, utterly destroy the enemy. This is what those bombs were about. These are the same people who talk about the excessive cruelty the Japanese practiced with the Chinese and on the death marches, as though it were justification for our own brutality.

So our cruelty is "ok" as long as we're not the first ones to do it--is that the rationale? Cruelty is cruelty. If it's wrong for the enemy to do it, for God's sake why do we think we can operate according to a different set of rules?

moif--If soldiers were honored above the civilian population, why would they be sent to die in the first place? Why would there be the term "acceptable losses"? Give me a break. Show me a country where there aren't older white men in power who are altogether too willing to send young men (and now also women) to die in their stead, and I'll show you a country that isn't ruled by white men.

As long as we consider this no-holds-barred mentality the Gold Standard for making war, the enemy will give us and our loved ones no quarter; indeed, their ferocity will also escalate. We perpetuate our own society's destruction by rationalizing the wholesale slaughter of the "other," that is, the enemy of the year, the week, the day. Isn't it time we stopped rationalizing brutality and started valuing diplomats over soldiers?
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Heads up! I edited this sucker a couple of times

Since you refuse to accept any evidence of the best information available to the decision makers of the time of their options, it is not surprising that you consider this to be vengeance. It wasn't, it was cold and calculating. It will cost X deaths to accomplish this, or XXX if we take the other course. If vengeance were the point, they would have nuked Tokyo and Osaka.

The decision to drop the atomic weapons was not made by the military, it was made by a civilian who had experienced the horrors of the "Great War's" trenches.

Cruelty is never acceptable. I simply ask that you make the distinction between ruthlessness and cruelty. Ruthlessness CAN

ruthlessness can be justified if it is the only course available. It is ruthless to kill your opponent, but if that is the only way of stopping him from killing you, then it is acceptable. One can be cruel AND ruthless, as evidence by how often the two accompany one another in discourse, but neither character of behavior demands the other's prescence.

And here I was, thinking you were an American. I think its time we start valuing what works. Sometimes, that's soldiers, and other times, its diplomats. I should point out that its a historical reality that diplomats without soldiers in the background rarely, if ever, work. Moif's testimony establishes that...

(Incidentally, we do value diplomats over soldiers. Enemy combatants in a hostile country when war breaks out are treated as combatants. Diplomats? Their either interned or tossed out.)

Paladin Elspeth



With respect, I disagree. Had the atomic bombs not been dropped, then the war would most probably have dragged on for many more months. As a consequence, the conventional arial bombing of Japans infrastructure would have continued in much the same way as the doctrine of war (as it was understood in the second world war) dictated. As I already pointed out, the bombing of Dresden caused more deaths than either atomic attack, as did the fire bombing of Tokyo so it is more than likely that had the atomic bombs not been used then the civilian casualties would have been far greater than the 80,000 who were killed at Hiroshima and the 75,000 at Nagasaki.

Whilst I will readily agree that these figures are monstrous, the unfortunate truth is that they were nothing unusual in air raids by 1945 as the two links I have provided will demonstrate. In fact compared to the total death toll of the second world war (circa 61,000,000) the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are almost humane!

It is almost also a certainty that if the USA had not used the atomic bombs to hasten the end of the second world war, then we would have seen a war between the USA and the USSR. As it was the inablility of either side to secure an easy victory left us with a long, if uneasy time of peace.

I believe that many people feel guilty when they consider the atomic bombs because they cannot accept the seeming injustice of one aircraft destroying an entire city. Its almost as if these people would rather have had the conventional war drag on with allied soldiers paying the ultimate price for victory with their lives instead of 'cheating' by killing a city full of civilians.

I do not feel any such guilt. Japan brought the devastation upon itself. It chose to attack its neighbours and to attack the United States. In return the USA merely defended itself. Hiroshima and Nagasaki, by the appalling standards of the second world war were legitimate targets. The obliteration of entire cities was nothing new. History is full of such events. The Romans entirely destroyed Carthage, sowing the ground with salt to rid themselves of the possibility of Carthage returning to strength at a time when Rome was weak. The Mongols did the same when they destroyed any city that defied them but allowed those that surrendered to continue to exist.

The United States demonstrated its power, and its determination to do what it must, not because it wanted to punish the Japanese civilians, but because it had to demonstrate to the world what happened when you attacked the USA or its allies to prevent any further such attacks from taking place.

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They were sent because America had been attacked. (I am only refering to the second world war here) Very few people in the USA wanted to go to war, but they had no choice in the matter. The Germans and the Japanese forced the rest of the world into war.

Acceptable losses indicates that at some point the will of a nation will be broken and it cannot continue to defend itself. It does not indicate a willingness on behalf of a government to simply and callously throw lives away!

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Denmark.

But why are you making this into a racial issue? War is the same regardless of which culture undertakes it. Japan itself has a martial history of warfare that features no older white men.
Indeed, what makes you so certain that women would not send soldiers to fight? Margret Thatcher certainly never hesitated when she sent British soldiers to fight, kill and die in the Falklands.

Bikerdad, Truman was given the decision to have the bombs dropped after everything was in place. It was his decision to come to the party, but the cake and the guests were already there, and the military had to tell him the party was going to take place. His was to make a wish and blow out the candles. It is disingenuous to lay all of the responsibility on Truman's doorstep. They made it awfully damned easy for him to make the decision.

So much for the distinction between ruthlessness and cruelty.

Why? The Japanese didn't bomb Washington, did they? It's still necessary to have someone available to surrender.

"Evidence of the best information available" is the shining domain of Vermillion the historian et al.; and you're right, I don't buy it. Oppenheimer and many other scientists responsible for developing the atomic bombs signed petitions and tried to get the President not to use this weapon on moral and practical grounds, but they 'didn't know what they were talking about,' did they? No--they were just civilians. A decision of such gravity had to be made by the military leaders and sent to the President. Ethics be damned. And they were.


I respect you too, moif. But the fact that Dresden, Germany was pasted and Tokyo was fire bombed did not justify the use of the atomic bombs. Neither do all the "would-haves, could-haves, or should-haves" that historians have intoned for the last 59 years. It was wrong.

And until we start valuing diplomacy over warfare, we will continue to experience needless suffering and death because some leaders consider it expedient.

PE, I hate to sound pedagogic, but surely you know that if ruthlessness was the same as cruelty, then the formulation "ruthless cruelty" would be the same as "cruel cruelty". While I know our language is a wee bit wack at times, that still strike me as remarkably redundant.

Do you have any support for the notion that Truman did nothing other than rubberstamp a deciscion made by the military? Are you charging that had Truman nixed dropping the bombs, the generals and admirals would have gone ahead anyway?

Paladin Elspeth



Diplomacy is the art of not getting into a fight. It simply does not work when the other party is determined to fight. and its too late for diplomacy when you've been attacked.

The atomic bombs saved lives. Thats all there really is to it. That Oppenheimer and his scientist friends were horrified is besides the point. The point is they were not the ones who had to fight the Japanese in the Pacific theatre. Oppenheimer lived in the USA where he was warm and comfortable and safe and was at no point in danger of having his intestines ripped from his body by a Japanese soldier's bayonet.

The bottom line is its easy as anything to sit here now and complain about the decisions that were made, but we don't live in the war. We don't know what the war felt like. All we know is that it killed 60+ million people, and it ended when the USA used its atomic bombs.

The atomic bombs ended the worst war this world has ever seen.

Was the dropping of the bombs defensive??

I'm no longer going to take a right /wrong stance on this issue. The question is about justification. This I understand very well. All things can and are justified. Stealing is justifiable, murder is justifiable September 11 is justifiable, 3 million Vietnamese and 50+ thousand Americans is justifiable, slavery is justifiable, the holocaust is justifiable, pearl harbor is justifiable, Hiroshima is justifiable, Nagasaki is justifiable. ALL THINGS are justifiable...IF and only IF you choose to A.) justify the acton or B.) accept the justifications given to you. Such is the case in this debate. I choose not to accept the justification of Hiroshima that does not mean there are not justifications available.

As moif states the idea of war is amoral, because a moral war is an oxymoron. There can be acts of morality within a war, but that is about it. But any war can be just to someone, because all a just war or a just action requires is for one, single person willing to justify it. And there will ALWAYS be such a person, as demonstrated in this very discussion.

And of course we can always differentiate how our justification differ from someone elses, but we can't differentiate our ability and willingness to justify extremely horrific acts from others ability and willingness to do the same.

And don't for a second believe that me stating this makes me believe I am above it or on some soap box, I don't. I have and likely still do justify actions that I would hate to be done to me. Its's on an infinitely smaller scale than something like mass killing of thousands, but it is the same principle. I guess that make me a hypocrite, but I believe there is a discussion out there now that goes along the lines of "Who isn't??"

To justify is human. When things are done that we ourselves feel are wrong, but necessary, we are mentally forced to justify. Why, my guess is because there is no good or evil, yet we all want to be good and not evil. We all, or most of us, want to be part of something "good" or simply good within ourselves. Yet we are bound to do actions that are not in line with how we would like to be treated or what we are trained to think as "right".

If I were to replace the word hiroshima with 9/11 the results would be overwhelmingly different. If I was in Saudi Arabia, I'd probably see numbers like I see now for Hiroshima. It is not like there isn't any justifications for the terrorist actions on 9/11. I simply don't accept the justifications that are presented. Same with goes for Hiroshima. If you want to believe it saved lives... believe it. I know for a fact that Japan was militarily defeated before the first bomb dropped. Who knows how the world would have ended up if we didn't do it. At that moment in time their was no true need to drop the bomb, because there was no need to invade Japan. There was desire masked with the word neccessity, as it is in any war.

I know that the plan was in place (according to Truman's memoirs) when FDR died and that Harry S. Truman claimed to know nothing about it until he was made President upon FDR's untimely death. I am not excusing his decision, but I certainly understand that if the military said to Truman that everything was in place to bring a quick end to the war, Truman went for it in the absence of enough opinions well-informed enough to oppose it, such as Oppenheimer's and those of his cohorts who worked on the Manhattan Project. Oppenheimer had sent the letters of concern and petitions to FDR; I'm not sure if Truman was privy to them or not.

But are you suggesting that had Truman nixed dropping the bombs, that the military wouldn't have continued to pressure him until he agreed to use them?

As far as the pedagogic part, would you not agree that "having no compassion or pity" is part of cruelty and therefore, cruelty and ruthlessness are synonymous?


Thank you.

There was an opportunity at Potsdam, and stubborn pride kept a dialogue from taking place.

(Perhaps it is a good time to reiterate that diplomacy is better than war, if one is given the choice. There may be a time when this nation is so strapped for cash that war can no longer be its first option (and yes, I'm talking about Iraq). I would pray for that time to come, but I also realize what dire straits this country's citizens would have to be in before the warmongers would take into consideration their plight before proceeding with their beloved wars.

Hopefully, too, this country will get its facts straight the next time it wants to attack a nation for weapons of mass destruction or a complicity with terrorists that isn't there.)

The atomic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki prove that any nation, even the supposed one filled with "good guys," can summon enough disrespect for human life to wipe out an entire population area, uncaring as to whether it kills the innocent along with the culpable. We reap what we sow, so I suggest that this stain upon history never again be committed under the guise of "saving lives."

Wow I found this one a little late. I voted war crime, and English Horn's post to define war crimes earlier fit's my thoughts well. I was taught in school that the Japanese by that time were wore out. Still hell-bent, honor driven warriors, but wore out none-the-less. I was taught that the Japanese emperor had just begun trying to negotiate some sort of peace, and the US chose simply to ignore this. Gore Vidal's Dreaming War covers WW2 very well, and comes to the same conclusion. Dropping the bomb was not necessary to stop the Japanese, they were already done. Dropping the bomb may have had some other *grimace* "positive affects" in regards to our enemies elsewhere, the "shock and awe" factor, but I would never believe that it was necessary to bomb TWO large japanese cities to prove that the atom bomb had extensive butt-kicking abilities, A field test would have done the same. I think it was little more than a power trip, that gave way to sixty years of fear driven, reactionist policy-making that has done nothing divide, militarize and empower imperial America to take it's doctrine of "shock and awe" and apply it elsewhere, as in, anywhere our EDITED TO REMOVE VULGAR COMMENT- big weapon swagger might win us a few more bucks.

I voted it was a necessary act. Despite the Japanese flirting with surrender with the Soviets as brokers, Stalin had no intention of letting a large hunk of China and Japan be put under any sort of armistice rule as equals. Stalin only wanted more puppet states in the east to go with those he had in the west.

The intelligence at the time slating an invasion of southern Kyushu severely underestimated the strength of the Japanese opposition waiting for the inevitable. The US had slated 350 k troops for the invasion wich would put the japanese at a slight numerical superiority for the initial landing. However recent studies have found there were several divisions and irregular troops station in Kyushu that bought the numbers up considerably and the Japanese would have outnumbered the US more than 2 to one. Add to that the civilian population was trained to do everything from setting punji traps and land mines to teaching their children to lay in the road with bombs strapped to them to become suicide bombers and hopefully take out transports and tanks. Add to that the fanatical resistance by the garrision on Okinawa, and the casualties taken by the US, I cannot fault Truman for seeking a quick way out of the war. If the bomb had not been used casualties realistically would have been in the neighborhood of one to two million, not something any government wants to face.

People also fail to realize that the objective of war is to kill your enemy and to crush his ability to oppose you. Civilians provide the sustenance, construction and weapons manufacturing used in war, it is inevitable they become a target. It is a dirty business and all gloves are off when defending your soldiers lives.

Just one problem--it doesn't end there. Whatever the United States adopts as expedient, the other nations follow suit. Therefore, throughout the world countries have been developing nuclear bombs because we did. Other countries are examining the Bush Doctrine of Preemption and saying, you know, the United States is our example--we can use preemption as well to invade other countries. (That's what Russia is doing in light of the terrorist massacre of so many schoolchildren, and who can blame them? They're going a little farther, though, by instituting a rapid centralization of power. That's apparently the Russian way.)

An old book states that "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Somehow we forget about that in our quest to humiliate and utterly devastate our enemy. We forget that our actions are going to come back to us sooner or later. When they come back, will we have the requisite insight to just say that it's a "dirty business and all gloves are off when defending their soldiers' lives"?

Somehow we forget about that in our quest to humiliate and utterly devastate our enemy. We forget that our actions are going to come back to us sooner or later. When they come back, will we have the requisite insight to just say that it's a "dirty business and all gloves are off when defending their soldiers' lives"?


True however when you a locked in those kind of decisions you cannot think of consequences 10 or 50 years down the road. Leadership does not involve wringing your hands and vacillating over what may happen in the future it is takeing a decisive action for better or for worse. The Soviets would have started an arms race sooner or later, it was inevitable as they captured as many scientist from Germany as we did. The unthinkable consequences of not using the bomb would have been China, Korea, and part of Japan under Stalin's rule. I for one prefer this outcome versus what we would have had in an extended fight.

I don't see the cause and effect here. You think if we hadn't dropped the bomb on Japan, that nuclear weapons never would have been created? I think that's a very hard assumption to back up. Ditto for the supposed Bush Doctrine...countries have practiced preemption since the days when they first had the means...tens of thousands of years ago, I'm sure nomad tribes conducted preemptive strikes against their neighbors. To say that this is either new or due to anything done by the Bush administration is ignoring both human nature and human history...in fact, to tie the two together...wasn't Pearl Harbor a preemptive strike? Of course it was--that was its whole purpose.



I see...so you would have preferred the expected long, drawn out invasion, costing million more lives, along with the anticipated power struggle with Russia, with the potential deaths of millions more? While I sympathize with the anti-war sentiment, when one is already in war, difficult decisions must be made...where the choices are often between an evil and a much greater evil.



Actualy, CD, I don't think that's necessarily true. I do think long term consequences are considered, although when fighting for ones existence such things probably tend to have less importance. But, in the case of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I do think the repurcussions were considered.

Millions more lives? I doubt it.

We had all the firepower we needed already. They wanted to test the two atomic bombs on people and make a big show of it without caring how many tens of thousands of non-combatants would be vaporized or burned to death in the process. We were the first kid on our block with the new, utterly destructive toy.

I don't know how much of a chance there would have been to forestall the beginning of the nuclear age if we hadn't bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but I do know WE STARTED IT, and it is not something of which we should be proud.

I don't have the links, but I believe the official estimates (also mentioned elsewhere in this thread) were for 1 million US casualties and 6 million or more Japanese--mostly civilian. This was, from what I have read/heard, very prominent in Truman's decision.




I'm sorry you feel that way...I'm sure there was a faction that was interested in doing just that, but I don't put Truman in that group. Sure, we had the firepower, and the soldier, and the civilian targets. Everything was certainly in place to proceed normally...at least, normally from a war view where taking over the enemies homeland is always a vicious, brutal struggle. As I said previously, I certainly appreciate an anti-war stance, but I think you getting into statements here which would be difficult to support.

Given the options at that time, all of which were indicated that other paths would be far more bloody, are you so sure you would have chosen differently?



Well, now there's something we can agree on. For myself, I view it much as I imagine many Japanese might view Pearl Harbor...at act that might have been necessary/justified given various political and military issues at the time, but certainly not something to be proud of, nor to be taken or repeated lightly.

Interesting book on this general topic . . .

Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War by Robert Pape

First off I want to point out the utter fallacy of this statement. This is something for a larger and more philosophical thread, but you speak from a poorly thought out nationalistic instinct that has been instilled in you since childhood. We are taught loyalty to our family, our school, our country, our religion, etc. The reason we are taught these things is simple: Division. The people who hold power currently can only hold power if there is fear of difference, or really fear of everything in the general public. People are people. They are exactly the same here as they are in afghanistan as they were in Japan. Some people are less informed than others, and some people support things that we disagree with, but it doesn't make them any less human. WAR IS NOT CHESS! War-games may make light of the act, but war is hell, murder, everything that is negative and destructive about the human race. Your right when you say it is a dirty business, however our soldiers lives wouldn't be in danger if we would just keep ourselves clean. The sooner that we begin realizing this, and realizing that our families, the people whom we go to school with, the people whom we share a religion with, and our fellow country members are no more deserving of our respect than any other person on the planet, we will finally overcome fear, and the people might regain control of their lives and minds. Good Luck.

Other than my hippy rant I think we thinking people are at a consensus on the bombings. Disagree if you will:

Nukes: Bad
Nuking Civilians: Really Bad
Nukes necessary to end the war with Japanese: Very Questionable

I will, and have disagreed. I can only suggest you read my very lengthy post on the topic on page three.

As it stands we keep repeating the same things, and they are just as erronious no matter how often they are repeated:



In fact:

Nukes: Bad (in 2004. In 1945 they were simply a larger form of explosives, the horror of the cold ar and the arms race was still to come, and atomic weapons offered a VERY powerful explosive, capable of destroying a small city, but with radiation largely misunderstood and fallout not understood at all, thats all it was)

Nuking Civilians: Really Bad (In 2004. In 1945, it was not that bad at all. People here have claimed that somehow dropping nukes on civilians was substantively different from dropping mass conventional bombs on civilisans, but nobody has yet been able to actually justify or explain why it is different. Bombing of civilians was the practiced and acepted doctrine of EVERY combatant nation in WWII, on BOTH sides. It was not even against international law or the laws of war, those laws were created AFTER WWII.)

Nukes necessary to end the war with Japanese: Very Questionable (No, actually, very reasonable. Given the two points above, and the necessity I explained in GREAT detail in my long post on page three, I am at a loss to see how the American Commanders could have justified ANY other decision)

I agree with Hobbes, though the figures I have read put the total Japanese casualties closer to 15 million, especially considering the fact that the Japanese Empire had more than three times the estimated aircraft hidden away for the invasion. Most of these were some of the most advanced aircraft in the world at the time.

The cost in human lives would have been several times the number of deaths that the atomic bombs took. Also without their use and known destructive power we would have used them during the Korean conflict as General MacArthur advocated so strongly.

What other weapon has been developed at such an enormous cost, used twice then put away? I can not think of any other such weapon. Even the chemical weapons developed in the First World War are still being employed. The latest use appears to be in Sudan.

The targets of our bombs were legitimate military targets, the Japanese attempted to split the allies with talk of a truce, but had no real intension of surrender, millions of lives were at stake. The US did the only thing that would have ended the war with a few casualties on both sides as possible.

Though I agree with you in general, I just wanted to comment on a couple facts here:

Casualty estimates for the Invasion of Japan were wildly specialtive and varied enormously. MacArthur once predicted a million US Casualties from the invasion, though these numbers were not justifiable.

Two major army reports were done on estimated casualties, and one was updated after the war when exact deployments and capacity of japanese forces became known.

Best guess is that the US would have suffered between 300,000 and 400,000 casualties, with just under a third of those being fatalities.

Japan would have suffered between 2 and 3.5 million casualties, with about 2/3 of those being fatalities.

The best book on the topic is Downfall, by Richard Frank, using the most up to date information and sources, it is the most complete accounting of the final stages of the japanese war.

Lastly, though the US underestimated the number of aircraft the japanese had in reserve (They guessed 2,500, the Japanese turned out to have almost 7,000), those planes were ALL obsolete or obsolescent models, and the number of trained and qualified pilots was measured literally in the dozens. The 'super aircraft' japan was working on, such as the bizarre Kyushu J7W1 Shinden existed only in prototypes.

The few decent designs the japanese had by that time, such as the JM2 raiden or the Ki-84 Hayate existed in VERY few numbers, and had no skilled pilots left to fly them. Over 3/4 of these 7,000 aircraft were disignated for kamikaze attacks, which mind you, would have been a VERY unpleasant surprise for the US in itself...

I guess, Entrepreneurial Spirit conquers all.



What do you ask an A-bomb survivor? "How bad was it?"

I believe that the United States would have used ANY weapon in its arsenal against Japan (and Germany). Being killed with an atomic bomb is no different than being killed with a spear, a knife, a gun, conventional explosive, or incendiaries which gained wide use in WWII. You are still dead.

Civilian areas were already being attacked (by all sides) during WWII. London was attacked by the Germans and civilian areas were widely targeted in France, Germany, and Japan. The firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo killed more people than each of the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Napalm was able to kill people just as dead as plutonium.

There is no question that the 2 atomic attacks saved lives. The experience of the US military in the Pacific island campaign, where military and civilians (entire families) committed suicide rather than be captured convinced the US that an occupation of Japan would take years and result in millions of lost lives on both sides.

According to Paul Tibbets, the commander of the Hiroshima flight in his book "Enola Gay", the United States would have used an atomic bomb on Berlin if Germany would not have surrendered prior to the bomb's completion date. Germany was spared due to the development time-frame of the weapon; not due to any prejudice favoring Europeans over Asians.

Maybe I am completely off with this one (and I am sure that the esteemed military historians on this board will correct me if I am), but isn't that true that the Soviet Union never firebombed or used any other similar military "technique" targeted specifically at civilian targets during WWII? It seems like that all the most famous bombings, like Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, etc. were done by Allies sans USSR. Which may lead to paradoxical conclusion that the Soviet command, with its famous disregard for lives of its own soldiers, had more respect for lives of the enemy civilians than the Allied commanders.

To say America was wrong in dropping the atomic bomb on two Japanese cities is ludacris. People do not like to put races or a group of people above another, but in war, a war in which we did not want to become involved in, our troops and civilians take priority over any other nations. If dropping the bomb on two Japanese cities saved lives, even if they were only our own, then it was the right thing to do.

However, we didnt only save American lives, we also saved Japanese lives.

As absurd as that sounds, WWII historians know that the estimated casualties for both sides if a landing on Japan was to take place was placed in the millions. Why were the casualty figures so high? Because unlike the Germans, the Japanese were prepared to fight with every single person they had; whether it be a woman, man, or child. There is historic film showing thousands of Japanese civilians taking up whatever weapon they could find, a hoe, a shovel, a sword, to show the Americans that if they landed, blood would spill.

This came about due to the different mindset between the Germans and Japanese. The Germans had realized defeat, and so the majority of the population gave in. On the other hand, the Japanese were caught up in the 'honor' of dying in war and defending ones country until death, so any planned invasion would be met with horrible losses.

With that said, the bomb clearly saved lives of Americans and Japanese. It is the truth, and a truth that cannot be thrown out just because we used an atomic bomb to end it. Would we make such a ruckus over this whole thing if we had firebombed those two cities (as in Dresden, which was done near the end of the war for almost no reason whatsoever) instead of dropping the bomb?

Maybe I am completely off with this one (and I am sure that the esteemed military historians on this board will correct me if I am), but isn't that true that the Soviet Union never firebombed or used any other similar military "technique" targeted specifically at civilian targets during WWII? It seems like that all the most famous bombings, like Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, etc. were done by Allies sans USSR. Which may lead to paradoxical conclusion that the Soviet command, with its famous disregard for lives of its own soldiers, had more respect for lives of the enemy civilians than the Allied commanders.

[/quote]

Dresden...i cannot even explain the reason for bombing it, but it happened, and theres nothing we can do about it. However, to say that the USSR had more respect for the enemy civilians is pure fiction. In case you (or whoever else reads this) forgot, the only reason the Germans fought with such tenacity on the eastern front was to give the civilians that they cared about time to retreat to the west, where they could be rescued by the western allies. The Germans were extremely scared of the vengeance the USSR would enact upon them ( due to harsh crimes against civilians carried about by SS Poleizi divisions), and they fought a losing war simply to give their loved ones a chance to escape. I am sure if you read up on it or something, you can find out about all the atrocities that the Russian armies did to German civilians (many were raped or taken advantage of instead of simply killed ).

The simple fact is, the Russian command did not care for human life as much as the western allies. However, I know that still doesnt take away the fact that we firebombed many civilians, but one must remember....its war.

Stating something as a "simple fact" doesn't make it true. All the atrocities comitted by Russian soldiers (which I absolutely don't deny even though some of them have been proven staged by Goebbels' propaganda machine) were despicable acts committed by individual soldiers and not sanctioned by the central command. That's the difference with the firebombing of Dresden.

The only reason that that Soviets never carried out firebombing was their lack of an air force capable of mounting such an attack. Indications of official bloodthirstiness are the Katyn massacre, the treatment of German POWs (very few of whom survived), the halt before Warsaw, and the Red Army propaganda which, late in 1944, began a campaign centered on the taking of revenge. The troops were encouraged to take revenge on the German people.

Let's face it -- portraying Stalin with moral reservations that Churchill and Roosevelt lacked does seem a bit off the mark, doesn't it?

Good Lord--this question STILL?

To say that the U.S. would have used any weapon in its arsenal, including one that stood the chance of igniting the atmosphere, does not mean it was the right thing to do.

I am undergoing chemotherapy, and in a few months radiation therapy. Any cancer patient will tell you (if you ask them) what it is like to retch with nothing to bring up, to shed mucous lining from the intestinal system, to have even smells that gave you pleasure (like flowers) make you sick. This was the fate of those Japanese in the vicinity who did not die right away from the atomic blasts. And my present personal experiences (and yes, I am going to recover ) serve to convince me further of the utter wrongness of unleashing atomics on a civilian populace, enemy or not.

Of course, the scientists didn't know the lingering effects on human beings; and when Oppenheimer and some of the other scientists had a change of heart and petitioned for the atomic bombs not to be used, the military certainly didn't care. General Eisenhower later decried its use--sin in haste, repent at leisure.

But I'll tell you what--if given the dire choice, I'd rather die from an enemy's bullet than from the effects of radiation sickness.

Think about how "right" so many of us feel about the usefulness of nuclear materials the next time you hear about the possibility of a nuclear device or a "dirty bomb" being used against our own people and on our own shores. Believe it or not, these desperate people actually feel vindicated in what they're doing, too. But it doesn't make it right.

Nuclear weapons are a bad idea in almost any scenario when your enemy has one too, but that wasn't the case back in Japan in the 1940's. Nor was the Japanese army an innocent group of militants that had never killed, raped, tortured or maimed civilians. All that is probably besides the point though. I guess what I'm getting at is the idea that we needed to show the world that we had this power, no one else could threaten us with similar retaliation for a few months at least and we knew that, but to say that employing any tactic in warfare that we wouldn't want to have employed upon ourselves or our children is to drop any idea of war all together leaving us vulnerable to all threats as a society, and despite what many think, threats to the US don't actually come from angry people whom we've personally upset so much as they come from power hungry people as has been the case in all history, and those people will always use whatever arsenal they have regaurdless of what they wished others would do....so should we.

I agree with most of what you have said. A war crime is a war crime, and attacking civilians in this manner is clearly a war crime under today's standards. I also voted that it was a war crime, because practicality and intentions don't change the fact that the people who ordered and carried out the two attacks were deliberately, knowingly targetting civilians.

My hesitation lies with the fact that I wasn't there, that historians now overwhelmingly claim (but who knows if they do so truthfully?) that more civilian lives would have been lost if the bombs hadn't been dropped. However, is this so? Could Japan have been besieged? The entire world's armies could have been brought to bear, after all. Was there a target or targets that were not cities that could have been hit?

I have a lot of questions about this, I keep reading contradictory reports, and I am not sure all information available to America's leaders at the time are available to us now.

Let us say there was no other way to stop Japan from continuing to actively fight, there was no other way to defeat them, and the bombs definately took less lives (including all later victims of radiation poisoning) than other methods.

In that case, I don't know. I still don't like that we did it, though. If there was another way, it should have been utilized, if there wasn't, it's still a shame and still a war crime. Necessity does not excuse attacking civilians.

This isn't an issue about attacking civilians. Both sides targeted civilians throughout the whole war, with all manner of weapons. Civilians die in war all the time...any time you target anything that isn't exclusively populated by the military, civilians die. If you work in a plant supporting the war effort (and almost any plant qualifies, doesn't it?)...do you really feel you are not open to enemy attack? No, civilians are targeted in war all the time...probably more so in recent history than before, and certainly throughout WWII, by both sides. The only question then, is whether this particular weapon should be singled out as inexcusable. Would everyone here feel better if we had done the same damage to Hiroshima with conventional weapons (as we were certainly capable of)? Especially if doing so would have necessitated doing the same to many other cities as well?

I watched a little bit of Truman last nite...the part that covered this incident. They replayed (hopefully accurately) his speech on the radio shortly after the bombing. Basically, it signalled to the Japanese our intent to use these weapons to completely and totally annihilate them if they chose not to surrender. We had been bombing them for some time (they mentioned in the movie that dropping the A-bomb on Tokyo would have been meaningless, as Tokyo was already thorougly destroyed), with no sign that this was bringing Japan any closer to surrender. This is also why dropping the weapon off shore was also ruled out...it was unlikely to have the desired effect. I think dropping it anywhere but on a city would not have ended the war as quickly...and ending the war quickly was certainly in the civilians best interest.

I do not know what ressurected this thread from the dark, the last post before today was September 2004. But for those who join in now, read over the whole thread, and if I may suggest without sounding arrogant, my rather extensive post on the topic on page 3. That will prevent asking questions again which have already been answered.

Yes, historians claim that invasion would have cost more lives then atomic bombs, and yes they do so truthfully.


Quickly, a note about the Red Army and firebombing:

Firebombing was accepted practice used by every nation in WWII that had an air force. Thye only reason the Red Army did not do this on a large scale was:
1- The lack of a four-engined bomber in the Soviet Air force, or even any medium bombers with a decent payload;
2- The lack of an independent strategic wing for the air force, it was dedicated to support operations rather then stand alone actions;
3- Geography. For most of the war, the maximum range of Russian Bombers meant that they would still be bombing Russian soil, however occupied. It was only in the last 10 months of the war that Russians came within air-striking range of Germany proper, and they did bomb it, to the best of their ability.


Oh, and the actions of the Red Army during the war, in particular second cadre troops, was horrific to the point of inhuman. Their 'regard for human life' was pretty close to nil.

The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki targeted civilians--not military.
Don't we consider that terrorism?


Did everyone think it the right thing to do?

Admiral William D. Leahy. 5-star admiral, president of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff and the combined American-British Chiefs of Staff, and chief of staff to the commander-in-chief of the army and navy from 1942–1945 (Roosevelt) and 1945–1949 (Truman):
"It is my opinion that the 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. . . . My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted the 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."

Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet, quoted by his widow:
". . . I felt that it was an unnecessary loss of civilian life. . . . We had them beaten. They hadn't enough food, they couldn't do anything." And – E. B. Potter, naval historian wrote: "Nimitz considered the atomic bomb somehow indecent, certainly not a legitimate form of warfare."

Admiral William "Bull" Halsey, commander of the Third Fleet:
"The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment. . . . It was a mistake ever to drop it . . . (the scientists) had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it. . . . It killed a lot of Japs, but the Japs had put out a lot of peace feelers through Russia long before."

Rear Admiral Richard Byrd:
"Especially it is good to see the truth told about the last days of the war with Japan. . . . I was with the Fleet during that period; and every officer in the Fleet knew that Japan would eventually capitulate from . . . the tight blockade."

Rear Admiral Lewis L. Strauss, special assistant to the Secretary of the Navy:
"I, too, felt strongly that it was a mistake to drop the atom bombs, especially without warning." [The atomic bomb] "was not necessary to bring the war to a successful conclusion . . . it was clear to a number of people . . . that the war was very nearly over. The Japanese were nearly ready to capitulate . . . it was a sin – to use a good word – [a word that] should be used more often – to kill non-combatants. . . ."

Major General Curtis E. LeMay, US Army Air Forces (at a press conference, September 1945):
"The war would have been over in two weeks without the Russians entering and without the atomic bomb . . . the atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all."

Major General Claire Chennault, founder of the Flying Tigers, and former US Army Air Forces commander in China:
"Russia's entry into the Japanese war was the decisive factor in speeding its end and would have been so even if no atomic bombs had been dropped..."

Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, Commanding General of the US Army Air Forces.
". . . [F]rom the Japanese standpoint the atomic bomb was really a way out. The Japanese position was hopeless even before the first atomic bomb fell. . . ."

Lieutenant General Ira C. Eaker, Arnold's deputy.
"Arnold's view was that it (dropping the atomic bomb) was unnecessary. He said that he knew that the Japanese wanted peace. There were political implications in the decision and Arnold did not feel it was the military's job to question it. . . . I knew nobody in the high echelons of the Army Air Force who had any question about having to invade Japan."

Arnold, quoted by Eaker:
"When the question comes up of whether we use the atomic bomb or not, my view is that the Air Force will not oppose the use of the bomb, and they will deliver it effectively if the Commander in Chief decides to use it. But it is not necessary to use it in order to conquer the Japanese without the necessity of a land invasion."

General George C. Kenney, commander of Army Air Force units in the Southwest Pacific, when asked whether using the atomic bomb had been a wise decision.
"No! I think we had the Japs licked anyhow. I think they would have quit probably within a week or so of when they did quit."

General Dwight D. Eisenhower:
"I voiced to him [Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson] my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was at that very moment seeking some way to surrender with a minimum of loss of 'face'. . . . It wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing."

former President Herbert Hoover:
"I told MacArthur of my memorandum of mid-May 1945 to Truman, that peace could be had with Japan by which our major objectives would be accomplished. MacArthur said that was correct and that we would have avoided all of the losses, the Atomic bomb, and the entry of Russia into Manchuria."

Richard M. Nixon:
"MacArthur once spoke to me very eloquently about it. . . . He thought it a tragedy that the Bomb was ever exploded. MacArthur believed that the same restrictions ought to apply to atomic weapons as to conventional weapons, that the military objective should always be to limit damage to noncombatants. . . . MacArthur, you see, was a soldier. He believed in using force only against military targets, and that is why the nuclear thing turned him off, which I think speaks well of him

Norman Cousins, from an interview with MacArthur:
". . . [H]e 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 did later anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor."

BRIGADIER GENERAL CARTER CLARKE
(The military intelligence officer in charge of preparing intercepted Japanese cables - the MAGIC summaries - for Truman and his advisors)
"...when we didn't need to do it, and we knew we didn't need to do it, and they knew that we knew we didn't need to do it, we used them as an experiment for two atomic bombs."

Quoted in Gar Alperovitz, The Decision To Use the Atomic Bomb, pg. 359.


Always Beware of Chicken Hawks and their fanatic drive to get "Them" before they get "Us".

I re-read your extensive posit on the subject on page 3 of the thread and here's what you say:



So in your own words bombing did very little because Japan was not about to surrender had not the Russians invaded Manchuria (a side note: my grandfather was in the Air Force at that time and participated in the invasion).
So, in light of that, and in light of numerous quotes from famous US generals and commanders (provided by christopher in the post above this one) how can you say that the bombing was necessary if it did nothing to hasten the Japanese surrender?

Edited to add: I think we should avoid to refer to historians' general opinion as some kind of gospel and undisputable claim. Historians' view of events past has changed before depending on the new facts coming to light or even depending on the change in the political climate or the political environment. After all, historians are being spoonfed the propaganda just like the rest of us.
What's even more important, we should not refer to them as a reason compelling enough to dismiss a debate altogether.

That is really not what I said. What I said was that the atomic bombs for all their power were on their own STILL not enough to convince the Japanese to surender, the Soviet Invasion of Manchuria was required to precipitate the intervention of the Emperor. I certainly never said the bombs did not contribute or have an effect, I am simply demonstrating that the Japanese will to fight on was so strong that it took the three cataclysms of the two bombs and the Soviet entry into the war to bring them to surrender.

Had the bombs not been dropped, the Japanese would not have surrendered, and invasion would have been necessary. Suggesting blockade of the island as an alternative is foolish, there already was a massive blockade of the island, 90% of Japan's commercial/merchant fleet had been sunk, there was no incoming or outgoing resources by mid 1945, and continuing it would have simply made no difference. However, as I stated in my lengthy post earlier, NOT taking action could be seriously detremental, timing for invasion was critical, both in terms of weather, morale on the home front and troop rotations.



I must disagree. I am a published and trained Historian, and historians are in fact not 'spoonfed the propaganda' same as everyone else. In order to get my D.Phil my thesis needed to be written entirly out of primary sources, the treasure trove of the academic historian. Subsequent interpretations or re-interpretations are irrelevant, facts and information are based on events as they occurred.

That is not to say historians are infallable, far from it. For example, Christopher quoted from Gar Alperovitz, who has been soundly criticised in the historical community for some of his historical research practices. The book quoted cites passages from people out of context, when other quotes clearly show their willingness to use the bomb. It uses as references such things as articles in newsweek for which the magasine had days after already printed retractions and apologies (not mentioned in the book). He also quotes people saying things like the use of the bomb was regrettable, or unfortunate, without mentioning they then went on to say that despite that it was necessary.

Alperovitz's does contain some excellent work on the diplomatic situation between the powers in early 1945, and some of the conclusions he draws are quite reasonable. However others are quite skewed, and uncertain.

Lastly, Alperovitz draws the conclusion that the surrender of Japan was inevitable without the bomb, a statement directly refuted by our in-depth knowledge of the minutes and discussions of the Japanese cabinet.

So you are correct, Historians should certainly not be taken as gospel, however as a general rule they tend to be (and should be) far less affected by the politics of a situation then contemporaries who only have access to secondary or tertiary sources on the topic.

Vermillion and Hobbes:

I'm loaning you my Momma. She told me two wrongs don't make a right, and used to ask, "If everyone else jumped off a cliff, would you jump, too?"